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People and revealed that she was not invited to her daughter's wedding.
The mother of the reality star said: 'I’m just hurt with Jenelle …. she just excludes us out of her life,' she told the magazine. 'Jenelle is Jenelle. She’s all about Jenelle.'
Jenelle and her mom have not yet resolved their issues.Image caption France and Germany are among EU members whose rating outlook has been put on negative outlook
Moody's has lowered its outlook for the European Union's AAA credit rating to "negative" and warned that the bloc's rating could be downgraded.
It said the move reflected the negative outlook for the ratings of the EU's key budget contributors.
Earlier this year, Moody's put ratings of Germany, France, Netherlands and the UK on a negative outlook.
It said that these nations were all exposed to the region's debt crisis, hurting their creditworthiness.
The ratings agency said that in case of "extreme stress", the AAA-rated member states were more likely to service their own debt obligations rather than "prioritise their commitment to backstop the EU debt obligations".
It added that if the AAA-rated member states were to default on their debt obligations, there were likely to be defaults on the loans that back the EU's debt and the bloc's cash reserve was also likely be stressed.
"Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the EU's creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states," the agency said.
Germany, France, Netherlands and the UK together account for about 45% of the EU's budget revenue.
Moody's warned that if the credit ratings of these member states were downgraded, it could have a knock-on effect on the EU's rating.
"Additionally, a weakening of the commitment of the member states to the EU and changes to the EU's fiscal framework that led to less conservative budget management would be credit-negative," it added.The top government watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction testified Tuesday that a criminal investigation has been opened into the controversial purchase of forest camouflage-patterned uniforms for Afghan National Army soldiers.
The U.S. military has been accused of wasting millions on the dark green "relish" uniforms that stand out in the desert setting. Only 2 percent of Afghanistan is covered by forests.
“These problems are serious,” Special Inspector General John Sopko told the House Armed Services Committee. “They are so serious that we started a criminal investigation related to the procurement of the ANA uniforms.”
Sopko said he also wants a review of all organizational clothing and individual equipment contracts made by the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), which is responsible for the bulk of the training, advising and assisting of Afghan security forces.
Sopko said CSTC-A bought more than 1 million uniforms with a proprietary pattern without testing its effectiveness between 2007-2015.
The purchase came with a $93 million pricetag – of which up to $28 million could have been shaved off.
“This $93 million procurement demonstrates what happens when people in the government don’t follow the rules,” Sopko told the panel.
He highlighted 10 specific areas of concern with the CSTC-A, including that it only showed the Afghan minister of defense proprietary camouflage patterns owned by one company – Canadian manufacturer HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp.
“CSTC-A failed to consider other available camouflage patterns including those owned by the Department of Defense which would have been cheaper perhaps and equally effective,” Sopko said, faulting CSTC-A for not testing the effectiveness of the pattern.
At the time, the Afghan minister of defense reportedly liked the “woodland, urban and temperate patterns” which came at an additional cost of $28 million.
Sopko also called out U.S. commanders for buying uniforms that came with pricier features like zippers instead of buttons and 88,000 extra pairs of pants.
In a memo obtained by Fox News on Monday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis cited Sopko’s report and criticized the Pentagon for its “cavalier” spending on uniforms for the Afghan National Army.
Mattis highlighted the overspending in a July 21 memo to the Defense Department’s acquisition, policy and finance chiefs. He called the purchase an “example of a complacent mode of thinking” and cautioned the department that the missteps are “not to recur.”
He added that “buying uniforms for our Afghan partners, and doing so in a way that may have wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars over a ten-year period, must not be seen as inconsequential in the grand scheme of the department's responsibilities and budget.”
The U.S. has been involved in the Afghanistan war for almost 16 years. Nearly $110 billion has been appropriated in Washington for reconstruction in Afghanistan.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.An ever-winning team like New England Patriots inevitably becomes a fan favorite. The Patriots are so popular, quarterback Tom Brady has the best-selling jersey in Florida.
In an article written by Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald, Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry vows to put an end to Bradymania.
From Beasley’s article:
Who had the NFL’s best-selling jersey in Florida, Landry was asked toward the end of the interview. “Hopefully me,” Landry responded. Actually, it’s Tom Brady. “Oh no,” Landry said, his voice dropping. “You know what? That’s only for another year or two. We’re emerging as an organization; we’re going to put that to rest.”
With Brady turning 40 in August, Landry has the opportunity to eventually overtake him. Miami is on the rise, especially since the team finished 10-6 in 2016 and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
In his three seasons in the league, Landry has caught 288 receptions, which is the most any receiver has caught in his first three years in the NFL. For the second straight season, Landry was named to the AFC Pro Bowl team after recording 94 receptions for 1,136 yards and four touchdowns.
Landry could eventually become the most popular player in Florida, but first the Dolphins must continue to improve. Landry will need to remain in South Florida as the 2017 season is the last year of his rookie contract.But there’s no reason to keep this up. For one thing, it doesn’t seem especially true. It can’t really be that we think Cruz has a sophisticated mind, given that the only thoughts he produces are angry pants-on-fire platitudinous drivel. Even those who lavish praise on his oratory seem to agree that his heat-to-light ratio nears the infinite, and that “thoughtfulness” and Ted Cruz cannot exist in the same room. His only memorable quotes appear to be cheap jokes, and the most notable speech of his entire career is not his own, but Dr. Seuss’. Nobody who has witnessed a few minutes of Cruz’s piece of senatorial performance art would have thought to label him a thinker, were it not for the preexisting consensus that he is one.
Cruz likely finds all of this very pleasing indeed. In his interview with Toobin, Cruz quotes Sun Tzu, saying that “every battle is won before it’s fought. It’s won by choosing the terrain on which it will be fought.” In getting those who despise him to genuflect to his intelligence, Ted Cruz has already won one battle. Jeffrey Toobin may lace his piece with dismissive sneers, yet somehow he still contributes to the ever-growing heap of liberal respect for Cruz’s mental acuity.
Even Ted Cruz's critics seem to concur on one point: whatever else you might say about him, the man is very smart. Mother Jones magazine has called him the “thinking man's tea partier.” Josh Marshall, in a mostly withering assessment, made the same obligatory concession to his being an “incredibly bright guy.” Jeffrey Toobin’s recent, ostensibly critical New Yorker profile of Cruz is full of quotes about his being “the smartest guy in the room,” his “sophisticated” constitutional views, and the “extraordinary” erudition of his senior thesis.
Cruz has become notorious for using distortive, misleading rhetoric that no sober-minded individual could apply. Cruz says Obamacare’s “intent is to destroy the private insurance business,” despite the fact that the whole progressive complaint about Obamacare is that it is a massive windfall to insurers. He says a campaign finance amendment attempting to rein in spending literally “repeals the First Amendment.” But even more alarming are the straightforward factual errors. He has mistakenly claimed that most premiums have risen under the Affordable Care Act and that states with gun control have the highest murder rates, among other elementary blunders that earned him a rating on PolitiFact of 10 falsehoods for every one truth.
One may respond that Cruz is shrewd and knows better, that these are calculated political lies by a devious plotter. But for a savant merely playing an imbecile on television, Cruz is strangely inept when it comes to policymaking. He has alienated all of his colleagues, and wants to revive the gay marriage fight at a time when it couldn’t be more unwise. His major act of strategic maneuvering over the government shutdown proved a colossal high-profile failure, the result of which was that as his name recognition improves, his favorability ratings actually drop. Even the Wall Street Journal has labeled him part of a “kamikaze caucus” that is dooming conservatives’ prospects. If Ted Cruz’s misstatements are deft politicking rather than idiocy, then where, one might ask, are the successes?
Ultimately, though, the most damning evidence against Cruz's intelligence may actually come from his law school roommate and college debating partner, David Panton. “Ted’s views today politically are almost identical to when I met him,” Panton said. “There’s nothing he says today that I didn’t hear in college.” That assessment, spoken about anybody, should be convincing enough evidence for shallowness of mind. Can there be such thing as a learned person who has discovered nothing new since freshman year?
In fact, the stories about Cruz's younger days show the marks of someone profoundly insecure about his intelligence. Quizzing others as to their SAT scores, wanting to limit his law-school study group to graduates of the "H-Y-P" schools (a charge Cruz has denied), an unrelenting and discomforting argumentative aggression: He’s missing only a Mensa application to complete the full package of desperate IQ-dork self-affirmations.
Of course, a chorus of people from Cruz’s student years has vouched for his brilliance. No less a heavyweight than Alan Dershowitz has commented on Cruz's precocity at Harvard. Now, one could somewhat unkindly argue that Dershowitz, too, has in his career relied on people’s confusion of credentials and bluster for depth of intellect. More to the point, though, is that the evidence put forth doesn’t support the claim. Nobody doubts that Cruz has the gift of gab, and can be formidable in an argument. But sophistry is not philosophy, and being the loudest, most driven, and most shameless guy in the room does not necessarily make one the brightest.
Any definition of intelligence is destined to be highly contestable. Yet it is hard to imagine a plausible one that does not include large measures of critical thinking and self-scrutiny. As Bertrand Russell put it, it’s always a central problem that "the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." Intelligence necessitates doubt, for doubt is the origin of wisdom. One whose mind is clamped shut cannot be intelligent, and yet Ted Cruz does not in his life ever seem to have taken on board a single challenge to his worldview.
In fact, the consistent overgenerous assessment of Cruz’s brains may stem from a deeper problem with the values of the elite legal community. If Newt Gingrich is “a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person looks like,” Ted Cruz is a lawyer’s idea of what a smart person looks like. Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post puzzled that someone she had been assured has a “sharp legal mind” could be so blisteringly lacking in common sense. But success in the legal world does not depend on common sense. Ambition and confidence can more than make up for it. Law schools pose as Socratic institutions, where preconceptions are left in tatters on the lecture-room floor, but in practice they reward sparring ability far more than reflection and careful scholarliness (the haphazard, un-peer-reviewed world of law journals can attest to the legal academy’s prioritization of argumentative formalism over a sober-minded quest for enlightenment). A person with one or two core principles, and a ruthless willingness to bend any truth that gets in the way, can do very well for himself at law school. Certainly, this requires skill. But it would be a sad day for the progress of human knowledge if we called it intelligence.
Cruz's outsize ambition means that this narrative makes a difference. So long as those who oppose him nevertheless dutifully incant praises to his intellect, Cruz has them right where he wants them. Josh Marshall summed up the opinion surrounding Cruz as “Arrogant Asshole, Super Smart.” But who cares about being called an “arrogant asshole,” so long as they admit you’re super smart? Assholes finish first, don’t they? That kind of consensus makes the haters seem petty and lets Cruz keep playing the scholar. The key is to admit what is obvious from a few minutes of listening to him. The man is arrogant, but he doesn’t actually seem very smart.
If the loveliest trick of the devil is to convince you he doesn’t exist, the most incontestably brilliant trick of Ted Cruz is to convince you of his incontestable brilliance. There’s no need to keep falling for it.Escanaba, Mich. – Upper Hand Brewery is excited to announce the upcoming release of their newest beer, Christmastime, an Oatmeal Stout brewed just for the holiday season.
Made with oats grown in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, this Oatmeal Stout is dark and roasty, with a smooth and creamy mouthfeel. Fans can choose to enjoy it now or cellar for just the right occasion.
“Christmastime was brewed to share in front of the fireplace with your friends and family,” commented Larry Bell, President and Founder of Bell’s Brewery, Inc. (Upper Hand Brewery is a division of Bell’s). “And with an ABV of 7.2%, it just might give you the sisu you need to get through the holidays and the U.P.’s long cold winter.”
Christmastime will be available in limited quantities in both bottle and on draft throughout Upper Hand Brewery’s distribution area beginning in early November, just in time for the holiday season.
About Upper Hand Brewery:
Brewed with a 20-barrel system in Escanaba, Michigan, our beers celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of the north and our community. We may be a young brewery, but our roots run deep. Upper Hand beers are available throughout the Upper Peninsula, but you won’t find them below the Mackinac Bridge. We brew beer where it is meant to be enjoyed. We invite you to visit and enjoy not only our beer, but the wonder and beauty of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
For more, visit upperhandbrewery.com.
You can also stay in touch with Upper Hand on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Sad news, this. After two exhilarating, bold, and eerily beautiful series, it's been confirmed that Channel 4’s Utopia will not be returning for a third run.
Utopia, from writer Dennis Kelly (Pulling, Matilda: The Musical), who had plans for a third and possibly fourth series of the drama, concluded its second series earlier this year.
The second run was another twisted tale of global conspiracy and dysfunctional family love that opened with an audacious flashback episode directed by Marc Munden that’s sure to top more than a few 'TV episodes of the year' lists come December.
Quality and audacity don’t often go hand in hand with massive ratings, sadly, and with a slate of new dramas arriving on Channel 4 in the coming year (including much-anticipated sci-fi Humans, and more), the decision was taken to lay Utopia to rest.
A Channel 4 spokesperson told Den of Geek, "Utopia is truly channel-defining: strikingly original, powered by Dennis Kelly's extraordinary voice and brought to life in all its technicolor glory through Marc Munden's undeniable creative flair and vision, the team at Kudos delivered a series which has achieved fervent cult status over two brilliantly warped and nail-biting series. It also has the honour of ensuring audiences will never look at a spoon in the same way again. It’s always painful to say goodbye to shows we love, but it’s a necessary part of being able to commission new drama, a raft of which are launching on the channel throughout 2015.”
A US remake of Kelly's series, directed by David Fincher, is due to arrive on HBO in 2015.
Read more about Utopia on Den of Geek, here.
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.Ducati and fashion brand Diesel are collaborating once again, this time with a limited edition Diavel model. Ducati will produce only 666 units featuring a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic look jointly created by Diesel Creative Director Andrea Rosso and the Ducati Design Center.
This marks the second Diesel-branded limited edition Ducati following the 2013 Diesel Monster 1100 EVO.
“The collaboration with Diesel enabled us to explore original stylistic and technical aspects whilst staying within the Ducati brand and fully respecting its values,” says Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Motor Holding chief executive officer. “In this case we worked with Diesel on an already uniquely original bike like the Diavel and the result was surprising to put it mildly. The details characterizing the Diavel Diesel cannot fail to captivate connoisseurs of special bikes but also people from different walks of life, such as fashion. It’s always stimulating for us to move outside the world of motorcycling and widen our brand’s areas of interest.”
The Diavel Diesel features a hand-brushed stainless steel look with visible welds and rivets, making it not look entirely out of place alongside Imperator Furiosa’s War Rig (they still wear denim in the wasteland, don’t they?) The air intake covers feature a panel of red methacrylate sporting the Diesel logo. The red color is repeated on the Brembo front brake calipers, on five links of the drive chain and the LCD digital display.
The exhaust pipes received a black Zircotec ceramic coating, ending with black machined silencers. The exhausts, the matt black front fender and the ribbed leather seat each sport a three-sided pyramid motif represent the three ‘D’s of Ducati, Diavel and Diesel.
“It’s an important bike that reflects the rock side of Diesel’s DNA,” says Rosso. “The wording ‘Never look back’ engraved with the two logos captures the essence of this collaboration: a timeless bike that catches the eye with so many unmistakable details, such as the brushed stainless steel with visible welding and rivets. Ducati, Diavel and Diesel, three words, six letters each, forming 666, the limited number of examples of this new collaboration.”Last week I asked the trans community how gays and lesbians could be more helpful. I did so with a pure heart because when I say I'm part of the LGBT community I sincerely mean it. I believe that despite the vast diversity that makes up our community we are all part of the same family. As such, I want everyone in my family to be treated equally and justly in life, so I'm prepared to work my entire life towards that goal.
The survey Injustice at Every Turn was clear that, under the definition used in the study for "transgender," there is a serious problem in this country. While the conversation in the comments section on my post clearly identified an issue with the label used in the study, "transgender," I did not see many people claiming that the basic conclusions of the study were false.
In fact, I received several e-mails in response to my post from people who identified as transgender and transsexual who confirmed that it is difficult to find and keep employment, housing, and health care. One writer told me about her suicide attempt several weeks ago after losing her job. I will not release their names here, for what I hope are obvious reasons.
Their stories and the comments on my post inspired another question that I wanted to propose to the community.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sarah Palin says she is "looking at the lay of the land"
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has said she could defeat President Barack Obama in the 2012 election.
Mrs Palin made the declaration in an interview with ABC, one of several recently in which she has said she was weighing a presidential bid.
She told ABC she was "looking at the lay of the land".
The 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential hopeful was a major figure in the mid-term elections and is a favourite of the anti-government Tea Party movement.
Family consultation
Mrs Palin, now employed as a Fox News analyst and making speeches across the country, told ABC she was "trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing".
And in an interview with the New York Times published online on Wednesday, Mrs Palin said affirmatively she was considering a presidential run.
"I'm engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family," she said.
Meanwhile, on Sunday Mrs Palin's reality television show Sarah Palin's Alaska debuted on TLC television to mixed reviews.
Other Republicans said to be weighing a race against Mr Obama include former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 2008 Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and outgoing Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.Hello friends!
With another productive Halcyon 6 fortnight having come and gone, we’re happy to announce we’ve passed another milestone:
JEFF FINISHED THE EVENT ARCHITECTURE!
This may not sound like much, but this was an incredibly complex Rubik’s Cube with lots of potential memory leak pitfalls. It was a hotbed for bugs and, presumably, poison.
What that really means is:
CONTENT PUSH!
With the event system in place, our next build is prepped to receive a huge influx of content in the form of story events. This in turn means quests, procedurally generated enemy fleets, Chruul doom creep and a proper early, middle, and endgame progression. It'll be good!
NEW TEAM MEMBER: KENNETH
Now that our scenario tools are more-or-less functioning, we’re ready to bring in another designer from the company onto our team. Meet Kenneth!
Kenneth’s been working as the company's graphic designer as well as the main content and game designer for Please Stay Calm (our first baby) for years now. He’s from California (Orange County, of all places!) and he’s obsessed with board games.
That is to say, more obsessed than the rest of us.
He recently spent his life's savings on these. Way to be financially responsible, Kenneth!
Kenneth's job on H6 is going to be as similarly multifaceted as it was on PSC. He'll be using his visual skills to bring a pile on a ton of polish to the UI and game screens, and in addition he's going to be using the lua-based toolkit to generate a large proportion of the content we need for the alpha version of the game. That means working from our content design overview to create a veritable deluge of event stories, enemy fleets, new combat powers, and ships, along with doing a ton of the initial game balancing legwork. So he’s got a full plate!
So welcome aboard The HMS (because, Canada, in case any of you forgot) Halcyon 6, Kenneth!
OH, AND…
Oh yeah, and we moved offices again. Just one floor, but still.
Our posters are now one move less crisp, but it’s brighter now.
THAT'S PRETTY MUCH IT!
We’re nose-to-the-grindstone/burning-the-candle-at-both-ends/put-the-shoulder-to-the-wheel/insert-tired-idiom-here these days, but some day soon (mark my words) we’ll be able to leave the metaphorical post-apocalyptic game developer bunker that is our office and, Rafiki-like, hold our game aloft in the air for all to see while an Elton John song with juuuust the right amount of cultural appropriation plays.
I guess what we‘re saying is mixing metaphors is awesome, and all the cool people do it.
Thanks for putting up with our increasingly ridiculous posts! This game is going to be awesome.
- The Halcyon 6 TeamGetty
In 1993 Boy Meets World joined ABC’s TGIF lineup of Family Matters, Step by Step, and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper. The show, created by Michael Jacobs (who had previously co-created the TGIF sitcom Dinosaurs), focused on Cory Matthews (Ben Savage), a 6th-grader navigating his way through the changes in his family and school life. Over the course of its seven-year run we watched as the love between Cory and his girlfriend, Topanga, grew. Saw his best friend, Shawn, get thrown into increasingly heartbreaking situations, and his brother, Eric, grow crazier with each episode. And throughout it all, Mr. Feeny was by their side as a mentor and guide.
Since its finale in 2000, Boy Meets World has garnered a post-TGIF legacy and a following that’s been an unexpected surprise for the show’s cast and writers. But thanks to its syndication on the Disney channel and the nostalgia of the internet, the love for Boy Meets World is stronger than ever. The outpouring of this fandom became increasingly apparent with the 2013 release of Girls Meets World, where the show’s characters live on through the worldview of Cory and Topanga’s daughter, Riley.
We spoke with Jacobs, actors Will Friedle (Eric), Rider Strong (Shawn), William Daniels (Mr. Feeny), William Russ (Alan), Anthony Tyler Quinn (Mr. Turner), Matthew Lawrence (Jack) and Maitland Ward (Rachel), and writers Jeff Sherman and Jeff Menell about the creation of Boy Meets World, its many phases and mysteries, and how the lives of these beloved characters continue on.A new study released on May 11 by the Pew Research Center indicates that middle-class Americans are losing ground as a share of the population, especially in metropolitan areas. Pew’s analysis was based on its study of U.S. government statistics found in the 2014 American Community Survey and the 2000 Decennial Census. During the period bracketed by those two surveys, the percentage of Americans whom Pew would classify as “middle class” fell in 203 of the 229 metropolitan areas in the United States.
The decrease in the middle-class share measured six percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas, compared with a four-point drop nationally.
These findings reinforced a previous analysis completed by the Pew Research Center, released to the public last December 9, indicating that the U.S. middle class had declined to the point where it makes up slightly less than 50 percent of the U.S. adult population. According to that study, in early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with slightly more — 121.3 million adults — who were in lower- and upper-income households combined.
“It is a very, very widespread phenomenon. North, south, or west, the middle class was losing ground in almost every metropolitan area,” CBS News quoted Rakesh Kochhar, associate director of research at Pew. “It wasn’t that more populated areas or poorer communities were disproportionately affected. This was a change affecting almost every community in the country.”
Not all of the people who left the middle class fell into poverty, however. Some climbed into the upper-income category. The share of wealthy households rose, from 17 percent in 2000 to 20 percent in 2014, as did the share of poor households, which increased from 28 percent to 29 percent during the same time period.
“The other commonality isn’t just the shrinking of the middle class, but a movement both up and down the ladder,” Kochhar told CBS. “There’s a polarization. There are more in the upper tier and more in the lower, and fewer in the middle.”
As for how Pew determined who was a member of the middle class, it was based on a formula classifying those with an annual household income between two-thirds to double the nation median, which is about $42,000 to $125,000 for a family of three. The article on the Pew website contains a link to an “ income calculator ” that enables the reader to determine whether his family is middle class or not. The calculator takes not only income into consideration, but also the size of the household and the metropolitan area where the individual lives. The larger the size of the household and the higher the cost of living in the area, the higher a family’s income must be to achieve middle-class economic status.
The article explains how the income calculator adjusts for family size and the geographic cost of living:
The calculator takes your household income and adjusts it for the size of your household. The income is revised upward for households that are below average in size and downward for those that are above average….
The cost-of-living adjustment for an area was calculated as follows: Jackson, Tennessee, is a relatively inexpensive area, with a price level that is 17% less than the national average. The Hawaii metropolitan area known as Urban Honolulu is one of the most expensive areas, with a price level that is 22.5% higher than the national average. Thus, to step over the national middle-class threshold of $42,000, a household in Jackson needs an income of only about $34,600, or 17% less than the national standard. But a household in Urban Honolulu needs a reported income of about $51,000, or 22.5% more than the U.S. norm, to join the middle class.
In another survey taken by Pew last December 8-13, 62 percent of respondents said the federal government does not do enough for middle-class people, compared with just 29 percent who said it does the right amount and six percent who said it does too much.
The question was phrased: “How much help does the federal government provide to each group?” The groups about which participants were asked were older people, middle-class people, children, poor people, and wealthy people.
In addition to middle-class people, a majority of those surveyed said the federal government doesn’t do enough for older people, poor people, or children. However, 61 percent said the government does too much for wealthy people.
While the answers provided to these questions are, or course, limited by the phrasing of the question — which presumes that it is the federal government’s responsibility to “help” one or more segments of the population — it is nevertheless disturbing to the strict constitutionalist that an overwhelming majority of those polled obviously buy into that philosophy.
A review of the 10th Amendment (which might be considered to be the strict constitutionalist’s rule of thumb) states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment expresses the principle of federalism, under which the federal government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the United States Constitution, with all others being reserved for the states or the people.
If we read the Constitution from beginning to end, we find that the document does not grant any power to any branch of government to “help” anyone, other than by protecting their legal rights.
There is a classic story about Davy Crockett, who was a congressman before gaining fame for his brave death at the Alamo, who gave a speech in Congress in opposition to appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer — on constitutional grounds. A key part of his argument was:
I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money….
Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.
If every individual surveyed by Pew was familiar with the principle expressed by Davy Crockett on the floor of Congress long ago, and was also familiar with the U.S. Constitution (especially the 10th Amendment) then the results of the poll should have been unanimous. One hundred percent of those responding should have said that the federal government is doing too much to help everyone — including older people, middle-class people, children, poor people, and wealthy people.
What few people understand is, if the federal government would cease doing so much to “help” all of these groups of people, then the money spent to pay for these programs would be left with the states and the people, who could then better afford to help themselves, and each other. In such a scenario, a future Pew poll would very likely indicate that the middle class was growing instead of shrinking.
Related articles:A British relationship guru has claimed you could boost your chances of snagging a date simply by changing the colour of your winter coat.
Hayley Quinn, 30, pounded the pavement for thirty minutes in East London on a Monday afternoon wearing a bright red coat to test the theory that the colour attracts more attention.
She spent half an hour walking around to determine whether strangers on the street paid her any more attention than usual in the new shade, and the YouTube star was left stunned by the amount of men who approached her - with many going out of their way to strike up a conversation.
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Hayley Quinn took part in a social experiment to see whether wearing red would help her to attract more male attention
Hayley said she was approached by five men in 30 minutes in total - in contrast to the previous day in a different outfit, when she was not approached at all.
The 30-year-old created the video to feature on her dating advice blog and YouTube channel, which aims to help men and women broaden their concepts of traditional dating and be luckier in love.
Hayley said: 'I came up with the idea for the social experiment after hearing loads of stories about how red makes you more attractive.
'I discovered that there is lots of scientific evidence that says wearing red can make you more approachable and that it is suggestive of sexual attraction and arousal.
Hayley was approached by five different men in half an hour while wearing her vibrant outfit
The dating guru admits that she is rarely approached by men in the street and when she wore a different outfit the day before she was approached by none
'Like many women, I hardly ever get approached by men at all and I think particularly in England there is a stereotype that British men will just not approach women.
'We're a culture that is really into privacy and not interrupting people.
'It also doesn't help that the standard London dress code is usually black or grey. It can sometimes feel like you're just fading into the background.
'When you live in a big city, no one wants makes contract with each other and it can feel really isolating and hard to meet anyone.'
In the video, Hayley can be seen walking around the streets wearing bright orange high heels teamed with a vibrant red coat and it doesn't take long for men to start noticing her.
One man walked with Hayley for a few blocks so that he could keep chatting to her and even gives her a hug and kiss on the cheek
One man can be heard commenting 'beautiful!' while Hayley responds that 'it's a nice day, isn't it?' while he tells her that she is 'beautiful like the day'.
He then asks her where she's going and says that he'd like to 'get in touch' with her.
Hayley continues to attract different comments from men on the street.
One man walked with Hayley for a few blocks so that he could keep chatting to her and even gives her a hug and kiss on the cheek while asking for her phone number.
Hayley wants to inspire other women who feel as though they don't get much attention
While some viewers may perceive the onslaught of attention as sexual harassment, Hayley stressed that this was definitely not the case.
She said: 'I was really putting myself out there and deliberately courting the attention, so I never felt harassed, uncomfortable or intimidated in the slightest.
'Quite the opposite actually, I was really impressed with how well the experiment went.
'I've walked down the same streets a million times wearing different colours and I've never experienced anything like that.
'I wanted to inspire women who might feel like no men ever approach them, that they shouldn't be passive in the flirtation and dating process.
'I find it really offensive and heartbreaking when women think that finding the right guy only comes down to fate, luck or how good looking she is.
'There are so many elements of attraction other than just physical beauty.
'Body language and movement, conversation skills and personal style all play a huge role.
'I was so happy that even on a Monday afternoon, which isn't really considered a'sexy' time, I could still turn heads and entice men just by wearing the colour red and showing confidence.'How Much Does It Cost To Adopt A Child? Explaining the Cost Associated with Adoption
Easily the most common question we are asked is "How much does adoption cost?"
The cost associated with adoption is something every hopeful adoptive parent thinks about. Most people know that adoption can be expensive, but aren’t sure exactly what that looks like. Hopeful adoptive parents approach the subject with many concerns, so it’s understandable if you are worried about how much it costs to adopt a child.
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There are many factors that determine how much it costs to adopt a child, including:
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The variable adoption expenses (medical, legal, living) required to complete |
WINDU, EETH KOTH OBI-WAN, YODA, the HOLOGRAMS of PLO KOON and KI-ADI-MUNDI.
MACE: Anakin Skywalker, we have approved your appointment to the Council as the Chancellor's personal representative.
ANAKIN: I will do my best to uphold the principles of the Jedi Order.
YODA: Allow this appointment lightly, the Council does not. Disturbing is this move by Chancellor Palpatine.
ANAKIN: I understand.
MACE: You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master.
Anakin reacts with anger.
ANAKIN: What?! How can you do this?? This is outrageous, it's unfair... I'm more powerful than any of you. How can you be on the Council and not be a Master?
MACE: Take a seat, young Skywalker.
ANAKIN: Forgive me, Master.
ANAKIN goes and sits in one of the empty chairs. Everyone is embarrassed. KI-ADI-MUNDI WHO APPEARS AS A HOLOGRAM, speaks.
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: We have surveyed all systems in the Republic, and have found no sign of General Grievous.
YODA: Hiding in the Outer Rim, Grievous is. The outlying systems, you must sweep.
OBI-WAN: It may take some time... we do not have many ships to spare.
MACE: We cannot take ships from the front line.
OBI-WAN: And yet, it would be fatal for us to allow the droid armies to regroup.
YODA: Master Kenobi, our spies contact, you must, and then wait.
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: What about the droid attack on the Wookiees?
MACE: It is critical we send an attack group there, immediately!
OBI-WAN: He's right, that is a system we cannot afford to lose. It's the main navigation route for the southwestern quadrant.
ANAKIN: I know that system well. It would take us little time to drive the droids off that planet.
MACE: Skywalker, your assignment is here with the Chancellor, and Kenobi must find General Grievous.
YODA: Go, I will. Good relations with the Wookiees, I have.
MACE: It is settled then. Yoda will take a battalion of clones to reinforce the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. May the Force be with us all.
ANAKIN is disappointed.
84 INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI TEMPLE-MASSIVE MAIN HALLWAY AND ALCOVE-LATE AFTERNOON
ANAKIN and OBI-WAN walk through one of the massive Jedi Temple hallways. ANAKIN is furious.
ANAKIN: What kind of nonsense is this, put me on the Council and not make me a Master!?? That's never been done in the history of the Jedi. It's insulting!
OBI-WAN: Calm down, Anakin. You have been given a great honor. To be on the Council at your age... It's never happened before. Listen to me, Anakin. The fact of the matter is you're too close to the Chancellor. The Council doesn't like it when he interferes in Jedi affairs.
ANAKIN: I swear to you, I didn't ask to be put on the Council...
OBI-WAN: But it's what you wanted! Your friendship with Chancellor Palpatine seems to have paid off.
ANAKIN: That has nothing to do with this.
OBI-WAN: Anakin, regardless of how it happened, you find yourself in a delicate situation.
ANAKIN: You mean divided loyalties.
OBI-WAN: I warned you there was tension between the Council and the Chancellor. I was very clear. Why didn't you listen? You walked right into it.
ANAKIN: The Council is upset I'm the youngest to ever serve.
OBI-WAN: No, it is not. Anakin, I worry when you speak of jealousy and pride. Those are not Jedi thoughts. They're dangerous, dark thoughts.
ANAKIN: Master, you of all people should have confidence in my abilities. I know where my loyalties lie.
OBI-WAN: I hope so...
ANAKIN: I sense there's more to this talk than you're saying.
OBI-WAN: Anakin, the only reason the Council has approved your appointment is because the Chancellor trusts you.
ANAKIN: And?
OBI-WAN: Anakin, look, I am on your side. I didn't want to see you put in this situation.
ANAKIN: What situation?
OBI-WAN: (takes a deep breath) The Council wants you to report on all of the Chancellor's dealings. They want to know what he's up to.
ANAKIN: They want me to spy on the Chancellor? That's treason!
OBI-WAN: We are at war, Anakin. The Jedi Council is sworn to uphold the principles of the Republic, even if the Chancellor does not.
ANAKIN: Why didn't the Council give me this assignment when we were in session?
OBI-WAN: This assignment is not to be on record. The Council asked me to approach you on this personally.
ANAKIN: The Chancellor is not a bad man, Obi-Wan. He befriended me. He's watched out for me ever since I arrived here.
OBI-WAN: That is why you must help us, Anakin. Our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired.
ANAKIN: Master, the Senate demanded that he stay longer.
OBI-WAN: Yes, but use your feelings, Anakin. Something is out of place.
ANAKIN: You're asking me to do something against the Jedi Code. Against the Republic. Against a mentor... and a friend. That's what's out of place here. Why are you asking this of me?
OBI-WAN: The Council is asking you.
85 EXT. CORUSCANT-CLONE LANDING PLATFORM-DAY
A JEDI GUNSHIP heads for the huge Clone landing platform.
86 INT. CORUSCANT-JEDI GUNSHIP-DAY
YODA, MACE, and OBI-WAN ride in the GUNSHIP as it heads for the Clone landing platform. Mace and Obi-Wan are sitting.
OBI-WAN : Anakin did not take to his assignment with much enthusiasm.
YODA: Too much under the sway of the Chancellor, he is. Much anger there is in him. Too much pride in his powers.
MACE: It's very dangerous, putting them together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't trust him.
OBI-WAN: He'll be all right. I trust him with my life.
MACE:I wish I did.
OBI-WAN: With all due respect, Master, is he not the Chosen One? Is he not to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force?
MACE: So the prophecy says.
YODA: A prophecy... that misread could have been.
OBI-WAN: He will not let me down. He never has.
YODA: I hope right you are. And now destroy the Droid armies on Kashyyyk, I will. May the Force be with you.
The GUNSHIP lands and the ramp lowers. YODA exits the GUNSHIP. MACE and OBI-WAN stand and give him a brief bow then take off in the GUNSHIP.
87 EXT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-VERANDA-SUNSET
Padme's Speeder pulls up to the landing platform. CAPTAIN TYPHO escorts PADME onto the veranda, where TWO HANDMAIDENS (ELLE and MOTEE) are waiting. PADME turns to CAPTAIN TYPHO.
PADME: Thank you, Captain.
CAPTAIN TYPHO: Rest well. My Lady.
CAPTAIN TYPHO gets back into the Speeder, and it disappears into the cityscape. The HANDMAIDENS, Motee and Elle, approach PADME as the SHADOW OF A FIGURE moves in the background. C-3PO is standing nearby.
PADME: I'll be up in a while.
MOTEE: Yes, my lady.
C-3PO stands, confused, as the HANDMAIDENS turn and exit.
C-3PO: Is there anything I might do for you, my lady?
PADME: Yes, make sure all the security droids are working. Thank you, Threepio.
The golden droid turns and exits.
PADME stands and watches the sunset. The SHADOWY FIGURE moves toward her. She senses something.
ANAKIN: Beautiful, isn't it?
PADME jumps and turns around.
PADME: You startled me.
He sits next to her on the bench.
ANAKIN: How are you feeling?
PADME: He keeps kicking.
ANAKIN: He?! Why do you think it's a boy?
PADME: (laughs) My motherly intuition.
She puts his hand on her belly.
ANAKIN: Whoa! With a kick that strong, it's got to be a girl.
They laugh.
PADME: I heard about your appointment. Anakin. I'm so proud of you.
ANAKIN: I may be on the Council, but... they refused to accept me as a Jedi Master.
PADME: Patience. In time, they will recognize your skills.
ANAKIN: They still treat me as if I were a Padawan learner... they fear my power, that's the problem.
PADME: Anakin...
ANAKIN: Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the Jedi Order... I think this war is destroying the principles of the Republic.
PADME: Have you ever considered that we may be on the wrong side?
ANAKIN: (suspicious) What do you mean?
PADME: What if the democracy we thought we were serving no longer exists, and the Republic has become the very evil we have been fighting to destroy?
ANAKIN: I don't believe that. And you're sounding like a Separatist!
PADME: Anakin, this war represents a failure to listen... Now, you're closer to the Chancellor than anyone. Please, please ask him to stop the fighting and let diplomacy resume.
ANAKIN: (growing angry) Don't ask me to do that, Padme. Make a motion in the Senate, where that kind of a request belongs. I'm not your errand boy. I'm not anyone's errand boy!
PADME: What is it?
ANAKIN: Nothing.
PADME: Don't do this... don't shut me out. Let me help you.
ANAKIN: You can't help me... I'm trying to help you.
They look in each other's eyes.
ANAKIN: (continuing) I sense... there are things you are not telling me.
PADME is startled at this.
PADME: I sense there are things you are not telling me.
PADME smiles. ANAKIN is a little embarrassed.
PADME: (continuing) Hold me... like you did by the lake on Naboo, so long ago... when there was nothing but our love... No politics, no plotting... no war.
88 INT. CORUSCANT-GALAXIES OPERA HOUSE-NIGHT
ANAKIN lands his speeder and exits.
ANAKIN runs up the stairs at the Galaxies Opera House.
ANAKIN runs through the hallway and enters Palpatine's box, where the CHANCELLOR is sitting with Mas Amedda and Sly-Moore, watching the Man Calamari Ballet doing "Squid Lake."
ANAKIN: You wanted to see me, Chancellor.
PALPATINE: Yes, Anakin! Come closer. I have good news. Our Clone Intelligence Units have discovered the location of General Grievous. He is hiding in the Utapau system.
ANAKIN: At last, we'll be able to capture that monster and end this war.
PALPATINE: I would worry about the collective wisdom of the Council if they didn't select you for this assignment. You are the best choice by far but, they can't always be trusted to do the right thing.
ANAKIN: They try.
PALPATINE: Sit down, (to his aides) Leave us.
ANAKIN sits next to PALPATINE. The Chancellor leans over to him.
PALPATINE: (continuing) Anakin, you know I'm not able to rely on the Jedi Council. If they haven't included you in their plot, they soon will.
ANAKIN: I'm not sure I understand.
PALPATINE: You must sense what I have come to suspect... the Jedi Council want control of the Republic... they're planning to betray me.
ANAKIN: I don't think...
PALPATINE: Anakin, search your feelings. You know, don't you?
ANAKIN: I know they don't trust you...
PALPATINE: Or the Senate... or the Republic... or democracy for that matter.
ANAKIN: I have to admit my trust in them has been shaken.
PALPATINE: Why? They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, didn't they?
ANAKIN doesn't say anything. He simply looks down.
PALPATINE: (continuing) They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?
ANAKIN: I don't know... I don't know what to say.
PALPATINE: Remember back to your early teachings. Anakin. "All those who gain power are afraid to lose it." Even the Jedi.
ANAKIN: The Jedi use their power for good.
PALPATINE: Good is a point of view, Anakin. And the Jedi point of view is not the only valid one. The Dark Lords of the Sith believe in security and justice also, yet they are considered by the Jedi to be...
ANAKIN:... evil.
PALPATINE:... from a Jedi's point of view. The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power. The difference between the two is the Sith are not afraid of the dark side of the Force. That is why they are more powerful.
ANAKIN: The Sith rely on their passion for their strength. They think inward, only about themselves.
PALPATINE: And the Jedi don't?
ANAKIN: The Jedi are selfless... they only care about others.
PALPATINE smiles.
PALPATINE: Or so you've been trained to believe. Why is it, then, that they have asked you to do something you feel is wrong?
ANAKIN: I'm not sure it's wrong.
PALPATINE: Have they asked you to betray the Jedi code? The Constitution? A friendship? Your own values? Think. Consider their motives. Keep your mind clear of assumptions. The fear of losing power is a weakness of both the Jedi and the Sith.
ANAKIN is deep in thought.
PALPATINE: (continuing) Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis "the wise"?
ANAKIN: No.
PALPATINE: I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying.
ANAKIN: He could actually save people from death?
PALPATINE: The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
ANAKIN: What happened to him?
PALPATINE: He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. (smiles) Plagueis never saw it coming. It's ironic he could save others from death, but not himself.
ANAKIN: Is it possible to learn this power?
PALPATINE: Not from a Jedi.
89 EXT. KASHYYYK-DAY
A WOOKIEE CATAMARAN flanked by WOOKIEE HELICOPTERS approaches the tree housing the HOLOGRAM AREA.
90 INT. KASHYYYK-HOLOGRAM AREA-DAY
YODA and various JEDI speak via hologram. The discussion includes OBI-WAN, MACE, AGEN KOLAR, YODA- KI-ADI-MUNDI and PLO KOON.
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: (holo) Palpatine thinks General Grievous is on Utapau. We have had no reports of this from our agents.
MACE: (holo) How could the Chancellor have come by this information and we know nothing about it? We have had contact with Baron Papanoida and he said no one was there.
ANAKIN: A partial message was intercepted in a diplomatic packet from the Chairman of Utapau.
YODA: Act on this, we must. The capture of General Grievous will end this war. Quickly and decisively we should proceed.
OBI-WAN: Does everyone agree?
All the JEDI concur.
ANAKIN: The Chancellor has requested that I lead the campaign.
They all look at ANAKIN a bit disturbed.
MACE: (a little peeved) The Council will make up its own mind who is to go, not the Chancellor.
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: Yes, this decision is ours to make.
ANAKIN is embarrassed and becomes sullen.
YODA: A Master is needed, with more experience.
MACE: Given our resources, I recommend we send only one Jedi... Master Kenobi.
ANAKIN: He was not so successful the last time he met Grievous.
OBI-WAN throws ANAKIN a dirty look.
ANAKIN: (continuing) No offense, my Master, but I'm only stating a fact.
OBI-WAN: Oh no, you're quite right, but I do have the most experience with his ways of combat.
YODA: Obi-Wan, my choice is.
Kl-ADI-MUNDI: I concur. Master Kenobi should go.
YODA: I agree.
All the JEDI concur.
MACE: Very well. Council is adjourned.
ANAKIN is angry.
MACE: (continuing) Obi-Wan, prepare two clone brigades as quickly as you can. If this report is true, there's no telling how many battle droids he may have with him.
91 INT. KASHYYYK-HOLOGRAM AREA-DAY
YODA gets out of his chair and walks to the edge of the platform.
CLONE COMMANDER GREE: The droids have started up their main power generators.
YODA: Then now the time is, Commander.
CLONE COMMANDER GREE: Yes, sir.
The battle begins.
92 EXT. KASHYYYK-BEACH HEAD-DAY
A WOOKIEE CHIEFTAIN lets out a roar as the Wookiee army rushes to face the DROID ARMY. CORPORATE ALLIANCE TANK DROIDS race across the water against the WOOKIEES and CLONE TROOPERS on the beach. DROID GUNSHIPS provide air support, while a SPIDER DROID emerges from the watery depths. A brave WOOKIEE places an explosive on a SEPARATIST TANK and jumps off just before the TANK EXPLODES. From the Hologram Area, Yoda observes the ongoing battle.
93 EXT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-EARLY MORNING
Padme's apartment building is surrounded by the smog-shrouded city of Coruscant.
94 INT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-LIVING ROOM-EARLY MORNING
PADME and OBI-WAN sit on one of the couches.
OBI-WAN: Has Anakin been to see you?
PADME: Several times... I was so happy to hear he was accepted on the Jedi Council.
OBI-WAN: I know... he deserves it. He is impatient, strong willed, very opinionated, but truly gifted.
They laugh.
PADME: You're not just here to say hello. Something is wrong, isn't it?
OBI-WAN: You should be a Jedi, Padme.
PADME: You're not very good at hiding your feelings.
OBI-WAN: It's Anakin... He's becoming moody and detached. He's been put in a difficult position as the Chancellor's representative... but I think it's more than that. I was hoping he may have talked to you.
PADME: Why would he talk to me about his work?
OBI-WAN studies her.
OBI-WAN: Neither of you is very good at hiding your feelings either.
PADME: Don't give me that look.
OBI-WAN: I know how he feels about you.
PADME: (nervous) What did he say?
OBI-WAN: Nothing. He didn't have to.
PADME is a little flustered. She stands and Obi-Wan follows. She walks to the balcony.
PADME: I don't know what you're talking about.
OBI-WAN: I know you both too well. I can see you two are in love. Padme, I'm worried about him.
PADME looks down and doesn't answer.
OBI-WAN: (continuing) I fear your relationship has confused him. He's changed considerably since we returned...
They stand on the balcony and look off at the early morning city. OBI-WAN starts to leave. PADME stays looking off into the distant city.
OBI-WAN: (continuing) Padme, I'm not telling the Council about any of this. I... I hope I didn't upset you. We're all friends, I care about both of you...
PADME: Thank you, Obi-Wan.
OBI-WAN: Please do what you can to help him.
95 INT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-DAY
PADME, MON MOTHMA, and five other Senators (BANA BREEMU, FANG ZAR. CHI EEKWAY, GIDDEAN DANU, BAIL ORGANA) sit in Padme's living room. C-3PO serves drinks to the guests.
PADME: We cannot let this turn into another war.
BAIL ORGANA: Absolutely, that is the last thing we want.
MON MOTHMA: We are hoping to form an alliance in the Senate to stop the Chancellor from further subverting the constitution, that's all.
PADME: I know a Jedi I feel it would be wise to consult.
BANA BREEMU: That would be dangerous.
MON MOTHMA: We don't know where the Jedi stand in all this.
PADME: I only wish to discuss this with one... one I trust.
GiDDEAN DANU: Going against the Chancellor without the support of the Jedi is risky.
PADME: The Jedi aren't any happier with the situation than we are...
CHI EEKWAY: Patience, Senator.
FANG ZAR: We have so many Senators on our side, surely that will pursuade the Chancellor.
BANA BREEMU: When you present the "petition of the two thousand" to the Chancellor, things may change.
BAIL ORGANA: Let us see what we can accomplish in the Senate, before we include the Jedi.
PADME takes a deep breath in frustration and disappointment.
96 EXT. CORUSCANT-CLONE LANDING PLATFORM-DAY
ANAKIN and OBI-WAN walk onto a landing platform overlooking a docking bay where THOUSANDS OF CLONE TROOPS and armored weapons, tanks, etc., are being loaded onto a massive REPUBLIC ASSAULT SHIP.
ANAKIN: You're going to need me on this one, Master.
OBI-WAN: Oh, I agree. However it may turn out just to be a wild bantha chase.
OBI-WAN starts to turn and leave.
ANAKIN: Master!
OBI-WAN stops and ANAKIN walks over to him.
ANAKIN: (continuing) Master, I've disappointed you. I have not been very appreciative of your training... I have been arrogant and I apologize... I've just been so frustrated with the Council. Your friendship means everything to me.
OBI-WAN: You are strong and wise, Anakin, and I am very proud of you. I have trained you since you were a small boy. I have taught you everything I know. And you have become a far greater Jedi than I could ever hope to be, and you have saved my life more times than I can remember. But be patient, Anakin. It won't be long before the Council makes you a Jedi Master.
OBI-WAN starts down the ramp, then turns back.
OBI-WAN: (continuing) Don't worry. I have enough clones with me to take three systems the size of Utapau. I think I'll be able to handle the situation... even without your help.
ANAKIN: Well, there's always a first time.
OBI-WAN laughs.
They talk for a few more minutes before ANAKIN watches OBI-WAN depart.
ANAKIN: Obi-Wan, may the Force be with you.
OBI-WAN: Good-bye, old friend. May the Force be with you.
OBI-WAN heads down a ramp toward the waiting Republic cruiser.
97 EXT. CORUSCANT-CLONE LANDING PLATFORM-DAY
The Republic cruiser lifts off and heads for space.
98 INT. REPUBLIC BATTLE CRUISER-HANGAR-SPACE
CLONE TROOPERS stand at attention in rows on the floor of the hangar deck, waiting to board landing craft. OBI-WAN stands next to his BLUE JEDI FIGHTER- talking to SEVERAL CLONE COMMANDERS with their helmets off. A hologram of the planet Utapau is projected by R4-G9 into the middle of the hangar.
CLONE COMMANDER CODY: Fortunately, most of the cities are concentrated on this small continent here... on the far side.
OBI-WAN: I'll keep them distracted until you get there. Just don't take too long.
CLONE COMMANDER CODY: Come on, boss, when have I ever let you down?
They laugh.
OBI-WAN: (laughing) Cato Nemoidia... for starters.
OBI-WAN climbs into his Jedi Fighter.
CLONE COMMANDER CODY: That was Anakin who was late. I believe.
OBI-WAN: Very well, the burden is on me not to destroy all the droids before you get there.
CLONE COMMANDER CODY: I'm counting on you.
99 EXT. JEDI FIGHTER-SPACE
OBI-WAN blasts the BLUE JEDI FIGHTER out of the Republic Battle Cruiser and into the hyperspace ring. He heads for the planet Utapau.
100 EXT. CORUSCANT-CITYSCAPE-CHANCELLOR'S TRANSPORT-DAY
The Chancellor's Transport races through the city and heads for the Senate Office Building landing platform. Waiting on the landing platform is a LONE JEDI. The Transport lands, and CHANCELLOR PALPATINE emerges with FOUR ROYAL GUARDS and MAS AMEDDA. The FOUR ROYAL GUARDS move off in another direction as PALPATINE greets ANAKIN, who has been waiting for him.
PALPATINE: Well, Anakin, did you see your friend off?
ANAKIN: He will soon have Grievous's head.
PALPATINE: We can only hope the Council didn't make a mistake.
ANAKIN: The Council was very sure in its decision.
They exit the landing platform.
101 INT. CORUSCANT-SENATE OFFICE BUILDING-MAIN HALLWAY-DAY
They enter the main hallway of the Senate Office Building. They pass SEVERAL SENATORS, including REPRESENTATIVE JAR JAR BINKS from Naboo.
JAR JAR: Helloo Annie. Good en to see yousa...
The Gungan waves to Anakin.
ANAKIN: Hi, Jar Jar.
JAR JAR: Oopsin da Chancellor!! So sorry, Your Highness, sir.
Anakin turns back to the Chancellor.
PALPATINE: There are rumors in the Senate about Master Kenobi. Many believe he is not fit for this assignment.
ANAKIN: Not fit? Why would anyone think that?
PALPATINE: They say his mind has become fogged by the influence of a certain female Senator.
ANAKIN: That's ridiculous. Who?!?
PALPATINE: (slyly) No one knows who she is... only that she is a Senator.
ANAKIN: That's impossible. I would know.
PALPATINE: Sometimes the closest are the ones who cannot see.
ANAKIN becomes worried.
PALPATINE: (continuing) Idle Senate gossip is rarely true and never accurate. I'm sure your Master will do fine.
102 INT. POLIS MASSA-MEDICAL CENTER-DREAM
PADME calls out in pain. OBI-WAN is near her and softly speaks to her.
OBI-WAN: Save your energy.
PADME: I can't!
OBI-WAN: Don't give up, Padme. Don't give up...
103 INT. CORUSCANT-PADME'S APARTMENT-LANDING ROOM-DAY
ANAKIN is in the living room, working. He sits on the couch where Obi-Wan was sitting. PADME enters and crosses behind him.
ANAKIN: I sense someone familiar... Obi-Wan's been here, hasn't he?
PADME: He came by this morning.
ANAKIN: What did he want?
PADME looks at him for a moment. ANAKIN seems tense.
PADME: He's worried about you.
ANAKIN: You told him about us, didn't you?
She continues to walk to the bedroom, he follows.
PADME: He's your best friend, Anakin. He says you're under a lot of stress.
ANAKIN: And he's not?
PADME: You have been moody lately.
ANAKIN: I'm not moody...
PADME: Anakin! Don't do this again.
ANAKIN: I don't know... I feel... lost.
PADME: Lost? What do you mean? You're always so sure of yourself. I don't understand.
ANAKIN: Obi-Wan and the Council don't trust me.
PADME: They trust you with their lives. Obi-Wan loves you as a son.
ANAKIN: Something's happening... I'm not the Jedi I should be. I am one of the most powerful Jedi, but I'm not satisfied... I want more, and I know I shouldn't.
PADME: You expect too much of yourself.
They stop in front of the window in the bedroom. ANAKIN puts his hand on her belly.
ANAKIN: I have found a way to save you.
PADME: Save me?
ANAKIN: From my nightmares.
PADME: Is that what's bothering you?
ANAKIN: I won't lose you, Padme.
PADME: I'm not going to die in childbirth, Annie. I promise you.
ANAKIN: No, I promise you! I am becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force, I will be able to keep you from dying.
PADME looks ANAKIN in the eye.
PADME: You don't need more power, Anakin. I believe you can protect me against anything, just as you are.
They embrace and kiss.
104 EXT. UTAPAU-SPACE
OBI-WAN blasts out of the BLUE JEDI FIGHTER's hyperspace ring and heads for the planet Utapau. The BLUE FIGHTER skims over the planet's surface, flat except for a few giant sinkholes.
105 INT. UTAPAU-LANDING PLATFORM-DAY
OBI-WAN lands his ship on a Platform projecting out of the side of a giant sinkhole. All is quiet. A local administrator, TION MEDON, comes out to greet the ship. OBI-WAN climbs out of his Fighter as a SHORT GROUND CREW looks over his ship. On a ledge above the landing platform, GRIEVOUS's BODYGUARDS watch as OBI-WAN talks to TION MEDON.
TlON MEDON: Greetings, young Jedi. What brings you to our remote sanctuary?
OBI-WAN: Unfortunately, the war.
TlON MEDON: There is no war here unless you've brought it with you.
OBI-WAN: With your kind permission, I should like some fuel and to use your city as a base as I search nearby systems for General Grievous.
A GROUND CREW rushes out and refuels Obi-Wans Fighter. TION MEDON leans close to OBI-WAN and speaks quietly.
TlON MEDON: He is here! We are being held hostage. They are watching us.
OBI-WAN: I understand.
TlON MEDON: The tenth level... thousands of Battle Droids...
OBI-WAN: Tell your people to take shelter. If you have warriors, now is the time.
OBI-WAN starts back toward his Starfighter as TION MEDON leaves the Landing Platform. GRIEVOUS's BODYGUARDS retreat from the overhead platform. OBI-WAN climbs back into his BLUE JEDI FIGHTER. His Astro Unit (R4-G9) turns to him:
OBI-WAN: (continuing) Geenine, take the Fighter back to the ship. I'm staying here. Tell Cody I've made contact.
The little Astro Droid BEEPS a reply.
106 EXT. UTAPAU-OBSERVATION DECK-DAY
On a high balcony, TION MEDON looks down on the landing platform. A few steps behind him stands one of GENERAL GRIEVOUS's BODYGUARDS. They watch the canopy lower.
TlON MEDON: I told you, all he wanted was fuel.
BODYGUARD: What was his name?
TlON MEDON: He didn't say.
They watch as the BLUE JEDI FIGHTER takes off.
107 INT. UTAPAU-LANDING PLATFORM-HALLWAY-DAY
OBI-WAN also watches his ship take off. He is hiding in the hallway. He quietly moves farther into the city.
108 EXT. UTAPAU STAIRWAY-SINKHOLE RIM-DAY
OBI-WAN quickly rushes up a stairway cut into the side of the sinkhole. It's hard to see him. In an alcove, he carefully surveys the city, then quickly moves on.
109 INT. UTAPAU-CITY-DRAGON CORRAL-DAY
OBI-WAN makes his way through the city, looking up at the tenth level with electro-binoculars from his utility belt. He tries to figure out how he is going to get up there. He hears strange bellowing cries and he investigates.
He comes across a corral filled with about half a dozen DRAGON-LIKE LIZARDS. SEVERAL WRANGLERS are standing around.
OBI-WAN walks up to the WRANGLERS and uses the Force with his slight hand movements.
OBI-WAN: I need transportation.
WRANGLER: (subtitled, in native tongue) You need transportation.
OBI-WAN: Get it for me.
WRANGLER: (subtitled, in native tongue) I will get it for you.
One of the WRANGLERS turns to the others and chatters away in his strange tongue. OBI-WAN walks along the line of DRAGON/LIZARDS, checking out each one. He looks at their teeth, legs, etc. Finally he pats one on the neck.
OBI-WAN: This one.
The WRANGLER brings the chosen one over to him.
WRANGLER: Boga. She answers to Boga.
OBI-WAN: Good girl, Boga.
OBI-WAN swings onto the back of the LIZARD. The beast rears up and scurries outside to the edge of the sinkhole.
110 EXT. UTAPAU-SINKHOLE WALL-LIZARD-DAY
The LIZARD BOGA rears up on her hind legs again, then climbs the wall of the sheer cliff and starts moving up toward the tenth level. The city appears to be deserted. OBI-WAN is alert to any movement.
111 INT. UTAPAU-CONFERENCE ROOM-GRAND CHAMBER-DAY
GENERAL GRIEVOUS stands before the COUNCIL OF SEPARATISTS, including NUTE GUNRAY, RUNE HAAKO. POGGLE THE LESSER, SHU MAI, SAN HILL PO NUDO, WAT TAMBOR, and PASSEL ARGENTE. OBI-WAN hides above the assembly and watches intently.
GENERAL GRIEVOUS: It won't be long before the armies of the Republic track us here. I am sending you to the Mustafar system in the Outer Rim. It is a volcanic planet which generates a great deal of scanning interference. You will be safe there.
NUTE GUNRAY: Safe? Chancellor Palpatine managed to escape your grip, General, without Count Dooku. I have doubts about your ability to keep us safe.
GENERAL GRIEVOUS: Be thankful, Viceroy, you have not found yourself in my grip... Your ship is waiting.
OBI-WAN is deep in thought.
112 INT. UTAPAU-TENTH |
. I really just got to experience what the NBA was like in just one year and find out how much of it is just a business.
Scoop: But now that you have a foundation, do you feel it's made you a better player?
Hayward: I do. I definitely think that I learned a lot of lessons in my first few years in Utah. Nothing was given to me or anything like that, so it was something where I learned a lot about the league and how it works. I was put in a lot of different situations. I came off the bench, started a little bit, I went back to the bench a little bit, I was the third option for a little bit, then I became a first option. Then learning how to be a "first option," you know that's a difficult thing to learn to do in this league, so it was good to have a couple of years where I kind of learned things like where you get your shots and how to get your shots and how to control the game, you know, all of those things definitely made me a better basketball player for sure. We're all still learning in Utah, we're still a very, very young team, so it was good to have that time and those experiences.
Scoop: How big of an adjustment can it be to inherit that "No. 1 option" role for a franchise?
Hayward: It's just a learning curve, honestly. I think it's one of those things where, you know, if you play one way probably the first three years in the league and then you are asked it do something different. It's just a role change, something you have to get adjusted to. You know, defenses are now keying on you and playing things differently to where you are at all of the time. That's a huge step and something, like I said, that I was able to kind of learn and do for two years.
Scoop: Have you ever walked into an opponent's locker room before a game and seen your name at the top of the white board just to see their defensive strategies they have planned for you?
Hayward: I have not [laughing]. I've never seen that. Or a scouting report on me or on our team.
Scoop: You have to sneak and do that. It's one of those "No. 1 option" things.
Hayward: I should definitely do that.
"It's just that I hate losing. Now maybe a sleep doctor might say that it's a curse because sometimes it's hard for me to sleep, but to me it's a gift. I try to use it as fuel, I try to use it as motivation."
Scoop: Do the media and other players underestimate you?
Hayward: I don't think they do anymore. I think they probably did when I first came in the league -- 100 percent did. But this is my sixth year, and I think they definitely respect me as a player now.
Scoop: I've heard you referred to you as "the Jazz's version of LeBron James" in that you do everything for the team. When you hear that, how does it make you feel?
Hayward: It's definitely pretty humbling to think that someone would say that, but I think it's just something where I just try to be an all-around player and try to do a lot for the team. And yeah, I think LeBron's a guy that obviously does that for his team no matter which team he's on, and he's probably one of the best ever to do that. So, but for me, if I'm not scoring I need to be assisting or making plays for other people or rebounding or just doing whatever I can to get guys in position where they can be successful.
Scoop: Do you think of yourself in that vein? In that, you "have to be LeBron" for this franchise?
Hayward: I think so. I think that it is a lot of responsibility but something that they have trusted me with and I definitely have to be active and have to affect all parts of the game in order for us to be a successful team. I've never been a guy that's going to go out and just affect one part of the game. I think that I've always been somebody that tries to affect multiple parts of the game, and I think we have a lot of guys that can do a lot of different things, so it's not just me. We're a versatile team. I'm excited about where we can go.
Scoop: Utah went 19-10 after the All-Star break while holding opponents to a league-low 94.8 points per 100 possessions. Was that just a good two months or was that indicative of what this team had become?
Hayward: Yeah, I think that's definitely our identity and definitely what's going to have to be our identity moving forward if we want to be successful, especially in the West. Defense is something that can go with us wherever we are at. We are going to have times when people's shots are off and we're just not feeling it offensively, but if we continue to play defense like we did at the end of the year -- something that I think we are very capable of doing -- we can always stay in games and give ourselves a chance.
Scoop: Is that a worry you have going into the season: Whether or not you can carry that mentality and execution day in, day out?
Hayward: I think that's going to be a question we have as a team whether we can do that. I think we showed what we are capable over a short period of time, but that's the hardest part about the NBA. It's 82 games. It's a long season and things happen. Guys get hurt, you have to fight through adversity, guys get traded, whatever, things happen. I think we took a big step last year by turning that corner after the All-Star break and it's definitely going to be some work.
Gordon Hayward and Utah's young core have many around the league buzzing about the team's future. Danny Bollinger/Getty Images
Scoop: Can head coach Quin Snyder be too honest at times?
Hayward: You are asking me if Coach Quin can be too honest? No, I think honesty is good. I think we definitely needed some reality checks. Like I said, being a young team the hardest part of the season is the mental part. At least for me. It's a mental grind. Just making sure you are focused every single night, night in and night out. So he needs to be honest with us, just to make sure that we're not [buying into] the hype that guys like you and the rest of the media are giving us. Because at the end of the day, we haven't done anything yet. So, yeah, he needs to be honest with us. That's part of his job.
Scoop: I've seen how competitive you are. Do you personally feel your inner competitiveness is a gift or a curse?
Hayward: I think it's a gift. I look at it as a gift. But I'm more of a positive person, so I think it's something that allows me to continue to work harder, continue to get in the gym. Because, it's just that I hate losing. Now maybe a sleep doctor might say that it's a curse because sometimes it's hard for me to sleep, but to me it's a gift. I try to use it as fuel, I try to use it as motivation.
Scoop: More important for you: be a great player or be a great leader?
Hayward: I think for me it's a little bit of both. I think one of the things that makes a great player is the ability to lead his team to wins and make the other players around him better. For me, being a great player means being a great leader. And it's something we need in Utah. Like I said, we're a young team. This is only my sixth year, and I'm only 25 and we have a couple of guys that are in their sixth year, too, so our team is going to need me and some of the other guys to lead them. Because we are so young and inexperienced, I think, for me it's a little bit of both. And I'm ready for that. It's something we've been missing as a team and it's definitely time for me to step up. I'm ready to take on that role.Polarization on illegal immigration is a two-way street. The GOP gets most of the attention, and indeed a hardline immigration stance has become a defining issue for Republicans. But Democratic voters have become far more liberal on a slew of measurements regarding illegal immigration over the past decade.
It was only 11 years ago that a majority of Senate Democrats voted in favor of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which called for 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was just 10 years ago that Sen. Bernie Sanders voted against comprehensive immigration reform.
It’s hard to imagine either of those things happening now. And that polarization could come into play if the White House and congressional Democrats reach a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Long before Trump made building a wall along the southern border one of his main campaign issues, some Democrats were open to the idea of fencing along the border. In a May 2006 Gallup survey, before Congress voted on the Secure Fence Act, nearly 40 percent of Democratic voters were in favor in favor of “building a wall along the border with Mexico.” And support for a wall generally held through the first part of this decade.
In the lead-up to the 2010 midterms, when John McCain aired an ad in which he said “complete the dang fence,” 46 percent of Democrats were for “building a wall or security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border to stop illegal immigration,” according to a Fox News poll.
More recently, however, Democratic support for a border wall has plummeted. Support dropped to just 29 percent for “building a wall along the entire border with Mexico” in a Pew Research Center survey in September 2015. And by February of this year, just 8 percent of Democrats were for it in Pew’s polling, while 89 percent were opposed.
Of course, some of the growing Democratic opposition can be chalked up to Trump’s embrace of the issue. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of polling about a wall after 2011 but before Trump declared for the presidency in June 2015, so we don’t know how much of this trend is merely Democrats reacting negatively to anything Trump supports. (We do know that Democrats were growing more liberal on immigration pre-Trump, however. More on this in a moment.)
Democratic voters have also become far more in favor of granting citizenship to immigrants in the country illegally. To be clear, Democrats have always been in favor of a path to citizenship. In a January 2006 Time/SRBI poll, 72 percent of Democrats favored “allowing illegal immigrants now in this country to earn U.S. citizenship if they learn to speak English, have a job and pay taxes.” But that still left a sizable minority of Democrats, 24 percent, opposed to such a proposal. In fact, Republicans were actually slightly more likely than Democrats to say they were in favor, at 77 percent.
But today there is no room for dissension within the Democratic Party. It’s difficult to compare pathway to citizenship questions over time because pollsters haven’t kept question wording consistent, but in March 2017, Marist asked a similar question to the one above and found that 90 percent of Democrats were in favor. Only 8 percent were opposed. And 86 percent of Democrats in an August Quinnipiac University poll said that “illegal immigrants who are currently living in the United States” should be “allowed to stay in the United States and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.”
Democrats may have become less stringent on illegal immigration because they don’t view immigration as an economic threat as much as they used to.
The idea that illegal immigration could hurt employment and lower wages was a big reason Sanders came out against a bill for comprehensive immigration reform in 2007. The American National Election Studies don’t ask about illegal immigration specifically, but since 2004 they have asked voters, “How likely is it that recent immigration levels will take jobs away from people already here?” In that year, nearly half (48 percent) of Democrats said it was extremely or very likely that immigration levels would take jobs away from people already in the country.
In 2016, only about a quarter (26 percent) of Democrats said it was extremely or very likely. The trend downward was occurring even before Trump decided to run for president, suggesting polarization on immigration isn’t solely because of Trump.
Similarly, the Pew Research Center has found that Democrats were becoming much bigger believers in the idea that immigrants strengthen the country rather than being a burden on it long before Trump came on the scene.
Whatever the cause of the Democrats’ move to the left on illegal immigration, it’s clearly happening. And as the congressional debate unfolds over DACA, this polarization could play a key role in whether Democrats and Republicans can reach a deal. If a straight up-or-down vote occurs in Congress (not a guarantee), DACA will probably need only a few Republican votes to pass because Democrats are in near unison in how they now view immigration, and illegal immigration in particular. But Republicans and the Trump administration can likely ask only so much in exchange for codifying DACA — Democrats are far less willing to compromise on immigration than they used to be.So the third annual Cage Match was a resounding success, as we knew it would be.
Some noteworthy events, in no particular order:
1. We maxed out our stream limit at 50 concurrent online viewers at one point around 3pm Saturday, during the Weatherman.
2. We saw Moonstruck, which while kinda unremarkable in its own right, was nice for the psyches of the Matchers. That is, none of us have to be embarrassed anymore when we’re explaining what the Cage Match is and people ask “oh what did you think about Peggy Sue Got Married / Honeymoon in Vegas blahblahblah” and we have to say no, we haven’t seen it. Moonstruck was far and away the most common offender here, and it was always painful to have to explain that because we don’t watch new Cage films outside of the match, we were still unexposed to about 1/3 of his films. Finally we’re able to talk about them all (almost).
3. We got international viewership, with people tuning in from England, Switzerland, and more.
4. We had more people come visit than ever before; we had 8-12 people watching live in our apartment for almost the whole match, with the exception of early Saturday morning.
5. We caught ourselves up on movies that have came out since the Match came into existence in 2010. It’s been pretty painful to have to hold out on things like Seeking Justice and Drive Angry in theaters; helpfully Cage gave us a hand on this front with Trespass by ensuring it was released straight-to-DVD, thereby taking away that temptation.
6. The end of Birdy. What.
7. Time to Kill registers itself as the first movie in Match history wherein half of the watchers went to sleep and the other half intensely regretted not doing so. It opened witih a rape scene and went downhill from there. Ugh.
8. Trespass: Ben — “The whole movie I was tense because I never once understood what the fuck was going on!”
9. The live conclusion… we were so delirious and the movie was so wonderfully bad but we were all just so excited. It’s a movie where all the characters are involved in a hostage situation where literally nobody is actually allied with anybody else, for the duration of the movie. It’s amazing and terrible and hilarious all at once and proved a fantastic finale.
Also it’s not really a singular event but I just wanna personally record how happy I was with the livestream and streamchat specifically. This year we propagated through social media and online communities moreso than the traditional news approach that got us in trouble last year. Specifically this took the shape of a blog post on Teamliquid and two reddit posts to /r/onetruegod (a Nic Cage subreddit, obviously) and /r/homestuck (for which the Cage connection only makes sense if you’ve read it). As a consequence in addition to our friends from home tuning in, we had a solid base of 15 or so at minimum, but usually around 20 random people from around the internet tuning in and providing a running commentary on the movies which was really helpful to the end of holding the live matchers’ attentions and keeping us awake. I even met and got to chat with multiple other homestuck-reading, starcraft-playing Cage fans, which I never expected would ever happen because that’s a pretty damn specific subset of people no matter how you slice it.
Special shoutouts to our longest-running online viewers of Celia, Eliot, and English starcrafter xccam, who all logged around/over twelve hours of online Cage-watchin’ goodness. Also shoutouts to Angrybacon, all of the guys who helped spread news of the Match via tumblr (which I’ll have to stop judging and actually check out sometime, at least for homestuck-goodness), and hallowvortex specifically who drew cage-related live sketches for the chat, including masterpieces like cage firing a gun with his mouth, eigafigmoafac, Cage as Mass Effect’s Shepard, and more.SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. aviation authorities have ordered visual inspections of fan hubs in engines used on some Airbus SE A380 jets after an engine came apart on an Air France flight last month, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
FILE PHOTO: An Air France Airbus A380 is seen during an emergency landing in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Canada, September 30, 2017, in this still image taken from a video obtained from social media. Daniel Mcneely/via REUTERS
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency airworthiness directive requiring owners and operators of Engine Alliance (EA) Model GP7200 series engines to visually inspect the engines and remove the fan hub if defects are found.
The EA engines are manufactured by a 50-50 joint venture between General Electric Co and United Technologies Corp’s Pratt & Whitney unit.
The FAA directive formalizes advice circulated by the engine company on Thursday. EA declined immediate comment.
GP7200 engines account for 60 percent of the global market share of engines that power Airbus A380 superjumbos currently in service, according to Corrine Png, the CEO of transport research firm Crucial Perspective.
In addition to Air France, the affected airlines include Emirates, the world’s largest A380 operator, as well as Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways and Korean Air Lines Co.
The FAA said the directive, an interim measure, was prompted by the failure of the fan hub on the affected engine on the Air France aircraft.
Related Coverage Emergency slides on some Airbus planes may be broken: regulator
“An investigation to determine the cause of the failure is on-going and we may consider additional rulemaking if final action is identified,” it said in a statement.
Depending on the number of flight cycles, the inspections must be performed within the next two to eight weeks.
A380 aircraft powered by the rival Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC Trent 900 engine are not affected by the directive.In this article I'm going to set out the case that a Universal Basic Income based welfare system would be a massive improvement on the current punitive welfare bureaucracy in the UK.
What is Universal Basic Income?
, so for the sake of brevity I'm not going to go into masses of detail about it again here, other than to say that it is a form of unconditional welfare payment to which all citizens are entitled.
Ideally the UBI payment should be set at a rate which covers the basic costs of living (housing, water, energy, food) meaning that nobody would be forced to live in abject poverty in 21st Century Britain. Those wanting anything more than a frugal and very basic standard of living (stuff like foreign holidays, expensive furniture, new cars, fashionable clothes...) would have a strong incentive to work in order to pay for their luxuries.
One of the main benefits of a universal, unconditional welfare payment would be the removal of virtually all of the costly means testing bureaucracy from the welfare system. Another benefit would be the near complete elimination of welfare fraud, which would free up teams of fraud investigators to go after much bigger fish such as
I've already written a fairly comprehensive article explaining Universal Basic Income, so for the sake of brevity I'm not going to go into masses of detail about it again here, other than to say that it is a form of unconditional welfare payment to which all citizens are entitled.Ideally the UBI payment should be set at a rate which covers the basic costs of living (housing, water, energy, food) meaning that nobody would be forced to live in abject poverty in 21st Century Britain. Those wanting anything more than a frugal and very basic standard of living (stuff like foreign holidays, expensive furniture, new cars, fashionable clothes...) would have a strong incentive to work in order to pay for their luxuries.One of the main benefits of a universal, unconditional welfare payment would be the removal of virtually all of the costly means testing bureaucracy from the welfare system. Another benefit would be the near complete elimination of welfare fraud, which would free up teams of fraud investigators to go after much bigger fish such as tax-dodgers and organised crime networks.
What is wrong with the current welfare system?
There are so many flaws in the current welfare system that it would be literally impossible to list them all in a blog post. It was in bad enough shape when
1. The disincentive to work
One of the biggest problems with the current welfare system is the way in which it creates strong disincentives to work through the removal of benefits. In many cases benefits are removed at such a rate that people find themselves even worse off if they decide to work. There are so many flaws in the current welfare system that it would be literally impossible to list them all in a blog post. It was in bad enough shape when New Labour left office in 2010 but after four long years of Iain Duncan Smith's hopeless mismanagement, it is now a humanitarian disaster of bad planning, poor implementation and dehumanising bureaucracy. For the sake of brevity I'll limit myself to detailing just four of the worst aspects of the current welfare system, and how the introduction of UBI would represent a significant improvement.
Many hundreds of thousands of people have found themselves receiving desultory increases in income (often less than £1 per hour worked) because of the way that benefits are removed almost as fast as additional income is earned, or have even found themselves economically worse off for having found a job
.
At best, the additional income through finding work is desultory, at worst finding a job actually costs people a share of the pittance they were surviving on. Few would argue that these factors are not strong disincentives to work.
Iain Duncan Smith's catastrophically botched Universal Credit scheme was supposedly designed to eliminate these appalling disincentive to work, but research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that it actually does no such thing. Should Universal Credit even survive Iain Duncan Smith's incompetent management, many people would still be financially worse off should they decide to increase the number of hours they work under the Universal Credit system.
Even though Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP relentlessly talk up their Universal Credit scheme as the biggest welfare reform in decades, it's absolutely clear that it is actually nothing more than hugely expensive tinkering with an already dysfunctional system.
The introduction of a system based on Universal Basic Income would neatly resolve the disincentive to work problem because if the public are always entitled to their basic unconditional income, paid work would always result in a notable increase in individual income, since the individual would be earning their salary, on top of their unconditional basic income payment.
2. Sanctions
The problem that the disincentive to work problem presents to the establishment order is that it is extremely difficult to tackle long-term unemployment when work doesn't pay, or results in nothing more than a desultory increase in overall income.
The fact that people can't be positively encouraged into work with the "carrot" of increased income means that the only motivational tool left for the state to use is the "stick" of rendering people absolutely destitute through arbitrarily applied sanctions if they won't comply with DWP demands.
Nearly a million people were left destitute by DWP benefits sanctions in 2013
T
is a humanitarian catastrophe, and I'm not exaggerating with hyperbolic language either. Very many people have died during their benefits sanction period
(most often the mentally disabled and severely ill)
Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP have repeatedly lied that there are no such things as sanctions targets and sanctions league tables,. In many cases people were still fighting appeals against arbitrary DWP sanctions until the day they died from their illnesses, in many other cases people committed suicide or even starved to death Iain Duncan Smith and the DWP have repeatedly lied that there are no such things as sanctions targets and sanctions league tables, however sanctions targets and the official DWP sanctions league tables were both leaked to the press in 2013
.
Sanctions targets and league tables are particularly vile things because it is blatantly much easier for DWP staff under enormous pressure to meet their monthly sanctions quotas by tricking the mentally disabled and uneducated into violating DWP rules, than it is to expend a great deal of effort in catching out the minority of committed benefits "scroungers", who often understand the DWP rules better than the staff themselves.
Under Universal Basic Income this kind of deliberate impoverishment by the state simply couldn't happen because everyone would be entitled to an unconditional subsistance income. This would mean that the pressure on DWP staff to trick vulnerable people into making mistakes in order to fulfill their sanctions quotas would be completely eliminated.
The power of the state to use absolute destitution as a social weapon against the public would be completely removed by virtue of the fact that the public would have an unconditional right to their subsistence income.
3. Means Testing
There are two main problems with the idea that all welfare payments must be means tested.
The first is the costly burden of bureaucracy that this approach loads onto the system. The current welfare system employs tens of thousands of people to means test welfare payments, welfare recipients are made to waste countless hours filling out forms with the same personal information and collecting supporting evidence over and again, and the whole system costs countless £billions to administer.
The second problem with means tested benefits is the way in which they are perceived by the public. When a benefit is universal, very few people strongly oppose it because everyone is entitled to it. Take the provision of universal healthcare through the NHS as an example. The NHS has very strong public support, with just 7% of the public favouring NHS privatisation
(not that this remarkable level of public support has stopped the Tories from carving up the NHS and giving it away to their donors).
If the state decided to bring in new rules to means test health provision (lets say anyone earning over £20,000 per year would have to pay compulsory medical insurance and/or pay for their medical services) there would almost certainly be a large decline in the level of public support for the NHS. It's much easier to convince people that welfare provision is a very good thing if they are entitled to a share of it. If they get the idea that they are paying for it, but that they are barred from receiving any of the benefit, it's easy to understand how strong feelings of resentment would arise.
The introduction of Universal Basic Income would resolve both of these problems.
The bureaucratic costs of administering the system would be massively reduced if the vast majority of people received a standard UBI payment. Of course administrative costs cannot be completely eliminated from any system, however, the lower the cost of administration, the higher the share of the budget that actually ends up where it should be - with welfare recipients. UBI would ensure that a much higher proportion of the welfare budget actually gets paid out to the public, rather than being wasted on the administrative costs of endless means testing.
The introduction of UBI would also assuage public resentment at the cost of the welfare system. The fact that everyone would be entitled to UBI would mean that nobody would be left thinking "why should I have to pay for this when I get no direct benefit from it".
4. Corporate parasitism
In recent years there has been an ever accelerating drive to bring in private outsourcing companies (A4e, Atos, Serco, Capita, G4S, Pertemps, Seetec...) to carry out the administrative functions of the welfare system. This process was not started by the Tories (New Labour were the ones who introduced the discriminatory Atos WCA assessment regime for the disabled for example), however, under Iain Duncan Smith's "leadership" the DWP has brought in ever more private outsourcing companies into the welfare system on vast £multi-million contracts. Some of the most shocking examples include, the expansion of the notoriously inaccurate Atos WCA regime, the hopelessly underperforming Work Programme and their "Help to Work" forced labour scheme.
Many of these parasitical outsourcing companies make near enough 100% of their revenues from government contracts, and the contracts are so badly written and one-sided that it really doesn't matter how badly these outsourcing company perform, they suffer no financial penalties, they still get paid and they still get awarded even more government contracts despite their appalling track records of failure.
The problem is so serious that even companies like G4S that have carried out vast frauds against the taxpayer still end up being handed more £multi-million contracts, even though they were supposedly barred from bidding for government contracts during the tendering process The introduction of Universal Basic Income would resolve both of these problems.The bureaucratic costs of administering the system would be massively reduced if the vast majority of people received a standard UBI payment. Of course administrative costs cannot be completely eliminated from any system, however, the lower the cost of administration, the higher the share of the budget that actually ends up where it should be - with welfare recipients. UBI would ensure that a much higher proportion of the welfare budget actually gets paid out to the public, rather than being wasted on the administrative costs of endless means testing.The introduction of UBI would also assuage public resentment at the cost of the welfare system. The fact that everyone would be entitled to UBI would mean that nobody would be left thinking "".
Another example of a corporate outsourcing parasite that has been caught out defrauding the taxpayer is A4e. This is a company which made 100% of its revenues from government contracts at the time its director Emma Harrison decided to award herself an £8.6 million dividend. Given that all of the companies revenues are generated through the taxpayer funded "welfare to work" system, it's easy to see how this vast dividend represents nothing more than skimming off a percentage of the welfare budget to fund the lifestyle of a very wealthy individual.
The introduction of a system based on Universal Basic Income would eliminate the possibility of corporate outsourcing parasites skimming the welfare budget and diverting money that should be helping the most vulnerable people in society into their corporate accounts.
With the massively reduced bureaucracy, and the end of sanctions backed forced labour schemes that UBI would bring about, the scope for corporate parasitism of the welfare system would be severely reduced.
Of course there would still be a role for private companies looking to profit from helping people into work, but they'd have to help people train for and find the kind of work they want, rather than just hoovering up government subsidies in return for forcing them onto unpaid forced labour schemes under the threat of absolute destitution via benefits sanctions.
Conclusion
The current system was bad enough before the Tories even came to power, but after four long years of Iain Duncan Smith's maniacal blundering it's in the most appalling shape it's ever been in (and many would argue deliberately so).
Iain Duncan Smith's tenure at the DWP has been little but a dreadfully prolonged systemic failure.
I'm not trying to say that Universal Basic Income is some kind of wonderful panacea. It wouldn't cure all of the problems in society in one simple step. There are no such things as magic bullets. What I have tried to demonstrate is that the principle of UBI could make the foundations of a much better welfare system than the current shambles.
I believe that a person would have to be delusional to argue the case that the current welfare system is well designed, well managed and efficient, therefore most sensible people would accept that there are grounds for improvement.
In my view you can either support the near identical prescriptions of the Westminster establishment parties (tinkering with the broken system) or you can support a completely new approach, be it based on Universal Basic Income, or some other fundamental reform to the system.
I suppose it comes down to this. If you are naturally a right-wing authoritarian who believes that the state has a right/duty to use the threat of absolute destitution as a social weapon against the public to force them into paid or unpaid work, you're probably quite happy with the way things are done right now.
If however you believe that the state has no right to force people, including tens of thousands of children, into absolute poverty simply because a family member committed "welfare crimes" such as I'm not trying to say that Universal Basic Income is some kind of wonderful panacea. It wouldn't cure all of the problems in society in one simple step. There are no such things as magic bullets. What I have tried to demonstrate is that the principle of UBI could make the foundations of a much better welfare system than the current shambles.I believe that a person would have to be delusional to argue the case that the current welfare system is well designed, well managed and efficient, therefore most sensible people would accept that there are grounds for improvement.In my view you can either support the near identical prescriptions of the Westminster establishment parties (tinkering with the broken system) or you can support a completely new approach, be it based on Universal Basic Income, or some other fundamental reform to the system.I suppose it comes down to this. If you are naturally a right-wing authoritarian who believes that the state has a right/duty to use the threat of absolute destitution as a social weapon against the public to force them into paid or unpaid work, you're probably quite happy with the way things are done right now.If however you believe that the state has no right to force people, including tens of thousands of children, into absolute poverty simply because a family member committed "welfare crimes" such as being five minutes late to an appointment
, then Universal Basic Income represents an elegant solution to the problem. If every citizen has a right to an unconditional subsistence income, then the state would no longer have the ability to use the threat of poverty/hunger/cold/homelessness as a social weapon.Kelli Ward. (David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic via AP)
Kelli Ward, a one-time rival of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who was criticized for urging the ailing senator to step aside following his cancer diagnosis, said attacks on her were coordinated by “fake news and the NeverTrump establishment.”
Those attacks must be challenged, she told supporters in a recent email, and she needs their support.
“Please make a contribution to help me expose the fake media and combat the NeverTrump ‘Republicans’ by donating $250, $100, or even $50 today,” she wrote in bold letters.
The email was sent Monday, a few days after she suggested during an interview with an Indiana radio station that McCain should think about leaving office sooner rather than later. She also expressed some interest when asked about the prospect of being considered for McCain’s seat.
“I hope Senator McCain is going to look long and hard at this, that his family and his advisers are going to look at this, and they’re going to advise him to step away as quickly as possible, so that the business of the country and the business of Arizona being represented at the federal level can move forward,” Ward told the radio station Thursday, a day after McCain’s office announced that he has been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer.
[McCain’s primary rival urges him to step aside after diagnosis — and suggests she could replace him]
McCain’s cancer is “both devastating and debilitating,” Ward said in a follow-up statement on her website, and he “owes it to the people of Arizona to step aside” when he’s no longer able to perform his duties.
Critics immediately slammed the family physician and former Arizona state senator over her comments, calling them classless, opportunistic and insensitive. Some accused her of prematurely angling for McCain’s seat. The 80-year-old senator is not up for reelection until 2022 and has not indicated that he plans to relinquish his seat. He also returned to Washington on Tuesday for a vote on the Senate health-care bill.
In the email sent to supporters, Ward, who lost to McCain in last year’s Republican primary and is now challenging U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), said:
Over the weekend a coordinated attack to destroy my campaign was launched by the fake news and the NeverTrump establishment … and it’s no surprise these attacks were launched as new polling shows our campaign surging to a significant lead over Sanctuary Senator Flake. It’s true that I believe that if Senator McCain’s health prevents him from performing his duties as a Senator, that he should step aside. It’s also true that I’m dismayed at the Senate’s inability to pass the America First agenda. It’s not true that I demanded McCain resign so that I could take his place, I plan on earning my seat in the Senate by defeating Sanctuary Senator Flake.
Ward told The Washington Post that her comments during the radio interview with Indiana’s WOWO News shouldn’t be interpreted as her floating her name to replace McCain, adding that she has her own race against Flake. She said she was simply answering a question from the host about what would happen if McCain does leave public office — and whether she’s qualified to replace him. Ward also slammed media outlets, naming CNN and HuffPost, and said they created a false narrative that she has an underlying motive.
[An article called for John McCain to ‘just … die already.’ A GOP official responded: ‘Amen.’]
During the interview, Ward talked about what Arizona law requires in the event that McCain does leave office. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) would have to appoint someone from the same party to fill the vacancy until the 2018 general election.
The host then asked her if her name is getting “thrown in the hat” as a possible replacement, to which Ward said: “Well, you know, I certainly hope so. Because, you know, I have a proven track record from years in the state Senate of being extremely effective and of listening to the voice of the people that I represent.”
Ward said it’s only logical for her to vouch for her qualifications because she proved to be a worthy challenger against McCain last year. (She came in second, with |
/ Privacy Policy:
“We guarantee no logging any user’s activity.”
Ideally, we’d see more about their logging policy with regards to DNS requests and connection logs (timestamps, IP addresses, and bandwidth) to be comfortable that their policy was that truly nothing was being logged.
Thankfully, their terms and policies are quite simple, spanning only a page or so. Clear and reasonable almost all the way around, a welcome change from SaferVPN’s novel-length pact with the devil.
Final thoughts: I was pleased to find a smaller VPN company that seems to be on the ball in a lot of important areas. Installation and configuration is expertly handled and surprisingly simple and flexible (other companies take note, I can’t stress enough how much I want to see more dynamic.ovpn file generators!). Support was speedy and helpful, and their terms weren’t insulting or overly complicated. My only real concerns were some slower international servers which could make downloading and streaming kind of a drag, and the relatively high price tag. I’ve used a lot of VPNs in the last 6 months alone that serve as good points of reference. Based on its fairly responsive support (in the mornings/evenings in western US), elegant site design, and file config generator, ZorroVPN shows some promise and might be worth at least trying out through their refund period if you think your use case and threat model are compatible. Bottom line – I’ve used better, but I’ve also used much worse.
FROM THE VPN COMPARISON CHART CATEGORY VPN SERVICE ZorroVPN JURISDICTION Based In (Country) Seychelles Fourteen Eyes? No Freedom Status Partly Free LOGGING Logs Traffic No Logs DNS Requests Logs Timestamps Logs Bandwidth Logs IP Address ACTIVISM Anonymous Payment Method Email Accepts Bitcoin Yes PGP Key Available Yes Warrant Canary Yes Meets PrivacyTools IO Criteria No LEAK PROTECTION 1st Party DNS Servers Yes IPv6 Supported / Blocked No Kill Switch No PROTOCOLS Offers PPTP No Offers OpenVPN Yes OBFUSCATION Supports Multihop Yes Supports TCP Port 443 Yes Supports Obfsproxy Supports SOCKS Supports SSL Tunnel Supports SSH Tunnel Other Proprietary Protocols PORT BLOCKING Auth SMTP P2P No SECURITY Weakest Data Encryption AES-256 Strongest Data Encryption AES-256 Weakest Handshake Encryption RSA-4096 Strongest Handshake Encryption RSA-4096 AVAILABILITY # of Connections 3 # of Countries 49 # of Servers WEBSITE # of Persistent Cookies 0 # of External Trackers 0 # of Proprietary APIs 0 Server SSL Rating A SSL Cert issued to CloudFlare PRICING $ / Month (Annual Pricing) $10.00 $ / Connection / Month $3.33 Free Trial No Refund Period (Days) 7 ETHICS Contradictory Logging Policies Falsely Claims 100% Effective Yes Incentivizes Social Media Spam POLICIES Forbids Spam No Requires Ethical Copy No Requires Full Disclosure No AFFILIATES Practice Ethical Copy Give Full Disclosure No
If you like the project and find my work useful, please consider donating – your generous contributions help pay for the hosting, tools, and time I need to do my research and keep the data fresh.A runaway train went through six stops on a 13-minute journey on London's Tube with other trains having to be cleared out of its path.
The engineering train became uncoupled as it was towed on the Northern Line near Archway station on Friday morning.
Passenger trains were diverted to another branch of the Northern Line while trains were cleared from the Charing Cross branch.
The train ran for nearly four miles before it stopped at Warren Street.
It came to a rest only because there is a slight incline at the station.
Tom Redfern joined the line in Archway on the train in front of the runaway vehicle.
He said: "As soon as we pulled away the driver came on the tannoy and said, 'There is an emergency, will everyone move towards the front of the train'.
I thought, 'Is this it?' Tom Redfern, Passenger
"There was a ripple of panic. I went from half asleep to a big adrenaline rush. I thought, 'Is this it?'"
The train bypassed all stations until Moorgate in an attempt to keep ahead of the other vehicle.
Mr Redfern said: "We went full speed. We knew the situation was dangerous because we were going fast.
"Even by the driver's voice, we could tell it was serious."
Pat Sikorski, of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: "We are appalled and horrified at this major incident which could have very easily resulted in disaster.
"The runaway train represents a safety failure of the highest order.
"We understand a collision with a passenger service train leaving Archway was only narrowly avoided."
The engineering train, which was undertaking rail maintenance work, had been travelling southbound on the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line.
Image caption LU staff took the decision to divert passenger trains to the City branch while directing the engineering train to the cleared Charing Cross branch.
But at 0644 BST the vehicle, which does not carry passengers, became detached from the towing train and began to move southbound.
London Underground (LU) staff diverted passenger trains to the City branch while directing the engineering train to the cleared Charing Cross branch.
The engineering train came to a halt at 0657 BST.
LU's Richard Parry said he "could not speculate" about how fast the train had been travelling.
"Northern line trains will travel even at full propulsion at 35mph," he added.
"I'm confident it would have been at a lower speed than that."
Safety 'top priority'
He said no passenger trains were closer than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from the runaway train.
"It was no closer than a kilometre away. That was the closest any train was in the area to where this train was," he said.
The line was suspended between Finchley Central and Archway and between Camden Town and Kennington via Charing Cross, leading to widespread disruption.
Mr Parry added: "Safety is our top priority and we have launched an immediate and thorough investigation into this incident."The Obama administration Monday abruptly halted plans to shelter some of the children surging across the border at a defunct college in rural Virginia, as the White House has continued to see its efforts to house the children throughout the country be thwarted by opposition from local officials.
As many as 500 children were to start arriving this week at St. Paul’s College, a recently closed historically black college in Lawrenceville, Virginia. But the Health and Human Services Department’s plans were stymied, at least temporarily, after town and county officials objected to the short notice and complete lack of community input.
“We were stunned,” said Robert F. Pecht III, president of the Lawrenceville Town Council, who learned of the plan Friday evening. “We were told it was a done deal. The lease was signed, and that was it.”
As the feds worked over the weekend preparing the campus for the arrival of the children, whom officials said would be ages 11 to 17, public outrage erupted in the community, which is about 70 miles south of Richmond.
Letters flooded the town council offices, including from nearby residents threatening to boycott the town if the college became a way station for illegal immigrant youths.
Rep. Robert Hurt, the Republican congressman who represents the region, sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Monday morning demanding she halt the project. After the delay was announced, Mr. Hurt said it should be the beginning of a total rethink.
SEE ALSO: Virginia county renews push for deportation data on illegal immigrants
“I would request that they completely halt the implementation of this plan and return to the drawing board,” he said in a statement. “If the HHS plan is indeed good for the people of Lawrenceville and Brunswick County, then they should begin with a transparent and open process that includes the community and the local elected officials every step of the way and ensures compliance with all local, state and federal laws — including the local zoning ordinances of the town of Lawrenceville.”
The administration has scrambled to find temporary housing for the children, who are pouring across the border in unprecedented numbers.
More than 90,000 children, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, will be caught this year, and more than 140,000 will be apprehended in 2015, according to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection memo.
Plans to house some of the children at an empty office complex in Baltimore were halted after the city’s Democratic mayor and Maryland’s two Democratic senators objected as soon as the details were announced.
In Virginia, the administration signed a five-month lease with an option to renew for up to three years, all of it before officials caught wind of it, said Bernard L. Jones Sr., chairman of the Brunswick County Board of Supervisors.
He said HHS officials estimated that a steady stream of children would be housed on the campus, each child staying about 30 days until being reunited with a parent.
“The first major concern is the safety and security of the citizens of Lawrenceville and Brunswick County,” Mr. Jones said.
Jerry Prince, the owner of Prince’s Barber Shop in Lawrenceville, said that he wanted what was best for the children, but he feared the children would bring diseases to his town.
“Even kids carry diseases like smallpox, chickenpox and scabies,” said Mr. Prince, 40.
The fears may not be unfounded.
Immigration officials have said many of the children have never seen a doctor until they are intercepted by agents at the border, and head lice and scabies screenings are part of the initial checks.
Indeed, one early hiccup in the government’s efforts to find places to house the children was that the military, which offered housing on several bases, refused to let the children onto bases until seven days had elapsed from the time doctors had administered inoculations.
After seeing the local opposition to the Lawrenceville site, HHS officials hit pause.
“The project of developing Saint Paul’s College as a site for caring for minors in the Unaccompanied Alien Children program is on hold pending community input,” said Kenneth J. Wolfe, spokesman for HHS’s Administration for Children and Families.
HHS officials will attend a community meeting about the plan Thursday in Lawrenceville.
The Obama administration has called the surge of children a “humanitarian crisis” driven by a spike in gang violence in Central American countries that is prompting children to flee to the U.S.
However, critics blame President Obama for laying out a welcome mat for illegal immigrants, especially minors, and for discouraging deportations. Government interviews with the young border crossers confirm that many believed that once they arrived in the U.S., they’d get permission to stay.
Border Patrol agents have been taken off patrol duties to perform what they call “baby-sitting.” Agents say they are doing everything from changing diapers to trying to separate boys and girls getting frisky in detention centers.
On Monday, Rep. Candice S. Miller, Michigan Republican and chairwoman of a key border security subcommittee, wrote a letter asking Mr. Obama to deploy the National Guard to take up some of those duties and let the agents get back to their job of stopping illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and gun traffickers.
“This diversion away from normal patrol responsibilities will result in an increase of drugs and migrants illicitly crossing our border,” she said.
She called on the president to not only deploy the Guard but to give it police powers so it could also aid in patrolling the border and arresting illegal immigrants.
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this article.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Artist, musician and style icon, Kim Gordon has been at the cutting edge of culture for more than 30 years. Dorian Lynskey meets the singer as she embraces a new era, post Sonic Youth
Last autumn, Kim Gordon held a retrospective exhibition of her visual art at the New York gallery White Columns. One project, Noise Painting, featured the names of experimental rock bands written in thick, dripping black paint. Most of them hung on the wall, as you'd expect, but one was scrunched up on the floor as if it had been torn down in a rage. That one said Sonic Youth. You don't have to be an art critic to appreciate the symbolism.
For 30 years Gordon played bass, sang and wrote songs in Sonic Youth, one of the most important and inspirational bands of their generation, and for 27 of those she was married to lead guitarist and frontman Thurston Moore. Their survival was encouraging confirmation that you could remain both artistically uncompromising and domestically content deep into middle age. All around them bands crumpled and friends imploded (including Nirvana, who supported Sonic Youth on their 1991 European tour), but Gordon and Moore appeared as solid as their music was tempestuous: Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward with feedback.
So it came as a genuine shock to fans when, in October 2011, the couple announced that they were divorcing. Sonic Youth slogged grimly through their remaining concert commitments before calling it quits. Gordon says that terminal tour was "horrible", but declines, with a polite tone yet pained expression, to discuss the divorce. "It's very hard because whatever gets said, even the most minimal thing, gets repeated on the internet and then brought up in every interview," she explains, stirring honey into her tea in a quiet hotel drawing room.
She regrets divulging certain details last year – an affair with a younger woman, an incriminating text message, a bitter split – and her reticence is certainly understandable, but the divorce is the elephant in the room. It's not that it's relevant to her visual art or the intense, improvisational music she's making in her new duo Body/Head, but it is, to a large extent, the catalyst for these endeavours – the reason why, at 60, she is entering an unexpected new phase of her life.
One positive outcome has been the enormous goodwill from fans. Detached from Sonic Youth, Gordon has been venerated anew as an icon of New York cool, an influence on grunge and Riot Grrrl and a modest polymath who paints, writes, designs clothes and acts: recently she appeared in HBO's Girls as a prickly rehab patient.
Kim Gordon: 'In rock music there are certain assumptions that it makes people more enlightened and it really doesn’t' Photograph: Jason Hetherington for the Observer
Gordon complains, however, that magazines like to present women like her in a certain manner. "You can't be a strong or cool woman and be represented except in a harsh way, looking mean and cold and hard. It's like reverse sexism. They don't want to show a picture of you smiling because it's not good for their editorial." So let the record state that she laughs often but has a subdued, melancholy air. "I don't really feel comfortable anywhere except when I'm working alone at home," she says. "It's exhausting to be out around people."
In Sonic Youth, especially during their brush with the mainstream in the early 1990s, Gordon seemed dauntingly impressive and self-assured, but she laughs when I tell her that. "People just project things on to you. I was always pretty insecure about my image and where I fitted in. It was really when I started going to England because the English press could be super-mean and kind of petty." Oh dear. "That was the first place where people started asking what it's like being a girl in a band. I really didn't think about it because I grew up being sort of a tomboy."
Gordon was born in Rochester, New York, in 1953 but raised in Los Angeles, where her father was a professor at the University of California. Her parents, she says, "weren't quite bohemian because they grew up in the Depression and security was an issue for them, but they were unconventional – true individuals". She attended a progressive school and lived in a house full of culture. "I never thought about doing anything other than making art."
She's writing a memoir (excellent working title: Girl in a Band) and she's had difficulties confirming certain childhood memories because her parents are dead and her brother is a paranoid schizophrenic. "He actually has a good memory, but it's hard to talk to him. It's scary when you realise what you forget."
After studying at the Otis Art Institute, she moved to New York in 1979 to become an artist. She loved the city and, after 20 years in Massachusetts, she's currently wondering whether she can face moving back, but the early 1980s New York art scene, to her dismay, was maddened by a sudden influx of big money. "It was a really crazy time. I think the artists were freaked out." While artists started acting like rock stars, the rock bands were behaving like artists. When Gordon saw thorny No Wave groups such as DNA and Mars, she realised that music could be a more rewarding outlet. Was Sonic Youth an art project in the form of a rock group?
"Well, kind of. Because I was thinking about male bonding and male sexuality as premises for artforms. At one point I thought I didn't just want to be a voyeur. I wanted to be in the middle of it."
Formed in 1981, Sonic Youth were the perfect amalgam of melody, intellect and noise. They could write catchy rock songs and epic, avant-garde maelstroms that made you marvel anew at the potential of the electric guitar, and when you bought a new album or attended a show you were never sure what combination you were going to get. In 1985 the New York Times credited them with "making the most startlingly original guitar-based music since Jimi Hendrix".
By the end of the 1980s Gordon had become a role model to younger musicians, especially women. Did she think of herself as a mentor? "Oh God no! Truthfully, I only feel now that I should be doing that. I didn't think of myself as having any authority or position. I just didn't see myself as being influential, I guess." My surprise is so visible that it makes her laugh.
‘I was thinking about male sexuality as premises for artforms. But I didn’t just want to be a voyeur; I wanted to be in the middle of it’: Gordon (left) with Sonic Youth in 1984. Photograph: Peter Noble/Redferns
She was significant partly by default. Indie-rock may have been politically progressive, but it was overwhelmingly male apart from Gordon and another shyer-than-she-seemed bass-player named Kim: Kim Deal of the Pixies. Perhaps it was generational, too. Gordon was older when Sonic Youth started than Kurt Cobain was when he died and she must have seemed unusually wise to the early 1990s generation. She helped a lot of young talent get noticed. She co-produced the first album by Courtney Love's band Hole, gave director Spike Jonze his start in music videos and was supportive of Riot Grrrl. Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill recently said: "Kim made me feel accepted in a way I hadn't before."
When Sonic Youth signed to Geffen Records after 1988's alt-rock landmark Daydream Nation, Gordon's lyrics became more explicitly feminist in songs such as "Kool Thing", "Tunic (Song for Karen)" and "Swimsuit Issue", which she wrote after discovering that one Geffen executive was being sued for sexual harassment. "I guess I had an authority problem," she says. "In rock music people have certain assumptions that it makes people more enlightened and it really doesn't. It was the same thing playing for Neil Young's audience [in 1991] and being reminded that hippies can be really narrow-minded. We were around people who felt like, 'We're groovy, we're cool,' but they were so sexist. It was just in your face all the time. I was looking for subject matter, and I thought: 'If I'm a woman, I can write about all these things. I don't have to write a love song.'"
Does she think the industry's any better now? "I feel like it's two steps forward, one step back. Are women using their sexuality to sell records because they're empowered? In which case yeah, great. But with some women it's almost inbred and there's pressure of competitiveness: who can be the sexiest? Male executives don't have to say anything because women know. And it's all aesthetically pleasing but it gets a little boring after a while if that's the only side that gets promoted."
Gordon believes her life would have changed somewhat even without the divorce. Sonic Youth, she thinks, "would have ended fairly soon. When you do something for so long it's nice to stop." And her daughter, Coco, recently left home to study art in Chicago. "I feel like I'm playing catch-up in a way. I was raising a daughter. Somebody has to stay home. You can't just go off and do other things."
Does that mean she was doing the lion's share of the childcare? "I don't really want to talk about it, but you can't do everything you want to do."
It turns out she wanted to do a lot. There is the painting, the memoir, an essay collection called Is It My Body? and occasional acting gigs. Echoing her ability to walk on both sides of the street musically, she's appeared in art movies (Boarding Gate, I'm Not There, Last Days) and hit TV shows with "girl" in the title (Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls, Girls). Does she feel compelled to stay busy? She shrugs. "One has to make money. That's the main reason I did the book. I never thought I'd write a memoir, but people were asking me."
One thing she didn't intend to do was form a new band, but she started recording improvisations on cassette and sharing them with her friend Bill Nace and one thing led to another. Body/Head released their debut album, Coming Apart, last year. "I didn't want to do anything I had to promote," she says, laughing. "I mainly wanted to concentrate on doing art, but I do like performing."
I wonder if after 30 years of being "Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth" she's working out who she is now. "Oh yeah, for sure. Your whole identity depends on it. You definitely have to refigure out who you are. But it's also kind of exciting to be… not in freefall, but not knowing exactly what's going to happen. There are times when you lose your narrative or get tired of it. Then it takes a while to figure out what the new one is."
It echoes something she said earlier when I asked how she felt onstage with Body/Head when an improvisation was going well. "It feels like you're going through some place and you're bringing the audience with you. You're not really sure where you're going, but it doesn't matter." Then she fondly remembered the 1991 tour with a pre-fame Nirvana. "No one really knew who they were in Europe and every night it would be a completely different set, with Kurt throwing himself into the crowd. It was always exciting because you didn't know what was going to happen. There's something to be gained when things fall apart."
Is It My Body? Selected Texts is published by Sternberg Press (sternberg-press.com). Body/Head's album, Coming Apart, is out now on Matador RecordsThe TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is photographed on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, near Spring City, Tenn., as Unit 2 begins producing electricity for the first time, 43 years after construction began at the site. The TVA Watts Bar Nuclear Plant is photographed... Photo by John Rawlston /Times Free Press.
The Tennessee Valley was powered this week by a record amount of electricity generated from splitting atoms.
With TVA's newest nuclear unit at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant reaching 100 percent power this week, the seven reactors in the TVA fleet accounted for more than 40 percent of TVA's power generation this week for the first time in TVA's 83-year history.
The Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor reached full power after TVA restarted the new unit on Monday following a four-week outage caused by a fire at one of the main transformer's in the Watts Bar switch yard last month, TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said Friday. TVA is continuing power ascension tests of the new reactor at Watts Bar, which is the first new reactor to be added to America's electric grid in more than two decades.
TVA must operate the new reactor for 20 consecutive days at full power and complete a series of tests before it is declared a commercial nuclear unit and is brought into TVA's rate base.
TVA had budgeted last year for the unit to be operational by the end of June, but final tests of the equipment delayed the startup. Then on Aug. 30, a fire in a switch yard transformer forced the unit to be idled and the transformer replaced. The damaged transformer is critical for TVA to distribute the 1,150 megawatts of electricity generated by each of the two Watts Bar units.
"Watts Bar personnel followed a rigorous and detailed process to inspect, repair and test the transformer before returning it to service, ensuring that it performs safely and reliably as designed," Hopson said. "The Watts Bar team will now continue with power ascension testing, with several key tests remaining in the program. Following testing completion the unit will commence a pre-commercial reliability run."
But even before the unit is declared a commercial reactor, the new Watts Bar reactor joined with other units at TVA's Sequoyah, Browns Ferry and Watts Bar nuclear plants to generate more than 8,000 megawatts of power during times this week.
TVA's oldest reactor, the Unit 1 reactor at the Browns Ferry in Alabama, is reducing its power output as it approaches a refueling outage, Hopson said.
TVA began building nuclear power plants in the 1960s when power demand was growing nearly 7 percent a year and the federal utility once planned to build 17 reactors across its 7-state service territory.
The Tennessee Valley Authority began building Watts Bar in 1973 but work on Unit 2 was suspended in 1988 when Unit 2 was estimated to be 80 percent complete. TVA suspended work at Watts Bar and other units due to a drop in power demand and an increase in nuclear construction costs.
TVA directors later voted in 2007 to restart work the unfinished Unit 2 reactor at Watts Bar. At that time, TVA projected the unit could be finished in five years for $2.5 billion, but the work ultimately took nine years and cost about $4.7 billion.
TVA, which begins its fiscal year today, will begin to amortize that debt once the unit is declared commercial, adding more than $200 million a year to TVA's annual budget costs, according to TVA Chief Financial officer John Thomas.
Despite the additional debt service charges for TVA with the new reactor coming into the rate base, the new reactor will help TVA meets its goal of generating more than half of its power from non-carbon sources by 2020. TVA operates 29 hydroelectric dams and is buying more wind and solar power as well as encouraging more energy conservation.
A study released this week by the consulting firm of the Horinko Group for the pro-nuclear advocacy organization Nuclear Matters estimates that U.S. nuclear plants will save about $85 billion a year worth of carbon-abatement value by 2020 in meeting the carbon reduction targets set in EPA's Clean Power Plan.
TVA projects its future power demand will be relatively stable but it is using the new nuclear plant to make up for power previously generated by 18 coal-fired units TVA has or soon will shut down.
The slower growth in the demand for electricity led TVA scrap plans in the 1980s to finish building its Hartsville and Phipps Bend nuclear plants in Tennessee and its Yellow Creek nuclear plant in Mississippi.
Earlier this year TVA finally decided to also give up on its Bellefonte nuclear plant. TVA plans to sell the site of the twin-reactor Bellefonte plant in Alabama later this month.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.And lo was Obamacare passed, and lo did members of Congress and their staffs find out what was in it: a provision requiring legislators under 65 and their personal staffers to get their insurance through the law’s health exchanges. And it appears as if many legislators—including some Democrats—are dismayed by the requirement.
“Secret talks” are underway between both parties in Congress to do away with this requirement, according to Politico. Proposals have been submitted to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages congressional staffer benefit options. According to Politico's story, “One proposal exempts lawmakers and aides; the other exempts aides alone.”
The fear amongst Hill offices is that the requirement will mean that congressional staffers have to purchase insurance from the exchanges using after tax dollars, without the subsidy that they now receive for insurance acquired through the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). “If they lose that subsidy,” Politico reported in March, “it’s like getting a pay cut of several thousand dollars.” OPM has yet to rule on whether that subsidy will still be available once staffers have to go through the exchanges. But the worry on the Hill is that the compensation cut and the requirement to get insurance through the exchanges could lead to a “brain drain,” in which talented staffers or potential staffers avoid working in congressional offices.
So here’s what’s not happening: Congress is not attempting to exempt itself from Obamacare entirely.
But here’s what is happening: Members of Congress are looking for a way to get out of the part of the law that affects them most—and avoid the health insurance exchanges that are intended to serve as the primary vehicle for the law’s health insurance expansion.
This is not simply a minor technical issue, nor just a little glitch (although ObamaCare does seem to be rather full of glitches). Instead, it’s a telling illustration of one of the largest problems with the law, which is that at the micro level, it’s extremely poorly conceived—confusing, irritating, and difficult to implement or plan for as written and passed. Even, it seems, for those who voted to pass it.
And, of course, also for the Republican legislators and staffers who didn’t vote for it. Obamacare critics are already warning GOP House Speaker John Boehner that they will react angrily if his office, which is apparently participating in the bipartisan talks, is complicit in allowing Democrats to avoid consequences of their own law.
But I’m a little tempted to argue the reverse: Boehner could join hands with Democrats to pass a fix that lets members of Congress and their staffers out of the exchange requirement. He could say that Republicans remain opposed to forcing ObamaCare’s bureaucratic burdens on any American. In other words, let congressional Democrats go on record as voting to exempt themselves from complying with every feature of their own law—and then remind them of that as often as possible.
Tempting as that is, however, I like the suggestion offered by Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute even better: Push to expand the exchange requirement to more members of the federal government, starting with the administration. “It is vital,” he writes, “for these individuals to experience, first-hand, how Obamacare’s costly mandates and regulations will drive up the cost of health insurance.” They passed it. They’re finding out what’s in it. And now, like the rest of us, they ought to have to live with it.A research project conducted by scientists from two Australian universities in conjunction with the Singapore Tourist Board has resulted in the creation of a travel guide based on emotions.
By studying the brainwaves of a family on vacation, the researchers drew up the Singapore Emotion Travel Guide, which advises future visitors of the emotions they can expect to experience at different attractions. This, they claim, will help people to tailor their perfect holiday.
During the study, headsets were attached to the members of the Australian family of Chantelle Ellem, aka blogger Fat Mum Slim during a visit to Singapore.
The headsets recorded their emotional responses to 20 different activities and experiences using electroencephalography, or EEG, which works by measuring the activity of billions of neurons inside the family’s brains.
The family filled in a pre-experience questionnaire and were also asked about what they felt about each experience afterwards. They recorded emotions like excitement, fun, happiness, interest, stress and relaxation.
The results indicated that that happiness and interest levels the family experienced while sightseeing around Little India for free were the same as the levels experienced while enjoying more expensive tourist attractions, such as ziplining.
Experiences involving wildlife ranked highly in terms of happiness among the children, and the adults also felt happy visiting Jurong Bird Park and Merlion Park. They recorded feeling relaxed while walking around the Sultan Mosque in Kampong Glam.
The family found the experiences that were unique to the city and couldn’t be found anywhere else most the most enjoyable during their stay, including the Garden Rhapsody light show at the Gardens by the Bay waterfront park. Compared with Western food, the children’s interest levels rose by 10 per cent when they were eating native Singaporean food and they were more excited by it.
To check out the Singapore Emotion Travel Guide, see here.
Get the top travel news stories delivered straight to your inbox every weekday by signing up to our newsletter.Max Guernsey, III, author of Test-Driven Database Development: Unlocking Agility, shares ten fundamental prescriptions and proscriptions to help you be more successful in your database development endeavors.
Find out more about Max Guernsey on Google+.
Notwithstanding the self- and paternally-taught part of my life as a programmer, I basically started my software career working with databases. At the time, it wasn’t something everyone did. Straddling the programming and database development worlds for my entire professional life gave me an uncommon insight that has served me well to this day.
I was a fairly early adopter of test-driven development and of agility so, for nearly a decade before I wrote this article, I wrestled with how to get databases to work in these models. The biggest challenge with implementing agility is that you cannot possibly have a truly agile environment without test-driven development, so that’s where my focus was applied.
Around 2005, I finally started to break the problem. A few years later, I had a system that works. Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it work? Definitely.
In this article, I offer ten things that I’ve determined are necessary and sufficient for building databases in a modern, test-driven manner that makes them almost as malleable as well-crafted application code.
#1: Build Classes, Not Individual Databases
The word “the” seems so innocuous and, most of the time it is. However, when placed just in front of the word “database,” it becomes a potent toxin, corroding the minds of all exposed. Avoid the phrase “the database” and any of its kin.
If you are working on the production database and you need to check the test database to see why you couldn’t find an error, then you’ve succumbed to the poison.
Why is it a problem? Simple: Like it or not, you need several instances of the same database design. Programmers need instances to test their code. Database developers need instances to try changes. Testers need at least one instance to verify applications. Product managers need instances to close stories. You get the idea.
People tend to rationalize an environment by thinking of it as a sequence of important databases through which design is promoted. This is illustrated in Figure 1.
Thinking in terms of individual databases is a gateway to permitting manual changes to database designs. Manual changes, in turn, allow potential variations to creep in. Variations degrade the strength of the relationship between a database and its design. So try very hard not to think about the design of individual databases and, instead, think about the design all your databases share.
The best way to consider the design shared by some number of databases is as a class, with each database instance being an object of that class. Classes, in the object-oriented world, have pretty close to total control over the design of their objects. That’s less true in the almost-languages like JavaScript and Ruby but... you know... who cares? In the real languages, a class is the final and sole arbiter of an object’s design.
What’s great about defining a class of databases rather than a litter of individual databases is that you can stop worrying about a bunch of important databases and start focusing on a single, concentrated definition of your design. The design of individual databases, which is still important, becomes a consequence of the class’s design, as shown in Figure 2.
Having one, and only one, place where the design is specified for a class of databases gives you a single point of absolute control over your database design and creates the kind of consistency needed to have automated tests provide you any real value.The Faenza-based outfit has said nothing about its new challenger, which emerged without fanfare on the opening day of this week's first session at the Circuit de Catalunya.
The reason for the silence has become clear, however, with the team planning a dramatic overhaul in time for the next test that starts next week.
The version of the STR11 that has appeared this week is a simple baseline solution, which has been created with the aim of ensuring that the team can verify the new packaging of the Ferrari 059/4 power unit with its chassis.
Furthermore, a new carbon fibre gearbox – which stopped Carlos Sainz on the first day – has needed to be proven, as has revised front and rear suspension.
However, sources have revealed that bold plans have been put in place for major changes to be delivered for the next test, where the STR11 will officially be launched.
As well as major aerodynamic changes, believed to involve wings, floor and sidepods, there are suggestions the team may introduce some 'interesting' mechanical solutions as well.
Max Verstappen got his first taste of the car on Tuesday but brought out a red flag earlier in the day following a suspected turbo problem.
Additional reporting by Franco NugnesAfter the last post many questions arose in the comments section. I gave a customized answer to each individual, attempting to meet them where they were at in their experience to lead them forward. This can be very confusing for the general reader however as I might appear to be giving different advice each time. Even the individual to whom the advice is targeted might struggle to make an actual plan from it, because I describe so much that is going on.
There are however common themes in each reply I gave, and in this post I am going to spell them out in the most simple way possible. Furthermore, to actually put this advice into practice your mind requires one or two very simple commands – the things you ask it to do during the meditation in order to get the results I’m describing. I am about to give you those commands in the clearest and most unambiguous way, |
exposure limits. In summary, when all of the studies are evaluated together, the evidence suggesting that EMFs may contribute to an increased risk of cancer is very weak.[42][43] Epidemiological studies suggest a possible association between long term occupational exposure to ELF and Alzheimer's disease.[44][45]
Patents Edit
See also EditToday might not be the best day to be Vik Guitars owner and luthier Vik Kuletski, pictured above. Last night, what started as what I'm sure he thought was a harmless Facebook status update has put the man in hot water with some artists he endorses.
It all started this weekend when he posted a "joke" about not liking headless guitars, referencing the fact that Cynic Paul Masvidal, who recently came out as gay is known for using those type of instruments. What resulted was fans and musicians, namely Scar Symmetry's Per Nilsson and Periphery's Adam Nolly and internet shred sensation Drewsif Stalin criticizing him in the post. Kuletski has since deleted the post, but a user on the Sevenstring forum managed to grab some screengrabs. We have highlighted the relevant posts:
Another screenshot was later posted of a user leaving a comment on Vik's page:
After deleting the posts, Kuletski felt the need to clarify his stance, only digging a deeper hole:
There's a big difference between "don't like" and "hate". I don't hate gay people, pretty much as I don't hate anything. Hatred is a sick feeling and never led to anything good. Fuck whatever you like, it's none of my business. But don't expect me to like or sympathize your choice just because you are "different". I may be tolerant to you and that's it.
Who is asking him to "like" gay people? Did a gay guy come up to him and ask him to get married? No! So, what does it matter if you like them or not… they have nothing to do with your life!
There really isn't much of a difference between "hate" and "don't like," but who really asked him? Yes, it's his Facebook page and he can write whatever he wants on it, but surely, as a business owner, he understands these opinions would reflect negatively one his business.
And, it has. In the fallout of this controversy, Periphery's Adam Nolly has disassociated himself with Vik Guitars permanently:
Earlier this year ViK Guitars and I privately ended our endorsement agreement at the end of its specified contract period. I was dissatisfied with the recent customer service issues I had observed and felt that it wasn't right to continue with further contractual obligation. With his word that he was working to resolve those issues, we agreed to keep the matter private. However, his recent anti-gay comments have pushed me to make a statement: As a firm supporter of LGBT rights, I find his sentiments offensive and disgusting, and moving forwards I simply cannot have my name associated with his brand. To those that have purchased my signature ViK or any other model on my recommendation and have experienced customer service issues, delays, or are similarly offended by the anti-LGBT comments he has publicly expressed, I can only apologise. My experience with ViK Guitars had been extremely positive at the time of my endorsement, and I do want to be clear that the endorsement was based on my genuine belief that the guitars he builds are among the very best available. I am honestly shocked by this situation, and I'm still gathering my thoughts on the matter.
Nolly ended his post by linking to the Human Rights Campaign. Nolly's bandmate, Misha Mansoor also took the time to denounce Vik Guitars as well as cancel an order for a guitar with the company:
Two years ago I placed an order with Vik Kuletski of Vik Guitars. Today that order has been cancelled. I cannot in good conscience actively promote or support him or his company with his outspoken and unwavering views against LGBT and their rights. The guitar in question had been arranged at a discounted price in exchange for promotion on my end, but after his comments I refuse to promote or be associated with his brand. I felt the only recourse was to ask for my money back. He assures me it will be back in my Paypal in full this Friday. I can only hope he sticks to his word. To elaborate:
I had known about his issues with delivering guitars in a timely fashion to customers, and his apparent lack of skill at customer service in general. I have also experienced this myself over the last two years. I had been happy to wait at the time because I knew the guitar would be of good quality and had been making an effort to resolve his issues. I had hoped to be able to promote a new and improved Vik Guitars. I paid for the balance of the guitar in full in January with the promise that the guitar would be ready by NAMM. It wasn't. When I asked for an update as to when my guitar would be sent out earlier today, Vik made it clear that he would not send me the guitar if I did not agree with and support his viewpoints. I told him that my morals and ethics are worth more than a guitar. I believe in freedom of ideas and freedom of speech, but I also believe that you are free to face the consequences of what you choose to say. As a business owner, he was representing more than just himself, and I was not okay with his bigoted views extending to me. I have to say that it is refreshing to see that the grand majority of my peers feel the same way about this matter in general. I don't believe anyone should be discriminated against for their sexual orientations as consenting adults. Luckily for us, there are lots of great luthiers and guitar companies that not only build great instruments, deliver them on time, and stick to their word, but also don't feel that bigotry should be part of their mission statement. I recommend you support those companies moving forward. I also hope that you support your brothers and sisters in the LGBT community who need your help to be treated as the equals they deserve to be.
Much like with the initial reaction to Cynic coming out, it's great to see the metal community band together like this.
Update Heavy Blog is Heavy points out that Strandberg Guitar exec Paul De Maio contacted Paul Masvidal about the incident and Paul was apparently once approached by Vik for an endorsement:
Related PostsThe server race is really afoot now that IBM has finally gotten off the starting blocks with its first Power9 system, based on its “Nimbus” variant of that processor and turbocharged with the latest “Volta” Tesla GPU accelerators from Nvidia and EDR InfiniBand networks from Mellanox Technologies.
The machine launched today, known variously by the code-name “Witherspoon” or “Newell,” is the building block of the CORAL systems being deployed by the US Department of Energy – “Summit” at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and “Sierra” at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. But more importantly, the Witherspoon system represents a new foundation for IBM’s Power Systems business and its fundamental belief that it can engineer a better system than Intel or AMD can. With help from its OpenPower partners, of course.
This machine will be the test of that idea, and the uptake of this system for traditional HPC simulation and modeling workloads as well as the newcomers machine learning and accelerated databases – all of which are dependent on the massively parallel processing and strong node scaling of GPUs – will by and large determine the future of the Power Systems division at IBM.
When Big Blue sold off its System x X86 server division back in early 2014, this was the day that IBM was planning for. And the big bet is that the combination of strong serial compute, as embodied in the Power9 chip, plus strong parallel compute, embodied in the Volta GPUs, plus very tight coupling of CPUs and GPUs through the 25 Gb/sec bi-directional signaling in the NVLink 2.0 interconnect, plus the addition of “Bluelink” 25 Gb/sec signaling for OpenCAPI interconnects to persistent memory and other accelerators such as Xilinx FPGAs, plus PCI-Express 4.0 peripheral links (16 Gb/sec both ways, with enhanced CAPI 2.0 support), plus cache coherence across all of these memories in these devices over these various in-node interconnects will present the biggest, baddest, most flexible, and most efficient node that anyone can field. And, with today’s 100 Gb/sec EDR InfiniBand and next year’s 200 Gb/sec HDR InfiniBand, it will be possible to build – as the US government is doing with Summit and Sierra – very powerful systems with dozens to hundreds of petaflops with a modest amount of MPI scaling across the external network.
If this doesn’t work for IBM, if this doesn’t give Big Blue a chance to really capture a bigger slice of HPC and take some aggressive share in machine learning and accelerated databases, it is hard to imagine what could.
Lifting The Hood On The AC922
We have talked for years about the architecture of the Power9 processors, the benefits of NVLink and OpenCAPI, the transformative nature of the coherency IBM is offering within a node that Intel and AMD do not yet offer, and IBM’s commitment to accelerated computing tuned with different devices for diverse workloads. Now, finally, we can take a look under the hood at the internals of the Witherspoon system.
There was some debate within IBM about what to call the Witherspoon system to differentiate it from the past and from the other Power Systems machines based on the Power9 processors – there are two variants, the other being the scale-up “Cumulus” chip for fat NUMA machines that has half the cores, twice the threads, and some of the ports being used for internal NUMA instead external device interconnects – that are coming in the first half of 2018. Some wanted to brand the machine Cognitive Systems, which is the new name for the combination of the System z and Power Systems lines. Some wanted to keep the Power Systems brand and not change things up too much. But for this Witherspoon machine at least, IBM has settled down to the moniker Accelerated Computing, or AC for short, and that leaves it open for the possibility of branding the other Power9 systems aimed at more traditional enterprise workloads as Datacenter Computing, or DC.
The Witherspoon system is sold under the brand the AC922, where the AC means the style – hybrid CPU and GPU compute with room for other accelerators – the 9 means it uses the Power9 chip, the first two means it is a two-socket CPU system, and the second 2 means it is a 2U server form factor. (IBM has sold Power8 and Power8+ machines with 1U, 2U, and 4U form factors using the scale-out variant of the chips.) Here is what it looks like in an artsy exploded view:
Here is the mechanical view of the system:
And finally, here is the system board block diagram:
Because artificial intelligence is an easier sell these days than just about anything, IBM is very keen that its branding for this Power9 system is that it is architected for AI. But make no mistake about it. The AC922 is aimed at any workload – HPC, AI, visualization, database, and things we have not thought of yet – where customers need to mix CPUs, GPUs, and perhaps a modest amount of other kinds of persistent storage and FPGA compute into a single, strong node.
The Power9 motors in the AC922 are pretty modest compared to what we expect for Big Blue to eventually bring to the field. Rather than the dual-chip modules that were used in the scale-out systems during the Power8 and Power8+ generations, the Nimbus Power9 chip used in the AC922 is a single chip module that has 24 cores on the die. The Summit and Sierra machines based on the AC922 are getting 22 core versions of the chips – we don’t know the clock speeds – but the commercial-grade AC922 has only two processor options. There is a 16-core version of the Nimbus chip that has a base clock speed of 2.6 GHz and that turbos up to 3.09 GHz, and then there is another version that has 20 cores running at 2 GHz that turbos up to 2.87 GHz. These chips are rated at 190 watts, which is a little lower than past generations of Power processors, and considerably lower, we suspect, than the Cumulus Power9 chips will be for bigger NUMA clusters that scale to four, eight, twelve, or sixteen sockets in a single system image. (See more on the rumors we have heard about the future “Fleetwood” Power9 NUMA iron, due next year, in this story.) As far as we know, the 22 core variant of the Nimbus chip is the top-end one for the AC922. IBM could later, as Power9 yields improve, add a 24 core option. It has the thermal headroom, we suspect, particularly with the top bin 28-core “Skylake” Xeon SP-8180M weighing in at 205 watts.
The AC922 has up to sixteen registered DIMM DDR4 main memory slots, and unlike prior Power8 and Power8+ systems (except for a few homegrown ones through the OpenPower collective), these memory sticks are bog standard DIMMs and do not use IBM’s “Centaur” memory buffer chips. This cuts the amount of memory slots per socket in half, which cuts down the memory bandwidth by half, but it also enables more cost effective server nodes for HPC and AI clusters where the amount of memory on the GPU accelerator is more important – or as important at least – as the memory on the CPU. (That said, we think that once coherency across CPUs and accelerators takes off, you might find an in-memory bend, and companies may start building fat memory as well as fat compute nodes. We shall see.)
At this point, IBM is supporting memory sticks with 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB of capacity, and they are all running at 2.67 GHz. IBM is charging $35 per GB for the skinnier two sticks and $39 per GB for the fatter one; this is a lot less than it charges other Power Systems customers for its buffered memory. IBM is requiring that all memory slots be filled, by the way, even though this is obviously not a technical requirement. That is the only way to get the 306 GB/sec of aggregate memory bandwidth across the two sockets. IBM will eventually support up to 2 TB of memory capacity using 128 GB memory sticks, probably fairly early in 2018 if pricing pressures ease.
The bulk of the parallel compute capacity on the AC922 server is designed to come from Tesla Volta coprocessors, and the system can be configured with either four or six of the Volta G100 accelerators. As you can see, there is definitely some affinity between the CPUs and GPUs, with half of the four or six Volta SXM2 GPUs in the system hanging off each socket. Each Power9 chip has six NVLink ports coming off it, and two of these, which Nvidia calls bricks and which has eight lanes running at 25 Gb/sec, are ganged up into either two or three pipes, depending on how many GPUs are hanging off each CPU.
The AC922 with four GPUs will be available as an air-cooled system, which is what Lawrence Livermore has opted for with Sierra, and with six GPUs it will be available as a water-cooled system, which is what Oak Ridge has chosen for Summit. (There are other differences, such as Sierra having only 256 GB of CPU memory because of budgetary restrictions and Oak Ridge finding extra money to keep the planned 512 GB.) In the system with four GPUs, the NVLinks hooking together all of the compute deliver 150 GB/sec of bandwidth between the elements, and on the system with six GPUs, the NVLinks are stepped down to 100 GB/sec to keep it all in balance. Interestingly, if you look closely at the chart above, it not only shows IBM will be boosting memory capacity by 2X with these systems, but it will deliver 3 GHz DDR4 memory sticks that boost the memory bandwidth per socket from 153 GB/sec with 2.67 GHz memory to 170 GB/sec with that 3 GHz memory.
By the way, the Power9 processing card with 16 cores running at 3.09 GHz turbo costs $2,999, and the Power9 card that has 20 cores running at 2.87 GHz turbo costs $3,999. This is very inexpensive Power cores by IBM standards. IBM is charging $11,499 for a Volta GPU accelerator.
The AC922 has a minimalist approach to I/O, in terms of having only what IBM expects that HPC and AI shops will need to do their big compute jobs. We expect that other Power Systems variants of the machines – if they are indeed called that – will have a lot more expansion capability. The Witherspoon server has a shared two-port 100 Gb/sec network interface card mounted right onto the motherboard, and this NIC interconnects with two PCI-Express 4.0 x8 slots coming off the controllers on the Power9 die. Each socket also has a native PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot that is enabled with the CAPI 2.0 protocol for coherence between non-GPU accelerators and persistent memory devices like flash and 3D XPoint or ReRAM. One of the sockets has a PCI-Express 4 x4 slot. Interestingly, IBM has put a PLX Technologies PEX 8733 32-lane, 18-port PCI-Express switch onto the motherboard, which links to both processors and to all six GPU accelerators on one end and a storage controller on the other end. This allows for more traditional storage to route directly to the GPUs through the switch and now have to go to the CPUs to get to them. Each GPU has a two-lane (x2) bus coming off the switch, and the links are four lanes wide (x4) coming out of the controller and going up into the CPU. The USB ports and baseboard management controller (which is based on the OPAL microcode that IBM created in conjunction with Google) all hang off the primary processor and eat one PCI-Express 4.0 lane (x1) each. In addition to that two-port InfiniBand interface, the AC922 has a quad port 10 Gb/sec Ethernet adapter and a single port 100 Gb/sec Ethernet adapter that snaps into the PCI-Express 4.0 slots.
The air-cooled version of the AC922 that has four Volta GPUs is going to be generally available on December 22, Dylan Boday, the offering manager for this HPC/AI machine at the Cognitive Systems division, tells The Next Platform. As we have previously reported, both Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore are starting to get Witherspoon machines installed, and eventually will have 4,600 and 4,320 nodes, respectively, with Oak Ridge getting the six GPU version and Lawrence Livermore getting the four GPU version. Call it 10,000 nodes. (Lawrence Livermore has an unclassified machine, called uSierra, with 684 nodes that it is installing, too.) But they are not getting all of the nodes.
According to Boday, IBM has been running a jump start program for eager and early adopters for the last month and has set aside some nodes for this purpose, and has several hundreds of nodes that it can sell right now, before December ends. (Boday says he just completed an order for a proof of concept that has three dozen Witherspoon nodes, and the pipeline is full.) Sometime during the first half of 2018 – IBM is being intentionally vague here – the company will deliver the six GPU water-cooled variant of Witherspoon to the wider commercial customer base.
For local storage, the AC922 has two 2.5-inch drive bays and a SATA storage controller for flash drives. The flash drives come in 960 GB, 1.92 TB, and 3.84 TB capacities at costs of $886, $1,689, and $3,960, respectively. IBM is offering a 1 TB, 7200 RPM disk drive as an option, too. (We don’t know the performance specs of the storage.) IBM also has a 1.6 TB NVM-Express flash card that it is selling for $3,099. Boday says that IBM will ship a fatter 3.2 TB NVM-Express flash card for the Witherspoon machine by the end of the year. This flash is being used like a baby “burst buffer” inside the nodes so they don’t have to reach out over the network for scratch storage, says Boday.
At the moment, The AC922 server is certified using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 for Power (the little endian version) and a future version of Ubuntu Server will come out in the second quarter. IBM’s commitment to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on Power is waning and it is still examining this, which is odd given the popularity of SUSE Linux in HPC and SAP HANA in-memory computing.
The real issue is what will an AC922 node cost loaded up. The prior generation Power Systems S822LC for HPC, code-named “Minksy” and essentially the development platform for the Witherspoon boxes, cost around $65,000 or so loaded up with two Power8+ processors, four “Pascal” P100 GPU accelerators, and 256 GB of main memory for the CPUs. Boday says that IBM is going to keep that price point about the same for the same configuration of the AC922, with two Power9 chips, four Volta GPUs accelerators, and 256 GB of memory. IBM was charging $50,000 in September 2016 when the Minksy launched for a box with 128 GB of memory and two ten-core Power8 chips running at 2.86 GHz. The Witherspoon system will have twice as much CPU compute and, depending on the measure, 2X to 6X the GPU compute, and lots more I/O bandwidth, too.
Up next, we will be taking a look at the performance benchmarks IBM has run on the new AC922 and how it compares to other GPU accelerated systems. Stay tuned.Guards at the entrance to the Western Wall complex in Jerusalem “strip searched” four female rabbinical students on Wednesday ahead of the Women of the Wall’s monthly prayer service at the holy site, liberal Jewish groups said.
The Israel Religious Action Center, which serves as the legal arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, said the four students of Hebrew Union College were delayed and questioned by guards, then were asked to lift up their shirts and skirts. “Four female rabbinical students strip searched while trying to enter the Western Wall Complex,” it declared in a press release.
The director of the IRAC said the searches were “a new low” for the Western Wall rabbinate, which is strongly opposed to the Women of the Wall.
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“This is a new low for the Rabbi of the Kotel trying to intimidate, humiliate, and exclude liberal women trying to pray at the Western Wall. Despite today’s events these four brave Jewish leaders will continue to love Israel, the Wall, and justice,” Rabbi Noa Sattath said in a statement, using the Hebrew term for the Western Wall.
“Today we are submitting formal letters of complaint to the Attorney General and the Prime Minister’s office demanding they act to address the events of this morning,” she added.
בידוק סלקטיבי הבוקר בכותל המערבי: נשות התנועה הרפורמית טוענות שהן מתבקשות להרים חצאיות וחולצות כדי לוודא שלא הבריחו ספרי תורה pic.twitter.com/d1Forisp4M — אוריה אלקיים (@uriyaelk) August 23, 2017
Women of the Wall said the search of the four women was illegal.
“These searches go against [Supreme Court] Judge Rubinstein’s decision which states that body searches on Women of the Wall are illegal without a serious security threat. A few of these students, who were visiting the Kotel for the first time, were shocked by the incident and the difficult experience imposed on them,” the group said in a statement.
Religious media outlets said the women were smuggling Torah scrolls on their persons, which Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch called a “desecration.”
“Today, the first of the [Jewish] month of Elul, all the red lines were crossed. They smuggled holy Torah schools wrapped around their bodies, they hid whistles in their private parts, and for what? For the “sanctity” of the civil war at the Western Wall,” he said in a statement.
At the prayer service, women read from a Torah scroll and blew 15 shofars, activities that are vehemently opposed by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who hold that only men may do these things.
“We sounded the shofar today in order to knock down the walls of apathy, exclusion, silencing and discrimination…We look to the Supreme Court, that has proven itself as the ‘responsible adult’ in the state, to lead to a just solution to our basic demand for equal rights for women at the Wall,” Women of the Wall head Anat Hoffman said.
The High Court of Justice is set to hear a petition on the pluralistic prayer section at the Western Wall, which was brought by the Women of the Wall after the cabinet voted to freeze the deal in June.
The decision to freeze the agreement coincided with a High Court deadline for the state to respond to petitions on its failure to implement the agreement and construct the mixed-gender plaza near Robinson’s Arch.
It also came amid pressure from Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers to dial back the plan to establish an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall, which was approved by government ministers in January 2016.
The cabinet’s decision was met with widespread dismay from liberal groups and Diaspora Jews.
Prime Minister Benjamin defended the move, with an aide to the premier saying that it will in fact help push the deal forward, and that Netanyahu had no choice but to halt the agreement as a result of pressure from the ultra-Orthodox parties, whose support he needs to maintain his ruling coalition.
Last week, the US State Department released its International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, which criticized the Western Wall rabbi over “guidelines for religious observance mandating separation of women and men, with the women’s section being less than half the size of the men’s section, and the government continued to enforce these rules.”
The report, which was completed before the suspension of the deal on permanent pluralistic prayer area, also criticized the prohibitions against bringing in privately owned Torah scrolls to the Western Wall plaza, and on women “accessing the public Torah scrolls or giving priestly blessings at the site.”
Amanda Borschel-Dan contributed to this report.New Delhi: The government on Tuesday disputed a report released last week by WaterAid, an international NGO, that more than 732 million Indians defecate in the open or in unsafe or unhygienic toilets.
The report, ‘Out of Order—The State of the World’s Toilets 2017,’ also claimed that India has the highest number of women—355 million—waiting for a toilet.
In a statement, the ministry of drinking water and sanitation said that WaterAid’s findings extrapolated data for the period between 2000 and 2015 and missed out the progress made under the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) mission.
This report quotes data from the World Health Organisation (WHO)-Unicef joint monitoring programme (JMP), which extrapolates sanitation data based on available data from past studies between 2000 and 2015, the ministry said.
“This means it misses out on most of the progress under the Swachh Bharat Mission which aims to eradicate open defecation from the country by October 2019," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry claimed that this point has not been mentioned in the report by WaterAid, thereby misleading readers into believing that this is the present status of sanitation in India.
“Recognizing that such an unprecedented commitment to bringing so many people out of open defecation in such a short span of time has no parallels anywhere in the world, the JMP, in the same report, inserted a special section with high praise for the rapid results being seen under the Swachh Bharat Mission, and stating that their report does not capture a lot of the work done since 2015, and hence the data is not up to date," it said.
The ministry said the disparity between the numbers mentioned in the WaterAid report and reality was extremely stark. The ministry claimed that it maintains a detailed household level database of sanitation coverage on its website, which is also open to the public.
The report said that “355 million women and girls are still waiting for a toilet.".
“This is a total departure from reality. The same JMP report confirms that as on June 2017, the total number of people defecating in the open in India has reduced to 350 million, and this has further come down to below 300 million people as on November 2017. The report also mentions that 56% of people in India lack access to safe sanitation, whereas the present number is down to about 28%," the ministry statement said.
Calling the report “factually incorrect and irresponsible", the statement said a WaterAid India team has been working closely with the ministry and the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (rural), and is fully aware of the ground work, macro-statistics and overall progress.When Ellen Olenska—freshly back from Europe under a pall of ambiguous disgrace—invites Newland Archer to her home for the first time in Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence, she ignores the unwritten sartorial mandates and dons “a long robe of red velvet bordered about the chin and down the front with glossy black fur.” As a little girl, Ellen appeared to exhibit a similar disregard for convention, mourning her parents in wildly inappropriate clothing: “crimson merino and amber beads.” The gossips and busybodies who recall that childhood faux pas want to imply a provocative question About Ellen: Was the little girl even sorry that her parents had died? Because red is certainly not the color of sadness.
The color of sadness, as a new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibit, “Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire” attests, was (of course) black, black, and more black—with a little gray, mauve, and white allowed to creep in as time passed. Mourning clothes—along with other facets of grief—were highly regimented in Victorian England and nineteenth-century America. As the curator's note explains, “Mourning through sartorial display, a duty chiefly assumed by women, followed a series of stages marked by changes in fabrics and colors.” Exacting codes defined which fabrics and colors were acceptable at particular stages of grief: For the first months after a death, only “lusterless” black dresses were acceptable. As time passed—and for a widow one expected to wear mourning clothes for a full two years—the strictures slowly loosened, and the severity of the attire decrased. Closeness to the deceased mattered a great deal as well; widows were expected to don the most modest dresses and the most elaborate crepe veils.
This was, of course, still fashion, however, and with every passing season and decade trends fluctuated. The skirts of mourning dresses flared and the corsets tightened in the late 1850s and 1860s (think of the "bereaved" Scarlett O'Hara after Charles Hamilton dies) and silhouettes slimmed down in the 1870s. And such information wasn’t merely intuited or passed by word of mouth. Various household journals written expressly for women (like The Queen, which originated in 1861 and was eventually subsumed into Harper’s Bazaar) provided illustrated fashion plates that clearly marked the exact type of hat a widow in half-mourning should wear, or the precise hairstyles acceptable for the daughter of a mother recently deceased.
The public’s adherence to appearance-based mourning traditions existed well before Victoria’s reign—you can easily find Regency-era fashion illustrations on Pinterest, for example—and contrary to the popular myth, Victoria herself did not start the craze when she retired to mourn her beloved Albert. But a concurrence of events—The Great Exhibition of 1851, which was the first ever international exhibition of manufactured goods; the rise of the prosperous middle class following the 1832 Reform Act; the advances in fabric production as a result of the industrialization of northern England; the rise in literacy leading to the golden age of the weekly periodical—encouraged the spread of commodities as markers of grief. And such commodities extended beyond just dresses and veils. There were mourning rings and lockets embedded with locks of hair, handkerchiefs edged in black lace like the one placed over the dead baby Jenny in Dickens’s Bleak House, and even post-mortem photographs of the deceased on their deathbeds—or occasionally propped up to appear still alive. The Victorians had an entire market of memorabilia with which they could memorialize the dead.I’ve been loving my Monoprice Select Mini 3D printer, but after a few months I started to find the print size very limiting. I decided to follow this guide and upgrade my bed to a larger one.
The stock print area is a 120mm cube (120mm x 120mm x 120mm). After this upgrade, I plan on having a 200mm x 200mm x 120mm build area.
The linked guide on Instructables says “Under $50” … I found that guide omits a few things yo will probably want to have (power supply, mosfet, a handful of M3 bolts, materials to build the print bed carrier, longer bowden tube…) I found my actual cost to be closer to $150.
Shopping List:
I stuck to Amazon and my local hardware store (ACE Hardware) for all my purchases.
Total: ~$150
Print List:
This Instructable has a list of items to print for the bed mod. Depending on your exact printer, you may or may not need some of this stuff, but it’s safest to just print them all.
Here is most of the “stuff” laid out. You can see the massive size difference of the new print bed.
I started by building a new print bed carrier using some angle aluminum and a few rivets. I considered using steel and welding the corners to make it nice and rigid, but figure it would have weighed something like 3-4x as much as the aluminum version. I decided not to put a bunch of weight on those linear rods. I used a 90-degree clamp to hold things together, and used a single piece across the middle to firm up the frame.
Then I used the original print bed as a template to mark the linear rod holder and belt locations on the new bed. You should have printed 4 linear rod supports, which then get used to attach the linear rods to the bottom of the bed carrier. Here it is reinstalled on the printer, where I could then slide it back and forth and check for clearance issues:
Once I was sure that nothing would hit when sliding the carrier all the way fore and aft, I powered up the printer and “home”d the printer. This let me align the print bed’s leading edge with the hotend nozzle.
I then marked and drilled holes for the print bed itself into the carrier. I re-used the spring adjusters from the original bed to support the new bed and set it to be exactly where the original bed was. I did not have to adjust my z-axis limit switch at all.
Yes, I know… painters tape… should have glass… blah blah… I’m an oddball and actually prefer the tape. I can do dozens of prints on it and it lasts really well, PLA always sticks to it without any adhesive, and prints release nicely. Anyway, at this point I have the printer re-assembled with a 200mm Y-axis print area:
Right now I can print PLA without a heated bed, so this was a good point to test that I could still print at all…
Next steps:
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Preview: India captain Manpreet Singh said Monday that his boys are ready to take on South Korea in their do-or-die last group match of the Hockey Junior World Cup at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium here Tuesday.
While the Netherlands are already through to the quarterfinals from Pool C, the winner of the India-Korea match will be the second team to proceed in to the last eight from the group. Canada, with two losses, is already out.
"Our next game with Korea is very crucial and a must win game for both teams. We realise that the losing team misses out on the quarterfinals hence it is an important match for both. The team is practicing very hard and working on all the strategies which will help ensure a win," Manpreet said (IANS).
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Image caption Under Labour's plans, five franchises would return to public ownership by 2025
Labour activists have voted to officially back rail nationalisation as party policy at their conference.
Bringing the railways back into public ownership was a key plank of Jeremy Corbyn's successful leadership bid.
Transport spokeswoman Lilian Greenwood said the railway was inefficient and among the most expensive in Europe.
She also called for the new HS2 high-speed rail link from London to the Midlands to become a "public service under public ownership".
Members overwhelmingly backed a policy statement drawn up by the National Executive Committee, calling for existing franchises to be nationalised when they come to an end and for a new "public operator" to reinvest profits by private rail operators into cutting fares and rail infrastructure.
Ms Greenwood said a far-reaching shake-up was needed to deal with the "fragmented" network and a "broken" franchise system.
"Twenty years ago we were told that privatisation would deliver cheaper tickets and lower subsidies," she said. "What we |
, I'm an amateur writer and duelist, so I'm always open to constructive criticism. Please do share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to check all article urls and tags!By: Karin Heineman, Inside Science
(Inside Science TV) – Who can forget the winter of 2013-2014? Record-breaking cold temperatures and heavy snowfall hit from the Rocky Mountains all the way to the East Coast.
Although the majority of Americans still believe that global warming is happening, the especially blustery winter caused some people to question whether global warming is really happening.
“Almost invariably we find that after any winter a drop off in belief in the existence of global warming," said Barry Rabe, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In a survey, political scientists learned that after the winter of 2013-2014, more Americans judge the validity of global warming by what they see out their window, not by observing long-term trends or scientific analysis.
In fact, 33 percent of Americans surveyed did not believe that global warming was happening after the frigid winter of 2013-2014, an increase of almost 10 percent from the previous year. Of the people who disbelieved in global warming, 38 percent cited their personal observations of the weather as the reason for their skepticism.
But, according to Rabe, global warming cannot necessarily be perceived by daily weather patterns.
“When we talk about something like global warming, we’re talking about a much larger pattern and a much larger phenomenon that’s going to play out for years, decades and for generations. So simply making a decision, thumbs up, thumbs down on the existence of climate change based on what happened before breakfast, is a risky strategy to take,” said Rabe.
While 55 percent of Americans do think temperatures have gone up over the past four decades, it's the lowest level recorded since the spring of 2011. One in three Americans surveyed said there is no solid evidence of global warming.
Karin Heineman is the executive producer of Inside Science TV. She has produced over 600 video news segments on science, technology, engineering and math in the past 13 years for Inside Science TV and its predecessor, Discoveries and Breakthroughs Inside Science.
Reprinted with permission from Inside Science, an editorially independent news product of the American Institute of Physics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing, promoting and serving the physical sciences.I still remember my first hiking experience to Trihund, among the Himalayan Ranges; the memory is as fresh as a daisy in my mind. The sudden plan with college friends, the Pack-up and then just left for the trek. “Trihund” a glacier in Himachal Pradesh is one of the most beautiful hiking mountains in India. Located at a height of 2,827 meters from the ground level, the mountain top is always covered with snow. The journey to the top is almost nine kilometers from the place mcleodganj where I started my trek. And I tell you the joyous feeling I experienced reaching the top of it were as exciting as the journey. The waterfall in between, the forest the fire camping, I believe this was one of the most amazing and thrilling experience of my life.
Here are some of the most amazing hiking places around the world you must visit to experience the thrill, joy and an exciting trek:
Blyde River Canyon: Also given a name as Motlatse river the Canyon is a beautiful natural reserve, and not just a hiking place. Situated in Mpumalanga the place has some of the most breathtaking views like The God’s window and is the best hiking place in South Africa. Besides, trek you can also enjoy swimming and wildlife exploration. The place is full of biodiversity and life-forms.
Kalalau Trail: Situated in between Ke’e Beach and Kalalau Beach by the Na Pali coast on Island of Kauai, Hawaii the place has a trek of almost 18 kilometers. This is one of the most tuff trails of 22 miles complete round trip and definitely for an extremely tuff and strong hiker. The hiking can be marked from the North coast of the island, and I assure you, if you are looking for a lifetime trekking experience this is it.
Alps: One of the biggest mountain peaks in the continent of Europe, the Alps is not just a single trekking mountain but has a number of ranges for experiencing the trek. The mountainous ranges of Alps stretch almost 1,200 kilometers covering 8-Alpine countries. Besides mountainous ranges the Alps have a great cultural diversity as well and while you move forward covering ranges to ranges you can enjoy the forests and different types of life-forms and cultures all around.
Himalayas: Now, while we are talking about trekking and hiking, how can we forget The Great Himalayan trek. Himalaya has some of the highest peaks in the world and is one of the most famous and adventurous ranges for trekking. Holding the highest peaks among its ranges Himalaya is definitely the toughest trekking mountain range and has been in past. But while it is one of the most challenging treks for decades it also holds some of most heart throbbing sights which can never be seen elsewhere. Almost covered with snow through the year the place has an amazing scenic view and will definitely be a lifetime experience.
Hua Shan: Among the Mount Hua ranges in China, the place is an excellent Hiking track taking you to scenery unforgettable while you complete the trek. Though many non-professional hikers also come here for trek the place is an amazing track yet quite dangerous as the trails are somewhat unreliable. But what would the hiking experience be without some adventure and risk?
Hiking has always been one of the most exciting and amazing adventure sports which will give you a memory for lifetime. And I am sure every person definitely dreams of experiencing it once in lifetime. So while you look forward to fulfill your dream don’t forget to keep these places in mind, some of the best hiking ranges in the world.ISLAMABAD: After blocking access to the website “Facebook”, Pakistan’s government on Thursday blocked the popular video sharing website “YouTube” for hosting blasphemous material.A statement released by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that YouTube had been blocked due to " objectionable content." However, the statement did not specify the nature of content.All internet service providers were directed by the PTA on Thursday to block YouTube. All internet users were unable to access the site after 11:00am.A PTA official wishing not to be named said the action was taken after the PTA authorities determined that some sacrilegious caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were transferred from Facebook to YouTube.Wahaj-us-Siraj, the CEO of Nayatel, an Internet service provider, said the blocking of the two websites would cut up to 25 percent of total Internet traffic in Pakistan."It'll have an impact on the overall Internet traffic as they eat up 20 to 25 percent of the country's total 65 giga-bytes traffic," he said.The move follows the Lahore High Court's order to block Facebook for an indefinite period as it acted on a petition filed by the Islamic Lawyers Forum, which had sought a complete ban on the social networking website.The court also directed the foreign ministry to raise the issue of the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Mohammed at an international forum.Meanwhile, demonstrations continued on Thursday across the country in protest against the social networking website, Facebook.At a demonstration outside the parliament, protesters urged the government to raise the issue at the international level. Addressing a press conference later, Talha Mehmood, chairman of the Senate standing committee on interior affairs, urged the government to redefine its relations with the West against the backdrop of an increase in incidents hurting religious sentiments of the Muslims.SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner and Silicon Valley socialite Juliet de Baubigny took the stand Friday in a gender discrimination case against the venture firm and said she never referred to a male partner in the suit as a “sex addict.”
The testimony comes in week four of the trial, which pits a former Kleiner partner, Ellen Pao, against the storied venture-capital firm. The lawsuit, which Pao filed in 2012, has helped spark a broad, ongoing discussion about sexism in Silicon Valley.
Pao, now interim chief executive at social-news service Reddit, claims her standing at Kleiner crumbled after she ended a brief affair with Ajit Nazre, another partner who later left the firm. Her career was sidelined after he and Kleiner started retaliating against her, her lawyers have argued.
In earlier testimony, Pao had testified de Baubigny told her that Nazre, whom another female Kleiner partner has said knocked at her hotel room wearing a bathrobe, was a sex addict.
“That is completely ridiculous,” said de Baubigny, who handles recruitment and human resources, and keeps a high profile around Silicon Valley and beyond.
Last year, she attended Vanity Fair’s Oscar party as the date of News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch. She has also contributed to Goop, the blog created by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, providing tips on time management, makeup and shopping for clothes and gifts.
That post led to firm-wide ribbing by Randy Komisar, another Kleiner partner, de Baubigny said. “It mortified me,” she said, noting that Komisar focused on details such as hair advice.
But De Baubigny told jurors she had never witnessed gender discrimination at the firm, and that gender issues did not affect decisions around Pao.
She painted a picture of Pao as a chronic denigrator of colleagues, ranging from top partner John Doerr (not allowing Pao “to shine”) to her administrative assistant (“erratic in her support.”)
Ellen Pao walks to a courtroom in San Francisco Superior Court in San Francisco, California February 26, 2015. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
Judge Harold Kahn asked de Baubigny, who speaks with a distinct British accent, how she ended up with a French name, and then followed up on fighting between the English and French.
“Ex-husband,” de Baubigny said, referring to Andre de Baubigny, an Bay Area investor. And then, to laughter in the court, she answered his second question. “They still are.”
Closing arguments for the trial, which started Feb. 24, are expected next week.Jack Wilshere has scored just 13 career goals at club level
Jack Wilshere scored one of England's top 10 goals in the victory over Slovenia, says ex-captain Gary Lineker.
The midfielder, 23, scored twice as England came from behind to win 3-2 in Ljubljana - his second a superb 25-yard strike.
Lineker told BBC Radio 5 live: "Jack Wilshere scored two breathtaking goals. I'm sure he hit the same square of the net on both occasions.
"Let's put it this way - if we had a top 10 he'd be in it."
Wilshere had not scored in 27 England appearances before his brace put Roy Hodgson's side back on track to extend their 100% record in qualifying for next summer's European Championship in France.
BBC Sport chief football writer Phil McNulty's ratings: "Jack Wilshere - 9. Star man. Busy and dynamic with two goals to gloss an outstanding display. Can this kick-start his England career?" Read Phil's ratings here
England trailed to Milivoje Novakovic's first-half goal before Wilshere first buried a shot from the edge of the area and then collected Adam Lallana's backheel to thump home a stunning second.
The Arsenal man has been used primarily as a deep-lying midfielder under Hodgson but showed his attacking qualities in the second half - and Lineker believes he should play further forward for the national side.
"I like him going forward because he goes past players easily," said the Match of the Day presenter.
"The problem for Roy Hodgson is we don't seem to produce natural holding midfielders."
'I need to score more goals'
Wilshere has won goal of the season on Match of the Day for the past two seasons but has only scored six times in the Premier League for the Gunners in 100 games, a ratio he is keen to improve for club and country.
He said: "It's obviously nice to get my first goals for England, they have been a long time coming. I probably wouldn't have had a shot for the second one if I hadn't already scored, but after I'd scored one I had more confidence.
England midfields past and present England's record goalscorer Sir Bobby Charlton scored 49 goals from midfield Another former captain David Beckham scored 17 goals for England - including in three separate World Cups More recently, Frank Lampard scored 29 times in 106 caps, while Steven Gerrard managed 21 in 114 Of England's current midfield, only Jack Wilshere (two), Andros Townsend (three) and James Milner (one) have scored David Platt scored 27 times from midfield between 1989 and 1996, while Bryan Robson managed 26 in an eight-year career This season, Fabian Delph (Aston Villa) and Jordan Henderson (Liverpool) scored nine club goals between them
"I have said that I need to score more goals, it is something I need to add to my game. Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes have done that for England."
Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes scored 64 times for England between them while Hodgson's current midfield is short of goals.
Before kick-off on Sunday, starting trio Wilshere, Fabian Delph and Jordan Henderson had failed to score once in 53 combined international appearances. Hodgson's current 23-man squad have scored 66 goals - with captain Wayne Rooney now netting 48 of those, his late winner on Sunday moving him level with Lineker in England's all-time list.
"We have talked about goals from midfield before," said Hodgson.
"We have got quality technicians in midfield. We have got Wilshere, Henderson, Delph, Adam Lallana and James Milner and this is the time to start proving that because we will need their goals. We can't just rely on the front men."
'Jack's performance was top class'
Jack Wilshere won goal of the season for his last-day strike for Arsenal against West Brom
Hodgson was full of praise for Wilshere's performance and believes he can continue to perform at international level.
He said: "I thought Jack's performance in the second half was top class, controlling the midfield with the sort of performance we have seen from him for a while now.
"If we can keep him fit and he can get plenty of league and international matches, he is at a young age and we would like to think we have got a very good player going forward."? Republican Gov. Sam Brownback said Thursday that he’s considering proposing a new religious objections law for Kansas following the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of gay marriage, and he defended his administration’s cautious response to the ruling.
Same-sex couples can obtain marriage licenses in all 105 Kansas counties, but the state is not allowing gay and lesbian spouses to change their names on driver’s licenses, nor has it said whether couples can file joint income tax returns. The state has not extended coverage to gay spouses under its health insurance plan for government workers.
Brownback has been a strong supporter of the state’s gay marriage ban, which was reinforced in 2005 by an amendment to the Kansas Constitution overwhelmingly approved by voters. In February, he rescinded an executive order issued in 2007 by then-Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in state hiring and employment decisions, saying legislators should approve such a policy.
The conservative governor said the state will move “as expeditiously as we can” to make changes, but he didn’t have a timetable.
“You have to understand and get the mechanisms in place,” he told reporters. “We’ve had meetings with the attorney general, with the relevant Cabinet agencies. We want to make sure to do this right.”
Asked whether he’d outline a proposal for legislators next year, Brownback said, “We’re looking at that.” Lawmakers are out of session for the year.
“We want to make sure that people’s religious liberties are protected,” he said.
Arkansas and Indiana enacted religious objections laws this year but were forced to change them because of a national backlash, including business groups. In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a GOP presidential candidate, issued an executive order in May to protect opponents of gay marriage after his state’s lawmakers refused to enact a religious objections law, and his action is being challenged in court.
The Republican-dominated Kansas Legislature considered a religious objections law last year but didn’t pass it, with Brownback, a conservative Catholic, said little during that debate.
Tom Witt, executive director of Equality Kansas, the state’s leading gay-rights group, said Brownback is “blinded by his ideology” and said state government should be moving immediately to extend benefits routinely available to straight married couples.
“It’s a continued attempt to deny gay and lesbian Kansans our constitutional rights,” Witt said. “This is not foot-dragging any more. This is just defiance.”
Kansas already has a “religious freedom” law, enacted in 2013, saying that state or local government agencies can’t substantially limit someone’s exercise of religion without a compelling reason. It allows lawsuits to challenge government actions.
Legislators last year considered providing additional protections specifically for churches, faith-based groups, businesses and individuals citing religious beliefs in refusing to participate in or provide goods, services and accommodations for same-sex weddings.
The measure passed the House but died in the Senate. It provoked national criticism because it covered situations outside of marriage, and opponents said it would sanction widespread discrimination against gays and lesbians, even by government officials.
After last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican skeptical of last year’s proposal, said the state must re-examine its religious objections laws. House Speaker Ray Merrick, a Stilwell Republican, said Thursday that he’s sure legislators will respond to the gay marriage decision, though he’s not sure how.In one of history's most stunning victories for humane farming, Australia's largest supermarket chain, Coles, will as of January 1 stop selling company branded pork and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. As an immediate result, 34,000 mother pigs will no longer be kept in stalls for long periods of their lives, and 350,000 hens will be freed from cages.
Not to be outdone, the nation's other dominant supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory farmed animal products. In fact all of Woolworth's house brand eggs are now cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who operate stall-free farms.
Coles and Woolworths together account for a dominant 80 percent of all supermarket sales in Australia.
The move to open up the cages was fueled by "consumer sentiment," and it has been synchronous with a major campaign against factory farming of animals led by Animals Australia. The campaign features a TV ad, titled "When Pigs Fly," in which an adorable piglet tells the story of animals sentenced to life in cramped cages, and then flies to freedom.
Meanwhile, in the United States, egg factory farms cram more than 90 percent of the country's 280 million egg-laying hens into barren cages so small the birds can't even spread their wings. Each bird spends her entire life given less space than a sheet of paper. And in a reality that does not please fans of Wilber or Babe, between 60 to 70 percent of the more than five million breeding pigs in the United States are kept in crates too small for them to so much as turn around.
There are laws against cruelty to animals in the United States, but most states specifically exempt animals destined for human consumption. The result is that the animal agriculture industry routinely does things to animals that, if you did them to a dog or a cat, would get you put in jail.
Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, explains: "Most of the anti-cruelty laws exempt farm animals as long as the practices are considered to be normal by the agriculture industry. What has happened is that bad has become normal, and no matter how cruel it is, normal is legal."
But here, too, change is coming. Undercover investigations have led to a $497 million judgment against the now defunct Hallmark Meat Packing company, and to the recent temporary shutdown of Central Valley Meat Company over what federal investigators termed "egregious, inhumane handling and treatment of livestock." California and Michigan have passed laws that will phase in a ban on battery cages for hens, and nine U.S. states have joined the entire European Union in heading towards a ban on confining pigs in gestation crates.
Worried that consumers are starting to find out the truth about treatment of modern farm animals and will demand further changes, industry leaders are pushing for "ag gag" laws that would hide factory farming and slaughterhouse abuses from public scrutiny. Recently passed laws in Iowa and Utah threaten jail time for anyone working undercover and taking pictures or video of animals in factory farms without permission.
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What don't they want us to know? What are they trying to hide? What would happen if the veil was lifted and we saw the level of cruelty that has become the norm in U.S. industrial meat production?
A poll conducted by Lake Research partners found that 94 percent of Americans agree that animals raised for food on farms deserve to be free from abuse and cruelty, and that 71 percent of Americans support undercover investigative efforts by animal welfare organizations to expose animal abuse on industrial farms.
Most farmers don't try to be cruel to animals, but they do worry about how to cut costs. And so long as consumers are kept in the dark about the real source of their food, farm owners have no economic incentive to do more than the minimum necessary to appease regulatory authorities.
Want to take action? Join the Food Revolution Network, an online community dedicated to healthy, sustainable, humane and delicious food for all.
Or join the Humane Society's campaign for farm animal protection, or Farm Sanctuary's work for animal welfare legislation. Or if you want to save 100 animals per year, you can sign up for PETA's free veg starter kit.
What Caused So Much Fuss? Here's The "Pigs Fly" Ad From Animals Australia:
Animals Australia - Pigs fly. And sing. With chickens. from FSM on Vimeo.
This post originally appeared at the Huffington Post.A public meeting was held Wednesday evening to gauge public interest in a possible gay-centric high school in Toronto.
University student Fan Wu, 20, says the Toronto District School Board could make life easier for some students if they considered his proposal for the new type of alternative high school.
Wu hosted a forum Wednesday at the 519 Church Street Community Centre in the Church-Wellesley village to discuss his idea.
CBC cameras were not allowed inside the meeting, as organizers said it would not allow people to speak freely on the topic.
Wu however did speak with CBC News outside. He said the idea for a gay-centric school sprung out of his own experience.
"I experienced a culture in which I could not speak about my sexuality to the rest of my school," he said. "So I would say that although the bullying is not overt, I would call it a sort of covert bullying."
Wu's idea has already started to spark debate.
Irene Miller, president of the Toronto chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), says separating kids because of their sexual orientation won't help encourage acceptance.
"What you're doing is saying: 'If we take away all the kids who are being bullied, then the bullying stops,'" Miller said. "What we should be doing is take away all the bullies and the bullying will stop. It's the wrong end of the stick."
'Not a segregation project'
Wu maintains this conceptual school is "not a segregation project" but would simply be another alternative school focusing on diversity and acceptance.
"This is not an ostracism project," Wu said. "As with most alternative schools, every student will have a choice to apply to this school, regardless of their academic standing, regardless of their financial background, regardless of their sexuality in particular.
"So we would welcome allies, straight people, lesbian, gay, bi, trans, people of all sorts into this school. There is no ghettoization going on here."
Similar criticism about segregation was also expressed about a controversial Africentric high school program at Winston Churchill Collegiate in Scarborough.
Last week it was revealed that the program had just six students enrolled. However, the city already has an Africentric elementary school which opened in 2009.
Miller maintains that the creation of a gay-centric school isn't working toward the bigger picture.
"It's taking one group of children and singling them out," she said.
"It's a hetero-sexist society and we presume people to be straight. We should change that way of thinking because we know not every one of those children is straight so society at large has to make a pivotal change in order to educate that 10 to 15 per cent of kids in school today [who are] LGBTQ."
The Toronto District School Board already runs the Triangle Program at the Oasis Alternative School, which is a Grade 9 through 12 curriculum taught through an LGBTQ lens.
The board says it would not comment on the proposed new secondary school until it has seen an official proposal.
Wu hopes to put forth a formal proposal if the interest shown at Wednesday's meeting is strong enough.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Not all Tories are convinced about the new code, as Vicky Young reports
The Conservative Party has issued a voluntary code of conduct to all its MPs telling them not to "bully, abuse or harass" their employees.
Staff were entitled to "work in an environment free from unwelcome behaviour and inappropriate language", the document says.
The move comes amid concerns over the working culture in Westminster.
Commons Speaker John Bercow has plans to launch a hotline for staff with concerns about bulling.
And an investigation by Channel 4 News, broadcast on Thursday, uncovered a "climate of sexual harassment" in a survey of parliamentary workers.
The programme said it had interviewed 70 people from "all political parties and sexual orientations", and found that incidents of sexual harassment and abuse of power in Parliament were commonplace.
Young men were more likely to be sexually harassed than women, it concluded.
'Three stage process'
A Conservative spokesman explained: "The code of conduct acts as a basic statement of what should be best practice in the workplace for Conservative members and their staff."
People are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect as they carry out their work John Bercow, Commons speaker
"It is based upon a three-stage process of mediation, grievance hearing and appeal.
"The process conforms to relevant employment law, ACAS guidance and HR best practice and is added as a schedule to the contract of employment."
The code of conduct has been leaked to the BBC. It says employees have the right to:
be treated with dignity, respect and courtesy by their employer, colleagues, House staff, contractors, visitors and members of the public;
be valued for the work that they do;
be free from any form of discrimination, victimisation, harassment or bullying;
work in an environment free from unwelcome behaviour and inappropriate language.
MPs were expected to:
interact with their employees in a fair, reasonable and consistent manner;
use appropriate channels should issues relating to delivery standards arise;
fully co-operate with the Conservative Pastoral Care Team (CPCT) should a grievance procedure be instigated;
ensure their employees act in accordance with the spirit and ethos of this policy in their dealings with House staff;
lead by example to encourage and foster an atmosphere of respect and tolerance;
not use their position to bully, abuse or harass employees or assume a threatening or intimidating style or discriminate against them.
Labour said that its MPs had a "long-standing complaints procedure in its rules and has never tolerated unacceptable behaviour".
But it is nonetheless in the process of establishing "an independent complaints process which will apply to every member of the Parliamentary Labour Party", a spokesperson added.
"These changes will make sure there is a clear, independent process for people who work for MPs to make a complaint about serious allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
"These proposals have been drafted in conjunction with lawyers, HR professionals and trade unions who represent the staff of many MPs and peers."
'Self-employed'
Commons speaker John Bercow is planning to launch a confidential hotline for MPs or staff who feel they have been the victim of bullying or harassment.
In a statement, Mr Bercow said bullying and harassment in the workplace was "completely unacceptable" and that he would now look into whether procedures in Parliament were in need of reform.
"People are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect as they carry out their work," he said.
"The experience of working in Parliament for an MP should be positive and fulfilling. Time and again, people have told me how fortunate they feel to work here.
"That said, having learned for the first time this afternoon of these allegations, I will consider if there are lessons for the House of Commons to learn or procedures to be reformed.
"MPs are self-employed and employ their staff directly. The House, therefore, is limited in its ability to intervene in cases in which allegations of bullying or harassment by MPs of their staff are concerned. These cases are clearly a matter for the political parties."
Emma Grossmith, senior solicitor at legal firm Just Employment Law, said that some MPs were likely to be "first-time employers", who "may not always have been as robust in their employment practices as they ought".
She added: "It is certainly prudent for the Conservative Party to articulate its expectations.
"But this alone will not be enough to protect MPs from claims. Proper training for both employers and staff is the only way to ensure a permanent culture change."Roughly a third of the world's food crops require help with pollination, but more than 40 percent of the species that perform this vital service are under threat.
Researchers across disciplines have been searching for solutions. Some focus on ways to protect the bees and other crucial pollinators. But others are looking outside of the natural world for ways to protect crops like fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, and even chocolate and coffee.
Perhaps an army of robotic pollinators could keep humans well-supplied in these foods, some engineers have thought. And that's just the line of thinking that led a team of researchers in Japan to design a small drone capable of pollinating flowers.
After studying honeybees, Eijiro Miyako, a senior researcher at the Nanomaterials Research Institute in Japan, and colleagues realized they could use an ionic liquid gel to pick up the pollen from one flower and deposit it on another. But they couldn't paint the gel directly onto the slippery plastic of the little flying robot they were using. Instead, they needed something like the brush-like hairs that pick up pollen on bees. They tried affixed horsehairs to the drone and then added the ionic gel.
The researchers tested their device on the large, pink flowers of Japanese lilies. And it worked.
"When I could confirm the growing of pollen tubes under fluorescent microscopy," Dr. Miyako writes in an email to The Christian Science Monitor, "I thought that it was just mistakes. But it was true... I was really surprised. And I felt happiness that I'm a scientist."
The researchers describe their success in a paper published Thursday in the journal Chem.
As exciting as this success was for Miyako and the other researchers, it is only a first step. Scientists can build something capable of pollinating plants, but the team has yet to figure out how to apply the concept on the massive scale necessary to make it useful for farmers.
So, could a fleet of robo-pollinators replace, or at least supplement, the bees?
Although the answer isn't a straightforward no, it would be a challenging leap to go from this one little drone pollinating one large flower to an army of drones spreading across fields of crops, says Scott Swinton, an agricultural and environmental economist at Michigan State University who was not involved in the research.
In North America, farmers largely rely on white boxes full of European honeybees, Apis mellifera. These domestic bees live in dense populations with perhaps tens of thousands of worker bees in each hive. That is an enormous amount of pollination power, Dr. Swinton explains.
A fleet of drones to match that "would just be a very formidable cost," he says in a phone interview with the Monitor.
Here's how he breaks it down: "If an almond grower pays rent of $150/hive for 30,000 worker bees, that’s ½ cent per bee. If the bees work for 2 weeks in that grove, it’s 0.035 cents/day … Drone pollinators will have to slide pretty far down the cost curve to compete at that rate," he writes in a follow-up email to the Monitor.
"European honeybees continue to be by far the low-cost providers of this service," Swinton says. "And beating that mark is no easy job."
Taylor Ricketts, director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont who also wasn't involved in the research, agrees that drones would be a pricey option. "I'm not sure that's going to be cheap enough to not make blueberries hundreds of dollars a pint," he tells the Monitor.
And Dr. Ricketts has concerns about how drones might navigate a plants' biology.
Although it was "clever to align these hairs and coat them with this material," and the successful pollination was intriguing, he says, the device itself might damage the flowers.
"A machine bumping into a flower can actually bruise or bend or break the stigma, that's the female part that actually receives the pollen, and we have to be careful when we're doing that with a paintbrush," Ricketts says. "So I wonder how you make sure you're not doing more harm than good when you have a drone."
Furthermore, he points out, a lily is a particularly easy flower for a drone to pollinate because of the shape of the flower and the easy access to its pollen. To make this more broadly applicable for smaller and more complex flower structures, the drones would need to be particularly agile.
A team of researchers at Harvard University Microbotics Lab have already made a "RoboBee," a tiny drone inspired by bees. So perhaps it is possible to build better drones.
Still, Joshua Campbell, an entomologist at the University of Florida who was not involved in the research, says "pollination systems are extremely complex and will always require insects. There is no substitute for... bees."
This is because pollination systems, and the insects that use them, have evolved together for thousands or millions of years. "They're so intricate, it's not something that we can piece together in a lab and come up with substitutes," he says in a phone interview with the Monitor.
"I think you can attempt to mimic them, and I'm not saying that you wouldn't have any success getting a plant pollinated," Dr. Campbell says. But the issue comes back to scale. "It's a big difference between pollinating one plant in the lab versus a hundred-acre field of watermelon or blueberries."
As for the technology itself, "It is a promising combination of a new development in particle adhesion coupled to existing drone technology," says Carson Meredith, a chemical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology who was not involved in the project.
Unlike the other scientists, Dr. Meredith believes the tiny pollinator-bot could successfully be scaled up, he writes in an email to the Monitor.
But he still sees some hurdles: the scientists still need to figure out how to mass produce their drones, and "how to reload fresh pollen on the drones once they have dropped their payload; can the gel be used over and over again?"
These drones join other proposed technological solutions for pollinating plants, Ricketts says.
In addition to simple hand pollination, he explains, some people have tried blowing pollen onto plants using large-scale devices like leaf-blowers. "They just kind of blow pollen all over the place and hope some lands on the right flower," he describes.
But Ricketts, Campbell, and Swinton say the best solution may already exist – native bees.
"We have these thousands of native bees," Ricketts says. "Many of them we know to be good pollinators."
These wild bees live more solitary lives than their domestic counterparts, building smaller nests in holes in the ground or old trees. But "there are some really cool efforts that are being done to domesticate native bees," Ricketts says. So perhaps one day they will be the new inhabitants of those iconic white boxes, or another sort of controlled hive.
But even without domesticating bumblebees or other native bees, farmers still might be able to take advantage of their pollinating power. All they have to do is make sure to set aside enough land conducive to the bees' habitat.
"To me, the exciting part of this whole idea and solution is that it's not a mystery what these bees need. It's really straightforward," Ricketts says. The bees just need three things: pollen and nectar to sustain them, crevices or holes to build a nest, and protection from pesticides.
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Although it's unclear if native bees could shoulder the burden if all honeybees were to disappear, Ricketts says, "I don't think we've given native bees a shot to prove how well it can be done."
[Editor's note: The original version of this story overstated the percentage of global food crops that rely on animal pollinators. It is around 30-35 percent.]Suspected Nusra Front militants were holding around 10 Lebanese truck drivers hostage at a major border crossing with Jordan Friday, two days after rebel fighters seized control of it from the Syrian government.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Seer al-Dinnieh Mayor Ahmad Alam said that eight trucks he owns were stuck with their drivers at the border. He explained that two were stuck on the Nasib crossing, two on Jordan's Jaber crossing and four were "out of reach".
Syrian rebels took control of the major southern crossing Wednesday night, a day after Jordanian authorities had announced the shutting of the borders.
With the takeover of the Nasib crossing, the Syrian government lost its last major crossing into Jordan, after rebels had taken control of the old customs "Jumrok Qadeem" crossing in October 2013.
...It’s been a couple of years since we first inadvertently discovered what happens when a Tesla runs completely out of battery range. Driving a standard rear wheel drive 85 kWh Model S running on Firmware 5.9 at the time, we quickly discovered that high winds and frequent |
the desirability of conserving resources in order to build up strong forces by the Spring of 1942. Since the wording of the letter in which the Air Ministry conveyed this information made it clear that no risks must be taken by pressing attacks in unfavourable weather, I now imposed a still more stringent limitation on the Air Officer Commanding No. 11 Group, who was asked to undertake no more Circus operations without reference to me.
The outbreak of War between the United States of America and Japan in December provided still further grounds for conservation, since it was clear that the supply of aircraft from America was likely to cease or at least be greatly reduced for some time to come. Consequently the constant drain imposed by even minor operations could no longer be afforded.
In point of fact, wintry weather was already upon us, and after 8th November no more Circus operations were carried out. The intensity of our other offensive operations was also substantially reduced as the year drew to its close.Recent Social Security data released this month revealed that income disparity is only growing in the United States. The released figures show that the median per capita wage in the US is $27,519. Given the costs for college, healthcare, and housing many households are simply falling out of the middle class. The two income household is now the common default for Americans. However, in many cases the two income household has arisen primarily for economic necessity. Many households today simply cannot get by on one income earner. Especially if a family has children, childcare is expensive and a good portion of any additional income is diverted into this expense. The decline of the middle class household would be more dramatic if it were not for the emergence of the dual income household. Given demographic trends, it appears that we have peaked in this category and many young Americans have no choice but to live in households with multiple streams of income. Many Americans learn the hard way that the two income household may actually be a trap.
Two income trap
Inflation is an insidious form of money destruction. The Fed would like you to believe that there is only very little inflation going on but I would ask you to look at the costs of higher education, housing, cars, food, and healthcare and ask yourself if inflation is absent. Primarily because of this destruction of purchasing power a single-income household in 1970s was better off than a dual-income household in the 2000s:
This is an interesting perspective. While the nominal amount of income for a dual-income household is higher, fixed costs are also much higher. In fact, the household in the 1970s had more disposable income adjusting for inflation than the dual-income household of today. How is that possible? You have to realize that many middle class families have gone into massive debt just to keep up with what they perceive to be a middle class life. If both spouses are working and children are involved, childcare is not a cheap expense. This can eat up a good portion of any additional earned income. Also, children are not cheap and require added expenses (i.e., healthcare, school, food, etc). So you are left with this situation where a household may be earning more but in the end, discretionary income is less after expenses are factored out.
Many of these dual-income households are now witnessing their kids going off to college. There is a massive student debt bubble raging in this country. Parents are largely unable to fund the cost of their kid’s college education so many simply go into massive debt. Another trap given that many recent young graduates are finding it difficult to manage their large debt loads.
While the rise of dual-income households is not a new trend what is new is that we seem to be reaching a peak here.
Both spouses working
Of married couples, 67 percent are in dual-income households. This is a large jump from the 1960s. However as the chart above highlights this may have peaked sometime in the last decade. The recession has been tough on households. Given that the 2000s were the decade of the real estate bubble, many of the jobs that were lost after the crash came from fields where the majority of workers were men (i.e., construction, etc). Because of this shift after the recession, men and women are nearly equally represented in the workforce:
Many households have but no choice to have two workers. The fact that the Social Security data shows that the median per capita wage is $27,519 we then begin to realize that many Americans are simply treading water. We then have stats showing that 1 out of 3 Americans have zero saved up and that 53 percent of Americans own no stocks.
The two-income trap is real and has only become a larger phenomenon after this financial crisis. If we look at household income, adjusting for inflation it is back to where it was nearly a generation ago.
Household income
Inflation has ravaged household balance sheets especially when it comes to income:
US household income is now back to where it was in the late 1980s adjusting for inflation. Try sending your kid to a private college that costs $50,000 per year when you are only earning $50,000 a year as a household. Is it any wonder why student debt is now over $1.1 trillion? The two-income trap is a part of life for many and only reveals the slow demise of the middle class in the US. We’ve highlighted the alarmingly high number of Millennials living at home because of the current economy. Some are working thus creating households with three (or more) income streams. Yet even then, many are still just getting by. Welcome to low wage America. This dual-income trap makes sense considering the fastest growing employment sectors come in the low-wage food and entertainment fields.
If you enjoyed this post click here to subscribe to a complete feed and stay up to date with today’s challenging market!Here is another update on framing lumber prices. Early in 2013 lumber prices came close to the housing bubble highs - and prices are once again near the bubble highs.
This graph shows two measures of lumber prices: 1) Framing Lumber from Random Lengths through October 2017 (via NAHB), and 2) CME framing futures.
Prices in 2017 are up solidly year-over-year and might exceed the housing bubble highs in the Spring of 2018.
Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.
Right now Random Lengths prices are up 25% from a year ago, and CME futures are up about 45% year-over-year.
There is a seasonal pattern for lumber prices. Prices frequently peak around May, and bottom around October or November - although there is quite a bit of seasonal variability.
It looks like we will see record prices in 2018.Click on the desired item to read the original making of and view construction photos
8-Bit Computers
Atari
Coleco
Nintendo
Sega
Playstation
Neo Geo MVS
Xbox – Microsoft
Accessories
Audio FX 5+1 Headset
Access Controller
Guitar Hero Single-Handed pedal controller
Other Projects
MGDp
Somewhat portable PC built inside an empty beer box (Back when I was too cheap to buy a laptop) Unfortunately now it has been mostly stripped for wires, sockets and plugs since the computer itself was mostly worthless.
StripfunMaze
An “awesome” game I programmed for the Atari 800 computer. In BASIC no less! Run this baby with an emulator or a real Atari if you have an SIO2PC cable. Will provide seconds, if not minutes of fun!
Note – this list does not include projects found in my book. To see those portables please check the book section.Imagine
You are one of the founding members of your league, have served on the Board of Directors (BOD) since the beginning, and any time the league faces tough choices, you never hesitate to make decisions. The league is your baby. You were more than eager to teach how to tie the laces on its first pair of skates, you jumped at the chance to help think up and yell its first jeer, and you lovingly nurtured while it stumbled through the league's first home bout. You honestly feel if you weren't making important league decisions, the league either wouldn't survive, or would end up evolving in detrimental ways...so, why in the world would you relinquish your power? Instead, you do whatever it takes to ensure the league continues to head in the direction you know is best. Those who disagree with your decisions either don't understand your vision or don't have the league's best interest at heart. You would rather see the league “split” or dissolve before allowing anything you don't agree with to occur.
Have you met, or heard of, someone who could relate to this scenario? Have you been a member of a league where an entitled member, or members, called the shots while ignoring differing opinions, even when the majority of the league was in favor of those opinions? Did you leave a league to join or start a new league because something like this happened? Or...perhaps you find yourself agreeing with and relating to the person described above, nodding along to each sentence as if I'm describing you.
Whether the opening paragraph describes you or someone you know, I'm sure the league involved has had to deal with internal strife because of it and if it hasn't yet, someday soon it will find itself in crisis. Hopefully this article will give you some insight into this type of issue and a few ideas on how to deal with it, no matter what side of the track you're on.
Founder's Syndrome
Since I started playing Roller Derby almost 6 years ago (wow, where has the time gone?!), I have heard of, and experienced, leagues suffering from “Founder's Syndrome.” Founder's Syndrome (also known as Founderitis) occurs when one or more creators maintain disproportionate power and influence after establishment, leading to organizational and personal issues. I think this quote from the Founder's Syndrome Wikipedia article is an excellent description, “The passion and charisma of the founder or founders, which was such an important reason for the successful establishment of the organization, becomes a limiting and destructive force, rather than the creative and productive one it was in the early stages.”
Founder's Syndrome (FS from now on) isn't unique to Roller Derby leagues and can occur at any non-profit or for profit business; however, many of us never encountered it until we became involved with this sport so dealing with it has been a struggle. Those struggling from FS may not even know of its existence.
FS can be very destructive to an organization. When members feel their opinions are not being considered and their needs not being addressed, league morale plummets. When league members are unhappy, word spreads, which can cause a decline in membership. As the divide between the privileged few and league majority grows, so does bad blood and visceral hatred for those in positions of power. Volatile tension increases until the unhappy masses either implement a hostile takeover or quit to form their own league or join an existing one nearby.
Unfortunately, this isn't just a cautionary tale...and it gets worse. Those suffering from FS not only cause league animosity, some of their attempts to maintain control could be illegal. Each individual state has laws pertaining to businesses formed as corporations (which is the business model most leagues operate under nowadays), whether non-profit or for profit, in regards to items such as voting, meetings, minutes, etc. For example, in Alaska, any corporation's Board of Directors (BOD) has specific notification requirements prior to holding meetings or when proposing to change corporation bylaws. They must also keep adequate minutes of all BOD meetings and have these minutes available when requested by shareholders/members or else they could face at least $5,000 in fines. From what I've gathered, actual jail time is probably not going to occur unless something like embezzlement is going on, but just one fine of $5,000 would seriously impact any Roller Derby league's bottom line.
Now that we have discussed some worst case scenarios, let's talk about how to avoid the pitfalls of FS in the first place...
Preventative Measures
Whether you are the founder of a league or later find yourself in a position of authority, you have the power to keep FS symptoms at bay. First and foremost, have an exit strategy. If you have the mindset that you are going to occupy that position for a specific amount of time and truly want the league to thrive when the next person fills that role, the league has a much better chance of surviving. Instead of keeping information close to the vest, create/update league documents with instructions on how you perform specific tasks pertaining to your position. When it comes time to hand over the reins, don't think of it as letting go of whatever prestige or power that came with that title. Instead, think of it as a graduation. Just like completing high school or college, graduating from a position of authority is an opportunity to transition into a new phase of your life.
For the league, changeover can help keep things fresh when those elected have new ideas and different skill sets than the previous incumbents, which helps to prevent burnout. It can be difficult to hand your baby over to be cared for by a new individual. You need to have faith in your fellow league mates and believe they too are looking out for the league's best interests. Yes, sometimes new ideas end up flopping or the person you thought would do really well ends up not being a good fit, but that's ok. Mistakes happen, that's how you grow as a league and find new ways to tackle issues. Once you overcome an obstacle as a league and put safeguards in place so it doesn't happen again, your league will be stronger for it.
FS For Life
Roller Derby culture is one of acceptance, compromise, and inclusiveness; however, every once in a while you'll find someone so taken over by FS symptoms that they would rather destroy their league, their “baby,” than see anyone else take over. If you know of someone like this, please encourage them to be completely transparent and create a league with a sole-proprietor business structure. This way, there are no pretenses or false promises and those who join are aware of what they are getting into and how the league will be governed.
If you have faced challenges involving those suffering from Founder's Syndrome, please feel free to share your story in the comments section, especially if your league was able to overcome and continue to survive afterward. I look forward to hearing form you.
Until We Skate Again,
ShockerAbout ATS What is ATS?
What is ATS good for?
Suggestion on learning ATS
Acknowledgments What is ATS? ATS is a statically typed programming language that unifies implementation with formal specification. It is equipped with a highly expressive type system rooted in the framework Applied Type System, which gives the language its name. In particular, both dependent types and linear types are available in ATS. The current implementation of ATS2 (ATS/Postiats) is written in ATS1 (ATS/Anairiats), consisting of more than 180K lines of code. ATS can be as efficient as C/C++ both time-wise and memory-wise and supports a variety of programming paradigms that include: Functional programming. The core of ATS is a call-by-value functional language inspired by ML. The availability of linear types in ATS often makes functional programs written in it run not only with surprisingly high efficiency (when compared to C) but also with surprisingly small (memory) footprint (when compared to C as well).
. The core of ATS is a call-by-value functional language inspired by ML. The availability of linear types in ATS often makes functional programs written in it run not only with surprisingly high efficiency (when compared to C) but also with surprisingly small (memory) footprint (when compared to C as well). Imperative programming. The novel approach to imperative programming in ATS is firmly rooted in the paradigm of programming with theorem-proving. The type system of ATS allows many features considered dangerous in other languages (such as explicit pointer arithmetic and explicit memory allocation/deallocation) to be safely supported in ATS, making ATS well-suited for implementing high-quality low-level systems.
. The novel approach to imperative programming in ATS is firmly rooted in the paradigm of programming with theorem-proving. The type system of ATS allows many features considered dangerous in other languages (such as explicit pointer arithmetic and explicit memory allocation/deallocation) to be safely supported in ATS, making ATS well-suited for implementing high-quality low-level systems. Concurrent programming. ATS can support multithreaded programming through safe use of pthreads. The availability of linear types for tracking and safely manipulating resources provides an effective approach to constructing reliable programs that can take great advantage of multicore architectures.
. ATS can support multithreaded programming through safe use of pthreads. The availability of linear types for tracking and safely manipulating resources provides an effective approach to constructing reliable programs that can take great advantage of multicore architectures. Modular programming. The module system of ATS is largely infuenced by that of Modula-3, which is both simple and general as well as effective in supporting large scale programming. In addition, ATS contains a subsystem ATS/LF that supports a form of (interactive) theorem-proving, where proofs are constructed as total functions. With this subsystem, ATS is able to advocate a programmer-centric approach to program verification that combines programming with theorem-proving in a syntactically intertwined manner. Furthermore, ATS/LF can also serve as a logical framework (LF) for encoding various formal systems (such as logic systems and type systems) together with proofs of their (meta-)properties. What is ATS good for? ATS can greatly enforce precision in practical programming.
ATS can greatly facilitate refinement-based software development.
ATS allows the programmer to write efficient functional programs that directly manipulate native unboxed data representation.
ATS allows the programmer to reduce the memory footprint of a program by making use of linear types.
ATS allows the programmer to enhance the safety (and efficiency) of a program by making use of theorem-proving.
ATS allows the programmer to write safe low-level code that runs in OS kernels.
ATS can help teach type theory, demonstrating both convincingly and concretely the power and potential of types in constructing high-quality software. Suggestion on learning ATS ATS is feature-rich (like C++). Prior knowledge of functional programming based on ML and imperative programming based on C can be a big plus for learning ATS. In general, one should expect to encounter many unfamiliar programming concepts and features in ATS and be prepared to spend a substantial amount of time on learning them. Hopefully, one will become a superbly confident programmer at the end who can enjoy implementing large and complex systems with minimal need for debugging. Acknowledgments The development of ATS has been funded in part by National Science Foundation (NSF) under the grants no. CCR-0081316/CCR-0224244, no. CCR-0092703/0229480, no. CNS-0202067, no. CCF-0702665 and no CCF-1018601. As always, any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
Yes, ATS can! What is new in the community? GO Would you like to try ATS on-line? OK The core of ATS is a typed call-by-value functional programming language that is largely inspired by ML. For instance, the following tiny ATS program is written in a style of functional programming: // // Yes, you can edit // (* Say Hello! once *) val () = print"Hello!
" // (* Say Hello! 3 times *) val () = 3*delay(print"Hello!") val () = print_newline((*void*)) // Try-it-yourself ATS is both accurate and expressive in its support for (static) typechecking. The following code demonstrates the ability of ATS in detecting out-of-bounds subscripting at compile-time: // // Yes, you can edit // (* Build a list of 3 *) val xs = $list{int}(0, 1, 2) // val x0 = xs[0] // legal val x1 = xs[1] // legal val x2 = xs[2] // legal val x3 = xs[3] // illegal // Try-it-yourself ATS is highly effective and flexible in its support for a template-based approach to code reuse. As an example, the following code is likely to remind someone of higher-order functions but it is actually every bit of a first-order implementation in ATS: // // Yes, you can edit // extern fun{} f0 (): int extern fun{} f1 (int): int extern fun{} repeat_f0f1 (int): int // implement {}(*tmp*) repeat_f0f1(n) = if n = 0 then f0() else f1(repeat_f0f1(n-1)) // end of [if] // fun times ( m:int, n:int ) : int = // m*n repeat_f0f1 (m) where { implement f0<> () = 0 implement f1<> (x) = x + n } // fun power ( m:int, n:int ) : int = // m^n repeat_f0f1 (n) where { implement f0<> () = 1 implement f1<> (x) = m * x } // val () = println! ("5*5 = ", times(5,5)) val () = println! ("5^2 = ", power(5,2)) val () = println! ("2^10 = ", power(2,10)) val () = println! ("3^10 = ", power(3,10)) // Try-it-yourself With a functional core of ML-style and certain ad-hoc support for overloading (of function symbols), ATS can readily accommodate a typical combinator-based style of coding that is often considered a prominent signature of functional programming. The following "one-liner" solution to the famous Queen Puzzle should offer a glimpse of using combinators in ATS: // (* Solving the Queen Puzzle *) // #define N 8 // it can be changed #define NSOL 10 // it can be changed // val () = (((fix qsolve(n: int): stream(list0(int)) => if(n > 0)then((qsolve(n-1)*list0_make_intrange(0,N)).map(TYPE{list0(int)})(lam($tup(xs,x))=>cons0(x,xs))).filter()(lam(xs)=>let val-cons0(x0,xs) = xs in xs.iforall()(lam(i, x)=>((x0)!=x)&&(abs(x0-x)!=i+1)) end)else(stream_make_sing(nil0())))(N)).takeLte(NSOL)).iforeach()(lam(i, xs)=>(println!("Solution#", i+1, ":"); xs.rforeach()(lam(x) => ((N).foreach()(lam(i)=>(print_string(ifval(i=x," Q", "."))));println!()));println!())) // Try-it-yourself Please find on-line the entirety of this example, which is meant to showcase programming with combinators in ATS.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Flying Squirrels are closer to getting a new home in Richmond, at least according to team president and managing general partner Lou DiBella.
Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, and Virginia Commonwealth University announced Tuesday they would work together to find a spot to build a new baseball stadium.
"This new initiative may very well serve everyone’s interests, particularly the community’s, while allowing the Squirrels to stay in our hometown," DiBella said. "It feels like we’re closer to a solution than ever before."
Here are some burning questions and their answers about today's announcement:
Where would the stadium go?
While we do not know exactly where the new stadium would be located, we know where it would NOT be built. It will not go where the Diamond currently sits.
That is because the city announced the new stadium would be near the Diamond, but not on the 60 acres of city-owned land between Boulevard and Hermitage Road.
Sources tell CBS6 the Virginia ABC’s Central Office and Warehouse is being considered as a new location for The Diamond.
The city would not confirm the ABC building is in the running, and a spokesperson from the Virginia ABC sent us the following statement:
“At this time, ABC has not received any offers for its property. Virginia ABC does monitor its warehouse capacity and central office activities to determine future needs, but is not currently planning to relocate any portion of its operations. Any decisions about Virginia ABC’s central office and warehouse location will be based on what makes good business sense for the commonwealth.”
The Virginia ABC’s Central Office and Warehouse is located at 2901 Hermitage Rd., just a few hundred yards away for the Diamond.
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Why move the Flying Squirrels away from Boulevard?
Mayor Jones said building a new stadium elsewhere in the city is vital in order to clear out the space where the Diamond is currently located. The city would like to develop in order to broaden Richmond's tax base.
"It’s vitally important that we find ways to generate maximum revenue to fund public schools and other services that a growing city needs," Mayor Jones said in a statement. "This approach opens a pathway for full development of the city’s most valuable land, provides the Squirrels and VCU baseball with a new home and keeps the ballpark in an area that Richmonders love."
Who pays for the new stadium?
While the announcement did not address specific stadium costs, the City of Richmond, the Flying Squirrels and VCU emphasized "a new ballpark would likely be funded primarily by the ballpark’s users."
When will this happen?
Over the next 90 days, the city will "pursue a request for qualifications from national real estate developers, engage regional partners, and continue public engagement to determine the long-term future of the Boulevard area."
At the end of those 90 days, the Squirrels, VCU and city leaders will report the progress of their findings to the public.
It appears the city does not expect the Squirrels to have a new stadium next year, or the year after.
Mayor Jones said the city intended to "extend the Squirrels’ current lease on the Diamond for a second one-year extension to December 31, 2018."
WDPT? What does Parney think?
While his title is Richmond Flying Squirrels Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Todd "Parney" Parnell is really the face of the team here in Richmond.
He said the new stadium would help the Squirrels offer year-round activities -- in addition to baseball.
Fan reaction
Several fans showing up to watch a VCU-VMI baseball game at The Diamond Tuesday welcomed the news.
“I would like to see it stay around this area, you’ve got easy interstate access,” David Ross, a longtime Squirrels fan, said.
“I was glad to see it,” Bill Ford, another longtime fan, said.
While some welcomed the news, it’s still evident that Richmonders remain divided on the best plan for their stadium.
“I think down in the bottom will do real well,” Gary Leclair, a former VMI baseball player, said.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me why they wouldn’t fix what they have here,” Shannon Poppa, said.Author: Nathan Willis
You probably know the open source 3-D modeler Blender for its animation tools, which have brought audiences short films Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny. But Blender can create realistic 3-D models for any purpose, as Allan Brito's Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery (Packt Publishing, $45) presents. This book approaches Blender as an architecture visualization tool, detailing the features built in to the editor and the techniques that make architectural modeling differ from crafting game or video effects.
Brito begins with a brief introduction to Blender itself. Chapter one is a overview of the application, coupled with a brief description of architectural visualization. Chapter two is a guided tour of the Blender interface, including all of its constituent modes -- modeling, editing, rendering, and so forth. Chapter three delves deeper into Blender's modeling tools, explaining the important differences between different methods of creating objects, such as extrusion and modifiers.
Chapters four and five explore basic architectural modeling techniques in Blender. This includes building with proper proportion and scale, making precise adjustments, and attention to architectural particulars like symmetry and modeling rounded objects. It also includes a look at planning a project before you begin modeling objects, so that you can take better advantage of layers, level of detail, and external object libraries. Finally, it incorporates a discussion of importing CAD files from other applications, including which formats are supported and how to prepare them for import by removing unnecessary objects.
Chapter six deals with furniture models, as opposed to buildings. Tutorials for modeling two examples are given, but the bigger topic is how and when to take advantage of external furniture libraries. Brito lists resources for finding existing furniture models (both free and for sale), and describes how to make economical use of a small libraries when resources or time are limited.
Chapters seven through nine explore adding detail to Blender models with materials, textures, and UV mapping. Chapters 10 through 12 explore Blender's lighting system, including built-in lamps, shadows, the radiosity and ambient occlusion lighting models, and the extra options available through the external YafRay renderer.
Chapter 13 explains two animation options for use after a model is complete. First, it describes how to create an animated walk-through or fly-through of a completed model suitable for use in a presentation. Second, it explains how to use Blender's game engine to create a 3-D model that users and clients can explore interactively.
Finally, chapter 14 gives basic advice on how to post-process rendered images in the GIMP, including color correction and touching up stray rendering artifacts.
What's to like
Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery is primarily a guide for architects or draftsmen who have no experience with Blender. Consequently, if you are an experienced Blender wizard looking for help building a model of your dream house, you are likely to find much of the content repetitive.
But you might still learn a few things; Blender's architectural capabilities get little attention elsewhere compared to its game, video, and animation tools. The book spotlights features and tools that you might not have explored in other projects, such as the edge length display, which will automatically measure the lengths of objects' edges. Using it can help you maintain precise measurements in your model, but without the book I might never have found the switch to activate it, buried as it is in the Mesh Tools 1 menu.
Likewise, if you have never attempted an architectural model before, the basics covered about planning and building walls, rooms, openings, and furniture are useful. Without prior experience, you might waste considerable time trying to UV map walls with openings for doors and windows; the book gives practical advice on correctly placing seams.
And even those familiar with Blender can learn about the application by looking at it from a different perspective. I had not thought of the game engine's potential use as an interactive model walk-around tool, and the discussion on the differing effects of Blender's available lighting techniques could benefit 3-D designers of any stripe.
Still, the real winner is the person with some experience designing rooms and buildings -- perhaps even with other 3-D applications -- who has never encountered Blender before. Brito does a good job of providing a focused introduction to the complex package, explaining the tools necessary for constructing architectural models without getting sidetracked by situationally irrelevant topics like armatures, rigging, or NURBs. Reading through Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery, you could come away with the impression that modeling and rendering buildings was Blender's primary purpose.
What's not
In the minus column, the book suffers from one flaw shared with several black-and-white Blender texts: unclear illustrations, in particular on screenshots of model editing in Blender. Blender's gray-on-gray color scheme simply does not reproduce well in black-and-white; the interface looks muddy, and narrow, light-on-dark features like wire frame models get lost entirely.
This book fares better than some because it does not reduce the illustrations to postage-stamp size, but it is routinely difficult to see the in-program screenshots of small objects like cameras and lamps, thin objects like edges and loop cuts, and text labels. There are gray arrows pointing to items of interest in many of the illustrations, but they are too often lost in the low contrast gray of the screenshot and their own (gray) drop-shadows.
I'm not clear exactly how much of Blender's color scheme is adjustable; Ton Roosendaal has said that the forthcoming 2.50 Blender release will offer more customization. In the meantime, my advice to anyone else working on a black-and-white Blender book is to do everything you can to increase the contrast in the interface before you make your screenshots. The defaults never look good in print.
I also found a distressingly high number of proofreading mistakes in the book, including spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. The copy of the text I received is a first printing, of course, and hopefully future revisions will correct the mistakes. But as is, there are so many misplaced commas that I actually found them distracting me from the text -- and that takes a lot of misplaced commas.
Brito's writing style is informal, and while at times that goes well with the text's gentle introduction to Blender, it can also make some sections difficult to follow. For example, several passages concerning the tradeoffs of different technical approaches to a particular problem (such as building versus buying furniture models) devolve into a string of hypothetical questions. The result sounds more like the author having an argument with himself than giving the reader advice.
Also, some technical topics receive sparse discussion when additional detail would help the reader. For instance, radiosity, ambient occlusion, and YafRay's global illumination are presented as alternatives, each with its own pros and cons -- but the actual differences between the methods are never spelled out. And it is mentioned casually more than once that using triangular faces on objects is bad, but the reason is never explained. In both cases, the book would have been strengthened by an in-depth explanation. Those who don't want such detail could skip it, but arming readers with more information can only help them make better decisions.
Finally, the book is not meant to serve as a tutorial or textbook -- there are only a handful of hands-on modeling exercises, and no bundled disk or downloadable examples -- but readers are likely to be at the computer with a copy of Blender running. A few more hands-on tutorials and example files might go a long way toward explaining advanced concepts like lighting and animation.
Wrap
On the whole, Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery is a good buy for people already experienced with architecture or interior design but who are just taking their first steps with Blender. It takes a systematic approach to a large and complex application, and focuses on just those features that the reader needs to get started.
Experienced Blender users with a background in animation, character design and rigging, or gaming will not find as much new information in the book -- but they may be surprised at points by how much Blender can do, and will benefit from Brito's experience when they are called upon to design realistic-looking buildings.When Kansas State Senator Susan Wagle voted for Senate Bill 79 that would ban Sharia law in Kansas, she said that a vote in favour of the legislation was "a vote to protect women". "In this great country of ours, and in the state of Kansas," Wagle said, "women have equal rights."
Her words echoed the sentiments of many of the 33 Senators in Kansas, in March 2012, who voted in support of the law. The Bill passed and was signed into law by the Governor of Kansas. On July 1, 2012, the application of foreign or Sharia law was effectively banned in the State of Kansas.
A mere month later, in August 2012, a court in Johnson City, Kansas, faced the consequences of the ban whose intent was to "preclude[s] the courts from applying foreign law, legal codes or systems that violate the public policy of our state or federal constitutions". It has been widely viewed as precluding courts from applying Sharia law.
Before the Johnson City District Court came the Soleimanis, both from Iran and now divorcing in Kansas. The wife, Elham Soleimani asked the court to enforce their Islamic marriage contract which stipulated a payment of $677,000 from the husband to the wife in case of divorce.
The facts of the case were a saga of love, betrayal and abuse. Faramarz Soleimani had left Iran decades ago, fleeing from the draconian changes brought on by the Islamic Revolution. With him, was his wife Zohra Bamani.
The two arrived in Kansas and opened a restaurant, obtaining amnesty in their new country so that they would not have to return to a much changed Iran. They stayed for 30 years, until Soleimani, now nearly 60 years old, got on the internet and found love again.
His new flame was Elham Moghadem, 24 years younger, living in Iran. Rapt in passion, Soleimani divorced Zohra Bamani and arrived in Iran to marry again. His second marriage took place on July 19, 2009, two years before the Sharia ban and long before either the new husband or the new wife could predict just how bad things would become between them.
In the first heady months of romance, the newly married Elham and Faramarz Soleimani revelled in wedded bliss. To prove the eternity of his devotion to his new partner, Soleimani had her name tattooed on his chest. To prove she was a loving wife, Elham tried her best to get used to Kansas.
The divorce case of the Soleimanis
Based on the story told by court records, the end came hard and fast and with an avalanche of court proceedings. On June 1, 2011, less than two years after her marriage to Soleimani - the man she had found on the internet and followed across the world - Elham filed for divorce in the courthouse in Johnson City, Kansas.
Surrounding the divorce petition were allegations and pleadings of domestic violence, assault and battery, rape and even a marital tort case for spousal abuse.
By the time she filed for divorce, Elham, the once beloved bride, was alone, destitute, living in a domestic abuse shelter and looking to American courts to help her after her marriage became a harrowing ordeal.
Her account was one of betrayal, of having been wheedled into marriage by a man who boasted about his great wealth and promised her a fairy tale life in luxurious America. What she had found instead, like so many immigrant women arriving with little known and hardly seen husbands, was a domineering and abusive old man who wished to keep her in servitude.
So, betrayed Elham relied and asked for relief from the Johnson City court on the one thing she felt was in her favour: the Islamic marriage contract signed between the parties - which delineated a mahr (dowry) - during their wedding in Iran.
Based on its stipulations, Elham Soleimani, the wife, could demand the payment of 1,354 gold coins (valued at $677, |
that the dog was communicating at all.
When someone's dog is attacked at a dog park by another dog and says, "There was no warning," what that person is really saying is, "I wasn't paying enough attention or didn't know enough to see the signals my dog and the other dog were sending each other and step in before things escalated." Don't blame yourself if you didn't see it. Dog body language can be hard to read and "conversations" can happen lightning fast. But don't say there was no warning. Instead, ask how you missed the warning and how you might catch it next time.
"He just wants to play."
This might be the case if your dog is play bowing to another dog, enticing another dog into a game of chase with a toy or fake-bolting. But it could also be a lot more complicated than that. This phrase is often said by owners whose dogs are being overly exuberant, being a bully, or are otherwise pushing the boundaries of acceptable social behavior. And often, the person saying this doesn’t know enough about dog body language and social cues to understand when another dog is getting fed up with their own dog's antics or, equally as problematic, their dog is not being playful at all.
Perhaps the dog who "wants to play" is showing nervousness about the pecking order and is being overly submissive by face licking another dog and rolling over in a submissive posture. Perhaps the dog who "wants to play" is being a bully by nipping, barking at, or standing on another dog when their "play" partner is showing signs of frustration or fear.
Saying that a dog just wants to play too often gives an excuse for bad or potentially dangerous social behavior. If an owner is constantly pawning off their dog’s annoying, mean or awkward behavior as trying to be playful then it might be time to study up on canine body language and find out what’s really going on.
"Dogs love me."
Cue the eyeroll from every person who owns a dog that doesn't like other humans.
Most dogs might love you, but not all dogs do. It's just a statistical reality. Even if most dogs seem to think you're made of tennis balls and treats, some dogs won't love you. Not even if you really were made of tennis balls and treats. So, if someone asks you to keep your distance from their dog, please, for the love of DINOS, don't respond with this phrase. (A DINOS is a dog in need of space, and an owner knows best when their dog will be uncomfortable with you, no matter how convinced you are of your lovability.)
By assuming that a dog will appreciate your approach, you're opening yourself up to real danger for a bite. And even if a dog doesn't bite you, you may be causing psychological distress to a dog that doesn't want you so close — distress that could potentially lead to a bite later on down the road when the dog feels it needs to protect itself from people who come charging up saying, "Dogs love me."
"My dog is great with kids." All kids? All the time? Or kids of a certain age or behavior? Kids act differently at different ages, and your dog who might be amazing with an infant may be less confident or patient with a bumbling, tumbling toddler with erratic, unpredictable movements. Or your dog who is tolerant of slower toddlers might have an over-stimulated prey drive when 7- or 8-year-olds are yelling, running around and jumping over furniture. Or your dog who is a saint with your kids and even the neighborhood kids might not be great when a new child comes along and joins the group; you just don't know until the situation pops up. Yes, your dog might be great with kids. And if that's the case, then wonderful and three cheers for your dog! We all want to have Lassies and Old Yellers and Good Dog Carls. But a dog who is great with all kids, all the time is rare. What family dogs are good at is having a high tolerance for most children, which is quite different from being a perfect playmate or nanny. It leaves the possibility open of your dog being pushed past their patience limits or comfort zones. So think carefully on the various boundaries you may need to put on this statement before you say this.
"He's a rescue so [insert excuse for behavior here]."
Some rescued dogs come from horrific pasts. They may have been saved from serious neglect or abuse, or have spent time as a stray on the street. Because of this, sometimes their past experiences are the reason why they have certain behavior issues. But as one of my high school teachers used to say, there is always a reason but seldom an excuse. Not all adopted dogs come with dark pasts, and not all adopted dogs have behaviors that can be waved away or excused because of previous experiences.
Personality traits like shyness, timidity and mistrust are sometimes just that: personality traits. And behavior issues like poor manners with other dogs, reactivity, or barking at strangers can't always be attributed to the mysterious past of your dog. Sometimes they're simply learned behaviors that need training to improve. If you've adopted a rescued dog, then you earn a big high-five! But only if you aren't dramatizing the dog's status as adopted and letting poor behavior sneak by.
"He's doing that to try and be dominant."
The whole "dominant dog" thing has frankly gotten out of control. The word is flung around as a way to explain practically any misbehavior from jumping on a person to digging through the trash to urinating on the bedspread. If your dog jumps on you or crawls on you when you're sitting on the floor, it's more likely that it's out of overexuberance and lack of solid training than because he's trying to show you who is boss. Even resource protection isn't necessarily a "dominance" issue — a dog just doesn't want to lose what he considers valuable, like a certain toy or a bowl of food. The fear and anxiety about that loss is as much a possible cause for a growl as a drive to be the leader of the pack. Assertiveness, confidence, a lack of confidence, pain or illness, excitement, exuberance, fear, mistrust, a lack of training... there are far more accurate ways of interpreting a dog's actions than the tired old line of "trying to be dominant."
McConnell writes, "Understanding social status is particularly important because misunderstanding what 'dominance' means has led to appallingly abusive behavior. So much old-fashioned obedience training could be summarized as, 'Do it because I told you to, and if you don't, I'll hurt you.' The assumption seemed to be that dogs should do what we say because we told them to; after all, we're the humans and they're the dogs, and surely humans have more social status than dogs." However, as McConnell goes on to point out, social status isn't all about dominance; it is a far more complex concept than one member of the family "pack" being the leader.
Whittling everything down to a dominance problem means losing sight of the complexity of social dynamics and creates blind spots for understanding behaviors. Don't let the real reason for behaviors, and therefore appropriate and effective solutions for training, get ignored because the word "dominance" springs to mind ahead of anything else.
"He knows better than that."
Does he? Or does your dog know a certain way to behave only in a certain context? Dogs can have a hard time translating behaviors learned in one place, like your living room, to another place, like inside a pet store or a dog park where smells, sights, people and energy levels are completely different. A dog that has been taught to sit politely at your front door before exiting probably won't translate that to sitting politely in front of any door before exiting, unless you've gone through that exercise at tons of different doors and been consistent about it. It even goes for a different side of your own body; if you've taught a dog to sit on your left side but never practiced on your right side, then getting that dog to sit on your right side will take a little more time.
To get a certain behavior from a dog consistently despite where you are or the specifics of what you're asking takes training the dog for that behavior in a wide variety of settings, under a wide variety of conditions, so your dog knows that "sit" doesn't just mean "that movement I do right before I'm about to get a leash put on" but rather means "put my rump on the ground no matter where I am or what is happening and keep it there until told otherwise." So before you get upset with your dog because "he knows better" or "he knows how to do that," take a look at the training history and ask, does he really?
11 things dog owners should never say
If you've ever owned a dog, one of these phrases has probably slipped past your lips. Here's why there's cause for concern.Video: Cops Mock Disabled Woman, Eat Edibles, Play Darts After Dispensary Raid
Video appearing to show Santa Ana police eating medical marijuana edibles, playing darts, and mocking an amputee in a wheelchair after raiding a local cannabis dispensary was published Thursday by Voice of OC.
Police have launched an “internal affairs investigation” after the video footage, recorded during a raid last month, was released to local news media in Orange County by the dispensary’s attorney, Matthew Pappas.
Pappas, who edited raw footage together to create a seven-minute-long “highlight” video, says he plans to file a lawsuit on behalf of his client, the now-closed Sky High Holistic dispensary.
It was not immediately clear what led to the raid, which was conducted during business hours. Police broke down the dispensary’s door, and with guns drawn and aimed at patients and dispensary staff, cleared the store, including a woman with an amputated leg in a wheelchair.
That’s when things appeared to take on a party atmosphere. A female officer joked about wanting to punch the amputee “in her nub,” and two other officers could be seen appearing to unwrap and sample medical cannabis edibles. Another set up a dart board.
All of the above was captured on the dispensary’s security cameras — which police also took efforts to dismantle. Cops can be seen on the video taking down cameras with crowbars and removing the dispensary’s DVR recorder. Apparently, they missed this camera and an off-site storage.
If nothing else, the video reveals police conduct during a raid of a dispensary: military-style tactics before barbecue-style relaxing. Your tax dollars at work.
Santa Ana police chief Carlos Rojas says that the video, which is obviously edited for anti-police effect, isn’t entirely clear. The edibles may have been protein bars, he told the Web site.
As far as Pappas is concerned, it’s obvious. “I believe they are consuming edibles and the behavior exhibited gives every indication that’s what they’d be doing,” Pappas told the Web site.
Watch for yourself below.Not another one! Barkley facing lengthy absence as Everton and England star suffers suspected broken metatarsal
Everton fear rising star Ross Barkley could be out for several weeks with a foot injury.
The midfielder was forced to miss the Toffees' 2-0 Barclays Premier League win over Norwich at Goodison Park with what could be a broken metatarsal.
The injury in World Cup year for the England hopeful conjures memories of similar setbacks for David Beckham and Wayne Rooney before the 2002 and 2006 tournaments.
Blow: Barkley is expected to miss several weeks with a suspected metatarsal injury
Potential absence: Martinez said after the game that Barkley has a suspected broken toe
Crocked: David Beckham faced a race in time to fit for the World Cup after this injury in April 2002
Deja vu: Rooney cries in anguish after injury his foot against Chelsea in April 2006
Barkley suffered the injury during the FA Cup third-round win over QPR last weekend, a match in which he also scored.
Manager Roberto Martinez said: 'We are going to assess him and it seems he is going to be out for a while. It could be broken.
'We are going to assess it to see if there was displacement or not. It is a very similar incident to the one Leighton Baines had.
New star: Barkley has played 21 games for Everton this term, scoring four goals 'Before we say exactly what it is, that is the fear, that there could be a fracture in his toe.' Left-back Baines returned to action at Christmas after a month on the sidelines with his injury. Barkley, 20, has made a huge impression this season having been given regular first-team opportunities by Martinez.SARAH Harding's heartbroken ex Aaron Lacey has finally been revealed.
Sarah Harding and Chad Johnson began dating in the Celebrity Big Brother house – despite her having a boyfriend on the outside. Aaron is said to be devasted from having to watch his now ex-girlfriend cheat on him, as she continues to get intimate with The Bachelorette star on camera. According to reports, the 33-year-old had been dating Sarah for two months after meeting her in a bar.
WENN IT'S OFFICIAL: Chad asked Sarah to be his girlfriend even though she had a man on the outside
Celebrity Big Brother's controversial moments Here are the reasons why we can't stop watching Celebrity Big Brother. 1 / 26 Supplied by WENN Marnie Simpson and Lewis Bloor share a rather steamy naked shower together
WENN GUTTED: Aaron had to watch Sarah and Chad get intimate
“He's absolutely gutted” Source The pair are said to have hit it off immediately and he even moved in with her. The scaffolder reportedly wasn't bothered about her fame and fell for Sarah for who she really is. "He's heartbroken. He fell for her," a source told The Sun.
Sexy singer: Sarah Harding Sexy singer Sarah Harding's saucy pics. 1 / 15 Twitter/Getty Images Braless Sarah Harding stumbles in completely frontless dress National Film Awards, 2018
WENN OUCH: Aaron has now moved out of Sarah's home
"They were inseparable. He supported her going on Celebrity Big Brother and watched nightly. "He's devastated she went behind his back." Aaron – who Sarah claimed she had only been dating for four weeks – has now reportedly moved out of their shared home and back in with his parents in Buckinghamshire.
CBB 2017 naughty pics See the naughtiest Celebrity Big Brother 2017 pics here. 1 / 60
WENN LUFF YOU: Chad dropped the L bomb after a few too many drinksA developer I know recently told me that he wasn’t interested in any new opportunities in the short term because his team were about to adopt Fred George’s post-agile concept of Programmer Anarchy. Having piqued my interest, I started to explore and thought I would share my findings.
From what I’ve found I think he’s a bit mad, but he thinks it’s a good idea and at least 2 major UK companies are using it, so there must be something to it.
* Frequent visitors to this blog will notice that I use the term “Programmer” here a lot, as opposed to the usual “Developer” – that’s simply because Fred George uses that term, and he probably uses it because he’s American.
WHAT IS this Programmer Anarchy?For those of you who don’t have their ear pinned to the techie ground, Programmer Anarchy is a concept that has been around for about the last year, is considered “post-Agile”, has so far been evangelised by Fred George and says that software development is more productive when programmers are “self organised”.
So Programmer Anarchy is…
At the start of the day the programmers choose their own work during daily stand-up meetings
There are no PMs, Iteration Managers, BAs, QAs / testers or “managers of programmers” – all the normal rules of managing software development in a professional environment are gone. This is on the basis that formality and rules are constraining to creativity and productivity
It runs on the concept that with no managers to give power to their programmers to go ahead and develop (managers “empowering” their teams), programmers go ahead and take total responsibility for the success of each project in a form of self-organised “anarchy”
Integral to this is the adoption of the mindset “what if you were guaranteed not to fail” and the idea that disagreement and failure is expected, and both are ultimately productive outcomes. They want programmers to lose the “fear of failure”
Programmers work directly with the customer, which builds more trust and understanding about how the SDLC is affecting delivery
And to top it off Programmer Anarchy is still Agile Manifesto compliant:
o Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
o Working software over comprehensive documentation
o Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
o Responding to change over following a plan
For more detail here is link to a presentation Fred George gave, and a link to the slides.
What has Fred George done with it?
Fred George’s experience of Programmer Anarchy has been at an internet advising company called “Forward” where they got “40 geeks together” and instituted the new methodology. They work for a number of high profile clients, including “Search” a big energy company. And they report not only happy programmers but also some impressive statistics:
So this “programmer’s Nirvana” is going to be the next big thing then?
I don’t think so. I think it’s a great idea, but ultimately I can’t see it being a game-changer.
Agile is a big tent concept that allows lots of different implementations under the same name and has been widely adopted for different reasons. On the one hand it’s a good PR tool that breaks down the wall between producer and user, and on the other hand it improves productivity when correctly implemented. I also don’t think it’s any co-incidence that the popularity of Agile really picked up at the same time that the big tech reliant companies started to make their offshoring models work successfully. Paired programming can produce higher quality code when people work collaboratively, but it takes up two developers’ time and that can be hard for some projects to justify.
Agile is implemented in a wide variety of ways, from a kind of religious dogma, to a model that is fairly close to waterfall but with stand-ups and scrum masters through to the “Thoughtworks approved” approach. One thing I have found as a recruiter is that it takes a team of very high quality developers to make a truly Agile methodology work successfully. I know a team at Credit Suisse that have successfully implemented something fairly close to this (a team of 20 developers, one BA and one PM) and they took a long time to recruit the team because their entry criteria was so high. You don’t just need a good programmer, you need one with good communication skills, one that understands the business enough to work with it productively and one that is savvy enough about why tactical and strategic decisions are made.
And so, I suspect, it is with Programmer Anarchy. Fred George’s experience of Programmer Anarchy was probably so positive because he was working in a team of high performance programmers, who, like him, could cope with the demands of self-organized development. The advantage of Waterfall and the less purist versions of Agile is that they can accommodate lower performance team members and still be productive. Take the example of a tester, or a 3rd line support analyst – in the main their ranks are filled with the below-par programmer. They help the process by reduce the programmers’ work load and don’t cost as much to the CFO’s bottom line. So if you get the division of labour right, you can produce the same result for less money and spend less time recruiting the team in the first place.
But I guess the real problem with Programmer Anarchy is that it takes away the central “leader” figure. Often in big projects not everyone contributing has dedicated their lives to the success or failure of this project. Programmer Anarchy presumes that everyone in the team is totally passionate about the project’s success, but in reality it’s often only a few members of a team who wholeheartedly take on the successful delivery of the project as a top priority in their lives. You find that many other members of the team prioritise their private lives more when it comes to spending time in the office, or that their minds are somewhere else when they are sitting at their desks. I wonder if Programmer Anarchy presumes everyone on the project is a natural pig and forgets about the chickens.
With a central leader figure you also get one person who has staked the next part of their career on the success of the project and they become the driving force behind it’s delivery. Programmer Anarchy presumes everyone is their own leader, but again not everyone is like that. Lots of people don’t want to take control or drive through the delivery, they just want to do a day job.
Finally I suspect that Programmer Anarchy has a tendency for “perfectionism-by-the-back-door”. On the face of it it has a kind of hacky feel, where programmers produce lots of work because they are all developing at their optimum rate. In practice I suspect there’s a bit of a bun fight for the best bits of work, with the least interesting bits going to the least outspoken members of the team and without a central “leader” figure no-one to enforce tight deadlines. And who organizes the stand-ups in the first place? In an environment where formal power has been removed, anyone with some measure of control over the process will start to exert their power. With a central leader there is someone who divides up work and ensure that deadlines are hit.
I also bet “Programmer Anarchy” is exhausting as 100% effort is expected all of the time, when in fact normal development isn’t like that. As with any job there is an ebb and a flow at busy times and slow times. I would like to see a comparison between the productivity statistics that Fred George gives for his “Programmer Anarchy” team, and the same criteria for an Agile team who are working flat out to hit a tight deadline
I suspect that Fred George’s experience of Programmer Anarchy was successful because it’s the right methodology for him, with his level of professional and commercial experience and with his independent mindset. And I think that some teams will take this up and it will work very well for them, but in general its not right for everyone.
So I don’t think we need to start learning the words to any Billy Bragg tunes just yet.
OK, so what would you do then?
I think the most powerful idea in Programmer Anarchy is the idea that programmers take personal responsibility for the success of each project, the rest of it feels to me like a mix of good intentions, some feel-good Californian vibes and a heavy dash of Marxism. I think that any kind of team will always need a division of labour, a leadership structure to organize and motivate the team and a support function to allow the core part of the team to focus on doing what they do best.
AdvertisementsCompletely inspired by campy 50s movie posters.
The wiki description captures it well:
The Catch refers to a memorable defensive baseball play by Willie Mays on September 29, 1954, during Game 1 of the 1954 World Series between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians at the Polo Grounds in New York on a ball hit by Vic Wertz. The score was tied 2-2 in the top of the eighth inning. Starting pitcher Sal Maglie walked Larry Doby and gave up a single to Al Rosen. With runners on first and second, Giants manager Leo Durocher summoned left-handed relief pitcher Don Liddle to replace Maglie and pitch to Cleveland's Wertz, also a left-hander.
Wertz worked the count to two balls and a strike before crushing Liddle's fourth pitch approximately 420 feet to deep center field. In many stadiums the hit would have been a home run and given the Indians a 5-2 lead. However, this was the spacious Polo Grounds, and Giants center fielder Willie Mays, who was playing in shallow center field, made an on-the-run over-the-shoulder catch on the warning track to make the out. Having caught the ball, he immediately spun and threw the ball, losing his hat in characteristic style. Doby, the runner on second, might have been able to score the go-ahead run had he tagged at the moment the ball was caught; but as it was, he ran when the ball was hit, and then had to scramble back to retag and only got as far as third base. (Rosen stayed at first on this play.) Liddle was then relieved by Marv Grissom, to whom he supposedly remarked "Well, I got my man!" (The next batter walked to load the bases, but the next 2 batters were retired to end this half-inning with no runs scored.)
Did you catch the part where it said he caught it around four hundred and twenty feet? That's outstanding, but that's only part of the beauty. Yes, it's the distance, but it's also the over-the-head-catch, it's the recovery, it's the throw to the cut-off man. It's the fact that Mays never believed it was his greatest play, much less the greatest in baseball history.
One of my favorite baseball photos of all time was used as reference:
Finally, here's a wonderful account of The Catch from James Hirsh's "Willie Mays: The Life The Legend" that also provided inspiration for this, especially the zany base running lines.
Want this as a print? Check out "The Catch" and other posters over at my print shop.During one of the best weather windows in years, the alpine duo of Jon Walsh and Josh Wharton have made the second ascent of the North Pillar of the North Twin, one of the most awed, spoken about and well known routes in North America. It was first climbed in 1985 by Dave Cheesmond and Barry Blanchard. This is the fifth ascent of the face and the fourth in summer.
Walsh and Wharton spent four days car to car to complete the North Pillar. The weather was perfect, “We only saw one cloud,” said Walsh who added, “1985 5.10d is more like 2013 5.11b, we aided a thin seam on the final pitch, we free climbed the rest.” Wharton who had only climbed in the Rockies in winter (Emperor Face, Wild Thing, Greenwood/Locke) said, “I have climbed lots of routes that have a bigger bark than bite, but this route lived up to its reputation.” Wharton left a food stash in the Mount Alberta Hut in 2011, it remained intact until a few weeks ago, “Our stash was gone! We only had 5,000 calories between the two of us for the climb, barely enough.” The crux pitch was a chimney on the head wall that Wharton led. “The headwall was impressive, fourteen big pitches before the mixed climbing up the ridge,” Walsh said, “we were on the original route most of the way, Kruk and I were off route for most of the headwall on our attempt, we never found their headwall bivi from the first ascent, maybe it fell off, we found one piton about halfway up the headwall.” The evening they returned Blanchard met them for a pint and they shard stories about the climb. Dave Cheesmond passed away on Mt. Logan, on the Hummingbird Ridge, during the late 80’s, so Blanchard was the only living climber who had climbed the route.
Other ascents of the face: George Lowe and Chris Jones in 1974. Tim Friesen and Dave Cheesmond in the early 80’s (the attempted the Lowe/Jones, but it was to wet so they traversed left and up mixed ground naming it Traverse of the Chickens, few know of this route.) Barry Blanchard and Dave Cheesmond in 1985. Steve House and Marko Prezelj in 2004 via the Lowe/Jones with some mixed variations. The North Ridge was climbed in 1965 by Abrons and gang and repeated in 2012 by Ian Welsted and Brandon Pullan. There have now been seven ascents of Twins Tower via the Black Hole (the large valley beneath the North Face.)
“In one of the more remote valleys of the sub-arctic rain forest called the Canadian Rockies there is a mountain wall which acts like a strong drug on the mind of the observer. So dark, sheer, and gloomy is the North Face of North Twin, like a bad dream, I shall say very little about it.” – Henry L. Abrons AAJ 1966
“There was a clear sense that it had some meaning for a future generation, but what it was I could not say.” – Chris Jones, Ascent 1975/76
“This is still a remote mountain and possibly the most serious limestone face in North America. A decade ago the Jones/Lowe route on the face was the hardest climb in the Rockies – it still has not had a second ascent. When George and Chris walked in here they were looking for adventure. They found theirs – we were here to find ours.” -Dave Cheesmond, Ten Years After
North Twin by Barry Blanchard: http://www.barryblanchard.ca/northtwin
Jon Walsh Blog on earlier attempt: http://alpinestyle.ca/2011/09/16/twins_tower_9112011_attempt_to_climb_the_north_face
Jon Walsh on successful ascent: http://www.alpinestyle.ca/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Twin_PeakBlake is the content manager for DailyMTG.com, making him the one you should email if you have thoughts on the website, good or less good (or not good). He's a longtime coverage reporter and hasn't turned down a game of Magic in any format ever.
So you've been playing at your store, working your way toward the Store Championship. You've battled with Temur Energy, crossed Approach of the Second Sun/Sunbird's Invocation off your bucket list, and even tried that weird Merfolk deck one crazy weekend. You've earned your shot at the title of Store Champion.
But that title—while tantalizing—is only part of the prize. Today, I'm going to show you the rest of it.
First up is a little something you might have already seen—a Champion playmat with the full map of Ixalan on it! This goes only to the big winner.
Next up are deck boxes for the Top 8, featuring new art from Rivals of Ixalan:
And, finally, the part you all actually came here to see, is the full-art card from Rivals of Ixalan you can receive just for participating—and it's a freakin' Elder Dinosaur. World, meet Ghalta, Primal Hunger.
If you're not sure what's going on with your Store Championship, check with your local store for how you can participate and what day of the final week in December the event will be held.Author and creator of the TV series The Wire David Simon explains how the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans changed his work as a journalist.
David Simon, the author and creator of the TV series "The Wire", describes how "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans changed his work as a journalist. The celebrated work capturing the lives of ordinary people during the depression made him realise the importance of sharing "the simple, raw vulnerability" of lived experience. "Page after page was fully ripe with the delicate work of a thinking journalist who knows with all moral certitude that he is approaching and attempting to capture the love, fear and sadness of real lives."
Producer: Smita Patel.Described as the world’s largest gypsum dune field, New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument stretches over 275 square miles (710 square kilometers). Winds occasionally loft the gypsum sands into the air, and a dust storm emerged from the dunes in late February 2012.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on February 28, 2012. A dust plume blows northeastward toward the New Mexico-Texas border. Around the national monument, the landscape appears in a mixture of earth tones, with isolated patches of green.
The dust blowing out of White Sands National Monument was part of a larger pattern of dust storms in the region, including dust in Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Those plumes are visible in the high-resolution image (downloadable below the main image above).
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.PLACERVILLE (CBS13) — The fight that has the El Dorado County sheriff planning to revoke a federal agency’s enforcement power in his county is apparently over residents’ rights to carry guns.
Cory Ward is an avid outdoorsman who frequents the El Dorado National forest. But he’s concerned this paradise could turn into a police state.
“I have felt intimidated,” he said.
He’s got a long list of complaints against federal officers who patrol the forest.
“They want to know what you’re doing here, where you’re going, do you have any firearms on board.”
It appears this exploding confrontation between Sheriff John D’Agostini and the U.S. Forest service may come down to guns, and the right to carry them, and whether U.S. citizens are allowed to bring them onto federal land.
The sheriff’s department says they’ve received more than 50 complaints from people just out enjoying the woods when they were stopped by an overly aggressive forest service officer.
Some of these experiences have been posted on Internet chat rooms with people demanding the sheriff get involved.
And last week, he pulled the federal officers’ powers to enforce state laws in his jurisdiction, effective July 22.
A U.S. Forest Service spokesman said the agency met with the sheriff Wednesday to try and work out their differences.
“It hasn’t happened anywhere else in this state,” said John Heil. “We hope that the relationship will continue and we will look for ways to improve.”
But as for Cory, he just wants to enjoy the forest without fearing the feds.
“This is your land, this is my land, this is everybody’s land,” he said, “And we don’t want to come here anymore.”
The forest service said it will affect the seven forest service officers who patrol the area, though they’ll still be able to enforce federal laws and restrictions.Related
By: JayReaders will notice that April 30, 2014, I posted an analysis of the Western establishment’s longtime approach of containment and subversion in regards to Russia and its satellite nations. One of those crucial strategic locales is Urkaine, which has historically been an integral part of Russia. Washington and its axis have sought to wrest Ukraine from Russian influence to divide up the nation, loot the resources, integrate Ukraine into the EU, and establish more military bases that encroach upon the Rus. In that article, I wrote as follows:“The “democratic transformation” Brzezinski is writing about is found in the phony, western-funded NGOs that have sparked a host of “color revolutions” over the last few decades in Middle Eastern and former Soviet satellite nations. The goal is thus to flank Russia and eventually “democratize” and McDonalidize Russia and its satellites even further through perpetual social disorder, collapse, and GMO cheeseburgers, just as the United States itself undergoes tyrannical “democratization” from its degenerate, so-called elite. This plan of Brzezinski to transform Russia at the end of the 90s resulted in the Yeltsin regime, wherein a host of former communist party oligarchs looted the nation through the Clinton Administration’s IMF “aid.” This “aid” resulted in 500 billion being looted from the Russian people, as well as the collapse of the Russian ecomomy. The same Clintonistas that organized this debacle through organized (NGO) crime also organized the banker bailout of recent fame, through unending, repackaged derivatives scams.”The next day, Russia Today reported that the IMF had approved a 17 billion dollar “aid” package to “stabilize” the economy of Kiev. RT wrote “The International Monetary Fund has approved a two-year $17.1 billion loan package for Ukraine. The immediate disbursement of $3.2 billion will allow Ukraine to avoid a potential debt default.The IMF’s 24-member board agreed to the two-year program to aid Ukraine’s troubled economy on Wednesday.The approval gives the green light for the immediate release of $3.2 billion to Ukraine, which will allow the nation not to fall into default, Reuters reports. More than half of that money will be dedicated to supporting the country’s budget.The package will open up loans from other donors totaling around $15 billion. The goal is for Ukraine to use the money to stabilize its economy.“The authorities’ economic program supported by the Fund aims to restore macroeconomic stability, strengthen economic governance and transparency, and launch sound and sustainable economic growth, while protecting the most vulnerable,” the IMF said in a statement.IMF managing director Christine Lagarde commented on the aid package, stating that the plan may come with geopolitical and implementation risks.“On the implementation front, we are taking all the precautions we can in order to mitigate those risks,” Lagarde told reporters on Wednesday. “On the geopolitical front, clearly the bilateral international support, and the cooperation of all parties, will be extremely helpful to reinforce the position of the economy of Ukraine.”Amazingly, this “aid” is simply the same plan of IMF shock doctrine we have seen over and over, as Nobel winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (former chief economist of the World Bank) revealed back in 2001. That revelation first appeared through BBC reporter Greg Palast’s famous article, “The Globalizer Who Came in From the Cold. The documents summarized there outline the multi-layered plan the IMF takes to attack, destabilize and reorganize (ie, loot) through “aid” packages that result in extensive debt slavery and privatization. Palast explains of the IMF plan in regard to Russia in the 90s:“Each nation’s economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, the Bank hands every minister the same exact four-step program.Step One is Privatization – which Stiglitz said could more accurately be called, ‘Briberization.’ Rather than object to the sell-offs of state industries, he said national leaders – using the World Bank’s demands to silence local critics – happily flogged their electricity and water companies. “You could see their eyes widen” at the prospect of 10% commissions paid to Swiss bank accounts for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of national assets.And the US government knew it, charges Stigl |
, we split the rewards for the griffon quest amongst others, feasted at the guild and didn’t return until now.
Komekko fell asleep halfway home from being too full, so Darkness piggybacked her for the remainder of the way. She’s currently sleeping on Megumin’s bed.
Hiking in addition to the intense battle.
While it was tiring, in the end we enjoyed that rare feeling of huge accomplishment.
Slipping under the sheets, I was about close my eyes and embrace that alcohol-fueled good night’s sleep when—
“Kazuma, are you awake? If you are, may I interrupt for a second?”
Megumin’s voice came from the door.
“I’m still awake; about to sleep, though.”
“No… It took massive effort for me to visit, don’t be so quick to fall asleep!”
Megumin opened the door and entered as she complained.
I didn’t sit up from the bed but poked only my head out instead.
“What are you here for this late in the night? Komekko rarely stays over, are you sure you don’t want to accompany her? Although I haven’t a clue when your parents will come pick her up, she can’t stay here forever, can she?”
Though personally I see no problem in letting her live here.
Not that I want to make moves on a loli.
The vivid memories of my time with Iris at the capital are still on my mind.
Right, Iris told me to write letters to her when I remember what had happened.
Even if I do head to the guild tomorrow, I’d only find quests like toad killing. So, I should better write that letter.
As I planned mentally, Megumin started quietly giggling.
“No, um… Actually, Yunyun came to me just a while ago.”
It has indeed been a few days since we last saw that girl; where did she go?
Funifura and Dodonko also said they couldn’t find her anywhere; could she really have gone into “hiding”?
“And then? What happened to Yunyun? Did she come to play with Komekko?”
“Nope. She was here to pass a message from the Crimson Demon village, that the Demon Army occupying the village has been successfully repelled.”
What a battleborne race.
As expected of the strongest mage clan, the Crimson Magic clan.
It’s only been a few days. Couldn’t they reserve their potential for something more practical?
“Isn’t that good news? Although, that would also mean…”
“That’s right, I heard that my mother will be picking up Komekko tomorrow.”
Megumin showed a lonely smile.
“All the more reasons you should sleep by her side tonight; are you sure you would rather be here?”
“It’s fine, no problem. She’s a tough child. Or rather, I’m afraid I’m the one who gets hurt more if I stayed with her any longer.”
Speaking of which, this girl really is a bit of a siscon.
Then, Megumin lowered her head.
“Kazuma, thanks for all your help these past few days, I’m extremely grateful.”
She suddenly thanked me.
“Don’t be such a stranger. Mhm, even though I nearly lost something precious due to my laziness and degeneracy, it makes me happy knowing that everything’s like when it started.”
I smiled wryly as I spoke. Megumin also giggled in return.
“Indeed, the battle we had today felt akin to the ones we fought long ago… Say, this counts as a sign of growth, right?”
Darkness had asked the same question on our way back to the guild; however, I didn’t agree with the phrasing.
Frankly, since I last leveled up, my stats have been rising even more slowly.
It’s possible that my stats are close to being maxed out—a reality that I’m not too keen to accept.
There are no cheats here, so it really is no joking matter when I get stuck with the same stats regardless of my level.
Not understanding my pain and sorrow, Megumin cheerfully chatted with me instead.
“By the way, do you still remember? That time when we first met?”
She asked in a strongly sentimental tone.
“Of course I do; you told me a confusing and awkward name as complete strangers, then abruptly fell to the floor. On top of that, the next thing to come out of your mouth was something about not having eaten for three darn days. Who in the world can forget an experience like that?”
“Oi, how many times do I have to say this: if you have a problem with my name then tell it to my face.”
Seeing the red glow in Megumin’s eyes as she approached me, I, too, felt a wave of nostalgia as the memories of this banter we used to share returned.
It could be that my face did a poor job hiding that thought, or it could be that Megumin isn’t really mad at me… But she chuckled. And so did I…
“Kazuma, I actually knew you before then.”
Megumin suddenly said something important like that.
“Perhaps Kazuma and Aqua don’t know about this, but I was in fact familiar with the two of you before I joined the party.”
“Haw.”
Implying that Aqua and I stood out that much?
“……Let me explain; it’s because of all the fuss you two had made. Getting in trouble at every turn, raging and crying all the time. Be it working at the guild vineyard, working at the grocery; you two managed to get yelled at everywhere. And that’s how I memorized you two.”
“Oi. So you’re saying that we left basically no good impressions?”
Megumin then laughed happily.
“However, despite everything, the two of you always seemed to be enjoying yourselves. That was the real reason I chose your party; at the time, I was thinking of all the fun I could also be having if I adventured with you.”
Since she put it that way, I could no longer stay mad.
“Although, if someone told me at the time that ‘I would take a liking to Kazuma’, there’s not a chance that I would have believed them either.”
“Huh? Was my first impression that bad? It’s quite hurtful of you to describe me that way.”
She again giggled happily.
“Kazuma Kazuma,”
“What now? I’m getting very sleepy, so could you stop bothering me? The alcohol is really taking a toll on my ability to stay awake.”
In response to my little tantrum, she—
“It’s about time for us to advance our relationship to somewhere between friends and lovers.”
—flung me a fastball out of the blue.
Part 2
“—Sorry for the trouble Kazuma-san, thanks for taking care of my daughters.”
“No no no, it was nothing. I should thank your daughter for taking care of me…”
The next morning.
I got no happy ending after her unilateral declaration; instead, she plainly bid me goodnight and returned to her room.
And when we ran into each other this morning, she greeted me as if nothing had happened.
Even though I understand we shouldn’t be too reckless with Komekko in the house, what is she playing at by leaving right after saying something like that?
Thanks to her I got almost no sleep last night.
Their family is truly full of demons; both sisters are demonic.
“When you said ‘thank your daughter for taking care of me’, in which context did you mean by ‘taking care’? Though I wouldn’t mind whatever it might mean. After all, my daughter has reached the age to seek romantic partnership…”
Megumin’s mom Yuiyui-san started saying these strange things.
For some reason, upon hearing “age to seek romantic partnership”, Darkness shuddered as she said her farewells to Komekko at the door.
I guess as a noble, she must be self-conscious about people possibly thinking that she’s reached the “unwanted age”—if she doesn’t marry soon.
“Taking care as in while fighting and adventuring; I didn’t mean anything strange by it.”
“I know, I know; I’ve heard everything from my daughter. I understand you very well, Kazuma-san. Everything’s fine as long as you can take the responsibility.”
Hearing such things from Yuiyui, I jerked my head towards Megumin and shot her a glare; however, she shook her head panickedly.
Which means… that the “daughter” she spoke of was…
Under the collective gaze of Megumin and I, Komekko took out her notebook.
It’s that notebook she used to record everything happening around me…
“The blue-haired onee-san is so great, she punched a ghost with her bare fists. The armored onee-san is also very great, she got eaten by a giant bird. Onee-chan’s boyfriend is also super great, he killed a woman with weed killer. Onee-chan is also super-duper great, not sure why yet.”
Eh.
What was that last part supposed to mean? Even though Megumin explained her strengths countless of times to this young girl, she still doesn’t seem to understand at all.
At this point, Megumin was overwhelmed with sadness and she fell to the carpet on all fours. Yuiyui then took the notebook and continued to read.
“Onee-chan isn’t with me tonight, I think she went to her boyfriend’s room, then when I went to check, I heard her saying something like being between friends and lovers.”
“Komekko! So you were awake that entire time! How dare you eavesdrop on me!? When did you start listening in!?”
Megumin abruptly leapt up from the carpet, yelling with a fully flushed face.
Her mother answered with a gentle smile.
“There’s no need to hide it; as a mother, I’m satisfied so long as you are happy.”
Megumin once again dropped to the carpet and rolled around with her head in her arms.
Yuiyui no longer paid attention to her.
“Well, Kazuma-san, we’ll be calling farewell now… On another note, though I’ve heard rumors about it before, I didn’t believe your mansion would be this luxurious. With that, I can now entrust my daughter to you without reluctance.”
Saying that, Yuiyui started an incantation, which is probably the teleportation spell.
“Goodbye onii-san, I want to eat frogs again the next time I visit.”
“Yuiyui, ancestor of mine! Dost thou honestly have no better topic to discuss during this precious reunion with your beloved daughter!?”
Megumin asked desperately.
“Hurry up and have a kid.”
It’s hard to imagine something like this being told to a teenager.
“Hey, mom…!”
Before Megumin could fire back, Yuiyui took Komekko into her arms…
“Live a great life, all. I’ve already thought of a name for my grandchild.”
…And like a gust of wind—
“Teleport!”
They disappeared without trace.
“—Good morning! Hey, I’m really craving chicken this morning…eh? Where did Komekko go?
After sending Yuiyui off.
Because the farewell had been so anticlimactic, we were still stuck in the mood. And just now, the one who could read anything but the mood—Aqua—finally got up.
“How much longer were you planning to sleep? Komekko has already left.”
“Eh!? Why!? Didn’t we agree to go catch neroids together today?”
Weren’t you crying because of them a while ago?
Neroids are very weak; even children can fight them, so to say. However, I didn’t think she’d take it literally.
After finally snapping out of it from Aqua’s comment, Megumin said—
“I’m really sorry for the trouble I brought upon everyone this time… really sorry for everyone having to deal with my mother and sister…”
“Come to think of it, wasn’t everything caused by your heroic posturing before your parents?”
Facing my insult, Megumin awkwardly turned her gaze away.
“Since I’m happy, I’ll let it slide. We could invite her over anytime anyway; we’ll have go catch neroids together next time.”
Said Aqua cheerfully.
“Oi, Kazuma… About what Megumin’s mother said a while ago…”
After Darkness anxiously fidgeted and struggled to decide whether she should speak up, she managed to find enough courage to say it in the end.
We still stood by the door after Komekko had left; unbelievably, someone knocked on it.
Thinking that Komekko might have left something behind, we opened the door to find a young girl with blue eyes and blonde hair.
By her appearance, she should be slightly younger than Komekko…right?
Her face feels somewhat familiar.
She cautiously looked up at us, then spotted Darkness beside me.
“Mommy——!”
She then excitedly yelled such a thing before tightly embracing Darkness—
<Illustrator’s Afterart>
Previous ChapterNext Game: vs. Akron 12/11/2015 | 5:30 PM
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Foster Langsdorf buried a header in the 97th minute off a free kick from Corey Baird to push No. 8 seed Stanford to a 2-1 win at top-seeded Wake Forest on Saturday night and send the Cardinal to next weekend's College Cup at Sporting Park in Kansas City.
The win, which kept alive Stanford's dream of claiming its first NCAA championship in men's soccer, moved the Cardinal (17-2-2) into the nation's final four for the first time since 2002 and fourth overall. Stanford will meet No. 4 seed Akron (18-3-2) on Friday, Dec. 11 (TBD) in one College Cup semifinal on ESPNU.
TURNING POINT » Ty Thompson was taken down in the center of the field 35 yards out midway through overtime. Corey Baird stepped over the ball and lifted one to the top of the 18 and onto the head of Langsdorf. With his back to the face of goal, Langsdorf's flick looped up and over Alec Ferrell for the winner.
Winning combo. #GoStanford A photo posted by Stanford Men's Soccer (@stanfordmenssoccer) on Dec 5, 2015 at 7:57pm PST
RESILIENT » Wake Forest (17-3-2) seemed to have dodged a bullet three minutes earlier, when Brandon Vincent was brought down in the box, but sent his penalty kick off the crossbar.
JEREMY GUNN » Obviously you have a chance to close game out in overtime, but we don't make it. Those things happen. The mentality of this team all season long has been 'next play.' When you come on the road against a very tough opponent, you want to take your chances. When you miss, momentum can swing to the home team. But yet again our team showed its amazing mentality and incredible courage. We kept pressing and were rewarded with another great opportunity.
EARLY LEAD » Stanford took an early lead in the 18th minute when its two MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalists connected. Corey Baird passed it up the left side to Vincent, whose first-time cross landed squarely on the head of Jordan Morris and was fired into the back of goal.
OVERTIME » Wake Forest forced overtime when Hayden Partain went down in the 70th minute. Ian Harkes was successful from the spot for his first goal of the year.
JEREMY GUNN II » Games will ebb and flow. In the second half I thought Wake Forest had good possession and managed to break through our midfield more than we wanted them to. They get back in it on a penalty and with a great crowd behind them the atmosphere was electric. At those points it really tests your nerve. Once again this group showed how mentally strong they are. No matter what went on in the game, we were always ready to try and win. It's a true testament to the character of this group.
. Photo by Brian Westerholt/Sports on Film.
#JORDANGONNAJORDAN » Morris continued his torrid play of late with his first-half goal. A MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist, the junior has a career-high 11 goals in 16 appearances for Stanford in 2015. In his last 12 games with the Cardinal, he has 10 goals, three assists and 23 points.
ALL ASSISTS ALL DAY » Corey Baird assisted on both goals on Saturday night, his 10th and 11th of the season. Baird and Eric Verso (12) have combined for 23 of Stanford's 44 assists this season and the Cardinal is the only team in the country that has two players with at least 10.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN » Stanford has advanced to the program's fourth College Cup and first since 2002. The Cardinal also was among the nation's final four in 1998 and 2001. Stanford's 17 overall wins are tied for fourth in program history (2002). Only three sides have ever won more games (1998 and 2000 – 18; 2001 – 19).
JEREMY GUNN III » We very much have a 'next game up' mentality. When the season is all done and dusted, that's when you reflect. Right now we're still going and have another exciting game to play. That's all we're thinking about right now.
WHAT'S NEXT » Stanford and Akron will meet for the third time on Friday. In the last game between the two, the Zips eliminated the Cardinal in the third round of the NCAA Tournament on Nov. 29, 2009 (2-0). The other Stanford/Akron match came on Oct. 2, 1994, a 4-3 win for the Zips at the Reebok/Cardinal Classic on The Farm.
JEREMY GUNN IV » We've been following all the other teams as fans and with potential work to do in the future. We'll regroup from today, wake up tomorrow morning and begin getting prepared.A Wisconsin GOP state senator who once attempted to eliminate a state requirement that workers be given at least one day off per week and argued public employees should be forced work on Martin Luther King Day, has thrown his hat into the ring, challenging 13-term GOP Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI.).
Glenn Grothman announced his challenge this week in the heavily Republican district, bringing to the forefront his colorful history of proposals, according to Mother Jones.
In January, Grothman introduced legislation that would eliminate a state requirement that workers get at least one day off per week.
“Right now in Wisconsin, you’re not supposed to work seven days in a row, which is a little ridiculous because all sorts of people want to work seven days a week,” he told the Huffington Post.
Previously Grothman insisted that public employees should come to work on Martin Luther King Day.
“Let’s be honest, giving government employees [time] off has nothing to do with honoring Martin Luther King Day and it’s just about giving state employees another day off,” he said. Further stating that he would be “shocked if you can find anybody doing service.”
Grothman was similarly dismissive of Kwanzaa, a week-long harvest and gift-giving celebration celebrated by African-Americans, saying it was promoted by “white left-wingers who try to shove this down black people’s throats in an effort to divide Americans.”
Grothman also suggested that “almost no black people today care about” Kwanzaa.
Grothman has also proposed getting rid the state’s equal pay bill aimed at gender pay equality, saying, “You could argue that money is more important for men.”
He has also attempted to pare back a program that provides free birth control to women while promoting a bill that would have labeled single parenthood as “a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.”
[Photo Grothman state website]WAKHAN, Afghanistan -- In a picturesque corner of Afghanistan, a unique conservation effort has helped bring the elusive snow leopard back from the brink and given hope to one of the poorest and most isolated communities on earth.
The leopards range across the snowy mountains of a dozen countries in Central and South Asia, but their numbers had declined in recent decades as hunters sought their spotted pelts and farmers killed them to protect livestock. Now they appear to be thriving, thanks to a seven-year program and a newly declared national park.
Scientists who have been tracking the shy leopards estimate there are up to 140 cats in the Wakhan National Park, established two years ago across 4,200 square miles. Stephane Ostrowski, a specialist with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, says that’s a healthy and sustainable number, and indicates that other species like the Siberian ibex and golden marmot -- the leopards’ main prey -- are also doing well.
The WCS believes global leopard numbers could be much higher than a previous upper estimate of 7,500, after data gathered by Ostrowski and others showed there could be more than 8,000 in just 44 percent of the animal’s known range. The World Wildlife Fund lists the species as “endangered.”
In this Aug. 23, 2016 photo, the skin of a snow leopards lie on the ground in Kabul, Afghanistan. In a picturesque corner of Afghanistan, a unique conservation effort has helped bring the elusive snow leopard back from the brink and given hope to one of the poorest and most isolated communities on earth. AP
His findings are the result of research carried out in one of the most hard-to-reach places on earth. The Wakhan corridor is nestled high in the Hindu Kush mountain range and cut off by snow for most of the year. The 15-year-old war with the Taliban rages 18 miles to the south, and the nearby borders with Tajikistan, Pakistan and China are usually closed.
The United Nations Development Program funds and oversees all the WCS activities in the Wakhan, and will provide $3 million for the snow leopard project over the next two years.
Ostrowski and the other foreign and Afghan scientists camp in yellow tents in the Sarkand Valley for months on end, monitoring and maintaining a far-flung network of cameras and traps. In just one year, they collected around 5,000 images of 38 individual cats. They managed to capture four leopards -- one of them twice -- and were able to fit them with collars and track them with GPS. They hope to catch another two by the end of the year.
They’ve learned that snow leopards range widely. Like house cats, they mark their territory by spraying and scratching the ground, but unlike their distant relatives, they don’t mind getting wet.
“These cats can cross big rivers and swim in extremely cold water,” Ostrowski said. One female crossed the Amu Darya river into Tajikistan, stayed a couple of weeks and then returned.
The snow leopards have benefited from conservation programs going back to 2009, when the WCS began building enclosed corrals with mesh roofs to protect the sheep, goats and cows that are the backbone of the local economy.
It was the first step toward bringing modern conservation techniques to Wakhan, where the population of around 17,000 lives off of subsistence farming. In one of the poorest regions of one of the world’s poorest countries, the leopards had long been seen as a menace.
Hassan Beg says he lost 22 sheep and goats in one night a few years ago when a snow leopard got into his uncovered corral, and his cousin Saeed said he was attacked by one late at night. Hassan has since built his own roof over the enclosure using tree branches. “We can’t kill them,” he said, “so I just make sure it won’t happen again.”
A presidential decree banning all hunting countrywide was issued in 2005, but the scientists recently found a carcass with a bullet in its head. Some 250 miles to the southwest, at a crowded market in the capital, Kabul, a shopkeeper discreetly produced a snow leopard pelt with a long cylindrical tail and a face distorted by crude taxidermy. He wanted $1,800 for it.
“We receive reports from all of the provinces where hunting is going on illegally, whether it is because of poverty, whether it is for hobby, whether it is for selling it at a higher price in the market,” said Mostapha Zaher, director general of the National Environment Protection Agency.
But back in Wakhan, the conservation efforts appear to be catching on.
To go with Afghanistan Snow Leopards By LYNNE O’DONNELL In this Thursday, July 2, 2012 camera trap photo provided by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a snow leopard looks on, on Pamir mountains in Sarkand valley, Wakhan district, Badakhshan province, far northeastern Afghanistan. WCS, AP
At Qala-i-Panja High School, where students say they’ve never heard of the internet, they’ve embraced modern notions of wildlife preservation. A snow leopard cub stares down from a poster affixed to the otherwise bare walls.
“Since the ban on hunting was introduced, the numbers of wild animals are increasing here and that is attracting foreign tourists,” said Simah, a 17-year-old who like many Afghans has no surname. “That can be good for the economy of Afghanistan.”
The snow leopard is the national park’s star attraction, even if most visitors are unlikely to see one. But the region also boasts wolves, brown bears, red foxes, and the long-horned Marco Polo sheep - named for the 13th century Italian explorer who spotted one on his journey to the Far East.
Only around 100 visitors reach Wakhan every year, most entering from Tajikistan during the summer months. Wakhan’s poverty and isolation has insulated it from decades of war, but has also deterred all but the most adventurous travelers.
Frenchman Jocelyn Guitton, an EU diplomat, arrived in August with plans to trek to the corridor’s northeast and visit Kyrgyz nomads. He allows that it’s “off the beaten track,” but says he hopes tourism can bring “visibility and good practices” to the region.
Since declaring the national park two years ago, the government has been holding public meetings known as shuras throughout Wakhan to cultivate local support for the idea and to reassure residents who initially feared they might lose their land.
“It’s a new concept for these people and it’s a new concept for Afghanistan, so it takes time,” said Ashley Vosper, a landscape expert at WCS who has taken part in the meetings.
Vosper says the park actually provides “brilliant protection” to residents by ensuring that no one else can use their land while bringing economic development to the region. “It can be a nice two-way balance,” he said.
Zaher hopes that Wakhan can one day rival Afghanistan’s only other national park, in the central Bamiyan province, which attracts thousands of tourists each year to the crystal blue lakes of Band-i-Amir.
“When peace returns to Afghanistan -- and it will, as no war lasts forever -- Wakhan has great potential for ecotourism, for people who are interested in archaeology, anthropology, researchers interested in Afghanistan, people interested in glacial melt, mountaineering, the environment.”NBC News, under intense scrutiny since it fired “Today” anchor Matt Lauer in the wake of revelations of incidents involving him and sexual harassment under its corporate aegis, said it would conduct an internal review of its handling of the matter.
“A team of the most experienced NBCUniversal Legal and Human Resources leaders have begun a thorough and timely review of what happened and what we can do to build a culture of greater transparency, openness and respect for each other,” said Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, in a memo to staffers Friday, “At the conclusion of the review we will share what we’ve learned, no matter how painful, and act on it.”
The NBCUniversal unit has been under a microscope since revealing earlier this week that it had terminated Lauer, who greeted viewers on “Today” for more than two decades, for what it said was “inappropriate sexual behavior.” NBC News on Wednesday disclosed that it had“received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace” by Lauer. “It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards.” Variety in a report detailed multiple allegations of untoward behavior, citing three women who have identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment by Lauer. Since that time, more allegations about the star anchor’s behavior have come to light. NBC News has confirmed two more women came forward since it terminated the TV journalist’s contract.
“This week we saw that when an employee comes forward to report misconduct, the system works. The complaint is quickly assessed and meaningful action is taken,” said Lack in the memo. “But we also learned that we must do a much better job of making people feel empowered to take that crucial first step of reporting bad behavior.” The allegations surrounding Lauer include incidents that took place several years ago, and suggest an ongoing pattern of behavior taking place over a longer period of time. “Many of you have asked what we are doing to learn as much as we can about the circumstances around Matt Lauer’s appalling behavior, why this was able to happen, and why it wasn’t reported sooner,” Lack acknowledged.
NBC News intends to bolster training about recognizing sexual harassment, Lack said, and also outlined avenues employees have to report it. The executive said NBC News would launch “an immediate effort to implement in-person training on sexual harassment awareness and appropriate behavior in the workplace,” in addition to online training it has already provided. He also said the unit would encourage ” leaders of every group to have smaller, more informal gatherings to further discuss this crucial issue now and on an ongoing basis.”
The techniques are similar to those utilized by another news outlet that faced allegations of sexual harassment at the workplace. Fox News Channel mandated a new round of training for employees in the wake of many lawsuits and disclosures alleging untoward sexually aggressive behavior at the company that surfaced after the ouster of former chief Roger Ailes. In recent months, Fox News has installed new human-resources executives, and in November, its corporate parent, 21st Century Fox, unveiled a workplace council set at Fox News to advise senior management on matters ranging from corporate environment and recruitment to advancement of women and minorities. The new council was set up in response to complaints from investors in 21st Century Fox.
Lack reminded NBC News staffers of the options they have at their disposal, including managers and human-resources executives as well as specially designated employee hotlines and email addresses manned by NBCUniversal and its corporate parent, Comcast.
“We also want to reinforce with our managers and leaders their responsibility to bring forward concerns about inappropriate workplace behavior they see or hear about,” Lack said. “It is always the right thing to do, and any concerns raised should be done without fear of retaliation, and with full assurance that they will be investigated.”Right from Akira Kurosawa’s films to Haruki Murakami’s books and traditional haikus, from the aesthetics of pagodas to the beautiful bonsai plants, there is much that drew me to Japan. As a vegetarian, however, I had a gnawing fear: Would I have to go hungry because Japanese cuisine is famously meat- and fish-based or end up convincing myself that fish was a sea vegetable?
Keeping aside such trepidations, I embarked on my Tokyo odyssey in April, and I am happy to report that I ate well and healthy, well beyond my expectations.
As soon as I had checked into my Tokyo hotel, I made a pit stop at the konbini (24-hour convenience store) across the road to snap up supplies. Konbinis, like Lawson, FamilyMart and 7-Eleven, can be found on every Tokyo corner. I must confess I love snacking, and hate falling back on Indian munchies while abroad. Thankfully, I had done my research, so I stocked up on inari sushi (vinegary sticky rice in a tofu packet), onigiri rice balls stuffed with a pickled plum or nori (seaweed, an acquired taste) and anman (a heated bun filled with a sweet red-bean paste).
As is common on a holiday, I was often hungry, and to my surprise, I ended up eating quite well. For I rarely found it difficult to source a meal.
Matcha green tea ice cream.
After walking through the immense grounds of the Imperial Palace, a bit of medieval Tokyo right in the middle of a modern metropolis, I found a restaurant tucked away amid the trees of the exquisite Japanese-style Ninomaru garden. Here, I had my first taste of the Japanese obsession with matcha green tea. I chose a bright green matcha-flavoured ice cream and despite its slight bitter aftertaste, it grew on me with every mouthful. Next, I stopped at a typical Japanese salaryman (regular office-goer) restaurant. At every eatery, I would flash a printout with “No meat, no fish, no seafood" written in Japanese. So after a quick conversation in sign language with the chef, I lunched on soba noodles, miso soup and vegetable tempura.
I ended up having one of the best dinners of my life inside the Tokyo Station. Walking through this labyrinthine station with 16 train lines, five basement levels, a dozen exits and sundry department stores and shopping lanes, I found myself at T’s Tantan. The restaurant had been recommended on the HappyCow app, a vegetarian traveller’s life saver. After a long day, I wasn’t happy to queue up for 20 minutes to get into this very trendy vegan restaurant—but it was totally worth it! I enjoyed my ramen noodles in white sesame sauce, with soybean meat as a side, so much that I wanted to go right back the next day.
Kimchi ramen.
Between the venerable Sensō-ji Temple and its impressive vermilion-coloured Kaminarimon gate lies the lively Nakamise Dori, flanked by stalls hawking souvenirs and local edibles. I ordered iced matcha from a Japanese stall owner with an American accent and she suggested mochi (skewered rice balls rolled in a sweet flour). The Japanese seem obsessed with sweets, and confectionery is omnipresent. Fortunately, though, their sweets are not very sugary. Ice cream was a staple for me—it’s available even at vending machines. I tried surprisingly tasty flavours like sweet potato and black sesame. At trendy Takeshita street near Harajuku, a hub for manga and anime fans, I lunched on an ingeniously served crêpe rolled up into a huge cone with fruits and ice cream tucked inside.
When I happened to be craving comfort food, I chanced upon an Indian restaurant, Mumbai, near Chidorigafuchi Park, Tokyo, amid a profusion of cherry blossoms. The food had been adapted to the tastes of the Japanese clientele; the palak paneer and dal were neither spicy nor extraordinary.
One aspect of Japanese cuisine which is vegetarian is Shojin Ryori, or Buddhist temple cuisine. This was a must-try, so while shopping in the electronics stronghold of Akihabara, I lunched at Komaki Shokudo, which also runs temple-cuisine cooking lessons. The fried tofu was delicious, as was the hot miso soup with shiitake mushrooms, but the potato and radish preparations left me “cold".
To my surprise, there were vegetarian options in the fast-food universe as well and I found myself trying them at Kyoto and Osaka airports. The MOS Burger chain has a range of tasty, crunchy soy burgers and their chef was good enough to warn me against one that came with a meat sauce.
I was happiest when I felt I was not missing out on the intrinsic Japanese experience even while sticking to my food habits. In Kyoto’s Ryōan-ji Zen temple, I spent several happy moments contemplating the minimalist rock garden, which has 15 rock formations placed like islands in a sea of gleaming light-coloured pebbles, then scoured the immense but picturesque grounds to find the vegetarian Yudofuya restaurant. While sitting cross-legged on tatami mats, I lunched on yudofu, a Kyoto speciality—boiled soybean curd served hot with vegetables, flower petals, soy sauce and rice.
It was the softest, most delicious tofu I have ever had. But what made the meal complete was the serene silence in the restaurant and the view of its extraordinarily verdant garden with sakura flowers creating the effect of a wonderland. I count myself blessed that I was able to enjoy this experience on a full stomach.Black holes are some of the strangest and most fascinating objects found in outer space. They are objects of extreme density, with such strong gravitational attraction that even light cannot escape from their grasp if it comes near enough.
Albert Einstein first predicted black holes in 1916 with his general theory of relativity. The term "black hole" was coined in 1967 by American astronomer John Wheeler, and the first one was discovered in 1971.
There are three types: stellar black holes, supermassive black holes and intermediate black holes.
Stellar black holes — small but deadly
When a star burns through the last of its fuel, it may collapse, or fall into itself. For smaller stars, up to about three times the sun's mass, the new core will be a neutron star or a white dwarf. But when a larger star collapses, it continues to compress and creates a stellar black hole.
Black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars are (relatively) small, but incredibly dense. Such an object packs three times or more the mass of the sun into a city-size range. This leads to a crazy amount of gravitational force pulling on objects around it. Black holes consume the dust and gas from the galaxy around them, growing in size.
According the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, "the Milky Way contains a few hundred million" stellar black holes.
Supermassive black holes — the birth of giants
Small black holes populate the universe, but their cousins, supermassive black holes, dominate. Supermassive black holes are millions or even billions of times as massive as the sun, but have a radius similar to that of Earth's closest star. Such black holes are thought to lie at the center of pretty much every galaxy, including the Milky Way.
Scientists aren't certain how such large black holes spawn. Once they've formed, they gather mass from the dust and gas around them, material that is plentiful in the center of galaxies, allowing them to grow to enormous sizes.
Illustration of a young black hole, such as the two distant dust-free quasars spotted recently by the Spitzer Space Telescope. More photos of black holes of the universe (Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Supermassive black holes may be the result of hundreds or thousands of tiny black holes that merge together. Large gas clouds could also be responsible, collapsing together and rapidly accreting mass. A third option is the collapse of a stellar |
a biological wasteland
.
warned several decades ago that disrupting the delicate balance of the Earth, which he refers to as a living body, would be a form of collective suicide
.
"All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth. By 2050,. Most of these extinctions are the direct result of the expanding need for energy, housing, food and other resources.Species are vanishing at a rate of a hundred to a thousand times faster than they did before the arrival of humans. If the current rate of extinction continues, Homo sapiens will be one of the few life-forms left on the planet, its members scrambling violently among themselves for water, food, fossil fuels and perhaps air until they too disappear. Humanity is leaving the Cenozoic, the age of mammals, and entering the Eremozoic-the era of solitude.The populations in industrialized nations maintain their lifestyles because they have the military and economic power to consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources. The United States alone gobbles up about 25 percent of the oil produced in the world each year. These nations view their stable or even zero growth birthrates as sufficient. It has been left to developing countries to cope with the emergent population crisis. India, Egypt, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Cuba and China, whose one-child policy has prevented the addition of 400 million people, have all tried to institute population control measures. But on most of the planet, population growth is exploding.The U.N. estimates that 200 million women worldwide do not have access to contraception. The population of the Persian Gulf states, along with the Israeli-occupied territories, will double in two decades, a rise that will ominously coincide with precipitous peak oil declines.The resources that industrialized nations consider their birthright will become harder and more expensive to obtain. Rising water levels on coastlines, which may submerge coastal nations such as Bangladesh, will disrupt agriculture and displace millions, who will attempt to flee to areas on the planet where life is still possible. The rising temperatures and droughts have already begun to destroy crop lands in Africa, Australia, Texas and California. The effects of this devastation will first be felt in places like Bangladesh, but will soon spread within our borders.Overpopulation will become a serious threat to the viability of many industrialized states the instant the cheap consumption of the world's resources can no longer be maintained. This moment may be closer than we think.A world where 8 billion to 10 billion people are competing for diminishing resources will not be peaceful. The industrialized nations will, as we have done in Iraq, turn to their militaries to ensure a steady supply of fossil fuels, minerals and other nonrenewable resources in the vain effort to sustain a lifestyle that will, in the end, be unsustainable. The collapse of industrial farming, which is made possible only with cheap oil, will lead to an increase in famine, disease and starvation. And the reaction of those on the bottom will be the low-tech tactic of terrorism and war.James Lovelock, an independent British scientist who has spent most of his career locked out of the mainstream,The atmosphere on Earth-21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen-is not common among planets, he notes. These gases are generated, and maintained at an equable level for life's processes, by living organisms themselves. Oxygen and nitrogen would disappear if the biosphere was destroyed. The result would be a greenhouse atmosphere similar to that of Venus, a planet that is consequently hundreds of degrees hotter than Earth. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere, oceans, rocks and soil are living entities. They constitute, he says, a self-regulating system.Lovelock, in support of this thesis, looked at the cycle in which algae in the oceans produce volatile sulfur compounds. These compounds act as seeds to form oceanic clouds. Without these dimethyl sulfidethe cooling oceanic clouds would be lost. This self-regulating system is remarkable because it maintains favorable conditions for human life. Its destruction would not mean the death of the planet. It would not mean the death of life-forms. But it would mean the death of Homo sapiens.Lovelock advocates nuclear power and thermal solar power; the latter, he says, can be produced by huge mirrors mounted in deserts such as those in Arizona and the Sahara. He proposes reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with large plastic cylinders thrust vertically into the ocean. These, he says, could bring nutrient-rich lower waters to the surface, producing an algal bloom that would increase the cloud cover. But he warns that these steps will be ineffective if we do not first control population growth. He believes the Earth is overpopulated by a factor of about seven. As the planet overheats-and he believes we can do nothing to halt this process-overpopulation will make all efforts to save the ecosystem futile.If we do not reduce our emissions by 60 percent, something that can be achieved only by walking away from fossil fuels, the human race is doomed, he argues. Time is running out. This reduction will never take place, he says, unless we can dramatically reduce our birthrate."-Chris Hedges, Excerpt: "We Are Breeding Ourselves Into Extinction," Truthdig.com, 3.9.2009. Images: -Michael Rougier, Munich, Germany, LIFE Magazine, 6.1958).…a brave and brilliant few at Harvey Mudd College dared to take up the gauntlet, going head-to-head in a challenge of wit, skill, and ingenuity. These uncompromising code warriors passed the torch, and due to sheer demand, the challenge spread like wildfire to other programming institutions, spanning 3 continents of the globe!
But the original torch has flickered out.
Other torches burn proudly on, but a darkness covers Claremont, CA. We hold a silent and breathless vigil for those fearless coding contenders of HMC. Have they lost their lust for power? Do they no longer crave the sweet burn of sweat in their eyes? Have they been swept away by some spell where even The Eagles may not reach them? Or worse, (GASP!) have their innards turned yellow?
WHO WILL LIGHT THE TORCH THAT LIT THEM ALL?
Commit your names to the scroll!House Republicans representing areas along the Mexican border are leery of President Trump’s plan to build a wall through their districts.
Three Republican lawmakers say undertaking such a massive project will fall short of alleviating the issues surrounding border security.
Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), who represents the largest region along the Mexican border of any member of Congress, actively opposes the wall, a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign.
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And Reps. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) have both expressed skepticism about how effective the wall would be at stopping the flow of people coming to the U.S. illegally.
Their lack of enthusiasm means there isn’t a single border-area lawmaker who vocally supports the construction of a wall in their district.
There are six deep-blue districts along the Mexican border — from California to Texas — all represented in the House by Democrats unified against Trump’s wall plan and home to voters who don’t want a wall in their backyards.
Voters in the regions along the border — which have significant Hispanic populations — predominantly favored Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE over Trump last November.
Representing border districts are Democratic Reps. Juan Vargas (Calif.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Beto O’Rourke (Texas), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Vicente González (Texas) and Filemon Vela (Texas).
Pearce’s southern New Mexico district was the only one along the border that Trump won on Nov. 8.
Hurd and McSally, on the other hand, face a tricky balancing act in Trump’s presidency after both of their swing districts narrowly went to Clinton.
After Trump signed an executive order last week taking steps toward building the wall, Hurd issued a statement breaking with his fellow Republicans to make clear he wasn’t on board.
Hurd noted that it would be “impossible” to build a physical wall in many parts of the more than 800 miles of the border in his district.
“Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border,” he said.
“Each section of the border faces unique geographical, cultural, and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers the agents on the ground with the resources they need. A wall may be an effective tool in densely populated areas, but a variety of tools are needed between Brownsville, Texas, and San Diego, California.”
Neither McSally nor Pearce went as far as Hurd, but both indicated that a one-size-fits-all strategy of a wall along the entire Mexican border doesn’t seem feasible.
McSally described Trump’s executive order, which also calls for hiring 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents, as a “strong start in the right direction.”
But McSally, who chairs a House Homeland Security subcommittee on border security, was less effusive about the executive order’s directions for building the wall.
“When it comes to barriers, they are important where appropriate, but only part of the equation. What we need is a comprehensive strategy to grow situational awareness, build operational control and dismantle the cartels and their networks,” she said.
And Pearce, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, signaled that he doesn’t think a wall alone would prevent illegal immigration.
“Building a wall or increasing the number of Border Patrol agents alone will not fix the faults with our border security,” he said. “We must enforce the laws we have and create a new strategy that will reform the way we patrol and protect the border.”
Pearce told the Albuquerque Journal after the November elections that the wall wouldn’t turn out to be the solution Trump and his supporters believe it to be.
“It can be cheated,” Pearce said at the time. “We communicated that we thought it’s not going to work because we see people going under it, around it and over it.”
But other Republicans are eager to get the project started.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an immigration hawk whose district is more than 1,000 miles away from the border, even has a scale model of the proposed structure that he showed off in a photo with new Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly.
GOP leaders are making clear they want to make progress on one of Trump’s key campaign promises within the first year of his administration. Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) said after the joint House-Senate GOP retreat last week that he expects Congress to take up an emergency funding package to provide American taxpayer funding for the wall’s construction.
Estimates for its cost range from $10 billion to $20 billion. Trump pledged on the campaign trail that Mexico would pay for it, though Republicans haven’t laid out definitive plans for how to offset the wall’s cost or who will end up with the bill.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer floated the idea of a 20 percent tax on imports from Mexico last week, later clarifying that such a move is just one option the White House is considering.
Mexican leaders have said repeatedly they won’t pay for the wall, and the disagreement led Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to cancel a meeting with Trump originally set for this week.tdjen:
Omg i haven’t used this blog in a year? Maybe more but i’m rewatching the show and i have some many things to say….
Starting by the complexity of an mental illness like OCD and how Trent was not only written to be mentally ill for the sake of??? Literally Gwen maybe? and the fact that it’s treated like a joke, then, if i recall correctly, forgotten in future appearances; like i genuinely want to know why would the writers do that without thinking and it’s been bothering more than usual
Like we all know that he is a bland white guy, and literally making him mentally ill would add a more complex layer to his (boring) character, and it could be definitely be a tool to empathize more with him or whatever, yet he is comic relief and despicted as a weird person that’s gone crazy like wtf….
(And let’s not start with Mike….)
Like the amount of stupid stuff that is just plain wrong and had been written into the show is insane and i want to know why not a single adult with a fully developed brain in that show stops it, like one thing is bad writing but the other is just doing both moral and etichal choices in a show that is directed to children and teenagers that clearly are growing and getting behavioral lessons from mediaThe Chancellor has announced driverless cars will be allowed on Britain's motorways next year. George Osborne said the vehicles could lead to the most "fundamental" change to transport since the invention of the petrol engine.
Driverless cars will be tested out on Britain's roads in 2016 Credit: Rui Vieira / PA
In a trial run, test drives will begin on a small number of local roads within months before pilots on motorways to assess safety are carried out in 2016. The move will be set out in next week's Budget, and the Chancellor argues it could boost the economy and put the country at the forefront of the new technology.
At a time of great uncertainty in the global economy, Britain must take bold decisions now to ensure it leads the world when it comes to new technologies and infrastructure. That's what my Budget next week will seek to do. Driverless cars could represent the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Naturally we need to ensure safety, and that's what the trials we are introducing will test. If successful, we could see driverless cars available for sale and on Britain's roads, boosting UK jobs and productivity. – George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer
George Osborne says driverless cars could boost UK jobs and productivity Credit: PATwins have been at the heart of the nature versus nurture debate since Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, started looking at the issue over a century ago. Today, more than 1.5 million twins around the world take part in studies aiming to assess the relative roles of genes and the environment in everything from ageing to disease, and from bullying to religious belief. These studies rest on a few simple assumptions. Twins usually grow up together, so share the same environment. Identical twins develop when a fertilised egg splits in two, so their DNA is exactly the same. Non-identical twins develop when separate eggs are fertilised by separate sperm, so their DNA differs. If identical twins are more similar with regard to a particular trait than non-identical twins, the rationale goes, then that trait - hair colour, say - must be genetic. If identical twins are no more similar than non-identical twins with regard to a trait - such as the language they speak - that trait is more likely to be environmental. But cases like that of the Dutch twins threaten to throw a spanner in the works, so researchers were keen to discover what made them so physically different. The first suggestion was that the twins were not identical. ''You can find identical twins who differ genetically, but they're the exception rather than the rule,'' says Dorret Boomsma of VU University Amsterdam, a member of the team that studied these two girls. Two things can make identical twins genetically different. Sometimes, when a fertilised egg splits, mistakes are made. In extreme cases, entire chromosomes can be present in one twin but absent in the other. This turned out to be the case for identical triplets born in 1983. One lost a Y chromosome when the egg split, so the triplets developed into two boys and a girl. Even when eggs split with no genetic errors, mutations later on can lead to differences. If a mutation occurs early in development, almost all of the cells in one twin may inherit it, while none of the cells in the other twin will have it. Most mutations have no discernible effect, but occasionally they hit key genes. The characteristics of the Dutch twin with a divided spine pointed to a particular gene, because they resembled those of an unusual mouse strain with a bifurcating tail. These mice have a mutation in a gene called Axin, which helps guide body layout during development.
So the team sequenced the gene in each girl but were surprised to find no difference. That led them to wonder if something else had happened to prevent the Axin gene from working. We have long known of epigenetic marks - chemical labels added to DNA that alter the activity of genes without altering the sequence. In particular, if a stretch of DNA has lots of added methyl groups, the activity of nearby genes is suppressed. So the team took a closer look at the Axin gene in blood cells from the twins. Sure enough, the girl with the split spine had unusually high levels of methylation. So while other causes cannot yet be ruled out, the researchers think the most likely explanation is that in one twin something pushed methylation levels high enough to shut the gene down. Mystery solved? Far from it. What pushed methylation levels above a critical threshold in one twin but not in the other? ''That's the million-dollar question,'' says team member Nick Martin, of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia. What's more, many other differences between twins are also being linked to variations in methylation. It is now relatively cheap and easy to study methylation levels, so the last few years have seen a surge in research. Of particular interest are identical twins where one has a particular condition or disease and the other does not. For a wide range of disorders including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and autism, researchers have found different methylation profiles in the affected twins.
Even more intriguingly, differences in methylation are being linked to differences in behaviour. For instance, in one pair of identical twin sisters - one a war journalist, the other a risk-averse office manager - differences were found in a gene implicated in stress and anxiety. No one is claiming that these marks alone explain the sisters' different behaviours. But they might help explain why the journalist is less anxious in dangerous situations, which could have influenced her career choice. Or it could be that the methylation differences between the women are the result of their different behaviours and environments, rather than the cause. None of the twin studies prove that methylation differences trigger diseases or alter behaviour. ''The findings are correlative,'' cautions epigeneticist Jonathan Mill, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, who has carried out such studies. Indeed, it is clear that much, if not most, epigenetic variability is driven by the world we live in. Studies show that all kinds of environmental factors, from pesticides and pollutants to diet, smoking and alcohol, can alter methylation patterns. And once methylation patterns have changed, there can be lasting effects. When smokers kick the habit, for instance, their methylation patterns rapidly return almost to normal. But some changes can persist for decades - perhaps helping to explain why ex-smokers remain at an increased risk of cancer and respiratory problems years after they quit. Many studies suggest that particular methylation changes contribute to cancers, implying that methylation changes can be both effect and cause. The environment has a key role in shaping our epigenetic profiles, which in turn influence the activity of our genes, which in turn may shape our behaviour, choices and health - our environment - and so it goes on. That might explain why the epigenomes of identical twins diverge over the years, as a 2012 study showed. ''It could be that the methylation patterns of identical twins become more dissimilar because they experience increasingly different environments,'' says Bastiaan Heijmans, of Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, who led the study. Our epigenetic profiles, it seems, mimic our individual, divergent paths, environments and experiences. They are as unique as we are.
But if so much is down to the environment, how can identical twins be different even before they are born? Researchers Jeff Craig and Richard Saffery, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, have identified unique methylation profiles in identical twins born as early as 32 weeks. This could partly be due to subtle physical differences, such as variations in the size of their umbilical cords. It might also be partly due to random events, such as a failure to copy epigenetic marks when cells divide. A small change in a single cell early in development could end up affecting many organs in the resulting adult, for example. Andrew Feinberg of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, thinks that not only are some of the epigenetic differences between individuals a result of random events, but that this randomness is built-in - an evolved feature. Feinberg thinks it is a way for evolution to hedge its bets. Many animals have to survive in a constantly changing environment. Random epigenetic changes produce more variation in genetically similar offspring, increasing the chances that some of them will survive, he argues. If your head is starting to spin, brace yourself. It seems that the amount of random epigenetic variability can itself vary depending on the environment. In mice given certain dietary supplements, there was increased variability in their methylation patterns.
Just how important these random variations are is not yet clear. The ideal study would be to raise a batch of clones in exactly the same environment and see how they turn out. This clearly cannot be done with people, but it can be done with mice. In one such experiment, 40 radio-tagged mice spent three months living together in the same five-storey cage, decked out with flower pots, tubes and toys, while researchers recorded their every move. At first the mice behaved similarly, but over time their exploratory patterns began to differ. ''They developed different personalities,'' says team member Gerd Kempermann at the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Dresden. The study adds to the evidence that animals can turn out differently even if their genes and environment are identical. What it also suggests is that these differences can arise through a dynamic, interactive process. So a slightly more active mouse might explore a little more than a less active one. It might bump into more of its cage mates and take an enjoyable tumble down a plastic tube, which might in turn fuel its wanderlust, making it better at climbing and more likely and able to seek out further new experiences. Kempermann found that the most adventurous mice grew the most new neurons in their hippocampus, a brain region linked to learning and memory. Tiny initial differences become amplified, feeding back to biology and behaviour, sculpting individuality. ''Epigenetics is a potential mechanism to explain our findings,'' Kempermann says. Epigenetic variations could arise randomly or as a result of physical differences in the womb, or a mixture of both. ''Twins may share the same womb, but experience it very differently,'' says Craig. These tiny initial epigenetic differences might influence gene activity and sculpt our interaction with the environment, which then feeds back into the epigenome, amplifying the message. ''The environment isn't what happens to us. We make our own environment,'' says geneticist Robert Plomin, of London's Institute of Psychiatry. Add a dash of serendipity - one twin having an accident or illness - and these experiences set them on a trajectory to individuality.
These findings suggest there is more to our uniqueness than our genes and upbringing, that even if we were just one of thousands of clones we would still all end up different in some ways. Where does this leave the nature versus nurture debate? It is clear some traits, such as hair colour, are mostly down to genes, whereas others, such as language, are due to the environment. But you could argue there's a third factor - call it chance or serendipity - in the form of random events occurring in our bodies or the environment. That may be why the Dutch twins were so different. What's more, many aspects of our bodies and behaviours seem to be the result of complex interactions between genes and the environment, mediated by epigenetics and with a large dash of chance thrown in. In these cases it seems pointless arguing about nature versus nurture. ''The debate is outdated,'' says epigeneticist Manel Esteller, of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain. ''It doesn't make sense any more.'' New ScientistThe Evening Times is today running an article titled “City in cash plea to help parks”. The gist of the story is that Glasgow’s parks need additional private and public investment or they risk deterioration and disappearing altogether.
It includes comments from GCC’s Land and Environment Director, Brian Devlin:
“Scotland’s urban parks and green spaces are at risk”
And from (disgraced former SPT chair) Alistair Watson, GCC’s Land and Environment ‘spokesman’ :
“MyParkGlasgow will involve Glaswegians and businesses by giving them a real say in what parks and open space projects they would like to support.”
The Evening Times article follows this GCC report outlining plans for a “MyParkScotland & Greenspaces fund” which will (according to the report):
Establish a “giving” website dedicated to Glasgow (and Scotland wide) Parks & Openspaces.
Encourage “giving” from local and multinational organisations and individuals to support Glasgow parks and openspaces projects.
Establish a local panel made up from the establishment of a “Friends of Glasgow Parks forum”, local communities groups and local businesses.
The document also outlines plans to establish a “MyParkGlasgow Fund Local Panel” which would be to “identify and put forward projects and recommend the spending of monies in the MyParkGlasgow Fund on local parks and green space projects that need financial support.”
It would be “intended” this panel would include “the local business sector” and the Glasgow business lobby, the Chamber of Commerce. (“George Square can also be a driver of business”)
The document then outlines some next steps which include seeking funding from Nesta’s “Rethinking Parks” project. You can read more about Rethinking Parks here:
“Exploring New Business Models for Parks in the 21st Century”
These plans, which further open Glasgow’s public spaces up to private interests follow the controversial new parks rules proposals (which include giving more powers over our parks to GCC quangos with commercial membership) and the shambolic ‘redevelopment’ of Glasgow’s famous public park, George Square.
The current state of George Square, and its continued deterioration serve as a stark reminder of what can happen to public spaces when they are opened up to private interests.
You can write to your councillor hereOil prices are continuing to weaken as demand slows Oil prices have further extended their losses on growing signs of weakening demand from consumers amid the global economic slowdown. Weak US new home sales figures put further downward pressure on prices after Monday's fall on Wall Street and decline in Japanese exports. US light, sweet crude slipped 93 cents to $38.98 a barrel, having already fallen 6% on Monday. Brent crude oil also fell, by $1.09, to $40.36 a barrel. "The bears appear to be in control, aided by weak equity markets as the global economic slump offers a depressive ring to the festive period," said Rob Laughlin, senior oil analyst at MF Global in London. Meanwhile, China cut its interest rates on Monday for the fifth time in four months amid mounting anxiety about spreading job losses and worker protests. Surging demand from China and other emerging nations had sent oil prices to record highs of $147 a barrel in July, before the economic crisis began to slow demand. Now, however, even in China oil demand is falling, shrinking for the first time in three years in November. Production cuts
The trend at the moment is still south
Justin Wilks, Global Commodities
In a bid to support oil prices, the producers' cartel, Opec, has said it would reduce production by about 5% of world supplies to counter the plunge in demand. Last week Opec agreed to cut 2.2 million barrels a day of production, and the group has indicated it was ready to reduce supply further if needed. However, oil traders have said they are most concerned for now with seeing evidence that Opec countries are implementing the cuts they have already agreed. "The trend at the moment is still south," said Justin Wilks, of the fund managers Global Commodities. "Any amount of production cuts will take a little time to come through, but just as with base metals it's all tied to economics at the moment," he said. Later on Tuesday traders will be looking for confirmation the US economy contracted by 0.5% in the third quarter, in line with preliminary figures. On Wednesday, weekly US oil inventory figures are expected to show that crude stocks rose by 300,000 barrels in the week to 19 December. Meanwhile, energy ministers from gas exporting countries are meeting in Moscow amid suggestions that they want to set up an organisation similar to Opec. The countries involved include Russia, Algeria, Iran, Libya, Qatar and Venezuela. Russia has said the main idea of the organisation is to exchange views.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionThe following is an excerpt from a training address I delivered to our valiant missionaries at the Provo MTC. I counsel all saints and member missionaries everywhere to share these valuable principles via the Internet and during church meetings and talks, that the Lord’s true Church may profit thereby in bringing many of our Heavenly Father’s children unto salvation through its saving ordinances.
Dearest missionaries,
What a joy it is to be with you this day. Truly this is an historic meeting. You are the Lord’s army, called and chosen by Him to deliver His word to the world. Does this make you feel special? It should. You could have remained at home, pursuing your education and your careers, dating, attending college sporting events, performing humanitarian service in the community or abroad, or pursuing and developing your talents and gifts, and yet here you are! O what joy, what satisfaction, what fulfillment it must bring to you young people when you realize that instead of doing these self-centered things, you will be building your mansions in heaven by serving in the manner prescribed by the Lord’s chosen prophets, seers, and revelators, and as expected of you by your precious families and beloved ward members. I can think of no more noble and charitable act than this, my young friends!
Now, dear missionaries, as you travel “to and fro in the earth, walking up and down in it” (Job 2:2), you will encounter many false religions. The purpose of my training today is to help you prepare and strengthen yourselves against the adversary, so that you will be able to recognize these false religions for what they really are. The adversary knows that the most effective way of keeping people from receiving the truths of the Restored Gospel is to entrap masses of devout believers in false religions and cults, and thus he leads them “carefully down to hell” (2 Nephi 28:21). Therefore, the question of how to identify Satan’s work becomes very important, and we should learn all we can of his cunning traps, that we may more effectively rescue these lost souls as true missionaries of the Lord.
Some years ago, whilst serving as a mission president in Canada, I became acquainted with a certain Ms. Sands who lived in our neighbourhood. Sister Delaney and I tried numerous times to bring her the further light and knowledge of the Restored Gospel, but to no avail. You see, Ms. Sands would not even listen to us because she was involved in an oppressive cult which blinded her from the truth without her even knowing it. This cult claimed to be Christian and to be following the peaceful and loving Christ, but this was clearly not reflected in their ideology. Sadly, Ms. Sands devoutly followed these false cult leaders, who even claimed to speak for Christ even though their teachings had clearly been shown to be false throughout their entire religious history. She had even been indoctrinated to such a point that her home was adorned with pictures, paintings, and figurines of these cult leaders and of their founder. We eventually learned that in her younger days, she had an opportunity to marry a good young man but had declined because he had failed to perform their cult’s rite of passage, which was seen by her cult as a terrible disappointment. Her obedience to these false leaders was so controlling that she even believed that leaving her false religion was equal to leaving God, and that there was no other way she could be saved. Remember, dear missionaries, that it is a cardinal rule that no one can ever be in a cult and simultaneously realize that they are in one (source). How difficult this made it for us to teach Ms. Sands the true message of the Restoration!
Ms. Sands feared her organization without even realizing it, to the point where she had been broken down to a state of absolute obedience to her leaders, thinking that if she complained or didn’t conform, it would appear to be a sign of weakness or unrighteousness to her peers and family members. Sister Delaney and I were appalled when we learned that this cult also limited her access to any information that could save her from delusion by keeping the truth about its past hidden from her, and instead teaching a carefully edited and modified version of its history. Any problems that became exposed were only answered by providing incomprehensible and nonsensical explanations which they knew would be impossible for her to understand. Can you see how terrible the effects of this cult were upon her life? The cult further controlled Ms. Sands by telling her that she would be in Satan’s power if she did not live up to every commandment given in their ritualistic ceremonies, and by placing her under a secret oath (without any prior knowledge on her part that this would happen) to give everything she would ever own to the cult, under penalty of death! Such was her indoctrination that she even willingly gave her cult large sums of money in exchange for their promised blessings, without any knowledge of how that money was really being used or if the organization was actually corrupt.
What a terrible tragedy! Sister Delaney and I have wept many tears for dear Ms. Sands, who was entrapped by the evil one, ironically only because she desired to be good and obey God!
Thus the first lesson we should learn, Elders and Sisters, is that the adversary is very deceptive. He is called “the father of lies” (John 8:44). He will work very subtly to trick and mislead our Heavenly Father’s children into thinking they are on the correct path when, in reality, they have been greatly deceived. He is the great imitator, who will use the appearance of righteousness to mask his evil ways. There are numerous scriptures that describe the adversary’s great ability to trick and mislead:
The adversary can appear as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14, D&C 128:20, D&C 129:8).
The adversary will seem to be like God (2 Thess 2:4).
The adversary will not be exposed as the devil until the end of time (2 Thess 2:8).
The adversary’s followers will show forth miracles and wonders (Matt 24:24, Mark 13:22).
The adversary will tempt with the promise of dominion and power (Matt 4:8-9, Luke 4:5-7).
Those who think they are standing [who think they are correct] will fall (1 Cor 10:12).
The adversary will raise false prophets who will deceive even the very elect [those who desire to be good and righteous] (Matt 24:24, Mark 13:22).
And worse yet, the adversary’s followers will seem and claim to be apostles of Christ (2 Cor 11:13-14, Matt 24:4-5, 24:23-26, Mark 13:21-22).
Do you see, Elders and Sisters, the great deception used by the adversary? He leads people away from the message of the Restored Gospel by getting them involved in cults where they become indoctrinated to such a point that they are unable to recognize the truth even when it is clearly presented to them. So it was with Ms. Sands, who was so involved in her cult and so hopelessly dependent on the system that she was willing to fight to protect it, even when Sister Delaney and I presented her with all the evidence which clearly showed that their beliefs had little to no foundation, and that the organization she was in was corrupt. To her, it was all she had known, and the need to conform to the group was more important to her than the truth. Therefore, dear missionaries, as you teach lost souls such as Ms. Sands, remember to reiterate this important lesson: By definition, it is not possible to be in a cult and at the same time know that you are in one. Only when someone comes out of a cult, and can clearly see it through the eyes of an outside observer, do they realize that they were being controlled (even though this fact is plainly evident to the rest of the world). This makes teaching the Restored Gospel to such individuals extremely difficult, dear missionaries, because they will rarely, if ever, consider the possibility that they could be mistaken. It is an unfortunate fact that such deluded individuals always think they are right, even when they are clearly wrong. O that all our Heavenly Father’s children could be free from the controlling influences of false religions and thus embrace the Lord’s true Church!
Now, some of you missionaries are probably asking: “How does the evil one manage to ensnare people such as Ms. Sands, and how can we rescue them?” This is a very important question that all missionaries should prayerfully consider. Certainly those who are wicked—the thieves, liars, murderers, and adulterers—are already in Satan’s clutches. But how does Satan tempt those who are already good, kind, and loving, and who abhor wickedness? Some people naively think that Satan’s best tactic would be to tempt them to steal, kill, curse God, and commit other grave evils. But Satan is surely much too wise to place all his efforts into tempting good people to be bad.
No, Satan, being very clever in his efforts to keep people from the Restored Gospel, and knowing that good people want to be good, endeavours to ensnare these souls by appearing as an “angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14), by preaching goodness and by giving people bits of truth and light. He will make his false teachings look very righteous. His representatives will not be evil-looking men, but rather they will be people who look very righteous, clean-cut and smiling, speaking words of peace and love. (Just like the deceptively righteous looking pictures of the false cult leaders displayed in Ms. Sands’ home.) Satan’s message will claim to be from God, and may even sound like it came from God. It |
the obstacles, Pugliese said the budding program has been a success.
It can be difficult to launch bike-share in a small city with a transportation system that is heavily reliant on car travel, Pugliese said. But Chattanooga’s experience can offer inspiration to other small cities.
In its first six months of operation, the system has provided 12,600 rides. Together, riders burned more than one million calories. All those bike trips have resulted in up to a 8,100-pound reduction in emissions. The system will add three more stations in residential neighborhoods in the spring.
“We’re pretty happy, all things considered,” he said.
To encourage ridership, the first hour of each trip is free. Another challenge is that Bike Chattanooga, as the system is informally known, hasn’t yet attracted a major sponsor. Securing enough capital to keep the system going through the lean start-up years is important, especially in smaller markets, where programs may find themselves on weaker financial footing than in larger cities, Pugliese said. He said the city considers the system an experimental pilot project.
Many other small cities are pursuing bike-share, conference speakers reported, including Bridgeport, Connecticut; Portland, Maine; and Fort Collins, Colorado. Panelists noted that Spartanburg, South Carolina (population 37,000), has a system with just two stations and 14 bikes.The latest iteration of FX’s “American Horror Story” will focus on fear stemming from Trump’s electoral victory, according to the latest season seven trailer.
The trailer, released in late August, features an election night meltdown as it creepily asks, “What is the thing that scares you the most?”
The shot cuts to a group of well-dressed women in Michigan acting shocked when Trump is announced as the 2016 election winner, including Sarah Paulson’s latest character in the series, who screams “oh my god!” and puts her head in her hands.
Meanwhile, a blue-haired freak seems ecstatic about Trump’s win and begins aggressively humping the television.
“Since election night, it has just all been getting so much worse,” Paulson’s character tells her therapist as a montage shows her becoming increasingly anxious and frightened by visions of killer clowns.
Unfortunately for Paulson, no one seems to believe that the clowns she is seeing are real, as the blue-haired Trump supporter can be heard saying, “if you get people scared enough they will set the world on fire.”
Previous seasons of AHS featured ghosts, witches, deformed carnival workers, and demonic hotel guests, but apparently Season 7’s fear will all stem from Trump becoming president.
WATCH:
Follow Amber on TwitterWINDSOR, Ont. — Police say a recent seizure of crack cocaine and two handguns is only the latest incident to reveal a trend of Toronto drug criminals plying their trade in Windsor.
Two Toronto men are in custody and a third is being sought following arrests by the Windsor police drugs and guns unit earlier this week.
“They are all out of the Toronto area, and they all have gang affiliations up there,” said Windsor police spokesman Sgt. Brett Corey.
“This investigation has been ongoing for some time. These guys come into town, they do their business, they sell the crack, and they head back up to Toronto.”
Corey said all three suspects are “well known” to police and have prior drug and weapon convictions.
The bust took place around 5 p.m. Monday. Members of the drugs and guns unit stopped two male suspects who were on foot in the 1600 block of California Avenue.
One of the men had a quantity of crack cocaine on him – 12.85 grams.
Both suspects were taken to police headquarters for “more extensive” searching. Police said a further amount of crack cocaine – 0.21 grams – was discovered in a package “between the buttocks” of one suspect.
Meanwhile, officers received information that the suspects had been staying at a motel in the 2000 block of Huron Church Road.
Search warrants were executed on two rooms at the motel.
Corey said one of the rooms didn’t look like it was being used for anything other than drug business. “It had no indication that anybody was sleeping there. It was strictly drug paraphernalia …. Plastic bags, packaging – that kind of stuff.”
Two firearms were discovered: A black-and-silver Ruger semi-automatic pistol, and a Smith and Wesson revolver.
Also found were a digital scale and a quantity of a “white powdery substance” that police said must undergo forensic testing.
Investigators estimate the street value of the drugs seized so far at $1,306.
Corey said the seizure of the handguns was very significant to police – and to public safety.
“Our drugs and guns officers have been working diligently on these guys,” Corey said. “Any time we can take two guns off the street, that’s a successful operation.”
Charged are Abdinasir Mohamud Yusuf, 25, and Ahmed Hassan Farah, 29.
Yusuf and Farah each face one count of possessing a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, two counts of possessing restricted weapons and two counts of careless storage of a firearm.
Yusuf has also been charged with three counts of failure to comply with release conditions, while Farah has been charged with one count of failure to comply with conditions of an undertaking.
Police are still seeking a third suspect, also from Toronto.
Sahal Mohammed Sahal, 26, is now the subject of an arrest warrant. He’s wanted on eight charges concerning the seized firearms.
Corey said investigators believe that Sahal has already left our area and returned to Toronto. The investigation continues.
Police said more charges could be coming.He's back.
Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog appeared with Conan O'Brien for the first time in over a year last night in a remote piece at Occupy Wall Street. As if the last episode of "Conan" in New York City wasn't already an embarrassment of riches, with Louis C.K., a live gay wedding and an appearance from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Triumph reminded us why we love the cigar chomping, relentlessly scathing dog puppet (voiced by Robert Smigel).
Triumph went down to Wall Street, where he talked to protestors, bankers and other bystanders participating (or simply viewing) the protests. Nobody was safe from the dog puppet's attacks -- Triumph poked fun at the protestors for their hygiene and drum circles, and the bankers for, well, being bankers.
When Triumph realizes he's not being taken seriously, he disguises himself as a certain mustachioed Fox News correspondent in hopes of tricking the financiers into thinking that he's on their side. Be sure to watch until the end of the clip, unless you absolutely don't want to see a 20 foot inflatable Triumph humping the famous Wall Street bull statue.GILBERTON’S historic swing bridge will be in use again, at least temporarily, within days.
The 94-year-old bridge was closed four weeks ago for repair work.
However Walkerville Council’s infrastructure manager, Matthew Romaine, says the bridge over the Torrens will be reopened by Monday at the “absolute latest”.
He says council has been waiting on a part needed to fix the bridge which has now arrived.
The long-term future of the heritage-listed bridge remains uncertain, despite the current maintenance work.
The bridge is deemed to have rusty joints and to be in need of a major overhaul.
Joint owners Walkerville Council and Norwood, Payneham and St Peter’s Council will need to make a decision on whether to close the bridge, or turn it into an outdoor museum piece.
Background: Why it was closed in the first place
The concern is that even if costly works are taken to spruce up the Adelaide icon, it still may not bring it up to Australian Standards.
A property developer built the bridge at the end of Severn St, Gilberton so St Peters residents could cross the river to catch the Walkerville tram to the city in the 1920s.On occasion, in the middle of running your business, you’ll run across an opportunity so good you can’t pass it up. The deal costs too much to finance from your own balance sheet, but it just makes sense. Now what?
The answer is bridge financing – otherwise referred to as swing loans, interim loans, or gap financing. It is a short-term loan that you expect to repay with the proceeds of an anticipated larger transaction, allowing you to complete an opportunistic deal.
For middle market companies, sometimes bridge financing can be a perfect solution, as one of our Members found out recently.
The Company
One of the companies I was working with a few months ago was a company manufacturing packaging for consumer products. They were helping companies transition from petroleum-based plastics to more environmentally-friendly solutions, helping their clients become more sustainable and lowering their costs. The company, we’ll call them BioPlastics Inc, had significant marketing advantages and was growing quickly.
Over the previous 12 months, BioPlastics had tripled its revenues to nearly $10M. In order to take advantage of the situation, they had decided to find strategic partners to bring on growth equity. Knowing their business targets, they anticipated raising $6-8M in over the next 18 months.
The Situation
However, as the company started fundraising the CEO was approached with an opportunity to acquire a smaller packaging company. The opportunity seemed perfect. The smaller company’s location and additional equipment would allow BioPlastics to keep up with the demands of growth. A quick merger would be more effective than trying to build out their own facilities after a fundraise, plus the smaller company’s culture was a perfect match with the business.
Unfortunately, the CEO had only 90 days to act. Since BioPlastics wasn’t yet in talks with investors, it didn’t have a line of sight on excess capital. Additionally, BioPlastics’ balance sheet didn’t support making the $4-5M acquisition. They had to find a solution or risk losing the deal to another buyer.
The Leveraged Bridge
The CEO had a few options, the first of which was to run the deal as a leveraged acquisition. Between the manufacturing facility assets and the expected additional profits, lenders were willing to give BioPlastics the capital to finance the deal.
However, the sellers were skittish. Afraid of selling to someone where the financing might fall through, they wanted proof that BioPlastics had the capital to make the acquisition.
Since BioPlastics’ loans were dependent on making the acquisition, the CEO needed another solution. Working with short-term lenders, he could get a commitment for a 180 day loan for $5M — a bridge loan. With the proof of funds, he would be able to make the acquisition and then refinance the short-term loan into longer term asset-backed loans and revolvers to run the newly acquired facilities.
A Bridge to Equity
The second option for the CEO avoided a leveraged deal entirely. The business was growing rapidly, so he didn’t want to take on any more debt than necessary. While raising more capital as part of their on-going equity raise would make the most sense to cover the acquisition, BioPlastics was at least 6 months away from finishing the raise.
So the CEO worked with a short-term lender to structure a $5M loan with a 9 month term. The loan covered the acquisition of the company plus operating expenses to get the business fully integrated. The loan was able to “bridge the gap” between the acquisition date and the equity capital raise that was used to pay back the bridge loan.
Bridge financing is a great way for smaller businesses to finance an acquisition or other short term need while they secure longer term financing. While traditionally used between equity rounds for startups or preparing for an IPO, more and more middle market businesses are using bridge financing to take advantage of unique opportunities to grow their businesses.Not every private school kid emerges as a Ja’mie, a Danny, nor any of the other bitches and bullies portrayed in these fictions. But these fictions tell a certain truth: there’s much more to education than what’s taught in the classroom. If public schools are values-neutral, as John Howard (who attended one) famously suggested, private schools can only aspire to such neutrality.
This is the question of character. What kind of character is fostered within the culture of a private education? To many of us who attended private schools, the ABC’s Ja’mie: Private School Girl isn’t satire, but realism. Chris Lilley’s character Ja’mie King isn’t funny, because she isn’t caricature: she’s portraiture.
Yet immersion in this social milieu can have damaging impacts. This is masterfully portrayed in Christos Tsiolkas’ Barracuda (2013). Its protagonist Danny shows us that beneath the propaganda of merit and choices, and amid all our anxieties about Gonski reforms and who’s-your-daddy-scholarship issues, lies a moral question that dare not speak its name - at least outside of fiction.
“The data is quite clear,” says Dr Sue Thomson, director of educational monitoring and research at the Australian Council for Educational Research. She recently told The New Daily that “there is no added benefit in sending a child to an independent school, unless for the sake of exposing them to a different social milieu”.
Exit results are inflated “because of the links between elite schools, socio-economic advantage, private tutoring and hot-housing”. So these results are “not a good predictor of university success. Research evidence shows that, once left to their own devices, elite school students perform no better and often less well than their comparable government schools peers.”
In my own experience, the values of status and gender segregation were indoctrinated daily in a million subtle and explicit ways. Being judged for your downmarket clothes at school camp. Being ridiculed because your haircut was by mum, not a celebrity hairdresser. Turning down birthday invitations because your budget gift would insult. The humiliation of wearing your classmates’ offcasts bought from the second-hand uniform shop. Feeling too ashamed to invite eastern suburbs girls to your brick veneer in the ex-urbs. Cringing at being collected in old Datsun amid a fleet of new Mercs and Beemers. Avoiding dancing class because you couldn’t afford the dresses, nor relate to boys. Wagging sport because your swimsuit and racquet were unfashionable no-name brands. Inventing excuses to avoid excursions you couldn’t afford. Lying about your holidays because you didn’t ski in Europe, nor have a holiday home in Portsea, nor the means to go to horse-riding camp.
My parents worked hard to pay off their mortgage, accumulate wealth, and give me loving support. But instead of pride and gratitude for my privileged first-world life, I carried shame and embarrassment, having been schooled to discern the values of old money from those of the nouveau riche. Such indoctrination made me an outsider at school and alienated me from my own family. The negative psychological impacts of such experiences are well documented in "in-group" and "out-group" studies.
To many of us who attended private schools, the ABC’s Ja’mie: Private School Girl isn’t satire, but realism.
One of these impacts is guilt. Lower-status families toil to pay for the intolerant values their kids learn in elite school culture and then inflict on their own families. These values and the consequent middle-class guilt can take years to deprogram. To this day, I catch myself cringing when broadcasters say "haitch" instead of "aitch" on air, as if such pronunciations are a measure of good character, rather than a cultural vernacular to be celebrated.
So my hardworking family was ripped off. A private school was eager to take our money, but treated us with disdain. To generalise from my experience would be foolish, but other lower-status students also share the kinds of experiences characterised in Barracuda and Ja’mie. This is why these fictions have drawn such cultural traction. Such figures as Danny and Ja’mie should be invoked in current debates around equitable education, because if private schools were held accountable in the ways other consumer products are, there would be a case for class action. Their false advertising of better educational outcomes is one thing, but an equal moral failure, in my experience, is the culture they foster, and its failure to encourage good characters.Throughout Pandora, unique pieces of equipment can be found. These items contain special effects beyond that which is stated directly on the item card. Instead, there will be a line of "red flavor text", often a pop-culture reference, signifying the item has unique properties.
Contents show]
About Special Effects
The special effect items found across Pandora will vary in rarity. While these items are unique, the stats (damage, accuracy, reload speed, etc.) accompanying the item will vary, the unique special effect will remain the same.
A number of these special effect items are mission rewards, meaning they can only be obtained once per play through. The level of the reward item scales with the mission.
Legendary Items
All legendary items (aside from the class mods) have a special effect. Apart from a few boss specific drops, all legendary items are world drops. However, many of these items are associated with a particular boss, who has an increased drop rate for that particular item.
Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty
Introduced in Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty, there are five special effect items that have two pieces of flavor text. The first red flavor text (representing the beneficial effect) is the same. But then there will be a turquoise flavor text, or the curse (representing the negative effect).
Seraph weapons were also introduced in the first DLC. All Seraph items have a special effect. Seraph items can drop from Hyperius the Invincible, Master Gee the Invincible from the first DLC, Pyrocaustic Pete the Ultra Invincible from the second DLC, Voracidous the Invincible from the third DLC, or from the Ancient Dragons of Destruction from the fourth DLC. Seraph items can also be purchased with Seraph Crystals from a Seraph Vendor.
Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage
Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage brings a new set of special effect items. Similar to the first DLC, a new vending machine, Torgue Vending Machine, has been introduced. Various legendary items can be purchased from these vending machines via the item of the day deal. Torgue Tokens are used to make these purchases and are obtained various ways in the second DLC.
All items purchasable from the Torgue vending machine are manufactured by Torgue.
Pistols
Shotguns
Assault Rifles
Sniper Rifles
Rocket Launchers
SMGs
Shields
Grenade Mods
Class ModsSam Hauser (right) is among a group of shooters playing at Marquette next season that will make the Golden Eagles dangerous on the perimeter. Credit: John Klein / For the Journal Sentinel
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By of the
Last season was a big one for Marquette men's basketball, literally.
The Golden Eagles were one of the 35 tallest teams in the country, featuring 6-foot-11 starters in Henry Ellenson and Luke Fischer who gave them frontcourt size few squads could match.
That was the focal point for the team, which was in the second year of a program rebuild under coach Steve Wojciechowski. The result was a 20-13 record, marking a step forward, but not a big enough one to get Marquette back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013.
"We knew it was going to be a year where we had to teach and grow and get better, and I think we did that," Wojciechowski said Thursday. "There's only been 36 20-win teams in Marquette history; next year will be the 100th anniversary.
"We had freshmen play 50% of our minutes in the Big East Conference. Every freshman category in the history of the program one of our freshmen touched on it and a lot of times multiple guys did. I think we gained valuable experience, we did a lot of good things and this is another step to us getting better."
If Marquette is going to demonstrate more growth next season, it's going to come while getting smaller.
Ellenson, the only rotation player who won't return, is headed for the NBA following his stellar freshman season. He was the backbone of Marquette's squad on both ends of the court and his team-high 17.0 points and 9.7 rebounds per game won't be easily replaced.
So far, Marquette hasn't replaced Ellenson on a positional level. The Golden Eagles are due to bring back nine of 10 scholarship players who logged significant minutes last season, but only two traditional post players in Fischer and 6-10 rising sophomore Matt Heldt. Everyone else is 6-6 or shorter.
There are no power forwards among the four incoming players, either, as Marquette stands at the maximum of 13 scholarship players.
UNC Asheville transfer Andrew Rowsey, who sat out this season, and incoming freshman Markus Howard are sub-6-foot sharp-shooting guards. Sam Hauser, a senior at Stevens Point High School, and USC graduate transfer Katin Reinhardt are both versatile 6-6 players who do most of their damage around the perimeter.
"I think shooting in today's day and age is key," Wojciechowski said after a season in which Marquette was the seventh-best three-point shooting team in the Big East.
"It's one of the reasons Henry's going to be really valuable in the NBA. The guys that we added have a chance to be elite-level shooters and that's a good thing. We haven't figured out exactly how all the pieces fit together — we'll do that at another time. We're excited about the direction our program's headed."
With the way the roster is configured, Marquette certainly would play a different brand of basketball next season. In 2015-'16, 54.8% of the Golden Eagles' points came from inside the arc, putting them in the top 50 in the country in that category. Just 23.1% of their points came from long range.
Armed to the hilt with guards, including returning players who combined to shoot 35.0% from three-point range, the Golden Eagles look primed to have shooting depth at multiple positions and a new-found ability to space the floor.
"In college basketball, and basketball in general, guards are incredibly important," Wojciechowski said. "I think we have some real good ones. You can win a lot of different ways in college."
While winning while playing small is certainly doable — national champion Villanova is a prime example of spreading the floor with shooters surrounding one traditional big man — the book isn't fully closed on Marquette's roster staying the same.
Canadian 6-9 power forward Kalif Young, a three-star recruit in the 2016 class, and 6-8 Duquesne grad transfer L.G. Gill reportedly will visit Marquette before the end of the month. Since Marquette is at its maximum scholarship allotment for 2016-'17, one would need to open up — either by a player leaving the program or giving up his scholarship — in order for a new player to claim one.
"We're always recruiting," Wojciechowski said. "In today's day and age you have to. We'll get to what we're doing in the future at another time."Over the weekend, someone argued quite seriously that if Bertie Ahern had been in that Brussels meeting last Sunday week negotiating for the Greeks, there might have been a different outcome.
It’s probably symptomatic of Bertie’s double-edged legacy that the idea provoked a bout of strangled laughter, then a string of profanities followed by a noisy debate. After which it took on the look of a plausible thesis. To get to this point of course, you must first have had some strong drink, then acquire a memory eraser to delete all those hours of deluded, self-exculpation at the banking inquiry. Having done that, your brain will be free to focus on his role as a negotiator in the Belfast Agreement.
By all accounts, the “mental waterboarding” allegedly inflicted on Alexis Tsipras over 16 hours in Brussels was a gentle splash by comparison with the interminable, tortuous, tongue-biting, sleep-deprived ordeal endured by the Belfast negotiators. It was, by common consent, Ahern’s crowning achievement.
Sometimes we need a reminder. A glance at this paper on Monday was to be assaulted by Margaret McLaughlin’s fine photograph, taken last Saturday in Derry. Masked men parading in paramilitary garb, faces concealed behind the sunglasses and scarves traditionally favoured by brave boys everywhere. They were leading the massive funeral cortege of republican Peggy O’Hara, mother of Patsy, an INLA hunger-striker who died 34 years ago.
Tinder box
It was a reminder of how slim is the veneer between barbarism and civilisation. That Belfast Agreement which Bertie helped to negotiate just 17 years ago demanded a high price of Irish people in terms of early release and moral fudge. But it worked. In its various fudgey components, it demonstrated the unsung cunning of Mother McCree’s dog, the mutt derided for its habit of going a bit of the road with everyone. Such is that dog’s notoriety, our leader-writer compared him to Bertie on Saturday.
But is going a bit of the road with everyone necessarily a bad thing? Might it just be another way of describing negotiations that allow all parties to come away with something and crucially, stop the bloodshed or halt the slide into anarchy?
The Derry photograph makes the heart sink, but it also reminds us of the pearl that is a skilled negotiator, the man or woman prepared to leave ego outside the door (no small feat for politicians), take advice, absorb all manner of provocation and work through the tide of obfuscation with endless patience, political calculation and gut instinct. There is a view that it was Bertie’s general lack of conviction and old-school political nous that allowed him to enter such talks with the requisite open mind and patience. So be it.
We saw the fall-out in recent weeks when one side in the Greece-euro zone negotiations was led by a minister who came garlanded with academic credentials but was a political novice. Academic achievement is no guarantor of success in a scenario where there is no single solution. Those talks as (almost) everyone now knows, were as much about politics back home as about the best evidence. Something as trivial as personality should be irrelevant when it comes down to the fate of a country and its suffering people, but until such face-offs are capable of being sorted by computers, they won’t be.
At one euro group meeting back in February, according to one report, Yanis Varoufakis had to be pulled off negotiation duty because he had spent most of the session “lecturing” his counterparts (in the counterparts’ view, that is), then leaked a confidential draft communique to the press room after he sensed the meeting was going against him. Rightly or wrongly, what were his or Greece’s chances of getting a sympathetic hearing after that?
Game theory
Very few of us could do it. Moral outrage and/or an allergy to sanctimonious martyrs, wafflers and hectoring bureaucrats would probably have us yanked from the session inside an hour. The best of politicians are not necessarily the most admirable.THURSDAY, Aug. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Teen vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV) are lagging behind rates for two other important vaccines in the United States, federal researchers say.
HPV infection can lead to cervical cancer in females, but HPV vaccination dramatically reduces the risk of infection. HPV vaccines are given in three doses over six months. All three shots must be received to ensure the highest level of protection, according to background information in a news release from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC recommends HPV vaccine for 11- or 12-year-old girls to protect them against the types of HPV that cause cervical cancer. The CDC also recommends teenage girls who have not yet been vaccinated with HPV vaccine complete the vaccination series.
But an analysis of data from the 2010 National Immunization Survey-Teen found that coverage rates for the Tdap vaccine (which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, or whooping cough) and the MenACWY vaccine (which protects against meningococcal meningitis) are increasing at a much faster pace than the HPV vaccination rate.
The national teen survey, which included more than 19,000 participants aged 13 to 17, revealed that coverage in 2010 was 69 percent for Tdap, 63 percent for MenACWY, 49 percent for one dose of HPV vaccine, and 32 percent for three doses of HPV vaccine.
The increase in full HPV vaccination between 2009 and 2010 was 5.3 percentage points, compared with increases of 13.3 percentage points for Tdap and 9.1 percentage points for MenACWY, the CDC researchers found.
Blacks and Hispanics were less likely than whites to receive three doses of HPV vaccine, and girls living in poverty were also less likely to complete the triple-dose HPV series, the authors reported in the Aug. 26 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the CDC.
"More U.S. teens are being protected against these serious, and sometimes deadly, diseases," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in the news release. "However, the HPV results are very concerning. Our progress is stagnating, and if we don't make major changes, far too many girls in this generation will remain vulnerable to cervical cancer later in life. Now that we have the tools to prevent most cervical cancers, it is critical that we use them."
Each year in the United States, about 6 million people become infected with HPV and about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, according to the CDC.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about HPV vaccination.Two of the most ferocious fighters on the UFC roster will do
battle at
UFC On FOX
Article continues below...
9. In a fight seemingly destined for Fight Of The Night honors,
Carlos Condit will face the surging Matt Brown, FOX Sports has
confirmed through UFC officials.
Condit (29-7) recently ended his mini-slide with a spectacular
fourth-round technical knockout of Martin Kampmann. Prior to that
he’d lost two straight but those defeats were to champion
Georges St-Pierre and No. 1 contender Johny Hendricks, and both in
well-contested battles. Due to his performances, he’s still
holding on to the No. 2 rankings.
That makes the upcoming matchup the biggest opportunity ever for
Brown (18-11), as he attempts to enter his name into the title
picture. The No. 10 ranked welterweight has captured six straight,
including four straight knockouts. That streak marked a startling
turnaround from a time where he lost four of five and seemed on the
verge of losing his job.
The two are among the great finishers among the welterweight
division. Condit has finished 27 of his 29 career victories while
Brown has stopped his opponents in 16 of his 18 wins.
At one time Brown was linked to a fight with former Strikeforce
champion Tarec Saffiedine, but that fight was ultimately scuttled
for a different direction.
The high-profile addition is just another to a card that has
rapidly and impressively taken shape. The show takes place on Dec.
14 at Sacramento’s Sleep Train Arena and boasts numerous
ranked fighters.
In the main event, Anthony “Showtime” Pettis will
look to make his first lightweight title defense against Josh
Thomson. Meanwhile, bantamweight contenders Urijah Faber and
Michael McDonald square off, while Chad Mendes looks to continue
his march to another title shot when he faces Nik Lentz.The head of a London university has said she did not adopt the Government’s new working definition of anti-Semitism because the university’s own Centre for Jewish Studies said it was “contentious”.
Baroness Amos, director of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), made the comments during a BBC ‘Sunday Politics’ interview about recent incidents on campuses across the capital involving scuffles between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian students.
She said her “first priority is the duty of care we have to all our students,” adding that the diversity of SOAS – where students from 130 countries learn – was also crucial. “At the same time, we’re a university,” she said. “We promote dialogue, robust discussion… There are lots of political dimensions that frame some of this.”
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She said SOAS policies on respect were taken from the Equality Act, which lists protected characteristics including race and religion, but when asked why SOAS had not adopted the new International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which includes reference to Israel as a “racist endeavour,” she said: “Our responsibility as a university is not to define anti-Semitism.”
She added: “I consulted with our own Centre for Jewish Studies on this, who basically said this definition is a contentious definition. There are some who lecture in anti-Semitism who think it’s OK.”
Universities Minister Jo Johnson has already urged higher education institutions to voluntarily adopt the IHRA definition, which also states that comparisons between the policies of Nazi Germany and modern-day Israel are anti-Semitic.
Earlier in the interview, Amos was asked about an incident being reported in which a Jewish female student at SOAS said a pro-Palestinian peer took her Israeli flag out of her bag. Amos said: “We’re investigating that.”We at Neurogadget have another interview for you this week, this time with Jon Clare, one of the creators of the upcoming BCI app NeuroCoach. This new app is designed to monitor an individual’s state (based on their body’s feedback data) and determine the most appropriate time to deliver hypnotic suggestions. Focusing on the brain fitness market, this ‘interactive hypnosis’ app combines the BCI technology with hypnosis and runs on iOS devices using NeuroSky headset hardware. We spoke to Jon about hypnosis, neurofeedback, and NeuroCoach itself.
Neurogadget: First of all, what is the NeuroCoach app?
Jon Clare: Well, its interactive self hypnosis. (The app) drives a hypnotic induction using the bodies output, which is initially brainwaves; over time we’ll also incorporate heart-rate information. That data comes in and is collected, monitored and analysed by a content management system, which is used to optimally time the delivery of a hypnotic suggestion to the user when they are deemed to be most receptive.
NG: How is the hypnotic suggestion delivered?
JC: Our sessions (and hypnosis generally) are broken down into four stages. Stage one is the introduction, often where a hypnotherapist is setting (the patient’s) expectations, building trust, and so on.
Stage two is called ‘induction,’ where you are given clips of verbal content delivering hypnotic techniques and methods designed to try and move you into a state of ‘heightened and focused’ attention (aka hypnosis). During this stage your eyes are open and the user’s attention is displayed on screen in the form of an interactive visualizer – which responds as you focus your attention. This acts as an instant visual feedback for the user on how narrow and focused you are at any moment in time. At the start of this stage we take a unique baseline for each user and the plot a threshold on the screen for the user to try and ‘beat’. If they meet and sustain the threshold they are instructed to close their eyes and they move the next stage.
Intervention is the third stage, where we deliver instructive type content “You will improve your..XYZ”. This monitoring of a user, processing of data against logic and timing the content delivery of the intervention phase is essentially the key feature of NeuroCoach. Hopefully we deliver hypnotic instruction at a more optimal time than standard practice.
Finally the fourth stage is ‘wake-up’, where we re-orientate the user back to a normal state.
NG: what hardware are you using?
JC: We use the Neurosky Mindwave Mobile EEG sensors, but our intention is to eventually become agnostic from any particular sensor by building a sensor interface layer – that recognises which sensor is currently in use. We also produce our own proprietary ‘NeuroCoach index’ which processes all the data that comes in from (app user’s) sensors and drives the content selection. (that said) At the moment NeuroSky is the only commercial scale headset that’s available anyway and it is useful as it provides pre-defined attention and meditation levels – which align perfectly to what is needed to monitor an indication of the hypnotic state.
NG: What about the Emotiv, or the Muse?
JC: Well the muse hasn’t launched yet, they’ve got the funding and now they’re trying to work out how to make it scalable. Certainly the Emotiv is out there, but to us it just seems a little too expensive for the person on the street.
We’re primarily interested in measuring information from the prefrontal cortex right at the front of the brain [ed. note: this is where the NeuroSky sensor sits on the head]. Focused attention levels have a high correlation to hypnotic state. If we ever were to need a sensor placed, it would be over Pz, right in the middle, because that’s a good place to measure theta from.
NG: Are there any particular brainwave states are correlated with hypnosis?
JC: Taking one step back, Neuroscience hasn’t found a unique EEG signature for hypnosis yet. Right now you can’t look at an EEG trace and say “at this point they were not in hypnosis, and at this point they became hypnotized”, that’s not available currently.
However there quite a lot of good ‘indicators’ which are highly correlated with hypnosis. (For example) an increase in Theta waves has quite a high correlation with hypnosis. Over time we want to build more and more of these indicators into the NeuroCoach app. Heart Rate variability is another great indicator for hypnosis. there are some studies that show you can start to evaluate hypnotic depth by heart rate variability. Eventually, the NeuroCoach index will incorporate a collection of these brain and body indicators to become more accurate in assessing the user’s state and the timing of the induction / intervention content switch.
NG: What kinds of hypnotic sessions are you going to offer?
JC: We’ll be launching with three sessions; the app will arrive with those three sessions already pre-loaded. The first is a demo session, which shows you how to use the device and talks you through (how it works). The second is ‘reduce stress’, and the last one is ‘get into the zone’ or focusing your attention. The app contains an in-app store so you can purchase the other ‘as |
jump-start the attack.
Eloundou forced an Edwards save from 25 yards just two minutes after entering, and Barrow launched two good opportunities in the final moments. He fed Jérôme inside the box to lead to a cross, and he nearly slipped Eloundou through one-on-one in the 90th with a pass that was just far enough for Edwards to dive and control.
Ruthven had the last chance with a difficult volley from a Jérôme header in stoppage time, but he put it over the top from just outside the six-yard box.
“I’m falling backward, the ball’s coming backward over my head — I’m lucky I made contact,” Ruthven said. “It was impossible to know where I was, but I was trying to get a touch on it and see what happens.”
While the Armada’s last gasp attempts couldn’t find the net, there was good news in the appearance of midfielder Lucas Scaglia, who came on in the 72nd to mark a return from injury for a player who’s likely to be crucial for the team’s NASL Fall Season run.
Between the returns of Scaglia, Millien and Jérôme, plus the four to five new signings Meola expects in the next month, the Armada roster should be much more fortified for their return to play at Tampa Bay on July 2.
“I think it’s pretty clear that we’re pretty spent top to bottom,” Ruthven said. “Our whole roster is exhausted. … You can’t fault the effort. We just couldn’t pull it off. It’s the same story, and we have to find a way to turn it around in July.”
Meola reiterated that new signings would come at all four lines, from front to back, and that they should push the current starters in training.
“I’ve told these guys from day one that any opportunity we have to improve our roster, we’re going to do it,” he said. “That doesn’t mean guys can’t play. It means we’re in second-to-last place. It’s been a while since we’ve been out of the bottom of the table as an organization, and we need to climb.”
The team will be off until Tuesday, when training will resume ahead of the NASL Fall Season.
MATCH REPORT:
Starting XI:
JAX (4-1-4-1): Gallardo, Wallace, Ruthven, Navarro, Burke (Barrow 77’), George, Millien, Jerome, Otte (Scaglia 71’), Sandoval, Keita (Eloundou 66’)
ORL (4-2-3-1): Edwards Jr., Boden, Redding, Mateos, Alson, Carrasco, Heath, Rivas, Baptista, Nocerino (Molino 76’), Barry (Rocha 45’)
Scoring Summary:
ORL: Mateos (Baptista) 62’
Discipline:
ORL: Alston (caution) 28’
JAX: Wallace (caution) 41’
JAX: George (caution) 75’
JAX: Sandoval (caution) 80’
JAX: Scaglia (caution) 86’
Attendance:
2,155Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hug after a town hall meeting, at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in September 2015. (Photo11: Susana Bates, AFP/Getty Images))
KOLKATA, India — Across a bustling intersection from one of the first dead-letters offices, a pale blue sign beseeches pedestrians to join the future. Safely.
Several hundred feet separate old, colonial India from the promise of a new, technologically transformed country. An Uber sign urges traffic safety and a gentle nudge for the ride-sharing service, which is wildly popular here.
In Kolkata, capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, there are traces of the future amid decaying buildings and staggering poverty. Samsung Electronics and Dell signs mark the entrance to a dilapidated Victorian structure in the heart of the city.
Kolkata is India’s untold story in tech. Though an intellectual haven, it faces more obstacles than better-known, more established hubs such as Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi. Long a bastion of left-leaning politics and fiercely pro-union, the country's third-largest city, at 4.5 million people, is an overwhelming kaleidoscope of brown, pollution-choked skies, large-scale squalor and NASCAR-like traffic on narrow streets.
It also boasts intellectual firepower, cultural diversity and stunning architecture — all of which gives it potential to be the latest stop for expansion on which American tech companies are pinning hope for growth.
India, the world's largest democracy with 1.25 billion people and a $2 trillion economy, represents a potentially lucrative opportunity for U.S. companies as smartphone and Internet access begins to spread.
The influence of tech companies is in plain sight on the streets of Kolkata. (Photo11: Jon Swartz, USA TODAY)
The World Bank and International Money Fund have projected India will become the world’s fastest-growing major economy in the next several years, surpassing China, where Google and Facebook are blocked.
“India represents a laboratory of the future,” says Jayant Sinha, minister of state for finance for India's government, based in New Delhi. "The U.S. is the top entrepreneurial engine for the first 1 billion people, and India is that engine for the next 6 billion people."
APPLE, GOOGLE, UBER
Tech suitors are lining up.
"We see India where China was 10 years ago," Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the company’s shareholders meeting last month. (China is Apple’s No. 2 country, with $59 billion in annual sales. India is currently at $1.5 billion) The low-cost, small-screen iPhone SE, announced March 21, is targeted at India and other markets.
But "infrastructure brittleness" could make for "kinda tough sledding" in India, Cook said, referring to India's unreliable infrastructure, slow Internet speeds, bureaucratic red tape and confusing tax laws that have slowed investment. "We are confident (the lack of an LTE network) will be fixed soon," he said. "We want to be there."
Several tech giants are planting their flags. Uber's share of the market soared to 40% from 4% last year, and it plans to hire 50,000 women in India by 2020.
Google has ambitious plans to hire engineers at operations in four cities, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a recent visit to India. Amazon intends to make India its biggest market after the U.S. within a decade, where it hopes to ultimately haul in trillions of dollars. Facebook, whose No. 2 market is India, with 142 million users, has all but tied major future growth to its fortunes here. (Facebook has 1.59 billion users worldwide.) Long-time powers Hewlett Packard and IBM are firmly entrenched.
The feeling is mutual among India's political leaders and their audacious Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas ("Development for All") plan to remake the country.
“Tech is the game changer,” Sinha says. "Only through tech, can we transform India."
Sinha ticks off several goals: Improvements in transportation, education, manufacturing, skill-building, power, the judicial system, housing, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and telecom. A financial inclusion program that has made bank accounts available to every Indian household is a start, he says.
TECH DETERRENTS
While the tech success stories of Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad are well documented. Kolkata represents a unique challenge.
Despite massive construction of commercial and residential buildings, the region continues to be beset by low credit-card acceptance and poor Internet connectivity, formidable deterrents to start-ups and established companies.
“The talent pool is like a steep pyramid, with a few overqualified at the top,” says Egnyte CEO Vineet Jain, who was born and raised in New Delhi and travels to India a few times a year. The enterprise file-service company employs 80 of its 400-person workforce in Mumbai and Jaipur, but is increasingly hiring workers in Poland.
Kolkata is an intellectual hotbed, but there is a disparity between the well-educated and everyone else, he says. Leftist sentiment is another deterrent to tech in Kolkata, which remains a trading hub for grains and spices, and has been an industrial center for car manufacturing.
“As far as tech is concerned, it is a second-tier city,” Jain says.
"The region's history has made it less attractive to tech and other industries," says Raj Koneru, CEO of Kore. "Can an impoverished area be helped by, and embrace, tech? Absolutely. Not through outsourcing, but building real skill sets."
Inside an iMerit training center in Kolkata. (Photo11: Jon Swartz, USA TODAY)
It is happening in the heavily Muslim community of Metiabruz, in southern Kolkata. Here, in an unmarked, four-story building, is where iMerit runs one of six training-and-employment centers. More than 100 students, most of them young women, learn English and computing skills in a few months.
Graduates of the program are put to work. On one floor, a team of 50 digitally tag images of traffic to assist a German maker of autonomous vehicles. Zareen Ansri, 25, a star student, acts as the de facto chief technology officer. A floor above, images of Super Bowl 50 are crowd-sourced for Getty Images. Quality assurance reps monitor.
Radha Basu, CEO of iMerit, takes it all in, beaming.
"It is an amazing journey for these young women," says Basu, the first female R&D engineering manager at HP who started HP India in 1986 (now a $1.2 billion business). "They feel they are making a contribution. There is an excitement to their jobs."
iMerit is tackling a crucial issue. About half of India’s population is mired in subsistence farming, and many of its youth receive educations that businesses consider substandard, making them unemployable. The situation is amplified in Kolkata, one of India's poorest, least educated regions.
“Online learning is breaking down barriers created by time, space and socioeconomic status,” says Dennis Yang, CEO of Udemy, a technology partner to Anudip, the foundation behind iMerit, which helps develop IT professionals and entrepreneurs in India’s impoverished communities. The program has helped thousands of impoverished youth, in particular women.
“It’s incredible to think that a young adult in Kolkata can learn how to code for the latest version of Apple iOS at the same time as a recent college grad working at a San Francisco start-up,” Yang says. “Education must be digital, global and on-demand to keep up with the rapidly changing needs of today’s economy.”
ANYTHING BUT A SURE THING
Sinha, a former McKinsey partner in the U.S. and India, is vague about the pace of India’s high-tech and economic transformation. He offered few specifics on its impact on poverty, air quality, agriculture, transportation, infrastructure and other aspects of life in India.
Kolkata’s situation is analogous to what most U.S. cities outside of the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston cope with when trying to attract tech business, says Ajay Arora, CEO of computer-security start-up Vera. Bangalore, like Silicon Valley, is the undisputed hub of India’s tech scene, where the vast majority of talent and R&D reside.
The Muslim community of Metiabruz, in southern Kolkata, where iMerit runs one of its teaching centers. (Photo11: Jon Swartz, USA TODAY)
But as competition among companies in Bangalore escalates, creating a rise in costs and saturation of resources, companies and individuals are branching out into other cities, such as Mumbai and Hyderabad. As resources stretch thin there in an ever-expanding tech market, Kolkata and other metropolitan areas are next in line.
It’s a common cycle in tech in the U.S., where multiple “silicon regions” have emerged in Austin, Salt Lake City, New Orleans and elsewhere. “The tech hub will remain in Bangalore, but spokes will extend to other cities, like Mumbai and Kolkata, for support centers, manufacturing and other tasks,” Arora says.
What needs to improve in Kolkata and other cities, he says, are a skilled workforce, accommodating local governments, transportation access and an Anglo-speaking population.
"West Bengal is an intellectual center and culturally diverse — that's appealing" says P.K. Agarwal, CEO and Regional Dean at Northeastern University-Silicon Valley, with locations in San Jose and India. Known by residents as the "city of firsts," Kolkata is where radio-wave technology, ambulance services and tram tracks got their starts.
MODI COURTS BIG TECH
China was the country du jour for tech companies eager to expand their financial empires beyond saturated markets in North America and Europe. But a sputtering economy and a strengthening dollar has U.S. companies increasingly turning their attention to India. Charismatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi has openly courted tech, highlighted by a trip to Silicon Valley last year.
Tech companies also see an intriguing confluence of factors.
The world is on the cusp of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, propelled by advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, genetics and biotechnology, according to a World Economic Forum survey.
Such advances — in the form of smart systems — will help affect changes in supply-chain management, the climate, the workplace and urbanization in India and other countries.
But for the promise of an Amazon or Uber, there is the potential backlash against a Facebook, as Facebook board member Marc Andreessen recently discovered.
When the Silicon Valley venture capitalist defended the social network’s Free Basics initiative, which provides Internet access through simplified phone applications, with a snarky tweet viewed as pro-colonialism, hundreds protested and Facebook rebuked Andreessen.
Andreessen chided India after regulators here nixed the zero-data program on the grounds mobile phone companies should not be allowed to “shape the users’ Internet experience” by providing free access only to certain services.
Yet Facebook and others forge ahead, drawn by the opportunity and potential wealth of India.
"If you want to change the world, you want to change it here," Sinha says.
Follow USA TODAY San Francisco Bureau Chief Jon Swartz @jswartz
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1MNdzcrDutch police have told people to be on the lookout for three German far-left militants who have been at large for decades and suspected of a string of recent heists.
Ernst-Volker Staub, 61, Burkhard Garweg, 47, and 57-year-old Daniela Klette are former members of the Red Army Faction (RAF), which sowed terror in the 1970s and 80s in a campaign of bombings, kidnappings and killings.
The three are wanted for a spate of robberies on money transporters and at least six supermarket heists.
“Police have reason to believe that the three are living in the Netherlands,” a statement said. “Crimes were committed on the Dutch-German border, they have not yet been detained in Germany and a mobile phone belonging to one of the fugitives was switched off in the Netherlands.”
Former Red Army Faction members linked to botched robbery Read more
Between €46,000 and €100,000 were stolen in each holdup – except on 7 May, when the robbers escaped with a guard’s firearm but no cash, and on 6 June.
On that day another cash-in-transit van was attacked with an AK-47 assault rifle. The raiders fled without taking any cash, police said.
Detectives are focusing on the Netherlands where the three may be living on a small secluded farm or anonymously in a city, “constantly changing from home to home and pretending to be tourists … The fugitives are armed and dangerous and should by no means be approached when spotted,” the police said.
The three are among a wider group of fugitives still on the run for membership of the anti-capitalist RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, which emerged out of the radicalised fringe of the 1960s student protest movement.
The group, which had links to Middle Eastern militant organisations, declared itself disbanded in 1998.
Staub, Garweg and Klette, alleged members of the RAF’s “third generation” active during the 80s and 90s, are chief suspects in a 1993 explosives attack against a prison under construction in Hesse state, central Germany.
In the assault, five RAF members climbed the prison walls, abducted the guards in a van, then returned to set off explosives that caused about €600,000 of property damage, according to German prosecutors.
Klette is also a suspect in two previous RAF operations.I think you typically wouldn't use a HTTPClientFactory, as it seems it's just a thing that does HTTP requests and not much more. It's pretty low-level.
If you just want to fire a request, there are functions ( twisted.web.client.getPage and.downloadPage ) that construct the factory for you, handling both HTTP and HTTPS.
Agent is a thing that gives you a higher level abstraction: it keeps a connection pool, handles the HTTP/HTTPS choice based on the url, handles proxies etc. And right, this is the thing you usually want to use.
It seems they they don't share much code and Agent is to HTTP11ClientProtocol (and HTTP11ClientFactory ) as getPage is to the old HTTPClientFactory (and its protocol, HTTPPageGetter ). So there's a twisted.web.client vs._newclient (with the Agent as its public API) duality. Historical reasons and backward compatibility, I'd guess.
Anyway, this library won't be nice to mix with Agent out of the box, because the API is broken. twisted-socks's SOCKSWrapper declares it implements the IStreamClientEndpoint interface, but the interface demands the.connect method returns a deffered that will fire with an IProtocol provider (see docs), while SOCKSWrapper returns one that fires with the address (here's the line that does this). It seems you can easily fix it changing the line to:
self.handshakeDone.callback(self.transport.protocol)
Once you do that, you should be able to use twisted-socks with Agent. Here's an example: (using inlineCallbacks and the new react, but you could just as well use the standard.addCallback with deferreds and reactor.run() )
from twisted.internet.endpoints import TCP4ClientEndpoint from twisted.internet.defer import inlineCallbacks from twisted.internet.task import react from twisted.web.client import ProxyAgent, readBody from socksclient import SOCKSWrapper @react @inlineCallbacks def main(reactor): target = TCP4ClientEndpoint(reactor, 'example.com', 80) proxy = SOCKSWrapper(reactor, 'localhost', 9050, target) agent = ProxyAgent(proxy) request = yield agent.request('GET', 'http://example.com/') print (yield readBody(request))
Also, there's a txsocksx library that seems to be nicer to use (and is pip-installable!). The API is pretty much the same, however you pass the target endpoint where you would pass the proxy endpoint before:# Content
1. Eve, Chung Renewal
– Eve and Chung character renewals
1) Eve renewal summary
– Balancing for each classes
– Fancier skill effects
– Effective additional commands
– Face,body proportion, promotion avatar look improved.
– New base Eve promotion illustration
2) Chung Renewal summary
– Improved addtional effects upon awakening
– Reload cannon revamped
– Cannon reloading process improved
– Face,body proportion, promotion avatar look improved.
– New base Chung promotion illustration
2. Eve and Chung’s own story quest scenes
– Added Eve or Chung specfic story quest scenes for earlier story quests
# Event
1. Elsword Potent Nuclear explosion 2nd!
– Get swimuit(2014 and before) full set Magic wardrobe ticket and summer accessories
– Can complete quest in everywhere except Ruben, Henir, Ereda island
– Quest can be completed per account and is chained
– 2015 08 22 01PM ~ 03PM (2 hours)
Quest Name
Condition Reward Amount [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 신발 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(shoes) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 산소 마스크 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Oxygen mask wardrobe ticket 1 Sage magic stones 2 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 장갑 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(gloves) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 하의 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(bottom) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 작살총 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Harpoon wardrobe ticket 1 Sage magic stones 4 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 상의 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(top) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 헤어 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(hair) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 보잉 선글라스 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Sunglasses Magic Wardrobe Ticket 1 Sage Magic stones 6 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! : 무기 Clear 2 dungeons within level range Old swimsuit wardrobe ticket(weapon) 1 [EVENT] 포텐핵폭발 2탄! :
현자의 마법석(반복 퀘스트) Clear 1 dungeons within level range Sage Magic Stones 2
* (old)swim suit wardrobe ticket can only be used on swimsuit avatars before 2014 versions
* Summer accessory wardrobe tickets can only be used in following category ‘아바타>상시 판매 액세서리>썸머 액세서리’ in magic wardrobe.
* Cannot register some character’s unreleased avatars
* Wardrobe tickets can be stored in shared bank.
2. Eve, Chung Renewal event
1) Job change daily event
2) Promotion Avatar tickets
– Stay logged in as Eve or Chung for 30 minutes during event time to get promotion avatar wardrobe ticket
– Can register promotion avatars of the character’s class or lower
Eve 08 20 08 21 08 22 08 23 08 24 08 25 Hair Ticket Weapon Ticket Top Ticket Bottom Ticket Gloves Ticket Shoes Ticket Chung 08 27 08 28 08 29 08 30 08 31 09 01 Hair Ticket Weapon Ticket Top Ticket Bottom Ticket Gloves Ticket Shoes Ticket
– 2015 08 20 ~ 2015 09 03
# Cash Shop
[New]
1. Avatar : B1A4 Sweet Girl~♥
– Special Dance Motion
– 2015 08 20 ~ 2015 09 17
2. Grand Ice Burners (Eve Dragon Knight, Royal Maid/ Chung dragon Knight, Royal servant)
– 2015 08 20~ 2015 09 03
– Reform tickets sold in cash shop
– Can reform avatar until 09 17
3. Summon Stone: Customer Satisfaction Servant Pho
– 2015 08 20 ~ 2015 08 27
[End]
1. Grand IB (Aisha Dragon Knight, Royal Maid/ Raven Dragon Knight, Royal Servant(Reform lasts till 9/03)
2. 2015 Swimsuit avatar(Chung, Ara, Elesis, Add, Luciel)
3. Eve and Chung Skill notes
# Changes
[Character]
1. Lord Knight Fixed bug where ‘Warrior Physquie’ says it increases HP but it didn’t in game
2. Veteran Commander fixed ‘Metnal Crash’ debuff icon looking like Apocalypse icon
3. Over Taker‘XX→XX’ fixed error where 4th X was not doing any damage.
4. Blade Master Fixed shock wave being used unaturally
[PvP]
1. Character HP increased to match renewed characters damage output in PvPMickey D writes on the need to destroy the economy.
The Economy has penetrated our imaginations to the point that we identify its abstractions with society itself--even our own personalities. We engage in buying and selling when we negotiate intimacy; to accept is to "buy," to improve is to "profit." Our communities are planned real-estate ventures. Professional advice-dispensers tell us to cultivate "friendships" that will advance our careers. We increasingly confront one another as rivals; egotism is a virtue. Material success is salvation, while poverty is criminal. The bank balance from the ATM machine puts a numerical value on your human worth--maybe even whether you live or die.
What do we mean when we refer to The Economy? We instinctively link it to all our social evils -- degrading jobs, clear-cut forests, wars, cancer, teenage suicides, soaring murder rates, and so on. But before any of these problems can even be addressed, the Economy must be placated by ever more sacrifice, a process which just compounds the problems. The index of social health at the end of the evening news is the Dow Jones average, not the infant mortality rate. The Economy is our religion; its temples are the banks that tower over our decaying cities. We can't imagine a world without the Economy any more than an ecclesiastic can imagine life without a supernatural God.
Obviously, all societies must organize the material means of life. But our society inverts the relationship of means to ends and makes what should be merely a precondition for life into the meaning of life. Our economic relations are not (in Karl Polanyi's word) "embedded" in our social relationships; instead, our social relationships are subservient to The Economy. A distinct and separate sphere above and beyond other social activities, the Economy makes everything dependent on the market. Ruled solely by prices, the market can allow no other values or considerations. Culture no longer subordinates the Economy (as it should), but has become utterly subordinated to it. Polanyi has said that our "animal dependence upon food has been bared and the naked fear of starvation permitted to run loose. Our humiliating enslavement to the material, which all human culture is designed to mitigate, was deliberately made more rigorous" by the market economy.
To "economize" is an everyday compulsion in a market-dominated society which exposes the underlying false premise of economics: that whereas desires are unlimited, the means of satisfying them are not. The Economy depends on expanding dissatisfaction; as desires are fulfilled, new desires must be stimulated to keep people buying. Market economies assume that people do not have rational needs, but must be constantly dazzled by advertising--without which, the Economy would probably collapse.
Scarcity in our over-productive society is artificial; one of the economists' great accomplishments is to mystify this with scientific pretensions about "laws of supply and demand," "price mechanisms," etc. Poverty is not the result of how much wealth is available, but how it is distributed. Between one-half and one-third of humanity goes hungry while food rots in warehouses because the market is the only mode of distribution that the rich will permit. As the Somali saying has it: "Scarcity and abundance are never far apart. The rich and the poor live in the same house."
The unique autonomy of The Economy is a result of the rules of market exchange. The market divorces The Economy from society by making everyone's livelihood dependent on the precarious sale of labor. Profits become the overriding end of all human enterprise. It is catastrophic to make the fear of hunger and the quest for profit socially enforced incentives to participation in economic activity--a catastrophe which has acquired global dimensions. Based on the imperative Grow or Die, competing economic entities must constantly expand in the search for new outlets, a process which will only be exhausted by the likely death of the biosphere.
Economics derives from the Greek word oikonomia: management of the house-hold. The distance between the ancient and modern notions of economics can be perceived if one notes the utter irrationality of applying the character Homo oeconomicus to domestic relationships, where it is still considered pathological for family members to act as self-interested competitors. For the ancient Greeks, "householding" was production for one's group's own use (autarchy, or self-sufficiency)--not for gain or money-making, which was regarded as "not natural to man" (Aristotle). Money-making was "limitless" and anti-social.
Markets have a long history. However, before capitalism, markets were always accessory to social relations (kin, tribe, religion, etc.); they did not control and regulate them. During the Middle Ages, markets were limited in time (Sundays) and place (usually outside the church). However much honored in the breach, sanctions against usury--profit-making off the material needs of others--expressed fears of the socially corrosive aspects of the market. Pre-modern marketplaces such as bazaars or agoras preserved ritual social observances, often beginning with gossip and talk, then tea, family matters, and eventually discussion of the wares on offer--produced by the seller, who took a pride in the quality of his craftsmanship--and haggling or barter. Contrast this with our experience at the Mall--the Panopticon surveillance, the anonymous, indifferent sales people, the electronic registers to calculate inflexible prices, the built-in obsolence and often poisonous products.
The self-regulated market economy has its origin in 19th century industrial capitalism which turned people (labor) and nature (land) into commodities--inanimate instruments to be bought and sold. Whereas earlier societies had preserved the access to the "commons" to ensure survival and social cohesion, capitalism organized access to the means of life through production for sale, and prices determined by market allocation. The much-venerated "freedom" of the market requires the fragmentation of community bonds.
Economics as a science emerged as the analysis of this increasingly separate and autonomous market. The ideas of the neo-classical economists promoted allegedly permanent and universal truths about humanity and society. The pursuit of material gain compelled by the market was not seen as behavior forced on people as the only possible way to earn a living, but as prudent and rational behavior. To the economists, society is nonexistent except as a bunch of people without concern for each other; improvement in economic statistics is more important than whatever social disruptions result from it; human beings are utilitarian atoms possessed by an innate "propensity to truck, barter and exchange" (as Adam Smith claimed); and material maximization and the primacy of self-interest are constants of all societies. This cynical worldview became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Formal economics presumes that its "value-free" scientific laws must be universally applicable. It sees non-market societies as underdeveloped versions of our own. While it might be accepted that other peoples have different religious, political, or kinship systems, economic relations are considered to be immutable. Economics sees all societies as supply-demand mechanisms--not expression of lived relationships. However, anthropology can show us the unimportance of economic relationships. "We must rid ourselves of the ingrained notion that the economy is a field of experience of which human beings have necessarily always been conscious," the anthropologist Marcel Mauss said.
Anthropologists have observed among many non-industrial societies the principle of usufruct--that is, the right of anyone to borrow another's property (tools, land, etc.) if it is returned in the same condition. Because the use of this stuff benefits the entire community, the notion of individual property rights above and beyond those of the group is unknown. A glimmer of usufruct is evident in periods of social rebellion when the disenfranchised loot the granaries, temples, palaces or malls and redistribute the goods for the consumption of all. This is as old as written history--as recorded by the Sumerians during the riots in Lagash or the Egyptian peasants who rose against the nobility of the Middle Kingdom (2500 B.C.)--and as recent as last year's Los Angeles riots.
Gift economies further undermine the universality of our perverse economic notions of exchange. The American Indians of the Northwest coast stretching from Cape Mendocino in California up to Prince Williams Sound in Alaska practiced gift-giving ceremonies known as potlatch, a celebration for distributing wealth and sealing social relations. Similarly, the Massim peoples of the South Sea islands near the eastern tip of New Guinea had lavish disaccumulation festivals known as kulas. In both these institutions, gift exchange functions as part of what Mauss calls a "total social phenomenon"--economic, juridical, moral, aesthetic, religious, mythological--whose meaning cannot be adequately decribed by reducing it solely to a single economic function.
The measure of wealth among the Massim and the Northwest coast Indians is society itself--all those people who band together in a daily life in which material wealth is shared and distributed as gifts. Social prestige is inextricably linked to generosity. The purpose of the giving of gifts is to keep the gifts in circulation, and give counter-gifts--not to become the venerated acquisitions of individual owners. What comes around, goes around. Unless shared, gifts are property that perish like food, from which the word "potlatch" derives. Similarly, in the kula, the gift not re-used is considered lost, while the one that is passed along "feeds" over and over again, thus remaining abundant.
Although highly personalized, these ceremonies were not evidence of "small scale" or "primitive" economics, but were in fact consciously elaborate. The kula shows that the wider and more varied the territory, the more exotic the produce and goods. Contrary to the economists's universalization of scarcity as a permanent feature of human society, the kula is actually an exuberant display of affluence.
The kula and the potlatch were not motivated by the prospect of gain; nor was labor performed for remuneration. Despite their complexity, they thrived without administration or written records, much less money. They are examples of reciprocity and redistribution--principles not very esteemed by our culture's Survival of the Fittest outlook. Economics can offer an analysis of the junk bond market, but its is a very limited tool for understanding the face-to-face relationships of gift-based societies. The individual players in these societies are personalized, not anonymous. It is absurd to view the kula as an investment yielding interest.
The pathology of our culture's avaricious hoarding of social wealth was evident to the Indians who came into contact with Europeans. "Indian giver"--a term of abuse--was coined by New England Puritans to describe the activities of the Indians (shortly before they killed them), who often sought the return of items they had given the settlers because the purpose of the gift was to be kept in circulation among different users, not settled in the home of a private "owner."I don't want to exalt the gift economy. The exchange of gifts can be onerous and burdensome; customs can be irrational. The commodity form is potentially incipient within symbolic exchange, honoring various types of hierarchy. My sketches of the kula and the potlatch are necessarily simplistic. However, I am less interested in what the anthropologists teach us about the Massim or the Kwakiutl than what they tell us about our own society which produces, among other things, anthropolgists.
Gift-economies bespeak an ideal of value which is inextricable from the social relations in which the activity of gift-giving takes place. That the distribution of social wealth can be considered a strictly amoral enterprise (as in our market-controlled society) is the economists's Big Lie. The banishment of conscience as a social principle is seen as progess; hence the mean spiritedness of all public discourse today. Gift-giving consolidates and enhances social bonds, while market exchange sunders them. This is still observed in our own neurotic gift-giving ceremonies, especially Christmas. Adorno succinctly described the fate of the gift in our Hallmark card culture:
Real giving had its joy in imagining the joy of the receiver. It means choosing, expending time, going out of one's way, thinking of the other as a subject: the opposite of distraction. Just this hardly anyone is now able to do. At the best they give what they would have liked themselves, only a few degrees worse. The decay of giving is measured in the distressing invention of gift-articles, based on the assumption that one does not know what to give because one does not want to. This merchandise is unrelated like its buyers. It was a drug in the market from the first day. Likewise, the right to exchange the article, which signifies to the recipient: take this, its all yours, do what you like with it; if you don't want it, that's all the same to me, get something else instead. Moreover, by comparison with the embarrassment caused by ordinary presents this pure fungibility represents the more human alternative, because it at least allows the receiver to give himself a present, which is admittedly in absolute contradiction to the gift.
Human history is not a finite project: we do not have to repeat everything that has happened before, even if the past can provide a rich guide for future social innovation. I believe that it will be essential for our future to recover the authentic spirit of gift-giving. If most societies have proven susceptible to hierarchy, this can be challenged by conscious design. Capitalism may have severed (for some) archaic obligations and duties, but it has chained everyone to a new master--an invisible one at that, which pits us against one another!
The utopian socialists called for a life which subordinates The Economy to our cultural relationships. Their legacy has been perverted by the traditional Left which protests the injustices of capitalism but has shown itself to be hopelessly mired in the economistic mentality. For all his brilliance and penetrating insight into capitalism, Marx reified the Economy by positing that the social basis for power structures derived from economic power. The historical achievement of capitalism was to strip bare the class nature of social power. Marx was thus convinced of capitalism's progressive role, even to the point of believing that English imperialism laid the foundations for socialism in rural India. The loss of the utopian ideal can be felt with painful clarity by a look at the Left today-- giving new meaning to demoralization. Appeals are strictly to bread-and-butter issues, which no matter how important, ignore the fact that most people--even hungry people--are more than just stomachs. It's no wonder that the Right has been in ascendancy for well over a decade given its focus on issues long ignored by leftists. In its dedication to a losing game of realpolitik, the |
people with no affiliation with the university, its spokesman said.
By Tuesday morning, Storey's page on the university website had been erased.
Then came his termination.
Storey said he is taking the situation "day by day," and has not decided whether he will pursue legal action.
During the first, rainy week of the new semester, several students said they were glad to see Storey answer to his tweets.
For Houston native Neisha Gamble, the comments particularly stung.
Gamble, 20, said she is still trying to get in touch with her family in a severely flooded area.
"Yes, he has free speech, but there are some things you should just keep to yourself," she said, sitting in the university's crowded Vaughn Center. The school made the right call, she said.
"Don't wish that upon anyone, and then send a fake apology out," she said.
Pulling an umbrella from her bag, Apollo Beach freshman Erin Hanson said, "As a professor and having a leadership position, it's kind of his job to keep his opinions to himself."
Patrick Holt, a junior, said he didn't believe the tweet when he first saw it.
"I thought it was pretty messed up," Holt said. "Twitter's the area for free speech, and you can say what you want, but there's an ethical line."
Social media firestorms have only heated up since the 2016 election, said Cohn, the attorney. In an era when universities often fold in the face of a public relations fiasco, the voices of internet crusaders hold serious sway.
In recent months, professors from California to New Jersey have been fired for social media posts and speaking appearances. At Fresno State, a lecturer tweeted that President Trump "must hang" to "save American democracy." A professor at Brigham Young University-Idaho wrote a private Facebook post supporting LGBT equality. Both lost their jobs.
UT's faculty handbook uses guidance from the American Association of University Professors, which states that, when teachers speak as citizens, "they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline."
Still, the policy states, they should be accurate, respect others' opinions, "exercise appropriate restraint" and make it clear they're not speaking for their institution. Only if speech raises "grave doubts concerning the teacher's fitness" may a school proceed with discipline, it says.
UT's procedures for doing so are not entirely clear.
"We will have to have a deeper and more extensive conversation among the faculty and among the senior academic leadership in order to clarify these lines," said Bachman, also the Faculty Senate president.
The AAUP said it will be following the case.
"In the meantime we continue to call on college and university leaders to denounce the targeted online harassment of their faculty members and to more forthrightly defend academic freedom," said Henry Reichman, first vice president of the organization.
News researcher John Martin contributed to this story. Contact Claire McNeill at [email protected] and Langston Taylor at [email protected]Dawn Hudson (front row, in blue) and Cheryl Boone Isaacs (second person to Hudson's right) pose with Academy members of Asian descent at the Sept. 25 gathering.
The Academy's president and CEO attended a Sept. 25 gathering that was hosted and attended by many of the organization's estimated 250 Asian members.
In an effort to repair the relationship between the leadership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and its members of Asian descent, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and CEO Dawn Hudson attended and spoke at a Sept. 25 reception welcoming some 80 new Asians into the organization.
Relations became strained earlier this year when February's Oscars featured tasteless jokes about Asians, prompting 25 Asian members, including Ang Lee and George Takei, to send a letter of condemnation to the Academy, which then issued an apology and met with 15 members of Asian descent to hear their concerns.
The unprecedented September gathering, which took place at The London West Hollywood, was organized by a "host committee" comprised of incumbent Asian members: actors Peter Kwong and Jodi Long, director Chris Tashima, documentarians Arthur Dong and Freida Lee Mock (both former members of the board of governors), producers Janet Yang and Teddy Zee and publicists Laura Kim and David Magdael.
There are an estimated 250 Asians in the Academy (since the Academy does not publish a membership list, the exact number is difficult to assess), and all those known to the host committee were invited. Among those who attended: Grey's Anatomy star Sandra Oh, as well as current cinematographers branch governor Daryn Okada, past sound branch governor Don Hall, France Nuyen, James Hong, Jessica Sanders, Lisa Lu, Michael Goi, Mynette Louie, Renee Tajima Pena, Rita Hsaio, Peter Kwong, Irene Tsu, Ramona Diaz, Elizabeth Sung and Clyde Kusatsu.
Dong, a 1984 Oscar nominee for the documentary short Sewing Women and an Academy member since 1997, tells The Hollywood Reporter, "After a frank meeting with AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson and president Cheryl Boone Issacs to discuss action steps [in response to the Oscars controversy], a group of us wanted to keep the momentum going." He adds, "As Academy members, we've participated within our various branches as professionals in our respective fields; we've never organized under a racially based umbrella before. But having witnessed the tone-deaf jabs at Asians during the Oscars, compounded with the very recent, but century-long practice of whitewashing, yellow-face casting decisions by major film productions, we felt a need to come together over this integral part of our identities."
In response to widespread outrage over the absence of any acting nominees of color over the past two years, as well as the offensive jokes about Asians, the Academy created three new seats on its board for "diversity governors" who, unlike the others, would be appointed, not elected, and represent the interests of diversity in all meetings. One of the charter appointees is Asian-American director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda).CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — The Massachusetts city of Cambridge is weighing whether to call for an impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.
Vice Mayor Marc McGovern has filed a policy order for Monday's city council meeting pushing for an investigation.
The proposed order calls on the U.S. House to back a resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to investigate whether there are grounds to impeach Trump.
McGovern and others believe Trump has violated the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits government officials from profiting from foreign businesses.
McGovern said he believes the Republican president is still deeply involved in his business operations.
Cambridge voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
The city is across the Charles River from Boston, and is home to Harvard University.PORTLAND, Ore. – Portland Thorns FC will play host to the Orlando Pride in their opening game of the 2017 NWSL season at Providence Park on Saturday, April 15, featuring in the first-ever Lifetime Game of the Week, it was announced today as the NWSL unveiled details for each club’s home-opening matches for its fifth season. Kickoff is scheduled for 12 noon (Pacific).
The NWSL announced a three-year partnership with A+E Networks on Feb. 2, 2017, with Lifetime as an official sponsor and broadcast partner. For the first time in NWSL history, a league game will be broadcast on television every weekend of the season. The NWSL Game of the Week on Lifetime will provide fans throughout the country with a live viewing platform every Saturday.
The match against Orlando marks the third time Portland has opened at home in five seasons in NWSL, with Thorns FC previously playing host to the Boston Breakers (2015) and Orlando Pride (2016), marking the club’s third consecutive season opening the campaign at Providence Park. Since 2013, Portland is 4-0-0 in home openers, registering a 2-1 win against the Pride on April 17, 2016, and is unbeaten in season-opening matches (3-0-1).
Fans interested in purchasing Thorns FC Annual Memberships for the 2017 season are encouraged to call the ticket office at (503) 553-5555 or email ticketsales@timbers.com. Single-game ticket information will be released at a later date.
Single-game tickets for Thorns Spring Invitational presented by Tillamook March 26-April 1 at Providence Park are available at www.thornsfc.com. Tickets for the tournament are included in Thorns FC Annual Memberships.They sprang up in places all over the United States — Kansas City, Nashville, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.— and sounded a siren that pricked the ears of a generation of youngsters. In television’s early days, nearly every town with a station launched its own local kids’ program. In time, these local programs would give way to the more sophisticated children’s television programming we know today. But in its heyday, local kids’ programming generated indelible characters, entertained and educated countless youths, and launched the careers of a host of talented actors and broadcasters.
“It’s not that easy being green,” lamented a certain frog named Kermit, and kids understood what it was like to be a little different. “Hey, boys and girls! It’s Bozo,” cried Willard Scott, assuming the franchised clown persona in Washington D.C., and kids squealed in recognition. Programming aimed at kids didn’t have to be fast-paced just to keep kids’ collective eyes glued to the screen. Local television hosts read youngsters’ letters on the air, advised when snow forced local school closures, showcased kids’ artwork, and brought animals on set. “We did everything we could to entertain people in the morning, and that means you have a chimpanzee as a sidekick,” says actor Adam West, who worked as a local kids’ program host in Hawaii. Some of the best childhood memories for a generation of Americans include a trip to join the studio audience of the local kids’ show.“You would write away to get tickets six months in advance, and then your mother would dress you up … It was a TV show that the kids could visit and then go home and watch … and that was an awful lot of fun,” says Willard Scott.
“Wallace and Ladmo”
Superheroes who were cast on the “Wallace and Ladmo” show, broadcast primarily in and around Phoenix, Arizona, from 1954 to 1989, didn’t need to have X-ray vision or the ability to fly. “A superhero on the ‘Wallace and Ladmo’ show need only be two things: not super in any way, nor a hero,” says longtime “Wallace and Ladmo” performer Pat McMahon. Indeed, the slapstick, tongue-in-cheek show was the longest-running, local, daily kids’ show in television history. And part of the reason “Wallace and Ladmo” had such longevity and a dedicated local audience is likely that the programming was aimed at kids, but the humor was also sprinkled with ironic and clever comedy that resonated with teens and adults. Wallace founded the show in 1954. Within months he added sidekick Ladimir “Ladmo” Kwiatkowski, a cameraman on the show turned entertainer. In 1960 McMahon joined the cast and brought his brand of humor to the set. The program yielded several memorable characters including Aunt Maud, Captain Super and a down-and-out clown named Boffo.
“Romper Room”
In the 1950s, franchising was in style. McDonalds’ trademark golden arches were popping up in major cities across the nation, and a few enterprising TV producers thought this mass production model might also work in children’s television. Nancy Claster and her husband, Bert, created “Romper Room,” a children’s educational program that was re-produced in markets around the country. The show was heavy on games, songs and moral lessons, and was aimed squarely at pre-schoolers. Each major city had its own local hostess who was trained to be pitch-perfect by Claster. Despite its uniformity, “Romper Room” was successful because each program also reflected its own community.
“Bozo the Clown”
Just as “Romper Room” became a franchised show, generating versions in major cities nationwide, so did a certain wild-haired, manic clown named Bozo. In fact, this clown character, who originated as a record and storybook character, became the most aggressively franchised character in the history of kids’ television. In the late 1950s, Larry Harmon franchised the character of Bozo and soon clowns with the same distinctive make-up were appearing on live public television shows around the nation. Willard Scott assumed the clown’s persona in the Washington, D.C., market. “It really got to me,” Scott remembers of the onerous task of putting on layers of make-up and costume. Harmon had stipulated that Bozo never showed any skin, so that the illusion that Bozo is a clown, not human, was never broken. “I mean I trembled sometimes trying to put the make-up on because it was exhausting,” says Scott. Many Bozos made public appearances in parades, at schools, and department store grand openings. In Washington D.C., the local McDonalds restaurant hired Willard Scott — as Bozo — in an attempt to attract customers. It worked. Bozo’s arrival at McDonalds sparked mayhem. So, when the local Bozo show was cancelled, McDonalds approached Scott to develop a clown persona for the popular restaurant chain. The result: Scott debuted an orange-haired clown named Ronald who was closely modeled on Bozo. Ronald McDonald was born.
“Sesame Street”
“Sesame Street” became the most successful national children’s program of all time, but its success was built, in part, from lessons learned from the original, quirky local kids’ television programming that was blooming in the 1950s and ’60s. In the late 1960s, public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney was developing a new program, and she needed an artist who knew his way around puppets. Cooney found her man in Jim Henson, a soft-spoken puppeteer who, with his wife Jane, had been working in D.C. on their show, “Sam and Friends.” Cooney brought Henson to the “Sesame Street” project, and his iconic characters such as Kermit the Frog, Big Bird and Cookie Monster have entertained and educated generations of children since. The show was innovative in other ways, too. “Sesame Street” was the first national kids show to situate itself in an urban environment. And in terms of content, the show clung close to an impressive educational curriculum.ExxonMobil shareholders have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging it misled its investors and the public by failing to disclose the risks posed to its business by climate change.
The alleged deception resulted in stockholders paying inflated prices for Exxon stock and subjected them to financial losses because the company knew the value of its oil reserves was less than what it was telling investors, according to the lawsuit filed in Texas federal court earlier this month.
"Exxon has long understood the negative effects of climate change and global warming and their relation to the worldwide use of hydrocarbons," according to the lawsuit.
"Exxon understood and appreciated that it was highly likely that it would not be able to extract all of its hydrocarbon reserves and that certain of those assets were'stranded.' Yet Exxon publicly represented that none of its assets were'stranded' because the impacts of climate change, if any, were uncertain and far off in the future."
Exxon did not respond to a request to comment. Lawyers representing the shareholders also did not respond to calls for comment.
Exxon is the world's largest publicly traded company, reporting $1.7 billion in profits the second quarter of this year. According to figures cited in the lawsuit, the value of Exxon stock dropped 13 percent from $95 a share in mid-July to $82.54 in late September and was $85.31 as of Friday.
The lawsuit, which could include hundreds of thousands of investors, seeks unspecified damages to reimburse stockholders for their losses and holds open the option for a judge to bar Exxon from the practices that led to the lawsuit.
These allegations of violations of the federal Securities Exchange Act by company officials add to Exxon's legal woes as the company faces fraud investigations by the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts.
The two investigations are being conducted under the states' consumer protection laws to determine whether Exxon deceived consumers and investors about the role of its products in contributing to climate change.
The class-action suit alleges that Exxon breached its fiduciary responsibility to investors, but the legal bar remains high to prove the company intentionally deceived them.
Holding a company legally accountable requires proof that it failed to act responsibly based on its evolving assessments of climate risks, legal experts said.
The investors who filed suit purchased Exxon stock between February and October. They claim the company was aware of the connection between burning fossil fuels and climate change for decades, and understood that coming regulations could restrict development of some hydrocarbon reserves, according to the lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Texas.
Yet the company continued to file disclosure statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the federal regulatory agency that polices stock sales, saying everything was fine, the lawsuit said.
Exxon's public statements—submitted to the SEC under the assurance of accuracy—that investors rely on when deciding whether to buy stock were "materially false and misleading" because they failed to disclose a number of factors, according to the lawsuit.
The SEC also has reportedly opened an investigation into Exxon to determine whether the company has been forthcoming with investors about climate risks and accounting issues concerning its reserves.
Among the cautionary signs that Exxon concealed from investors was the company's own internal reports from the 1970s concerning climate change, which recognized the environmental risks caused by global warming, according to the lawsuit.
"Given the risks associated with global warming and climate change, the Company would not be able to extract the existing hydrocarbon reserves Exxon claimed to have," according to the lawsuit.
As a result, the suit says, a significant portion of Exxon's reserves should already have been written down; that's a bookkeeping function that reduces the value of an asset because it has been overvalued.
Key to the complaint is the allegation that Exxon's continued assertion that the company was on solid ground despite internally understating the potential impact of climate change resulted in an artificial inflation of stock values. Stock value took a hit when the company recently announced that it might be forced to write down nearly 20 percent of its oil and gas reserves, according to the lawsuit. It has since rebounded to roughly the price it was selling for in September.
"Specifically, the Company acknowledged that it might have to write down 3.6 billion barrels of oil sand reserves and one billion barrels of other North American reserves that Exxon now conceded were not profitable to produce under current prices," according to the lawsuit.
Celia Taylor, a professor of securities and corporate law at the University of Denver, said shareholders will have a much easier task proving Exxon failed to lower the value of its oil reserves than proving it deceived investors about climate change's role in charting the company's future.
"That is a tangible element—that the company knew the value of the oil in the ground wasn't what they knew it to be and failed to assign the true value to the asset.
"That is a stronger hook than the climate change hook. There would have to be a showing that officers and directors knew climate change posed risks and didn't disclose those risks because they knew that would have a negative effect on stock value," Taylor said.
That's a tough task when disclosure requirements lack guidelines on precisely what has to be disclosed specific to climate change, she said.
Ryan McConnell, an adjunct professor of corporate law at the University of Houston Law Center, said class-action lawsuits of this type require proof that a company propped up the price of its stock by not disclosing information that would have influenced the stock value.
"They have to show causation where information from the company moved the stock price," he said. "Otherwise how do you know the statements mattered?"
The next hurdle to overcome in winning a securities fraud case is proving the information related to setting stock prices was intentionally withheld, he said.
"There is always the debate about what should have been disclosed and when," McConnell said.
"The fight is always about interpreting what is disclosed and what isn't and what material consequence it had."Super Smash Bros., Nintendo's latest entry in the fighting franchise, will include two multiplayer modes — For Fun and For Glory — for players to choose from, director Masahiro Sakurai announced during a Nintendo Direct presentation today.
Both the Wii U and 3DS versions of the game will include online multiplayer to allow players to try "whatever style" they want to play. The Wii U's online multiplayer will function like Super Smash Bros. Brawl's. However, the 3DS version "isn't going to be overshadowed," Sakurai said, and will offer online options as well for players with a stable connection.
When people are playing online with random players, they can choose from two different modes. In the For Fun mode, the stage will be randomly selected from the game's available options; the Final Destination stage is not included. In this mode, only wins will be recorded and all items have a chance of appearing. In the For Glory mode, players can only engage in one-on-on battles in Final Destination. There will be no items, and both wins and losses are recorded. According to Sakurai, players of this mode "probably spent a lot of time on Final Destination in previous titles."
"Almost all" stages now have Final Destination form, Sakurai added.
Nintendo is also attempting to cut down on players that cheat, drop out of matches too much or target an individual player. This means bans, Sakurai said. The more people abuse other players, the longer the ban. "I hope we can create an online environment where everyone can enjoy themselves," he said.
Online matches will no longer be anonymous, Sakurai explained. Online names will be linked to Nintendo Network IDs, enabling players to report cheaters and unsportsmanlike conduct. Baseless reporting of other players, however, can also warrant ban penalties.
Super Smash Bros., revealed at E3 2013, is expected to launch this year for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS and will feature cross-platform play. The game's roster features popular characters such as Mario, Luigi, Link, Princess Zelda, Mega Man, Sonic and many more.Mexico’s drug war violence became so acute during the government’s militarised crackdown on organised crime that it caused male life expectancy rates to drop by an average of several months, reversing a decade’s worth of public health improvements, a new study has shown.
As violence worsened between 2005 and 2010, life expectancy rates fell in all of Mexico’s 31 states, including regions perceived to have escaped the conflict, according to the study published on Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs.
Life expectancy fell by as much as three years in Chihuahua state, which includes Ciudad Juárez – once considered the murder capital of the world. But states not nearly as affected by violence such as Oaxaca and Tlaxcala also saw declines of six months.
The drop in life expectancy coincides with a period of escalating violence between rival cartels, and then president Felipe Calderón’s 2006 decision to deploy federal forces against the traffickers.
“After 2005, that’s when life expectancy goes down in all the states. That is what made me think that it is homicide that is having a big impact,” says Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, the lead researcher on the study.
Two authors of the study told the Guardian that the decline in life expectancy was directly related to the rise in the homicide rate after the drug war began and not merely a coincidence.
“Homicides were going down” from 2000 to 2005, Beltrán-Sánchez, a professor of community health studies at the University of California Los Angeles, said. “After 2005, when the whole thing exploded and military operations began moving through the country, that’s when the homicides went up, very much across the board.”
Mexico had made gains in life expectancy over the previous six decades as public health and living standards improved and more Mexicans gained access to health services. Beltrán-Sánchez said he was expecting to see an increase of “three or four years” during the last decade, but found a decrease in life expectancy of 0.6 years for men and almost no change for women.
The reversal came as the federal government extended a universal healthcare coverage to millions of impoverished Mexicans through a program known as Seguro Popular – a measure that researchers say should have increased life expectancies.
Mortality from diabetes – problematic in a country which consumes staggering amounts of soda – actually levelled off between 2005 and 2010 and would have contributed to gains in life expectancy without such high homicide rates
“The implementation has been slow, but the little progress that they did make [with Seguro Popular] was wiped out by the increase in homicides,” he said.
Life expectancy for a Mexican male is now slightly less than 72 years, six months lower than in 2005.
“This has become an issue of national relevance, of public health relevance, rather than some isolated events,” Beltrán-Sánchez said. “If [government officials] continue to see these as isolated events, they won’t be able to stop it.”
Violent deaths in El Salvador spiked 70% in 2015, figures reveal Read more
Mexico’s drug war has claimed more than 100,000 lives and sent the homicide rate from nine murders per 100,000 persons in 2005 to 22 murders per 100,000 in 2010.
The country’s homicide rate is still lower than in other Latin American countries, especially those in Central America
Figures released earlier this week showed that the murder rate in El Salvador rose to 104 per 100,000 habitants in 2015 – the bloodiest year since the end of the country’s civil war in 1992.Dubious game developers and Twitter trolls will now have to look elsewhere for backup when it comes to telling us “SJWs” that there’s nothing wrong with the portrayal of women in video games. A survey found that most teenage boys—despite common wisdom to the contrary—don’t want women to be over-sexualized in their video games.
I’ll let you take a minute to readjust your entire worldview.
Frequently, when people (frequently us) complain that women in video games are heavily subjected to the male gaze to the point where it becomes harmful, a defense that crops up is, “But our audience for this product is young men/teenage boys. We’re just playing to our audience.” Setting aside how silly it is to purposefully target a potentially gender-neutral product specifically at one gender—and how deciding that certain things are “for girls” and “for boys” is a problem all in itself—that’s making a pretty big assumption about what that audience even wants. And it turns out the assumption is certainly making an ass out of someone.
In a survey of 1,400 middle and high school students by Rosalind Wiseman, Charlie Kuhn, and Ashly Burch, of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’?, it turned out that of boys who identified as gamers, 55% said games should have more women as protagonists, and 57% felt women were treated as sex objects too often in games. Teenage boys. So all the grown-ass men on the Internet screaming about their toys being taken away just because we’d like a bit more consideration shown toward women in games might want to take a step back and realize they could get a lesson in maturity from teenagers.
Wiseman shared some more interesting statistics from the survey on Time, writing,
Both boys and girls aren’t more likely to play a game based on the gender of the protagonist 70% of girls said it doesn’t matter and 78% of boys said it doesn’t matter. Interestingly, boys care less about playing as a male character as they age and girls care more about playing as a female one.
She also noted that her results showed girls play a variety of different game genres, whether or not some people want to believe that over half of gamers being women is only because of all our moms playing Farmville—as though that somehow make them lesser gamers anyway. The group behind the survey has stressed that it was only intended to be exploratory and not a completely thorough evaluation, but the findings are pretty encouraging.
Maybe there is hope for the next generation of gamers after all.
(via Destructoid)
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Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?COUNCILLORS FOR THE city of Paris have voted in favour of constructing a gigantic triangle-shaped skyscraper in the city – the Tour Triangle.
It will be the first such building to be constructed in the French capital in over 40 years and will vie with the Eiffel Tower for dominance of the Parisian skyline.
The enormous triangle will stand 180 metres high and will be built at a cost of roughly €650 million.
The plan to construct the building (which has been on the cards since at least 2008) was initially voted down by the council last November.
At the time Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo said she would launch a legal appeal against that vote after several councillors displayed their vote cards in what was supposed to be a secret ballot.
The official website for the tower suggests that the finished building will house a 120 room four-star hotel together with 70,000 square metres of office space.
The building will be designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron who have been attached to the project since the beginning.
Their previous credits included the Bird’s Nest stadium built for 2008′s Beijing Olympics and the ‘Jenga’ tower at Tribeca, New York.
New York's 60-story "Jenga Tower" at 56 Leonard is a glass masterpiece with an Anish Kapoor sculpture at its base: http://t.co/nGuTUPqiqI — Brent Watson (@gavinbwatson) May 19, 2015 Source: Brent Watson /Twitter
Not everyone in the capital is overjoyed at the prospect of the new skyscraper, as evidenced by the previous negative council vote.
Residents of the 15th arrondissement in the south-west of the city have complained about the building’s energy efficiency and its unsuitability for Paris’ housing requirements.
Source: TourTriangle.com
Source: TourTriangle.com
It is after all the first such building to be constructed in Paris since the Tour Montparnasse was built in 1973.
Tour Montparnasse, the only other skyscraper in Paris Source: Shutterstock/S.Borisov
That particular building stands as the only such high-rise on Paris’ skyline, and has made it next to impossible for developers to gain planning approval for similar sized constructions given its common perception locally as something of an eyesore.
Source: TourTriangle.com
Source: TourTriangle.com
With AFPAlert readers may have spotted that the “Vote No Borders” cinema advert featured on this much-viewed Wings article from a few days ago can no longer be played from the campaign group’s YouTube page, returning a “Private” error.
An even more alert reader, however, had already made a copy.
And while the entire series of ads has now been effectively banned by all of Scotland’s cinema chains, all the other ones are still present on the website while the NHS one (described as “a light-hearted sketch”) has vanished. And now we’ve found out why.
The above is an email sent to a Wings Over Scotland reader from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, probably the UK’s – if not the world’s – most famous such institution. As the transcript linked above shows, GOSH was cited in the VNB ads with the suggestion that it would become “out of bounds” to Scottish children (or as the ad put it, “foreigners”) should Scotland vote for independence.
The reality seems to speak for itself.
We don’t think we’re yet anywhere near the lowest depths the various factions of the No campaign will sink to between now and September, but it seems determined to drag bystanders down into the sewers with it in its at-all-costs defence of the Union.
We’ve already seen Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar grossly misrepresenting the views of esteemed anti-poverty campaigners the Joseph Rowntree Trust – something for which Sarwar never publicly apologised, nor corrected his falsehood – not long after his party did much the same to the Economic and Social Research Council.
And of course this week we’ve had not one but two highly respected institutions complain that the UK government was utterly distorting and exaggerating their findings on the cost of setting up an independent Scotland’s infrastructure.
We obviously can’t predict who the next innocent casualties of the No campaign’s indiscriminate lie-bombing will be. All we can say with any degree of confidence is that the good people of Great Ormond Street Hospital won’t be the last.History of NorwayFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From around the time of the Roman Empire until about 800 AD, many stone inscriptions can be found, written in Runes. Apparently, the petty kingdoms developed during these centuries.
The period from 800–1066 is referred to in Norwegian history as the Viking age. During this period, Norwegians, as well as Swedes and Danes, traveled abroad on longships, as raiders, explorers, settlers and traders.
By the middle of the 11th century, the Norwegian kingdom was firmly established, although there was still only a very rudimentary administrative framework. After the Black Death Norway entered into a period of decline.
1396–1537 Norway was a part of Kalmar Union.
From 1537 to 1814 Norway was a part of Denmark-Norway.
Denmark–Norway entered into an alliance with Napoleon, with the war leading to dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. In 1814 Denmark-Norway was defeated in the Napoleonic wars and the king was forced to cede Norway to the king of Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel (January 14). Sweden and Norway adopted a loose union.
This period also saw the rise of the Norwegian romantic nationalism cultural movement, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905.
Norway remained neutral during World War I. During both World Wars, Norway claimed neutrality, but it was invaded by German forces during World War II on April 9, 1940.
Norway joined NATO in 1949. Two plebiscites to join the European Union failed by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994. Norway has been a close ally of the United States. Large reserves of petroleum and natural gas were discovered in the 1960s, which led to a continuing boom in the economy.Restroom (Shutterstock)
An initiative proposed by a religious conservative group Friday in California would ban transgender people from using single-sex facilities in government buildings that correspond with their gender identity, Buzzfeed News reports.
The proposed law requires people to use facilities such as restrooms, showers, dressing rooms, and locker rooms in all government buildings “in accordance with their biological sex,” effectively banning transgender people to use these facilities that correspond to their gender. A “violation” could result in a penalty of at least $4,000.
Although the ban only applies to facilities in government buildings, including public schools and universities, the proposed law would protect private businesses from litigations if they enforce similar bans.
The initiative, titled “Personal Privacy Protection Act,” claims that the ban is proposed to “preserve fundamental interests in privacy,” and “maintain public safety.” However, Buzzfeed’s Dominic Holden calls it a “backlash against recent and significant gains by the LGBT-rights movement.”
There has been pushback from LGBT rights advocates. ACLU’s Kris Hayashi, the Executive Director at Transgender Law Center, calls it “bathroom police.”
“Anyone who doesn’t meet stereotypes of what a woman looks like or what a man looks like – or really anyone a building manager or someone else with power wanted to harass – could be singled out to somehow ‘prove’ their gender before using the bathroom,” Hayashi writes on the ACLU website, and rather than protecting privacy, it is “an attack” on it.
The proposed law would also conflict with the federal interpretation of Title IX, which bans gender discrimination.
The initiative is sponsored by Privacy For All, a campaign organized by religious conservatives, who failed to repeal a 2013 law that allowed students to use school facilities that reflected their gender.
For the new initiative to appear on the fall 2016 ballot, its proponents must gather 365,880 valid signatures from California voters.
California isn’t the only state that has seen such an initiative. Similar bills have been proposed in Florida and Texas this year. Recently, the transgender issue has been used by anti-LGBTQ groups to repeal a gender nondiscrimination law in Missouri.Did Donald Trump have someone embedded at Fox that tipped him off to what may have been an embarrassing and compromising debate? Is that why he really pulled out?
Conjecture
Now this is pure conjecture, but consider this. It is unlikely that Megyn Kelly alone was of any real concern to Trump. It is also improbable that the snarky remark tweeted out by Fox was the cause anymore than Kelly’s own defense, in her words, “If you can’t get past me, how are you gonna handle Vladimir Putin?” So what might be the real reason?
In my book, “Gotcha! The Subordination of Free Will,” there are several chapters devoted to the manipulation psychology involved in politics. One area discussed is the embedding of folks within the media, how and why this is done, and when and where it can affect so-called news stories. It’s not necessary to fully flesh this method out here because for the moment, I want you to just assume that maybe, just maybe, Trump had an insider who tipped him off. Tipped him off to what?
Video Montages
In the last Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses, Fox used embarrassing video montages on both Senators Cruz and Rubio. The videos depicted compromising position switches by both men and were accompanied by questions regarding the veracity of their current assertions. Now you may begin to get the picture. You can bet they were ready with more of the same for Trump. Indeed, it’s my bet that they had several for Trump and the videos aimed at Cruz and Rubio were there primarily to disguise the attack on Trump. This way they could claim to be fairly using this strategy with all of the frontrunners, not just Trump.
If I’m right, Trump was tipped off and was therefore wise in finding a reason not to attend the debate. Rupert Murdock has been very public regarding his dislike for Trump, criticizing him on several fronts. Rupert Murdoch is Executive Chairman of News Corp, and has a history of inserting his beliefs in American politics. He owns 175 newspapers including the New York Post, 35 television stations in the US, the Fox |
to it. Toronto’s biggest failure offensively was their inability to find a true attacking midfielder and player who could be responsible for set pieces. The result being Toronto was one of the worse teams in terms of converting on set play opportunities. Going into the season for me, the answer was Dwayne De Rosario, who the model predicted five goals, six assists, but also 1788 minutes of playing time. De Rosario only ended up playing 508 minutes scoring one goal and played almost more of a forward role, and because of this he had one of the highest rate of shots and shots on target per 90 minutes. His failures this season was partly due to his age, although it seems that for the most part coaches, especially Ryan Nelsen, were unwilling to play him. Through the summer, Toronto also brought in four players. Luke Moore was the most positive and recorded almost the exact same stats as projected, although with his original club Chivas USA, the key for TFC next year is to making sure Moore is on a similar contract to truly bring value to the club. Dominic Oduro struggled in terms of scoring, but did play well as a winger with Toronto FC in providing opportunities and was also fouled 46 times with more than half of them in dangerous positions. Like Moore, cost would be concern regarding him staying with the club next season. To me, Collen Warner was the most confusing move this season. While he is fair value for money under his current contract, the confusion is mainly because him and Bradley were very similar. Warner also struggled with his shooting and providing balls from set plays and his poor tackling led to him fouling or not closing the play down. In many ways Warren Creaville is just a standard MLSer, and for me there is greater fear of him being wasted on the bench than being a useful player for TFC in the future. The question remaining is how does a team go from a predicted goal ratio of 52-39 +13 with expectations of the playoffs, to a reality of 44-54 -10 and missing the post season for the eighth straight year? I feel there are a number of reasons. First, goalkeeping was expected to be better and players such as Bloom and Hagglund weren’t expected to get so many minutes. Second, Bradley was supposed to be more effective than the -15 +/- goal differential he ended up having on the season. Thirdly, a better, more concise offense would mean greater ball control and also put games out reach taking pressure off the defense. Lastly, a true attacking midfielder would mean the wingers wouldn't have to be relied on creating chances and instead could have helped concentrate on their defensive duties. The 0-4-1 October with a -7 Goal Difference made the team much worse stat-wise than the team was most of the season, however, I do feel these issues existed throughout the season. One could argue the firing of Nelsen could have cost TFC a playoff berth, but based on how things looked from the start, the team should have fired or bean to look for an alternative to Nelsen at the beginning of the season or in June when managers from around the World became available. In the end, you had a team that despite its talent was mismanaged in terms of players signed and how they were used. You also had two key strikers, one with off field issues and the other with on field, but both couldn't put the team on their backs like other DP players have done in the past for other MLS clubs. The expected stats were tabulated last February and this one, along with other models, can evaluate a season as well as its progresses. However, the thing that worries me about Toronto FC for a number of years is what work like this is supposed to provide. From what I’ve seen in the past eight seasons, right up to present day, is that rarely anyone connected to the club ever has the right answer, or even more importantly knows how to ask the right questions.Jared Goff has had time to rest up from a trying first season, let his body heal, spend a little time in Mexico with his friends … but now he’s ready to go back to work. He has a new head coach, a new offensive system and new perspective heading into his first full offseason of work in the NFL.
The Los Angeles Rams quarterback spent much of last season waiting his turn (for much of it as the team’s third quarterback) before starting the final seven games of the season and still seeking his first victory in the league. He’ll be doing it under his third head coach following the firing of Jeff Fisher, and with interim coach John Fassel being replaced by 30-year-old, first-time head coach Sean McVay.
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Goff is now back in Los Angeles (more on that below), and he’s excited to get working with McVay on a new direction offensively.
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“He’s ready, ready to get this thing turned around, as am I,” Goff told Shutdown Corner Friday night. “We’ve talked now a few times since he’s been hired, and it’s a great start.”
Jared Goff believes that the Rams’ new offense will be going deep more. (AP)
Goff met with McVay before and after the new coach was hired, and he was the only coach Goff met with during the Rams’ interview process — which might say a lot about how impressive McVay with the team’s brass.
“I thought after that first meeting, if he gets the job I am completely on board,” Goff said. “I was very, very pleased. Now the hard work begins.”
Goff believes the Rams’ offense can have the same type of feel as the system McVay ran with the Washington Redskins.
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“I think we’re going to do a lot of what they did last year: a lot of downfield passing stuff,” Goff said of the Redskins’ offense, which ranked second in the NFL in yards per pass play and passing yards per game. “I think that’s obviously transferable here.”
Goff had no idea at the time, but starting early last season he would be watching tape of opposing defenses, and he said it seemed that every other week he was getting a look at what the Redskins and quarterback Kirk Cousins did offensively.
“I kept saying, either to myself or to the other quarterbacks in the room, ‘Hey, man, I really like this. I like what they do.’ I had no idea [McVay] would be bringing that here at the time,” Goff said. “Great concepts, lots of variety, great execution. It’s all there.
“Now I get to run that. You could see Kirk making tough throws, but they were scheming stuff up to get guys open. That’s one thing I noticed, a lot of guys running free, which is obviously appealing to me.”
As far as McVay’s age, Goff says he is not worried at all. The Rams were the youngest team in the NFL last season and likely will be one of the youngest again this season.
“If there’s a team it’s not going to be a problem with, it’s us,” he said. “But I don’t think it would be a problem regardless, just because of who he is. Who is to say that you can’t be a good head coach at 31? It’s not like the president — you don’t need to be 35. There’s no age requirement. You judge is on their knowledge and their capabilities.
“I know he is the right guy for this job.”
Goff might have struggled in his seven starts, completing 54.6 percent of his passes for a mere 5.3 yards per attempt, with only five TDs to seven interceptions. But he feels lucky that he came out of the season healthy and not in need of injury rehab. That will allow him to continue working on his conditioning and also absorb his third offensive system in three years, going back to Cal.
He also felt that going against so many talented teams and facing some adversity in those seven starts actually will be a benefit building toward his second season.
“Just that experience of facing some pretty good teams was huge,” Goff said. “The Seahawks, the Patriots, the Falcons, the Dolphins, even the Cardinals and Saints. The Niners were probably the only team we played that wasn’t of that same caliber. But I think seeing how the game works at the highest level against those good teams, that will pay dividends.
“Good things don’t come right away — I know that — and I am willing to put in the time to make things good.”
Goff will remain in L.A. to train for the duration of the offseason, but he’s also spending time this weekend there at the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, talking to players about transitioning to the league and preparing for the combine. He and several other 2016 rookies are working with Panini Gridiron on their digital trading card app and signing their rookie cards prior to the game.
“We’re just down here signing some cards and talking to the guys, and it’s been a lot of fun,” Goff said.
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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at edholm@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you! – that the Anti-Defamation League has joined the alliance of militant Christians, militantly atheistic “Objectivists,” and other assorted militant nut-jobs in calling for a ban on the so-called “Ground Zero mosque, “ otherwise known as Cordoba House. After all, why would an organization ostensibly devoted to “civil rights” and “tolerance” get in bed with Pamela “Shrieking Harpy” Geller, the Religious Right, and Leonard Peikoff, the Peripatetic Pipsqueak?
To find out, let’s travel to the ADL web site and read their statement of policy on the matter:
“We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths – to build community centers and houses of worship.”
So far, so good: no indications of militant craziness here, just the same old bromides we’ve heard from the ADL all these years, and, just in case we don’t get the message that these are just your average, everyday Jewish liberals, there’s more reassurances up front:
“We categorically reject appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion, and condemn those whose opposition to this proposed Islamic Center is a manifestation of such bigotry. However …”
Uh oh! Here it comes:
“There are understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities surrounding the World Trade Center site. We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel – and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.”
Since it wasn’t Islam that attacked and demolished the World Trade Center, but a marginal group of fanatics who used religion as a cover for their blood lust, what the ADL is referring to here are the “strong passions” of Islamophobes who hate everything to do with Islam – why, those poor sensitive souls, their feelings must be woefully hurt! One question, though: Are the “keen sensitivities” of those who conflate one of the world’s greatest religions with the handful of thugs and cut-throats who killed 3,000 people on 9/11 really something that needs to be taken into account? What if, in the wake of the 1967 bombing of the USS Liberty by Israeli warplanes – in which 34 US servicemen were slaughtered – a campaign had been mounted to banish all synagogues from a two-mile radius of Arlington National Cemetery? How would the ADL have reacted?
Surely they would have vehemently disagreed with those who – invoking the families of our fallen sailors – justified such a loopy and transparently bigoted proposal, especially if these bigots had the chutzpah to argue that these synagogues were “counterproductive to the healing process.” Yet this is how the ADL rationalizes their opposition to Cordoba House – speaking the same language of collective guilt that informs the lexicon of anti-Semitic crazies the world over.
The ADL has always opposed conspiracy theories, as a matter of high principle, and are quick to compare them – no matter how much evidence accrues to their credibility – with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic forgery. Yet “in these unique circumstances,” as Foxman & Co. put it, they are perfectly willing to embrace a conspiracy theory that accuses the builders of Cordoba House of receiving money from “terrorist” sources: that the whole project is a plot by radical Islamists with lots of cash to rub our noses in the 9/11 terrorist attacks – just in time for the ninth anniversary!
What is the evidence for this conspiracy theory? The answer is: none, not even a shred. Indeed, those who raise the issue of the source of the funding don’t bother offering any: they merely call for an investigation on the grounds that, apparently, any and all Muslims are automatically suspect. This is what the ADL is enabling and endorsing: defamation, pure and simple.
Claudia Rosett, a writer for Forbes who is also affiliated with the “Foundation for the Defense of Democracies” – originally known as “Emet,” an Israeli-funded propaganda front group that may very well have received at least part of its start-up funding from overseas – demands an accounting of Cordoba House’s finances “down to the last penny.”
Rosett’s harpyish hectoring has to be read to be believed: told that the project director Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is traveling, and unavailable for an interview, she wants to know why he’s traveling so much these days. Is his trip a fundraising tour? Is he raising money from people who don’t “love America”? Bereft of facts, her argument depends on the very lack of solid information conveyed in her piece. According to the Claudia Rosett School of Jurisprudence, one is guilty unless and until proven innocent. Building while Muslim – it’s the new driving-while-black.
Utilizing the sort of Bizarro “logic” that enables the ADL to come out in favor of defamation, Rosett avers:
“In other words, is any of his fundraising getting a boost from the high-profile debate and distress generated by his plans? One would hope that Rauf picked the site with the best of intentions. But on the chance that the choice amounts in any way to a cynical fundraising stunt, or even a dangerous appeal to potential donors who have lots of money but no love lost for America, full and regular public disclosure of his backers, prospects, plans and financial books would surely help clarify the situation.”
Rauf is to be blamed for the controversy that Rosett, the ADL, and the neoconservative wing of the GOP have generated: it was all a plot, you see, a “cynical” fundraising ploy.
What an odd admission for Rosett to make: that she is herself apparently a willing dupe of this Vast Muslim Conspiracy. After all, you can’t get much more “high profile” than the pages of Forbes.
I admit to not being all that shocked that ADL director Abe Foxman has finally gone over the edge. His latest shenanigans are but the end of a long career in which he has at last become a perfect caricature of himself. Clear evidence of his advanced state of senile dementia comes near the end the official ADL statement, where the “theoretical” justification for this blatantly bigoted and clearly totalitarian hate campaign is pronounced, in all seriousness:
“Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.”
Forget about rights, constitutional and/or natural [.pdf], secular or God-given: these human constructs crumble to dust before the ADL’s own concept of “what is right.” And “what is right” is measured in terms of how much unnecessary pain is experienced by “some victims.”
Who are these victims? The relatives and loved ones of those who died that fateful day? Of course, all of us could be termed “victims” of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, because all of us have had to endure nearly a decade of constant warfare, and a concerted attack on our constitutional rights since that day. And it hasn’t stopped, yet – indeed, our collectively experienced pain seems to be on the increase, lately, as the US war machine revs up its motors for a go at Pakistan, and Iran.
This is nothing new for the ADL, which has been in the forefront of speech suppression and political intolerance at least since the postwar years, when it spent a lot of its energies going after conservatives who opposed US intervention in World War II. For an organization supposedly devoted to battling ethnic defamation, the ADL was not among those who protested the internment of Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans, and some German-Americans in concentration camps for the duration of the war. Nor did we hear from them when the state of Israel established a system sickeningly reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid in the occupied territories of Palestine. Indeed, the ADL has, in recent years, become little more than a de facto adjunct of the Israeli government, a knee-jerk defender of whatever repressive and increasingly anti-American behavior Tel Aviv cares to indulge in.
Under Abe Foxman’s idiosyncratic and embarrassingly erratic leadership, a league founded in order to oppose defamation of ethnic and religious minorities has attached itself to a movement devoted to precisely the sort of bigotry it has traditionally abhorred. Due to this bizarre development – albeit one not entirely unpredictable – one of two things should happen. Either 1) Foxman steps down, in disgrace and humiliation, after issuing the appropriately heartfelt apology, and seeks professional help, or 2) The ADL announces a name change to reflect its newfound orientation.
After merging with such like-minded organizations as the English Defense League (a group of violent football hooligans endorsed by Pamela Geller, the founding leader of the anti-Cordoba House movement), and their American co-thinkers, a much larger ADL could be built – but only if they’ll change their name to announce their new ideological orientation. If they want to get in on the anti-Muslim action, they’ll have to shed their tolerant liberal image – and history – and do a complete makeover. May I suggest the Pro-Defamation League? It’s bold, it’s trendy, it’s now.
Read more by Justin Raimondo"Broad City" steps back in time to make a big leap forward in an exciting Season 4.
Spring is usually a sign of positive growth. Flowers bloom and lives start afresh as the world awakens from a deep hibernation. Change is in the air.
So it makes sense that “Broad City,” until now, has predominantly taken place during the summer. The baking streets of New York are on fire with perpetual opportunity, and the down-to-clown 20-something best friends Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) and Ilana (Ilana Glazer) have thrived in the summer heat. Nothing changes. It’s been a largely insular universe, and these two are just having a good time while they can.
But in Season 4, the game has changed. That fleeting “live forever” innocence of their early-to-mid-twenties has moved on, and these two surreal dreamers (Abbi an artist, Ilana a free spirit) are facing a stark, bleak reality.
Winter is here — and yet, they persist.
“Broad City” is still the sharp-witted, inventive, and outrageous comedy built on unbreakable pillars of friendship. Abbi and Ilana still smoke, drink, and party whenever they can — which is often — but there’s a notable shift in tone this season. The cold February during which the new episodes were shot evokes a more subdued reality, if not a stark one. Their adventures are more grounded as the mounting challenges of adulthood creep into their lives.
Given all the press devoted to this topic, it would be easy to assume Donald Tr*mp is to blame for the shift. His presence hovers over the season, and there’s even an episode mid-way through Season 4 dedicated to the caustic effects of his election. The series bleeps his name whenever it’s spoken, just like the many curse words Comedy Central’s ever-weakening censors deem too crude for viewers’ ears.
But much like the winter setting is likely more of a coincidence than an artistic choice — both actors are becoming more and more popular, making finding time to shoot Season 4 trickier than ever — Trump, too, isn’t the only reason “Broad City” is growing up. It’s been working toward this for at least one season. The 2016 election, as it did for many others, just made them face reality sooner.
Season 4 opens with an origin story — the ultimate origin story: how Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) and Ilana (Ilana Glazer) first met. Split into two timelines, a la its inspiration and episode title, “Sliding Doors,” the parallel universes are created in 2011 when Abbi and Ilana rush to catch the MTA and either make it on board or miss it and become stranded. You don’t know which timeline represents the true story of how they met until the end.
The episode grapples with inevitability in a fascinating manner. The duo sees their friendship as an unavoidable collision, in that they meet whether they make the train or not, but the results of each timeline aren’t what you expect. One timeline seems too good to be true throughout, as if their blossoming friendship is a little too simpatico. Parallels are drawn to the culture at large — where they see Obama’s election as the next step toward a surefire female president — while the alternate universe forges a more genuine connection when the women acknowledge the shitty things that happen.
But that timeline is more than just commentary on taking progress for granted and the lost innocence of youthful naïveté. Jacobson and Glazer, who co-wrote the episode, hone in on the point that some things are inevitably good and some things are inevitably bad. Time will tell which is which, and they’ve lived long enough to look back, learn, and appreciate what’s in their control.
Aging, along with the maturity, pain, and conflict that come with it, play into that inevitability. Gone are the carefree days of their early twenties. Now they have new, better jobs: Abbi is an office drone, and Ilana has “a dope waiting job and is super rich now.” Both gigs, despite the conflicting descriptions, represent the same incremental step up from their former jobs, as the two ladies start to appreciate a slightly easier life thanks to more money and security.
But there are gray hairs and ex-boyfriends to deal with, too. There’s fresh guilt to go along with their moves up the career ladder and new dynamics to be forged with friends and the world in general.
Abbi and Ilana are growing up, slowly but surely. But it’s not Trump that made them do it. Yes, the Tr*mp-centric episode — directed by Jacobson and titled “Witches” (airing October 25) — feels like a step outside the “Broad City” bubble and into an activist arena, but the series has been building toward this change for a while. Trump’s influence may be all over the three episodes given to critics, in Ilana singing about white guilt while paying for an elaborate manicure or Abbi’s concerns about her physical appearance. But he deserves little, if any, credit for motivating positive change (just like we see with his day job).
Clear earmarks of progress could be seen late in Season 3, such as when Ilana and Lincoln broke up and the free-wheeling sexual dynamo had to face unexpected despair at losing someone she loved; or when Abbi took a trip home to visit her father and we learned more about her past than ever before; or, yes, when Hillary Clinton made a cameo as herself during the 2016 campaign.
The election made a lot of people face a new reality, and “Broad City” is doing just that. It’s engaging in a more serialized storytelling mode, the world itself, and time’s continual march forward. But these creators aren’t letting Trump’s patriarchy dictate their decisions. These scary forces don’t control Season 4; Glazer and Jacobson do, and they’ve never been more powerful.
Winter has arrived, but with it comes growth.
Grade: A-
“Broad City” Season 4 premieres Wednesday, September 13 at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. The first episode is also streaming online now.Sure, Union Wine Company hasn’t given The Gang and their genius idea any credit. YET. But I’m pretty sure we all know who is to thank for bullsh*t business quotes like this showing up in Fast Company.
“There is a ‘winification’ of beer going on and we are at the forefront of a new trend – the ‘beerification’ of wine. “We want to be a part of everyday celebrations. These wines are more about immediacy, and the can is an extension of that thinking,” he added.
Translated: “There’s a growing market of people who want to day drink wine and leave those around them thinking they really have a thing for off brand soda. We are here to fill that market.”
Capitalism. Life imitating art. Secretive boozing. This story really fills out a punchlist for me. Here’s a look at the cans that will go on sale for about $5 a piece next year. No word yet on distribution outside of the Pacific Northwest, those lucky damp teeth-stained sons of bitches.
Beverage awards are pretty much guaranteed to be won. And The Gang is pretty much guaranteed to be standing in the dark. It’s a cruel world we live in but at least we have wine in a can.
The Drink Business via r/IASIPMore and more Americans are turning to herbal remedies to help manage chronic conditions or promote general health and wellness. But many of today's popular herbal supplements, including St. John's wort, gingko biloba, garlic and even grapefruit juice can pose serious risks to people who are taking medications for heart disease, according to a review article published in the February, 9, 2010, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
The use of these products is especially concerning among elderly patients who typically have co-morbidities, take multiple medications and are already at greater risk of bleeding, according to authors.
"Many people have a false sense of security about these herbal products because they are seen as 'natural,'" Arshad Jahangir, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Consultant Cardiologist, Mayo Clinic Arizona, adding that more than 15 million Americans reportedly use herbal remedies or high-dose vitamins. "But 'natural' doesn't always mean they are safe. Every compound we consume has some effect on the body, which is, in essence, why people are taking these products to begin with."
In addition to their direct effects on body function, these herbs can interact with medications used to treat heart disease, either reducing their effectiveness or increasing their potency, which may lead to bleeding or a greater risk for serious cardiac arrhythmias.
"We can see the effect of some of these herb-drug interactions -- some of which can be life-threatening -- on tests for blood clotting, liver enzymes and, with some medications, on electrocardiogram," Dr. Jahangir said.
According to the report, a major concern is that patients do not readily disclose their use of herbal remedies, and healthcare providers may not routinely ask about such use. In addition, because these herbs are regarded as food products, they are not subject to the same scrutiny and regulation as traditional medications.
"If patients aren't satisfied with their care today, many will turn to herbs because they believe these compounds can help them manage chronic conditions or improve health and prevent future disease," said Dr. Jahangir. "In fact, patients are willing to spend nearly the same or more on out-of-pocket expenses for herbal remedies than traditional medical care."
Two nationwide surveys conducted in 1990 and 1997 found that the number of visits to complementary and alternative providers increased from 427 million to 629 million, whereas the number of visits to primary care physicians remained basically unchanged.
Some examples of herbs and their adverse effect on heart disease management include:
St. John's wort, which is typically used to treat depression, anxiety and sleep disorders among other problems, reduces the effectiveness of medications contributing to recurrences of arrhythmia, high blood pressure or increase in blood cholesterol levels and risk for future heart problems.
Ginkgo biloba, which is supposedly used to improve circulation or sharpen the mind, increases bleeding risk in those taking warfarin or aspirin.
Garlic, which supposedly helps boost the immune system and is commonly used for its cholesterol and blood pressure lowering properties, can also increase the risk of bleeding among those taking warfarin.
In addition to highlighting commonly used herbs and potential interactions with cardiovascular medications, the present review also outlines steps for improving their safe use and reducing harm among patients with heart disease.
"These herbs have been used for centuries -- well before today's cardiovascular medications -- and while they may have beneficial effects these need to be studied scientifically to better define their usefulness and, more importantly, identify their potential for harm when taken with medications that have proven benefit for patients with cardiovascular diseases," said Dr. Jahangir. "Patients, physicians, pharmacists and other healthcare providers need to know about the potential harm these herbs can have."
In addition to greater public education about the risks of using herbal products, patients and clinicians need to actively discuss the use of over-the-counter medications, supplements and herbal products in addition to prescription medications.British Prime Minister David Cameron and Ukrainian counterpart President Petro Poroshenko have both expressed concerns today over the "situation on the ground" since the official start of a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
A Downing Street spokesman said the two leaders discussed the situation in a phone call this afternoon.
He said: "Both leaders expressed concern about the situation on the ground. While the level of fighting has lessened considerably since the ceasefire came into force at midnight, there have been multiple violations in particular around the town of Debaltseve. They agreed on the importance of both sides respecting the ceasefire.
“They discussed what role the United Nations Security Council could play in supporting the ceasefire and the agreements reached in Minsk in September 2014 and February 2015, and agreed on the importance of underlining Ukraine's territorial integrity."Fifteen years ago today Revolution Pro had what many consider one of the greatest moments in its history, the finals of the Spirit of the Revolution tournament. Starting over a month earlier, and really the bigger storyline had been going much longer, throughout multiple promotions in Southern California, July 14, 2001 saw what was probably the best feud in the area come head-to-head once again when Super Dragon and Rising Son faced each other in the finals.
The Spirit of the Revolution tournament was an ambitious tournament for the time. Tournaments were much rarer in indy wrestling at the time, with ECWA’s Super 8 and APW’s first King of the Indies really being some of the only exceptions. What would set the Spirit of the Revolution apart, was while the Super 8 and King of the Indies were single elimination tournaments, Spirit of the Revolution was modeled after New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Best of the Super Juniors in that it was a round robin tournament taking place over seven shows.
On April 27, 2001 at Revolution Pro’s “Brutality” show, then Rev Pro commissioner made the announcement that the Spirit of the Revolution will be starting with Rev Pro’s May 11th show at the Rudos Dojo. The participants were announced to be Super Dragon, Rising Son, Excalibur, Mr. Excitement, Shogun, and El Gallinero. All scheduled for the show was the Blue Meanie. This was set to be Revolution Pro’s biggest show to date.
May 11th came and as fans were showing up at the venue, Revolution Pro was given some bad news. Someone had called the fire marshalls and reported the venue for not being up to code to allow a large number of fans and inadequate plumbing. Years later an EWF fan admitted to being the one to report the show as EWF had a show on the same night. With the show having to be cancelled, Revolution Pro promoter invited every fan who showed up to his house for a BBQ instead. It was announced that the Spirit of the Revolution would be pushed back till May 25th.
While Revolution Pro was able to secure a new venue, the Norwalk Indoor Swap Meet, the start of the tournament was pushed back to June 2nd.
The feud between Super Dragon had started the year prior when Rising Son who was a promising rookie was having some of his better matches when the more veteran Dragon was involved. Son quickly developed into Revolution Pro’s second most popular wrestler, and when Super Dragon got injured and missed significant time Son was the face of Revolution Pro, taking on such names as Juventud Guerrera.
When Dragon came back from injury, he was teamed occasionally with Son, but the setup was they weren’t exactly getting along as each saw themselves as the star of Revolution Pro. In April they faced each other in XPW in a match that would introduce both of them and Revolution Pro to a much larger audience. Super Dragon took the win. You can read more about that match in Andrew’s column here.
With the Spirit of the Revolution being pushed back, Super Dragon and Rising Son then faced each other in a match that introduced them both to MPW. They once again stole the the show in what was named May 2001’s match of the month. Once again Super Dragon was the winner. Rising Son had never beaten Super Dragon to this point.
They next met once again in XPW, when Super Dragon and Excalibur teamed Rising Son and Ultra Taro Jr. on May 26th. Super Dragon got the win again.
June 2nd finally came around and the tournament was set to begin. On top of the tournament, Mexico’s Most Wanted (Damian 666 & Halloween) who were big in XPW at the time were set to face Matt Sinister and Disco Machine in the main event.
The format of the tournament was each wrestler would face each other once in a round robin tournament. A win was worth 3 points, a draw 1 point, and a loss 0.
The opening round of the tournament saw El Gallinero defeat Shogun, who a lot of people thought had an outside chance to make the finals to help push him to the top, Mr. Excitement defeated Rison Son, and Excalibur defeated Super Dragon in what ended up being June 2001’s match of the month. After the first round, the three wrestlers who most expected to be the favorites to make the finals had lost.
The second stage on June 9th saw Mr. Excitement defeat El Gallinero, Super Dragon defeat Shogun, and Rising Son defeat Excalibur. After two rounds Mr. Excitement was in the lead with 6 points, with everyone else but Shogun having 3 points.
Stage three had one of the more interesting moments of the group stage. After Super Dragon defeated El Gallinero and Rising Son defeated Shogun, Mr. Excitement and Excalibur went to a double count out. Each match had a 30 minute time limit, and the match was booked to be a time limit draw. The referee, Jason McCord knew that it was going to end in a draw, but didn’t know that it was going to the time limit. After about 27 minutes both wrestlers ended up on the outside of the ring and the ref counted them out. After the third stage Mr. Excitement was still in the lead with 7 points, and Shogun all but eliminated still sitting at 0.
The fourth stage on June 23rd saw Excalibur defeat El Gallinero, Shogun finally getting a win defeating the leader in Mr. Excitement, and once again Super Dragon defeating Rising Son.
The fifth stage was set with Super Dragon having 9 points. Mr. Excitement and Excalibur with 7, and Rising Son with 6. Rising Son needed a win and both Excalibur and Mr. Excitement to lose. For Dragon, Excalibur, and Excitement, it was win and you are in.
Rising Son took care of business first, defeating El Gallinero. He was now sitting at 9 points. Shogun managed to pull out the upset against Excalibur, leaving Excalibur at 7 points and Shogun at 6. It was now down to Mr. Excitement versus Super Dragon. While they had a really good, stiff match, Super Dragon ended up the winner setting up Rising Son taking on the man he could not beat once again in Super Dragon.
With XPW running a show on July 7th, the finals were pushed back till July 14th. On the 7th Revolution Pro did have a tag match where Shogun and El Gallinero defeated Mr. Excitement and Excalibur. Also on that show Jason Allgood defeated Matt Sinister for the Rev Pro Mexican Lucha Libre Heavyweight title.
On July 14th Super Dragon and Rising Son were to meet once again in the Spirit of the Revolution finals in a two out of three falls match. In the match they went back to all of their previous matches, playing off sequences that went on before. If this would have been the first time you saw the two of them face each other, it was a great match. If you had been watching this feud develop, it was a masterpiece. Up to that point no one had ever kicked out of Super Dragon’s finisher, the Psycho Driver. During the third fall when Rising Son did, the crowd went absolutely nuts. When Rising Son got the win the emotion in the crowd was crazy. Rising Son’s family was there and they were in tears. Super Dragon and Rising Son had faced each other around 15 times before this point, and he finally got his victory.
After this Revolution Pro had a lot of great moments, later that summer they had the first Revolution J tournament, but the emotion of the Spirit of the Revolution was never equaled. This was not only a tournament that built up over 7 weeks, but over a year, across multiple promotions. The finals finished second in the 2001 Southern California match of the year voting, behind Super Dragon and B-Boys |
, John, Richard's brother, and King Philip offered 80,000 marks for the emperor to hold Richard prisoner until Michaelmas 1194. The emperor turned down the offer. The money to rescue the king was transferred to Germany by the emperor's ambassadors, but "at the king's peril" (had it been lost along the way, Richard would have been held responsible), and finally, on February 4, 1194, Richard was released. King Philip of France sent a message to John of England: "Look to yourself; the devil is loose."
Later years and death
Tomb at Fontevraud
During his absence, John had come close to seizing the throne; Richard forgave him, and even named him as his heir in place of Arthur, who was growing into an unpleasant youth. Instead of turning against John, Richard came into conflict with his former ally and friend, King Philip. When Philip attacked Richard's fortress, Chateau-Gaillard, he boasted, "if its walls were iron, yet would I take it," to which Richard replied, "If these walls were butter, yet would I hold them!"
Tomb at Rouen Cathedral
Determined to resist Philip's designs on contested Angevin lands such as the Vexin and Berry, Richard poured all his military expertise and vast resources into war on the French king. He constructed a grand alliance of powers against Philip, including Baldwin IX of Flanders, Renaud, Count of Boulogne, and his father-in-law King Sancho of Navarre, who raided Philp's lands from the south. Most importantly, he managed to secure the vast Welf inheritance in Saxony for his nephew, Henry the Lion's son Otto of Poitou; Otto's position became so strong that he was to be elected as Otto IV of Germany.
Partly as a result of these and other intrigues, Richard won several victories over Philip, and only chance was to rob them of conclusive value. At the battle of Gisors Richard I took Dieu et mon Droit ("God and my Right") as his motto, reinforcing his earlier boast to the Emperor Henry that his rank acknowledged no superior but God. At the skirmish of Freteval, Philip fled ignominiously in panic, leaving his entire archive of financial audits and documents to be captured by Richard.
In the end it was not the armies of Philip, but a minor siege of the rebellious castle of Châlus-Charbrol in Limousin, France, on March 26, 1199, that would take Richard's life. The siege was an example of the untamable rebellions of Aquitaine that Richard had contended with all his life; some chroniclers claim Richard had heard of a treasure trove, golden statues of a king and his retainers, at Châlus, but this is generally thought to be apocryphal. Pierre Basile was probably one of only two knights defending Châlus. Richard, who had removed some of his chain mail, was wounded in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt launched from a tower by Basile, as the King laughed at the man's ingenuity in using a frying-pan as a shield. Gangrene set in and Richard asked to see his killer. He ordered that Basile be set free and awarded a sum of money. However as soon as Richard died, with his 77-year-old mother Eleanor at his side, on April 6, 1199. Richard's most infamous mercenary captain, Mercadier, had Basile flayed alive and then hanged.
Richard's bowels were buried at the foot of the tower from which the shot was loosed; his heart was buried at Rouen, while the rest of his remains were buried next to his father at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon and Saumur, France.
Legacy
This bronze equestrian statue of Richard I brandishing his sword by Carlo Marochetti stands outside the Palace of Westminster in London
Richard produced no legitimate heirs, although he is purported to have had one illegitimate son. As a result, he was succeeded by his brother John as king of England. However, his French territories initially rejected John as a successor, preferring his nephew Arthur of Brittany, the son of their late brother Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, whose claim was technically better than John's. Significantly, the lack of any direct heirs from Richard was the first step in the dissolution of the Angevin Empire. While kings of England continued to press claims to properties on the continent, they would never again command the territories Richard I inherited. His achievement in Outremer was also significant. Setting aside the issue of whether the Crusades were moral or immoral, he secured the survival of the last outposts of European presence for another hundred years. While the Crusades are usually depicted as a blot on the Christian record and as contributing to ongoing Christian-Muslim animosity, the reality was more complex. Once settled Outremer, many Crusaders realized that they could only survive by entering peace treaties with the Muslims. From a Muslim perspective, the Muslim world at that time was divided into rival Sultanates, thus the Christian presence, conveniently located between the two main camps, Egypt and Damascus, provided a useful buffer, at least temporarily. Richard, unlike many Christian leaders, treated the enemy with respect, and as equally human.
Richard's legacy comprised several parts. First, he captured Cyprus, which proved immensely valuable in keeping the Frankish kingdoms in the Holy Land viable for another century. Secondly, his absence from the English political landscape meant that the highly efficient government created by his father was allowed to entrench itself, though King John would later abuse it to the breaking point. The last part of Richard's legacy was romantic and literary. No matter the facts of his reign, he left an indelible imprint on the imagination extending to the present, in large part because of his military exploits. This is reflected in Steven Runciman's final verdict of Richard I: "he was a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier" (1951, V3, 75). Gillingham (1978) offers a somewhat different assessment, arguing that judged by twelth century standards, Richard was in reality a masterful and businesslike ruler.
Folklore and fiction
By the 1260s, a legend had developed that, after Richard's capture, his minstrel, Blondel, traveled Europe from castle to castle, loudly singing a song known only to the two of them. Eventually, the story goes, he came to the place where Richard was being held, and heard the song answered with the appropriate refrain, thus revealing where the king was incarcerated. The story was the subject of André Ernest Modeste Grétry's opera Richard Coeur-de-Lion (1784). It seems unconnected to the real Jean 'Blondel' de Nesle, an aristocratic trouvère.
In the sixteenth century, a few fictionalized chronicles linked Richard with the Robin Hood legends, although this did not become widespread until Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and has subsequently been popularized by cinema. These later Hood stories depict Robin as upholding justice in Richard's name, against John and his officials, during Richard's imprisonment. However, in the earliest Robin Hood ballads the only king mentioned is "Edward our comely king", most probably Edward II or III.
In the Arabic world, Richard became a bit of a bogeyman for centuries after his death. Mothers would occasionally threaten unruly children with the admonition "King Richard will get you" well into the late nineteenth century. This can be understood, however, as a tribute to Richard's skills and “daring exploits,” as does the following: “when any horse belonging to a Saracen shied at a bush its master would say to it, ‘D'you think that's King Richard of England?’” (Fletcher, 90).
Richard has appeared frequently in fiction, as a result of the 'chivalric revival' of the Romantic era. Sir Walter Scott depicts him in Ivanhoe, in which he initially adopts the pseudonym of Le Noir Fainéant ("The Black Sluggard"), and in The Talisman (1825), a highly fictionalized treatment of the Third Crusade. He is also a major character in James Goldman's play The Lion in Winter, which depicts him as homosexual. He features in Graham Shelby's The Kings of Vain Intent and, more centrally, in The Devil is Loose, Norah Lofts' The Lute-Player, and Jean Plaidy (Eleanor Hibbert)'s The Heart of the Lion. He is generally portrayed in a heroic role in children's fiction, such as Ronald Welch's Knight Crusader.
See also
Sources
All links retrieved July 11, 2015.Moving Forward
– Imagine the Possibilities
It is well documented that the top three causes of premature death in this country are cancers, circulatory diseases and unintentional injuries.116
But there are some things that might surprise Canadians.
If levels of education and income are viewed as rungs on a ladder, there is evidence that shows that every step down from the top brings with it a reduction in health.9, 98, 122, 145 Those not at the highest levels of education and income are less healthy, and collectively lose more years of life to premature death. Evidence suggests that if all Canadians had the same rate of premature death as the most affluent one fifth of Canadians, there would be a 20% reduction in premature mortality across the population.144 This would be equivalent to wiping out all premature deaths from either injuries or cardiovascular diseases.144 However, this is not simply a matter of extremes between those at the highest and lowest incomes, or between the most and least educated. It is a gradient where at every level there is a difference in health status.
This is not to say that lower education and income directly cause early death. There is no evidence to make the claim of clear linear cause and effect in that regard. But what can be said is that, in general, people are less healthy in relation to lower levels of education and income, and much of why and how this occurs is not well understood.
In the last chapter, priority areas for action were discussed. This chapter considers what could be done in regards to Canada’s three most pressing priorities – fostering leadership and collective will, reducing child poverty and strengthening communities.
Imagine if all Canadians and all sectors applied their energy, resources and resolve to address the full range of issues that can affect health.
It is estimated that $1 invested in the early years saves between $3 and $9 in future spending on the health and criminal justice systems, as well as on social assistance.423 Imagine the long-term benefit to taxpayers then, if Canada were to achieve progress on child poverty rates as good or better than world leaders such as Finland, Norway and Sweden.8, 424
Imagine if the extraordinary success of Regent Park’s “Pathways to Education” project was replicated nation-wide.316 While we have some of the highest rates of high school completion in the world, think what Canada could achieve if all young people had the supports they needed to finish a secondary education and the corresponding increase that would bring to the number of youth moving on to college or university. Consider the impact of those highly skilled and educated workers on Canada’s competitiveness and future prosperity, not to mention the likely health benefits to these individuals.
Imagine how much healthier people would be if every Canadian had access to adequate housing. The impacts would be profound for many communities, but in particular for people living on First Nations reserves where half of existing housing falls short of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation standards and where, partly as a consequence, tuberculosis rates are eight to ten times higher than the general population.209, 278 Could individual ownership help Canada move in that direction?
What would be the impact if all First Nations and Inuit communities had agreements in place for education and health services that provided them with increased control over their communities’ future?
Imagine the improvements in peoples’ quality of life if, by addressing the factors that influence health, physical and social environments were created in which Canadians could easily make good choices to achieve and maintain the highest state of health possible.425 Far fewer Canadians would be treated for chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and emphysema. And waiting lists for hip and knee replacement would be shortened.
None of this is beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, all Canadians pay a high price by failing to address these issues. There are direct costs to the health care system resulting from health inequalities, and these costs will only grow if the causes of health inequalities are not addressed.2 There are also indirect costs, such as lost productivity, that have negative repercussions for the entire economy.2, 98, 426
A time to act
Improvements in quality of life over the past century have helped Canada to become one of the healthiest nations in the world.141, 427 Conditions are ripe to take this a step further by aiming to be the healthiest nation with the smallest gap in health. Employment levels are at an all-time high, Canada also boasts one of the best-educated populations in the world, with a higher proportion of post-secondary graduates than almost any other country.314
Clearly, the necessary means and talent exist to tackle the wide array of health inequalities that prevent individuals from achieving their dreams and goals, and which limit Canada’s ability to achieve its full economic and social potential.
What can be done?
Foster collective will and leadership
If Canadians are serious about wanting to be the healthiest country in the world, addressing health gaps must become a priority.
Working across sectors and jurisdictions, there is reason to believe health inequalities can be reduced while advancing other social goals such as reducing crime and fostering civic participation. Through collective will and leadership Canada can achieve this goal by:
building recognition of the importance of preventing disease and injury, and of promoting health. While a strong and accessible health care system will always be vitally important, prevention is preferable to treatment and has the potential to yield a significant return on investment.328 Public health is about more than being ready to respond in times of health emergencies – it is about keeping the population healthy at all times so that the impact of health emergencies can be kept to a minimum;
identifying the appropriate indicators and creating the tools required to measure and monitor progress, as well as addressing knowledge and data gaps that prevent effective measurement. By establishing a point of comparison, it will be possible to assess Canada’s progress, or lack thereof, in responding to health inequalities – over time and in relation to other countries;
cultivating a whole-of-society response. Canadians’ health is a shared responsibility and individuals, communities, public, private and not-for-profit sectors all have a role to play; and
engaging leaders at all levels and across all sectors of society to act as champions, helping people to think about the contribution they can make to ensuring that all Canadians have the opportunity to achieve the best possible health.
Reduce child poverty
There is a growing body of evidence that some of the greatest returns on taxpayers’ investments are those targeted to Canada’s youngest citizens.429 Every dollar spent in ensuring a healthy start in the early years will reduce the long-term costs associated with health care, addictions, crime, unemployment and welfare.430 As well, it will ensure Canadian children become better educated, well adjusted and more productive adults.431
Canada has had success in reducing poverty among seniors in recent decades.8, 123 We have the ability to achieve the same kind of progress with children. This requires further examination of:
income redistribution policies, programs and initiatives so that all families have the resources needed for healthy child development;
opportunities for healthy early learning and childhood development, housing and infrastructure, post-secondary education, employment and employment supports;
targeted interventions aimed at supporting children living in low-income families;
collective contributions that can be made to alleviate child poverty; and
best practices and lessons learned from other jurisdictions with proven success in reducing child poverty rates.
Strengthen communities
People living closest to the problem are often closest to the solution.432 This has been proven repeatedly by innovative projects ranging from the Eskasoni primary care initiative that offers culturally appropriate approaches to Aboriginal health and Toronto’s mobile health clinic meeting the needs of immigrant women living in a major urban centre, to the food security programs that feed hungry school children all across Canada, and bringing unemployed youth in Montreal together with isolated seniors.
The community is where all sectors converge and where it is often easiest for the various players to come to the table to establish local priorities and develop shared strategies to address inequalities.432 Communities are also in a position to mitigate the health impacts of factors like low income and poor access to education, and can play a pivotal role in creating environments that are supportive of healthy choices for all citizens.
Every effort must be made to build on the existing knowledge, experience, energy and investments already in place in Canadian communities to reduce inequalities in both health and the factors that influence health, including:Cutting tools
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Dave Canterbury is probably my favorite famous survivalist. Like most people, I first heard of Dave Canterbury from the first two seasons on Dual Survival Dave was let go after the second season for embellishing his resume when he applied for the job on Dual Survival. One of the things he told the show was he was an S.R.T. Sniper in the U.S. Army, which is not true at all. That being said, Canterbury is still one of the best survivalists out there and knows his stuff!Canterbury is also the co-owner and supervising instructor at The Pathfinder School in Ohio which was named by USA Today as one of the top 12 survival schools in the United States. It's hard to beat knowledge from a guy who runs a school with accolades like that.Well Dave Canterbury just released his first book, Bushcraft 101: A Field Guide To The Art of Wilderness Survival and when it became available I immediately had to order a copy. I have other survival manuals like both of Mykel Hawke's manuals and Lofty Wiseman's SAS Survival Handbook. I feel you can never have too much information on the subject.The difference between Hawke's and Wiseman's manuals versus Canterbury's manual is that Canterbury takes the entire first half of the book talking about what to take with you when venturing out into the wilderness. Canterbury's book is way more based around wilderness preparedness than emergency survival like the other two books. The first half of the book is based around Canterbury's 5 C's of survival which are:In general this book is really aimed more at the type of person with little to no wilderness experience. It really is designed for the outdoor beginner, hence the name "Bushcraft 101" where like a college class, 101 is the first class of the subject. If you have any hunting or camping experience I don't think this book is for you. If you want to learn a lot about making friction fires you are better off with Wiseman's or Hawke's manuals. In fact, speaking strictly of fire making, Canterbury only discusses the bow drill when talking about friction fires and really only lightly touches on it.Still though, Canturbury's book does have a lot of useful information like making feather sticks, what type of material makes good tinder, how to navigate in your terrain and the like. Even someone with experience in the woods will find tons of useful information in this book, so it isn't a waste of money if you order it.All in all, I think Canterbury's book is very well written and I think it is a great book to add to your collection. The price at the time of this writing is around $10 which is hard to beat. If you are looking to get into Bushcraft and general survival, you should definitely pick this one up to get your feet wet.As the furor over Megyn Kelly's upcoming interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones continued to broil online, NBC execs are reportedly panicking over the negative publicity.
They spent the whole of Monday in crisis meetings to work out how to handle the backlash from parents angry that Kelly has given a platform for Jones' ludicrous claims - including that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked.
'It's a s**tshow,' a source told Page Six. 'No one wants to withstand a whole week of criticism over this. There are a number of people who want to pull the interview.'
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Insiders say NBC executives have been in panic mode all Monday after a backlash at Megyn Kelly's interview with Alex Jones (both pictured) which will air on NBC News on Sunday
Kelly pressed Jones on his claims that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked. Bereaved mom Nelba Marquez-Greene (seen center in 2014) took Kelly to task online, sparking a furor
Poll Should NBC air Megyn Kelly's interview with Alex Jones? Yes No Should NBC air Megyn Kelly's interview with Alex Jones? Yes 234 votes
No 454 votes Now share your opinion
Kelly's woes began when she tweeted a clip of the interview in which she presses Jones about his claims that Sandy Hook was a 'false flag' government operation.
The mother of one of the children killed in the 2012 shooting took Kelly to task, asking why she was giving publicity to Jones; Chelsea Clinton soon joined in.
And then JP Morgan Chase dropped its advertising from all NBC shows until after the interview's proposed airing date, on Father's Day, and things got serious, Page Six said.
However, another insider told Page Six that NBC had hoped for some kind of controversy in order to promote the channel.
'No one expected sponsors to pull out, but this is why they hired Megyn,' the source claimed. 'They expect to lose and gain viewers and they want the buzz.'
And a third insider said despite 'a lot of confusion,' NBC does not plan to pull the interview now - a claim that NBC News chairman Andy Lack was also heard making on Tuesday at the Mirror Awards.
Kelly was also present at the awards - which were perhaps a small bright spot for the presenter, who was told that day she had been dropped by Sandy Hook Promise.
She had been expecting to host the fundraising gala for the charitable organization in Washington, DC on Wednesday.
But the organization said in a statement: 'Sandy Hook Promise cannot support the decision by Megyn or NBC to give any form of voice or platform to Alex Jones and have asked Megyn Kelly to step down as our Promise Champion Gala host.
NBC has decided that it will air the interview, insiders claim, but they have lost advertiser JP Morgan Chase for the week; it has pulled all its ads until after the interview airs
Kelly responded to the statement saying she did 'understand and respect' the decision but that she was 'disappointed'.
'I find Alex Jones's suggestion that Sandy Hook was "a hoax" as personally revolting as every other rational person does,' she said.
'It left me, and many other Americans, asking the very question that prompted this interview: how does Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and a growing audience of millions?
'President Trump, by praising and citing him, appearing on his show, and giving him White House press credentials, has helped elevate Jones, to the alarm of many.
NBC News chairman Andy Lack was heard at the Mirror Awards on Tuesday saying the show would go ahead (Lack is seen left at the Mirror Awards with Kelly and Tom Brokaw)
'Our goal in sitting down with him was to shine a light - as journalists are supposed to do - on this influential figure, and yes - to discuss the considerable falsehoods he has promoted with near impunity.'
Jones, who hosts the online 'news' site InfoWars, had initially said that the children killed at Sandy Hook were slain by government agents who wanted to restrict gun laws.
He then modified that claim to say the Sandy Hook shootings never happened and that the dead children were actors.
On Monday, he changed that stance yet again, telling InfoWars' listeners that he now believes Sandy Hook did happen, and that children died there.
He claimed that his remarks to that effect had been edited from the promotional clip, and added: 'I'm tired of being misrepresented.'
After Kelly shared the two-minute clip of her and Jones, in which she challenges him about the claims, then slaps him down twice for evading the question, bereaved mom Nelba Marquez-Greene took her to task.
Marquez-Greene, who lost her six-year-old daughter Ana in the shooting, posted a school photo of her deceased daughter.
'Here you go @MegynKelly - her name is Ana Grace Márquez-Greene. Say her name- stare at this & tell me it's worth it,' she wrote.
She also posted a message she had been sent by one of those taken in by Jones' claim, who asked her: 'Did Ana really die? Everyone knows SandyHook is SandyHoax. Did you sell her into a Child-trafficking ring?'
Marquez-Greene posted a photo of her daughter Ana, 6, who was slain in the Sandy Hook massacre, challenging Kelly to'stare at this & tell me it's worth it'
That the government faked deaths at 'Sandy Hook' isn't the only absurd conspiracy Jones has come up with.
In 2012, in the wake of the Aurora cinema massacre that saw 12 killed and 70 injured when a gunman opened fire during a screening of The Dark Knight, Jones claimed it was a 'false flag'.
'If you look at the full spectrum of information unfolding right now, 100 per cent chance that the mass murder committed in the suburb of Denver, Colorado, right next to Littleton and Columbine was a false flag mind control event.'
He even blamed President Obama for being behind a series of deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma back in 2013 that claimed the lives of over 30 people.The Secret Service is tasked with protecting the President of the United States from assailants; and given that President-elect Obama has already been the target of assassination plots they may have their work cut out after January. But they have more than earpiece radios and armored limos to help them; the Secret Service can call on the very latest technology. Documents from a recent court case indicate that they have advanced directed-energy devices which are highly classified.
You may remember Donald Friedman, who claims that government agencies are misusing non-lethal directed-energy weapons. It’s easy to dismiss him as a crank. But his obsessive digging has turned up valuable information. For instance, one of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests unearthed a 1998 U.S. Army program looking at a microwave device to beam sound directly into the target's skull which the rest of us had missed. (The same technology underlies the Medusa non-lethal weapon.)
Now he's found something else. Friedman's current court case involves attempts to extract information about any directed-energy weapons such as lasers and microwaves used by the Secret Service. Do they really have anything of the kind? A "Motion for an Enlargement of Time" (in other words, a request for a few more weeks) by the Secret Service's attorney indicates that they have something, and it's pretty secret:
"Plaintiff's FOIA request is for document [sic] concerning directed energy technology that is very sensitive. Some of this documents [sic] pertain to research conducted by divisions within defendant agency that is used to carry out its mandate to protect very high government officials. In fact, in one case, the documents… could not be mailed but had to be hand carried interstate."
So what is this "sensitive" technology? We don't know for sure, naturally. But we can sure speculate...
pd(UPNow, we've talked before about the Secret Service's interest in laser dazzlers as a means of protecting the White House against suicide attacks by light aircraft, dating back to 1998. We don't know if dazzlers have ever been deployed, but that would certainly explain some of the secrecy.
Portable dazzlers would also be a good way of dealing with potential snipers without the risk of harming bystanders. Other agencies also have an interest in covert dazzlers. Ex MI6 agent David Tomlinson claims a laser strobe was proposed for an assassination attempt on Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 by dazzling his chauffeur at a crucial point and causing him to crash. (Conspiracy theorists claim that a laser dazzler was used to assassinate Diana, Princess of Wales — but any bright flashes more likely came from photographer's flashguns.)
A portable version of the truck-mounted Active Denial System — the Pentagon's "pain ray" — might be used to similar effect. It could cause an assailant to flinch for a vital second, giving agents an opportunity to get the President out of the line of fire, without having to shoot into a crowd. Raytheon has been working on a rifle-sized versionof the Active Denial System for some years, but nothing has been heard of it recently.
Another likely candidate is a directed-energy device to neutralize suspected improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — something that produces an intense, narrow beam of microwaves to fry the electronics. Tomlinson also claimed that MI6 has "sophisticated radio transmitters that would knock out the electronics of the limo at the press of a button, causing the airbags to inflate."
Presidential protection is likely to include a range of jammersto stop remote bomb detonation, and possibly remote-controlled aircraft attacks. With all this jamming, interference can occur and make radio communication impossible — if you leave any frequency clear, the bad guys might use it to send a detonation signal. So perhaps the Secret Service may have a microwave voice-transmission system as an emergency backup when radio communication is impossible. This would allow them to beam instructions to agents at a distance. At a pinch it could also be used to distract a would-be assassin — having a voice suddenly booming inside your head should put off most snipers (though they might have a few voices in there already).
We know that the Air Force has looked at microwave sound as a non-lethal weapon, and long-range acoustic systems like LRAD are already in use by the military and others. So a Secret Service microwave sound system is not totally, completely out of the question.
Donald Friedman may yet manage to get more information about secret directed-energy weapons. All we know so far is that they exist… Unless anyone out there can tell us more?
UPDATE: An article in Britain's Independent On Sunday looking at the issue of how to protect the next Presidentsuggests another DE technology: Terahertz scanners. So called T-rays have been used before for imaging systems that can see through clothing and detect metallic objects (as well as showing naked flesh). A portable version of the scanner would allow the Secret Service to spot hidden weapons from a distance without the potential assailant knowing that they know. And they might well wish to keep their X-ray Specs secret.
[Photo: via CS]A new version of the Linux screen recorder, Green Recorder has been released. Green Recorder 3.0 which is built using Python, FFmpeg and GTK+3 comes along with many new features and updates.
Green Recorder: A screen recorder for Linux
Green Recorder is a simple desktop recorder for Linux distributions. You can use it to record audio and video on almost every Linux interface. Released under GPL 3, it now also supports Wayland.
Green Recorder 3.0 supports avi, mkv, mp4 nut and gif. Wayland’s GNOME session supports only WebM. The user can choose the audio input source from a list as well as can set default values from the preference window.
It has a D-Bus API that is used to connect to the GNOME Shell inbuilt screencasting tool used to record videos. An instance of FFmpeg is launched in the background when recording audio. The two files are then merged into the WebM file when recording is finished.
As for GIF format, Green Recorder records the video as a raw video and then generates the GIF image from it. This lets you have an optimized GIF image size that is better than the normal FFmpeg recording. For Xorg audio and video, it uses FFmpeg.
By default, Green Recorder uses the V8 encoder on Wayland only. This is because of the CPU and RAM consumption issue with the V9 encoder in GNOME Shell.
New Features in Green Recorder 3.0
Below is a list of some of the updates and new features published in the release.
GIF format support is now available! The image size is more optimized and better than the normal FFmpeg recording with GIF.
Ability to choose the audio input source.
Preferences window added to allow setting default values. The default Wayland pipeline can now be edited from there.
The graphical user interface has been reorganized
A play button has been added to easily enable playing the recorded video. This depends on xdg-open.
An improved FFmpeg detection on Xorg
Introduced a better detection method for the running display server, adding the possibility to support other servers in the future with no problem.
Installing Green Recorder in Ubuntu based Linux distributions
If you have the old Green Recorder and need to upgrade, you will need to add another PPA for the old Green Recorder PPA is no longer used to distribute updates.
Green Recorder 3.0 can be installed from the following PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossproject/ppa sudo apt update sudo apt install green-recorder
Installing Green Recorder in other Linux distributions
You can find the installation instructions for other Linux distributions as well as the source code on the GitHub repository of Green Recorder:
Green Recorder(CNN) As firefighters continue to battle the Thomas Fire in Southern California, one family is mourning the loss of their own.
A procession was held on Highway 126 in Fillmore on Thursday afternoon to honor Cory David Iverson, a 32-year-old firefighter who lost his life battling the Thomas Fire, the largest of the blazes.
Iverson, who had been a firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection -- also known as Cal Fire -- since 2009, was a fire apparatus engineer from San Diego, according to a Cal Fire spokeswoman.
Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson died while fighting the Thomas Fire in Ventura County. He leaves behind his pregnant wife, Ashley, and toddler daughter Evie.
He drove a fire engine and was killed on the east flank of the Thomas Fire, Lynne Tolmachoff said. Iverson was with a strike team of two or three other crew members when he was killed, she said. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Iverson leaves behind his wife, a 2-year-old daughter and an unborn baby, expected this spring. His death is the first firefighter fatality in the most recent string of wildfires in California.
Officials are investigating the incident, said Julia Martony, another Cal Fire spokeswoman, and it will take some time to conclude.
Conditions not expected to improve this weekend
High winds and dry conditions continue to hamper efforts to contain the Thomas Fire, with few signs of improvement heading into the weekend, according to CNN meteorologists. The conditions are expected to help any fires spread quickly.
By Friday morning, the fire had grown to 252,500 acres and it was 35% contained, according to Cal Fire.
Santa Ana winds will continue into Saturday and Sunday, said Rich Thompson with the National Weather Service. A fire weather watch is in effect through the weekend, and winds are expected to reach up to 30 mph on mountain ridgetops.
Communities under threat
One of six major wildfires burning in the region, the Thomas Fire is already the fourth largest in California history, Cal Fire said. More than 1,000 fire engines and 32 helicopters were involved in battling that fire alone, the agency said.
Mandatory evacuation orders were in effect for swathes of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. A full list of evacuations and road closures can be found on the County of Santa Barbara and Ventura County websites.
One other death has been connected to the Thomas Fire: a woman who was killed in a car crash while evacuating last week. Tolmachoff said Cal Fire considers her death to be fire-related.
The Thomas Fire broke out December 4 in Ojai, northwest of Los Angeles. Aided by Santa Ana winds, it quickly spread to the city of Ventura, according to the federal InciWeb fire information website
More than 1,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed in the fire, and another 18,000 structures are threatened, Cal Fire said. The cause is under investigation.Although it is fundamentally biased in favor of the West, one good thing about Reuters is its attempt at neutrality regarding its use of the buzz-word “terror”. Reuters only uses the term and its variants in direct quotes. This is because, as the head of global news for Reuters said in an internal memo, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”.
Yet, almost all outlets, corporate, mainstream, and independent, fail to rise to the standard standard set by Reuters regarding the term. While claiming to strive for neutrality, most use it in their own, self-styled “objective” statements. But as Reuters notes, declaring a person or group to be terroristic is an opinion, an act of editorializing, not a fact. “Terrorist” is in reality almost exclusively an observer’s term used to demonize others, not to describe one’s self, group, or allies, regardless of how terroristic they may be.
The outlets that “factually” refer to certain acts, people, or groups as terroristic do not, almost without exception, refer to acts of their favored groups, regardless of their nature, in the same terms, or in language anywhere near as severe and condemnatory as that used for groups currently in disfavor.
A result of this nearly all-pervasive Western media bias in favor of the West has been to increase the overall amount of international terrorism.
It works in three main ways.
1) By describing it in neutral, positive, or excusing terms, or omitting it entirely, Western media increases the amount of terrorism committed by the West (imperio-terrorism) by conditioning the Western public to allow, support, or participate in terrorism carried out by Western governments, which have for hundreds of years been the principal international terrorist groups and perpetrators of terrorism. Favoritism of the West by Western media, which is designed to appear ‘objective’, also stokes the Western public’s inherent false sense of nationalist and cultural superiority. People who deeply believe that they are superior to others are more willing to personally harm or promote violence against ‘inferior’ groups. In sum: Self-aggrandizing bias in Western media increases terrorism by increasing the amount of terrorism committed by the West.
2) Because Western media conditions the Western public to allow, support, and/or participate in the commission of Western imperio-terrorism, the West suffers more terroristic retaliation, or, as the CIA puts it, “blowback”, than it would suffer if the media did not practice favoritism of the West. There is a positive correlation between Western terrorism and retaliatory terrorism against the West. This is shown specifically in studies conducted by the US government itself. In sum: Western media increases the amount of terroristic retaliation against the West.
3) Refusal by Western media to use terms as severe to describe the West as the terms the West uses to describe ‘enemy’ groups is, if one accepts that the double-standard is often applied unconsciously and not |
, you can find working girls in the hotel)
Lanzarote Spice Lifestyle Resort, for Adult and Naturist holidays.
Istanbul - A number of hostels / hotels in Laleli, Kumkapı and Aksaray areas are used as venues where you can hook up with prostitutes. Ceylan Intercontinental Ciragan Palace Kempisnki Conrad Hotel Dedeman Hotel Divan Hotel Edition hotel Four seasons at the Bosphorus Grand Hyatt Hilton Istabul Le meridien Movenpick Park hyatt Point hotel Barbaros Radisson Blu Ortakoy Sangrila Bosphorus Sheraton Hotel The Marmara taksim W hotel
- A number of hostels / hotels in and areas are used as venues where you can hook up with prostitutes.
Istanbul - Near Airport Holiday Inn airport north hotel Marriot Courtard hotel Polat renaissance airport hotel Radisson airport Sheraton Atakoy hotel WOW hotels
- Near Airport
Izmir Crowne Plaza Hotel Anemon Fuar Hotel Beyond
Dnipropetrovsk Hotel Dnepropetrovsk
Donetsk Atlas Hotel Azania Boutique Hotel Central Hotel Victoria Hotel
Kiev Dnipro Hotel Gintama Hotel Hotel Riviera on Podol Hyatt Regency Impressa Hotel Opera Hotel Podol Plaza Premier Palace President Hotel Hilton Hotel RUS Hotel
Lviv Grand Hotel Lviv Hotel Opera
Odessa Black Sea Hotel
London (Central London) 196 Bishopsgate Hotel Address: 196 Bishopsgate, The City, London Phone: 020 7871 0460 Ambassadors Bloomsbury Address: 12 Upper Woburn Place Phone: 020 7693 5400 Apex London Wall Address: 7-9 Copthall Avenue Phone: 020 7562 3030 Chancery Court Hotel Address: 252 High Holborn, London Phone: 020 7829 9888 Club Quarters Gracechurch Address: 7 Gracechurch Street Phone: 020 7666 1620 Club Quarters St. Paul's Address: 24 Ludgate Hil, City of London Phone: 020 7651 2200 Comfort Inn Kings Cross Address: 2 - 5 St Chads Street Kings Cross Phone: 020 7837 1940 Express by Holiday Inn London Address: 275 Old Street London Phone: 020 7300 4300 Grange City Hotel Address: 8-14 Cooper's Row, Tower Hill Phone: 020 7863 3700 Grange Clarendon Hotel Address: Russell Square, Bloomsbury Phone: 020 7580 7088 Grange Holborn Hotel Address: 50-60 Southampton Row, Holborn Phone: 020 7242 1800 Grange White Hall Hotel Address: 2-5 Montague Street, Bloomsbury Phone: 020 7580 2224 Hotel Russell Address: Russell Square City of London Phone: 020 7837 8844 Kingsway Hall Hotel Address: 66 Great Queen St City of London Phone: 020 7309 0909 Malmaison Address: Charterhouse Square Phone: 020 7012 3700 Malmaison London Address: 18-21 Charterhouse Square London Phone: 020 7012 3700 Montague on the Gardens Address: 15 Montague Street City of London Phone: 020 7637 1001 One Aldwych Address: 1 Aldwych Phone: 020 7300 1000 President Hotel London Address: Tavistock Square Phone: 07534 796835 Radisson Edwardian Hampshire Hotel Address: 31-36 Leicester Square Phone: 020 7839 9399 Radisson Edwardian Mercer Street Hotel Address: 7 Dials Covent Garden, London Phone: 020 7836 4300 Rookery Address: 12 Peter's lane, Cowcross Street St Martins Lane Hotel Address: 45 Saint Martin's Lane Phone: 020 7300 5500 Swissôtel The Howard, London Address: 12 Temple Place The Covent Garden Hotel Address: 10 Monmouth Street Phone: 020 7806 1000 The Hoxton Hotel Address: 81 Great Eastern Street City of Phone: 020 7550 1000 The Kingsley Address: Bloomsbury Way Phone: 0871 376 9006 The Savoy Address: 100 Strand Phone: 020 7836 4343 Thistle Hotel Bloomsbury Address: 126 Southampton Row, Bloomsbury Phone: 0871 376 9007 Thistle Hotel City Barbican Address: Central Street, Clerkenwell Phone: 0871 376 9004 Thistle, The Royal Trafalgar Address: Whitcomb Street, Trafalgar Square Phone: 0871 376 9037 Threadneedles Address: 5 Threadneedle Street Phone: 076578080 Zetter Address: 86-88 Clerkenwell Road Phone: 020 7324 4444
(Central London)
North America
Boca Chica Azzurra Hotel Coco Playa Hotel (former Don Emilio) Costalunga low-cost apartments by Palm Beach El Caucho Hotel Gusto Tropical Hotel Hamilton Hotel Madejra Hotel Magic Tropical Martini Hotel MondoVip Mozart Hotel Palm Beach Tropical Garden Villa Florencia Villa Marianna
Santo Domingo Apartahotel ROMA Barcelo Santo Domingo Hotel Hodelpa Caribe Colonial Hostal San Francisco de Asis Hotel BQ Hotel Jecasergian Hotel La Morada Hotel Riazor Maison Gautreaux Mystik Hotel The Hilton The HolidayInn The Marriott Courtyard Villa Colonial Zona Colonial
Sosua Apart Hotel Club Residencial. Tel: 809-571-3675. Calle Pedro Clisante 32, Sosua http://clubresidencial.com Calypso Hotel : no calling ahead (short-time hotel?) Casa Cayena. Tel: 809-571-2651. Calle Dr. Rosen 25 El Batey Sosua http://www.hotelcasacayena.com Casa Valeria. Tel: 809-571-3565. Calle Dr Rosen 28, El Batey, Sosua (no AC) http://www.hotelcasavaleria.com Coco Hotel. Tel: 809-571-3217. #151 A. Martinez El Batey, Sosúa http://www.cocohotelcoco.com/ Don Andres. Tel: 809 571-3140. Calle Alejo Martinez 6, Sosúa http://www.hoteldonandres.com/ Don Antonio. Calle Dr. Rosen #3 http://www.hotel-don-antonio.com/ El Canto Delfin. Tel: 809 571-2124. Carr. Sosua-Cabarete #5, Sosua. Reasonably girl friendly. Las Terrazas Condos. More upscale, must phone or email agent. Agent= http://www.amberguardian.com/ Photos=http://www.mediafire.com/?7ybo4cdjhb0 Multiple girls OK but if neighbors are disturbed you're out! TIP: Arrange price with girls before you tell them you are staying here. New Garden. Tel: 809-571-1557. Calle Dr. Rosen 10, El Batey, Sosúa http://www.hotelnewgarden.com/english.html Orchidee Hotel. Tel: 809-779-9929. Calle Dr Rosen #24, Sosua http://www.hotelorchidee.ch/ Paraiso hotel. 14 Calle Rosen. 809-571-2906 http://www.hotel-paraiso.com/ Perla de Sosua Apts. Tel: 829-677-1497. 2 bedroom apts for $55 with AC. 2 girls ok but there might be issues with all day stream of girls http://www.perladesosua.com Plaza Europa. Pedro Clisante 14 809-571-3335. Good for first timers, extra for more than 1 girl. http://www.hotelplazaeuropa.com Rocky's Rock & Blues Bar & Hotel. Tel: 809-571-2951. Calle Dr. Rosen 22, El Batey, Sosua http://www.rockysbar.com/ Romanoff. Tel: 809-571-3242 Calle Ayuntamiento Seabreeze Hotel. Alejo Martinez Nº 10, El Batey, Sosua http://hotelseabreezesosua.com/ Sosua Bay Beach Resort Hotel. Dr. Alejo Martinez #1. Buildings 5&6 are not all-inclusive and allow girls for no charge. http://www.sosuabayresort.com Terra Linda Resort. Calle Rosen 26 El Batey. Rumored to be the highest quality hotel in Sosua. One girl allowed without charge. http://terralindaresort.com/ Villa California (Playa chiquita beach) Very upscale. 3 rooms which are all private from each other. Great deals possible if you stay longer than a few days. The girls love this place! http://www.vrbo.com/177576 Voramar Hotel. Tel: 809-571-3910. Playa Chiquita, Sosúa www.hotel@voramar-sosua.com
Cancun - It's recommended NOT to choose an all-inclusive hotel if you want to bring guests in your room. Aloft Cancun Casa Magna Marriott Courtyard Marriott Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach Hyatt Regency Cancun InterContentinental Hotel JW Marriott Hotel Krystal Cancun Ritz Carlton Hotel The Westin Lagunamar Westin Resort & Spa
- It's recommended if you want to bring guests in your room.
Mazatlan - The listed Motels are all in the same area - Carrt. Internacional Al Norte # 3706, Col. Venadillo, Mazatlán. Most of the hotels in the down town area will also accept girls coming with you. But rates for the rooms are way higher, usually 800+ Pesos for the night. Motel Eden Motel Eiffel - Rates: range from 200 to 860 for a special occasion room Motel Extasis - Rates: Standard Room 240 Pesos / Room with Jacuzzi 350 Pesos Sole Grand Motel
- The listed Motels are all in the same area - Carrt. Internacional Al Norte # 3706, Col. Venadillo, Mazatlán. Most of the hotels in the down town area will also accept girls coming with you. But rates for the rooms are way higher, usually 800+ Pesos for the night.
Mexico City Camino Real Polanca Marriotte Hotel
Monterrey Hotel Best Western Royal Court, Av. Universidad 314, Col. Chapultepec, San Nicolás de los Garza, N. L. 66450 México. Phone: (81) 8305-1900. You don't even have to go through the reception. Hotel Hacienda Monterrey, Calle Zaragoza #769 Colonia Centro. 64000 Monterrey. 01 81 8125 5000. This is a Motel but it also offers all night stays for customers with all the advantages that an adult Hotel includes such as Tantra chair (Kamasutra chair), HD Porn Channels, Sex Shop, sex sound coming from other rooms and such things, prices are very affordable and the Hotel recently got remodeled so is essentially a new one.
Puerto Vallarta - There are love motels (los hoteles de paso) in Puerto Vallarta in the category of lodging where rooms are rented by the hour rather than by the day or week. Rooms in these motels are technically rented for a period of 8 hours, but managers agree that it is rare for a room to be used for that period of time. Rates for the 8 hours range from 250 pesos for a regular room to 500 pesos for a room with a jacuzzi. Average room rates are about 300-350 pesos. El Pedregal, newly built and located in the red zone beside the strip club Tapanko. It has drive in garages available for extra privacy. Homepage Youtube Dunas, located near the airport. Homepage Youtube El Parasol El Ranchito Gran Sol, near the airport. Homepage Youtube Marina Del Sol Montes De Oca at calle Bolivia 1417. Sometimes there is a streetwalker right out front. Motel Los Angeles
- There are love motels (los hoteles de paso) in Puerto Vallarta in the category of lodging where rooms are rented by the hour rather than by the day or week. Rooms in these motels are technically rented for a period of 8 hours, but managers agree that it is rare for a room to be used for that period of time. Rates for the 8 hours range from 250 pesos for a regular room to 500 pesos for a room with a jacuzzi. Average room rates are about 300-350 pesos.
Tijuana - There are many hotels and short-time hotels in Tijuana where you can take a girl with you. All the prostitutes know the places.
Las Vegas - There are many huge hotel complexes in Las Vegas where you can easily take guests in your room.
Los Angeles - Hotels in LA with lots of prostitution traffic: Burbank Airport Ramada East West Hotel Hotel Hollywood Rotex Hotel Travel Lodge Lax Voyager Motor Inn
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Los Angeles - Upscale hotel bars in LA with lots of prostitutes: Four Seasons West Hollywood Hollywood Roosevelt The Peninsula Beverly Hills The Standard Downtown LA
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Miami Executive Garden Tropic Motel and others near it on SW 8th St (Cuban area)
South America
Cordoba (Love hotels) Hotel Madrid, Calle Obispo Trejo 645. Hotel Trejo
(Love hotels)
Mar del Plata (Transitorios - Short-time hotels) Hotel Paraiso, next door to La Posada. Hotel Tops, Antartida Argentina 5000. Tel: 469-5216/5162. Queen Hotel, in Centro. Sociedad Anónima, Av. Constitución 10305. Tel: 487-3299. (Name unknown), Around the corner from Madaho’s.
(Transitorios - Short-time hotels)
In Brazil, anything called a "motel" is usually a love hotel where adults can take a private room for fun.
Belo Horizonte Guaicurus Street - There are many sex motels on this busy street. Hotel Esplanada, Av. Santos Dumont 304. Telephone number for reservations is: (31)4373-5311. Rodoviária - There are cheap dormitórios bunched around this area which cater mainly for prostitutes and their clients.
Brasilia Fantasy Motel, SIA Quadra Central 1C Lote 1, Brasilia. Motel Colorado, SPMN EPIA BR 020 KM 0 LOTE 01, Brasilia.
Florianopolis Nantai Motel, 19, Rod. SC 405, 4218 - Campeche - Florianópolis. (048) 3337-6320
Fortaleza (Motels for having sex) Assahi Motel, Av. Luciano Carneiro, 605 - Bairro de Fátima - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3256 5656/ 8774-0034 Dragon Motel, R. José Alencar Ramos, 50 - Eng. Luciano Cavalcante - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3273-0600/ 8774-0035 Dream's Motel, Rod. BR-116 Km 6, 2.430 - Messejana - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3279-6161/ 8117-3220 Ele & Ela Motel, Av. Godofredo Maciel, 1700 - Maraponga - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3495-5111/ 3495 5888/ 3495 1930 Elo Motel, R. Irapuã, 399 - Barra do Ceará - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3485-1090 Hipnose Motel, R. Nestor Fontenele Vasconcelos, 300 - Edson Queiroz - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3273-3556/ 8774-0038 MC Motel, Av. Desembargador Moreira, 3033 - Aldeota - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3257-8877/ 8774-0036 Motel Bali, Av. Washington Soares, 5005 - Água Fria - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3278-5005 Motel Emoções - Jacarecanga. Av. José Bastos, 263 - Jacarecanga - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3281-3189 Palace Motel, R. Reverendo Bolivar Pinto Bandeira, 125 - Eng. Luciano Cavalcante - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3278-7474 Pirâmide Motel, Av. Presidente Costa e Silva, 4201 (Av. Perimetral) - Mondubim - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3291-3001 Titan Motel, Av. Presidente Castelo Branco, 1001 - Moura Brasil - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3238-014 Triangulo Motel, Av. Humberto Monte, 2677 - São Gerardo - Fortaleza. Tel. (085) 3287-4141
(Motels for having sex)
Manaus Tropical Hotel
Porto Alegre Mercure Beverly Hills, Moinho de Ventos area. Mercure Manhattan, Moinho de Ventos area.
Recife Atlante Plaze Boa Viagem Praia Lemon Motel has special “erotic” suites. Recife Monte Tulip Inn Recife
Rio de Janeiro Atlantico Copacabana Hotel, Rua Siqueira Campos, 90. Mercure Rio de Janeiro Botafogo Hotel, Rua Sorocaba 305.
Salvador (adult motels) Fantasy Motel, Av. Jorge Amado, 551 Boca Do Rio Motel Charm, Av. Dorival Caymi, 107 Itapoa Motel Kamasutra, Av. Prof°. Pinto De Aguiar, 2084 Patamares Oasis Motel, Av. Afranio Peixoto, S/N Suburbana Tramp S Motel, Rua Profª. Maria Helena Fonseca, S/N Costa Azul
(adult motels)
São Paulo Mercure Sao Paulo Augusta Hotel, Rua Padre Joao Manuel, 202. Mercure Sao Paulo Stella Vega Hotel, Rua Salto 70, Jardins.
São Paulo (motels) Acaso Motel, Avenida Salim Farah Maluf, 6190 - Vila Prudente, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 2021-1695. Adventure Motel, Rua Joaquim Marra, 548 - Vila Matilde, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 2651-2222. Apple Motel, Avenida Marquês de São Vicente, 1678 - Barra Funda, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 3611-3077. Motel Caribe, Avenida Antartica, 2 - Barra Funda, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 3616-3488. Motel Farao's, Via Anchieta, Km 10,5 - Vila Vermelha, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 2947-5000. Opium Motel, Praça Pascoal Martins, 54, Barra Funda, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 3616-6969. Studio A Motel, Rua Coronel Euclides Machado, 1023 - Freguesia do Ó, São Paulo - SP, Brazil. Tel. +55 11 3931-9000.
(motels)
Santiago de Chile (Love hotels) Calle Marin and Avenida Vicuña Mackenna. Jadin Secret, Santo Domingo 4451. Tel: 772 5727. La Vie n Rose', Avenida Americo Vespucio Sur 415, La Cisterna. Prices: 10.3k to 17.3k. Tel: 558 1033. http://www.lavienrose.cl/ Muac Motel, Galvarino Riveros 2627, Castro. Tel: (65) 633 111. http://www.motelesmuac.cl/
(Love hotels)
Barranquilla Hotel Casa Grande (aka Casa Blanca), Carrera 53 # 59-50. (Short-time hotel?) Tel: 349 5093.
Bogotá Hotel El Virrey Sofitel Victoria Regia, Carrera 13#85-80 Cundinamarca.
Cali (Love hotels) Extasis (Guillermo Caballero Y/O Motel Extasis), Av. 3Cl 72, corner of Colombia and Valle del Cauca, Cali, Tel: (57) (2) 665 5536, http://www.motelextasis.com.co/ Motel Deseos, Carrera 36 # 10-496, Acopi. www.moteldeseos.com Motel Geisha-Sur (Bavel LTDA.), Calle 25 122-349 km 6 Võa A Jamundõ, Colombia - Valle del Cauca, Cali, Tel: (57) (2) 555 1331.
(Love hotels)
Cartagena (Short-time hotels) Dunes, Las Dunas is Canapote, Carrera 17 # 62-19. Not far from Jaiba, in a nearby barrio. Deluxe accommodation, better quality than Jaiba, more expensive, but still very cheap for the service provided: 30k 2 hours (2007 price)! Standard price to go there by taxi: 10k from El Centro (15k from Bocagrande), max 12k at late night. Ask before going, so you will be not overcharged. I was told 15k from El Centro. It depends how you look and how greedy is the driver (and how willing you are to be overcharged). The taxi driver will charge you more to go back (15k). The motel will call you a taxi for you. Hotel El Pueblito, Piso 3, CC El Pueblito, on Avenida San Martin (Carrera 2), between Calle 4a and Calle 5a, near the Hotel Playa, Bocagrande, about 4 blocks from LDV. Hotel Los Coches, Calle del Cologio # 34-45. El Centro. Rates: 10k hour. La Cangreja, Calle 65 # 17A 109, Daniel Lemaitre, in the airport zone. Tel: 666-1340, 658-0111. La Jaiba (La Jaiva), Calle 65 # 17-269, Daniel Lemaitre, in the airport zone. Tel: 666-1931, 666-0776. JAIBA (pronounce: "haiva"), a motel in the barrio just past Crespo (on the way from El Centro to the airport, at right). 5-10 minutes by taxi from the Clock Square (Reloy). The Rooms range from small and cheap to luxury suites. Cost is about 14k or 20k (2008 price) per 2 hours minimum (YES. 7-10 USD!). Sans Sousi, Olaya Herriera, Calle 32B, # 70 A 20, Antigua, Carrera de la Cordialidad.
(Short-time hotels)
Medellín (Love hotels) Asuhotel Dani, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 4,000k. Brisas del Jardin, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 3,500k. Cascada Plaza, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 5,000k. Ejectivo la 33, Av. 33 # 63 B 201. Rates: 30k-60k. PBX: 235 99 88. Ensensonte, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 12,000k. Hotel Carruso, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 3,000k. Hotel Central Plaza Carrera 50A N°81A-15, Santa Maria, Itagui Rates 60K / Night. Hotel Eros (Hotel Elegante), Carrera 54 # 53. 91, near Museum Plaza Botero, close El Faro Bar. Rates: 31k-41k. Conmutador: (57) (4) 512 62 20. Hotel La Estrella, Carrera 51 # 50-03, Rionegro. Tel: (57) (4) 532 23 56. Hotel Luna Azul. The Hotel has street girls standing in the doorway all the time. Hotel Morgan, Carrera 53 #53-17, next to Bar El Faro. Hotel Penthause, Calle 63 # 115-051, San Cristobal. Rates: 48k. Conmutador: (57) (4) 427 30 40. Hotel Punto Cero, Diagonal 64E # 67-435. Rates: 55k. Conmutador: (57) (4) 437 64 37. Mementos Plaza, Calle 49 # 42-63 Ayacucho, it is near the casa Istambul (Estambul). Tel: 228 27 98. Rates: Basic room. 16k pesos short time. 48k 3 hours, Suite with Jacuzzi 19k to 60k. Motel Las Cabañas, Calle 14 # 43F-65, El Poblado. Rates: 22k-46k. Conmutador: (57) (4) 266 11 47. Noches Divinis, Carrera 53 between Calles 50 to 52. Rates: 10,000k.
(Love hotels)
Guayaquil Grand Hotel Marco Polo Hostel
Asunción Hotel Imperial, Calle 25 de Mayo, 352 (/ Caballero) (located between the Plaza de Armas and the Plaza Uruguaya). Used by secret couples and prostitutes.
Cuzco Hotel Jose Antonio, Av. Pardo Nº 1080, Cusco
Montevideo (Love hotels) Hotel El Recuerdo, Canelones St. Hotel Goes, Goes 2272. Tel: (598-2) 408 25 97, (598-2) 401 29 83. http://www.hotelgoes.com.uy/ Motel Jardin, Parada 10, Enter La Paz at Las Piedras. Tel. : (598 2) 362. 26. 93. Canelones, Uruguay http://www.moteleljardin.com.uy/
(Love hotels)
Caracas Altamira Continental**, Ave San Juan Bosco, Altamira, 82 Rooms. Rates: $50. Tel: 58-212-261 0644. www.hotel-continental.org.ve Altamira Suites*****, 1ra Avenida Con 1ra Transversal, Las Palos Grandes. Rates: US260. Tel: 209 3111. Centro Lido Hotel****, Avenida Tamanaco, Centro Lido, El Rosal, 102 Rooms. Embassy Suites Caracas, Av. Francisco de Miranda en Av. El, Campo Alegre. Tel: 58-212-700-4200, Fax: 58-212-267-3761. Rates: $175. Radisson Plaza Eurobuilding Caracas, Final Calle la Guairita, Urb. Chuao Caracas, Venezuela, 1060-A, + (58) 212-902-1111 http://www.eurobuilding.com.ve
Isla Margarita (Love hotels) La Rina Motel (close to Hesperia hotel)
(Love hotels)
Maracaibo Aladdin Hotel Crowne Plaza Murumba, Circunvalacion 2
Puerto La Cruz Caribbean Inn, Calle Freites and Callle Libertad, 3 Star, Swimming Pool, US$50. Tel: 267 3285/2811, Fax 267 2857. Hotel Maria Louisa
See AlsoFor years, environmentalists in North Carolina have been pressuring and suing Duke Energy in an attempt to get the company to clean up its coal-ash disposal sites. Duke dismissed the enviros and assured federal officials that its coal-ash ponds were safe.
Until — oops! — one of the ponds sprung an epic leak on Sunday, dumping some 80,000 tons of toxic coal ash into the Dan River.
Now, finally, Duke Energy seems to be starting to understand what the enviros have been yammering on about all these years.
“We’ll be taking a fresh look at all of our ash basins and how we handle that after we fix this pipe,” a company spokesman told WSOC TV Channel 9. Here’s more from the Charlotte Business Journal:
Duke Energy Corp. says the ash ponds it has at eight retired plant sites around North Carolina, including the leaking Dan River site in Eden, are outdated and the company plans to change the way ash is stored there. Spokeswoman Lisa Hoffman says the company is looking at two principal alternatives. One, called “cap and seal,” would involve draining the water from a site and placing 1.5-inch-thick tarp over the dried ash. The tarp would then be covered with a drainage layer, cover soil and topsoil and the site would be planted in grass. … The second method would remove the coal ash from the ponds and bury it in a lined landfill. That is the alternative favored by environmental groups involved in court actions that allege Charlotte-based Duke’s ponds have leaked into rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and violated state groundwater laws and the federal Clean Water Act.
Yes, finally Duke gets it. All it took was an environmental disaster.Did you hear the one about the guy who sneezed so hard he broke a rib? It can happen! Ask Phil Hughes, a pitcher for the New York Yankees who suffered a stress fracture from a giant sneeze. He ended up on the disabled list, and it took him five months to get back on the mound. According to WebMD, a sneeze expels a jet of air at about 100 miles per hour and the quick, sudden motion can aggravate an underlying problem, like back or neck discomfort. You’re also more prone to a sneeze injury if you’ve got a bone-weakening disease, like osteoporosis or cancer.
Sneezes don’t just break ribs. If you suppress a sneeze by pinching your nostrils or closing your mouth, it can rupture your eardrum or damage your middle ear. A woman in Massachusetts sneezed so hard she got whiplash and had to get a neck brace and muscle relaxants for the pain. What about the two huge sneezes that sent Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa’s back into spasms before a game in 2004. He landed on the disabled list with a sprained ligament in his lower back. Traffic accidents and fatalities have also been caused by sneezing. A Boston man recently lost control of his pickup after a sneezing fit behind the wheel. He wasn’t hurt, but his vehicle ended up in the Charles River.Continued from here
Here is a fact that is absolutely vital to your material standard of living and that of your children:
Money is political.
It is a political weapon employed by one class in society to subjugate the other class and force it to labor ceaselessly.
Yet, today, we have a bunch of useless labor theorists running around who approach money as if it is above classes. There are two classes in society and, therefore, two antagonistic and incompatible expressions of the socially necessary labor time of society. This cannot but give rise to two fundamentally incompatible money forms. The struggle in society over which money form will be established as the universal equivalent cannot be divorced from the struggle over what constitutes the socially necessary labor time of the working class.
Our labor theorists have shown that inconvertible fiat dollar serving in the role of money is the expression of the rule of capital over the world market, but these labor theorists have never once shown the implications of this money form for labor time itself.
Here is the thing: Money in the form of a state issued inconvertible fiat is no longer tied in any way to the materially necessary labor time required for production of commodities; it has lost the capacity to express the socially necessary labor time of society, to express the value of commodities as exchange value. This loss cannot be explained by money itself, nor does it constitute a “movement” of money in the sense Paulani employs this term. The only reason money could lose its capacity to express the values of commodities is that the prices of these commodities no longer reflect the socially necessary labor time required for their production.
This fact points to a problem with how labor theorists approach the category of money: Among some of these labor theorists money does not express the values of commodities — the socially necessary labor times required for their production — it gives commodities their values, or, as Chris Arthur argues, “only money makes value actual”:
“Marx shows that the universal aspect of commodities is secured only insofar as they posit it through their common relation to a universal equivalent, namely money. This money form does not represent the presupposed value of commodities, rather, it presents it to them as their universal moment. Money is not a re-presentation of something given in commodities, but the only way of making value present, i.e. being there concretely, rather than as some unreal abstraction. Once value is thus presented explicitly for itself (rather than a mere immanence) in money it posits the commodities as values in themselves, immanently.
The relationship of force and expression flips: instead of money passively expressing the activity of value-positing commodities, money becomes the power socially validating them as of worth. Thus if money does not have value, like other commodities, nevertheless it is value, the sole adequate existence of value, as we saw.”
In Arthur’s view, value does not actually exist until money imparts value to the commodity through an exchange; labor is always concrete particular labor until money makes it abstract labor. In Arthur’s view there is no distinction to be made between inconvertible fiat or gold, since both serve the function of rendering concrete particular labor into abstract labor.
It follows from this that Bernanke could walk to a Federal Reserve Bank computer terminal in 2008 and “actualize” the value of worthless AIG derivatives by creating dollars out of nothing and exchanging them for the worthless derivatives. While everyone else thought Bernanke was counterfeiting currency, Arthur shows why he was actually making the value of the unmarketable AIG derivatives “actual”.
I am, of course, being totally unfair to Arthur, who can probably explain why what Bernanke did differs from what Geithner did when the latter sold bonds and used the proceeds to bailed out GM. Perhaps the distinction to be made here may be that AIG is “fictitious capital”, while GM is “productive capital”. And. of course, once the currencies enter circulation, we all know the difference between the dollars used to bail out AIG and that used to bail out GM, right?
On the other hand, if both the value of the AIG derivatives and GM stock was zero, the money used to buy them out did not represent exchange value and is not money. In labor theory, money is exchange value — the expression of the value of a commodity — but in this case the “commodities” purchased with the counterfeit have no value to be expressed. Since the financial assets had no value in the first place, (and since, therefore, their exchange value is also zero), a piece of valueless paper scrip was the adequate money form.
But, in truth, isn’t my reasoning here suspect?
Saying the currency had no value because the commodities for which it is exchanged has no value is odd, because if the commodities have no value, how do we explain the persistence of money and money relations in society — no matter how valueless the currency serving as money is? The persistence of money and money relations — even in the form of a valueless piece of paper — suggests something else is at work.
“Wages have to be cut …”
If, on the one hand, a valueless scrip serving as money in the world market suggests commodities themselves have no value; on the other hand, the persistence of money and money relations suggest commodities continue to have value. So which is it?
The contradictory conclusions to be drawn from these above assumptions suggest we have to explain instead is why, although commodities continue to have value, the object serving as money must always express this value as zero. We must explain why the values of commodities are being actively suppressed in the world market — in other words, we have to explain why commodities must now always sell below their values.
The fact that commodities must now sell below their values suggest that, at present, the production of surplus value is no longer compatible with exchange of commodities at their values.
I cannot avoid the fact that this explanation appears to violate one of the most basic tenets of labor theory: In Capital, as I noted in the second part of this series, Marx assumes all commodities are sold at their values. Marx then goes on to explain how, on this basis, capital creates surplus value.
I think a lot of labor theorists mistake Marx’s argument here: Marx is simply showing that even when we assume commodities are sold at their values, surplus value is created by capital — which is to say, profit is not made by selling a commodity above its value nor by buying it below |
ory. He couldn’t believe that a mobile game was pioneering MOBA elements and changing the MOBA scene.
We played 11 games together in a row. However, we had not played together before that, so it took some time to discover who plays best in which role. It took some convincing for NeedsCoach to let me play Krul. NeedsCoach started in lane on Ringo, imadooble on Koshka, and me on Krul. We won a few games, and then NeedsCoach offered to jungle to let someone else rotate into lane. I stepped into lane as Ringo, and this was when our MOBA backgrounds started to shine through.
I started Book of Eulogies, which NeedsCoach didn’t have a problem with. He starts with the same item for the early sustain. He plays lane very aggressively, trading at every opportunity. Having the ability to heal up on a character without innate heal is very strong. I play more passively, trading when optimal, but keeping myself healed to full with my Book. From there I transition to Sorrowblade for my first item. I keep the Book until I need 150 gold or I need the item slot. After Sorrowblade I built Tyrant’s Monocle. He was surprised I would get a critical strike item before buying any energy items.
After NeedsCoach saw my build he challenged me to a 1v1, Ringo vs Ringo. The 1v1 would be played until level six, at which point we would quit and see who had more gold. His early aggression was intense. He was clearly the better Ringo player. I stayed calm and did my best to last hit in order to restore my diminished health bar. I shoved the lane, forcing my minions towards his turret, and I recalled. I went with my standard build, rushing Heavy Steel and Six Sins. I popped Twirling Silver just to move back to lane faster.
Now things got real. NeedsCoach had just returned from shopping with a Void Battery, boots, and potions. I knew that he would win the long game, so I used his aggression against him. I immediately picked a fight, and stuck with him. He realized that I had way more weapon than him just a split second too late. He was still in range for me to land the last auto to finish him off.
As soon as he went down I shoved lane into turret as quickly as I could. Due to my itemization choices, I didn’t have the energy to refresh my skills and push the lane effectively. I was still sitting at turret when NeedsCoach showed up, full health, full energy, with boots active available. I tried to run at first, but Achilles Shot proved too strong, and I wasn’t able to turn without energy. I fell, and he was able to push a full wave before reaching level six. I lost by less than 200 gold, but died as a result of miscalculating my pushing potential.
This really got us talking. I noticed that his Achilles Shot was slowing more than mine. As a weapon carry that focuses on finishing the highest weapon items in the game first, I felt it was my duty to max B skill to maximize my DPS. With more research I found this to be a HUGE mistake. The largest benefit potentially comes at level eight, when Twirling Silver is maxed and grants a 19% attack speed increase over the previous level. However, this pales in comparison to the 55% you get for the first point spent in the skill. You also see a dramatically increases energy cost with higher levels.
When we contrasted Twirling Silver with the other option, Achilles Shot, we found that I had been doing it wrong. Achilles Shot increases with each point, lowering the cooldown, increasing the damage, increasing the slow amount, and increasing the slow duration. Include the fact that you also get 165 bonus damage for overdriving this ability and it makes it an easy choice.
We transitioned from abilities to item choices. My MOBA background came from League of Legends, the most popular game on the planet. I’ve played since beta, and have the King Rammus and PAX Twisted Fate skins to prove it. NeedsCoach is a DOTA2 fan. He didn’t just play, he played at a high level, being ranked nationally.
In League of Legends the ranged weapon carries don’t buy mana items. Instead, they focus on investing their money in items that don’t have immediate return on investment, but carry a large impact when the game goes late. The best example of this would be Infinity Edge. While Infinity Edge is the most expensive item in the game, it also gives stats that aren’t extremely useful in the early stages of the game.
Infinity Edge gives 80 attack damage (equivalent of weapon), 20% critical strike chance, and a passive of +50% critical strike damage (this passive does not stack if you own more of the same item). While 80 attack damage is appealing at every stage of the game, 20% critical strike damage has a much lower chance of occuring when you have base attack speed and you are lower level, as attack speeds of champions increases with levels. Also, you only have one physical item, and where your critical hits scale off of your total damage, it’s really not ideal to have first.
Then why do people rush an item first that doesn’t give them an early-game advantage? Because when the game goes late, the carry with Inifinity Edge has a large advantage when everyone is max level. Critical hits are a chance on hit, so the more hits you have, technically the more often you will crit. With 20% critical strike chance, I get more crits if I attack ten times than if I only attack five.
In DOTA2 there is a larger emphasis on surviving in laning phase. Early kills can lead to snowballed leads that are very difficult to overcome. Having a bit of health or mana regeneration in lane can mean the difference in a won or lost trade. The only way to return to base is with a purchased item that has a cooldown, so if you use it to return to base, you spent gold, and you must wait to use it to get back to lane.
Also, heroes in DOTA2 don’t have as much mana, and their abilities cost quite a bit mana, so if you use one or two spells early on you’ll be lacking the resources necessary to stay and compete in your lane.
This set the stage for our differing builds. I knew that I was a four second recall from base to refill my energy, but that I would need a powerful starting item to set the stage for my dominance in the late game. NeedsCoach plays aggressively and relies on Achilles Shot to continuously win trades in lane. If Ringo constantly has energy then he has access to an attack and movement speed steroid, an attack timer reset, and long ranged harass.
It was awesome to see the game from a different point of view from another experienced MOBA player. We had a good time playing, and learned a lot from each other. It was really fun to see that Vainglory could bring together players from two competing games, and have them improve from one another. Regardless of your MOBA background (or lack thereof) there are things you can learn if you take the time to learn from other players’ experiences.
Thanks for the tips, (Needs)Coach!Researchers from the University of Arizona in the US have received a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to evaluate exposure and risk perceptions following the Gold King Mine spill disaster that took place in August 2015.
Using the $434,000 grant, the researchers Karletta Chief and Paloma Beamer will work with the Navajo Nation. They are also leading a team to address tribal questions regarding the impact of the environmental disaster on their communities.
An estimated three million gallons of acid water and heavy metals have spilled from the Gold King Mine near Silverton into Colorado’s Animas River.
“To the Navajo people, water is sacred. The land they live on is their identity and their livelihood.”
Eventually, they flowed into the San Juan River, which is serving as the primary source of irrigation for Navajo Nation farmers. When the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was trying to prevent leakage of toxic materials, wastewater was released accidentally.
Karletta Chief said: "To the Navajo people, water is sacred. The land they live on is their identity and their livelihood.
"The impact of this spill cut deep to the core of these spiritual and traditional values. At the same time, there is little data that provides answers to Navajo concerns regarding the potential exposures they face as result of this contamination."
Recently, the EPA released its final monitoring plan for the Animas and San Juan rivers following the incident.
The agency has proposed a conceptual monitoring plan which has been designed to collect scientific data to evaluate river conditions over time and analyse impacts to public health and the environment.
Under the plan, EPA is examining water quality, sediment quality, biological community and fish tissue at 30 locations under various flow and seasonal river conditions.
The EPA said it will also work with local jurisdictions and tribes to sample the rivers at the time of heavy rain events.
Image: Core samples were taken from a cornfield as a result of the Gold King Mine spill. Photo: courtesy of Paloma Beamer.DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines criticized City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio and Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, for threatening “Radyo ni Juan” broadcaster Dodong Solis.
“The mayor has resorted to personal attacks in response to commentaries of Solis on the agrarian unrest between farmers and Lapanday Foods Corp.; the recent attack of New People’s Army rebels against the company that unfortunately resulted in the death of a bystander; and on statements she issued, including her husband Manases “Mans” Carpio’s association with Lapanday as lawyer,” said Ryan Rosauro, NUJP chairperson.
Rosauro said Solis had the right to his remarks as a broadcaster and in accordance to his freedom of expression. However, the NUJP reasoned out that the mayor was no ordinary person.
“She wields influence and power not only due to her office but as daughter of the highest official of the country. As a public official, she is subject to commentaries and criticisms especially from the press and should not respond with personal attacks and threats,” Rosauro said.
Rosauro recalled the 2011 incident where in Sara, who was serving her first term as mayor, punched Court Sheriff Abe Andres for pushing through a demolition order, despite her request for a two-hour deferment of the order.
“Resorting to personal attacks and veiled threats is alarming especially coming from an official who has physically attacked and publicly humiliated a court sheriff whom she perceived to have defied her instructions in the demolition of houses of informal settlers,” he said.
Sara took to her Instagram to respond to the NUJP’s statement.
She posted an Instagram meme with words “Shut your pie hole,” as the local chief executive pointed out that no one, not her husband, the NUJP, or even her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, could stop her.
“I will speak when I want to. Hahaha. Mamatay na kayo sa inis, sasagot pa rin ako” (Even if you die in irritation, I will still respond), she said.
Meanwhile, Paulo Duterte questioned NUJP’s authority as a media watchdog.
In a Facebook post, Pulong told NUJP to “cleanse” their ranks first.
“Una siguro ninyo atimanon ang pagsige og alma sa mga kritisismo batok sa inyong miyembro, limpyohi sa ninyo ang inyong hut-ong. Atimana ang mga kungko nga media dili lang sa Davao kundili sa tibuok Pilipinas. Atimana ninyo ang korapsyon sa media una mo magsige og pamantay ug magpakaaron ingnon nga limpyo”
(Before you respond to criticism of your members, clean your ranks. Attend to the problem of corrupt journalists not only in Davao but in the whole Philippines. Address corruption in the media before you criticize and pretend that you are clean), he said. (davaotoday.com)Dear Donald Trump,
My name is Bana Alabed and I am a seven years old Syrian girl from Aleppo.
I lived in Syria my whole life before I left from besieged East Aleppo on December last year. I am part of the Syrian children who suffered from the Syrian war.
But right now, I am having a peace in my new home of Turkey. In Aleppo, I was in school but soon it was destroyed because of the bombing.
Some of my friends died.
I am very sad about them and wish they were with me because we would play together by right now. I couldn’t play in Aleppo, it was the city of death.
Right now in Turkey, I can go out and enjoy. I can go to school although I didn’t yet. That is why peace is important for everyone including you.
However, millions of Syrian children are not like me right now and suffering in different parts of Syria. They are suffering because of adult people.
I know you will be the president of America, so can you please save the children and people of Syria? You must do something for the children of Syria because they are like your children and deserve peace like you.
If you promise me you will do something for the children of Syria, I am already your new friend.
I am looking forward to what you will do for the children of Syria.This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use
China has done it again — except this time with a brand new supercomputer. The Sunway TaihuLight is now the fastest system in the world, according to the twice-per-year TOP500 list, with a stunning Linpack benchmark result of 93 petaflops. That makes it three times faster than the prior champion, China’s Tianhe-2, which we’ve covered numerous times on ExtremeTech and had sat on top of the list since it first went online in 2013.
What’s even more interesting this time around is what’s under TaihuLight’s hood: a locally developed ShenWei processor and custom interconnect, instead of parts sourced elsewhere. The ShenWei 26010 is a 260-core, 64-bit RISC chip that exceeds 3 teraflops at maximum tilt, putting it on par with Intel’s Knight’s Landing Xeo Phi. TaihuLight contains 40,960 ShenWei 26010s, one for each node that also contains 32GB of RAM, adding up to a total of over 10 million cores.
As HPCwire illustrates, each SW26010 processor chip has four main components:
Which are grouped together in this basic layout of a node:
The chip has four core groups, each with 64 elements and a single management processing element, for a total of 65 per group (to get to the 260 core total). Each group sports a 136.5 GB/sec memory controller; there’s no word on the process technology node used to manufacture the chip. The TOP500 report said that the chip also lacks any traditional L1-L2-L3 cache, and instead has 12KB of instruction cache and 64KB “local scratchpad” that works sort of like an L1 cache.
The custom interconnect, called the Sunway Network, is based on PCIe 3.0 and delivers 16 GB/sec of peak bandwidth between nodes, with 1ms latency.
TaihuLight will be used for climate, weather, and earth systems modeling; life science research; manufacturing; and data analytics, according to TOP500’s official report. The system is located at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, which sits about two hours west of Shanghai.
This is the first time China has the most systems on the list, with 167, instead of the US, which is down to 165. China also now has the top two fastest systems as well. Europe has 105 systems, down two from November 2015. Cray continues to lead in total performance share at 19.9 percent, but that’s down from 25%. China’s National Research Center of Parallel Computing Engineering & Technology, which developed TaihuLight, takes the second spot here with this single machine, at 16.4% share, while IBM takes third with 10.7%.
Total combined performance of all 500 supercomputers has jumped significantly, from 420 petaflop/s six months ago to 566.7 now. Ninety-five systems on the list now exceed one petaflop.
Here’s the current list of the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world:
1. TaihuLight: Sunway MPP, SW26010; National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China; 10.6 million cores (93.01 petaflop/s).
2. Tianhe-2: TH-IVB-FEP Cluster; National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, China; 3.12 million cores (33.86 petaflop/s).
3. Titan: A Cray XK7 system at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (17.59 petaflop/s).
4. Sequoia: An IBM BlueGene/Q system located at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California, with 1.57 million cores.
5. K Computer: A SPARC64 system with 705k cores at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Japan.
6. Mira: IBM BlueGene/Q; DOE/SC/Argonne National Laboratory, US; 786k custom IBM cores.
7. Trinity: Cray XC40; DOE/NNSA/LANL/SNL, US; 301,056 Xeon E5-2698v3 cores.
8. Piz Daint: Cray XC30 with 116k Xeon and Nvidia cores; located at the Swiss National Computing Centre in Switzerland.
9. Hazel Hen: Cray XC40; HRLS-Höchstleistungsrechenzentrum Stuttgart, Germany; 185k Xeon E5-2680v3 cores.
10. Shaheen II: A Cray XC40 at King Abdullah’s University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, marking the first appearance of a Middle East supercomputer in the top 10 (5.536 petaflop/s).
Top image credit: Jack Dongarra, Report on the Sunway TaihuLight System, June 2016The clueless pair, have spoken of their distress and embarrassment, after their wedding ceremony was posted of Youtube showing them being mocked and insulted by staff.
President Mohamed Nasheed made a personal call to the couple and said: "The entire country is deeply saddened and sorry for what has happened."
He also invited the couple, who were called 'infidels and swines by a staff member at the Vilu Reef Beach and Spa resort, back to the Maldives as his personal guests as an apology.
A statement from his office read: "The couple told the President that their images have been published without their consent which is causing them considerable distress and embarrassment."
President Nasheed explained to the couple - who have requested anonymity - that the Maldives Police Service have arrested two members of the resort's staff who conducted the renewal of vows ceremony. The two men are being held in police custody under a judicial warrant.Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo offered new information at a press conference Monday afternoon following the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas. The motive is still unknown, but authorities have raided the shooter's home in Mesquite, Nevada and made some startling discoveries.
NEW: Las Vegas Sheriff says 18 firearms, explosives, and several thousand rounds of ammo recovered from Vegas shooter's home. — Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) October 2, 2017
He also had ammonium nitrate in his car, and over a dozen more guns in his hotel room.
Clark County, Nevada Fire Department Chief Greg Cassell added that he has "never" seen so much ammo in one individual's possession before.
The shooter, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, was "not an avid gun guy," according to his brother Eric. Additionally, the owners of gun stores he had frequented told the media that Paddock had passed their background checks.
Paddock's girlfriend is now a person of interest and is reportedly in Tokyo. Upon her return to the States, Lombardo says they will be contacting her.
Las Vegas hotels have stepped up security measures, checking customers' bags at the door, while Clark County has issued a state of emergency.
An #emergency has been declared in #ClarkCounty as a result of #vegasshooting. It was issued a short time ago. #PrayForVegas pic.twitter.com/imiIqA6Ves — Clark County Nevada (@ClarkCountyNV) October 2, 2017
The death tally has now risen to 59, and 527 individuals are dealing with injuries, according to the sheriff.Most heterosexual couples assume that if they’re using “the pill” or condoms to prevent pregnancy, they probably don’t have much to worry about because these forms of contraception are highly effective. The unfortunate reality, however, is that they are not as effective as many of us think. In fact, a new study finds that most women significantly overestimate how well most forms of reversible birth control actually work.
In this study, 4,144 women living in St. Louis, Missouri completed a questionnaire inquiring about the effectiveness of various forms of contraception. Specifically, participants were given a list of birth control methods (including contraceptive pills, patches, rings, and condoms) and were asked what percentage of women were likely to get pregnant over the course of one year using each method (less than 1%, 1-5%, 6-10%, or more than 10%). After completing the survey, all participants were given comprehensive contraception counseling in which they were provided with accurate information and advice in order to help them choose the form of birth control that best meets their needs.
Results indicated that only 2 in 5 women correctly guessed the effectiveness of condoms, and fewer than 1 in 5 correctly guess the effectiveness of contraceptive pills, patches, and rings. The majority of women (nearly two-thirds) overestimated how effective each of these methods were at preventing pregnancy.
Part of the reason for the lack of knowledge observed in this study probably stems from the fact that we often hear about the effectiveness of contraception under perfect use (i.e., when it is used correctly and consistently, without any mistakes). When birth control is used perfectly, there is a very low risk of pregnancy. For example, condoms are 98% effective and “the pill” is 99% effective at preventing pregnancy when used perfectly. Such statistics are very misleading, though, because human beings are far from perfect and we sometimes make mistakes (e.g., we may use condoms incorrectly or forget to take pills). Thus, when you factor in human error, the actual or typical use effectiveness rates are much lower (82% for condoms and 91% for pills/patches/rings) and these are the rates that we should really be focusing on and teaching people about. What these typical use rates mean is that for every 100 women using condoms, 18 will get pregnant each year, and for every 100 women using "the pill," 9 will get pregnant in a given year. As you can see, these methods carry a significant risk of unintended pregnancy.
What are the most effective forms of reversible birth control on the market? Those would be the intrauterine device (IUD) and contraceptive implant (known as Implanon). With both perfect and typical use, each of these methods is more than 99% effective (i.e., fewer than 1 out of 100 women will get pregnant using them). Both of these methods require more of an upfront cost to the user because these devices must be placed inside the body by a medical professional. Specifically, the IUD is placed inside the uterus and the implant is usually placed inside the upper arm. In both cases, the devices release hormones that prevent pregnancy (although there is also a version of the IUD that releases copper ions instead of hormones, and those ions work as a spermicide. Both types of IUDs are about equally effective). Until recently, the main drawback of the IUD and implant was cost (up to $800 initially); however, as a result of the Affordable Care Act, insurers are now required to cover all types of contraception, so cost may not be as much of an impediment anymore (although you'll want to check with your own insurer for the specifics). It is also worth noting that both of these methods provide several years of protection (the implant works up to three years, and the IUD up to five).
The most important thing to take away from this is that there are multiple forms of birth control on the market and it is well worth your time to explore the different options available and compare costs, effectiveness rates, and side effects to find the one that works best for your body and your relationship.
Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for previous articles or follow the blog on Facebook (facebook.com/psychologyofsex), Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit (reddit.com/r/psychologyofsex) to receive updates.
To read more about this research, see: Eisenberg, D. L., Secura, G. M, Madden, T. E., Allsworth, J. E., Zhao, Q., & Piepert, J. F. (in press). Knowledge of contraceptive effectiveness. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Image Source: iStockphoto.comINDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's 91 prosecuting attorneys have sent a letter to the Indiana Commission to Combat Drug Abuse asking the group to formally oppose the legalization of marijuana in the state, in any form, for any reason.
The Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys, Inc. says it was prompted to send the letter due to the approach of the 2018 legislative session and reports of efforts to legalize marijuana in Indiana.
Rep. Jim Lucas has said he plans to file a proposal to legalize medical marijuana in hopes it could curb the state's opioid epidemic. The republican legislator from Seymour said he has heard from several people in his district who believe they could benefit from the drug.
The Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys says marijuana legalization is bad for Indiana for the following reasons:
Marijuana use increases the risk of opioid abuse and other controlled substances and has been associated with reduced odds of achieving abstinence from alcohol, cocaine or polysubstance use.
Marijuana is not medicine and information purporting that marijuana is medicine is based on half-truths and anecdotal evidence.
Marijuana legalization in other states has been a detriment; specifically to workforce availability, impaired driving and in increased use among youth.
"For all of these reasons, we strongly believe both medicinal and recreational marijuana legalization are wrong for Indiana. We urge you to take a stand against these policies that would cause further harm to communities already suffering from the devastating effects of drug abuse," said David Powell, Executive Secretary, Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys, Inc.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill has also said he does not believe the state should legalize marijuana.
RELATED | Indiana Legislature approves bills on marijuana-derived oil
Read the entire letter from the Association of Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys, Inc. below:Some Ga. Schools Make Mandarin Mandatory
Enlarge this image toggle caption Adam Ragusea for NPR Adam Ragusea for NPR
Public schools in Macon, Ga., and surrounding Bibb County have a lot of problems. Most of the 25,000 students are poor enough to qualify for free and reduced lunch, and about half don't graduate.
Bibb County's Haitian-born superintendent Romain Dallemand came into the job last year with a bag of changes he calls "The Macon Miracle." There are now longer schools days, year-round instruction, and one mandate nobody saw coming: Mandarin Chinese for every student, pre-K through 12th grade.
"Students who are in elementary school today, by 2050 they'll be at the pinnacle of their career," Dallemand says. "They will live in a world where China and India will have 50 percent of the world GDP. They will live in a world where, if they cannot function successfully in the Asian culture, they will pay a heavy price."
This school year, Dallemand is rolling out Mandarin in stages, a few sessions a week, with the youngest kids starting first. In three years, it will be at every grade level.
Chinese Isn't Just For High Achievers
Instructors and other young teachers from China are being provided to Bibb County schools by a nearby Confucius Institute, one of a number of nonprofit cultural centers partially funded by the Chinese government. Beijing wants to spread Mandarin abroad, and at just $16,000 per instructor per year, the price is right for Dallemand.
"Well, it's a win-win for everyone," he says.
But not everyone in Bibb County sees it that way.
Some parents see a Communist regime enacting its geopolitical agenda on their children. The more common critique, however, is not political. It is the practical concern.
"Bibb County is not known for producing the highest-achieving graduates," says Macon resident Dina McDonald. "You'll see that many of them can't even speak basic English."
McDonald herself has a ninth-grader in the public schools and says she can imagine some students going into fields where Mandarin could be useful, like international business, technology or law. But with lower achievers, she says, "Do you want to teach them how to say, 'Do you want fries with that?' in Mandarin?"
Dallemand would rather ask what kind of education should be provided for every single student — not just some of them.
"We believe that every child can be successful if the adults around them create the conditions for them to be successful," he says.
Why Not Spanish?
Brazilian-born Marina Spears and her husband, Eric, are also Bibb County parents, and they agree that fluency in the languages of emerging economies is important. Their kids already speak Portuguese at home.
"We are obviously for a foreign language," Marina Spears says. "[But] I think in a perfect world, we would have been given the choice."
If parents insist, there is an opt-out provision for the Mandarin curriculum, but that's not the kind of choice they're talking about.
"While we do know that Mandarin is a critical language, another critical language here in the United States is Spanish," Eric Spears says.
Bibb high schools will continue to offer Spanish and French on top of Mandarin, but for most of the elementary kids, it's Chinese or nothing. Considering the Hispanic population doubled in Georgia over the last census period, the "Why not Spanish?" question is one Dallemand gets a lot.
"My wife is a Latina, and so I fully understand," he says. But "it is important for communities to educate our children for their future, not our past."
For that future, Dallemand says, there is no choice but Mandarin Chinese.As a highly decorated Olympic athlete, Bruce Jenner's courageous act of coming out as a transgender woman highlights the dearth of open trans athletes competing at any level, even in a time where there is more acceptance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in both sports and society.
The metaphorical closet for the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) sports community, appears to be slowly, but progressively, collapsing. In the last few years, we've seen more athletes -- amateur, pro, active and retired -- come out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The sports community has embraced these athletes. Their stories have sparked allyship awareness among leagues, teams and players. We have more out LGB players, more pride nights, and more proactive sexual orientation nondiscrimination policies.
However, the sports community has not seen the same types of shifts in trans inclusion in sports. In fact, in many ways, the metaphorical closet for the transgender sports community is as solid as ever. There are still only a handful of openly trans athletes, active or retired. Even less have ever competed at the professional level. To date, no openly trans athlete has ever competed in the Olympics.
Trans visibility might be increasing in everyday society but this trend is not translating to the sports world in the same way it has for LGB players.
Sports inclusion advocates have worked to change the culture of sports around sexual orientation, because sports culture around this issue is indeed one of the greatest barriers for LGB inclusion. So advocacy has largely focused on LGBT 101 player trainings, educating leagues about the financial benefits of LGB inclusion, and expanding programming for the LGBT fan base.
But the issue of trans exclusion in sports is a whole different ballgame. It's not just an issue of culture or stigma but one of tangible bad policies -- exclusionary policies that have been condoned, ignored and, at times, celebrated in the sports world.
Trans athletes are literally excluded from sports at all levels. Transgender children are kept from playing on sports teams that reflect their gender identity. Many k-12 and recreational leagues do not offer any proactive protections or direction for trans inclusion, leaving trans inclusion to the whim of confused coaches and parents. So many trans athletes leave sports at a young age once they become aware of their gender identity and desire to live lives consistent with their gender identity.
This exclusionary pattern continues at the collegiate and Olympic levels. While the NCAA does have a policy regarding trans athletes, it requires a trans athlete to either "sit out" or undergo hormone therapy. For example, a transgender player on an NCAA women's team, undergoing medically necessary hormone treatment, would be disqualified from playing, even if no physical advantages are present. The burdens on trans athletes are even higher at the Olympic level. The International Olympic Committee's trans policy requires invasive, painful, and expensive measures. Before a trans athlete can be an Olympian, they must obtain a legal name change, have gender reassignment surgery, and must also have hormone therapy for two years. Once celebrated as a "victory" for trans athletes, this policy, like many of others, has become outdated and inconsistent with new research or medical care standards. It does not, in practice, open the Olympic dream to trans athletes.
Even outside of league restrictions, trans inclusion is even threatened. There has been an influx of anti-trans bills across the country. Many of these anti-trans bills would prohibit young trans athletes from using locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. The locker room is an integral part of the team experience. It's where team bonding and team strategizing happens. Being banned from the locker room is essentially being banned from the team. Alarmingly, there have been at least 20 of these bills introduced across the country this legislative session. Some of these bills even go so far as to keep transgender children off sports teams altogether. This trend, and its threat to trans sports inclusion, is expected to continue.
Having high profile athletes like Jenner come out as transgender certainly helps draw attention to trans exclusion in sports. But this problem is systemic. So it is going to take more than courageous trans athletes coming out to improve the situation. For starters, advocates have to let go of the notion that sports, in practice, interacts with gender identity in the same way as it does with sexual orientation. It's not just an issue of culture or stigma; it's an issue of real policies that promote these unfortunate outcomes and trans exclusion.Image caption YouTube said it had changed the auto-fill system to remove the phrases
YouTube has changed the way its autofill feature works after reports that some word combinations brought up paedophilic phrases.
Over the weekend many people reported that typing "how to have" would be completed with several variations on "s*x with your kids".
Other searches produced responses that also used the asterisked "s*x" word.
Some speculated that an attempt to troll YouTube results was responsible for making the phrases appear.
Predatory comments
"Earlier today our teams were alerted to this profoundly disturbing autocomplete result and we worked to quickly remove it as soon as we were made aware," said a YouTube spokeswoman.
"We are investigating this matter to determine what was behind the appearance of this autocompletion," she added.
YouTube has not yet given an explanation of why the phrase "how to have s*x with your kids" was suddenly being so widely suggested.
Tony Stower, a policy and public affairs manager from the NSPCC, said YouTube should have done better.
"Social networks used by millions of children should never suggest dangerous or illegal content," he said. "It is not good enough for problems like this to go unaddressed until media coverage brings it to the attention of sites like YouTube."
Mr Stower said an amendment to a forthcoming UK bill covering data protection could mean all social networks have to put in place systems that try to keep people safe.
He said the NSPCC was urging politicians to back the bill when it comes up for a vote.
Charlie Warzel, writing on Buzzfeed, suggested that the use of the asterisk replacing the "e" in the word "sex" across lots of different searches suggested deliberate action was behind it.
"The results are very specific and could be the result of a co-ordinated campaign to game the algorithm," he said.
This could have been an attempt to populate YouTube with search results that embarrass the site, he said.
None of the videos that the "how to have" results linked to showed abuse of children.
The disturbing results came after a week in which YouTube was widely criticised for not doing enough to stop sexual predators targeting young users of the site.
Big brands including Mars, Lidl and Adidas pulled adverts from YouTube after investigations by the BBC and The Times found tens of thousands of predatory accounts being used to leave explicit comments on children's videos.This story is about Published Aug. 2017
This amazing one-handed grab will make you scream '2014 Dez Bryant is back!' (Even Cole Beasley did) Share This Story On... Twitter
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Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant (88) makes a one handed catch in front of Dallas Cowboys cornerback Orlando Scandrick (32) in the end zone during training camp in Oxnard, California on Thursday, August 10, 2017. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)
By Kate Hairopoulos, Staff Writer Contact Kate Hairopoulos on Twitter: @khairopoulos
OXNARD, Calif. - Dez Bryant snagged the primo catch of training camp Thursday, and he barely needed one hand to do it.
The Cowboys receiver skied for the ball in the corner of the end zone during team drills, reaching above cornerback Orlando Scandrick to pluck the ball with just the fingers of his left hand. Bryant never needed to bring his right hand to the ball to secure it before flipping it toward Scandrick.
(via NBC5's Pat Doney)
How'bout a #DezThing for your Thursday? Dez takes one off the top of Scandrick's helmet. pic.twitter.com/c1JGAQDsmL — David Helman (@HelmanDC) August 10, 2017
(via DallasCowboys.com's David Hel |
the goal were merely continuing the U.S. FON program, a quiet mission, also sailing past outposts constructed by Vietnam or other states, would have sufficed.
U.S. officials may believe the Chinese strategy has been to change the “facts on the water” while avoiding specific claims that might not find support under international law. If so, the risk of locking Chinese officials into a maximalist claim, or provoking a potentially dangerous response, might be deemed acceptable. If this is the case, the United States might do better to engage in a joint patrol with an ally who is a member of UNCLOS, since that state could potentially avail itself of dispute resolution under the convention. The advance publicity given to U.S. deliberations could also allow Chinese authorities to prepare to challenge the United States peacefully and avoid catching local security forces off-guard.
In any event, if the U.S. government goes forward with these plans, it clearly intends to send a public message. Observers should heed the details of that message, but the U.S. government should be prepared for media, foreign governments, and public opinion to misread or distort its intentions.
Graham Webster (@gwbstr) is a researcher, lecturer, and senior fellow of The China Center at Yale Law School. Sign up for his free e-mail brief, U.S.–China Week.Played with RPi Camera Board recently to see if it can be used for simple image-recognition.
Here is the result:
This is produced by this python script using picamera module to capture the image, ZBar bar code reader to find qr-codes and pygame was used to draw stuff. Latency is around 1 sec using 1024x768 image size.
I've realized there exists a problem with using see-through augmented-reality displays: if you need to draw something over a real object, you need to account for the camera offset from the display, which is important for close distances. I don't know how to calculate the correction dynamically without some kind of distance-detection hardware (the best would be to use a depth-sense camera... maybe they need to make one which is RPi-compatible).
I'll try to make a small demo video soon.Click on the book cover to visit its Amazon Kindle page.Proclamations and invocations of faith are constant companions on the campaign trail, as we’ve heard throughout this political season. Politicians routinely appeal to scripture to support their policies, and sometimes to attack their opponents.
Has faith been hijacked for political ends?
What should be the proper relationship between faith and politics?
In the 2012 campaign, new books are debating everything from the religious beliefs of past presidents to the correct way for Christians to vote. Why focus on Christians? Because a sizable majority of voters identifies as Christian.
This week, OurValues.org looks at one provocative perspective on the question of Christians and politics. Greg Garrett is a well-known author of books on Christianity and popular culture. He has written about everything from comic books and Harry Potter to the rock band U2. This spring, he published Faithful Citizenship: Christianity and Politics for the 21st Century. Each day, I will share a brief excerpt from Greg’s new book and ask you to tell us what you think. Greg will be participating, too, so this is a great opportunity for you to influence our national dialogue.
Here’s the first excerpt from Faithful Citizenship for your consideration and comment:
“In the midst of today’s foment and fervor, the central Christian ideals of peace, love and reconciliation are being lost entirely in single-issue voting … and distinctly un-Christian adversarial politics. … Christians on both sides of issues have taken the culture’s distinctly unloving methods to heart. As Stephen Carter noted, ‘Too many commentators in the media, in politics, and in the academy, make a casual habit of insulting their religious opponents instead of debating them.’ Religious people now follow this modus operandi ourselves. If we agree with someone, they are in line with God’s will; if we disagree, we consign them—or at least their theology—to the trash heap.”
DO YOU AGREE WITH GARRETT’S OBSERVATION?
WHAT ANNOYS YOU MOST WHEN FAITH & POLITICS MEET?
WHAT POLITICAL ISSUES ARE CLOSEST TO YOUR FAITH?
PLEASE, ADD A COMMENT BELOW ….
AND CLICK ON the “Now You Can Find Us on Facebook” link in the right-hand column.
Originally published at www.OurValues.org, an online experiment in civil dialogue on American values.Khizr Khan, the father of a slain U.S. soldier, on Thursday condemned Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE’s recent rhetoric on the U.S. military, saying the GOP presidential nominee’s comments disqualify him from serving as commander in chief.
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During a press call organized by Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE’s campaign, Khan needled Trump for criticizing a military expert and saying that he could “teach him a couple of things.”
Trump has also commented on the current military offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), calling it a “total disaster” and knocking military leaders for discussing strategy in advance.
“Donald Trump, your practice of division and hatred is unacceptable to America,” Khan said on the call. “I address you directly that if you aspire to be the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States, you have proven yourself disqualified temperamentally.”
Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq, has sparred with Trump following the convention speech in Philadelphia this summer where he denounced the Republican. Khan has spoken out against the real estate mogul numerous times since the speech and will hit the campaign trail for Clinton in Virginia.
Trump has repeatedly said that if he were president in 2004, Khan’s son would not have died in Iraq because he wouldn't have started the war.
“Time after time, you have insulted our military leaders, you have insulted Muslims, you have insulted women, you have insulted Latinos,” Khan said. “I want you to know this that this practice of hatred and disrespect is not acceptable to the people of the United States, and we stand today with the most capable candidate.”
Retired Marine General John Allen, who endorsed Clinton over the summer, was also on the call condemning Trump’s recent rhetoric on the military, calling it “very concerning” and touting Clinton has someone who is “calm under pressure” and can handle world crises.
“There’s been an unwritten standard among American political leadership for many years to always support our troops in combat,” Allen said. “However he feels personally about this operation, he should be encouraging our efforts publicly rather than disparaging them.”Part of the Truthout Series Solutions
(Image: Foreign Policy Magazine)
The F22 Raptor fighter aircraft. (Photo: Mike Renlund / Flickr)In August 2012, I wrote a Solutions column about a disturbing chart that showed defense spending was marching endlessly upward, even though we were winding down two of our longest wars. I didn’t think anything would top that chart, but look at this chart above, which was shown on the Rachel Maddow show on October 8 and taken from Foreign Policy’s blog. I was shocked, even after investigating the Pentagon budget, in particular, weapons procurement, for over 30 years.
The chart shows President Obama’s disconcerting defense budget isn’t going down after the wars; it shows the potential cuts that Congress put itself under with the sequestration rules if they don’t agree on a budget deal (which has caused howls of pending disaster from Republicans and some Democrats); and it shows the post-cold-war-style drawdown, where, historically the defense budget should draw down after ending wars. Even though we have heard that Mitt Romney has taken up with the Bush-era neocons and planned to raise the defense budget $2 trillion above the Pentagon’s requested budget over the next nine years, this graph gives a gut-punching visual of the almost straight-up trajectory of the defense budget under a Romney presidency. I lived through Reagan’s huge defense budget buildup, but look at it, starting in 1980 on this chart of constant dollars, and you can see that Reagan’s efforts were puny compared to what Romney wants to do.
Even though Romney claims that we need this massive increase – which will take us to Korean War levels with no planned war – he has not laid out in any detail what he plans to accomplish with this money. He talks about building more ships and three submarines a year and increasing the buy on the F-35 fighter planes, but he fails to put it into a picture of how submarines and technically troubled planes are going to make us safer from the insurgency wars that we might face in the future. In the “Mad Men” view of the world, these cold-war-style weapons are suppose to make us safe, but the United States faces a different world and a different threat than it did in that era. And never mind that we already spend more money on our defense than the rest of the world combined.
I saw some of those cold war relics when I went to Fleet Week in San Francisco this weekend. It is ironic that, although Fleet Week is still held every year, San Francisco no longer has any military bases nearby, and the city is decidedly anti-war and anti-Pentagon. The sailors who were roaming the streets were warmly welcomed by the city and there were families, mainly sons and fathers, lined up at Coit Tower with me to get a good look at the loud and impressive flying of the Navy’s Blue Angels in the F-18 aircraft.
But before they got started, there was an airshow of many of the weapons that we claim make us strong as a nation but were designed for a long-gone cold war. The B-2 bomber with its black, bat-like appearance lazily flew circles around the waterfront before departing the area and home to its only Air Force base in Missouri. This bomber was to be the premiere bomber of the cold war, with its black stealth skin and unique design. It certainly looked exotic flying against the bright blue California sky.
I remember the Congressional fights over this plane because of its technical problems and its preposterous maintenance, which pushed the price of a single plane to around $1 billion, or $2 billion if you count all the associated program costs. The unsuccessful effort to cancel the plane was bipartisan, with Ohio Republican representative John Kasich joining up with liberal California Democratic representative Ron Dellums, an effort that you will unlikely see in the now politically overheated Congress.
The much-vaunted stealth coating on this plane can be defeated by long-wave radar, and it also ensures the planes’ maintenance requirements are ridiculously expensive. Each of the 20 planes has to have its own air-conditioned hangar to protect the stealth coating from rain and heat. The maintenance costs $3.4 million a month for each plane, double the maintenance cost of the aging B-52 bombers that are still in use and were first made before I was born. Yet we have only used the B-2 in limited ways in the Kosovo war, a little in Iraq and Afghanistan and a little in the Libyan civil war. The B-52 bomber that had its first mission in 1955 is still in use, with 94 of the original 744 planes currently operational, and the Air Force would like to keep some of these bombers flying until 2040.
Another plane on exhibit in the air show was the now-cancelled F-22 Raptor fighter. With its large size and large triangle wing, it looked like a typical cold war weapon, except for its stealth design. It zoomed around the San Francisco Bay, often flying straight up and then spiraling down to the water before pulling itself up. It was loud, flashy and spectacular, and the crowd clapped and cheered when it flew low by us with a deafening sound. But what the crowd did not know is that this plane started out as the Advanced Tactical Fighter in 1981 and was suppose to be the replacement for the F-15 fighter and the venerable F-16 fighter. Instead, it cost the US $66.7 billion to build 187 planes before the Raptor was cancelled. It has not seen combat, and its deployment has been very rough, including problems with the electronics and with the oxygen system, which made pilots sick. One pilot died while having problems with the oxygen but the Air Force claimed it was pilot error.
The Air Force has had to ground the plane repeatedly for the oxygen problem, and it got egg on its face when two pilots risked their careers to go on the television show “60 Minutes” to say that many of the pilots did not want to fly the plane because it was not safe. In isolation, in this airshow, the plane did look flashy, but I wonder how the crowd would feel if the show had a program that showed how much taxpayers paid for it and listed the technical problems for a plane that has not seen combat and has problems even being deployed. The Air Force cut many of its planes from the airshow circuit this year because of costs but left in the F-22 because, what else is it going to do?
I knew that this airshow’s goal was to push and sell its gee-whiz planes to the public, and based on the whoops and hollers of the crowd, even in this peace-oriented city, the spectacle had the desired effect. The aerospace organization NYCAviation outlined the Air Force’s goal with these airshows, and the concerns about cutting out more of the planes:
It is not just the airshow circuit that will lose out as a result of the cuts, though. Indeed, the Air Force itself stands to come out on the losing end of the deal. With less presence in the public eye, the branch will lose a substantial channel by which to connect to the nation it serves. Considered a powerful tool for recruitment, “[the single ship demo teams] make you feel directly connected to those who are fighting tooth and nail for our interests abroad. They create a fire in your gut, a powerful sense of exhilaration and patriotic defiance,” says defense blogger Ty Rogoway, owner of AviationIntel.com.
Since many of these planes, ships and tanks have proven to be more expensive than, and inferior to, the ones they replaced, the military must glorify these weapons and show them off to the public – but also, most importantly, it must hold regular dog and pony shows for the members of Congress who fund them. As someone who has been on these Congressional junkets, including one to drive and fire the M-1 tank, I can see that impressions win over test results and audits, and these weapons’ mystic status must be protected, as anyone who has ever watched the Military Channel can see.
So, how is it that, although we are paying more for each generation of weapons, we are getting fewer of them, and they still have a myriad of problems? Two contributors in a book called Pentagon Labyrinth outline the system that allows this madness to continue.
Winslow Wheeler, who worked for the Congress for many years overseeing defense, describes how the system works:
Understatement of cost does not occur in isolation in the Pentagon; it is accompanied by an overstatement of the performance the program will bring, and the schedule articulated will be unrealistically optimistic. Once the hook is set in the form of an approved program in the Pentagon (based on optimistic numbers) and an annual funding stream for it from Congress (based on local jobs and campaign contributions), the reality of actual cost, schedule and performance will come too late to generate anything but a few pesky newspaper articles. … Also, the new systems rarely, if ever, bring a performance improvement commensurate with the cost increase. In some cases the new system is even a step backwards. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a good example. Among the aircraft it is to replace is the 1970s vintage – but still much used and almost universally praised – A-10 close air support aircraft. Even if the F-35 stays at its 2010 purchase price of over $150 million per aircraft (which it will not), it will cost ten times more than an A-10. For that additional expense, it will have less payload than an A-10; it will not be able to loiter over the battlefield to help troops engaged in combat hour after hour; it will be too fast to be able to find targets independently, and it will be too fragile and sluggish to survive at the low altitude it must operate at to be effective, even against the primitive small arms and machine gun defenses terrorists and insurgents can mount. To make matters worse, the F-35 will lack the extraordinarily effective 30 mm cannon the A-10 carries.
Andrew Cockburn, a journalist who has been following the follies of the Pentagon for decades, tells us to follow the money to understand the problem:
… as observed long ago by Ernie Fitzgerald, who battled this culture as an air force official, the contractors are “selling costs,” not weapons systems. To the extent that they can improve their “products” by making them more complex and thus more expensive, they prosper. The inevitable corollary has been that the number of items produced for any one program goes down as the costs zoom up. Hence the F-35 fighter, currently under development for the Air Force, Navy and Marines as well as a number of foreign air forces, was originally slated for a production run of 2866 planes at a unit cost per plane of $81 million. Already, well before the plane has completed testing, the unit cost has soared – thus far – to $155 million each, and the total buy has accordingly shrunk to 2457. Further production cuts, as foreign buyers drop out, are inevitable, which will in turn boost the unit cost of the remaining planes on order, leading to further cuts, and so on. Once this disconnect between the official (weapons systems of postulated quality and quantity) and actual products (costs) marketed by the defense industry is clearly grasped, other distressing aspects of the U.S. defense system become easier to understand. Escalation of costs required inefficient management practices, employing twenty people to do, supervise, manage, and administer the work of five, for example. “Inefficiency is national policy,” declared the Air Force general managing the vastly over-budget F-111 bomber program in 1967. But inefficient production tended to produce inefficient performance. The great missile gap fraud of the early 1960s led not only to the abandonment of all cost restraints on the crash programs instituted by the Kennedy Administration to “catch up” with the Russians, but also some egregious technical failures. The guidance system for the Minuteman II ICBM, for example, was so unreliable that 40 percent of the missiles in the silos were out of action at any one time. Replacements had to be bought from the original contractor, who thereby made an extra profit thanks to having supplied faulty sets in the first place.
As they point out, this problem has been going on for years, but is getting worse as more money is shoved into the Pentagon with no change in this dysfunctional system. We also need to price weapons by how much it costs to build that particular weapon and not price them by historical costs – that is, based on the last failed plane with all the fraud, waste and fat incorporated into the base price of the new plane.
If we get the Obama military budget, there will still be big problems and waste unless there is substantial change in how the Pentagon buys its weapons. If we get the Romney military budget, with $2 trillion more to just throw around, the weapons will get more expensive, more prone to problems, and we will buy fewer and fewer of them. With a Romney administration pushing that much more money into this deeply flawed system, we may lose any chance of changing it, cutting the budget and using the money more wisely for another generation. The Pentagon bureaucracy and its contractors will be like kids in a candy store, buying weapons that have little connection to any threat we face. We will be throwing money fuel on an already out-of-control fire. Defense spending will continue and escalate as a test of how strong we can make ourselves look to the rest of the world with air shows and flashy demonstrations that have no real connection to weapons effectiveness in the battlefield.
I am wondering: If the F-35 fighter gets into more technical and financial trouble in the next few years, will I see it screeching around the San Francisco Bay in a future Fleet Week? You can count on it – and the United States will be weakened even more with its unchecked military spending while other vital needs in the country go wanting.Latest updates
30/10/14 - The goods have been released from seizure by The Sheriffs Office and returned to Wyles Hardy & Co asset valuers and auctioneers acting on behalf of the administrators Smith & Williamson. Under the circumstances The Sheriffs Office will not be auctioning any of the items removed from the site.
20/10/14 - Caterham Sport Ltd has today entered into Administration (No. 7424 of 2014). Under such circumstances this office will not be auctioning the goods seized and removed.
03/10/14 - The auction of goods has been placed on HOLD pending the outcome of a further court hearing. This is in relation to a separate creditor and has nothing to do with the seizure made by this office. We would add that the goods removed were identified by a senior member of staff as belonging to the debtor.
Please contact auctions@thesheriffsoffice.com to register your interest or for further updates.
——————————
We can confirm that our Enforcement Agents have removed a variety of goods from a Formula One team.
The goods include but are not limited to:
Caterham F1 test car (2013)
Caterham F1 car parts (due for Japan 2014)
Full size 6 DOF motion platform F1 simulator
Caterham F1 steering wheels
F1 wheels with tyres
High quality drilling & machining equipment
Caterham & Lotus F1 memorabilia
Various pit lane equipment including jacks, pumps and starters
TVs, monitors and other goods and equipment
We can confirm the goods have been removed from the enforcement address and are in secure storage.
Should the goods proceed to sale via this office, they will be sold by public auction to the highest bidder. Sale by private treaty of specific specialist items may be permissible with leave of the court.
Interested parties should contact auctions@thesheriffsoffice.com to register their interest.
Follow @sheriffsonline
If you would like to know more about how we can help you recover money you're owed, please visit our homepage.Tablet vs Mouse
New digital artists often ask the question, "Why get a tablet when I have a mouse?" Perhaps tablets give the impression of being a luxury rather than a necessity. And depending on your interests, a tablet can be a luxury or a necessity.
Who is the tablet for?
Tablets are most useful for certain disciplines: Digital painting, 3D modeling, 3D sculpting, and texture painting are the obvious candidates for a tablet. In fact, for those I would say a tablet is necessary. For other disciplines like rigging, animation, dynamics, and compositing, a digital tablet isn't as much of a necessity. Having said that, I've known riggers and animators who use a tablet exclusively. I've also known modelers who use a mouse exclusively. So we're not really talking about a right or wrong here. A tablet can be for anyone who wants to interface with the computer in a more natural, pencil-and-paper kind of way. Even though there's subjectivity involved in choosing a tablet or mouse, there are some objective benefits of a tablet over a mouse:
Pressure Sensitivity : Tablets offer the ability to alter input based on the pressure of the pen against the tablet surface. This functionality has tremendous benefit when blending gradients in a painting or carving in digital clay; something a mouse cannot do.
: Tablets offer the ability to alter input based on the pressure of the pen against the tablet surface. This functionality has tremendous benefit when blending gradients in a painting or carving in digital clay; something a mouse cannot do. Tilt Sensitivity : Some tablets recognize the tilt of your pen to enable additional functionality that can't be emulated by a mouse. Think of when an sketch artist tilts a pencil to use the length of the tip for shading.
: Some tablets recognize the tilt of your pen to enable additional functionality that can't be emulated by a mouse. Think of when an sketch artist tilts a pencil to use the length of the tip for shading. Carpal Tunnel Prevention : While tablets aren't a cure for carpal tunnel, it does provide a more natural movement than a mouse. But the task variety of switching between keyboard, mouse, and tablet is beneficial for preventing carpal tunnel syndrome.
Kinds of Tablets
Of course there's a variety of choices in the world of digital tablets, as with anything. Some choices are simpler and budget-friendly while others offer the fanciest features and immersive interaction to make for the best artistic experience. Let's take a look at 3 tablet "classes".
CLASS 1: Tablet
"Intuos" by Wacom
This is the baseline class featuring a standalone tablet that offers no-look pencil-to-paper interaction. By "no-look", I mean the hand-eye coordination is like that of a mouse where you're looking at a computer monitor to see the result of your hand movement while your hand is actually moving out of sight. This kind of coordination can take some getting used to at first. But this class is the most affordable. The "Intuos" line fro Wacom is one of the most popular standalone tablets.
This is a good entry-level tablet class for digital artists who want the baseline benefits of a tablet. They're great for 3D modelers and sculptors.
CLASS 2: Tablet + Display
"GT-185" by Huion
This class eliminates the hand-eye coordination problem by making the tablet surface a computer monitor itself. So it's like drawing "on" a digital canvas, making for a much more natural interactive experience for digital artistry. Some consider it to be a negative of this approach that your arm covers a portion of the screen as you work - Traditional drawing and painting have the same problem. Brings back memories of graphite palm from my school years...The "Cintiq" is one of the most popular display tablets.
These are expensive tablets that are great for committed/professional digital painters and sculptors.
CLASS 3: Tablet + Display + PC
"Surface Pro" by Microsoft
This class offers the full package of being a tablet and display and computer. It's like having a digital drawing notebook in your backpack anywhere you go. As you can imagine, tablets like this are expensive. But they're growing in popularity thanks to an expanded manufacturer pool including Apple and Microsoft.
Brands
There are many companies offering tablets, but here's a few key players.
Wacom - The most popular tablet maker, offering all 3 classes.
- The most popular tablet maker, offering all 3 classes. Huion - Quality alternative manufacturer of class 1 and 2 tablets, often offering lower prices.
- Quality alternative manufacturer of class 1 and 2 tablets, often offering lower prices. Apple - Needs no introduction, Apple has only recently entered the tablet market with their class 3 iPad Pro. Though it should be noted that the iPad Pro runs iOS and AppStore apps instead of a desktop OS. This means Blender and other desktop applications are unavailable.
- Needs no introduction, Apple has only recently entered the tablet market with their class 3 iPad Pro. Though it should be noted that the iPad Pro runs iOS and AppStore apps instead of a desktop OS. This means Blender and other desktop applications are unavailable. Microsoft - Not to be outdone by the competition, Microsoft too has entered the tablet market with their class 3 Surface Pro.
What We Use
"I currently have a refurbished Intuos Pen & Touch model from Wacom. Before, I used a Bamboo Fun ($80 back in the day) that lasted 8 years and never stopped working. Moral of the history: Wacom is a quality brand and I get along fine with class 1 tablets." - Kent Trammell
"I've used three tablets, all Wacom brand. I started with an old hand-me-down Intuos 1 or 2 (I don't remember which). After a few years of fiddling with it I upgraded to a Intuos 4 Medium, which is the tablet I still use today. For a while I added a 13in Cintiq but ended up selling it as I was no longer sculpting every day and preferred the ease of which the Intuos 4 could be slipped into my backpack." - Jonathan Williamson
"I really enjoy using my Medium Intuos Pro when I'm working at my desk, but I've been using my Surface Pro a lot more because it's so portable. It has a solid drawing experience and can run full desktop apps like Photoshop and Blender, which makes it much more useful than a normal tablet or a normal laptop." -Jonathan Lampel
"While I was in college I owned a Bamboo and since then have owned a Wacom Intuos 3 and 4, a Cintiq 13HD, and most recently a 22 Cintiq Touch. Based on my experience, I believe that all tablets function in a very similar fashion it just comes down to personal preferences. These can include the grip feel of the pen, the surface of the tablet (glossy or matte), the buttons available on the tablet, or even the most obvious preference: the size. I've found that working with a larger size feels closer to a traditional experience and using a cintiq has proved beneficial in terms of working with more precision and control, especially with edges or line work. The touch features feel natural and while they don't always respond at first swipe, I've found myself using the zoom in and out feature a lot during the duration of my paintings. If you can test one out before buying one, a large comic convention is bound to have a Wacom station or a booth with cintiqs on display to use. So before rushing into one, I would recommend testing out a few of them first to find the right fit for you!" - Tim Von Rueden (vonn)
CC Attribution
Image Credit: "home at work" by Meghan NewellLittle Makers preserved in a medium of cyanoacetate treated sandstone.Want to see Shai-Hulud?Why go to all the expense and hassle of Heighliner travel to visit Dune?With our baby worms, you don't have to worry about restless Fremen, sandstorms, or Harkonnen animals. We bring a bit of the Old Man of the Desert to you! Our baby worms - also known as sand trout - fit perfectly in the palm of your hand! How adorable.Incredibly popular among the nobility in the Imprium but priced so that even minor houses of the Landsraad can afford to have one!: The stasis field is fragile and great care should be taken when handled.. Placing these specimens on a water-rich planet will allow them to start the complete spice cycle, at the cost of turning the exposed ecosystem into a desert, another Dune.willif your world turns into a desert. However, we will open negotiations for a contract to mine and export spice melange should it become available.Some 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2016 report. About 2.7 billion still cook and heat their dwellings with wood, crop residues, and dung. In its main scenario for the trajectory of global energy consumption, the IEA projects that in 2040, half a billion people will still lack access to electricity and 1.8 billion will still be cooking and heating by burning biomass.
The agency defines the initial threshold for modern energy access as 250 kilowatt-hours (kwh) for rural and 500 kwh for urban households per year. How much is that? "In rural areas, this level of consumption could, for example, provide for the use of a floor fan, a mobile telephone and two compact fluorescent light bulbs for about five hours per day," the IEA explains. For comparison, in 2015 the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. household was 10,812 kwh—43 times the IEA's energy access threshold for rural households.
In September the United Nations issued 17 new sustainable development goals that are supposed to be achieved by 2030. Universal access to affordable and clean energy is number 7. To achieve this goal, the U.N. says countries can "accelerate the transition to an affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy system by investing in renewable energy resources, prioritizing energy efficient practices, and adopting clean energy technologies and infrastructure."
The transition to renewable energy resources in poor countries was discussed in "Scaling of Innovative Solutions for Mitigation and Adaptation," a side event at the U.N. climate change conference in Marrakech, Morocco, last week. The panel highlighted the distribution of solar lanterns to poor households in Africa and the distribution of small solar panels that can be used to for lighting and to recharge mobile phones. Giving poor people access to such technologies is certainly better than nothing, but that still leaves them mired in energy poverty.
The eco-modernist Breakthrough Institute takes a very different view than the U.N. in a new report, Energy for Human Development. Eco-modernists argue that through technological progress humanity will increasingly withdraw from nature, enabling a vast ecological restoration over the course of this century.
The Breakthrough report rejects any approach based around small-scale energy projects aimed chiefly at supplying tiny amounts of electricity to millions of subsistence farmers. "There is no nation on earth with universal electricity access that remains primarily agrarian," the authors note. "Modern household energy consumption has historically been achieved as a side effect of electrification for non-household purposes such as factories, electrified transportation, public lighting, and commercial-scale agriculture." Rural electrification has always come last, after urbanization and economic development have taken off. For example, in the U.S. nearly 90 percent of city dwellers had electricity by the 1930s but only 10 percent of rural Americans did.
Given this universal growth dynamic, the Breakthrough writers call for prioritizing energy development for productive, large-scale economic enterprises. Copious and reliable energy will accelerate the creation and spread of higher-productivity factories and businesses, which then will generate the opportunities for a better life; that, in turn, will draw poor subsistence farmers into cities. They further note that energy access and electricity access are not the same thing. In fact, in 2012 electricity accounted for only about 18 percent of the energy consumed globally. "Efforts to address energy poverty must address needs for transportation fuels and infrastructure, and for fertilizer and mechanization of agriculture," they argue.
But what about climate change? Current renewable sources of energy are not technologically capable of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of energy poverty. Consequently, the Breakthrough writers see "no practical path to universal access to modern levels of energy consumption" that keeps the projected increase in global average temperature below the Paris Agreement on climate change goal of 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. This implies that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide will exceed 450 parts per million. They correctly point out that forcing poor people to forego economic development in order to prevent climate change is a "morally dubious proposition." They additionally observe that the wealth and technology produced by economic growth increases resilience to climatic extremes and other natural disasters. When bad weather encounters poverty, disaster ensues.
It is worth noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's shared socioeconomic pathway narratives for the rest of the century include one, dubbed "SSP5," in which fossil fuels remain cheap, greenhouse gas concentrations more than triple, the average global temperature increases by nearly 4 degrees Celsius, and the rate of economic growth is high. Is that future a hell on earth? Not at all.
The "development first" SSP5 agenda results in the eradication of extreme poverty, greater gender equality, and universal access to education, safe drinking water, and modern energy before mid century, along with a strong build-up of developing countries' human and social capacity. "Lower socio-environmental challenges to adaptation result from attainment of human development goals, robust economic growth, highly engineered infrastructure with redundancy to minimize disruptions from extreme events, and highly managed ecosystems," notes the SSP report. In other words, people living in this economically robust scenario have greater incomes (up from the current average of around $10,000 to about $140,000 per capita in current dollars by 2100) and have access to much more advanced technologies with which to address whatever problems man-made climate change may throw at them.
The Breakthrough Institute report invokes the University of Colorado political scientist Roger Pielke Jr.'s "iron law of climate policy," which states that "when policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time." People will always favor policies to lessen energy poverty over strategies that aim to reduce the risks of man-made climate change.
"Lifting all of humanity out of energy poverty does increase the risk of catastrophic climate change impacts to some unknowable degree," concludes the Breakthrough Institute report. "But it is untenable morally and practically to insist that global climate change targets be balanced upon the backs of the poorest people on earth."While all our commercial species teeter on the edge of collapse, the government will only heed to the fishing industry's interests
I've come across some odd ways to make a living, but few as strange as this. The gambling company Ladbrokes has been offering odds on the conservation status of various fish species. Earlier in the week it was taking bets on mackerel after it was taken off conservationists' "fish to eat" list last month. Recently it has encouraged people to punt on the survival prospects of stocks of yellow fin tuna, swordfish and haddock. You can, if you wish, gamble on extinction. (Ladbrokes' link was live yesterday, but dead this morning.)
It'll be a while before I put my money on the recovery of any species in British waters.
Just before Christmas (which could explain the paucity of coverage the story received), the British government gleefully tore up the scientific advice, trampled the evidence, ignored the pleas of conservationists and gave two fingers to common sense by fighting to prevent the European Union from cutting the catch in the seas surrounding this country.
Thanks to British lobbying, a proposed 55% cut in the tonnage of haddock caught in the Celtic Sea was reduced to 15%, while off other parts of the British coast, plaice, sole, scampi, whiting and herring quotas were increased, though the stocks are at a tiny fraction of their historic levels. All |
preexisting political identities profoundly shape their beliefs. So even when faced with the same information, whether it’s a news article or a fact check, people with different political orientations often extract dramatically different meaning.
A thought experiment may help: If you were a Clinton supporter, were you aware that the highly respected prediction site FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton only a 71 percent chance of winning? Those odds are better than a coin flip, but far from a sure thing. I suspect that many Democrats were shocked despite seeing this uncomfortable evidence. Indeed, many had been critical of this projection in the days before the election.
If you voted for Trump, have you ever encountered evidence disputing Trump’s assertion that voter fraud is commonplace in the U.S.? Fact checkers and news organizations have covered this issue extensively, offering robust evidence that the claim is untrue. However a Trump supporter might be unmoved: In a September 2016 poll, 90 percent of Trump supporters said they didn’t trust fact checkers.
Facebook = angry partisans?
If isolation from the truth really is the main source of inaccurate information, the solution would be obvious: Make the truth more visible.
Unfortunately, the answer isn’t that simple. Which brings us back to the question of Facebook: Are there other aspects of the service that might distort users’ beliefs?
It will be some time before researchers can answer this question confidently, but as someone who has studied how the various ways that other internet technologies can lead people to believe false information, I’m prepared to offer a few educated guesses.
There are two things that we already know about Facebook that could encourage the spread of false information.
First, emotions are contagious, and they can spread on Facebook. One large-scale study has shown that small changes in Facebook users’ news feeds can shape the emotions they express in later posts. In that study, the emotional changes were small, but so were the changes in the news feed that caused them. Just imagine how Facebook users respond to widespread accusations of candidates’ corruption, criminal activity and lies. It isn’t surprising that nearly half (49 percent) of all users described political discussion on social media as “angry.”
When it comes to politics, anger is a powerful emotion. It’s been shown to make people more willing to accept partisan falsehoods and more likely to post and share political information, presumably including fake news articles that reinforce their beliefs. If Facebook use makes partisans angry while also exposing them to partisan falsehoods, ensuring the presence of accurate information may not matter much. Republican or Democrat, angry people put their trust in information that makes their side look good.
Second, Facebook seems to reinforce people’s political identity—furthering an already large partisan divide. While Facebook doesn’t shield people from information they disagree with, it certainly makes it easier to find like-minded others. Our social networks tend to include many people who share our values and beliefs. And this may be another way that Facebook is reinforcing politically motivated falsehoods. Beliefs often serve a social function, helping people to define who they are and how they fit in the world. The easier it is for people to see themselves in political terms, the more attached they are to the beliefs that affirm that identity.
These two factors—the way that anger can spread over Facebook’s social networks, and how those networks can make individuals’ political identity more central to who they are—likely explain Facebook users’ inaccurate beliefs more effectively than the so-called filter bubble.
If this is true, then we have a serious challenge ahead of us. Facebook will likely be convinced to change its filtering algorithm to prioritize more accurate information. Google has already undertaken a similar endeavor. And recent reports suggest that Facebook may be taking the problem more seriously than Zuckerberg’s comments suggest.
But this does nothing to address the underlying forces that propagate and reinforce false information: emotions and the people in your social networks. Nor is it obvious that these characteristics of Facebook can or should be “corrected.” A social network devoid of emotion seems like a contradiction, and policing who individuals interact with is not something that our society should embrace.
It may be that Facebook shares some of the blame for some of the lies that circulated this election year—and that they altered the course of the election.
If true, the challenge will be to figure out what we can do about it.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.This article is about the song. For the South Korean girl group, see Brown Eyed Girls
"Brown Eyed Girl" is a song by Northern Irish singer and songwriter Van Morrison. Written by Morrison and recorded in March 1967 for Bang Records owner and producer Bert Berns, it was released as a single in June 1967 on the Bang label, peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It featured the Sweet Inspirations singing back-up vocals and is considered to be Van Morrison's signature song.[1] "Brown Eyed Girl" has remained a staple on classic rock radio, and has been covered by hundreds of bands over the decades.
Recording and title [ edit ]
After finishing his contract with Decca Records and the mid-1966 break-up of his band, Them, Morrison returned to Belfast seeking a new recording company. When he received a phone call from Bert Berns, owner of Bang Records, who had produced a number of recordings with Them, he flew to New York City and hastily signed a contract (which biographer Clinton Heylin says probably still gives him sleepless nights).[2] During a two-day recording session starting 28 March 1967, he recorded eight songs intended to be used as four singles.[3] The recording session took place at A & R Studios and "Brown Eyed Girl" was captured on the 22nd take on the first day.[4] Of the musicians Berns had assembled, there were three guitarists – Eric Gale, Hugh McCracken,[5][6] and Al Gorgoni – plus bassist Russ Savakus, pianist Paul Griffin and drummer Gary Chester.[7][8] It was released as a single in mid-June 1967.[9]
Originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl",[10] Morrison changed it to "Brown Eyed Girl" when he recorded it. Morrison remarked on the title change: "That was just a mistake. It was a kind of Jamaican song. Calypso. It just slipped my mind [that] I changed the title."[11] "After we'd recorded it, I looked at the tape box and didn't even notice that I'd changed the title. I looked at the box where I'd lain it down with my guitar and it said 'Brown Eyed Girl' on the tape box. It's just one of those things that happen."[12][13]
Composition [ edit ]
"Brown Eyed Girl" An 18-second audio sample of Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" Problems playing this file? See media help.
The song's nostalgic lyrics about a former love were considered too suggestive at the time to be played on many radio stations. A radio-edit of the song was released which removed the lyrics "making love in the green grass", replacing them with "laughin' and a-runnin', hey hey" from a previous verse. This edited version appears on some copies of the compilation album The Best of Van Morrison. However the remastered CD seems[clarification needed] to have the bowdlerised lyrics in the packaging but the original "racy" lyrics on the disc. Lyrically, it "shows early hints of the idealized pastoral landscapes that would flow through his songs through the decades, a tendency that links him to the Romantic poets, whom Morrison has cited as an influence" according to music journalist Erik Hage.[14]
Aftermath [ edit ]
Because of a contract he signed with Bang Records without legal advice, Morrison states that he has never received any royalties for writing or recording this song.[15] The contract made him liable for virtually all recording expenses incurred for all of his Bang Records recordings before royalties would be paid, and after those expenses were recouped, the revenue would become the "subject of some highly creative accounting".[attribution needed][16] Morrison vented frustration about this unjust contract in his sarcastic nonsense song "The Big Royalty Check". Morrison has stated that "Brown Eyed Girl" is not among his favourite songs, remarking "it's not one of my best. I mean I've got about 300 songs that I think are better".[17]
To capitalise on the success of the single, producer Berns assembled the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison's input or knowledge. Released in September 1967, the album contained the single as its lead-off track as well as songs recorded by Morrison at the March recording sessions for Berns. The album peaked at No. 182 on the Billboard 200.
Legacy [ edit ]
Morrison's original recording of "Brown Eyed Girl" remains widely familiar today, as the uncensored version is regularly played by many "oldies" and "classic rock" radio stations. In 2005, Morrison received a Million-Air certificate by BMI as a "Top European Writer" for reaching 7 million US radio and television airplays for "Brown Eyed Girl" and again in 2007, Morrison was awarded another Million-Air certificate by BMI for 8 million air plays of "Brown Eyed Girl".[18][19] In 2009, "Brown Eyed Girl" was at the top of the list for most played songs at the BMI London awards winning a Million-Air certificate for 9 million air plays.[20] In 2011, "Brown Eyed Girl" joined an elite group of songs as it was honoured for having 10 million US radio air plays and therefore becoming one of the ten songs that have been registered with BMI that have received that number of radio plays.[21] As of 2015, "Brown Eyed Girl" remains the most downloaded and most played song of the entire 1960s decade.[22]
Paul Williams included "Brown Eyed Girl" in his book Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles,[23] writing that:
"I was going to say this is a song about sex, and it is, and a song about youth and growing up, and memory, and it's also—very much and very wonderfully—a song about singing."
This song proved to be the impetus for Morrison's career. It was his first single after leaving his position as lead singer for the Belfast-formed Them and led to his relocation to the United States and an eventual contract with Warner Bros. Records, where he recorded his career-defining album, Astral Weeks.
Critical acclaim and influence [ edit ]
Dave Marsh in his 1989 book, The Heart of Rock and Soul, The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever, rated it No. 386.[24] In 1999, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) listed it as one of the Top 100 Songs of the Century.[25] In 2000, it was listed at No. 21 on the Rolling Stone/MTV list of 100 Greatest Pop Songs[26] and as No. 49 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs.[27] In 2001, it was ranked No. 131 as one of the RIAAs Songs of the Century, a list of the top 365 songs of the 20th century chosen with historical significance in mind.[28][29]
In November 2004, "Brown Eyed Girl" was ranked No. 110 on the Rolling Stone magazine list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[30] At the same year, it was listed as No. 79 on the All Time 885 Greatest Songs compiled by WXPN from listeners' votes.[31] In January 2007, "Brown Eyed Girl" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[32] It was ranked as the 183rd greatest song of all time, as well as the 12th best song of 1967, by Acclaimed Music.[33] It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[34]
Personnel [ edit ]
In popular culture [ edit ]
Chart performance [ edit ]
Other releases [ edit ]
"Brown Eyed Girl" was one of the songs included on the 1990 compilation album, The Best of Van Morrison. It is one of the songs performed live at Morrison's concert of performance of 15 September 2006 at the Austin City Limits Festival and is included on the limited CD album, Live at Austin City Limits Festival. "Brown Eyed Girl" was one of the nineteen songs featured on Van Morrison's 2007 compilation album, Van Morrison at the Movies – Soundtrack Hits. The version on this compilation is a recent re-recording of the original version of the song. The original version is one of the hits on the 2007 compilation album, Still on Top – The Greatest Hits. A live version of this song is featured on the 2008 reissue of the live double album It's Too Late to Stop Now.
Cover versions [ edit ]
El Chicano remade "Brown Eyed Girl" for their 1972 album Celebration. Kapp Records had invited music journalist Don Buday to produce the album, being impressed by Buday's writings on El Chicano: Buday had the group remake "Brown Eyed Girl" and also the Cream hit "I Feel Free" "[to try] to give [El Chicano] more of a rock-and-roll identity".[48] Journeyman recording engineer Val Garay, who had his first engineering assignment producing Celebration, would recall that "Don got this brilliant idea of [remaking] 'Brown Eyed Girl'...kind of like the 'Mexican Everly Brothers".[49] Released as the album's lead single, "Brown Eyed Girl" peaked at No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100. Chicanismo scholar Dionne Espinoza opined that the El Chicano version of "Brown Eyed Girl" turned the song into "an affirmation of the beauty of brown[-skinned] women".[50]
British singer/songwriter Iain Matthews remade "Brown Eyed Girl" for his 1976 album Go for Broke[51] from which it was issued as the lead single, becoming a hit in the Netherlands (No. 22)[52] and in New Zealand (No. 25).[53]
An Adult Contemporary hit (No. 13) for Jimmy Buffett as recorded for his One Particular Harbour album (1983),[54] "Brown Eyed Girl" was a 1984 C&W hit for Joe Stampley (No. 29),[54] while a 1980 remake by the Good Brothers was a hit in Canada on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts, with respective chart peaks of No. 15 and No. 2.
Recordings have also been made of "Brown Eyed Girl" as performed by a wide variety of other artists including Adele,[55]John Anderson,[56]the Black Sorrows,[57] Busted,[57] Billy Ray Cyrus,[58] Ellert Driessen (nl),[57] Bob Dylan,[citation needed] Everclear,[57] Caroline Jones,[59] Roberto Jordán (as "La Chica De Los Ojos Cafés" Spanish ),[60] Bertie Higgins,[61] Ronan Keating,[62] Brian Kennedy, [63] Lagwagon,[64] Glen Medeiros,[57] Reel Big Fish,[65] Johnny Rivers,[57] Shooting Gallery,[66]Bruce Springsteen,[67] Steel Pulse[57] and U2.[68]
References [ edit ]A former Donald Trump adviser fired over his racially charged Facebook posts endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday.
In an exclusive in Politico’s Playbook, Sam Nunberg, billed as a “fired Trump aide, frequent reporter-whisperer, and available pundit (lives on Upper East Side)” slammed the billionaire real estate mogul for not having “a coherent political ideology.”
“If anything, I would describe him as a Chris Christie Republican,” Nunberg told the newsletter. “I was concerned but I figured that he would bulk up on policy…He has not. I do not see a candidate who takes these issues seriously.”
Nunberg, who was fired last summer over posts calling President Obama a “Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser” and using the N-word in reference to Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter, told Playbook Trump’s failure to denounce an endorsement from former KKK leader David Duke was one of his “last straws.”Despite total saturation of the UK news cycle, the mainstream media’s “hysterical overdrive” failed Friday to motivate more than a handful of anti-Trump protesters at an organised event outside the U.S. embassy in London.
As the nearby shopping streets of Oxford circus surged with pre-Christmas customers Friday night a small band of activists from Stand Up To Racism gathered outside the United States’ Grosvenor Square embassy to wave placards and chant slogans such as “No racist Trump — no state visit” and “Donald Trump stay away — racist, sexist, anti-gay”.
The Twitter account of President Donald Trump has been treated as having the greatest importance by the British political and media establishment in the wake of his having retweeted three videos purporting to show acts of Muslim extremist violence.
Yet despite the President’s social media activity achieving condemnation from the British Prime Minister, Home Secretary, the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, the protest against him and his planned state visit only attracted a handful of supporters and quickly finished.
The success of the protest may reflect the remarks of British activist Tommy Robinson, who told the Breitbart Daily Show Thursday that: “I feel completely embarrassed and I want the American public to understand that the majority of British people do not feel this way; this is an agenda being pushed by the media. We don’t feel this way at all.”
London’s Muslim Mayor Calls for Trump Ban After Retweets, Church of England Demands Apology from President
https://t.co/E7XFAXmhfv — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 30, 2017
Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam blasted the media’s overreaction to the Tweets Thursday evening, describing the BBC’s “breathless coverage”, and remarked “An emergency debate in Parliament — are we so scared of these fringe organisations these days that we have to have an emergency debate in Parliament, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary.
“These are things you do in a time of war, not over a couple of Tweets.”
Breitbart London Editor in Chief @RaheemKassam giving the BBC a taste of their own medicine over Trump retweets is MUST WATCH television… see it here https://t.co/nzlmNmiumz — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 30, 2017
Despite this, Stand Up To Racism promised Friday that when President Trump’s state visit goes ahead they could increase their mobilisation from Friday’s demonstration to “more than a million people” marching on London in protest, reports the Evening Standard.
Speaking to Britain’s Sky News from the protest Friday, Stand up to Racism organiser Naima Omar said: “if [President Trump] does come there will be a mass movement against him… my message to Theresa May is to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t have a state visit, or a working visit, and if he does people will come out and mobilise against it.”DONETSK/LUHANSK Ukraine (Reuters) - Pro-Russian separatists shot down a Ukrainian army plane as fighting raged in the eastern town of Slaviansk on Friday, a day before the inauguration of pro-European billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko as Ukraine’s president.
An armed pro-Russian separatist walk past religious icons and a list of victims placed in front of a regional administration building damaged by a recent explosion in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk June 6, 2014. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov
Slaviansk has been at the heart of a two-month insurgency in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine by rebels opposed to the overthrow of a Moscow-leaning president and the formation in Kiev of a pro-Western government.
Separatists operating from the grounds of a church in Slaviansk also killed a member of the Ukrainian interior ministry’s special forces and seriously wounded two others in a mortar attack on Friday, the ministry said.
The self-appointed mayor of the city, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, said an Antonov An-30 intelligence plane had been shot down.
“The airplane was hit in the center of the city. It happened in front of my own eyes. It was a wonderful sight. The residents who saw it applauded,” Ponomaryov told Reuters by telephone.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s “Anti-terrorist operation” or ATO, later confirmed a plane had been shot down but said it was an An-26 transportation plane carrying humanitarian aid.
The Ukrainian army and defense ministry were not available to comment on the reports. A YouTube video purporting to be of the An-30 and posted on several local news websites showed a plane clearly heading downwards in an irregular manner.
A photographer in Slaviansk, a city of 130,000 people in the province of Donetsk bordering Russia, said she saw the plane, visibly on fire, slowly descending but did not see it crash.
Residents said the sounds of shelling reverberated around the city on Friday. One separatist in Slaviansk told Reuters there had been shooting in the city center and that there were casualties, although he did not know how many.
Resident Larissa Akincheva said she stayed away from her work as a store clerk due to the heavy shelling.
“Today I didn’t go out at all. I hear the explosions, the shelling. They have been firing all day,” Akincheva, 50, said by telephone. “You could hear the planes circling overhead, I don’t know if they were scouting or what.”
FAMILIES FLEEING
Fighting in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has intensified since Poroshenko’s victory in the presidential election on May 25. The vote was called after the flight of Viktor Yanukovich in February after months of protests in Kiev.
Poroshenko was in France on Friday for ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings of World War Two. There, he met world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who denies charges by Kiev and the West that Moscow is actively supporting the separatists.
There are signs that an increasing number of families are fleeing the violence in the two regions. With the Donetsk airport still closed after heavy fighting almost two weeks ago, people are taking to their cars and driving to the border.
At a small border crossing in Izvaryne about 70 kilometers southeast of Luhansk, a queue of more than forty cars inched along the hot sun-warmed tarmac toward the Russian border.
“It is the only open border post on the southern part of Luhansk,” a young border guard said, without giving his name because he was not authorized to speak to media. He said some four other nearby border posts were closed.
“We decided to leave after the air strike on Luhansk and the clashes around the Mirny border control - that’s where we live,” said Elena, 43, who was heading to Crimea on the Black Sea with a daughter and a 12-month-old grandchild. She said mortars had been falling close to her home for 24 hours.
“We are leaving because we cannot live with these Ukrainian killers,” she said.
But not all border posts are safe - late on Thursday, Ukrainian forces fended off an attack on a post some 95 km (60 miles) to the east of Donetsk using air strikes, the border service said in an English-language statement.
It said five Ukrainian personnel were wounded and according to “preliminary information”, 15 separatists had been killed.
“They drove around us in circles shooting for about four or five hours,” said Vadim, an officer at the border post wearing a camouflage T-shirt and cap with the Ukrainian trident on it.
A pro-Russian protester stands at a barricade at the police headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slaviansk, June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
“They didn’t ask us to give up, lay down our weapons or make any attempt to communicate at all. They just shot,” he said, adding he hoped reinforcements would arrive “soon”. He said there were 100-150 attackers.
The rebels’ two armored personnel carriers, one of which had the name of the separatist formation “Battalion Vostok” painted on it, and a military transport vehicle covered in bullet holes stood abandoned at the checkpoint.
A spokesman for the Vostok Battalion was unavailable for comment. A spokeswoman for the separatists said she had no information about losses from the rebel side in this incident.Half of Amazon India's customers are outside the major metro cities, its vice president and country head Amit Agarwal told NDTV. "At Amazon half of our units come from the non-metro cities and if I just look back at the peak holiday season during Diwali, we shipped shipments on behalf of our sellers to more than 900 cities out there. 14,000 pin codes. And we ship across all 19,000 pin codes in India," he said.
Amazon in India is a marketplace, which offers a platform connecting buyers and sellers. The world's largest e-commerce player started its India operations in June 2013, and is the second largest e-tailor in the country after Flipkart. Amazon India also provides warehousing and delivery services to the seller.
The company's recent addition of a musical instruments category has received a positive response from customers, Mr Agarwal said. "In just a little over two weeks, we are seeing products such as iktara and bamboo flutes sold by our sellers get on bestseller lists and customers in areas like Rajahmundry rural, Andhra Pradesh and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand buying products," he said. (Watch Video)
Amazon India's categories include larger segments like books, electronics, fashion and lifestyle. It also has niche categories like pet supplies.
The company has over 1 lakh sellers across its two sites - amazon.in and junglee.com - Mr Agarwal said. Junglee is a price-comparison website, where customers can compare prices of products across online and offline stores.
The seller-base is seeing rapid growth and Amazon India has launched something called self-service registration for sellers that allows them to come to the platform and sign up without having to speak to them, Mr Agarwal said.
"Whenever you make something simpler and more convenient they (buyers and sellers) use more of it and we are almost seeing 30 per cent of our seller base coming through that channel," he said.Edmonton planning officials are saying no way to a dungeon for rent in the city’s south side.
Alt.Space and Kink Store – a play space, manufacturing shop and retail outlet for an alternative sexual community – has been operating on 70th Avenue, just west of 99 Street since June.
Their dungeon for rent has spanking benches and crosses, their shop has floggers and paddles, and they also offer lectures and seminars on subjects from erotic wax to rope torture for consenting adults.
But they do not have a valid development permit or business licence.
Alt.Space applied for the development permit July 28. The city asked for more information, and the business never replied. When news of the new shop went public late August and angry calls lit up the planners’ phone lines, they reviewed the application and decided it really doesn’t fit in a medium industrial zone.
“We can’t make a moral judgement. We just evaluate it based on use,” said Gail Hickmore, city’s general supervisor for development approvals.
They determined Alt.Space and the Kink Store to be a mix of commercial school, creation and production establishment, general retail store and indoor participant recreation service.
That would fit in most zones, such as commercial or light industrial. But the spot, the former Expressionz Café, which had its own battles with zoning authorities, is marked medium industrial.
“Also,” said Hickmore, “it’s deficient 32 parking spaces.”
Alt.Space can appeal the decision to the subdivision and development appeal board. Hickmore said if the board upholds the city’s decision, then Alt.Space will be asked to leave.
“Basically, we’ll wait for the written SDAB decision to come down,” Hickmore said. “I’m sure this woman has put a lot of money into this business but unfortunately, she didn’t do her homework.”
Reached Friday, shop co-owner Nikki Uhryn said she’s consulting with a lawyer.
“We’ll be making an appeal, if possible,” she added, declining to comment further until she gets legal advice.
When interviewed in August, Uhryn said her industry struggles with a stigma.
“We are a legitimate business and we want to be a change for the better in the industry,” she said then. “Sex doesn’t have to be scary. Sex doesn’t have to be something you do by the light of the pink doggie clock on Thursday nights only.”
estolte@edmontonjournal.com
twitter.com/estolteOn paper, Ross Barkley and Everton should be the perfect marriage of player and club. On one side you have a young player who drips with talent and potential playing for an ambitious, relatively big club that offers him all the minutes and patience and care he could ask for in hopes that he reaches his sky-high potential. On the other, there is a club with big dreams, though limited opportunities to realize them, in possession of a homegrown player who, unvarnished though he may be, contains all the raw materials you’d look for in someone who could one day be the kind of star that could take the club where it aspires to be. And yet as right as this relationship looks in the abstract, for some confounding reason these two partners appear headed for divorce.
Barkley’s contract with Everton expires after next season. The year before a player’s contract expires is generally the most fraught time for player and club, as it is when both sides must determine whether to stay together longterm or to part ways. The sides get together and ask themselves and each other a battery of questions: Do our ambitions for the future align? What about our financial expectations? Are we on the same page as to the player’s place and prominence in the team? Is there another team out there making an offer one or both of us can’t refuse? Are we happy together? Depending on the answers to these questions, either the two sides hammer out a contract extension or, if there are significant differences preventing them from reaching an agreement on a new deal, the team will look to sell the player as soon as possible before the existing contract expires and the player can leave the team for free.
So how do Everton’s and Barkley’s interests line up on this stuff? From all appearances they line up damn near perfectly. Barkley and Everton are both flawed yet promising in similar ways, and because of that a continuation of the relationship should be a no-brainer.
Barkley is young and English with all the potential in the world. He also, however, is not all that young anymore (he’s 23 now, wrapping up his fourth season as a regular member of the first team), still hasn’t discovered his best position, and his game as it exists today is severely hobbled by his often bad decision-making, lack of awareness, and inconsistency. He might be big and strong and powerful and fast and tireless and super technical and a great dribbler and really good at kicking the shit out of the ball, but if he never develops the mental traits necessary to turn his physical gifts into the skill set of a truly dominating player, is he really worth it? The answer to that question is pretty obviously “Yes, duh, he’s still just 23 and if he ever puts it all together, watch the fuck out!” but it’s still a legitimate question that Everton and anyone else who might be interested in his services should consider.
As for the other party, Everton are a pretty big club, probably the best positioned team right behind the six-team cadre of Premier League big boys, which in this new era of boundless TV money and the club’s own rich new owners means there are only maybe a dozen or so clubs around the world who can boast more financial weight and prestige than Everton when it comes to attracting players. However, Everton are also so far behind the six big boys in England, plus the other giants in Spain and Germany and Italy and France, that they don’t even show up in those clubs’ rearview mirrors. The Toffees are rich, and because of that should be successful in the future, but the pack of elites they chase have so much of a lead that it makes catching up nearly impossible.
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Everton see themselves as a team where, if everything goes just right and their brand of savvy player recruitment and development leads to a squad that’s greater than the sum of its transfer fees, they might be able to make a somewhat legitimate push for the Champions League places. This is an incredibly difficult feat to pull off under the best of circumstances, and with the big English clubs only getting bigger and richer and smarter in recent years, the prospect of sneaking into fourth place is much more daunting now than it was even three years ago. The only way Everton can hope to get where they want to be is by finding players like Barkley—ones who might not be great when they join, but have the potential to be bona fide studs as they mature—and holding onto them for as long as possible.
The upshot of all that is this: Barkley isn’t good enough right now to merit a more prominent position on a bigger team than the one he has now at Everton, where because of his current ability and his potential he will remain one of the side’s focal points should he stay; meanwhile, Everton probably can’t lure in a player significantly better than Barkley right now, much less one with the tools Barkley has that project him for stardom. That, plus the romantic stuff about Barkley being an English, homegrown, local kid-made-good, would make a new extension for Barkley in everyone’s best interest.
And yet here we are, on the precipice of the pivotal summer before his contract is up, and Everton manager Ronald Koeman is talking in public as if Barkley will almost certainly be sold. Koeman announced a week ago that he had given Barkley an ultimatum: agree to a new contract with the club before the end of the season or I’ll sell you. Well, the end of the season is a mere two days away and Barkley has not signed the contract Everton have put before him, so if Koeman is a man of his word, Barkley only has one more game in an Everton shirt left.
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Here’s what Koeman had to say about Barkley’s contractual status to the media today, from the Independent:
Asked on Friday whether he was confident Barkley would put pen to paper: “No. I spoke to the player, the board spoke to his agent. I don’t know if he won’t give an answer. I don’t know. Koeman is relaxed and despite wanting Barkley to stay confirmed the club are pondering other options. “We will go on and we’re looking for players in that position. If he stays there will be more competition,” he added. “I am not worried because I like to work with players who like to play. “If you offer a player a new contract, and a good contract, that means you want to keep the player.”
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As widely known as this contract dispute has been, what neither Everton nor Barkley have made public is what exactly is holding things up. For Barkley, there are only two realistic reasons why he wouldn’t want to re-sign: either he wants more money or he wants to go to a bigger team. Extended haggling over monetary issues is a fine and understandable excuse for the delay, but with Everton’s loaded new owners it’s hard to imagine a few thousand pounds holding up the deal if both sides wanted to make it happen. If that’s true, then the only remaining answer is that Barkley wants out. But why? And where would he go?
Sure, any one of the big six would at least sound out the possibility of bringing in Barkley, since, again, he is an exceptionally gifted player who could very well turn into a star in the near future. The transfer rumor grapevine says Tottenham and Arsenal are his most likely suitors. But if Barkley joined either of those teams (or any of the other top-six rosters for that matter) it would certainly be as a squad player, since they have better options already at the club. At his best, Barkley is probably something like a down-market Dele Alli, and Alli is not only younger than his Toffee compatriot, he’s also considerably better. Arsenal are already drowning in athletic, technically gifted midfielder types with no real position (see: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey), so it wouldn’t make much sense for Barkley to go there, not if he wants to play a lot and for a manager who knows how to find positions for players like him. Spurs’ and Arsenal’s alleged interest makes sense—why not take a punt on a guy who might be great?—but Barkley’s interest in going there doesn’t really.
If the issue is that Everton are balking at meeting Barkley’s contract demands, then that would be kind of stupid, too, given how much money the team has to throw around these days. The only sensible reasoning there would be that Everton want out of the Barkley business because they don’t think he’ll develop into anything much better than what he already is. Koeman has been pointedly critical of Barkley in the press all year, and has relegated him to playing on the wing for most of the season, seemingly losing faith that Barkley can be a true No. 10. If that’s the case, then so be it, but giving up on Barkley now still feels a bit hasty and unwise. Even if he never develops into a true star, he’s still talented enough to be a useful player, and Everton certainly aren’t good enough to scoff at Barkley’s current talent.
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It is of course possible that the matter isn’t quite as dire as it appears. This could merely be your typical contract posturing, with Everton trying to force Barkley into negotiating on their terms and Barkley refusing to. If Barkley doesn’t sign a new deal by Sunday but his people come to the club with a counter-offer a month from now, Everton surely wouldn’t be so stubborn as to decline to reopen negotiations. Hopefully that is indeed the case, and these two find a way to stick it out for at least a little while longer. Because if Barkley and Everton want to make their potentially bright futures reality, their best chance of doing so is to do it together.Armenia will open ICT representative offices in Mexico, Russia, Iran, and Spain until autumn within the Armenian Science & Technology Center (ASTC) program.
Ar |
Savin said that in the late 1980's a group of researchers from the Expert Management Unit of General Staff managed to make a contact with representatives of another civilization. Interestingly, none of the journalists were particularly surprised but, rather, relieved with the "confession."
Vasily Yeremenko, a Major General of FIB in reserve, academician of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law Enforcement, was the first to speak to the press. In Soviet times he served in the KGB and supervised the Air Force and development of aviation technology. Among his assignments was collection of information by the Air Force of the facts of appearance of unidentified flying objects. According to Vasily Yeremenko, by that time there was an ample amount of such information.
Missile units were even given a directive in case of detection of UFOs. The main task was not to create opportunities for reciprocal aggression. In 1983-1984 at the testing grounds of the Academy of Sciences by Vladimirovka, the Ministry of Defense and the KGB organized a large-scale study of paranormal phenomena. The military training site was not a random choice. Experts have long come to the conclusion that UFOs inevitably appear in places where military equipment and weapons are tested.
"We can say that we learned to summon UFOs in Vladimirovka. To do this, we dramatically increased the number of military flights and movement of the equipment. If the intensity on our side increased, UFOs appeared with the probability of 100 percent," explained Yeremenko. After six months of tests the authoritative commission came to three main conclusions.
First, modern science was not yet able to identify such phenomena. Second, it could be reconnaissance equipment of the U.S. or Japan. Third, it could be an impact of an extraterrestrial civilization. "The UFO topic today is ubiquitous. Precisely because of its scandalous nature serious scientists are not willing to identify their position on this issue. Pilots often see such objects, but they have a veto on this topic, so do astronauts. In confidential conversations they talk about their experiences meeting with UFOs, but they are afraid to speak publicly about this," said Vasily Yeremenko.
He believes that this subject requires a serious approach because it is a security issue. Yet, it is still a closed topic both in the U.S. and in Russia. Lt. Gen. Alexey Savin proceeded to reveal some aspects of the engagement of the Ministry of Defense. He headed the Expert Management Unit of the General Staff, whose task was to examine various unusual phenomena.
The main project of the unit was a state program on the discovery of intellectual human resources. The goal of the program was to identify ways to make the human brain work in a special regime of super-powers, making a person a superhuman. The Scientific Council of the program was led by an Academician Natalya Bekhtereva, who until her death served as a scientific director of the Institute of Human Brain of RAS.
Over two hundred highly skilled professionals from across the country participated in the program. "In the process of research, we came to the conclusion that a human was an energy and information system that receives information from outside. This is precisely why a human can manifest paranormal abilities," said Alexey Savin. In order to identify this external source of information, three groups were created. One group was formed from scientists, another - from military, and the third one was composed of women.
The group of women made the most significant progress in the research. Savin explained that they "wanted to make a contact with representatives of other civilizations. And we did it." According to him, a special method has been developed that allowed the human brain to tune into a contact. "We had to tune energy-contour of the human brain to a particular wave, like a radio," Alexey Savin explained.
No hypnosis, drugs, or other similar methods were used in the course of the experiment. A special system of testing was also developed to separate the incoming reports from hallucinations and insanity of the experiment participants. The experimental results were impressive: six participants were given a chance of physical contact, and two of them even managed to visit an alien ship. According to Savin, representatives of extraterrestrial civilizations revealed themselves gradually, giving away the information as they saw fit.
In particular, they talked about their government structure and education system. No information on the military could be obtained. The only thing they agreed to share was a scheme of the equipment for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases. The head of the experiment explained that humans were like small children to them. "Our civilization is too young to be of interest to them as a subject for a dialogue. Because we are also a part of the universe, we may harm ourselves and other civilizations with our foolish actions, so they are looking out for us. "
The program of communication with extraterrestrial intelligence had been developed for several years until politics intervened. In 1993, the study was stopped and the unit disbanded. According to Savin, he was able to retain only a small number of documents, most of them, including photo reports, are still in the archives of the Ministry of Defense. Incidentally, the unique method for the development of the phenomenal abilities of an individual, until recently, was used in the Academy named after Gagarin until it was disbanded by the former Defense Minister Serdyukov. Yet, the core of the research team was preserved.
"Four years ago we tried to repeat the experiment, and we were successful," said Alexey Savin. According to him, today this work continues, and the "brains and talented people are still present in the defense industry." Answering the question of Pravda.Ru why it was decided to announce it to the media Savin replied: "Why hide something from people? Instead, they need to prepare for new challenges."
He believes that there are two global challenges today: climate change and shortage of drinking water. Russia has a special role in this process. "When we pass the point of bifurcation, people from all over will run to us. How will we meet them, with weapons? Of course, we will have to negotiate." Maybe all this is a puzzle from the "textbook" for young civilizations? Perhaps, aliens have arranged an experiment to see how we would handle it.
Svetlana Smetanina
Pravda.Ru
Read the original in RussianIt's ok to bring guns into a theater but wearable tech can now send you directly to jail. While the fight for piracy goes on, the fight to increase public safety nationwide in movie theaters isn't even happening.
After past tragedies some movie theaters have imposed bans on guns being brought into movie screenings, but there is no industry motion to encourage theater owners to ban guns outright at public screenings.
Some may argue that banning guns in theaters would violate their human rights, others would say why need them?
In a hypothetical situation, a shootout in a movie theater would cause significant collateral damage (civilian deaths). The close proximity of people sitting in a dark room exacerbates the risk of being caught in a crossfire. Why bring guns into the equation when men, women, and children can be killed just by being so close to the confrontation?
Now take a look at a real situation. A tragedy like Aurora where over 50 people get injured and 12 people are killed by one man is a painful reminder that there are individuals in American society today that have the capacity to kill and strike in public places.
A movie theater is an enclosed space, and when the movie begins to play, it's dark. If one person has a gun and wants to use it, even if people scramble to get out the theater, many could get killed.
My argument would be that it is up to movie theaters to ensure public safety once people walk thru the doors. By all means have armed police offers in the building but don't let the public have guns too, that's a recipe for disaster, and it may happen again.
Back to the issue of piracy, bringing recording equipment in any form into a theater to copy and exploit a film is wrong and should be banned, but when I see the commitment for tough action in this regard, and no appetite to tackle public safety in another, I'm quite disappointed.
Theater owners are not punishing people by banning guns on their premises. People pay good money to see films and their safety should also be upheld by good security protocols.
MPAA Statement regarding wearable tech use
"As part of our continued efforts to ensure movies are not recorded in theaters, however, we maintain a zero-tolerance policy toward using any recording device while movies are being shown. As has been our long-standing policy, all phones must be silenced and other recording devices, including wearable devices, must be turned off and put away at show time. Individuals who fail or refuse to put the recording devices away may be asked to leave. If theater managers have indications that illegal recording activity is taking place, they will alert law enforcement authorities when appropriate, who will determine what further action should be taken."
Full statement on MPAA websiteWASHINGTON — The election may be over, but the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will continue its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email use at the State Department, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told reporters Monday.
“This was never a political targeting from the beginning. Just because there’s a political election doesn’t mean it goes away. So of course I’m going to continue to pursue that,” Chaffetz said.
He said it remained a priority for the committee, though he noted, “I’ve got a lot of top priorities.”
“It’s potentially one of the largest breaches of security in the history of the State Department. It cannot and should never be repeated again. How was it that so much information was able to migrate out the door? These are still open questions that we need to finish up so they don’t happen again.”
Chaffetz said his committee would also work to hold the Trump administration accountable for potential conflicts of interest.
“My job in this role is not to protect or be a cheerleader for the president. It’s just not. I’m not here to defend him at every turn,” Chaffetz said.
But, he cautioned, his committee would have limited ability to deal with the president-elect’s conflicts of interest when he took office. “My concern is to make sure there’s compliance with the law. I will tell you that the president is exempt from a lot of them,” Chaffetz said.
Asked specifically about Trump’s announcement that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, would serve as a senior adviser to the president, and whether that would raise issues of nepotism, Chaffetz demurred. “I have not looked at that at all. I can’t say one direction or another without looking at it,” he said.
But, he added later: “If you’re going to have a relative working in the White House, it’s going to draw some questions.”Shettima Webb (center) works with girls of all shapes and sizes at her Model Esteem classes in Pilsen. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
CHICAGO — Inspired by her own journey to self-acceptance, curvy model Shettima Webb is helping girls across the city learn to slay the runway — their own way.
Webb is the founder of Model Esteem, a modeling and performance art program for kids and young adults. With an anti-bullying message, the program focuses on improving self-esteem in young women by empowering them to put their best foot forward.
In her mid-30s, Webb has broken barriers to forge a career as a professional model. She started in the industry at 30 as a plus-sized model. Today, she's walked in New York Fashion Week shows and poses for print ads often.
But as a kid growing up in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, Webb was teased because of her looks and bullied by her classmates. As a result, she suffered from "very low" self-esteem, she said.
"I got teased because of my skin tone, because I was a darker girl. It was very hurtful," Webb remembered. "I constantly felt not good enough."
At age 15, Webb's grandmother Pearl enrolled her in modeling and acting school at Barbizon Modeling, but her lack of confidence caused by the constant bullying kept her from pursuing her dreams.
"When I was younger, I didn't know who I was. And when you don't know who you are, you allow everyone else to dictate who you are, and you take it to heart," Webb said. "It affected me so much more because I didn't know how to fight it off."
Kayla Holloway poses in a Model Esteem class in Pilsen. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
It wasn't until age 30, after navigating motherhood and a job in accounting, that she mustered the courage to give modeling another go. In 2009, Webb entered the Miss Illinois Plus America pageant and won. The accomplishment propelled her to model in fashion shows, including model showcases during New York Fashion Week and for Chicago-based designer House of Duvall.
"Now, I'm signed to three agencies. The girl who had low self-esteem, the girl that people talked about, is now doing print ads, walking the runway," Webb said.
Webb often tells her own story to motivate young girls to pursue their dreams despite the naysayers.
While models have long been held to strict beauty standards — stereotyped as tall, thin, young and with European features — the industry is changing.
In solidarity with the fashion industry's call to end runway racism, German designer Philipp Plein cast only black models in his spring 2014 show. Last spring, designer Zac Posen followed suit, casting mostly black models at his New York Fashion Week show.
In recent decades, top models have smashed the industry's taller-than-tall height restrictions, too, including 5-foot 7 supermodel Kate Moss and fashion model Devon Aoki, who is 5-foot 5.
And this year, full-figured model Ashley Graham made headlines when she was chosen to grace the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition's cover at a size 14.
That makes sense, Webb said, because plus-sized models represent the majority of women in America.
"As women, we aim to relate to other women," Webb said. "You don't have to be afraid to be who you are."
Andriana Hughes (left) and Kayla Holloway (right) are learning how to model at Model Esteem classes. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
Armed with her own success, Webb's now teaching her tricks of the trade to girls of all shapes and sizes — short, tall, curvy, thin and all different races.
Andriana Hughes, a 13-year-old student from Auburn Gresham, has modeled with Webb for two years, performing in shows at the Daley Center and at Teen Fashion Week. At 5-foot 4, Hughes is shorter than most runway models, but she owns her height.
"If you're you, nobody can really change that," Hughes said. "You're original, you're not a copy, you can't be put in a box or a category."
At 5-foot 11, 13-year-old Kayla Holloway from South Deering was eager to put her long legs to work, but she was shy. In the modeling classes, the Morgan Park Academy student has learned how to exude confidence, she said.
"When I started I was very shy," Holloway said. "But I can express myself through my model walk."
Shatiana Henderson, of Garfield Park, and Jackie Estrada, 20, are proud curve models learning to slay the runway in the Model Esteem program. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
Jackie Estrada of Gage Park has explored modeling as a hobby.
"I always wanted to be a model, but because I'm plus size, I always had people discourage me all of the time because of my size," said Estrada, 20. "They would say 'Oh, you're not thin. You don't have the figure to be a model.'"
Estrada's hobby has come to motivate her in her everyday life.
"No matter what your size is, you should love yourself," she said.
If she were bullied today, she said she would respond: " 'I don't care what you think. I'm going to keep on walking, and I'm going to keep on doing what I love.'"
Shatiana Henderson, 24 of Garfield Park, has been teased in grammar school, high school and even today in college.
"I was teased about my teeth, about my height. I wasn't plus size at first, I was really skinny. Now I'm a size 20," Henderson said proudly. "But seeing Shettima, she had so much 'oomph' about her, so much personality and so much courage. I said, 'If she can do it, I can do it.'"
Some of the girls' transformations — as singers, dancers, actresses and models — have brought Webb to tears. Feeling accepted and loved in the classes, their talents flourish, she said.
"They come here, and they have their heads down; they are very shy. And I just watch them evolve and grow into these beautiful flowers," Webb said. "I'm very proud of them."
The 12-week Model Esteem sessions, priced at $25 per three-hour class, meet Saturday afternoons at Monique Bailey's fitness studio, Skyy Level Group Fitness in Pilsen. For more information on Webb's classes, visit Model Esteem online.
Models work on their poses during a Model Esteem class in Pilsen. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here.The Seed Trials….Are Your Seeds Still Viable?
We have a ton of seeds…..I mean it’s ridiculous. We both love to buy, collect, barter, and save seeds so it can get completely out of control. I can’t really decide which seeds are my favorite I mean they are all amazing to me. Each seed contains life in it or it’s supposed to and you add water and sunshine and a miracle happens. If all goes well we have a seed that starts growing into a plant an in our case food! So this weekend I decided it’s time to test some of these seeds. I am a little late on this one but it’s time to start our seed viability tests some of our seeds I fear we have just had around too long so we are about to start the seed trials.
I am doing it in different rounds (groupings) and in different ways. I would take a photo of our seed storage but it’s so disorganized right now I would be embarrased bu that being said that is what 2016 is all about right? Innovation which equals change well I’m on my way.
Our first seed trials of 2016 we did in a cake pan…my brain child and the Viking thinks our next round will be done in baggies. It doesn’t matter how you do it but they must be kept damp and in a dark area. We also may do a sponge trial too where we lay them out on sponges. I only do a two seeds for my vegetables I have very few seeds left and don’t worry if they are viable they won’t go to waste we will put them in the greenhouse or on the kitchen window sill. I am so excited for this and our results will be one of three choices (very simple) 100%, 50%, or 0% viability. I will also report back to you if these efforts however simplified they may be were worth it. I think that this process “The Seed Trials” will save us time and money; first of all I won’t waste money on seeds if I don’t need them (not that it’s ever wasted but I want to be efficient), and we can concentrate our efforts in purchasing the seeds that are truly needed.
I am already dreaming of our garden this summer and I am hoping it will be chock full of tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, and tomatillos. All of these grow so easy for us and we shouldn’t have to think much about them or our herbs. I could say the same for our Jerusalem Artichokes they are so easy to grow but we have to be careful they don’t take over our entire yard. However they make such a light, dry, crisp, wine that they are a nuisance that I am happy to deal with LOL! Then we have our high maintenance plants like squash, asparagus that we have to really work hard to get them to thrive to maturity. I can’t wait to get our seed orders in! Can you?
Truth is there is no way we can put all of our seeds to the test. No way no how…but I have decided I am going to put some of them to the test. I have them in a tray on top of the refrigerator to keep them warm. For reference here is a great guide a vegetable seed viability chart for your reference – click here!
I can’t wait to post the results to all of you. Also just an fyi two things….I was recently interviewed on my good friend Josh’s show “The 7 P’s of Survival” on the Prepper Broadcasting Network so if you would like to take a listen check it out just click here! I was also featured on my good friend Tiffany’s blog at Imperfectly Happy.com she is doing a feature called “Highlighting Homesteaders” and the Viking and I were thrilled to be a part of her series so I would love it if you wanted to see that feature too just click here!
Are you a seed addict like us? What are your favorite seeds to collect?
I wish you all a beautiful week….until next time!
Fondly,
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Share With OthersCHANTILLY, Virginia -- Remember the War on Women?
A few months ago, it seemed like the battle for women's votes was one Democrats had decisively won. While (male) Republican politicians talked about transvaginal ultrasounds, legitimate rape and the like, Democrats laughed all the way to the bank. President Obama's steady double-digit leads with women in poll after poll were a major reason he stayed ahead of Mitt Romney for months on end.
Then suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, Obama's edge with women began to melt away. More than any other group, women have accounted for Romney's surge in the polls, which has now given him a slim lead in the national popular vote and in some calculations of the electoral college. Women, it appeared, were not as firmly ensconced in Obama's camp as they had seemed. Indeed, they were abandoning the president en masse.
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The evidence that Obama finds himself bleeding women's votes can be seen in how aggressively his campaign has sought to steer the conversation back to women's issues. Campaigning a few miles from here on Friday, Obama stood at a podium flanked by "Women's Health Security" banners; he was introduced by Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, and spoke against a backdrop of risers filled exclusively with women, holding turquoise "FORWARD." signs.
Meanwhile, the evidence that Romney is desperate to hold on to these voters can be seen in how quickly and defensively he has moved to respond. In a new Romney ad this week, a woman googles the claims Obama has made about Romney's abortion stance, only to find out they're not true. Romney's stated position is that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape and incest and when the woman's life is at stake; he has said he would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Already, the Obama campaign -- which has been airing abortion-themed commercials in swing states since June -- is out with another ad responding to Romney's response on the issue.
The recent fluidity of the women's vote, and the renewed struggle it has sparked, raises a question: Why, at this late hour of the campaign, when the vast majority of voters have made up their minds, are so many women still apparently open to changing their minds? Why was their onetime loyalty to Obama so weak? Will the president's forceful new emphasis on women's issues, particularly reproductive issues, bring them back -- or are they gone for good?
A Settled Issue
To find out, I headed to this suburban community near Dulles Airport, a former plantation town an hour outside Washington, D.C., whose Civil War markers are now sprinkled among big-box store developments and, this time of year, pick-your-own-pumpkin patches.
The population growth that turned Virginia from a reliably red state to one of this year's most contested battlegrounds has been concentrated in places like Chantilly, which sits on the border between Loudoun and Fairfax counties -- the No. 1 and No. 2 wealthiest counties in America respectively, with median household incomes well over $100,000.
The class conflict that plays so well in rural Ohio doesn't get much traction here. "This is going to sound totally selfish, but I think people should not be penalized for being monetarily successful," said Eileen B., a blonde 51-year-old with reading glasses perched on her head and a sweater draped over her shoulders. "We are in the top tax bracket, and we pick up the slack for the rest of the people."Elder Jeffrey R. Holland recently addressed a group of young adults in Tempe, AZ, to speak out on what he sees as an alarming trend among Mormon singles. “This may not be a very good word for an apostle to use, but I am furious about the scallywags who belly-flop off the Good Ship Mormonism.”
The mood intensified as Holland gave specific details about his felt consternation. “Now I know some of you may be thinking, ‘There goes old McJeffrey O’Holland again. That Irishman just doesn’t understand the carnival barking we face today.’ Well let me tell you, my young navel-gazing friends: you may think that your testimony is bully enough to withstand apostate flapdoodle, but it’s all fiddle-faddle and horsefeathers.”
The quivering Holland said that changing religious affiliation for any reason was proof positive of entitlement among millennials, leaving non-Mormon investigators in the audience flummoxed. “Young people today think they have a right to get flimflammed by facts and information—as if the truth were something you could just taffy-pull up online. As if good-ole sturdy faith didn’t matter. As if this was all plain-to-see gimcrack. As if none of this mattered. What a bunch of poppycock! Well if this church were built on facts, there would be no room for faith.”
Though temporarily paralyzed after being yelled at during the devotional, young adults responded positively to the evening message. “I really needed to hear this talk tonight,” said Arizona State University sophomore Stephanie Young. “Every single word was inspired. Elder Holland helped me realize that seeking information online gives the adversary an opportunity to confuse me. I am only reading church-sponsored materials from now on so I can protect my faith from facts.”
Elder Holland’s address comes only a few weeks after Brigham Young University’s commencement ceremonies, in which graduates received counsel from Elder L. Whitney Clayton to show their love for the Savior by cutting off all ties with those who wish to discuss topics that make them uncomfortable. “By this shall men know ye are the Savior’s disciples: if ye insulate yourselves one from another,” proclaimed the emotionless Clayton.
When asked following the devotional in Arizona whether he had any counsel for young people concerned about the historical authenticity of LDS scriptural origins, Holland responded saying, “The Restoration of the Gospel was never meant to be a knickknack paddywhack. Give Joseph Smith a bone,” at which point he handed out butterscotch candies and rode away on a bicycle built for two.Cedrick Desjardins led the AHL last season in goals-against average, ranked second in shutouts, fourth in wins and was tied for sixth in save percentage.
The Tampa Bay Lightning have acquired goaltender Cedrick Desjardins from the Montreal Canadiens today in exchange for goaltender Karri Ramo, Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman announced.
Desjardins Profile Height: 6'0"
6'0" Weight: 194
194 Catches: Right
Right Born: Sept 30, 1985
Sept 30, 1985 Birthplace: New Brunswick, CA
New Brunswick, CA Drafted: Undrafted
"We are happy to be able to add Cedrick to the Lightning today," said Yzerman upon making the announcement. "With his American Hockey League experience, he will provide excellent goaltending depth for the organization, allowing us to be patient while Dustin Tokarski and Jaroslav Janus further mature and develop."
Desjardins, 6-foot, 194-pounds, has played in 90 career AHL games, recording a 49-27-5 record, 2.34 goals-against average and a.909 save percentage. He has played all his AHL games with the Hamilton Bulldogs, including career-highs last season for games played with 45, wins with 29, minutes with 2,576, shutouts with six, goals-against average with 2.00 and tied his best for save percentage with.919.
Last season he led the AHL in goals-against average, ranked second in shutouts, fourth in wins and was tied for sixth in save percentage. His success earned him an appearance in the 2010 AHL All-Star Classic, in which he was named top goaltender during the skills competition, as well as landed him on the 2010 AHL Second All-Star Team following the season.
Desjardins has also played in 66 career ECHL games, all with the Cincinnati Cyclones, posting a 40-23-3 recording a.908 save percentage. During the 2008 ECHL playoffs he was named the finals MVP and won the Kelly Cup. Desjardins was also named to the ECHL All-Rookie Team in 2007.
A native of Edmunston, New Brunswick, Desjardins played in 128 QMJHL games with the Rimouski Oceanic and Quebec Remparts during his junior career, posting a 67-47-4 record. In 2006, he helped backstop Quebec to the CHL’s Memorial Cup by posting a 3-1 record with a.926 save percentage en route to being named top goaltender and to the Memorial Cup All-Star Team. Desjardins also aided the Oceanic, along with Sidney Crosby, to the 2005 Memorial Cup where they fell to the London Knights.
Desjardins went undrafted and was signed as a free agent by Montreal on March 7, 2008.Muharram and Rosh Hashnanah Coincides.
This year, thanks to an unusual calendar quirk Muslims and Jews can wish each other happy new year on the same day. Though they differ in many ways, both religions are ‘Abrahamic’ and share many similarities with recurring themes of repentance and renewal and practices of fasting and purification common to the two. Here is a look at what they are both about.
Islamic New Year : Muharram
Islamic festival dates fall in different dates each year :The Islamic calendar is lunar-based and is 11-12 days shorter than the solar-based Gregorian calendar. This is why the Islamic New Year falls on a different Gregorian calendar date each year.
Muslims the world over are commemorating the 1438th Islamic or ‘Hijri’ New Year. Sunset on October 2 this year marked the beginning of the holy month of Muharram.
Jewish New Year: Rosh Hashnanah
The Jewish (Hebrew) Calendar is based on luni-solar cycles and can have anywhere from 353 to 385 days in a year. It marks ‘the creation’ which is believed to have happened around 3760 BC. Rosh Hashnanah or ‘Yom Teruah’ is a two-day-celebration of the Jewish New Year for people, animals and contracts. It translates as ‘Feast of Trumpets’ and is the first of the Jewish ‘High Holy Days’. Rosh Hashnanah is the first day of the month of Tishrei and is said to be the traditional anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve. Like Muslim festivals the day begins at sunset the evening before.
Interfaith Harmony
A harmonious interaction between Jews and Muslims could once be found in a tradition from Morocco. For hundreds of years, Jews would bring Muslims the ‘first bread’ with which to break their final Ramadan fast. Similarly, Muslims would bring their Jewish neighbours their first taste of bread when the Passover festival had ended.
It seems that thanks to the coinciding of the two events this year, similar interactions are taking place around the world.
It seems that thanks to the coinciding of the two events this year, similar interactions are taking place around the world.
Ref: Euro NewsAfter such a polarizing election season, it's no surprise that some people have very strong feelings about the outcome of the presidential race. You may agree or disagree with the result, but it's also important you remember that the presidency is not the only office with power.The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives are in charge of passing and blocking many laws that directly impact your day-to-day life. In the next four years, it's very likely that the Republican-controlled Congress will support many of the proposals of the future Trump administration.But as a constituent, you have the right to voice whether you're in favor or not of those measures, and request that your elected representative take action.And the truth is, reaching out to them is way easier than you think! After all, their contact information now lives online. So really, with just a few clicks, you can start taking measures to make your voice heard.If you don't know where to begin, we got you covered. Just follow these easy steps.You can reach out to your elected representatives through the phone, online, or by sending a letter. Your U.S. representative's contact information can be found in this handy directory, and your U.S. senator's information is in this one If possible, contact your representative's office directly.Another option is dialing 202-224-3121. That will direct you to an operator at the Capitol switchboard. If you choose to do this, be sure you know who your congressperson is, and ask to be connected to them. The operator will direct your call to their office line, and a legislative assistant will likely answer the phone.Always let the staff member know (or if you're lucky, the person who is representing you) what specific issue you are calling about. They are generally busy, and likely have many people who want their ear, so make sure to give your name and state, and get to the point as succinctly as you can.Maybe calling your senator or representative just isn't your thing. Don't fret. Some senators have direct email addresses that are easily found on their websites. Others choose to have those pesky contact forms instead. Either way, you can easily reach out to them with just a couple of clicks.Sending an actual letter is the slowest option out of them all. Due to security processes, all letters and packages must be screened when they reach the Capitol. So, technically it takes weeks for your elected representative to get whatever you send them. Still, if the issue that concerns you is not one of urgency and you want to go the old-school route, each legislator's physical address is easy to find on the aforementioned directories, or on their websites.I think it is a message of some sort to other Sasquatches that may be moving through the area as a result of a huge fire, but I am not quite sure yet what it means. Single tree breaks seem to create a boundary line for about a mile as well heading south of this cluster. It is in an area near a burn area earlier this year in the front range of Colorado. The Sasquatches have been quite agitated this year as a result of the fires, but they adapt quickly and use the animal displacement to their advantage. Once I figure out what this means exactly and what they want I will let you know. It is a mystery, but an interesting one none the less. We will figure it out with time, they want us to at this location. This group is extremely intelligent and friendly and they like us.
These tree break pictures are from our North Park Colorado research area in July, 2011
We received a report this year from three fisherman in North Park, who were non believers in Sasquatch.. They reported rock throwing, rock knocking and tree breaking in the day at a remote lake in the North Park area accessible by 4 wheel drive only.. This baffled them and they were looking for answers when the found our website and gave us a call.. They wanted me to investigate this place and we met on a 4 day excursion in July of this year, and it did not disappoint I assure you.. We experienced tree breaking in the day around us just out of sight and many other things.. One daytime walk in the rain and mist, I came upon a very foul smell much like a skunk only sweeter, which is a sign to me of their presence in my mind near one of the small lakes that makes up this pristine area.. A tree break ensued, which to me means I am getting to close for their comfort, so I backed off and it ceased.. We experienced eye shine on this trip as well.. Many a mind was changed forever on this trip as is often the case when you are lucky to find a spot as remarkable as this one was this summer.. The first picture shows the North Park Colorado lake from our campsite.. We were only one in the area on this trip. There were no other campers. What a grand place indeed.. The second picture shows you that it was a misty, rainy day in North Park as we looked for signs and evidence.. A perfect day as often times bad weather will illicit day time activity, which was the case.. The third picture shows tree breaks, which mark territories between Sasquatches and are used to frighten intruders is our view on this behavior.. This one was on a game trail on the NE side of the small lake they seem to use as their home base in this area.. The fourth picture shows tree breaks on south east side of the lake.. Note one is across the trail to the second lake they inhabit, which basically means keep out.. Unfortunately for them, I am not a very good listener.. The fourth picture is of a fresh break that occurred at 02:30 pm just west of my tent in the day time as I sat in my lawn chair having a sandwich.. It was a very loud crack all 5 of us heard at this excurion.. I ran as I fast as I could to try and catch a glimpse of the offending culprit, but found only scuff marks in the hard soil and a broken tree.. It is my opinion they were voicing their displeasure with me having found their location and camping so close to them |
Federal Court, alleging the country's second-largest mortgage lender breached responsible lending practices.
Westpac is readying to get rid off its shareholding in BTIM. Credit:Carla Gottgens
In the first action of its kind, ASIC claims the bank failed to properly assess whether its customers could make minimum repayments on home loans approved between December 2011 and March 2015.
Westpac allegedly used a statistical benchmark to assess loan repayments instead of the actual expenses declared by prospective borrowers and approved loans where a proper assessment would have shown a monthly deficit.As if you needed any indication that the Northeast United States is the best place to live and that Philadelphia is the best of the five major cities along the Northeast Corridor, here's a look at the 2014-15 NHL Super Schedule, which tracks how many miles teams will travel over the course of the year.
The Philadelphia Flyers will travel less than every other team in the NHL this coming season -- in total, 31,272 miles, or a full 1,172 miles less than the closest team to them on the list, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Compare that with the Arizona Coyotes, who will travel a whopping 49,818 miles this season, and also consider that road trips to places like Washington, Newark and New York City are simple Amtrak rides and not plane trips, making this even easier for the Flyers. (For the record, the Flyers typically fly from PHL to Republic Airport on Long Island for games against the Islanders.)
The Super Schedule also tracks back-to-back sets of games each team is forced to play. The Flyers schedule has been pretty consistent in this department lately, and they'll play 14 back-to-backs in 2014-15. That's the same number they played last year and just one more than they did in 2011-12.
Here's a full look at the numbers:ADVERTISEMENT
He said the only “big difference” he could see between Romney and Santorum was one of “tone” rather than policy.
Paul and Romney have been the subject of speculation recently over whether they have a private alliance pledging not to harm each other’s prospects. Both deny it, with Paul saying Monday that the two have “cordial relations” but still run negative ads.
“I think he's the kind of person that at least listens when I say something,” Paul said. “We just have disagreements on the spending and the policies. I believe in a lot less government than he does.”
He said he doubted Romney would consider him for his administration.
“I don't think that's likely to happen,” he continued. “We have to wait and see what comes out of this election."
Paul also dismissed concerns that the fractured vote and long primary process is bad for the GOP.
“Why should we quit and say, 'OK, it's getting late, so we all have to get together and quit debating the issues'? No, I think the debate should go on,” he said. “It's not like this is the first time they didn't have a candidate by this time in the cycle. The Democrats didn't have one by this go-around, didn't happen until June. I don't think it hurts to debate the issues."
Paul, who has not won a primary vote so far in the race and is well behind in the delegate count, said he is not dropping out anytime soon because he is the only candidate “really discussing the alternative to our foreign policy, monetary policy or our financial crisis and spending” as well as “militarism overseas.”
“Yes, I am trailing, but the race isn't over,” Paul said.For the first time in their lives, twins Erin and Abby Delaney are able to lie side by side in their own beds.
Until a week ago, the 10-month-old baby girls from North Carolina were joined at the head -- a condition called craniopagus. It's an uncommon type of conjoined twins.
More typically, conjoined twins are born joined at the chest, abdomen or pelvis. Conjoined twins also sometimes share one or more internal organs. The condition occurs when, in the early stages of development, an embryo only partially separates to form two babies.
Surgeons at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) completed the girls' separation on June 6. It took a 30-member team of doctors, nurses and other medical staff from specialties including neurosurgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, and anesthesiology.
The 11-hour operation was led by neurosurgeon Dr. Gregory Heuer and plastic surgeon Dr. Jesse Taylor. Both are also on the faculty of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Separating conjoined twins is a very complex surgery followed by a long and complicated recovery, but we are very hopeful for a positive outcome," Taylor said in a press statement.
Heuer described some of the operation details.
"During the separation surgery, our team first meticulously separated the infants' shared blood vessels and dura, the tough protective membrane surrounding both brains, then moved on to separate the sagittal sinus, the most difficult portion of the operation," he said in a statement.
Then they divided the medical team in half, one group for each of the girls, and finished the reconstruction portion of the surgery, he said.
Physicians monitoring the twins' vital signs and administering their anesthesia throughout the operation used green and purple tape, one color for each baby, to track their separate progress.
Erin and Abby are recovering in the hospital's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and being closely monitored. The post-surgery care team also includes nutritionists and developmental pediatricians to help the newly separated babies thrive.
Doctors separate conjoined twins in historic operation
This was the 23rd time that surgeons at CHOP have separated a pair of conjoined twins, but the Delaneys are the first pair conjoined at the head.
Parents Heather and Riley Delaney learned they were expecting conjoined twins about 11 weeks into the pregnancy. They traveled from their home in North Carolina to Philadelphia during Heather's 19th week of pregnancy for evaluation and monitoring, and returned every two weeks until her 26th week, when she stayed permanently until the girls' birth. They were born by C-section on July 24, 2016, 10 weeks premature, each weighing two pounds and one ounce.
They babies received physical, occupational and speech therapy in the months before their separation while their doctors developed a comprehensive plan for their full surgical separation.
Heather and Riley plan to bring Erin and Abby home later this year.
"When we go home, it's going to be a big party," said Heather. "Welcome home, baby shower, first birthday."
Additional surgeries will also likely be needed, the hospital reported.MUMBAI: President Ramnath Kovind on his maiden visit to Maharashtra declared the urban areas of the state as Open Defecation Free (ODF). It was also the President’s birthday on Sunday.Two years ago, chief minister Devendra Fadanvis had announced the Swachcha Maharashtra abhiyan in line with the Swachcha Bharat abhiyan. The government urban development department then took up the task of ensuring toilets to all in the 384 urban areas in the state.Fadanvis while declaring that urban Maharashtra was ODF said it was now necessary to ensure it remains sustainable. “The ODF mission will not be sustainable till people change their habits. For this we have set up the ODF watch scheme whereby people will be persuaded to use toilets. Sometime we may even need to shame people to stop defecating in the open. Through the next six months we will persuade and encourage people to use toilets,” he said.The function was held at the National Sports Club of India, Worli. Kovind who was accompanied by his wife had earlier inaugurated the Shirdi international airport and the year-long centenary celebrations of Shri Saibaba Samadhi. While praising the government’s efforts Kovind said, “It is the beginning of a journey. It is good that sustainability of the ODF mission is being focused upon. The New India-2022 that Modiji is talking of, ODF is a giant step in that direction,” he said.Commending actor Amitabh Bachchan for promoting toilets, he said the veteran Bollywood superstar is inspiring people across the country with his “Darwaza Bandh, Bimari Bandh” promo. Women are taking the lead in demanding toilets. “Our daughters are now asking if the household that she will be wed into has a toilet,” he said.One of the key elements that would ensure that people use a public toilet is that the user cleans it after use. “People shun public toilets because they are in a terrible state. Those using it must ensure that it is clean after use,” he said.Pankaja Munde, minister for rural development said the percentage of toilets in rural areas had gone up from 44% to 88%. By October next year all of rural Maharashtra will be ODF, she said.Fadanvis said the entire state will be ODF by 2019.After some time, coming with another review. This time, a pair of V2 Zebras from Sam, according to him this are his own batch from his own factory. These were sent for free for an unbiased and honest review.
Feel free to help spotting mistakes/flaws that I might have missed as this time I don’t have retails to compare unlike other V2s. At the same time, have in mind stuff that varies between sizes or even each pair. Not all retails look the same.
SELLER, SHIPPING AND PACKAGING
Sam communicated quite fast through Whatsapp (all his information will be at the end of the review), always answering within a few hours depending on how busy he was.
He shipped through EMS on the 19th and arrived on the 26th. No issues with customs or anything. Was delivered to my house through Correos which is the local/national shipping company for Spain, so depends on where you live, will be different. EMS is definitely safer regarding customs compared to DHL, although a bit slower most of the time.
Regarding packaging, it came double boxed, and this is the box that has arrived from China in the best condition. Almost flawless. Hell, it’s even in better condition than some of my retail boxes. Not a big deal for most people, but nice to see. Depending on the shipping company they might end up better or worse though.
The shoes came in independent plastic bags inside the box just so they arrived in good condition. There were included a business card with his information and a keychain just to match the shoes. Nothing uncommon, but always nice to receive a little gift!
THE SHOES VS RETAIL
As I said, I don’t have retails in hand to compare unlike on the Breds review, but will try my best to compare both.
The box label looks nice. No apparent big flaws. Just so you don’t get called out when your friends check your collection at your house or you don’t have to hide the box or something. This is the US retail label by the way. Not the international/european one.
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Here you can have an overall view of them. They look good for the most part. But as soon as I took them out of the box something was wrong. Everything behind the toebox is higher than it should be. I compared the height of the ankle collar on this pair and a retail bred. It’s 0.5-1 cm too high on this pair of zebras. It’s weird though because on feet, it’s not noticeable and they look almost perfect, and on some pictures you can easily tell, in others you can’t.
Compared to the StockX pictures (angle can make a difference here but you can see what I mean), the lower part of the shoe, just above the midsole, it’s a bit too high. This might just be my pair as other pictures on his site look fine or at least better than mine.
The midsole and sole color are pretty accurate compared to others, although even the restock pairs, European and US pairs usually differ a bit in some characteristics as they used different factories.
At first I thought this would be an issue, but on feet (video and pics further down in the review) they look just fine. I also wore this pair a few times and got NOTHING BUT COMPLIMENTS (and this was with people who are sneakerheads and got retail V2s and other stuff too).
Let’s keep going. Checking the text on the side, it looks okay. Not too far from the pulltab, it’s slightly thinner and slightly taller than retail (I personally like it this way more than on retails but regarding accuracy, not 1:1, but not noticeable unless you have retails side by side) follows the white stripe properly…Nothing wrong.
The pulltab and the heel look fine too. Nothing caught my attention.
One thing that I don’t see mentioned a lot, is the primeknit. This one feels basically like retail, it’s pretty soft and comfy. Why do I mention this? Because I had PK Creams (one of the first batches, don’t know if this has changed) and the primeknit was stiff as fuck and wasn’t near as comfortable after a long time as retails or other reps, and honestly at first I cared mostly about how 1:1 the shoe was, but now, I rather have a minor flaw that’s not noticeable on foot than having an uncomfortable shoe. For example, the primeknit on the SS is lightly softer than retails and is comfortable af and I love wearing them even if they aren’t as 1:1 as other top tier batches. Same goes for these zebras.
Boost looks good. This part is inconsistent as fuck with every new V2 release (my retail Creams, which I sold long time ago, had the boost looking like melted marshmallow) so it isn’t a great way to LC or compare. It’s pretty soft, more or less like retail and feels basically the same on foot. I’d say that it’s more defined than retails for the most part though.
The black stuff on the ankle collar seems to be the black primeknit showing through the collar material, thought it was a stain but seems like I was wrong taking a closer look. Besides that, this part looks alright too, not 1:1 in shape and materials as retails, but that’s common on reps on this part.
The underside of the insole looks really damn close to retail compared to other reps, specially the text on the side. The adidas YEEZY print isn’t good though, pretty blurry. Not a big deal if you’re gonna wear these honestly, just don’t be a d*ck and try to scam people.
The size tag inside the shoe is fine, the UPC code matches with the box, the font isn’t 1:1 but it’s pretty darn close anyway. Has the production date of the Restock Zebras, not the first release. Sam told me they used a retail pair as reference to produce these, and the restock is known to have worse QC and more inconsistency between pairs so that might have something to do with some “supposed flaws” of this pair.
ON FEET
Click on the images to zoom in.
I’d say they looks pretty nice on feet. If you look straight from the floor, it still looks slightly taller than it should be. But if you have someone looking like that to check your shoes you should just smack them or something. As I said I worse this a few times and didn’t have any issue. They’re really nice and wore them for hours and hours without issue.
ON FEET VIDEO
Honestly they look even better on this video than on the pictures. Hopefully you enjoy it!
Video recorded with a Samsung S8, 1080p 60fps.
Conclusion
At first when I got them I thought the height-thing would be an issue. After wearing them and taking some pictures and video, I don’t care at all. They’re awesome. Yes, they can still be improved, but that is what this review is for. No glaring flaws where there usually are, like on the text, stripe height, etc. You won’t be disappointed if you get these, although all I can say is that I can recommend Sam as a seller, no matter which batch you want. He has a huge amount of models on his site, his service is quite nice and you have a trustworthy seller that might not be as busy as others so you can get your stuff quick and easy, at least in my experience.
W2C
He has a lot of shoes while he updates to the most recent batch as soon as possible, at least for the most part. 10% Discount: skru10
Sam’s website: http://www.sneakerkicks.ru/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sneakerkicksru/
Whatsapp: +8618559392863
Email: sneakerkicks@outlook.com
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A delivery robot tested among the crowds of central London is set to start being deployed in the capital.
The self-driving, battery-powered box on wheels is poised to undertake local delivery trials in Greenwich following 3,000 hours of testing.
The robots by Starship Technologies have been described as “ground drones” and were created by former Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis.
Their invention is expected to be popular at smaller local businesses, such as bakeries and corner shops, that could send out the robot containing goods in its tub body costing only a pound or two.
They are part of the €25 million EU Smart Cities project to test if new and unproven technologies to see if they can enhance people’s lives.
An on-board battery lasts for about two hours and the delivery range will be up to 30 minutes away base, guided by GPS using 3G signals.
They travel at up to 4mph and are programmed with software to help avoid obstacles and are CO2-free, apart from power used charging batteries.
The six-wheeled drone can “hop” up kerbs and over cobbles, plus sensors help it dodge people.
It also knows to wait if it is about to encounter a large group so they can pass.
The “cargo bay” is locked throughout the journey and can only be opened by the recipient via their smarthphone.
If troublemakers think of damaging the robot, it features nine cameras to capture their face, plus a microphone and speaker to warn them off.
The company is also looking in the future at using drones to police their robot workforce.
An operator can take over control remotely if the robot gets into trouble.
The company says they hope to replace the need to shopping trips, which is currently the purpose of one third of British car journeys.
Speaking to the Standard at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Allan Martinson, chief operating officer of Starship Technologies said: “We went to the South Bank on a Saturday, near to the London Eye, where it is crowded are lots of tourists and we didn’t have any problems with pedestrians or cyclists.”
Keith Cornell, the firm’s senior advisor, said: “It weighs 20lbs and is able to hold 20lbs worth of goods.
“It can’t hold a flatscreen TV but it holds three bags of groceries or two pairs of shoes.
“When you request a delivery, rather than get a text saying you will get it between these hours, you call it up, you see a map of it coming to you, it alerts you when it gets there and you then push the button that unlocks it.
“You take out your goods, put the top back down and away it goes.
“We’re waiting to start the tests and show it actually working in a populated area.
“We want to get public acceptance and show that it works.
“It’s not obtrusive and it’s not scary, most people say it’s cute.”It was one of the most famous performances in American history -- Marilyn Monroe's version of "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy at a democratic fundraiser on May 19, 1962.
But it was a moment after Monroe sang at Madison Square Garden in honor of the president's 45th birthday that is attracting attention.
Play
A black and white image, which is now up for sale, is the only known photograph of Kennedy and Monroe together, perhaps because of the rumors of an affair that have swirled for 50 years.
In the photo Monroe, wearing the same dress she performed in, is speaking to President Kennedy, whose head is tilted slightly and looking down while listening to her. His brother, Robert Kennedy, is standing next to the pair looking on.
Singer Harry Belafonte is in the background and historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who served as an advisor in the Kennedy White House, is standing off to the side smiling.
The photo was snapped at a private party at the Manhattan home of Arthur and Mathilde Krim, according to filmmaker Keya Morgan who owns the print. He said the existence of the image was kept a secret for decades.
"The Secret Service had specific instructions not to photograph President Kennedy and Marilyn together because it would have been a national scandal," Morgan said.
The only photographer that was allowed into the party was Cecil Stoughton, the White House photographer and the person who snapped the photo.
Stoughton took several photos at the party, but once President Kennedy saw the camera, he turned his head towards the wall, Morgan said.
Later the Secret Service asked Stoughton to give them all of his photos of Kennedy and Monroe.
Secret Service Asks For All of the Photographs
"He handed over all those negatives and photos. There [were] multiple ones," Morgan said. "And the only one that survived, ever, was that one that was in the dryer, you know, where they were drying the negative, and he kept it a secret for decades, decades and decades."
Morgan said he believes Stoughton kept the image a secret for all those years out of politeness for Jackie Kennedy, the president's wife.
"He was very close with Jackie and he said he did not want to do anything to really hurt her and upset her," Morgan said.
The filmmaker bought the photo and dozens of other lesser known images from Stoughton for approximately $50,000 for a documentary about Monroe sometime in the early 2000s.
The image of the Kennedy brothers and Monroe is only one of 10 prints that exists from the negative. Morgan is now selling it for $23,000. He will also sell one of Monroe's rings and her watch, which was made from three types of gold, for $275,000.
"You know, Marilyn died within months. President Kennedy died the next year and Bobby a few years from that. So what a haunting photograph, and it's the only one of any of them together," Morgan said.
Click here to return to the "Good Morning America" Web site.The Poor Man's Character Controller
03 Apr 2015
Let's say that, like so many of us, you want to make a surreal voxel-based first-person parkour game. You're trying to figure out a production schedule. What will take the longest? Graphics? Sound? Level design? I bet it will be the character controller. And I bet it will take 4½ years. Why?
In running/jumping games, player movement is paramount. It takes forever to nail the right feeling.
Each game is a unique snowflake. You will not find an article explaining how to design the controls for your specific game. You're flying blind.
That said, each game offers a few transferrable bits of wisdom. Here's my story.
Make a character
You're a programmer, but one time you were able to suppress the gag reflex while using GIMP, so you're pretty much an artist too. You can draw a player character.
That's certainly... a drawing. So the player is an anthropomorphized cylinder? Well, we've seen worse.
If this character has any flaw, it's that he's too exciting and interesting. Can you make him a little more boring and generic? What if you use MakeHuman? It literally generates human characters from a template.
Much better. But there's just one problem: this is a first-person game, so when players look down, they can see their own nose:
Also, the "pectoral musculature" slider is a tad high, and players are getting confused about their gender.
You end up switching to a female character. Because why not?
Now for the nose problem. You can't remove the entire head, because a headless shadow might be somewhat disconcerting. What if you just remove the face?
(Eventually you revamp the model, hire an animator, and use separate models, one sans head, for the first-person view and shadow renderer. But none of that is entertaining.)
Make it move
You're using a great physics engine (seriously, it's quite good) that comes with a simple character controller. It looks like this:
The character is a cylinder floating above the ground, supported by a single raycast. This way, the cylinder can clear a small obstacle, and once the raycast hits it, the whole apparatus jumps on top.
Tons of players get stuck this way in your first alpha release. Rather than spend time on an elegant solution, you brute-force it:
Despite this, people still get stuck. You resort to a collision handler that actually pushes the character away from anything that could cause problems. You also interpolate the vertical position to smooth out the camera when traversing uneven voxels:
Make it unrealistic
In an attempt to model reality accurately, the game has no air control at this point. When you originally made this decision, you somehow forgot that the game is about an imaginary cube world.
Thankfully, after listening to player feedback, you have a change of heart. In the real world, traceurs have many control dimensions (namely, their muscles) that enable precise jumps. Video games have exactly one button. Air control is only fair.
Make it fun
Since parkour is about momentum, you want the character to take several seconds to reach max speed. Which is fine, except that low acceleration makes small adjustments difficult. The first step takes forever, and the character feels like a semi truck.
Your solution uses different accelerations depending on the current speed. The final speed curve looks like this:
This solves half the problem, but players can still use the mouse to quickly whip the camera around 90+ degrees, which resets their speed back to zero.
You experiment with a few hacks, but eventually settle on a solution using the dot product. It's basically a measure of the angle between two vectors multiplied by their magnitude. (Here's a quick interactive demo.)
You use a dot product to find out how much side-to-side momentum the character has. If they're facing perpendicular to the direction of their momentum, the dot product will be large. You use that to increase the acceleration. Long story short, turning no longer burns momentum.
Make it slippery
There are other ways to lose momentum, like running into a brick wall. You try to mitigate this with low friction physics materials, but angling yourself into a wall will always slow you down:
You are inspired by a blog post by Mike Bithell on this topic. You use three raycasts and some cross product magic to figure out a velocity that will slide along the wall.
Later on, you discover another annoyance. Your wonderful voxel engine sometimes helpfully constructs voxels like this:
There's a seam between the two adjacent blocks due to floating point error. When the character moves flush with the wall and tries to jump upward, it hits the seam and immediately stops.
The solution is brain-dead simple: change the cylinder to a capsule. Yes, it really does take you 4 years to figure this out.
Make it forgiving
At first, players just don't understand the movement mechanics. They think they can't get from point A to point B, until you tap them on the shoulder and explain they have to do XYZ. You suspect this is because your tutorial is actually a placebo at this point.
Eventually, the tutorial gets pretty good. Everyone understands the movement capabilities, and they can figure out which moves to use. But now they have a new problem: they fail in the twitchy execution and timing details of their plans.
The worst culprit is a single infamous jump in the tutorial. It tries to teach players how to grab ledges because it's too long to cross with a normal jump.
Players fail two or three times before you tell them to "button-mash", which helps them nail the timing through sheer brute-force. Interestingly, as soon as they make this one jump, they have no trouble completing future jumps without button-mashing. For a while, you arrogantly conclude that people are just stupid.
Part of the problem is still the tutorial: you ask players to make a leap of faith and perform a move they've never seen before. They have no idea what the character will do or how long it will take. So you add another, earlier tutorial that lets players try out the ledge grab in a safe space.
But the frustration of perfect timing remains. The solution is two-fold:
Let players jump for a split second after they walk off an edge.
Let them hold buttons instead of tapping at the right moment.
To the surprise of no one but you, this makes the game a lot less frustrating and a lot more fun.
Make it look good
Over the course of development, you stumble on a few animation tricks. With enough nifty procedural animation, maybe people won't notice your shoddy weight painting and texture work!
Attach the camera position to the character's head bone, but use a separate root bone to control camera rotation. This eliminates weird rotations when blending between animations.
Speaking of which, use a quadratic curve to blend between animations rather than straight linear.
Also, don't use linear matrix interpolation. Instead use quaternion interpolation.
Remember the dot product from earlier, for calculating side-to-side momentum? Use that to make the character and camera lean when turning at speed.
Run the character bone transforms through filters for nice effects like tilting the character's head when looking up and down.
Plant the character's feet and play a little foot-shuffling animation when turning in place.
(For a much more eloquent and in-depth look at procedural animation, check out David Rosen's GDC talk.)
Conclusion
Budget an extraordinary amount of time for your character controller. Make it special and unique. And if you're me, prepare to be wrong most of the time.
Lemma is set to release in May. The entire game engine is on GitHub. If you enjoyed this article, try these:
Thanks for reading!On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Six people died, including federal District Court Chief Judge John Roll; Gabe Zimmerman, one of Giffords' staffers; and a nine-year-old girl, Christina-Taylor Green.[7][8][9][10][11] Giffords was holding the meeting, called "Congress on Your Corner", in the parking lot of a Safeway store when Jared Lee Loughner drew a pistol and shot her in the head before proceeding to fire on other people.[8][9] One additional person was injured in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.[12] News reports identified the target of the attack to be Giffords, a Democrat representing Arizona's 8th congressional district.[8] She was shot through the head at point-blank range, and her medical condition was initially described as "critical".[8][9]
Loughner, a 22-year-old Tucson man who was fixated on Giffords, was arrested at the scene.[13] Federal prosecutors filed five charges against him, including the attempted assassination of a member of Congress and the assassination of a federal judge.[10][14][15] Loughner previously had been arrested (but not convicted) once on a minor drug charge[16] and had been suspended by his college for disruptive behavior. Court filings include notes handwritten by Loughner indicating he planned to assassinate Giffords.[14] Loughner did not cooperate with authorities, invoking his right to remain silent.[9] He was held without bail and indicted on 49 counts. In January 2012, Loughner was found by a federal judge to be incompetent to stand trial based on two medical evaluations, which diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia.[17] Judged still incompetent to stand trial on May 25, finally on August 7, Loughner had a hearing at which he was judged competent. He pleaded guilty to 19 counts, and in November 2012 was sentenced to life in prison.
Following the shooting, American and international politicians expressed grief and condemnations. Gun control advocates pushed for increased restrictions on the sale of firearms and ammunition, specifically high-capacity magazines.[18] Some commentators criticized the use of harsh political rhetoric in the United States, with a number blaming the political right wing for the shooting; in particular, Sarah Palin was criticized for a poster by her political action committee that featured stylized crosshairs on an electoral map. Palin rejected claims that she bore responsibility for the shooting, and others defended her by noting that Loughner hated all politicians regardless of their affiliation.[19] President Barack Obama led a nationally televised memorial service on January 12, and other memorials took place.
Shooting [ edit ]
Roadside sign for the "Congress on Your Corner" constituent meeting
The shooting took place on January 8, 2011, at 10:10 a.m. MST (17:10 UTC).[20][21] A United States Representative from Arizona, Gabrielle Giffords, was holding a constituent meeting called "Congress on Your Corner"[15][22] at the Safeway supermarket in La Toscana Village mall, which is in Casas Adobes, an unincorporated area north of Tucson, Arizona.[23] Giffords had set up a table outside the store and about 20 to 30 people were gathered around her when 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner suddenly drew a pistol and shot Giffords in the head.[24][25] The shooting was caught on video by a store security camera, but has not yet been released to the public.[21][26]
Weapons recovered from perpetrator; knife, four magazines, Glock 19
Loughner proceeded to fire apparently randomly at other members of the crowd.[7][27] He was armed with a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol with four magazines, two of which were capable of holding 33 rounds.[28][29][5][6] A nearby store employee said he heard "15 to 20 gunshots".[30] Loughner stopped to reload, but dropped the loaded magazine from his pocket to the sidewalk, from where bystander Patricia Maisch grabbed it.[31] Another bystander clubbed the back of the assailant's head with a folding chair, injuring his elbow in the process, representing the fourteenth injury.[32] Loughner was tackled to the ground by Bill Badger, a 74-year-old retired United States Army Colonel [33] who had also been shot himself. Loughner was further subdued by Maisch and bystanders Roger Sulzgeber and Joseph Zamudio. Zamudio, a concealed weapon (CCW) permit holder, had a weapon on his person, but arrived after the shooting had stopped and did not draw his firearm.[34] Thirty-one shell casings were found at the scene by investigators.[35]
The first call from the scene to emergency services was received at 10:11 a.m.[20] While waiting for help to arrive, Giffords' intern Daniel Hernández Jr. applied pressure to the gunshot wound on her forehead, and made sure she did not choke on her blood. Hernández was credited with saving Giffords' life.[36][37] David and Nancy Bowman, a married doctor and nurse who were shopping in the store, immediately set up triage and attended to nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green.[11] Police arrived on the scene at 10:15 a.m., with paramedics arriving at 10:16 a.m.[38] Badger observed the assailant attempting to discard a small bag containing money and identification, which was recovered by the officers.[39] Following the shooting, the police shut down roads surrounding the shopping center until late in the day. The intersection was cordoned off and most of the businesses in the shopping center were closed throughout the weekend during the initial investigation.[40] The Safeway store reopened a week later, with a makeshift memorial erected near the front of the store.[41]
Five people died at the scene,[42] including Chief Judge John Roll and Giffords' community outreach director Gabe Zimmerman.[7][10] Most of the injured were taken to University Medical Center in Tucson.[43] Christina-Taylor Green was later pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.[9][44]
When Loughner's parents arrived at their home, unaware of the shootings, they found police tape and police cars around their house. Their neighbor Wayne Smith said Loughner's mother "almost passed out right there", while his father sat in the road and cried. Smith described the family as "devastated", feeling guilty, and wondering "where did they fail?"[45] Loughner's parents released a statement three days later expressing remorse for the victims and saying, "We don't understand why this happened."[46]
[47] La Toscana Village mall. The attack occurred near the Safeway main entrance, which is below the gable-end.
Investigation [ edit ]
Police investigate the crime scene, seen here around two hours after the attack
Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect, was described as a white male in his mid-20s with short hair and "dressed in a shabby manner". He was arrested after being detained by bystanders,[8][48][49] and police later released his name and details.[48] The FBI attempted to question Loughner, but he reportedly refused to cooperate with authorities and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.[8][9][50] Authorities said that Loughner's motive was unknown.[9] They said that evidence seized from a safe in Loughner's home included an envelope marked with notes reading "I planned ahead", "My assassination", and "Giffords", as well as a letter from Giffords' office thanking him for attending a similar event in 2007.[14][51]
Federal officials charged Loughner the next day with killing federal government employees, attempting to assassinate a member of Congress and attempting to kill federal employees.[52][53][54] Police reports reveal he had purchased a Glock pistol at a Sportsman's Warehouse store, after passing the required FBI background check,[55] less than six weeks before and attempted to buy additional ammunition for the pistol at a Walmart on the morning of the shooting,[56] but the clerk refused to sell it to him based on his appearance and demeanor.[57][58]
As the shooting occurred outside the Tucson city limits in unincorporated Casas Adobes, the Pima County Sheriff's Department started the initial |
big or small, can accept digital payments without having to ask banks or credit card companies for permission to pay them exorbitant fees. Sounds crazy, but more than 120,000 merchants around the world from Microsoft to Stoney Creek Roasters Coffee in Dayton, Ohio accept bitcoin.
Imagine a world where billions of dollars in small business loans are unlocked by entrepreneurs in the developing world because of clear access to property title — enabled by the Blockchain. Sounds crazy, but the Government of Honduras is already working on this.
And that is just the beginning of the possibilities.
We all remember the remarkable 1994 NBC Today Show interview with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel when they famously asked live on air, “what is the internet?”
Back then, very few fully understood the power of such an open and interoperable system. And now we live in a world where we stream movies through our iPhones that we searched for in a place called Google, all the while keeping in touch with our friends and family in a place called Facebook, while simultaneously buying holiday presents for our loved ones in a place called Amazon — all in the palm of our hands.
My BitFury colleagues and I will be working together to regularly comment and tell the story of the power of the Blockchain — through speeches, blogs, social, earned and owned media, and technical white papers. Tune in to www.bitfury.com and join the discussion happening across the globe by following us on Twitter and on Facebook. The ongoing Blockchain conversation is riveting, inspiring and — for me — life changing.
Want to learn more? The Blockchain was featured as the cover story on the Economist a few weeks ago. Click here for their take on the power of this emerging technology.
And let yourself imagine.These stuffed vegan cabbage rolls are made with tender leaves of steamed cabbage wrapped around a savory, smoky mixture of quinoa and lentils, baked up in tomato sauce until piping hot.
This is kind of a funny recipe for me. See, back when I started blogging, I never expected to post a recipe for vegan stuffed cabbage rolls. I felt like nobody would want vegan recipes for things they grew up eating. Boy have I learned a lot since then.
I realize now that you guys (an myself as well) are just as into delicious vegan versions of old favorites as totally original creations.
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Here’s the thing about these vegan cabbage rolls: I first made them, like, two years ago when I was playing around with some leftover cabbage. My husband and I loved them, but I think we both came to the conclusion that they weren’t my speed when it came to blog material.
Since then I’ve had delicious success with vegan remakes of all kinds of traditional favorites, and you guys seem to love them.
So I remade my cabbage rolls a few weeks ago, and you know what? I’m really glad I didn’t post them the first time around, because who knows if I’d have ever gotten around to making them again, and they’re so good.
We polished these off with a big old plate of mashed potatoes. I wouldn’t even let my husband take the leftovers to work. That’s how much I loved these suckers.
Do they taste like non-vegan stuffed cabbage? I’m not sure. Hey, it’s been a while. But they’re savory, smoky and delicious. A big old plate of winter comfort food, and pretty darn healthy to boot. Can’t beat that.
Tips for Making Perfect Vegan Cabbage Rolls
This recipe requires about 1 small or 1/2 of a large head of cabbage. I recommend using a large one, and just using the outer leaves. These leaves will be larger and easier to roll than leaves from a small head of cabbage.
I recommend using a large one, and just using the outer leaves. These leaves will be larger and easier to roll than leaves from a small head of cabbage. Want to keep this recipe gluten-free? Use gluten-free tamari instead of soy sauce.
Use gluten-free tamari instead of soy sauce. Make-ahead option: Assemble the rolls and arrange them in your baking dish with the sauce up to a day in advance. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Then uncover and bake according to the recipe when you’re ready to serve them.
Like this recipe? If so, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, or subscribe to my newsletter. And please stop back and leave me a review and rating below if you make it!SEOUL, Dec 20 (Reuters) - South Korea’s latest nuclear reactor started commercial operations on Tuesday, bringing the total number of reactors in Asia’s fourth-largest economy to 25.
The 1,400-megawatt Shin Kori No.3, located near the city of Busan, over 300 km (190 miles) southeast of Seoul, is designed to run for 60 years, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co Ltd (KHNP) said in a statement.
South Korea’s atomic sector generates about a third of the country’s power, but many locals are still spooked by the Fukushima disaster in nearby Japan, as well as a scandal at home a couple of years ago over fake safety certificates for nuclear equipment.
KNHP also said another reactor, Shin Kori No.4, would gain operational approval in the first half of next year, before beginning a test run.
Meanwhile, the Hanul No.5 nuclear reactor was shut on Tuesday to check its water level after a small amount of cooling water had leaked, said KHNP spokesman Kim Tae-seok. He added that no radiation had leaked.
The shutdown of the 1,000-MW nuclear reactor brings the total number of reactors offline to seven, according to KNHP’s website.Inside the Padres’ clubhouse this spring, Wil Myers is occupying two adjacent lockers, a space that previously belonged to Matt Kemp and, before him, Carlos Quentin. The assignment is an indication of Myers’ standing on a youthful team. The 26-year-old first baseman last month signed the largest contract in Padres history, a six-year, $83 million extension that cemented him as the franchise’s face.
If not for some well-timed advice, it might never have come to pass.
Before he embarked on a torrid June that led to an All-Star berth and lasting security, Myers experienced a period of trepidation. Near the end of last May, the Padres were in Phoenix on an off-day. Myers, because of a slight strain in his left forearm, had not started either of the last two games. He was hitting.262 with seven home runs. Though he maintained his ailment was not directly related to past wrist problems, he was leaning toward the side of caution. He called his agent, Jeff Berry.
“I was like, ‘Dude, this thing is hurting,’” Myers recalled. “‘Should I go on the (disabled list)? I don’t know what to do. Another fricking wrist injury.’
“Jeff was like, ‘If you can play through this and it won’t make anything worse, I think you should play.’
“I got pissed at (Jeff). Why does he want me playing hurt?”
Two days later, Myers had a conversation with James Shields, a veteran pitcher who hadn’t missed a start since the end of 2007. Essentially, Myers said, Shields told him to “quit being a baby.”
“Out of high school, I signed for $2 million,” Myers said. “I was a bonus baby. When I was in the minor leagues, if something was bothering me, it was just like, ‘OK, take a day.’ That’s the way I came up. That’s the way I thought you played the game.
“I wasn’t a wuss. I just didn’t know any better. … It took James Shields telling me three years into my big-league career, ‘You’ve got to stop being a wuss and get out there and play every day because that’s what you do here. You’re at the highest level now. There is nowhere else to go. You’re here. So it’s about showing up every day, doing your routine and playing every single day.’”
Myers, who was limited to 147 games over the previous two years, never did go on the DL. On June 1, he went 3-for-4 with a double and a home run. He homered again three days later and the day after that. He finished June hitting.327 with 10 doubles, 11 home runs and five steals. He was named the National League Player of the Month.
On June 4, amid Myers’ tear and the Padres’ rebuilding effort, Shields was traded to the Chicago White Sox. Myers continues to hold his former teammate in high esteem.
“I’m a huge fan of James Shields,” Myers said. “He’s a guy I would want on my team any day of the week. If that guy is telling me to do that, I better listen. He’s the epitome of going out every day.”
Now, Myers, despite his age, could be considered a veteran next to many of his current teammates.
“That was the greatest advice I’ve ever gotten from anyone that would be one thing I specifically talk to these young guys about, about going out there every day and grinding it out,” Myers said.
In August, Myers recalled his phone call with Berry.
“Man, I was this close to not being an All-Star,” Myers remembers thinking. “I was this close to not being in the Home Run Derby. Now, looking back on it, I was this close to not signing a contract. I was this close to, really, who knows what would have happened if I went on the DL.
“If Jeff tells me, ‘Yeah, you should go on the DL,’ I’m not an All-Star. None of this stuff happens. It took Jeff telling me to suck it up.”
The other half
Myers, of course, was an All-Star for the first time in 2016. The day before the Midsummer Classic, he came up short yet still smiled his way through the Home Run Derby. In the main event, he delighted the Petco Park crowd by doubling in his final at-bat.
It was the apex of the season. Myers went from hitting.286 with 19 home runs before the All-Star break to hitting.223 with nine home runs in the second half.
“When I got to the All-Star break I felt like my season was done,” Myers said. “It was like, ‘I’m an All-Star. I did it.’ And then I had 2 1/2 months left to play. I didn’t prepare. I didn’t lock back in quick enough into the second half. I was still in that All-Star hangover. When I found out, shoot, I’ve got to get going again, it was too late, and I started to panic.”
Myers spent up to an hour-and-a-half each day in the batting cage, attempting to wrestle his swing back into shape. When pregame toil did not translate into game-time results, he slid further down a hole.
“I went through it last year really for the first time,” Myers said. “I got to the point I was struggling really bad last year. I mean, my second half was really, really bad. I was absolutely killing myself in the cage. … I just couldn’t find it.”
Myers intends to practice a more buoyant approach this season.
“I fully, 1,000 percent believe I’m going to have a great year because I will not let myself get to the All-Star break or any time in the season and not see that end goal of 162 (games),” Myers said. “I remember going to St. Louis after the All-Star break and going, ‘I’m an All-Star.’ That bad mindset. We all get arrogant sometimes, and I got arrogant. And the next thing you know, I’m 1-for-20.
“This year coming up, when I go through one of those tough stretches that I’m going to go through because it happens in 162 games, I’m not going to beat myself up on it. I’m just going to ride the low waves, and it is what it is.”
Given Myers’ ability, the good times should come, too. Myers finished 2016 as a Gold Glove Award finalist and one of the majors’ preeminent power-speed threats, with 28 home runs and as many steals.Amazon's voice assistant Alexa – which is installed in its Echo smart speaker – could bring the U.S. e-commerce giant $10 billion of revenues by 2020 and be a "mega-hit", according to a note published by RBC Capital Markets on Thursday.
The investment bank has dubbed the technology "voice-activated internet (VAI)" and said it represents a "material opportunity" for both Amazon and Google, which has its own technology called Google Assistant.
But many investors are trying to figure out how this technology will make money for these firms. RBC suggest that it could be a huge business for Amazon driven by sales of devices that contain Alexa, voice-driven shopping and platform revenues. The result is that the device sales and shopping could generate $10 billion in total revenue.A lipoma is a benign tumor made of fat tissue.[1] They are generally soft to the touch, movable, and painless.[1] They usually occur just under the skin, but occasionally may be deeper.[1] Most are less than 5 cm in size.[2] Common locations include upper back, shoulders, and abdomen.[4] A few people have a number of lipomas.[3]
The cause is generally unclear.[1] Risk factors include family history, obesity, and not enough exercise.[1][3] Diagnosis is typically based on a physical exam.[1] Occasionally medical imaging or tissue biopsy is used to confirm the diagnosis.[1]
Treatment is typically by observation or surgical removal.[1] Rarely, the condition may recur following removal, but this can generally be managed with repeat surgery.[1] They are not generally associated with a future risk of cancer.[1]
About 2% of people are affected.[2] Lipomas typically occur in adults between 40 and 60 years of age.[1] Males are more often affected than females.[1] They are the most common noncancerous soft-tissue tumor.[5] The first use of the term "lipoma" to describe these tumors was in 1709.[6]
Types [ edit ]
The many subtypes of lipomas include:[7]:624–5
Causes [ edit ]
The tendency to develop a lipoma is not necessarily hereditary, although hereditary conditions such as familial multiple lipomatosis might include lipoma development.[13][14] Genetic studies in mice have shown a correlation between the HMG I-C gene (previously identified as a gene related to obesity) and lipoma development. These studies support prior epidemiologic data in humans showing a correlation between HMG I-C and mesenchymal tumors.[15]
Cases have been reported where minor injuries are alleged to have triggered the growth of a lipoma, called a "post-traumatic lipoma".[16] However, the link between trauma and the development of lipomas is controversial.[17]
Other conditions [ edit ]
Lipomatosis is believed to be a hereditary condition in which multiple lipomas are present on the body.
Adiposis dolorosa (Dercum disease) is a rare condition involving multiple painful lipomas, swelling, and fatigue. Early studies mentioned prevalence in obese postmenopausal women. However, current literature demonstrates that Dercum disease is present in more women than men of all body types; the average age for diagnosis is 35 years.[18]
Benign symmetric lipomatosis (Madelung disease) is another condition involving lipomatosis. It nearly always appears in middle-aged males after many years of alcoholism, but nonalcoholic males and females can also be affected.[citation needed]
Diagnosis [ edit ]
A physical exam is typically the easiest way to diagnose it. Rarely, a tissue biopsy or imaging may be required. The imaging modality of choice is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), because it has superior sensitivity of distinguishing it from liposarcoma as well as mapping the surrounding anatomy.[19]
X-ray of a lipoma
Medical ultrasonography of a lipoma in the thenar eminence: It is hyperechoic compared to adjacent muscle, and relatively well-defined, with miniature hyperechoic lines. [20]
T1 MRI of the same lipoma: High intensity signal mass with regions of ill-defined margins. [20]
Ultrasonography of a liposarcoma for comparison: In this case a heterogeneous mass consisting of an upper hyperechoic portion, corresponding to lipomatous matrix, and areas of hypoechogenicity corresponding to nonlipomatous components. [21]
Ultrasonography of a liposarcoma mimicking lipoma. A homogeneous hypoechoic mass presenting with the same appearance of lipoma. It was clinically distinguished by having rapid growth. [21]
MRI showing lipoma of the arm
X-ray showing lipoma
Treatment [ edit ]
Usually, treatment of lipomas is not necessary, unless they become painful or restrict movement. They are usually removed for cosmetic reasons if they grow very large or for histopathology to verify that they are not a more dangerous type of tumor such as a liposarcoma.[12] This last point can be important, as the characteristics of a tumor are not known until after it is removed and medically examined.
Lipomas are normally removed by simple excision.[22] The removal can often be done under local anesthetic and takes less than 30 minutes. This cures the great majority of cases, with about 1–2% of lipomas recurring after excision.[23] Liposuction is another option if the lipoma is soft and has a small connective tissue component. Liposuction typically results in less scarring; however, with large lipomas, it may fail to remove the entire tumor, which can lead to regrowth.[24]
New methods under development are supposed to remove the lipomas without scarring. One is removal by injecting compounds that trigger lipolysis, such as steroids or phosphatidylcholine.[22][25]
Resection of an intermuscular lipoma in the elbow region
Intraoperative photo.
Operating field after removal of the lipoma: Arrow marks the median nerve that was compressed by the lipoma.
The resected lipoma
(8 cm × 6 cm × 3 cm)
Other lipomas
Lipoma removed from human torso
Lipoma removed from the breast
This lipoma was removed from the thigh of a 39-year-old male patient. It measured about 10 cm in diameter at the time of removal.
Prognosis [ edit ]
Lipomas are rarely life-threatening, and the common subcutaneous lipomas are not a serious condition. Lipomas growing in internal organs can be more dangerous; for example, lipomas in the gastrointestinal tract can cause bleeding, ulceration, and painful obstructions (so-called "malignant by location", despite being a benign growth histologically).[26][27] Malignant transformation of lipomas into liposarcomas is very rare, and most liposarcomas are not produced from pre-existing benign lesions.[23] A few cases of malignant transformation have been described for bone and kidney lipomas,[28][29] but it is possible that these few reported cases were well-differentiated liposarcomas in which the subtle malignant characteristics were missed when the tumor was first examined.[30] Deep lipomas have a greater tendency to recur than superficial lipomas because complete surgical removal of deep lipomas is not always possible.[30][31]
The presence of multiple lipomas, lipomatosis, is more commonly encountered in men. Some superficial lipomas can extend into deep fascia and may complicate excision. Liposarcoma is found in 1% of lipomas and is more likely to occur in lesions of the lower extremities, shoulders, and retroperitoneal areas. Other risk factors for liposarcoma include large size (>5 cm), associated with calcification, rapid growth, and/or invasion into nearby structures or through fascia into muscle tissue.[32]
Epidemiology [ edit ]
Around 2% of the general population has a lipoma.[2] These tumors can occur at any age, but are most common in middle age, often appearing in people from 40 to 60 years old.[22] Cutaneous lipomas are rare in children, but these tumors can occur as part of the inherited disease Bannayan-Zonana syndrome.[33][34]
Lipomas are usually relatively small with diameters of about 1–3 cm,[35] but in rare cases they can grow over several years into "giant lipomas" that are 10–20 cm across and weigh up to 4–5 kg.[36][37]
Other animals [ edit ]
Lipomas occur in many animals, but are most common in older dogs, particularly older Labrador Retrievers, Doberman Pinschers, and Miniature Schnauzers.[38] Overweight female dogs are especially prone to developing these tumors, and most older or overweight dogs have at least one lipoma.[39][40] In dogs, lipomas usually occur in the trunk or upper limbs.[38] They are also found less commonly in cattle and horses, and rarely in cats and pigs.[40][41] However, a pedunculated lipoma can cause entrapment and torsion of the intestine in horses, causing necrosis, colic, and possibly death. The intestine becomes wound around the stalk of the lipoma and loses blood supply.[42]The medal ceremony had ended, and now it was time to pose for pictures.
Jimmy Butler put his long right arm around his former coach, Tom Thibodeau, and smiled.
"It's a moment, man," Butler said. "As much stuff (as we went through), as much of a love-hate relationship as we had and still have, it's big. He was always telling me I could be a special player after my rookie season (when) he thought I was terrible, of course.
"But I've got love for Thibs, a lot of love for Thibs."
Their bond is now fortified by solid gold.
The Americans trounced Serbia 96-66 to make the foregone conclusion official. Team USA is the best in the world.
Coaches don't receive actual medals, but Thibodeau will get a replica plus a ring.
"You are tied to the group forever," Thibodeau said. "Every time you see those guys, you feel there's a connection there. The ring is great, but it will probably end up in a drawer somewhere."
Thibodeau laughed, something he didn't do often during his five seasons with the Bulls.
"It's what it symbolizes that's great," he said. "The people, doing it together, for the country."
Coach Mike Krzyzewski heaped enormous praise on Thibodeau, who served as his right-hand man during the victories. The Timberwolves' new coach and president of basketball operations sat to Coach K's right, barking out defensive calls and following his boss' lead by staying seated the entire time.
"Tom is one of the great coaches on this planet," Krzyzewski said. "To be honest, he talked to the team more than I did."
When Carmelo Anthony heard that, he nodded.
"To have Thibs right next to me yelling, I've learned a lot," Krzyzewski said. "I think the people of Minnesota are very lucky. His players will be taught the game well. One thing about Thibs, he has a great voice. I told him if you weren't a basketball coach, you should have a radio show from midnight to 4 in the morning."
Butler hoped to put on a show in Rio. His offensive game was mainly MIA as he averaged 5.6 points on 34.2 percent shooting.
Photos of former Bulls guard/forward Jimmy Butler.
But he did score well in the categories coaches appreciate. During one possession Sunday, he snagged two offensive rebounds and tipped a ball to Kyle Lowry, who drained a 3-pointer.
"He can play great without scoring, and he did," Thibodeau said. "His effort plays... those are back-breakers."
Butler becomes the 12th Bulls player to win an Olympic gold medal.
Asked if he'll bring his medal to the United Center, Butler replied: "There's this guy on this team named Doug McDermott. I don't know if I can keep my gold medal around that guy. He's from Iowa … Nah, I'll let Doug touch the medal."
Butler took an elbow early in the game that caused his upper lip to bleed, saying: "Messed my swag up. Now I can't take no photos, and the honeys are not gonna look at my pictures."
He looked all right to Bulls wing Nikola Mirotic, who earned bronze for Spain and posed with Butler for a picture on the floor.
Mirotic crowed a bit after the semifinal game, saying it was fun to guard Butler because "he didn't make any baskets."
On Sunday, Mirotic tweeted: "Yesterday we were opponents, today friends, tomorrow teammates in @chicagobulls Congratulations!"
Replied Butler: "I ain't worried about Niko. He's got to deal with me come November. I'm happy for him too; that's a big step in his career. That's my guy, that's my brother. We get to be on the same team come November."
First Butler said he'd take a little vacation, go somewhere warm. That will give him an opportunity to reflect on a mission accomplished.
"If you're on this team, you have to be very talented," he said. "Everyone has a different role, but you're here for a reason: You belong."
tgreenstein@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @TeddyGreensteinLONDON: Without direct support from the UK government British landscapes will be “left without livestock” after Brexit, a leading representative of British farming has warned.
Addressing a UK parliamentary committee on 1 November, Jilly Greed, co-founder of promotional group Ladies in Beef, said: “Britain has the second largest breeding herd [of cows] in Europe but is completely unsupported.”
Farming is likely to be one of the sectors most affected by Brexit. The UK government has committed to matching the current CAP budget until at least 2020 but British farmers are seeking greater assurances.
Providing evidence to the Parliament’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Greed said that “there isn’t a two-way sharing of risk, information, data or price positions” making it impossible for farmers to plan or budget.
How the post-Brexit trade deal will affect British farmers The UK’s Brexit deal could be a make or break scenario for Britain’s farmers, according to a study published by the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) on Wednesday (16 August).
Also speaking at the committee’s ‘Brexit: Trade in Food’ inquiry were Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, Jane Basset, a Peak District sheep farmer, and Christopher Dodds, executive secretary of Livestock Auctioneers Association.
Allen told the committee that the farming industry’s main concern as regards Brexit is access to labour. “60-65% of staff are non-British,” he said. Allen added that the “shortage of labour” is more acute in slaughterhouses or meat-processing plants because local workers are less willing to do such “physically demanding” jobs.
He went on to say that industry is turning to technology in light of Brexit, with agricultural professionals assessing whether they can “replace men with machines”.
Trouble ahead for meat producers
Uncertainty about future trade relations with the EU also poses a threat to the meat industry, Allen said: “80% of exports are with Europe and there is a huge fear of a ‘Hard Brexit’, especially if we end up with a WTO-situation.”
Britain can become ‘global leader’ in agricultural trade outside EU – study Adopting a market-oriented agricultural policy after leaving the EU could make Britain a world leader in agricultural trade in the decade to come, according to a briefing published on Thursday (2 November) by leading UK think tank Chatham House.
This view was shared by his fellow panellists.
If Britain is unable to reach an agreement with the EU before March 2019, the UK will have to enforce the trade quotas set out by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Dodds said: “The worst scenario is WTO. Lamb will not have a marketplace in Europe if farmers and British industry are paying a 50% tax on exports.”
Greed said that if WTO tariffs are applied to exports and there is an “open house on imports coming in” the British lamb industry will be “decimated”.
“Even small amounts of [lesser quality] products coming in bring product prices down,” said the fourth-generation beef farmer.
Dodds said that since the Brexit negotiations got underway there has been a “massive drop” in the value of certain breeds and types of meat: “Draft ewes [older breeding sheep] have seen a 50-55% drop in value. This has contributed to a lack of confidence in where we are going.”
He said: “There is a genuine appetite throughout industry to improve but we need to know which direction to plan. There is a massive difference in planning for a 50% tariff on lamb or on a guarantee that trade will remain roughly the same as now.”
Allen and Dodds said the UK government and industry must begin contingency planning and establish “infrastructure” for the British meat industry.
Allen said: “Industry is keen to get involved but there is the sense that we get pushed away from agriculture policy and export deals. These are the people doing it and they are the experts, all are willing to work with government and officials.”
Farmers: No quick fix for food security if Brexit talks fail British farmers are “running out of patience” with both sides in the Brexit negotiations, after Friday’s (20 October) EU summit did little to allay fears of a mutually damaging no-deal scenario.
Any industry, according to Allen, approaching a change of Brexit’s magnitude would “be stress-testing already to see if [infrastructure] works, but we don’t even know the systems we plan to put into place,” at this rate, he added, “we would need five years [transition period] not two.”
Mitigating the damage
British farmers are now looking at forms of diversification in an attempt to cover possible losses or extra costs in the post-Brexit trading environment.
Basset, a sheep farmer in Britain’s Peak District, said that “on an individual basis it is very difficult to change – we embrace new technology where possible but are always disadvantaged because we are a small farm.”
Basset told the committee that she feels she is “working blindly” and would be able to plan better if there was greater “access to technology, and information on where farmers should be investing.”
Allen saw opportunities for post-Brexit Britain to foster trade in the global market “on the basis of quality not quantity” but said this would be challenging.
According to Basset, for the lamb and beef sector to flourish after Brexit, there needs to be further investment in “education, branding and image” of British products.
Basset argued British farmers are proud of adhering to high welfare standards and would continue to do so after leaving the EU.
She said: “We accept that there will be changes to the industry as a whole” but “we can’t throw away the systems we have in place to compete with the low standards of the global market.”
“As a sheep farmer, I could not have lower welfare standards because of a trade deal, so I would have to leave the industry.”The primary problem with the mainstream media is how it’s funded. Advertising now accounts for almost all of the money flowing into media. The issue with this system is the influence it grants the advertisers. To better understand this process and what’s wrong with it we have to realize that a newspaper, or any media—either in print or online—is NOT selling content, it is selling you. The newspaper is not being paid to write the news, it’s being paid to deliver eyeballs to advertisers. The means to that end, the way they grab our attention, is often by giving us information but it’s important to understand that the real product being sold is the reader not the content.
Advertisers are also not paying just for quantity, they are interested in demographics. In a nutshell, high value demographics, say middle-aged, high-income earners, are given a different value than everyone else. The more likely you are to spend money the more desirable you are to advertisers. Ten rich couples with lots of disposable income are worth far more than a hundred working-class families. So said newspaper is motivated to deliver not only a certain type of person but also to deliver content that encourages the readers to look upon the advertisers fondly and encourages them to spend their money there. The better they do that the higher the premium they are paid. You are not the audience—you are the product.
So what does Bitcoin have to do with this? (What is Bitcoin?)
Bitcoin is revolutionary. It creates new opportunities that did not exist or were not as feasible before. One such possibility is to re-organize and decentralize media funding which could shift the emphasis away from creating better consumers towards creating better content. The media is our primary source of information about the world and thus has profound influence in our everyday lives so a change there could ripple out in all directions, compounding the potential change.
How?
Bitcoin allows near-instant micro-payments with little or no processing charge. Imagine you read an article that you appreciate, it taught you something interesting, exposed something important or even just gave you whatever information you desired. Instead of (or in addition to) clicking “like,” imagine you sent 25 cents directly to the author. The content is still free, but funded via tips rather than ads. Sure, it’s 25 cents you are spending that you would not otherwise but it is such a small amount that it’s mostly irrelevant to the consumer and in this system you are not being pushed to spend even more money on products you do not need. In essence this turns us from consumers of products to consumers of information.
The user base needs to grow and there are still kinks to be worked out within the Bitcoin system that would make this even more efficient but the basic framework is there now. Blogs and niche publications will likely be the first to adopt, and I plan to encourage those that do. As a bonus, seeing Bitcoin tipping apps may make some non-initiated readers curious to find out more. If successful the idea can spread, especially considering that this will be even more feasible as the Bitcoin community and protocol grows and improves. There are a few different applications already available for this and surely even more in development. To download the one I use at the close of this article click here. (Another option here.)
Want to buy your first Bitcoin? If in the US, the easiest method is Coinbase. Or browse this directory.When you fight an enemy that is a more than two levels above you in Borderlands 2, you inflict less damage than usual:
This chart shows how much damage you lose. For example when shooting an enemy that is 6 levels higher than you, if you normally do 1000 damage, you will instead inflict 670 damage, and when shooting an enemy 19 levels above you, you will only do 50 damage.
20 levels or more higher than player: 99% damage reduction
19 levels higher than player: 95%
18 levels higher than player: 90%
17 levels higher than player: 87.6%
16 levels higher than player: 84.2%
15 levels higher than player: 81%
14 levels higher than player: 76.9%
13 levels higher than player: 74.5%
12 levels higher than player: 73.8%
11 levels higher than player: 70%
10 levels higher than player: 64.1%
9 levels higher than player: 59.2%
8 levels higher than player: 53.6%
7 levels higher than player: 48.6%
6 levels higher than player: 44.0%
5 levels higher than player: 30.9%
4 levels higher than player: 28.2%
3 levels higher than player: 17.1% damage reduction
0-2 levels higher than player: No Damage Loss.There are two possible theories so far on the identity of the organisms that some Igloolik, Nunavut, residents found in their sinks earlier this week.
Igloolik Senior Adminstrative Officer Brian Fleming says the creatures may have entered the water supply when they were taking water from Fish Lake to fill the town's reservoir.
"What we were doing is the water trucks were just going in, drawing, filling up and coming back to town and emptying into the reservoir, and when we did that there was no screen or filter or anything on the hose."
He says they could be a small marine parasite called a fluke, which likely came from from Fish Lake. He says the marine fluke is not known to be harmful to humans but can affect fish.
A Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesperson says the mystery creature may be "a freshwater leech of the Family Glossiphoniidaea," but that is just from looking at the photos. DFO says it can't give a definitive answer unless they get a specimen to examine.
Igloolik remains under a boil water advisory. All water must be brought to a rolling boil for a minimum of one minute before being used for:One of the songs on Viet Cong's eclectic Cassette EP, which Mexican Summer re-released in the middle of 2014, was a scuzzy live version of Bauhaus' "Dark Entries." The four-piece (which, if you don't recall, includes Matt Flegel and Mike Wallace of late-great Calgary band Women) will release their debut full-length later this month, and this album cut "Silhouettes" further flexes the gothic urgency teased by that Bauhaus cover, storming away from the stoned psych-pop heard on the EP's mellower moments with some melodic synths and a big, gloomily sung chorus.
Flegel told FADER he wrote "Silhouettes" shortly after he was severely electrocuted at a show, to the point where blood was coming out of his ears. "Being partially deaf at the time is the only excuse I can offer you for writing a vocal line that sounds so similar to Warren Zevons' 'Werewolves of London,'" he said in an email. "Other than that, the song deals with themes that are common and dear to me: disconnection, intoxication, lapse of memory, regret, and the ability to laugh something off." Viet Cong is out January 20th via Jagjaguwar, the label that released both Women records.NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft has spotted a never-before-seen comet -- its first such discovery since coming out of h |
. (It should be remembered that David Whitmer was one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon.) The following is taken from one of David Whitmer's pamphlets:
I want to tell the brethren, that when the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was published, and presented to the church assembly in Kirtland, Ohio, in August, 1835, as recorded in the old church papers, a very few of the brethren then knew about most of the important changes that had been put in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. In time it was generally found out, and the result was that some of the members left the church on account of it. A few members dissented from the church as early as 1832, on account of the spiritual blindness of some of the leaders. When it became generally known that these important changes had been made in the Doctrine and Covenants, many of the brethren objected seriously to it, but they did not want to say much for the sake of peace, as it was Brother Joseph and the leaders who did it. The majority of the members—poor weak souls—thought that anything Brother Joseph would do, must be all right; so in their blindness of heart, trusting in an arm of flesh, they looked over it and were led into error, and finally all talk about it ceased. I was told that Sidney Rigdon was the cause of those changes being made: by smooth talk he convinced Brother Joseph and that committee that it was all right.
The editors of the old church papers, Evening and Morning Star and Messenger and Advocate, admit that some changes were made in some of the revelations; that they added some items to some revelations, from other revelations. I will not accuse those who did it of being fully aware of the grievous error they were making when they added those items—that is, made those changes; I would rather believe that they were spiritually blinded when they did it: and that Satan deceived them, whispering to them that it was all right and acceptable unto God.
Some of the Latter Day Saints have claimed that God had the same right to authorize Brother Joseph to add to any revelations certain words and facts, that He had to give him any revelations at all: but only those who are trusting in an arm of flesh and are in spiritual blindness, would pretend to make that claim; that God would give his servants some revelations, command them to publish them in His Book of Commandments, and then authorize them to change and add to them some words which change and reverse the original meaning: as if God had changed his mind after giving his word. No brethren! God does not change and work in any such manner as this; all those who believe that God does work this way, my prayer for them is that they may repent, for they are in utter spiritual blindness. (An Address To All Believers In Christ, by David Whitmer, Richmond, Mo., 1887, pp. 57-61)
David Whitmer also stated:
You have changed the revelations from the way they were first given and as they are to-day in the Book of Commandments, to support the error of Brother Joseph in taking upon himself the office of Seer to the church. You have changed the revelations to support the error of high priests. You have changed the revelations to support the error of a President of the high priesthood, high counselors, etc. You have altered the revelations to support you in going beyond the plain teachings of Christ in the new covenant part of the Book of Mormon. You have changed and altered the revelations to support the error of publishing these revelations in a book: the errors you are in, revelations have been changed to support and uphold them. You who are now living did not change them, but you who strive to defend these things, are as guilty in the sight of God as those who did change them. (An Address To All Believers In Christ, page 49)
Who's Ashamed?
At the start of this chapter we quoted the Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe as saying that non-Mormons have been "afraid" to discuss the Doctrine and Covenants. We have shown that this statement is completely untrue. Furthermore, there is evidence that the Mormons themselves were embarrassed about the Doctrine and Covenants when it was first published. In 1837 Joseph Smith instructed the missionaries that went to England to keep secret the fact that the church had a book of Doctrine and Covenants:
My instructions to the brethren were, when they arrived in England, to adhere closely to the first principles of the Gospel, and remain silent concerning the gathering, the vision, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants,... (History of the Church, by Joseph Smith, Vol, 2, p. 492)
Joseph Smith related the following incident that occurred in England:
...Elder Goodson, contrary to the most positive instructions of President Kimball, and without advising with any one, read publicly the vision from the Doctrine and Covenants, which turned the current of feeling generally, and nearly closed the door in all the region. (History of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 505)
Eventually, however, the Mormons had to admit to the people in England that they had such a book. Wilford Woodruff, who later became President of the Mormon Church, made this statement in 1845:
I had also the pleasing reflection of knowing that I had, upon this 7th day of June, A. D. 1845, the pleasure of securing unto the church the copyright of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants... which book is one of the most important records ever presented to this or any other generation, and is now for sale at our office in Liverpool, and our agents throughout the United Kingdom, to the church and all who wish to purchase, of every sect and party under heaven. Let our enemies cease to accuse us of wishing to keep this work secret.... I entered the work at Stationers' Hall, London, and secured a certificate of the entry of the copyright, which secures unto us the right of printing it throughout the British dominions, notwithstanding the prints laid by some of our enemies in secret chambers in the city of Pittsburgh, to rob the church of the copyright of that book by entering it before me. (Times and Seasons, Vol. 6, pages 1005-1006)
In 1904 Francis M, Lyman, a Mormon Apostle, was questioned concerning the Doctrine and Covenants. He testified as follows:
Mr. WORTHINGTON. You have not mentioned the Doctrine and Covenants. Is that circulated, too?
Mr. LYMAN. No; not so much.
Mr. WORTINGTON. In what proportion do you circulate the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon?
Mr. LYMAN. Oh, the Doctrine and Covenants is not circulated as a book to make converts with. It is not circulated at all. If anybody wants it—we do not put it forward; but the Book of Mormon and the Articles of Faith. Then, there is the Voice of Warning, by Parloar [Parley] P. Pratt, and Key to Theology by Parloar [Parley] P. Pratt, and works of that kind.
.....
Mr. WORTHINGTON. In what proportion is the Doctrine and Covenants circulated, compared with the Articles of Faith, the Talmage book, which we have here?
Mr. LYMAN. We do not look upon the Doctrine and Covenants as a book to circulate at all. It is a law of the church, the word of the Lord to the church, and the law and discipline, but for the doctrines of the church we take the commentaries more. (Reed Smoot Case, Washington, 1904, Vol, 1, pp. 444-445)
The Apostle Hyrum Smith testified as follows:
Mr. HYRUM M. SMITH. So far as I, myself, am concerned in missionary work, and those who immediately labored with me, we made no effort to circulate the Doctrine and Covenants among people as a proselyting medium. The Book of Mormon was used extensively for that purpose.
.....
Mr. WORTHINGTON. Then, among those who are your members and who know all about the manifesto and this matter being forbidden by law, the Doctrine and Covenants is used a great deal more than it is among people who are not members and when you are doing missionary work?
Mr. HYRUM M. SMITH. Yes, sir; and if I may be permitted to add here, I would like to do so in relation to the editions. I think it was relating to the Doctrine and Covenants that the question was asked, I believe, how it was that a number of editions has been issued recently.
Now, if I am not mistaken, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was referred to, I will say that, in my opinion, those books were purchased by the Latter-day Saints themselves and not for distribution for proselyting purposes. (Reed Smoot Case, Vol. 1, page 510)
Conclusion
In this chapter we have shown that the Mormon leaders have denied that changes were made in Joseph Smith's revelations, yet, upon careful examination, we have found that thousands of changes have been made. The Mormon Apostle John A. Widtsoe has charged that critics have been "afraid" to discuss the Doctrine and Covenants. We have found however, that this statement is completely false. Moreover, we have shown that the Mormons themselves suppressed the Doctrine and Covenants when it was first printed.
In a later volume we plan to present more evidence that the revelations printed in the Doctrine and Covenants could not have come from God.Array
Nogales, Son.- Al menos 80 haitianos llegaron en el transcurso de la semana a esta frontera para cruzar hacia Arizona, EU, por lo que el ayuntamiento de Nogales y el albergue San Juan Bosco les proporcionan ya ayuda para su permanencia.
La mañana de este sábado amanecieron 40 haitianos en la garita internacional Dennis DeConcini. Como miles de sus compatriotas, salieron de su país tras el terremoto de 2010 y orillados por las crisis recurrentes.
El alcalde de Nogales, David Cuauhtémoc Galindo Delgado, detalló que hace unos días un grupo de haitianos llegaron a Nogales para buscar la protección del gobierno de Estados Unidos y que a su paso por esta frontera se les brindó la atención requerida y alojamiento.
Dijo que en caso de presentarse una situación similar a la de Tijuana, en donde se concentra un numeroso grupo de haitianos, se tiene previsto una estrategia que permita darles seguridad, albergue y alimentos.
“Las autoridades municipales hemos previsto este escenario debido a la noticia internacional que se ha difundido sobre el éxodo masivo en Haití desde hace meses y que se agudizó con el paso devastador del huracán Newton”, dijo Galindo Delgado.
Los haitianos llegaron a la ciudad con un permiso otorgado por el Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) para pedir asilo político en Estados Unidos y se esperan más, apuntó.
Comentó que hasta el momento esta situación no ha generado ningún problema social y se mantiene una comunicación constante con las autoridades migratorias para que se tomen las medidas pertinentes en caso de que ingresen grandes cantidades de extranjeros a la ciudad.
El primer evento de flujo de migrantes haitianos por Sonora ocurrió el 27 de julio, cuando un grupo de 53 personas que se hicieron pasar por africanos fueron abandonados por el conductor de un autobús en el desierto de la región de Altar, cuando iban con destino a Tijuana, Baja California. Cientos de migrantes han avanzado en avión, en vehículo y a pie para llegar a Estados Unidos, donde se les permite su estadía.
En Tapachula, Chiapas, el INM ha otorgado más de 12 mil 500 permisos para transitar libremente por país, por lo que están saturando las fronteras mexicanas.Sony's PlayStation 4 will ship this November, the company announced at its Gamescom press conference today. In North America, the next-gen PlayStation will hit retail on Nov. 15. In Europe, the PS4 arrives Nov. 29.
Andrew House of Sony Computer Entertainment said the PS4 will launch in 32 markets by the end of the year, including the United States and Canada.
According to a press release from Sony, European territories slated to get the PS4 on Nov. 29 include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
In Latin America, PS4 will launch on Nov. 29 in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Peru.
Sony's press release on the PS4 launch does not include a date for its home country of Japan.
House also said that pre-orders for the PS4 have reached one million consoles to date.
At E3 2013, Sony announced that the PS4 will cost $399 in the U.S., €399 in Europe and £349 in the U.K.Tax havens hold $7.6 trillion; 8% of world's total wealth
Cass Sunstein reviews The Hidden Wealth of Nations, a new book by UC Berkeley's Gabriel Zucman; and a new documentary, The Price We Pay, both of which map out the scale of international tax-havens, which are used by criminals and corrupt one percenters to hide money from their governments; and by corrupt governments to hide money from their citizens -- the havens are a critical part of the secret, parallel US tax system that lets the rich pay less of their income in tax than the poor.
The secrecy of most tax havens makes it impossible to precisely measure the amount of wealth they hide away from the countries that house and feed the super-rich, supply them with their labor forces and the airports from which they jet, and fund the basic research that they turn into their fortunes. But using clever indirect measurements, Zucman has put the figure at $7.6 trillion, or 8 percent of all the money in the world.
Like Piketty, Zucman proposes a system of global wealth taxation that relies on cooperation between countries that presently compete to lure deposits away from one another. Like Piketty, Zucman describes a way in which this could be accomplished incrementally, and how even imperfect implementations would make a difference.
Like Piketty, the prescription is rather unconvincing, and like Piketty, Zucman stops short of saying that this kind of corruption is inseparable from capitalism itself.
The fractions of wealth held abroad are highly variable. In Europe, it is about 10 percent. In African and Latin countries, it is much higher—between 20 percent and 30 percent. In Russia, it is a whopping 52 percent. It follows that while tax havens hit wealthy nations hardest in absolute terms, they can have especially destructive effects on poorer or developing countries, because such a high percentage of their money is offshore. Zucman does not explain why this is so, but it is possible to speculate that one reason is rampant corruption within both the public and private sectors. The extraordinarily high figure for Russia might be best understood as involving money corruptly acquired or invested, which suggests an important point: all uses of tax havens are not the same. Sometimes government officials are the ones who are evading taxes, and they do not want to stop that evasion. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, you might expect that there would be an international crackdown on the use of tax havens, and as we shall see, international attention is indeed growing. But the numbers demonstrate that no crackdown has occurred. In Luxembourg, offshore wealth actually increased from 2008 to 2012 (by 20 percent). In Switzerland, the increase has been comparable; foreign holdings are now close to an all-time high. Disturbingly, the new wealth is coming mostly from developing countries, which poses a serious problem in light of the severe strains on their limited budgets.
The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens [Gabriel Zucman/University of Chicago Press]
Parking the Big Money
[Cass R Sunstein/New York Review of Books]
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Humans may not be as chimp-like as you think. There could be a much more peaceable ape relative who is closer to us. I speak, of course, of the matriarchal, bisexual, polyamorous bonobo.
Conventional evolutionary wisdom has human beings branching off from a common ancestor shared between humans, chimpanzees and bonobos about 6.5 million years ago. Chimps and bonobos split from their common ancestor about 1.5 million years ago. Which makes modern humans about equally related to both species. But that doesn't seem to be the popular narrative.
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Why? Well, let's not pussyfoot around. Chimpanzees are horrible animals. They are. They're dominated by violent males. They engage in bloody boundary disputes during which patrols of several large males will gang up and kill stray male members of an opposing tribe. They'll kill and eat infant chimpanzees they find, and grab any females. They fight among each other constantly and violently.
Sound familiar?
Bonobos, meanwhile, are cooperative, relatively non-violent, and respond to unfamiliar problems, social stress, or conflicts by initiating wild bonobo sex parties. In theory, they're as like us as chimps are, but let's put it this way - there have been several brawls that have broken out on the floor of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, but no orgies.
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However, a study published in a recent issue of PLOS Genetics indicates that chimps and bonobos are equally related to the common ancestor they share with humans. While chimps adapted to varied environments, bonobos stayed put in forests and remained in the same environment where they evolved. Their genetic codes have undergone fewer changes than those of chimps. This means that bonobos could be more closely related to humans than chimpanzees are - which might change the current cultural narrative a bit. Perhaps our heritage is not inventive and vicious violence, but cooperative groups working to ensure the survival of all.
Of course, the opposite case could be made. Humans and chimps could have evolved and changed by breeding an ever-greater capacity for violence while the bonobos were stuck in a rut in a forest having sex with each other.
Still, this new possibility that we share more with bonobos does indicate that our earliest ancestor might not have distinguished itself through struggles for dominance but through the ability to cooperate and nonviolently overcome obstacles. 'Survival of the fittest' could come to mean survival of those with the greatest the ability to resolve disputes to the mutual benefit of all. If nothing else, it could be a nice turn for social Darwinism to take.
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Via Times Higher Education.In an effort to dodge criticism that he is unqualified to lead NHK, its embattled president, Katsuto Momii, told the Diet Friday the contentious remarks at his first official press conference last week were not the broadcaster’s official views but his own.
“What I said at the press conference are my personal views and will not be reflected in the contents of NHK programs,” Momii said in the Diet after being summoned by the powerful Lower House Budget Committee.
Former communications minister Kazuhiro Haraguchi of the Democratic Party of Japan grilled Momii on his understanding of Articles 1 and 4 of the Broadcasting Law, which requires all broadcasters to present various views.
Momii kicked off a furor last week by seeming to defend the government’s wartime use of sex slaves and making biased assertions on the purpose of NHK’s international broadcasts and the new state secrets law.
In the Diet, Haraguchi argued that the former business executive had no understanding of the articles because his comments reflected an intention to avoid airing diverse viewpoints on such divisive issues as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shine or the much debated state secrets law enacted in December.
Momii’s comments conflicted with NHK’s apparent mandate of neutrality, he said.
“The role of NHK is not to become a mouthpiece for the government but to deliver various views to viewers,” Haraguchi said.
Momii’s summons was issued by the DPJ, but the only thing Momii could say in his defense was that NHK will pursue fair reporting and try to present various views.
Despite the mounting criticism against him, Momii didn’t give the impression that he is taking the matter seriously. Occasionally he would laugh and ask Haraguchi to repeat his questions, apparently because he couldn’t understand them.
Momii started coming under fire on Jan. 25, when he said at his first official press conference of his three-year term that every country used systems similar to the Imperial Japanese military’s “comfort women” system of brothels.
He also said that under his watch, NHK would only report any future visits by Abe to Yasukuni Shrine in a straight manner without analysis, despite the contentious political nature of such visits.
On the state secrecy law, Momii said there is nothing that can be done because it has already been enacted and NHK would only run an analysis piece on the issue whenever deemed necessary.
On Thursday, a member of Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) defended Momii’s remarks on the comfort women.
Masashi Nakano, a member of the House of Councilors, expanded on remarks he made Wednesday that drew a connection between Momii’s comments at his first press conference and the sex industries as they exist today in South Korea and China.
“In South Korea, 50,000 women still work in the sex industry,” Nakano said Wednesday during a meeting with other opposition lawmakers. “Why do people keep bringing up what Japan has done (during the war)?” he asked.
On Thursday, Nakano told reporters he made the remarks while discussing with senior officials of other opposition parties how to deal with the aftermath of Momii’s faux pas, and noted these were his “personal opinions.”
Information from Kyodo addedHaving turned on the Minister for Education in a controversial display of disorder on Tuesday, the ASTI yesterday turned on itself. Allegations of bullying and smear campaigns flew back and forth between delegates as the union argued over who was best placed to speak for teachers.
The prime movers behind Tuesday’s rowdy scenes were confirmed as the ASTI Fightback group, which is loosely allied to left-wing political campaigns.
The man with the megaphone, Andrew Phelan, was back on the offensive.
“They dress the same as the Government Ministers; they talk the same as the Government Ministers; they eat in the same restaurants as the Government Ministers; it reminds me of Animal Farm when the pigs took over and just turned into them [the humans] themselves.”
He said the union leaders “are just effectively another arm of the Government.”
The Waterford man, a former Socialist Party member who teaches in Lucan, was responding to criticism yesterday of the Fightback group’s tactics.
Splinter group
First came a strong ticking-off from ASTI general secretary Pat King, and then other delegates turned on Phelan and his colleagues in the ASTI splinter group as they gathered in the White’s hotel lobby in Wexford.“We are sick of you. You are ranting and raving,” said Mary Lysaght, from Tipperary. She told the media present: “These are six people; they are not representative of my view or anyone else’s view.”
Dundalk delegate Elaine Devlin said teachers were a “moderate group” and the disruption to Ruairí Quinn’s address on Tuesday was “not a reflection of what’s happening upstairs today”.
But Mark Walshe, a teacher from Swords, in north Dublin, who heads the ASTI Fightback group, said it was speaking up for a large body of teachers who were afraid to raise their heads because of job insecurity.
While he confirmed there were only about “six or seven” key activists, he said they had a growing mandate and Walshe had been elected last year to one of the nine seats on the ASTI’s education committee from a field of 21.
The dispute highlights a deeper rift in the ASTI between older and newer members. This, rather than the left-right divide, is the real fault line in a profession that has seen major cuts in entry salaries and increased casualisation.
Theme of unity
The irony was that King’s keynote address to delegates yesterday was on the theme of unity. Warning that “sniping from the wings” was undermining the union’s leadership and weakening its hand in negotiations, he said “the media world is far from sympathetic to teachers’ interests” and it was important for members to act together rather than alone. Teacher disunity is music to the ears of our opponents.”
But a day that began with the union chief apologising on the national airwaves for his members’ abuse of Quinn ended with a collective heave against the Minister’s Junior Cycle reforms.
Teacher after teacher took to the podium to draw a very clear line in the sand. They won’t be assessing their own students for the planned new Junior Cycle certificate.
Whether that unity will last remains to be seen as the ASTI leadership is due to report on a request for an emergency motion which would bring it closer to strike action.2016 Sundance Deals: The Complete List of Festival Pick-Ups
One thing that became abundantly clear in the days leading up to the 2016 Sundance Film Festival was just how big of a year it was going to be for bidding wars and sales deals. It started eight days before opening night, when Netflix threw its hat into the ring first by picking up streaming rights to Sian Heder’s feature debut, “Tallulah,” starring Ellen Page and Allison Janney. The deal would be the first of five for the streaming giant, a second one of which, the Iranian horror film “Under the Shadow,” was also acquired before the festival began.
READ MORE: It’s Complicated: How Netflix and Amazon Add a Big Wrinkle to Sundance Deal-Making
While Netflix seemed to be leading the pack early on, it was ultimately Amazon Studios that dominated the Sundance buying market. After starting early with the streaming rights for “Complete Unknown” (that marked the third pre-festival buy), Amazon proved it would pay big bucks for buzzy titles ($10 million for “Manchester By the Sea”) and pair up with distributors to guarantee its purchases a theatrical release under companies like Roadside Attractions and Open Road. That was perhaps the biggest difference between the streaming competitors at Sundance. Amazon found more partnerships for theatrical distribution than Netflix, which left Sundance with only SVOD rights to a majority of its purchases.
After many of last year’s Sundance titles proved unsuccessful at the box office, pundits were left wondering if this year would see a dramatic decrease in purchases. Both Amazon and Netflix made sure that wasn’t the case, clearly, but the rest of the deals from major distributors paint a different story of patience and planning. There wasn’t necessarily a decrease in sales out of the festival this year, but there was hardly a dominant theatrical buyer. With a ton of different distributors only picking up one or two titles, this year saw a huge number of different buyers.
Such was the case with Fox Searchlight. The company has long been one of Sundance’s most popular buyers, but this year they held all their cards close and made one deal, which happened to be the record-breaking $17.5 million for Nate Parker’s award winner “The Birth of a Nation.” Companies that were conspicuously absent this year included IFC Films, Alchemy, Bleecker Street and Broad Green Pictures, but that only resulted in more room for A24, Summit, Oscilloscope and more to make a mark.
Check out all of the deals made at Sundance this year below.
AMAZON STUDIOS
Amazon and Open Road Team Up for Acclaimed Sundance Doc ‘Gleason’
Amazon Scores Big at Sundance (Again) With Todd Solondz’s ‘Wiener-Dog’ Deal
Amazon Lands Huge Deal for Sundance Sensation ‘Manchester By the Sea’
Amazon and Roadside Attractions Unite for Whit Stillman’s ‘Love and Friendship’
Amazon Heads to Sundance, Picks Up Twisty Drama ‘Complete Unknown’
Sundance: Truth Battles Fiction in Amazon Pickup ‘Author,’ Starring Laura Albert, the Real JT LeRoy
NETFLIX
Netflix and Music Box Films Acquire Norman Lear Sundance Doc ‘Just Another Version of You’
Netflix is Getting into Bed With Sundance Sex Comedy ‘Brahman Naman’
Netflix Picks Up Sundance Sexual Assault Documentary ‘Audrie & Daisy’
Netflix Strikes Sundance Again With ‘Under the Shadow’ Streaming Deal
Netflix Kicks Off Sundance Early By Acquiring Ellen Page-Starring ‘Tallulah’
MAGNOLIA PICTURES
Magnolia Pictures and HBO Pick Up Sundance Doc ‘Tickled’
Magnolia Pictures Acquires North Korean Kidnapping Tale ‘The Lovers and the Despot’
Magnolia Pictures Lands Werner Herzog’s Internet Revolution Documentary ‘Lo and Behold’
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Sony Pictures Classics Acquires John Krasinski’s Sundance Drama ‘The Hollars’
Sony Pictures Classics Acquires Frank Zappa Sundance Doc ‘Eat That Question’
Sony Pictures Classics Picks Up Rousing Sundance Doc ‘The Eagle Huntress’
PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO
Paramount and MTV Films Pick Up Nick Jonas’ Sundance Frat Drama ‘Goat’
Paramount Lands Clea DuVall’s Sundance Directorial Debut ‘The Intervention’
A24
Swiss Army Man’ and Daniel Radcliffe’s Farting Corpse Head to A24
A24 Makes First Sundance Deal With Crowdpleaser ‘Morris From America’
HBO FILMS
Magnolia Pictures and HBO Pick Up Sundance Doc ‘Tickled’
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Universal Lands Michael Shannon’s Sundance Thriller ‘Frank & Lola”
OPEN ROAD FILMS
Amazon and Open Road Team Up for Acclaimed Sundance Doc ‘Gleason’
MUSIC BOX FILMS
Netflix and Music Box Films Acquire Norman Lear Sundance Doc ‘Just Another Version of You’
BLUMHOUSE
Blumhouse and WWE Studios Join Forces for Sundance Thriller ‘Sleight’
WWE STUDIOS
Blumhouse and WWE Studios Join Forces for Sundance Thriller ‘Sleight’
THE ORCHARD
The Orchard Picks Up Taika Waititi’s Sundance Crowdpleaser ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’
FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
Nate Parker’s ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Sells to Fox Searchlight in Biggest Sundance Deal Ever
SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT
Summit Entertainment Picks Up Sundance Period Drama ‘Indignation’
BRAINSTORM MEDIA
Brainstorm Media Picks Up Sundance Stress Doc ‘Resilience’
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Amazon and Roadside Attractions Unite for Whit Stillman’s ‘Love and Friendship’
GLOBAL SCREEN
Global Screen Picks Up Rights to Sundance Premiere ‘Between Sea and Land’
SUNDANCE SELECTS
Sundance Selects Picks Up Political Controversy Doc ‘Weiner’
OSCILLOSCOPE
Oscilloscope Picks Up Sundance NEXT Drama ‘The Fits’ in Pre-Festival Deal
MONGREL INTERNATIONAL
Mongrel Lands International Rights to Ira Sachs’ ‘Little Men’
GLOBAL SCREEN
Global Screen Picks Up Rights to Sundance Premiere ‘Between Sea and Land’
VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT
Sundance Horror Sensation ‘Under the Shadow’ Going Global with Vertical and XYZ Films
XYZ FILMS
Sundance Horror Sensation ‘Under the Shadow’ Going Global with Vertical and XYZ Films
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE (I-Vt.) called for a new accord between America, its closest allies and Russia as well as Arab nations as a major plank on how to destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We must create an organization like NATO to confront the security threats of the 21st century — an organization that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration to defeat the rise of violent extremism and importantly to address the root causes underlying these brutal acts,” the Democratic presidential candidate said Thursday during a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
“We must work with our NATO partners, and expand our coalition to include Russia and members of the Arab League.”
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NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, started at the doorstep of the Cold War and eventually became a major alliance against the then-Soviet Union. So accepting Russia into NATO, or creating a new defense group all together, would rearrange one of the world’s most powerful bonds by uniting the former rival countries around ISIS as the modern enemy.
But Sanders immediately added that the fight against the terror organization, which has taken responsibility for last week’s attacks in Paris, “must be done primarily by Muslim nations with the strong support of their global partners.”
He criticized America's allies in the region, specifically Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which he believes “have contributed far too little in the fight against ISIS.”
He bashed Saudi Arabia, with the third largest defense budget in the world, for devoting more resources to the fight against Iranian-backed Shia Muslims in Yemen than ISIS. And he criticized Qatar for spending a reported $200 billion on the 2022 FIFA World Cup, “yet very little to fight against ISIS” and for not being “vigilant in stemming the flow of terrorist funding.”
“All of this has got to change,” he said. “Wealthy and powerful Muslim nations in the region can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect the United States to do their work for them.”
International efforts in the region have been complicated by chaos created by the Syrian civil war, which has allowed for a power vacuum in which ISIS has been able to rise.
America has been vocal in its opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Russia has effectively come to his aid by attacking Syrian rebels — who are trying to uproot the embattled leader — under the guise of attacking ISIS.
Sanders reiterated his view of Assad as a “brutal dictator” and signaled support for the international plan, agreed on last week, to set a timetable for new Syrian elections. But he said that defeating ISIS must be the priority for “nations all over the world who share a common interest in protecting themselves against international terrorists.”
The Vermont senator had rarely discussed foreign policy on the trail until the Paris terrorist attacks last Friday. And while he answered national security questions during last weekend’s televised Democratic debate and has touched on the topic during his stump speech, Thursday’s address amounted to his most expansive explanation of the campaign.
“I’m not running to pursue reckless adventures abroad, but to rebuild America’s strength at home,” he said.
“I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will never send our sons and daughters to war under false pretense or pretenses or into dubious battles with no end in sight."
But during a question and answer session after the speech, Sanders pushed back against the characterization that he's a foreign policy dove despite his vote against the Iraq War.
"I did vote for the war in Afghanistan because I thought that Osama bin Laden should be held accountable. I did vote for President Clinton’s effort to end the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," he said.
"No, I am not a pacifist. I think war should be the last resort, but we have the strongest military on Earth and we should be prepared to use it.”
Sanders’s speech came just hours after Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton called for “an intensification and an acceleration” of the American policy against ISIS.
-- Julian Hattem contributed.Monash University trigger warning policy fires up free speech debate
Updated about 3 hours ago Tue 28 Mar 2017, 10:07am
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. Video: Australian university following American example (7.30)
A key element in the new culture war that has swept through universities around the world has reached Australian campuses.
Monash University has become the first in Australia to implement a policy of "trigger warnings".
In its pilot program, 15 of the university's course outlines carry the warnings of potentially emotionally distressing content.
The university says political correctness played no part in its decision, but critics say it is a concession to students demanding to be shielded from ideas they disagree with.
The pilot involves the university asking its academics to review course content looking for "emotionally confronting material" in the discussion of sexual assault, violence, domestic abuse, child abuse, eating disorders, self-harm, suicide, pornography, abortion, kidnapping, hate speech, animal cruelty and animal deaths including abattoirs.
Do you know more about this story? Email 7.30syd@your.abc.net.au
'This will allow students … to prepare themselves'
The policy is the culmination of years of campaigning by the university's Student Association.
Union president Matilda Grey dismissed criticism of the move, saying the current generation of students was simply more aware of the range of experiences of their peers that included for example, those who have been traumatised by sexual assault or other violent crime.
"We're not suggesting that students shouldn't be faced with challenges during their uni experiences," she said.
"We're not suggesting that they shouldn't be faced with difficult, discomforting topics at all.
"But this will allow students who do have a response, whether that be an anxiety attack or a panic attack based on any previous traumatic experiences, to be able to prepare themselves and take responsibility for their actions and manage those responses."
That raises a difficult question.
Monash University said all course content will remain examinable.
So where would that leave a student who, having been warned that course material might traumatise them, decides they cannot attend a class or read a text?
'Life is emotionally distressing'
Conservative critics, like Chris Berg from the Institute of Public Affairs, say the claimed goal of protecting students' emotional wellbeing masks a political agenda.
"We've seen how this has played out in the US and it can turn into a censorious, highly politically correct [culture] and highly harmful to the mission of education |
seem so different. I am well aware of the many challenges ahead, but for now I take one day at a time. I am truly grateful I had the luxury to prepare and ability to have a positive attitude to power though this life-changing surgery. I had the benefit of being 100% mobile on crutches, making a huge difference in the ability to jump back into life. While the full benefits of the amputation will take months to reap, I have already obtained one major goal I had in amputating – that goal being that I am much more mobile than I was with the damaged leg. I now pop up on my crutches and go, no painful useless appendage to decide what to do with or get in my way. That is an amazing and freeing feeling!
Thank you for reading! Please subscribe to never miss a post or come back in to weeks when I explain my phantom pain.
Like my Facebook page to follow my recovery.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blackstone Group LP has reached out to its biggest fund investors about investing in a new investment vehicle with a longer investment horizon than the typical 10-year private equity fund, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group, arrives as a panel member for the breakout session at the Clinton Global Initiative 2014 (CGI) in New York, September 23, 2014. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Dubbed “core” private equity, this vehicle would invest in slower-growing but safer companies, use less debt in buyouts and charge investors lower fees than most private equity funds, these people said. Blackstone is seeking as much as $2 billion apiece from five to six of its biggest public pension fund and sovereign wealth fund investors for the strategy, the people said.
Aspects of the strategy, including the exact fees and holding periods for investments, are still being worked out, these people said. They added that the idea is still at an exploratory stage and may not take off.
A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment. The biggest investors in Blackstone’s funds include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the New Jersey State Investment Council and China Investment Corp.
The move underscores how Blackstone is looking to boost its valuation as a publicly listed company by managing more permanent capital and further diversifying its model of buying and selling companies. Blackstone is already the world’s largest alternative asset manager, with $284.4 billion in assets under management as of the end of September spanning private equity, real estate, credit and funds of hedge funds.
A higher stock valuation would benefit Blackstone shareholders, of whom the company’s employees form the largest group. Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman is the biggest holder by far, owning about a fifth of the firm. In 2013, Schwarzman collected $352.5 million from dividends from his Blackstone shares.
The new strategy also would help Blackstone address what has been a frustration for some buyout firms and a source of envy when they compare their investment vehicles with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. In this vehicle, Blackstone would not be forced to sell successful companies too soon because the fund is running out of time.
Most private equity investors however, also known as limited partners, prefer the traditional buyouts because they deliver high annualized returns. The prospect of lower returns may not be an easy sell.
“The fact that investors will pay lower fees is positive. But the question is whether the net returns will still be high enough to justify investing in such a product as opposed to publicly listed stocks,” said Steven Kaplan, a University of Chicago finance professor whose research focuses on private equity.
In June, at Blackstone’s annual shareholder meeting, President Tony James acknowledged that the core private equity model would have challenges. Limited partners in its funds would likely say no to the prospect of a 10 percent to 12 percent return for a high-quality company when they can get 18 percent to 20 percent for private equity, James said. But he added that there could be ways around that.
The “core” model approach has already been applied to some alternative asset classes. Core real estate, for example, involves investing in safer, long-lease assets with less debt rather than riskier fixer-upper properties.
Blackstone, based in New York, began investing in what it calls core-plus real estate this year through separately managed investor accounts before combining them into a co-mingled fund.
Blackstone is embarking on its core private equity initiative also through separately managed accounts, the people said.
A few firms such as General Atlantic LLC and Golden Gate Capital have also raised so-called evergreen or perpetual funds to invest in private equity, but they target the higher returns that Blackstone’s traditional private equity business does.
FIRST PITCH
Blackstone, which does not want to abandon its established private equity business, has had to look at a differentiated “core” strategy to avoid conflicts with its traditional private equity funds, the sources said.
The firm first made its pitch on the new strategy to investors last summer at its annual limited partner summit in a confidential presentation, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
Limited partners were told a 20-year core private equity fund could deliver 1.8 times the profit on capital invested in succession over the same period in three conventional private equity funds. The example assumes a 12 percent internal rate of return for a core private equity fund and 20 percent IRR for a traditional fund.
This is because only up to two-thirds of the capital committed to a traditional private equity fund is invested at any one time, limited partners were told. As against that, Blackstone would invest the entire capital raised in a core private equity in one-go. The costs of buying and selling companies also add up over time, according to the presentation.
The popularity of the strategy may come down to the fees investors are charged.
While these have not been decided, Blackstone in its limited partner presentation offered an example of a core fund that took 15 percent of profits in the form of carried interest, a divergence from the almost universal 20 percent industry standard in private equity.A New York state judge has ruled that Putnam County must give public information on names and addresses of pistol-permit holders to The Journal News, but the county is seeking a stay pending appeal, the County Clerk said.
"Putnam County is being denied the right to protect our citizens against an unwarranted invasion of their personal privacy," County Clerk Dennis Sant and Deputy County Clerk Michael C. Bartolotti said in a press release. "We are fighting the good fight on this and will do everything in our power to oppose this crusade by The Journal News to get their hands on your personal information."
In a news article when it filed the suit, lohud.com said the paper did not plan to release the names of individuals holding permits as it had done when it published information about gun-permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties.
The state's penal law has deemed the information public for years.
The paper's original act at the end of 2012 had caused a storm of controversy that overtook horror about the Newtown, CT school shooting, which had happened a few weeks previously.
The issue so infuriated Sant that he made a special trip to Westchester County to endorse County Clerk Tim Idoni's opponent Mary Beth Murphy in the 2013 election—and staged a press conference with a poster of The Journal News' gun map.
Sant's stand made him a national hero in some eyes—and got him a new parking space. He announced in January that he would not seek re-election.
He and Bartolotti urged everyone to mount a massive campaign to get the state's penal law changed.
They also urge all Putnam gun-permit holders to sign and submit an Opt Out form, created after New York passed the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act in response to the controversy. It provides specific exemptions allowing some gun-permit holders' identities to be withheld from the media.
Find the opt-out form here.
Should Putnam County appeal the ruling? Should county officials stick with promoting the Opt-Out Form? Should New York State revise its penal code? Tell us in the comments.Donald Trump speaks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference at a campaign event in Charlotte, N.C., on July 26, 2016. (Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
CHARLOTTE — Addressing one of the nation’s largest veterans groups, Donald Trump sharply criticized rival Hillary Clinton as a politician who doesn’t care about the safety of American troops and would do no better as president.
Speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention here, Trump accused Clinton and other Washington politicians of betraying a “sacred commitment” to care for the men and women who have put their lives on the line protecting the U.S.
“We know how she takes care of the veterans,” Trump declared, referring to his rival as “Crooked Hillary Clinton.” “Just look at her invasion of Libya and her handling of Benghazi — a disaster. Look at her handling of emails, which put America’s entire national security at risk.”
At that statement, some audience members suddenly interrupted Trump’s speech with a chant that has taken hold at his rallies in recent weeks: “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
It was a stark difference from Monday, when Clinton addressed the group and received polite applause for a half-hour speech that repeatedly criticized Trump’s policies and statements without mentioning him by name.
At the podium Tuesday, Trump took note of the audience’s anti-Clinton chants. “And to think she was here yesterday,” he said, looking away from his teleprompter. “I guess she didn’t do very well.”
The GOP nominee also accused Clinton of backing foreign policies that have weakened America’s standing in the world and opened the door to threats such as ISIS. And he slammed Democrats for not mentioning the terrorism threat during the first day of the Democratic National Convention Monday.
“You didn’t hear it,” Trump said. “They don’t want to talk about it because in a very true way, they really established ISIS because of weakness. The people in this room know better than anybody else … what I mean by weakness.”
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, gestures to the crowd as VFW Commander-in-Chief John A. Biedrzycki Jr. looks on after she addressed the 117th annual VFW National Convention at the Charlotte Convention center on July 25, 2016, in Charlotte, N.C. (David T. Foster III/Charlotte Observer/TNS via Getty Images) More
Echoing a proposal he made earlier this month, Trump promised to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs, eliminate “waste and corruption” and provide the best medical care possible for veterans. He said care for veterans would be one of his top priorities, and he pledged to establish a hotline at the White House for veterans to report problems with their treatment.
The celebrity businessman declared he would work so hard on veterans issues and devote such long hours to the cause that he would likely no longer have time to use Twitter late at night — when he is known to be most active on social media.
“We are going to take care of our veterans like they have never been taken care of before,” Trump declared.
Taking aim at Clinton again, Trump said the system can’t be fixed by the same “failed politicians of the past” who have been “all talk no action.” “We can’t fix a rigged system by electing the people who rigged it in the first place,” he said.
Amid criticism from Republicans that he’s focusing too much on the negative, Trump notably ended his remarks on a positive note, arguing that the country could take lessons from the troops who rise above racial and economic lines to work together.
“Let them be our guide,” Trump declared. “If we do this, we will truly, absolutely, 100 percent make America great again — greater than ever, ever, ever before.”Produced, written & directed by Neal Livingston, 1989
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In 1988 John Dunsworth, an actor and theatre director (well-known from his role in the award-winning series, Trailer Park Boys) was asked to run under the progressive New Democratic Party ticket in a provincial election in Nova Scotia, Canada. A political novice and an underdog, we watch Dunsworth as he undertakes his grassroots approach. Seeing the campaign through his eyes we come away with a new understanding of the political process.
In the end he learns that in order to win it takes more than selling himself, you must first change peoples' basic attitudes towards government and political status quo. The 'Pick Of The Day' for MITV by the Daily News. A unique look at what it means to be a political candidate in the style of the Maysle film The Salesman.
"It ain't politically enlightening but John Dunsworth: The Candidate is quite entertaining. Neal Livingston's film show's the underdog candidate taking his message and his good humour door-to-door in a failing effort to convince the public he's the one to pick. The fact that it's very funny is a testament to the absurdities of the political process and the fact that Dunsworth is, after all, a performer." – Ian Johnston, The Daily News, May 27, 1990.
TrailerFull version run time 22:20 minDVD $29.95 USDCheese seems to be one of the most challenging things to give up when going plant based, or at least it’s what I hear oftentimes when I talk to friends and family that play with the idea. It’s creamy, it’s fatty, it’s delicious and all of that makes it addictive. But let’s face the facts, the plant world can definitely compete with creamy, fatty and delicious and Michaela Grob, an Austrian born plant based cheese connaisseur, is proving it with her wide selection of truly addictive vegan cheeses.
Michaela’s shop opened just a couple of weeks ago, and beside selling her own as well as a variety of east and west coast nut based cheeses, she also sells freshly baked local bread, carefully sources crackers, a plethora of spreads, jams and chutneys that go with her cheeses as well as homemade butter and – vegan charcuterie! Riverdel, the name is a combination of Michaela’s pets names (her dog is River and her cat is Fidel) is a beautiful oasis of culinary deliciousness right around the corner from Prospect park. The shop also offers a variety of sandwiches using the cheeses and condiments and tastings/pairings are in the makings as well.
I had the pleasure to meet Michaela and ask her a couple of questions about plant based cheese, her beautiful store and and her plans for the future. I also purchased some goodies and was blown away by the taste and texture! 🙂
When did you become vegan?
Sometime 4 or 5 years ago; it was a gradual development so I don’t recall the excact moment when I hadn’t eaten dairy or eggs for a while…
Do you ever miss animal based cheese?
No! There is so much good cheese out there…I really couldn’t say that I miss “real” cheese…
How did the idea about opening a vegan cheese store come about?
When I became vegan, I started making my own cheese at home because it wasn’t easy to find good cheese in the shops. So I started looking around to find vegan cheeses, ordered them online, had friends in other cities pick them up for me at a place I heard of that carried some vegan cheese,…started making my own as well! At one point I said to my husband “I wish there was a shop that I can just go to and know that they have a variety of cheese and much more…without having to check the labels to make sure it’s vegan”. I guess that’s when the seed was planted….
Are you still making your own cheeses at home?
I’ve been making my own cheese for years and we’re also making our own cheese in house at the shop. We just started making our first batch last weekend…more to come!
How would you convince a dairy cheese fanatic to switch to plant based cheese?
By keeping an open mind and telling them it’s just a different kind of deliciousness. At this point, it’s not anymore about “imitation” cheese for a lot of people, but it’s just about good food and good cheese.
Are there any health benefits to plant based cheese in your opinion?
There is a lot of literature and research out there about avoiding dairy; and a lot of people that I speak with in the shop express that they just feel better when not indulging in dairy products. So I’d say there is probably something to it.
What’s your favorite brand and type of cheese?
That’s a really tough question, because it really depends on what I try to do with a cheese. Can I say that all the brands we carry in the shop are my favorite… 🙂
How do you like eating your cheese the most? (with what bread, condiments etc?)
With a good cracker, and apple and a nice glass of wine….
What are your long term plans for your business?
Being a place where new cheese brands can test the market, being able to educate people and show them what great dairy-free cheese are out there and helping people make it easier to live dairy free….
Thank you Michaela! 🙂
Address:
820 Washington Ave, Brooklyn, New York, 11238Endorsement comes day before Clinton to stop in James' hometown of Akron.
NBA champion and Cleveland Cavs star LeBron James penned an endorsement for Hillary Clinton published online tonight on BusinessInsider.com.
[Exclusive] � @KingJames: Why I'm endorsing @HillaryClinton for president https://t.co/WLMcbeOxs0 pic.twitter.com/cLQG3YpPvm
� Business Insider (@businessinsider) October 3, 2016
"Only one person running truly understands the struggles of an Akron child born into poverty. And when I think about the kinds of policies and ideas the kids in my foundation need from our government, the choice is clear," James writes. "That candidate is Hillary Clinton."
James touts Clinton's work with children and praises her plans to make college affordable.
James also writes, "We must address the violence, of every kind, the African-American community is experiencing in our streets and seeing on our TVs. I believe rebuilding our communities by focusing on at-risk children is a significant part of the solution. However, I am not a politician, I don�t know everything it will take finally to end the violence. But I do know we need a president who brings us together and keeps us unified. Policies and ideas that divide us more are not the solution. We must all stand together � no matter where we are from or the color of our skin. And Hillary is running on the message of hope and unity that we need."
The Clinton campaign was quick to celebrate the endorsement.
BREAKING: @KingJames just endorsed @HillaryClinton
for president! https://t.co/VN7Zty3N0G #OHHillYes pic.twitter.com/LURJao0iNi
� Hillary for Ohio (@HillaryforOH) October 3, 2016
How Ohio feels about @KingJames endorsing Hillary: pic.twitter.com/jX5JEokG1J
� Salim (Philip) Zymet (@SalimZymet) October 3, 2016
Night of the @KingJames endorsement, @HillaryforOH vols in Akron are hard at work to elect @HillaryClinton #OHHillYes pic.twitter.com/y63KGWsq5C
� Omer Farooque (@omerizer) October 3, 2016
Clinton is scheduled to be in James' hometown of Akron Monday, her first appearance in Ohio since Labor Day weekend. She will also be in Toledo.
James has typically stayed away from politics though he did endorse Barack Obama. James has more recently been more outspoken on issues such as the Black Lives Matters movement.As USB Type-C begins to become the standard in the tech industry. Many of us are going to need to stock up on some new USB Type-C cables and accessories. There are already quite a few of them available, and we're here to give you our top 10 best cables and adapters for USB Type-C.
TechMatte USB-C to Micro USB Adapter
Many of us have tons of micro USB cables laying around our home and office, and this adapter from TechMatte is a great addition for many. Just pop it on the end of your micro USB cable and poof, you have a USB Type-C cable. It works pretty flawlessly.
iOrange-E 6.6-Ft Type C Cable
iOrange-E also has a USB Type-C cable here, this is a 6.6-foot long cable. One end is USB Type-A while the other is USB Type-C. Allowing you to plug your device into your computer or any other USB ports around your home. The cable is braided, so it won't break easily.
Cable Matters USB Type C to Type A Cable
Cable Matters has also released a Type-A to Type-C cable which is great for using with existing chargers, battery packs, and much more. This is a 3.3-foot long cable, so it's not that long, but still long enough to get the job done.
Cambond 6.6ft / 2M Braided USB Type C Cable
The Cambond cable here is also a 6.6-foot long cable and is a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable. It's also braided like the iOrange-E cable listed above. Which means it'll be able to take a beating, at least for a little while. It's a great cable to pick up.
Yoozon 3.3ft/1m Type C to Type A Cable
Here's another USB Type-C to Type-A cable, albeit a bit short. It is a 3.3-foot cable, or 1-meter for those outside of the US that use the metric system. It is sporting the correct spec for both the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X as well. So there's that.
F-color Braided Reversible USB C to 2.0 USB A
F-Color has a 6-foot long cable here for those with a device like the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X. As it does sport the appropriate spec for both those devices. Additionally, this is a braided cable, which means it'll be able to take a beating or two.
Karnotech EL-2503 USB Type-C to Type-A Cable
Karnotech's USB Type-C cable is a great looking cable in gold. It'll match the newly announced gold Nexus 6P. This Type-C to Type-A cable is indeed compatible with the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X, and is a 6.6-foot long cable at that.Get the biggest Celtic 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
Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers last night warned Chelsea they would be wasting their time trying to grab Craig Gordon.
The Premier League club are set to move for the Hoops No.1 if Asmir Begovic makes the switch to Bournemouth, however, Rodgers insisted his keeper is strictly not for sale.
The manager was speaking after Gordon kept a clean sheet in the win over St Johnstone as Celtic equalled the Lisbon Lions’ record start to the season.
Dedryck Boyata headed the winner as the Parkhead men made it 26 domestic games unbeaten since day one of the campaign – to equal Jock Stein’s side’s famous run in 1966-67.
Rodgers was thrilled with the victory and made it clear he sees Gordon going nowhere. He said: “It’s a credit to the way the players are performing there is speculation and people are talking about these clubs.
“But Craig is very much part of what I am doing here. He is 34, can go on for a number of years and be a real pillar of this team.
“Would Chelsea be wasting their time? Yes, of course. We don’t want to sell him. His contract is up at the end of the season but the club have the option of another year. Selling Craig’s not something we would even consider.“
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Gordon is one of three keepers Chelsea have put on their wishlist along with AC Milan’s Diego Lopez and Galatasaray’s Fernando Muslera.
Rodgers is looking to hold on to his top talent and was delighted his men could match the Lisbon Lions. He said: “If you had mentioned that six months ago, when we first came in, to the supporters or players they might not have believed it.
“It’s a huge honour, a huge testament to them and how well they’ve worked.
“It’s been 50 years and you think of all the great players and managers who have been at this club. It shows you how difficult it is to achieve that. For this group of players, at the very beginning of their journey, big congratulations to them.”
St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright hailed his side’s stubborn display but was seething they were denied a late penalty when Scott Brown appeared to shove Steven Anderson.
He said: “There are difficult decisions and easy ones to make and that’s an easy one.
“He has a clear view, it’s a push in the back and anywhere else on the park that’s a free-kick and it robbed us a chance to take something from the game.
"But the players should be proud. We’ve just come up short.”Russia on Friday condemned a U.S. missile strike against Syrian government forces as an attack on its ally and said it was suspending an agreement to minimize the risk of in-flight incidents between U.S. and Russian aircraft operating over Syria.
Even as Russian officials expressed hope that the strike against Syrian President Bashad al-Assad’s forces would not lead to an irreversible breakdown in U.S. relations with Moscow, the Kremlin’s decision to suspend the 2015 memorandum of understanding on the air operations immediately raised tensions in the skies over Syria.
[Assad condemns U.S. missile strike as ‘arrogant aggression’ ]
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the risk of confrontation between aerial assets of the U.S.-led coalition and Russia has “significantly increased” after President Trump ordered the launch of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation for a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians.
Later Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it has officially informed the United States that it is suspending its obligations under the memorandum at midnight.
(Sarah Parnass,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)
Under the pact, the two countries have traded information about flights by a U.S.-led coalition targeting the Islamic State and Russian planes operating in Syria in support of the Assad government. Moscow was taking its action, the Defense Ministry said, because it sees the U.S. strike “as a grave violation of the memorandum.”
During a special U.N. Security Council session on the airstrikes Friday, Russia’s United Nations envoy condemned what he called an “illegitimate action by the United States.”
“The consequences of this for regional and international stability could be extremely serious,” Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said. “The U.S. has often talked about the need to combat international terrorism,” he said, yet it attacked the Syrian air force, which he claimed is leading that fight in Syria.
“It’s not difficult to imagine how much the spirits of terrorists have been raised by this action from the United States,” Safronkov said.
Earlier in the session, the British representative had mocked Russia, saying that Assad is making a fool of his backers by committing war crimes and rebuffing Moscow’s effort to negotiate.
“Russia sits here today humiliated by its failure to bring to heel a puppet dictator,” said Matthew Rycroft, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations.
The session was requested by Bolivia, which wanted to hold it behind closed doors. The United States, which holds the rotating leadership of the Security Council this month, instead insisted that the discussions be open.
1 of 14 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Photos show U.S. missile strikes in Syria View Photos U.S. forces launched more than 50 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield in the first direct assault on Bashar al-Assad’s government. Caption U.S. forces launched more than 50 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield. April 7, 2017 The USS Porter launches a Tomahawk missile in the Mediterranean Sea. The operation was authorized by the Trump administration in retaliation for a chemical attack killing scores of civilians. Ford Williams/U.S. Navy via Associated Press Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
The council has set aside for now a separate discussion of whether to condemn the Assad government for Tuesday’s chemical attack. Russia is expected to veto a resolution supported by the United States, Britain and France.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, earlier claimed that the Syrian government had no chemical weapons and dismissed the Trump administration’s explanation as an excuse to enter the conflict.
“President Putin considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law, and under a far-fetched pretext,” Peskov told reporters. “This step by Washington is causing significant damage to Russian-American relations, which are already in a deplorable state.”
“Of course, Syria is our ally, considering that we are helping the Syrian armed forces at the Syrian leadership's request,” Peskov said.
The strike creates the possibility of a direct confrontation with Russia, which has forces on the ground and advanced air-defense systems capable of shooting down U.S. aircraft and missiles.
The so-called "deconfliction" channel that Russia suspended was established in 2015 to prevent mishaps, including collisions, after Russia deployed aircraft to a base along Syria’s Mediterranean coast and began carrying out strikes on behalf of the Syrian regime. It calls for a U.S. colonel at an air base in Qatar and a Russian colonel to man a phone hotline and inform each other of where their countries’ planes are flying.
The arrangement has been far from ideal, however, and U.S. military officials have called in recent months for an expansion of deconfliction talks as Russian and U.S. military aircraft fly in increasingly close quarters over Syrian cities such as Manbij.
[Why U.S. generals want elevated talks with Russia over aerial collision fears]
Senior U.S. military officials have said they have resorted to flying advanced F-22 Raptor jets at the top of the “stack” formations used to carry out airstrikes in part because they can better keep track of incoming aircraft and direct other coalition planes to shift out of the way of incoming Russian aircraft.
Two U.S. military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday morning that they were aware of Russia’s stated intention to suspend the channel, but it was not yet clear how losing it may affect air operations. The Pentagon was still assessing the situation, they said.
One said Friday that communication through the hotline has continued, including after the attack.
“There’s someone who is on the other end who is talking to us,” one official said.
Before the missile strike, a Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, said in a statement, “U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield.”
There have been no reports of Russian casualties in Friday’s strike, but Syrian officials claimed that civilians, including children, were killed in the attack.
In Moscow on Friday, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said Russia would help strengthen Syrian air defenses to “protect the most sensitive Syrian infrastructure facilities.”
Konashenkov said the attack destroyed a warehouse, classrooms, a cafeteria, six Mig-23 fighter jets that were being repaired and a radar station. The runway and other aircraft were not affected, he said.
“Therefore, the military effect of the massive American missile strike on the Syrian air base was extremely small,” he said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, also dismissed the U.S. assertion that the attacks were a response to this week’s chemical weapon attack in northern Syria, which left scores dead in a village in Idlib province — one of the last strongholds of anti-Assad factions.
“It is obvious that the strike by U.S. cruise missiles was prepared well in advance,” Zakharova said on Russian state television. “It is clear to any specialist that the decision to deliver the strikes was made in Washington before the Idlib events, which were simply used as a pretext for demonstrating force.”
Putin’s spokesman said the Russian president considered the attack an attempt to distract attention from the heavy civilian casualties caused by a U.S.-backed offensive to capture the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group.
Under a 2013 Russia-U.S. agreement, Syria agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile. A U.N. mission in 2014 confirmed that most of Assad’s “declared” chemical arsenal had been eliminated. But this week’s attack in Idlib raised questions about whether some arms were held back.
[How the Middle East responded to the U.S. strikes on Syria]
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is due to arrive in Moscow next week, said the attack on Idlib meant that “clearly, Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on that commitment.”
Putin carefully orchestrated a peace process that brought together Turkey and Iran — regional powers that have backed opposing sides in the civil war. At the same time, the chemical weapons attack suggested that Assad and his Iranian allies have no intention of being party to a power-sharing agreement with the opposition, indicating that Putin’s deal is all but dead.
U.S.-Russian relations are at their lowest point in decades, over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its proxy war in eastern Ukraine, as well as allegations that the Kremlin interfered in the U.S. presidential election last year.
Following the election of Trump, Russian leaders expressed measured optimism for an improvement in relations, but Peskov and others have said that so far there has been minimal dialogue.
Dan Lamothe and David Nakamura in Washington and Andrew Roth in Moscow contributed to this report.
Read more:
U.S. strikes in Syria: How did we get here?
‘The hospitals were slaughterhouses’: A journey into Syria’s secret torture wards
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsThe Parramatta National Rugby League Club Pty Limited (the “Club”) has reviewed the legal situation of Kenny Edwards. Based on an incident on 11 December 2016, Kenny Edwards was charged with “common assault domestic violence”.
We think it is important to provide relevant facts and some context around this situation, as there are many factors to be considered. Throughout this process, we have had meaningful dialogue with the National Rugby League (NRL) Integrity Unit, the Rugby League Players’ Association (RLPA) and Mr Chris Orr, Kenny’s manager.
The summary facts are as follows :
During the course of an argument between Kenny and his ex-partner, Kenny sprayed water from a water bottle onto her face and body. Kenny returned a short time later and, whilst still arguing, poured the contents of a raspberry vodka cruiser bottle over the complainant and the bed.
Kenny’s lawyer and the senior prosecutor agreed to a guilty plea, whereby Kenny plead guilty to common assault under Section 10 and no conviction was recorded, with a good behaviour bond for 6 months.
Since the time of the incident, our Club has, through our Club’s welfare staff, supported both Kenny’s ex-partner and Kenny by arranging counselling and providing general support. As noted by the court, Kenny has and continues to provide significant financial support for his entire family.
Any reasonable analysis requires recognition of the fact that Kenny has prior incidents in his Rugby League career. This history has been continually emphasised in discussions with the NRL; the NRL had, following the 2015 incident, warned Kenny that, as a repeat offender, he would be looking at possible de-registration by the NRL if he committed any further conduct that bought the game into disrepute.
It is also fair and balanced to point out that Kenny is a respected member of our playing squad and regularly contributes to the community activities of our Club.
It is our Club’s belief that we have a strong “duty of care” to our players. We have 3 full-time welfare and leadership staff dedicated to our Players. The welfare programs in place at our Club are excellent.
In summary, our Club needs to:
· show support to Kenny and his family from a rehabilitative perspective – he is part of our Parramatta Eels family; and
· exercise fair and reasonable discipline in order to reinforce to Kenny that we all need to take personal responsibility for our actions and behave to certain standards in accordance with our Club values of Integrity, Respect and Excellence.
This balance can be difficult, particularly considering all the factors and circumstances in this situation. Our Coaching & Recruitment Staff have planned our playing roster with Kenny included as an important Player in that roster; our Club has been weakened by not having Kenny available to play and, understandably, our Club and fans are disadvantaged.
The Club is of the opinion that Kenny has acted in breach of his National Rugby League Playing Contract (which covers the 2016, 2017, 2018 & 2019 NRL seasons). Under this Contract, the Club is permitted to take action including, but not limited to, caution, reprimand, a fine, suspension or termination.
After much deliberation, our Club and the NRL have agreed on the following action:
1. Suspend Kenny Edwards for the following matches:
· The first seven (7) matches of the Club in the 2017 NRL season.
Kenny Edwards will not be permitted to play in the Club’s NSWRL Cup team during this period but will be allowed to train with the NRL and NSWRL Cup squads.
2. Fine Kenny Edwards an amount of $60,000. This fine will be deducted from Kenny’s NRL Playing Contract over the 2017 & 2018 seasons so as to ensure Kenny and his family have sufficient support.
We will also ensure Kenny engages in appropriate counselling, as sanctioned by the NRL, and also have him continue to perform community service, as directed by the Club.
Kenny’s manager, Mr Chris Orr, has been involved in the discussions around this case and Kenny and Mr Orr have accepted the above action by the Club and the NRL.
Yours sincerely,
Bernie Gurr
Chief Executive Officer
Parramatta National Rugby League Club Pty LimitedRock top Bar and Grill located on Blairs Ferry Road NE closed last month. It was only open for four months. Local businessman Richard Pankey and his team Meatball Inc. are going to manage the bar when it re-opens.
He says the owner told him that the current model needed an upgrade. Rocktop will now be known as Axel’s Sports Grill. It will have an updated kitchen and is better suited for servers so people can get their food faster.
There will also be a private dining room area. The meals there will taste different because they are bringing in new vendors. Pankey hopes people who did not like Rock top will give Axel's a chance.
He says, "People came here and had one or two visits, and maybe they left not as satisfied as they wanted to be. And so with the track record that we have with our existing restaurants, we want to bring that back, and bring back that same level of service. "
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can be done better by large trees in suburbia than almost any other landscape type. City centers can import surplus suburban renewable energy captured through rooftop solar, access locally grown organic food and or stored and recycled water. In these ways the suburb becomes crucial to the environmental part of the entire urban enterprise.
Looking Forward
As American families and business continue to vote with their lives and dollars for the suburbs, the only way to stop suburban growth is “forcefully,” as The Economist recently put it and as political class is attempting to do in increasingly feudalized California. Yet to kill suburbs—or try and convert them into high density cities—is to stomp on the aspirations of middle class families, immigrants, minorities and seniors. It is not, to say the least, a long-term winning political formula.
To be sure suburbs, already more diverse, could also become more interesting, and add more open space and commons, particularly with the onset of autonomous cars which can significantly reduce the paving in such environments. They could also serve as a safety valve for people priced out of the premier urban areas.
The legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed both Central and Prospect Park as well as several iconic suburban neighborhoods, considered suburbs a natural progression of urbanization: He said in 1868: “no great town can long exist without great suburbs.”
The challenge today remains making great suburbs to fulfill the potential of full urban life. The suburbs—where most Americans experience urban life—deserve not the disdain of planners and politicians and pundits, but their full respect and attention.
Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs presidential fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism. Alan M. Berger is professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and co-director of the Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT. Both are co-editors of Infinite Suburbia (Princeton Architectural Press).Bias is something that is ingrained in sports fandom.
Whether you believe so or not, you’re always going to have a bias either for or against a team. Journalists try to avoid it, but it’s against human nature to have a true sense of neutrality when dealing with sports.
What happens, though, when bias goes too far?
That’s a question many fans of the Colorado Avalanche are asking about the NHL right now. There is a legitimate concern in the fan base that the league is actively biased against the Avs. That the league has a vested interest in seeing the Avalanche fail.
The latest ammunition is the two-game suspension levied against Erik Johnson for his hit on Vladislav Namestnikov. Coming on the heels of the four-game suspension handed to Gabriel Landeskog last month, many feel these suspensions were unwarranted and show that the NHL - and in particular the Department of Player Saftey - treats the Avs differently than the rest of the league.
The total number of games lost to suspension in the NHL so far this season is 37. Of those, 6 belong to Avalanche players. The problem some see is that while most suspensions have been handed out to known shit-weasels like Radko Gudas, Tom Wilson, and Matthew Tkachuk, the Avs are losing their top guys.
Why do Landeskog and Johnson get suspended, while the league looks the other way on hits from guys like Jonathan Huberdeau?
The word ‘conspiracy’ is even being thrown around by some. And you know what, maybe those people are on to something.
We all know that Fox Mulder is a big-time basketball fan - but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a soft spot for the Colorado Avalanche.
The JFK assassination
The moon landing
Area-51
The Colorado Avalanche
Paul McCartney is dead
They all tie together.
The Illuminati is real people. Jay-Z has been trying to tell us as much in his lyrics for a couple decades now. Is there any doubt that Lou Lamoriello, Jeremy Jacobs, Gary Bettman and Sidney Crosby are members of the society-dominating organization?
And why wouldn’t they pick the Avalanche as the organization they want to torment? It only makes sense that hockey fans in Denver are the ones the league wants to make suffer, right?
How deep does this conspiracy go?
Was Patrick Roy a plant by the league to tear down the franchise through a series of terrible drafts and bad player personnel decisions?
Was Peter Forsberg really healthy the whole time and just being paid to skip out on games?
I mean, recent Hall of Fame inductees Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya were absolutely amazing for every team they ever played for...except for Colorado. This is not a coincidence.
So we’re all in agreement that the Rand Corporation, in conjuncture with Gary Bettman and the saucer people - under the supervision of the Toronto Maple Leafs - are engaged in a fiendish plot to eliminate the Colorado Avalanche from relevance in the NHL.
There’s the blown offside call against St. Louis, the suspension of their captain for four games, the fact that team has been horrendous for a season and a half now. The evidence is there. This Erik Johnson suspension is just another thing to add to the list. I’m sure the league will give us much more as the season progresses.
Just remember, the truth is out there.The Nexus S Gets MIUI Ice Cream Sandwich based ROM! If you haven’t been walking on the moon or living in your basement in fear of a nuclear war, you would know MIUI has been working on its own iteration of the ICS OS. Guess what? They just released it for the Nexus S. It’s official, that’s the best part, so if you have a Nexus S and were very depressed when you heard about the Huawei Honor U8860 getting a demo version of the ICS officially (or maybe you didn’t), this more then makes up for that. Want this ROM on your device? Read on!
Update: The ROM turned out to be Chinese and the screenshots threw us off. English version of the ROM has just been uploaded at MIUI Android, the link to which can be found in the Requirements section.
We could go about listing the new features the ROM brings to it (It’s ICS after all!), but you can check that out at the official changelog at the the developers’ website. We, will let the pictures below do the talking.
Images below courtesy of BehradGH.
Want to get it up and running on your Nexus S?
Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.
Requirements:
Instructions:
To begin, download the ROM and copy it to the root of your SD card.Now reboot into recovery and make a Nandroid backup.
Select wipe data/factory reset, wipe cache and wipe dalvick cache.
Navigate to install zip from sdcard > choose zip from sdcard and select the ROM copied to your SD card.
Once the ROM is chosen, it will be flashed to the device and will take a few minutes.
When the ROM is installed, simply reboot your device.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERGold Coast cop charged over shots fired during car chase, police union 'outraged'
Posted
The Queensland Police Union has expressed outrage at a decision to charge a senior Gold Coast officer over his involvement in the pursuit of an armed suspect last year.
Senior Constable Barry Wellington was working with partner Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley in May 2015 when they were involved in a massive police operation at Pacific Pines to apprehend two suspects, one of whom was armed.
During the pursuit, both officers allegedly opened fire on the moving car despite repeated orders to stand down.
Both were suspended from official duty and Senior Constable Wellington will face court next month after being issued with a notice to appear on one count of dangerous operation of a weapon.
Acting Queensland Police Union president Shayne Maxwell described the charge as excessive.
"It's outrageous that a police officer can be charged for doing their job," he said.
"We've been supporting all officers throughout this investigation and I find it unbelievable that one of them has been charged criminally when they're out there protecting the public."
Senior Constable Wellington will face the Southport Magistrates Court next month, while investigations continue into Senior Sergeant Hurley.
Topics: courts-and-trials, unions, police, southport-4215When Geraldine was eight years old, her father took the family on vacation to Britain and Europe; two days after the family set sail, the U.S. Attorney General signed an order refusing him permission to re-enter the country. [14] Her father then moved the family to Switzerland. [15] She attended boarding school there, where she became fluent in French and Spanish. [1] Also in this time period, Geraldine appeared in a small part in her father's film Limelight (1952). [1]
Dance and modeling Edit
At 17 years of age, the young Chaplin decided to forgo college to pursue dance instead,[3] and studied ballet for two years in England,[citation needed] including a period in 1961 at the Royal Ballet School.[1] Chaplin then danced professionally for a year in Paris.[citation needed] Although a good dancer, she felt she had not trained from an early enough age to excel at it and so gave up ballet.[citation needed] Said Chaplin "I didn't leave ballet, ballet left me".[This quote needs a citation][not in citation given] It was a great disappointment to her.
Chaplin then found work as a fashion model in Paris.[citation needed][16][4] She was then discovered by David Lean.[when?][where?][3] It would be many years before she could bring herself to see a ballet performance.[citation needed]
Discovery and early acting, 1965–69 Edit
When her dream of becoming a ballet dancer ended, she followed her father into what would become a prolific acting career.[3] She came to prominence[citation needed] in the role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1965).[3] David Lean chose her to play the main character's wife,[6] for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination in the category, "Most Promising Female Newcomer."[5] In an interview to publicize the film, she explained, "Because of my name, the right doors opened."[17]
In 1967, she made her Broadway debut in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes.[7] Her performance was praised by Clive Barnes in a New York Times review, where he noted that Chaplin "acts with spirit and force… with a magnificently raw-voiced sincerity" giving a performance of "surprising power."[18]
In the same year, she also began what would become a significant collaboration, starring in Spanish film director Carlos Saura's psychological thriller Peppermint Frappé (1967).[citation needed]
The Hawaiians through Cría Cuervos, 1970–79 Edit
Chaplin starred alongside Charlton Heston in the American historical film The Hawaiians (1970).
Chaplin then appeared in The Three Musketeers (1973), as well as the sequel, The Four Musketeers (1974). Chaplin was cast as the obnoxious BBC reporter Opal in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), for which she received her second Golden Globe nomination, for Best Supporting Actress.[19] She went on to star in the Altman films Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), and then A Wedding (1978), doing Roseland (1977) in between.
She later occasionally co-wrote scripts for and starred in several later Saura films—for these, receiving her greatest critical success[citation needed]—such as Ana and the Wolves (1973), Cría Cuervos (1976), Elisa, vida mía (1977) and Mamá cumple cien años (1979). Cría Cuervos won the Special Jury Prize Award at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.[20] Critic Vincent Canby praised Chaplin's "superb" performance.[21]
She starred in several films produced by Altman and directed by Alan Rudolph, with a BAFTA-nominated role in Welcome to L.A. (1976), in which she played a housewife addicted to cab rides.[22] She received critical acclaim for her role in Remember My Name (1978), in which she played Anthony Perkins' murderous estranged wife.[citation needed]
In an interview with The New York Times in 1977,[full citation needed] Chaplin cited that her career was going more successfully in Europe than in the United States. She complained that "I only seem to work with Altman here... I don't have any offers in this country, none. Not even an interesting script to read. The only person who ever asks me is Altman—and James Ivory."[This quote needs a citation]
French-language and other roles, 1980–89 Edit
In the 1980s, Chaplin starred in several French-language roles, including Claude Lelouch's Les Uns et les Autres (1981), Alain Resnais' Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983), Jacques Rivette's experimental Love on the Ground (1984), and then the American film, I Want to Go Home (1989).
Chaplin also starred in Rudolph's 1920s-set film, The Moderns (1988).
Chaplin, Scorsese, and Zeffirelli, 1990–99 Edit
In the biographical film about her father, Chaplin (1992), she played her grandmother Hannah Chaplin, for which she was nominated for her third Golden Globe Award.[19] Soon after, she was directed by Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence (1993), and appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's version of Jane Eyre (1996).
Chaplin went on to appear in Mother Teresa: In the Name of God's Poor (1997).
The Spanish period, 2000–present Edit
Chaplin received a Goya Mejor Actriz de Reparto for her role in Spanish-Argentine thriller En la ciudad sin límites (In the City Without Limits, 2002).[8] Other notable Spanish films she collaborated with and appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Talk to Her (2002), and Juan Antonio Bayona's The Orphanage (2007), for which she received a second Goya Award nomination.[citation needed] She also recently starred in the Catalan drama, The Mosquito Net (2010), for which she was awarded the Crystal Globe.[23]
In 2006 Chaplin was awarded the gold medal by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España—the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences—for her contribution to Spanish cinema.[10]
Chaplin appeared in The Wolfman, in 2010.
In Americano, she appeared with Salma Hayek, and featured with Jane Fonda in All Together (both 2011). She reunited with Juan Antonio Bayona for the film The Impossible (2012). Chaplin received the Best Actress Award at the Havana Film Festival for her role in the Dominican Republic film Sand Dollars (2014).[citation needed]
In 2018, she starred in Red Land (Rosso Istria), Italian movie by Maximiliano Hernando Bruno based on Norma Cossetto and the foibe massacres.[24]Posted April 28, 2017 at 3:01 am
- "Without me, this body will die."
- When last we saw Sirleck, the body snatcher aberration / vampire
WHY
WHY DID I WRITE / DRAW THIS
I WROTE A DIFFERENT COMIC THAT CONVEYED THIS WITHOUT BEING SPOOKY SCARY, BUT I SAID "NO. THIS IS JUST TELLING. WE NEED SPOOKY SCARY SHOWING."
WHY, ME? WHY?!
So, anyway, for anyone who was wondering, there's Sirleck without a host. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.
Also, that "telling" comic I mentioned would have been a news broadcast about the many mysterious circumstances of the death of Sirleck's millionaire host. This would have required a news reporter other than Carol.
This version means I don't need another reporter character just yet, but the mustache that reporter might have had lives on on this poor butler's face. (Nobody tell the butler union that this guy's mustache is actually a news mustache).
- EGS:NPIan Wright was one of the five original founders of Tesla Motors, so he knows a thing or two about electric vehicles.
In fact, according to this great account of the origins of Tesla, he was the third person to join the company in 2003, and along with original CEO Martin Eberhard, he directly pitched the idea of making electric cars to Elon Musk in his SpaceX office in Los Angeles. Wright left Tesla on good terms about a year after it was founded, but he has stayed in the electric-car game. A creation of his, named the X1, is the fastest “street legal” electric car in the world, he says.
However, these days, while Musk and Tesla’s ambition is to bring electric vehicles to the masses, Wright has a different vision. He wants to transform the market for the huge trucks that consume the most fuel and thus emit the most pollution.
His company, Wrightspeed, makes range extending, electric powertrains that can be used to make existing medium- and heavy-duty trucks more efficient in energy consumption, and thus greener. It has already won a deal from FedEx to use its technology in some delivery vehicles. Now it’s targeting gas guzzling, high-emissions garbage trucks. (It’s not alone in this space; a company called Motiv last year began supplying electric garbage trucks to the city of Chicago.) Obviously, this is a much smaller market than the consumers Tesla is going after, but Wright argues, still a lucrative one.
“Consumer automobiles don’t burn enough fuel,” he tells Quartz. “Family cars burn about 600 gallons a year. If you make that [family car] electric you are going to add $15,000, at least, to the cost of that car and maybe only save $1,500 [in fuel costs]. So maybe a 10-year payback. If you you go to garbage trucks they are burning maybe 14,000 gallons a year, so you can save $35,000 in fuel and $20,000 in maintenance.”
For companies with large fleets of garbage trucks, which can cost $500,000 each, this could amount to a lot of money. Wrightspeed’s technology can cost up to $200,000 per vehicle, but could pay for itself in four years, based on these numbers.
And these potential cost savings are one way Wrightspeed stands out from Tesla, Wright argues. “They are not selling the economic proposition at all, but we are. A fleet operator can do the payback calculation; they don’t care what it looks like or whether their neighbor has one.”
That sounds like a veiled swipe at Tesla, but Wright has nothing but praise for his former employer. “If you look at what Tesla has already achieved it is totally awesome,” he says. “We wanted to change people’s perception about electric cars. People thought they were golf carts. They don’t think that anymore,” he says.
Wrightspeed is in talks with investors about raising capital for further expansion, he says. The success of Tesla can’t hurt in that process. Tesla cars, he points out, have been outselling many luxury marques in the US. ”For a startup car company, that was beyond our dreams,” Wright says.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Meriam Ibrahim spoke to the BBC on the way to the US embassy in Khartoum
A Sudanese woman whose death sentence for renouncing Islam was overturned has been released from jail again, after she was detained at Khartoum airport on Tuesday.
Meriam Ibrahim's lawyer, Muhannad Mustafa, said that she was currently in the US embassy with her family.
Mrs Ibrahim had been detained on charges of falsifying ID documents.
She was first released on 23 June when an appeals court lifted her death sentence for renouncing Islam.
Her sentencing in May to hang for apostasy sparked an outcry at home and around the world.
Mrs Ibrahim, 27, had been held at a police station in the capital, since Tuesday, when she was prevented from leaving the country along with her husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children.
Daniel Wani is a Christian from South Sudan and is a US citizen.
Image copyright Daniel Wani Image caption Daniel Wani and his children at the prison near Khartoum - his wife gave birth to a girl while on death row
She had reportedly planned to travel to the US with her family.
According to Reuters news agency, quoting her lawyer, Mrs Ibrahim was released on the condition that she remains in Sudan.
"Mariam was released after a guarantor was found, but, of course, she would not be able to leave the country," Mr Mustafa said.
"I would like to thank the Sudanese people and the Sudanese police," she told the BBC in an exclusive interview as she left custody. "I would like to thank those who stood beside me."
Asked about her plans following her release, she said: "I will leave it to God. I didn't even have a chance to see my family after I got out of prison."
Document dispute
She has been charged with forgery relating to the South Sudanese travel document she was carrying, and accused of providing false information.
South Sudan's embassy in Khartoum says the emergency travel documents were issued by the South Sudan authorities and are genuine.
However, Sudanese officials say she should have used a Sudanese passport and on Wednesday Sudan's foreign ministry summoned the US and South Sudan charges d'affaires over the issue.
The ministry criticised South Sudan for issuing travel documents "despite their knowledge that she is a Sudanese national" and condemned the US for trying to help the woman leave Sudan using an "illegal [false] travel document", the Suna news agency reports.
Image copyright other Image caption South Sudan's embassy issued the document on Monday
Image caption The couple got married in a church after meeting in 2011
Sudan's National Security and Intelligence Authority is reported to have lodged the complaint against Mrs Ibrahim.
BBC correspondents say that now Sudan's intelligence agency is involved, Mrs Ibrahim's case is likely to be more difficult and complicated to resolve.
Sudan has a majority Muslim population, and Islamic law has been in force there since the 1980s.
Born to a Muslim father, Mrs Ibrahim married Mr Wani in 2011.
Even though Mrs Ibrahim was brought up as an Orthodox Christian, the authorities considered her to be a Muslim because of her father's religion.
At her trial in May in the capital, Khartoum, a judge also sentenced Mrs Ibrahim to 100 lashes for adultery because her marriage to a Christian man was not valid under Islamic law.TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — The hiring of Lane Kiffin as Alabama's offensive coordinator brought many questions.
His impact on the Crimson Tide offense, its structure, philosophy and playbook topped those lists. After four spring practices, a few answers are emerging as the team gets a week off for spring break.
First, how much is changing?
"A lot," center Ryan Kelly said. "I mean, obviously have new plays, new formations, stuff like that."
The play-calling process was simplified, receiver Amari Cooper said, since Kiffin replaced Michigan-bound Doug Nussmeier. The former Raider, Tennessee and USC coach has been doing extra instruction during the media viewing periods of the first four spring practices. He's hands on working with the quarterbacks and receivers.
Then there's the national and regional trend of sped up offenses. They're gaining popularity with the offensive success of Auburn, Texas A&M and others.
Alabama tight end Brian Vogler smiled when asked about that possibility at Alabama under Kiffin.
"It's hard for me to say right now if that would work for us. I think we're a team that's made to be maulers," Vogler said. "Guys are just going to be really physical with you, hit you from every aspect of the game and hit you in every direction.
"I just don't know if that's really our style of being speedy and trying to be elusive around everybody and dodge people like other schools do."
Kiffin didn't run the fast-pace game at USC and wasn't a fan of it when asked last summer.
The big-picture decisions like that would come down to Nick Saban. And he didn't sound ready to abandon the pro-style plan at this point.
"We really don't want to go into the spread and have a running quarterback because the downside of that is when you lose that guy, because of the exposure he has, do you have enough guys that can go in there and play at the same level he can play?" Saban said last week.
Getting a few more snaps in wouldn't bother Kelly.
"Anytime we can run more plays it's good for an offense, right?" he said. "But I don't... obviously, we want to practice faster every day. As the spread offense, stuff like that, it's still the same. We've just been wanting to get more reps in practice. Obviously, reps make us better."
While Auburn ran 15 more plays per game in 2013 (72.4) over 2012, Alabama was right at 63.5. That's down from 64.1 in 2012 and 66.5 the year before that.
Texas A&M ran 73.8 and Ole Miss snapped it 78.3 times a game in 2013.Last night’s telecast of Saturday Night Live, hosted by James Franco in his fourth time on the show and featuring musical guest SZA, drew a 4.5 household Live+Same Day rating in the metered markets and a 2.1 in adults 18-49 in the markets with local people meters.
That was up from the 4.3 in HH and 1.7 in 18-49 for last week’s telecast hosted by Saoirse Ronan. The 4.5 in households was the best SNL delivery since Nov. 4 (4.7 with host Larry David and musical guest Miley Cyrus) and the 2.1 in 18-49 was the show’s highest mark since Oct. 14 (2.2 with host Kumail Nanjiani and musical guest Pink).
Saturday Night Live was the #1 telecast of the night on the Big 4 networks in both metered-market households and 18-49 in the local people meters, topping all primetime programs.
Elsewhere on Saturday, ESPN’s 2017 MLS Cup telecast – a 2-0 Toronto FC victory over the Seattle Sounders – averaged a 0.7 metered market rating, up 75% from the 0.4 rating for the 2015 MLS Cup – the last Major League Soccer championship game on ESPN. It was the highest metered market rating for MLS Cup on ESPN networks (or on cable) since 2012′ LA Galaxy vs. Houston Dynamo face-off (also 0.7).Even before the government obtained an All Writs Act ordering Apple to help back door Syed Rezwan Farook’s phone, it had arranged with a former judge to submit a brief on behalf of the victims of the attack, supporting the government’s demand. Yet not all victims agree. The husband of a woman shot three times in the attack, Salihin Kondoker, has submitted his own letter to the court in support of Apple’s stance. In it, he provides support for a point I was among the first to make: that the phone isn’t going to provide much information about the attack, in large part because it was a work phone Farook would have known was being surveilled.
In my opinion it is unlikely there is any valuable information on this phone. This was a work phone. My wife also had an iPhone issued by the County and she did not use it for any personal communication. San Bernardino is one of the largest Counties in the country. They can track the phone on GPS in case they needed to determine where people were. Second, both the iCloud account and carrier account were controlled by the county so they could track any communications. This was common knowledge among my wife and other employees. Why then would someone store vital contacts related to an attack on a phone they knew the county had access to? They destroyed their personal phones after the attack. And I believe they did that for a reason.
It’s a question no one asked Jim Comey earlier this week when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
Curiously, Kondoker (who explains he has attended briefings the FBI has held for victims) alludes to information the FBI is currently ignoring.
In the weeks and months since the attack I have been to the FBI briefings that were held for victims and their families. I have joined others in asking many questions about how this happened and why we don’t have more answers. I too have been frustrated there isn’t more information. But I don’t believe that a company is the reason for this. [snip] In the wake of this terrible attack, I believe strongly we need stronger gun laws. It was guns that killed innocent people, not technology. I also believe the FBI had and still has access to a lot of information which they have ignored and I’m very disappointed in the way they’ve handled this investigation.
I’m really curious what that is — and why Jim Comey, who promises he would never ignore a lead, isn’t ensuring it gets chased down?Biogen has reported a fourth case of PML with Tecfidera -- this one in a patient with only moderate lymphopenia -- to U.S. and European regulators, raising new questions about the drug's safety.
The latest case occurred in a 61-year-old female with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, who'd been taking Tecfidera for 22 months before being diagnosed with PML.
She had grade 2 lymphopenia, at 600 cells/mm3, for 6 months before developing symptoms of PML, which included left arm weakness and apraxia, according to information provided to MedPage Today. Severe grade 3 lymphopenia occurs when lymphocyte levels drop below 500 cells/mm3.
"To my understanding, at least one of the cases did not demonstrate grade 3 lymphopenia but only grade 2," said Ari Green, MD, of the University of California San Francisco. "This complicates using lymphocyte counts as a means to track risk of PML, as a not insignificant portion of patients on Tecfidera develop grade 2 lymphopenia." (Those estimates range from 11% to 21%.)
The patient had previously taken natalizumab (Tysabri) for 6 years and 4 months, but the company said that prior exposure wasn't considered a confounder in this case.
Few other details about the case were made available. Neither Biogen nor the FDA or the European Medicines Agency (EMA) would comment on the case.
This is not the first case of a patient with moderate lymphopenia developing PML while taking a dimethyl fumarate product. Last April, researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine the case of a 64-year-old female patient who died from PML after 2 years on a compounded formulation of dimethyl fumarate for psoriasis (Psorinovo). Her lowest lymphocyte count was 792 cells/mm3.
A 69-year-old man taking Biogen's Fumaderm dimethyl fumarate brand for psoriasis developed PML with only moderate grade 2 lymphopenia at a range of 724 to 738 cells/mm3. The case was reported in Neurology Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation.
A third case did not involve PML, but a 23-year-old male a patient without any lymphopenia developed shingles from varicella zoster virus infection after only 2 months on the Fagron brand of dimethyl fumarate for psoriasis. The case was reported in a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Although questions remain about the best way to use lymphopenia to determine PML risk with Tecfidera, some experts have raised concerns about the interval of lymphocyte screening on the drug's label.
Tecfidera's label calls for a baseline lymphocyte count, followed by another check-in after 6 months and then regular checks every 6 to 12 months thereafter. Physicians should consider stopping therapy in those whose levels stay below 500 cells/mm3 for 6 months.
However, European regulators recently recommended checking lymphocyte counts every 3 months, and reconsidering treatment in patients who maintain grade 3 lymphopenia for longer than 6 months.
The EMA also recommends checking lymphocyte count monthly for those on Fumaderm, and stopping therapy in all patients who develop grade 3 severe lymphopenia.
Tecfidera's label also only mentions one case of PML, which is outdated given the total of four cases now reported.
Nor does the label discuss the potential role of JCV antibody testing to determine PML risk -- despite the fact that many clinicians are already performing such screening on MS patients. They use it, however, mostly to determine whether patients should go on natalizumab, which carries a stronger risk of PML than most other MS drugs.
Tecfidera is currently seen as a safer choice if a patient is indeed JCV antibody positive.
"The risk [of PML] does not appear to be high enough to warrant routine assessment of JCV antibody status in all patients on Tecfidera," Green said. "Many antimetabolites have a low risk of PML and I would consider both Gilenya and Tecfidera in that risk class for now."
Most of the specialists contacted by MedPage Today said they're not so concerned with FDA label changes, but they would like drugmaker Biogen to be more forthcoming about the details of the PML cases.
"I think the current FDA warning letter is sufficient -- although without a risk mitigation and registration program from the FDA we can't be sure that there aren't more cases for Tecfidera than what has been reported," Green said.
"I have no opinion about what FDA should do," said Dennis Bourdette, MD, of Oregon Health and Science University. "I would like Biogen to be providing more information and follow up on the cases that have occurred."
Tecfidera has been available on the U.S. market as a treatment for MS since 2013.
A Biogen spokesperson confirmed that there have been 588 cases of PML with natalizumab since 2004, representing a global incidence of four per 1,000 treated patients.
The company pulled the drug from the market shortly after it was approved in 2004 -- after two PML cases were discovered -- and relaunched it 16 months later with a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) in place.
1969-12-31T19:00:00-0500Get 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
An award-winning front garden Christmas display was wrecked by a mob.
The yobs struck at about 1.45am on Wednesday December 4 at the address in Washway Road, Sale.
The gang aged between 16 and 19, was seen loitering around the area shortly before they struck.
Numerous ornaments were knocked over causing around £700 worth of damage.
PC Mark Hetherington said: “This display is enjoyed by members of the community who often go and visit this house in the festive spirit.
“It has been awarded with prizes in the past for its ability to capture the public imagination.
“Sadly those responsible for this yobbish behaviour gave no consideration to the money, time and effort that went into producing this spectacle.
“We would urge any witnesses to call us so we can bring these offenders to justice.”
Anyone with any information is asked to call police on 0161 856 7527 or call the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
More news from the Manchester Evening News
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Gero Breloer/Associated Press
Although Bayern Munich have been one of the largest clubs in European football since their promotion to the Bundesliga in 1965, they haven't always had the luxury of foreign players.
The club have been blessed with a whole roster of world-class players throughout the decades and have never stopped trying to stick to their roots.
One cannot look through the rich back catalogue of fantastic teams that have represented the club throughout the ages without finding a spine of German players dictating play and ensuring the football on show is fit for the club.
That's not to say, however, that Bayern haven't had players from all over the world feature in their sides. In fact there have been quite a few, and here today we have ranked the top 30 of them for your pleasure.
So sit back, relax and enjoy, as we go through the top 30 greatest foreign imports for Bayern Munich.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Four firefighters were recovering Friday after falling through the roof of a vacant casino while battling a blaze in Cudahy, officials said.
The firefighters were responding to a fire at a "small," vacant casino near Atlantic Avenue and Live Oak Street (map) around 11:30 p.m. Thursday when the roof collapsed, L.A. County Fire Inspector Chris Reade said.
The men were transported to a local hospital and said to be in good spirits and stable condition.
“Our rescue intervention crew went right to work, were able to get them out, and the crews were speaking with them the entire time,” Reade said, adding that the men were conscious during the rescue.
Three of the firefighters were released from the hospital and one remained in the burn unit as of Friday morning, the Fire Department tweeted.
Arson investigators were at the scene Friday morning working to determine the cause of the blaze.
Atlantic Avenue was closed near the incident, and not expected to reopen until daylight so investigators had a better picture of the scene, Reade said.
The northbound lanes were reopened by 9 a.m.
No civilians were believed to have been injured in the fire.Comcast Promises Faster Upstream Speeds Next Year Comcast says that significantly faster upstream speeds should be arriving for customers sometime in 2017. While Comcast has been testing gigabit speeds over cable in Nashville, Chicago and Atlanta (with Miami and Detroit on deck) the service remains stuck with upstream speeds of "just" |
what we know is that mineral dust from desert regions undergo long range transport. And some of it deposits into the oceans. And that’s actually an important process, because sometimes the iron in the dust particles is a nutrient for ocean life under certain circumstances. That’s often– that nutrient is limited.
And so, we know that dust goes into the ocean. And then you’re asking the next question, does it come back out of the ocean? And so, that’s something that we’re actually looking at in our center.
IRA FLATOW: Tell me about the particles themselves. How large are they, ranging in size?
VICKI GRASSIAN: Yes, so that’s a great question. So for the sea spray, I’ll focus on that, because that’s what we started talking about. The particles are anywhere from– and I’ll use my speak for a moment and then I’ll put it into perspective.
IRA FLATOW: Please.
VICKI GRASSIAN: They go from 30 nanometers– and a nanometer is 1 times 10 to the minus 9 meters– to about 10 microns or 10 micrometers, where a micrometer is 1 times 10 to the minus 6 meters. And so, let’s put it in a different perspective. So if I think about a single hair, OK? So these particles can be anywhere from 10 to 1,000 times smaller than a single width of a hair.
IRA FLATOW: Wow. Well, you’ve set off my break meter. I have to remind everybody that I’m Ira Flatow, and this is Science Friday from PRI, Public Radio International, Talking with Dr. Vicki Grassian, Co-Director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment. And no wonder you have a long name, you study a lot of things like that.
So how much of these particles– I’m thinking now about pollution. How much of the particles that get spread around the world are natural and how much are they man-made, person-made, people-made?
VICKI GRASSIAN: So that’s a great question, because– and that’s a lot about what we think about as well. Because we really want to understand natural sources of aerosols, what their input into the atmosphere is. And then we can better understand what the influence of pollution particles may be. Particles from anthropogenic sources.
So from a mass perspective, if we were to weigh all the particles, many of the particles in the atmosphere are from sea spray and from mineral dust. So from dust storms and from wave action. But when we look at the number of particles– so if we look at it a little bit differently instead of just weighing it, we look at the number– a lot of the smaller particles are actually anthropogenic particles, pollution particles. As you just mentioned a moment ago.
And so, it depends on the size. It depends on whether we’re looking at number of particles or mass of particles. But both are very important in the atmosphere. Both play a role in the atmosphere, I should say.
IRA FLATOW: Are you seeing nanoparticles? Because they’re ubiquitous, these man-made nanoparticles. Are you seeing them being spread around in the air by the waves or the dust?
VICKI GRASSIAN: So I just told you a moment ago that some of the particles coming out of the ocean are nanoparticles. So we actually– so they’re naturally occurring nanoparticles.
IRA FLATOW: Natural. Natural ones.
VICKI GRASSIAN: That’s right.
IRA FLATOW: Not that we engineer those particles, those kinds I’m speaking of.
VICKI GRASSIAN: Yes. And so, then there’s a whole other set of particles, engineered nanoparticles. And so, yeah, you can see some of them. Some of the engineered nanoparticles can make it in the air. There’s been some studies to try to quantify that. But I think that’s something we’re still interested in understanding and interested in knowing. And so, these things would be like titanium dioxide nanoparticles or zinc oxide nanoparticles.
IRA FLATOW: Stuff from makeup and things like that.
VICKI GRASSIAN: Makeup, sunscreen. So just think about sunscreen for a minute.
IRA FLATOW: Yeah.
VICKI GRASSIAN: OK? You put it on. And then you go into the water. It comes off. Then you come back and put it on again. So where did it go?
IRA FLATOW: Oh, what a question. That’s a very good question. It’s still with us, obviously, right? It’s getting washed off in the ocean and then maybe the waves are going to throw back up in the air.
VICKI GRASSIAN: Maybe.
IRA FLATOW: Do people think enough about this, do you think? Pay enough attention to this stuff?
VICKI GRASSIAN: You know, I think we could think more about it, because there are consequences to everything we do. And so, I really do feel like sometimes we don’t think about the next step. So I put this on, I go in the water, it comes off. OK, the ocean is large. Do you think it just goes away, far away? Or does it stay– what is it made of? Is it at the surface of the ocean? Can it come back out into the air? I think that those are questions that are really important to think about and to ask.
IRA FLATOW: I’m very glad that you brought that up, because it’s always something good to think about. Leave everybody with something good to think about. Thank you, Dr. Grassian.
VICKI GRASSIAN: Thank you.
IRA FLATOW: And have a Happy Mother’s Day, if you are. Vicki Grassian, Co-Director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment in San Diego.
Copyright © 2017 Science Friday Initiative. All rights reserved. Science Friday transcripts are produced on a tight deadline by 3Play Media. Fidelity to the original aired/published audio or video file might vary, and text might be updated or amended in the future. For the authoritative record of ScienceFriday’s programming, please visit the original aired/published recording. For terms of use and more information, visit our policies pages at http://www.sciencefriday.com/about/policies/Labor ahead as Canberrans head to the polls
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Antony Green discusses the ACT election (ABC News)
Canberrans are heading to the polls today to vote in a new government.
Polls suggest ACT Labor, led by Katy Gallagher, is well ahead of the Liberal Opposition and will buck the national trend and stay in power.
If Ms Gallagher's team triumphs today, it will be the first time a Labor government has retained power at a state or territory election since Julia Gillard's 2010 election win.
The polls put Labor in front, but it is widely tipped that the party will again have to rely on the support of the Greens to form government.
The Greens are expected to get a ministry if Labor retains power.
Ms Gallagher says it has been a hard campaign.
"Stress, nervous, exhausted. It's the end of what's been a long year and a pretty tough campaign," she said.
The Liberal Opposition, led by Zed Seselja, has fought its campaign on local issues, claiming that household rates will triple under Labor, something the Government denies.
Labor has mainly focused its efforts around health and education.
Mr Seselja says the Liberal Party is offering something different by focusing on local services and addressing cost of living pressures.
"We're getting a very good response, I'm not a pundit and I'm not going to predict the result but I would suggest that some of the predictions others have made will be proven wrong," he said.
"I think we can win, I think this election is still there to be won.
"We don't believe they deserve 15 years. Fifteen years of Labor would be disastrous for this city."
Earlier, polling officials took issue with a hot air balloon emblazoned with Liberal Party insignia that was inflated as Mr Seselja arrived to vote at Gordon primary school.
Political advertising is not allowed within 100 metres of a polling place under ACT election rules, and the stunt was quickly deflated.
The Liberals have also been asked to take down oversized election signage from polling booths around Canberra.
The ACT Greens have expressed concern about the signage, saying it is above the size permitted in the ACT.
Topics: states-and-territories, canberra-2600, act
First postedAfter six dormant years, developers are back in business in downtown LA. Parcels that were parking lots a year ago are now large construction sites. It is nice to see cranes again.
Are the cranes back because people have suddenly discovered that downtown is now cool? Downtown is indeed far cooler than it was 20 and even 10 years ago, and will almost certainly be cooler still ten years from now, in part because all the residential buildings now rising will lead to greater demand for more retail, more restaurants and more entertainment downtown. But I do not think it is coolness that has led to the resurgence of construction.
It is rather that property values in neighborhoods close to downtown have risen enough to justify that very high expense of building upward in a city that is prone to earthquakes and NIMBYism. In Los Angeles, anything that is more than 75 feet tall must be built with steel frame construction. At the same time, Los Angeles has an absurd Floor-Area Ratio ceiling of 6-1 for downtown, meaning that for each square foot of land, developers may only build six floors of rentable space. This means that to build a 24-story building, developers must keep open ¾ of the land that they buy. Put all this together, and it costs $400 per square foot or more to build up in Los Angeles.
Here is where the Silver Lakes of the world come in. At the bottom of the housing crash, one could buy a home in Silver Lake for less than $400 a square foot. Silver Lake is ten minutes from downtown, accessible by freeway and well served by transit, and is delightfully walkable (Vermont Avenue still has a great independent bookstore and many nice restaurants). Silver Lake is not unique; downtown LA has other great neighborhoods nearby. When it was cheaper to buy a single-family house near downtown than a condominium in downtown, new construction downtown ceased to be competitive.
According to Zillow, prices in Silver Lake are now about 30 percent off their bottom, and one can build in downtown for less than the cost of buying in Silver Lake. Stuff that didn’t pencil in 2012 does in 2014. And that is why I think we are seeing construction return to downtown.
Final point: if the definition of a skyscraper is a building more than 100 meters tall, Los Angeles ranks 42nd among world cities, and 8th among US cities, behind the sprawl cities of Houston and Atlanta. This at least in part reflects how expensive it is to build vertically in LA. Regulations requiring steel frame construction are fine—we don’t want building toppling over when the next large earthquake hits. But if LA wants to be a world-class city, it needs zoning regulations that allow it to become so. An FAR of six won’t cut it.After a 11 year long CS career, our main AWP:er Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson has chosen to leave the professional scene of CS:GO. The decision to step down was made after ESWC and is released here and now in consent of the organization. He has won it all, done it all, and is to date one of the most successful, famous and discussed Counter-Strike players of all time. We took the opportunity to sit down with fifflaren and get his opinion on the matter and remember the times past.
“These past two years have been the experience of a lifetime, I’ve learnt so much, travelled all over the world and had a chance to get to know four amazing people who I am proud to call my friends. These are memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. In addition to that, we got to rebuild the legendary NiP-brand and that is the heritage we leave behind us as we go further to realize other dreams in our lives.
No matter who takes my place, I sincerely hope that the team will play well and win, which has always been our ultimate goal and they truly deserve it. I want to thank my ex-teammates, the management of NiP who made it all possible, and a special thanks to all of my fans for the love and support over the years.”
Additional information: Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson has been offered a position within the NiP organization, but no contracts have been written at this time. We await further information from the board of NiP and Fifflaren himself.The word gulag sends shivers down the spine of anyone unfortunate enough to have lived under Stalinist terror. Soviet history is ragged with deportations, forced labor, starvation, executions, and political repression. Yet in the whole of Russia, there is only one museum, a converted labor camp located in a remote village in the northern Ural Mountains, that documents these abuses. Today, as a result of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to revive the grandiose Stalinist narrative of Russian history, it is on the verge of shutdown.
Soviet-era Russia was dotted with hundreds of prison camps. Today, Perm 36 is the only preserved Stalin-era labor camp in the country. It operated as a prison colony for political dissidents until the end of the Soviet period; the last prisoner left in 1988.
Many in the West are aware of the horrors of the gulag, but few may realize that many Soviet camps stayed in business well into the reform era of Mikhail Gorbachev. In Russia, repression is often publicly associated primarily, and sometimes solely, with the Stalinist period. Russian museums, such as Moscow’s State Gulag Museum and Tomsk’s interactive NKVD museum, exclusively memorialize the Stalinist terror and the Great Purges. But Perm 36 is the only former labor camp that immortalizes the lives of political dissidents throughout the entire Soviet era.
The Perm Region, still home to the largest convict population in Russia, was known for what’s called the “Perm Triangle”—the three camps that held legendary dissidents like Vladimir Bukovsky from 1972 to 1988. Today, Perm 36 is run by Memorial, a Russian human rights group dedicated to preserving unvarnished history of the Soviet era. Since 2005, the group has hosted an international forum for Russian and European pro-democracy activists and historians on the campgrounds.....................................................................................................................................................................................
SANTA FE, N.M. — A group of behavioral health providers investigated over fraud allegations gathered on Sunday to call for a federal inquiry into what spurred the state’s investigation.
Ten of the 15 accused providers were cleared of any wrongdoing last week. Three more had previously been cleared.
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The providers who gathered Sunday joined with members of the Democratic Party of New Mexico to call for a federal investigation, claiming that out-of-state companies that operated behavior health services in the wake of the 2013 investigation had political ties.
The Human Services Department in June 2013 cut off Medicaid funding to 15 nonprofits, saying an audit by Boston-based Public Consulting Group showed more than $36 million in overbilling, as well as mismanagement and possible fraud.
The Human Services Department brought in five Arizona companies to take over services from those New Mexico providers.
“While we did find some regulatory violations, there did not appear to be a pattern of fraud for any of the 10 completed investigations,” Attorney General Hector Balderas wrote in a letter delivered to legislators Feb. 8.
The HSD has defended its investigation, and department spokesman Kyler Nerison said last week that the department respects but disagrees with Balderas’ decision not to prosecute.
Patsy Romero, chief operations officer of Easter Seals El Mirador, said on Sunday that the providers are finalizing a letter calling for a federal investigation and are pursuing a civil lawsuit.
Nancy Jo Archer, executive director of Hogares, said the providers never received a hearing or due process and the fact that they were recently cleared makes the need for an investigation even more necessary.
“The Attorney General did rule he found no fraud for any of us, which makes the question why even more relevant,” Archer said. “And that is why we think there is an investigation in order.”
Capital bureau reporter Deborah Baker contributed to this report.The same week that a slew of new scientific reports confirmed just how much humans are changing the climate, and in turn, the rest of the planet, Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt’s plans for a “Red Team, Blue Team” debate of this very same science were put on hold.
The military-style exercise that would falsely pit the overwhelming majority of climate scientists against a handful of non-experts is an eight-year-old talking point of the notorious climate-denying think tank the Heartland Institute (which is likely not surprised by this development). Meanwhile, last week in New Orleans, several groups of prominent climate scientists shared their latest findings at the world's largest gathering of Earth and planetary scientists. The roughly 25,000 attendees of the American Geophysical Union annual meeting included scientific leaders from academia, government, and the private sector.
Clear and Present Climate Science
These peer-reviewed reports make it clear that any meaningful climate debate in the future should not be over the degree of humanity’s role in climate change, but to what degree the climate has changed already and what can be done to stop it.
The American Meteorological Society’s 2016 “State of the Climate” report offers the first examples of extreme weather events not possible in a preindustrial climate. “Climate change was a necessary condition for some of these events in 2016, in order for them to happen,” Jeff Rosenfeld, editor in chief of the Bulletin of the American Metrological Society, said at a press conference. “These are new weather extremes made possible by a new climate. They were impossible in the old climate.”
These included 2016’s record global warmth, extreme heat across Asia, and a marine heat wave off the coast of Alaska, all of which appear in a special report, “Explaining Extreme Events of 2016 from a Climate Perspective.”
Two other scientific reports presented at the conference explain how human-induced climate change intensified Hurricane Harvey’s torrential rain, confirming what scientists suspected.
In one, researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published findings suggesting that Harvey’s rainfall was attributable to global warming, which increased precipitation by at least 19 percent but more likely by as much as 38 percent. Their conclusions came from comparing total rainfall and the chances of a storm of that magnitude under present climate conditions with the likelihood of a similar storm taking place in the 1950s, when the atmosphere had lower levels of greenhouse gases.
Flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey on Briarforest Drive in Houston, Texas.
In another report, researchers from the Netherlands published a study examining trends in rainfall intensity along the Gulf Coast starting around 1880 when records begin. They also used multiple global climate change models to determine that global warming made a storm of Harvey’s intensity three times more likely. The Berkeley National Lab study also linked Harvey’s intensity to anthropogenic climate change.
At a press conference on Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a co-author of the latest study, said, “It is not news that climate change affects extreme precipitation, but our results indicate that the amount is larger than expected.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also presented its annual report on the Arctic, showing that permafrost there is thawing at a faster pace.
“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic; it affects the rest of the planet,” acting NOAA chief Timothy Gallaudet said at a press conference when the government report was introduced.
“The Arctic has a huge influence on the world at large,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and co-author of the NOAA study, said. This year's preliminary reports from the U.S. and Canada showed permafrost temperatures are “again the warmest for all sites” measured in North America.
Jeremy Mathis, head of NOAA’s Arctic research program and study co-author, explained the report’s findings in layman’s terms: “The Arctic has traditionally been the refrigerator to the planet, but the door of the refrigerator has been left open.”
Scott A. Mandia, founder of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, in the American Geophysical Union meeting exhibition hall.
Science, Activism, and Action
New to this year’s meeting was the session “Legal Advice for Scientists Interested in Activism.” Lauren Kurtz, an attorney with the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, offered scientists advice on how to take part in activism and protest without putting their careers on the line. She gave tips that could keep them out of trouble should they choose to protest.
“Interest in the topic has been tenfold since the March for Science in Washington this April,” Kurtz told me.
Basic tips for scientists included not wearing the insignia of their employers when attending an event like the March for Science because it could go against anti-lobbying restrictions or workplace policies. She also advised not using a public university email address for anything connected to political issues because emails are considered government records and could be subject to open records requests and used to try to discredit the scientists, something Penn State atmospheric scientist Michael E. Mann has experienced firsthand.
Everything was not doom and gloom, however. At a session called “Climate Solutions: Policy, Planning, Science and Engineering in Uncertain Political and Economic Times,” climate scientists offered hope that we still have time to curb the worst of climate change if we act now.
Pennsylvania State University professor David W. Titley, who is also a retired naval officer outspoken about climate change threats to national security, pointed out that President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act that very day (December 12). This bill requires climate change impacts and threats be taken into account in order to protect U.S. military bases and interests. Despite signing this bill, on December 18, Trump took climate change off the list of national security threats in his new national security strategy.
Dr. Sarah Myhre, a climate researcher at the University of Washington and self-declared proud advocate for science and human rights, brought the “Me Too” movement into the conversation, calling for an end to misogyny in science. She read aloud Trump’s quote about “pussy-grabbing” after pointing out a vacuum of leadership on climate change which she thinks scientists can help fill. “The public is not only looking for information from us. The public is looking for cultural leadership,” she explained.
Climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann, known for the famous “hockey stick graph” showing rising modern temperatures, at the 2017 American Geophysical Union conference in New Orleans.
Also on the panel was Michael Mann, who described Pruitt’s proposed “fake Red Team, Blue Team” debate about climate change as a way to undermine the public’s confidence in climate science.
Using a football analogy, Mann warned that if we are going to avert dangerous warming, then the U.S. needs to take an offensive stance, taking the lead on solving the climate problem.
Mann said, “The solutions to this problem are already available and they will lead us down a path of economic prosperity, a clean energy revolution,” and that we can grow our economy while preventing the worst impacts from climate change from happening.
Like Mann, panelist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany offered a similar message. Acknowledging changes that have already happened, he insisted that we can still stop the worst of what is coming, but his message of hope came with a dire warning: “We don’t have the time to debate this another three to five years before we do anything because the window of opportunity for limiting global warming to well below two degrees [Celsius] is falling shut on us as we speak.”
NASA’s Exhibit at the 2017 American Geophysical Union Meeting in New Orleans. Some of the items given out by NASA were made in China despite Trump’s Buy in America executive order.
Main image: Chairs floating in Hurricane Harvey's flood waters in Houston, Texas.On September 18, Donald Trump released an in-depth position paper on his gun policy, but many people never saw it because the media was too fixated on one comment about Muslims from a Thursday town hall meeting to dig into it.
Breitbart News dug into the position paper, reporting Trump’s contention that “concealed carry is a right, not a privilege” and his belief that “assault weapons” bans and “high magazine” bans are wrong-headed moves that only reduce the firearm and self-defense options available to law-abiding citizens.
But CNN is focused on the fact that a questioner at Trump’s September 17 town hall meeting made a comment about Muslims without Trump countering the questioner’s claims. The questioner suggested Muslims are “a problem in this country”—claiming Obama is Muslim—and then talking about how important it is to get rid of alleged training camps in the U.S. where Islamists hone their skills of attack.
Trump responded to the mention of the training camps by saying, “We’re going to be looking into that.”
CNN quoted Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN-5th) criticizing Trump for not criticizing the comments about Muslims, saying, “I don’t know if Trump is using dog-whistle politics to win support in the polls, or if he genuinely believes the racist things he says. Either way, he showed a complete lack of moral courage in that clip, and he has shown once again that he is completely unqualified to be President of the United States.”
MSNBC did not even save their criticism of Trump for an article, Rather, they used the criticism for a title, writing, “Donald Trump fails to correct man who calls Obama Muslim.” And The Guardian reported that Trump “created a furor” by not correcting claims that Obama is Muslim.
The exception to the rule was NBC News’s Chuck Todd, who said, “What if he was Muslim? This is about, we are about freedom of religion in this country.” But Todd also criticized Trump, intimating that he will never draw more than 30 percent of GOP vote if he fails to respond to questioners who raise issues about Muslims and/or Obama’s faith.
And while the media was fixated on these things, Trump’s campaign was circulating an in-depth position paper in which Trump sets forth, not simply his opposition to gun control, but also the reasons behind the opposition. For example, Trump used the paper to say that he will not support an expansion of background checks and to explain the reason for this lack of support is that background checks are a burden on law-abiding citizens rather than criminals—and they don’t work as advertised. He explained why the ability to defend one’s life needs to be expanded, not reduced, and that “the right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway.”
In a word, Trump used his position paper to communicate details on gun policy in a way that every American can understand. But CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, and The Guardian are laser-beam focused on a questioner who asked about Muslims and Obama’s faith without being rebuffed by Trump.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.Former Black Panther Mason Weaver, who has since found redemption through conservative Christian writing, claimed stunningly Monday that Georgia Rep. John Lewis was an “illegitimate congressman” who presided over the “destruction of black America.”
Speaking on Fox News about Lewis’ recent claim that President-elect Donald Trump was an illegitimate president, the ex-Black Panther maintained that Lewis was a “civil rights turncoat” — one who, despite having marched with Martin Luther King Jr., had ultimately sided with the wrong people: the Democrats.
“He has joined the enemy — he has joined the oppressor,” Weaver said. “You (Lewis) tried to work with them, but the Democrat Party has always been the party of abuse, always been the party of the Klan — the party that went to war to keep slaves — the party that has always been (about) the destruction of black people.”
“If you’re a real man, John Lewis, you stand up tomorrow and you apologize,” Weaver added, referencing both the congressman’s remarks about Trump and his longtime support of Democrat policies that have devastated black communities throughout the nation.
During his 30-year career in Congress, Lewis has championed welfare policies designed to coddle struggling black communities and make them dependent instead of helping them succeed. And according to Weaver, these policies were entirely anathema to the civil rights movement’s true cause.
“In the early ’70s and late ’60s, we were demonstrating and protesting for the right to compete as adult citizens of America,” he said. We were not demonstrating to be taken care of.”
As black conservative commentator Crystal Wright wrote for Townhall four years ago, “After nearly 50 years of liberal policies coddling black Americans with little economic progress to show for it, don’t we think it’s time to try something new?”
Trump, for whom Lewis has shown a conspicuous distaste, certainly believed so, according to Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
“You remember that great line, ‘What the heck do you have to lose?’” he asked Sunday on Fox News, referencing what Trump asked the black community during a rally late last year. “He is committed to being president of all of the people of this country and to bringing jobs and prosperity in ways that the failed liberal policies of the past several generations have not.”
Perhaps, instead of criticizing Trump, Rep. Lewis should be taking notes from him. Like us on Facebook – USA Liberty News Please share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about the stunning remarks this former Black Panther made about Rep. John Lewis!
What do you think about his comments? Scroll down to comment below!
Source: conservativetribune.comWhen I was 21, I went into the office of a producer of the television show I was starring in to discuss a big problem. By this point I had been acting for more than a decade, and the show was very successful and beloved. Still, I was nervous about facing the firing squad of Emmys that sat behind him and saying what I had to say.
A crew member had kept showing up to my apartment after work unannounced, going into my trailer while I wasn’t in it, and staring daggers at me from across the set. I liked him at first. He was very sweet and kind in the beginning. We flirted a bit on set. But I was in a relationship. And liking someone certainly didn’t merit the kind of behavior he was exhibiting, which was making me feel unsafe.
My hands were freezing and I balled my wardrobe skirt up around my fists as I spoke. It was all caught in my throat — my embarrassment that it had gotten to this point. The producer listened. Then he said, “Well, there are two sides to every story.”
For women in America who come forward with stories of harassment, abuse and sexual assault, there are not two sides to every story, however noble that principle might seem. Women do not get to have a side. They get to have an interrogation. Too often, they are questioned mercilessly about whether their side is legitimate. Especially if that side happens to accuse a man of stature, then that woman has to consider the scrutiny and repercussions she’ll be subjected to by sharing her side.It's often said that sports are always better spectated in person, and that saying rings especially true for NASCAR. When you're in the bleachers and the starter waves that green flag, there's no useless television chatter, no clown voice shouting "boogity boogity boogity!" There is nothing at all except the earth-shattering wail of forty-three pushrod V8s rapidly depleting the crude oil supply of planet Earth while building momentum like a freight train towards what seems like certain apocalypse in the first corner. The energy of the cars is so much more violent, the racing so much faster than you'd ever imagined, and you're reminded that even with all the modern safety in NASCAR, motor racing is still a damn dangerous thing to do. It's fantastic.
Watching this from the stands is great, and made greater because you can drink beer and pour it on your bare chest. But experiencing the same race from the pit box of one of the teams battling for the win, now that's tapping into the excitement mainline. This is a team sport, after all, and there is a ton of sweat and effort poured into each race weekend by driver and crew that goes largely unnoticed by the casual fan in the grandstands.
For this installment of Dark Room, I'm going to bring you with me behind the pit wall as I try to keep up with Joey Logano, one of the consistently fastest NASCAR drivers on the track, and a strong favorite for the Sprint Cup championship in 2015. He and the whole #22 Penske team were kind enough to let me tag along to photograph what goes into making a serious run at a win during the Windows 10 400 at Pocono earlier this month. Joey and his team dominated that race all day long and it was a true nail-biter until the very end. Here's what I saw.j. Basic Income — the principled case
The idea of a Basic Income is far from new. In fact, it has been around for many centuries. It can be found in the ideas of Thomas Paine in his notion of endowment funded by land rents. JS Mill articulated a similar idea though funded from productive assets. The liberal peer Juilet Rhys-Williams proposed a conditional Basic Income (conditional on availability to work) as an alternative to the Beveridgean system in 1942. The economist James Meade and the historian and political economist GDH Cole advocated a ‘social dividend’. Cole may have coined the phrase ‘Basic Income’. Cole’s justification relies on the social basis of current production as a common inheritance:
“Social heritage of inventiveness and skill incorporated in the stage of advancement and education reached in the arts of production.”
The American writer and entrepreneur, Peter Barnes, deploys a similar argument when he advocates taxing use of common assets such as the environment (the air), financial infrastructure, intellectual property protection, and electromagnetic spectrum to fund a US Basic Dividend.
In the post-war era, the idea of a Basic Income re-emerged across the political spectrum. Liberal economists such as James Tobin and JK Galbraith advocated it on the basis that it was less likely to create welfare dependency than means-tested systems. Milton Friedman advocated a ‘negative income tax’ which works, in theory, in a similar way to a Basic Income. Friedman advocated a low level of income as did Friedrich Hayek. The socially conservative right as opposed to the economic-focused free market right have also supported the idea of a Basic Income. Charles Murray advocates a Basic Income on the grounds that:
“It offers smaller government in terms of the state’s power to control people’s lives.”
The Republican notion of liberty as based on non-domination is important in Basic Income thinking. Republican liberty contrasts with natural liberty that, in the arresting phrase of Phillip Pettit, constitutes a ‘freedom of the heath’, ie it exists beyond society. Republican freedom instead is the ‘freedom of the city’ and so is concerned with freedom in a complex, social setting. Basic Income is one safeguard against domination.
As Stuart White argues, a Basic Income gives people the ability to act without interference of others. The choices he or she makes are based on their own agency rather than the state or, indeed, an employer. It is a wedge of freedom.
This argument also has a Feminist dimension in that Basic Income frees women to make choices about their lives in an independent fashion and provides a greater degree of economic security for those in unwaged labour – often women. So arguments from a Feminist perspective emphasise its equal treatment of genders in the labour market and outside, its recognition of unpaid work, economic independence within the family, and its potential to encourage a more equal division of labour within the family.
Finally, there is the economic case for a Basic Income. On the macro-economic front, it becomes a very efficient means of stimulating the economy at times of heightened demand stress, ie deep recession. A simple way to increase demand is to top up the Basic Income for a period of time. Rather than quantitative easing supporting financial institutions, central banks can increase the money supply by funding government bonds to finance an increased Basic Income. So-called ‘overt monetary finance’ (OMF), which this would be a form of, has been advocated by Adair Turner and others, albeit with some provisos on management of banking credit to avoid unsustainable credit multipliers. This policy could have been very useful in 2008-09 (and something akin to it was attempted in the Australian ‘cash splash’).
On the micro-economic front, there are grounds to believe that Basic Income could increase productivity. This mechanism would work in a number of ways. Firstly, rather than workers being forced into the first job that comes along as some conditional systems do, Basic Income enables a little more time to search for the right job. As an evaluation of a highly conditional Department for Work and Pensions scheme showed, hard conditionality does little to increase medium term employment rates and only increases number of days in work marginally in a two year period. So the benefits are minimal yet the UK suffers from endemic skills mismatch and this impacts productivity. For example, 58 percent of graduates are in non-graduate level jobs. The Basic Income would not resolve this issue, as there are strong structural factors, but could mitigate it somewhat by giving more secure breathing space to individuals.
Secondly, if workers have the ability to withdraw their labour, it provides more of an incentive for employers of low pay, low quality jobs to improve those jobs either by increasing pay, providing better conditions or additional support such as for training. Thirdly, there is a possible motivation effect. Workers would be in a particular workplace because they want to be, not simply because they feel coerced to be. This is a healthier basis on which to develop intra-firm productivity. Finally, the Basic Income facilitates short-term withdrawal from the labour market to improve formal skills and qualifications. This could increase potential productivity. Basic Income is not an economic magic bullet but it is possible to see significant potential macro and micro economic benefits.
Thus, many different perspectives provide support for considering the introduction of a Basic Income. There is also a body of practical knowledge which, whilst not complete, provides some useful pointers.
k. Basic Income in practice
Between 1968 and 1980, the US and Canadian Governments conducted five experiments into negative income tax. These pilots have some significant limitations. The data was not always of high quality. They were designed to separate control and treatment groups in areas so the impact on demand for labour is impossible to measure (if there was withdrawal of some labour, economic theory suggests that wages may |
. Nashville in Game 1 of the 2012 Western Conference semifinals: The Coyotes didn’t deserve to win this one. Nashville outshot Phoenix 16-1 in the third period and tied the game 3-3 on then-Predator Martin Erat’s power-play goal at the 15:58 mark. But goalie Mike Smith (39 saves) was brilliant, and the Coyotes cashed in on their sixth shot of overtime when Whitney took a feed from Martin Hanzal and flipped a puck past Pekka Rinne for a 4-3 overtime win. "To me," coach Dave Tippett said, "that was the key turning point in that series."
3. Five-point nights: Whitney’s first goal of the season against the Blues on Nov. 13, 2010, was the start of a special night. He had a hat trick and matched his career high with five points, figuring on each goal in the Coyotes’ 5-3 win over St. Louis. The only regular-season game that rivaled this one was when he notched a natural hat trick in a 1:40 span, and five points overall, on Feb. 8, 2007, in Boston while playing with Carolina.
Follow Craig Morgan on TwitterAn Alternative for Germany (AfD) anti-immigrant election poster in Berlin: “Who needs new Germans? We can make our own!” | AP
BERLIN — Kant Strasse in this city’s Charlottenburg district is a bustling business street lined with shops, small hotels, department stores, and restaurants of all types, including Thai, Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian, Pakistani, and of course traditional German places. Some places mix it up with curry wurst, a favorite up and down this boulevard.
The pleasant multi-national milieu is interrupted suddenly when you pass the corner of Wilmersdorfer Strasse and look up at a tall lamp post on the grassy strip in the middle of the boulevard. Clipped to the top of the pole is a large, colorful poster of a blond and very pregnant young woman lying on the grass with some bright yellow flowers popping up around her. Across the top of the poster in block letters: “Who needs new Germans?” Across the bottom: “We can make our own!”
It’s a campaign poster for the extreme right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Continue down Kant Strasse and make a right on Leibnizstrasse, which feeds into Kurfurstendamm, a shopping street decked out for the rich and famous. As you near a cluster of stores that carry designer biking and swimwear, again in the middle of the street, is another AfD poster. This one features two blond “bathing beauties” in the skimpiest possible swim wear. “Vote for the AfD,” it says, “We prefer bikinis to burqas.”
The national elections in Germany will be held on Sept. 24. German voters, like voters in France, the Netherlands, and Austria, are expected to hand the extreme right a defeat, but it is not total numerical victory that the AfD is looking for in this election. They are happy that they have already curbed the willingness of the two major parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), to challenge them on their anti-immigrant hatemongering. Beyond that, they hope to become the main opposition party by capturing enough parliament seats to place third in the Bundestag behind the two dominant parties, who have ruled together in a “Grand Coalition” since 2013.
In order to do this, AfD is following the Trump playbook by firing up the base on social media and Twitter and by forging alliances with the religious right on social issues. On their Facebook page, the party openly points to Trump as the example they want to follow in effective use of social media. They are planning to attend a demonstration this weekend where the religious right will be throwing crosses into the Spree River to represent the “babies killed by the abortionists.”
Right now there are four parties vying for the third place spot, each with close to 10 percent in recent polls. They are the Left Party (Die Linke), the Greens, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and AfD itself. In polls that came out today, the Left Party was only one point ahead of AfD.
When Germans go to the polls on Sept. 24 they will cast two votes—one for the person they want to represent them in the Bundestag and the other for the party of their choice. Half the 600 members of the Bundestag will be the representatives selected directly by voters, and the other half will be chosen proportionately according to the votes the various parties achieve. To gain one of those seats, however, a party must obtain at least five percent of the vote.
You get to be chancellor if you are the leader of the party that gets the most votes or, short of that, the leader who is able to put together a governing majority.
Two major parties, but little difference between them
For years now, the CDU has had a support base in the mid to high 30s, the SPD in the low 20s, and the other four parties have hovered around 10 percent.
Chancellor Angela Merkel first took office in 2005 as head of a Grand Coalition with the SPD, after neither of the two parties gained an outright majority in elections. From 2009 to 2013, she ruled in alliance with the right-wing Free Democrats, but returned to leading another CDU-SPD Grand Coalition from 2013 to now.
The center-left SPD has seen its support decline nationally due its partnership with Merkel. The party was widely seen as having sold out on many issues to Merkel’s conservative CDU. As part of the Merkel cabinet, the SPD also had to share blame for government efforts to raise the age for pension eligibility, place restrictions on collection of jobless benefits, and cut social benefits, as well as for its support of military interventions opposed by many Germans.
In two states, Berlin and Thuringia, however, the SPD rejected the Grand Coalition, and instead chose to form coalitions with the Left Party and the Greens. In both those cases, the result was the formation of winning “red-red-green” coalitions, in reference to the colors of the three participating parties.
Some still hold out hope that after Sept. 24 a similar arrangement might happen on a national level. In order for that to happen, however, the SPD, the Left Party, and the Greens together would have to gain a majority of seats in the Bundestag.
If the CDU and the Free Democrats together can gain more than half the seats, Merkel could ditch her SPD partners and instead form a coalition with the fringe right wing. The 2009-13 CDU-FDP coalition fell apart in the last election after the FDP failed to get enough votes to even be represented in the Bundestag. That’s when Merkel had to return to the SPD to form a governing majority.
The SPD leader this time around, Martin Schulz, started out neck-and-neck with Markel in the polls when he announced his candidacy last February. He had put himself forward as someone committed to returning the SPD to its role as a fighter for working-class interests.
Since then, however, he has fallen 13 points behind Merkel in the polls.
The recent televised debate between the two probably helps explains why. Both showed that they are afraid to tackle head on the anti-immigrant hysteria whipped up by both the AfD and right-wingers in Merkel’s own CDU. Both politely agreed that immigrants guilty of “crimes” should be deported, and neither wanted to talk about immigration much more than that.
Merkel did not defend her own decision a few years ago to admit large numbers of Syrian and other refugees, a decision President Donald Trump has frequently criticized. At that time, she had argued that it was the decent humanitarian thing to do and that Germany not only had room for the immigrants but could benefit from an infusion of new young people. (German population growth has slowed, and the country, demographically, is getting older.)
In short, judging by their “debate,” the two main candidates are not offering voters much of a choice.
Schulz, dismayed that his TV appearance yielded no change in his dismal poll results, today offered to debate Merkel again. Comfortably ahead, she scoffed at the suggestion and said the one debate was enough.
The Left: The real alternative for Germany
The Left (Die Linke), unlike the two leading parties, however, has come on strong in this campaign. In addition to becoming the third and the main opposition party, they hope to add to their current total of 64 seats in the 600-seat Bundestag. (Thirty-five of these 64 seats are held by women.)
Not only has the party defended the rights of immigrants, it has also vigorously called for higher wages for all Germans. It has campaigned hard against the policies of the real estate industry and the devastating effects of gentrification in the cities. It is the only party that says unequivocally that it is opposed to the deployment of German troops anywhere overseas, including not just in Afghanistan but also any UN operations.
At its convention this spring, the party discussed warnings from the SPD and others that this position could be a deal-breaker for any potential national coalition with the Left Party. Dr. Sahra Wagenknecht, the Left Party’s leader in the Bundestag, made an impassioned speech. “It is the other parties that must come around to our position on ending German militarism,” she declared. “For us, there is no compromise on this that is possible.” She received a standing ovation so strong and prolonged that it was seen as unifying the party on this issue. It remains a unifying factor even as party members differ on numerous other issues.
While most of the country’s unions give at least tacit support to the SPD, many members of unions that represent teachers and government workers are actively supporting Left Party candidates.
There are a host of other minor parties in the race too.
The Communist Party of Germany, which has usually supported Left Party candidates, decided this year to run its own. There was disagreement on this among the membership, but the prevailing idea was that the Left Party was too focused on elections and not enough on fighting on the issues.
A variety of tinier parties are not expected to make much difference. They include a Maoist party, a Trotskyist party, an animal rights party, a climate party, a hip-hop party, and a “garden” party run by the wife of the right-wing U.S. political extremist, Lyndon LaRouche.More than 75 Tennessee clergy have signed a statement opposing legislation targeting transgender children, saying it increases the likelihood they’ll drop out of school or commit suicide.
The bill by Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, and Sen. Mike Bell, R-Riceville, bars public school students from using bathrooms or showers that correspond to their gender identities. Instead, they’d have to use the ones assigned to people of the sex that’s shown on their birth certificates. It’s on tomorrow’s agenda of the House Education Administration and Planning Subcommittee.
"Clergy in East, West, and Middle Tennessee are speaking out against this bill because at the heart of morality is how we treat those who are already marginalized," Tennessee Equlity Project executive director Chris Sanders says. "Transgender and gender non-conforming students already face significant bullying from their peers. It is devastating when legislators pile on with laws targeting them."
More than two dozen of these bills have been introduced in legislatures around the country as conservative Christians, upset by advances in gay rights in the courts, have started taking out their frustrations on transgender people. In Tennessee, Lynn is facing a reelection challenge this summer from a Baptist megachurch preacher in her party’s primary, so she’s trying to establish her gay-bashing credentials.
Advocates claim preposterously that transgender students could prey on girls in bathrooms. Opponents point out the bills open vulnerable transgender children to more bullying.
The bills seem to violate Title IX, the 1972 federal law that protects all public school students from gender discrimination and, if it became law, it could jeopardize Tennessee’s federal education funding.
The Tennessee clergy letter reads:
As clergy serving people of faith in Tennessee, we oppose HB2414/SB2387. This legislation is detrimental to transgender students by exposing them to violence and increasing the likelihood that they will drop out of school or take their own lives. Faith teaches us to cherish all people, especially those targeted by legislation that fails to recognize them as they are and subjects them to harm. We respectfully call on the Tennessee General Assembly to reject this bill.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland police are investigating after a man's girlfriend shot him several times in front of three children.
The shooting happened about 11:30 p.m. Monday at a house at the corner of Elwell Avenue and East 140th Street, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said.
The 26-year-old victim said that he was standing outside talking to his estranged wife who was dropping off their 5-year-old daughter to visit, police said. The wife also brought her sons, ages 9 and 10.
The man's girlfriend arrived at the house and got angry when she saw the wife, police said.
The girlfriend punched the man in the head and grabbed a pistol from her vehicle, Ciaccia said. The woman fired several shots and struck the man in his buttocks and leg.
The man grabbed the gun from his girlfriend and threw it into some bushes, police said. The girlfriend got into her vehicle and drove away.
The man bandaged his wounds inside his house. He told investigators he was hesitant to notify police because there is a warrant for his arrest in connection with a traffic violation.
His family convinced him to go the hospital and report the incident to police. He went to MetroHealth about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Police made a referral to the Children Who Witness Violence program for the three children.Creative Assembly has announced that the Total War: Warhammer Chaos Warriors DLC is now going to be free for the first week of launch.
“The Chaos Warriors have proven to be hugely popular” said Creative Director, Mike Simpson “and, by extending the deadline for getting them for free by a week, we can ensure loyal fans who don’t feel like pre-ordering don’t miss out, while still rewarding early adopters whose support is really valuable to us.
“We’re really confident in the game and with the community backing us so strongly this should be the biggest launch for Total War ever.”
This is a decent pre-order incentive and worth jumping on despite the fact CA should really have had Chaos in from the start. At least they’ve realised it now.
Here’s a new Let’s Play Chaos Warriors video, featuring the titanic Kholek Suneater as an enticer.Presented here without comment. You can read our analysis of Obama's proposed reforms at this link.
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Results of our Signals Intelligence Review
January 17, 2014
Washington, D.C.
At the dawn of our Republic, a small, secret surveillance committee borne out of the "The Sons of Liberty" was established in Boston. The group's members included Paul Revere, and at night they would patrol the streets, reporting back any signs that the British were preparing raids against America's early Patriots.
Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms. In the Civil War, Union balloon reconnaissance tracked the size of Confederate armies by counting the number of camp fires. In World War II, code-breaking gave us insight into Japanese war plans, and when Patton marched across Europe, intercepted communications helped save the lives of his troops. After the war, the rise of the Iron Curtain and nuclear weapons only increased the need for sustained intelligence-gathering. And so, in the early days of the Cold War, President Truman created the National Security Agency to give us insight into the Soviet bloc, and provide our leaders with information they needed to confront aggression and avert catastrophe.
Throughout this evolution, we benefited from both our Constitution and traditions of limited government. U.S. intelligence agencies were anchored in our system of checks and balances - with oversight from elected leaders, and protections for ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, totalitarian states like East Germany offered a cautionary tale of what could happen when vast, unchecked surveillance turned citizens into informers, and persecuted people for what they said in the privacy of their own homes.
In fact even the United States proved not to be immune to the abuse of surveillance. In the 1960s, government spied on civil rights leaders and critics of the Vietnam War. Partly in response to these revelations, additional laws were established in the 1970s to ensure that our intelligence capabilities could not be misused against our citizens. In the long, twilight struggle against Communism, we had been reminded that the very liberties that we sought to preserve could not be sacrificed at the altar of national security.
If the fall of the Soviet Union left America without a competing superpower, emerging threats from terrorist groups, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction placed new - and, in some ways more complicated - demands on our intelligence agencies. Globalization and the Internet made these threats more acute, as technology erased borders and empowered individuals to project great violence, as well as great good. Moreover, these new threats raised new legal and policy questions. For while few doubted the legitimacy of spying on hostile states, our framework of laws was not fully adapted to prevent terrorist attacks by individuals acting on their own, or acting in small, ideologically driven groups rather than on behalf of a foreign power.
The horror of September 11th brought these issues to the fore. Across the political spectrum, Americans recognized that we had to adapt to a world in which a bomb could be built in a basement, and our electric grid could be shut down by operators an ocean away. We were shaken by the signs we had missed leading up to the attacks - how the hijackers had made phone calls to known extremists, and travelled to suspicious places. So we demanded that our intelligence community improve its capabilities, and that law enforcement change practices to focus more on preventing attacks before they happen than prosecuting terrorists after an attack.
It is hard to overstate the transformation America's intelligence community had to go through after 9/11. Our agencies suddenly needed to do far more than the traditional mission of monitoring hostile powers and gathering information for policymakers - instead, they were asked to identify and target plotters in some of the most remote parts of the world, and to anticipate the actions of networks that, by their very nature, cannot be easily penetrated with spies or informants.
And it is a testimony to the hard work and dedication of the men and women in our intelligence community that over the past decade, we made enormous strides in fulfilling this mission. Today, new capabilities allow intelligence agencies to track who a terrorist is in contact with, and follow the trail of his travel or funding. New laws allow information to be collected and shared more quickly between federal agencies, and state and local law enforcement. Relationships with foreign intelligence services have expanded, and our capacity to repel cyber-attacks has been strengthened. Taken together, these efforts have prevented multiple attacks and saved innocent lives - not just here in the United States, but around the globe as well.
And yet, in our rush to respond to very real and novel threats, the risks of government overreach - the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security - became more pronounced. We saw, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, our government engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques that contradicted our values. As a Senator, I was critical of several practices, such as warrantless wiretaps. And all too often new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate.
Through a combination of action by the courts, increased congressional oversight, and adjustments by the previous Administration, some of the worst excesses that emerged after 9/11 were curbed by the time I took office. But a variety of factors have continued to complicate America's efforts to both defend our nation and uphold our civil liberties.
First, the same technological advances that allow U.S. intelligence agencies to pin-point an al Qaeda cell in Yemen or an email between two terrorists in the Sahel, also mean that many routine communications around the world are within our reach. At a time when more and more of our lives are digital, that prospect is disquieting for all of us.
Second, the combination of increased digital information and powerful supercomputers offers intelligence agencies the possibility of sifting through massive amounts of bulk data to identify patterns or pursue leads that may thwart impending threats. But the government collection and storage of such bulk data also creates a potential for abuse.
Third, the legal safeguards that restrict surveillance against U.S. persons without a warrant do not apply to foreign persons overseas. This is not unique to America; few, if any, spy agencies around the world constrain their activities beyond their own borders. And the whole point of intelligence is to obtain information that is not publicly available. But America's capabilities are unique. And the power of new technologies means that there are fewer and fewer technical constraints on what we can do. That places a special obligation on us to ask tough questions about what we should do.
Finally, intelligence agencies cannot function without secrecy, which makes their work less subject to public debate. Yet there is an inevitable bias not only within the intelligence community, but among all who are responsible for national security, to collect more information about the world, not less. So in the absence of institutional requirements for regular debate - and oversight that is public, as well as private - the danger of government overreach becomes more acute. This is particularly true when surveillance technology and our reliance on digital information is evolving much faster than our laws.
For all these reasons, I maintained a healthy skepticism toward our surveillance programs after I became President. I ordered that our programs be reviewed by my national security team and our lawyers, and in some cases I ordered changes in how we did business. We increased oversight and auditing, including new structures aimed at compliance. Improved rules were proposed by the government and approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And we sought to keep Congress continually updated on these activities.
What I did not do is stop these programs wholesale - not only because I felt that they made us more secure; but also because nothing in that initial review, and nothing that I have learned since, indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law or is cavalier about the civil liberties of their fellow citizens.
To the contrary, in an extraordinarily difficult job, one in which actions are second-guessed, success is unreported, and failure can be catastrophic, the men and women of the intelligence community, including the NSA, consistently follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people. They are not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls, or read your emails. When mistakes are made - which is inevitable in any large and complicated human enterprise - they correct those mistakes. Laboring in obscurity, often unable to discuss their work even with family and friends, they know that if another 9/11 or massive cyber-attack occurs, they will be asked, by Congress and the media, why they failed to connect the dots. What sustains those who work at NSA through all these pressures is the knowledge that their professionalism and dedication play a central role in the defense of our nation.
To say that our intelligence community follows the law, and is staffed by patriots, is not to suggest that I, or others in my Administration, felt complacent about the potential impact of these programs. Those of us who hold office in America have a responsibility to our Constitution, and while I was confident in the integrity of those in our intelligence community, it was clear to me in observing our intelligence operations on a regular basis that changes in our technological capabilities were raising new questions about the privacy safeguards currently in place. Moreover, after an extended review of our use of drones in the fight against terrorist networks, I believed a fresh examination of our surveillance programs was a necessary next step in our effort to get off the open ended war-footing that we have maintained since 9/11. For these reasons, I indicated in a speech at the National Defense University last May that we needed a more robust public discussion about the balance between security and liberty. What I did not know at the time is that within weeks of my speech, an avalanche of unauthorized disclosures would spark controversies at home and abroad that have continued to this day.
Given the fact of an open investigation, I'm not going to dwell on Mr. Snowden's actions or motivations. I will say that our nation's defense depends in part on the fidelity of those entrusted with our nation's secrets. If any individual who objects to government policy can take it in their own hands to publicly disclose classified information, then we will never be able to keep our people safe, or conduct foreign policy. Moreover, the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light, while revealing methods to our adversaries that could impact our operations in ways that we may not fully understand for years to come.
Regardless of how we got here, though, the task before us now is greater than simply repairing the damage done to our operations; or preventing more disclosures from taking place in the future. Instead, we have to make some important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world, while upholding the civil liberties and privacy protections that our ideals - and our Constitution - require. We need to do so not only because it is right, but because the challenges posed by threats like terrorism, proliferation, and cyber-attacks are not going away any time soon, and for our intelligence community to be effective over the long haul, we must maintain the trust of the American people, and people around the world.
This effort will not be completed overnight, and given the pace of technological change, we shouldn't expect this to be the last time America has this debate. But I want the American people to know that the work has begun. Over the last six months, I created an outside Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies to make recommendations for reform. I've consulted with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. I've listened to foreign partners, privacy advocates, and industry leaders. My Administration has spent countless hours considering how to approach intelligence in this era of diffuse threats and technological revolution. And before outlining specific changes that I have ordered, let me make a few broad observations that have emerged from this process.
First, everyone who has looked at these problems, including skeptics of existing programs, recognizes that we have real enemies and threats, and that intelligence serves a vital role in confronting them. We cannot prevent terrorist attacks or cyber-threats without some capability to penetrate digital communications - whether it's to unravel a terrorist plot; to intercept malware that targets a stock exchange; to make sure air traffic control systems are not compromised; or to ensure that hackers do not empty your bank accounts.
Moreover, we cannot unilaterally disarm our intelligence agencies. There is a reason why blackberries and I-Phones are not allowed in the White House Situation Room. We know that the intelligence services of other countries - including some who feign surprise over the Snowden disclosures - are constantly probing our government and private sector networks, and accelerating programs to listen to our conversations, intercept our emails, or compromise our systems. Meanwhile, a number of countries, including some who have loudly criticized the NSA, privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world's only superpower; that our intelligence capabilities are critical to meeting these responsibilities; and that they themselves have relied on the information we obtain to protect their own people.
Second, just as ardent civil libertarians recognize the need for robust intelligence capabilities, those with responsibilities for our national security readily acknowledge the potential for abuse as intelligence capabilities advance, and more and more private information is digitized. After all, the folks at NSA and other intelligence agencies are our neighbors and our friends. They have electronic bank and medical records like everyone else. They have kids on Facebook and Instagram, and they know, more than most of us, the vulnerabilities to privacy that exist in a world where transactions are recorded; emails and text messages are stored; and even our movements can be tracked through the GPS on our phones.
Third, there was a recognition by all who participated in these reviews that the challenges to our privacy do not come from government alone. Corporations of all shapes and sizes track what you buy, store and analyze our data, and use it for commercial purposes; that's how those targeted ads pop up on your computer or smartphone. But all of us understand that the standards for government surveillance must be higher. Given the unique power of the state, it is not enough for leaders to say: trust us, we won't abuse the data we collect. For history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends upon the law to constrain those in power.
I make these observations to underscore that the basic values of most Americans when it comes to questions of surveillance and privacy converge far more than the crude characterizations that have emerged over the last several months. Those who are troubled by our existing programs are not interested in a repeat of 9/11, and those who defend these programs are not dismissive of civil liberties. The challenge is getting the details right, and that's not simple. Indeed, during the course of our review, I have often reminded myself that I would not be where I am today were it not for the courage of dissidents, like Dr. King, who were spied on by their own government; as a President who looks at intelligence every morning, I also can't help but be reminded that America must be vigilant in the face of threats.
Fortunately, by focusing on facts and specifics rather than speculation and hypotheticals, this review process has given me - and hopefully the American people - some clear direction for change. And today, I can announce a series of concrete and substantial reforms that my Administration intends to adopt administratively or will seek to codify with Congress.
First, I have approved a new presidential directive for our signals intelligence activities, at home and abroad. This guidance will strengthen executive branch oversight of our intelligence activities. It will ensure that we take into account our security requirements, but also our alliances; our trade and investment relationships, including the concerns of America's companies; and our commitment to privacy and basic liberties. And we will review decisions about intelligence priorities and sensitive targets on an annual basis, so that our actions are regularly scrutinized by my senior national security team.
Second, we will reform programs and procedures in place to provide greater transparency to our surveillance activities, and fortify the safeguards that protect the privacy of U.S. persons. Since we began this review, including information being released today, we have declassified over 40 opinions and orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which provides judicial review of some of our most sensitive intelligence activities - including the Section 702 program targeting foreign individuals overseas and the Section 215 telephone metadata program. Going forward, I am directing the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Attorney General, to annually review - for the purpose of declassification - any future opinions of the Court with broad privacy implications, and to report to me and Congress on these efforts. To ensure that the Court hears a broader range of privacy perspectives, I am calling on Congress to authorize the establishment of a panel of advocates from outside government to provide an independent voice in significant cases before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
Third, we will provide additional protections for activities conducted under Section 702, which allows the government to intercept the communications of foreign targets overseas who have information that's important for our national security. Specifically, I am asking the Attorney General and DNI to institute reforms that place additional restrictions on government's ability to retain, search, and use in criminal cases, communications between Americans and foreign citizens incidentally collected under Section 702.
Fourth, in investigating threats, the FBI also relies on National Security Letters, which can require companies to provide specific and limited information to the government without disclosing the orders to the subject of the investigation. These are cases in which it is important that the subject of the investigation, such as a possible terrorist or spy, isn't tipped off. But we can - and should - be more transparent in how government uses this authority. I have therefore directed the Attorney General to amend how we use National Security Letters so this secrecy will not be indefinite, and will terminate within a fixed time unless the government demonstrates a real need for further secrecy. We will also enable communications providers to make public more information than ever before about the orders they have received to provide data to the government.
This brings me to program that has generated the most controversy these past few months - the bulk collection of telephone records under Section 215. Let me repeat what I said when this story first broke - this program does not involve the content of phone calls, or the names of people making calls. Instead, it provides a record of phone numbers and the times and lengths of calls - meta-data that can be queried if and when we have a reasonable suspicion that a particular number is linked to a terrorist organization.
Why is this necessary? The program grew out of a desire to address a gap identified after 9/11. One of the 9/11 hijackers - Khalid al-Mihdhar - made a phone call from San Diego to a known al Qaeda safe-house in Yemen. NSA saw that call, but could not see that it was coming from an individual already in the United States. The telephone metadata program under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of terrorists, so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible. This capability could also prove valuable in a crisis. For example, if a bomb goes off in one of our cities and law enforcement is racing to determine whether a network is poised to conduct additional attacks, time is of the essence. Being able to quickly review telephone connections to assess whether a network exists is critical to that effort.
In sum, the program does not involve the NSA examining the phone records of ordinary Americans. Rather, it consolidates these records into a database that the government can query if it has a specific lead - phone records that the companies already retain for business purposes. The Review Group turned up no indication that this database has been intentionally abused. And I believe it is important that the capability that this program is designed to meet is preserved.
Having said that, I believe critics are right to point out that without proper safeguards, this type of program could be used to yield more information about our private lives, and open the door to more intrusive, bulk collection programs. They also rightly point out that although the telephone bulk collection program was subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and has been reauthorized repeatedly by Congress, it has never been subject to vigorous public debate.
For all these reasons, I believe we need a new approach. I am therefore ordering a transition that will end the Section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists, and establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk meta-data.
This will not be simple. The Review Group recommended that our current approach be replaced by one in which the providers or a third party retain the bulk records, with the government accessing information as needed. Both of these options pose difficult problems. Relying solely on the records of multiple providers, for example, could require companies to alter their procedures in ways that raise new privacy concerns. On the other hand, any third party maintaining a single, consolidated data-base would be carrying out what is essentially a government function with more expense, more legal ambiguity, and a doubtful impact on public confidence that their privacy is being protected.
During the review process, some suggested that we may also be able to preserve the capabilities we need through a combination of existing authorities, better information sharing, and recent technological advances. But more work needs to be done to determine exactly how this system might work.
Because of the challenges involved, I've ordered that the transition away from the existing program will proceed in two steps. Effective immediately, we will only pursue phone calls that are two steps removed from a number associated with a terrorist organization instead of three. And I have directed the Attorney General to work with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court so that during this transition period, the database can be queried only after a judicial finding, or in a true emergency.
Next, I have instructed the intelligence community and Attorney General to use this transition period to develop options for a new approach that can match the capabilities and fill the gaps that the Section 215 program was designed to address without the government holding this meta-data. They will report back to me with options for alternative approaches before the program comes up for reauthorization on March 28. During this period, I will consult with the relevant committees in Congress to seek their views, and then seek congressional authorization for the new program as needed.
The reforms I'm proposing today should give the American people greater confidence that their rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe. I recognize that there are additional issues that require further debate. For example, some who participated in our review, as well as some in Congress, would like to see more sweeping reforms to the use of National Security Letters, so that we have to go to a judge before issuing these requests. Here, I have concerns that we should not set a standard for terrorism investigations that is higher than those involved in investigating an ordinary crime. But I agree that greater oversight on the use of these letters may be appropriate, and am prepared to work with Congress on this issue. There are also those who would like to see different changes to the FISA court than the ones I have proposed. On all of these issues, I am open to working with Congress to ensure that we build a broad consensus for how to move forward, and am confident that we can shape an approach that meets our security needs while upholding the civil liberties of every American.
Let me now turn to the separate set of concerns that have been raised overseas, and focus on America's approach to intelligence collection abroad. As I've indicated, the United States has unique responsibilities when it comes to intelligence collection. Our capabilities help protect not only our own nation, but our friends and allies as well. Our efforts will only be effective if ordinary citizens in other countries have confidence that the United States respects their privacy too. And the leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to learn what they think about an issue, I will pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance. In other words, just as we balance security and privacy at home, our global leadership demands that we balance our security requirements against our need to maintain trust and cooperation among people and leaders around the world.
For that reason, the new presidential directive that I have issued today will clearly prescribe what we do, and do not do, when it comes to our overseas surveillance. To begin with, the directive makes clear that the United States only uses signals intelligence for legitimate national security purposes, and not for the purpose of indiscriminately reviewing the emails or phone calls of ordinary people. I have also made it clear that the United States does not collect intelligence to suppress criticism or dissent, nor do we collect intelligence to disadvantage people on the basis of their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. And we do not collect intelligence to provide a competitive advantage to U.S. companies, or U.S. commercial sectors.
In terms of |
an affiliation with the Highlands.
"I think an affiliation with the Highlands is really important and that they understand what our area is about."In response to the news that France's richest man has applied for Belgian nationality, the country's leading left-wing daily has declared: "get lost, you rich bastard!"*
The forthright headline, emblazoned across today's front page of Libération, is aimed at Bernard Arnault, CEO of the luxury fashion conglomerate LMVH. Arnault applied for Belgian nationality after the socialist president François Hollande proposed a new 75 per cent tax rate on earnings over one million euros. He denies he is trying to avoid tax, but Libération nonetheless condemns his decision as "a symbol of the arrogance of the wealthiest".
The headline is actually a play on a famous gaffe made by the former president, Nicholas Sarkozy, who muttered "casse-toi, pov' con" ("get lost, you poor bastard") at a member of the public who refused to shake his hand. The phrase subsequently became a taunt taken up by Sarkozy's left-wing opponents.
UPDATE: Arnault is now suing Libération, according to a press release from his company. Arnault, "has no other choice, given the extreme vulgarity and violence of the headline," it says.The recent paper China’s fight to halt tree cover loss carefully avoided the word ‘forest’ in its title.
It challenged the various definitions of forest that may cause more confusion than necessary, and preferred the more objectively observable ‘tree cover’ term for discussing what types of changes are occurring in China and whether or not the investments made by the state are delivering the services society wants.
In the paper, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) researchers showed that China’s forest cover gains remain highly dependent on definition.
This leads to a thought experiment – please give it a try for the next five minutes: Can we do without the word ‘forest’ and its derivatives (deforestation, reforestation, afforestation, agroforestry, agroforestation)?
Let’s try. No, not a world without trees, of course. It is hard to think of landscapes completely without perennial woody stemmed plants – although they may be short and sparse in harsh climates, belong to a wide range of plant families, including ferns, conifers, dicotyledons and grasses, restricted to the edges of fields, lining roads, isolated remnants of a formerly denser vegetation retained to provide shade, or planted to create a more pleasant environment around houses and in urban areas.
No, not a world without “old growth”, “young growth”, “jungle rubber”, “home gardens”, “timber plantation”, “tree crops”, “line plantings” and vegetation derived from “old growth” by various degrees of logging and currently recovering.
Not a world, however, where we lump part of these land covers, and exclude others from a black-versus-white terminology, without words for the greys in between.
It could be a world where all land covers without or with trees are described by terms that are precise and clear. The amount, type, age and size of trees and other flora and fauna that shape land cover are directly related to its ‘use’, the ecosystem services and benefits provided to humans (and to those who attribute a right to non-human inhabitants of this planet).
Read also: New look at satellite data quantifies scale of China’s afforestation success
Trees produce wood of a wide range of qualities and utilities, fruits, resins, nectar for honeybees, medicinals and other tradable goods. Trees interact with water in the full hydrological cycle of atmospheric moisture, clouds, rainfall, runoff, groundwater recharge and regulated river flow.
Trees have major influence on micro- and meso-climates, and some role in the global carbon balance (no there is no shortage of atmospheric oxygen, so they don’t solve problems here). Trees represent a pretty good cross section of plant families, and support a huge diversity of beetles, other insects, birds and beasts.
Some forms of tree cover are better in some of these functions, others in other. It is not easy to draw a single line in deciding on a dichotomous two-stage land cover classification. It makes more sense to have many more categories, be clear on what tree functions are needed where and take measures to promote these.
Is it hard to describe all this without using the f-word? It does take some effort, but it may be liberating after the initial shock. Our data show that rates of change (‘deforestation’) in the landscapes where we work strongly depend on the operational forest definition, making the term as such meaningless.
Currently fashionable claims to ‘deforestation-free’ value chains have no substance in the absence of clarity of the basic terms used.
All well and good, but who should control and regulate the land where trees are supposed to grow and thrive? Don’t we need foresters, forest policy, forestry laws, forestry departments, forestry science, a global forest agreement, forest accounting rules and forest law enforcement? Depending on the specific type of tree cover and the primary functions to society, the answer to these questions will differ.
We certainly need land use laws and policies, land governance agencies, land use and landscape science, and clarity in how all land cover types can contribute to various parts of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda. But maybe, the agriculture vs forest dichotomy on which current concepts are built is actually not helpful, and we better go to the next level of distinctions between the various types and function of partial and complete tree cover in our landscapes.
FTA was explicitly set up to deal with the whole continuum of land cover and land use types, without prejudice to any specific interpretation of what it and what is not included in ‘forest’ or ‘agroforestry’ as separate categories. Indeed, the trees are bridging a wide spectrum of land uses.
By Meine van Noordwijk, FTA senior scientist, originally published at ICRAF’s Agroforestry World.
This work forms part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry.
We would like to thank all donors who supported this work through their contributions to the CGIAR Fund.On Saturday night, Kanye West took the stage for the first time since February, kicking off his run of summer festival shows at X Games Austin. Though he failed to perform any new songs from his forthcoming eighth studio album, he did debut a new stage show. Suited for the festival crowd, the backdrop included a scaled down version of his Yeezus tour mountain and a mammoth video screen, which depicted elaborate visuals of waterfalls, clouds, and Kanye’s mean mug.
The setlist, meanwhile, was similar to the one playing during Kanye’s Yeezus tour, heavy in material from his last two studio albums, the Cruel Summer group album, and greatest hits.
Check out images of the stage, a few fan-shot clips of the performance, and the full setlist below.
At one point, he even signed someone’s pair of Yeezys:
Setlist:
Black Skinhead
Don’t Like
Mercy
Cold
Clique
Can’t Tell Me Nothing
Jesus Walks
New Slaves
Power
Stronger
Blood on the Leaves
Runaway
Run This Town
Diamonds From Sierra Leone
Heartless
All Falls Down
Touch the Sky
Homecoming
All of the Lights
Good Life
Bound 2
Presumably, Kanye will perform with a similar setup for his appearance at Bonnaroo next Friday night.[digg-reddit-me]I’m impressed with Jake Tapper’s handling of This Week in the interim before Christiane Amanpour takes over in August. Tapper seems committed to widening the opinions voiced on the show from the typical “Beltway” crowd to some of those voices most influential in the Beltway who are critical of it. Which means bringing on Glenn Greenwald and Bill Maher. I’m still waiting on his bringing in some conservatives similarly positioned as “outsiders” while being very influential in the Beltway. Maher and Greenwald substantially influence our political conversation while never before being given the opportunity to intrude on the polite Sunday morning territory and confront the people they so regularly criticize. In the same spirit, Tapper has added a fact check component to his show — in which Politifact evaluates the truthfulness of factual claims made in his interviews. This is a huge improvement given the churning of misinformation that seems to be the main purpose some leaders use it for.
The quality of Tapper’s program was brought to mind watching this clip of Mike Murphy, a Republican political operative and frequent guest on Meet the Press. (For what it’s worth, Mike Murphy seems a genuinely likable guy and often, even a straight-shooter — and I don’t mean this as an attack on him personally.) If David Gregory allowed a fact checker to go over the claims of his guests, then perhaps the above-moment with the very inside-the-Beltway figure of Mike Murphy would not have happened. Because you see that moment was entirely fact-free. Entirely. Yet, Mike Murphy’s statement represents an oft-repeated “fact” in the opinion media — especially on the right. And it is driving the actual policy of the state of Arizona.
Let’s look at Mike Murphy’s claims and the facts:
It’s a lawless frontier because of the failure of the Obama administration to protect the American border. People are getting killed and murdered. It has become really bad in Arizona.
Describing illegal immigration in partisan terms as a “failure of the Obama administration” seems best explained as a fudge rather than a blatant lie. It’s been an ongoing problem that as a nation we do not control our borders and maintain a law which cannot be enforced. Gregory interjects as Murphy is speaking, “This goes back before Obama, though, to be fair.” However, by stating such, Gregory seems to be conceding Murphy’s general point.
But look at the stats on this “People are getting killed and murdered” bit — which “has become really bad in Arizona,” according to Murphy, as he voices the “Conventional Wisdom” accepted by David Gregory as well. Yet there have been exactly four (4) murders along this supposedly lawless frontier in the past year. One of them generated thousands of headlines about the scourge of illegal immigration, the death of the rancher Robert Krentz. These anti-immigrant activists who talk casually of “People getting killed and murdered” (as if to double the impact of each homicide) — of the overall situation being “really bad” — even of, specifically, many ranchers being killed — always seem to point to this single example — Robert Krentz. I’ve seen no news story or other evidence linking more than this one death to border crossing. I’ve asked a number of people who have said this to point to some statistic — and instead I get the story of Robert Krentz, being exploited for politics. Remember: Arizona’s border is supposed to be the worst example of a lawless border and yet there is this single example which is always pointed to in order to justify the claim of plural murders — and even huge amounts of violence. I do not doubt there are other deaths along the border — perhaps on the Mexican side — of people trying to make the illegal crossing themselves and dying of thirst or other privation.
Mike Murphy follows this up by doubling down on his above false claim in an attempt to both place the blame for this historic problem on the Obama administration and make the case that Arizona’s very violent crime rate along the border is getting worse:
[I]t’s gotten, it’s gotten worse and worse.
To be fair to Murphy, one could consider that he means that any level of violence is bad — and that it is getting worse. So, let’s take this as a separate claim — that Murphy is instead claiming that violence along the border is increasing. CNN reported:
According to FBI statistics, violent crimes reported in Arizona dropped by nearly 1,500 reported incidents between 2005 and 2008. Reported property crimes also fell, from about 287,000 reported incidents to 279,000 in the same period. These decreases are accentuated by the fact that Arizona’s population grew by 600,000 between 2005 and 2008.
Let’s give Mike Murphy the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant that the overall problem of illegal immigration into Arizona has “gotten worse and worse” under the Obama administration. Homeland Security helpfully provides statistics on this which I have compiled into this chart:
This drop in illegal immigration isn’t due to any Bush, Obama, or local level actions. It’s due to the recession.
However, another consequence of a recession is a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment.
Which explains why Mike Murphy along with much of the Republican establishment is out there demagoguing illegal immigrants by making false claims about all these murders and violence: Because during times of economic trouble, people look to scapegoat someone for their troubles — and immigrants, especially illegal ones, get some of the blame.
But let’s stop with this pretense of “violent illegal immigrants.” That is the stuff of demagogues and prejudice as it simply is not based on facts.
Instead, let us acknowledge forthrightly that the excitement over this issue is being drive by cultural and economic resentment rather than “violence.”
Like this: Like Loading...How to use Vector images in Xcode
Leandro Lourenci Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 8, 2016
In these days, where there are a lot of devices with a lot of screen resolutions out there, working with images can be painful. iPad has a screen resolution, iPhone has another resolution, the big iPhone has another one… It could be worse, it could be Android: a lot of manufacturers with each one working with a screen resolution that they think is the appropriate one.
So, how to deal with that? Should I export that image in different resolutions for each screen size? Yes, this is a solution! A painful solution, but it is still a solution. Each tiny modification in the image, a lot of export, again.
Vector Graphics
According to Wikipedia:
Vector graphics is the use of polygons to represent images in computer graphics. Vector graphics are based on vectors, which lead through locations called control points or nodes. Each of these points has a definite position on the x and y axes of the work plane and determines the direction of the path; further, each path may be assigned various attributes, including such values as stroke color, shape, curve, thickness, and fill.
In a nutshell, you will be able to change the height/width of an image without lose any its quality. Yes, you will be able to get a tiny image and transform it to a bigger one version and the both will have the same quality.
More details about Vector Graphics here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics.
Dealing with Vector image in Xcode
If you are coming from Android, Xcode doesn't working with.xml resources. In Xcode, the Vector image resource is.pdf. Yes, that PDF you use to send your resumé to someone.
First of all, you need to have an app that export your image to a PDF image. I use and recommend Sketch.
In Xcode, in your XCAsset file: right click, click on Import and then select the PDF image file.
Importing PDF image
After that, set your image up to a Single Vector image.
Set up the image to Single Vector
And then, all you need to do is drag the image from the Unassigned label to the Universal label. The final result should look like the image below.MANAMA (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia wants Bahrain’s government and opposition to resolve a political crisis that it fears could worsen because of the sectarian fallout of fighting in Syria and destabilise its Eastern Province, a diplomat and opposition politician said.
An anti-government protester (L) runs for cover after throwing a molotov cocktail at an armoured personnel carrier (APC) belonging to riot police during clashes in the village of Sanabis, west of Manama March 21, 2012. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Bahrain has been in turmoil since the Arab Spring protest movement first erupted a year ago. Clashes have become a daily occurrence, usually in districts populated by majority Shi’ite Muslims who have dominated the protests.
“We heard that at end of January the Saudis were reaching out to Wefaq and wanted to hear how Wefaq - if Act 1 was last year - how they were going to play their role in Act 2,” a senior Western diplomat said.
The leading Shi’ite opposition party Wefaq was involved in backroom talks during a pro-democracy uprising last year on reforms offered by Crown Prince Salman, but the they were cut short when Saudi troops rolled in and martial law was imposed.
The revolt was led by Shi’ite Muslim majority population on an island which is important to Washington as the base for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
The Shi’ite majority has called for sweeping democratic reforms that would reduce the Sunni ruling family’s monopoly on power and allow parliament real powers to legislate and form governments.
One year on clashes between riot police and youths in Shi’ite districts have escalated, with heavy use of petrol bombs against police who in turn use large amounts of tear gas. Activists say at least 32 have died since martial law ended, though police question the causes of death.
In January Wefaq members met with Royal Court Minister Khaled bin Ahmed for preliminary discussions on a formal dialogue on democratic reforms.
The diplomat said Wefaq, which faces radicalisation among many Shi’ite youth who oppose the monarchy, had met for a second time with the minister in recent weeks.
“There is stuff going on but it’s getting more difficult than they imagined it would be. They are finding it difficult to get common ground,” he said, citing government fears that Wefaq would command a parliamentary majority.
“You can foresee a political solution here that would keep the Saudis very happy, but I think the red lines would be slightly tighter than last year,” he added.
Analysts say Riyadh sent troops last year because of alarm that Bahrain had not contained protests that had the potential to spill over into the Shi’ite Eastern Province region, where major Saudi oilfields are located.
An opposition politician, who did not wish to be named, said Saudi Arabia now feared that the conflict in Syria, in which Shi’ite Iran and its ally Hezbollah back Bashar al-Assad’s rule, could sharpen Bahrain’s sectarian divide - detracting attention from Syria and firing up Saudi Shi’ites.
“The Saudis are worried (the stalemate) could push the Shi’ites towards Iran... and at what could emerge as a consequence of Syria,” he said.
Loyalist Sunni groups in Bahrain, who look to the ruling Al Khalifa for protection, have held protests against Assad and accuse Shi’ites of sympathy for Assad.
Media in Iran and Hezbollah give positive coverage to Bahrain’s Shi’ite opposition, and Iraqi Shi’ites often demonstrate in support of their Bahraini coreligionists.
Some Sunni leaders in Bahrain fear the fate of Iraq’s Sunnis, sidelined after Shi’ites gained power through elections.
Unrest in the Saudi Eastern Province has flared again in recent months.
“The Saudis really don’t need unrest in the Eastern Province right now,” said Michael Stephens, researcher at the Doha-based Royal United Services Institute. “The policy priority for Saudi Arabia has been Syria for last three months.”The Walking Dead returns on February 8 with its mid-season premiere, and I, for one, have my “I <3 Daryl Dixon” wristband on in preparation. Even in this time of excitement, it’s still important to remember the corpses that, er, cleared the path for our current undead addiction.
There’s probably no easier way to get horror fans fighting than to declare the living-impaired former humans that don’t conform to specific characteristics of a zombie are, in fact, zombies. I’m speaking, of course, of the original modern zombies, which first appeared in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.: mindless, shuffling, flesh-hungry automatons. The phone crazies in Stephen King’s Cell, for example, are still technically alive, so even though they attack the living in mobs, often show signs of rot and decay, and appear to have no higher reason, you might have a fight on your hands if you use the z-word on them.
You don’t see this kind of genre-policing with other monsters like, say, the vampire. A lot of people roll their eyes at the sparkling vamps in Twilight, but very few deny that they fit in the larger definition. Fiction has given us vampires that walk in the sun, don’t need blood as sustenance, or are a separate species from humans (meaning, contrary to legend, vampirism isn’t contagious).
Indeed, eschewing legend was what set Romero’s 1969 film apart. Before Night of the Living Dead, the zombie was more like a golem, created by a sorcerer towards a specific, often murderous, purpose. They were the tools of someone’s will, not a mob united towards a shared ravenous purpose. It tickles my sense of irony, then, that in the world of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, whose zombies follow so perfectly the Romero formula, his iconic film doesn’t exist (Kirkman himself has said this is why his characters don’t call the walkers zombies, and why they don’t know right off the bat to aim for the head).
If you are a traditionalist who likes zombies slow, stupid, and starving for brains, here are six books that aren’t shy about taking a page from the Romero playbook.
Day by Day Armageddon, by JL Bourne
Written in diary form from the point of view of a soldier on leave from deployment overseas, Day by Day Armageddon has a much better sense of bullets-to-kill-shot ratios than one usually finds in zombie fiction. From a purely practical standpoint, Rick & Co. simply cannot be landing as many head shots as they do. While the novel doesn’t particularly address the larger questions of human society in the apocalypse, it does very carefully address the smaller ones: the nuts and bolts of survival.
The Gospel of Z, by Stephen Graham Jones
This may be a harder sell as a traditional zombie novel, as it includes giant constructed mecha-zombies and a cult devoted to armadillos, but the zombies in The Gospel of Z are otherwise pretty traditional. (They do also have a tendency to bear-crawl, which is very alarming.) Done well, zombie stories grapple with grief, as everyone surviving has lost everyone who hasn’t. Jones runs the apocalypse 10 years down the road, from this place of familiarity to escalating weirdness, providing emotionally resonant way to express that loss.
The Reapers Are the Angels, by Alden Bell
Temple, the main character of The Reaper’s Are the Angels, is the harsh, pragmatic daughter of a zombie-blighted American south. In some ways, she’s more comfortable with the dead than the living; the simplicity of their needs is, if not enviable, then at least more legible than those of the living. The novel probably owes more to the Old Testament morality of the Southern Gothic than it does to Romero’s class commentary, but the zombies are the same, down to the fact that anyone who dies, turns. (A surprisingly uncommon detail, even in the most faithful zombie novel.)
This Dark Earth, by John Hornor Jacobs
There’s a lot about This Dark Earth that follows the tropes of zombie fiction very closely, from the zombies themselves, to broader questions often posed by post-apocalyptic fiction: how will we maintain our humanity in the face of relentless savagery? But Jacobs doesn’t have to rely on gimmicks to explore the question of society. The Prince, like Carl from Walking Dead, cannot remember the modern world, and the line between expediency and cruelty grows thin.
World War Z, by Max Brooks
When the film version of World War Z transformed the book’s slow zombies into fast ones, a million voices cried out in terror. Understandably: almost none of the book holds up with the shift to “fast zombies.” While the novel doesn’t hew exactly to Romero, Brooks’ zombies function much like Romero’s in the narrative: they are there to show society’s responses to civic trauma. Not everyone who dies becomes a zombie, leading to the awful military choice to kill the living to create a firebreak against the dead. Contrast this with the opening to Dawn of the Dead, which shows a police force at odds with the residents of an apartment building who are protecting their reanimating dead in defiance of martial law. While the zombies may be slightly different, both writers use them to show the tension between community and security.
Zone One, by Colson Whitehead
In Whitehead’s novel, in addition to the usual slow, collecting mob, there exists a small number of undead called “stragglers,” who are frozen in tableau while doing everyday things—flying a kite, running a copy machine. The characters ruminate on these creatures: was this the action that defined the straggler’s life, or just a random moment caught like a photo? (This results in some mordant comedy, such as when one character blows away a straggler standing over a fast food deep fryer “on principle.”) Zone One is less a genre exercise than a eulogy to a lost New York, and the stragglers, as they stand rotting, fit beautifully into his observations and reflections. Is our memory of the past random or representative?
How do you take your zombies: Fast? Slow? Mindless? Self-Aware? Mix and match to make your favorite and let us know."Anasazi" redirects here. For other uses, see Anasazi (disambiguation)
The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado.[1] The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.
They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure.
In contemporary times, the people and their archaeological culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term. Reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean "ancient enemies". Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term to be used.[2][3]
Archaeologists continue to debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current agreement, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence around the 12th century BC, during the archaeologically designated Early Basketmaker II Era. Beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers identified Ancestral Puebloans as the forerunners of contemporary Pueblo peoples.[1][3] Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United States are credited to the Pueblos: Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo.
Etymology
Pueblo, which means "village" in Spanish, was a term originating with the Spanish explorers who used it to refer to the people's particular style of dwelling. The Navajo people, who now reside in parts of former Pueblo territory, referred to the ancient people as Anaasází, an exonym meaning "ancestors of our enemies", referring to their competition with the Pueblo peoples. The Navajo now use the term in the sense of referring to "ancient people" or "ancient ones".[4]
Hopi people used the term Hisatsinom, meaning ancient people, to describe the Ancestral Puebloans.[1]
Geography
Map of Ancestral Pueblo and neighboring cultures
The Ancestral Puebloans were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest. This area is sometimes referred to as Oasisamerica in the region defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. The others are the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Patayan. In relation to neighboring cultures, the Ancestral Puebloans occupied the northeast quadrant of the area.[5] The Ancestral Puebloan homeland centers on the Colorado Plateau, but extends from central New Mexico on the east to southern Nevada on the west.
Areas of southern Nevada, Utah, and Colorado form a loose northern boundary, while the southern edge is defined by the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers in Arizona and the Rio Puerco and Rio Grande in New Mexico. Structures and other evidence of Ancestral Puebloan culture has been found extending east onto the American Great Plains, in areas near the Cimarron and Pecos Rivers and in the Galisteo Basin.
Major Ancestral Puebloan sites in the Four Corners area
Terrain and resources within this large region vary greatly. The plateau regions have high elevations ranging from 4,500 to 8,500 feet (1,400 to 2,600 m). Extensive horizontal mesas are capped by sedimentary formations and support woodlands of junipers, pinon, and ponderosa pines, each favoring different elevations. Wind and water erosion have created steep-walled canyons, and sculpted windows and bridges out of the sandstone landscape. In areas where resistant strata (sedimentary rock layers), such as sandstone or limestone, overlie more easily eroded strata such as shale, rock overhangs formed. The Ancestral Puebloans favored building under such overhangs for shelters and defensive building sites.
All areas of the Ancestral Puebloan homeland suffered from periods of drought, and wind and water erosion. Summer rains could be unreliable and often arrived as destructive thunderstorms. While the amount of winter snowfall varied greatly, the Ancestral Puebloans depended on the snow for most of their water. Snow melt allowed the germination of seeds, both wild and cultivated, in the spring.
Where sandstone layers overlay shale, snow melt could accumulate and create seeps and springs, which the Ancestral Puebloans used as water sources. Snow also fed the smaller, more predictable tributaries, such as the Chinle, Animas, Jemez, and Taos Rivers. The larger rivers were less directly important to the ancient culture, as smaller streams were more easily diverted or controlled for irrigation.
Cultural characteristics
The Ancestral Puebloan culture is perhaps best known for the stone and earth dwellings its people built along cliff walls, particularly during the Pueblo II and Pueblo III eras, from about 900 to 1350 AD in total. The best-preserved examples of the stone dwellings are now protected within United States' national parks, such as Navajo National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, and Canyon de Chelly National Monument.
These villages, called pueblos by Spanish colonists, were accessible only by rope or through rock climbing. These astonishing building achievements had modest beginnings. The first Ancestral Puebloan homes and villages were based on the pit-house, a common feature in the Basketmaker periods.
Ancestral Puebloans are also known for their pottery. In general, pottery used for cooking or storage in the region was unpainted gray, either smooth or textured. Pottery used for more formal purposes was often more richly adorned. In the northern or "Anasazi" portion of the Ancestral Pueblo world, from about 500 to 1300 AD, the most common decorated pottery had black-painted designs on white or light gray backgrounds.[6] Decoration is characterized by fine hatching, and contrasting colors are produced by the use of mineral-based paint on a chalky background.[7] South of the Anasazi territory, in Mogollon settlements, pottery was more often hand-coiled, scraped, and polished, with red to brown coloring.[8]
Some tall cylinders are considered ceremonial vessels, while narrow-necked jars may have been used for liquids. Ware in the southern portion of the region, particularly after 1150 AD, is characterized by heavier black-line decoration and the use of carbon-based colorants.[7] In northern New Mexico, the local "black on white" tradition, the Rio Grande white wares, continued well after 1300 AD.
Changes in pottery composition, structure, and decoration are signals of social change in the archaeological record. This is particularly true as the peoples of the American Southwest began to leave their traditional homes and migrate south. According to archaeologists Patricia Crown and Steadman Upham, the appearance of the bright colors on Salada Polychromes in the 14th century may reflect religious or political alliances on a regional level. Late 14th- and 15th-century pottery from central Arizona, widely traded in the region, has colors and designs which may derive from earlier ware by both Ancestral Pueblo and Mogollon peoples.[9]
The Ancestral Puebloans also created many petroglyphs and pictographs. The pictograph style with which they are associated is the called the Barrier Canyon Style. This form of pictograph is painted in areas in which the images would be protected from the sun yet visible to a group of people. The figures are sometimes phantom or alien looking. The Holy Ghost panel in the Horseshoe Canyon is considered to be one of the earliest uses of graphical perspective where the largest figure appears to take on a three dimensional representation.
Architecture – Pueblo complexes and Great Houses
The Ancestral Pueblo people crafted a unique architecture with planned community spaces. The ancient population centers such as Chaco Canyon (outside Crownpoint, New Mexico), Mesa Verde (near Cortez, Colorado), and Bandelier National Monument (near Los Alamos, New Mexico) have brought renown to the Ancestral Pueblo peoples. They consisted of apartment-like complexes and structures made from stone, adobe mud, and other local material, or were carved into the sides of canyon walls. Developed within these cultures, the people also adopted design details from other cultures as far away as contemporary Mexico.
In their day, these ancient towns and cities were usually multistoried and multipurposed buildings surrounding open plazas and viewsheds. They were occupied by hundreds to thousands of Ancestral Pueblo peoples. These population complexes hosted cultural and civic events and infrastructure that supported a vast outlying region hundreds of miles away linked by transportation roadways.
Multistory dwellings at Bandelier: Rock wall foundations and beam holes and "cavates" carved into volcanic tuff remain from upper floors.
Constructed well before 1492 AD, these Ancestral Pueblo towns and villages in the Southwestern United States were located in various defensive positions, for example, on high, steep mesas such as at Mesa Verde or present-day Acoma Pueblo, called the "Sky City", in New Mexico. Earlier than 900 AD and progressing past the 13th century, the population complexes were a major center of culture for the Ancestral Puebloans. In Chaco Canyon, Chacoan developers quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling 15 major complexes. These ranked as the largest buildings in North America until the late 19th century.[10][11]
Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the Sun Dagger petroglyph at Fajada Butte a popular example. Many Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles,[12] requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction.[13] Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a 50-year drought that started in 1130.[14]
Great Houses
Mancos Pitcher with Black on White Geometric Designs, Ancestral Pueblo, 900–1300 AD,, Ancestral Pueblo, 900–1300 AD, Brooklyn Museum
Immense complexes known as "great houses" embodied worship at Chaco. Archaeologists have found musical instruments, jewelry, ceramics, and ceremonial items, indicating people in Great Houses were elite, wealthier families. They hosted indoor burials, where gifts were interred with the dead, often including bowls of food and turquoise beads.[15]
As architectural forms evolved and centuries passed, the houses kept several core traits. Most apparent is their sheer bulk; complexes averaged more than 200 rooms each, and some enclosed up to 700 rooms.[13] Individual rooms were substantial in size, with higher ceilings than Ancestral Pueblo works of preceding periods. They were well-planned: vast sections or wings erected were finished in a single stage, rather than in increments.
Doorways, Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
Houses generally faced the south. Plaza areas were almost always girt with edifices of sealed-off rooms or high walls. Houses often stood four or five stories tall, with single-story rooms facing the plaza; room blocks were terraced to allow the tallest sections to compose the pueblo's rear edifice. Rooms were often organized into suites, with front rooms larger than rear, interior, and storage rooms or areas.
Ceremonial structures known as kivas were built in proportion to the number of rooms in a pueblo. One small kiva was built for roughly every 29 rooms. Nine complexes each hosted an oversized Great Kiva, each up to 63 feet (19 m) in diameter. T-shaped doorways and stone lintels marked all Chacoan kivas.
Though simple and compound walls were often used, great houses were primarily constructed of core-and-veneer walls: two parallel load-bearing walls comprising dressed, flat sandstone blocks bound in clay mortar were erected.[16] Gaps between walls were packed with rubble, forming the wall's core. Walls were then covered in a veneer of small sandstone pieces, which were pressed into a layer of binding mud.[16] These surfacing stones were often placed in distinctive patterns.
The Chacoan structures altogether required the wood of 200,000 coniferous trees, mostly hauled—on foot—from mountain ranges up to 70 miles (110 km) away.[17][18]
Ceremonial infrastructure
One of the most notable aspects of Ancestral Puebloan infrastructure is at Chaco Canyon and is the Chaco Road, a system of roads radiating out from many great house sites such as Pueblo Bonito, Chetro Ketl, and Una Vida. They led toward small outlier sites and natural features within and beyond the canyon limits.
Through satellite images and ground investigations, archaeologists have detected at |
, each level offers about 4% Health and 4% damage, which mirrors what late game leads felt like in our previous version of the game. It is important to note, that while being down a few levels will be less punishing than it was previously, Talent tier advantages can and will still have a noticeable impact on enemy engagements.
Respawn Timers
Respawn timers have been increased for levels 1 – 10. Please review our recent blog on scaling and respawn timer changes for more details.
Developer Comments: In order to reward players for getting early game Takedowns, we’re also increasing the respawn time of dead Heroes at low levels. Now, getting early game Takedowns (and the experience associated with it) won’t give your team as much pure power as it did previously. Instead, early kills will offer a “power play” moment, in which your team can destroy enemy Structures, complete Battleground Events, or take more Mercenaries. These meaningful strategic advantages will position a team closer to victory, without giving them a large stat advantage and the ability to bully the opposing enemy team.
Attack Speed Slows
Attack speed slows now apply only to Heroes and Summons.
Tooltips
Several tooltips that lacked specific details regarding delays, charges gained, etc., have been updated with exact details.
Battlegrounds
Haunted Mines
This Battleground has been removed from all matchmaking queues for the foreseeable future, but is still playable in Custom Games
Developer Comments: We’ll be adding Towers of Doom to the map pool in an upcoming patch. This will expand the size of our map pool to 10 total Battlegrounds. To prevent the number of maps we have available to players in Quick Match and Hero League from being overbearing, we’ve decided to temporarily rotate out Haunted Mines. We feel the number of maps we have available are reaching a threshold that we may not be comfortable with.
Talents
Gathering Power
Hero takedowns now increase Ability Power by 2% per kill, up to a maximum of 30%. All stacks are now also lost upon death.
Developer Comments: We wanted to make Gathering Power a more high risk, high reward talent that encouraged specific gameplay. Now, with a much higher cap, the reward for this talent is much higher. The counterplay becomes the burden of the opposing team, as they’ll need to focus the Hero who has Gathering Power to reset their stacks.
Heroes
Assassin
Falstad
Hammerang (Q) Conjurer's Pursuit (Talent) removed Gathering Power (Talent) removed Power Throw (Talent) moved from Level 1 to Level 4 New Talent (Level 1): Gathering Storm Permanently increases Hammerang's damage by 1 every time it damages an enemy Hero
Flow Rider (Talent) No longer decreases Barrel Roll’s cooldown Now causes Basic Abilities to recharge 100% faster while the Tailwind trait is active
Developer Comments: Our Falstad changes were geared towards supporting Talent diversity. We wanted to make small changes while still providing a meaningful impact. The new and changed talents will add some higher skill options to confident Falstad players.
Return
Jaina
Frostbite (Trait) Deep Chill (Talent) Bonus to the Movement Speed slow applied by Chill decreased from 35% to 30%
Developer Comments: Jaina having a 35% slow available at level 1 is very hard to play against, and resulted in a majority of Jaina players picking Deep Chill. This is a small decrease, but has had a positive impact on our playtesting.
Return
Zeratul
Focused Attack (Talent) removed
New Talent (Level 4): Master Warp-Blade Every 3rd consecutive Basic Attack against the same Hero deals 100% bonus damage
Developer Comments: Focused Attack was providing Zeratul with a little too much burst damage. Now with the consecutive hit requirement, Zeratul will now gain a more substantial damage boost if he is able to stick to his target for a few seconds.
Return
Support
Kharazim
Insight (Trait) Mana regeneration granted on every third hit increased from 12 (+0.21 per level) to 14 (+0.36 per level)
Iron Fists (Trait) Damage bonus granted on every third hit increased from 100% to 125%
Developer Comments: Most Kharazim players pick Transcendence at level 1, and this is often the most powerful option regardless of the situation. We tuned up the other two options here to help provide Kharazim players with different options.
Return
Uther
Eternal Devotion (Trait) Spirit form duration decreased from 10 to 8 seconds
Divine Shield (R) Cooldown increased from 70 to 90 seconds
Developer Comments: Uther is highly contested at high levels of competitive play, so we wanted to target a few nerfs that would have a larger impact at that level. We also wanted to focus our changes on two abilities that offer very little counterplay for the enemy team.
Return
Warrior
Leoric
Drain Hope (W) Cooldown decreased from 12 to 11 seconds If Leoric is stunned while casting Drain Hope, the stun will no longer cancel the Ability and the missile will continue to travel Damage dealt and Health gained reduced from 25% to 20% Damage and Healing no longer gradually increase over the Ability’s duration, but instead does a consistent amount of damage and healing with each tick.
Developer Comments: We wanted to remove the scaling damage and heal amount on Drain Hope, but knew the change alone would be a significant buff as much of the value is loaded at the end of the ability. In response, we lowered this value by 5% and also reduced the cooldown by 1 second.
Return
Rexxar
Misha (Trait) (D) Misha's death timer portrait will now appear in the death timer bar while she is respawning The frequency at which Rexxar's voiceover will play when commanding Misha has been reduced
Misha, Fixate (1) Misha, Fixate has been renamed Misha, Focus!
Return
Bug Fixes
General
Fixed an issue which could cause a team with no Support Heroes to be matched against a team with Support Heroes in the Quick Match queue.
Fixed an issue in which the Auto-Select Hero could occasionally fail to give the player a Support Hero on teams that lacked Supports.
Fixed an issue that could cause French AZERTY keyboards to revert to using QWERTY keyboard hotkeys.
Battlegrounds
The tooltip for the Plant Terror’s Overgrowth Ability no longer states that it does not disable the enemy Core.
Fixed an issue that prevented Hero vision radiuses from displaying on Infernal Shrines and Battlefield of Eternity minimaps.
Heroes and Talents
Abathur can no longer capture objectives at his body’s location while using Ultimate Evolution.
Abathur’s Adrenal Overload Talent now properly increases Monstrosity’s attack speed while it is under the effects of Symbiote.
Ultimate Evolution Clones and Monstrosities will now properly receive the benefits of Abathur’s Volatile Mutation Talent if it is selected after a Summon is already active.
Heroes with the Relentless Talent that become Polymorphed will now properly receive damage from Brightwing’s Unstable Anomaly Talent when Polymorph expires.
The visual effects for Butcher’s Brand will no longer persist on a target that is protected from death by Kharazim’s Divine Palm.
Chen’s Spirit forms will now properly leave Stealth after casting an Ability during Storm, Earth, Fire.
Heroes that are simultaneously struck by Diablo’s Overpower and Stitches’ Hook will no longer be thrown outside the playable area.
A Hero that activates Ice Block while simultaneously coming under the effects of Stitches’ Gorge will now properly retain Ice Block’s visual effects for the duration of the Talent’s effects.
Fixed a bug that could cause Stealthed Heroes to fire a Basic Attack at a nearby enemy immediately after Mounting.
Fixed an issue that could allow Leoric to change direction while using March of the Black King.
Fixed an issue that could cause a Medivac to persist on the battlefield if Lt. Morales was killed while casting Medivac Dropship.
Damage prevented by Lt. Morales' Safeguard will now always be displayed in whole numbers.
The cooldown for Kerrigan’s Ravage will now be properly reset when it is used to destroy an enemy Structure.
Misha can now properly return to Rexxar if she is on the opposite side of an enemy Gate and an open path exists where a Wall was destroyed.
Sonya’s next Basic Attack after casting Ancient Spear will now properly benefit from the Follow Through Talent.
Heal over time and damage over time previews for Tyrande’s Shadowstalk and Kael’thas’ Living Bomb will now more accurately reflect the burst Healing and burst damage amounts at the end of each Ability’s effects.
User InterfaceEggless Chocolate Sponge Cake
by Arpit, Published: December 29, 2011
A simple sponge cake can form the base for a variety of luscious desserts. Plain or fancy, a basic sponge cake can be employed to produce desserts for occasions ranging from a simple family meal to a show stealing birthday cake. Whatever the recipe, a basic sponge cake has to be moist, soft and tender. A dry, crumbly, flat cake will make the dessert very unappetizing.
Prep time: 10 mins
Baking time: 25 mins
Baking Temperature: 180ºc (360ºf)
Total time: 35 mins
Yield: Makes 1 sponge cake
Ingredients:
125 gms plain flour (मैदा)
2 tbsp cocoa powder (कोको पावडर)
1/2 tsp soda bi-carb (खाने का सोडा)
3/4 cup (200 gm) condensed milk (कंडेन्सड मील्क)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder (बेकींग पावडर)
60 ml melted butter (मखन)
1 tsp vanilla essence (वेनीला अर्क)
Method :
1. Sieve the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and soda bi-carb together. Keep aside.
2. Combine the condensed milk, melted butter, vanilla essence and 75 ml. Of water and beat well.
3. Add the prepared sieved flour-cocoa soda bi carb mixture and mix gently with help of a spatula.
4. The batter should be of dropping consistency.
5. Pour the batter into a greased and dusted 175 mm. (7″) diameter tin.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180ºc (360ºf) for 20 minutes or till done (every oven takes different time, so take decision based on your experience).
7. The cake is ready when it leaves the sides of the tin and is springy to touch.
8. When ready, remove from the oven and leave aside for 1 minute. Invert the tin over a rack and tap sharply to unmould the cake.
9. Keep aside to cool and use as required.The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted the suspension of an Aransas County judge who was caught on video beating his 16-year-old disabled daughter.
Judge William Adams was suspended with pay last year while the State Commission on Judicial Conduct investigated the allegations against him. In September, the commission issued a public warning, stating that Adams conduct discredited the judiciary because he had regularly presided over child custody, child abuse, and family violence cases. He will no longer preside over some cases brought by the Texas Department of Family and Protective services.
The Corpus Christi Caller Times noted it is typical for judicial suspensions to be lift after the commission issues a censure, unless that censure calls for the judge to be removed from the bench.
Adam’s disabled daughter, Hillary, uploaded the video to YouTube last year, claiming the recording from 2004 showed only a snippet of the abuse she had endured from her father.
In the video, Adams is seen repeatedly whipping his daughter with a belt while shouting expletive-filled threats at her. Hillary explained that her father had become upset because she illegally downloaded games and music to her computer. She was born with ataxic cerebral palsy.
Adams’ ex-wife and Hillary’s mother, Hallie Adams, told the Associated Press she was extremely disappointed with the decision to reinstate Adams.
“Hillary and I are both really sad today,” she said. “I had really hoped the judicial review process would work. I had really wanted to see the public protected.”
Numerous law enforcement agencies opened investigations on Adams, but no charges were filed because of statute of limitations.Get the biggest politics 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
Labour party members who have been in the party for less than six months will be barred from taking part in the forthcoming leadership election unless they pay £25.
A crunch meeting of the party's ruling body in London tonight decided leader Jeremy Corbyn will automatically be on the ballot for the contest.
But Labour members who have signed up after Tuesday, January 12 will not eligible to vote.
That means the claimed 100,000 new members the party claims they have attracted since the referendum will be excluded from the process.
But they may still be able to take part in the vote if they're willing to stump up a £25'registered supporter' fee.
Applications to be a registered supporter will only be open for two days - and it's believed those who became members since January 12 will be allowed to sign up as registered supporters.
poll loading Is January 12 a fair cut off date to vote for the next Labour leader? 0+ VOTES SO FAR Yes, it seems about right No, it should be earlier No, it should be later No, there shouldn't be a cut off date
Details of how to sign up as a registered supporter will be announced on Thursday.
(Image: Christopher Furlong)
The idea of registered supporters was brought in during Ed Miliband's time as Labour leader, and is widely credited with allowing Jeremy Corbyn to win September's leadership contest.
In September the cost of being a registered supporter was just £3.
It's thought many of the registered supporters who signed up to vote for Mr Corbyn have since converted to full membership, but it's unclear whether the bulk of them did this before the six-month cut off date.
The date of the leadership election has also yet to be confirmed.
Mr Corbyn faced a crunch vote to determine whether he needed to gather support of 51 Labour MPs and MEPs ahead of the election in order to take part.
He won the vote to be included on the ballot automatically by 18 votes to 14.Transcript for Cravings: Grilled Cheese in Brooklyn
Know my name is my time. My name's. I. Also yeah. Back then you you know. We are endlessly Brooklyn NH US mint lemon Bittermann. That was the pain comes in business it's done is created this innovative business funding cannot happen. I'm literally on the lot. Every time I'm in new accent come here and mostly because its. Last a different in my business. Come on science and you know when he originally thought about the ice it isn't now. Has let its a special connection. This is the mother who. The main. I do not feel bad about it on my decision that what got a lot of that is currently left fateful. I'm here my son is paying food she's good she's. This is what I need react and she wow I think. The great thing about offices and in the Welch's together creates this site explosive play them. And that's is loaded with the rent is not soon elect who goes into butter in. This is incredibly snag is not good taste back home he alone after school so decadent things but just incredible. That husband's business no commitment. She's in rent rates down cheese pizza breaks little bit but it's perfectly done. Relations have one person levels of the present happened just words and I think that this of this these guys love the red planet just like. Think this show has done a great both tell them sorry because of some very fact village hall should time. When you guys on me I was we've had. I didn't have at least they. Now I have a maintenance. I have my own cousin wasn't my thing. I had not expected to act. On Mon may make a lot of them music video what does that make sense that things to come I'm doing something.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.Cuba has released Jewish-American aid worker Alan Gross after five years in prison, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
U.S. officials said later on Wednesday that Washington intends to start talks with Cuba to normalize full diplomatic relations, and open embassy in Havana.
Cuba arrested Gross, now 65, on December 3, 2009, and later convicted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) subcontractor to 15 years in prison for importing banned technology and trying to establish clandestine internet service for Cuban Jews.
ABC News earlier said Gross was released in a humanitarian prisoner exchange.
U.S. President Barack Obama was set to make a statement on Cuba at noon local time, the White House said.
Meanwhile, Cuban President Raul Castro will speak to his nation at noon (1700 GMT) on Wednesday about relations with the United States, Cuban state television reported, as news surfaced of Gross' release.Media playback is not supported on this device Roller derby: Skate fast, hit hard
How do I start?
Find your local roller derby team by using the United Kingdom Roller Derby Association (UKRDA) club finder.
What is it?
Two teams of 14 skaters, four 'blockers,' a 'jammer' who tries to go past them, 'full body slams' and 'hip-checks' - Roller derby can look like havoc on the track, but the rules are pretty simple to understand. Just watch this...
Media playback is not supported on this device A fun and easy way to understand the rules of Roller Derby
Is it for me?
Roller derby is a great way to get fit and make new friends. The sport prides itself on being inclusive so no matter your size, shape or ability you can play. Can't skate? Don't worry, clubs will teach you. There are men's, women's and junior roller derby teams.
What to expect when I start?
Lots of clubs offer low-cost sessions with equipment hire for beginners.
with for beginners. Roller derby puts a strong emphasis on having fun - each skater will adopt their own tongue-in-cheek or pun based name.
There's a lot of skating in short bursts so you'll get a good cardio workout and improve your balance, whilst learning about teamwork.
and improve your, whilst learning about. Roller derby also works your core and leg muscles.
Junior roller derby is mixed gender, and there are levels of game play that start with absolutely no contact up to more impact. Contact UKRDA. for your local club.
for your local club. There's a whole team behind putting on a successful roller derby game. Between 12 and 15 Non-skating Officials keep track of the score, time and penalties. Seven Referees, also known as 'team zebra', are on skates and keep the game fair, consistent and safe - contact your local club to find out how you can get involved.
To get you in the mood - what's your roller derby name?
Will you be 'Icy Wrecking Ball,' 'Captain Vixen' or someone completely different? Use the graphic below to find your name.
Are you inspired to try roller derby? Or maybe you are a keen enthusiast already? Get in touch and tell us your experience of the activity by tweeting us on @bbcgetinspired, visiting us on Facebook or email us on getinspired@bbc.co.uk.
All clubs need a chair, secretary and treasurer to help things run smoothly as well as officials, coaches and judges. Whatever role you're interested in, Join In has opportunities to volunteer in your area.Incoming governor says North Carolina will repeal LGBT law
North Carolina Gov.-elect Roy Cooper says the state's legislative leaders will call a special session as soon as Tuesday to repeal the state's so-called "bathroom bill," more officially known as House Bill 2.
The law requires people to use restrooms in many public buildings — including schools and college campuses — according to the sex listed on their birth certificates.
Story Continued Below
“Full repeal will help to bring jobs, sports and entertainment events back and will provide the opportunity for strong LGBT protections in our state," Cooper said in a statement.
The announcement came after a 10-0 vote Monday morning by the Charlotte City Council to rescind the LGBT nondiscrimination law it enacted early this year — a law that prompted state lawmakers to push back with the bathroom bill. The council's decision is contingent on the state's legislators repealing their law by Dec. 31, according to The Associated Press.
The contentious state law prompted the Justice Department and outgoing Republican Gov. Pat McCrory to exchange lawsuits earlier this year, with federal officials threatening to withhold billions in federal education aid from the state. The Justice Department could not immediately be reached for comment.
The law also prompted a lawsuit out of the University of North Carolina, filed by two transgender students and one employee. A federal judge in August issued a limited order saying the plaintiffs could use the bathrooms, with another hearing in that case scheduled for next spring.
McCrory's office released a statement Monday that blamed the controversy on Charlotte's "overreaching" nondiscrimination law, and Democrats' previous refusal to repeal it.
"This sudden reversal with little notice after the gubernatorial election sadly proves this entire issue originated by the political left was all about politics and winning the governor’s race at the expense of Charlotte and our entire state," said McCrory's press secretary, Graham Wilson.
North Carolina has been a hot spot in the debate over transgender rights, but it is far from the only battleground.
The Obama administration has said that Title IX, which prevents sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities, protects the right of transgender students to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. That decree, issued in May, has prompted about half of states to sue the administration.
LGBT advocates worry the Trump administration will rescind that directive, which could cause upheaval with one of the nation's most high-profile court cases.
The Supreme Court in October agreed to take up the issue of transgender student rights in the case of a Virginia transgender student who's suing his school district for access to the boy's bathroom at his high school. If the Trump administration scraps the Obama administration's transgender directive, then the case could be kicked down to a lower court.Top 10 players who can keep up their hot start to the 2016-17 NHL season
We’re almost a month into the campaign and by now you should be able to grasp who is the real deal and who isn’t. What players out there can keep up their hot start and who are just frauds is the most important question to ask yourselves at this time of year. Whose hot start can translate into long-term success this season? It’s easy to say Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid will keep up their pace. This column will look at the non-elite players (although number one is pretty close to becoming elite at this pace).
Most of these guys will obviously drop off somewhat. They are not all going to finish with 70-plus points. But there are encouraging signs why they can keep up their hot start for most of the season. Onto the list.
10. Mark Streit
It’s no secret that I was high on Streit going into this season. He was my choice for sleeper pick in the pre-season experts panel and number two on my picks players due for a bounceback season. He’s getting plenty of ice time. His 20:35 is third on the team and second among Flyers defensemen even though he’s mostly on the second power play unit. He’s on pace for 151 shots, which be the most for him since 2009-10. And he’s starting in the offensive zone 62 per cent of the time, which is much higher than last year’s 46.9 per cent and higher than any point in the last five years.
9. Mika Zibanejad
So far, the Rangers are winning the Zibanejad -Derek Brassard trade. Zibanejad has nine points in 13 games and is on pace for 57 points although he has just one point in his last five games. His overall time on ice doesn’t look that hot, but he is second on the Rangers with 2:56 power play minutes per game. He’s on pace for a career high in shots, even though his shooting percentage is almost half what it normally is. He’ll start to pop more goals once he gets back closer to his career shooting percentage average.
8. Mike Green
Green is having somewhat of a resurgence in Detroit this season with nine points in 13 games. That puts him on pace for 57 points. The last time Green broke 50 points was back in 2009-10 when Rob Blake was in his last NHL season. He’s the undisputable power play guy in Detroit this year. Last year Niklas Kronwall was the main power play quarterback. His overall time on ice is up four minutes over last year. More time on the ice = better chance to get points.
7. Richard Panik
Panik is easily this year’s most surprising player and is on pace for 69 points. His linemates are excellent as he is usually playing with Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane. His offensive zone starts is 60.6 per cent, a crazy high number when you think he is paired mostly with the defensive-minded Toews. And there’s no real competition to be replaced in a top-six role.
6. Damon Severson
Severson has been excellent for the low-scoring Devils so far this year with nine points in 10 games. Those nine points lead all New Jersey players. He’s finally the main guy on the power play. Last year felt like the Devils had a different power play quarterback every game. This year it’s been Severson and Yohann Auvitu. Severson’s overall ice time is up two minutes a game from a year ago.
5. Nick Foligno
The former 70-point player — it’s still a little weird to say that — has been great for the Blue Jackets to start the season with 12 points in 10 games. Foligno plays on the Blue Jackets top line with Brandon Saad and Alexander Wennberg and is on the top power play unit with Wennberg and Cam Atkinson.
4. Jakub Voracek
Voracek’s hot start is a bit of a surprise considering how bad he started last year when he had five points in his first 16 games. Most importantly is that while he’s not playing with Claude Giroux at even strength, he’s also not stuck playing on the fourth line with scrubs. He’s also on pace for 328 shots, which would be his career high by about 100. And his power play and overall ice time is the highest it’s been in the past five years.
3. Patric Hornqvist
Hornqvist is on pace for 27 goals and 68 points. So, it’s fair to say he could flirt with 30 goals and 70 points, the latter which would be a career high for him. Three reasons why: The reasons are obvious: He’s playing regularly with Sidney Crosby on the top line and on the second power play unit with Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel. Hornqvist is also shooting the puck a ton, and is on pace for 300-plus shots.
2. Zach Werenski
The Blue Jacket rookie has been much better than expected with 10 points in 10 games to start the season. He’s the top power play option for defensemen for Columbus and it’s not even close. Werenski has averaged 2:26 power play minutes per game. Seth Jones is the next highest defenseman at 1:25 and then Ryan Murray follows at 22 seconds per game. Werenski is also on pace for 213 shots. That would be only the second time since 1990 that a rookie dman took that many shots (Dion Phaneuf took 242 in 2005-06).
1. Nikita Kucherov
Kucherov seems as sure as a bet as anyone to hit the 70-point mark for the first time in his career. He’s already got 15 points in 10 games, which is 110-point pace. His power play time on ice is up. And he’s playing clicking with better linemates. Last year he played with a struggling Tyler Johnson. This year he’s been lineup more with Steven Stamkos.Let it not be said that President Obama does not keep his promises.
As he prepared to accept his nomination for re-election last week, the president made good on a promise he made at the beginning of his term: No CIA officers will be prosecuted for torture. Attorney General Eric Holder quietly announced before the convention that the last two torture investigations would close (like all the prior investigations) without any charge. As a virtual afterthought, the Justice Department added that it would not address the "propriety of the examined conduct." The "impropriety" involved two suspects who died under torture by CIA officials.
For those still infatuated with Obama, the announcement was the final triumph of "hope" over experience. Since Obama ran on a civil liberties platform, many expected an independent torture investigation as soon as he took office. After all, waterboarding is one of the oldest forms of torture, pre-dating the Spanish Inquisition (when it was called tortura del agua). It has long been defined as torture by both U.S. and international law, and by Obama himself. Torture, in turn, has long been defined as a war crime, and the United States is under treaty obligation to investigate and prosecute such crimes.
However, such a principle did not make for good politics. Accordingly, as soon as he was elected, Obama set out to dampen talk of prosecution. Various intelligence officials and politicians went public with accounts of the Obama administration making promises to protect Bush officials and CIA employees from prosecution.
'Order is an order'
Though the White House denied the stories, Obama later gave his controversial speech at the CIA headquarters and did precisely that. In the speech, he effectively embraced the defense of befehl ist befehl ("an order is an order") and, in so doing, eviscerated one of the most important of the Nuremburg principles. Obama assured the CIA that employees would not be prosecuted for carrying out orders by superiors. This was later affirmed by Holder's Justice Department, which decided that employees carrying out torture were protected because they followed orders. The administration then decided that those who gave the orders were protected because they secured facially flawed legal opinions from the Justice Department. Finally, the Justice Department decided not to charge its own lawyers who gave those opinions because they were their … well …opinions.
This, of course, still left two inconvenient corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2002, Gul Rahman was grabbed in Pakistan while seeing a doctor who is the son-in-law of an Afghanistan warlord. He was taken by the CIA to the infamous Salt Pit, a former brick factory north of Kabul. He was beaten by guards, stripped and shackled to a cement wall in near freezing temperatures. He froze to death overnight. The CIA officer in charge of the prison who ordered the lethal abuse has been promoted, according to the Associated Press and The Washington Post.
The second torture case was that of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in 2003 in Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Al-Jamadi's face was featured in pictures with smiling U.S. troops posed with his dead body — giving the thumbs up sign. A CIA official had interrogated al-Jamadi by suspending him from a barred window by his wrists, which were bound behind his back. The CIA interrogator, Mark Swanner, continued to demand answers even when al-Jamadi stopped responding. Swanner accused him of "playing possum" and ordered him to be repositioned for more interrogation, according to a New Yorker account. The guards finally convinced Swanner that the man was deceased. Al-Jamadi's death was officially ruled a homicide.
CIA promotions
Not only have people like the commandant at the Salt Pit been promoted, but various CIA officials associated with the abuse of detainees have also been promoted under President Obama. Likewise, the lawyers responsible for those now rejected legal opinions have been promoted. One of the most notorious, Jay Bybee, was even given a lifetime appointment as a federal judge in California.
USATODAY OPINION Columns In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum. Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are. We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike. Columnists
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We have gone from prosecuting torture as a war crime after World War II to treating allegations of torture as a "question of propriety" under Obama. Hundreds of officials, including President Bush, were involved. People died in interrogation. High-ranking CIA officials admitted that they destroyed evidence of torture to keep it from being used in any later prosecutions. Yet, after a years-long investigation, not a single CIA official will be charged with a single crime connected to the program. Not even a misdemeanor or a single bar referral for an attorney. Well, no one except former CIA official John Kiriakou, who is awaiting trial on criminal charges for disclosing information on the torture.
After World War II, political philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe those who committed war crimes. The Obama administration now can add the "impropriety of torture" to our lexicon. The image of a man beaten, stripped and frozen to death in a CIA prison is not nearly as unnerving as a nation that stood by and did nothing about it. We have become a nation of dull-eyed pedestrians watching as our leaders strip away the very things that distinguish us from our enemies. With our principles gone, we are left with only politics and, of course, our sense of propriety.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.$22,900: Average student debt of newly minted college graduates
The Class of 2011 will graduate this spring from America’s colleges and universities with a dubious distinction: the most indebted ever.
Even as the average U.S. household pares down its debts, the new degree-holders who represent the country’s best hope for future prosperity are headed in the opposite direction. With tuition rising at an annual rate of about 5% and cash-strapped parents less able to help, the mean student-debt burden at graduation will reach nearly $18,000 this year, estimates Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of student-aid websites Fastweb.com and FinAid.org. Together with loans parents take on to finance their children’s college educations — loans that the students often pay themselves – the estimate comes to about $22,900. That’s 8% more than last year and, in inflation-adjusted terms, 47% more than a decade ago.
In the long run, the investment is probably worth it. Education is a much better reason to borrow money than buying cars or McMansions, and it endows people with economic advantages that the recession and slow recovery have only accentuated. As of 2009, the annual pre-tax income of households headed by people with at least a college degree exceeded that of less-educated households by 101%, up from 91% in 2006. As of April, the unemployment rate among college graduates stood at 4.5%, compared to 9.7% for those with only a high-school diploma and 14.6% for those who never finished high school.If you want to try out a new Linux distro, be it the latest Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal daily ISO or any other (I've only tested it with Ubuntu though!) and don't want to burn a CD each time you want to try a new daily build (and you don't have an USB memory stick around), you can use a cool GRUB 2 feature that lets you boot a live CD ISO directly from your hard disk. You can also use this method to boot varous utilities such as Super Grub Disk, SystemRescueCD, Parted Magic and so on.
This info is actually available on the Unetbootin website but I somehow missed it - until now (thanks to
I've recorded a video showing the Unetbootin Grub2 menu entry and then booting the latest Ubuntu 11.04 daily ISO using this method, however the video is very bad in quality (my cam sucks) so I didn't embed it into this post, but you can Usually, setting up GRUB 2 to boot an ISO can be quite a difficult process (well, not that difficult but for some reason it always failed for me) but you can do this with just a few clicks thanks to Unetbootin.but I somehow missed it - until now (thanks to Usemos Linux )., however the video is very bad in quality (my cam sucks) so I didn't embed it into this post, but you can watch it @ YouTube if you want.
Install Unetbootin and set everything up for booting an ISO using Grub2
Warning: remember, when messing with Grub (or any application that modifies it), there are things that might go wrong so use this at your own risk and if you know how to fix it in case things go wrong.
1. Install Unetbootin:
In Ubuntu, simply run the following command to install it:
sudo apt-get install unetbootin
If you're not using Ubuntu and Unetbootin is not in your distro official repositories, download it from HERE
In Unetbootin, select the "Diskimage" option, then browse for an ISO and under "Type" select "Hard Disk" and leave "/" for the "Drive", then click OK:
Once Unetbootin finishes, restart your computer and select "Unetbootin" in the GRUB2 menu. If the Grub2 menu doesn't show up, press and hold the SHIFT key.
Because Unetbootin extracts the ISO, you'll have to run it again when you want to boot a new ISO, even if it has the same |
Commissioner Bert Bell published a threatening letter in the Press-Gazette, warning Green Bay what would happen if the referendum did not pass.
The intersection of Ridge Road and Highland Avenue was more vacant than occupied when City Stadium was built in 1957 by Geo. M. Hougard & Sons Inc.
(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)
Bert Bell, NFL commissioner, in March 31, 1956 edition of Press-Gazette: We have firm offers for a franchise from many cities whose stadiums can accommodate larger crowds. There is no doubt in my mind that the Green Bay Packers could sell their franchise (God forbid) for a maximum of three quarters of a million dollars. Therefore, it is my opinion that it would be good business judgment on the part of the citizens of Green Bay to approve the referendum for a new stadium.
Christl: Just as important was George Halas’ visit to Green Bay, and he basically told people who showed up at the Columbus Club on the Saturday before the vote that, "You either pass this referendum, or you’re going to lose your team." But members of the executive committee had been telling citizens of Green Bay that, and they said in that 1954-56 time frame, they started making references to the fact, "We’re not talking about just building a new stadium, we’re talking about saving this franchise."
Knafelc: I don’t think we ever considered that the referendum wouldn’t pass. Knowing the people in Green Bay, I don’t think that was even a minor question, let alone a major one. I don’t think the people of Green Bay would’ve allowed that to happen.
Dignitaries from the world of sports, entertainment and politics attended that first game against the Bears. Red Grange, the legendary Bears halfback, flew from San Francisco to Green Bay after covering a Stanford-Illinois game for NBC. Actor James Arness, beloved for his portrayal of Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series "Gunsmoke," and Miss America Marilyn Van Der Bur marshaled a 2 1/2-mile parade with more than 70,000 in attendance.
Richard Nixon, vice president at the time, called Green Bay “the best-known little city in the United States” in a halftime address and sat eight rows behind the 50-yard line.
“Where else could a town of this size support a professional football team all these years? And what other city of comparable size could build a stadium like this one?” Jack Brickhouse, veteran sportscaster for WGN, in Sept. 30, 1957 edition of Press-Gazette
Nixon, in Sept. 30, 1957 edition of Press-Gazette: I have never been in a stadium built more for football so the spectators can see than the Green Bay Stadium here today.
Jack Brickhouse, veteran sportscaster for WGN, in Sept. 30, 1957 edition of Press-Gazette: Dedication of this stadium is just another chapter in a story which never fails to amaze me. The Green Bay Packer story reminds me of the athlete who makes up with spirit and determination what he lacks in physical prowess. Where else could a town of this size support a professional football team all these years? And what other city of comparable size could build a stadium like this one?
Pete Helf, child concession vendor at new City Stadium: I lived on the east side and hung around the old City Stadium. In ’63, I was captain of Green Bay East’s football team. So my heart is in old City Stadium, the old wooden place where we used to sneak in. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but when we were kids my older brother and a bunch of kids that lived around there, we used to go dig holes under the stands and then mark them with an X, and then put potato sacks and cover them up. Then we had guards around there, and we’d brush and pull the potato sacks and slide under. You’d see us walking around because we’d all have dirty bellies for the game, but they wouldn’t kick us out once we were in. That was kind of the fun part of the old City Stadium. When they moved out to the west side, that was like going to another world for young kids, but we went to the games.
Washington running back Johnny Olszewski (0) is wrapped up by one Green Bay defender and surrounded by a host of others, including defensive tackle Henry Jordan (74), in the Packers' 21-0 victory at new City Stadium on Nov. 23, 1959. Clockwise from lower left, the Packers are defensive end Bill Quinlan (83), linebacker Bill Forester (71), defensive tackle Henry Jordan (74), linebacker Dan Currie (58), defensive end Jim Temp (82) and defensive tackle Dave Hanner (79). The Washington linemen are, from left, Don Boll (62), Don Lawrence (78), Jim Schrader (51) and Ray Lemek (70) on the ground and Don Stevens (67).
(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)
Jerry Helluin, Packers defensive tackle 1954-57: It was such a transition coming from the old stadium, that I guess you would describe it as awe-inspiring. Just the fact you had a modern facility. You’re coming from wooden bleachers to this thing, and you were proud to be in it.
Knafelc: Our lockers were perfect. We had little benches we could sit down in front of our lockers. The showers were huge. You could almost fit the whole team in there. Everything was such a big change. It was like playing on a dirt field and walking onto a grass field.
Helf: One of the benefits of the new stadium was they had a kids’ section, and the tickets were real cheap. It was on the northeast in the corner of the end zone about to the 10-yard line. It was a smart move that they made to get the kids in one section. The parents could sit where their tickets were, and the kids in their section. I think it generated a next generation of Packers fans.
The Packers were big underdogs against the Bears, who had just lost to the New York Giants in the 1956 NFL Championship game. They came back from three deficits to win 21-17 on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Babe Parilli to Knafelc. Parilli replaced starting quarterback Bart Starr earlier in the game.
Knafelc: I think we were something like 21-point underdogs. It felt like even more. We all got together prior to kickoff, and all of us, every single one of us said, "It’s not going to happen today." It wasn’t that we didn’t like them, we hated them. And they in turn hated us. It wasn’t like now. You don’t pat each other on the back and say "hi" to each other. You didn’t talk to those people. It was a grudge battle.
“The opening game there, it seemed like we were in another world. It was just really nice to be in a nice stadium to play in.” Fred Cone, Packers fullback 1951-57
Christl: Honest rivalries, true rivalries, mattered so much more back then than they do now.
Cone: The opening game there, it seemed like we were in another world. It was just really nice to be in a nice stadium to play in.
Helluin: The County Stadium in Milwaukee was designed for baseball primarily. In other words, when we played in there, you had part of that infield that you had to put up with, and it was just — it wasn’t like the new stadium, let’s put it that way.
Bratkowski: It was a typical Bears-Packers game, as they all are. Of course, getting into the locker room, it’s not good to get beat. Basically, that’s all I really remember about it. It was a Bears-Packers rivalry, it was in the new stadium, a lot of hoopla because everybody was in town and the opening of it.
Knafelc: Babe was a very good quarterback. We were in the huddle together, and there were about four of us all talking together about what plays we could use. He said, "What can you beat him with?" I said, "I could beat him with the post.’"He said, "We’re going to go with Gary." And that’s what we decided to do.
Tailgaters celebrate before the Packers take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 24, 2000, the last game before Lambeau Field underwent a massive renovation.
(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)
Bobby Watkins, Bears halfback 1955-57, in Sept. 30, 1957 edition of Press-Gazette: This field was a dream field to play on. Your team was really inspired by the big crowd and its new home. That might have been the difference in the two teams today.
Billy Howton, Packers end 1952-58, in Sept. 30, 1957 edition of Press-Gazette: It just wouldn’t have been appropriate if we hadn’t won.
Sixty years later, Lambeau Field is the birthplace of the Packers’ modern success.
It’s easy to trace a line from Sept. 29, 1957 to the franchise’s growth. Had the city waited any longer, it may have been too late. The Packers hired Vince Lombardi two years later. He ushered the franchise into the Glory Years of the 1960s, and Green Bay remains home to one of the NFL’s iconic franchises today.
Christl: Lombardi’s arrival and success obviously was another savior of the franchise, and really cemented it for many years after. Without that stadium, I’m guessing they may not have been able to hire — they probably couldn’t have lured Lombardi to Green Bay. I doubt if he would’ve come here to coach at the rickety, old high school football stadium.
Bratkowski: The comparisons from now to then, it’s unreal. It’s just unreal. Once you get in there, you always think only as high as the stadium was when you were there. It’s amazing, and then you look up and see all the things that are surrounding it and say, "This is really neat." Really, compared to a lot of stadiums that are a little older and everything, there’s no comparison from a standpoint of food available, bathrooms available, all those little details that they’ve included. And it’s all clean. I mean, it’s clean, clean.
Lambeau Field undergoes renovation work in 2001.
(Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)
Helf: The only thing recognizable is the cinder-block tunnels that you walk out into the stadium.
Christl: As things were in 1956, could the Packers have continued to survive for a time in that old stadium? Perhaps, but as things changed rapidly after the so-called greatest game ever played, the 1958 championship between the Colts and Giants, the overtime game, when the popularity of pro football mushroomed, the Packers, the NFL and other owners would not have put up with playing in that stadium beyond that point.
Helluin: It was just one those things that happened that you were a part of. When you sit back and think about it now, you think, "Well, that was, we might’ve thought back then it was just ordinary, but it was kind of awe-inspiring."
***
Old School Packers
Read the original newspaper accounts of the first game at Lambeau Field, along with dozens of other momentous games, milestones and news in Packers history, in our "Old School Packers" archive.Google Chrome Canary and Dev Builds Now Come with Built-In Ad Blocker
Google depends on advertising for its revenue. It is to serve this purpose that the company collects all relevant data across all of its users. Our browsing habits, our shopping-related searches, our weekly schedule — all of these are of interest to Google because they grant an insight into our lives, allowing Google to serve personalized ads that have a higher chance to resonate with viewers.
So earlier this year, when reports emerged that Google was looking to incorporate an ad blocker in Google Chrome – its main browser that serves millions of Android users – many people were initially surprised. After all, ads are Google’s forte, so blocking them natively seems like a strange idea. However, the reports clarified that even though the ad blocker would be turned on by default, it will only block out those specific types of ads that are deemed too intrusive and that negatively affect a user’s browsing experience.
Google’s ad block plans were scheduled for public appearance in 2018, but it appears that the feature is already under testing. Some users on Google Chrome’s Canary and Dev branches are now seeing a new option within the app’s settings called “Ads”, which is where the user-facing toggle for the ad blocker will reside. The ad blocker is toggled on by default, but you do have the option to turn it off.
This setting focuses squarely on intrusive ads and not all ads (as other ad blockers usually do). The definition of intrusive ads, and the boundaries of said classification, are being decided by the Coalition for Better Ads, which Google participates in. The new standards define what offending ads are by how they hamper the user experience, and Google utilizes these standards to block out intrusive advertisements. Ads that are targeted through the ad blocker include pop-up ads, countdown timers, auto-playing audio and video ads and a few others; and unsurprisingly, Google’s own advertisements will remain largely unaffected.
Implementing a native ad blocker that targets negative ads will actually increase ad revenue for Google. Many ad block users look for ways to filter out terrible and intrusive ads, and using an ad blocker means that other acceptable and non-intrusive advertisements also get caught in the same net. By specifically targeting intrusive ads, Google hopes to decrease the reliance on nondiscriminatory ad blockers, and thus, increase revenue by preventing less intrusive ads to remain unblocked.
What are your thoughts on Google Chrome’s native ad blocker? Will such an implementation replace the use of other ad blockers for you? Let us know in the comments below!Pedro de la Rosa says the reduction in testing makes him "feel like I'm an inferiority" when he gets in a Ferrari F1 car.
Ferrari ran de la Rosa on the opening day of the in-season test at Silverstone, which marked the first time he has driven the F14 T on track. Silverstone was the third of four in-season tests this year but that will be reduced to two in 2015 and de la Rosa said the lack of track time for drivers away from race weekends is damaging the sport.
"It's just a disappointment generally for drivers," de la Rosa said when asked by Crash.net about the reduction in testing. "Generally you just question yourself if this is going in the right direction. I'm at Maranello many days every week, I come out of Maranello after being in the simulator for two days and I see a nice track that is empty with no cars called Fiorano. For me it's a bit strange.
"I just miss it. I just miss it because like [at Silverstone] for example I need to perform. Thank God we have the simulator to train you a bit but it's nothing like the real car. I feel like a tennis player if a tennis player could not train every day and then suddenly you are thrown in to the final of Wimbledon against Djokovic; how would you feel? I feel a bit like that. I feel like I'm an inferiority because the other guys are racing every two weeks and I am not."
And de la Rosa said it wasn't just him that the testing restrictions hurt but also young drivers who need track time early in their careers.
"I feel a bit sad about this because the bottom line is all this will make drivers like me disappear and if drivers like me disappear it means that also youngsters will not arrive. So don't get me wrong, I think that at least a bit of agreed testing between all the teams would be good for the sport."Bloomberg Rides 7 Train Extension to Far West Side View Full Caption
HELL'S KITCHEN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the inaugural ride on the newly extended 7 line as one of his last acts as mayor Friday afternoon.
The 7 train extension won't be open to the public until next summer, but the outgoing mayor was allowed the first ride before he ends his term next week.
"If you build it, they will come," Bloomberg said, touting the development around the new station on the Far West Side — from the expanded Javits Center to the upcoming Hudson Yards development, which will include hotels, offices and housing.
The $2.4 billion extension of the 7 train, which now runs from Flushing, Queens to Times Square, began in 2007 and will add a mile to the line, terminating at 34th Street and 11th Avenue.
Bloomberg hopped on a special, six-car train at the Times Square station after riding the regular 7 train from Long Island City.
That train then took its first ride to the new Hudson Yards subway station, which is still under construction.
"Today's historic ride is yet another symbol of how New York City has become a place where big projects can get done," Bloomberg said.
The station, which is 18 stories below the ground, is still an open construction site, with bare concrete walls and temporary lighting. It was originally scheduled to open December 2013, but it was delayed.
On 34th Street, though, the shell of the station's future entrance has started to take shape.
The arrival of the 7 train is a major boost to the Hudson Yards Development Corporation's plans to turn the abandoned rail yards around the new station into the city's newest neighborhood.
The mayor's original plan for the rail yards was to build the West Side Stadium, which would have been home to the New York Jets and an anchor for the city's bid for the 2012 Olympics.
When asked Friday about his failed proposal, Bloomberg remained positive.
"You don't get everything done," he said. "It doesn't mean you walk away."
Bloomberg, who's held three terms as mayor, also spoke about his legacy, which he said is tied to the major construction projects like the extension.
He noted all of the construction along the West Side Highway as well as in Williamsburg and The Bronx.
The city, especially the subway, is vastly different now than when he moved here in 1966, he added.
"The momentum in the city is really the legacy that we're leaving," he said, before getting back on the 7 train and riding away.The annual leader’s New Year message from North Korea is always full of bluster and provocation. Jan. 1, 2016 was no exception as Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un told his people and the world, “We will absolutely not accept it if we are bothered by invaders and agitators, even in a minor way. We will respond firmly in the style of a ruthless holy war for justice and unification.”
He must have known full well that he was about to pull the pin on the North’s latest nuclear test – this time of a hydrogen bomb (probably, maybe but maybe not) and the fourth nuclear test since 2006 as well as a significant advance in the DPRK’s nuclear capabilities. The test capped a strange 10 days in the DPRK that began with the reported death of 73-year-old Kim Yang-gon, the senior leader tasked with handling Pyongyang’s fractious, and recently deteriorating, relationship with Seoul, in a car crash. Of course, in a country as secretive as the DPRK and where the last 18 months have seen an almost unprecedented number of deadly purges of other senior leaders (perhaps as many as 75 officials purged) once thought to be close to Kim Jong-un, the rumour mill went into overdrive. However, it’s hard to come up with a reason for purging Kim Yong-gon. There’s been no talk of any failings or disloyalty and sometimes, even in North Korea, a car crash really is just a car crash.
The nuclear test was more expected. North Korea’s state media warned that preparations for a fourth nuclear test were underway last October and that it would be an advanced weapon. There were plenty of reasons to expect a test early in the year – not least that it’s Kim Jong-un’s 33rd birthday on Friday and something spectacular is not uncommon to coincide with the Supreme Leader’s birthday. Additionally the Seventh Congress of the ruling Korean Workers Party is slated for May. The Party doesn’t hold them often – the sixth was in 1980. It is expected that Kim Jong-un will use the congress to firmly establish his rule and control of the party after all the recent purging. The domestic boost of a successful test and what may come from that would help consolidate his position.
So what does he expect to happen now? Kim may feel internally secure at the moment — he both rules and reigns securely as one analyst put it — but he would like the much-stalled Six Party Talks to resume. Not least because restarting them usually means a resumption of aid shipments. And he needs the aid.
Last year was a tough one for North Korea’s economy and people. With world attention focussed on the Syrian crisis the UN reported that aid donations to the North were 50 percent down on previous years. Not just food but also fuel, fertilizer and pharmaceuticals. Keeping the lights on and people fed has been tough. After the last nuclear test in 2013 Pyongyang called for a resumption of the Six Party Talks, but it never happened. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, on a visit to Beijing, agreed with the Chinese that talks should be resumed, though this may be interpreted as a reward for bad behavior on Pyongyang’s part. Traditionally the resumption of the talks has been matched with resumed higher levels of aid shipments. Hungry people are unhappy people and probably the biggest single potential threat to Kim Jong-un’s regime. Resumed and increased food aid shipments would ameliorate this threat somewhat.
So Kim Jong-un’s bomb – whether it turns out to be an H-Bomb or not – has got our attention. The United Nations will meet to consider new sanctions against the DPRK but it’s hard to see what new sanctions they can impose. It’s equally hard to see a stubborn Pyongyang caring. The more interesting part of the equation after this test is China. President Xi Jinping has noticeably not had that much to say about North Korea and, though the North often ignores Beijing, it doesn’t like being ignored by the bigger neighboring one-party state. China consistently, and again today, says it wants a “stable” North Korea. Beijing analysts have been watching the mass of Syrian refugees trudging across Eastern Europe towards Germany with some alarm. It does not want an unstable or totally collapsed regime in North Korea sending millions across the Yalu River seeking sanctuary in northeast China. Beijing is quite open about not wanting a refugee crisis on its borders.
It seems likely that the Six Party Talks process may be resumed now, led by Chinese diplomatic efforts. China, for one, can live with a nuclear enabled North Korea but it does not want to countenance an unstable state next door.If you’ve been competing in strength sports for a long enough, it’s a fact that at some point, you’ll encounter an extended break. It could be because you need a mental break, you’re injured, or life happened. You don’t want to lose your gains and it would be great if you could simply start up where you left off, but that’s not going to happen. However, with some intelligent programming you can actually get back to training in such a way that you’ll be blowing through your old numbers without ever getting stuck.
Setting up this program, we have two primary concerns: The first is that your technique is probably off, to some degree, from what it once was. The second is that your work capacity is likely out the window. In order to address the technique work, the best thing to do is keep the weight and reps low, especially at first. I would sit between 65 and 80% of your 1 RM. Now here’s the important part: You have to choose a real time one rep max. So choose a number you know you could execute with perfection TODAY, not what you used to be able to do. Keep the reps in the doubles and triples and get in lots of sets, anywhere from 6-10. A good example of this would be 8 sets of 3 reps with 70% for bench press. Use this solely as technique work.
RECENT: Group Training: Use Your Constraints for Program Construction
Choose two to three specific cues for each lift to concentrate on and execute. Be explosive, and try to just blow this weight up. This is a perfect opportunity for you slow grinders out there to build up some power. You’ll be increasing the weight as the speed increases. You won’t be truly building strength here, but you’ll be cashing in on muscle memory and restoring or rebuilding motor patterns. Do this for 4-6 weeks. Cycle in and out of sets and reps and intensity. Your gut will tell you to just keep hammering heavier and heavier weights as they get easier and easier but don’t do it. That’s exactly how you’ll hit that wall.
I’ve come up with a pretty reliable, long term system of increasing weights. For a guy of above average level strength, add five pounds to bench max every other week and five pound to squat and deadlift max every week. It depends on where your numbers are. If you’ve only lost about 20 pounds from your bench, you could do five pounds every third week, for example. Some guys peak out big time. I used to have a variation of about 75 pounds on my deadlift between off season and peak week. I knew the curve existed so I trained accordingly. I spent plenty of time banging my head against a wall because I was frustrated that I couldn’t move the same weight. Fortunately I eventually learned and that’s when my ability to peak hit another level.
Once your technique is smooth and the weights are flying, something that has helped me out is to push myself after technique work with a set to technique failure. This does not mean to just go full dumb-dumb and get as many reps as possible. It means that you should do a rep perfectly and then another, rinse and repeat until fatigue causes your technique to break down. At this point, STOP! Now, you can’t do this for every exercise several times a week, so I recommend doing this with one exercise per week using weights between 75-85%. Use this method for 4-6 weeks.
Then what you’ll do is your assistance work. The assistance work is where you’ll be pushing the intensities. Get in plenty of volume here with low impact stuff so that as your strength increases, you’ll be recovering really nicely and you’ll be able to swap out some of the fluff work for meat and potatoes assistance stuff. A logical progression here would be to do lots of dumbbell and machine work at first — get in low impact volume and pump tons of blood. This will also help with any atrophy you’ve experienced. Also, this is a great point to work on tendon strength. Slow eccentric exercises are a staple in many rehab programs because of their efficacy in building tendon strength. Then after you start feeling okay with the volume and recovery, add in some main lift compound variations like good mornings or paused squats. Then when you’re back in full shape, start incorporating more intense variations of the main lifts, like chain work and super maximal weight work. For example, two board chain bench or block pulls against chains, or Dave Tate’s favorite, reverse band floor press.
Finding Strength: Team BSS Training and Fitness
Now here comes the curveball, if you want to train for strongman you’ll need a longer window. The reason is strongman just absolutely beats the crap out of you. You need really, really great recovery to be able to do strongman events constantly. So something I might suggest at first is to not do any for four weeks. Get yourself to a point where you can sustain a reasonable training frequency and volume in the gym without feeling like you got hit by a bus, then start by working in light sprints with the implements. Things like 50 foot sprints with a light keg for 6-8 sets with low rest, or a 50 foot yoke or farmers that you can move very quickly with (not run), or stones for height. Then, as you progress, and you’re able to handle the volume, slowly increase weights, still making technique and speed a priority. You’ll notice if you’ve read my previous articles I’m not big on maximal strongman training with any type of frequency because of how much it beats you up. Ask any of my athletes how often they touch contest weight in a long training cycle for a meet – two to three times, max, depending on how difficult the weight is for them.
That’s really all there is. There’s no secret here; the thing is to not rush into it. You have to remove your ego from the training and be sensible. Don’t try to gain it all back at once. Use the time you have to your benefit and hammer your weaknesses, whether that’s triceps or shoulders or hamstrings or just technique. While you’re distracted focusing on that stuff, the strength will continue to build and you’ll be matching and beating your old numbers in no time at all.Wheat is partially submerged in floodwaters in Holly Grove, Arkansas May 10, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Thayer
HAMBURG (Reuters) - Iran’s state grain buyer has been in talks with export houses aimed at buying around 121,254 tons of U.S.-origin milling wheat, traders said, even as the United States and Europe impose toughened sanctions to stem Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iranian wheat imports are traditionally handled by the private sector and government, but the state has taken a bigger role with purchases in the past year after disruption to trade finance caused by toughened Western sanctions targeting the country’s disputed nuclear program.
Sanctions do not stop food shipments but they make it difficult for Iranian importers to obtain letters of credit to finance purchases or conduct international transfers of funds through banks.
“There is no confirmation that a sale has been made but there were negotiations about wheat for April shipment,” one trader said.
One trader said Iran’s state Government Trading Corporation (GTC) had been seeking 110,000 metric tons (121,254 tons) of U.S. hard red winter wheat in two 55,000 metric ton consignments.
Another trader said: “U.S. wheat is about the cheapest in the world and this is attracting the Iranians, at least 100,000 metric ton has been spoken about in the last week.”
Related Coverage Ripe oil market offers window to amp up pressure on Iran: report
Iran’s GTC has been quietly contacting trading houses directly for offers rather than issuing purchase tenders for wheat.
Iran had previously made large purchases of U.S. wheat in March 2012 despite the political tension.
It also recently made big purchases of wheat from Germany and Australia along with large purchases of soymeal from Argentina and India.July 05, 2015 Current Carries Deadly Jellyfishlike Man O' War to New Jersey Beaches
By By Kevin France, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer July 05, 2015, 6:19:49 AM EDT
Winds and the Gulf Stream current are the likely catalysts behind strange jellyfishlike creatures, Man O' War, popping up on East Coast beaches over the past several weeks.
Known as the Portuguese Man O' War, these large, colorful venomous animals are often confused for a jellyfish, but they are actually part of a group related to jellyfish called siphonophores. They can grow up to 1 foot long and 5 inches wide and their tentacles can stretch as long as 165 feet, according to National Geographic.
Recent sightings of the Man O' War along beaches in Harvey Cedars, New Jersey, prompted lifeguards to post information on its Facebook page where they issued water hazards and urged swimmers to be aware of their surroundings in the ocean and always swim near a lifeguard.
Matthew Landau, a professor of Marine Science at Stockton University, said that the Portuguese Man O' War are found in all tropical and semi-tropical oceans, where ocean temperatures are higher, but they are fairly common off-shore along the Atlantic coast. Since they are unable to propel themselves in any direction, they tend to drift with the ocean currents towards warmer ocean waters.
Landau explained that they differ from other cnidarians because they have a float that remains on the ocean surface. The float is filled with a gas similar to the atmospheric mix, except it contains high levels of carbon monoxide, which would kill mammalian, including warm-blooded animal and human, tissue.
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"Typically in the Northeast, we see these animals periodically in the summer, when they are successfully carried north by the Gulf Stream current," Landau said. "Sometimes the currents move these animals into temperate seas when the winds drive them toward coastlines."
The diet of the Portuguese Man' O War is composed of small fish and crustaceans with their long contractile tentacles paralyzing their prey. These creatures may seem very attractive to look at while they are lying on the sand, but if humans come into direct contact with a Portuguese Man O' War their sting can be fatal even when they appear to be dead.
According to Landau, the severity of some symptoms of a Portuguese Man O' War sting is based upon a person's size, age, general health and how much contact is made with their tentacles.
"Symptoms are usually localized (pain where contact was made), but in some cases there can be muscle and joint aches, or even confusion and respiratory distress," Landau said. "In extreme cases, a victim may go into shock, which in deep water will lead to drowning."
If stung by a Portuguese Man O' War, Landau reiterates the importance of heading for shore immediately if you are in deep water. He also explained that it is important to rinse the sting area with seawater and not freshwater and gently lift any adhering tentacles off with a stick, twig, knife or key rather than lifting it with your bare hand. You should then apply isopropyl alcohol or vinegar until all of the pain has subsided.
Finally, you should apply a thin layer of hydrocortisone cream to the wound until it is healed. If there is an infection, it is important that you stop any type of treatment and see a physician immediately.
"I suppose that, in theory, if the oceans are warming, the natural range of the Portuguese Man O' War might be extended," Landau said. "Personally, I don't think that there will be a significant factor in the animal's distribution for a long time."
Report a TypoJust a note on comedy before I begin – although I love to laugh as much as the next person, I hesitate to say that I enjoy “comedies” when describing my taste in movies, because so many of them lately are, to put it bluntly, god-awful. Cheap laughs aimed at a junior-high mentality have become ubiquitous, and truly intelligent, quality comedies are a vanishing breed. After sitting through enough Adam Sandler and Kevin James flicks, I reach the point where I hesitate to bother giving any comedy a chance. The odds highly favor that it will end with lamentations that I will never get those two hours back again.
But I’m glad that I put my hesitations aside this weekend to go see “Horrible Bosses”. It was delightful and genuinely funny without relying on too many stupid gags and cheap shots. And rather than focusing on just one or two funny roles, they crafted an entire cast full of hilarious, offbeat, and uniquely funny characters.
However, there was one aspect of the movie which absolutely blew me away. And that was, their portrayal of an employee dealing with rape and sexual harassment in the workplace.
For those who aren’t familiar, the movie is about three friends whose bosses are so vile and despicable that they decide to murder their bosses. The movie merges these three plotlines involving each of their three bosses, as the friends work together to plan a triple murder.
And, one of those three scenarios is that of a boss who rapes her employee while he is sedated by anasthesia, then attempts to blackmail him into sleeping with her again.
That’s right – her employee while he is unconscious. I didn’t mix up my pronouns.
There are so many stereotypes and fallacies which this movie could have perpetuated through its handling of this situation. And, it deftly dodges every one of these traps. Although this is a comedy, and it deals with a man raped by a woman, this female-attacker-male-victim rape is never treated as a joke. Rather, it is treated as so serious, and so terrible, that it justifies murder. The joke is the hilarious and outrageous situations that they get themselves into as they try to carry out the murders.
The simple fact that it is a woman who abuses her position of power to rape and sexually assault her male employee, in and of itself is fairly groundbreaking. In fact, I’m not sure I can remember any other mainstream portrayal of a male rape victim which takes the topic seriously.
But even more than that, his boss is attractive. Rather than casting an overweight, aging, or ugly woman in the role and going for cheap laughs at how revolting her sexuality is, or implying that sexual desperation is the only reason a woman would rape, they instead cast Jennifer Aniston for the part. And although Jennifer Aniston is typically very attractive, she looked especially appealing in this role. They played up her attractiveness rather than playing it down.
Of course, this creates another likely trap – they could have treated him dismissively, “congratulating” him on his supposed “good-fortune” to be assaulted by an attractive woman. As South Park would have said, “Niceeeee, niceeeee.” Yet they avoided that one as well, and instead they vividly portrayed exactly how humiliated, frightened, infuriated, and powerless he felt as her victim – in fact, to such an extreme level that the audience is guided into believing that this is, in fact, a justifiable reason for murder. Now of course I am not endorsing vigilante justice, and without revealing any spoilers I will say that the movie also avoids being too controversial in this regard, but his pain and suffering is fully expressed and taken seriously. And it is taken seriously even when the rapist is attractive.
Of course, the opposite side of the “Unattractive Boss” trap, is the “Attractive Employee” trap. They could have made him especially attractive and charismatic, and they could have suggested that a man with fewer options |
plot are almost dwarfed by the overwhelming scale and the beauty of the film’s nature imagery. In a rather perplexing but nevertheless moving way, the film feels detached (in an almost religious sense, one might say) from the specific events within the film, never really delving deep into the particular emotions and minds of the characters. Pauline Kael, perhaps with impatience, likened the film to an “empty Christmas tree: you can hang all your dumb metaphors on it,” (12) which makes one wonder why she thought the film had to be metaphorical. The critics also have persistently noticed Malick’s sympathy towards the aesthetics of silent cinema. As stated, Days of Heaven is largely thought to be borne out of various biblical narratives, and also a self-conscious homage to certain silent films, which makes one curious as to why particularly silent films are being evoked. Is it a case of mere nostalgia? A more likely answer is that such evocations result from Malick’s understanding of notions such as image and narrative in relation to cinema.
It is often asserted that cinematic images are “signs” (and the films “texts”) that are in need of deciphering, according to certain critical traditions and methodologies, that they are presented to us as something to be “understood” (or at least that understanding films, in various ways, requires theories). (13) Malick’s films are in some sense a profound challenge to such notions, as their primary concerns are not plots and characters with complex psychologies, nor some kind of intellectual engagement with ideas. Rather, Malick’s films are most distinguished for the primacy and beauty and poetry of their imagery, which reminds the viewers of the fact that the most primal and direct way in which cinema engages its audiences is via the power of images. (They also force the viewer to listen carefully as well to the sounds that the world produces, including the different poignant human voices). And the intention behind such relative lack of regard for the conventions of “narrative” cinema is not to be characterized as a subversion or aesthetic gamesmanship. Rather, the films are concerned with bringing cinema back to its humble origins, of presenting unmediated and uninterpreted reality, before its natures have split into different theoretical positions and approaches, such as the dichotomy between realism and expressionism, fiction and documentary, and the division of cinema into various genres and movements. Rather than merely paying homage to silent cinema, it appears to be a certain fundamental or primitive condition of cinema that he seeks, for most silent films are neither primitive, unmediated, nor uninterpreted presentations of reality.
Still, Malick’s sympathy towards silent cinema may be thought of as some sort of yearning for purity in images, and may be borne out of a refusal to see cinema (and particularly cinematic images) as governed by various abstractions or opposing theses, instead understanding cinema as first and foremost a “physical” phenomenon that elicits awe and wonder before any impulse to understand and interpret it in terms of its meaning. In a sense, Malick’s films are both fiction and documentary, as they closely document the world that we live in and its inhabitants, akin to, as some have commented, National Geographic programs; as well as realistic and expressionistic. Indeed, contrary to some misconceptions about them, Malick’s films (and their images) are profoundly anti-abstract, anti-symbolic, and anti-modernist.
Malick’s understanding of cinema seems to be influenced by Heidegger’s contention that it is a cardinal symptom of modernity (which he claims has its deepest roots in Greek thinking) to apprehend reality as something to be differentiated from how it appears to a subjective consciousness, and that the reality is understood at the most fundamental level as something to be mastered. (14) Surely, one of the guiding preoccupations of cinema, if one is to understand it as one of the chief products of modernity, is defining what a cinematic image ultimately is; is it a component of a narrative? A representation of the reality? Objective reality or subjective (psychological) reality? Psychological reality of the filmmaker or the characters? Is it a reflection of ideological values?
Heidegger believes the early Greeks, who did not ground the nature of reality in constant presence (15), experienced the world not as a collection of substances (or what “appearances” really are) to be analyzed, but as a groundless source of mystery (and it is not insignificant, for the present context, that Heidegger thinks the world reveals itself to us via our moods, not cognition). Or as phusis, which has since degenerated into “nature” in the sense of the products or resources produced by nature. Phusis, in his words, means everything that “comes-into-presence,” or what unfolds itself in appearance, and the emerging-abiding sway, which, with its overwhelming power, has not yet been mastered by thought. (16) Malick, likewise, is wholly uninterested in envisioning his films as epistemological (or moral, or sociological, or what have you) inquiries for the audiences and the characters, instead preferring to envision them as a presentation of the world, in all its variety, as something to be faced with reverence. One might say, borrowing Wittgenstein’s phrase, Malick’s films are not interested in “how the world is,” or what happens to be true, but in “that it is,” the uncanny (and tragic and wondrous and humbling) fact of its very existence (which is to say, they are not trying to say something at all). (17) Days of Heaven, perhaps, cannot be described with more accuracy than by describing it as a certain embodiment of the site of human passions and tragedies, overseen by the gods and the cosmos where everything, human or nonhuman, has its place.
Malick’s third, most recent and most uneven film, The Thin Red Line, is a further engagement with his concerns. If Badlands deals with the nature of our engagement with the world and Days of Heaven shows the world in a particularly primordial way (or a presentation of the reality as phusis, one might say), The Thin Red Line‘s inspiration (other than the primary source, the James Jones novel) seems to have come from, again, one of Heidegger’s claims, made in regard to Heraclitus’ fragment 53, that phusis shapes itself through polemos, (18) i.e. that reality shapes itself through conflict and struggle. Indeed, it becomes gradually clear that the film’s opening query, “what’s this war in the heart of nature?”, is not referring to a specific war, nor nature in a specific sense (such as “Darwinian” wars in the heart of nature, or the violent human “nature” at “war” with itself). As the film progresses, the terms’ senses become multiplied and relevant to natures and wars both cosmic and local, and of individuals, ideas, humans, and animals, and it is perhaps not overly interested in taking positions in the various “wars” that are being presented, nor in how their various “natures” are being understood. The film is interested in the fact that the world is governed by conflicts (between “opposites” – war and peace, darkness and light, etc.), not in who’s on the “right” side of each of them.
In fact, limiting the film’s identity to a war picture or an anti-war picture, or understanding the film’s point as various declarations (or arguments) about what “war” and “nature” are (and they would translate into utter banalities, or even redundant sentences, in any case, such as “war comes from violent human nature” and “war is a crime against Mother Nature”, and so on) would be confusing the film’s aims and the nature of the questions that are asked by the film’s characters. Like Wittgenstein, the soldiers in the film ask “where does (something) come from?” not as a demand for a causal explanation (and besides, as the philosopher puts it, explanations come to an end somewhere) (19) but as the expression of a certain craving that the explanation cannot satisfy. (20) If the film does make moral judgments of any kind they are not about justifying why there shouldn’t be wars and destruction of nature but are about a certain (modern) understanding of nature that allows humans to see the natural environment as a monolithic, meaningless abstraction, where destruction is allowed to happen with impunity and, as in Days of Heaven, the characters are less in control of nature than they think, as nature both nurtures them and violently rejects them in equal measure.
As with Badlands and Days of Heaven, Malick’s concerns manifest themselves primarily in cinematic terms in The Thin Red Line. In the earlier films, particularly in Days of Heaven, the constant flow of images has very little spatial continuity, thereby making each image a discrete world existing on its own (or an emerging-abiding sway, one would say) rather than a small bit of perceptual information. A characteristic surge of images is the sequence that begins with the departure of Bill (Richard Gere) with the circus performers and ends with the time-lapse image of sprouting seed; there is no dialogue, save for the offscreen narration, no narrative content, and no continuity, but only the overwhelming power of the images which have not degenerated into “signs” or “symbols”.
The Thin Red Line is comparatively more complex in its structure. It is structured in terms of various oppositional elements (or “wars” or polemos). These include oppositions such as those between “individual” and “collectivity” (or the self and the other), as exemplified by the film’s extremely odd use of voiceover narrations. The voiceovers are read by different characters, but not necessarily the ones that are on screen while the lines are uttered. Furthermore, the flashbacks and the “subjective, mental” images are insufficiently distinguished from the “objective, corporeal” images. When we first see Tall (Nick Nolte), it isn’t clear whether what follows (the conversation with the general [John Travolta]) is the event recalled specifically from his point of view, or something that follows in chronological order. The shot of Witt (Jim Caviezel) looking around at his comrades is followed by a shot of Bell (Ben Chaplin) thinking by himself, and a shot of praying hands, before the scene continues back to Witt. And perhaps most tantalizingly, during Bell’s musings, a shot of his wife (Miranda Otto) standing by herself is disrupted by a figure that enters the frame from afar, vaguely recognizable as a man in military uniform; is he Bell as he imagines himself, or some projection of his fear (of her infidelity), or is the scene about what actually happens to her (that she falls in love with another soldier)?
Ultimately, however, the film’s primary weakness is that its verbosity (and overly self-conscious poetic effects) seems a less convincing sign of the director’s commitments to the characters (not as characters, but as human beings) than the piercingly simple dialogues and voiceover narrations used in the previous two films. It appears as if Malick was torn between presenting a convincing drama (which Badlands and Days of Heaven are), and a philosophical inquiry unencumbered by the various demands upon it (as a war film, as a drama, as a popular film). As it is, it is not really convincing either as a drama, of men in war, or as a philosophical inquiry influenced by Heidegger and Wittgenstein. Yet the film that we do have is still a fascinating combination of different impulses and motivations.
Malick’s unique cinematic style has produced many admirers, but not many acknowledged disciples. One recent exception is a young director called David Gordon Green, who admitted Malick’s influence in his film George Washington (2001). Since The Thin Red Line, it looks like the director has entered another period of inactivity (there were twenty years separating it and Days of Heaven), at least in terms of directing. It is hard to say what further course Malick’s career will take, but undeniably, the three films he has made so far are sources of much beauty and provocation.
Filmography
Badlands (1973) also Writer, Producer
Days of Heaven (1978) also Writer
The Thin Red Line (1998) also Writer
The New World (2005) also Writer
The Tree of Life (2011) also Writer
To the Wonder (2012) also Writer
Knight of Cups (2015) also Writer
Voyage of Time (2016) (Documentary) also Writer
Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience (2016) (Documentary Short) also Writer
Song to Song (2017) also Writer
Radegund (2018) (post-production) also Writer
Select Bibliography
Jimmie E. Cain, Jr., “’Writing in His Musical Key’: Terrence Malick’s Vision of The Thin Red Line”, Film Criticism, Fall 2000
Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1979
Richard Combs, “The Eyes of Texas”, Sight and Sound, Spring 1979
Terry Curtis Fox, “The Last Ray of Light”, Film Comment, September/October 1978
Charles Guignon, “Being as Appearing: Retrieving the Greek Experience of Phusis” in A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001
Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000
Phillip Lopate, “Above the Battle, Musing on the Profundities”, New York Times, January 17, 1999
Colin McCabe, “Bayonets in Paradise”, Sight and Sound, February 1999
James Morrison, “The Thin Red Line”, Film Quarterly, Fall 1999
Gilberto Perez, “Film Chronicle: Days of Heaven”, The Hudson Review, Spring 1979
Susan Schoenbohm, “Heidegger’s Interpretation of Phusis in Introduction to Metaphysics” in A Companion to Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001
Gavin Smith, “Let There be Light: The Thin Red Line”, Film Comment, January/February 1999
David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film, New York, Knopf, 1994
Beverly Walker, “Malick on Badlands”, Sight and Sound, Spring 1975
Tom Whalen, “’Maybe All Men Got One Big Soul’: The Hoax within the Metaphysics of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line”, Literature/Film Quarterly, Volume 23, Issue 3, 1999
Robin Wood, “Days of Heaven” in Nicholas Thomas and James Vinson (eds.), International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers-1, Films, 2nd Edition, Chicago and London, St. James Press, 1990
Carol Zucker, “’God Don’t Even Hear You,’ or Paradise Lost: Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven”, Literature/Film Quarterly, Volume 29, Issue 1, 2001
Articles in Senses of Cinema
On Malick’s Subjects by Michael Filippidis
The Shape of Fear: The Thin Red Line by Bill Schaffer
Death Comes as an End: Badlands by Adrian Danks
Web Resources
Compiled by Albert Fung
Film Directors – Articles on the Internet
Several articles can be found here.
Film Force
Opinionated piece on Malick.
The Flicks of Terrence Malick
Dedicated fan site on Malick.
Click here to search for Terrence Malick DVDs, videos and books atNEW YORK - Prosecutors say Ronell Wilson is a calculating murderer. Since his imprisonment for killing two New York City police detectives, he has been able to dash off emails, memorize passages from books and seduce a female guard.
But Wilson's lawyers were able to convince a judge that he is a person of such a low intelligence that he can't function in society, and therefore can't legally be put to death.
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Wilson, 32, and others like him are at the centre of a debate over how to enforce a nearly two-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that adds more specificity to the concept that it is cruel and unusual punishment to execute killers who are intellectually disabled. It says courts should go beyond mere IQ scores to consider the person's mental or developmental disabilities.
A federal judge in New York who revisited Wilson's case based on the ruling tossed out his death sentence, just three years after finding that Wilson's IQ score was high enough to make him eligible to be executed.
A similar review led a judge in California last November to reduce a death sentence given three decades ago to Donald Griffin, a man who raped and murdered his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
A third appeal based on the ruling, that of a Virginia serial killer with a borderline IQ score, failed. Alfredo Prieto was executed in October.
Legal scholars say similar death row decisions are likely to follow, depending on how the high court's ruling is applied around the country.
"We should see courts more carefully considering whether defendants have an intellectual disability... that doesn't mean we will," said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.
Wilson is a case study in the difficulty of determining who fits the court's definition of someone too intellectually limited to qualify for capital punishment.
He was a 20-year-old drug dealer and member of the Bloods street gang in 2003 when he shot undercover police detectives James Nemorin and Rodney Andrew, who were gathering evidence against Wilson in a gun trafficking investigation.
While in prison, Wilson had a tryst with a female prison guard, fathering a child. When that relationship was discovered by jail officials, he interrogated and threatened fellow inmates he believed had ratted him out.
Judges and juries rely partly on a person's IQ score to determine whether he or she is intellectually disabled. Before 2014, some states had a hard rule that if a person's IQ score was above 70, he or she couldn't be deemed intellectually disabled. Over his lifetime, Wilson had been given IQ tests nine times. All but once, he scored over 70.
Yet, his full history, outlined in his court file, paints a more complex picture.
In elementary school, he was repeatedly hospitalized for emergency psychiatric treatment. One time he stood in the middle of a busy street and refused to move. He tried to jump out a window. He smashed furniture, bit and kicked teachers and banged his head against a wall. When a fire started at his school, he refused to leave his classroom, saying he wanted to die.
"When I speak to him or ask him a question, he becomes motionless and rigid and doesn't move," a first-grade teacher wrote.
School officials put him in a program for children with behavioural problems. He was prescribed psychiatric medications. By age 8 he was diagnosed as having "moderate mental retardation," though doctors later decided he had a possible mental disorder due to brain damage. In middle school, he was still sucking his thumb.
Wilson started getting arrested for a variety of criminal offences at age 12.
U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis said in his ruling Tuesday that he had no sympathy for Wilson and also doubted most clinicians would consider him disabled. But he said he had "significant deficits in adaptive functioning" — enough to make him ineligible for the death penalty. Garaufis imposed a new punishment of life in prison.
Sheri Lynn Johnson, a death penalty expert at Cornell University's law school, said building a case for intellectual disability involves showing that the person has trouble performing simple life tasks.
"Can he use a telephone book? Can he count change? Does he have normal relationships or is he taken advantage of? This is what they're looking for," she said.
Currently, 31 U.S. states, the federal government and the U.S. military all have statutes permitting the death penalty. Nearly 3,000 people were on death row, as of January, according to a report compiled by the NAACP's Legal Defence and Education Fund.When The Globe and Mail went casting for ideas for how to improve Toronto in 2014, one in particular stood out: Change the City of Toronto's logo, suggested Richard Sommer, dean of the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.
As an architect, Mr. Sommer dislikes the logo because it takes a building that is "aggressively three-dimensional" and reduces it to a 2-D profile. But it also takes a city that is richly diverse and reduces it to the seat of its politics. And with everything that's been going on at city hall lately, maybe it's time to rethink the symbol we want representing us.
The current logo was selected by city council in spring of 1998. The old six interlocking rings that represented Metro Toronto had to be replaced as amalgamation was being ushered in, or so the thinking went.
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Vote on the logo designs here.
Although one councillor at the time suggested holding a public competition to select Toronto's new symbol, the logo competition was ultimately held internally, with contributions from design groups from the municipalities that were being amalgamated.
"What we see now as the Toronto logo was a combination of several design ideas, with final going through the City of Toronto's design department," Christopher Brands, the city's project manager of corporate identity and branding, said in an e-mail.
As a result, the current logo isn't attributed to any single designer.
No one can tell you who came up with it, but plenty of people can tell you they don't like it.
When the logo was first presented to council, former East York mayor Michael Prue was so angered by it that he refused to vote on it.
"I was not a fan and continue not to be a fan," said Mr. Prue, who is now an MPP for the riding of Beaches-East York. "It contained the most recognizable symbol of the old City of Toronto. And when we were forcefully dragged down the road to amalgamation, the symbols of the all the other municipalities were not incorporated."
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Changing the logo might help call attention to things such as signage and street furniture that are so often taken for granted, and help prompt a reappraisal of the quality of our surroundings, Mr. Sommer said.
At the very least, it might just help start a conversation about how we want to represent Toronto to ourselves and to the world.
To that end, we asked eight designers – including one of The Globe's graphics editors, Matthew Bambach – to reimagine the City of Toronto logo. They had only a few weeks, but each of them produced a logo that reflects a unique way of thinking about the city.
We asked eight designers to reimagine the City of Toronto logo. They had only a few weeks, but each of them produced a logo that reflects a unique way of thinking about the city. Vote for your favourite below and see what other readers thought. Read the related story.Morrissey Lashes Out After Labels Reject 'The Queen Is Dead' 30th Anniversary Plans
Published May 16, 2016
Between plotting a potential mayoral candidacy and catching Rancid live in concert, Morrissey has had an eventful 2016 as it is. With the 30th anniversary of the Smiths' classic 1986 album The Queen Is Dead approaching this June, however, he's now found himself in bit of drama, as he so often does.Apparently, the Moz was hoping to celebrate the milestone of The Queen Is Dead anniversary, as well as that for, with some reissue festivities, but the band's old labels disagreed.In a post on True To You, he wrote:The Queen Is DeadThe Queen Is DeadMeat Is MurderThe Queen Is DeadConsidering the situation, the former Smiths frontman is urging listeners to get the record's title track back on the charts."Bleeding to death, I therefore have the restless gall to ask of you that, should you have 99 cents/pence, that you purchase 'The Queen Is Dead' track in the final week of May, thus possibly edging it into the corner of everyone's ear in the UK Top 100 — if only to let them know that we are still here and fully aware of the fox-fur on the hall-stand," he continued.This isn't the first time Morrissey has taken issue with the release plans of labels, having hit out at Universal late last year for allegedly blocking a charity single he had recorded in light of the terrorist attacks in Paris.Already boasting the NFL's premier wide-receiver trio, the Denver Broncos appear to be on the verge of adding another weapon to their first-string offense. Former Portland State hoops star Julius Thomas has been running as the first-team "F" or "receiving" tight end in training camp, according to The Denver Post, while Joel Dreessen battles a setback to his surgically repaired knee.
A far more dynamic athlete than Dreessen, Thomas will be a handful for defenses to cover with Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker and Wes Welker drawing coverage away.
"He continues to make plays in practice, and he made some nice catches (against the 49ers,)" Peyton Manning said this weekend. "So I think he'll just continue to improve and I think he can be a big part of the offense this year."
If Thomas wants to hang onto the job once Dreessen returns, he's going to have to clean up the errors he made in both the running game and the passing game in the preseason opener.
More training-camp buzz:
» Chris Johnson's 58-yard touchdown run in the preseason opener came as no surprise to Tennessee Titans beat writers. Johnson has been the most impressive player in camp, according to the Tennessean, looking "fresher and more explosive" than last season.
» A streamlined Kendall Wright has backed up a strong offseason by catching everything in his direction at Titans camp. He looks more "acrobatic" this year, which is a relief after losing his dynamic playmaking ability as a rookie.
» Offensive coordinator Mike Sherman insists the competition between Lamar Miller and Daniel Thomas for the Miami Dolphins' starting running back job is "pretty close." Don't believe the Thomas hype. Miller is a much better player.
» After an impressive showing in Houston's preseason opener, Case Keenum is giving T.J. Yates a run for the Texans' backup quarterback job.
» I'm shocked, shocked to discover there's a minority faction within the New York Jets organization that believes Santonio Holmes might be milking his Lisfranc injury, as ESPNNewYork.com reported Sunday.
The Around The League Podcast is now available on iTunes! Click here to listen and subscribe.This post was updated with an additional information from U.S. Marine Corps commandant Gen. Robert Neller and III MEF.
Searchers looking for the Marine pilot of an F/A-18 Hornet that crashed on Wednesday off Japan have expanded their search area, III Marine Expeditionary Force said in a statement Wednesday evening.
“The bilateral search and rescue efforts continued through the night with the U.S. military working closely with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Force,” reads the statement from III MEF.
Additional assets are being tasked to look for the missing Marine.
The fighter – assigned to Okinawa-based 1st Marine Aircraft Wing– was operating about 120 miles southeast of Iwakuni, Japan, when the pilot ejected at about 6:40 p.m., an earlier statement said.
Breaking:Search/Rescue effort ongoing for Marine pilot who ejected from F/A-18 today 120 miles southeast of Iwakuni, Japan. Keep in prayers. pic.twitter.com/vSxP5MbMYP — III MEF Marines (@IIIMEF) December 7, 2016
“The aircraft was conducting regularly scheduled training at the time of the mishap. The cause of the incident is under investigation,” the statement said.
The crash of the 1st MAW Hornet follows a string of Marine F/A-18 crashes in the last year, as the service has struggled with readiness in its tactical aviation fleet.
U.S. Marine Corps commandant Gen. Robert Neller told reporters at the U.S. Naval Institute’s Defense Forum Washington that the rate of Marine aviation mishaps was higher than last year but “not statistically off the wall.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s good news, particularly on what happened to… the pilot,” he said.
“Not exactly what I wanted to hear when I got up this morning. I’m hoping we recover him or her.”
In November, two Hornets crashed during a training mission over California. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 232 has lost three Hornets in crashes over the past year and a fourth Hornet from the Blue Angels squadron was lost in a fatal crash this summer.The pseudo-debate about whether Keynesians and other fellow travellers ought to be embarrassed when governments that engage in fiscal austerity nevertheless experience positive economic growth rates has become a distraction.
For countries like the US and the UK, it is possible under current circumstances for governments to implement budget cuts and still see their economies grow. But the truth of that statement is not fatal to the Keynesian-inspired critique of austerity policies; it is not by any means the end of the story. The more meaningful question is this: What would have to happen in these economies for significant growth to occur in the midst of budget tightening?
Finding an answer to that last question is one of the strengths of the approach to thinking about the economy pioneered by Wynne Godley, and fleshed out further in the Levy Institute’s strategic analysis series. This approach also provides a clear understanding of how deeply irresponsible it is to cut government spending under present economic conditions: because the danger, given the state of the US and UK economies, is not just that budget cuts might slow down the economy, but that they might not.
Let’s look at the United States in particular. In their just-released report, Dimitri Papadimitriou, Greg Hannsgen, Michalis Nikiforos, and Gennaro Zezza point out that, with the exception of a short cycle in the ’70s, “there has been no other recovery in the modern history of the US economy in which government spending decreased in real terms.”
The Congressional Budget Office is predicting that the budget deficit will continue to shrink over the next few years, from 2.8 percent of GDP in 2014 to 2.4 percent in 2018. At the same time, the authors note, the CBO is telling us that GDP will grow at 2.8 percent, 3 percent, 2.7 percent, and 2.1 percent in 2015, ’16, ’17, and ’18, respectively. If we assume that both of those forecasts (for the budget deficit and GDP growth) come true, what would the rest of the economy need to look like?
The United States has run current account deficits, which act as a drag on economic growth, for decades. And despite the recent increase in net exports of petroleum products, which has helped keep the US trade deficit from returning to its sky-high precrisis levels, there is little reason to think that the external deficit will substantially improve over the next few years (if anything, the authors argue, it is likely to get worse. There’s more on recent developments in the foreign sector beginning on p. 6 of the report).
That being the case, GDP growth rates of the sort projected by the CBO can only come to pass on the basis of a rise in private sector spending. In fact, Papadimitriou et al. show that private sector spending would have to expand so much that it would exceed private sector income for the first time since the crisis. In other words, growth would depend on rising private indebtedness.
If the dollar continues to appreciate further and the economies of US trading partners end up performing worse than the IMF expects (a very real possibility, the authors point out, given the optimism of IMF forecasts), this increase in private sector spending over income — and thus the increase in the private debt-to-income ratio — would have to be even larger. Here’s what that would look like (in the chart below, “Scenario 1” corresponds to slower growth among US trading partners [by 1 percent of GDP annually], “Scenario 2” to a 25 percent appreciation of the dollar over the next four years, and “Scenario 3” to a combination of the two):
If private spending doesn’t blow up in this way, the CBO’s optimistic growth projections won’t come about. But if growth does occur, it can only do so (given the external deficit) through a process that raises the debt-to-income ratio of the private sector. As the authors point out, this is precisely the same process that led to the Great Recession and its aftermath.
What’s worse, the state of income inequality in the United States is such that this increase in private debt will be borne disproportionately by households in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution. Unlike the federal government, which can service its debt through mere keystrokes, US households cannot sustain rising debt ratios of the sort portrayed in the chart above (though the amount of public hand-wringing spent on the debt of the former, as compared to the latter, would suggest the opposite). As Papadimitriou et al. write:
“Increased borrowing of one kind or another can often be sustained for a long time … but eventually, retrenchment takes place relative to incomes. The consequences of any further retrenchment in debt-financed consumer spending would be felt throughout industries that produce for the US consumer, and again, as we noted above, the recovery in real private domestic consumption is already weak relative to any previous recovery.”
To bring this back to the tired discussions surrounding austerity policies: yes, it is possible for the United States to have both tight budgets and rising GDP over the next few years. Fiscal conservatism doesn’t make economic growth impossible in the near term — it makes it impossible to grow without increasing financial fragility. In the absence of a significant increase in net exports, keeping the government budget on its current track will lead to either stagnation or an acute crisis.
Austerians in the United States and elsewhere have been allowed to portray themselves as the champions of steely-eyed realism and prudence. In reality, unless their budget proposals come attached with some workable plan to substantially reduce trade deficits, they are courting private-debt-driven financial crises. In any meaningful sense, they are the true practitioners of fiscal irresponsibility.
$title = the_title('','',false);?> if ($title == 'Contributors') { //get_levy_contributors(); }?>Belgium is not able to sign off on a landmark EU-Canada free trade deal after Wallonia and other regional administrations refused to give the federal government the go-ahead, Prime Minister Charles Michel said today (24 October).
“We are not in a position to sign CETA,” Michel said after brief talks with Belgium’s regional leaders in Brussels broke up without an accord, despite a looming EU deadline of late Monday.
“The federal government, the German community and Flanders said ‘Yes.’ Wallonia, the Brussels city government, and the French community said ‘No’,'” he added.
Michel stated that he was still open to dialogue with the main holdout, the region of Wallonia and that it was too early to say whether CETA was dead.
For those who have followed the positions of the Wallonia region and its leader Paul Magnette, this development is hardly a surprise.
Wallonia rejects EU 'ultimatum' over CETA Belgium’s Wallonia region yesterday (23 October) dealt a fresh blow to a proposed EU-Canada trade deal, rejecting a 24-hour ultimatum from the bloc to end its objection to the agreement.
The European Commission already signaled that it did not expect a positive outcome today. Speaking at the midday briefing, Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said the executive was against any ultimatums and deadlines and advocated for patience.
EU authorities plead for patience to get #Ceta passed in Belgium and seem open to signing with @JustinTrudeau in Dec if no-go this week. — James Kanter (@jameskanter) October 24, 2016
A source had said that Council President Donald Tusk would call Michel this afternoon or evening with a “simple question”: Whether Belgium will be in a position to sign the agreement on Thursday (27 October) when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for an EU-Canada summit. This was interpreted as an ultimatum to the Belgian authorities.
Magnette rejected the “ultimatum” as “incompatible” with democratic practice when it was disclosed on Sunday (23 October).
If Belgium is not in a position to say that they can sign, Tusk thinks it doesn’t make sense to have a summit, the source said. In fact, Tusk and Trudeau need to jointly decide on canceling the summit.
The Walloon parliament has made an in-depth analysis of CETA and expressed concerns over a long list of issues. The European Commission rapidly came up with an 8-page paper said to address the concerns. In addition, a page and a half-long document addressed concerns about the mechanism for settling disputes with investors.
Belgium’s RTBF news reported that the latest document failed to satisfy Walloon politicians. Magnette’s position appears to be that the Walloon parliament should return to the matters.
Wallonia parliament head André Antoine says more time is needed to study a draft deal which is massively complex and covers “300 pages of the treaty, 1,300 pages of appendices.”
I'm all for extending #CETA timelines if it wd help get the Walloons on board. But instead of time, I fear they want to open up the text. — Rem Korteweg (@CER_Korteweg) October 24, 2016Voting results for language around O(n²)
I previously lamented that we are stuck with many roughly equivalent ways to say technical terms/phrases. Then I proposed over 88 ways to talk about O(n²) in computer science with voting buttons for "sounds good", "sounds ok", and "sounds wrong/confusing."
After 13k votes, mostly from /r/programming readers, here are the results.
There were four almost equally most popular terms, with plenty of people prefering one over the others.
"big oh of n squared"
"order [of] n squared"
"complexity of n squared"
"quadratic time"
Removal of "of" was slightly less popular (except for "order" which was basically equal). Other variations of the four were a bit less popular still.
As I noted, opinions were split, with ~55% "sounds good", ~25% "sounds ok", and ~20% "sounds wrong or confusing" for each. For people who liked one of these four, they also had a preference for its minor variations, but felt |
and everything.’
So yes, it’s a different intensity but I never leave these huge shows feeling like I’ve lost any of that crazy underground atmosphere and the frenzy I have always wanted to create since the very beginning. The art form is all in harnessing the group dynamic. I have an intimate relationship with the music and that translates into the crowd participation.
The production of your shows and entire immersive Bassnectar experience has developed hugely since the first time I saw you. When you’re talking about harnessing en-mass group dynamics, the whole visual aspect must play a major role on creating something that everyone is part of…
Of course. But I am far from the first person to do this! Coldcut have been doing shit like this since the mid to late 90s and blowing me and millions of other minds away. I don’t think what we’re doing is very revolutionary and different but it’s very heartfelt and we’ve invested a lot in the tiniest details. We’ve spent obsessive amounts of time on the video. The lights are great and lots of fun but the video is the most important for me because it has a narrative, it’s not just fractals and screensavers. It’s proper content that syncs up with the music and yes, as you say, it helps to engage with the large crowds and amplify the feeling we are all sharing.
Totally. The approach hasn’t changed but the technology has.
For sure. Actually my crowning memory of you was when we first met and you called me out for not delivering the drum & bass drop on a Sub Focus track. I only played the build-up then went back into a half time drop. I loved that. It was a bit of an in-joke for fans who knew the music. US fans didn’t really get it. You got it, but didn’t appreciate it! So when you’re talking about things changing and moving, having that early lead on the half time drum & bass stuff was great.
Haha! Sorry man. But the whole double time/ halftime stuff is common place now…
Yeah, and it certainly wasn’t 10 years ago. So that was a really exciting thing to explore and utilise in my performances. It’s what modern trap and dubstep are basically based on. I still love that approach but now, for my own productions, I’m really inspired by the more melodic elements.
But you’re not averse to some filthy, balls-out drum & bass. There was Raw Charles, there’s the new version of Blow, there was the Pennywise Tribute… Is that a reaction to the fact that a lot of people were doing the double time builds and the half time drops?
No no, that’s just me fucking loving drum & bass! The thing is, the US didn’t really invent that many genres or styles. We’ve just appropriated what you guys are cooking and modified it. But if you look back at what was the shit in UK and Europe maybe 10 or 15 years ago and it’s almost as if those sounds never even happened over here.
It’s an amazing strength as a DJ to go back and pull from these huge pools of reference points like Ninja Tune, Ram Records, early Sub Focus tracks or go right back to UK rave jump up from the mid-90s. So I’m really into looking back and pulling some of these from the past and bringing them into the future. Because many people who see me play will never have heard these forgotten treasures. These guys know the big hits of the day – they call it EDM but I’m not really into using that phrase – but taking them back to that exciting period of electronic music is a place they may never have explored so far.
So let’s look back over your earlier stuff… The updated versions of tracks from Mesmerising The Ultra on Into The Sun. You talk of not looking back and always looking forward. But I’m guessing you’ve done these updates because it’s the 10 year anniversary of the album…
Well I’ve only included five tracks. And Mesmerising The Ultra was close to 30 songs. I did want to do a full re-release that was totally updated and brought into the future. But I couldn’t do that. It worked out better because Into The Sun is much more about looking forward than it is looking back. I actually have another project which has five more re-dos which should hopefully come out a little later in the year.
I’m guessing finding the parts for these tracks is a challenge in itself?
Yes. At least half of the tracks are long gone on old machines and so on. But the parts I could find were those to tracks that I found really special. On Enter The Chamber the parts are a friend leaving a voice message on harmonics on the guitar. They pretty much all sound like synths but that’s how they started. I wanted to bring that back into my set for such a long time but the production has developed so much now that you just can’t play a 10 year old track against a new one. It’s the same with Dubuasca, Breathing, and of course Blow, which you’ve already mentioned. That still feels very current to me because of the timeless feeling of the humanised elements.
So let’s talk about the album as a whole. It kinda took us by surprise. You could set your watch by Bassnectar albums… Every two years for the last 10 years!
Ha! Well I took six months off after Noise VS Beauty to have a vacation but I spent most of that in the studio so there was a lot material building up. And a lot of those tracks were collaborations so they only take half the time as something I’ve written solo. But the main thing is that I never planned on Into The Sun being an album… It was always meant to be a mixtape, which I’ve been doing for many years as you well know. As it came together I realised more and more tunes were original and that it would be a shame if they weren’t available or accessible on streaming platforms on their own and not just locked into a mixtape. So we made it as an album. But I’d rather under promise and over deliver and call it a mixtape but offer loads more than a usual mixtape would.
The Chemical Brothers once told me in an interview that every album is a reaction to the last one. With Noise VS Beauty being your most successful album to date, was Into The Sun a reaction to that? Going back to your roots a little, perhaps?
Yeah I guess that’s why I’ve made the difference between an album and a mixtape. Noise VS Beauty was a very time-consuming approach of making songs from scratch while this is more a creative free-for-all of tracks that I love and work as a journey. So, for example, you can’t really pick one big single from it, which you usually have to with an album. I think so few DJs in America really focus on the journey any more. So many of them are very charismatic and can stand up on stage smiling while the music plays. This isn’t a slight on them, though; many of them make that music and they do what they do well. But I do feel the art form of selection and dynamic of mixing in layers has been lost. That said, Into The Sun isn’t heavily mixed… it’s about the flow, which is also very important as part of what DJs do.
Without a doubt. So we need to chat about The Mystery Spot with G Jones before we sign off. How did this come about?
He’s from Santa Cruz, just like me. When we met I felt I was meeting myself 10 years ago. He felt like a brother straight away. I dig his personality and love his music. We’re already working on more tracks together. The Mystery Spot is a great way to kick that off. It’s named after this crazy place in Santa Cruz which has mad gravity defying properties. You go into these weird crooked rooms I can’t explain. You leave thinking ‘I have no idea how that works’.
Trippy! So I’m going to finish with a standard question which I think you’ve already answered. What can we look forward to? There’s already Into The Sun, more Mesmerising re-dos, an EP with G Jones. Am I squeezing too hard now?
Not at all! That six months I took off was mainly spent working on music for the Red Rocks shows. Three shows, 10,000 tickets per show, and one of the most amazing geographical locations in America, maybe even the world. I was playing two and a half hours per night and I didn’t play any song twice. So making all those tracks was very time consuming and the whole idea was to reinvent those seven hours into new festival sets… But right now, like just before you called, I’ve been making even more new music. It never ever ends. And I have no doubt you’ll be hearing, experiencing and feeling these new tracks very soon.In a dramatic, though not unexpected turn of events, FIFA has decided to nullify a previously announced “special” ranking set for June 21 that was meant to correct seeding of African teams for 2018 World Cup qualifying.
The new ranking was meant to correct what fans and pundits viewed was a highly suspicious “special” ranking issued on June 7 meant to place Tunisia in Pot 1 in place of Egypt, despite the Pharaohs being ranked higher in FIFA’s own June World Ranking, in addition to the May and pending July rankings. The timing, content, and dissemination of the the special ranking was heavily criticized, forcing FIFA – much maligned for its multiple corruption scandals – to reconsider the unprecedented off-schedule ranking in attempt to salvage transparency.
READ: The stench of corruption: FIFA’s “special” ranking
The news was first broken by Qatari outlet beIN Sports, who also first reported the June 7 ranking.
Details are still emerging, but it appears the Tunisian Football Federation was able to execute what many expected it would attempt… to sow enough discord within African federations so as to delay the new ranking, making it seem as though FIFA was forced to revert back to the abnormal June 7 ranking.
Many believe threats to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) also swayed FIFA.
The official word from FIFA was a vague one centered around the specific date of the first “special” ranking, and ignored the multitude of other irregularities brought to their attention in the EFA’s official protest.
There are no details yet regarding what effort the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) did or did not exert to prevent the successful Tunisian lobby, but the news is another setback for EFA presidential hopeful Hany Abou Rida, who guaranteed that Egypt would be in Pot 1 before refusing to take the EFA’s protest to CAS.
Tunisia has successfully lobbied FIFA on multiple occasions since 2013.Researchers at a Scottish university claim to have made a breakthrough in the drive towards more powerful processors while conserving energy too. The team, from Glasgow University, led by Dr Wim Vanderbauwhede, have succeeded in squeezing 1000 cores on a single chip.
The researchers, working in conjunction with colleagues from University of Massachusetts, Lowell, used a chip called a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) which can be configured into specific circuits by the user rather than relying on the factory settings. This technology allowed Dr Vanderbauwhede to divide up the transistors within the chip into small groups and ask each to perform a different task thus creating 1000 mini-circuits -- or to put it another way, creating a 1000-core processor.
To demonstrate the chip's effectiveness, the research team used it to process an MPEG algorithm at a speed of 5Gbps, about 20 times faster than processors used in current PCs.
Dr Vanderbauwhede, who hopes to present his research at the International Symposium on Applied Reconfigurable Computing in March, said: "FPGAs are not used within standard computers because they are fairly difficult to program, but their processing power is huge while their energy consumption is very small because they are so much quicker - so they are also a greener option.
However, he warned that the research was an early proof-of-concept work but added that he hoped "to demonstrate a convenient way to program FPGAs so that their potential to provide very fast processing power could be used much more widely in future computing and electronics."
A Related Slideshow You May Like: What CES Is Really Like
This story, "Scottish Researchers Claim 1000-Core Processor" was originally published by Techworld.com.If you play with coax, short for coaxial cable, you probably know this it is available in a number of different impedances. The most common is 75 ohm, like video cable or antenna cable, but in fact our products range from 32 ohms up to 124 ohms.
Why all these different numbers? It's not an accident of course, and there is a reason for each one. Today, we're going to take a quick look at 50 ohm coax cable.
Belden makes hundreds of 50 ohm cables, including a whole line of ultra-low loss versions (Belden 7805 to Belden 7977). The two largest versions (Belden 7976 and 7977) are shown in the photograph below. They are HUGE. The 7977 has a diameter of.600" six-tenths of an inch! This is the largest coax cable that we make.
But first of all, why 50, or any other number? The answer can be shown in the graph below. This was produced by two researchers, Lloyd Espenscheid and Herman Affel, working for Bell Labs in 1929.
They were going to send RF signals (4 MHz) for hundred of miles carrying a thousand telephone calls. They needed a cable that would carry high voltage and high power. In the graph below, you can see the ideal rating for each. For high voltage, the perfect impedance is 60 ohms. For high power, the perfect impedance is 30 ohms.
This means, clearly, that there is NO perfect impedance to do both. What they ended up with was a compromise number, and that number was 50 ohms.
You will note that 50 ohms is closer to 60 than it is to 30, and that is because voltage is the factor that will kill your cable. Just ask any transmitter engineer. They talk about VSWR, voltage standing wave ratio, all the time. If their coax blows up, it is voltage that is the culprit.
So why not 60 ohms? Just look at the power handling at 60 ohms - below 50%. It is horrible! At the compromise value of 50 ohms, the power has improved a little. So 50 ohm cables are intended to be used to carry power and voltage, like the output of a transmitter. If you have a small signal, like video, or receive antenna signals, the graph above shows that the lowest loss or attenuation is 75 ohms.
Still, I get a lot of feedback from people who use 50 ohms for small signals; you can see above that they are taking a 2-3 dB hit in attenuation. Excuses I hear are “It's too late to change now!” or “That's the impedance of the box itself.” This is especially true of most test gear, which is universally 50 ohms. You have to buy a matching network to use it at 75 ohms or any other impedance. But there are lots of applications where 50 ohms is the best choice.
Belden 7977 mentioned above, can carry more than 5 kW at 30 MHz and more than 600 watts at 6 GHz. So even a cable this small could be used for TV or FM low power, boosters, translators, two-way radios, life-safety such as police/fire, RPU, many ham frequencies, microwave transmitters up to 6 GHz, and probably hundreds of other applications where signal are being delivered with high voltage and high power.
Most often, these signals end up in antennas. For instance, the sections in transmitters where small output power sections, like an exciter, are fed to a larger power section also require 50 ohm cable. That might be where the physically smaller 50 ohm cable might be used.
For many of these cables, they come in three versions: for outdoor applications, for riser-rated indoor applications, and for water-blocked applications such as direct burial or under-water applications. Some are even approved for shipboard ABS approvals.
These shipboard versions are also LSZH or low-smoke zero-halogen, which is often a requirement in some European countries. You can get more information and samples by contacting Belden customer service at 1-800-235-3361 (1-800-BELDEN-1) or just drop me a line at steve.lampen@belden.com.In the long list of genomic “firsts,” scientists have added another today: the oldest known pathogen ever sequenced. And it comes from perhaps the most famous “iceman,” Ötzi, who lived in the Alps of Central Europe more than 5,000 years ago. The secrets lurking in its genome suggest surprisingly recent ancient migrations of people into Europe. Ötzi was found on September 9, 1991 by German hikers at an altitude of 10,000 feet near the Austrian-Italian border. He had a number of physical ailments: Lyme disease, high levels of arsenic, tooth decay…and yet, what killed Ötzi appeared to be an arrowhead, found in his left shoulder. The weapon must have lacerated a major artery once it entered his body.
A little over five years ago, Albert Zink and his colleagues at the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (EURAC) decided to look for the presence of pathogens and microorganism in Ötzi’s stomach. They were also searching for a special bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. Our bodies are host to around 100 trillion bacteria— H. pylori is just one species, but it is present in more than 50% of the world’s population. When it was first discovered, H. pylori was thought to cause cancer and ulcers. However, most people with the bacterium do not experience symptoms or complications, despite its association with gastrointestinal problems. Instead, H. pylori appears to play an important role in the overall gut ecosystem, and the absence of it is linked to several immune and metabolic disorders. Now, a team of scientists working with Zink and microbiologist Frank Maixner—also from the EURAC—has processed Ötzi’s genomic data to better understand the contents of his microbiome and what it can tell us about our microbial “hitchhikers” through the ages. When the team first placed samples from Ötzi’s stomach under the microscope, they were skeptical as to whether or not they would see any H. pylori strains. But once they extracted the entire DNA of the stomach’s contents, they were able to isolate the H. pylori sequence.
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What the team found is that this ancient strain of H. pylori belonged to a now-extinct population of the bacterium that was first found in northern India and other parts of southern Asia. In addition, the scientists found little evidence of the African strain which is present in the modern European “admixture.” “This puts things into wonderful perspective for us with just one genome,” said study co-author Yoshan Moodley of the University of Venda in South Africa. Since H. pylori has been floating around inside the human microbiome for a long time, it has co-evolved with humans, so genetic analyses of H. pylori strains can reflect the history of human geography as a whole. What this new discovery shows is that relatively recent migrations (after Ötzi’s time) must have occurred for the European strain of H. pylori to become what it is today. “This genome is very unique and gives us an idea of what we can expect from the emerging field of microbiology in the future,” said Thomas Rattei of the University of Vienna. “It allows us this absolutely unique window into the Copper Age.” Watch a preview of "Iceman Reborn":
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Photo credit: © WGBH Educational FoundationBucharest's residents protect themselves from the crossfire between an army tank and pro-Ceausescu troops during clashes in the Republican square in Bucharest.
Reuters photographer Charles Platiau: On December 22, 1989, my mind was still full of memories of covering the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was ready to celebrate Christmas with my family, but the Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu changed my plans.
My boss and I were watching Ceausescu leave Bucharest by helicopter live on TV. I rushed to the airport and was lucky to board a flight chartered by the Medecins du Monde humanitarian organisation.
We landed at in Bulgaria and took a taxi to the Romanian border. Luckily the border was not closed and I hitch-hiked a ride to the capital on a truck. At noon I simply took the metro to arrive in downtown Bucharest in the middle of heavy gunfire. No helmet, no bullet proof jacket, only the enthusiasm of youth and the joy of witnessing a historical event: a revolution.
With my 300 mm 2.8 and an extender, I shot residents protecting themselves in the crossfire between an army tank and pro-Ceausescu troops during clashes in Republican square. No time for more pictures, just enough time to process and send a lone colour print to reach Sunday newspaper deadlines.
There were only two phone lines at the hotel, and scores of reporters arriving to file their stories. I kept the phone line open and did not hang up for 10 days in order to transmit pictures and stories.
The picture made the front page of most international papers. It was not the best picture of the revolution but one of the first colour pictures to hit the media market. It reminds me how hard it was to get around with cases of heavy equipment (80 kg of gear including an enlarger, photo paper, a transmitter, a typewriter).(CNN) – When the U.S. Olympic team add to its medal count, it’s not just the fans and Olympians who celebrate. So does the IRS.
That’s because the U.S. Olympic Committee awards each medalist with a cash prize - $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze - money that the U.S. government has always considered taxable income.
That could amount to a hefty tax bill for some Olympians, especially America’s most prominent stars who have already collected multiple medals in London. For example, Michael Phelps has earned four gold medals and two silvers, amounting to $130,000 in accompanying cash prizes. That translates to nearly $46,000 in taxes owed by Phelps, assuming his income is taxed at 35 percent – the highest income tax bracket.
Moreover, some individual athletic associations pay their athletes even more per medal, like USA Cycling which shells out $100,000 for a gold medal.
But the White House on Monday said President Obama favors a proposed bill that would keep Uncle Sam’s hands off Olympic earnings.
"The president believes that we should support efforts... to ensure that we are doing everything we can to honor and support our Olympic athletes who have volunteered to represent our nation at the Olympic Games," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Carney was specifically referencing legislation proposed by Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio that would exempt the cash awards associated with Olympic medals.
“We need a fundamental overhaul of our tax code, but we shouldn’t wait any time we have a chance to aggressively fix ridiculous tax laws like this tax on Olympians’ medals and prize money,” Rubio said in a statement announcing the so-called Olympic Tax Elimination Act. “We can all agree that these Olympians who dedicate their lives to athletic excellence should not be punished when they achieve it.”
The 1-page bill only references cash prizes associated with medal wins, not the corporate sponsorships that can be worth millions of dollars for USA’s most prominent Olympians.
It’s currently unclear when and if the proposal will be put to a vote. Congress just adjourned for its five-week August recess and cutting Olympians’ tax bill may not be a high priority come the fall.Long signing pursuit pays off for Neal
Neal Ardley has moved swiftly to bolster his squad before the transfer deadline by signing experienced midfielder Tom Soares.
The 30-year-old today signed for an undisclosed fee from League One Bury after five years with the Shakers.
Tom, who was brought up in Reading, arrives at AFC Wimbledon with a good pedigree as he made Premier League appearances for Crystal Palace, before being signed by Stoke City for £1.25 million.
In recent seasons, he’s been a key player at Bury, helping the Shakers to promotion in 2014/15 with his goal against AFC Wimbledon in the penultimate match of that season helping them go up automatically.
Neal Ardley said he was delighted that his long pursuit of the player had reached a successful conclusion and our manager thanked the club board for making it happen.
“Tom is a player we’ve liked for a number of years and we looked at maybe bringing him in back in November,” Neal told Dons Player. “We tried early in January to make enquiries, but it did not look like being something we could do. We then looked towards the summer for maybe a chance of getting him then if he did not sign a new deal, but quite late on in the window it started looking we might have half a chance. It took a lot of hard work yesterday, but we got there and I’m absolutely delighted we’ve got him.
“Tom has often played out of position this season at centre-back, right back, or right midfield, but his best position is as a central midfielder. He can play a holding role, advanced, or as a two. He is very powerful, has good aerial ability, and a lot of his athletic stats are very high. We’ve done a lot of homework on him and he is a very good player.
“If you look at his pedigree, he signed for Stoke from Crystal Palace for over £1 million. I think he is in his prime now. When I thought there may be a chance of getting Tom, I asked the board to put together whatever they could muster to try to get a deal over the line and they have come up trumps. The board and the club have done a great job.”
.Dons PlayerA full interview with Neal about the signing of Tom is now oncryptogon.com news – analysis – conspiracies
January 26th, 2010
Wikileaks is down for fund raising. I sent them $20 using my U.S. credit card.
The next day, Bank of America’s Magic 8 Ball deactivated my account and sent this to me:
Irregular Credit Card Activity
Account: Bank of America ending in XXXX
Date: 01/25/2010
We detected irregular activity on your Bank of America Credit Card on 01/25/2010. For your protection, you must verify this activity before you can continue using your card.
Please visit www.bankofamerica.com/myfraudprotection to review your account activity, or call us immediately at 1.800.383.0618 in the US, International call collect via the international operator at 757.677.4701. We will review the activity on your account with you and upon verification, we will remove any restrictions placed on your account.
I was pretty wild, so I decided to call in. I spent about twenty minutes on the phone verifying this, that and the other thing. I had to talk to two different BofA fraud department people. But this is the kicker: The last thing they asked was for me to name a close relative and the state in which they live.
I said, “Let me get this straight: You know who my close relatives are and where they live?”
“Oh yes, it’s a public records database.”
“And we’re going through all of this over $20.”
“Well, sir, our system—”
“Never mind, I’ll do what you say.”
*shaking head*
I complied and they turned my stuff back on again and let my $20 contribution to Wikileaks go through. All of this is over 20 effing dollars?!?
When I asked the second person on the phone why this happened, she said that it was probably because I hardly use my credit card. She said something like, “There wasn’t much of a profile to go on with this account.” Ah. The AI was displeased with my lack of consumption, I guess. And when I did use my card, it was to give money to an organization that is despised by most governments and other criminal organizations everywhere.
Irregular activity. Irregular activity. Danger. Enemy Combatant. The Homeland Is Threatened. Danger. Danger. Threat Level Ludicrous. Hope. Change we can believe in.
For f*ck’s sake already.
I explained that I used the card because it’s a simple matter to generate the one time use virtual credit card number online and she was, “Mmm hmmm”ing me, and was there anything else she could help me with today…
* Just hang up the phone, Kevin. Just hang up the phone. Don’t say anything that might cause her to push the panic button and get you added to additional shit lists, etc. *
I hung up the phone.
Economy, Surveillance, Technology | Posted in Coincidence? Top Of Page
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You must be logged in to post a comment.The Islamic State’s Furqan Media Foundation has released an audio message from the group’s new spokesman, Abu al Hassan al Muhajir. Abu Muhammad al Adnani served as the organization’s top propagandist for years until he was killed in an American airstrike in August. The Islamic State had not named a successor since then, meaning no jihadist had served in quite the same role as Adnani for more than three months.
However, Muhajir picks up where Adnani left off, defiantly calling upon the Islamic State’s members and supporters to fight on. He argues that the so-called caliphate’s struggles are merely part of a divine test, which will separate the true believers from all others. Muhajir also threatens Turkey and Iran, while encouraging more terrorist attacks around the globe.
The SITE Intelligence Group has translated Muhajir’s audio message, which was released via social media sites earlier today.
Muhajir claims that all of his organization’s many enemies are united in their desire to destroy the jihadists’ caliphate. “Here are Crusader America and Europe, Communist Russia, and Magian Iran, with secular Turkey, atheist Kurds, Rawafidh [Shiites], Nusayris [a reference to Bashar al Assad’s regime], Awakenings, militias, and the tyrants of the Arabs and their soldiers,” Muhajir says, according to SITE’s translation.
The Islamic State’s new spokesman briefly discusses the battle raging around Mosul, pointing specifically to Tal Afar, which is west of the Iraqi city. Iranian-backed militias operating as part of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) are leading the charge in Tal Afar and the surrounding area. Muhajir highlights this sectarian aspect of the fight, saying the “Rawafidh [Shiites] have come with their horses and men to the land of Tal Afar, full of hatred and vengeance towards the houses of Islam, to take them and get the Sunni people in them.” He goes on to claim that these Shiites have been “herded by the worshippers of the Cross,” meaning the West, to fight the Sunnis of Iraq.
Muhajir’s narrative with respect to Iraq is similar to the one offered by the Islamic State’s rivals in al Qaeda, with one key difference. Both al Qaeda and the Islamic State portray the war in Iraq as part of a conspiracy against the country’s Sunnis. However, Muhajir argues that only the Islamic State can shield Iraq’s Sunni population, a claim that al Qaeda would never make. “The Sunni has become either a shackled idle one or a humiliated submissive one, and it will not have any deterrent among the Muslims after Allah except for the Islamic State,” Muhajir says, according to SITE’s translation.
Muhajir claims that the Islamic State is fighting on behalf of Sunnis everywhere “from Baghdad to Beirut, from Aleppo to Damascus, and from Khorasan [a region encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan] to Sana’a.” Meanwhile, Iranian-backed Shiite forces attack Sunni “mujahideen” under the cover of the “shelling of the Crusaders.” In other words, Muhajir accuses the West and Iran of conspiring against Sunni Muslims throughout the region.
In early November, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi called on his followers to strike inside Turkey. Just hours later, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bombing in southeastern Turkey. This was the group’s first high-profile claim of responsibility for a terrorist operation inside the country. Turkish authorities quickly blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a US-designated terrorist organization, for the explosion. And it is possible that Kurdish terrorists did carry out the attack. Still, the Islamic State’s claim was important because it signaled a new, public willingness to lash out at Turkey. While the Islamic State is suspected of launching other operations inside Turkey, the group’s propaganda organs had never claimed responsibility for any of them.
Muhajir continues with Baghdadi’s theme, blasting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, as a “beggar before the doors of Crusader Europe” and a “Brotherhood apostate.” With these words, Muhajir points to Erdoğan’s reported ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that the Islamic State accuses of deviating from the true path of jihad.
Erdoğan “thought that he and his government were in control and safe” even after launching an assault against the Islamic State in northern Syria earlier this year, Muhajir says. But the caliphate’s mouthpiece says this isn’t so. Muhajir says his group’s followers should “target the joints of the secular, apostate Turkish government everywhere – the security, the military, the economic, and the media – indeed every embassy and consulate that represents it in the countries all over the world,” according to SITE’s translation.
Prior to his demise, Adnani stressed the importance of striking inside the West. Adnani repeatedly told supporters that their terror over here, in the West, was more valuable for the cause than waging jihad inside the lands of the caliphate. Similarly, Muhajir implores would-be recruits to “redouble” their efforts. The new spokesman wants followers to attack in the “homes, markets, roads, and clubs” of civilians in the nations opposed to the jihadists’ state.
Abu Muhammad al Adnani was not just the Islamic State’s spokesman. He wore multiple hats within Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s enterprise, including overseeing external operations, or plots in the West. Therefore, it is possible that Abu Hassan al Muhajir is more than the group’s chief propagandist. However, there is no publicly-available information on the scope of Muhajir’s responsibilities at this time.
Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.
Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.Police ask people to avoid the area until case is resolved
A man who took part in a standoff with Lake County deputies was found dead in a home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. Lake County deputies tried to make contact Sunday with an armed suspect near Fruitland Park. LCSO asked people to avoid the area of Sunnyside Drive and Lake Unity Road. Deputies responded there Sunday morning, when a woman reported that her husband had battered her. She was at another location. When deputies approached the home, the man yelled at deputies, and pulled a handgun from his waistband. LCSO spokesman Sgt. Fred Jones said the man, whose name has not been released, was barricaded in the home by himself.
A man who took part in a standoff with Lake County deputies was found dead in a home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.
Lake County deputies tried to make contact Sunday with an armed suspect near Fruitland Park. LCSO asked people to avoid the area of Sunnyside Drive and Lake Unity Road.
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Deputies responded there Sunday morning, when a woman reported that her husband had battered her. She was at another location. When deputies approached the home, the man yelled at deputies, and pulled a handgun from his waistband.
LCSO spokesman Sgt. Fred Jones said the man, whose name has not been released, was barricaded in the home by himself.
AlertMeDenying the reality of climate change is a lot like denying evolution. It’s not just a one-off belief. There are far too many pieces of evidence backing it up — from disparate fields, no less — and rejecting those theories means you’re also denying several other scientifically sound ideas.
For example, you can’t say “Future climate cannot be predicted” and believe “We are heading into an ice age.” You also can’t say “temperature and CO 2 are not connected,” as one author did, and then say “CO 2 keeps our planet warm,” as that same author did later in the same book.
Those are the sorts of contradictions explored in a new paper, published in the journal Synthese. The authors attempt to understand what’s going on in the minds of deniers and why they reject sound science:
Why Alice? Because, as the White Queen admitted: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
One reason the authors give for why some people have a hard time accepting reality is that the consequences of taking action would go against their interests:
Accepting the scientific consensus would likely see increased levels of regulation, which challenges their identity as free-market advocates. So instead, the authors argue, the only options open are to either deny the consensus or try and discredit it.
Moral of the story: A lot of deniers aren’t coming from a place where evidence matters. They have ulterior motives for rejecting the facts that come their way. It’s a mindset that should sound familiar to anyone who’s ever thought about why people continue to believe in a God…
(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Matt for the link)By: Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer
Published: 05/07/2013 05:43 PM EDT on LiveScience
Europeans all shared a common ancestor just 1,000 years ago, new genetic research reveals.
Scientists drew this conclusion, |
has not yet been ratified.
But, as G&M notes, it is rare for Chinese banks to use Canadian courts to pursue those who have left the country. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the bank was protecting its rights in accordance with the law.
“This is a normal thing to do internationally,” Hong told reporters in Beijing.
According to the lawsuit, China CITIC Bank is seeking repayment for a line of credit worth 50 million yuan, or roughly $7.5-million, taken out by a Chinese lumber company and personally guaranteed by Yan, who was the company’s majority shareholder at the time.
Just like this website, Vancouver residents have questioned the legitimacy of foreign funds invested in the city’s real estate market and have urged authorities to do more to scrutinize their origin.
So far Vancouver authorities have done a terrible job of responding to these requests, and as a result housing prices in the west coast city have jumped 30 per cent in the last year, in the process pricing out virtually all local buyers, especially since in recent weeks local banks have clamped down on the issuance of mortgages for the luxury sectory, well aware that the bubble is about to burst.
And since Canada would do nothing to hinder the parking of hot Chinese money locally, China decided to take matters into its own hands. If successful, and it will be as we doubt Mr. Yan will dare to appear in court resulting in a prompt confiscation of his assets, the action will have a chilling effect on all future purchases, and will most likely lead to a selling avalanche as the Chinese elite in Vancouver scramble to offload its domestic assets and find a new safe haven where it can park its money for the next few years.
In other words, with CITIC's lawsuit, the beginning of the end of Vancouver's housing bubble has officially begun.Moon 300D V2 – Review
Hello everybody,
I recently got my hands on a small but very good DAC, the Moon 300D V2.
This came in with perfect timing as since this week, I am a proud owner of a Decware Taboo MK3 headphone / speaker amplifier.
I love this amp and I was really curious how it behaved with other better dacs than with Burson Conductor. Don’t worry, a review of Taboo will come soon.
Presentation
The Moon 300D v2 isn’t the most beautiful DAC I have seen but it has decent looks. The build quality seems sturdy. The box doesn’t have the same thickness of Burson Conductor, but it seems very resistant.
The back panel features a total of 4 digital inputs (USB, SPDIF x 2,and TosLink) and both balanced (XLR) and single-ended (RCA) analog outputs. The MOON 300D v.2 includes an IR input for external control.
300D Technical Features · Over-sized power supply with 8 stages of voltage regulation
· Internal upsampling which uses 24-bit/352.8kHz processing
· BurrBrown PCM1793 high-resolution 24-bit/192-kHz D/A and 8X oversampling digital filter
· All inputs accept a signal up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution
· IR input for external control
· Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter for exceptionally low intrinsic jitter levels
· Single-ended RCA and Balanced XLR analog outputs
· Advanced analog signal path using a DC servo circuit and proprietary analog filter
· Extremely rigid chassis construction to minimize the effects of external vibrations
· Accurate matching of the very finest high quality electronic components in a symmetrical circuit design
· Designed to be powered up at all times for optimal performance
You can find the full specs here.
Listening impressions
The tests have been done with Decware Taboo MK3, Audeze LCD-X with Toxic Silver Widow, Burson Conductor, Audiobyte Hydra-X, Sennheiser HD800.
I have tested the 300D with and without Hydra and found out that the 300D could hold it’s own on it’s USB input. However Hydra did bring some interesting changes in the sound.
With Hydra the bass was punchier and deeper and the sound was smoother overall but with slower decays. I just love the bass with Hydra-X. The default USB input had a little more treble energy and extension, more detailed overall and with a larger soundstage and faster transients. Both presentations were very good in a different way.
Leonard Cohen – Balad of Absent Mare
The chord pluck from the beginning has immediately caught my attention. The guitars and instruments had a very good extension and detail. Leonard’s voice was very present and well textured. The soundstage has a good depth and the instruments play on different layers with a lot of air between them.
Silent Strike – Asian Paper Circus
I love this song. The imaging was very good and the sounds flew all around you with ease and great dynamics. The soundstage had a gain very good depth. I also loved the bass as it was very deep, detailed and had a wonderful punch.
Sons de la Frontera – Buleria de la Cal
The guitars sounded amazing. The plucks have a very good attack and the extension is wonderful. The drums were in the same league as they had a very good impact and presence as well. The sound was opened and full of energy and details.
Pink Martini – White Christmas
Ok, this song really got me in the mood for Christmas. The voice was wonderfully extended with an excellent texture. That voice really sent shivers down my spine. The soundstage was again deep and the sound signature very airy.
ATB – Feel Alive
The energy in this song was exemplary. The electric guitars from the beginning had a very nice texture. The bass was again deep, detailed and with good impact. The details sprung from every part of the song and the layering handled the crowded sounds with ease.
Michael Jackson – Beat it
The PRAT almost got me out my chair as I felt dancing. The airy instrument separation & layering, very good details, energy and prat made this song very enjoyable.
Cumbees
The soundstage was amazing here with an excellent presentation of the room. The attack and extension of the plucks were very good. I loved this song and I felt in the room with the 2 artists.
Summary
Soundstage
The soundstage is very good on 300D v2. The music has a holographic feel and a very airy presentation.
Instrument separation & layering
The layering is lovely and the space between them and the instruments is quite generous. It can handle crowded music with ease.
Details
The details and micro – details are springing from everywhere and gets your attention.
Dynamics
I feel that every instrument, even if is in quiet passages or deep in the back, had a very good extension and presence. I loved the dynamics on the 300D v2.
Transients
300D v2 has some very fast transients with very good attack and fast but still natural decays.
Treble
The treble has a very good extension and energy and it was awesome with taboo, but a little harsh on Burson Conductor which already has treble energy of it’s own.
Mids
Very good details and extension. Also the vocals are standing out with good texture and presence.
Bass
I loved the bass as it was detailed, with a good punch and depth. With a SS amp that has treble energy, the bass might get a little overrun by the treble, but with taboo it was excellent.
Conclusions
This little dac has some stamina and really got my attention. I found that it’s default usb implementation is quite good. For example Burson Conductor on default usb input cannot even be in the same picture with the 300D.
With Hydra-X, the Conductor gets near the 300D but it is still left behind. The moon has a deeper soundstage, a more holografic sound, more details with better dynamics and instrument extension and a deeper and more complete bass than Hydra-X + Conductor.
I found it to be a perfect match with Taboo MK3 giving extended and energetic treble without harshness, excellent dynamics, fast transients with very good extension, good punchy, controlled and deep bass.
With the amplifier section in Burson Conductor it was just a decent match, as moon already has some treble energy and so does Conductor. The result was a little harsh sound.
The size and performance of this unit made it a very appealing product from my perspective.Immigration reform rally on Capitol Hill, October, 2013
Limit immigration or watch conservative efforts become irrelevant.
People come to America because it is a remarkable oasis of freedom, prosperity, and opportunity. Conservatives recognize that the principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraint on the power of government. As Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
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Maintaining this system requires the public to support limited government. In a new report, Eagle Forum details how immigration is fundamentally changing the electorate to one that is much more supportive of big government.
#ad#By itself, the annual flow of 1.1 million legal immigrants under the current system will create more than 5 million new potential voters by 2024 and more than 8 million by 2028. Congressional Budget Office projections indicate that under the Senate Gang of Eight’s S.744 bill, the total additional potential voters would rise to nearly 10 million by 2024 and 18 million by 2028. The influx of these new voters would reduce or eliminate Republicans’ ability to offer an alternative to big government, to increased government spending, to higher taxes, and to favorite liberal policies such as Obamacare and gun control.
There is nothing controversial about the report’s conclusion that both Hispanics and Asians, who account for about three-fourth of today’s immigrants, generally agree with the Democrats’ big-government agenda. It is for this reason that they vote two-to-one for Democrats.
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The 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey found that 62 percent of immigrants prefer a single, government-run health-care system. The 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that 69 percent of immigrants support Obamacare. Pew also found that 53 percent of Hispanics have a negative view of capitalism, the highest of any group surveyed. This is even higher than the 47 percent among self-identified supporters of Occupy Wall Street.
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The Pew Research Center has also found that 75 percent of Hispanics prefer a “bigger government providing more services,” and only 19 percent prefer a smaller government. Pew also reported that 55 percent of Asians prefer “bigger government providing more services,” and only 36 percent prefer a smaller government. So it’s no surprise that in 2012, 71 percent of Hispanics and 73 percent of Asians voted for Obama.
Even Republican emphasis on patriotism and national sovereignty is likely to alienate many immigrants. A Harris poll found that 81 percent of native-born Americans believe our schools should teach students to be proud of being American, compared with only 50 percent of immigrants who had become naturalized U.S. citizens. Only 37 percent of naturalized citizens (compared with 67 percent of native-born citizens) think our Constitution is a higher legal authority than international law.
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While it seems that much of the Republican-party leadership has not actually looked at the policy preferences of immigrants, everyone else who has looked at the polls comes to the conclusion that significant majorities of immigrants and their children are big-government liberals. The New York Times’ Washington bureau chief admitted last year that “the two fastest-growing ethnic groups — Latinos and Asian-Americans — are decidedly liberal.” As University of Alabama political scientist George Hawley observes, “Immigrants are well to the left of the American public on a number of key issues.” He also makes clear that “liberalizing immigration will liberalize the U.S.” Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute points out that it “is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation.”
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Immigration in general — not race — is the issue. The limited data for other immigrants — including Europeans and Muslims — indicate that they, too, generally hold views well to the left of the average American voter. In fact, as discussed in our new report, for reasons largely outside the control of conservatives, immigrants and their children gravitate to left-wing parties in almost all Western countries. The problem for conservatives is not race or ethnicity but immigration as such.
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#page#Another important conclusion of our report is that there is no evidence that amnesty or inviting more immigration will produce Republican votes and abundant evidence that it will produce more Democratic votes. After Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 amnesty, George H. W. Bush received only 30 percent of the Latino vote in 1988, seven percentage points less than Reagan in 1984.
Those supporting a big increase in legal immigration point to the successful assimilation of Great Wave immigrants (roughly 1880 to 1920). But that wave was followed by a slowdown of immigration from the 1920s to the 1960s, which allowed newcomers to assimilate, learn our language, and adapt to our unique system of government. Also, Great Wave immigrants arrived before the rise of the grievance industry and identity politics. Moreover, it still took decades before a significant share of these immigrants moved into the Republican column. In the meantime, Great Wave immigrants and their children provided much of the political support necessary to pass and sustain both the New Deal and the Great Society.
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#ad#It is also the case that the Republican party’s continued support of mass immigration, let alone the increases in the Gang of Eight bill, is contributing to alienating the Republican base, at least 4 million of whom stayed home in 2012.
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The generally liberal views of today’s immigrants do not mean they are bad people. Most immigrants are hard working and love their families, and many are religious. Many hard-working Americans not of recent-immigrant origin who are devoted to their families also want to expand government. Nevertheless, platitudes about immigrants’ being hard working does not make them conservatives when it comes to the size and scope of government.
While Republicans should do a better job of outreach, immigrants’ generally liberal views should not be trivialized as something that can be overcome by the right 30-second TV or radio ad or by running candidates with Asian or Hispanic backgrounds. These may help, but the political values and preferences of the immigrant community are sincerely felt and not easily changed.
Conservatives should appeal to immigrants without sacrificing our principles. One way to do this is to argue that defeating the Gang of Eight bill, with its amnesty and doubling of legal immigration, would benefit the nearly 60 million American citizens (many of them immigrants) who are not working. If employers really are having trouble finding workers, the private-enterprise solution should be to raise the pay! A tight labor market is the best anti-poverty program. A reduction in immigration would also take pressure off our already overloaded health-care system and schools, and it would facilitate the assimilation of immigrants already here.
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Our new report makes clear that for conservatives, there is no issue more important than reducing the number of immigrants allowed into the country each year. If legal immigration is not reduced, it will be nearly impossible for conservatives to be successful on the issues we care about.
If the Republican party is to remain a party that is conservative and nationally competitive, it must defeat amnesty and any proposed increases in legal immigration. Further, we must work to significantly reduce the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country from the current level of 1.1 million a year. There is nothing inevitable about immigration. The level and selection criteria can be changed by Congress.
Looking at the political motivation of the groups pushing higher immigration and amnesty, it’s obvious that the Democrats promote large-scale immigration because it produces more Democratic votes. If the Republican party is to remain conservative and nationally competitive, it must defeat amnesty and proposed increases in legal immigration.
— Phyllis Schlafly is the president of Eagle Forum.Real Talk Time: We discuss the ongoing changes to Beast: the Primordial this episode. It's a controversial topic that we attempt to discuss in a balanced manner, but due to time limitations on this already monstrous episode we are unable to cover every aspect of the debate. We encourage listeners to check out the updated Beast material HERE to draw their own conclusions.
Mike, Chris, and Matt take an epic three hour journey into the World of Darkness. Mike presents some of the sample signature characters from Hunter: Wayward, followed by Chris's secret frequency on the Spaceship Graveyard. Matt leads a discussion of the new Werewolf: the Forsaken Second Edition and then all three contribute to a discussion of the controversial new game Beast: the Primordial, now on kickstarter.When: August 10 2017
***BBQ Opens at 5:30-8pm, other activities run from 6-8pm***BBQ will be run at Site 6
Where: Rundle Park (2909 113 Ave NW)
Tickets are $30 per adult, and $25 per child (under 12). One ticket provides you a BBQ meal (hamburger OR hot dog, chips, and a drink), 40 minute paddle boat ride, and a shot at 18 holes of mini-golf! Redeem each stub on your ticket for the respective station at the time of the event - you MUST redeem a physical stub, electronic pictures of the ticket cannot be used for the event due to the collaboration of Rundle Park staff.
100% of proceeds from the event will go to animals in our care.
Tickets are limited due to the number of paddle boats available. Only 40 tickets will be sold. BBQ meals will be sold at the event for $5 per meal for those who do not have tickets.Posted Thursday, February 7, 2013 12:00 am
Lenny Cherson will be installed as Woodmere Fire Department Chief on Saturday night at the Woodmere Country Club. He has the distinction of being the first Orthodox Jewish chief in the department’s 124 year history.
As an eleven year veteran of the Woodmere Fire Department, Cherson rose up the ranks from probationary fire fighter, to firefighter, Lieutenant of Hook and Ladder, Captain of Hook and Ladder, 2nd Assistant Chief, and 1st Assistant Chief. The Woodmere native and HILI alum is also an emergency medical technician and has roots with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management.
Cherson, who spoke of the Department’s annual activity as averaging 700 calls per year, 967 to be exact in 2012 due to Super Storm Sandy, looks forward to implementing his two agenda items as Chief of the Department. “I want to increase training due to new regulations required by the State of New York and Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), as well as updating standard operating procedures.”
The Department which currently has approximately 70 volunteer members, 40 of which are active, do not work in shifts. “We are fortunate to have enough local coverage during the day. In addition, we work very closely with the Hewlett, Lawrence/Cedarhurst and Inwood Fire Departments. We have very detailed mutual aid with all the departments,” noted Cherson. “Sixty percent of our calls are fire responses, and forty percent are EMS related.” Fellow WFD member, Lieutenant Marc Deutsch conveyed the Department’s sentiment. “The members of the Woodmere Fire Department can look forward to the leadership of a dedicated chief that works tirelessly and cares deeply for his community, as well as his members.”
A member of Young Israel of Woodmere, Cherson, and his wife Raizy are parents to Rebecca 18, and Sarah, 16. He’s proud of the Community Chometz burning that the Department started on its own close to 10 years ago as a practical service to residents and a very important safety measure. “Last year over 1000 people came to our fire house to participate. This was implemented in response to some individuals using chemicals and gasoline to start fires to burn chometz,” noted Cherson. Other important fire safety information is conveyed to the community through seasonal mailings. In the winter there is a pamphlet focused on maintaining boilers and hot water heaters; in the spring the Department stresses BBQ grill and propane use safety.
The Woodmere Fire Department boasts one of the largest rosters of Jewish members in Nassau County, with approximately 30 active Orthodox Jewish members. Outside of serving the community, the members often have social gatherings such as watching the Superbowl, and often they convene over schwarma at Delicious Dishes, a glatt kosher Israeli restaurant, who is a neighbor of the Department. “Best Chief in town, he’s number one, we wish him the best of luck,we love him,” expressed owner Benny Roth, and his family Dorit, Oren and Leo.
The Department, which dates back to 1889, is also installing three assistant Chiefs, and department and line officers on Saturday night.The story I’m about to tell is the worst case of leaky abstraction that I’ve encountered and had to resolve. Actually, it’s the most profound example that I know of. Profound here is used in a negative sense, of course. This isn’t the performance issues Joel brings as examples to leaky abstraction. Nor is it a case of getting a network exception while working with files, because the folder is now mapped to a network drive. Nor a case of getting out-of-disk-space error while writing to a file-backed memory block. This is a case of frustration and a very hard-to-catch defect. A case of a project that came too close to failing altogether, had we not figured it out in time.
Background
Our flagship project worked with 3rd party servers which for technical reasons had to be installed on the same machine as our product. This was an obvious shortcoming and had to change. The requirements came in and we were asked to move the interfaces with all 3rd party servers into lightweight distributed processes. These new processes were dubbed Child processes, while the central process, well, Central. A Child would run on a different machine on the network, communicating with the Central process to get commands, execute them and return the results.
The design was straightforward: all processes would be running as services listening on some configurable port. The commands were simple application-level message objects, each with its own type, serialized on the wire. The operations were synchronous and we needn’t progress updates or heartbeats. We left the network design synchronous as well, for simplicity.
The developer who was assigned the communication-layer had background in web-services and proposed to use standard HTTP protocol. We thought about it and declared that while it would have some small overhead, the simplicity of reusing some library would be a plus. After all, HTTP has data recovery and is a standard protocol. And if we really cared about overhead, we’d use UDP which has no duplicate detection, data recovery or even ordered packet transmission. Plus, the developer who’d work on this feature was comfortable with HTTP. So why not?
As it turns out, HTTP was the single worst decision made on this particular project.
Since we were now transmitting potentially sensitive data, the requirements were amended to include data encryption to protect our customers’ data from network sniffers. We used a standard asymmetric encryption for extra security. This meant that we had to generate a pair of public and private keys each time we connected. We devised a protocol to communicate the key the Child must have using a symmetric encryption algorithm. We were confident this was secure enough for our needs and it wasn’t overly complicated to implement.
Trouble
The project was complete when I took the product for a final set of developer white-box testing. This is something I learned to do before shipping any product, as I do have the responsibility of designing the features, I also feel responsible for looking under the hood in case there is some potential mechanical or technical issue. Much like your car mechanic would do before you go on an off-road trip.
That’s when things started to fall apart. All worked fine, except every now and then I’d get errors and the Child would disconnect. Inspecting the logs showed data-encryption exceptions. The deciphering function was failing. Every single developer who run the code verified that it worked fine without any problems whatsoever. I asked them to pay attention to this issue. They came back saying all was perfectly fine. It was only on my machine!
Mind you, I learned not to blame before I eliminate every possible culprit. And the prime suspect is, always, a bug. A developer error. So I started sniffing around. Visiting the design back and forth. Nothing made sense of the issue. The code works, almost all the time. Then it fails. Reconnect again, and it works fine… until it fails again.
Troubleshooting this issue wasn’t fun, precisely because it wasn’t fruitful. No amount of debugging helped, or, in fact, could ever help. The puzzle had to be solved by reason. Experimentation showed as much as I had already gathered from the logs. Still, I tried different scenarios. One thing was for sure, you couldn’t tell when it’ll fail next.
The Leak
Remember that HTTP is a connectionless protocol. That is, it’s designed to communicate a single request and its response and disconnect. This is the typical scenario. It holds no connections and no states, therefore, it has no session. On the web, sessions are realized by the HTTP server. An HTTP server would typically create some unique key upon login or first-request missing a key, and it would track all subsequent requests by getting the said key either in the URL or using cookies. In any event, even though a web-service may have support for sessions, the underlying protocol is still connectionless and stateless.
To improve performance, an afterthought of reusing connections was added. This is typically called Keep-Alive. The idea is that a flag is added to the HTTP header which tells the server not to close the connection immediately after responding to the request, anticipating further requests. This is reasonable, as a web-page typically loads multiple images and embedded items from the same server. The client and server supporting Keep-Alive reuse the same connection for several requests, until one of them closes the connection. What is most important in this scenario is that if either party doesn’t respect this hint, nothing would break. In fact, nothing would work any different, except, of course, for the extra connections and disconnections that would occur for each request.
Since the implementor of this feature was a savvy web developer, he always had this flag set. And so, as long as the connection wasn’t interrupted, or indeed, the underlying library we were using didn’t decide to close the connection on whim, all was well and we had no problems. However, when a new request went with a new connection, rather than an existing one, the Child’s server would accept a new socket, on a new port, rather than the previously open socket. This is what was happening on my test environment. Perhaps it was the fact that I was testing across VM images that triggered the disconnections. Anyway, this newly opened socket on the Child has no encryption details associated with it. It’s a brand-new connection. It should expect encryption key exchange. But due to implementation details, the request would have an ‘encrypted’ flag set and the Child wouldn’t mind that we negotiated no cryptographic keys. It’d go ahead and try to decipher the request, only, it couldn’t. Resulting in the logged encryption exception followed by disconnection.
Post Mortem
Once the issue was figured out, the solution was simple, albeit costly. The HTTP abstraction had leaked an ugly property that we had assumed abstracted away. At design time, we couldn’t care what protocol we used to carry our bits. Encryption was added almost as an afterthought. True that encryption does require a state. However looking at our code, the socket-level connection was abstracted by layers and layers of library code. In fact, all we had was a single static function which took a URL string for a request. We had serialized and encoded the request message in base-64 and appended to the URL, which contained the server hostname/ip and port; standard web request, really.
On the communication layer, we had this single URL construction and the request call. On the data layer, we had the encryption, serialization and data manipulation logic. On the application layer, well, there were no network details whatsoever. Most of the previous code which worked locally had remained the same, with the implementation changed to interface the new network layer. So in a sense the code evolved and adapted to its final form and it wasn’t anywhere near apparent that we had leaked a major problem into our code.
In hindsight, we should’ve taken matters into our hands and implement a session-based protocol directly. This would make sense because we’d be in complete control of all network matters. For one, with HTTP we couldn’t change the sockets to use async logic, nor could we change the buffer sizes and timeouts. Perhaps we didn’t need to, but considering the gigabytes/hour we expected to transfer, sooner or later we’d have to optimize and tune the system for performance. But, the developer assigned was inexperienced and we couldn’t afford the time overhead. Personally, I feared things would get too complicated for the assigned developer to handle. I let him pick the protocol he was most comfortable with. And that’s the real danger of leaky abstraction; everyone is tricked, including the experienced.
Indeed, we ended up rewriting the communication layer. First the HTTP code was replaced with plain sockets using TCP/IP. Next, sessions were added, such that disconnections were recoverable. That is, the data layer didn’t care whether communication was interrupted or not. We weren’t going to rely on the fact that we controlled the sockets. Disconnections were made irrelevant by design. And finally, our protocol required a strict sequence of initialization and handshake that insured correct state. Once the code was working as expected, we changed the sockets to use async interface for maximum performance.
Overall, we spent an extra 2 man/months and, as a result, the data+communication layer was sped up several times over. Still, this was one hell of a case of leaky abstraction.
Further Reading:
Update:
Many are asking why not use SSL? The answer is because HTTP was the wrong choice in the first place.
We weren’t building a web-service. This was a backend server communicating with the main product. We didn’t want to limit the protocol, features or extendability by the choice of communication details. SSL would resolve the encryption issue, but we’d have had to implement an HTTPS server. In addition, whatever application protocol we would eventually realize, it had to be connectionless. The encryption layer simply uncovered this design implication that we had overlooked, hence the leak in the communication protocol abstraction. At that point we didn’t have any control messages nor did we have requests that needed states, later we added both. In fact, we added a command to iterate over a large set of data, returning one item at a time. HTTP/S would’ve made this harder to implement, as the state would have had to be sent with each request. Control messages and heartbeats would’ve been pointless.
In short, HTTP gave us very little and the connectionless nature caused as a lot of trouble. We got rid of both. We exchanged a wrong solution with the right one, hardly reinventing the wheel, if you ask me.Editor's Note: Microsoft's Windows President, Steven Sinofsky, is speaking this week at the D9 Conference. It is rumored that he will show off the new tablet UI and the long-awaited cloud integration of Windows 8. We will update this article accordingly.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finally confirmed what tech pundits knew all along: the next generation of Windows will be out in 2012. In the meantime, Microsoft is half-way done with Windows 8 -- it's in the Milestone 3 stage right now -- and is prepping up the first beta for this September's "Windows Developer Conference" in Anaheim, California.
But you don't have to wait until then to get a look at some of Windows 8's best new features. I've closely examined a pre-beta leak and dug up 10 great features and improvements you can look forward to. While these pre-beta builds have been covered left and right, I've chosen to focus on the lesser-known, but noteworthy improvements.
Looks pretty much like Windows 7: This early Windows 8 prototype hides many of its features. Some hidden gems are already accessible (via some registry tweaks and DLL hacks), others require a yet to be unearthed "Red Pill" from Microsoft. (Click here for a full-size image.)
1. Windows Store
Microsoft enters the lucrative app market, no surprise here. While "Windows Store" (which is the company's name for the online app shop) obviously doesn't work in this early build, the related DLLs and XML resources are already in place and ready to be examined by a variety of tools, such as PE Explorer or Resource Hacker.
Windows Store file details reveal feature set. (Click here for a full-size image.)
All the basic features of any app store are also present in Windows Store -- such as the ability to browse through categories, make in-app purchases, rate apps, download trials and so forth. New, however, is the ability to "stream" apps to your PC, which could lead to a couple of scenarios: 1) an app could be launched instantly after the purchase -- no need to wait until it is fully downloaded; 2) apps could be hosted in the cloud so that users stream only the part of the app they need at any given moment. That would be convenient for someone who'd like a larger product, say an Office suite, on a tablet with limited disk space, or who'd like to access the app from another machine.
Windows 8 collects all apps in its own "Application Explorer" and categorizes each app as either an "Immersive" or a traditional "Desktop" application (see below for more on that):
This ribbonized "Application Explorer" is a gathering place for all traditional applications and tablet apps. (Click here for a full-size image.)
2. Two-class society
Windows 8 will come in two separate interfaces flavors -- one traditional UI that resembles Windows 7's Aero and one touch-friendly UI specifically tailored to tablets dubbed "Immersive UI". The latter isn't fully implemented (or is too well hidden) in the early Milestone build, yet some specific tablet applications have already been unlocked:
Internet Explorer Immersive: A touch-centric version of Microsoft's IE browser that includes just an address bar (which auto-hides), a browser history and a tabbed view.
Modern Reader: Microsoft's own implementation of a (basic) PDF viewer that has only bare navigation and bookmarking support. (Still, Adobe likely won't be too happy about this.)
System Settings: A touch-optimized "Control Panel" that caters to mobile needs, such as connectivity, time zone settings or device management.
These few tablet apps are literally the tip of the iceberg -- the entire UI has yet to be revealed. While digging through Windows 8's various files, I found hints suggesting that users will be able to switch between the traditional Windows 8 UI and the tablet UI, through what's codenamed the "UIPicker". Also, we've found traces of a "Dock" that is supposed to hold built-in Windows features (such as a search box) and 3rd party apps.Look out, Hero Burger. And you too, BQM Diner, McDonald's and A & W. The Burgers' Priest is about to muscle into your territory!
The Priest's friar of fries Shant Mardirosian has just announced that his ridiculously popular fast-food joint will be opening its long-planned third location at 463 Queen West. That's just west of Spadina on the south side and directly across the street from the equally revered Banh Mi Boys.
"I asked them for permission before I signed the lease to make sure I had their blessing," says Mardirosian. "I told them that if he didn't want me there, I wouldn't sign. But they're totally cool with it. We agreed that it would make both of us busier."
Watch for a "guaranteed" mid-May launch in the space currently occupied by the Hell's Belles clothing boutique.
"Kind of ironic, isn't it?"Baylor Professor Compares Waco PD to Nazi’s, Posts it on Her Mini Van
WACO, TX – Dr. Deanna Robinson, a Baylor University Math Professor strongly believes that her hometown police department is hiding or withholding important information about the deadly one-sided skirmish back in May at the Twin Peaks restaurant. Where cops, SWAT, and other law enforcement officers, were staked out and posted up on neighboring buildings like a tactical hit team just because some free men and women who happen to ride motorcycles were having a get together. Robinson has covered her minivan with messages including one that says “Hitler Lives, Waco PD Kills, Lies, Jails Witnesses.”
She said “’Hitler’ is a shocking word and it gets attention and I think what happened on May 17 at Twin Peaks was a jack-booted operation similar to what the Nazis would do”.
Nine people were killed by police, with 20 more wounded, then they rounded-up 177 bystanders and threw them in cold cages downtown with ridiculous 1 Million dollar bail requirements.
Dr. Robinson continued with “I can’t believe that all those people deserved to get shot or arrested”.
Her freedom of speech on wheels also depicts, “For profit jails assume guilty until broke;” “Courts equal catch and hold as long as possible,” and “Media Plus Court Try to Help Hide Truth.” She says “It seems to me there is a cover-up about what happened that day”, and that “My biggest frustration is the lack of information coming from the Waco Police Department”.
She says that she hopes the use of strong language brings attention to the community that there is another side to the story that is not being told.
The messages have received little criticism from people on campus.
Robinson sis saying that she is not going to remove the messages on her van any time soon. “I believe in freedom of speech that’s why I write this on my car.”
Baylor University released a statement which read, “their campus is like any other, with a variety of opinions expressed in a variety of ways. This employee is expressing a personal opinion and not speaking on behalf of the university. If we observed hate speech or obscene speech or observed other conduct in conflict with the university’s Christian mission, the university would consider responding.”
H/T – KWTXNot a member?
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prisingly, a lack of diversity in tennis media circles engendered those perspectives. And these points of view have unfortunately been variations on a theme throughout the years from prominent tennis writers, especially American ones.
Those sentiments by the tennis press corps, which is almost exclusively white, completely misread the importance of the boycott. It’s as if they all said “finally” the moment they saw Serena’s op-ed, expressing a collective sense of relief that they don’t have to face the issue anymore. They feel now they are exempt again from ever having to report on or address the very real racial issues within tennis due to Serena’s decision to turn the other cheek. The prevailing narrative from this confined media circle of a more mature, wiser Serena overcoming a long irrational stance – like from ESPN’s Peter Bodo or Sports Illustrated’s Courtney Nguyen – is severely lacking in nuance, thus implicating these writers as indirect contributors to the climate of non-diversity that has engendered their myopic takes on the Williamses.
Serena did not “mature” because she made the choice to play Indian Wells again; that would imply she and her family were immature by initially declining to attend. Despite any tantrums that Serena has had over the course of her career, she has shown many examples of class, candor and largesse that have been largely under-reported or acknowledged at all by the media. She has never been accused of gamesmanship by any player, and has long condemned it when on the receiving end.
The “older-wiser” narrative also exempts Indian Wells’s past managers from accountability for their role in a regrettable episode – not least Pasarell, whom the Williams family claims did not offer any real apology on behalf of the tournament. Pasarell did make numerous overtures to try to convince them to return, but the tournament has never formally apologized publicly or privately to the family. If Pasarell, who was also a close friend of legendary black tennis figure Arthur Ashe, wouldn’t call the Williams family liars for their disturbing accounts, then surely he must think an apology – if only for the sake of being magnanimous – would be the only requirement needed to be made from the tournament for them to return?
Pasarell and tournament co-founder Raymond Moore have not been in charge since 2009, when Oracle software billionaire Larry Ellison saved the event from financial struggles by purchasing it and the entire venue. Ellison’s people also reached out to the Williams sisters about their possible return, but no formal apologies to the family were made by the new regime either.
Without an apology from either of Indian Wells’s two proprietorships, Serena could have easily continued her boycott through the end of her career, just like her sister still seems willing to do. Having won the tournament twice and going on to cement her legend as arguably the greatest women’s tennis player since her last appearance there, Serena does not need Indian Wells as badly as Indian Wells needs her. And though the tournament has flourished under Ellison’s infinite ostentations, the feeling persists for some that Indian Wells has been visibly hurt without two of tennis’ biggest stars for so many years, especially in an era when American men’s tennis has fallen completely by the wayside.
By mining a positive angle from her return, Serena has become a rare modern-day superstar athlete willing to highlight the immorality of mass incarcerations, wrongful convictions and unstable policing still prevalent in America. It’s not a coincidence that those most afflicted by the injustice are black, and that Serena chose the Equal Justice Initiative as the organization to benefit from her competition. It is a turnaround sprung from deep contemplation about a moment that she could have let remain toxic for her. She could have easily decided to continue doing as her older sister Venus is rightly doing by still not attending. Both have made their choices, and anyone who doesn’t respect them requires a larger, more sophisticated perspective.
It would be great for the tennis press to learn from Serena’s actions and take their own negative situation – the lack of diverse perspectives on not only this issue but on many other manifestations of racial inequities in the sport as well – and ask deep questions of themselves on how to solve it. Because the consensus response to Serena’s return to Indian Wells – that Serena is “matured” while Venus continues to be “stubborn” – demonstrates that they are failing miserably.Gov. Chris Christie greets President Barack Obama in Atlantic City, N.J., days after Hurricane Sandy. Christie, despite castigating the president's energy policies, has parroted many of the same proposals. Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
One line seemed awfully familiar during the third Republican debate, held Wednesday night.
Candidates Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham and George Pataki declared their support for an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy – effectively embracing the marquee stance of GOP Public Enemy No. 1, President Barack Obama.
"We should invest in all types of energy," New Jersey Gov. Christie said.
THE RUN 2016: In Third Debate, Republicans Target the Media ]
Or, as Jindal put it – without attribution to the president – during the evening's so-called "undercard" between the four last-place candidates: Growing the economy "means that we embrace an all-of-the-above approach to energy."
The candidates even went a few steps further, pledging to expand just about every aspect of the Obama administration's energy policies:
It's also worth noting that while Christie vilified "government intervention" to promote clean energy and halt global warming, and at the same time promoted New Jersey's "work with the private sector to make solar energy affordable," it was actually a statewide mandate for more renewable energy – known as a renewable portfolio standard – that helped make the Garden State what he touted as the "No. 3" solar energy producer in the country.
What's more, a regional cap-and-trade partnership between 10 northeast states has produced tens of millions of dollars each member – cash Christie has largely left on the table, even with a massive state budget gap, by unilaterally withdrawing New Jersey from the program, citing tax and fiscal concerns that never materialized.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the first and still one of the only candidates to recognize the existence of man-made climate change, said he would "just want a solution that would be good for the economy, that doesn't destroy it," but did not elaborate on what that solution might be – let alone how it would differ from the policies of the current administration.NASA will continue tapping the private sector to fund space exploration efforts under President Donald Trump, a continuation in policy that began under former President George W. Bush.
"Public-private partnerships are the future of space exploration," Dava Newman, a former NASA deputy administrator who resigned before Trump took office, told CNBC on Tuesday. "I call it the new NASA."
In total, 22 companies — all American — have won contracts with the agency across a diverse range of sectors, from in-space manufacturing to engine development.
Boeing and Elon Musk's SpaceX will be delivering NASA astronauts to international space stations, while Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX will transport NASA cargo to space stations, said Newman, who is now chair of the Apollo Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NASA is a part of the U.S. government but remains independent while still receiving federal funds — a structure originally conceived by McKinsey & Co. In the 1950s, the management consultancy suggested the idea of a separate government office dedicated to space research.A GUEST-house owned by the family of Meghalaya Home Minister H D R Lyngdoh is being investigated in what the officials fear could be a wide-spread sex racket involving several influential people. On January 6, Independent MLA Julius Kitbok Dorphang was arrested in Guwahati after a hunt of three weeks. Police officials confirmed that a 14-year-old, who filed an FIR on December 16, has said that she was taken to the guest-house, Marvelene’s Inn, located in posh Shillong locality Rilbong, several times to “serve clients”.
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She has alleged that Dorphang raped her “at least on two occasions”, once at a guest-house at Motinagar in the city, and another time at a resort in Umiam, about 12 km from here. Marvelene’s Inn is run by Lyngdoh’s son Nathaniel Osbert Rymbai.
WATCH VIDEO | Guest-House Owned By Meghalaya Home Minister’s Family Under Probe For Alleged Sex Scam
“We have arrested nine people, and are looking for at least two more who are absconding. Those arrested include an employee of Marvelene’s Inn, and we are examining whether the owner and management of the inn were involved in the racket,” Shillong City SP Vivek Syiem told The Indian Express. An officer said one of the men they were looking for was an Army personnel.
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Meena Kharkongor, chairperson of the Meghalaya State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MSCPCR), that has filed a series of FIRs in the case, told The Indian Express that “names of important persons” are likely to come up as part of the investigation, and that more girls could be victims of the racket.
Six cases have been registered so far in connection with seven FIRs which followed the first FIR filed by the girl, under sections of the IPC, Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act and POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act). While six FIRs were filed by Kharkongor, two Shillong-based NGOs, Civil Society Womens’ Organisation and Thma U Ranglijuki, have filed a joint FIR at the Laban police station against the proprietor/owner(s)/management of Marvelene’s Inn. The MSCPCR has mentioned at least three guest-houses in its FIRs where the alleged assaults took place.
Marvelene’s Inn owner Rymbai denied any knowledge of the alleged sex racket. “I was informed by the manager of the guest-house that police came and picked up one waiter who would allegedly bring the girl there. Other than the arrested waiter, other waiters were oblivious of the presence of the girl in a room,” Rymbai said at a press conference four days ago. He has since remained unavailable for comment. On December 16, the girl approached Laban police station (which has jurisdiction over Rilbong), saying she was being sexually exploited and had the previous evening been taken to Marvelene’s Inn, to a client.
A police official who did not want to be named said the girl said she had been taken to the guest-house by a woman called Mamoni Parveen and her husband Sandeep Biswa, “between 8 and 9 pm” on December 15, and that waiter Usha Debbarman had taken her to a room and handed her over to a man called Madan Bahadur Thapa. The officer said that the girl had been taken to the hotel and had identified Debbarman.
While Debbarman was arrested on the spot, Parveen and Biswa were held on December 17. Thapa was arrested from Jhalupara in Shillong. The girl told The Indian Express that her mother died several years ago and she lived in her village with her father and stepmother. She had studied up to Class III and looked after the four children born to her stepmother. Two of her elder brothers, she has told police, work as drivers in Tura.
About a year ago, she said, a woman called Renu Bora came to the village and brought her to Shillong promising to hand her over to a family that would treat her like their daughter. “When the first woman I was taken to refused to keep me, Renu Bora took me to Mamoni Parveen, who said she would treat me like her daughter because she did not have one. But soon I was made to sleep with different persons, sometimes in the house itself, sometimes in different guest-houses and hotels,” the girl said, adding Parveen and Biswa took money from the clients.
She added that she was told to call Parveen and Biswa ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’. “On December 15, I was dropped at Marvelene’s Inn by mummy and daddy in the evening, and was picked up from there the next morning. I managed to run away when they were not at home on December 16, took Rs 20 from another woman in the same building, boarded a bus and got down somewhere. There I luckily met two women who took me to a police station,” she said.
“We are still trying to trace Renu Bora,” a police officer said. MLA Dorphang, arrested on January 6, is a former chairman of the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council, an armed rebel group. Having surrendered in 2007, he had got elected as an MLA in 2013.
Home Minister Lyngdoh refused to comment on the matter, saying he was not in Shillong and would talk on reaching back. SP Syiem confirmed that they were looking into the “involvement” of other guest-houses and resorts named by the MSCPCR and the two NGOs in their FIRs.
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With protesters hitting the streets in Shillong, opposition parties are pressing CM Sangma to drop Lyngdoh and take “appropriate action” against him. “Lyngdoh should not be allowed to continue. How can police investigate freely when the Home Minister’s name is involved?” asked Donkupar Roy, leader of the opposition United Democratic Party.Russia has deployed in Armenia state-of-the-art ballistic missiles capable of striking targets more than 400 kilometers away, according to a source in the Armenian Defense Ministry.Speaking on the condition anonymity, the source told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) over the weekend that several Iskander-M systems are currently stationed at undisclosed locations in the country. The source declined to clarify whether they were delivered to the Armenian armed forces or the Russian military base headquartered in Gyumri.The Defense Ministry in Yerevan did not officially and explicitly refute the information. Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovannisian was quoted by 168.am Monday as saying only that the Armenian army has no Iskander-Ms in its arsenal.Citing an unnamed Russian military source, the Russian news agency Regnum reported on May 15 that Moscow is likely to deploy the advanced surface-to-surface missiles as part of the ongoing modernization of its base in Armenia.Designated by NATO as SS-26 Stone, Iskander-M is regarded by military analysts as one of the most advanced missile systems of its kind in the world. The system known for its precision was developed in the 1990s and adopted by the Russian army in 2006. With an operational range of at least 400 kilometers, its 7.3-meter-long missiles can overcome existing missile-defense systems, according to Russian military officials and experts.Russian-Armenian military ties appear to have deepened further in the last few months, with Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and chief of the General Staff, Colonel-General Valery Gerasimov, visiting Armenia early this year. Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian held follow-up talks with Shoygu a mid-April trip to Moscow.President Vladimir Putin and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian also discussed defense cooperation when they met near Moscow on March 12. Sarkisian reportedly thanked Putin for “good progress” in bilateral military ties made since their previous meeting in December.A Russian-Armenian defense agreement signed in August 2010 commits Moscow to helping Yerevan obtain “modern and compatible weaponry and special military hardware.” Russian assistance is vital for the implementation of a five-year plan to modernize the Armenian army that was adopted by the Sarkisian administration later in 2010. The plan puts the emphasis on the acquisition of long-range precision-guided weapons.The Armenian military has been equipped until now with only Scud-B and Tochka-U ballistic missiles that have firing ranges of 300 kilometers and 120 kilometers respectively. The Soviet-era systems are less advanced than Iskander-M. The military makes no secret of its readiness to use them against Azerbaijan’s oil and gas installations in case of a renewed war for Nagorno-Karabakh.DODGEVILLE, Wis. and NEW YORK, Nov. 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lands' End announced today that the Lands' End Squall Parka has earned the coveted Good Housekeeping Seal, one of the most recognized consumer emblems in the world. Introduced in 1909, the Seal has offered buyers an unmatched assurance of product quality and is also backed by a limited warranty that provides a replacement or refund of up to $2,000 if a product proves defective within two years of purchase.
The Lands' End Squall Parka has earned the coveted Good Housekeeping Seal, one of the most recognized consumer emblems in the world. With its waterproof and windproof features, the Lands' End Squall Parka provides guaranteed protection when winter comes full force. Available at www.landsend.com. Lands' End
"At Lands' End, we are passionate about developing high quality merchandise that our customers value and trust. For over 30 years, we have been committed to making the best collection of Squall outerwear for men, women and kids and we are deeply honored that our Squall Parka has earned the Good Housekeeping Seal," says Joseph Boitano, Co-interim Chief Executive Officer, Lands' End.
"At Good Housekeeping, we test products so consumers can rely on their claims and performance. And the GH Seal is the only emblem in the market that stands by its recommendations with a 2-year warranty," states Jane Francisco, Editor-in-Chief, Good Housekeeping. "The GH Textile Lab tested the limits of the Lands' End Squall Jacket — and after you see how its construction stood up to our most rigorous analysis, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to weather the winter without it."
"We were impressed with the overall designs of the garments, which offer innovative solutions to everyday problems for the entire family. They're made with durable materials for long-lasting use and include notable features for enhanced functionality," says Lexie Sachs, Senior Textiles Product Analyst, Good Housekeeping Institute. "In our evaluations, we found the Squall to excel in fabric strength tests, have easy care, and perform well for their intended use."
The Lands' End Squall Parka provides guaranteed protection when winter comes full force, with its waterproof and windproof features. Comfort details include a fleece-lined collar, adjustable interior fleece cuffs and a drawcord waist. The parka includes two pairs of front pockets and an inside vertical pocket for money, keys, phone, and cold hands. The parka features ThermaCheck®-300 antistatic fleece lining that resists shocks and lint in the top half and in the hood. The Lands' End Squall Parka is available in Women's (sizes regular, petite, tall, plus and petite plus), Men's (sizes regular and tall), and Girls' and Boys' from toddler to big kid sizes.
About Lands' End
Lands' End, Inc. (NASDAQ: LE) is a leading multi-channel retailer of casual clothing, accessories, footwear and home products. We offer products through catalogs, online at www.landsend.com, www.canvasbylandsend.com and affiliated specialty and international websites, and through retail locations, primarily at Lands' End Shops at Sears® and standalone Lands' End Stores. We are a classic American lifestyle brand with a passion for quality, legendary service and real value, and seek to deliver timeless style for men, women, kids and the home.
About Good Housekeeping:
Celebrating 130 years, Good Housekeeping (goodhousekeeping.com) is a leading lifestyle media brand inspiring a monthly audience of 30+ million readers to discover genius innovations, delicious ideas, style-savvy trends, compelling news and best-in-class products for their homes, families and themselves. The Good Housekeeping Institute's state-of-the-art labs combined with Good Housekeeping's seasoned editorial talent is unparalleled. Staffed by top engineers, scientists and technology experts, the GH Institute tests and evaluates thousands of products each year for the magazine, website and for the Good Housekeeping Seal and the Green Good Housekeeping Seal, which are among the most recognized and trusted consumer icons in the world today. Good Housekeeping, which also has five international editions, is published by Hearst Magazines, a unit of Hearst, one of the nation's largest diversified media, information and services companies. With 21 titles in the U.S., Hearst is the leading publisher of monthly magazines in terms of total paid circulation, and reaches 79.5 million readers and 68 million unique site visitors each month (comScore). Follow Good Housekeeping on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and on the Inside the Institute blog. Follow Jane Francisco on Twitter and Instagram.
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SOURCE Lands' End, Inc.
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http://www.landsend.com/Now that the secret's out about billionaire Elon Musk's Hyperloop high-speed transit system, experts are assessing whether anyone could actually build the darn thing.
On one hand, there are enthusiastic fans such as John Gardi, the self-described "tinker" who figured out much of the plan before Monday's big reveal.
"Not only did Elon Musk devise a brilliant technology that was better than any of us dreamed for, it was such a good design that it brings Hyperloop right into the realm of familiarity," Gardi says in an article for the Motherboard blog.
On the other hand, there are critical reports that seem to claim that the Hyperloop — with its elevated, low-air-pressure travel tubes, its fan-equipped passenger pods and its magnetic rail-gun propulsion system — won't work.
When you look at those reports more closely, it turns out that the critics aren't really saying it won't work — just that the technical challenges could be so high that alternatives start to look more attractive. For example, in his Forbes commentary, Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute says autonomous vehicles will basically render high-speed transit obsolete.
"I’ve no doubt that the Hyperloop could be built and could be made to work," he writes. "What I don’t believe is that it will be worth doing: for the purely economic reason that time spent traveling is no longer unproductive time. Thus the value of high-speed travel has fallen."
There have been questions about some of the technical points of the plan: Can the route really be made straight enough and flat enough to sustain 700 mph-plus travel? Can the pods shed enough of the heat generated by high-speed tube travel to keep the passengers from cooking? Can the pylons stand up to the stresses of California's winds and quakes? How vulnerable would the system be to sabotage?
This map shows the proposed Hyperloop route between San Francisco and Los Angeles, plus potential branch lines to Sacramento, Fresno, San Diego and Las Vegas. Elon Musk / Google Maps
Costs in California
But the weightiest criticism has to do with the cost: Musk and his Hyperloop teammates figure that the system can be built for $6 billion — less than a tenth of the current estimated cost of $68 billion for California's high-speed rail project, which is just beginning to get off the ground. Musk said he was motivated to come up with the Hyperloop concept because that project seemed so expensive, slow and unimaginative.
"Was Elon Musk's mega-announcement really just a last-ditch attempt to sabotage the California High Speed Rail project, rather than a serious proposal to revolution[ize] travel?" James Sinclair writes on the Stop and Move blog. "Something smells very fishy...."
Sinclair proceeds to list the things that Musk's plan leaves out. For instance, the mapped route doesn't quite go all the way to Los Angeles, and it assumes that there'd be a new way to get across San Francisco Bay. Musk's price estimate also allocates only $1 billion for land acquisition and rights of way, primarily because he assumes that the tubes can be placed next to Interstate 5.
"Of course, you'd still need to get Caltrans to sell its own right of way alongside or in the middle of Interstate 5, which is not going to be easy or free.... Neighbors will not support an above-ground transportation infrastructure. And it's a lot more difficult to claim you'll just use freeway right of way, since the overpasses and other nearby structures are a much greater constraint on an aerial structure," Robert Cruickshank writes on the California High Speed Rail Blog.
Even if the Hyperloop works as advertised, it wouldn't solve California's future transportation crunch, Cruickshank says: "7.4 million people per year is fine. But the HSR [high-speed rail] system will carry as many as 117 million people per year. That’s an enormous difference. As California grows and as the price of oil soars, California needs a transportation system that can move not just a few million a year, but hundreds of millions a year. HSR can do that. The Hyperloop can’t."
The main theme of the criticism is that Musk's $6 billion estimate seems to be wildly low. Dan Richard, chairman of California's High Speed Rail Authority, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the tubes alone would probably cost $15 billion to $20 billion. Also, the political resistance to Hyperloop construction might well be on a par with the resistance to high-speed rail construction.
"While we have a lot of respect for his inventiveness, I think we could tell him a few things about the realities of building in California," Richard told the Chronicle.
Who will build it?
There's been no huge surge of support from political quarters for Musk's plan. That's only to be expected just one day after the big reveal, but it does raise questions about how far the Hyperloop will get. Sinclair's scenario suggests that the Hyperloop could end up being used as nothing more than a weapon to fight high-speed rail — and he's not the only one who feels that way.
"I worry that more fully baked transportation projects might be put on hold in hopes that Musk's still-fictional idea works out," The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal writes. "Musk's proposal, because of who Musk is, could serve as a poison dart for California's high-speed rail, and then nothing comes of it, leaving the state with an outdated passenger rail network and no Hyperloop to make up for it."
Perhaps that's why Musk changed his mind on whether or not to make a start on the Hyperloop himself: Until Monday, he said that he would leave the execution of his idea to others. But after revealing the plan, Musk told reporters that he might set up a company to build a subscale Hyperloop prototype on private land, just to show that the technical challenges can be solved.
"I'm not trying to make a ton of money on this," he said, "but I would like to see it come to fruition. And I think it might help if I did this demonstration article. I think I probably will do that, actually."
For now, the Hyperloop is an open-source concept, available to anyone who wants to capitalize on the idea. But in the end, it may turn out that the one person who can turn Elon Musk's vision into a reality is... Elon Musk.
More about the future of transportation:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding +Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.Merkel attends the first Bundestag session since the collapse of government coalition talks on November 21 | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Germany’s SPD sets out conditions for joining Merkel in government Social Democrat leaders called on chancellor’s conservatives to ‘build trust’ before potential talks.
Germany's Social Democrats have started to lay out their demands for partnering with Angela Merkel's conservative party after backing off their refusal to enter into a coalition with her government, German media reported Sunday.
The SPD is considering reprising its role of the past four years as a junior partner in the government or supporting a minority administration. Talks to establish a three-way coalition between Merkel's conservative bloc, the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats collapsed a week ago.
Speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the Social Democrats' secretary for family affairs, Elke Ferner, called on Merkel's conservative bloc to reconsider social policies it had blocked in a previous coalition agreement, including a tax-financed supplementary pension for people with low pension entitlement, as a way to "build trust" between the parties.
SPD Deputy Chair Karl Lauterbach implied that the abolition of private health insurance would be a prerequisite for negotiations, saying if Merkel's conservative alliance doesn't move on the issue "we have no chance of preventing new elections."
"We'll see if [Merkel's conservative alliance] is ready to move in the direction of a fair country," he said.
Migration and refugee policies are also a major sticking point, according to party deputy Ralf Stegner. The SPD, he said, could not get on board with the upper limit on refugee arrivals Merkel's Christian Democrats agreed with their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
"An upper limit on refugees still goes against the constitution and the Geneva Refugee Convention," Stegner told the Funke media group. "That's why the SPD won't agree to an additional limit on the right to family reunification."
The party's leader in Rhineland Pfalz, Alexander Schweitzer, also laid out several demands, calling for more investment in education, housing and broadband, as well as relief to indebted communities. He also set serious debate over public insurance as a pre-condition for coalition talks, die Welt reported.
"If the government doesn't change course here, we can spare ourselves any further discussions," Schweitzer said, adding that a new grand coalition between the CDU and SPD was currently still "out of reach."
"Merkel is not in a position to make demands," cautioned SPD politician Malu Dreyer.
Also on Sunday, CSU chief Horst Seehofer told Bild am Sonntag a new coalition with the SPD "is the best option for Germany."
The Bavarian party's leader said he welcomed the Social Democrats' willingness to consider joining Merkel's government, but warned against setting too many red lines ahead of negotiations. "There cannot be a grand coalition at any price," he said.GARTH BROOKS CELEBRATED
THE FIVE MILLIONTH TICKET SOLD ON
THE GARTH BROOKS WORLD TOUR
with
TRISHA YEARWOOD
AND NINE SOLD OUT CONCERTS
LAST NIGHT AT ROGERS PLACE
IN EDMONTON, AB
LOS ANGELES- February 25th, 2017- Garth Brooks celebrated the five millionth ticket sold on The Garth Brooks World Tour with Trisha Yearwood and nine sold out concerts last night at Rogers Place in Edmonton, AB. On the 1996-1998 tour the five millionth ticket was in College Station, TX during November 19 – 22, 1998 at Reed Arena. It was the 100th city on the tour. This time, it has only taken 60 cities. The tour is presented by Amazon Music Unlimited.
Twitter fans had #Garth5Million trending, sharing their Garth memories and concert highlights. Garth himself posted a video on Facebook just before going to greet the five millionth ticket holder.
The surprise presentation began as Trisha interrupted her own set to invite up Jared Smith, President of Ticketmaster and Michael Evans, President of Arenas for Live Nation. They presented Garth with a commemorative plaque honoring the five million tickets sold in 100 cities during the 1996-1998 world tour but they then presented Garth with a second plaque honoring the five millionth ticket sold in just 60 cities during the current tour. Garth Brooks and Ticketmaster have been working together for more than twenty years to ensure tickets get into the hands of real fans.
As Garth tried to leave the stage so Trisha could finish her set, Trisha stopped him and invited up Bob Nicholson, Oilers Entertainment Group CEO & Vice Chair and Susan Darrington, General Manager of Rogers Place. They ascended the stage to unveil a new banner hanging from the rafters, celebrating the five millionth ticket sold and nine sold out concerts played at the new Rogers Place in Edmonton. The banner will hang alongside the championship banners of the Edmonton Oilers and Edmonton Oil Kings.
Garth tried to leave again but Trisha stopped him one more time for a very special video message from Wayne Gretzky that played on the big screen. What followed was roaring applause as Garth took in the newly hung banner.
View Wayne Gretzky’s video HERE.
See video of the entire presentation HERE.Background (for those who don't know):
E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Ridiculous, right? How bad is it...
“I oppose this bill but love the appropriate balance it gives to monopolistic biologics”
Joe Wilson
I have criticized many of the provisions of this bill (H.R. 3962) and rightfully so. But in fairness, I do believe the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Jerry Moran
Mr. Speaker, after reviewing H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, listening to the concerns of Kansans, and visiting Kansas hospitals to speak with doctors, nurses, patients, and administrators, I have concluded that this bill will be harmful to Kansas and I strongly oppose it. However, I do believe the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to patients without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Kay Granger
Mr. Speaker, I have criticized the majority of the provisions in H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and I will vote against it. However, I am pleased that H.R. 3962, as well as the Republican Substitute Amendment that I support, both include language relating to biosimilar products.
Lee Terry
Mr. Speaker, I have criticized many of the provisions of this bill and rightfully so. But in fairness, I do believe the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Ted Poe
I am strongly against H.R. 3962, and I will vote against it should it come to a vote on the House floor. However, I do believe the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Blaine Luetkemeyer
Mr. Speaker, I have criticized many of the provisions of this bill and rightfully so. However, one bi-partisan area that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower-cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country that is included in both the underlying bill, which I strongly oppose, and the Republican substitute, which I intend to support, are the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products.
Lynn Jenkins
Mr. Speaker, I have criticized many of the provisions of this bill and rightfully so. However, I do believe the sections relating to the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Mike Conaway
Mr. Speaker, I have criticized many of the provisions of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and with good reason. However, I believe that the creation of a market for biosimilar products is one area of the bill that strikes the appropriate balance in providing lower cost options to consumers without destroying a healthy and functioning industry in this country.
Darrell Issa
Despite this bill’s many faults, I support the bill’s language establishing a market for biosimilars which balances the desire to provide cheaper biologics with the need to continue incentivizing investment in research and development.
Kevin McCarthy
These are some of the many concerns I have with H.R. 3962, which is why I instead support the Republican health care alternative. The alternative excludes the unnecessary and burdensome excise tax in H.R. 3962, and also includes a responsible pathway for follow-on biologics by including provisions from the Pathways for Biosimilars Act, which I am a proud cosponsor of. [snip] But we need solutions that strike a balance in reducing health care costs, strengthening health care access, and allowing health innovators, like our biotech industry, to continue to research and improve therapies for patients.
Heath ShulerAn experiment in north Wales lets children – and adults – experience the boundaries of truly free play. Is it madness or a model for the future?
Approaching on a grey, rainy April day, Plas Madoc doesn't look too promising. An estate of 850 houses, seven miles from Wrexham in north Wales, it features high on the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation and has been known locally as Cardboard City and Smack Madoc. There's one shop for all the residents. The leisure centre – a shining light with its "lagoon", climbing wall, squash courts and trampoline – has just shut down because of cuts in funding.
But there is something. If you know your way through the maze, you can find a fenced-off grassy area marked with a sign that reads, "The Land. A Space Full of Possibilities." Go through the gate and your first thought may well be that it's a junkyard. In a space 55m squared, with a brook running through it, you'll see piles of pallets, a tonne of tyres, the odd upside-down boat, wheelbarrows, ladders, fishing nets, various stray hammers (courtesy of Poundland), ropes and punch bags.
Children learn about risk through the freedom to play at the Land
Look again and you may notice that the pallets have been organised into a web of mini walkways with entrances and exits way too small for adults. (It's called the Shanty Town |
gut would tell me that there's something traumatic that happened," Sue Rocca, a marine biologist with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, told CNN. She floated a number of number of possibilities as to what could have killed the animals, including acoustic trauma, but concluded that investigators just don't know yet.
"More investigation needs to be done," she said.
The dolphin deaths in Peru are mark the third set of high-profile strandings in about two months.
In February, 179 dolphins --108 of which were dead -- washed ashore in Cape Cod, in eastern United States, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Marine biologists are still trying to determine the cause of those deaths.
In early March, amateur video taken from a beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, showed more than 30 dolphins on shore. In that instance, all dolphins were safely returned to the sea.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Virginia Beach, Va. - The former Virginia Beach Schools employee who slept with a teenage student has received 60 days for her crimes in Virginia Beach.
Perez was arrested in 2013 after the 15-year-old Renaissance Academy student’s mother went to police after finding out about the affair. It was discovered that Perez slept with the student in both Virginia Beach and Norfolk.
At the time, Perez was employed as an assistant security guard at Renaissance Academy.
In late 2013, Perez pleaded guilty in both cities to two counts of indecent liberties by a custodian.
"I was the adult. I should have known better," said Perez during court Monday morning.
Sentencing in both cities was delayed due to various setbacks and with judges in each city saying they needed more time and information to render a decision.
In Norfolk, Perez was sentenced to two years (one year for each count) in March of 2014. However, the judge laid out a series of conditions that if met within a year, would mean she would not have to serve the sentence.
In early May, a judge found that Perez did meet all the requirements and therefore will serve no jail time for her Norfolk charges.
"I can't wrap my brain around that. She should do two years because she took two years of our lives. It's just ridiculous," says the victim's mother.
Virginia Beach prosecutor Paul Powers said in court Monday that if Perez were a man, the sentence would have been harsher. Powers has been involved in the Perez case since her 2013 arrest.
"I've had cases where it's a female victim but it seems like the sentiment is that the female is taken advantage of... A young lady engaged with someone older," he says. "But it does seem that in this case the sentiment is that a 15-year-old boy can't be taken advantage of by an older woman."
He also says male victims with female perpetrators are less likely to come forward.
"He's still a teenager. And teenagers can be taken advantage of by adults and that's why the law doesn't differentiate based on gender," he says.
The victim is now 18-years-old and has an infant daughter from a different relationship. He has said that has given him something to live for after a dark time dealing with the Perez affair aftermath.
"This has not physically hurt me but mentally is has hurt me a lot," he says.
"There is an aftermath. We may never know how much this has actually affected him. Maybe he can move on with his life now that the case is finally over and have some closure," says Powers.
She is scheduled to begin serving her time in Virginia Beach on May 25th. She must remain a registered sex offender in addition to serving her time.
RELATED:
Former Virginia Beach school employee who slept with teen will serve no jail time for Norfolk crime
Former school employee who slept with teen boy still awaiting sentencing
Psycho-sexual evaluation of Patience Perez may not be used as evidence in Beach sentencing
Teen victim in Virginia Beach sex scandal: ‘She really got in my head and made me think I was the only one’
Teen seduced by school worker: ‘This has basically ruined me’
Sentencing delayed for woman who admitted to smoking pot, having sex with teen
Former Beach school worker who admitted to having sex with teen learns fate
Court Officials: Sentencing for ex-school worker delayed because she had a baby
Norfolk sentencing for former school worker delayed until summer
UPDATE: Perez pleads guilty to indecent liberties charges in Norfolk
Former VB school worker to admit sleeping with teen in two cities
Perez sex charges headed to Norfolk grand jury, murder plot charges dropped for now
Sailor supports wife who allegedly plotted with teen lover to kill him
Former Beach school employee indicted for indecent liberties
Former VB school employee sex charges move forward
Mother of victim in Patience Perez sex scandal wants answers from school
Mother of teen involved in Beach sex scandal: ‘She preyed on my baby’
Former school employee charged with having sex with student granted $50,000 bond in Norfolk
Former school employee facing sex crimes charges appears in court
Criminal complaint: Former school security guard and student had sex ‘multiple times’
Sex, drugs and Facebook at center of former school employee’s affair with teenage boy
Sex offender expert discusses Patience Perez case
Former Beach school security assistant charged with conspiring to murder husband
Virginia Beach school security assistant accused of sexual contact with studentwrites:
THis is NOT true....i Actually work in a Chemist lab and just to test out this theory i had my girl friend with me swabbed her ears tested for bactiria had her listen to headphones for 2 hours swabbed again and there was a 0% increase in Bactirea
--
:
A duck's "quack" doesn't echo because it's resonant/anti-resonant. It is also only a
certain sound that they make that will not echo. The non-echoing sound mentioned is used
for inter-species location, while flying or otherwise. It's true that no one knows why
they would need this ability but it is thought to be a "fluke" of nature. The study of
anti-resonant sound came from the study of mallards. One of the more intriguing aspects of
anti-resonance is the possible use in restaurantes and cars. Restaurantes could use
anti-resonance in private booths to keep them "private". Cars could use anti-resonance to
completely silence the engine. Hope you find this interesting. :)
--
:
An english university has proved that a ducks quack does echo! this was done to persuade
applicants that science isnt all that boring.
--
Me and my 2 sisters can
all lick our elbows...though one can lick only one
of her elblows. (Pictures Attached to Page)
--
today i folded a normal notebook piece of paper in half 8 times!
and im mexikan and that comes to show that we are not stupid and that i can
prove stuff when i disagree!
---------------------------
--- Reply to this note from another visitor (Dan) ---
your origional'saying' that paper can not be folded in half more than 7x is
correct. This applies to a perfect square piece of paper. Notebook paper is
not a perfect square!
So much for "Mexikan's" remark
---------------------------
please post this in the facts thing
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
--
Note: norah" says: great site,i just wanted to write
in and let you know Marilyn Monroe did NOT have six toes. this rumor is totally
false,it started due to lighting and camera angles in a
particular photo. Ms. Monroe had 10 toes perfectly intact. thanks! (o=
--
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being
seen wearing them in public.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
On average people fear spiders more than death.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
--
"Lauren" says:
http://www.indiana.edu/~libweb/campus/libsink.html
it confirms the fact that the indiana university library is NOT sinking...i go
to IU and i know for a fact this is a myth.
--
A snail can sleep for three years.
No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
All polar bears are left handed.
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
"Go," is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
-----------------------
1. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
2. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt"
---
Note From: "mia harms"
"unkempt" is one, pre-empt" (verb form) is another
---
3. Almonds are members of the peach family.
4. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.
5. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
6. Ingrown toenails are hereditary.
7. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.
8. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."
Update from Keith : - UNDERFUND also begins and ends in UND.
9. There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
10. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
11. The only other word with the same amount of letters is its plural: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosesl.
12. The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwe-nuakit natahu, a New Zealand hill.
13. Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reinade los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size,L.A.
14. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
15. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
16. Alfred Hitchcock didn't have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.
17. Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays. (so did Shakespeare, added by Chaise)
18. Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.
19. The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.
21. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
23. There is a seven-letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the,there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
24. Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
26. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. *comment below*
27. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
28. Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.
30. The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
31. 'Stewardesses' is the longest English word that is typed with only the left hand.
33. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways; the following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
34. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
35. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic."
36. Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian seal for that reason.
37. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.
38. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."
39. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
-----
If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have
produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it.)
If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas
s produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it!)
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out
to the body to squirt blood 30 feet...
(O.M.G.!)
A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(In my next life, I want to be a pig.)
A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it
starves to death. (Creepy.)
(I'm still not over the pig.)
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
(Do not try this at home........ maybe at work.)
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its
body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the......?!")
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the
length of a football field.
(30 minutes... lucky pig... can you imagine??)
The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)
Butterflies taste with their feet.
(Something I always wanted to know.)
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm........)
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer
than left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)
Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(OK, so that would be a good thing....)
A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
(I know some people like that.)
Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that too.)
Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer...)
Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for
pleasure.
(What about that pig??)
---
Comment by Dave :
Bonobo chimpanzees are also known to have sex for pleasure. Humans
and Bonobos are, however, the only two species of primates (out of 180 )
that have sex facing each other. It's noteworthy
that we also share over 98% of our genes with Bonobos.
---
-------------------------
*comments*
Daniel Writes:
"Scientists have long since proven that goldfish have quite long memories. They are
capable of learning to use lever systems to release food into the tank, and remember the exact
procedure after not having used it for several days.
This myth is brought about by the belief that goldfish will eat until they die. In actual
fact, what kills the goldfish is excess food rotting in the tank / bowl, which releases
toxic ammonia."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
MORE
-----------------------------------------------------------------
That...
The liquid inside young coconuts
can be used as a substitute for
Blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half
more than seven (7) times.
Donkeys kill more people annually
than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping
than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns
until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code
was Wrigley's gum.
The King of Hearts is the only king
WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987
by eliminating one (1) olive
from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
(Since Venus is normally associated with women,
what does this tell you!)
Apples, not caffeine,
are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
Most dust particles in your house are made from
DEAD SKIN!
The first owner of the Marlboro Company
died of lung cancer.
So did the first "Marlboro Man."
Walt Disney was afraid
OF MICE!
PEARLS MELT
IN VINEGAR!
The three most valuable brand names on earth:
Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...
but, not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo,
and no one knows why.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush
be kept at least six (6) feet away from
a toilet to avoid airborne particles
resulting from the flush.
And the best for last.....
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOWYOU DIDN'T KNOWDid you know...It is impossible to lick your elbow.A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.A shrimp's heart is in its head.In a study of 200,000 ostrichesover a period of 80 years,no one reported a single case wherean ostrich buried its head in the sand.It is physically impossiblefor pigs to look up into the sky.A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.More than 50% of the people in the worldhave never made or received a telephone call.Horses can't vomit.The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick"is said to be the toughest tongue twisterin the English language.If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib.If you try to suppress a sneeze,you can rupture a blood vesselin your head or neck and die.If you keep your eyes open by force,they can pop out.Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months,two rats could have over a million descendants.Wearing headphones for just an hourwill increase the bacteria in your ear by 700times.If the government has no knowledge of aliens,then why does Title 14, Section 1211of the Code of Federal Regulations,implemented on July 16, 1969,make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contactwith extraterrestrials or their vehicles?In every episode of Seinfeldthere is a Superman somewhere.A duck's quack doesn't echo,and no one knows why.23% of all photocopier faults worldwideare caused by people sitting on themand photocopying their butts.Most lipstick contains fish scales.Like fingerprints,everyone's tongue print is different.Over 75% of people who read thiswill try to lick their elbow.------And You Thought YOU Knew EVERYTHING.Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoidairborne particles resulting from the flush.The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.--- Note from a visitor ---A wave of turmoil is sweeping through sovereign bond markets, setting off the most dramatic gyrations seen in recent years and threatening to spill over into over-heated equity markets.
Yields on German 10-year Bunds spiked violently by almost 20 basis points to 0.78pc in early trading on Thursday as funds scrambled to unwind the so-called “QE trade” in Europe, with powerful ripple effects reaching Japan, Australia, Brazil and even US Treasuries.
“It is absolute pandemonium in the fixed income markets,” said Andrew Roberts, head of European credit at RBS. “Everybody has been trying to get out of long-duration positions at the same time but the door is getting smaller.”
German yields fell back just as fast to 0.58pc later, as bargain-hunters came back into the European debt markets, but are still unrecognisable from the historic lows of 0.07pc two weeks ago.
Ructions of this magnitude are extremely rare in government bond markets. Investors are nursing almost half a trillion dollars in paper losses in two weeks, a staggering sum in what is supposed to be a rock-solid repository for institutional investors.
The Great Bunds Sell-Off
Date Last Price 07/05/2015 0.589 06/05/2015 0.585 05/05/2015 0.514 04/05/2015 0.452 30/04/2015 0.364 29/04/2015 0.284 28/04/2015 0.162 27/04/2015 0.161 24/04/2015 0.154 23/04/2015 0.164 22/04/2015 0.164 21/04/2015 0.1 20/04/2015 0.074 17/04/2015 0.077 16/04/2015 0.084 15/04/2015 0.106 14/04/2015 0.137 13/04/2015 0.156 10/04/2015 0.154 09/04/2015 0.159 08/04/2015 0.162 07/04/2015 0.185 02/04/2015 0.193 01/04/2015 0.166 31/03/2015 0.18 30/03/2015 0.205 27/03/2015 0.206 26/03/2015 0.214 25/03/2015 0.219 24/03/2015 0.235 23/03/2015 0.223 20/03/2015 0.183 19/03/2015 0.186 18/03/2015 0.196 17/03/2015 0.281 16/03/2015 0.278 13/03/2015 0.256 12/03/2015 0.247 11/03/2015 0.208 10/03/2015 0.233 09/03/2015 0.311 06/03/2015 0.393 05/03/2015 0.347 04/03/2015 0.382 03/03/2015 0.361 02/03/2015 0.355 27/02/2015 0.327 26/02/2015 0.297 25/02/2015 0.324 24/02/2015 0.374 23/02/2015 0.364 20/02/2015 0.365 19/02/2015 0.379 18/02/2015 0.38 17/02/2015 0.37 16/02/2015 0.333 13/02/2015 0.341 12/02/2015 0.318 11/02/2015 0.354 10/02/2015 0.369 09/02/2015 0.354 06/02/2015 0.374 05/02/2015 0.365 04/02/2015 0.365 03/02/2015 0.344 02/02/2015 0.312 30/01/2015 0.302 29/01/2015 0.358 28/01/2015 0.352 27/01/2015 0.381 26/01/2015 0.394 23/01/2015 0.361 22/01/2015 0.446 21/01/2015 0.523 20/01/2015 0.448 19/01/2015 0.439 16/01/2015 0.452 15/01/2015 0.473 14/01/2015 0.423 13/01/2015 0.476 12/01/2015 0.478 09/01/2015 0.491 08/01/2015 0.509 07/01/2015 0.483 06/01/2015 0.445 05/01/2015 0.517 02/01/2015 0.497 31/12/2014 0.538 30/12/2014 0.539 29/12/2014 0.543 24/12/2014 0.587 23/12/2014 0.591 22/12/2014 0.6 19/12/2014 0.592 18/12/2014 0.616 17/12/2014 0.591 16/12/2014 0.595 15/12/2014 0.622 12/12/2014 0.623 11/12/2014 0.676 10/12/2014 0.68 09/12/2014 0.685 08/12/2014 0.712 05/12/2014 0.78 04/12/2014 0.772 03/12/2014 0.747 02/12/2014 0.741 01/12/2014 0.727 28/11/2014 0.7 27/11/2014 0.7 26/11/2014 0.735 25/11/2014 0.747 24/11/2014 0.78 21/11/2014 0.769 20/11/2014 0.798 19/11/2014 0.848 18/11/2014 0.796 17/11/2014 0.801 14/11/2014 0.784 13/11/2014 0.798 12/11/2014 0.809 11/11/2014 0.826 10/11/2014 0.834
French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese bonds have all sold off sharply over the past two weeks, obliterating the gains in yield compression since the European Central Bank unveiled a bond purchase programme of €60bn a month in January.
“Anything over-populated is being cleared out. People got too exuberant and they’re coming back to reality,” said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC.
Peter Schaffrik, at RBC Capital Markets, said rising yields can be a healthy development if the global economy is picking up speed. It is a different matter if they suddenly jump at a time of sluggish growth and disappointing figures in the US.
“It is potentially dangerous. What worries me is that we don’t have a good macro-economic back-drop driving yields higher. We don’t see a reflationary recovery,” he said.
Real interest rates in Italy are rising fast
Investors already face a changed world from early April, when deflation was still on everybody’s lips and Mexico was able to sell €1.5bn of 100-year bonds at a rate of 4.2pc.
The worm turned two weeks later when bond king Bill Gross, at Janus Capital, declared that Bunds had become unhinged and were the “short of a lifetime”, quickly followed by warnings from Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett that bonds were “very overvalued”.
The sharp moves have been exacerbated by a lack of liquidity as traditional dealers withdraw from the market to comply with stricter rules. The Institute of International Finance said this week that thin liquidity had become the top issue in talks with central banks and regulators. It said the new rules amounted to a “dramatic revolution” that had re-engineered the global financial system and pushed risk out into the shadows, storing up outcomes that are likely to be “pretty painful and certainly unknowable”.
Global bourses have so far shrugged off the bond market crash but this may be untenable over time and there are already signs of jitters as the spring rally runs out of steam. Equity prices and bond yields tend to feed off each other, though the relationship is not always mechanical and there can be lags.
Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, issued an implicit warning that Wall Street has got ahead of itself and may be vulnerable to monetary tightening. Markets have priced in a far slower pace of rate rises over the next 18 months than the Fed itself.
“Equity market valuations at this point are generally quite high. They are not so high when you compare the returns on equities to the returns on safe assets like bonds, which are also very low. But the potential dangers are there,” she said.
Confusion now reigns in financial markets. Brent oil prices have surged by more than 30pc since January to $67 a barrel and copper has risen in lockstep, normally a sign that the global economy is coming back to life and that inflation will follow in short order. The broad M3 money supply has been growing at a brisk rate on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching an annual rate of 7pc in the eurozone over the past six months.
Yet closely-tracked indicators for inflation expectations - such as the “5/year 5/year forward rate” - remain depressed, especially in Europe. “There is no global reflation story. If I were able to find it I’d be doing cartwheels down the dealing floor but it is not there,” said Mr Bloom at HSBC.
Investors piled into EMU sovereign debt late last year and in early 2015 in the belief that the ECB’s bond blitz would soak up the available supply, leading to a scarcity. Bunds became the favourite trade as the German government prepared a budget surplus of 0.5pc of GDP this year, eliminating roughly €18bn of existing bonds.
This degenerated into a momentum trade. German yields continued dropping below zero as far out as eight years maturity, even as the deflation scare abated and Europe began to eke out modest growth. “We are seeing the unwinding of an enormous bull rally in the bond markets,” said Anthony O’Brien, at Morgan Stanley.
“There was some complacency and a lot of lazy longs and bond prices have tumbled, but we don’t think this is enough to snuff out recovery."
Barclays said the moves in the Bund market threaten to repeat events in Japan in 2003, when 10-year Japanese yields rose 110 basis points in six months after touching unprecedented lows on deflation fears. Investors were left nursing paper losses of 8pc, but the shock was not enough to derail economic recovery.
Mr Roberts, at RBS, said the bond rout is likely to short-circuit once it becomes clear that the world economy is not out of the woods and that China’s leaders will continue to engineer a deliberate slowdown.
All the forces that combined to fuel the eurozone recovery are already slowing or in reverse. “Oil is up, the euro is up, rates are going up in Germany and the core, and spreads in the periphery are rising. This is absolutely terrible for the eurozone,” he said.
“There is going to be a monumental trade getting back into Bunds. All we are waiting for is a technical trigger,” he said.A top Chinese banker said Beijing is “fully prepared” for a currency war as he urged the world to abide by a consensus reached by the G20 to avert confrontation, state media reported Saturday.
Yi Gang, deputy governor of China’s central bank, issued the call after G20 finance ministers last month moved to calm fears of a looming war on the currency markets at a meeting in Moscow.
Those fears have largely been fuelled by the recent steep decline in the Japanese yen, which critics have accused Tokyo of manipulating to give its manufacturers a competitive edge in key export markets over Asian rivals.
Yi said a currency war could be avoided if major countries observed the G20 consensus that monetary policy should primarily serve as a tool for domestic economy, the Xinhua report said.
But China “is fully prepared”, he added.
“In terms of both monetary policies and other mechanism arrangement, China will take into full account the quantitative easing policies implemented by central banks of foreign countries.”
South Korea’s incoming president Park Geun-Hye has also signalled her willingness to step in to stabilise the won and protect exporters battling a stronger Korean currency and a weaker yen.FARGO -- Upon further review, the NCAA will allow teams to show their normal pregame introductory videos for the remainder of the Division I FCS playoffs.
Earlier this week, the NCAA sent out a memo that clarified its position of not allowing host teams from showing their normal regular-season videoboard content, including team introduction videos.
North Dakota State fans have become accustomed to watching their team take the field to an entrance video set to the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck.” The video is about one minute long and precedes the Bison coming onto the Gate City Bank Field turf at the Fargodome.
“It’s a relief,” said Justin Swanson, NDSU’s assistant director of athletics for marketing and fan engagement. “Most importantly though, we think of our fans, it’s such an important part of the game-day experience. It’s something they look forward to.”
Many NDSU fans voiced their displeasure on social media this week after they heard the entrance video wouldn’t be played on Saturday, Dec. 10, for the FCS quarterfinals against South Dakota State at the Fargodome.
“It was the talk,” Swanson said. “I think they were disappointed whether it was a hardcore season-ticket holder or a casual observer.”
If the host team shows its entrance video, the visiting team will also be provided the opportunity to show its standard video, too, according to the NCAA release. Swanson said SDSU “respectfully” declined to have its video play for Saturday’s game.
If NDSU wasn’t allowed to play its entrance video, Swanson said the plan was the use the “Thunderstruck” audio along with live shots from the Fargodome. For example, having a camera fixed on the NDSU’s locker room door until the team came out or cutting away to shots of the national championship banner.
“Our fans are outstanding,” Swanson said. “We knew they would have made the atmosphere tremendous, intro video or not.
The Bison will also play their customary hype video that ends moments before the entrance video starts. The hype video is generally around two minutes long and usually shows highlights from earlier in the season or past seasons.
“At the end of the day, (we’re) happy the NCAA changed their decision and they’re allowing schools to play the videos,” Swanson said.
The NCAA released the following statement Wednesday, Dec. 7:
“The NCAA desires to have a great atmosphere to create a positive experience for the student-athletes, coaches, and fans in attendance at all rounds of the 2016 NCAA Division I Football Championship. After considerable discussion and feedback from the membership |
he was. I recall that somehow in the moments of the inaugural party, moving about, I saw him. I encountered him that day, and he was crying. He expressed gratitude for having been here.
When I met him in the lounge in San Francisco recently, his first words were: "I've retired now. I'm living in Montana." Then he wanted to tell me about a bishop of the Church that he had met. So of all the things that he would remember about me, he remembered the feelings of the gospel of Jesus Christ that he'd felt. He has not joined the Church yet, but he felt something here that you've felt. And I wanted you to know that as much as we thank the singers and those who prepared the music, what happened here today has been happening here for generations. That is, the Spirit of the Lord comes and touches people; and you've been in such a place and in such a moment today. You will years later, just like the dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, remember that there was a spirit here today.
Now the other thing I was impressed with is that you were asked to raise your scriptures. I felt as you did that to make a promise to you that I know will be fulfilled because it has been fulfilled for me in the last few days. We live in a time of increasing difficulty and change. Many of us have felt some things that led us to the scriptures. In the last few days, I have found things I had never seen there before because, in my extremity, the Lord showed me things that He had prepared long ago to help me. I'll make you a promise: If you will, in the next few hours and days, go to the scriptures, you will, as you read them (pick them anywhere that you're led to read) see scriptures speaking to you as if it was the voice of God, as if He knew your needs and your concerns; and He will tailor that to you, and it will be a witness to you that He knows you and that in that set of scriptures that you lifted above your head is a means by which He can guide you and comfort you. I promise you, you'll have that experience—and it will be very personal—in the next few days.
Now, in the past few days our world changed. We were forced to look into the face of terrorism, not in a work of fiction or through television news clips of another nation. We saw it in our own land. That has brought anxiety and it will force changes in our lives. Some of the changes will be small. For instance, I drove to Rexburg this morning because I could attend more of a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles than if I spent two hours clearing security at the airport. Some changes will be larger. Those in the National Guard and the Reserves may be called away from their families and their normal lives.
I have a son and his wife who live with their six children in a country where there are personal risks. Those risks may now increase. His career depends on taking a series of international assignments. Should he change careers? What should he teach his children about risks and fear? We have two other sons, both former students at Ricks College, who work in an industry already hard-pressed by a faltering economy. They live in Boston. They flew the very flights that were involved in the tragedy this last week often, but by the blessing of heaven were at home on that day. Now there is a possibility that what happened in New York and Washington will further depress the economy and the capital markets. What changes should they consider? What should they teach their children about the future and uncertainty?
Each of us finds ourselves asking: "What other parts of my world that I thought were stable have now become uncertain?" No wonder that you and I have heard and read so often in the last few days "everything has changed." But at least two things will help us take courage and find direction.
First, change is part of life. For instance, growing up and growing older are adventures in change filled with uncertainties and surprises. And second, God, through prophets, prepared us to expect changes to accelerate in the world. Do you remember the words from section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 26-27:
"And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men's hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. "And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound."
Although we face an increase in challenges, there is another change sweeping the earth. It is a flood of opportunity. The steady flow of invention is an example. A generation ago there were no small computers. But now university campuses connect them with fiber-optic cable, and that cable may be replaced soon by wireless technologies. There are now tens of thousands of people taking BYU courses through Web technology. There was no Web a few years ago. The cell phones, which figured so touchingly in the tragedies of last week, did not exist a generation ago. The list of powerful and helpful new technological miracles goes on and on, and the rate of innovation is accelerating. We will live for better or for worse with rapid change and the uncertainty it brings. You and I want to make that change work for the better for us and not for the worse. We could learn much of how to do that from what has been done at this school in the last year. The people here have set an example for us worthy of our support and our emulation.
Now I move away from my text for a moment. I've written this out because I wanted to be sure that I had the opportunity to share it in advance with President Hinckley—which I did—but I have felt at this moment that I needed to move away from that to speak to you so that you'd be sure to understand what this means for you.
This is a world of change. Both the increase of difficulty (and that's coming—the scriptures make that clear and the prophets have made that clear) and the increase of opportunities will bring tremendous change. What I intend to do is to describe to you the miraculous way in which this institution has done what you must do. I need to be very clear, and here it is.
Most of you, with caring parents, have at least once or twice as you left the house heard these words, "Remember who you are." Some of you remember hearing it with pain. "Oh, Mother. There you go again." Or, "Oh, there's Dad acting like a dad again." Remember who you are.
What I'd like to suggest to you is that they were telling you the right thing, but it assumed you had asked and answered a question correctly to know who you really are. Now think of the difficulty. One of the reasons it didn't work for some of you, by the way, is that you went out and did dumb things remembering who you were because you remembered "I know who I am. I'm a crazy, mixed-up teenager, still trying to figure out who I am; and I remember, yeah, I remember who I am." And of course, then it doesn't work very well, does it? If you remembered "Oh, yeah. I'm the captain of the football team," or the basketball team, or something else, it might have helped a little bit. Or "I'm an example to my brothers and sisters." I don't know what it was, but I'll just tell you this-answering that question well and wisely will determine whether or not [you progress] in a world where you must make changes (some because there are opportunities you will have taken advantage of, some just in the course of life, some because of difficulties-many reasons). You're going to change tremendously and the world around you is going to change. The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to change you so that you're not trying to resist change. You're trying to have change take you where the Lord wants you to go. How you answer the question of who you are will determine almost everything.
What I will now read to you, carefully prepared and seen by the prophet of God, is a description of the process that this institution has gone through and why the way they have done it has led the Lord to tell them who they are in such a way that even though they change, the part of them that God would have stay the same will stay the same. Now, I just have to quickly say that each of you, individually, has had messages sent to you throughout your life, just as this institution has had messages sent to it about what the Lord sees as special and distinct.
I had the experience, as a young boy growing up in New Jersey, of reading the scriptures in school, before the Constitution was interpreted to say that was illegal. So, in the Princeton Township School they used to have, every day, a student pick a scripture to read. And every time I was ever asked, I always read the same scripture. The poor kids in the class had to listen to it over and over again when my turn came because, for some reason, I had been told, "This is for you; this is about you." And so every thirty days, or however many students there were, my turn would come and I would read from chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians the same verse: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind;... charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up" (1 Corinthians 13:4).
That is a beautiful description of Paul. And I had been told as a little boy, "This is about you. And this is about the good life you will sometime have in a family." Now, this was when I was a little, little boy. I was thinking about the New York Yankees, not about a family.
Years later a patriarch put his hands on my head. Gascoe Romney (the grandfather, by the way, of Mitt Romney, who's the one running things in our Olympic efforts in Utah) put his hands on my head and gave me a blessing. He didn't know me. He had no way to know about that scripture. He described to me the home that I might someday have exactly as I had seen it every time I heard that scripture as a little boy. And so I am eyewitness that God is speaking to you. He really is. He knows who you are—each of you distinct, each of you with some possibilities of great contribution and a good life—and He is trying always to tell you who you are.
What I will now describe, as I return to this text, is the miraculous thing that has happened here—where the Lord has guided this institution and will guide it in such a way that although there will be tremendous change, the personal deep and spiritual characteristics of the place will not only not be lost, they will be enhanced. Here they were forced to learn about rapid change.
Fifteen months ago, without warning, they were told that the two-year Ricks College was to become the four-year BYU-Idaho. What they have done since then is miraculous, and it is a two-fold miracle.
First, there is the miracle in how much they have done. In those fifteen months they created a detailed plan, hired new faculty, received conditional accreditation status which could have taken years, and then launched this venture, BYU-Idaho. And change will not end. The phrase "rethinking education" is not to be only a slogan for the transformation from a two- to four-year status, the school is to be a place of educational innovation—permanently.
The second part of the miracle is the way they have made the changes. The people who serve here have found a way to make changes—great and rapid changes—that will enhance, not replace, the best of what the school has always been. Because of that, I can with confidence make you a promise. When you return in some distant future, you will find great innovation has become commonplace, and yet, amidst all the changes, the school will have retained and enriched the basic characteristics that blessed your life.
Let me tell you how that has happened in the last fifteen months and why I am so confident that it will continue. It is worth your hearing because it could be applied in our personal lives. Each of us wants to live in a world of change where our personal reaction to it is not only productive but where it enhances the best of what we are. We could begin where those who lead the school did. They took the words of living prophets as their guide.
President Hinckley chairs the Board of Trustees. On June 21 in the year 2000, he read a brief announcement to the media in Salt Lake City. The text is less than a single page. It has only twenty-one sentences in it, yet in the faithful way the people here followed that guide lays the basis of my optimism about the future.
One of the shortest sentences in the announcement is this one: "Adjustments to its mission will be minimal." Now, think for a moment of the rush of pride that might come into a human heart on being told your two-year college was to become a "university," and not an obscure university.
The announcement read: "The new four-year school will be known as Brigham Young University-Idaho, with the name change designed to give the school immediate national and international recognition." That could tempt, in fact it would tempt, most people to make a minimal adjustment in the mission of the school to look more like the secular schools whose praise we might want. But the mission statement submitted to the accreditation agency in the plan entitled, "Substantive Change Prospectus for the Addition of Degree Programs at a Higher Level" was not changed at all. These could be the words of President Thomas E. Ricks or Principal Jacob Spori or any of the leaders from the beginning.
The first goal, stated boldly and plainly in the prospectus, is to "build testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to encourage living its principles." That choice to put the Savior and His purposes first is the primary basis of my confidence in the future.
Every innovation, every change, will be measured against this test of the heart. How would this proposed change build testimony and true conversion to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in the heart of a student? True conversion comes by gaining sufficient faith to live the principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Some potential and proposed innovations will help that to happen. There will be other innovations proposed that would be less helpful or might even hinder. The cumulative effect of change here will be to build testimony and accelerate true conversion.
Another effect of that goal will be to bring here only teachers who have the Savior and His goal in their hearts. That choice to put the Savior at the center led to the other key choices made in the transition and will assure that those choices will endure. For instance, President Hinckley said in the announcement:
"BYU-Idaho will continue to be teaching oriented. Effective teaching and advising will be the primary responsibilities of its faculty, who are committed to academic excellence. "The institution will emphasize undergraduate education and will award baccalaureate degrees; graduate degree programs will not be offered. Faculty rank will not be a part of the academic structure of the new four-year institution."
Only people who put the Savior first and take His life as their model could do that, since it is so foreign to so much of what goes on in universities. There are good people who think that it's impossible to have academic excellence without, in time, adding graduate programs. And most faculties so treasure the marks of personal status that they would be puzzled by a university without faculty rank. But there will be outstanding undergraduate education, even with those apparent paradoxes.
President Hinckley, in the press conference after his announcement, said, "It will be just as good a teaching institution as we can make it." That will happen because the Savior is and will be the great exemplar. He was a teacher. His work and glory was to lift others. He taught His disciples not to set themselves as being better than others, but to be the servants of all. Only a faculty who believe those things could see a blessing in serving without academic rank. Only a faculty with hearts set on the Savior could believe that they could keep growing as teachers in their changing and challenging fields without graduate programs. Only those with faith that the Savior will help them would respond with enthusiasm to President Bednar's vision of the future for this faculty:
"In my mind the overarching theme for all of our scholarly work at Brigham Young University-Idaho should be inspired inquiry and innovation. Let me repeat that: inspired inquiry and innovation. We are not like other institutions of higher education; we have access to the gifts of the Spirit, which cannot be quantified nor counted. There are simply things we cannot adequately define and describe about the process of teaching with the Spirit. But, nonetheless, we should be excellent scholars, and our scholarship should be focused on the processes of learning and teaching. We will not be a recognized and highly regarded research institution in the traditional sense of that term. We will, however, emphasize a wide range of scholarly endeavors and excel in and play a pioneering role in understanding learning and teaching processes with faith and hard work, and in the process of time."
That pioneering role as a leader in understanding learning and teaching will come to pass. I, as a servant of Jesus Christ, testify to you that I know that will happen. Even with these apparently humble and even paradoxical standards of what we will be and who we will be, that miracle will occur and this institution, in the world, will become a place that people know of because of the insights that will come as we come to understand the teaching and learning process here. I so testify.
The school will enhance another of its characteristics which will carry it safely through turbulent times, and it will come from showing students by example how to live with great faith. That characteristic is frugality. Listen again to the words of President Bednar speaking to the faculty and staff during this time of change:
"There is a responsibility to be prudent in the management of the resources, and there are places where we need to improve. If there is an example of use it up, wear it out, making do, or do without, we are that place. If we ever lost that, we would be in trouble. So we need to be careful what we ask for."
Now those of you who are young don't understand all that was in that statement. I was the president of Ricks College. I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand why the Brethren were always coming to me, the men who lead the Church, when I was the president, saying: "What more can we do for you? What more can we do for you?" I didn't understand that. I now do. They knew this place, and they knew we wouldn't ask. They knew we'd make do. Listen to President Bednar:
"I think, for example of the word Spartanism. All of us who have read Greek history know there are some aspects of Spartan culture that are not noteworthy nor praiseworthy nor of good report."
That was plagiarism from Paul. No, that was plagiarism from the thirteenth Article of Faith. Excuse me; my Primary was limited. We didn't have Primary in New Jersey in the mission field, and I didn't get that.
"There are, however, some things we are to be pursuing. As I define the word Spartanism, it refers to rigorously self-disciplined and self-restrained. That is part of the spirit of Ricks at Brigham Young University-Idaho—simple, frugal, or austere; courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity."
I need to say I read every document I could get my hands on to prepare this for President Hinckley's approval. And I read it worrying. I thought, you know with all the change that's going on there, they're going to lose their way. I want you to know (as a former president of Ricks College, as someone who came here as a young man and tried to find my way, and now as the commissioner of education and as a member of the Quorum of Twelve), I wept as I read the things that President Bednar said to this faculty during his period of time—knowing, first, that he was raised up for this task; but secondly, that the very things the Lord had told me, and told me over and over again, he said in better words than I could have said them, and that's why I am quoting President Bednar so much here in this talk; it is not to flatter him. I want you to know that the Lord revealed to him some things that are true and are permanent and will guide this institution. Now that was the end of the quotation from him. I say this now for myself:
I am not sure where the Spartans got those characteristics, but I know why they are possessed by true disciples of Jesus Christ. Latter-day Saint pioneers came to this place for the Lord. They built this school in their poverty. The first principal, Jacob Spori, housed his family in an unheated grain storage shed in his first winter because that's all they had. The people here have treated all they had as the Lord's and always counted it as enough. And they have used it as if it was the offering of the poorest widow to her Lord and to His Kingdom. Nor have they felt badly treated when the Lord asked them to take less and yet give more. Because of that faithful obedience and sacrifice, I certify the Lord has poured out His Spirit here.
There will be a practical benefit, in turbulent times, from that frugality borne of faith. There will come times when the Lord's prophet will ask us to do more with less. Knowing that will come, we must and will find ways to improve and to innovate that require little or no money. We will depend more upon inspiration and perspiration to make improvements than upon buildings and equipment. Then hard economic times will have little effect on the continuous innovation that will not cease at this school, even in the most difficult times.
The true disciples who have served here have believed that if they were frugal and faithful the Lord will provide enough to do His work. They have rarely deserved the chastening in chapter 6 of the Prophet Joseph Smith's translation of Matthew:
"Why is it that ye murmur among yourselves, saying, We cannot obey thy word because ye have not all these things, and seek to excuse yourselves, saying that, After all these things do the Gentiles seek. "Behold, I say unto you that your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. "Wherefore, seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (JST, Matthew 6:36-38).
President Hinckley expressed confidence that frugality was here and would endure when he said in his announcement: "With some additions and modifications, the physical facilities now in place in Rexburg are adequate to handle the new program. Undoubtedly, some changes to the campus will be necessary. However, they will be modest in nature and scope."
He also said: "Of necessity, the new four-year institution will be assessing and restructuring its academic offerings. Predictably, the school will need to change and eliminate some long-standing and beneficial programs as the school focuses upon key academic disciplines and activities."
Now, President Hinckley has long experience in education—long experience— so he knew how remarkable it was to pay such a tribute to this place. He said there would be focus, not a growth and spread, in the academic offerings. He expected that people would willingly sacrifice what they do best and love most for what the Lord wants even more for our students. He expected that people here would find ways to make the physical space already in place sufficient to do more for more students. Listen to this from his announcement and consider the tribute he was paying with his confidence:
"BYU-Idaho will operate on an expanded year-round basis, incorporating innovative calendaring and scheduling while also taking advantage of advancements in technology which will enable the four-year institution to serve more students."
The expectation is clearly that inspired and frugal people will find ways to bless more students at ever lower cost per student. That has been true at some times in the past. It will be true in the future, whatever the turbulent times ahead will bring. For those characteristics to endure, the students—you and those who follow you—must play a major part. It is their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His restored gospel and their obedience to His commandments that will put Him at the center of the school. Their faith will largely determine whether we learn here by study and also by faith. As we do, we will attain academic excellence. We will not attain academic excellence without that faith of yours as students and those that follow to learn by study and by faith. It is your frugality and their frugality, their willingness to make due with a little less, that will set a tone for the campus. Their sacrifice, your sacrifice, will bring down the blessings of heaven as it always has. The students will learn from example how to keep on a steady upward course in times of great change. They will see leaders and teachers and staff members for whom the Savior and His kingdom are at the center of their lives. From that example, I make a prophecy. Now listen carefully.
From that example they—you—will become life-long teachers in their families, in the Church, and in their work, and they will bless others wherever they go by what they have learned about innovating with scarce resources and treating all they have as if it were the Lord's.
You can imagine the joy of an employer or a Church leader when such a graduate arrives. The graduates will be at personal peace by having kept the commandments. They will be natural leaders who know how to teach and how to learn. They will have the power to innovate and improve without requiring more of what money can buy. Those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become—and this is a prophecy that I am prepared to make and make solemnly—those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become legendary for their capacity to build the people around them and to add value wherever they serve.
Each of us can follow the example we have seen here. We can follow a steady upward course in a world of change without fear, welcoming the opportunities. The way is a simple one, clearly marked. It is to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on that which is unchangeable. We must have an eye of faith fixed on eternal life. That life, the greatest of all the gifts of God, is to live in glory forever in families in the presence of our loving Heavenly Father. It takes a focused eye. Listen. Alma, chapter 5, verse 15:
"Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal [life]?"
For our eyes to be focused on eternal life, we must have unwavering confidence and our hearts fixed on the Savior. He said, in 3 Nephi, chapter 9, verses 14-15:
"Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me. "Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name."
Our hearts, fixed on Him and His work, will keep us on course, however the wind blows. We will follow His prophet. We will see the greatest work of our lives as nurturing others as the Savior did. We will see the potential in others as He sees it. We will treat every resource that comes into our hands as a trust from Him. We will see our victories as a gift from Him and so be proof against pride. We will not fear because we will know we are on His errand.
Now, you young people, I need to commend you and warn you, if I may. A number of you dressed carefully to come to this meeting, not for me but for the Lord. A number of you were quiet at the beginning, not for me or for President Bednar but for the Lord. A number of you in this room, I know, have been praying. I have felt that. One of the joys of coming to Ricks College has always been for me to know that I would go into a room where people of faith would be praying that the Holy Ghost would be poured out. Every time I come, I always have a confirmation that that's happened again. One of the reasons that we can prophesy about the academic excellence that will be here is you will do that same thing in classes. And those that follow you will do it in classes. You will do it in the evenings. You'll pray for the blessings of heaven to come down upon your teachers. You'll pray that you'll be taught by the Holy Spirit. The prayer that I've felt in this room is one of the things that has made this institution worthy of the trust that has been given it by the prophet of God. I want you to know that, that I know that about you.
Now, in addition, I would suggest this: The very fact that you dress nicely, I understand, at least is partly true because somebody may have said something to you. One of your friends may have suggested, "Why don't we go dressed a little better for that meeting today." Those of you in this room who did that (and I don't know how many there are; there may be just a few who said, "Why don't we do a little more so that the Spirit of God..."—you may not have used these words, but what you were saying was "Let's go to that meeting in such a way that we might bring down the powers of heaven"), those of you in the room that had the courage to do that, to try to influence the persons around you, I'll make you a prophecy. I will simply tell you: The day will come that that capacity to influence people around you for good will have you singled out as one of the great leaders in whatever place you're in. They will not quite know why, but you will know that the reason you are being singled out is not because of your innate gifts as a leader but because you have done what the Savior would do—learned how to, and did, reach out to those around you to try to lift them, to help them to be better even when it might be a little bit difficult and you might not have been received very well.
Another thing that I will say to you. I've mentioned so much about frugality. You might say, "Brother Eyring, that's an awful thing to say. We go first-class in the Church. Why would you talk about that? I mean, heavens, we want to make it as fancy as we can." I would only say this to you:
You want to have a beautiful campus. You want to have a beautiful place that you live in someday in your family. You want to have things as nice as you can have them. But I'll tell you something. One of the things that you do is to always look at every nice thing you have as God's and treat it very, very carefully. This campus will be beautiful because you don't think it's yours—you think it's His, and you'll care for it that way. In addition, you will not ever, ever ask for more than you need. You will always say, "Is there a way, with more effort, more faith, more innovation, that I could do the things the Lord wants without asking for more of the resources that are in scarce supply even in a Church that appears to have great resources, as we do. But the needs are great, and the opportunities are tremendous for what can be done.
I want you to know that the reason those people from the Board of Education used to say, "Hal, isn't there something more we could do for you up there at Ricks College?" is that they were almost afraid we wouldn't ask; that we might run just a little too lean, just a little too hard, trying to do the best we could with what we had; just afraid we might overdo it because that's who we were.
I testify to you this beautiful campus that you see now is the reward from a loving God and His Board of Education that said: "We know those people. We know what they're like. They're out of a pioneer heritage, and they don't think that the things they have mean much. It's what they are. And they think they can do a very great deal without very much."
Now I testify to you that that blessing is both a practical one and a spiritual one. It's practical because then the Lord will provide when we do need something, and He'll provide generously because He trusts us. But it has another benefit as well. I testify to you that that spirit of sacrifice, that spirit of trying to give just a little bit more and ask a little less brings down the powers of heaven. And all of this great future that we're speaking of at this institution will depend upon miracles regularly occurring, where students learn more than you thought you could learn. Some of you have already been praying for that miracle. It will come. Do your homework, by the way; don't just pray. I've tried. Straight revelation in a mathematics examination—it does not work very well. It's better to have studied the work ahead of time. We'll do both, but that kind of a blessing will come. You will be learners. Your teachers will teach better than their natural capacities would ever allow them to do because the powers of heaven will come down. They will come down because of your faith.
Remember my little talk to you about frugality is an example of your faith. It's not the only way. But it's one way in which you'll say, "Look, we know that with the help of heaven we can do more than anybody could imagine with the resources that we have. We know that with the help of heaven even those of us who thought we couldn't learn mathematics can learn mathematics or learn a language. We know that that's possible."
The miracle that President Bednar spoke of and that I promised you—that this will become a place renowned for its understanding of teaching and learning—will have to face the very problem he, under inspiration, pointed out in his talk to the faculty. We can't "quantify the gifts of the Spirit." We don't know how that works. We probably never will write academic papers about how that works. But we will be able to do things here that will amaze the world in terms of the rate and the quality of learning, and we will learn ways about how that is done that will apply in other places in the world, but never quite as well as they apply here. That's a little like the people who say, "Could I borrow your family home evening manual? I want to have a family like yours." And the answer is, "It ain't in the manual." The manual is a reflection of what it is that happens in those family home evenings.
It will be that way here as well. We will have a spiritual outpouring, because of your faith and the faith of the faculty and those who lead here, that will lead us to be legendary in terms of our capacity to teach and to learn and in our capacity to innovate without needing the resources that others have to have in order to be the remarkable contributors you're going to be. And that's going to follow you everywhere you go.
I hope I live long enough to someday meet some employer who employed one of you and says, "Where did that come from? I've never had such a person. Why people just flock around that person. And they want to follow. They don't have to be led; they're seeking to go where that person wants to go. And they come up with new ideas. I don't know where that comes from. They seem to find a better way, and the budget doesn't go up. I can't understand it." And I'll smile and say, "Well, come with me to Rexburg." And I may not be able to show it to you, and I may not be able to prove it to you, but you'll feel it. There will be a spirit here, I so testify, because of the love of God for all of His faithful children. And those blessings will be poured out here in rich abundance.
Now, I leave you my blessing. I leave it to the faculty, and I leave it to the students who are here as well. I bless you that every day you are here—including the faculty who may be here for a long time and some of you I don't know how long, but awhile—I bless you that every day, if you will ask in prayer to be shown where the hand of God intervened in your life that day, I bless you that you will see that. It will be made manifest to you. That you will see that He is leading and guiding and lifting you, and that He knows you. I bless you. I bless you with confidence that if you will review the day at the end of the day and then pray and ask, you will have revealed to you evidence that the hand of God was lifting you and this institution. I so bless you.
I further bless you that you may have the capacity to influence others. I bless you that you will be a lifter, a teacher, and a leader. I so bless you in your families, in the Church, and in wherever place you may go to serve.
Now I leave you my testimony. The most precious gift I have. And that is this. I bless you to know that what I speak now is the truth. There is a loving Heavenly Father. He has been watching us today as He always watches us. He knows you. He has known you and has nurtured you. He has a plan for you as He has a plan for this institution of what it might become if it can just have revealed, both to the institution and to you, who you really are. Oh, He loves you! He knows you. He smiles down upon you. I so testify. He wants you to come home again to Him, I so testify. And He's provided a Savior, Jesus Christ. He lives. I know He lives. The Savior is resurrected. He is in one place at a time because He is a resurrected being, but He is aware of us and all of our Heavenly Father's children. And for all of them, He atoned for their sins and broke the bands of death, I so testify.
Gordon B. Hinckley is a living prophet of God. I testify to you that in the years ahead, whatever difficulties may come, whatever opportunities are there, God will provide |
see the prime minister talking about mental health" but the proof would be in the difference it made to patients' day-to-day experiences.
Dr Sangeeta Mahajan, whose 20-year-old son Sargaar killed himself after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, said better access to services was essential.
"They don't discharge patients with adequate information," she said. "The doors were closed to us.
"We were told you either go to A&E or your GP and that is the only way you can come back to us.
"We had no direct access back to the specialist services. That is wrong."
Bed shortages have meant some patients have had to travel hundreds of miles for treatment.
Fiona Hollings, 19, was treated in a specialist eating disorder unit for her anorexia in Glasgow - nearly 400 miles away from her family home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
Raising the profile of mental health
By Hugh Pym, BBC health editor
Mental health campaigners certainly recognise the significance of the latest initiative headed by the prime minister.
Theresa May's focus on mental illness in her first major speech on health will in itself raise the profile of the issue and reaffirm the drive to achieve true "parity of esteem" with physical health.
Promoting mental health first aid training in schools in England illustrates the prime minister's desire to see this as more than an NHS-only issue.
But there is no new Treasury money for the plans. Funding for care is still challenging. NHS Providers, representing mental health and other trusts, predicts the share of local NHS budgets devoted to mental health will fall next year.
Ministers will argue money isn't everything but it remains an unresolved part of the mental health agenda.
Professor Sir Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, welcomed Mrs May's "new and bold vision", but added: "We have a long way to go before mental health services are on an equal footing with those for physical disorders."
Businesses also welcomed the workplace initiatives.
Simon Walker, director general at the Institute of Directors, said employers had "a real role to play" in ensuring the mental health of their workforce.
But while education leaders backed the ideas that focused on young people, they also had concerns.
Malcolm Trobe of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the major problem schools faced was a lack of access to local specialist NHS care and said government plans had to be "backed up with the funding".
Russell Hobby, of school leaders' union NAHT, agreed: "Rising demand, growing complexity and tight budgets are getting in the way of helping the children who need it most."
Liberal Democrat Norman Lamb, a former health minister, said Mrs May was announcing policies already agreed under the coalition government and called it "a puny response" to "cover up for this government's failure" on delivering, while Barbara Keeley, Labour's shadow minister for mental health, questioned why funding was not being ring fenced.
Mr Hunt said the government had endured a "slightly patchy start" with funding, but that with about £1bn more being spent on mental health than two years ago things were "going in the right direction".
In her speech the prime minister also described her wish to create a "shared society", with the state taking a greater role in ending "unfairness".
The emphasis on a "shared society" marks a contrast with her predecessor David Cameron's "Big Society" agenda, which relied on voluntary organisations rather than state intervention.With all the party and media babble about who is better equipped to take over the Republican party in the wake of the bloodbath of the '08 election, it's impressive how deeply the pundits have been able to repress the memory of the Ron Paul campaign.
After all, compare the Ron Paul 'Revolution' campaign with Barack Obama's now acknowledged electoral genius. That stuff Republicans are now realizing they have to do in the future? Paul did it months ago. Excited new voters beyond the base? Check. Raised massive amounts of money from small donations online? Ditto. Legions of creative people generating their own campaign content on YouTube and beyond? Did it. Young voters? Had those.
The biggest problem for Ron Paul and his supporters is the turd-in-the-punchbowl way they were treated by the Republicans. Remember Rudy's snide confusion over the idea that the United State's foreign policy may have somehow have been a factor in why the U.S. was attacked on 9/11? Recall the debate shunning?
But look how things have changed. McCain's psuedo-maverick-ism tore the Republicans a gaping new one after they collectively rejected Ron Paul; the only candidate with ideas for real, actual change...such as ending the Iraq War.
The beauty of the current GOP anarchy is that it may present the perfect chance for the anarachists to take over the establishment. Or the anarcho-capitalists or limited government small L libertarians and or whatever y'all can agree on. (And good luck on that -- agreement isn't what libertarians do well.)
The party is ripe for the taking. Ripe, I say!
It's weeks past the election. Everyone should have sobered up by now. The fact that there is a significant chunk of Republicans that are still crushing on Sarah Palin shows that it's time show the same mercy for the Grand Old Party that The Chief showed to Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest -- any sense of rational thought is gone, so pull out the pillow and start smothering until the kicking stops.
Now here's a tougher question. Do you want the Republican Party? It's got high name recognition and if the two logo choices are the elephant or the donkey, I think the elephant wins. Sure, you don't want most of the people left behind after the Obama rapture devastated Karl Rove's dream of a Permanent Republican Majority and sent anyone with a bow tie, an IQ of over 100 and a dog earned copy of Atlas Shrugged floating off to conservative Valhalla. The ragtag band of people that remain in the blue hats mainly agree that gays shouldn't marry and that straights can't have abortions and that the unmarried gays shouldn't adopt the babies that the non-aborting straights have.Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney who was fired by President Trump, called a report Wednesday of the president sending special counsel Robert Mueller messages "peculiar."
"This is peculiar. It would be more helpful if he stopped undermining Mueller publicly and fomenting attacks on him by surrogates like Newt," Bharara tweeted, referring to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a staunch Trump supporter.
This is peculiar. It would be more helpful if he stopped undermining Mueller publicly and fomenting attacks on him by surrogates like Newt. https://t.co/saCWiGJZ1f — Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) August 8, 2017
Bharara shared an NBC News tweet that said Trump had reportedly sent "greetings" to Mueller.
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Trump's chief counsel, John Dowd, told USA Today on Tuesday that he was relaying the president's appreciation to Mueller, who is leading the federal probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the presidential election.
"He appreciates what Bob Mueller is doing," Dowd said. "He asked me to share that with him and that's what I've done."
“The president has sent messages back and forth," Dowd added.
“We get along well with Bob Mueller; our communications have been constructive,’’ Dowd told USA Today. “But it is important that our communications remain confidential. It’s important that there not be any breakdown in that trust.’’
The president has publicly slammed Mueller's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, which includes looking into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin. Trump has called the probe a "witch hunt," saying it has left a "cloud" over his administration.
Bharara was one of the dozens of U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Obama that the Trump administration asked to resign earlier this year, and he has since become a vocal critic of Trump.April 28 (UPI) -- A Sherriff's deputy in Tennessee climbed down into a storm drain near a local elementary school to rescue a stranded kitten.
Blount County Sheriff's Office shared photos of School Resource Officer Dustin Burger climbing down the drain on a rainy day to carry the distressed kitten to safety.
Shiela Tipton captured the photos of the rescue and shared them to the sherriff's office Facebook page to express her gratitude to Deputy Burger.
"Not a crime but want to THANK OFFICER BURGER for coming out in the pouring rain to help rescue some kittens trapped in a storm drain at Union Grove Elementary School," she said.
Burger managed to produce one tiny soaking kitten, but Tipton said she believed some kittens remained at the bottom of the drain.
"We saved one but couldn't find the others." she said.But would Denmark’s model be impossible to reproduce in other countries? Consider France, another country that is much bigger and more diverse than Denmark, but also maintains a highly generous welfare state paid for with high taxes. You might not know this from the extremely bad press France gets, but the French, too, roughly match U.S. productivity, and are more likely than Americans to be employed during their prime working years. Taxes and benefits just aren’t the job killers right-wing legend asserts.
Going back to Denmark, is everything copacetic in Copenhagen? Actually, no. Denmark is very rich, but its economy has taken a hit in recent years, because its recovery from the global financial crisis has been slow and incomplete. In fact, Denmark’s 5.5 percent decline in real G.D.P. per capita since 2007 is comparable to the declines in debt-crisis countries like Portugal or Spain, even though Denmark has never lost the confidence of investors.
What explains this poor recent performance? The answer, mainly, is bad monetary and fiscal policy. Denmark hasn’t adopted the euro, but it manages its currency as if it had, which means that it has shared the consequences of monetary mistakes like the European Central Bank’s 2011 interest rate hike. And while the country has faced no market pressure to slash spending — Denmark can borrow long-term at an interest rate of only 0.84 percent — it has adopted fiscal austerity anyway.
The result is a sharp contrast with neighboring Sweden, which doesn’t shadow the euro (although it has made some mistakes on its own), hasn’t done much austerity, and has seen real G.D.P. per capita rise while Denmark’s falls.
But Denmark’s monetary and fiscal errors don’t say anything about the sustainability of a strong welfare state. In fact, people who denounce things like universal health coverage and subsidized child care tend also to be people who demand higher interest rates and spending cuts in a depressed economy. (Remember all the talk about “debasing” the dollar?) That is, U.S. conservatives actually approve of some Danish policies — but only the ones that have proved to be badly misguided.
So yes, we can learn a lot from Denmark, both its successes and its failures. And let me say that it was both a pleasure and a relief to hear people who might become president talk seriously about how we can learn from the experience of other countries, as opposed to just chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”China’s central and local governments have barely made a start in trying to clean up China’s heavily-polluted water, despite fast-approaching deadlines for improvements and the launch of a comprehensive ‘ten point plan’ over a year ago.
Behind the apparent inertia is a lattice of overlapping responsibilities in government departments, contradictory statements from officials, incomplete and undisclosed data, and a lack of monitoring of just how big the problem of water pollution really is.
This is preventing policymakers from getting a clear picture of what needs to be done so that China’s main watersheds can be made less polluted and that hundreds of millions in China can get access to clean, drinkable supplies.
Ma Jun, a high-profile environmentalist in China and a director with the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), points out that air quality, by its very nature, is more easily observed, but water pollution is often hidden from public view or isn’t as obvious to the naked eye.
“A failure to make data public could result in ineffective treatment – or even no treatment at all,” Ma told chinadialogue.
Last year’s ten point plan called for nationwide improvements in water quality by 2020, with 95 per cent of water sources used for urban drinking supplies required to reach Class III or better, and to reduce the share of Class V (defined officially as ‘very poor quality’) to just 15 per cent. China has five classifications for drinking water, with Class I defined as the best, most drinkable water.
Under the same plan, areas currently failing to meet those targets are required to come up with improvement programmes, including specific measures and timetables, while a range of water-intensive industries will be subject to stiff penalties if they continue to pollute rivers, lakes and the coastline.
“ A failure to make data public could result in ineffective treatment – or even no treatment at all. Jun Ma, director, Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs
These were to be regularly made public from 2016, but few local authorities have done so, putting 2020 targets at risk and rendering water policy a clear laggard in efforts to curb air pollution.
Two government departments – the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), and the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) – are responsible for prevention and control of water pollution, while a third, the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR), is also responsible for monitoring water quality.
To fix the huge problems of water pollution in China, and to raise the standards of drinking water, the multiple authorities responsible need to have some idea of the scale of the problem.
The challenge could be summed up by a maxim used in western business: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
A major lack of information makes it a huge challenge for policymakers to map out the milestones they need to reach if China is to meet its targets on clean water.
Much-reported figures released last month underline the scale of the problem with the data provided on China’s water pollution.
The figures, which were contained in a monthly update on groundwater quality issued by the Ministry of Water Resources, generated headlines that 80 per cent of China’sgroundwater was not fit to drink.
However the MWR said these reports were inaccurate.
Chen Mingzhong, head of the MWR’s department of water resources, said that the data is related to shallow groundwater on the plains of northern China, which tends to be of worse quality than elsewhere.
He added: “This data doesn’t refer to sources of drinking water. Currently drinking water comes mostly from deeper underground.”
Chen contends that around 85 per cent of China’s groundwater sources are up to the required standards.
However, it is hard to reconcile this assertion with figures in a 2014 report on the state of China’s environment, which indicated that water at 60 per cent of groundwater monitoring sites was of ‘poor’ or ‘extremely poor quality’.
Meanwhile a 2015 report from the MLR said that in testing of groundwater from 5,118 sampling points across 202 cities over 60 per cent were found to be of ‘poor’ or ‘extremely poor quality,’ with only 9 per cent of ‘excellent’ quality.
Discrepancies
Peng Yingdeng, is a member of the MEP’s database of experts who contributes to environmental impact assessments, and a researcher at the State Laboratory for Urban Pollution Control Technology, gives the following reasons.
The use of different monitoring locations, varied methods of sampling and inconsistent expectations of the outcome, have all contributed to contradictory findings, he said.
China has allocated funding for water quality monitoring, but the work is usually split between different departments and much of the allocated work hasn’t been completed.
According to a recent report in the Southern Weekend, well known in China for its investigative reporting, the State Council in 2011 approved a 2 billion yuan (US$300 million) programme to test groundwater quality nationwide, to be completed by 2017.
The programme envisaged the construction or upgrading of over 20,000 monitoring points, to be carried out by both the MWR and the MLR, with each department in charge of approximately half of the locations.
But so far, the MLR has built only 326 of those 20,000 monitoring points, while it is unclear how many the MWR has established.
The MWR failed to disclose details on the progress of the project requested by Southern Weekend.
Its journalists wanted to know why there had not been any disclosure on why progress has been slow, and asked for details about penalties if the monitoring programme is delivered late.
Meanwhile, not much is known about who is meant to be overseeing the project.
Data on drinking water is also clear as the proverbial mud.
An attempt in 2009 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development’s (MOHURD) Water Quality Centre to “broadly clarify” the quality of drinking water in a nationwide survey of 4,000 sites has never been made public.
MOHURD officials have said that “authorisation” is necessary to see those results, effectively closing the figures off from public scrutiny.
In 2012, Chinese media reported industry insiders as saying the survey found half of all drinking water was not up to standard.
MOHURD responded that the latest samples, from 2011, showed 83 per cent of drinking water supplies met standards when leaving the water plant, and that overall urban water supplies are safe.
Nanjing-based lawyer Feng Ding submitted a freedom of information request to MOHURD.
The ministry failed to answer the lawyer’s questions, which included requests for information on where the 17 per cent of sites were, and the metrics by which they failed.
MOHURD’s own regulations on management of urban water quality oblige the ministry to collect and publish water quality data every year, Feng said.
He added: “But I have never been able to obtain these reports or data”.
Meanwhile, the MEP publishes data from only 100 monitoring points, despite monitoring 1,000 of them, points out Liu Chunlei of environmental NGO Shanghai Minhang Qingrui Environmental Information Technology Services Centre.
Liu says openness and sharing of information should be a two-step process. First, each government department should carry out its monitoring and share that information. Then the MEP should be in charge of publishing that data.
When data differs across departments, an explanation should be provided. Are different monitoring points used, do instruments vary in accuracy, are different indices used, or is there some other reason?
None of this should be hidden, campaigners said.
Data-sharing
Using Beijing as an example, Peng Yingdeng explained the problem with data sharing often lies where environmental quality reports lack the input of full figures.
“Without a full data set it’s hard to see the changes and trends in water quality over time and carry out a systematic analysis or come up with targeted solutions,” explained Peng.
Ma Jun said data on water has been long regarded as a “departmental resource” to be hidden from the public.
He stressed that this data must be freely shared so that departments can compare figures, carry out analysis and then produce a more accurate and authoritative water quality data set, which one department should take the lead in publishing.
Lessons
Transparency and dissemination of good quality data on water lags far behind that of air quality, after public pressure prompted the wider collection of data and its public circulation.
Until the US embassy in Beijing in 2009 started collecting and publishing air quality data, few in China were aware of just how much smog they were breathing in, particularly PM2.5, one of the most toxic forms of pollution.
For a time, Chinese officials objected to the US embassy’s actions. And when the US embassy was describing the air quality in Beijing as “hazardous”, the city’s environmental authorities classed it as “lightly polluted.” Beijing officials were forced to explain the discrepancy.
Environmental officials admit that the contrast with the US embassy data showed that China wasn’t not being open or accurate enough with realtime air quality information, and that the data released needed to be more accessible.
By 2012, the MEP said that data from all monitoring stations nationwide would be published, so the public could keep up to date with monitoring data. The Air Action Plan, launched in 2013, was a major turning point in management of air quality.
To ensure the plan was implemented, the State Council had provincial governments commit to targets, with annual audits of progress and officials held to account for failures.
On air quality, Chinese citizens can easily access realtime information that can be used to evaluate pollution levels and where the smog is likely to be coming from.
A pollution map and smartphone app updated by the IPE last year tracks pollution from 9,000 companies and gives users forecasts and advice on whether or not they need to wear gas masks, open windows, or undertake outdoor activities.
Measuring performance
Nationwide, 338 cities now publish live air quality monitoring data and are ranked accordingly by the government.
The responsible officials from the lowest ranking cities, or those which see air quality worsen, are summoned in for often-awkward ‘chats’ with senior officials.
But the modest improvements in China’s air quality seem a long way off for water quality.
Peng Yingdeng said: “If we don’t get disclosure of information (in the way China got for its air), auditing performance on water management is going to be a problem.”
Crowdsourcing
But there are signs of solutions starting to emerge on tracking water pollution and closer scrutiny of the likely culprits.
A recently-updated version of IPE’s pollution tracking map suggests that local governments (such as Beijing’s city government) are being more transparent on the extent of water pollution.
For instance, IPE has secured the agreement of the MEP and MOHURD in a crowdsourcing initiative that will draw upon the experiences of the capital’s citizens to identify the city’s most polluted rivers.TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan aims to develop a prototype drone fighter jet in two decades with private sector help in a technology strategy that focuses on weapons communications and lasers, according to a document seen by Reuters.
A Japan Self-Defense Forces soldier guards near a unit of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo, Japan June 22, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
The plan will be announced this month when the Defense Ministry also unveils its request for a record budget of 5.16 trillion yen ($51 billion) for fiscal 2017, as tension rises in the East China Sea and North Korea steps up its missile threat, government officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The military technology plan calls for first developing an unmanned surveillance aircraft in the next decade and then an unmanned fighter jet 10 years later, the document showed.
The rise of 2.3 percent over this year’s budget of 5.05 trillion yen marks the fifth successive annual increase sought by the ministry, which is keen to stiffen Japan’s defenses as North Korea upgrades its ballistic missile technology.
However, one security analyst said the spending was insufficient. “The security environment surrounding Japan is severe, due to neighboring North Korea and China,” said Takashi Kawakami, a security expert at Japan’s Takushoku University.
“I personally think it’s not enough.”
Japan will this month formally unveil budget requests for its defense and other ministries for the year ending March 2018.
The defense ministry’s request covers the 100 billion yen cost to upgrade Japan’s PAC-3 missile defense system, said one government source, who declined to be identified, as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Such an upgrade would roughly double the missile system’s range to more than 30 km (19 miles), other sources have said.
The budget proposal also includes the cost of production of the Block IIA version of the Standard Missile-3 system being jointly developed with the United States to shoot down missiles at higher altitudes, the source added.
The ministry will also allocate budget funds to acquire an upgraded version of the F-35 stealth fighter, made by U.S. company Lockheed Martin Corp, the source said.
The budget request also includes the cost of strengthening the coast guard in the southern islands of Miyakojima and Amami Oshima to allay worries over China’s more assertive activities in the East China Sea, said the source.
Tension mounted this month after a growing number of Chinese coast guard and other vessels sailed near disputed islets in the East China Sea.
Japan, China and South Korea are in talks to hold a meeting of their foreign ministers next week.
($1=100 yen)On this day in 1913, one of the most influential creators in the history of the comic book industry was born. Joe Simon --- best known as the co-creator of Captain America alongside Jack Kirby --- helped establish superhero comics as one of the most exciting and dynamic storytelling forms of the 20th century, and created a host of iconic characters alongside Cap.
Simon began his career as a production assistant for the Rochester Journal-American, and provided the occasional editorial cartoon when needed. After moving to New York City, he found work retouching posters for Paramount Pictures and worked freelance for various magazines, which eventually put him into contact with Timely Comics' Martin Goodman, who asked Simon to create a fire-based hero similar to the popular Human Torch --- the character that became the Fiery Mask.
A more important assignment would come from Funnies Inc., for whom Simon created the Blue Bolt. While the character itself isn't extremely notable, the second issue of the eponymous series saw the first collaboration between Joe Simon and the "The King of Comics" Jack Kirby.
Simon moved to Timely permanently where he became the publisher's first editor, and alongside Kirby created the iconic Captain America, who debuted in December 1940. Captain America Comics #1 was a massive hit for Timely, but Simon and Kirby were unhappy with their treatment by the publisher, so arranged --- in secret --- to jump ship to Timely's rivals, National Comics.
At National Comics, the pair revamped Sandman and introduced Sandy The Golden Boy; they created Manhunter as well as the hugely popular Boy Commandos and Newsboy Legion, with the former going on to be one of National's highest selling titles at the time.
Simon's comics career was put on hold during World War II, with the creator enlisting in the US Coast Guard. While serving, he created Coast Guard comics, published by DC and syndicated nationally through Sunday newspapers under the title True Comics. He also worked with writer Milt Gross on the comic Adventure Is My Career, which was distributed through newsstands during the war.
After the war, Kirby and Simon moved away from superhero comics, working within a variety of other genres, including collaborating on the title Young Romance, which is recognized as the first romance comic and the archetype of an incredibly popular trend. In 1954, the pair created the Fighting American, who was originally conceived as a Communist-bashing hero in the mode of Captain America, but quickly became a satire comic in the wake of the Army-McCarthy hearings into Communist infiltration of the military.
In 1955, Simon took a break from comics to work in advertising and other venues, but briefly returned to work with Kirby on Archie Comics'The Shield and created The Human Fly for the publisher. In 1960, he founded the Mad Magazine rival Sick, which he edited and contributed to throughout the decade. He also worked with Kirby for Harvey Comics, helping to launch the publisher's superhero line, which would go on to give Jim Steranko his first break in comics.
Towards the end of the decade, Simon wrote and drew the two-issue series Brother Power, The Geek, about a mannequin that came to life and hung around with a group of hippies. In the '70s, he also created the teen president title Prez, along with Jerry Grandenetti, and worked with Kirby on a new incarnation of Sandman, who was more a traditional superhero than the previous iteration.
Joe Simon was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 1999, and continued to work for most of his life. He sadly passed away on December 14, 2011 but lived long enough to see his most famous creation immortalized on film as part of Marvel's growing Cinematic Universe.
While Simon often doesn't get the recognition of a Kirby, Ditko or Eisner, his contributions to the growth of the industry in its nascent years cannot be praised enough. Joe Simon helped define what superhero comics were when the idea was still new and malleable, and everyone who came after him owes him a debt that can never truly be repaid.THIS IS A WEEKLY COLUMN WHERE WE GIVE OUT AWARDS TO THE BEST (AND WORST) PERFORMANCES OF THE WEEK IN THE BIG 12.
Eric Taylor Coach of the Week – David Beaty (Kansas)
It’s not often that Kansas football gets any sort of positive attention. Beaty is 1-16 since taking over as a head coach prior to last season, but he seems to have TCU figured out. The Jayhawks losses the past two seasons against TCU have come by a combined total of 7 points.
Kansas forced the Frogs to throw the football and rely on Kenny Hill’s arm to win the game. The result? 3 interceptions by the Jayhawks. Beaty pulled out all the stops Saturday including a well-executed hook n ladder on the on 4th and 22 with 30 seconds left in the game to get the Jayhawks at least close to field goal range. Despite Matthew Wyman’s three missed field goals, including a potential game-winner as time expired, Kansas played an outstanding game on Saturday. Best wishes to Coach Beaty as he continues his quest for his first Big 12 win as a head coach.
Mike Leach Offensive Player of the Week – Dede Westbrook (WR-Oklahoma)
Westbrook had 10 catches for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns against Texas. He had 74 more receiving yards than the rest of the team COMBINED. It seemed like Westbrook was open every time Baker Mayfield looked down the field, and the Texas secondary had no answer for him. Westbrook’s career day was rewarded by getting a 45-40 win in his final Red River Shootout.
Brian Bosworth Defensive Player of the Week – Brandon Stewart (CB-Kansas)
Stewart hadn’t so much as deflected a pass in his college career coming into Saturday’s game against TCU. The senior stepped up big time for the Jayhawks as he picked off Kenny Hill twice and deflected another pass. Stewart’s surprise performance was a key reason why Kansas was able to come within spitting distance of an upset. In a season without a ton of bright spots for Kansas, Stewart’s play on Saturday certainly was one.
J.D. McCoy Freshman of the Week – Shane Buechele (QB-Texas)
Buechele looked calm, cool and collected in his first Red River Shootout. This marked the first time the Longhorns had started a true freshman in this game since Bobby Layne back in 1944. Buechele went 19/36 for 245 yards, three touchdowns and just one interception. The Horns ultimately came out on the wrong side of Saturday’s 45-40 contest, but Texas fans should be encouraged by Buechele’s performance going forward.
Kentucky Deluxe Bottom Shelf Performance of the Week – Gary Patterson (Head Coach-TCU)
This marked the third year in a row that Patterson has allowed KANSAS to go the distance with his team. The Jayhawks are easily the worst power-five team in the country, and they came within a missed field goal of knocking off what was supposed to be one of the top teams in the Big 12.
Once is a fluke, twice is suspect, three times means it’s time to sound the alarm. Gary Patterson has done some great things for TCU over the past three seasons, but preparing his team to play Kansas is not one of them. Well done Gary, you are more than deserving of this award.
That wraps up this week’s awards. Tune in next week to see who brought home the hardware that weekend.Two key Alabama outside linebackers are expected to miss the rest of the season after suffering injuries during the Crimson Tide's win over Florida State on Saturday.
Redshirt junior Christian Miller, who is listed as Alabama's starter at Sam linebacker, has a torn biceps and is expected to miss the rest of the year, according to sources.
In addition, sources told AL.com sophomore Terrell Lewis, who is one of the Tide's top young defensive players, tore a ligament in his elbow and is out for the year. Lewis is expected to undergo surgery on Tuesday.
They were two of four Alabama linebackers who left with injuries Saturday night. Inside linebacker Rashaan Evans didn't play during the second half because of a groin injury and starting outside linebacker Anfernee Jennings left with a sprained ankle.
Matt Zenitz is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mzenitz.Midland County woman sentenced for sending nude photos to teen
A 40-year-old Lee Township woman has been ordered to comply with the state’s sex offender registry act as part of her sentencing for texting nude photos of herself to a teen.
Toni Annette Dorman was sentenced for second-degree criminal sexual conduct. She entered a guilty plea to the charge in exchange for the dismal of the original count in her case, which was accosting a child for immoral purposes.
Midland County Circuit Court Judge Stephen P. Carras levied 22 days in jail with credit for time served, $1,750 fines and costs, and three years probation in addition to registering as a sex offender. He also allowed Dorman to complete community service in lieu of other court assessments.
Dorman was charged after Midland County sheriff’s deputies responded to a Lee Township mobile home park on July 9. They were called by the parents of a 14-year-old boy after the parents heard rumors circulating in the neighborhood about an adult woman sending nude photos to their son, and finding the photos when they checked his phone.
An affidavit filed with the case states Dorman knew the teen’s age when she sent the photos, and that she had hugged and kissed him.
Dorman was represented by attorney Dan Duke of Midland.The securities regulator in Canada’s largest province is sending out a warning about counting on the equity in your home for retirement planning.
The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) said Monday that a survey it commissioned found 45 per cent of pre-retired homeowners in the province are relying on the value of their property increasing to fund their retirement.
“Owning a home is not a substitute for retirement planning,” said Tyler Fleming, director of the investor office at the OSC, which found homeowners without any retirement savings or plan are among those most likely to be counting on value of their home appreciating.
The survey found 76 per cent of Ontarians 45 or older own their home and among this group of homeowners, nearly 37 per cent say that they are relying on the value of their home increasing to provide for their retirement.
DBRS Inc. noted in a report out Monday that Canadian house prices are up about 230 per cent in the past decade but that wealth is far from a sure thing and the debt agency pointed out that in a span of less than six months prices in the Greater Toronto Area have plunged 31 per cent from their peak.
“Findings suggest a large number of Ontario homeowners, 45 plus (particularly pre-retirees) are replacing retirement planning with the belief that home equity gains will finance their retirement,” said the OSC, in its report. “This approach to retirement planning can be sustainable so long as residential properties maintain or increase in value. However, to the extent Ontarians 45 plus are overestimating their ability to finance their retirement using their homes, or if there is a downward pricing correction in Ontario’s housing market, a number of Ontarians 45 plus may be at risk of not meeting their retirement savings goals.”
The survey also found among those 45 plus Ontarians, who are not yet retired, 73 per cent own their homes — 38 per cent with a mortgage and 37 per cent without a mortgage. Among that group, 38 per cent have no investment savings.
The regulator said the research findings will be used to support the development of its seniors strategy, which the OSC has identified as a priority for its 2017-2018 fiscal year.
The survey was conducted between May 9 and 16, 2017 by Innovative Research Group and involved an online survey of 1,516 Ontarians, aged 45 and older. The results were weighted by age, gender and region using the latest Statistics Canada census data to reflect the actual demographic composition of the adult population aged 45 and older residing in the province.
gmarr@postmedia.com
twitter.com/dustywalletThere are some helpful organizations out there for people who are troubled by the directions our country is going, and which you can become active in. When I worked in academia, I was active in a group called the National Association of Scholars, which fought PC, and also served as a way to meet like-minded people. At that time, in the early-or-mid 90’s, it was a fairly small group, but I’m guessing that it’s grown. Sometimes our local meetings were mainly bitch-sessions, but it was still valuable just to connect with non-PC people, who were obviously a rarity in academia. At least those who were admittedly non-PC were extremely rare.
On Steve’s TakiMag article this morning—which, by the way, is prime Steve, first-class social insight—commenter “AngloBilly” has this to say in regard to pushing back against the hate-straight-pale-males Narrative:I am glad to tell AngloBilly that the National Association of Scholars soldiers on, doing good work on behalf of common sense and traditional culture in the place where in needs doing most: the academy.
Matter of fact, I have a book review in the current issue of their quarterly journal, Academic Questions. You need to subscribe via NAS, but it’s a modest amount ($75 a year for faculty and non-academics, only $35 for students and retirees) and the organization is well worth supporting.
If you look through the contributor lists you will see many names you’ll recall from VDARE.com as contributors or the subjects of sympathetic reviews: Princeton Prof. Russell Nieli, for example, whose 2013 book Wounds That Will Not Heal I reviewed here when it came out. Prof. Nieli has a review essay in the current issue of AQ.
We moles are out there, burrowing away under the foundations of the Narrative. I don't guarantee we can bring down the structure; but if we can weaken it some, the work is worth doing.Station 44009 (LLNR 168) - DELAWARE BAY 26 NM Southeast of Cape May, NJ
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face-to-face, not sure what happens next. Suddenly he grabs her, pulling her in for A PASSIONATE KISS. She doesn’t fight it -- at least not at first. But then the adrenaline wears off, and she pushes free. ALEX Who are you?
While I’ve included a lot of specific ideas about what kinds of things we’d see (shower doors, closet rods), I’ve left a lot of room for the director and fight choreographer to be creative (“Be it a waffle iron, rolling pin or barbecue tong, anything Alex touches becomes a weapon.”).
The scene as written gives a sense of what the final scene will feel like, even if a lot of the details change. That’s what you should be aiming for in a fight sequence.Introducing tweaks like four-day games will be pointless unless players and officials show more urgency to keep the game moving
Regular sightscreen-related hold-ups at the WACA didn't help the pace of the recent Test there © Getty Images
Before a (pink) ball was even delivered in the historic day-night Test at Adelaide Oval, the concept received a tremendous boost. It came in the form of a positive response from Indian captain Virat Kohli.
"Hopefully it will be better for the game," said Kohli. "It will be a step which we all might remember a few years down the line. Let's hope so."
Apart from Kohli's endorsement, the other major reaction to the arrival of day-night Test cricket has been a renewed call for matches of four days' duration. That suggestion may seem like an extension of the current revolution but it's actually a return to the past, when four-day Tests were a regular occurrence. There's no doubt that what appears to be a successful transition to day-night Tests will make the four-day concept far more practical.
Back in 1978-79, World Series Cricket played day-night Super Tests that were played seven hours a day, running four days. It's far less taxing on the participants to introduce longer playing hours when not so many take place in the heat of the day.
However, not every international venue can accommodate night cricket, and this makes a unilateral move to four-day Tests difficult. This is especially so when Tests continue to move at the pace of the recently completed Perth match between Australia and New Zealand; a glacier's progress would have outstripped that of the cricket.
The overs in Perth were bowled at tortoise speed and the umpires and referee did nothing to move the game along. There was the obligatory sightscreen breakdown, batsmen regularly held up bowlers who were ready to deliver, and drinks were served more often than at an office Christmas party.
If you throw in time wasted on pointless replays to decide whether a particular shot was a boundary or not, and DRS referrals, the game actually resembled the phrase applied by comic genius Robin Williams, who once described cricket as "baseball on valium".
In fact, while baseball - in which a game generally lasts around three hours - is introducing new rules in an effort to speed up play, cricket officials regularly make decisions that further slow the pace of the game.
The players have to be part of the process by accepting a more sensible approach to drinks and agreeing to the etiquette of batsmen facing up when the bowler is ready to deliver
Among the suggestions to support four-day Tests was one proposing the lifting of the minimum number of overs in a day, from 90 to 100. The people making the suggestion obviously don't watch Test matches full of elongated conversations between captain and bowler, tardiness between the completion of one over and the commencement of the next, and the other hold-ups mentioned above.
If four-day Tests are going to be an integral part of the calendar then the officials and players will have to play their part in speeding up the game.
Among the avenues available to administrators are full sightscreens (with no advertising) that accommodate bowlers who operate both over and round the wicket; the introduction of a law where it's a boundary if the ball hits the rope (and if it doesn't, it's what the batsmen run). They could also revert to a back-foot no-ball law (with safeguards to stop bowlers delivering from too far in front of the crease), so that over rates are improved by the virtual eradication of boring front foot no-balls.
The players have to be part of the process by accepting a more sensible approach to drinks and agreeing to the etiquette of batsmen facing up when the bowler is ready to deliver.
It was noticeable that the pace of play picked up dramatically in the cooler conditions of the inaugural day-night Adelaide Test after the tardiness in the heat of Perth. At the same time as this was taking place, Kohli led India to an emphatic victory over South Africa well inside three days.
Two Tests, one a day-night experiment and the other a short traditional match, were proof that both concepts are feasible. And both changes could enhance the longer format but so also would a dramatic improvement in the pace of play.
Former Australia captain Ian Chappell is now a cricket commentator for Channel 9, and a columnist
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.The days of trying to “incentivize” Seattle developers to build more affordable housing could be nearing an end. Under a plan released by the city Thursday, developers building in certain Seattle neighborhoods could be required to make up to 10% of their new units affordable and/or pay a fee that would fund thousands of new affordable apartment units.
It’s one of the first tangible results of the City Council’s effort to force developers to contribute more affordable units amid a boom of residential construction in the city, particularly on Capitol Hill. The policy could also be key in realizing Mayor Ed Murray’s goal to create 20,000 units of affordable housing in the next decade.
The Affordable Housing Mitigation Program calls for developers to pay a linkage fee on new developments, as high as $28 per gross square foot, into an affordable housing fund. Over ten years, DPD estimates the fee could generate around $1.16 billion to create 14,500 new affordable units. The inclusionary zoning part of the plan would require developers to make up to 10% of their new units affordable to create 5,900 affordable units in 10 years, according to DPD models.
According to the plan, drafted by the Office of Housing and the Department of Planning and Development, inclusionary zoning and linkage fees could be implemented together or as a pay-or-play model.
Linkage fee amounts would likely vary depending on location. Pike/Pine and First Hill is being considered for a “high” fee area while the rest of Capitol Hill is being considered for a “medium” fee range.
Under the inclusionary zoning plan, all participating rental units would have to be affordable to those households at 80% of the area median income. However, the plan leaves open the option of dropping the targets as low as 60% of AMI for units with one or more bedrooms and 40% of AMI for small units.
DPD also considered a proposed list of updates to the city’s current voluntary incentive zoning program, which tries to encourage developers to include affordable units in projects by allowing them to build bigger and taller. However, proposed changes would not adjust the building dimensions allowed under the current program.
In October, the City Council voted to have the city develop the linkage fee program. At the time, Seattle had the fastest rising rents among major U.S. cities, causing some officials to say affordable housing had become a full-blown crisis.
Talk of the proposal had previously drawn serious ire from developers and their attorneys, some of whom were present at previous committee meetings. During a committee meeting last year, former City Council member Sally Clark said that it was not lost on her that perhaps dozens of attorneys were listening in, but she said the plan would move forward.
Developers will almost surely take advantage of an opportunity to appeal DPD’s environmental review of the proposal — a common tactic for trying to halt new legislation.
Linkage fees have also become an increasingly talked about topic in this year’s election. During Monday’s Council District 3 forum, candidates were asked in a lightning round if they supported such developer fees. Incumbent Kshama Sawant and Morgan Beach said yes, while Pamela Banks, Rod Hearne, and Lee Morgan waffled on the issue.
The city is now accepting comments on the proposal and the DNS through June 25th. Comments may be sent here:
City of Seattle, Dept. of Planning and Development
Attn: Brennon Staley
PO Box 34019
Seattle WA 98124-4019
Brennon.Staley@seattle.gov'If He Dies, He Dies' will offer a rare inside look at the church and its leader.
Ronald Miscavige Sr., the father of Scientology leader David Miscavige, has signed a deal to write his memoir, If He Dies, He Dies, with St. Martin’s Press, the publisher confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
The title refers to a story in an April 8 Los Angeles Times article that revealed that David Miscavige had put his father under surveillance because he had grown estranged from the church and his son. When one investigator saw Ron grab his chest in an apparent heart attack, he called his Scientology employers to see if he should intervene. David personally called him back and said, “If he dies, he dies.”
[The Church of Scientology disputes the investigator's account: "Mr. Miscavige has always taken care of his father and continues to do so,” wrote Church spokesperson Karin Pouw in a statement to THR. "Beyond that, as a matter of policy, neither the Church nor Mr. Miscavige comments on members of his family.” See full statement below.]
Longtime Scientology observer Tony Ortega reported the news of the book on his blog about the church, The Underground Bunker. Publisher's Marketplace, a site followed by publishing insiders, also reported news of the book.
David Miscavige, 55, has been the head of the controversial religion since soon after founder L. Ron Hubbard died in 1986. He was introduced to the church by his father, who joined in the late 1960s.
David Miscavige has been known for his extravagant lifestyle and efforts to cultivate Hollywood stars as church members. A true insider account of life in the church and a full portrait of its leader by his father would be a blockbuster book. David’s niece, Jenna Miscavige, wrote an unflattering account of her uncle in 2013’s Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape.
The church has come under fire lately, with director Alex Gibney suggesting it should lose its tax exempt status. Gibney directed Going Clear, a documentary for HBO critical of the church based on the best-selling book of the same name by Lawrence Wright.
The Miscavige Sr. is said to have been working on the book for a number of years. No publication date has been announced.
The Church of Scientology statement to THR:
Mr. Miscavige has always taken care of his father and continues to do so. Beyond that, as a matter of policy, neither the Church nor Mr. Miscavige comments on members of his family. The Church knows nothing beyond media reports about any purported book.
As for the purported emergency incident involving an investigator and the second-hand account of an alleged conversation containing a despicably false quote, Mr. Miscavige's attorney, Michael Lee Hertzberg, is on record stating that Mr. Miscavige does not know the investigator, has never heard of the investigator, has never met the investigator, has never spoken to the investigator, never hired the investigator and never directed any investigations by him.
So let me be clear: No such conversation with Mr. Miscavige ever took place and any claim that one did is provable bullshit.
July 1, 1:10 PM: updated to include a statement from the Church of Scientology disputing the title quote.German public broadcaster ZDF has launched an appeal against a court order to apologise on its homepage to an Auschwitz survivor for use of the phrase “Polish death camp”, according to a report.
Polish public broadcaster TVP Info reported on its website that ZDF is arguing that courts in Poland are not independent.
At the beginning of February a court in Mainz, Germany, issued a decision obliging ZDF to publish an apology on its home page, according to TVP Info.
A court in Kraków, Poland, earlier ruled that an apology previously published on the broadcaster's website did not meet a requirement that the message be visible on ZDF's homepage for 30 days.
The German broadcaster has now argued in its appeal that Poland’s conservative government, formed in late 2015, has an active policy aimed at protecting the good name of the Polish state and Poles, a policy which includes legal as well as diplomatic moves, according to TVP Info.
According to ZDF, the Polish government wants such a policy to be implemented by Polish courts, TVP Info said.
Auschwitz survivor Karol Tendera launched legal action over the promotion of a ZDF documentary about the liberation of Majdanek and Auschwitz, WWII German Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland.
In the promotional material on the zdf.de website, the expression “Polish death camps” was used. The description was changed after Polish authorities protested.
In April 2016, a Kraków district court found that ZDF had damaged Tendera's dignity and national identity by referring to WWII German Nazi concentration camps Majdanek and Auschwitz as “Polish death camps”.
The use of the term "Polish concentration camp” by international media outlets has sparked numerous complaints from Poland in recent years, prompting some news agencies to change their style guidelines.
In 2007, following a Polish request, the World Heritage Committee attempted to clarify the matter by listing the Auschwitz camp as a "German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp". (pk)Fascinating facts about the invention of
The Game of Life by Reuben Klamer in 1960. THE GAME OF LIFE ® Invention: The Game of Life® Function: noun / Trsdemsrk Definition: Board game. Spin the wheel of fate! A family classic for more than 40 years. Do good deeds to earn Life Tiles and more money down the road! For 2 to 6 players. Inventor: Reuben Klamer Milestones:
1860 Milton Bradley invents and markets "The Checkered Game of Life."
1960 Reuben Klamer invents "The Game of Life®". Milton Bradley company markets game.
invention, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts. In 1860, Mr. Milton Bradley was a successful lithographer whose major product was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln grew his trademark beard, Bradley's clean-shaven portrait was no longer popular. Out of desperation, Mr. Bradley printed up several copies of a game he'd invented called, "The Checkered Game of Life." Its immediate popularity put Milton Bradley in the game business. This was Milton Bradley's first game. He sold 45,000 copies of the game by the end of the year. In 1959, Milton Bradley executives asked freelance toy and game inventor, Reuben Klamer, to come up with an appropriate game for the 100th anniversary of the company. Inspired by a "Checkered Game of Life" game board he saw in the Milton Bradley archives, Klamer and a co-inventor developed The Game of Life® which was introduced in 1960. In 1992, The Game of Life® was updated to include Life Tiles which reward players for recycling their trash, learning CPR and saying "no" to drugs. Today, The Game of Life® is played all over the world in some 20 different languages. TO LEARN MORE RELATED INFORMATION:
History of Toys and Games from The Great Idea Finder
ON THE BOOKSHELF:
The Game of Life and How to Play It
by Florence Scovel Shinn / Paperback: 95 pages / DeVorss & Company (June 1, 1978)
Many of thousands of people owe a great deal to this little book because it has taught them that life is not a battle but a game. Not about the board game, but the real game of life.
Oxford History of Board Games
by David Parlett / Hardcover: 352 pages / Oxford University Press; (May 1999)
Here are the origins and development of our favorite games, from the Egyptian and Asian ancestors of Chess, Checkers, and Backgammon, to the invention of such modern classics as Monopoly, Clue, and Scrabble.
Toys!: Amazing Stories Behind Some Great Inventions
by Don L. Wulffson, Laurie Keller / Hardcover - 128 pages (2000) / Henry Holt & Company
The quirky tales behind more than two dozen novelties, gadgets and games, from seesaws to Silly Putty and toy soldiers to Trivial Pursuit. ON THE WEB:
The Game of Life® Game History
See how Hasbro has adapted their games to entertain over eight generations of kids.
(URL: www.hasbro.com/default.asp?x=corp_history_life )
Games Invented by Ruebem Klammer
Smess was created by Reuben Klamer, and it was produced in 1970 by Parker Brothers. Smess is played much like Chess, the main difference being that the directions of movement available to any piece are determined by arrows on its square. In 1979, Parker Brothers released All the King's Men, which was mostly the same game as Smess but with a completely new look.
(URL: www.chessvariants.org/index/displayperson.php?personid=Klamer,Reuben)
Toy Industry Hall of Fame
Reuben Klamer is a toy inventor and designer with more than 200 products to his credit. As a result of his gift for anticipating and capitalizing on trends, his talent for developing consumer “must-haves” across a broad spectrum of categories and his ability to work in a variety of media, In addition to his pre-eminence in the areas of toy design, development and marketing, Mr. Klamer also pioneered the worldwide use in toys of an unbreakable plastic called polyethylene.
(URL: www.toy-tia.org/)
Life The Math Game
Life was invented by the mathematician John Conway in 1970. Life is just one example of a cellular automaton, which is any system in which rules are applied to cells and their neighbors in a regular grid. Life is probably the most often programmed computer game in existence. POP-UP ADS.
(URL: www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html) WHERE TO FIND:
The Game of Life
Games / by Milton Bradley / ASIN: B00000IWD7 / SKN: 231967 / Less than $15.00
Practice makes perfect in the game of Life. Anything's possible with a spin of the Life wheel! A classic family game that can be a reality check--or just a fun time.
DID YOU KNOW: The Game of Life is part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institute. The Game of Life® is a registered trademark of Hasbro. All rights reserved. Reference Sources in BOLD Type This page revised October 27, 2006.
FEATURED INVENTOR Tim Berners-Lee's invention has revolutionized the world like nothing before.
Learn more FEATURED INVENTION The invention of the Internet, should be classed with the greatest events of the 20th Century.
Learn more FEATURED GREAT IDEA The Aero Sport All-Terrain Bed with Dual Power Pump is the perfect addition to any camping trip or weekend getaway.
Learn more... FEATURED BOOK T his book, is the perfect desktop reference for both the science novice and the technologically advanced reader alike.
Learn more MAKE A DIFFERENCE CELEBRATE WITH USCall it a fried chicken fiasco. Indiana University South Bend cut fast-food chicken patty wonder Chick-fil-A from its list of campus vendors after it was revealed that the restaurant would be supplying food free of charge for anti-gay event.
According to Change.org, the movement to ban Chick-fil-A on campus started with a group of students who came together in opposition of the franchise's support of groups like Focus on the Family and the Ruth Institute.
Chick-fil-A's president, Dan Cathy, released a statement in defense of his company, WSBT reports. "Providing food to these events or any event is not an endorsement of the mission, political stance or motives of this or any other organization," he said. "Any suggestion otherwise is just inaccurate."
Some students, however, remain nonplussed by the controversy. "Chick-fil-A's already known as a Christian organization," IU South Bend senior Brian Jernigan told WSBT. "So, I'm not really surprised that they would donate to an organization that's against homosexual values."
A similar student movement to ban Chick-fil-A exists at Florida Gulf Coast University. Indiana University still has Chick-fil-A branches on two of its other campuses.
What do you think? Should Chick-fil-A be banned for its implicit support of anti-gay organizations? Weigh in below.First time smoking weed: GO!
I bought 1/16th because I didn’t want to purchase a large amount if I ended up not liking it. I’m told that this particular type of cannabis comes from Canada, and is very good. It was $25 for 1/16oz, and I paid my friend a ‘broker fee’ as a gratuity for picking it up for me. As I’m not keen on rolling joints or cigarettes, I opted to purchase a small glass pipe. Pothead or not, it’s difficult not to appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into a fancy, blown-glass (or is the proper adjective “glass-blown”?) pipe. And they vary so much in shape and color.
I also bought a small grinder, which in retrospect, I feel may be more appropriate for rolling joints, because it seems easy for the ground up bud to fall into the hole of the pipe. We’ll see.
So I took a portion of the herb, and packed it into the bowl of my new piece of illegal paraphernalia, and grabbed a bic lighter that was previously used exclusively for candles, both scented and birthday.
Sidenote: This pipe has a hole in the side of it, which is known as a “carb”. As I understand it (or perhaps IF I understand it), you are supposed to keep a finger over this hole as your are inhaling, and then release your finger from the hole to clear the pipe of any remaining smoke. Ok.
So I held the pipe to my mouth, and lit it. Having never actually smoked a cigarette before, inhaling smoke was uncharted water for me, and as expected, my inexperience got the best of me. After several attempts, though, I managed to take a reasonably large hit off the stuff.
And I choked. Hard. I felt like a child trapped under the bed during a house fire. Fire in my lungs, fire in my throat, coughing violently, which then triggered uncontrollable drooling. I’m grateful that my first time occurred behind closed doors in the privacy of my home, rather than in a gathering of more experienced smokers. They would have certainly laughed. This coughing must have lasted a good 5 minutes. I consider this a crash course in learning how to inhale, and how to handle the smoke. I’m not a pro, yet.
So at this point, I know I’m supposed to feel something different, so I’m sitting there waiting for it. 5 minutes pass, and I’m still not really feeling anything, and I begin to wonder if perhaps my friend sold me a bag of some random herb or spice bought off the racks of a local farmers market or grocery store.
Nay.
5 more minutes pass and I begin to feel something. Now, I’ve NEVER gotten a satisfying response from ANYONE, when I ask them to explain to me what “being high” feels like, in tangible, physiological terms. So I always told myself I’d make it a point to be VERY mindful of the experience, so as to better enable me to describe it to someone else. Try to follow me, here.
Y’know how sometimes when you take a pee, you kind of get that chill that goes up your spine, neck, and scalp? I slowly began to feel that, especially in my scalp. Obviously, the first thing I did was check that I was not, in fact, urinating. We were good. But I digress.
The sensation got stronger in my head (and when I say “in my head,” I don’t mean inside my brain. I literally mean under my scalp, in this case), and the best way I could describe it would be if there was a tiny (perhaps a millimeter thick) cushion of air between my scalp and my skull. It wasn’t unpleasant, nor did it freak me out, but I could plausibly see it freaking someone out, were they in a different, more unfamiliar context, trying this unfamiliar substance.
After that, I began to get very similar bodily feelings of a beer buzz. If I closed my eyes, things got only a little “spinny,” but the gross sick feeling that often accompanies it with alcohol wasn’t there. I didn’t feel like my motor functions were inhibited, though, as they may be with a beer buzz. I feel I could still, for example, juggle, or work a rubik’s cube, or reach for potato chips without knocking over someone’s beer. My speech was not slurred when I spoke, and I could still say the alphabet.
Visually, the effects I experience were minimal. Early on, it did seem as if my field of vision would VERY subtly “breathe” with each heartbeat, but I found this eventually subsided. Colors didn’t seem drastically more vibrant, as some stereotypes may suggest, but I did find contrasting sources of light seems to have a higher contrast. For example, I pulled my smartphone out of my pocket, and noticed that the screen seemed significantly brighter, while black text on white backgrounds seemed to “pop” a little more. This was pleasant enough for me to enjoy.
Auditory input didn’t seem DRASTICALLY affected by it. I did get a very slight buzz in the ears, which I seemed to no longer notice after a while, and at one point, I remember noticing, quite easily, the note or tone that my bathroom overhead fan was whirring at.
I did find myself very relaxed the entire time. Again, very similar to how a beer buzz might feel. The ‘edge’ was simply taken off a bit. I was more comfortable on my couch.
The only real negative effect I felt, while high, was pretty significant cotton mouth. Nothing a glass of water (or juice, or soda, or tea, or whatever) didn’t alleviate.
I didn’t experience “the munchies,” and it didn’t seem as though food tasted drastically better, as some report, although I did enjoy a bit of food while under the influence. Which brings me to my next point of discussion: Time perception.
This was arguably the most amusing, and fascinating experience weed gave me on my first try. I had some leftover hibachi chicken in my fridge, and it was dinner time anyway, so I heated it up. I placed it in the microwave, and set the time for one minute. I came back into the living room, and had a conversation with my wife that seemed to last around 2 and a half minutes, give or take. After finishing this conversation, I stepped back into the kitchen, to find that only 30 seconds had passed in the cooking of my food. I laughed heartily at this.
Time did seem to pass slower, but I was enjoying the experience, so I didn’t get a sense of impatience from this “time dilation”. I simply went with it. Enjoyed it. It’s not really a feeling I wanted to immediately end, as it is.
When I drink, I often turn pale, and my cheeks and nose go rosy. With cannabis, my eyes simply got a little red, and heavier, similar to how I look when I’m sleepy. Now granted, my trying marijuana occurred late at night, so it’s very possible that I simply WAS tired. I’ll have to try it again when I have more energy from the get go.
After about an hour and a half, I felt the heavier effects beginning to subside, and so I got ready for bed. Having gone to bed, I felt very comfortable, and fell asleep easily, which is something that is fairly uncommon for me. I listened to a podcast while falling asleep, and I recall, once again, the intro of the podcast (which is approx 1 minute) feeling like it lasted about 10 minutes.
I was also pleased that there was no hangover whatsoever, the next day. My throat was not sore, nor was my chest.
First impressions: I’d give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10. I’ve been told by many that the first time you smoke, you don’t feel it as much, so I’m interested to see if my second attempt renders any different of an experience. I will post updates as they occur!I started working at a large Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio. I was in my mid-20’s and I thought of myself as spiritually mature simply because large numbers of people would ascribe spiritual authority to me and allow me to have influence in their lives. In many ways, my talent outpaced my character.
After leaving the staff and moving to Los Angeles, I learned very quickly that much of my spiritual maturity was due to my connection to a group of spiritually mature people. Since I was in close proximity to very mature and spiritual people, I assumed that I was mature too.
I quickly discovered that my proximity to spiritual maturity did not make me spiritually mature. On my own, apart from the mature community, I found that I wasn’t nearly as persuasive and thoughtful. People didn’t just stop and listen to me. They didn’t listen to my advice as often. I couldn’t assume that I was a leader who was worth following.
Ultimately, after much anguish, I realized that I needed to develop my own deeper independent connection to God and not ride the coat tails of others. It’s far too easy to think I was growing and maturing when I really wasn’t. The only way to really grow and mature is to walk personally in obedience with God and allow his presence and power to transform me. Existing adjacent from others experiencing the presence and power isn’t enough.
I am finding ways to position myself to hear, learn, and discern God’s voice. Just as a well provides fresh water so too do I need to find fresh sources of hearing from God.
I am also working towards closing the gap between who I say I am and who I actually am when nobody is looking. I call this attribute: authenticity.
Please take time to consider if your spiritual maturity is codependent upon the maturity of your community. If it is, learn from my experience and begin to foster patterns of discerning and responding to God’s voice. Learn to close the gap and become authentic.
Since walking down this difficult road, I find that I am able to be more courageous, take greater risks, stand up for what’s right, and resist anxious behaviors. It was challenging when I started, but I can see not that it was necessary and it was worth it.In the beginning of the year, the Washington Post ran an opinion piece from AlterNet editor Terrell Jermaine Starr with an eye-catching headline: “A Cop in Ukraine said he was detaining me because I was black. I appreciated it.”
According to the Mr. Starr, who visited Ukraine in 2009, back then people with different skin color had routinely faced housing discrimination, police treated them as suspects in drug-smuggling crimes, and occasionally the reporter “encountered young men dressed in black shirts and Doc Martens who would throw up the Nazi salute at my direction.” In other words, “racism in Ukraine was much more blunt [than in the US] – always in my face, unabashed and in plain view.”
So, how much things have changed in Ukraine with regard to racism since the Maidan revolution supposedly brought to power the first truly pro-West, pro-European, pro-democracy and pro-human rights government?
Zhan Beleniuk, 24, is a contemporary of Ukrainian independence – he was born in 1991, the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He shared everything with his beloved Ukraine – including hunger of the 1990s and wild reforms that did not bring much in terms of positive economic change into his family’s life – he still lives with his mother in their small one-room Kiev apartment and has to count every hrivnia. And of course, like the rest of his generation, he shared the exhilarating hope for his country to change and become a European state in every sense of the word.
Unlike his peers, he has a very personal reason to want this happen. Zhan Beleniuk is a typical Ukrainian in every way but his skin color. His father, who he never knew, was from Rwanda. He was a student of the Aviation Institute in the Soviet Ukraine and, being a pilot, was killed in action at the time of war in this African country. Zhan’s Ukrainian mother, Svetlana, raised him alone.
SEE ALSO: The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs
Zhan knows that there’s still wide-spread racism in his homeland. Despite all the changes, he is still considered black first and Ukrainian second and often is asked when he is planning to visit his motherland – Rwanda.
“My motherland is here in Ukraine,” is his answer. ”Now they [Ukrainian public] talk a lot about joining the EU. But I think that a lot of our folks are not ready for this”, he said in the recent interview to the UNIAN, Ukrainian news agency.
As a kid, he was traumatized by racist slurs of his peers, and often had to fight the offenders, but even today he hears insults behind his back from time to time.
Zhan Beleniuk knows how to defend himself – he is a professional wrestler who won the Silver medal at the latest World Wrestling Championship in Baku and dreams of winning the Gold one at the coming Championship in Las Vegas. “Are you Mike Tyson?” he was asked once by a man in the shopping mall, and Zhan’s negative answer in his native Russian was most likely the biggest shock of the man’s life.
There are others in the country whose looks don’t fit the profile of an Aryan Ukrainian, a profile celebrated by Ukrainian nationalists enjoying their moment in a lot of places of power in the country, other much more vulnerable than Zhan, who for different reasons came to Ukraine from Africa and now have to experience racism on the streets almost every day.
In the end of July, a number of Ukrainian newspapers broke the story of 23-year-old Asi, a refugee from the African state of Sierra Leone who came to Ukraine just six months ago. At the bus station at the town of Uzhgorod, which is in West Ukraine, the young woman and her 8-month-old son were trying to board the bus but were violently thrown off by the furious passengers who didn’t want to travel in her company because she “was not like them.” The violent attack was filmed by the angry crowd that was shouting “Tie her to the fence together with the kid!” The bus driver called police, who upon arrival … hand-cuffed and took away the unfortunate victim of racial abuse who was hysterically screaming in English, facing the hostile crowd of Ukrainian “Europeans” who couldn’t understand her pleas.
This was not the first racial incident in Uzhgorod. The town’s local aqua-park denied entrance to the black-skinned students of local university who happened to be from India and Nigeria. The pool’s owner, former mayor of Uzhgorod and deputy to the Supreme Parliament, Serhei Ratushnyak, explained his pool’s policy by mentioning concern about the public health of the town residents in the face of the danger caused by “syphilitic and tuberculosis Gypsyhood of the area and of the whole world.”
“During last year,” he stated, “we had a 14-fold increase in AIDS cases in town. I demand compensation for all my expenses on buying and building [of the pool complex in case the “Gypsies” are allowed into his aqua-park by the authorities]”, he said.
“We let in the residents of Uzhgorod [only], we let in [only] the white people” – these was the explanations given to the reporter by the on duty entrance guard – white blond-haired lady in her forties (on the video here).
Racism in Ukraine is not limited to the western part of the country or directed only against people from Africa. In mid-June, in the city of Kharkov, around a hundred foreign students demonstrated with placards reading “No to Racism!” and “Protect Foreign Students!” The reason for the demonstration was the violent attack by the mob of 40-50 people in black clothes and balaclavas at the students from Jordan – four of them were taken to the hospital with knife wounds and severe head injuries. On the way, the violent mob put four cars on fire and stubbed to death two dogs that belonged to their ‘enemies.’ The video, taken by a scared foreign student from the safety of his dorm room window, shows the scale of the mob attack and impunity of the attackers.
A day later, a special plane with a medical team aboard was sent by the King of Jordan to take the wounded home. “I’m scared to walk around the city,” admitted one of the Jordanian students. “There is no police, no protection, we have a security guard at the dorm – a grandfather of 60 years-old. If the criminals are not found, I am packing my suitcases and going home.”
Since that was the fourth attack of its kind on foreign students in Kharkov this year, it’s hard to be optimistic about Ukrainian police protection with regard to dark-skinned outsiders. And there was nothing encouraging in the official version of the events given by Mr. Valentin Nalivaychenko, then-head of Ukrainian Security Service, who stated on the TV program “Shuster-Live” that the “local gangs might have been provoked and inspired [to beat up the dark-skinned foreigners] by the foreign special services. To put it bluntly – by the Russians.” Mr. Nalivaychenko promised full support by his agency in the investigation – so far, almost two months later, no link with Moscow has been established.
Same for the ugly incident with the Sierra Leone woman in Uzhgorod. To this day, there have been no consequences for the perpetrators who threw the hapless young woman off the bus and wanted to tie her to the fence along with her eight-month-old baby.
Zhan Beleniuk, the Ukrainian wrestler who dreams of becoming a world champion, is not optimistic. “I am a patriot. I deeply love Kiev, my dear Pod |
arrivistes to ostentatiously buy their way to the top, but don’t dismiss them out of hand
This being their maiden season in the German top flight, it is nigh on impossible to profile RB Leipzig without focusing on their controversial journey to the Bundesliga summit. Previously a fifth-tier team from the east German region of Saxony called SSV Markranstädt, the club’s licence was bought in 2009 by the Austrian energy drink manufacturer Red Bull, who promptly rebranded their acquisition by changing their name, crest and kit before beginning their quick ascent through the divisions.
Despite being unable to call themselves Red Bull Leipzig due to DFB regulations (the RB “officially” stands for “RasenBallsport”, which means “lawn sports”), they are unequivocally part of a stable of sports franchises that includes their Austrian feeder club FC Red Bull Salzburg, Red Bull Brasil, Red Bull Ghana, New York Red Bulls and Formula One’s Red Bull Racing. Constructs do not get more artificial, so it is little surprise they have become the most hated football club in Germany.
RB Leipzig extend Bundesliga lead to six points by beating Freiburg Read more
In 2011, Red Bull’s owner, Dietrich Mateschitz, spoke of his intention to get RB Leipzig into the Bundesliga within three to five years and an investment of €100m in their transfer kitty helped grease the wheels. “We also want to get into the Champions League and be successful there, which is something you can only achieve with a club that plays in one of the top leagues,” said Mateschitz, whose team are firmly on course to meet that particular target sooner rather than later. Fans of rival sides have made no secret of their contempt for a team who, while technically not breaking “50+1” rule in the statutes of the German league that gives members of football clubs a say in the running of their club, certainly flies in the face of the rule’s spirit.
There have been numerous protests against them. In their first Bundesliga home game, a 1-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund, their opponents’ hardcore fans passed up the opportunity to visit Die Roten Bullen’s 43,000-capacity Red Bull Arena and instead stayed at home to support their club’s under-23s in a fourth division match. Before a recent match at Bayer Leverkusen’s BayArena home fans threw paint at the Leipzig team bus, while the second division side Dynamo Dresden were fined £54,000 after one of their fans launched a bull’s head towards the pitch during a cup match in August.
For all their detractors, this garish and rather tacky vehicle for the Red Bull group give every indication they are in the Bundesliga for the long haul and look set to become a European footballing force. They are not without their supporters, not least those east German locals who have been starved of any kind of success since VfB Leipzig were relegated in 1994 and have warmly embraced their new club in its infancy. Indeed, a look beyond the club’s lack of soul, complete absence of tradition and hideous bovine branding suggests there is much to admire.
For all their wealth, RB Leipzig’s policy is one of focusing on youth, nurturing young players by giving them valuable game time that might not be available elsewhere before selling them on for a profit when they hit their prime. Their current squad has an average age of just 23 and includes their joint record signing, the Scottish winger Oliver Burke who they snapped up from Nottingham Forest for £13m during the summer. Burke’s decision to eschew a move to one of several Premier League also-rans in favour of relocating to Saxony raised eyebrows in England, but in a recent interview with football website thesetpieces.com the 19-year-old declared himself delighted with his move.
Oliver Burke: ‘England tried a cheeky one but no way! I love playing for Scotland – goosebumps’ Read more
“I’ve really shown that I’ve come to a fantastic club,” he said after the 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen that sent his team to the top of the league, a position they reinforced with Friday’s 4-1 win at Freiburg. “I don’t really need to say much – look at where we are. It’s been very positive. Every day I’m learning something new and I can only get better at this club. I have the right people around me and I am still at a young age.”
It’s difficult to disagree that RB Leipzig’s sporting director Ralf Rangnick and manager Ralph Hasenhüttl are the right people. A former manager of Stuttgart, Hannover 96, Hoffenheim and Schalke, Rangnick is an innovative tactician renowned as the brains behind the frenetic pressing game that has since become the hallmark of German coaches such as Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp and his successor at Borussia Dortmund, Thomas Tuchel.
Rangnick steered RB Leipzig into the Bundesliga last season before moving upstairs and handing the reins to Hasenhüttl. Nicknamed the “Alpine Klopp”, the Austrian Hasenhüttl is quite the showman but his touchline histrionics belie a shrewd football brain and reputation as a master motivator of hungry young players. Big names are conspicuous by their absence from his squad: despite their enviable wealth, Leipzig’s biggest signings before their first Bundesliga season were the callow Burke, the 21-year-old midfielder Naby Keita from Red Bull Salzburg and the 20-year-old striker Timo Werner from Stuttgart. Raw talents with plenty to prove and, perhaps more importantly, malleable and open minds.
Aged 49, Hasenhüttl has a history of over-achievement at small teams such as Unterhaching and Aalen in Germany’s lower leagues, but it was at Ingolstadt where he rose to national prominence. In his first season he saved the Bavarian club from relegation to Germany’s third division before securing their first ever promotion to the Bundesliga in 2015. Having steered his energetic, swashbuckling RB Leipzig side to the top of Bundesliga within five months of taking charge, he claims they will be difficult to dislodge. “If we keep playing this way and continue to do what we work on and if we can maintain this hunger, then we are going to be hard to beat,’’ he said last week. “Our only objective is to find solutions to get us through the challenges we face each day. Nobody has gifted us our league position. Everybody here believes in what we are doing.’’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest RB Leipzig, succeeding in an otherwise barren football hinterland that was in dire need of a top-flight team. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images
On and off the pitch, Leipzig are well equipped to deal with any of the aforementioned challenges. Defensively stout, they have conceded 10 goals in 12 matches so far this season, while their energetic pressing and lightning fast counterattacking play is grist to the mill of ambitious young players and enthusiastic supporters who appear to adore their inspirational manager. Their bespoke training facilities are state of the art and they have invested €35m (£30m) in an academy which their head of youth development, Frieder Schrof, last year claimed would “be setting the standards when it comes to training facilities, education levels and accommodation”.
RB Leipzig are by no means the first nouveau riche arrivistes to ostentatiously buy their way to the top and are far from unique even in Germany, where Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen and Hoffenheim enjoy similar corporate backing.
Located in an otherwise barren football hinterland that was in dire need of a top-flight football team, they have been welcomed by the locals in their catchment area. For all the envious, bitter and often justified carping of their many detractors, it is probably only a matter of time before they are grudgingly accepted on a more widespread scale.Wells Fargo offers many services to help avoid overdrafts or declined transactions.
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With this free account feature, when the bank receives your electronic direct deposit by 9:00 am local time, we will automatically include this amount in a reevaluation of the prior day’s transactions that resulted in an overdraft or returned item (non-sufficient funds/NSF) fee. The bank will calculate a new balance, which includes your pending direct deposit (less any pending debits) and use this amount to reevaluate the prior day’s transactions on your account and waive any fees for transactions that would have been covered by your direct deposit. Learn more
2. Online, Mobile and/or Text Banking Tools
Monitor your account activity, transfer funds, and set up a low balance alert.
See “Avoiding Overdrafts” below for details.
Consider our optional Overdraft Services:
We offer two overdraft services to help you manage your checking account. Both services are optional and can be added or removed at any time. If you are enrolled in both services, we will first use Overdraft Protection — which has a lower fee — to cover your overdraft.
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You can link up to two eligible accounts (one savings, one credit) to your checking account, and we will use available funds in those linked account(s) to cover your transactions if you don’t have enough money in your checking account.
, one credit) to your checking account, and we will use available funds in those linked account(s) to cover your transactions if you don’t have enough money in your checking account. A single Overdraft Protection transfer or advance fee will be assessed regardless of the number of transactions covered or whether money is transferred from multiple accounts. You can avoid the fee by making a covering deposit or transfer before the cutoff time on the same business day. The amount of the fee depends on which account the money is transferred from.
or transfer before the cutoff time on the same business day. The amount of the fee depends on which account the money is transferred from. See “Overdraft Protection” below for details.
4. Debit Card Overdraft Service
You can choose whether your ATM and everyday (one time) debit card transactions may be approved, at the Bank's discretion, if you don’t have enough money in your checking account or in accounts linked for Overdraft Protection at the time of the transaction.
If Debit Card Overdraft Service is used to approve a transaction into overdraft, our standard overdraft fee of $35 per item will apply unless a covering deposit or transfer is made before the cut-off time on the same business day.
will apply unless a covering deposit or transfer is made before the cut-off time on the same business day. See “Debit Card Overdraft Service” below for details.
You can learn more about these two overdraft options in the sections below or in our Consumer Overdraft Services / Choices to help you manage your checking account (PDF)SPRING HILL — Inga Marie Swanson could be generous and kind.
Every Wednesday, she would bring candy for members of her Bible study group. On Sundays, she would donate little plastic bags of pocket change. She could be funny and witty. Compassionate. Bubbly.
But she could also be quiet and reserved, shutting herself in her room, studying the Bible and quietly listening to Christian radio. Her boyfriend said she could be so shy she would exit the room when a stranger entered. She was modest and dressed conservatively.
The way friends and loved ones remember Marie, as many knew her, presents a complex and at times contradictory picture.
But one thing is clear.
The events leading to her death this month took those around her by surprise and have generated a long list of unanswered questions.
How did such a modest, compassionate and devout woman end up standing naked that Saturday afternoon in front of two off-duty law enforcement officers with a firearm?
• • •
The details of the shooting are still murky.
Hernando County sheriff's Detective Rocky Howard, 31, and Tampa police Officer William Mechler, 26, were attending a gathering of a couple of families on Oct. 20 at 9070 Orchard Way.
The home belongs to Howard's in-laws. He lives nearby.
Swanson, naked and acting irrationally, approached the group uninvited, according to the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. She left, returning a short time later with a firearm, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Authorities have not identified what type of firearm she was carrying, but Swanson's live-in boyfriend, David Simpson, said it was an antique firearm that had been mounted on the second floor of his home. It had belonged to his father.
He said that the single-shooter had no bullets and that the barrel had to be held in place by hand or it would fold downward and the barrel would aim at the ground.
"She would have to have a finger under the barrel to keep it up," Simpson said.
When Swanson returned to the property about 1:20 p.m., authorities say, she confronted the deputy and officer with the firearm, and the two law enforcement officers fired, killing her.
The story gets a little more unusual.
Earlier that afternoon, two men had seen Swanson walking around naked and carrying a large silver cross. She approached them later, waving the cross and making statements about an "Antichrist." They never called authorities.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the incident but has declined to provide any specifics.
Authorities have not disclosed how many times the officers fired or whether Swanson aimed the firearm at the officers or any other people. They have not disclosed whether anyone called for on-duty assistance after Swanson first appeared naked and irrational.
• • •
Swanson, 42, moved to Tampa from Connecticut with her family in 1979, her brother said.
As a teenager, she attended Gaither High School.
Her family eventually left the state, but she never did. Always independent, she started working and living on her own when she was 17 or 18, paying for her own apartment and car.
She worked for many years as a waiter, bouncing around the Tampa Bay area, living in Tampa, Pasco and Hernando. She went for her associate's degree but never graduated, said former boyfriend David Mull, who met her in the early 1990s.
Several years ago, they moved to Hernando and lived, as friends, in a small mobile home near where she met her last boyfriend, David Simpson.
• • •
Swanson never had a job in the three years they were together, Simpson said. He didn't think she had worked for years before they met in 2009.
She tended a neighbor's horses and did odd jobs around the house.
Mostly, she studied the Bible.
"Any time you went in the room, she was always in the Bible," Simpson said. "All the time."
The pages of her Bible are worn and crinkled, the edges smudged. The margins swell with notations in neat capital letters. "PEOPLE AND PLACES IMPORTANT," she wrote in the Book of Nehemiah. Hardly a page is free of her careful underlining or highlighting.
She filled pages with passages she had printed from memory.
Swanson was sweet. Wonderful, in Simpson's eyes. Different.
She had her issues.
"She believed she was coming to an end, I believe," Simpson said. "She always told me she was going home. She always told me she was dying of cancer."
Gunnar Swanson said his younger sister was never diagnosed with a mental illness.
He couldn't say what happened. He called her a sympathetic and understanding person.
"It was almost like she took their pain on as her own," he said.
Pastor David Brockhoff of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Masaryktown said Swanson was kind, frequently giving him little cards of encouragement that always included a prayer.
"She had a very sensitive personality," Brockhoff said of Swanson, who attended his church regularly, though was not an official member. "She would really either express a lot of joy or show that she was struggling with something."
• • •
Nobody yet has an answer to the question on everyone's mind:
How did this happen?
"No one would have seen a break with reality like that," Brockhoff said. "Clearly, something big happened."
Her brother couldn't imagine how his sister came to be carrying a weapon. Or nude. She always wore long sleeves and pants — even socks with sandals.
No one suspected heavy drugs or alcohol were involved.
Swanson occasionally smoked marijuana and took over-the-counter sleeping medicine, but that was it, Simpson said.
But Simpson did notice a change in his girlfriend in the few days leading up to the Oct. 20 incident.
She had become worried about some political differences and discussion of some church members' financial problems at Bible study the previous weeks, Simpson said.
"She was different. Totally different," he said. "She kept saying, 'My brain won't shut off.' "
She had difficulty sleeping and would wake up to scribble lines from the Bible.
"I could just tell it in her eyes," he said. "She wasn't the Marie — the Boo Boo — I knew."
She told Simpson that everything would be back to normal after the Nov. 6 election. He was concerned but didn't think it was that serious.
• • •
Simpson left for work that Saturday at 6:45 a.m.
She was awake. He told her she should go back to bed.
He gave her a hug and kissed her goodbye.
"I'll be back," he said.
"Okay," she said.
And he left for the day.
Danny Valentine can be reached at [email protected] or (352) 848-1432. Reach him on Twitter @HernandoTimes.Attorney General Jeff Sessions made President Trump's decision to rescind DACA official this morning, announcing that the federal government would accept no new permit applications and would subject the program to an "orderly wind-down" before its scheduled expiration date of March 5, 2018. This is a gratuitously barbaric stunt with nothing in its "PRO" column except for "It will probably cause white people who are afraid of brown people to pump their fists wildly," and even for Sessions—a man who the United States Senate once essentially decided was too racist to be a federal judge—the rationales he offered at today's press conference were spectacularly dishonest.
First, the attorney general forcefully declared that DACA has denied jobs to "hundreds of thousands" of Americans, an assertion he apparently makes based on the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of DACA permit-holders who have jobs, all of which he assumes would instantaneously and effortlessly flow to American citizens as soon as the policy is rescinded, or something. Even right-leaning think tanks warn that terminating DACA would eliminate jobs, devastate employers, and reduce economic growth by $280 billion over the next ten years, but Jeff Sessions has never been one to allow details to get in the way of a compelling nativist narrative, and he's sure as hell not about to start now.
From there, Sessions continued playing the hits, strenuously arguing that expelling DACA permit-holders—again, many of whom are children—from the country is vital to protecting Americans from "crime, violence, and terrorism," alluding to the marauding bands of criminal undocumented immigrants about which Sessions loves to speak in the direst of tones, but which exist only in the attorney general's wildest post-apocalyptic fever dreams. This is a pernicious, slanderous, race-baiting lie: Anyone convicted of a felony, a "significant" misdemeanor, or multiple misdemeanors of any type is ineligible to obtain a DACA permit, but Sessions knows well that if being truthful about the facts would immediately cause his argument to collapse, blowing his trusty dog whistle as loudly and forcefully as he can is his next-best option. "The compassionate thing to do is end the lawlessness and enforce our laws," he said, while peering sternly over his glasses, ably demonstrating in one sentence that his grasp of the definitions of both "compassionate" and "lawlessness" is shaky at best.
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Perhaps the attorney general's most outrageously disingenuous bit of drivel, though, came when he blasted DACA as an "unconstitutional exercise of authority by the executive branch" in the area of immigration policy—a particularly rich claim coming from a man whose flagrantly unlawful Muslim ban has been repeatedly and contemptuously jammed in the garbage can by seemingly every federal court in the nation at this point. (Strange how when implementing its own immigration policy, the Trump administration crows loudly and righteously that the executive's powers will "not be questioned," but when it comes to the immigration policy implemented by the previous officeholder, Jeff Sessions suddenly transmogrifies into the world's most vocal champion of separation of powers.)
Here is the attorney general patiently explaining the ideological underpinnings of a decision that threatens to uproot hundreds of thousands of hardworking young people, all of whom came to the United States as children, and force them to go live in a country that they probably don't even remember:
Societies where the rule of law is treasured are societies that tend to flourish and succeed. Societies where the rule of law is subject to political whims and personal biases tend to become societies afflicted by corruption, poverty, and human suffering.
For once, Jeff Sessions is right: Mixing unchecked executive power with the political whims and personal biases of those who wield it uncritically and thoughtlessly will lead to tremendous human suffering. Should he wish to see an illustration of this principle in action, he need only find the closest mirror.
Watch Now:
Could Trump Try to Pardon Everyone?Trent Reznor composed the theme for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Activision announced today.
The Nine Inch Nails frontman, who most recently worked on the soundtracks for the David Fincher films The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, put together an "aggressively sounding" piece for Treyarch's upcoming first-person shooter, according to USA Today.
Reznor, who won an Oscar for his collaboration on The Social Network with Atticus Ross, is a longtime gamer and an avowed fan of the "cutting-edge" Call of Duty series. He says that Black Ops 2, which Activision is marketing as a possible portrait of a drone-run near-future war, calls for a "weighty" piece of music as opposed to a "gung-ho patriotic-feeling kind of theme song."
Black Ops 2 is not the first video game on Reznor's resume; he previously contributed to id Software's Quake and Doom 3. There's no word on whether Activision and Treyarch picked him because of the Black Ops character named Reznov.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is due out for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 13th.The Obama administration has warned the US will need to deal with a wave of “climate refugees” as the Arctic continues to warm, joining with the Canadian government to express alarm over how climate change is affecting indigenous communities.
Sally Jewell, US secretary of the interior, painted a stark picture of communities relocating and lives disrupted in her first official visit to Canada. The Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the global average, has just recorded its lowest recorded peak ice extent after what’s been called a “warm, crazy winter”.
Obama declares disaster as Marshall Islands suffers worst-ever drought Read more
“We will have climate refugees,” Jewell said. “We have to figure out how to deal with potentially relocating villages. There’s real tangible support we need to do from a government basis, working alongside indigenous communities as they make very difficult choices about what is right for them.
“We can’t turn this around. We can stem the increase in temperature, we can stem some of the effect, perhaps, if we act on climate. But the changes are under way and they are very rapid.”
The escalating Arctic temperatures, diminishing ice and rising sea levels are having consequences for humans as well as other animals such as polar bears and walruses. The ability to catch fish and travel – or even to hold the famed Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska – is at risk.
Jewell said the remote town of Kivalina in Alaska is “washing away”. The coastal town, located around 80 miles above the Arctic circle, has been visited by Barack Obama following warnings its 400-strong population will have to be moved due to thinning ice that exposes the town to crashing waves.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The village of Kivalina, Alaska, seen from Air Force One, the president’s plane. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
It’s a problem that is expected to be replicated elsewhere in Alaska and in Canada. Jewell said political leaders need to “act and support” efforts to make communities more resilient to climate change. US Republicans have, so far, opposed any funding to protect or relocate Alaskan towns.
“The changing climate isn’t just about melting permafrost, it’s having a huge impact upon cultures,” said Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment minister, who met with Jewell in Quebec. “When your ice highway has gone, communities can’t interact. It’s having a huge impact upon food and food insecurity.”
McKenna said there is a “huge commitment to do more” from Obama and Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister. The two leaders met in Washington DC in March to agree to help lead the world to a low-carbon economy and to bolster efforts to protect the Arctic and the people who live there.
Scientists expect the Arctic to be completely ice-free for at least a few days during the summer by the 2040s. The area of summer ice has shrunk by around 3m sq km since 1980.
The disappearance of this ice is set to open up new opportunities for shipping lanes through previously inaccessible areas, raising concerns over oil spills and further disruption to indigenous livelihoods.On January 28, 1986, STS-51-L launched with Astronauts Dick Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis aboard. Seventy-three seconds into launch, their orbiter, the Challenger, broke apart when strong wind gusts put the final touches on a tragedy that started with stiffened O-rings on a freezing Florida morning. The orbiter broke into pieces, the details obscured by billowing vapor. Two minutes and forty-five seconds later, the crew chamber hit the ocean with an acceleration of 200 G. It was one of the worst space disasters of spaceflight history.
Challenging Time of Death of Challenger’s Crew
Unlike the investigation after Columbia, Challenger’s Rogers Commission did not mention the physiological details of the crew’s deaths, probably out of a sense of sensitivity for the astronauts’ families. NASA released a statement at the time indicating that they were unable to determine the cause of death, but “established that it is possible, but not certain, that loss of consciousness did occur in the seconds following the orbiter breakup.”
That is the story that has been passed down in the years since. However, a few voices have risen to dispel that version of events as only partially true. One of them is retired and somewhat eccentric astronaut Story Musgave. Musgrave was a physician before he became an astronaut, serving as a part-time trauma surgeon during his years at NASA, and he knows exactly how Challenger’s astronauts died. “They died when they hit the water,” Musgrave says, ” We know that.”
Watch the report below for more details:Imagine you're a soldier driving for hours through a stretch of empty, dusty road. You're wearing a helmet packed with sensors that record your brain's electrical signals and sends them out into the ether for processing at a remote facility.
Meanwhile, a team of military specialists is monitoring your cognitive abilities in real-time, based on an algorithm's interpretation of your brainwaves. What they want to know is this: are you too sleepy to be driving down that long, unrelentingly uniform highway?
The US Army's Human Research and Engineering Directorate (HRED), which has the mission of improving "soldier-machine interactions in mission contexts," recently sponsored and co-authored research that could lead to the above scenario—if the technology ever gets there.
A paper posted to the arXiv preprint server on Friday described an HRED-sponsored study that looked into using brainwave-reading tech, also known as electroencephalography (EEG), to monitor the drowsiness of drivers and how it affects them doing things like changing lanes. It's worth noting that other researchers have investigated this scenario before, so the technology shouldn't be thought of as only having military applications. One could imagine a rather disturbing scenario where long-distance truckers are required to have their brainwaves monitored, for example.
Read More: Scientists Found a Way to Email Brianwaves
The basics of EEG involve a headset that records the brain's subtle electrical signals, and an algorithm to interpret them. Usually, an accurate interpretation of what brainwaves mean only comes after the algorithm is trained using a particular person's brainwave data. Brainwave patterns can be so individual and specific that they're like a kind of fingerprint.
Once an algorithm can reliably interpret one person's brainwaves, it may not be able to do the same for another person without being re-calibrated. That takes time and effort, so it's not ideal for a scenario where you need a single EEG system to monitor numerous individuals at once.
In the study, the researchers developed a series of algorithms to interpret brainwaves based on their previous work, and tried them out on 16 different people strapped into a car in a testing chamber. The test subjects were asked to drive down a long, uniform highway and periodically switch lanes in a simulation. Their brainwaves were recorded during the test, and a video camera kept tabs on them.
The algorithms made use of something called "transfer learning," which involves taking things an algorithm's already learned to do and applying them to a new scenario. The results were "outstanding," the researchers wrote, but there's a lot more to be done in order to make the algorithms more accurate and faster.
EEG isn't a new science, and occupies a strange liminal zone between hackneyed crap—for example, the world of EEG video games—and hardcore research. The fact is that we don't know everything about how the brain works, and with EEG it can seem like a guessing game or trial-and-error to figure out what electrical signals mean and how to use them. There are also questions of practicality surrounding driving while wearing what looks like on old-school swimming cap on your head.
But with every study, it seems like researchers are getting a bit closer. And so is the military, if self-driving cars doesn't make human drivers obsolete first.
Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.Kimbo Slice, the former street fighter turned MMA fighter who has been out of the fight game since the UFC cut him 15 months ago, stepped into the ring for his first professional boxing match on Saturday night. It went about as well as he could have hoped.According to multiple accounts of the bout posted on Twitter, Kimbo knocked out his opponent, a man named James Wade, in just 17 seconds.It's important to note that Wade came into the fight with a record of 0-1, and he was knocked out in his only previous fight. So it's not like Kimbo beat a particularly impressive opponent. The fact that Kimbo was fighting an 0-1 fighter at a casino in Oklahoma on a card that wasn't even televised indicates that promoter Gary Shaw knows Kimbo has a long way to go before he'll be a legitimate fighter who's ready for public exposure.But Kimbo remains a well-known presence in the fight game, thanks to his time in the UFC, in EliteXC fights on CBS before that, and even thanks to his YouTube fights before he ever had a sanctioned bout. And now he's 1-0 as a boxer.Here's the video:With the new season starting tomorrow, we take a look at how Charlton did in the pre-season friendlies. First we have a summary of the matches and then of every players’ appearances.
MATCHES
Opponents Date Billing Ground Score Scorers Attendance Welling Utd 11/07/2015 1st Team Park View Road 2-0 Ahearne-Grant 3, 6 2,100 Genk
[Belgium] 15/07/2015 1st Team Cristal Arena 0-1 2,940 Sint-Truiden
[Belgium] 18/07/2015 1st Team Stayen Stadium 0-4 3,994 Dulwich Hamlet 18/07/2015 XI Champion Hill 3-2 Aribo 15
Jackson 43
Sinclair 68 754 Dagenham
& Redbridge 22/07/2015 1st Team Victoria Road 2-0 Partridge o.g. 38
Holmes-Dennis 66 719 Maidstone Utd 23/07/2015 XI Gallagher Stadium 1-1 Sinclair 61 528 West Ham Utd 25/07/2015 1st Team The Valley 0-0 8,678 Southend Utd 28/07/2015 Nominally
1st Team Roots Hall 1-2 Kennedy 32 Not reported Bolton Wanderers 31/07/2015 1st Team Macron Stadium 2-2 Watt 43, 60 4,541 Chelmsford City 04/08/2015 XI Melbourne Stadium 1-2 Ahearne-Grant 14 371
MATCH SUMMARY
Played Won Drawn Lost For Against 10 3 3 4 12 14
PLAYER APPEARANCES & GOALS
Forename Surname Squad Number
2015-16 Status All
Appearances Goals Karlan AHEARNE-GRANT 18 From Development Squad 8 3 Zak ANSAH 1st Teamer 2 0 Joe ARIBO Trialist from Slough 3 1 El-Hadji BA 22 Acquired from Sunderland 29/06 6 0 Jordan BEENEY Development Squad 2 0 Aaron BARNES Development Squad 6 0 Marcel BARRINGTON Trialist formerly with Stoke and Leicester 1 0 Patrick BAUER 5 Acquired from C.S. Marítimo [Madeira] 22/06 6 0 Zakarya BERGDICH 19 Acquired from Real Valladolid 23/07 2 0 André BIKEY-AMOUGOU Established 1st Teamer 3 0 Sam BONE Development Squad 1 0 Rhys BROWNE Development Squad 1 0 Cristian CEBALLOS PRIETO 10 Acquired from Tottenham 23/07 1 0 Regan CHARLES-COOK 24 From Development Squad 7 0 Jordan COUSINS 8 Established 1st Teamer 5 0 Alou DIARRA 12 Established 1st Teamer 6 0 Marko DMITROVIC Loaned to Alcorcon from 27/07 2 0 Archie EDWARDS Development Squad 1 0 Conor FERGUSON Trialist from Brisbane City 1 0 Morgan FOX 21 Established 1st Teamer 6 0 Reza GHOOCHANNEJHAD NOURNIA 15 Prodigal 1st Teamer 2 0 Priestly GRIFFITHS Trialist formerly with Middlesbrough 1 0 Jóhann Berg GUÐMUNDSSON 7 Established 1st Teamer 5 0 Brandon HANLAN Development Squad 2 0 Callum HARRIOTT 11 Established 1st Teamer 5 0 Stephen HENDERSON 1 Established 1st Teamer 2 0 Tareiq HOLMES-DENNIS 17 From Development Squad 8 1 Johnnie JACKSON 4 Established 1st Teamer 6 1 Ahmed KASHI 3 Acquired from Metz 21/07 3 0 Alex KELLY Development Squad 3 0 Mikhail KENNEDY Development Squad 5 1 Ezri KONSA Development Squad 3 0 George LAPSLIE Development Squad 1 0 Harry LENNON 26 From Development Squad 7 0 Ademola LOOKMAN Development Squad 2 0 Simon MAKIENOK 9 Loaned from Palermo 5 0 Dimitar MITOV 27 From Development Squad 4 0 Frank MOUSSA 44 Long term injury 0 0 Oliver MULDOON Development Squad 4 0 Loïc NÉGO 1st Teamer 2 0 Martin NETZER Trialist formerly with Brentford 1 0 Ayo OBILEYE Development Squad 5 0 Piotr PARZYSZEK Returning loanee, loaned out again 0 0 Joe PIGOTT 23 Returning loanee 6 0 Dexter PETER Trialist formerly with Norwich 2 0 Nick POPE 30 1st Teamer 7 0 Mouhamadou-Naby SARR 6 Acquired from Sporting Lisbon 28/07 2 0 Tobi SHO-SILVA Development Squad 4 0 Jake SINCLAIR Trialist formerly with Southampton 3 2 Chris SOLLY 20 Established 1st Teamer 5 0 Josh STAUNTON Trialist formerly with Gillingham 3 0 Terell THOMAS Development Squad 4 0 Josh UMERAH Development Squad 2 0 Igor VETOKELE 14 Established 1st Teamer 2 0 Tony WATT 32 Established 1st Teamer 6 2 Rhoys WIGGINS 16 1st Teamer – Sold to Sheffield Wed. 05/08 3 0
For a more detailed look at player appearances, please see the following spreadsheet: 2015 – Pre Season Friendlies
Advertisementsquote from Hamlet
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to the insincere overacting of a character in the play within a play created by Prince Hamlet to prove his uncle's guilt in the murder of his father, the King of Denmark.
The phrase is used in everyday speech to indicate doubt concerning someone's sincerity. A common misquotation places methinks first, as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much".
In Hamlet [ edit ]
The line, like most of Shakespeare's works, is in iambic pentameter. It is found in Act III, Scene II of Hamlet, where it is spoken by Queen Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet believes that his father, the king, was murdered by his uncle Claudius (who then married Gertrude). Hamlet decides to stage a play, the Murder of Gonzago, that follows a similar sequence of events, in order to test whether viewing it will trigger a guilty conscience on the part of Claudius.
As Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius and others watch |
7 and Volkswagen Touareg cannot be made fully compliant with EPA regulations. Generation 2 engines in 2013–2016 models will be fixed under a recall covering 38,745 vehicles. The 2013–2014 Touareg, 2013–2014 Cayenne, and 2015 Q7, all with the so-called Generation 2.1 version of the 3.0-liter TDI V-6, will receive a software upgrade and a hardware fix. The 2015–2016 Touareg and Cayenne models (with the Generation 2.2 engine) will get only software changes. Owners who opt for the fix still additionally receive roughly $8500 to $17,500. On those 58,000 models, Audi said on November 23, 2015, that it would update the software and “resubmit” its emissions applications after the EPA found undocumented “auxiliary emission control devices” that were allowing excessive levels of NOx.
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Expired incentive programs:
As part of its Customer Goodwill package, Volkswagen offered $1000 cash to every owner of a 2.0-liter TDI named in the EPA’s first violation notice: a $500 prepaid Visa card to spend on anything and another $500 cash card valid only at Volkswagen dealerships (to use toward another car, service, or lots of VW hats). They also could get free 24-hour roadside assistance for the next three years. The deadline to register for that program ended April 30. The same offer was extended to owners of 3.0-liter diesel models, who had until July 31. Audi, Porsche, and VW TDI owners who took delivery after November 8 were not eligible (full rules here). Current owners of any VW model were also able to get a $2000 cash rebate toward a new car, although this incentive may continue to vary or expire as time progresses. Dealers also have “discretionary” cash they can use to sweeten deals (and they’re getting guaranteed kickbacks for some models). Basically, if Volkswagen is on your shopping list, now’s the time to haggle like a pro.
Don’t all automakers tailor their cars to ace the EPA test cycle? Why single out VW?
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Automakers optimize powertrains for each second of the EPA’s dynamometer tests (Federal Test Procedure 75, the one VW’s computers detect, runs for 1370 seconds). They have to, because they’re required to self-certify every model on sale. The EPA verifies roughly 15 percent of those tests each year. In rare cases, automakers grossly overstate fuel economy (as Ford and Kia did) and can take advantage of loopholes in the certification process.
Yet these standardized tests, as flawed as they may be in comparison to real-world driving, are critical. Performed correctly, they’re at least an accurate method to assess legal compliance and provide a fair comparison for consumers. Right now, there’s no indication that automakers program their cars to run in a wildly different fashion on the road, even as the EPA and the German government attempt to prove otherwise. Volkswagen explicitly did, and that’s why it’s getting hammered.
What are selective catalytic reduction and urea injection?
Diesel fuel is carbon rich and close in composition to home heating oil. As such, it’s inherently dirty and sooty when burned. While heavy-duty diesel pickups, vans, trucks, and other commercial vehicles follow looser environmental standards, light-duty vehicles have it tough—and nowhere is it tougher to certify a diesel car or truck than in the U.S. In order to trap particulates and curb nitrogen oxide in practically all new diesel engines, selective catalytic reduction (SCR) and urea injection must be used.
A three-way catalytic converter in gasoline vehicles treats exhaust gas by both oxidizing (adding oxygen to convert carbon monoxide and other hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water) and reducing (removing oxygen to convert nitrogen oxide to nitrogen and water). But diesel engines burn so lean that they require separate oxidation and reduction catalysts. After diesel exhaust passes through the oxidation catalyst and a particulate filter, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF, branded by VW as AdBlue) is injected into the stream before entering the reduction catalyst. DEF is a precise mixture of one-third urea and two-thirds deionized water and must be refilled (typically at manufacturer-recommended oil-change intervals) from a separate tank.
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If this sounds complex and expensive, that’s because it is. And very likely, that’s why VW chose not to install SCR and urea injection on most of its TDI models.
What’s going to happen to Volkswagen?
On January 11, 2018, the news came that VW is suing at least one of its former executives who was sentenced to federal prison for his role in the company's diesel emission scandal. According to Automotive News, the automaker wants to "recover a large part" of the legal costs it spent defending Oliver Schmidt, which amount to more than $4 million. Schmidt was formerly general manager of the company's environmental office in Michigan. In December 2017, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay a $400,000 fine. Five other VW executives have been charged, while a lower-ranking engineer was also sentenced to prison in January 2017.
On January 11, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice announced $4.3 billion in criminal and civil penalties and arrested six VW executives for their alleged connection with the scandal. A total of eight current and former executives have been charged with various crimes. On August 21, 2017, VW engineer James Liang was sentenced to 40 months in prison and a $200,000 fine. He pleaded guilty in September 2016. Oliver Schmidt, former general manager of the company’s environmental office in Michigan, was sentenced on December 6 to seven years in prison and a $400,000 fine by U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox in Detroit, who called Schmidt a “key conspirator” who “knowingly misled and lied to government officials.” A “corporate compliance monitor” will be watching VW for three years under the terms of its probation. On April 21, 2017, VW was officially sentenced in a Michigan federal court for these violations.
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On January 4, 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice first sued Volkswagen on behalf of the EPA. Volkswagen will now pay $14.7 billion to settle with three federal agencies suing the automaker for its excessive diesel emissions, the highest ever paid by a company for violations under the Clean Air Act. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Justice announced the partial settlement on June 28, 2016. Aside from the $10 billion buyback program, another $2.7 billion will fund future state-level projects that reduce nitrogen-oxide emissions under the EPA’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, which are federal grants marked to replace old diesel engines and for retrofit kits for alternative-fuel powertrains and other similar vehicle hardware.
Volkswagen must buy back 85 percent of all cars by June 2019, or else it must pay even more to fund such projects. The automaker also must spend $2 billion over the next 10 years to invest in green energy and electric cars, including paying for new public charging stations and public-education programs.
Under the latest settlement with 3.0-liter diesels, Volkswagen will also be required to pay an additional $225 million toward projects that reduce NOx emissions. California will receive $41 million of that, and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) wrote into the settlement some very specific requirements for the sale of electric vehicles.
A Canadian settlement, which keeps to terms that are comparable to the U.S. settlement finalized in October, will cover about 105,000 vehicles there and potentially cost the automaker the equivalent of U.S. $1.6 billion. As in the United States, Canadian owners will be eligible to sell their vehicle back at an agreed-upon price or opt to fix their vehicle and receive a payment. And under a tentative consumer settlement in Canada, Volkswagen and Audi Canada will pay out the equivalent of U.S. $11.2 million.
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Additional civil penalties and further state-level fines have not been determined but could add billions more. Volkswagen had originally set aside more than $7 billion to cover recall-related costs.
Since news of the first violation broke on September 18, 2015, more than a quarter of the company’s market cap has been wiped out with its nosediving stock price through June 28, 2016, and the company has abandoned its goal of becoming the world’s largest automaker by 2018. Volkswagen is not even concerned with its U.S. sales numbers until this problem is resolved, according to chairman Herbert Diess. The company has posted consecutive U.S. monthly sales losses since November.
CEO Matthias Müller—who said the company didn’t lie but faces a “technical problem“—has now ordered a complete reorganization that will see 30 battery-electric vehicles introduced across its 12 divisions by 2025. It inevitably will lead to firings, model cuts across its 340 variants, and other corporate changes. So far, though, even seemingly frivolous divisions like Bugatti aren’t getting axed. Former CEO Martin Winterkorn, who resigned in September, reportedly received a memo regarding the diesel problem in May 2014. He has not confirmed whether he actually read it.
All right, I’d like some more free money. How can I sue?
There are already a couple hundred lawsuits alleging economic harm against VW’s now infamous “Clean Diesel” marketing campaign and the half-million cars under EPA violation. None have yet been consolidated before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. For the time being, Hagens-Berman, a huge firm that squeezed $1.1 billion from Toyota and intends to sue General Motors for $10 billion, has a class-action lawsuit ready and waiting.
What are TDI owners actually doing?
As Greenpeace and other environmental groups lambaste VW, the obligatory news articles profiling angry TDI drivers have popped up. Granted, there are some people genuinely upset with VW for misleading them about their car’s emissions levels. But as we see it, the majority of TDI buyers are knowledgeable enthusiasts in love with sky-high fuel economy, torque, durability, and low running costs. Some really frugal types convert their TDIs to run on refined vegetable oil or biodiesel. These people are die-hards.
If any fix Volkswagen proposes ends up hampering performance—be it increased fuel consumption or a loss of power—many TDI owners may very well ignore a recall. It’s a tricky legal situation, as neither the EPA nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can force individual owners to update their cars. Several bills in Congress have proposed banning registration renewals for car owners who don’t complete recalls, but they’re a long way from becoming law. For now, most TDI owners are continuing to putter about, despite a considerable drop in resale values. With more time, we’ll have a fuller picture.
This story was originally published on November 13, 2015; it is being constantly updated to reflect the latest developments in the VW diesel-emissions scandal.ANALYSIS
Julius Kairey, an openly conservative student columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun campus newspaper, was viciously smeared in a recent mass public attack, with fliers spread around the Ivy League university that unfairly and inaccurately labeled him a “Racist Rape Apologist.”
An unknown number of paper fliers were peppered in high-traffic campus locations late last week, such as a walkway near freshmen housing and Cornell’s Olin Library.
The fliers featured a large picture of Kairey in the center, with his full name in bold lettering across the top and a caption below reading: “Daily Sun Columnist and Racist Rape Apologist.”
The description may be in reference to some of his opinion columns in the Sun, the mainstream campus newspaper. The perpetrator of the malicious campaign has yet to be apprehended.
The ad hominem attack is likely drawn from a few columns written by Kairey, notably “The Truth About ‘Rape Culture’,” published in April, which questioned the stats behind the so-called campus rape epidemic and defended due process for those accused of sexual assault; and more recently “Should California Redefine Campus Sexual Assault?” published last Thursday, when the fliers were discovered.
That column questioned the “affirmative consent” legislation pending in California, noting that if passed it would not only invade people’s private lives but create a legal nightmare because “despite the good intentions of the law’s supporters, this legislation serves only to muddle the line between consensual sexual behavior and sexual assault because it fails to specify what is needed to establish affirmative consent. It is crucial that the distinction between consensual sex and sexual assault remain clear in our laws.”
Kairey has said he prefers not comment on the situation at this time.
The Cornell Review, Cornell’s conservative student newspaper, has come to the defense of Kairey, pressuring campus administrators to take the matter seriously and find and punish the culprits, noting that the newspaper staff is “currently in contact with several of Cornell’s administrative offices gathering information about the university’s response to this act and whether it qualifies as libel and/or personal harassment.”
Casey Breznick, the Review’s editor in chief and a sophomore studying business, told The College Fix that the recent attack on a fellow conservative student has only emboldened his desire to see free speech and a diversity of opinions honored on campus.
“The prospect of getting attacked for my views, however, is no deterrent,” he said. “In fact, I welcome it, because it only goes to show the desperation of these attackers and how their utter lack of reason, logic, and civility is self-defeating.”
Breznick told The Fix he seeks an open, civil debate.
The Review has reported that “Kairey’s articles are often met with calls for his censorship via removal from the Sun’s staff. After he published his article on Islamophobia, the calls were so strident and widespread the Review submitted a Letter to the Editor to the Sun asking critics to respect free speech and open debate.”
His column “Islamophobia and Racism,” published Sept. 4, had prompted angst among several campus groups.
While those who have never read one of Kairey’s columns might be led to believe they’re inflammatory tirades by their headlines alone, they are quite the opposite. In every one of his well-researched columns, Kairey takes a respectful approach to difficult issues, presenting his unpopular opinion in a logical and sensitive manner.
In his article about defining sexual assault, he writes, “In this whole conversation, the most important question to ask is if anyone made safer by these new standards.” In one regarding “Rape Culture” he states that: “The best hope for change lies in real dialogue about the importance of consent and what it means to consent to sex.”
These comments, aimed at spurring dialogue, resulted in appalling comments and personal attacks on the Sun’s website. Student Anna-Lisa Maria wrote in response to his “Rape Culture” article, garnering 65 Likes, “I can’t believe the Sun printed this garbage. … I would say it’s ignorant but that implies innocence. This is hateful. The Cornell Daily Sun just gave 729 words to a rape denier.”
Kairey, in what almost amounts to a prediction, wrote in his article about sexual assault that: “Now, some activists say that a failure to subscribe to the ‘yes means yes’ standard proves that one is uncaring about sexual violence and uninterested in tackling the problem.”
“When disagreement descends into personal attacks of that nature, having an honest and open conversation on an issue becomes nearly impossible. Dissent from the prevailing view serves as automatic proof of malevolent intentions.”
It appears his concerns came true.
College Fix contributor Sandor Farkas is a student at Dartmouth College.
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IMAGE: Courtesy Cornell ReviewI am a carnivore and not ashamed to say it!
I love vegetables too, but sometimes you just want to gnaw some meat right off of the bone, and get your hands and face all greasy doing it. Amiright? When I get in that mood nothing is more satisfying than tearing into some ribs. My problem since going low carb has been getting that sticky, sweet coating on a rib that really pushes it over the edge. I did create my own tasty low carb barbecue sauce recipe (Sugar Free Smoky Tomato BBQ Sauce), but it doesn’t caramelize due to lack of sugar, so it works best on pulled pork, rather than slathered onto ribs. I had set out to make some dry-rubbed ribs the other day, and while they were roasting and smelling delicious, I was trying to figure out what to sauce them with and found some sugar free peach preserves in the fridge. Bingo!
The natural sugar from the peaches was just enough to give me the sweet caramelization that I was looking for, and the added mustard and vinegar gave them a lovely tanginess. To make them even sweeter, you can add another tablespoon of the no-carb sweetener of your choice, or if you’re paleo you can add honey or maple syrup. I let mine get nice and dark because I like a slightly charred flavor, but you can cook them less for a more golden color and subtle flavor.
Sugar Free Peach Glazed Beef Ribs Author: Mellissa Sevigny
Yield: 4
Category: Entree
Cuisine: Ribs Ingredients 4 lbs beef or pork ribs
Dry Rub:
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp thyme
Peach Glaze:
3 Tbsp SF Peach Preserves
1.5 Tbsp white vinegar
1 Tbsp dijon mustard Instructions Combine all of the dry rub ingredients in a small bowl. Place your rack of ribs onto a sheet pan covered with foil or parchment for easier clean-up. Rub all of the dry rub into the meat on both sides. Bake the ribs in a preheated 325 degree (F) oven for about 3 hours or until fork tender. Combine the sugar free peach preserves, vinegar and mustard in a small bowl and mix thoroughly. Taste and add more sweetness if desired. Brush over the ribs until completely coated. Place the ribs back in the oven for 15 – 30 minutes until desired color is reached. Remove from oven and slice ribs for serving. Nutrition Calories: 534
Fat: 41g
Carbohydrates: 4.75g net
Protein: 32g
Some recommended side dishes to serve these with: Jalapeno & Cheddar Cauliflower Muffins, Zucchini & Sweet Potato Latkes, Low Carb Onion Rings, and/or the Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad w/ Goat Cheese.Rob Crow has been making music for 20+ years, and has been doing so via countless projects, but he’s best known for his work with Pinback — his long-running project with Three Mile Pilot’s Zach Smith — who released five excellent albums between 1999 and 2012. His output tends to come in bursts, but considering the sheer volume of music he’s produced (to say nothing of his catalog’s total randomness), it’s hard to imagine him ever actually stopping. But it seems, in fact, he is. On 3/9, he tweeted:
In fact, i think I'm gonna finish up & release all my current records & give up. Thanks you guys! I really appreciated it. — Rob Crow (@rob5d4) March 9, 2015
That’s pretty vague. “I’m gonna finish up & release ALL my current records” before giving up? God knows how many records he’s currently working on. Crow has done five full-length records with Pinback, plus four under his own name, plus Wikipedia lists him as being involved with the following acts/aliases: Heavy Vegetable, Physics, Optiganally Yours, Thingy, Advertising, Alpha Males, Altron Tube, Cthugha, Fantasy Mission Force, Goblin Cock, Holy Smokes, the Ladies, Other Men, Remote Action Sequence Project, Schlag-Schlag, and Snotnose. I’m a Rob Crow fan and I don’t know a single thing about a whole bunch of those projects.
Crow followed up that tweet, though, with an update on his Facebook, saying:
Thanks guys!
I’m well!
I’m out!
Healthy safe and sound with my family.
No bad weirdness.
Just don’t wanna talk about myself anymore.
Feel free to say hi if yo see me!
And soon after that, another:
I’m fine.
I have just come to the realization that making music in this climate is financially irresponsible to my family and ultimately humiliating to my psyche.
Im going to finish and release the work I’ve already spent my heart and tears on, but even that is likely to ruin me.
My kids are growing and my downstairs studio would probably be put to better use as a bedroom.
I’ll keep a small setup with which I can use for scoring, editing and things when they come up.
Also quitting Facebook and Twitter and using that energy to concentrate on writing in my journal.
Chucking the booze as well will help with that.
I just trying to make a mature decision and be a responsible husband and father.
That last one is a crusher: Humiliation comes with being an artist, of course, but not knowing a single thing about Rob Crow’s life, I would probably agree with this: “My kids are growing and my downstairs studio would probably be put to better use as a bedroom.” And yeah, Pinback album sales probably aren’t going to put Crow’s kids through college, but those albums definitely helped a lot of other kids get through college.
Grownups have gotta make grownup decisions, but it’s a bummer to hear that Rob Crow has come to this particular decision. But I’ll be excited to hear whatever he still has coming — “the work I’ve already spent my heart and tears on” — and if it turns out he’s still got some more records in him after that, I’ll be excited to hear those records, too. I love the guy’s voice and his approach to songwriting, production, and guitar, and everything he does sounds great to my ear. Let’s go out on a good note: Here’s one of my favorite Pinback songs — and I could name a bunch more (and Rob Crow solo tunes, too) that are just as good.Imagine you bring your team halfway across the world to live the dream of racing in the 24 Hours of Spa, and then for whatever reason, your star driver, the man who was going to guide the team to an unforgettable weekend, totals the only car you have in violent fashion in the ever-frightening Raidillon corner.
This is exactly what happened on Thursday evening to Ukyo Katayama. The Formula 1 driver-turned sports car team director had the decision to make of whether to continue the weekend and scramble to find a spare car, or call it a day and try again next year.
Never one to go a challenge out of the way, Katayama went with the former option—and watched a brand-new number 00 Goodsmile Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 take the track in the final warming up session on Friday evening.
“It is so hard to express how I feel right now,” a proud and excited Katayama says. “We don’t know what happened exactly with Kamui [Kobayashi]’s crash. Maybe the ride height was too low or the tyre pressure not correct. But, anyway, we had the accident in Eau Rouge.
“For a long time, we discussed whether to stop or continue. We checked the regulations with the SRO, and they were so kind to give us the chance to continue.
“AMG began looking for another car and found two new chassis in Germany. Fortunately, we had the chance to continue.
“All I can say is that it was an amazing effort. Normally, it’s impossible to race anymore after this. We now have a new engine and completely different chassis. Only the left-side door is from the other car, that’s all. It’s usually forbidden by the regulations to continue like this.
“We appreciate everybody who didn’t get any sleep at all. AMG helped a lot to bring a car here and kept on working from this morning until now.”
The appearance of the popular Japanese Super GT team at the 24 Hours of Spa was a surprise for many. All the credit for the long journey to Europe goes to team owner and businessman Aki Takanori, Katayama claims.
“Mister Aki, the team owner, he’s crazy about motor racing. That’s why we started the team in the Japanese Super GT championship. We won the championship there twice in the last five years, and then we wanted to participate in a European GT championship. He was looking for something new and went with this challenge.
“The reason to go to Spa is very simple: Spa-Francorchamps is the world’s most famous circuit, and the Spa 24 Hours has a high status, much like the Le Mans 24 Hours, Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500.”
With decennia of experience in motorsports of which five years were spent in Formula 1, Katayama brings a wealth of knowledge. But even he couldn’t get the team flawlessly past the hurdle that’s the change in tyre manufacturer.
“Our drivers are talented and successful in Japan, but they have no experience in Europe and nothing on the Pirelli tyres. It’s hard for them to learn to get enough temperature into the tyre. They complain about the car’s balance: It has understeer, oversteer. They don’t understand why it’s happening.
“In the Japanese GT championship we’re the Yokohama works team, using a special tyre. It has a lot of grip.
“But here, everything is different. The [Yokohama] compound is much softer than the Pirelli’s. Basically, the Pirelli is very hard and difficult to get temperature into.
“The Japanese Super GT championship sees Dunlop, Bridgestone, Yokohama and Michelin chase each other, so the tyres are improving with every race and every year.”
For now, however, the race to the chequered flag is the only focus. All the time spent on preparing the car to just make the start, meant all goals and hopes before the weekend went out of the window when the destroyed AMG came to a rest in the Francorchamps tyre wall.
Instead, Katayama says, finishing the race is the new goal.
“We’re just focusing on finishing the race, that’s all.”Salvador Dali Suburbs of a Paranoiac Critical Town, Afternoon on the Outskirts of European History (1936)
Better-designed cities will make people happier—those who get to live in them, at least
The term sprawl makes America’s horrifying suburban transformation over the past century seem like a lazy accident. But the truth is that sprawl happened on purpose, the result of an urban-planning model that rests on the principles of separation and speed. Houses should be separated from shopping and industry and, as much as possible, from other houses. And the faster you can get somewhere, the better.
This model has been around for more than a century, but the auto industry helped make it the national standard by the mid-1950s. Streetcar lines disappeared. Highways tore through urban neighborhoods. The modern suburb was born.
“How cars ruined everything” is by now a familiar story, but in Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design, Charles Montgomery offers a particularly damning overview. Armed with a wealth of data, he marches through the historic and present-day effects of cars and the suburbs they’ve enabled. Suburbs disenfranchise people who can’t drive, like children, the elderly, and those who can’t afford a car. People who can drive often face long commutes to work, and commuting, it turns out, makes people incredibly unhappy—not to mention fatter, sicker, and more likely to die young. Roads are designed so people can drive as quickly and mindlessly as possible, which is a deadly situation, especially when bikes and pedestrians are involved. And then there are the economic costs. People in the suburbs end up paying more than their urban counterparts for water, electricity, and heat, because it costs more to get those resources to them.
What’s especially alarming is that many cities have become indistinguishable from their suburbs, and they’re facing similar problems too: too many cars, not enough public transportation, poor design. This is the “dispersed city,” as Montgomery calls it, and his distinction is apt. For every city like Seattle, there’s a city like Phoenix; for every Austin, a San Jose.
Two years ago, I met Montgomery on the Lower East Side. He was in New York for the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a three-month series of public events about urban planning. Montgomery hooked up a group of us to BlackBerrys that tracked our vital signs, then took us on a tour of the neighborhood. He reported that traffic stressed us out. Gardens made us feel calm. We didn’t like the blank, concrete façade of Whole Foods. We liked the vine-covered, brick building that smelled like pizza.
Happy City is billed as “an exhilarating journey” into the world of “urban design and the emerging science of happiness,” and Montgomery spends much of the book flitting among the so-called happiest cities and describing what makes them great. He high-fives his biking companion in Copenhagen, where bike lanes have been expanded so commuters can pedal in twos. He talks about how Mexico City “caught the happiness bug” when it upgraded public transit and turned highways into beaches. He rhapsodizes about walking his elderly mother through a car-free Times Square. Former Bogotá, Colombia, mayor Enrique Peñalosa is perhaps the poster child for the happy-city mission. Peñalosa inverted the streets so that bikers and pedestrians got the well-paved middle while cars were relegated to the sidelines, and his TransMilenio system made bus travel look downright sexy.
Exhilarating, perhaps, but the frenetic cheerleading of Happy City starts to sound a bit like The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman’s ecstatic take on globalization, when Montgomery declares without irony, “We can live well and save the world at the very same time.” Like Friedman, Montgomery often mistakes feel-good anecdotes for argument.
The boosterism may have something to do with his background: He’s an optimistic Canadian who hails from Vancouver, which is, according to The Economist’s annual poll, the most livable city in North America. But after a while his optimism comes to look like blindness. Montgomery, like Friedman, mostly refuses to confront the economic realities of the happy world he describes.
For, as anyone who’s checked out the Craigslist housing section in San Francisco knows, what “livable” actually means is “prohibitively expensive.” Montgomery should be familiar with this trade-off: Vancouver has the highest real-estate prices in Canada. In some livability surveys, lower poverty boosts cities’ scores, making “livability” and gentrification virtually synonymous. Herein lies the great paradox of the recent “back to the city” phenomenon: As the rich move into the city, the poor move out. The suburbs of last century’s American Dream are filling with low-income people who can no longer afford to live in the urban core.
Montgomery pays some attention to this problem about 200 pages in to Happy City, in a chapter called “Who Is the City For?” He admits that most of his “happy redesigns” start in places where people have the luxuries of time, money, and influence, and that land values increase as a result. But his solutions mostly boil down to government regulation, like rent control and incentives for mixed-income developments, and he doesn’t have many exhilarating anecdotes to support these proposals. In Bogotá, Mayor Peñalosa campaigned on a promise of “radical equality,” but it’s hard to imagine any elected official in the U.S — even Bill de Blasio — uttering those two words together. And a story about a trio of towers in Vancouver reads like an alarming parable: The first tower in the development contains condos priced to $1.4 million, the second contains rent-controlled apartments, and the third offers “bomb-proof rooms for dirt-poor singles,” most of whom are drug-addicted and/or mentally ill. The three towers exist in harmony, Montgomery writes, but they have separate lobbies and separate elevators because it might be “psychologically hard for the poor to ride the elevator daily with people who were so much richer.”
The notion that enforced segregation protects the poor is absurd. But it speaks to a phenomenon that most people understand inherently: Feeling poor can be as bad as being poor. In cities, income inequality is as much a problem as flat-out poverty. Poor people in metropolitan areas with the widest income gaps are less healthy than poor people anywhere else. Grossly unequal cities also have higher rates of violent crime, drug use, teen pregnancy, and heart disease. Perceived disadvantage is toxic; people will move to poorer neighborhoods to avoid it. Montgomery reports all this but remains unflappable. The Vancouver experiment has been so successful, he writes, that gentrification has accelerated in the area.
The least exhilarating part of Happy City, a section on municipal codes, may actually contain the book’s most crucial proposal. Every city and town in America has a municipal code, and many are identical, copied from an online database called Municode. The code dictates the width of roads, the height of curbs, and the size of lawns. It’s the reason most people in the U.S. can’t walk to a grocery store from their house, and why Walmart builds new megaplexes rather than retrofitting existing buildings. Traditional codes were written with those original tenets — separation and speed — firmly in mind. As one architect tells Montgomery, “Code appears to be neutral, but it isn’t. However neutral the language is, however neutral the metrics, however fair it seems to be, the outcome it has in mind is sprawl.”
Deviating from the code means breaking the law. But municipalities can write new codes, and some are embracing a version that prioritizes form over function. These form-based codes are the backbone of a broader design trend called New Urbanism, whose streetscapes recall the pre-auto era. Some New Urbanist projects have been criticized as cutesy and impractical. (The Truman Show was filmed in Seaside, Florida, one of the most famous New Urbanist experiments and a very expensive resort town.) But when retrofitted for existing neighborhoods, form-based codes can enforce human-scale, walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly streets and mandate affordable housing in urban cores. In other words, they can criminalize rather than mandate sprawl.
Form-based codes take more work to conceive because they can’t be replicated from one city to the next. But as localism grows in popularity, it’s not hard to imagine a homegrown-code movement taking off. And form-based code is scalable, so it can work for a single intersection or for a city like Miami, which became the first major metropolis to toss out its traditional code in 2010. Places like Nashville and Cincinnati are following suit.
The notion that happiness should be a design concern, as polyannaish as it sounds, is actually fairly revolutionary. For most of history, cities weren’t built with anyone’s happiness in mind, except maybe that of kings and dictators. They were built for industry and efficiency, for aesthetic beauty, and for showing off. If cities aimed to inspire any feeling in their dwellers, that feeling was probably awe. Even Central Park, the “people’s park,” was designed mainly to impress New Yorkers with its formal terraces and never-ending lawns.
By Montgomery’s lights, to take happiness into consideration is to address many other, less ephemeral concerns. But in practice, some people’s happiness is more important than others. We’re still building for kings and dictators, only today they are “millenials,” creative professionals, or empty-nested baby boomers, people who will want to believe everything Montgomery says. As Josh Dzieza laments in a review of Leigh Gallagher’s The End of the Suburbs, another giddy-city book, “It’s not enough that cities are more environmentally sustainable, creatively fecund, and wealthy — choosing to live in them also has to be morally good.”
In March, the Huffington Post reported that more people moved into New York City than out for the first time in 60 years. The dream is over, the suburbs are dead, and the city has risen again. That’s the premise not only of Montgomery’s book but a host of others too, all vying to name the trend. Cities Are Good for You, The Triumph of the City, Smart Cities. Will it be the Great Inversion? The back-to-the-city movement? The metropolitan revolution?
But what about the people who are leaving the urban core? Where are they going, and are they going by choice? Happy City doesn’t say. Instead it offers a stump speech to a converted crowd: “The happy city plan is an energy plan. It is a climate plan. It is a belt-tightening plan for cash-strapped cities. It is also an economic plan, a jobs plan, and a corrective for weak systems. It is a plan for resilience.” In Portland and Park Slope, heads are nodding yes.
The question “Who are cities for?” haunts every privileged discussion about the joys of urban life. What is discouraging is that Montgomery is well aware that urban poverty is a global problem. His favorite case study, Bogotá, is acutely poor. Ten years have passed since Mayor Peñalosa’s radical fairness campaign, and Montgomery reports that many of Peñalosa’s initiatives aren’t standing the test of time. He doesn’t talk about what went wrong. Instead we leave for another, happier place.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
The two-door Volkswagen GTI is dead, we learned at the brand’s full-line launch event today. Production of the model has ended, VW confirmed upon our inquiry: “The trend is clearly shifting toward four-door models,” said Volkswagen of America’s marketing chief, Hendrik Muth. Previously, VW had indicated that the two-door would continue for 2017 but in base trim only.
The decision mirrors VW’s Golf R offering, which also comes as a four-door only; the two-door Golf already had been dropped. At Audi, CEO Rupert Stadler has publicly questioned the wisdom of the two-door versions of the Audi A1 and A3, both of which are not available in the United States.
What hasn’t ended, fortunately, is production of the manual transmission for the GTI. And VW has upgraded content of the |
much. There are truly a lot of people who see BABYMETAL perform for the first time when we play in local venues and I really get the feeling that they approach these shows with a feeling of, ‘We have been waiting for you!’. At these shows I once again strongly realize that there are people out there who are waiting to see us perform. Also, I love being able to eat the various delicious regional foods that the catering services prepare for us (laughs). Q: (laughs) Looking back over these past 2 years that have included overseas tours-in what ways have the existences of Yuimetal and Moametal changed in Su-metal’s perspective? Su-metal: Hmmm….I don’t feel that they have changed in that sense. The fact that they are extremely important to me is something that will never change. They are also like little sisters to me. And in addition to that, recently they have become people that I can and do depend more upon. For example, in interviews when I am unable to explain something adequately in words they help me out with comments like, ‘It was like this, perhaps’, or ‘It was like that, maybe’. Up until recently I would be watching them from behind when we are performing a live show kind of wondering to myself if they are doing OK from a physical perspective. Recently, however, I think the 3 of us are on equal ground. I guess you could say that I now view them as being almost the same age as myself. Conversely, there are times more and more where they are worrying about me. I feel that they have become very reliable, you know. What is Metal to Su-metal? ‘Metal is something that cleanses one’s mind and heart….It is to that extent that Metal has struck deep and hard into my core.’ (Su-metal) Q: This is my final question for you. When I asked Su-metal what Metal meant to her in our last interview, you said, ‘Metal has become something that is not scary to me anymore’. You also said, ‘there are a variety of factors contained in Metal’. Following that 2 years you have performed live shows in large variety of countries overseas. For the Su-metal of this present point in time, what has come of Su-metal’s image of Metal? Su-metal: Metal is ‘something that makes it possible for me to encounter a new me’. Also, it is ‘something that teaches me who my true self is’. Q: Ohhhhh! Su-metal: I was able to meet this entity called Su-metal….Su-metal has shown me so many worlds of which I knew nothing about. There are things that I can only do because of Su-metal. I mean there are things that the ordinary ‘me’ could not do for lack of courage – there are things that would be too frightening for ‘me’, but as Su-metal I am able to carry them out. And I would add that I think Metal itself is something similar to this as well. Metal is something that cleanses one’s mind and heart….It is to that extent that Metal has stabbed deep and hard into my core. Q: It feels like you have been stabbed? Su-metal: That’s right! Metal strikes you with a feeling like you have been stabbed. Because it stabs you deep and hard like that, your body moves with the energy before you are able to think about it with your head. That is why I feel that Metal is ‘something that teaches me who my true self is’. Q: Do you feel there are great number of areas where Metal has saved you over the past 2 years? Su-metal: Yes! There is no doubt about that! (said sharply and with force) Q: That is wonderful! Su-metal: (chuckles)
Supernatural Kitsune Iroiro Various types of ‘Okitsune-san’ Supernatural Kitsune (妖狐) (clockwise from upper left corner) Byakko/White Kitsune Byakko/Shiro Gitsune <白狐/白ギツネ> A white furred Kitsune. This Kitsune is considered to be of the type that brings good fortune to people-a ‘Zenko’ <善狐 >. The Zenko are a fictitious Kitsune that were reported in Edo period essays to be the counterpart to the Yako <野狐> Kitsune that were able to take possession of people causing sickness or death. They are also often the helpers of ‘Inari no Kami’ <稲荷神> (The guardian/god of crops). Genko <玄狐> A black furred Kitsune that lives in the northern region of Japan and is a transformation of the Big Dipper, or the Great Bear <Hokutosei/北斗星>. This Kitsune is a bringer of great fortune and appears when the ruler of the land works to bring about peace. Kinko and Ginko Gold and Silver Kitsune <金狐/銀狐> The gold Kitsune is a symbol of the positive and/or light, while the silver Kitsune is a symbol of the negative and/or darkness. They can also be considered as representing day and night, respectively. Both are beneficial Kitsune. Yako Wild Kitsune <野狐> This Kitsune is a class of Kitsune that failed to overcome the tests they encountered in the attempt to become a holy Kitsune. This also includes the wild Kitsune who do not possess the proper spirit to even attempt to become a holy Kitsune. They basically just do bad things and even take possession of people from time to time. Senko Holy Kitsune <仙狐> This Kitsune type is a good, beneficial one that is reported to be able to live over 1,000 years. There are cases wherein this Kitsune actually turns out to be an evil entity as well. Tenko Heaven Kitsune <天狐> This Kitsune lives over a 1,000 years and is a good, beneficial type that possesses divine powers and has evolved into a god. It has the power of clairvoyance and can see into the true nature of any and everything. It possesses four tails. Kuuko Air Kitsune <空狐> This Kitsune lives more than 3,000 years and is a full fledged god with divine powers who is able to do anything it wishes. It lives longer then the Tenko and has no tail. Kyuubi no Kitsune Nine-tailed Kitsune <九尾の狐> This Kitsune surpasses the other divine Kitsune and living so long with divine powers its tail divides into nine tails. I wrote about this a couple of years ago –‘Kyuubi no Kitsune and the Story of Sesshouseki’
Mikiko-sensei on News Zero 2017 June 16 Koi Dance (with the always lovely, Aragaki Yui aka, Gakki) An old, but ever so fun to watch ‘Pocky’ CM from way back in time. Perfume ‘Tokyo Girl’
Kayama Yuuzou on BABYMETAL 2017 June 11 2017 June 12 Yahoo! News A talk show was held at Sogou Yokohama department store on the 11th of June to celebrate the famous singer, Kayama Yuuzou’s 80th birthday. He will be appearing on the main stage of the ‘Fuji Rock Festival 2017’ in the later half of July. He said with a face brimming with happiness, ‘I am so happy to be celebrated like this’. And further said, ‘If you believe hard enough, your dreams will come true.’ When asked what artists he is interested in at the moment, he said, ‘There are so many!’. But, out of them it is BABYMETAL that he particularly pointed out, saying, ‘I bought a ticket and went to their Tokyo Dome show’. Not only are they amazing as far as visuals and singing go, their back band is also truly amazing.’ I am so happy to see that they are accepted around the world’, said with a happy and satisfied look.
BABYMETAL on Japan Countdown Check 2017 June 11 This is the section featuring BABYMETAL that appeared on Japan Countdown Check on the morning of 2017 June 11. Note: You may also be interested in ‘Wagakki band’ which appeared for a few seconds at the beginning of the clip.
Japan’s two greatest and most lovable female singers, Nakamoto Suzuka and Utada Hikaru *Note: Other than the ‘Inazuma’ story all of the translations are my own. (I was unable to find the Japanese source of the Inazuma story and so made use of a translation by an unknown Japanese person.) This selection of mine naming Nakamoto Suzuka, aka ‘Su-metal’ and Utada Hikaru as the two greatest Japanese woman singers is obviously an almost totally subjective determination. I mean, how could it not be? I am sure there are some more or less objective measures of the skill level of a person’s singing voice such as range of octave, decibel levels, lack of contour errors, pitch accuracy and on and on. That said since I personally have no knowledge or understanding of these units of measurement I, and most likely you as well, can only go on my own personal sense of what constitutes a great singer. It is funny that I originally thought of doing a short 6 or so page post about the 4 greatest Japanese singers which of course started out with Su-metal and Utada and then went on to include Imai Miki and Takeuchi Mariya. However, once I began researching what I wanted to say, first of all, about Su-chan I realized that I would have to trim it down to include only Su and Utada. There are an almost uncountable number of beautiful phenomena in the world that move one’s heart running from sunsets, flowers, good food and starry night skies. However, for me, the most enthralling ‘thing’ in the world is the sound as well as the performance and all that entails of Japanese women singers. What is it exactly about Su-metal and Utada that so captivates and touches the hearts and minds of so many people? In the end I would have to say from my perspective, and even following upon a few weeks of considering this question after deciding to write about it, that their attractiveness is an elusive charm that goes beyond verbal or even mental understanding. While I will try to express the possible reasons for their loveliness herein, I will say that I will most likely not be able to do so to a satisfactory degree. Both women visually lie in that realm that lies between, and overlaps into, cuteness and beauty, and without any sense of projected sexiness. They both move with a gliding sense of grace and dignity that seems to be backed up by a hidden power source and yet neither comes off as an overly crafted dancer in spite of the fact that you simply can not take your eyes of them when they move on stage (or off, for that matter). Internally, both are ridiculously confident. In fact, when my students have asked me to sum up Utada with one word, it was always ‘Confident’ that I would respond with. And I mean a confidence that goes beyond just an assumption that they can pull off a good show, but rather a rock solid sense that they almost CAN NOT fail- a confidence that is seemingly divinely gifted. In spite of this, neither of these two women conveys even a hint of arrogance and in fact are extremely humble almost to the point of being self-deprecating. And then there is of course their vocals, their voices. Words can obviously not do them justice and their is no need to try to express the power, the clarity, the cuteness, the at times frailty with which they express lyrics with their voices when a simple listen is all that it takes. So, to dive in to actually writing about these two giants it is best to get to know their backgrounds a bit even though we may not in fact need to know anything about a singer to be able to enjoy and appreciate their singing. I have often thought, though, what it would be like to listen to Karen Carpenter’s voice without knowing anything about the tragic nature of her life. In fact I am pretty sure that I remember feeling a deep sadness or melancholy in her voice when I listened to the Carpenters on the radio as a little boy, so there may be something inherently in it that evokes sadness. That said, I am certain that knowing about the life and background of a singer affects they way we perceive their vocals. Nakamoto Suzuka (中元すず香） Su-chan was born as the 3rd and youngest daughter in 1997, December 20 in Hiroshima. It is said that when she was still only two years old that she would become so absorbed in the background music playing at shops that she would sing and dance so intensely that she would often get separated from her family. It is reported that she was considered to be a prodigy by those who heard her sing when she was still an infant. She began her childhood modeling career at the age of 5 and won the Grand prize of Bandai cosmetic’s Jewel Drop, ’Image girl’ contest. This was followed by another Grand prize at the age of 8 Alpark Scholarship Audition which played a huge role in her being able to be granted admission to the Actor’s School of Hiroshima (ASH). I can not go much farther in chronicling her early history and achievements as it would go on for several pages and have been recorded both in English and, to a much more detailed extent in Japanese elsewhere. I will just say that she apparently went on to win basically every contest that she entered either solely or with her sister, Himeka, with the exception of one where they most likely basically bowed out because of a scheduling difficulty and yet still took runners up place. Here are some of her early vocals prior to and following that fateful occurrence of being one of the three members of the iconic, ‘Karen Girl’s’ group that led directly into the formation of Sakura Gakuin to ‘Juonbun’ or as what we now know as ‘BABYMETAL’. And my personal favorite… Two of Su-chan’s most recognizable characteristics are evidently revealed in a short interview with her and her Karen Girl’s co-members, Mutou Ayami and Shima Yuika before they embark on their stage at the Animelo Summer Live 2008 – CHALLENGE, (Saitama Super Arena). What are those characteristics? One is Su’s constant scanning, constant taking in of what is happening in her surroundings. This characteristic of one’s eyes actively scanning one’s surroundings and of not letting the eyes settle into a ‘dead stare’ is something we often see with not only Su-chan but also of such mysterious intellectuals and mystics such as Krishnamurti and contained in the teachings of Takuan Osho, a zen master who taught the mental side of sword fighting to Yagyu Munenori and I would include the way my favorite fictional character of ‘Sugishita Keibu from the incredibly popular and long running Japanese TV series, ‘Aibou’ uses his eyes in constantly scanning any situation for clues. While this is often looked upon at least in the West as a sign of deceptiveness or an unsettled state of mind, it is more correctly seen as a sign of intelligence and wakefulness, at least in certain individuals. Of course I would include Su-chan in this latter category. There is something truly wonderful and actually quite rare going on with her as she does this and is something that I believe the reader can verify for themselves right now. See how you feel when you do not let you eyesight rest on a single item in your line of sight for more than a fraction of second before you move on to the next, the next and then the next object as compared with letting your eyes kind of rest on a single point. I believe you will see the almost animalistic sense of aliveness that this flitting of the eyes conveys. Now, not to go too off into wild ramblings, I want to focus on the what could be called ‘Vacant mind’ of Su-chan as compared with ‘Su-metal’. And not to draw the comparison with one of my favorites, the aforementioned, Krishnamurti, a person who is well known to have a side to himself that was best summed up as ‘Vacant’, to the point of over embellishment, I would like to draw attention to this, what could derogatorily be referred to as sign of below par intelligence that is often pointed out in reference to Su-chan, this aspect of her character that is, I would say, rather a sign of exceptional and in fact genius level intelligence. We know of Su from the countless anecdotal stories that exist (often from Su-chan herself) that: [Please remember that most of these were either 1 time, or limited in frequency, occurrences that happened early in Su-chan’s life. They are glimpses into her unique make-up and not on-going (I would assume) characteristics. Anyway, here are some of them.] ‘Su can not tie her shoe laces by herself’ ‘She is unable to make a sound with a whistle as she blows on it holding it upside-down’ ‘Su-chan has been known to walk along with her shoes on the wrong feet not noticing until someone points it out to her’. ‘Su has apparently, at least once, when singing ‘Megitsune’, mistakenly sung ‘Joyuu yo’ <actress> with ‘Kyonyuu’ <big breasts>’. ‘In order to collect <Bell Mark> stamps <stamps that schoolchildren collect from various products to exchange for school related goods>, Su-chan would cut the stamps out of her older sisters’ notebooks, for which she was of course scolded by her sisters.’ ‘Su-chan would often leave her family in bewilderment as she ripped off <Bell Marks> from their Sesame oil bottles.’ ‘There were numerous occasions where Su-chan would be left behind yelling, ‘Hey, wait for me!’, as the filming crew would move from location to location.’ ‘Su-chan would occasionally (OK, so at least once) show up for lessons only to find that she still had her pajamas on under her long skirt.’ ‘Su-chan was happy to have moved from the 12-member Sakura Gakuin format to the 3-member BABYMETAL one because it reduced the need to fight for staff boxed lunches by 9.’ ‘As her self-selected research assignment during summer vacation when she was in the 1st grade of Jr. High, Su-chan chose to do a joint research project with her sister, Himeka, into <The secret behind how pudding solidifies>.’ ‘Her big ears that are tilted rather forward are great for hearing sounds in the front of her, but she has a difficult time hearing what people are saying when they are speaking in hushed tones behind her.’ ‘She enjoys joking around with e-mails to herself where she does both the <Boke> and the <Tsukokomi> roles. Note: You will have to look these up for yourself as it would take too long to explain. In other words, she does a kind of 2-person comedy skit, ‘Manzai’ with herself in her e-mails’. ‘A question from Himetan’s blog! Where does a snake’s tail begin. This was the topic of discussion amongst our family.’ * Mama: Where does a snake’s tail begin? * Himeka: A snake doesn’t have a tail. * Suzuka: Snakes have hands, don’t they? Maa, if they do or don’t who cares? * Anyway, Mama wants to know the borderline between a snake’s body and it’s tail. If you happen to know please let me know.’ All of these examples that are mostly well known amongst the vast BABYMETAL lore all show a side of a girl who walks to the beat of a different drummer. Now don’t get me wrong, this side of Su-chan makes her all the more charming and enchanting and is a property that I personally absolutely adore along with probably all BABYMETAL fans. This property is called, ‘Tennen’ in Japan and said for the most part as an enduring, if not almost admirable characteristics usually found in girls and women. So lets now shift gears and focus on the other side of the equation that is Nakamoto Suzuka, Su-chan, Su-metal, which is that side of this enigmatic person that is so incredibly talented, creative, skilled and captivating that it kind of exceeds the power of words to describe. First of all is her high work standard and stoicism. She is one who has a high degree of professionalism and has determined to herself that she will never cry on stage, no matter what the circumstances. Virtually all of her singing on stage is done live and since these lives performances go on to be recorded products for sale as is, there is absolutely no room for errors to be made. Himeka wrote in her blog that she often goes to Karaoke with Su-chan where they will sing for 7-hours straight at times. Upon writing this she was so swamped by questions about what goes on in these Karaoke sessions with Su that she has vowed to steer away from writing about her sister in the future. Nakamoto Suzuka is an interesting blend: she is not able to do some things that we mere mortals can do easily, but is able on the other hand to do things easily (or make them seem easy) that we can’t begin to dream of. There is no denying it; she is a very unique person. Babymetal’s choreographer, Mikiko-sensei said this about Nakamoto-san’s work ethic and abilities as a professional singer, ’Su-chan memorizes the lyrics to new songs faster than anyone else in Sakura Gakuin or BABYMETAL.’ She also conveyed in an interview that while Su-chan is not as naturally gifted as a dancer as the other two members of the trio, Mizuno Yui and Kikuchi Moa, she will work on the choreography until she masters it and invariably surprises even Mikiko-sensei with how she has done so and even added a little something uniquely hers to the movements. Apparently she does not dance in accordance with a count as most dancer do, but rather subjectively adjusts herself to the song itself. It is even said that she sees the song/dance in a kind of color code that makes sense to her. Mikiko-sensei also has said that she is amazed at how she approaches regular rehearsals with the same all-out energy and concentration that most artists tend to save for ‘the show’ – to the extent that after rehearsals she is often scolded by the make-up artists because she has sweated so profusely that her make-up gets totally messed up. We even know that she broke a cardboard guitar that was made for the ‘Graduation Toss’ MV due to moving around so aggressively. Quote from Mikiko-sensei Su-metal as seen by Mikiko-metal ‘She is so full of natural, in born performance related talent that it is as if the word genius was created just for this girl. She undergoes a transformation on the stage that you could not imagine based on who she is in daily life. It is not to say that she is particularly good at dancing a particular dance movement exactly as set up, but rather she makes the movements her own to the point that her expressive abilities overpower the song. And so if she is required to simply extend her arms out in front of her she will do it in a way that emotionally moves those watching it. I think it is the non-sense concerned passion that she has within her that makes this possible. Up until recently I felt that whatever she sang had a uniform, ‘Su-metal’ feel to it, but recently she has become able to lay on a wide variety of emotions in her performances and is able to control or regulate herself song by song. Her English pronunciation has also dramatically improved.’ Quote from Su-chan’s ‘homeroom teacher’, Mori Hayashi-sensei at her graduation ceremony from Sakura Gakuin ‘Last year, THOSE three graduated, and now…This girl, Nakamoto…she who is unable to deal properly with others is now the Student Council President?! I was filled with worry. But now she is able to make a speech and is able to touch the hearts of the listeners to an amazing degree. In the past it would have been a miracle for her to say ‘My name is Nakamoto Suzuka’. I have the feeling that she has kind of turned into a totally separate person. No, but really, this girl called Nakamoto is an extremely stoic person. I think that her ability to stand on this stage today like this is due to the efforts she has made outside of the view of all of us. Anyway, that is how she has carried out so many achievements since she was in Elementary school to the present day. But, regardless, since she is still in the 3rd grade of Jr. High school I am sure that in this entertainment world that she will encounter times when she could not exhibit her best. And while Nakamoto’s stoic nature is a wonderful thing, I hope that she will be able to find a place within herself that forgives herself when things don’t go well. But, really, honestly speaking, when Nakamoto …makes a mistake or messes up on something…even then I think everyone here thinks of her as a lovable girl. I feel that that also is a part of her attractiveness.As her teacher I hope that she will put great value on this side of herself as she grows as well. As for her talent as a singer, there is nothing better than for the reader to listen to any song, perhaps especially the solo ones of ‘Akatsuki’, ‘Akumu no Rhondo’, ‘Amore’, and ‘No Rain, No Rainbow’. And we must never forget that she is truly singing a totally new genre, one that mixes Idol with Heavy Metal and thus there are demands on her voice that literally no one has ever experienced before and that alone commands our total respect. This is an interesting audio track that has been manipulated to take the musical components out of a performance of ‘Akatsuki’ leaving only Su-metal’s voice. If this doesn’t blow you away, nothing will. http://www.allthingsjapan.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BABYMETAL-Akatsuki-Acapella-ver._MP3.mp3 And ‘Tamashii no Rufuran’ Before I move into and then close out with the side of Su-metal/Su-chan that I find the most fascinating, I want to add one of the cutest stories I have ever come across about Su-chan as well as Yui and Moa. This is one of my favorite stories about Babymetal ever. There is something very touching and yet profound about it. The picture here is called “The Coronation” by Hirokazu Sato. Many have seen it and there are many stories associated with it. This is one of my favorites. It’s about the grasshopper. If you zoom in close on the left, next to the toad, you’ll see the grasshopper. Here’s the grasshopper story….enjoy. It comes from the comments on Twitter posted by Mr. Kenta suzuki who is an announcer of MBS TV. Inazuma Rock 2013 was the first big stage for three girls at that time (around 20,000 attendance) and many Japnese BM fans were worried about how the show would go. “BABYMETAL-san, this was their second appearance at Inazuma Rock Festival with the Metal Idols performing using live-singing and a live band. They put on a magnificent performance on the main stage! However, in the backstage area before the show, Yui-chan and Moa-chan were chasing grasshoppers together in harmony, and Su-chan quietly watched over them with a smile like a female bodhisattva, I saw that and was very healed.” “A continuation of the previous tweet… A grasshopper was caught by Moa-chan but managed to escape (since Moa grabbed it too gently). Then, Moa-chan said to it “Bye-bye” waving her hands… I would say once more… she bade it good-bye waving her hands… (It’s so adorable that) I was nearly floored.” The most amazing thing to me about Nakamoto Suzuka though is the uncanny and virtually inexplicable transformation that takes place whenever she steps on the stage. It is well known in the BABYMETAL world that Yuimetal and Moametal also talk of this phenomena where they don’t remember what has happened on stage due to the ‘Kourin’ <divine descent or intertwining of a god or spirit> of the Fox god. Now this of course may be, and probably is a gimmick to make BABYMETAL more fun and interesting, but at least, or especially with Su-chan/Su-metal, I don’t think we can write it off so easily. There really does seem to be something bordering on the miraculous that takes place. Using the aforementioned Krishnamurti as an example, he reported throughout his life the presence at times of what he called ‘the other’. This ‘other’ was strong presence that would appear invisibly and yet tangibly and intertwine with him bringing his mind to state that he reported could be ‘untouched by thought’ for long stretches of time. Could it be that something like this happens with Su-chan as well? Well, it is best to let her state it in her own words (translated by yours truly, actually). Su-chan speaking on Su-metal: ‘Particularly in recent shows I have come to be aware of the moment when the Fox God descends into me. There are more and more instances where I feel as if someone inside of me is taking me by the hand and leading me making it so I can sing and express myself just exactly as I wish to do. So, more than saying I am making use of self control it is more like there is someone inside of me doing it for me (laughs).’ and ‘I really feel this way. And that is that I feel like I am a totally different personality on the stage. When I exit the stage I immediately feel like something has gone away from me. And so I think that there is a separate personality that is assisting me. When I am in good condition for a live show, it feels like there is a someone or something taking me by the hand and leading me along so that all goes well. So, I feel a high sense of pride when on stage. It is as if I must carry out a mission to mysteriously be really cool on stage. It is like when I am singing and I think I will sing in a certain way and the voice that I thought would come out comes out exactly as I hoped. And when I am dancing I think this is how I want to dance in a cool manner and as I think that I am able to pull it off exactly as I had hoped. It is as if I am 1 or 2 seconds ahead in time watching At that time, I realized that there is a ‘me’ who is different from the normal, day to day, ‘me’. From that point on I started to look upon a Babymetal ‘me’ that is different from my everyday self. That feeling has not changed from that point to now, and now there is a ‘me’ that enjoys performing as that separate personality. At times I am able to view myself from a 3rd person perspective and my usual self is kind of able to design my other self you could say to do things in a more interesting manner. Doing things like this I am able to enjoy things from my side of things. Since I am now of the understanding that there are things that ‘this me’ can do there are things that most likely only this created version of myself can do. I would not go so far as to say it is a manga like character but I do at times feel that this version of myself will be completely fine with whatever she does. And so I feel that there is nothing I can not do in a live performance.’ Nakamoto Suzuka is at once and at times, beautiful, cute, playful, fierce, as well as silly, down right badass, mesmerizing, totally down to earth, but most of all she is someone you literally can not take your eyes off of. And one more final point. I will be truly exciting to see how her English speaking and comprehension improves over the next few years. I am amazed at how much she has already progressed in just a couple of years. When I am writing or translating often my wife sits on the other side of the table and is unable to see the computer screen. The other day I was going through videos of Su preparing for this. When I was listening to a compilation of Su-chan’s English interviews my wife blurted out, ‘Is that Su-metal!? Her English is so wonderful!’. (The other time she has responded so enthusiastically to the way someone speaks English was when she heard Brian Cox <the scientist> speaking) Su, Su, Su…. the amazing Nakamoto Suzuka…..and remember she has been crucified 4 times and yet is still going strong. Utada. That is the name I know her by and the name I use. Utada-Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル)。Think about it, her name is うた…だ。That name itself means ‘Song’. While the Kanji is different, the wording is the same…Uta Da. Now, you may say, ‘OK, that must be a stage name’. Actually her name comes from her father’s family name of ‘宇多田’ and is just by chance, or by fate, her family name. Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル) Now matter how you slice it Utada Hikaru is one of the greatest artists in the history of Japanese music. Just take a look at her stats: Records
1999 – First Love: Best-Selling Album in Japan 2001 – Distance: 4th Best-Selling Album in Japan (All Times) 2nd Best-Selling Album by a Female Artist in Japan Best-Selling Album of the Decade (00s) in Japan 2nd Biggest Weekly Sales Worldwide (Following Adele’s 25) 2002 – Deep River: 4th Best-Selling Album by a Female Artist in Japan (All Times) Distance: Best-Selling Album of 2001 ‘Can you keep a secret’ was the best selling single in 2001 In the top 10 of overall sales in Japanese history ‘First love’ is still the number 1 seller of all time The blockbuster, mega musician/producer, Komuro Tetsuya said of Utada, ‘I felt that it was Hikaru who finished me off’. I am sure that he meant that he could not go on to compete or compare with what Utada brought to the Japanese music scene in 1999. He also reportedly said, ‘It was Utada Hikaru and the iPod that revolutionized the music (Japanese) scene’. There was also this amazing quote by someone high up in the music industry made on the 15th anniversary of the release of ‘Automatic’. ‘It would not be an exaggeration to say that Utada Hikaru’s debut was like nothing that had ever occurred in the Japanese music world and she went on to be genuine social phenomena’. And ‘Utada Hikaru has a music sense that is so complete unto itself and so unique that it makes all the western songs and artists that have been popular up until this point all look like complete fakes’. Utada was not born in Japan, but rather in New York in 1983 to Utada Teruzane and Fuji Keiko (more about her famous mother later). Her father, along with being a musician in his own right, worked as the manager of Utada’s mother, Fuji Keiko – a singer of such great renown as to be hard to explain in words. To put things simply, she was a thoroughbred from the start. So in spite of being a full blooded Japanese she grew up for the first 15 years of her life living in New York where she debuted with a cover of The Carpenter’s ‘Close to you’ in 1998 under the name of ‘Cubic U’, a play on her being the 3rd factor of the ‘Utada’ family. Stating that Utada is a true thoroughbred refers to what she received from her renowned mother, Fuji Keiko who may not be well known to people of the present time, but she was undoubtedly one of the greatest Japanese singers in the ‘70s. One only need to listen to her sing for a brief minute to appreciate what an amazing singer she was. ‘Shinjuku no Onna’ It is so tragic and so mysteriously uncanny that she took her own life in 2013, jumping from a building in Shinjuku. Nature or nurture, or nuture and nature, there is no doubt that Utada is who she is to an unmeasurable degree because of her mother. And it seems to go beyond that as we can see that their lives are uncannily almost mirror images of each other (at least to a point). First of all, there is the obvious remarkable similarity in the way they sing as well as their looks and the way they hold themselves. And looking at their respective histories we see: Fuji Keiko got married in 1971 (to Maekawa Kiyoshi) at the age of 20. They divorced in 1972. Utada got married in 2002 (to Kiriya Kazuaki) at the age of 20. They divorced in 2007. Fuji Keiko suddenly and unexpectedly announced her retirement at the age of 28 in 1979 and then moved to America. Utada also suddenly and unexpectedly announced her retirement at the age of 27 and then moved to the UK. Fuji Keiko got remarried (to Utada Teruzane) in 1982 when she was 31 and gave birth to Utada Hikaru the following year. Utada got remarried to an Italian man in 2014 when she was 31 and gave birth to a baby boy the next year. I don’t honestly think there is any real supernatural or unexplainable factor that led to this string of coincidences, but it is interesting nonetheless. What can not be denied is that Utada Hikaru is the inheritor of some very outstanding genes. Adding to that, growing up under the influence of her incredibly talented mother and a father that was/is so steeped in the musical industry surely played a major factor as well. There is one more interesting but not really significant point I would like to make in this vein. In one of her fabulous ‘Kuma Power Hour’ radio shows…. [let me go off tangent for a minute as I want to tell you that this series of, I believe, 8 one-hour shows titled ‘Kuma Power Hour’ is something that you really must take a listen to. Utada talks a fair deal about herself as well as her mother, as well as displaying a vast amount of knowledge about the music scene both in and outside of Japan. The most interesting thing about the series is is that |
using a powerful PC with a giant screen. That never has been true, and it's even less true now: the small screen rules.
The mobile boom is also a powerful referral tool: if you have a business that benefits from impulse shoppers, travelers, and drop-ins, then you need to get your business listed in the directories that feed mobile search applications like YellowPages.com and DexKnows. These directories serve mobile phones and GPS devices like TomTom and Garmin.
Figure 1: The smart Web designer targets smartphones. (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)
3. Fancy Special Effects: Just Say No
It doesn't matter if your site is a simple informational site like an online brochure, or a complex online store -- eschew the silly special effects. Don't do overlays, peeling stickers, popups, fancy fades, slideshows, animations, annoying tooltips, or anything that gets in the way and forces your visitors to swat them out of the way like gnats.
Most especially: do not run video or audio automatically, because the easiest way to turn this junk off is to leave your site. Fancy effects only impress bored Web designers, and managers who think they're getting more bang for their buck with an overly-complicated whizbang site.
4. Too Many Words and No Information
When a customer visits your site, how long does it take them to figure out what your business does, or what your products are? If your pages are loaded with empty buzzwords like solutions, alignment, proactive, synergy, transformation, higher-order, best of breed, holistic, organic, value-added, return on investment, and so on, they're not going to hang around trying to translate it. Use simple, clear language. You know how business coaches advise us to prepare "elevator speeches", to practice describing our businesses in a succinct 30 seconds or less? Apply the same thinking to your website.
5. Confusing Site Navigation
People want answers, and they want them now -- how hard is it for them to zero in on the information they want on your small business website? How well does your search function work, is there a master index? Are there useful categories?
You can track what people are searching for, what pages they visit and for how long, and tweak your site accordingly. You also have the power to tweak your site's search engine and make it super-fast and useful. It is not good when your customers can find information on your site faster with a Google search.A retired Marine put his life on the line to protect his family and scare off four teenagers holding him at gunpoint.
An NBC affiliate in Houston reported that Alexander Borrego, a former Marine, shot a teen while the young man and three of his friends attempted to rob him at gunpoint. Borrego and his family reside in Northeast Harris County. According to local deputies, Borrego was standing in his driveway on Friday night when the four men walked up and ambushed him.
The teens “grabbed and pulled” at Borrego; one of them held a gun to his head. The homeowner and father said he did what he had to do and pulled his pistol to defend himself and his family.
As soon as I got my hand on my pistol I turned towards the guy that had the gun at the back of my head. I immediately removed the pistol away from my head as I began firing at those guys.
Borrego shot the assailant twice, once in the chest and again in the leg as the four teens fled the scene. They ran from his home to the home of the mother of the teen whom Borrego shot. The mother took him to a local hospital, where he is expected to survive.
A neighbor’s security cameras captured the group twice, once before they ambushed Borrego and again as they ran away.
Borrego said he was sad but also glad that he was unharmed and immediately able to defend himself and his family against the attackers. He is not expected to face any charges for his role in the shooting.
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Borrego praised her husband on social media, calling him her hero.Will self-driving cars have steering wheels? Maybe not, if engineers keep falling asleep.
Ford's self-driving cars will skip over Level 3 — where cars are automated, but human drivers are still expected to take over if need be — to Level 4, where cars are basically fully autonomous except for extreme conditions. (Self-driving cars that would meet the requirements for Level 5 are still theoretical at this point.) The levels are defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers, or SAE.
Automotive News reported that Ford came to that decision after its engineers fell asleep, lulled into a false sense of security with nothing much to do while driving Level 3 cars.
“These are trained engineers who are there to observe what’s happening,” Ford Product Development Chief Raj Nair told the publication. “But it’s human nature that you start trusting the vehicle more and more and that you feel you don’t need to be paying attention.”
A spokesman for Ford denied that report, but confirmed the automaker would pursue Level 4 autonomous vehicles.
"Reports that Ford engineers were falling asleep while testing autonomous vehicles are inaccurate," Ford said in a statement. "We believe that high levels of automation without full autonomy capability could provide a false sense of security, and that this presents a challenge for the driver to regain full awareness and control of the vehicle if a situation arises where the technology cannot function. That is why we’re currently pursuing SAE Level 4 autonomous capability that will take the driver completely out of the driving process in defined areas."
Ford invested $1 billion in the autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI earlier this month, so there's big money behind these decisions.
Deciding on Level 4 aligns Ford with Waymo, Google's self-driving project, which also found that human drivers grew inattentive when tasked with only sort of driving.
“Level 3 may turn out to be a myth,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik said, according to Automotive News. “Perhaps it’s just not worth doing.”
Unless you need a nap, that is.CLOSE Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio speaks to the media after the 40-7 win over Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J., on Saturday, Nov. 2017. Video by Josh Mansour/Special to DFP
Lawsuit clams Michigan State University athletic department brought Keith Mumphery back to campus after he was banned in alleged sex assault case.
Former Michigan State Spartans wide receiver Keith Mumphery. (Photo: Andrew Weber, Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports)
Michigan State University's athletic department helped a former football player return to campus despite an order banning him after he violated the school's relationship violence and sexual misconduct policy, a newly filed lawsuit claims.
The Title IX discrimination lawsuit was filed in federal court Sunday by a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by former Michigan State football player Keith Mumphery in 2015. The woman is identified as Jane Doe in the lawsuit. Mumphery, who never was charged in criminal court, played for the Spartans in 2011-14.
"MSU’s response was to protect Mumphery and to assist (Mumphery) in securing travel arrangements," alleges the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also says the university only took proper action after the federal Office of Civil Rights forced them to reevaluate cases and after the player — Mumphery — had expired his playing eligibility at the school.
"MSU just became aware of the lawsuit this morning," spokesman Jason Cody told the Free Press. "Sexual misconduct in all of its forms is an issue our leaders take very seriously. We have taken and continue to take significant steps to increase campus resources and revise campus policies to hear complaints in a timely and fair manner.
"While MSU does not comment on pending litigation, we will continue work to improve how MSU prevents and responds to sexual assault as we defend against this lawsuit."
The suit is the latest in a long string of complaints filed by female students against Michigan State over handling of sexual assault allegations. Those range from a large number of athletes suing the university over their handling of complaints against disgraced gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar; to last off-season's complaints against football players to a federal investigation of the overall handling of sexual assaults.
Also read:
The feds and Michigan State signed a resolution agreement in late 2015 that mandated the university re-evaluate how it handled several sexual assault allegations, including the one in the most recent lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, on Jan. 22, 2016, a review panel convened and determined the Michigan State investigative office made both procedural error and arbitrary and capricious findings when investigating the sexual assault complaint.
The investigative office was directed to reopen the investigation to clarify its findings and to remedy the procedural errors.
On March 21, 2016, a full year after the assault was reported, investigators found that the victim had not given “consent” as defined in MSU’s Policy on Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct and that Mumphery violated the policy by sexually assaulting the plaintiff.
Related:
"After (Michigan State) determined that Mumphery had sexually assaulted Plaintiff, the Defendants again did not provide Plaintiff with any Title IX information regarding academic accommodations, counseling services, a no-contact order, or relocation accommodations," the lawsuit says. "After the second OIE decision, it took another three months for sanctions to be issued against Mumphery. Sanctions were finally issued June 7, 2016."
According to the lawsuit. Mumphery was notified he was banned from campus June 7, 2016.
"Eight days later, on June 14, 2016, MSU sent out tweet on Twitter stating that Mumphery was invited to and would be attending a MSU sponsored football camp to be held June 18, 2016," the lawsuit says.
"Mumphery was also invited to attend a MSU sponsored golf outing scheduled for June 17, 2016.
"The Defendants invited Mumphery back to the MSU campus after Mumphrey had been found in violation of the Defendants’ own policies regarding sexual assault and violence, and he had been prohibited from using or visiting University facilities."
The lawsuit claims Mumphery appeared at the golf outing.
"No attempt was made to notify Plaintiff that Mumphrey was present on the MSU campus, to verify that Plaintiff was safe and in a secure location, or inform Plaintiff that Mumphery had been removed from the campus," the suit says. "During that June weekend, Plaintiff was terrified when her friends notified her that Mumphery had been spotted on campus and around East Lansing. Plaintiff began calling campus authorities but received no information and was merely shuffled from department to department."
The suit seeks to have the victim compensated for her mental anguish following the situation.
Mumphery played for the Spartans in 2010-14 and caught the final touchdown in their win over Baylor in the Cotton Bowl Classic on Jan. 1, 2015, his last game at MSU. He has played two seasons with the NFL's Houston Texans, but was waived before the start of this season.
Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2BgHNp4Why is sexism still tolerated in our industry? We need an immediate and total change in attitudes across the boardFollow James Rhodes on twitter @JRhodesPianist
Classical music is not dying (pace yet another overly-enthusiastic report at Slate.com) but there are clearly many problems in the industry.
Most of them are brought on by those of us in the business itself, be it the musicians (who are for the most part precious, egocentric, grandiose and socially stunted), the gatekeepers (narcissistic, obtuse, living in the past, as resistant to change as they are entrenched in their cliques) or the record labels (risk-averse and budget-deprived, relying on their back catalogue as a life raft).
There are fixes on the way, albeit not immediate ones, but in the meantime, shining a light on the grubby areas that should make those involved slink away in shame cannot be a bad thing. And, at the very top of that list, above the budget cuts, extortionate big-name fees, mafia-like factions eroding anything resembling real-world accessibility and inclusion, is the sexism. It is everywhere. Radio 4's Today Programme on Monday invited Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, and the composer and conductor Debbie Wiseman to discuss the acute gender imbalance among conductors, particularly. (Listen to it here, available until 9 February.)
It's a problem that was highlighted last summer when Marin Alsop became the first woman to conduct the last night of the Proms in its nearly-120-year history, prompting headlines and snide comments both in public and in private. Vasily Petrenko, an award-winning, aggressively talented young conductor talked on record about how women conductors are a "sexual distraction" for the orchestra.
Or try this: "The essence of a politician's profession is strength. The essence of a woman is weakness."
Had any politician in this country (UKIP aside) gone on record with such a statement, he would be out of politics faster than a rat out of an aqueduct. And yet when Yuri Temirkanov, one of Russia's most eminent conductors, said this, substituting the word "conductor" for "politician", barely an eyebrow was raised. It is expected, lazy, swaggering and rife, and the stories of everyday sexism from orchestral members could fill libraries many times over.
Many orchestras, especially in the US, are now auditioning blind, with participants playing behind screens, and there has been an exponential increase in women being hired as a result – one study shows the likelihood of progressing beyond the preliminary round increases by 50% for women in these kinds of auditions. Now orchestras need to improve their childcare support and eradicate the patriarchal legacy inspired by the likes of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics in order to make things gel.
Good looks have long helped to compensate for a lack of talent across the entire music industry. But the sexualised marketing of young women, particularly, in classical music has also now become normalised. Witness (the undoubtedly hugely talented) Yuja Wang's barefoot performances complete with interval dress changes, see the hundreds of PR shots of the kind that keep teenage boys locked in their bedrooms for everyone from Hélène Grimaud to Alison Balsom. Some album cover portraits for female artists could double as escort agency profile pics. Publicity for young male artists is increasingly sexualised too, but not to anything like the same degree.
Sex and beauty aside, when women have to cope not just with a society that places physical attractiveness ahead of everything else but also with an industry that has an ingrained sense of entitled chauvinism, there is cause for alarm and shame in equal measure.
We've seen it in sports (witness the recent horrific Twitter Q&A with Olympic gymnast Beth Tweddle). What we need to see in classical music, also, is an immutable, instant and resolute change in attitude from the top down. Figureheads such as Jude Kelly are making huge strides but the frustration at having to spend her time focusing on something that shouldn't even exist is palpable.
Listen to Argerich nailing Rachmaninov's third concerto or Marin Alsop flinging Brahms' second symphony out to a shell-shocked audience and I dare you even to attempt to justify the shabby, second-class treatment to which female musicians are exposed.
More blogs by James Rhodes
• Find what you love and let it kill you
• Classical music needs an enema - not awards
Follow James Rhodes on twitter @JRhodesPianistNORFOLK, Va. (WVEC) -- A U.S. Navy SEAL based in California appeared in federal court in Norfolk Wednesday.
Gregory Kyle Seerden, 31, is facing child pornography charges related to a case that originated in Hampton Roads.
Seerden was arrested in San Diego on April 3.
An initial investigation involving Seerden began when a woman accused him of sexual assault in January. She said they had gone out for drinks the night before the alleged attack.
She told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) she later began to black out and couldn't remember some events of that night clearly.
Court documents state that she recalled being with Seerden in his hotel room on Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story where he was on temporary duty.
The woman remembered that Seerden was on top of her at some point. She also said she remembered telling him to stop, but could not recall anything other details. She reported the alleged assault to a gate gentry at JEBLCFS Gate 5.
Court paperwork also states that Seerden told her the next morning that they had had sex.
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Investigators took Seerden's cell phone to find potential evidence in the assault investigation. That was when NCIS came across pictures and videos of children engaged/engaging in sex acts.
Agents said they found more than six dozen images. Some showed naked children engaged in sex acts. At least one showed a child an aroused naked man. There were other images that hinted at bestiality.
Investigators noted another photo and four videos stood out. They were taken/created between January 1, 2017 and January 2, 2017 and showed a girl who appeared to be about 5 or 6 years old. NCIS said the videos and image were created using the phone that agents searched.
The videos showed a man performing different sex acts on a young girl while she's sleeping.
There also was a picture in which Seerden was in a bed with two boys and two girls reading a children's book.
Comparing images, investigators determined one of the girls in the picture is the same girl recorded in video. Court documents note she is not from Virginia.
All the charges Seerden is facing are felony charges. His appearance Wednesday in Norfolk was his first in federal court. His arraignment is scheduled to take place on May 10 at 2:30 p.m.
Joshua Stueve with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said that Seerden faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years for Production of Child Pornography.
Gregory Seerden Affidavit by 13News Now on Scribd
Gregory Seerden Indictment by 13News Now on ScribdWhile Jimmy McCain’s service is a story all his own — he enlisted at age 17 — it illuminates the beliefs about duty, honor and sacrifice with which family friends say he was raised. Military ideals have defined Mr. McCain as a person and a politician, and he is placing them at the core of his presidential candidacy. Last week, he campaigned at his former stations of duty, explaining how the lessons he learned there would guide his decisions as commander in chief.
“If I had ignored some of the less important conventions of the Academy,” as a demerit-prone midshipman, Mr. McCain said Wednesday at the United States Naval Academy, “I was careful not to defame its more compelling traditions: the veneration of courage and resilience; the honor code that simply assumed your fidelity to its principles; the homage paid to Americans who had sacrificed greatly for our country; the expectation that you, too, would prove worthy of your country’s trust.”
With both potential Democratic nominees in favor of withdrawal from Iraq, debate about the war — whether it is winnable, what would happen if the United States withdrew, how much loss the country can endure — is likely to be a dominant issue in the general election. Mr. McCain’s potential opponents are already implying that he is too willing to risk American lives, too committed to stretching an already unpopular war far into the future.
Out of the Public Eye
Mr. McCain has largely maintained a code of silence about his son, now a lance corporal, making only fleeting references to him in public both to protect him from becoming a prize target and avoid exploiting his service for political gain, according to friends. At the few campaign events where Lance Corporal McCain appeared last year, he was not introduced.
The McCains declined to be interviewed for this article, which the campaign requested not be published. “The McCain campaign objects strongly to this intrusion into the privacy of Senator McCain’s son,” Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “The children of presidential candidates in this election cycle should be afforded the same respect for their privacy that the children of President Bush and President and Senator Clinton have been afforded.” (To protect Lance Corporal McCain in case he is again deployed to a war zone, The New York Times is not publishing recent photographs of him and has withheld some details of his service).
Born in 1988, the third of John and Cindy McCain’s children, Jimmy inherited his father’s features and slight build, outrageous humor and family tradition of military service that stretches back to the Revolutionary War. His grandfather and great-grandfather were the first parent and son to achieve four-star admiral status in Naval history.
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Then there was his father’s ever-growing legend. A hell-raising Navy pilot, John McCain relied on a defiant streak to survive nearly six brutal years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. As Jimmy grew up, his father, first a congressman and then a senator, was always dashing off to speak at military events — a dedication here, a graduation there. Mr. McCain’s reputation was burnished with his memoir, “Faith of My Fathers,” and its adaptation into a television movie.
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Two of Jimmy’s three older brothers went into the military. Doug McCain, 48, was a Navy pilot. Jack McCain, 21, is to graduate from the Naval Academy next year, raising the chances that his father, if elected, could become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower with a son at war.
The McCain children were not force-fed tales of their father’s bravery, said Orson Swindle, who was imprisoned in Vietnam with Mr. McCain. But “if you’re a man in the public eye, it’s hard for them not to know about it,” Mr. Swindle said in an interview.
Early Ambition
By the time Jimmy was in high school, he was scouting war memorabilia on eBay and playing video games like “Battlefield 1942,” classmates said. He chose sports that simulated combat, like fencing and paintball, and his prized possession was a World War II Army hat.
At Culver Academy, a military-style boarding school in Indiana, he and his friend Nick Moore would fire up “Apocalypse Now” or “Platoon” on a laptop — critiques of war, but never mind — turn the sound down and talk about serving. “The testosterone was flying,” Mr. Moore said in an interview. “He’d say, ‘I’m just going to go in there guns blazing!’ ”
Jimmy wanted to attend the Naval Academy, he told Mr. Moore, and then learn to fly. But how he would get there was uncertain. In interviews, classmates and teachers described him as the kind of kid who contributed impressive thoughts to classroom discussions but did not always turn in assignments, who was always collecting demerits for minor offenses like smoking — descriptions that echo those of his father at the same age. He left Culver after his sophomore year, making it the second school he passed through in two years.
Sometime in the next year, Jimmy enlisted in the Marine Corps. He only called his parents to tell them afterward, according to Lance Cpl. Casey Gardiner, a friend from boot camp. Iraq was tilting toward civil war, with blasts of improvised explosive devices at their highest levels yet. Jimmy McCain was 17, so young that Cindy McCain had to sign consent forms for his medical tests before he could report for duty, according to Gunnery Sgt. Edward Carter, a recruiter in Phoenix who handed her the papers.
By enlisting in the Marines, Jimmy seemed to be giving up his birthright. The Navy is, by reputation, the most aristocratic of the armed forces, the McCains among its most storied families. Now he would hold the lowest rank in a branch known for its grittiness. “The first time I heard he was going to be in the company, I couldn’t believe it,” said First Lt. Sam Bowlby, one of Lance Corporal McCain’s officers in Iraq.
“He didn’t want to be in the shadow of his father,” Lance Corporal Gardiner said.
But the new marine was fulfilling his father’s legacy in at least one way. John McCain had become a hero not for the missions he had flown or the men he had led, but for the privileges he had refused and the hardships he had endured. The North Vietnamese wanted to free Mr. McCain ahead of other captives because he was the son of a Navy admiral and Pacific commander. Mr. McCain refused. Now his son was carving a humble new path that the father, academy-bound since birth, never had.
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Jimmy began boot camp on Sept. 11, 2006. He took extra abuse for his last name, said Lance Cpl. Gregory Aalto, a member of his training platoon. Recruits are not even allowed their own eyeglasses, so Jimmy had to wear the standard-issue Marine ones, so unappealing they are known as “birth-control goggles.”
As he completed his training and prepared for deployment, other marines caught only occasional glimpses of his family’s celebrity and wealth, such as when he handed out extra tickets for a Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Oscar De La Hoya boxing match he was attending with his father in Las Vegas. If anyone asked about his family, he had a sarcastic joke at the ready. When a cluster of marines asked how they could help his father’s campaign, Lance Corporal McCain pretended to call him and then passed on a message: they could carry out the contracts the senator had taken out on his rivals’ lives.
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“Jimmy was just completely joking,” said Lance Cpl. Johnathan Pebley. “You can kind of tell he doesn’t want to talk about it.”
In July, days from deployment, Lance Corporal McCain, newly engaged to be married, joined his father’s struggling campaign in New Hampshire. He visited the Flanagans and sat unrecognized at campaign events.
At the last stop, a veteran asked for a round of applause for the candidate’s brave Marine son. He did not seem to know that Jimmy McCain was sitting just a few seats away. Almost no one did.
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As Father of a Marine
Mr. McCain did not speak publicly about whatever anxiety he may have felt about his son’s deployment, but Mr. Swindle described the experience as difficult. “Anybody who tells you it’s not tough is not being straightforward with you,” he said.
Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, whose son served two tours in Iraq, said he and Mr. McCain privately traded their concerns. “We talked about how it affects the young men over there,” Mr. Bond said. “He’s basically a father, very anxious about what his son’s going to be doing.”
Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, a former presidential contender whose son was serving in Afghanistan, said he and Mr. McCain would update each other at debates. “He knows what his father and grandfather went through as his sons went off to war,” Mr. Hunter said. “So he’s got a model to follow.”
Indeed, John McCain’s own parents were dressing for a dinner party in London when they learned he had been shot down. They went anyway, never telling other guests. Later, Admiral McCain ordered air strikes on Hanoi, where he knew his son was imprisoned.
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Just before Jimmy’s departure, Mrs. McCain decided she had to see him one final time, according to Lieutenant Bowlby. With a few well-placed phone calls, she won permission to visit the Air Force base from which his unit would depart. When Lance Corporal McCain found out, he protested. No special favors, he said. Mrs. McCain stayed away.
“God forbid someone gave him something the rest of the marines weren’t entitled to,” Lieutenant Bowlby said.
Lance Corporal McCain and his fellow riflemen had trained for the worst in the spring of 2007, using paintball guns rigged as M-16s to apprehend costume-clad “insurgents” in fake Iraqi villages.
In the real Iraq, they saw little combat. “We were expecting to get shot at all the time,” said Lance Cpl. Justin Murdock, 20. “But 95 percent of the time, nothing was going on.”
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The marines were stationed in Anbar Province, where some of the war’s bloodiest battles had been fought. But the fighting had moved on to other areas, and Lance Corporal McCain’s company mostly did security work, which meant keeping an unceasing eye on the locals, poor Sunnis who grew rice and other crops on small plots.
Lance Corporal McCain’s unit performed “soft knocks” — visits to Iraqi homes intended as reassurance as well as surveillance, said Lance Cpl. Jason Case. His platoon hunted for weapons caches and I.E.D.’s, but also distributed school supplies and candy. Relying on interpreters and the bits of Arabic they all seemed to pick up, the 19- and 20-year-old grunts taught Iraqi police officers how to hold and clean weapons, search vehicles and conduct patrols.
The hardest part, said several marines, was enduring tedium while remaining braced for mayhem. There were physical deprivations, too — searing heat, heavy gear, long hours and minimal sleep.
Fifteen marines with whom Lance Corporal McCain trained or served were interviewed for this article, and all praised his performance. He “was just always a hardworking kid,” Lieutenant Bowlby said. “He never bitched about anything,” he said, and always seemed to be laughing. “The humility of him, that’s what blew me away,” he continued.
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For much of his tour, Jimmy McCain was cut off from political news. The rented Iraqi home where his platoon bunked did not have Internet service, and the 30-odd men shared one satellite phone with a shaky signal. Some news arrived via word-of-mouth, like the senator’s New Hampshire victory (Mr. McCain recounted the story at a recent Manhattan fund-raiser). Lance Corporal McCain did see his father once. On Thanksgiving, Mr. McCain visited Camp Habbaniya with Senate colleagues, and the two shared the holiday meal in the chow hall, according to several people present. Mr. McCain asked other marines if they saw security improving and seemed heartened when they told him they did.
Lance Corporal McCain and his unit returned home in February. For his father, who believed that United States strategy in Iraq was working, his son’s tour corresponded well. The company had not lost any men, though three from the battalion had died. It had arrived in a stable area and things had only improved from there. “In my seven months there, you would see drastic changes in Iraq,” Lance Cpl. Greg Jumes said.
Lieutenant Bowlby echoed his comments, as did every marine interviewed. “There were some hairy moments, but compared to the past couple of years, it’s 180 degrees,” he said, comparing his first tour in Iraq with his second.
Mixed Events
Two days after Lance Corporal McCain arrived back in the United States, his father shared his account of the war with Republican congressmen. In a private meeting on Capitol Hill, Mr. McCain mentioned the decline in I.E.D.’s that his son witnessed, the soccer balls he gave to Iraqi children. Mr. McCain’s audience responded with a standing ovation, according to a report published by CNN and confirmed by several aides who were present.
In recent weeks, the news from Iraq has been less encouraging. The cease-fire between the leading Shiite militia and American and Iraqi security forces, which overlapped with Lance Corporal McCain’s tour, has frayed. Bombings and sectarian killings have increased. Days after the fifth anniversary of the war’s start, the death toll of American troops crossed the 4,000 mark.
As Mr. McCain enters the general election, some say that his son’s service will underscore the sincerity of his stance on the war. “He has, to use a gambler’s term, skin in the game,” said Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator and longtime friend of Mr. McCain. “It’s among the most important things that people want to know about John McCain in trying to decide whether or not to trust him.”
Last month, Mrs. McCain made a similar argument at a campaign event in Houston. “I want him to represent my son at 3 o’clock in the morning,” she said of her husband, referring to an advertisement for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York that boasts of her national security credentials. She wore a blue-star pin, the mark of an American with a family member at war.
Her son is back at Camp Pendleton, where he is using the Jeep he just bought to ferry other marines to the beach. Lately he has been teased about a McCain presidency, according to Lance Cpl. Matt Drake, another company member. “Will we have to go patrolling with Secret Service?” they ask.
“Shut up,” Lance Corporal McCain tells them good-naturedly.Preview | Recap | Notebook
Spurs-Heat Preview
By BRIAN MAHONEY
Posted Jun 11 2014 7:59PM MIAMI (AP) LeBron James has learned an important lesson during his journey from 19-year-old rookie to two-time NBA champion: Never talk back to the coach during a film session. "Let him make his point, whether he's right or wrong, and you live with it and move on," James said. Especially when the coach has as much to show his players as Erik Spoelstra did to James and the Miami Heat on Wednesday. Miami's defense didn't offer much resistance early in Game 3 of the NBA Finals; the San Antonio Spurs played like they were on the court by themselves. San Antonio made 19 of its first 21 shots and shot a finals-record 75.8 percent in the first half of a 111-92 victory. Just like last year, Game 3 was a blowout that left the Heat facing a 2-1 deficit. Miami came back to win the series, so nobody was overreacting to what happened Tuesday, especially since the Spurs themselves don't expect to shoot that way again. But the Heat have things to clean up before Game 4 on Thursday, or they risk going back to San Antonio facing the end of their title reign. "You're always on edge in the postseason, but I don't want to be concerned at this point," James said. "For us, we have to make the adjustments." The Spurs had the same lead last year after a 113-77 victory in Game 3, a start-to-finish beating that was even more thorough than Tuesday's win. So they were taking no satisfaction in their position, and certainly not comparing it. "I don't think about last year at all at this point," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "I don't think about last year Game 3, Game 4, at all. This is a different animal and I'm just concerned about the game tomorrow night." The bigger concerns belong to the Heat, whose defense was also sliced up by the Spurs in the fourth quarter of Game 1. So Spoelstra gathered his team to look at the painful tape of Tuesday's performance, which featured among its problems: -Chris Bosh getting only four shot attempts after scoring 18 points in Games 1 and 2. -James trying to do too much to rally the Heat and ending up with seven of their 20 turnovers. -Mario Chalmers missing all five shots and falling to 3 for 12 in the finals. "We did not play a good basketball game," Spoelstra said. "All of us have owned that. It doesn't matter ultimately how many you lose by or what the game is like. You have to learn from it, move on." Spoelstra said watching themselves get clobbered on tape was "painful" and "frustrating," but necessary. He wouldn't reveal what he told his players, but whatever it was, James wouldn't have argued. That's a lesson he said he learned "quite a few years ago, when you realize that it wouldn't change anything." "You know, the coach is always right," James added. "It's like a teacher. They're always right, and that's fine. That's fair. They make the rules and we've got to live by them." Spoelstra's process suits the Heat, who have won 13 straight postseason games following a loss. They followed last year's Game 3 no-show with a rout of their own to swing the series back in their favor, and are confident they can make corrections before Thursday. But the Spurs, who didn't think they played that well in the first two games, have shown that not even the respected Miami defense can stop them when they execute the way they did Tuesday. "We finally put a game together for not the full 48, but for as long as we could, where we did exactly what we planned to do and executed in that respect," Tim Duncan said, "and that's what we're going to need again." No team has overcome a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals, and a victory Thursday would guarantee the Spurs two chances to win the series on their home floor, starting with Game 5 on Sunday. Dwyane Wade said the Heat aren't thinking that far ahead. "We're an in-the-moment team," he said. "And right now in the moment is the day after a loss, getting better mentally, physically and then coming into tomorrow and playing the game of basketball here on our home floor and trying to win Game 4. That is all we focus on." --- Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
Copyright 2014 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited Copyright 2014 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of |
ation entity elected gross human rights abusers Syria and Venezuela to leadership posts. “I commend the leadership of all those committed to bringing new energy to its work,” said Mr. Ban.
UN Watch instead is calling on Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power, and the EU’s UN ambassadors to condemn the world body’s “absurd and morally obscene” election just of Syria and Venezuela to senior posts on a decolonization committee that is charged with upholding fundamental human rights in opposing the “subjugation, domination and exploitation” of peoples — a propaganda victory that—like before—is already being trumpeted by the Assad regime.
Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja’afari (photo above) was re-elected as Rapporteur.
The election of Venezuela’s UN ambassador as Chair—Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño—took place this morning in the 2016 opening session of the UN’s Special Committee on Decolonization.
Twenty-five human rights groups led by UN Watch just spotlighted gross violations of human rights in Venezuela this week when they awarded the 2016 Geneva Summit Courage Award to two Venezuelan opposition leaders who are political prisoners.
Chile and India Failed to Vote Like Democracies
Hillel Neuer, director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, said that President Michele Bachelet of Chile should be “ashamed” that her country joined the consensus vote, as should India, despite repeated appeals. Both democracies sit on the 24-nation committee, to vote against the Assad regime’s candidate.Australian telecommunications company Telstra will spend up to US$1 billion for a planned wireless joint venture with San Miguel Corporation in the Philippines, the company’s CEO Andrew Penn told investors today.
That’s just Telstra’s share in the joint venture. Partner San Miguel, a conglomerate with diversified interests in the Philippines, will also invest in the business, along with some banks that will provide financing.
“We are not expecting it to be more than US$1 billion. That would be essentially Telstra’s equity investment. We could own 40 percent of the venture, which would also have external financing as well,” Andrew Penn was quoted as saying by The Australian.
Currently, Telstra and San Miguel have not reached a deal yet, but talks are ongoing.
If this deal pushes through, they are expected to shake up the Philippine existing telco industry major players PLDT and Globe Telecom in the archipelago.
“Frankly, let’s face it, go to the Philippines and experience the lousy service you get from the incumbent operators and you will see that [there’s] opportunity for a new operator to provide a much better quality service … I think there’s a significant opportunity,” CEO Andrew Penn was also quoted as saying.
San Miguel is reportedly rolling out its mobile telecommunications network in the Philippines through a division Bell Telecommunications.
San Miguel Corporation president Ramon Ang has previously stated, they have been waiting for the right time to enter the mobile business but has delayed because of other acquisition opportunities.
Over the past years, San Miguel has aggressively moved away from its traditional food and beer businesses and into heavy industries such as infrastructure, power, oil refining, and telecommunications.
This will not be Telstra’s first time to break into Asia telcom industry. Earlier this year they acquired Singapore- and Hong Kong-based internet services provider Pacnet for US$697 million. That deal was part of a A$5 billion (US$3.56 billion) budget it allotted for Asian ventures.
What do you think of Telstra’s proposed joint venture with San Miguel?
Will it help improve telecommunication services in the Philippines?
Join the discussion.by
Westminster have outlined plans today to offer Scotland the gift of fire in the event of a no vote.
In what is seen as part of a cynical last ditch attempt to persuade Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom, Gordon brown was brought out of retirement to offer Scottish voters not only some communal fire, but the means to actually light their own. The former prime Minister it’s thought will also be wooing voters with free sticks, a consignment of animal furs and the Oxfordshire market town of Bicester.
“Only through voting No can Scotland be granted the mystic secret of flickery magic that behold gives light heat and power. Not to mention when they want to settle disagreements and ignite rival villages.”
David Cameron, who is believed to be visiting Scotland this week, said he thought the fire alone would be enough to clinch a No vote.”I can’t wait to see their little faces light up when they realise they can eat their favourite square sausages at higher than room temperature. ” he explained.
Popular as it may be in Scotland the ‘new deal’ has already had its critics south of the border. Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail told us. “They’re not used to wielding so much power over a natural element. They’ll just end up setting fire to themselves, each other and everything around them. And who’ll have to foot the bill? Muggins here probably.”
A defiant Alex Salmond has argued that Westminster can stick fire up its arse. “An independent Scotland will decide if it needs fire and if it is our sovereign will then we’ll work it out for ourselves. It’s got something to do with rubbing one stick together.”Leatherface returns in another prequel film that attempts to tell of the skinmasked killer's years as a teenager.
In an attempt to set itself apart from the last few entries in the series about the Sawyer family's taste for human flesh, this horror film gets some things right and many things wrong. Where it succeeds in giving viewers a batch of brutal deaths it fails to make a true connection to the original other than a few scenes of the dreaded homestead and the realization that this mythology really didn't need any more back story. Classic on screen killers should exist in the shadows. Their upbringing doesn't really require a new cinematic chapter that gives us all the gory details about how they became what they are. Sometimes these parts are better shrouded in untold darkness where our mind can do the work. All the blanks don't need to be filled in.
Instead of trying to capture the highly saturated hues and distorted film style of the 1974 classic, this looks way too digital, doesn't have any grit, and only drives it further home that this franchise needs to either die or get a high dose of old school direction. In the hands of a different director that's supported by a better writer, Leatherface may have swayed the other way. For a movie about humans being dispatched by cannibals, everything is just too neat and tidy. The build to the big reveal of Leatherface lacks tension, never seeming like they spent too much time developing the script. Again, some of the death scenes are remarkable in their brutality and the practical effects work is top tier, yet the script lacks that certain spark.
Daddy bought me this for Christmas!
Blood spatter not included!
Once again, the chronology of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre takes a beating as new family members are introduced and nothing really evolves other than another string of creative kills and disgusting scenes of dismemberment. Separating itself from the Texas Chainsaw 3D debacle of a few years ago, Leatherface is given a sob story background where he's the focus of another sheriff that has it out for the entire Sawyer family. Repeating many of the same character traits as R. Lee Ermey's character in the Marcus Nispel remake, too much familiarity makes the plot a bit shaky.
Where the film does succeed is in its two adult stars, Stephen Dorff and Lily Taylor. Considering the material, it's surprising to find them both in a TCM movie. Dorff plays the vengeance seeking sheriff with ease and Taylor continues to prove her dramatic worth as an emotionally tarnished mother of flesh eating boys. Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury of Inside fame, I wouldn't say this is necessarily a bad movie. It just didn't need to be part of the Chainsaw legacy. As part of the official canon, Leatherface supports what's to come but does nothing to further the overall series or brand.
If you're a huge fan of Texas Chainsaw, you'll definitely find something to like here. But it's not going to change the status of the series as a whole. This is just another passing thought in a franchise that could use a rest for a while. Horror fans crave original content, not just retreads of our favorite killers. This will cure the Leatherface drought for a while. However, it's not quite as cool as it initially looked.
Score
-CGStory highlights U.S. officials announced new defense strategy this week
It makes the Asia-Pacific region a key focus for U.S. military power
Xinhua editorial says U.S. "should abstain from flexing its muscles" in the region
"All the trends" are pointing toward the Pacific as strategic focus, top U.S. general says
The United States should use the "utmost caution" as it makes the Asia-Pacific region a key focus of its newly announced military strategy, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary published Friday.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama and top defense officials unveiled a new U.S. defense strategy that focuses heavily on the Asia-Pacific region, a fast-growing economic powerhouse with numerous potential flashpoints that the administration has identified as crucial to U.S. interests.
While resulting in a leaner force, the new strategy also calls for the U.S. to increase its military's "institutional weight and focus on enhanced presence, power projection, and deterrence in Asia-Pacific," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.
While welcoming a peaceful U.S. role in the region, Xinhua's commentary Friday warned the United States against acting like a "bull in a china shop."
"The U.S. role, if fulfilled with a positive attitude and free from a Cold War-style zero-sum mentality, will not only be conducive to regional stability and prosperity, but be good for China, which needs a peaceful environment to continue its economic development," the Xinhua editorial said.
"However, while boosting its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States should abstain from flexing its muscles, as this won't help solve regional disputes."
JUST WATCHED Analysts denounce U.S. strategy to China Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Analysts denounce U.S. strategy to China 02:32
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The new defense strategy, which still lacks many specifics, is meant to pare U.S. defense spending by at least $487 billion over the next decade and drops a long-standing doctrine calling for the ability to fight to simultaneous ground wars.
The result will be a more "agile, flexible, ready-to-deploy, innovative and technologically advanced" force prepared to counter terrorists, rogue states and the threat of nuclear weapons worldwide, Panetta said Thursday.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the focus on the Asia-Pacific region is crucial.
"The strategy talks about a shift to the future," he said Thursday. "And all of the trends -- demographic trends, geopolitical trends, economic trends and military trends -- are shifting toward the Pacific."
With U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the focus on the Asia-Pacific region has become a key theme of the administration's foreign policy commentary in recent months.
In November, Obama toured the region to highlight its economic and strategic importance to U.S. interests and announced plans to eventually station a task force of up to 2,500 Marines in Australia
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he said at the time, pledging that the coming defense cuts would not affect the country's military posture in the region.
He reiterated that pledge Thursday.
"As I made clear in Australia, we will be strengthening our presence in the Asia Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region,," he said.We’re going to talk about today: 10 Terrific Tips for Success in Both Life and Business.
Many wonder what it really is that makes successful individuals successful. While some consider that they should be astute in observation and good sense of character was an ideal method to succeed, others felt that material riches and variables led in business, life and both. What studies recently shown was that your character is what shapes your life for worse or better.
Here are 10 Terrific Tips for Success in Both Life and Business:
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1. Add Worth
You are able to become loaded by seeking methods to add value to everything you do. Remember, if many people are offering the anticipated standard in the market, these variables of the product or service become the fundamental minimum, or exactly the same thing. If you want to stand out as an individual or as a producer, you have to “plus” whatever you’re doing so that the customer perceives you and your offering as being superior to that of your competition. You are able to add a service or product and value by improving the design or the packaging. By simplifying its approach to use you are able to raise its value. By producing them easy to use for that person who was unsophisticated Apple Computers changed the whole world of computers. One of the claims of many Apple users is that they will have never read the instruction books. The programs are not so difficult to set up and use that they literally describe themselves. Ease became an enormous supply of additional value for innumerable other businesses that have followed the same path, and for Apple.How to Stop Obsessive Thoughts
2. Follow Your Passion
Anything that you want to attain is going to take attempt, time and, most of all. Time is our most valuable asset and time and our efforts will be all we have to offer if we’re truly invested in something. That is why it’s important that we choose a goal that we actually appreciate because we must be devoted to it.
Nothing comes easy in this world and if we truly want something, then we’re going to stop at nothing to make it occur. Then it was never meant to be if you end up losing interest in particular goal. Locating your passion may be the most challenging part of your life, but you are going to stop at nothing to make your fantasies come true, once you find it.
3. Be Amazing
Every now and then we hear about those who are doing amazing things. It may be a world leader saving a businessperson revolutionizing an industry, countless lives, as well as the man down the road helping make life considerably better for underserved individuals locally. A large proportion of folks believe when we learn of these remarkable individuals, “I could never do this because I’m only an average, everyday man.”
In reality, we all can be amazing. The key would be to understand that being outstanding is an individual selection. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re financially fighting or wealthy, whether you’re female or male, whether you’re young or old, or whether you fit into some other categories. Anyone can pick to not be ordinary.
Naturally, thinking of picking to not be ordinary can be overwhelming. All things considered, where does one begin? What would you do? Can you compose a bestselling novel? Star in a film? Begin a company? How on earth can you not be ordinary?
4. Begin Now
Beginning a small business is with no doubt a big endeavor, but it’s luckily a thing that can be achieved by anybody with an excellent set of resources, a powerful work ethic, and a great thought. Starting a company entails understanding the monetary side, writing a business plan, thinking of a company theory, and eventually marketing and starting.
A lot of people consider beginning a company is a procedure that is mystical. They don’t understand the first steps to take, although they understand they need to begin a company. Getting a concept for a company you figure out just what it’s you wish to accomplish and then the best way to take actions on it.
5. Hunt for Great Mentors
A mentor is usually a voluntary counsel or teacher who guides you in school, work, or other areas of your life. Mentorship that is periodically is just a conventional structured connection between beginner and an expert, and sometimes it’s more informal, like a friendship with a role model. The precise mentoring relationship will be up to you personally.
Having a mentor is finally about enhancing your chances of success (in whatever field or creative venture you’re pursuing) while feeling more confident in what you’re doing.
6. Construct a Support Group
Building successful relationships with providers and clients are vital. There are many means through which relationships using the company could be prepared. They function at 03 levels:
Organization-level – the reporting structure can have an optimistic influence. An information unit that’s a corporate function, rather than embedded within one section is normally better positioned. Additionally, treating it as another profit center. The strategic influence is raised when the head of the info unit report to a part of the board – in my situation it was the manager of strategy and advertising.
Teams – there should be task forces and teams that bring information professionals jointly with company managers. If the account supervisor strategy is embraced, ensure the information professional becomes an important part of the customer’s direction teams of one. Additionally why not have user representatives in your own management team.
Individual – When people develop good working relationships chances to enhance venture happen. One method of achieving this is through collocation e.g. of an information professional into an user section, say for six months, between a business unit and the advice unit.ES Football Newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Roberto Mancini has emerged as a front runner to replace Slaven Bilic as West Ham manager, should results not improve significantly.
The Zenit St Petersburg boss is second favourite behind Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez if West Ham decide to make a change.
Bilic is under increasing pressure following three successive Premier League defeats - all away from home while the London Stadium is re-configured following the World Athletics Championships - and another loss, against Huddersfield in a week’s time, would only increase the speculation.
Benitez is said to be unhappy about Newcastle’s failure to land his chosen targets during the transfer window and West Ham would need to pay £5million compensation to land him.
Former Manchester City boss Mancini was linked with West Ham last season, when Bilic found himself under pressure following a run of poor results, and the Italian was spotted at a West Ham match.
West Ham decided then to persevere with Bilic and could do so again if their results improve.
His position has not been helped by co-owner David Sullivan revealing that Bilic turned down Grzegorz Krychowiak, who went to West Brom on loan from PSG, and Renato Sanches, who joined Swansea from Bayern Munich for the season.SYDNEY - A self-proclaimed leader of the LulzSec international hacking group has been arrested in Australia, police said on Wednesday, after charging him with attacking and defacing a government website.
The 24-year-old IT professional, who went by the online identity "ozshock", was seized at his office in a town 76 kilometres (47 miles) north of Sydney on Tuesday.
"The man is a self-proclaimed leader of the group Lulz Security (LulzSec), a computer hacking group that has existed since 2011," the Australian Federal Police said, adding that he was known to international police forces.
"It will be alleged that this person, known by the online identity ozshock, had gained unauthorised access and caused data impairment to a government website during this month."
LulzSec, an offshoot of the larger group Anonymous, has claimed responsibility for multiple cyber attacks, including against Sony Pictures, Rupert Murdoch's News International, and the CIA.
Police called the man, who has not been named, "a well-respected person within the Anonymous community, within LulzSec".
They added that he was employed "in a position of trust" at the company he worked for, although that company had no knowledge of his activities.
Australian Federal Police Cyber Crimes Commander Glen McEwen said the man's job gave him access to sensitive information, which allowed him to carry out the attack on the unnamed website.
"Police believe this man's skill sets and access to this type of information presented a considerable risk to Australian society," he told reporters.
"Our early intervention interrupted him before he could commit any further serious offences.
"But the ability to interrupt online trading, online transactions for governments, can have serious consequences in the long-term."
He has been charged with two counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorised access to a restricted computer system and faces a maximum of 12 years in jail.
The man was released on bail and will face court in May.
Cyber attacks that LulzSec has taken credit for include an extensive breach of Sony Pictures computer system in 2011, which led to the personal data of thousands of Sony customers being posted online.
American Cody Kretsinger pleaded guilty to various charges related to that incident and was sentenced to one year in jail last week.
Last year, two British members of the group admitted carrying out attacks against the CIA and News International."We're gonna make Bernie Sanders's speeches great again."
After five massive wins along the Acela corridor Tuesday night, Donald Trump has set his sights on November. And to prepare himself for his title match with Hillary Clinton, the Donald plans to read up on this democratic socialist all the kids are talking about.
“Bernie Sanders has a message that’s interesting. I’m going to be taking a lot of the things Bernie said and using them,” a very drowsy Trump told the Morning Joe crew. “I can reread some of his speeches and get some very good material.”
Earlier this month, Sanders argued that Clinton’s bad judgment called into question her qualifications for the presidency. Trump expressed admiration for that line of attack.
“He said some things about her that are actually surprising. That essentially she has no right to even be running. She’s got bad judgment,” the GOP front-runner continued. “When he said bad judgment, I said ‘sound bite!’ But Bernie has been treated very badly by the Democrats and Democratic Party. Frankly, he should run as an independent, I think.”
Sanders has sworn off an independent run, and took a decidedly more conciliatory tone in his concession statement Tuesday night, implicitly framing the rest of his campaign as an effort to influence the platform Clinton runs on. However, many of his core supporters feel their candidate has been treated unfairly throughout the process, and the Donald seems intent on stoking their grievances.
Bernie Sanders has been treated terribly by the Democrats—both with delegates & otherwise. He should show them, and run as an Independent! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2016
But no matter how well Trump apes Sanders’s critiques of trade deals, the Iraq War, and Goldman speeches, he’s going to have a hard time defeating Clinton, for reasons he deftly illustrated later in the interview. Asked about the former secretary of State’s strength on women’s issues, the presumptive Republican nominee replied, "Well, I haven’t quite recovered, it’s early in the morning, from her shouting that message. And I know a lot of people would say, ‘You can’t say that about a woman,’ because of course a woman doesn’t shout. But the way she shouted that message was … oof … that was the way she said it. And I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months."
Finally, Trump said he was probably okay with the president’s decision to send more troops to Syria, but he had a big problem with Obama informing the American people of what he was doing in their name.
“I can live with it, but [what] I don’t like doing is sending them in so — I mean, with such fanfare,” Trump said. “Let them go in, go in quietly. Be unpredictable, but I just — from my standpoint, I find it very, very hard every time we do something we announce it for publicity reasons, and I think that’s very negative. I think it’s a bad thing.”
Some would argue that a president should inform the American public of his decision to escalate a foreign war less for “publicity” than for democratic legitimacy (which is already, arguably, undermined by the executive’s expansive war powers). But Donald Trump is not one of those people.The unlocked HTC 10 is now, February 23, 2018, receiving a new update that installs Android 8.0 Oreo. The update carries software version 3.16.617.2 and weighs 1.32GB, unfortunately, the device is still stuck on December 2017 security patch, which is kinda strange at a time when March 2018 security patches are about a week or so away.
All in all, HTC 10 fans will be delighted to see the device is finally receiving the new OS, even if it doesn’t bring the latest security patch. The update is rolling out over the air and thus it’ll take a while before all units get the OTA notification.
HTC’s VP of Product Management, Mo Versi, has just confirmed that Sprint users of the HTC 10 will start receiving Android 8.0 Oreo OTA starting February 13, 2018.
Of course, not every HTC 10 user on the American carrier will get the OTA notification on the said date. It’ll take a few days before the OS hits all units, which means you may be notified to download it later this week. Alternatively, you can try a manual update by heading to Settings > About phone, but make sure you have a stable Wi-Fi connection and at least 50% battery juice.
Sprint HTC 10 customers! We have received the Oreo OS approval from the carrier! OTA to start from tomorrow. Thanks! — Mo Versi (@moversi) February 12, 2018
Update [April 19, 2018]: As you can see from the tweet above, HTC 10 was reported to have started receiving Android Oreo on February 13. But in fact, this never actually happened, which is why the American carrier has once again confirmed that Oreo is rolling out to the HTC 10 starting today.
This comes after the official RUU file was made available for download by HTC, also confirming that the over the air update is available.
Update [March 12, 2018]: After HTC 10 users in India and Singapore received Android Oreo towards the end of February, HTC Australia has on March 12th also joined the party by beginning the roll out to the HTC 10.
Update [January 25, 2018]: HTC is now rolling out Android Oreo update for HTC 10 users in the MEA region (the Middle East and Africa). HTC announced the Oreo rollout on their Facebook page here, where they also confirmed that this is for unlocked handsets only. If you are residing in the MEA region, do hit up Settings, and check for the new system update now.
Update [January 14, 2018]: HTC has begun rolling out Oreo update for its unlocked HTC 10 handsets in the US. The Android 8.0 upgrade comes as software version 3.16.617.2 and is already available for download as RUU file, which is HTC’s self-installing ROM Update Utility. Moreover, the Android 8.0 update is also live in Taiwan, where it is rolling out as version 3.16.709.3.
The update is now available in Europe, too, from 18th January 2018. The Android 8.0 Oreo for HTC 10 sets in Europe comes as version 3.16.401.2 and runs at 1.41GB. The Oreo update has hit HTC 10 users in Poland too, where it is rolling out as software version 3.18.118.1, sized 1.46GB.
Update [September 27, 2017]: Verizon is rolling out a new update for its HTC 10, that comes as software version 2.41.605.23, and is powered by Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS. The new update is not available for download as RUU, and besides the August security patch, nothing else is known to be part of the update. Does it fix the Blueborne security patch? Well, our guess is as good as yours, but we do think it should be taking care of that.
Update [August 30, 2017]: HTC has confirmed that it plans to release the Android 8.0 Oreo update for its HTC 10, besides the U11 and U Ultra. Although we were never in doubt about HTC 10 Oreo support, it was good to hear it from the company itself. Now, the timing of the HTC 10 Oreo release wouldn’t be that quick — as you have both U11 and U Ultra first in line. Although, we think that by December-end, there could be an Oreo OTA out for the unlocked HTC 10 sets in the US, and if that doesn’t happen, Q1 is a sure bet.
We're excited to bring Android Oreo to HTC U11, HTC U Ultra, and HTC 10 owners worldwide! Details & additional devices to be announced soon. — HTC USA (@HTCUSA) August 22, 2017
First released on 12th January 2018. Now available in Europe, the US, Taiwan, and Hing Kong.
Update [January 15, 2018]: Besides the US (details are right below), the Android 8.0 update for the HTC 10 is also live in Taiwan, where it is rolling out as version 3.16.709.3.
Update [January 14, 2018]: HTC has begun rolling out Oreo update for its unlocked HTC 10 handsets in the US. The Android 8.0 upgrade comes as software version 3.16.617.2 and is already available for download as RUU file, which is HTC’s self-installing ROM Update Utility.
Android Oreo release: Expected in Q1 2018.
Sprint has been pretty fast with software updates. But recently, they don’t look like caring a lot about updates. Their software update pages are often left not-updated while the monthly security patches are far and few.
But we still think we would see the Oreo OTA rolling out for Sprint HTC 10 sets sometime in March 2018.
Read: Galaxy S8 Oreo release date
Android Oreo release: Expected in Q1 2018.
T-Mobile is pretty active with monthly security patches. We are sure they would act fast with Oreo update too.
You can expect the T-Mobile HTC 10 Android 8.0 OTA to rollout sometime February 2018.
Android Oreo release: Expected in Q1 2018.
Verizon released the Nougat update for their HTC One M9 only days ago. On September 25, 2017, to be exact. And that’s very, very awful. You know, even Oreo update is out now, and Nougat is more than 13 months old now. So, that is really lame of Verizon.
We don’t think even Verizon can do this again, so a Q2 release of Verizon HTC 10 still looks on cards.
HTC 10 Australia
Android Oreo release: Released on March 12, 2018
Folks in Australia can, beginning on March 12, 2018, enjoy the latest Android 8.0 Oreo on their phones. The update is rolling out over the air and with it comes all the glory of Oreo.
10 firmware
You can download the HTC 10 firmware for your variant at our firmware page for the device.Cutting federal spending may be a rhetorical cornerstone of the Tea Party and the congressional members of its official caucus, but a recent report finds that its delegates requested a large number of earmarks in the 111th Congress at a cost of more than $1 billion to taxpayers.
Hotline On Call's report on records from Citizens Against Government Waste found that the 52 members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus were responsible for 764 earmarks that racked up a tab of $1,049,783,150 in federal dollars. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) and 13 of her Tea Party Caucus-mates are notably absent from the list of requests.
The problem of earmark hypocrisy extends beyond the House, though, where members of the Senate approached a potential pork ban with equal fervor.
While some, such as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) continued to describe earmarks as a "gateway drug to spending addiction in Washington" in their crusade to cut the practice, other purported opponents, like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) proved unable to kick the habit.
Just three days after GOP senators proposed a ban on federal carve-outs, an eventually unsuccessful endeavor, Kyl locked up a $200 million earmark "to settle an Arizona Indian tribe's water rights claim against the government."Though all of my week without challenges have been beneficial thus far, on the whole they have taken significant energy and constant attention to accomplish. This week, not so much.
Sure, the first day without social media was a bit weird, only because I would catch myself in the habit of mousing towards my browser bar to click on the Facebook tab. Since then, I’ve hardly thought about it at all, and it’s been incredible.
What’s more, despite the facility of this challenge, it really has had an incredible effect on my day-to-day life, specifically how I get work done, and what I spend my energy thinking about. Though I’m certain there are others I haven’t even noticed, these are the five most salient habits that developed almost incidentally during the course of this challenge:
1. I get out of bed quicker
Somewhere along the line I developed the curious habit of lying in my bed after my alarm goes off and checking Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter for a half hour before heading to the shower. On the first day of my week without social media I found myself staring up at the ceiling instead. After a few minutes, I gave up and just got on with my morning.
This habit has continued through the rest of the week and has been hugely beneficial in getting me up, out, and on with my day, instead of wasting time in a groggy post-wakeup, pre-coffee haze.
2. I get work done faster
One of the most jarring adjustments I’ve experienced with this challenge came when I first sat down to get some writing done. Usually, I’ll write a few paragraphs, then check Reddit, write another, then browse Facebook, finish up, then nose around on Twitter until I feel ready to revise.
Without any of these distractions, I’ve been forced to just keep chugging along without any breaks. Though it was a bit awkward at first, now I love it. I can finish what I have to get done in less time, without having any other distractions on my mind.
3. I waste less time
If I have nothing to do, I’ll often open my laptop to check email and mess around on the internet, with no particular goal in mind. Sometimes, these internet rabbit holes can last hours, and in the end, I have nothing to show for my time except some newfound knowledge about something I didn’t know I cared about only hours prior.
Now, if I don’t have anything specific to do on my computer, I don’t open it at all.
4. I think less about trivial things
For all the good that social media provides, it also serves as a platform for many people to whine, moan, and otherwise express concern at trivial nonsense. I never thought I cared about any of this before, but not even looking at it for a week has highlighted the sheer joy of a mind free from other people’s complaints.
5. I’m less concerned with things out of my control
It turns out that social media was the main portal for me to get my daily news fix. Though I haven’t completely avoided news during this challenge, I would say I cut my consumption down by roughly 80%. Though it’s possible that the world has burned down and I am still in the dark about it, as far as I can tell, everything’s the same as it ever was, even without my careful, daily attention to the 24 hour news cycle.
In the meantime, I’ve been less concerned with the multifarious problems of the world and had more time to focus on my own problems, like cleaning out the refrigerator (did that one yesterday). Point is, I’ve actually put my energy into things I can control, and stopped worrying about the things I cannot.
So, what now? Do I just go back to hounding through social media aimlessly while the world passes me by? Not likely. Shall I abandon it entirely, and scorn those who champion it? I’ve thought about it, but I don’t think that would be the best approach either.
Thus far, the best suggestion I’ve received came from Phoenix Zerin of fiveyearsabroad.com, who pointed out that what I really vowed to do was only use my communication devices in a way that adds value to my life. I think this is key. Certainly, there are ways in which Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the like have added value for me, especially as an obsessive learner and as a blogger. On the other hand, probably three quarters of the time I spend on these sites is adding no value whatsoever.
The solution? As with all things: moderation. In this case, severe moderation. Moving forward, I plan to only use social media when I have a purpose to do so, and to do my best to eliminate idle time spent surfing social media just to pass the day away.
may we all get better together.
-s
Start your own One Week With/out challenge! Begin here."Harriet is doing an Encyclopedia which should be awesome. Very comprehensive."
—Brandon Sanderson on Twitter on January 19th, 2012
The Wheel of Time Companion is an encyclopedia and guidebook to the world of The Wheel of Time. It was published in November 2015. It was written by Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's widow and editor, with the assistance of Maria Simons and Alan Romanczuk. Maria and Alan were Robert Jordan's writing assistants and fact-checkers during the writing of most of the novels of the main series. The book draws heavily upon Robert Jordan's unpublished notes and outlines for the series.
The companion is the second guide to the series to be published, following The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, published in 1997. The companion is a new work, not merely an updated version of the older book.
Contents
The book features a comprehensive guide to many of the characters in the series, along with a 1,000-word vocabulary of the Old Tongue, new maps depicting |
originate in the 15th or 16th century, originally in the general sense of "irregular sword, sword of uncertain origin", but by the mid-16th century could refer to exceptionally large swords.[3] The Masters of Defence competition organised by Henry VIII in July 1540 listed two hande sworde and bastard sword as two separate items.[4] It is uncertain whether the same term could still be used to other types of smaller swords, but antiquarian usage in the 19th century established the use of "bastard sword" as referring unambiguously to these large swords.[5]
The German langes schwert ("long sword") in 15th and 16th-century manuals does not denote a type of weapon, but the technique of fencing with both hands at the hilt, contrasting with kurzes schwert ("short sword") used of fencing with the same weapon, but with one hand gripping the blade (also known as a half-sword).[6][7]
Contemporary use of "long-sword" or "longsword" only resurfaced in the 2000s in the context of reconstruction of the German school of fencing, translating the German langes schwert.[8][9][10]
The term "hand-and-a-half sword" is relatively modern (from the late 19th century).[11] This name was given because the balance of the sword made it usable in one hand, as well as two. During the first half of the 20th century, the term "bastard sword" was used regularly to refer to this type of sword, while "long sword" (or "long-sword"), if used at all, referred to the rapier (in the context of Renaissance or Early Modern fencing).[12]
Evolution [ edit ]
The longsword is characterised not so much by a longer blade, but by a longer grip, which indicates a weapon designed for two-handed use. Swords with exceptionally long hilts are found throughout the High Middle Ages, but these remain rare, and are not representative of an identifiable trend before the late 13th or early 14th century.
The longsword as a late medieval type of sword emerges in the 14th century, as a military steel weapon of the earlier phase of the Hundred Years' War. It remains identifiable as a type during the period of about 1350 to 1550.[13] It remained in use as a weapon of war intended for wielders wearing full plate armour either on foot or on horseback, throughout the late medieval period. From the late 15th century, however, it is also attested as being worn and used by unarmoured soldiers or mercenaries.
Use of the two-handed Great Sword or Schlachtschwert by infantry (as opposed to their use as a weapon of mounted and fully armoured knights) seems to have originated with the Swiss in the 14th century. [14] By the 16th century, its military use was mostly obsolete, culminating in the brief period where the oversized Zweihänder were wielded by the German Landsknechte during the early to mid 16th century. By the second half of the 16th century, it persisted mostly as a weapon for sportive competition (Schulfechten), and possibly in knightly duels.
Distinct "bastard sword" hilt types developed during the first half of the 16th century. Ewart Oakeshott distinguishes twelve different types.[5]:130 These all seem to have originated in Bavaria and in Switzerland. By the late 16th century, early forms of the developed-hilt appear on this type of sword. Beginning about 1520, the Swiss sabre (schnepf) in Switzerland began to replace the straight longsword, inheriting its hilt types, and the longsword had fallen out of use in Switzerland by 1550. In southern Germany, it persisted into the 1560s, but its use also declined during the second half of the 16th century. There are two late examples of longswords kept in the Swiss National Museum, both with vertically grooved pommels and elaborately decorated with silver inlay, and both belonging to Swiss noblemen in French service during the late 16th and early 17th century, Gugelberg von Moos and Rudolf von Schauenstein.[5]:133[15] The longsword, greatsword and bastard-sword were also made in Spain, appearing relatively late, known as the espadon, the montante and bastarda or espada de mano y media respectively.
Morphology [ edit ]
Different blade cross-sections. At the top, variants of the diamond shape. At the bottom, variants of the lenticular shape.
The swords grouped as "longswords" for the purposes of this article are united by their being intended for two-handed use. In terms of blade typology, they do not form a single category. In the Oakeshott typology of blade morphology, "longswords" figure as a range of sub-types of the corresponding single-handed sword types.[16]
Types XIIa and XIIIa represent the Great Sword or War Sword type used in the later 13th and in the 14th century. They represent larger versions of type XII and type XIII swords which were the standard knightly swords during the Crusades. They are primarily intended for cutting, with grips for either "hand-and-half" or two-handed use. Type XIIa blades are broad, flat and evenly tapering, with a lenticular cross-section and a fuller running along about two thirds of the blade's length. Type XIIIa blades are broad, with a flat lenticular cross-section, parallel edges and a fuller running along half the blade's length.
Type XVa is the classical two-handed estoc of the 14th and 15th centuries (with early examples appearing from the later 13th century). These blades are strongly tapered, more narrow and slender even than the single-handed type XV variant, with a flattened diamond cross-section.
Type XVIa is the classical "longsword" of the 14th and 15th centuries. These blades are long and slowly tapering, with a flat hexagonal blade cross-section and a fuller running along one third of the blade. They represent an optimised compromise between thrusting capability and retaining good cutting characteristics.
Type XVII is a shorter-lived type, popular during the mid-14th to early 15th century. These blades are long, slender and acutely tapering, approaching the outline of type XVa, while still retaining a narrow hexagonal cross-section and a shallow fuller running along about one quarter of the blade.
Types XVIIIb and XVIIIc represent the later longswords of the mid-15th to early 16th centuries. They have a flattened diamond cross-section, often with pronounced mid-rib, some being hollow-ground. Type XVIIIb blades are slender, comparable to XVa blades but longer, measuring between 90 and 107 cm, with a correspondingly longer grip, often waisted for comfortable two-handed use. Type XVIIIc blades are somewhat broader and shorter (about 85 cm), and sometimes have a short and narrow fuller.
Type XX blades are broad, with lenticular or octagonal cross-sections. Their defining characteristics is that they have three fullers, a shallow central fuller running along half the blade's length, with two shallow parallel fullers along the first quarter. They were in use during the 14th and 15th centuries. Sub-type XXa has a more acutely tapering blade and a more acute point.
Fighting with the longsword [ edit ]
The expression fechten mit dem langen schwert ("fighting with the long sword") in the German school of fencing denotes the style of fencing which uses both hands at the hilt; fechten mit dem kurzen schwert ("fighting with the short sword") is used in half-sword fighting, with one hand gripping the blade. The two terms are largely equivalent to "unarmoured fighting" (blossfechten) and "armoured fencing" (fechten im harnisch).
History [ edit ]
1440s illustration of one- and two-handed use of the longsword. Note the sword being used one-handed is drawn shorter and may also be intended as a large knightly sword CPG 339 fol. 135r).
Example of two handed use vs. half-sword, dating to ca. 1418 ( CPG 359, fol. 46v).
Codified systems of fighting with the longsword existed from the later 14th century, with a variety of styles and teachers each providing a slightly different take on the art. Hans Talhoffer, a mid-15th-century German fightmaster, is probably the most prominent, using a wide variety of moves, most resulting in wrestling. The longsword was a quick, effective, and versatile weapon capable of deadly thrusts, slices, and cuts.[17]:15–16 The blade was generally used with both hands on the hilt, one resting close to or on the pommel. The weapon may be held with one hand during disarmament or grappling techniques. In a depiction of a duel, individuals may be seen wielding sharply pointed longswords in one hand, leaving the other hand open to manipulate the large dueling shield.[17]:plates 128–150
Another variation of use comes from the use of armour. Half-swording was a manner of using both hands, one on the hilt and one on the blade, to better control the weapon in thrusts and jabs. This versatility was unique, as multiple works hold that the longsword provided the foundations for learning a variety of other weapons including spears, staves, and polearms.[17][18] Use of the longsword in attack was not limited only to use of the blade, however, as several Fechtbücher explain and depict use of the pommel and cross as offensive weapons.[17]:73–73; plate 67 The cross has been shown to be used as a hook for tripping or knocking an opponent off balance.[17]:plate 58 Some manuals even depict the cross as a hammer.[19]
What is known of combat with the longsword comes from artistic depictions of battle from manuscripts and the Fechtbücher of Medieval and Renaissance Masters. Therein the basics of combat were described and, in some cases, depicted. The German school of swordsmanship includes the earliest known longsword Fechtbuch, a manual from approximately 1389, known as GNM 3227a. This manual, unfortunately for modern scholars, was written in obscure verse. It was through students of Liechtenauer, like Sigmund Ringeck, who transcribed the work into more understandable prose[20] that the system became notably more codified and understandable.[21] Others provided similar work, some with a wide array of images to accompany the text.[22]
The Italian school of swordsmanship was the other primary school of longsword use. The 1410 manuscript by Fiore dei Liberi presents a variety of uses for the longsword. Like the German manuals, the weapon is most commonly depicted and taught with both hands on the hilt. However, a section on one-handed use is among the volume and demonstrates the techniques and advantages, such as sudden additional reach, of single-handed longsword play.[23] The manual also presents half-sword techniques as an integral part of armoured combat.
Both schools declined in the late 16th century, with the later Italian masters forgoing the longsword and focusing primarily on rapier fencing. The last known German manual to include longsword teaching was that of Jakob Sutor, published in 1612. In Italy, spadone, or longsword, instruction lingered on in spite of the popularity of the rapier, at least into the mid-17th century (Alfieri's Lo Spadone of 1653), with a late treatise of the "two handed sword" by one Giuseppe Colombani, a dentist in Venice dating to 1711. A tradition of teaching based on this has survived in contemporary French and Italian stick fighting.[24] A 1430s German fighting manual depicted unscrewing a sword's pommel and throwing it at the enemy to "end him swiftly"[citation needed].
German school of fencing [ edit ]
Bloßfechten [ edit ]
Unarmoured longsword fencers (plate 25 of the 1467 manual of Hans Talhoffer
Bloßfechten (blosz fechten) or "bare fighting" is the technique of fighting without significant protective armour such as plate or mail.
The lack of significant torso and limb protection leads to the use of a large amount of cutting and slicing techniques in addition to thrusts. These techniques could be nearly instantly fatal or incapacitating, as a thrust to the skull, heart, or major blood vessel would cause massive trauma. Similarly, strong strikes could cut through skin and bone, effectively amputating limbs. The hands and forearms are a frequent target of some cuts and slices in a defensive or offensive manoeuvre, serving both to disable an opponent and align the swordsman and his weapon for the next attack.
Harnischfechten [ edit ]
Page of the Codex Wallerstein showing a half-sword thrust against a two-handed sword's Mordstreich (Plate 214)
Harnischfechten, or "armoured fighting" (German kampffechten, or Fechten in Harnisch zu Fuss, literally "fighting in armour on foot"), depicts fighting in full plate armour.[25]
The increased defensive capability of a man clad in full plate armour caused the use of the sword to be drastically changed. While slashing attacks were still moderately effective against infantry wearing half-plate armour, cutting and slicing attacks against an opponent wearing plate armour were almost entirely ineffective in providing any sort of slashing wound as the sword simply could not cut through the steel, although a combatant could aim for the chinks in a suit of armour, sometimes to great effect.[26] Instead, the energy of the cut becomes essentially pure concussive energy. The later hardened plate armours, complete with ridges and roping, posed a threat against the careless attacker. It is considered possible for strong blows of the sword against plate armour to damage the blade of the sword, potentially rendering it much less effective at cutting and producing only a concussive effect against the armoured opponent.
To overcome this problem, swords began to be used primarily for thrusting. The weapon was used in the half-sword, with one or both hands on the blade. This increased the accuracy and strength of thrusts and provided more leverage for Ringen am Schwert or "wrestling at/with the sword". This technique combines the use of the sword with wrestling, providing opportunities to trip, disarm, break, or throw an opponent and place them in a less offensively and defensively capable position. During half-swording, the entirety of the sword works as a weapon, including the pommel and crossguard. One example how a sword can be used this way is to thrust the tip of the crossguard at the opponent's head right after parrying a stroke. Another technique would be the Mordstreich (lit. "murder stroke"), where the weapon is held by the blade (hilt, pommel and crossguard serving as an improvised hammer head) and swung, taking advantage of the balance being close to the hilt to increase the concussive effect (see the fighter on the right of the Codex Wallerstein picture).[26]
See also [ edit ]29 SHARES Facebook Twitter
“I have officially retired from the superhero business,” Hans Zimmer declared last spring, after his final spandex work (for now) on “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.” However, he’s cooled down a bit, and Zimmer is keeping the door open on superheroes, but it’s going to have to be something outstanding for him to consider doing it.
In an interview with Inverse, the composer explains why he initially decided to place a ban on superhero flicks, and his new role going forward when those opportunities present themselves,
“I keep thinking about new styles of music and new ways of using technology, new ways of figuring out how to make everything that we do an experience for other people. And I just couldn’t do it anymore with the superhero movies, it’s as simple as that,” Zimmer said. “If you take the three Chris Nolan Batmans, that’s three movies to you, but to [me] and Chris, it was twelve years of our lives. So sometimes you just have to say, ‘I don’t know where I’m heading, but I’m going to jump off this cliff.’ As soon as I said [no more superhero movies], there were a lot of phone calls coming my way going, ‘Are you crazy?’ But I’ve never written music for money; money isn’t inspiring. And I didn’t want to get into it where it became a job.”
READ MORE: New Video Essay Says What We’ve All Been Thinking: DC Film’s Characters Suck
“Ron Howard actually said something very smart to me. He said, ‘Don’t say you will never do a superhero movie again, wait for somebody to turn up with an amazing script for a superhero movie.’ And I suppose that’s what I’m saying: Can I please have the amazing script?” he added.
One has to wonder if Zack Snyder‘s film broke Zimmer. He went into it with the intention of splitting duties with Junkie XL, with the Zimmer taking on the cues for Superman, and his partner doing the material for The Dark Knight. The project wound up turning into a full blown collaboration, but Zimmer makes it clear that Christian Bale will always be his Batman.
“It just did my brain in to have written Christian Bale as Batman, and suddenly it’s Ben Affleck. And it felt like I was betraying everything Christian had done. So there’s a certain amount of loyalty attached to those movies, as well,” he explained.
“I spent months trying to come up with something for Ben. The Batman that I know and the one I learned is the one that Christian did, and Ben plays it differently. And I can’t quite shake that off. For me, the Christian Bale character was always completely unresolved. It was always about that moment at the beginning of the first movie, where he sees his parents getting killed. It was basically arrested development,” Zimmer said. “The Ben character is more middle-aged, he seems to be grumpy as hell but I didn’t feel the pain that I felt in Christian’s performance. And it was that pain that made be interested.”
Zimmer may not have realized he’s just set off a huge fanboy argument with those comments. Thoughts? Let us know below.In April, I laid a wreath at the Manila American Cemetery, in the Philippines, where some 17,000 Americans are buried. Looking up at the mosaic maps of battles whose names still echo throughout the U.S. Department of Defense—Guadalcanal, Midway, Leyte Gulf, and more—it is hard not to appreciate the essential role that the U.S. military has long played in the Asia-Pacific. Many of the individuals buried in the cemetery helped win World War II. For the people and nations of the region, they also won the opportunity to realize a brighter future.
Since World War II, America’s men and women in uniform have worked day in and day out to help ensure the security of the Asia-Pacific. Forward-deployed U.S. personnel in the region—serving at Camp Humphreys and Osan Air Base in South Korea, at the Yokosuka naval base and Yokota Air Base in Japan, and elsewhere—have helped the United States deter aggression and develop deeper relationships with regional militaries. The thousands upon thousands of sailors and marines aboard the USS John C. Stennis, the USS Blue Ridge, the USS Lassen, and other ships have sailed millions of miles, made countless port calls, and helped secure the world’s sea-lanes, including in the South China Sea. And American personnel have assisted with training for decades, including holding increasingly complex exercises with the Philippines over more than 30 years.
We plan to do more, not less, in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.
Every port call, flight hour, exercise, and operation has added a stitch to the fabric of the Asia-Pacific’s stability. And every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine has helped defend important principles—such as the peaceful resolution of disputes, the right of countries to make their own security and economic choices free from coercion, and the freedom of overflight and navigation guaranteed by international law.
Ensuring security and upholding these principles has long been U.S. policy. During Democratic and Republican administrations, in timesThe Ku Klux Klan, long the robed profile of racial intolerance in America, will advertise an expansion of its antipathies to include illegal immigrants at a planned rally Saturday in or near the village of Welcome, N.C.
Latino groups, joined by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) advocates, have vowed a counterprotest, with one activist, Verenice Granadero, saying, “We are organizing … to meet hatred with love.”
The KKK rally and counterprotest mark at least a new wrinkle in the Klan’s long, dark history as a domestic terror association. Experts say members are likely trying to piggy-back on widespread anger over a flood of illegal migrant children, given that about half of Americans in a recent poll wanted the migrants returned post haste to their home countries, and 70 percent say illegal immigration threatens the American way of life. KKK leaders say they would like to see a "shoot-to-kill" policy on the border to minimize illegal immigration.
In South Carolina, some homeowners found bags with candy and offers to join the Klan. Similar materials have been found in Tallahassee, Atlanta, and Chesterfield County, Va. In Harnett County, N.C., fliers appeared this week, marking the rally in Welcome. “Save Our Land, Join the Klan,” fliers said.
While experts on American extremism say the Klan is clearly taking advantage of the situation on the border for recruitment purposes, the notion that the organization that terrorized blacks during Jim Crow and the civil rights movement is resurgent may be off the mark.
In fact, the number of Klan groups has declined since 2010, from 221 to about 150, with a total of perhaps 6,000 members. (The Klan had as many as 60,000 members in the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement in the South.)
Planners of Saturday’s rally underscored that the Klan is shifting its priorities.
“If they (blacks) would actually listen to what we’re talking about, it ain’t about them anymore with the Klan,” Imperial Wizard Chris Barker of the North Carolina-based Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told WTVD this week. “It’s usually about the immigrants who are flooding (the United States).”
Saturday’s rally is not the first this summer. During a secret Klan rally in Abbeville, S.C., last weekend, 300 counterprotesters gathered in Greenville, S.C., an hour away.
“The Klan in general is not the threat we think they are,” Lecia Brooks of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, told Al-Jazeera on Aug. 1. She said the counterprotest “minimizes them and diminishes their power even more.”
But while immigrants’ rights activists are gearing up for their planned counterprotest Saturday on Highway 52 in Welcome, some confusion remained Friday about where, exactly, the Klan would be holding its rally. (Fliers for the rally indicated that “You must be a [Klan member] to know where and when.")
The Klan had previously requested a protest permit for 200 people on Aug. 9 in Troy, N.C., in Montgomery County, but the sheriff there said no one had picked the permit up. Welcome, meanwhile, has very little public land, so a permit would not be necessary if the group holds the rally on someone's private property, said Maura Pereira, a spokeswoman for GetEQUAL North Carolina and El Cambio, two human rights groups.
According to one of the Klan leaders, Grand Dragon Robert Jones, quoted in a story in Triad City Beat Friday morning, the rally is scheduled for the courthouse at Troy on Saturday, but he also noted that the group will hold "a private rally with a cross lighting about an hour outside of Troy," a radius that includes Welcome. "We won't never let the location out until the last minute," he then said, correcting himself and adding that KKK groups will often announce a location and the event will actually be held "two towns over."
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In Davidson County, N.C., where unincorporated Welcome’s slogan is “Welcome to Welcome, a friendly place,” County Commissioner Steve Jarvis called the area “just a very small, nice, beautiful setting – a quiet town, not like anything really ever happens there.”
He added wryly, “Until now, I guess.”When I went for my private pilot checkride, the right seat was occupied by a DPE named Jim Higgs. While a checkride should be a time for the student to prove his competency and show off his nascent skills I still learned things on my checkride. While taxiing back to the ramp afterwards Mr. Higgs admonished me that as a new pilot I should be always ready to cancel my plans if things weren’t going well. He suggested a three strike rule — if more than three things go wrong, cancel the flight and fly another day. Jim Higgs passed away last week (circumstances unrelated to aviation), but his words were ringing loud and clear in my ears this past weekend.
I’ve got an awesome girlfriend. She just passed her private pilot checkride, and she jumped straight into instrument training with both feet. Nothing in this world makes her happier than flying. So when she got some bad news this week and went into a bit of a funk, I figured that the perfect thing to do to would be to take her flying to Fredericksburg (T82) for some lunch and airplane watching to get her mind off things and get her into a happy state of mind again.
I took a look at the schedule for the local flying club, and to my delight there was an IFR 172 available all afternoon. It was perfect! I could do some practice approaches and get a little hood time with a safety pilot, she could log some precious PIC time as she works towards commercial, and we would both get some delicious lunch at a beautiful little airstrip in Texas.
Well, that was the plan at least.
As I rolled into the airfield, I noticed that the plane was already back under the hail shed and tied down. Usually the way that things work is that if you arrive about 30 minutes before your flight you can catch the last guy at the pumps fueling the airplane before they put it away. This reduces the time it takes to haul the plane out and prep it for the day, and most people seem to like to hand off the airplane that way from one club member to another. The flight prior to mine was a short one, but I arrived well before it should have ended. He should have been landing as I was rolling in, not already tucked away in the hangar.
My train of thought was derailed as my girlfriend parked next to me and we headed into the FBO to pick up the keys. While we waited for the woman behind the counter to come back for a break we got a weather briefing, talked through the GPS approaches for T82, and I checked online to see if there were any maintenance issues with the airplane. The flying club uses the online reservation system for everything airplane related including maintenance squawks and annual due dates, but the plane was green all around. From where I was sitting, everything looked perfect. As soon as the woman came back we picked up the keys and headed down to pre-flight.
During the pre-flight inspection the airplane looked perfect. Mechanically, at least. The interior needs a heaping helping of TLC, but that’s another story for another time. We did the same checks we’ve done hundreds of times on these Cessna 172 aircraft and couldn’t find a single thing out of place. Heck, even the oil was new and shiny.
The one thing that caught my attention was in the log sheet: the last person to fly only put 0.2 hours on the airplane, which should have been a huge red flag that something was wrong. It didn’t register in my mind though, since there was no open squawk for anything on the airplane and I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong. I had an inkling that something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
We rolled the airplane out from under the hail shed, hopped in, and started running the “ENGINE START” checklist. Mixture rich, prime as required (skipped since it was 100 degrees outside), master switch on, clear prop, mags to start. The propeller started spinning, but after a good 10 seconds of cranking all we had achieved was a momentary sputter. My girlfriend has had way more time in a carborated airplane than me (I usually fly a fuel injected 172SP ), and on her suggestion I gave the engine a shot of primer and tried again — same result. She took the controls and tried again with similar success.
Strike one.
Not wanting to burn out the starter I admitted defeat. I asked my gal to run the keys up to the FBO and ask if we could take the other (non-IFR and much less spiffy) 172 instead. That would mean no hood time, no approaches, and no PIC time for her, but at least we would accomplish the main goal for the day. She returned a few minutes later, mechanic and FBO owner in tow, and they promptly set to work proving that there was a lot I still needed to learn about the delicate art of carborated engines. After a few minutes of fussing the mechanic gave me some pointers, started the engine a couple times, and left us to our own devices.
As I was about to hop back in the airplane the FBO owner called out that the other 172 was still available if I wanted that one instead. She also finally unveiled the reason the last flight was so short:
“The last guy said that the airspeed indicator was acting weird, but he’s an idiot.”
My girlfriend cracked open the passenger side door of the 172 and asked what I wanted to do. The FBO owner has probably had more time in airplanes than I’ve had on this Earth, so if she and her mechanic weren’t concerned about the airspeed indicator I wasn’t concerned either. I saw the opportunity to finish the flight and accomplish all of our goals for the day, and I decided to give it a shot.
On reflection, I should have taken the other airplane. As the PIC I have final authority and responsibility over the airworthiness of the aircraft, and that glimmer of doubt should have been enough to wave me off. But with the FBO owner and her mechanic both giving me the thumbs up, I decided to defer to their judgement and give in to my get-there-itis.
The FBO guys sped away as we climbed back into the 172 to try this again. The engine started this time, but as I flipped the avionics master switch the intercom didn’t want to play nice. I could hear the traffic over the radio, but my girlfriend and her very expensive Bose headset were completely inaudible. I had seen this before and knew what the problem was instantly: the intercom was set to “isolate.” Except it wasn’t. The switch was in the proper position, but it was still operating as if it was in isolate mode (where the passengers are isolated from the pilot so they can focus on ATC traffic). I toggled the switch a couple times to no effect, then proceeded to try every other switch on the radio as well. Nothing worked. I finally tried the isolate switch one more time, and the intercom finally crackled into life. She could hear me, and I could hear her.
Strike two.
With everything now apparently working, I started to taxi down to the end of the runway. The glider guys were busy on the other side of the displaced threshold preparing for a launch, but we would be done and off the field well before they were ready to go. I made sure to do all the usual IFR instrument checks as we were wheeling towards the run up area and everything seemed perfect to me. After a brief run-up and systems check we headed out onto the runway for takeoff.
I watched as the airspeed indicator came alive, and the information it was giving me seemed to tally with the ground speed on the panel mounted GPS. I remember thinking to myself that the FBO owner was definitely right: this instrument seems to be working fine. I noted 60 knots IAS on the dial, pulled back on the yoke, and we sped off into the sky without so much of a peep out of the stall warning horn.
As we climbed out above the trees and I started to trim for a typical climb attitude, I heard my girlfriend yelping “airspeed!” I glanced down and she was right — the VSI was showing a climb, the tach was damn near on the red line, the GPS showed about 80 knots, and the nose was pegged to the horizon, but the airspeed indicator was indicating only 40 knots — below the green arc. And dropping.
Strike three.
Now I knew for a fact we had a bad instrument. I leveled out, but even with full throttle and level pitch the airspeed indicator kept dropping. I decided to ignore it, and relied on the GPS readout instead for some indication of how fast we were going. My girlfriend suggested we head back and land and I immediately agreed.
I turned right crosswind and announced on the CTAF that we would be returning for landing with a malfunctioned airspeed indicator. The glider guys seemed to get the message, and a few seconds later they had hopped in their planes and skedaddled off the runway. As I turned right downwind I had a clear runway and some time to think, and I made a couple quick decisions.
Without a functioning airspeed indicator I had no idea of how much energy I had to play with on final. I could use my GPS to give me ground speed, but that doesn’t correct for the wind. I decided to come in at a faster speed than my usual 65 knots, trying to peg the GPS at 70 to 75 knots on final instead. With the winds that day it would put me at about 80 knots IAS (if it worked) which was perfect –the last thing I wanted to do was come up short on energy. I had 4,340 feet of runway ahead of me and only needed about 1,000 for a normal landing, better to bleed the speed off on the ground than stall on short final.
I also made a decision about the flaps. The airplane was outfitted with 40 degrees of flaps, and while I had practiced the brick-esque glide path before that wasn’t what I wanted to do today. 30 degrees of flaps would be enough to reduce our airspeed sufficiently to put it on the ground, but not so much that it dropped out of the sky.
As we passed the numbers we started going through the usual motions for landing. I turned onto final, popped in the last 10 degrees of flaps, and lined the airplane up for a normal approach. When we were about 10 feet off the ground I definitely noticed that we were much faster than normal, but that’s exactly what I had wanted. I pitched up for the flare but as we were a little fast I couldn’t flare in time and we landed flat. I cut the throttle and applied the brakes, and that’s when we started to porpoise.
As we were rolling, this specific video played in my mind. It had been months since I had seen it but I knew that the bouncing and porpoiseing we were feeling was only going to get worse if left unchecked. I pulled back and we lifted off again, but this time I held the flare properly and as we bled off airspeed and energy we settled back on the ground and rolled to a stop.
As we turned off the runway my girlfriend remarked “I told you we should have taken the other airplane.” I really need to listen to her more often.
Back on the ground we put the airplane back in the hail shed and walked to the FBO. As we were shutting down we talked about grabbing the other airplane and taking that one to T82 instead, but the words of wisdom from my dearly departed DPE were ringing in my ears. Enough had gone wrong for one day, it was time to call it quits.
At the FBO the woman behind the desk took the keys back and agreed with the decision — her mom had instilled a similar three strikes rule in her as well. She told us we wouldn’t be charged for the experience, and that might very well be the cheapest but most important lesson I’ve ever had in flying.
I’ve heard the phrase “it’s better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground,” but I had never experienced it before. This was the first time I had experienced a true equipment failure and it definitely made me never want to have one ever again. I learned that even though others may have more experience or more time in airplanes, if something doesn’t seem right to me I need to speak up and do something about it. Details matter, and all the little red flags should have added up to a huge stop sign well before I even took off.
I was an idiot. We should never have left the ground in that airplane. In the future I need to pay more attention to the warning signs that things might not be all right with the airplane I’m about to risk my life to fly.Despite all the hard drinking, heaving smoking and rich foods eaten by James Bond, he is still required to maintain a high level of fitness for his missions. Below you’ll learn how he stays fit and what we can learn from 007 to increase our own fitness.
007’s fitness routine
Although Ian Fleming doesn’t provide much in the way of Bond’s exercise regimen, in From Russia, With Love we encounter him slow press-ups, leg raises, toe touches and arm and chest exercises just after rising. This type of calisthenic exercise benefits muscular and cardiovascular fitness as well as improving flexibility and coordination.
007 is also a keen weekend golfer, which (providing he walks) provides plenty of cardiovascular exercise in the fresh air and we also know he swims and can ski; all in all, James Bond makes time to exercise.
However, even though 007 looks after his physical fitness a large proportion of the population does not, despite knowing how much good exercise does us.
How I keep fit
I was brought up to take regular exercise and as an adult have maintained my fitness and, in fact, if |
's true that VK_WSI_display_swapchain does exist and does match the EGLStreams model fairly closely, but also that it does not have universal implementation: the Intel 'anv' Mesa-based driver does not implement display_swapchain, instead having an interface to export a VkImage as a dmabuf. It's true that the latter is not optimal (it lacks the explicit targeting required to determine the most optimal tiling/compression strategy), but OTOH it is precedent for explicitly avoiding the VK_WSI_display_swapchain/EGLStreams model for Vulkan on KMS, just as GBM avoids it for EGL on KMS. I think it's been good to have this series to push the discussion further in more concrete terms, but unfortunately I have to say that I'm even less convinced now than I have ever been. Sorry. Cheers, DanielModum : (MOD) Pharmaceutical blockchain
David David Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 19, 2017
Modium (“MOD”) — Tracking of specialized shipment
Research by: David R. Sources: White paper, website and verified checks*
1. Blockchain specifications
Name: Modum (MOD)
Market cap: $34,824,441
circulating supply: 17,366,200
Total supply: 27,266,200
According to the whitepaper: TOKEN holders WILL receive dividends; however this will be decided by the board of Modum.io when there is a profit. The dividends will be paid in Ethereum tokens and distributed to the wallets of those own hold MOD. (Pg. 14) white paper.
2. Timeline of events
Q4 2017:
First series of modum being integrated in Switzerland.
Q1 2018:
Successful completion, official entry in the market. Marketing, mass production of the devices.
Q2 2018 to Q4 2018
Marketing, further expansion and improve technology.
Q1 2019
Deliver the next sensor generation.
Q2 2019 to Q4 2019
Marketing, further expansion and improve technology.
Q1 2020
Deliver the next generation of sensors.
Pilot programs to market entry: (Pg. 17 of white paper)
Modum has successfully conducted several pilot programs in order to prove the concept.
1st Pilot project, Switzerland in 2016, where it monitored shipments be from a SME pharma producer to a wholesaler. This pilot lasted six weeks.
a. Several issues were identified and corrected for the next pilot project.
2nd Pilot project, Monitored shipments between a wholesaler and several clinics and pharmacies. This was a successful test, showing that the technology had improved and was ready for the next step. Additionally, Modum successfully monitored a cross-border shipment, internationally and between continents.
(Pg. 18 of whitepaper)
3rd Pilot project, during a paid pilot with the parcel-service market leader in Switzerland (no name mentioned) Modum.io aimed to prove the suitability for mass use of the modum system. The two phases were:
a. Implemented and stabilized customer processes;
b. Quantified additional efforts and duration of the temperature data read-out process.
The goal was to achieve 95% of all readouts within 30 seconds.
The results were: 100% of all readouts within 8 seconds. The pilot was a success and the client recommended integration of the modum system into the offering of the 3PL. (Pg. 19 of white paper)
3. Business plan
Business and pricing strategy:
Modum plans to market and sell their product as a way to reduce logistical costs and they’ll offer their services as a “pay-per-shipment” model. (Pg. 19)
Prospects
Modum is in contact with significant customers from within the Pharma distribution industry in the UK, France, Germany, Turkey and Vietnam. (Pg. 19)
5. Background check
Modum company: Created mid 2016 (Pg. 17 white paper) DR confirmed
1) According to the Switzerland Business registry bureau:
a) On 2016, July, 18th, №2958289, Commercial registery,
Modum.io AG, Wollerau, No. of SOGC 137 EHRA-Import user:
i) The purpose of the company is to develop completion, distribution and sales licensing of individual hardware and software products, notably through the use of blockchain technology.
Modum team: Created mid 2016 (Pg. 11 white paper) + (website)
1) In the white paper it still states that Malik El Bay as the CEO of Modum, however this is no longer true, Malik El Bay stepped down from that position and left the company. Simon Dössegger became the new CEO of Modum.
a) DR: A research on Malik El Bay showed that although very intelligent and talented individual Modum had clearly outgrew his abilities to take it any further. As a portfolio manager and investor, I want to ensure that the abilities of the CEO will not hinder the progress of the company. Malik El Bay definitely played an important role into bringing Modum to a viable project.
b) DR: A research on Simon Dössegger, who replaced Malik El Bay, has more experience and comes from GoPro where he held the position of Senior Product and Technology Management. Simon Dössegger expanded his knowledge during his tenure in GoPro, he is now the CEO of Modum. He has participated in many other innovative projects, and has kept his reputation in good standards. He appears to be well respected in the technological community.
2) I’ve also conducted a research on each of the team members.
a) DR: Developers: Marc Heimgartner,Tim Strasser, Guilherme Sperb Machado
Sebastian Stephan.
b) DR: Marketing: Michael Taylor and Ozan Polat, both appear to be in good standing and I was only able to find positive history for these two. Both have years of professional experience in Marketing. Having a dedicated marketing department will help manage the company reputation, ensuring that the company maintains their public image in good standing.
c) DR: Blockchain expert: Dr. Thomas Bocek, obtained a PhD in decentralized and peer-to-peer systems, also appears to be in good standing with faculties and businesses, well respected and positive history.
d) DR: Chairman: Werner Spörri, was one of the founding members of the S&K Partners AG in 2004. Financial analytical services and networking.
e) DR: Manufacturing experience: Pascall Degen, manufacturing experience with the Pharmaceutical sector, I believe this is important because when dealing with regulated medicinal products, every level of process is almost specialized and scrutinized.
f) DR: Industry expert: Michael Schaer, family founder of Tenta AG who has been acquiring competitors since 1989.
3) There are other team members who are listed on the website but not on the whitepaper, this is most likely because they joined the team post-whitepaper.
4. Conclusion
Result: Modum is now a part of our portfolio, at %5 of our holdings.
a) Modum has proven that it could evolve from a concept startup to a sustainable company.
b) The addition of more seasoned entrepreneurs with industry knowledge and contacts will definitely take Modum to the next step, (Integration).
c) DR: When analyzing the potential of a project I look for long-term sustainability, what is the project dependent on for success?
i) Adoption? If so, does the project have the necessary partners and backers in order to sign deals with industry players? It appears that Modum does.
ii) Modum wants to tackle a very specialized and heavily regulated industry, one thing is for sure, once Modum’s product prove their ability to:
(1) Decrease logistical spending while increasing compliance with regulations, it’ll immediately create an immense amount of trust for the authenticity of the products being shipped using the Modum technology. ( Proven in the Pilots )
4) Modum’s main goal is to offer a incorruptible chain of trust between point A to point B. Once this is established, auditing of regulated pharmaceutical transport could be done instantly, the level of trust between Sender and Recipient will increase while their logistical costs will decrease.
Although one could argue that the Walton Blockchain already does this, I would also agree, however, Modum is targeting a more specialized market.
I will be conducting a side by side analysis between Walton and Modum and how they differ, are they competitors? or could they both strive in their journeys?I was completely surprised to find a missed package slip in my mailbox yesterday (my mailman thankfully knows my neighborhood is a bit sketch at times so thankfully did not leave it.) When I tore in to my package I was a bit thrown off at first. I recieved the Hot Topic Exclusive of Castiel from Supernatural. I love him! But how on earth did my Santa even know I would like him?! I made no mention of being a Supernatural fan in my likes/dislikes. And then it hit me. I've been stalked! And they did a damn good job! I'm pretty new to Redditgifts and thus far have been matched to, and with people that are not that active on Reddit. Knowing that someone took the time to find something from my Submissions and Comments that would fit me is a great feeling. Thank you so much Santa!NEW YORK—One woman said she was riding a Ferris wheel at Coney Island after a company event when a co-worker suddenly took her hand and put it on his crotch. Another said she felt pressured into a sexual relationship with an executive and was fired after she rejected him. A third said that a co-worker grabbed her face and tried to kiss her, and she used her umbrella to fend him off.
Jessica Hopper, a freelance writer, reached a settlement with Vice in 2003 over defamation claims related to an article she wrote for the company's magazine. A media company built on subversion and outlandishness, Vice was unable to create “a safe and inclusive workplace" for women, two of its founders acknowledge. ( NATALIE KEYSSAR / The New York Times )
These women did not work among older men at a hidebound company. They worked at Vice, an insurgent force in news and entertainment known for edgy content that aims for millennial audiences on HBO and its own TV network. But as Vice Media has built itself from a fringe Canadian magazine into a nearly $6-billion global media company, its boundary-pushing culture created a workplace that was degrading and uncomfortable for women, current and former employees say. An investigation by the New York Times has found four settlements involving allegations of sexual harassment or defamation against Vice employees, including its president.
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The settlements and the many episodes of harassment the women described depict a top-down ethos of male entitlement at Vice, where women said they felt like just another party favour at an organization where partying often was an extension of the job. What stands out about the women’s accounts — in the wake of a public reckoning over sexual assault and harassment by mostly older men — is that the allegations involve men in their 20s, 30s and 40s who came of age long after workplace harassment was not only taboo but outlawed.
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“The misogyny might look different than you would have expected it to in the 1950s, but it was still there, it was still ingrained,” said Kayla Ruble, a journalist who worked at Vice from 2014-16. “This is a wakeup call.” Vice and its co-founder and chief executive, Shane Smith, have long been open about the company’s provocative atmosphere. But Vice is now struggling to reconcile its past — famous for coverage of streetwear, drugs and sex, as well as its raucous parties — with its emergence as a global media company backed by corporate giants like Disney and Fox.
Shane Smith, a founder of Vice and the company's chief executive, apologized for the "boys club" culture at Vice that "fostered inappropriate behavior that permeated throughout the company." ( JESSE DITTMAR/The New York Times )
In a statement provided to the Times, Smith and another co-founder, Suroosh Alvi, said “from the top down, we have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive.” They said that a “boys club” culture at Vice had “fostered inappropriate behavior that permeated throughout the company.” The company distributed a longer version of the statement to its employees on Saturday. The company said it has been taking steps to transform itself in recent months as the national debate over sexual harassment reshapes workplaces, and as it became aware that the Times and other news outlets were working on articles about the experiences of women at Vice. Vice has formed a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board, which includes feminist icon Gloria Steinem and is led by lawyer Roberta Kaplan; hired a new head of human resources; and terminated three employees for what it called behaviour inconsistent with its values. It also forbade romantic relationships between supervisors and their employees — which several current and former employees said were not uncommon and led to many problems. The settlement involving Vice’s president, Andrew Creighton, was struck in 2016, when Creighton, 45, paid $135,000 to a former employee who claimed that she was fired after she rejected an intimate relationship with him, according to people briefed on the matter and documents viewed by the Times. The woman declined to comment and asked that she not to be identified to protect her privacy. This year, the company settled for an unknown amount with Martina Veltroni, a former employee who claimed that her supervisor retaliated against her after they had a sexual relationship, among other allegations, according to people briefed on the agreement and documents viewed by the Times. The supervisor, Jason Mojica, the former head of Vice News, was fired in late November. Veltroni declined to comment. And in January, Vice reached a $24,000 settlement with Joanna Fuertes-Knight, a former journalist in its London office, who said she had been the victim of sexual harassment, racial and gender discrimination and bullying, according to documents viewed by the Times. Among Fuertes-Knight’s claims were that a Vice producer, Rhys James, had made racist and sexist statements to her, including asking about the colour of her nipples and whether she slept with Black men. Fuertes-Knight, who is of mixed race, is bound by a confidentiality agreement and declined to comment. James was put on leave in late November, according to a Vice spokesperson. In the settlement agreement, both Vice and James denied any liability. James did not respond to messages sent seeking comment. A fourth settlement, struck in 2003, involved claims that Vice defamed a female writer by publishing that she had agreed to have sex with a rapper whom she had interviewed, when she had not. In response to questions about the settlements, a Vice spokesperson said the company had made “few settlements” over its 23-year history and that no Vice employee had been involved in more than one. “In some cases, it’s clear that the company and our managers made mistakes,” the company said. “In others, we disagree with the way in which the underlying facts have been characterized.” Details about the settlements and the culture of the company are based on interviews with more than 100 current and former Vice employees. As word spread within the media industry that the Times was reporting on Vice, more than a dozen women and men contacted the Times with accounts that they said were humiliating and emotionally traumatic. Several broke confidentiality agreements to speak on the record, but many spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing those agreements and fear of reprisal. The Times also examined more than 100 pages of legal documents, emails, text messages and other filings related to Vice’s operations, the settlements and allegations of harassment. In their statement, Smith and Alvi said “cultural elements from our past, dysfunction, and mismanagement were allowed to flourish unchecked.” “It happened on our watch,” they said, “and ultimately we let far too many people down. We are truly sorry for this.” They expressed their “extreme regret for our role in perpetuating sexism in the media industry and society in general.”The Saints traded in Brandin Cooks for an older, supposedly tougher model this offseason, and Saints head coach Sean Payton is just fine with that.
"I made this comment: I think this guy has played better in the middle to the back half of his career than the front," Payton said of Ted Ginn this week at the NFL Annual Meeting (via ESPN.com). "I do think he's got punt-return value. There's a level of toughness that comes with him that I like. And he's still, when he's playing in each game, the fastest player on the field.
"I have an exact vision as to how he'll be used, and that helps."
This comes during the same week when Payton told NFL Network that acquiring Ginn amounts to two wins, because they stole him from the division-rival Panthers. Quarterback Drew Brees seems convinced Ginn will add a productive element to the Saints' offense.
"I'm very impressed with what he's been able to accomplish (in Carolina)," Brees said Friday on Good Morning Football. "I think he's going to fit in extremely well with what we do."
While talking up a new acquisition is part of the offseason routine, Payton does seem especially smitten with the boom-or-bust wide receiver, who has never had a 1,000-yard season in his 10-year career (Cooks had two in his first three seasons). Because a young first-round pick was part of the deal, he has to be. Should Cooks thrive with the New England Patriots as we all expect, all eyes will be on the group who traded him away and swapped him for a player whose career-best catch rate over 16 games was 60.2 percent. Back in 2015, it was 45.4 percent, or 44 catches on 97 targets (Cooks' career low so far is 65.1).
None of this is news to Payton so it will be interesting to see what exactly sparked his enthusiasm. Obviously the offense will run through second-year wideout Michael Thomas with Ginn as some sort of field-stretching DeSean Jackson-type threat, but will it amount to something better than they had before?Photo by Andy Knowles
5-10-15-20 features artists talking about the music that made an impact on them throughout their lives, five years at a time. This edition stars 41-year-old Alex Kapranos, leader of Franz Ferdinand, whose fourth album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action*, is out now. Listen along to Kapranos' picks with this Spotify playlist.*
The Beatles: 1962-1966
My dad used to play in beat groups in the 60s, so I was very privileged at a young age because I knew that music was something that human beings made, rather than something that just came out of the speaker in the corner of the room. It’s not magic, and there’s no great mystery behind it. I would hit the guitar strings, trying to make a sound while my dad held down the chords-- quite an important moment. I knew that the people who make music are just a bunch of human beings getting together with instruments. It was always in my head that I could make music.
My parents had one of those big wooden cabinets with a record player and radio built into it-- they were given it as a wedding present-- and I remember listening to the Beatles' 1962-1966 singles compilation, the Red Album. Pop music, rock music, whatever you want to call it-- it’s never been topped by those singles. They’re absolutely perfect. I've chosen the Red Album over the Blue Album (1967-1970 singles compilation) because even though I love the two different bands they represent-- the mop-tops and the guys peering through the long hair and round spectacles-- when I was five, I loved the guys with the mop-tops.
When you’re around this age, you understand music in a very pure way. You dance to it, you enjoy it, you want to sing along with it. You don’t know what bloody microphones were used, or who John Lennon is and what his politics are. It's all pop. My mother is English and my father is Greek, but I also didn’t see them as being culturally different until I hit my teens. When you’re five, you don’t question the fact that you can’t speak the same language as your grandmother-- that’s just the way it is.
Madness: Absolutely
After living in Sunderland, England, we moved to Scotland, where my teacher criticized me because of my English accent; I felt like an outsider because I had an Geordie accent in an Edinburgh classroom. Over the years, I came to understand the centuries of resentment that still existed in a nation that lost a war to its neighbors. There’s no desire for bloodshed, and the resentment is only located within portions of the population, but it’s definitely there.
The album that I adored at that time was Madness' Absolutely. It's the best kids' music ever. There's the vividness and energy, and the fact that they were this incredible gang that had their own way of dressing was very powerful. They felt a little bit dangerous as well. It’s not until you’re 10 that you start listening to music that your parents don’t necessarily agree with. I remember having huge fights with my mother about wearing a pair of Dr. Martens, because that’s what bad boys wore. I was like, “But I want to be a bad boy!” I didn’t want to be the soft kid-- I wanted to be the troublemaker! I didn’t really like fighting, though. I was just cheeky to my teachers. If I thought a teacher was talking shite I would say so, which would always get me into trouble. I wasn’t scared of opening up my gob.
Madness' songs contained great cultural observations of Britain. There were riots in the UK around that time, and a lot of immigrants were persecuted. I remember school desks with "NF" scrawled into them, which stood for the National Front. It was ugly. Even though I blended in because I was European, I knew I was still scrutinized because of my Greek background. What was cool about bands like Madness and the Specials was that they took influences from Jamaica and London and melded them all together. It was a great moment in British cultural history, and it yielded some pretty fucking good tunes that you can jump up and down on the sofa to when you're 10 years old. If a Madness song from that time period comes on now, it still puts me in a good mood.
Fleetwood Mac: "Oh Well"
My friend Andrew Conway and I used to walk to school together, talking about music and going to each others’ houses to play. He got me into Fleetwood Mac, who were hugely unfashionable at the time. It’s weird seeing how they've become this hipster band now. I have a right smile inside when I think back on how hated they were by our contemporaries at school, which is probably why we were so drawn to them. I’ve always been a little bit contrarian.
We were especially into Then Play On, which is earlier Fleetwood Mac, and I loved Peter Green’s voice. All the blues covers were fine, but the songs that he wrote were amazing. I loved “Oh Well” because it was powerful and direct but it didn’t sound like a regular song. It was just this huge long riff. I was like, “It’s not pop music, it’s not rock music-- where does this come from?” I loved how inventive it was. The lyrics fit with the alienation I felt at 15, too: "I can’t help what shape I’m in/ Can't sing, I ain’t pretty and my legs are thin.” That was me at 15. I was wishing that my voice would break so I could sing like Peter Green. [laughs]
“Oh Well” was the first song Andrew and I ever recorded. Andrew had a little Tascam cassette four-track recorder and we did a very wonky version, just the two of us. From that point onwards for a couple of years, we used to go to his room and make a racket. I owe so much to his parents-- they would bring us juice while we were making this bloody awful noise. We probably made about 15 albums worth of material around that time, but we didn’t want to play our music for other people-- it was just for us.
Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime
I wanted to study philosophy at Glasgow University, but I didn’t get in because I failed higher maths. So I found myself studying divinity at the University of Aberdeen. I found the subject fascinating and I still do, though I’m not a religious person myself. But even if you’ve rejected God, there’s still a lot you can learn from religion, and you can’t deny the spiritual urges you have within you. But I dropped out after a year because a lot of my fellow students were called to the Presbyterian Ministry in later life, so I had absolutely nothing in common with them.
Around this time, I started getting involved in the DIY punk scene in Glasgow. I was hanging around the 13th Note, where all these bands that went on to become successful played: Mogwai played their first gig in that club, and Stuart Murdoch played some Belle and Sebastian songs for the first time there, too. Another close friend from that time, RM Hubbert, whose album I just produced, introduced me to a lot of different music-- SST and West Coast punk especially-- that had a huge impact on me. The Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime made me think about playing the guitar in a totally different way. They made it clear that being in a band could be about something other than being a rock star. Even though their lyrics talked about a life that was unfamiliar to me, the candor in which they talked about it was very recognizable.
Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets
Here Come the Warm Jets opened up a lot of ideas for us, because suddenly it wasn’t just about punk rock anymore. That music comes from an era of prog-rock excess, and it possesses the same sonic adventurousness that prog bands were aiming for, but Here Come the Warm Jets is raw. When Eno’s playing the guitar, it sounds like he's playing it with a scrubbing brush.
I also loved how creatively agile Brian Eno was. The way that he would jump from something that feels like a 50s pop song with this wry lyric observing these women who’ve “left their hot points to rust in their kitchenettes.” For somebody who rejected lyrics, he was an amazing lyricist. When I was listening to this record a lot, it was at the tail end of Britpop, and it felt like we'd be surrounded by retrogressive music that looked to the 60s for years. Weirdly, I had to go back to the 70s to find something that was forward-looking. The sound of Here Come the Warm Jets sounded a lot more contemporary than the music that was actually being made in the 90s.
Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
[Franz Ferdinand bassist Bob Hardy] and I worked in a kitchen-- he was a porter, washing the dishes, and I was a dessert chef. I was always waiting for the last couple to finish their meal, and he was waiting for their plates, so we’d be stuck together. We had these great discussions about what music we'd make if we were to form a hypothetical band: what our principles would be, what we'd do stage, what we would want to sing about.
Of course, we played each other the music that we loved, and the record that had the greatest impact on me was Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Bob’s always had a great love for American indie-- he introduced me to a lot of stuff that I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to myself-- and I loved the raw emotion of Jeff Mangum's vocals on that album, along with the acoustic guitars that sound like they’re being ripped through the speakers. Usually, when an acoustic guitar is recorded, the producer or engineer gives it that repellant, sparkly, saccharine sound, but the guitars on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea sound as dirty as the first Buzzcocks EP. I played "Two-Headed Boy" to somebody I was with recently who'd never heard the song before, and she started crying when she heard it. It's an emotionally brutal record.
The Cribs: Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever
I didn’t want to choose a record that I was on, but all the records I’ve chosen reflect how I relate to the people around me at the time. That was the first time I had gone into a studio to produce something without actually making any of the music myself, and it was such an enjoyable experience. I became really close to the Jarman brothers, and they’re still really good friends. I love the closeness of that family, the contrary creativity they possess. For me, that band represents the best of what happened in Britain around that time: There was an evolution of music and a certain type of guitar band that came to the fore. Some of that type of music was great, some not so great. But the Cribs were great. Particularly at that moment, they were a very vibrant, exciting band to be around.
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring
The most striking piece of music I've heard recently was a performance of The Rite of Spring at London's Royal Festival Hall. It’s the most moving performance I’ve ever been to.
I went back to Greece in January with my dad for my grandmother's funeral. I hadn’t been there for a couple of years, and I really noticed how much the country is suffering. It’s in a really bad way. I watched Greece change through the 70s and 80s, and noticed how the differences between Athens and the UK slowly disappeared. But when I went back this time, it felt very different again, like it was another place.
I'm extremely un-nostalgic; when I ride my bike, I never look over my shoulder, because if I do, I’ll fall off. That’s exactly how I feel about being in my band. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience of making music with these three guys and I’m still thoroughly enjoying it. If I look over my shoulder too much, I’m gonna fall off. I have no intention of doing so.Starting at the 2011 conference in Atlanta, the PyCon Expo Hall has offered a special event for startups: “Startup Row,” a row of booths that features interesting startups built with Python.
We’re happy to announce that applications to Startup Row at PyCon 2017 in Portland, Oregon, are now open!
You may have questions about Startup Row, so here we provide some basic answers.
How do I apply?
There is information about applying at the end of this post, but if you’re the “do first, ask questions later” type, go to our application form.
What do Startup Row companies get?
We give founders a unique opportunity to connect with the vibrant, diverse community of engineers, data scientists, speakers, investors and enthusiasts who come to the world’s largest Python programming conference.
Startup Row companies get:
Free booth space
Admission to PyCon for two startup team members
Coverage here on the PyCon blog and elsewhere
A couple of fun events exclusively for Startup Row companies and the community.
And in a first for Startup Row, this year we’ll be giving our companies access to the Jobs Fair at PyCon, so they can recruit from the same quality pool of engineering talent that the likes of Google, Facebook, Dropbox and other big companies have recruited at PyCon for years.
All in, if selected, your company receives a few thousand dollars worth of access to the best PyCon has to offer, all for free because you’re doing cool stuff with Python.
What are the rules?
Your startup has to be 2.5 years old or less. Including founders, there have to be less than 15 people on the team at the time you apply. Obviously, you have to use Python somewhere in your stack. (Open source, proprietary, front end, back end, data analysis, devops — it all counts.)
How does the selection committee pick companies?
We strongly favor engineer-founders, people who can build both valuable software and valuable businesses.
The technology or product has to be interesting. Are you solving a tough engineering problem? Building a version control system to replace git? Using a new technology in a unique way? Something that scratches your own itch as a domain expert in some field? Great!
Traction. Is your company reaching a lot of people, either now or in the near future? Do you have a good sales pipeline? Lots of signups? MAU stats that would make Facebook jealous? Be sure to tell us about it in your application.
Which companies have been on Startup Row before?
In the past six years, Startup Row has featured over 75 companies, some of which you’ve probably heard of or even used.
Pandas, the popular data science library, was created by Lambda Foundry.
DotCloud (which would become Docker), ZeroVM, X.ai, Mailgun, Mixpanel, AppThwack, and many others were all featured on Startup Row back when they were early stage startups.
I’ve heard something about local pitch events. Tell me more!
Yes, we’re hosting pitch events in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. If you’re interested in pitching or hosting your own local Startup Row pitch event, email one of Startup Row’s organizers at don [at] sheu [dot] com, or jason [at] jdr [dot] fyi for more information.
Currently, we've scheduled events in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, and we're adding more dates. The Chicago event is on January 26 at Braintree HQ in collaboration with the Braintree team and ChiPy, the local user group. The San Francisco event is on March 8, and as of the time of publishing a venue is TBD. Finally, Avvo offered to host the Seattle event in collaboration with PuPPy, the Seattle and Puget Sound Python user group.
We’ll be announcing the local events schedule and additional dates on the Startup Row page.
Where can I learn more about Startup Row?
Startup Row has its own page on the PyCon 2017 site, where you can learn more about the history of Startup Row at PyCon (fun fact: it started as a collaboration between Y Combinator and the PSF) and just how well Startup Row alumni have performed (another fun fact: nearly 20% have had successful exits so far).
If you have any quick questions up front for the organizing team, you can find us @ulysseas and @jason_rowley on Twitter, or at the email addresses listed above.
Okay, I’ve read all this. Now, how do I apply?
First off, we commend you for sticking it through to the end! You can click here to go to the application form for Startup Row.
We’re looking forward to learning a little more about what you’re working on!Panasonic announced Friday that it intends to expand its smartphone business into Europe in March 2012, and it hopes the move will be a stepping stone into the global smartphone market. Panasonic didn’t name its first smartphone, but did say that it features an ultra-slim form factor with a 4.3-inch qHD OLED screen. The phone is also waterproof and dust-proof, and will be manufactured in one of Panasonic’s Malaysian factories. Panasonic hopes to sell 1.5 million smartphones in Europe next year, and by 2016 the company aims to be selling 15 million phones cell phones annually, 9 million of which it expects will be smartphones. Panasonic’s full press release follows after the break.
Panasonic to Expand Smartphone Business to European Market
Tokyo, Japan – Panasonic announced today that it will expand its smartphone business to the European market in March 2012. At the same time, it announced its aim to bring its overseas smartphone sales to nine million units in fiscal year 2016, ending March 31, 2016, using Europe as a stepping stone to the global market.
With the mobile phone market rapidly shifting to smartphone usage worldwide and a steady growth expected particularly overseas, Panasonic aims to tap into this growth with its first global model smartphone for the European market in March 2012.
The main characteristics of the global model are:
An ultra-slim D-shaped design for easy portability Slim bezel with high viewing quality Quarter HD (QHD) 4.3-inch large organic light emitting diode (OLED) screen Waterproof and dustproof for ease of handling
Using this as a reference model, Panasonic will expand its lineup, aiming at sales of 1.5 million smartphones in Europe next fiscal year. Furthermore, in fiscal year 2016, Panasonic targets global sales of 15 million units, including nine million in Europe, Asia, China, and the United States and six million in Japan (of which five million are smartphones).
The Panasonic Group created the Systems & Communications Company (SNC) in April this year in advance of its reorganization scheduled for January 2012 in order to handle products and services related to system, network and mobile communications. Within this company, Panasonic will maximize its internal resources, including making use of an existing factory in Malaysia. Currently, phones for the Japanese market are manufactured in this factory but now the same factory is also scheduled to manufacture the first global model as announced.
Panasonic will continue to expand its product lineup and increase sales in a speedy process by thoroughly utilizing the Group’s technological assets and development resources as well as its production and sales sites around the world, thereby strengthening development, production, and sales structure and product competitiveness.A neuron with an axon protruding directly from a dendrite rather than from the cell body. Signals to this dendrite are forwarded more effectively than signals to other dendrites on the cell.
The discovery of a new shape of brain cell has neuroscientists scratching their heads over what the function of these neurons might be.
Though neurons come in different shapes and sizes, the basic blueprint consists of a cell body, from which protrudes spindly appendages called dendrites and axons. Dendrites are branchlike structures that receive signals from other nerve cells and deliver them to the cell body. The neuron then processes the signals and zaps along information to the next cell via a long projection called the axon.
At least, that's how it normally works. The newly discovered cells have a different, and until now, unknown process. In these cells, the signals skip the cell body altogether, instead traveling along an axon that projects directly from one of the dendrites.
"We found that in more than half of the cells, the axon does not emerge from the cell body, but arises from a lower dendrite," study researcher Christian Thome, a neuroscientist at Heidelberg University and the Bernstein Center Heidelberg-Mannheim |
dark energy, as the matter falls through the event horizon. The space within the event horizon would end up with a large value for the cosmological constant and have negative pressure to exert against gravity. There would be no information-destroying singularity.[1]
Theory [ edit ]
In March 2005, physicist George Chapline claimed that quantum mechanics makes it a "near certainty" that black holes do not exist and are instead dark-energy stars. The dark-energy star is a different concept from that of a gravastar.
Dark-energy stars were first proposed because in quantum physics, absolute time is required; however, in general relativity, an object falling towards a black hole would, to an outside observer, seem to have time pass infinitely slowly at the event horizon. The object itself would feel as if time flowed normally.[1]
In order to reconcile quantum mechanics with black holes, Chapline theorized that a phase transition in the phase of space occurs at the event horizon. He based his ideas on the physics of superfluids. As a column of superfluid grows taller, at some point, density increases, slowing down the speed of sound, so that it approaches zero. However, at that point, quantum physics makes sound waves dissipate their energy into the superfluid, so that the zero sound speed condition is never encountered.
In the dark-energy star hypothesis, infalling matter approaching the event horizon decays into successively lighter particles. Nearing the event horizon, environmental effects accelerate proton decay. This may account for high-energy cosmic-ray sources and positron sources in the sky. When the matter falls through the event horizon, the energy equivalent of some or all of that matter is converted into dark energy. This negative pressure counteracts the mass the star gains, avoiding a singularity. The negative pressure also gives a very high number for the cosmological constant.[2]
Furthermore, 'primordial' dark-energy stars could form by fluctuations of spacetime itself, which is analogous to "blobs of liquid condensing spontaneously out of a cooling gas". This not only alters the understanding of black holes, but has the potential to explain the dark energy and dark matter that are indirectly observed.[2]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put into words the anxiety many right-wing Catholics must be feeling at the extraordinary popularity Pope Francis has been enjoying. In an interview with John L. Allen Jr., Chaput, speaking on behalf of his conservative followers, said that members of the right wing of the Catholic church "generally have not been really happy about his election." The pope, Chaput stated, will "have to care for them, too."
What worries Chaput in particular is the sudden interest in the new pope from unfamiliar quarters. Practicing Catholics love the pope, of course, "but they're not actually the ones who really talk to me about the new pope. The ones who do are nonpracticing Catholics or people who aren't Catholic or not even Christian." And why should this be so? Chaput has his suspicions: Yes, these outsiders are thrilled by the new pope's friendliness and his warmth, but "I think they would prefer a church that wouldn't have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine."
Wow. Where do we start? We could talk about the parable of the prodigal son, since Chaput truly sounds a great deal like the adventuresome young man's older brother, the one who stayed home and toiled with his father and grew resentful when the old man slew the fatted calf upon his brother's return. Or we could talk about the shepherd who rejoiced over finding his lost sheep.
But let's focus instead on what it means to be an evangelical church. For some time now, decades really, the church has been turning in upon itself. This is most especially noticeable in conservative circles. The culture is seen as hostile. The ambient culture is "pagan," to use Chaput's description. Indeed, he has even called some Catholics pagan in their approach to the faith.
But shouting "pagan, pagan" is no way to win souls. And this is evidenced by even the briefest consideration of Catholic membership statistics. Catholic membership has grown in Africa, but it has lost members in Latin America to more enthusiastic forms of evangelical Protestantism. And in the United States, Catholic membership would be in decline were it not buoyed by immigration.
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The right wing's favored response to these dismal trends is to blame the left. But the right wing needs to know that it has controlled the church hierarchy for some three decades now. It is the right wing that must look in the mirror. A stricter form of boundary police will not attract outsiders; it will repel them. Indeed, it has.
Francis has gotten the message and the tone just right. Jesus, after all, came not for the saved but for the sinners. He dined with tax collectors. He routinely and frequently forgave prostitutes. He was followed in his evangelizing by women who did not come from respectable homes. He promised the water of eternal life to a woman who was even then living out of wedlock.
The new evangelization about which so many on the Catholic right speak is not about new and better forms of border security. It is about the imitatio Christi -- the imitation of Christ. Like Christ, Francis means to be evangelical, and that means finding people where Christ found them -- in desperate shape, in need of forgiveness and love -- and offering them hope.
[Charles J. Reid Jr. has degrees in canon law and civil law from The Catholic University of America and a doctorate in medieval history from Cornell University. He was raised in a union household in Milwaukee. He teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis. This commentary is reprinted with permission from www.religiousleftlaw.com, a blog where progressives from various faith traditions discuss religion, law, politics and culture.]The silver electrical contacts that carry electricity out of about 90 percent of the solar modules on the market are also one of their most expensive parts. Now scientists from two Department of Energy national laboratories have used X-rays to observe exactly how those contacts form during manufacturing.
The results, reported in Nature Communications, are an important step toward finding cheaper alternatives to silver that don't require toxic lead for processing.
"Industry would like to get rid of both silver and lead in this process," said Mike Toney, a distinguished staff scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and one of the lead authors of the paper. "One of the goals of this research is to figure out how the contacts are made and use this knowledge to come up with ways to eliminate silver and lead."
Opening a Small Window on an Old Process
The contacts are produced by printing a paste made of silver particles, glass and lead oxide onto the solar cell's surface. The cell travels on a belt through a furnace, which heats it to about 800 degrees Celsius -- 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit -- in less than a minute. When the cell comes out the other end and cools, the lines of paste have formed electrical contacts with the cell.
"Although the process has been around for a long time, it's been impossible to see how the contacts form until now because it happens very fast," Toney said. "Scientists have been debating how this reaction proceeds for many years."
To settle the debate, researchers from SLAC and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado built a simplified version of the industrial furnace at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. They put sample solar cells into the furnace, quickly heated the samples to the high temperatures used in manufacturing and monitored changes in the chemistry of the contact with an X-ray beam shining into the chamber through a small window.
A Tool for Basic Research and Industry
The results showed that lead oxide plays a key role in forming the contact, etching away the solar cell's antireflective coating so silver can move through, pool and eventually harden in small pits on the silicon surface. Once cooled, the finished contact contains solid silver blobs that have been squeezed together by heat; tiny silver particles in a layer of solid glass; and solid silver on the silicon surface. All three types of silver are needed to make the contact effective.
"I won't say we have the full story yet, but this is the first time we actually got some insight into what's happening," said Maikel van Hest, a materials scientist at NREL who led the research. "Prior to this study we were only able to look at the contact before and after heat processing; what happened in between was like a black box. But now we can actually make measurements as the contacts form. This tool will have great impact in the photovoltaic industry as well as in basic research."
NREL's Jeremy Fields and SLAC's Mohammed Imteyaz Ahmad were first authors of the paper and played leading roles in carrying out the experiments. Other scientists involved in the research were NREL's Philip Parilla and SLAC's Vanessa Pool, Jiafan Yu and Douglas Van Campen. The research was funded by the DOE's SunShot Initiative, which aims to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by the end of the decade.Negan: The Walking Dead
As a power binger, the only dead zones you should experience are the ones on your screen. Time to take back your home — grab your bat and go kill some zombies.
Eleven: Stranger Things
Your past is dark and buffered, but what if we told you there’s a powerful force that travels through walls and could change that? Stranger things have happened.
1. Eggos 2. Dress 3. Jacket 4. Wig (or if you’re feeling committed, clippers) 5. Socks
Daenyrs: Game of Thrones
Families fight. Whether it’s for the remote or for bandwidth, everyone wants to be in charge. Call your dragons and show them who’s the rightful heir to this kingdom.
1. Dragon 2. Cloak 3. Flamethrower (use with caution) 4. Wig 5. Jewelry
Pablo Escobar: Narcos
Some may call it stealing. But you think of yourself as more of a Robin Hood, smuggling your neighbor’s WiFi signal to those devices that need it most. To really get in character, order the best mustache money can buy (and your own, legal, WiFi).
Man in black: Westworld
While you’re content with your phone, your tablet, your TV, and your smart wine decanter, you’re starting to wonder what would happen if technology got too smart. When it does, you’re not going down without a fight.
1. Hat 2. Jacket 3. Scarf 4. Gloves. 5. Toy Guns
Luke Cage
You don’t back down from a challenge, whether it’s seeing how many hours you can go without getting up to use the bathroom, or protecting what you love. You’d prefer quiet time reading and streaming, but you can’t help the way you are.The Machi Asobi event announced on Saturday that the last three episodes of the second Ore no Imōto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai (Oreimo) anime season will be released worldwide simultaneously. Aniplex confirmed at Anime Contents Expo in March that the season will have 16 episodes, but the last three episodes will be not aired with the others. Subtitles are also being planned, and the staff is looking into the means of release, including web streaming and satellite television.
The new season adapts the plot of the original light novel series all the way through the final novel volume. Aniplex of America is planning to release the second season for North America, and Crunchyroll is streaming the anime as it airs in Japan this season.
Source: Tokyo Anime News via Yaraon!LONDON (Reuters) - The United States may be compelled to cut its military spending in Europe next year by as much as a fifth in the latest round of reductions under “sequestration”, America’s top general in the region said on Thursday.
NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) U.S. Air Force General Philip Mark Breedlove attends the Opening Remarks of the NATO Military Committee Conference in Budapest, September 14, 2013. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, who serves as both head of the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), said the reductions will require NATO forces to work more closely together and train “smarter”.
“We want to cut the tail to protect the teeth... We have to work together perhaps more than ever before,” he told a press briefing in London.
The Pentagon is facing nearly $1 trillion in cuts to projected spending over the next decade, which leaders say would dramatically reduce Washington’s military capability. The next round of across-the-board “sequestration” cuts will begin on January 15 if U.S. Congress cannot agree deficit reduction measures.
The U.S. army is already closing and consolidating several garrisons in Germany and says under current plans the number of troops in Europe by 2017 will be some 30,000, a drastic reduction from the days of the Cold War. The U.S. Air Force also maintains several bases, as does the U.S. Navy.
EUCOM had been asked to plan for a budget reduction of between zero and 20 percent next year, Breedlove said. Cuts would likely take place at the headquarters level, he said.
Other U.S. commands are taking similar steps. Last week, U.S. Africa Command said it expected to lose more than a tenth of its funding, forcing it to slim down planned exercises and cut spending on its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
Almost all European NATO members are also cutting defense spending, and with little or no new money available for exercises, training to build NATO’s ability to fight sophisticated adversaries would be a challenge, Breedlove said.
One solution would be to building a NATO component to already planned and funded exercises by individual or groups of member states, he said.
“We need to exercise smarter,” he said, pointing to last month’s Mediterranean exercise “Brilliant Mariner”, run alongside a pre-planned Italian exercise.
“This is how I think we do this without extra money... Our training, our exercises will have to be the glue that holds us together.”
Last month NATO staged an exercise in the Baltic states, “Steadfast Jazz”, which Breedlove said showed that the alliance was moving beyond its recent focus on counterinsurgency to more sophisticated fighting.
NATO denies such exercises are aimed at Russia, but officials also acknowledge privately that an increasingly assertive Moscow has alarmed eastern and northern European states in particular, most of whom are NATO members.
Breedlove emphasized on Thursday that a high priority needed to be put on maintaining and increasing military-to-military relations with Moscow to build trust and avert misunderstandings.
Breedlove also noted increased competition for Pentagon resources, particularly from Asia, to which President Barack Obama has said the United States will “pivot” its resources as part of a strategic rebalance.
But he said it was important NATO remained strong in Europe.
“I think in history that every time we have thought the risk of great power conflict has gone, we’ve had great power conflict,” he said. “My responsibility is to make sure we are ready for whatever is needed.”
(This story has been refiled to fix byline.)In September of 1990, American comedic television was dominated by Cheers and The Cosby Show. Seinfeld had just finished its first season. Across the Atlantic, Britain must have sat down one day as a collective nation and said to themselves, “How can we possibly compete with America’s mastery of the sitcom?”
I imagine that weeks, perhaps months went by as this great land used every ounce of their brainpower to come up with the single greatest idea for a television show in history. At long last, this concept came to fruition. Scripts were made, actors were cast, a studio was rented, and hundreds of people helped a certain show see the light of day. That show, of course, was Heil Honey I’m Home!
Now based on that title, you might have a creeping suspicion that this show is a sitcom about Adolf Hitler. Obviously that’s not the case.
This is a sitcom Adolf Hitler’s married life to Eva Braun while living down the hall from a Jewish Couple.
This happened.
Obviously I can’t even here. I’ve known this show existed for a few years, but I sat down today and actually watched the whole thing for the first time. I was…amazed. But before we got into my play by play, what exactly is Heil Honey I’m Home?
Heil Honey is a British sitcom written Geoff Atkinson. Mr. Atkinson intended this show to be a mockery of early American sitcoms as well as a satire of Britain’s appeasement to Hitler in the late 1930s. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well. Heil Honey was cancelled after a single episode and is widely considered to be one of the absolute worst television shows of all time. So of course, today I’ll be examining it in excruciating detail. As is always the case with my reviews of awful movies and shows, everything in quotes was actually said.
MY RECAP / REVIEW OF HEIL HONEY I’M HOME!
***SPOILER ALERT: It’s offensive.***
Heil Honey starts off with a text crawl detailing the fictitious history of this show. Apparently many years ago a nearly unknown television executive named Brandon Thalburg Jr. greenlit a television program called Heil Honey I’m Home (the exclamation point is missing in this fictitious iteration). The tapes of this sitcom were recently discovered and are now being aired.
It’ll be a hit com, don’t you know!
This short introduction to the show may seem completely pointless, but that’s because it is. There’s absolutely no reason to do this; nothing interesting is added to the show’s plot or mythos here.
Up next we get the show’s theme song, which mostly consists of extremely upbeat repititons of the phrase “Heil honey, I’m home!” Of course, Mr. Atkinson did have a little more creativity than that. He also threw in this beautiful phrase:
“Gee it’s great to be top gun, but it’s nothing like the fun that I get when I say Heil honey I am home.”
Now is this the worst way to start a sitcom about Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler living next door to a Jewish couple? Yes, of course it is! If this show is going to be a mockery of Britain’s appeasement to Germany, maybe you could ease us into the sitcom aspect? Not just throw a bunch of cheery Heil Honey’s at us?
After the theme song’s done, Hitler walks through the front door and we get the first line of the show.
“Heil honey, I’m home!”
Just in case the title card and theme song haven’t made things clear by now.
It’s revealed Eva is miffed at Adolf for being late for his schnitzel dinner.
“I’m a very very bad Hitler.”
Two things become readily apparent from this short clip: I get the sense that there was an actual studio audience, but they were too uncomfortable to laugh reliably. The network therefore threw in a laugh track in a lot of cases. The second, and by far bigger issue, is that the actress playing Eva is one of the worst people ever.
Although admittedly not as awful as the actual Eva Braun.
After listening to Eva’s whining, Adolf protests that he’s the Führer and can’t just walk out the door at five o’clock. This is when I began to feel extremely uncomfortable and guilty for watching this.
I lasted 40 seconds.
Typical sitcom bullshit happens for a while, including Adolf speaking directly to the camera and proclaiming “Boy, this is going to be some night.”
To be fair, when your leading man looks like that you want to show off his mug.
Adolf tries to apologize for being late, but Eva just keeps laying it on him.
“And don’t think you can smooch around me like that, Adolf Hitler.”
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m going to defend Hitler here. Eva is being way too fucking unreasonable. Adolf is trying to run an empire, he’s not raising his voice, and he’s owning up to his mistake. Eva can’t cut the guy a little slack?
Now to be fair, the pilot does a great job of getting the plot moving. After a mere two minutes we’ve got a good introduction to our two main characters and the episode’s plot is revealed: British ambassador Neville Chamberlain is coming over tomorrow to discuss Adolf’s planned annexation of Czechoslovakia. Of course, on the other side of the coin, this is still a sitcom about Hitler and Eva living next door to a Jewish couple.
But gosh darn it, a twinkle of clever satire shines through in this scene. When Eva protests that Adolf went over the line by invading Czechoslovakia, he tries to downplay the situation with Chamberlain.
“I’ll show him around the town, we’ll have a few beers, he’ll forget about Czechoslavakia.”
But with this show it’s one step forward and about a thousand back. That first step back is Adolf and Eva hugging and dancing while singing, “Hoochie coochie smoochie.”
I’m not making this up!
We just keep getting off the rails with the introduction of Hitler’s Jewish neighbors, Arny and Rosa Goldenstein. Adolf absolutely does not want Eva telling Rose about Chamberlain coming over; he’s furious that she always blabs to Rosa about his secrets.
“When I finally get to invade Poland, who will be the first to know? The Poles? No. Rosa Goldenstein!”
It would take a much better writer than I to make all this okay.
This is the point where I seriously started to wonder what this show was trying to do. If you want to make a statement about the failure of Britain’s appeasement, why would you mix that with harping on American sitcom cliches? Those are two wildly different things. Also, this isn’t a satire of those sitcom cliches; it merely utilizes them. Satire adds something to the stuff it’s making fun of; this show doesn’t do that. Having a show utilize every single sitcom cliche might be funny for an episode, but how can it sustain an entire series if that’s all it does?
And why does it need to have Hitler?
This show is an idea that, at most, should be a handful of comedy sketches. Eight episodes of this show were planned and at least a few were recorded. How was this concept supposed to maintain a series?
Okay, enough intelligent analysis, let’s get back to the jokes. So while Eva and Adolf argue, we shift focus and actually meet the Goldensteins. This less than loving husband and wife engage in some banter that I don’t think anyone really processes because the fucking Hitlers are arguing next door.
Arny – “I hate your mother!”
Me – “What the hell is going on?!”
It’s also hard to focus on the Goldsteins because this scene is all the same old sitcom stuff we’ve seen a million times before. The Goldsteins have fallen out of love. Arny doesn’t want Rosa’s mother coming over. He’s even less thrilled that Rosa’s niece Ruth is staying with them. Nothing here is original and again, it’s not clever or funny because there’s no commentary on it. Simply repeating something doesn’t make it funny.
Friedberg and Seltzer take note.
Again, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at this point I was asking for more Hitler. We’re obliged with the second joke that works. The next morning Hitler wakes up, throws open his window, and shouts to the city below:
“I love you Berlin, you knuckleheads!”
Why does this joke work? One, because the actor who plays Hitler is worlds better than Eva Braun’s. Two, because it’s not hurting anyone or directly making fun of, you know, mass casualties in World War II. Three, because it’s characterizing Hitler in a humorous, over the top, and (again) harmless light.
This is the only way this show could have worked; if they committed absolutely fully to Hitler being a buffoon that gets stomped on by the world around him. I still don’t think that idea could last more than an episode, and you wouldn’t want his wife to be an annoying bitch who you crave to get offscreen, but I don’t think the pilot would have been such a disaster if this had been the case. Now for this to actually work you would probably want to avoid Hitler living next door to a Jewish couple.
I know this because a few seconds after this greeting to Berlin, Arny enters Adolf’s apartment.
This made me uncomfortable for so many reasons.
This is just wrong in every conceivable way. First of all, look at Adolf’s stare up there. It’s fucking murderous, which is a problem because Hitler actually murdered six million Jews. Second, the plot of this episode is about Hitler taking Czechoslavakia. This happened in 1938, when the Nuremberg laws were in full effect. At this time in Germany Jews were segregated and demeaned in countless ways. How is Arny unaffected by this? Why does he want to be friends with Hitler? This makes no sense!
This madness continues when it’s confirmed that, much to our fears, Eva is best friends with Rosa.
No wonder there’s no fridge in this kitchen. Eva survives by chewing the scenery.
Remember my suspicions about the studio audience feeling uncomfortable? I think that’s confirmed here when there is dead silence after Eva worries that Hitler will kill her. The actress was obviously (horrendously) playing that line for a joke, but there’s no response from the audience.
The worst issue in this scene is the first case of truly bad writing. I don’t mean it’s offensive or steals jokes from other sitcoms, just that it’s so simply awful it should have been removed from the first draft. Eva tells Rosa twice that the “most important person in Europe” is coming over for dinner. Despite this, Eva decides it’s necessary to play charades in order for Rosa to figure out who this guest is.
I didn’t say they weren’t still copying sitcoms, just that it wasn’t the biggest issue in this scene.
Rosa eventually guesses that Neville Chamberlain is coming over because it’s fucking obvious. Eva makes Rosa swear to secrecy the only way they know how.
Of course.
Much, much worse (I know, I can’t believe it either) is the fact that included in Rosa’s swear is:
“May all my children not marry someone in the professional classes.”
Great to see we’re branching out into straight up offensive Jew jokes.
A bit later, Rosa conspires with Arny to set up Ruth with Chamberlain. I always give credit where credit is due; Arny is delightfully amused by this ridiculous plan.
“Where do you get these ideas?”
Like before, we immediately take many, many steps back when Adolf finds out Eva spilled the beans about Chamberlain coming over. Remember my suggestion from before that the best way to make this show not a complete failure would be to portray Adolf as an inept buffoon who gets shit on all the time? Well, maybe the best way to do that is not to have him chase Eva through the kitchen and furiously chastise her while she cowers against a door.
It tends to remind your audience that your leading man killed millions of people.
Eva chastises Adolf for being so mean, and Adolf realizes she has a point. He’s already on thin ice with Chamberlain; he needs to get in a positive mindset. He starts to think happy thoughts to accomplish this. What are these thoughts?
“Poland.”
6,000,000 died there, by the way.
“The Sudetenland.”
Another 325,000.
“France. Mmmm.”
Chalk up another half million! Seriously, why stop there? Just throw some Holocaust photos on the screen for the full effect!
Eva and Adolf decide the best way to get the Goldensteins out of the apartment is to get them drunk so they’ll become sleepy and want to go home. I think that’s stupid, but what do I know, I’m not Geoff Atkinson. Hitler leaves to pick up Chamberlain at the airport while Eva stays behind with the Goldsteins. Reluctantly, I must admit the next scene has a decent stretch of jokes.
Why’d you have to ruin it, Arny? You and Rosa were making progress!
Adolf and Chamberlain get back to the apartment, but before heading inside they joke about the Wehrmacht’s walk.
Chamberlain – “Oh the funny walk?”
Adolf – “That slays me!”
It’s hilarious!
Adolf and Chamberlain head inside to the fucking craziest moment of this or any show.
Adolf really didn’t hear that from the hallway?
Adolf is none too happy that the Goldensteins are still over, but Eva tries to persuade him that this is a good thing. After all, what could be a better way of proving to Chamberlain that Adolf is a good guy than showing he’s a regular joe who has fun with his neighbors?
That’s a real stretch, Eva.
Somehow, Adolf goes for this. But before he can make any headway, Chamberlain asks for a word with Adolf in private. Adolf obliges, and this is the result:
Chamberlain: “It’s just that I feel, well, well, well, well, we all feel that you have been rather a naughty boy. All this Czechoslovakia nonsense ay?”
Adolf: “Oh, come on Neville. It was just having fun.”
Chamberlain goes on to offer a “Peace in Our Time” agreement; it is a promise that Hitler will not invade Europe. Hitler’s not a fan, but Neville tells him he doesn’t have to decide anything right now and can think about it. Adolf shoves it in the icebox as soon as Chamberlain leaves the kitchen.
Look, I get the joke here. I actually think it’s handled pretty well. This is a satire of Britain’s appeasement to Germany, it’s highlighting how it was a bad decision while playing up its negative points for comic effect. Well done. It’s just that being surrounded by all the other crap that I’ve mentioned (and will continue to mention) kind of ruins this moment. You know what else ruins the subtlety here? Adolf turning turning to the camera and summing up absolutely everything that just happened.
“Boy. You invade one little country and everyone’s on your back. Well I ain’t going to be signing this thing.”
Adolf follows Chamberlain back out to find Ruth entering the apartment while everyone is in a Conga line shouting, “I came I saw I conquered!”
…Alright.
Hrrgh, garsh darn it if there isn’t another decent joke when Ruth asks out Neville.
This is quickly ruined by another lame sitcom trope. Arny (freaking Arny) finds the peace agreement in Adolf’s icebox and brings it into the parlor. It’s gotten wet and smudged, so everyone takes turns trying to figure out what it says. Once they do, Neville accuses Adolf of hiding the treaty. Adolf’s response is pretty amazing.
“Oh come on.”
Then Rosa (frickin’ Rosa) reveals that’s not the only less than friendly thing Adolf’s done.
“Well you do have all those tanks and battleships you keep trying to hide.”
See, that’s the kind of joke you should be doing! You’re making me feel sorry for an inept Hitler who’s so bad at his job he can’t hide tanks and battleships from his next door neighbor. That doesn’t even make sense!
Hitler throws the Goldensteins out of the apartment, and Chamberlain is not amused by Hitler’s betrayal.
“You are a very very naughty little Hitler.”
To prove that this was all a misunderstanding, Adolf signs the agreement then and there. Neville is pleased, he takes Rosa out for dinner, and Adolf cuddles with his wife on the couch. It all ends happily ever after.
Except for, well…you know.
I hate to admit this, but Heil Honey I’m Home! is not as bad as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty tasteless and relies way too heavily on borrowing cliches from other sitcoms. Plus, I have no idea how this idea could have been sustained across a series. But there were more decent jokes than I expected and the guy who plays Hitler is actually really talented.
In spite of those good points, though, this thing should never have seen the light of day. The actress who plays Eva is just horrendous, the show has no clear aim of what it wants to be, and worst of all, it does seem to be making light of what was obviously one of the worst times in the world’s history. I considered giving this show a 3 / 10, but that one joke about Rosa’s children not marrying someone in the professional classes really threw it over the edge.
Heil Honey I’m Home! gets a 2.5 / 10 – Terrible
AdvertisementsLet's build a Bluetooth proximity detector! You only need a Raspberry Pi, USB Bluetooth, and a phone with Bluetooth enabled. This tutorial will show how to detect a known Bluetooth device that is within the range of the Raspberry Pi without pairing the devices.
Step 1. Ensure USB Bluetooth is working on the Raspberry Pi.
Install sudo apt-get install bluetooth
Check it Bluetooth status with this command: hcitool dev
Should return the device's Bluetooth address: Devices: hci0 00:00:00:00:00:17
Step 2. Getting the MAC address of a device. On an Android Phone version 6.0.1, Settings > System > About device > Status > Bluetooth address.
Step 3. Test Connection to Client Device
Command: sudo l2ping -c 2 00:11:22:AA:BB:CC
Result:
Ping: 00:11:22:AA:BB:CC from 00:00:00:00:00:17 (data size 44)... 0 bytes from 00:11:22:AA:BB:CC id 0 time 7.32ms 0 bytes from 00:11:22:AA:BB:CC id 1 time 22.46msBusinessman Roberto V. Ongpin has stepped down as chair and director of gaming firm Philweb Corp. following President Duterte’s threat to bring down “oligarchs” pinpointing the businessman.
Ongpin quit his post in Philweb and all subsidiaries effective immediately, based on a resignation letter submitted to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Thursday.
Shares of Philweb slid by 36.88 percent on Thursday following the strong statement issued by Duterte.
Mr.Duterte also indicated earlier on plans to crackdown against online gaming businesses.
Philweb operates e-Games stations or internet cafes exclusively dedicated to casino games including baccarat, blackjack, various slot machine games, video poker and others. Most e-Games cafes operate on a 24/7 basis.
Philweb’s key subsidiaries include BigGame Inc., Premyo sa Resibo Inc., e-Magine Gaming Corp., PhilWeb Convergence Corp. and PhilWeb Asia-Pacific Corp./rga
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SM nets P15Bby Brett Stevens on January 22, 2016
You can have one of two types of society: (1) where the strong eat the weak, and (2) where the weak eat the strong.
The first is Darwinism. The second is egalitarianism.
We can moralize about these, or talk about how they make us feel, but there are advantages to each. In the first, competence gradually increases. In the second, diversity and plurality and tolerance all increase, but competence declines. Think of your favorite tropical island paradise as described by National Public Radio.
“The villagers spend their days picking fruit, resting in the sun, swimming and hunting for fish and crabs in the tidal pools which line the white-sand beaches. Wearing colorful clothing, they dedicate most of their time to socializing, and are known as the friendliest and most open people on earth. Visitors are surprised to find themselves gifted with prized possessions and even family members by these generous, gregarious people whose lives are governed by the pursuit of pleasure more than efficiency.”
On the surface, it sounds very peaceful and comfortable. A little more analysis shows that for anyone with the ability to have more out of life than fruit salad and crab cakes, this life must be maddening. A society without the impulse to learn, grow, conquer, develop, evolve and improve. In other words, a stagnant place in the grips of entropy, made comfortable and colorful because it has given up on everything else.
Europeans grew strong when we valued excellence and supremacy. That is: we applied high standards, based in real-world consequences, across the board, and in so doing, taught our people vigorously in the ways of reality and how to discover it. The strong ate the weak, yes, meaning that those with no excellence to offer had a hard time of it, but in turn, they had a more stable society.
With democracy we switched to the third world system, weak-eat-strong, in which whoever can successfully conjure up the image of himself as a victim will get priority over everyone else. As a result, our standards have fallen and our mass culture now produces utter garbage, our government incompetents, and our business, trivial amusements. Maybe having the weaker get eaten was not such a bad idea after all.
Tags: egalitarianism, idiocracy, natural selection, social darwinism
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.NFL quarterback Cam Newton was spotted by Twitter user @soadman in downtown San Jose on Monday night.
According to the user’s twitter post, the Carolina Panthers quarterback appeared at the taqueria after Super Bowl 50 Opening Night at SAP Center.
Cam Newton really went to La Vic's after media day last night lol pic.twitter.com/euqG2LlsKR — Eric (@soadman) February 2, 2016
Newton was even still sporting that Super Bowl 50 towel on his head.
It’s unknown whether Newton tried the taqueria’s orange sauce, the item that the local business (and its 5 San Jose locations) are known for.
As the team practices this week at San Jose State University, many are wondering what’s next for dinner in San Jose? Super Taqueria? Punjab Cafe? Henry’s Hi-Life? Iguanas?
Those wouldn’t be bad choices.
Producer E. Paul Baca is a local food enthusiast and producer of The TK Show podcast.Hailing from polar opposite ends of the country, Cathal O’Donoghue (33) from Skibbereen, Co. Cork. Emma Devlin (30) from Malin, |
"dupe," but the purpose of installing nonfunctional thermostats is to keep building occupants feeling comfortable and in control, say many engineers, contractors and wholesalers in the HVACR industry. Still, some manufacturers do not approve of their intentional useor non-use for that matter. And even though these thermostats do not actually provide a direct interface to the mechanical system, by giving the illusion that they do, they act as a placebo in many cases. "We had an employee that always complained of being hot," recalls Greg Perakes, an HVACR instructor in Tennessee. "Our solution was to install a pneumatic thermostat. We ran the main air line to it inside of an enclosed I-beam. Then we just attached a short piece of tubing to the branch outlet (terminating inside the I-beam without being attached to any valves, etc.)." The worker "could adjust her own temperature whenever she felt the need," Perakes says, "thus enabling her to work more and complain less. When she heard the hissing air coming from inside the I-beam, she felt in control. We never heard another word about the situation from her again. Case solved." This approach seems to be taken by many others in the industry. The Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News conducted an informal survey on its web site, asking "Have you installed 'dummy thermostats'?" Out of 70 total responses, 51 said yes, they had; only 19 said no. To explain the effectiveness of nonfunctional thermostats, former News editor Tom Mahoney points to the words of esteemed HVACR engineer Joe Olivieri. He "always said that 'thermal comfort is 90% mental and 10% physical,'" recalls Mahoney. Also, these thermostats' placebo effect may be partly explained by our own physical ability to adjust to the environment. This ability or tendency is called "homeostasis" and according to Webster's New World College Dictionary, organisms achieve homeostasis through "organ systems that automatically compensate for environmental changes." And not only do our bodies make adjustments such as producing sweat, inducing shivering, and widening or constricting blood vessels to radiate more or less heat, we also have more sophisticated methods of maintaining our internal temperature, says Mary-Louise Kean, a professor of cognitive sciences with the University of California-Levine School of Social Sciences. "There are other options available which add a layer of complexity to the story of temperature control," she says. "If a person is cold, he or she has the option of putting on a sweater, seeking shelter, or increasing indoor temperature of his or her home. Thus, not only does the biological system contribute to a relatively constant internal temperature, but humans (and some other animals) can make use of their cognitive abilities to contribute to keeping the homeostatic balance." This means that if a person feels too hot, he or she could react by sweating, fiddling with a nonfunctional thermostat, taking off a layer of clothing and drinking something cold. While that person could credit his or her renewed sense of comfort to the thermostat adjustment, it is really due to homeostasis. Another important function of placebo thermostats is giving building occupants a sense of control. According to Dan Int-Hout, chief engineer for Dallas-based manufacturer Krueger and former chair of the ASHRAE Standard 55 (Thermal Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy) committee, such thermostats sometimes work for occupants who may not be too hot or cold "but want to have a degree of control." Many respondents of The News' survey echoed this sentiment, indicating that nonfunctional thermostats may be in large part for occupants who need to have a say over their environment. For example, Vaughn Langless of Rochester, NY wrote that after installing two rooftop air-handling units with air conditioning and natural gas heat exchangers in an office space, his staff was bombarded with requests to raise or lower the space temperatures. "Even though we were sure our system was working as it should and maintaining space temps to within one degree to two degrees, we could never completely satisfy the occupants of the space," he wrote. "We mounted a 'dummy stat' (short for 'dummy thermostat') adjacent to the 'controlling stat' and gave the floor manager the key to the statnow the occupants could 'control' their space as they desired with the permission of their manager." "The dummy stat did nothing except to give the occupants the impression that they had control of the HVAC system and the psychological effect of having control of their work environment," continued Langless. "Our service calls disappeared, and to my knowledge, that system is still set up and working as it has since 1987." In addition, nonfunctional thermostats help protect equipment because functional thermostats are often subjected to excessively frequent adjustments during "thermostat wars" and even abuse, including burning with cigarette lighters. In fact, installing dummy thermostats can sometimes be more effective than mounting a thermostat guard. This is because in public areas, a thermostat guard "by its very presence makes thermostats vulnerable to tampering," says John Sartain, market manager of thermostats at White-Rodgers, part of Emerson Climate Technologies. "Most people can identify a thermostat or a thermostat enclosed in an opaque or metal guard," continues Sartain. "So a secondary goal in some applications is to keep the public and others from 'playing' with the setting and possibly causing discomfort or equipment damage." While the public has access to nonfunctioning thermostats, "the thermostat itself can be positioned in a more secure location, like the manager's office," he says. Indeed, remote sensors are now available to allow the manager or any other authorized person to set the temperature in a certain area, such as the dining room, from a remote location. But before going ahead and installing placebo thermostats, keep a few things in mind. For starters, the facility decision-maker should be informed right away if a contractor thinks that using a nonfunctional thermostat is a sound idea. "The owner of the building needs to be made aware of it," says Sartain. Also, such thermostats should not be considered as the only solution. "If you have the opportunity to give the public control over their environment, you should," says Dan Int-Hout. "Locked thermostats in a nonpublic building are demoralizingit sends the message that management doesn't trust the employees." Indeed, research from Johnson Controls indicates that "investing in the indoor environment can be justified on the basis of productivity improvements alone." In addition, remember that installing nonfunctional thermostats won't satisfy the needs of occupants if building conditions are truly uncomfortable. For example, service contractors should check to see if air stratification is behind complaints. When air diffusers don't work properly, colder air stays at the foot/ankle level. In such cases, the HVAC system should be repaired, Int-Hout says. The bottom linemake sure your equipment is functioning. As poll respondent Doug Huberty from St. Paul put it, "If you fix the problems causing the too-hot, too-cold complaints, the staff forgets there is a thermostat on the wall." Source: Placebo Stats
Barb Checket-Hanks
The Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration News, Mar. 27, 2003
http://www.achrnews.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/coverstory/BNPCoverStoryItem/0,6152,95170,00.htmlBOTE, a leader in standup paddle board innovations, announces the debut of the newest addition to their quiver, Traveller. A board that through DarkRoom™ research and development, was designed to be the go to board for the touring category...or what we will call the "traveling class”. The glide, stability, capacity and advanced dynamics are just a few highlights that make the 12’6” Traveller the board for every paddler.
BOTE Lead Designer, Corey Cooper shares his vision, “With Traveller, we are aiming to define a category in SUP. I have always felt that the touring, adventure, expedition board category has been tremendously ignored concerning design and development by the paddle board industry, including us. To me, it seemed to be a byproduct of bigger, heavier race boards or sleeker, longer recreational boards… and whatever didn’t fit into those categories, automatically became the ‘touring’ board.” Cooper adds, “Traveller is different in that everything about the board was designed from the ground up for traveling. From how it carries you and your gear all the way to how you carry it.”
The Traveller is one of the most progressive boards on the market, and will be the first board to feature the new patent pending TraveLink™ system, that will revolutionize the way you transport your board. The adjustable and padded TraveLink™ Carry sling clips into the Traveller, and out of your hands in a matter of seconds. This system was created so you could literally throw your board over your shoulder and go–your fingers will never go numb carrying a board again. Cooper explains, “We looked at how people transported their boards and designed a system to assist with carrying a board, while toting around all the other gear necessary for a day long paddling trip. Once you get to the water, you can remove the sling from the rails of the board and secure it to the deck and out of your way. It’s just another BOTE innovation that will change the way people paddle.”
The DarkRoom™ was pivotal to the development of Traveller. What began as a concept board that was paddled through the Everglades during the Glades 100 trip was refined into an end product that we can all be proud of.
Pete Buzzelli, Director of the DarkRoom, worked alongside Cooper creating the first Traveller. “Corey came to me with a design concept that resembled a dolphin. The combination of the bottlenose entry with a swept v to flat hull really gave the board a unique look, I was intrigued. The goal was to develop a board that any paddler could push efficiently, in most conditions, be extremely stable, and have enough capacity to carry a 12-pack of beer… or two!” In regards to paddling dynamics, Buzzelli adds, “I paddle upwards of 6 miles per day on race boards, so when it was time to test the Traveller, I figured I’d add it into my paddling routine for a week or so. I was completely shocked how well it paddled for a larger board and knew immediately we had a game changer on our hands. It truly is a pleasure to paddle, and I am excited to see how the SUP industry reacts to it.”
"This is the board I have been waiting for", says Magda Cooper, BOTE's COO. "I'm at the point of my life where I don't have a whole lot of free time. Most of my time is occupied with work and raising my family. Paddling is still a huge passion of mine, so with what little time I have, I try to squeeze it all in. For me, Traveller is the perfect combination of all the elements of the sport. I can use it as a rec (recreational) board, I can do distance training, I can paddle with my kids...and if I can get away for a day or two it becomes my adventure board that can carry all my gear! The Travelink™ system is also a huge plus for me because it makes carrying the board exponentially easier. I tip my hat to all the people who helped develop the board, it's a great one."
Traveller is available in 4 different models: Native, Classic, Chainmail Pro2, and DarkRoom. The DarkRoom version will be available for purchase immediately with a 3-week production time.
To order and get more information on Traveller, click HERE.
Published on Wednesday, May 20, 2015 in Announcements, News, StoriesThis book started out in the summer of 1986 as a draft sequence guide for a TV magazineseries which was to kick off with an EDSA feature (an Armageddon a la Star Wars: the forces of good vs. the forces of evil) under the direction of Marilou Diaz-Abaya. The series didn't push through but I pushed on with my research because I wanted to show that the EDSA revolt was neither a CIA plot nor a miracle made in heaven (as state and church analysts were making it out to be) but a purely Filipino and mundane, if mind-boggling, affair.
Besides, I was already elbow-deep in the newspapers and magazines of the time, sifting the historical from the hysterical and fashioning the details into a chronology of the four days' sychronous events. Not that it was easy. Mostly, accounts either failed to indicate or didn't agree on what time, clockwise, things happened. For instance, several reports placed Jaime Cardinal Sin's first call over Radio Veritas at around nine o'clock, but one said it was after Butz Aquino's first call, and another, that Butz called after ten.
I was constantly rearranging and refining my sequence of events, especially as I began taking in new data from the snapbooks. I'd find that I had placed one event too early, another too late; even, that I had mistaken three different Marcos press conferences for one, thanks to a lazy reporter. Different sources also tended to focus on different details of an event; rarely would a source furnish all pertinent data so that recounting an even meant patching details from several sources into some sequence.
Remember how we laughed at Marcos when he cried "Coup!" and cheered Enrile when he dismissed the allegation as a "bunch of bull"? As it turned out, Marcos had been telling the truth and Enrile had been engaged in psychological warfare. So what else was true and what else was false? The EDSA story was literally begging to be straightened out and told in full.
By the time my first draft was read, however, the market was crammed with EDSA books that weren't moving. My chronology gathered dust.
Four years later, in August 1990, a copy found its way to then defense secretary Fidel V. Ramos. I had received feelers about a Ramos biography, apparently in anticipation of the 1992 presidential campaign. Howie Severino of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism had alreay said sorry, he didn't do PR (public-relations/propaganda) jobs. I wasn't as pure. It was my chance to get to the military commander of EDSA who had yet to tell his story of the four days. With filmmaker Gerry Gerena, who brokered the deal, I proposed a biography back-to-back with a fully documented EDSA chronology annotated by Ramos. Eventually the biography was bumped off in favor of EDSA.
We had two interview sessions with Secretary Ramos, one in Camp Aguinaldo (November 1990), and another in his home in Ayala Alabang (January 1991) with family and friends, including General Rene Cruz; plus a session each with General Jose Almonte and Major Avelino "Sonny" Razon. All accounts are on videotape. Soon after, on the occasion of the fifth EDSA anniversary, Secretary Ramos and June Keithley recounted their stories on radio, live, transcripts of which were placed at my disposal.
By August 1991 I was done. By October, Nonoy Marcelo had submitted a dummy of the cover design and layout, and a few illustrations.
I never heard from Ramos's friends again. In mid-1995 I started cleaning up and updating the material, intending to publish it by the tenth EDSA anniversary. I dropped the Ramos propaganda, then took in new details and perspectives from several books published from 1987 to 1991 here and in the United States. Also I took in Freddie Aguilar's story from an interview with him soon after EDSA (my transcripts of which had been lost and found) as well as socialite Rose Marie Arenas's account (from a September 1995 interview arranged by Iskho Lopez and Mila Alora).
In November, Nita Umali Berthelsen, my mother's sister, urged me to send a copy of the manuscript to her long-time friend Eugenia Duran Apostol, founder of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Mr. & Ms., which I did. Ms. Apostol phoned me the minute she finished reading it and said it was exactly what she had been looking for, a fully documented account of the four-day revolution. The best part of it was, Lorna Kalaw-Tirol managed to bag us a last-minute interview with former President Corazon C. Aquino (November 28).
We were not so lucky with either Senator Juan Ponce Enrile or the Marcoses. The senator's reaction to a simple request for an interview was a list of onerous conditions, including editing privileges. On the other hand, Irene Marcos-Araneta, who read an early draft of the manuscript, said the premise is wrong: "It was not a completely Filipino revoulution." Obviously she refers to the American aid that both rebel and government camps were offered. Records show, however, that the Americans were mostly on the sidelines and were as stunned as everyone else, including the Marcoses, at every unexpected turn of events.
My sequencing of events is tentative and styled for rearranging and ramifying by historians. Sources are cited at every point, the more clearly to show how slowly, and through which vehicles, information on EDSA trickled in. Materials have been edited only lightly, with certain inconsistencies and inaccuracies left in, to mirror more sharply the quality of Filipino journalism at the time, after fourteen years of censorship.
Angela Stuart-Santiago
December 1, 1995.- Is an exorcist afraid? What is the devil’s favorite sin? These and other questions were tackled in an interview this summer with the Dominican priest, Father Juan José Gallego, an exorcist from the Archdiocese of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.
It has been nine years since Fr. Gallego was appointed as exorcist. In an August interview conducted by the Spanish daily El Mundo, the priest said that in his experience, pride is the sin the devil likes the most.
“Have you ever been afraid?” the interviewer asked.
“In the beginning I had a lot of fear,” Fr. Gallego replied. “All I had to do was look over my shoulder and I saw demons… the other day I was doing an exorcism, ‘I command you! I order you!’…and the Evil One, with a loud voice fires back at me: ‘Galleeeego, you’re over-doooing it.’ That shook me.”
Nevertheless, he knows that the devil is not more powerful than God. The exorcist recalled that “when they appointed me, a relative told me, ‘Whoa, Juan José, I’m really afraid, because in the movie ‘The Exorcist,’ one person died and the other threw himself through a window. I said to her ‘Don’t forget that the devil is (just a) creature of God.’”
When people are possessed, he added, “they lose consciousness, they speak strange languages, they have inordinate strength, they feel really bad, you see very well-mannered people vomiting and blaspheming.”
“There was a boy whom the demon would set his shirt on fire at night and things like that. He told me what the demons were proposing him to do: If you make a pact with us, you’ll never have to go through any more of what you’re going through now.”
Father Gallego also warned that “New Age” practices like reiki and some yoga can be points of entry for the demons. He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”
“When people are going through a crisis they suffer more. They can feel hopeless, People feel like they’ve got the devil inside,” he said.
This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 25, 2015.$\begingroup$
One thing to consider about cultural phenomenon like rock'n'roll and hippies is that they rise out of cultural mixing. Rock'n'roll for instance grew out of rythm'n'blues and country, or rather out of black culture in america mixing with white poor culture. From there you can go on to say that it grows as a way of young people looking for a way to be in opposition to the the established structures, but it doesn't originate in that drive.
Hippies also didn't appear because of the Vietnam war, they arose from beatnik culture and a new western fascination with eastern spiritualism.
Similar things can also be said about older cultures, where it seems again that interesting things happen when people meet.
Consider for example what happens when early Christians travel to Greece and Rome to spread their faith and mix with the cultures they meet. Christianity goes from being a small, eccentric mystery cult to a sophisticated and state sanctioned religion in a relatively short time.
Another thing to consider is how cities and states grow in relation to trade routes. For example, the biggest cities in the UK were the port cities. This is also where cultures mix and interesting things happen.
Another earlier example is how presocratic philosophy has been theorised to have grown out of culture melding in the Mediterranean area.
It is when we meet other people that do things differently than ourselves that we gain the ability to question how things have been done in the past. This is important to consider when it comes to youthful rebellion and cultural differences between the classes, if the difference is more than how much they drink and how foul the language is, then the inspiration had to have come from somewhere.
And also furthermore people who adopt traits and aspects of somebody else's culture stands a lot freer to change it through their interpretation and desires than the original holders of the culture. Take the high heeled shoe for instance. It originates from Persian riding boots used by men and was imported to Europe as a masculine fashion, worn even by kings. But in Europe it was first and foremost a fashion and as such it wasn't bound in interpretation by traditional use. The shoe was kept, the idea behind if mostly forgotten.
Similar things can happen with musical traditions or ceremonies when they are taken up by new people.This is the first part of a paper delivered at the conference “Anglo-Catholicism: Uncovering Roots,” Church of the Advent, Boston, November 15-16.
Anglican Catholicism and the reformation of ecclesial order
I. Introduction and Definitions
I must confess that I am not sure I understand the meaning of the principal term of this mini-conference’s title about which we are invited to speak: Anglo-Catholicism. The Humean empiricist, visiting any number of parishes, chaplaincies, or dioceses that self-designate under the moniker Anglo-Catholic, would find it difficult to discover any real coherent center that binds them all together. From the Diocese of Forth Worth to the Society of St. John the Evangelist, from Christ Church New Haven or the Diocese of Albany to Pusey House, Oxford, and not excluding the so-called Biretta Belt of the Northern Midwest, of which our institutional neighbor, Nashotah House, might be said to be the pompom — the untutored pilgrim making her way through such a wondrous and varied landscape would depart with many field notes and even more questions. A minori ad maius, the difficulty of defining the adjective Anglo-Catholic raises the question of whether or how we might meaningfully speak of a reified Anglo-Catholicism. Given such complexities, I should like to make a brief note here about how I will be using these terms.
There are two principal ways of speaking of Anglo-Catholicism. The first is to speak of Anglo-Catholicism as a matter of “taste.” One might associate this stream, at its best, with a kind of ascetical and aesthetical piety, and at its worst with a kind of fussy and spikey second-wave ritualism of the sort lampooned by Anthony Trollope, G.K. Chesterton, and Evelyn Waugh. The second principal way to speak about Anglo-Catholicism is not as a matter of taste, but as a matter of truth. It is in this latter sense that I mean it. Because of the definitional tension, I prefer to speak instead of Anglican Catholicism, as I have in my title, to indicate both a rootedness in Anglo-Catholic theology and piety as well as an openness to new ecumenical, evangelical, and Pentecostal gifts now evident throughout the Church catholic.
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II. A 20th-century Typology
It is well known that the preservation of apostolic succession, as expressed to a large degree by the maintenance of the historic episcopate, is one of the principal arguments marshaled by Anglicanism (as well as by Swedish Lutheranism) in defense of its possession of a catholic identity. And yet, as the persistent extremes of Anglo-puritanism and Anglo-papalism manifest, the episcopacy remains an irritant as well as a catholic rallying point within the Church’s divided life. This paper explores both the past and future prospects of the episcopacy (and its discontents) as conceived by Anglican Catholic theologians, in an attempt to better understand this traditional hallmark of the Church’s universal life. In consists of three broad movements. First, I will offer a twofold typology of Anglican Catholic cases for the episcopacy in the 20th century: the Ignatian-Cyprianic view, represented by Michael Ramsey, and the Augustinian view, represented by Oliver O’Donovan. As a means of gaining some historical perspective on these two options, I will turn to one of the less studied “roots” of Anglican Catholic tradition: Francis à Sancta Clara, a 17th-century convert to Roman Catholicism who, as a Franciscan monk, wrote an ecumenical defense of the English episcopate against the Puritans, Erastians, and Jesuits alike, in friendly dialogue with the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. In a third section, I will return to the present and make a constructive proposal about how these theological and historical observations might catalyze a development (I won’t say reform) of the episcopate in the American Episcopal Church.
Michael Ramsey’s Cyprianic Defense of Bishops in The Gospel and the Catholic Church
First things first. Supposing you and I had both been educated in Episcopal seminaries sometime in the second half of the 20th century and we were playing a game of “theological association.” If I said historic episcopate, the first term to pop into your head would likely be Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. If you had had a good patristics teacher in seminary, as I did, you might also remember something about the development of a “mono-episcopate” in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch and the “birth of Catholic episcopal order” in second-century Asia Minor. If, as an Anglican, you also had an inexplicable preferential option for triplets, such as the Trinity or three-legged stools, you might also associate the historic episcopate with a book by Michael Ramsey written before he was an archbishop called The Gospel and the Catholic Church.[1]
In the central chapter of his seminal work, “The Gospel and the Episcopacy,” Ramsey asks the question that many today still consider to be at the heart of the issue: “Does the developed structure of the Episcopacy fulfil the same place in the Church and express the same truth as did the Apostles’ office in Samaria and in Corinth and throughout the Apostolic Church?”[2] Although some might wish to quibble with the “primitivist” framing of Ramsey’s question, at least from an apologetic standpoint — particularly when defending the place of bishops to various Neo-puritan groups — the question of continuity looms large. As evidence of this, one need only survey Alistair Stewart’s recent monograph, The Original Bishops: Office and Order in the First Christian Communities, which presents a not wholly convincing takedown of the “consensus” narrative about the development of the three-fold ministry championed by Ramsey.[3] Stewart’s book indicates that Ramsey’s question was and remains on the money for many.
One finds in Ramsey’s chapter much that is commendable, including his hallmark case for the synergy of Gospel and Patristic ecclesiology: in Ramsey’s words, “the structure is now more definite, it is specially related to the Eucharist … but the structure still expresses the Gospel.”[4] Ramsey’s case rests upon his championing of Ignatius of Antioch’s myriad metaphors of the Church as a temple or well-tuned lyre, all undergirded by Ignatius’ watchword: “do nothing without the bishop!”[5]
What is surprising in Ramsey’s treatment is not this foregrounding of Ignatius’s letters, but his treatment of two other Latin fathers: Cyprian and Augustine. Here, I recognize, I am dangerously close to committing the sin of “exposing my father’s nakedness.” Indeed, it would be unfair of me to criticize Ramsey for not knowing the blossoming of neo-Augustinian Catholic thought of the last few decades, nor to take into account further developments in his own ecclesiology. Still, insofar as we are speaking as a family here, I think it is critical to take a look at the old photo album for the sake of honesty and in the hope of moving forward together in a spirit in which Ramsey himself would approve.
Ramsey’s unexpected narrative surfaces in a later chapter of The Gospel and the Catholic Church titled “The Church of the Fathers.” Here, it is Cyprian who emerges as the hero of the Western ecclesiological tradition. Writes Ramsey,
In S. Cyprian the place of the Episcopate as an organ of unity, unfolded first in St. Ignatius and S. Irenaeus, finds full and systematic exposition. The Church’s unity is unbreakable; its oneness is of the charity of God, and only in this oneness can the charity of God be known and lived. Hence the separation from the Church means separation from God.”[6]
Augustine, to the contrary, although taking up the mantle of Cyprian in the Donatist controversy, emerges in Ramsey’s narrative as the fall guy who opens the door to a dangerous liberalism that fails to defend the principle extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Again, quoting Ramsey,
In his longing for peace S. Augustine abandoned the rigid and Cyprianic view that baptism and orders are invalid outside the Church. … He urged the laxer view, and the laxer view prevailed. But if this new view was ‘broader,’ it contained the seeds of much perversity in later history. For while the Cyprianic view makes orders utterly dependent upon the Church and validity a part of the Church’s single life in grace, the Augustinian view leaves room for thinking of orders as valid apart from the church’s corporate life and for the idea of succession by orders as a single and isolated channel of grace. S. Augustine has ‘broadened’ Church theory; but he has opened the way for a line of thought which glories in the name of Catholic but which severs the doctrine of orders from the doctrine of the Body of Christ.[7]
Despite his evident respect for Augustine, Ramsey brings him up on the charge of “liberalizing,” recognizing orders and thereby legitimate succession “outside the church”; this makes room, according to Ramsey, for an overly juridical understanding of apostolic succession. One may detect here Ramsey’s critique of both the High and Broad Church movements, severed as they are from his preferred Cyprianic model and his Evangelical-Lutheran emphasis on the Gospel. Space does not permit me to engage in a historical critique of Ramsey’s work as a scholar of Augustine.[8] Suffice it to say that while the liberalizing charge might be fair in a certain sense, it remains unclear that this was, even from a traditionalist point of view, a bad thing. Nor does it entirely ring true that Cyprian rather than Augustine is the true possessor of the Gospel spirit.
Oliver O’Donovan and the New-Augustinian Defense of Bishops
As a proof of this, I would like to adduce a second 20th-century voice for whom Augustine is the principal conduit of the continuity of the gospel and church order: Oliver O’Donovan. O’Donovan, who has held teaching positions at the Wycliffe Halls of both Oxford and Toronto, would perhaps be amused to find himself featured in a conference on Anglo-Catholicism. He is, on the other hand, someone who has written in his monumental work of Christian politics, The Desire of the Nations, as passionate an evangelical defense of the goods of Catholic Christendom — including at least hinting at the centrality of bishops in Anglican order — as could be hoped for. If Ramsey is an Anglo-Catholic, he is also as Newman was, a one-time evangelical. And here, given our interest in Anglican rather than Anglo-Catholic Roots, O’Donovan has considerable gifts to offer.
Although The Desire of the Nations is primarily a book about Christian politics and the kingdom of God, O’Donovan finds it necessary to write a chapter on “The Church” in order to differentiate the ecclesial order from that of the kingdom and to address questions of church and state that are required for any citizen of a country with an established state religion. His argument about the church — although situated in a wider matrix of political theology — can be summarized by way of three central theses that he poses:
1. We assert first the true character of the church as a political society. This term is used (of course) analogously. … But it is not used metaphorically as, for example, one may use it of societies that have political features to them but are essentially constituted to discharge a special function in society. … It is ruled and authorized by the ascended Christ alone and supremely; it therefore has its own authority; and it is not answerable to any other authority that may attempt to subsume it.[9]
In this first thesis, O’Donovan argues against any Erastian arrangement, in which the church has its source of authority and its internal order from the state. One might find here insinuated (though not quite explicitly) a defense of bishops (see below), under the scepter of Christ the King, as possessing a real political power. O’Donovan goes on to qualify this statement in a second thesis:
2. In the second place, however, we assert that the political character of the church, its essential nature as a governed society, is hidden, to be discerned by faith as the ascended Christ who governs it is to be discerned by faith. Experienced from within, the church is a community of obedience and freedom, a society under the law of Christ, heedful of his commands and direction and enjoying the freedom from all other lordships that he has won for it. Looked at from the outside, it presents the appearance of a functional religious organism rather than a political one.[10]
What O’Donovan gives with the one hand, he appears to rescind with the other. Christ is the sole political authority in the church and no other order is visible. Does this mean that there is no place for a Peter or Apostolic office under the scepter of Christ? Surely, moreover, a threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, if visible from the inside, would also be recognizable from the outside?
O’Donovan goes on to clarify this paradox in a third thesis:
3. How then may we describe [1.] the church’s political character as [2.] a community ruled by Christ? One formal principle must be respected: we are to speak distinctly of the church’s catholicity, on the one hand, and of its order, on the other.[11]
Here, O’Donovan lays out the twin arches of his ecclesiological edifice. Perhaps counterintuitively (to the Cyprianic catholic), the church’s “catholicity” is governed by its freedom in the Holy Spirit. The church’s “order,” by contrast, flows from the kingly order she receives from the risen and ascended Jesus. In this Trinitarian structure, O’Donovan holds together in delicate balance the Anglican need to articulate a source of apostolic succession (by way of the ministry of Jesus) and the Catholic need to be open to the promptings of the Spirit. As O’Donovan further explains:
The catholic identity of the church derives from the progress of the Spirit’s own mission. It is therefore always larger than its ordered structures, taking its shape from the new ground that the spirit is possessing.[12]
This starting point, however, does not authorize us to conclude that order is a matter of indifference. Here, the tradition of Geneva upheld an important element of catholic tradition in resistance to the spiritualising of the church in earlier Anglican and Lutheran reforms ….. A certain structuring of the church’s life is given with that life. Many local and temporal adaptations of church order are conceivable, and many have been practiced. Yet we expect some abiding signs, some marks of identification which will stamp a formal identity on the community and confirm, in instituted practices, that we may look for a ‘catholic shape’ within it. Catholicism and order are related as substance and form.[13]
In this stunning tour de force of a paragraph, O’Donovan gives, and then takes away, and then gives again the traditional marks of ecclesial ministerial order, particularly the order of bishops. On the one hand, he appears to admit the possibility of “many local and temporal adaptations” which sounds far too comprehensive to require bishops. But he then suggests a definitive “catholic shape” must be found in all of these local adaptations. With such an imperative, one might be able to embrace a variety of local patterns of ministerial orders within the church’s catholicity, while also admitting that some conform more closely to the “ideal form” of order that flows from the monarchical authority of Christ.
The critical question, to use O’Donovan’s philosophical terminology, is whether the church’s single Catholic substance can in fact be “formed” by a series of distinct local “orders” at the same time. Would such a multiplicity of forms, even if judged by a single preferred archetype, disfigure the substance of the Catholic Church? Or might we find, beneath the imperfect Aristotelian analogy offered by O’Donovan, a critical safeguard against the perennial practical attractions of Donatism?
As a matter of ecumenical fact, a description like O’Donovan’s — of the Church as of single substance with multiple forms — is required to embrace even the catholicity of the Roman and Orthodox communions in a single church, with their differing understandings of diaconal, episcopal, metropolitan, |
door.
Wait! I shout, jogging after them. I didn’t mean you guys.
But I know where Adam is! the son yells back. He was just here!
Ma’am! Short yells.
The kids lead the way. They’re fast, champions of varsity track. They trundle through the house, gleefully jumping over sofas, ottomans, armchairs, knocking over credenzas and floor lamps.
Kids! I yell.
They punch through the door that leads to the back wing, with me following right behind. They run down the shriveled length of its hallway, opening up the remaining doors. Distantly, I hear familiar, ragged breathing. Then, a door slams.
He went outside! the daughter yells.
Outside, I pause for a second, scanning the voluminous acres of hill, most of which we own, ripe with unregulated flora and fauna. The hill bottoms out onto a freeway below us. It’s cold. Our breath comes out in fogs.
There is a full moon. Their blond hair fans behind them, encircling their heads like halos.
Kids! I yell again. I can hear other footfalls behind us. I don’t know who is running after whom. The kids are running after him. I am running after them. The Husband is running after me. The LAPD are running after we. We are running after he.
He went over there! the son yells, veering left.
The kids go off in one direction and, despite my protests, they keep going, with the Husband, Tall and Short not far behind. I go off in the opposite direction, intuiting something, a shape, a movement, a memory. On this side of the hill things are much harder to see. The ground is uneven, dinged with rocks and twigs and brushweed. Thorny shrubs scratch my skin. My shirt snags on a pine tree. Pebbles get caught in my sandals and cut the soles of my feet.
I think I can hear the sound of his ragged breath, but I can’t be sure it isn’t my own. I keep running and running. I run until I can’t breathe, and I can’t keep going. Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! I scream. My vision blurs. I clutch the stitch in my side. When I blink and my vision clarifies, I see, in the distance, a single windowpane of light with a girl inside. She’s standing in her kitchen in El Paraiso, barefoot in a summer dress. It’s Friday night. She is going out. She is putting on her shoes, her jacket. She gazes out the window, and for a brief, implausible moment, I could swear that she is looking at me. Then she switches off the lights.
This is when I see him, standing behind a tree a few yards away. I see his body, not as big and tall as anyone would expect, but not lanky either. I see his face, still unshed of its slight baby fat. The light eyes, the dark hair. The mouth always ready to curdle into a smile, always eager to say that everything’s going to be okay, always quick to promise that it’ll never happen again. We are frozen, studying one another. He breathes in steady, cautious intervals. His fingers unfurl uneasily against the bark. I know his breath as if it were my own. I know his hands, with their worn knuckles, as if they were my own.
As he steps out from behind the tree, his face passing through shadow, it is almost as if he’s about to greet me, the way an old friend would after years of separation. Maybe he’s going to ask me to coffee, and we’ll settle all this at Starbucks. He takes one step but comes no further, just to show that he can, and it’s not until then that I realize how vulnerable I am. I am alone.
And yet.
Stop! I yell.
His face changes. He starts running again and that says everything. I charge after him, sprinting at the fastest speed I can muster, accelerating at a rate beyond comprehension. I don’t know what I will do if I actually catch him. I can’t hold him down. I can’t arrest him. But I am close enough that I can see the goosebumps on the backs of his arms, and it isn’t until I am this close that I realize how much I want to catch him. I really, really want to catch him. I want to masticate him with my teeth. I want to barf on him and coat him in my stinging acids. I want to unleash a million babies inside of him and burden him with their upbringings.
I chase him downhill, towards the freeway, the traffic lights, cars honking, radios playing a mash of songs about heartbreak and ruin, heartbreak and memory, heartbreak and hatred, how it’s the deeper intimacy.
I reach out and almost touch his shirt. I can feel the warmth of his skin, I can smell the sourness of his sweat. He jumps beyond my reach.
But I am close. I am so, so close.
Photograph © CarstenLos Angeles, California (CNN) -- Lindsay Lohan does not have a film shoot in Texas next month, contrary to what the actress's lawyer told a judge Monday, according to a movie studio.
Lohan's lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel to reconsider ordering Lohan to wear an alcohol-detecting ankle bracelet because it would interfere with her filming.
"Miss Lohan has indicated to me that she has been told that there are scenes she must reshoot for the 'Machete' film," Holley told CNN Tuesday. "I believe her and, for that reason, I mentioned it to the judge."
But a spokesman for 20th Century Fox told CNN Tuesday that "Machete" is well into post-production already and no reshoots are scheduled.
Lohan was cast as the daughter of the title character in the film, which is expected to hit theaters in early September.
Judge Revel was not swayed by Holley's appeal. She said the 23-year-old actress must remain in the Los Angeles area so she will be available for random drug testing.
"It's going to be drug testing here," meaning in California, Revel said.
The SCRAM (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring) ankle bracelet and random drug tests were among several new bail conditions imposed on Lohan by the judge until there is a probation revocation hearing on July 6.
Revel also prohibited Lohan from drinking alcohol or missing any weekly alcohol counseling sessions.
The SCRAM bracelet samples perspiration on the skin every half hour to detect if the wearer has ingested alcohol, according to an online fact sheet posted by its maker, Alcohol Monitoring Systems Inc. The bracelet collects data and transmits it to a monitoring location.
Random drug testing was ordered because of previous evidence that Lohan was under the influence of cocaine, Revel said last week.
It was Lohan's alleged failure to attend alcohol counseling classes, ordered after a 2007 drunken driving conviction, that landed her back in court this month.
Holley told Revel that Lohan missed her session last week because her uncle died.
"Did she go to the funeral?" Revel asked.
"She did not," Holley answered.
Lohan's failure to show up for court as ordered last Thursday prompted the judge then to rule there was "probable cause to believe (Lohan) is in violation of probation."
Holley told the judge that Lohan was unable to catch a flight from France two days earlier because she had lost her passport at the Cannes Film Festival.
Prosecutor Danette Meyers on Monday asked for proof that Lohan had a ticket to fly back to the United States in time for last week's hearing. Holley said she has the proof and will show it to the court.
During last week's hearing, the judge revoked Lohan's probation, issued an arrest warrant and imposed the new conditions.
"I warned her before," Revel said. "She knew it was very serious."
Lohan was not arrested when she finally arrived in Los Angeles from France Saturday because her $100,000 bond had already been posted.
Lohan traveled to France last week to promote her newest movie role as 1970s porn star Linda Lovelace.
She was arrested twice in 2007 on charges of driving under the influence and in the second incident also was charged with cocaine possession.
The first arrest came after Lohan lost control of her Mercedes-Benz convertible and struck a curb in Beverly Hills.
Just two weeks after checking out of a Malibu drug and alcohol rehab facility, she was arrested again in July 2007 after a woman called Santa Monica police, saying Lohan was trying to run her down with a car.
CNN's JD Cargill contributed to this report.There must be a special modder gene that compels them to rebuild famous gaming locations using tools that were never designed for the task. Modder SuX Lolz is clearly too hard on himself, because he's done a spectacular job of shoehorning an interpretation of Mirror's Edge's prologue into a Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Deathrun map. Here's the original for comparison.
Some of the grime and fine detail is absent, sure, but the palette and stark lines of the city is dead on. The preview went live in late February, and I'm struggling to grasp how such a massive project has only just surfaced, but here in is now—soak it in. Maybe file a bookmark too, because it's not quite done: Lolz plans to add a number of secrets to the map and is contemplating bringing it to Black Ops 3 should modding tools ever surface.
Thanks, PCGamesN.Shure just announced two new models of Bluetooth wireless earphones. The $150 SE215 and $100 SE112 each deliver deep bass and sound isolation, and they’re the first Bluetooth earbuds that Shure has ever made. Both deliver up to 8 hours of battery life on a charge and offer a maximum wireless range of around 30 feet. Their noise isolation blocks “up to 37 dB of ambient noise.” Both are available immediately.
Shure promises that the SE215 earphones — already available as a wired set — put out “rich, detailed sound” over Bluetooth. And like the company’s other, more expensive earphones, they feature a detachable cable that connects the two earbuds. Shure is actually selling this “Bluetooth Communication Cable” separately for $99, which will let existing customers go wireless with their earphones. The cable sits behind your neck, which means the overall appearance will be somewhat similar to Beats X or Beyerdynamic’s Byron BT. There’s just no getting away from that neckbud style if you want to go wireless — but at least these don’t have a hard collar. The Bluetooth cable is compatible with numerous products including the excellent SE535 earphones. The SE215s are available in translucent blue, translucent black, clear, or white.
The less expensive SE112 earphones have a fixed cable and only come in black. Shure says they produce “big sound.” At these price points, Shure is going against a big pool of wireless earbud competition that includes Bose, Beats, Jaybird, Sony, LG, and more. Since Shure is only just now getting around to releasing its first Bluetooth earphones, I wouldn’t expect the company to challenge Apple, Bragi, Samsung, and others with “truly wireless” earbuds in the near future — even if they’d probably be very popular with Shure’s target market.Apple says that it is investigating a video showing an iPhone 7 Plus engulfed in smoke emitting from a large crack in the device that went viral this week.
The doomed rose gold iPhone belonged to 18-year Brianna Olivas, cursing (understandably) while smoke rises from the melted remains of her phone. The video, taken by her boyfriend Wednesday morning, already has 25,000 retweets.
According to Olivas, the trouble began when her device wasn’t turning on. She then took the iPhone 7 Plus, which she bought in January, to an Apple Store where employees ran tests and told her everything was fine. The device was back to functioning normally. However, the very next morning, her phone caught fire.
“The next morning I was asleep with my phone charging next to my head, my boyfriend grabbed the phone and put in on the dresser,” she was reported by Mashable as saying.
“He went to the restroom and from the corner of his eye he saw my phone steaming and heard a squealing noise. By the time he got over to the phone it had already caught fire, he quickly grabbed the phone and threw it in the restroom, as soon as he threw it in the restroom, it blew up and more smoke started coming out of the phone,” she added.
So my IPhone 7 plus blew up this morning???? was not even using it, literally no explanation for this pic.twitter.com/sQ8CJt4Y69 — Bree? (@briannaolivas_) February 23, 2017
Olivas has returned the device to Apple and she says that the representatives have told her that they are conducting tests and expect to know more within a week.
“We are in touch with the customer and looking into it,” an Apple representative told Mashable.Now that the MLB postseason has begun, Alex Rodriguez is again serving as an analyst for Fox Sports during their pregame and postgame broadcasts. A-Rod did the same during the regular season as well, though not nearly as often.
It has been a little over a year since the Yankees released A-Rod -- they paid him $21 million not to play in 2017 -- which came after an awful lot of drama. Rodriguez admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs while with the Rangers more than a decade ago, then was suspended for the entire 2014 season as part of the Biogenesis scandal.
A-Rod recently sat down with Joe Buck for a segment on his show "Undeniable," during which he spoke about his PED use and how it hurt him. How he hurt himself, really. Hannah Withlam of the New York Post has a transcript:
"Yeah, I mean there's so many frustrating things when you look back at that," Rodriguez tells Buck in an excerpt from the show "Undeniable," which will air Oct. 18. "Number one, you have a guaranteed contract for hundreds of millions of dollars. Literally, you can sit on the couch and get fat. Right, how stupid can you be? … This thing cost me over $40 million. And it cost me my reputation, and it may have cost me the Hall of Fame and a number of other things. "And I remember sitting there at night at maybe 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning — I probably did this a hundred nights — and I would look up with tears and say, 'How the eff did I get myself in this position?' I'm the only jackass that has pocket aces and figures out a way to lose the hand."
The $40 million A-Rod refers to is likely the combination of the $24 million in salary he forfeited during his 2014 suspension, as well as the various home run milestone bonuses baked into his contract. A-Rod was due to receive a $6 million bonus each for his 660th (tying Willie Mays for fourth all-time), 714th (tying Babe Ruth for third all-time), 755th (tying Hank Aaron for second all-time), 762nd (tying Barry Bonds for first all-time), and 763rd (passing Bonds) homers.
Rodriguez retired with 696 career home runs and the Yankees disputed the $6 million bonus for his 660th homer, saying he wasn't marketable following his PED suspension. The two sides eventually agreed to a donation to charity instead. Had A-Rod not been suspended, chances are he would've at least had a chance to catch Ruth for third on the all-time home run list.
In the interview with Buck, Rodriguez goes on to explain the hardest part of his PED ordeal was explaining the situation to his daughters. Here's more from Withlam:
"(Hip surgery) doesn't give you an excuse to break the rules. And I made a mistake and I paid a penalty," he said. "And then the hardest thing I had to do, I had to admit to Natasha and Ella the mistakes that I made, my daughters. And I needed [ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis] to be part of that. I told Cynthia, 'When I sit down with the girls, they're gonna be listening to me, but they're gonna be looking at you, and chances are I'm not gonna make it past first base because I'm gonna start breaking down.' And sure enough, I almost didn't get out of home plate. "And doing that, admitting that to them, and then having them embrace me and hug me, and to a degree forgive me, as I look forward, Joe, I think about I never want to put myself in a position that I have to explain myself to my daughters ever again."
At the end of the day, no one is going to feel sorry for A-Rod, nor should they. He banked hundreds of millions of dollars in his career and has no one to blame for his PED use but himself. A clean A-Rod is still a likely Hall of Famer and an all-time great given his immense natural talent. That, apparently, wasn't enough for Rodriguez.Below is a post from Yusuf Mehdi, Chief Marketing Officer for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division, announcing details about a major new update to the Xbox dashboard and the launch of Xbox SmartGlass, which brings games, music, TV and movie experiences off the console and onto your phone, tablet and PC.
Steve Ballmer recently stated that 2012 will be “the most epic year in Microsoft’s history.”
Not only do we have major releases coming to the PC, tablet and phone, but we have worked extremely hard to ensure those screens work together with the other major screen in peoples’ lives, the television. People often call out the role Microsoft design style is playing in this new wave of experiences from the company. Whether you are using a phone, PC, tablet or console that is running our software you have an experience that is distinctively Microsoft, elegant, intuitive and integrated.
Now, there is another common thread that ties all of these experiences together – Xbox entertainment.
Today marks the beginning of two major launches for Xbox entertainment.
First, on top of what is the greatest year for games in Xbox history, beginning today a brand new update will roll out broadly for every Xbox 360 owner in the world that brings entirely new TV entertainment experiences. We are bringing the Web to the TV like never before with Internet Explorer, launching a brand new music service, and making it even easier to find the entertainment you love using Kinect and Bing voice search. This release is the next step in our journey to transform Xbox 360 from a games console to an all-in-one entertainment system.
Second, we are bringing Xbox Entertainment off the console to your phone, tablet and PC to deliver great games, music, TV and movie experiences. And as a part of this effort with Xbox SmartGlass we are going to introduce amazing multi-screen entertainment experiences.
Back in June, we talked about how this is the year Xbox becomes the premium entertainment service for Microsoft. While our success with Xbox to date has been led by a box in the living room, we’re now reaching individuals in new and exciting ways across PCs, tablets and phones. Xbox will be a gateway to the best in movies, TV shows, music, sports, your favorite games and instant access to your friends, wherever you are.
This week, with the launch of Windows 8, followed shortly thereafter by Windows Phone 8 devices, we’ll flip the switch on that transformation with the launches of four new experiences that make entertainment better on every screen in your life:
· Xbox Music,
· Xbox Video
· Xbox Games; and
· Xbox SmartGlass.
At that moment, we will rapidly accelerate the reach of Xbox entertainment from more than 67 million consoles to literally hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. Also this week, we will take our biggest step ever to increase our global reach, extending Xbox entertainment experiences to 222 countries from 35.
We realize some may ask, “Why are all these apps called Xbox, isn’t Xbox just a game console?” For us the decision to have Xbox stand for our broad entertainment efforts was a simple one. It is a natural evolution of our consumer offering. Even as Xbox has become the number one game console in the world, and continued to deliver arguably the best line up of games in our history, we have seen the use of Xbox broaden to watching TV/movies and listening to music.
During the last couple of years, we have grown our global entertainment portfolio to more than 62 TV and entertainment partners. Our Xbox LIVE subscribers now spend more time enjoying entertainment apps than multiplayer games. And this is occurring even when multiplayer gaming is also growing on our console.
Also, we live in a multi-device world. The millions of people enjoying entertainment on their Xbox are doing so within arm’s reach of another device. We believe your entertainment should travel seamlessly across devices, that devices should work together to make your entertainment more accessible and create entirely new experiences. We knew we needed a single name for all entertainment experiences from our company and nothing means entertainment at Microsoft more than Xbox.
Xbox SmartGlass is a great example of our approach to multi-screen entertainment. With SmartGlass we are focusing on two key objectives:
1. Make discovering and controlling your entertainment simple, no matter the device you’re using; and
2. Ensure you get more from your entertainment experience.
Xbox SmartGlass is a free downloadable app that takes your Windows 8 and RT tablets and PCs, Windows Phone 8, iOS and Android devices, and converts them into smart second screens for the entertainment you are enjoying through your Xbox.
Today, we are unveiling our first wave of experiences and partners for Xbox SmartGlass. They are the first of many to become available over the coming months.
Navigate your Entertainment – Your phone and tablet will become the best remote controls in your house. Use the touch screen on your smartphone or tablet to control your Xbox 360, and use your devices to pause, rewind or advance entertainment.
TV & Movies – With Xbox Video, start a TV show or movie on your Windows 8 tablet and finish it on the big screen through Xbox 360; see the names of cast and crew for the film you are watching and discover related films. To give you one example of what you can expect, coming next season, HBO GO’s “Game of Thrones” will offer groundbreaking Xbox SmartGlass experiences.
Sports – While watching the game, use a second screen to follow real-time stats, player bios, news and highlights you may have missed. All of this and more will be available for NBA Game Time, ESPN and UFC in the coming months.
Music – Control your Xbox Music experience on the TV using your smartphone or tablet, discover related artists and songs, cue up additional music, read artist bios and more.
Internet Explorer for Xbox - The Web comes to TV like never before with Xbox 360 and Xbox SmartGlass. With your smartphone or tablet, pan or pinch and zoom to explore the Web on the largest and best screen in the house, enjoy easy text entry with the keyboard on your tablet or phone, and then move your browser back to your device to take it on the go.
Games – Get more from your game when you can use a second screen. Turn you phone or tablet into a virtual GPS in Forza: Horizon. Don’t stop the dance party in Dance Central 3 by going back to the menu to choose your next song. Instead, queue it up on your tablet or smartphone. In HomeRun Stars, use SmartGlass on your favorite device to throw a surprise pitch to your friend up at bat in front of Kinect. See detailed stats on how you are progressing in Halo 4, or check up on friends. All of these features and much more will be available when your favorite game extends to multiple screens.
And we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible. In the future, new games will be created, TV shows and movies will be re-imagined, and sports will be broadcast from the ground up with Xbox SmartGlass in mind.
Moreover, we are making it easier than ever to buy an Xbox 360 console. Starting this fall, we are rolling out the “Entertainment for All” pricing plan that enables you to buy an Xbox 360 for $99 when you sign up for 2 years of Xbox LIVE. Entertainment For All Plan will include U.S. retailers: Best Buy, GameStop, Walmart, Toys R Us and the Microsoft Store.
With these new technologies, services and pricing, Xbox entertainment has never been:
· More simple and engaging
· Available on so many new devices; and
· More affordable.
So, yes, this is certainly an epic year for Microsoft. But more importantly, it’s an epic time for all of you that love amazing entertainment.Stanford's student-built home ranks high in green building competition
Stanford's first-ever entry in the Department of Energy-sponsored green building competition finished in fifth place, the top team among California-based competitors, and placed among the top five teams in six of the 10 judging categories.
Bjorn Carey Stanford students participating for the first time in the Department of Energy's green building competition were pleased that their project finished fifth in the international competition.
Stanford students participated in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon green-building competition for the first time this year, but performed like seasoned veterans. The student-built Start.Home finished fifth among an international field of 19 similar projects.
The Solar Decathlon invites students to present their vision of an affordable, solar-powered home. Each house was judged on 10 criteria, such as engineering, energy balance and affordability, with each category worth 100 points toward an overall score.
Stanford students entered the contest with their Start.Home concept, a solar-powered modular home built around a Core unit that encapsulates the bulk of the home's electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems – an approach that helped make the home more energy efficient, and could also lead to assembly-line-like production of sustainable homes. The home also featured several design elements meant to guide homeowners toward self-selecting energy-efficient behaviors.
Team Austria, of the Vienna University of Technology, took the top honors, finishing with 951.9 points out of a possible 1,000. Competition was tight near the top, though: Stanford finished just 18.8 points out of first place.
"For a first-time competitor that was relatively short staffed, and competing against more experienced teams, I think fifth place is pretty damn good," said team leader Derek Ouyang, '13.
The Start.Home scored in the top five of six categories, though students were particularly proud of finishing tied for first in "Affordability" – their house cost $234,000, significantly less than any of the projects that finished ahead of Stanford – and tied for third in "Market Appeal."
The two results underscored the positive comments from the roughly 10,000 visitors who toured the house during the 10-day competition.
"We set out with a couple of major goals, and we didn't want to build an impossible vision of the future, but a very practical, feasible direction for the industry," Ouyang said. "We valued affordability and market appeal the most from the start. Doing well in those contests is among our proudest achievements."
The competition was held in Irvine, Calif., which inspired the team to design a home that they believed would fit the environmental and lifestyle demands of a young California couple. With that goal in mind, they were pleased to place higher than any other California-based team.
"We put together a concept that's a model for sustainable home building in California, and we got really great feedback from people who visited the house," said Rob Best, the construction lead. "We probably could have taken a million dollars in down payments from people wanting to buy one."
The students said that designing and building an entire home from the ground up was the ultimate learning experience.
"As an engineer going into this field to design energy building systems, having this level of a nuts-and-bolts experience is huge," said Best, a PhD student in sustainable design and construction in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "This changes my perception of how to design, and how those designs will be received by industry. We'll all be better engineers and architects as a result of participating in this project."
Ouyang, who graduated last year with degrees in architectural design and civil engineering, said the Start.Home's success was a testament to how much students can achieve at Stanford if they have the initiative to take on new challenges.
"This project brought together so many students that would never have worked together," Ouyang said. "What started largely as a construction-based project, working in Civil and Environmental Engineering, eventually brought in students and faculty from Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and the d.school. This opened up ways that we were trying to solve problems, and we got a lot of new insights as we took a more human-sensitive approach to the home. It was pretty awesome."
The team is now disassembling the house, which will be installed permanently at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve as a home for the family of the preserve's ranger. The Department of Energy hasn't yet issued the guidelines for the next competition in 2015, but students are already assembling a new squad. Best and Ouyang said that they and other Start.Home graduates would be happy to advise and even lend a hammer on busy days.
"They are going to be free to take their house in new directions," Ouyang said. "I have a feeling that the Core might have a comeback, maybe a version 2.0. Better, but with entirely different architecture around it. That's the legacy that we hope to establish, and for Stanford teams to keep getting better and better."
Media Contact
Bjorn Carey, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-1944, bccarey@stanford.eduSpain tops 50% renewables for second month in a row
Renewables accounted for 54 per cent of electricity production in the month of April, according to data from Spanish grid operator, Red Eléctrica de España (REE),. It is the second month in a row that renewable energy a have set a production record in Spain; in March they accounted for 51.8 per cent of the country’s electricity mix. According to the data, hydropower accounted for 25 per cent of the enerhy mix, while wind power contributed 22.1 per cent, solar PV 3.6 per cent and solar thermal 1.3 per cent.
250kW solar PV plant for vaccine manufacturer
Victorian veterinary vaccine manufacturer, MSD Animal Health, is to build 250kW rooftop solar PV system after receiving a $335,600 grant from the Federal Government’s Clean Technology Investment programs. The grant is matched by an equal investment from the company and deliver $44,000 in annual energy cost savings, and reduce the carbon intensity of the facility by 22 per cent, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Industry and Innovation, Yvette D’Ath, said.
Last week, Adelaide’s largest ice manufacturer, Adelaide Ice Services, received a $90,000 grant under the Clean Technology Food and Foundries Program to install a 87.5kW solar PV system at its ice manufacturing plant in Regency Park.
South African CPV plant scores listed bond financing5.2 million Medicare seniors saved $3.7B on drug costs under health reform.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- More than 5.2 million Medicare beneficiaries have saved a total of $3.7 billion on their prescription drugs since the health care reform law went into effect, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Monday.
The Affordable Care Act -- also known as health care reform -- which passed in 2010 mandated financial relief for seniors who fall into Medicare's so-called "donut hole."
The Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, and is expected to issue a ruling this week. The court could uphold the law, overturn it partially or completely strike it down.
The prescription drug coverage gap that develops when Medicare stops paying for drug coverage and patients can't afford to pay for drugs out-of-pocket is called the "donut hole."
As a result of health reform, Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010 received a one-time tax-free $250 rebate to help pay for their prescription drugs.
The law also mandated that those Medicare beneficiaries who fell into the donut hole in 2011 because of high prescription drug costs got a 50% discount on covered brand-name drugs and 7% coverage of generics.
"The law is helping people with Medicare lower their medical costs, and giving them more resources to stay healthy," CMS Acting Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said in a statement.
The agency said Medicare coverage for generic drugs in the coverage gap has risen to 14% in 2012. CMS also said coverage for both brand name and generic drugs in the gap will continue to increase until 2020.
Also, the agency said that 745,000 seniors in the donut hole saved a total of $485.3 million on prescription drugs in the first five months of 2012, or an average of $651 in savings so far this year.
The health care reform law mandates that the donut hole be fully closed by 2020.In Episode 8 of the Chief in the North, we look back to Saturday's game against the Bengals. After Re-watching the game several times, I give my opinion on multiple aspects of the offense and defense, including:
The starting defensive line's solid performance, in particular Bennie Logan.
The strong run defense against a tough Cincinnati team and what that might mean for the 2017 season.
The Chiefs plethora of options at the running back position, notably Kareem Hunt.
Dee Ford's performance at ROLB against the Bengals, particularly as a pass rusher.
Tanoh Kpassagnon's improvement as an edge rusher from preseason game 1 to preseason game 2.
Phillip Gaines and the Chiefs; corners outside of Marcus Peters.
The first string and backup offensive lines.
And of course, Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes. (starting at 33:00 minutes)If you want a simple explanation for why Miami has struggled to win another championship, look at the quarterback.
The moniker "Quarterback U" no longer fits.
Since Ken Dorsey left in 2002 -- the last time Miami played for a national title -- the Canes have missed on nearly every single prospect they have recruited at the position. There may be myriad reasons why -- coaching changes, coordinator switches, problems with the supporting cast -- but the bottom line remains:
Miami has not been effective at the most high-profile position on the field, the position that helped build the program's reputation and championship pedigree.
Even this season, questions remain -- a big reason why it is so hard to predict how the Canes will fare. They have the talent to win the Coastal, but enough questions to pause. Now that we know true freshman Brad Kaaya has been tabbed as the starter, can he begin to restore what has been a long-standing tradition?
"As I told him, he's our quarterback," coach Al Golden said Sunday when he announced Kaaya won the job. "He's not our true freshman quarterback. He's the University of Miami quarterback."
Before we go forward, we should take a look back. Miami grew its reputation as QBU after producing NFL standouts and Heisman winners over a 13-year period, from Jim Kelly to Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde, Steve Walsh, Craig Erickson and Gino Torretta. They combined to win four national championships. All were drafted. Four were taken in the first round; two No. 1 overall.
The name QBU more than applied. And looking back now, it seems incredible that one successive quarterback after another would deliver without one bit of drop off, even in the face of several coaching changes.
Miami is hoping Brad Kaaya can solve the school's recent troubles at quarterback. Steve Dykes/USA TODAY Sports
Not only that, many of these quarterbacks had to spend years as backups, waiting for their opportunity to start. Given the way quarterbacks change schools today, waiting three years for an opportunity to start the way Torretta and Testaverde did is practically unheard of.
That patience was clearly rewarded. Each won the Heisman and played for a national title.
After Torretta left, Miami went through a long drought between elite quarterbacks. Dorsey changed that, winning a national championship and playing for another. But it was only temporary.
Dorsey, then, is the only elite quarterback Miami has produced since 1992. That is tough to truly digest considering the history. But perhaps the present is more indicative of where Miami stands, as it becomes more difficult to not only peg recruits but keep them in the program long enough to be developed.
Perhaps what happened at Miami in that golden period will never be replicated, and it is unfair to even compare eras. On the other hand, when you call yourself QBU, it is unavoidable to scrutinize what has happened at the position.
It is not for a lack of trying. Miami still brings in top quarterback recruits virtually every single season, selling the QBU legacy and tradition. But once they arrive on campus, their potential is rarely met.
Since 2000, Miami has signed 10 quarterbacks rated as All-Americans, four-star or five-star prospects. Three transferred; one opted to play baseball; another quit because of a back injury. Two others, Kyle Wright and Jacory Harris, ended up starting multiple seasons at Miami but did not achieve the success expected when they arrived on campus.
Two more -- Kevin Olsen and Kaaya -- are on the current roster.
So what has prevented these players from flourishing? Several factors have come into play. First, the skill players surrounding them have not been as good as they were in the past. Between 1983-1993, Miami had 16 receivers or running backs selected in the NFL draft. Thirteen of them went in the first three rounds.
Now compare that to recent times. Between 2004-14, Miami had just eight receivers or running backs drafted; only four in the first three rounds (and none of them first-round picks).
Coaching instability has played a role, too.
Take Wright, perhaps the biggest disappointment in the group. The Gatorade High School Player of the Year signed in 2003 under Larry Coker. Wright enrolled early and took over as the starter in 2005. But he played for three offensive coordinators and two head coaches. Ultimately, he was benched in favor of another four-star prospect, Kirby Freeman, after Coker was fired.
Freeman did not last long as the starter, and transferred to Baylor.
Harris played for two different head coaches and he never lived up to the hype, either. At times throughout his career, he seemed to regress, a direct reflection on the coaching staff.
Then, there are those players who simply cannot stay out of trouble. Robert Marve, another four-star prospect |
2015. Known to slip in various whimsical styles, Rihanna is every little girl’s torchbearer of ‘self-faith’ besides being the truest symbol of fashion. By sporting such controversial looks and dyes, she makes sure to reinstate the fact that fashion is all about our personal choice and comfort, and not others cup of tea. How we choose to appear affront the world is entirely our business and it’s high time, we stop batting our eyelids to what the ‘world might say’.The Broadbent Institute is pleased to present the second in a series of blog posts by a range of Canadian academics and thought leaders critiquing the record of the Conservative government. Read the first post here.
Ideologues don’t like evidence. They know what the problem is and what to do about it.
Perhaps the most egregious example of this under Stephen Harper concerns the evidence about declining crime rates and the government’s insistence on the necessity of introducing harsher sentencing criteria as part of the much-derided Bill C-10 omnibus crime bill.
But that was simply a matter of ignoring the evidence. In my experience, the left is equally wont to ignore evidence that doesn’t fit their narratives as the right. Psychologists tell us this is a common feature of the human mind: we are more likely to take note of evidence that “fits” our preconceived narratives about how the world works and ignore the facts that don’t.
Suppressing evidence is a more serious endeavour. As evidence is suppressed, our ability to monitor what governments are doing, or what is going on in our environment, or what is happening to Canadians living in villages, towns and cities across the country erodes.
The axing of the 2011 mandatory Census by the Harper government is the most prominent, but not the only example of this suppression at work. Apart from a few libertarians, no one supported this move – not business, not labour, not the polling firms or the provincial ministries of health, education, and so forth. The head of Statistics Canada at the time, Munir Sheikh, resigned in protest.
The mandatory Census was the lifeblood of almost all social and business planning. It provided key data for studying things like income inequality and poverty since both low- and high-income households were required to report. The quality of Census data and the accessibility of the data to non-government users had improved exponentially since the 1970s. As a result, its importance as a tool for monitoring the effects of government policy was on the rise. Because it collected data on such a large sample (20 percent) of Canadians, it was able to shed a light into dark corners of Canadian society that no other data source could do.
One of the most important functions of the Census was to monitor what was happening to Canadians over time. Are current governments doing a better or worse job than their predecessors? Breaking the Census series in 2011 means we can’t answer this question any longer. Transparency was the issue, and transparency lost.
But killing the mandatory census was not the only important entry point for data suppression. The 1990s were an important period of data innovation at Statistics Canada. Longitudinal studies – of children, young adults, and the labour force – were introduced. By the 2000s, Canadian researchers were just beginning to master the complex data these surveys produced on important questions such as the duration and consequences of poverty, unemployment, and the like. The longitudinal surveys are now gone, a result of budget-cutting.
Silencing the disadvantaged
Prime Minister Harper would no doubt accuse me of wanting to “commit sociology”. And I must oblige him. The social gulf between the “comfortable” and the “disadvantaged” in Canada has always been large. The “voices” of the disadvantaged in shaping our social fabric have been fading in recent decades. Good data did not necessarily provide the disadvantaged with “voice”. It did, however, make it more difficult for the “comfortable” to ignore the presence and life circumstances of the less comfortable.
Killing data collection, like the mandatory Census, is only one form of “datacide”. Government bureaucracies collect all sorts of information on their program operations at both the federal and provincial levels. Despite rhetoric on the government’s embrace of ‘open data’, much of it has never been readily accessible to the public.
One organization that sought to overcome the inaccessibility of important data was the National Council of Welfare (NCW), which produced widely-read annual reports on poverty and welfare income data for several decades. Canadians like to think of themselves as “kinder and gentler” towards the poor than our southern neighbours in the U.S. The NCW helped to remind us when and where we were neither so kind nor so gentle. The underlying data still exist but the Council itself was chopped in 2012. Fortunately, the Caledon Institute has committed to continuing the series.
Reports on old age security and similar programs traditionally produced by government ministries have likewise disappeared. The response - “Sorry, no documents with the given url were found in this archive” - has become increasingly common, the result of cutbacks at Archives Canada. You can still get the data if you know who to call, but not otherwise.
Message control
“Message control” from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is perhaps the most egregious form of evidence suppression we’ve witnessed under Mr. Harper’s watch. “Message control” means the evidence is there, the analysis has been done, but researchers are forbidden from relaying crucial information to the media or the public. Canada’s scientists are so frustrated with this government’s overhaul of scientific communications policies that they took to the streets, marching on Parliament Hill in the summer of 2012 to decry the “Death of Evidence” and to protest what the journal Nature referred to as “muzzling”.
Their concerns, expressed on their protest banners, followed a precise logic: “No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy.”
John Myles is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Senior Fellow at the School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto. From 2001-20011 he was Canada Research Chair in the Social Foundations of Public Policy. He spent several periods from 1986 to 2007 as Senior Research Fellow at Statistics Canada.
The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Broadbent Institute.How did the two former First Daughters spend their final night in the White House earlier this year? With a sleepover and pizza, of course.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama revealed her daughters Sasha, 15, and 18-year-old Malia spent their last night at the White House in January with a slumber party, chicken nuggets and pizza with friends.
“They had a sleepover because of course on Inauguration Day, because my girls are so normal, they’re like, ‘Well, eight girls are gonna be sleeping here because it’s our last time, and we want pizza and we want nuggets.’ And it’s like, really?” Obama said last week at the American Institute of Architecture conference in Orlando, Fla., as reported by Today.
Malia and Sasha grew up in the White House during former President Barack Obama’s two terms. Their mother said leaving the place they called home for eight years was difficult.
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“So that moment of transition, right before the doors opened and we welcomed in the new family, our kids were leaving out the back door in tears, saying goodbye to people,” she said.
But for the former First Lady, she kept the tears to a minimum. She said she didn’t want to appear upset about the new occupants — President Donald Trump, Melania Trump and their son, Barron.
“I didn’t want to have tears in my eyes because people would swear I was crying because of the new president,” she said.
Contact us at editors@time.com.So this is a touchy subject for some, and I feel like the internet is full of people who say that bands should not use back tracks.
The “nays” have had their say.
So let’s go ahead and assume that you read those articles/blogs/facebook conversations and you are undeterred. Welcome!
Backtracks are great for a bunch of reasons:
Finding great musicians isn’t always easy. Maybe your town has zero reliable keyboard players. Maybe your rhythm section is solid but can’t sing. Does that mean you aren’t allowed to play what you want to play?
The audience usually doesn’t care. Why should they? If there are 5 people on stage putting on a great show why would they care about the 1 person who’s not there?
You may need tracks for only a handful of songs. Do you need a sax player? Do you need him for more than 1 song? Do you think a sax player will come out to play one song and then leave a gig feeling good about it?
It can tighten your band up fast, even on songs there aren’t tracks for. If your band is used to playing with a click track they can play to a click for other songs that don’t require tracks. Your band will instantly sound tighter and more professional.
They can help you get subs worked in easier. Is your bass player going to his cousin’s wedding the same weekend of that big gig? How are you going to get a new guy up to snuff quickly? Most backtracks contain THE ENTIRE ARRANGEMENT OF THE SONG. As a sub how great would it be to receive a dropbox link with the isolated tracks of exactly what you needed to play? In another blog I will show you how to set up these learn folders and save your players time and make you a superstar MD.
One final thought: if you play in a band you are not in the music business, you’re in the Entertainment Business. If that is the case your obligation to your audience is to provide the best possible performance for the best value. Does that sound like something backtracks can help you do?
And for the naysayers putting “100% Live, No Tracks” on your flyers; are you getting better gigs? Is Aerosmith putting that on their posters? Every band at a certain level uses tracks to some extent. Your job is to put on a show. Put on a good one.
AdvertisementsRUSSELL – Deputies from the Russell County Office were dispatched at 5:22 p.m. Sunday to a report of a subject at the Russell Regional Hospital with a gunshot wound to his hand, according to a Sheriff’s Department media release.
Deputies responded and spoke with Richard Heaton, Russell.
During the investigation it was determined that Heaton was a felon and should not be in possession of a firearm, Russell County Sheriff John Fletcher said in a news release Monday morning. Heaton and his girlfriend, Cassidy Froelich, told deputies the wound was an accident that had happened in the county. Deputies allege Heaton was in possession of numerous firearms.
A later traffic stop at 10:43 p.m. Sunday of Froelich and Heaton led to the arrest of both subjects and a search warrant was obtained for the vehicle. During the search, numerous drugs and drug paraphernalia were located.
A search warrant for 435 W. 7th, Russell, was obtained. Officers from the sheriff’s department and the Russell Police Department executed the search warrant. During the search numerous drugs along with gun-related items were located.
Following that search, a search warrant was obtained for 441 ½ W. 7th, Russell. During the search a number of guns were located by law enforcement officers, including a stolen firearm and numerous drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Heaton was charged with convicted felon in possession of a firearm, possession of marijuana, possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of stolen property, and interference with a law enforcement officer.
Froelich was charged with possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, and interference with a law enforcement officer.It's looking more and more likely that Apple will release a 10-inch tablet computer in early 2010.
Even if you're sick of Apple tablet rumors, we promise you'll like this one. The latest update comes from a tipster with a solid track record, which reinforces previous reports that Apple will deliver a tablet in early 2010. The tipster also shares details on the rumored product's specifications.
ILounge, an iPod and iPhone blog, cites a source who claims Apple plans to announce a tablet by Jan. 19, 2010. The tipster claims the tablet will measure 10.7 inches (diagonally) and will run the iPhone operating system.
The tablet will sport a higher resolution than the iPhone or iPod Touch screen: "Expect something like 5-6 times the resolution of an iPod Touch or iPhone screen (720p or thereabouts) and 7 times the touchable surface area," writes iLounge.
Also, there will be one version equipped with 3G networking and one without. This would make the 3G model a bigger version of the iPhone, and the non-3G tablet a larger iPod Touch.
This particular report raises the likelihood of an Apple tablet landing in stores soon. ILounge says this is the same source who was spot on when leaking details on the fifth-generation iPod Nano prior to its Sept. 9 launch. That same source was also accurate with its description of the fourth-generation iPod Nano before its release.
ILounge's source also said the tablet would specialize "as a slate-like replacement for books and magazines." Wired.com in previous months has argued that an Apple tablet would pose a serious threat to the Amazon Kindle as well as the Amazon.com e-book store. We speculated that Apple could integrate an e-book section into the iTunes Store, giving it the potential to shake up the publishing industry.
Are you getting overwhelmed by the flurry of tablet news? We don't blame you. Here are the rumors that have been echoed by several publications:
Steve Jobs has had a heavy hand in the tablet's development.
Sources: Wall Street Journal, AppleInsider, Barron's, iLounge
Sources: Wall Street Journal, AppleInsider, Barron's, iLounge The Apple tablet will launch in early 2010.
Sources: AppleInsider, TheLoop, iLounge, Barron's
Sources: AppleInsider, TheLoop, iLounge, Barron's The tablet will look like a larger iPod Touch or iPhone, measuring approximately 10 inches.
Sources: Gizmodo, AppleInsider, Barron's, iLounge, InfoTimes
Sources: Gizmodo, AppleInsider, Barron's, iLounge, InfoTimes The tablet will cost between $700 and $900, positioning it between the iPhone/iPod Touch and Apple's notebooks.
Sources: Gizmodo, InfoTimes, Barron's
Sources: Gizmodo, InfoTimes, Barron's The tablet will come in two versions. Gizmodo's source claims one model will feature a webcam (perhaps for videoconferencing) while the other will focus on education. A camera-equipped tablet would make more sense on the 3G-equipped tablet described by iLounge's source; likewise, a camera-less version of the tablet could be the non-3G tablet mentioned by iLounge's source.
Sources: Gizmodo, iLounge
Have any doubt left in an Apple tablet? We don't. But there's so much here that if the tablet turns out to be a media-fabricated illusion, even David Copperfield would be impressed.
See Also:
Photo: Illustration of an imaginary Apple Tablet (vernhart/Flickr)JAKARTA (Reuters) - Nearly 20 percent of high school and university students in Indonesia support the establishment of a caliphate in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country over the current secular government, a new survey showed this week.
FILE PHOTO: Indonesian Islamist groups attend a rally outside the parliament calling for the government to suspend the Christian governor of the captial, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, and for the courts to convict him of blasphemy, in Jakarta, Indonesia February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Darren Whiteside/File Photo
Indonesia has in recent years seen its long-standing reputation for religious tolerance come under scrutiny as hardline Islamic groups muscle their way into public and political life in the young democracy.
The vast majority of Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam and the country has sizeable minorities of Hindus, Christians, and people who adhere to traditional beliefs. Religious diversity is enshrined in its constitution.
The survey by a Jakarta-based organization polled over 4,200 Muslim students, mostly in top schools and universities on Java island, home to over half the country’s population.
Nearly one in four students said they were, to varying degrees, ready to wage jihad to achieve a caliphate.
“This indicates that intolerant teachings have already entered top universities and high schools,” pollster Alvara, which carried out the survey, said in its report released Tuesday.
“The government and moderate Islamic organizations must start taking tangible steps to anticipate this and be present in student circles with language that is easy for them to understand,” the report added.
A presidential spokesman declined to comment on the findings.
Hardline Islamic groups late last year led mass street rallies against Jakarta’s former governor, a Christian, whom they believed had insulted Islam. They eventually succeeded in derailing Basuki Tjahaja Purnama’s re-election bid in April this year, and he was subsequently jailed for blasphemy. The ruling was criticized globally as unjust.
Groups like the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) call for sharia law to be imposed on the country and believe its leaders should only be Muslim.
The survey showed that the vast majority of students disagree with the establishment of an Islamic caliphate and violence.
But authorities have repeatedly warned against the creeping influence of radical Islamic thought among student organizations and in campus activities.
President Joko Widodo and his government are trying to contain the rising influence of hairline groups, especially in universities and Islamic boarding schools.
A presidential decree banning any civil organizations deemed to go against the country’s secular state ideology was approved by parliament last month. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a largely peaceful organization that calls for the establishment of a caliphate in Indonesia, was the first group to be disbanded under the decree.
President Widodo has made several speeches at Islamic boarding schools around the country emphasizing Indonesia’s diversity and the importance of national unity.
In September, Widodo called at a conference of around 3,000 university rectors for the promotion of the country’s secular ideology, ‘Pancasila’, in education.The official senior prom at Houston's Carnegie Vanguard High School is not scheduled to take place until next Saturday, but one student has already had the prom of her life thanks to her classmates.
Kennedy Brown is a 15-year-old freshman at Carnegie Vanguard who has been battling brain cancer for over two years. When an inoperable regrowth of her brain tumor forced Kennedy to stop attending school, her friends stepped in to make sure she experienced every high school memory in one day.
That day was Monday, just barely 48 hours after planning began during a Friday brainstorming session among Kennedy's friends.
"The students came to school on Saturday to help plan and our faculty and staff reached out to different organizations to help," Carnegie Vanguard's principal, Ramon Moss, told GoodMorningAmerica.com.
One of those organizations was Kennedy's favorite NBA team, the hometown Houston Rockets, who sent their mascot, Clutch, to the school Monday to surprise Kennedy with a t-shirt and gifts from the team's star player Dwight Howard.
Clutch surprised Kennedy at a school-wide assembly held in the school's outdoor amphitheater because so many of her nearly 600 classmates wanted to attend.
"CVHS is, more than anything, a family," Moss said. "Anything that's going to brighten Kennedy's day, we all want to be a part of."
After incorporating into the assembly school traditions that happen throughout the year - like throwing a pie in a teacher's face - a smaller group of Kennedy's friends escorted her to the school's Fine Arts building where she was serenaded, asked to prom and crowned with a sash as the prom queen, before breaking into the usual prom activity of dancing.
"Up until Monday she had really been out of it, she slept for probably 20 hours on Friday and 20 hours on Saturday," said Kennedy's father, Tony Brown. "On Monday morning she woke up with a burst of energy and with an appetite and just so excited to go."
The culminating activity for the day was a graduation ceremony for Kennedy, during which she was wheeled onto the stage in the school's theater and handed her diploma.
"I'm very proud to report that she has 5 A's and 7 B's," said Moss, who noted Kennedy is taking nearly all pre-Advanced Placement and Advanced Placement courses as a freshman.
"Not once did she complain and she never wanted to be treated any differently than any of the other kids," said Kennedy's father. "It was a shock to many of the kids that she had been going through treatment."
Thanks to the generosity of Kennedy's classmates, whom Moss describes as "spectacular," in creating her high school memories, another dream of Kennedy's is now closer to coming true.
The teenager is a huge fan of the singer Drake, such that one of her prom pictures from Monday includes Drake's photo as the backdrop.
"That was one of her favorite moments," said Brown. "Just the fact that they put this life-sized picture next to her was exciting and you could see the smile on her face."
Kennedy's classmates asked everyone to tweet Drake using the hashtag #DrakeForKen and now, according to Moss, the singer has heard them.
"We hear that word has reached Drake and he plans to record a personalized video so we're hoping that takes place today," Moss said.
"I was so proud that the students really pulled all this together in really a matter of hours," he said. "We always do things to the best of our availabilities at CVHS and I'm just honored to be a part of our family."President-elect Donald Trump will have the power to cast aside some of the Obama administration’s energy policies and objectives, but he will not be able to stop the market forces pushing the country toward cleaner and more sustainable energy.
That was the consensus Thursday among a panel of national energy policy experts at an industry-sponsored conference in Portland. The E2Tech Expo brought together leaders from Maine’s energy industry, policymakers, advocacy groups and academics at the University of Southern Maine.
This July 2009 photo shows the blades of a turbine on Stetson Mountain in eastern Maine. The state has several clean-energy projects in the works, including solar arrays and wind farms. Associated Press/Robert F. Bukaty
Energy has been a contentious subject in Maine, where clean-energy proponents have locked horns with the administration of Gov. Paul LePage and business groups over the best way to lower costs and meet the state’s energy needs.
The panelists agreed that Trump could repeal President Obama’s executive orders related to energy, and that pending Obama administration objectives such as stricter federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions are effectively dead.
But the “New World Energy Order of Trump” won’t have as drastic an impact on industry and the environment as the incoming president’s critics may believe, said panelist Darrell Henry, partner at Gavel Resources, a bipartisan government relations consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.
“For those concerned, don’t panic,” Henry said. “For those excited, don’t get too euphoric.”
That’s because the energy industry is already on an irreversible course toward cleaner, more renewable sources of power, the panelists said. Every year, a higher percentage of the nation’s power comes from carbon-free, renewable sources. In Maine, two-thirds of the state’s net electricity generation in 2015 came from renewable energy resources, with 30 percent from hydroelectricity, 26 percent from biomass (mainly wood products, which are not carbon-free) and 10 percent from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
It’s what consumers want, and the cost of renewables has been falling sharply, the panelists said. Those realities won’t change under the Trump administration.
GOVERNOR ‘SUPPORTS ALL ENERGY FORMS’
“Yes, we’re going to see changes, but progress moves forward,” said panelist Nathan Smith, vice president of the Cadmus Group, a technical and strategic consulting firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts.
In Maine, there are several clean-energy projects in the works, including proposals to build solar arrays at the Sanford airport, in the Loring Commerce Centre business park in Limestone and on a capped landfill in South Portland; the proposed King Pine and Number Nine wind farms in northern Maine; and the University of Maine’s Aqua Ventus project to develop offshore wind power.
LePage often has said he favors expanding access to natural gas as a way to reduce energy costs, rather than subsidizing solar and wind projects. Last spring he vetoed an omnibus energy bill that would have extended incentives for some renewables.
“(The governor) supports all energy forms that help reduce the overall cost to consumers and business,” LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said in a written statement. “Bloated government subsidies place a burden on taxpayers, and these energy-subsidies takers have largely been wind and solar companies looking to make a buck. The governor also has maintained that when the technology advances (and the University of Maine is working on it) enabling wind and solar to become more competitive in the market, he will welcome it.”
The desire to reduce costs often drives the advance of clean-energy initiatives. Smith said savings alone are enough to ensure that some of those initiatives will persist. For example, efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of the federal government – America’s largest energy consumer – are expected to save taxpayers an estimated $18 billion over the coming decade, he said.
In the private sector, the panelists said they expect to see a dramatic increase in electric vehicles on the road in the coming years, a change that will largely be driven by market forces. Smith noted consumers’ excitement over electric car maker Tesla Motors, which is working on lower-priced models with greater energy efficiency.
“They’re buying Teslas because they’re cool, and they’re fun to drive, and you want one,” he said.
THE EXTENT OF PRESIDENTIAL POWERS
That is not to say President Trump won’t have a significant influence on U.S. energy policy and emissions, the panelists said. He will have the power to appoint conservatives to federal energy and environmental regulatory agencies, commissions and the U.S. Supreme Court. He will set the agenda for U.S. energy policy, which almost certainly will be based around economic growth and job creation, rather than renewable energy and pollution reduction.
Trump could pull out of the Paris Agreement with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He could lobby Congress to repeal various U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, or pass new laws creating incentives for carbon-intensive fuels such as coal in an effort to boost the economy and save or create jobs.
But Trump may find that it isn’t as easy to make those changes as he anticipated, even with a Republican Congress. Henry, the partner at Gavel Resources, noted that former President George W. Bush tried to repeal environmental regulations passed under the Clinton administration but was largely unsuccessful.
One major change that Trump could make to the energy industry is a renewed effort to build infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines, the panelists said. Even the Keystone XL pipeline, rejected by the Obama administration, could be back in play.
But infrastructure expansion also will be subject to market forces, according to the panelists. For example, at current oil prices it’s unclear how much the industry would be willing to invest in such projects.
“Global issues will drive oil and gas investment,” Henry said, “but there will be no return to ‘Drill, baby, drill.'”
A MORE PROMINENT ROLE FOR STATES?
Other changes are happening behind the scenes in the energy industry that will further reduce carbon usage and emissions, said panelist David Meyer, a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy.
New technologies and services at the distribution level are improving the efficiency of power grids, and the industry has broadly embraced cleaner, lower-carbon energy sources, Meyer said. In addition, new ways of thinking about power distribution are improving the balance among reliability, affordability, flexibility, resilience, security and environmental sustainability, he said.
“We are in the early stages of a massive transformation of the electricity sector itself,” Meyer said. That transformation can be justified entirely on the basis of cost savings and efficiency alone, he said.
“Electricity providers are energy-source agnostic,” said panelist Jason Smith, manager of environmental policy and external affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, an association that represents investor-owned U.S. electric companies.
They want to explore all possible energy sources and are the driving force behind the push into renewables, he said, noting that the industry is spending billions of dollars on energy-efficiency initiatives.
“A lot of these trends are driven by our customers asking for these distributed resources,” Jason Smith said.
Some of the country’s largest states already play a significant role in the creation of tougher carbon-emissions standards, the panelists said. Efforts in California, New York, Massachusetts and other states may take on a more prominent role if the Trump administration relaxes federal environmental standards as it has promised to do.
“These programs will likely revert to state-based programs again,” Henry said.
He noted that existing federal tax credits for wind and solar energy production do not expire until 2022, so those projects will continue to benefit from government incentives in the near future. Beyond that, their future is “questionable,” he said.
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filed under:To many non-bitcoin users, it might seem like every month there is another Bitcoin heist. Although, in reality, normal fiat banks are targeted much more frequently. We present below the list of the ten largest Bitcoin hacks from its birth till today.
1. Mt.Gox
Bitcoin exchange
Cold wallet compromised/inside job
January 2014
850,000 BTC stolen valued at USD 500,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
2. Bitfinex
Exchange
User wallets
August 2016
119,756 BTC stolen valued at USD 70,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
3. Linode
Web hosting site
Inside job/8 bitcoin wallets were compromised
March 2012
46,703 BTC stolen valued at USD 27,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
4. Bitstamp
Exchange
Bitcoin hot wallet was compromised
January 2015
19,000 BTC stolen valued at USD 11,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
5. Bitstamp
Exchange
Bitcoin hot wallet was compromised
January 2016
18,866 BTC stolen valued at USD 11,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
6. Bter
Exchange
Cold wallet was compromised
February 2015
7,000 BTC stolen valued at USD 4,000,000 (based on today's BTC price)
7. Picostocks
Exchange
Cold wallet was compromised
November 2013
6,000 BTC stolen valued at USD 3,500,000 (based on today's BTC price)
8. Inputs.io
Wallet
Cold wallet was compromised
November 2013
4,100 BTC stolen valued at USD 2,400,000 (based on today's BTC price)
9. Mintpal
Exchange
Inside job
December 2014
3,700 BTC stolen valued at USD 2,100,000 (based on today's BTC price)
10. Kipcoin
Exchange
Cold wallet was compromised
February 2015
3,000 BTC stolen valued at USD 1,700,000 (based on today's BTC price)
Source: http://satoshilabs.com/news/bitcoin-theftsOne of my all-time favorite game franchises on the PC is Fallout. I particularly liked Fallout 3 and spent many an hour playing that game. I never actually finished it; mostly I run around with every cheat enabled as possible and try to kill every living thing in the game.
No matter how you play the game, if you are a fan you will want to get hands on these Funko POP Fallout action figures. Each of them is available on Entertainment Earth with the launch coming in August. You can get them for $9.99 each.
You can choose from Vault Boy, Brotherhood of Steel, Lone Wanderer, Female Lone Wanderer, Feral Ghoul, Deathclaw and Super Mutant. I wonder why the Super Mutant isn’t one of the jumbo POP action figures we have seen in the past, it appears to be sized just like the others in the series.By Halimah Abdullah
The Department of Defense plans to scale down the nation's Army to its pre-World War II size and do away with an entire class of Air Force attack jets in an attempt to cut military spending, which mushroomed after the attacks of September 11, 2001, according to reports.
The plan, backed by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, as first reported by The New York Times, positions the military to handle any enemy but will leave the armed forces with much fewer resources to take on lengthy missions abroad. The dwindled budget also reflects the current political climate, with a President who has pledged to pull back from extended and expensive wars abroad in an era of federal funding cutbacks.
The budget is to be presented Monday.
Hagel proposes cutting the Army to 440,000-450,000 troops, according to the Times. Army troop levels already were supposed to go down to 490,000, from their height of 570,000 after the 9/11 attacks.
The budget, does, however, protect funding for cyberwarfare and special operations, a reflection of the evolving way in which the U.S. has approached fighting overseas, using tactics that don't necessarily rely so heavily on land fighters. The proposal also preserves money for controversial and costly F-35 fighter planes.
The proposed cuts will probably draw sharp criticism from some members of Congress, especially those with large Army bases in their states and districts, or whose economies depend on building and servicing parts for the Air Force planes that will be eliminated.On the occasion of Ars Technica's 15th anniversary, we decided to bring you a series of articles on the most disruptive companies, technologies, and people we've covered in our time on the Internet since June 1998. We begin with the tales of three companies—Amazon, Twitter, and SpaceX—that rebelled against the established order and changed technology for the better.
While Amazon dominated online retail and practically invented what we now call cloud computing, Twitter took advantage of the open Internet to create the most free-wheeling social network and become a tool for social change. SpaceX, meanwhile, has shown us that we may end up looking toward private industry—rather than NASA—to take humans deeper into space.
We'll soon shift to the most disruptive technologies and people of Ars' 15 years, but today's focus is all on the companies that became tech rebels. Let's head back to the mid-'90s and start with the elder statesmen here: Amazon.
Reinventing retail and inventing the “cloud”
In July of 1995, one year after Amazon was incorporated, the company sold its first book: Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.
So began the inexorable rise of a company that would show the world what "Internet-scale" really means. Amazon has had an incredible impact on the purchasing habits of consumers, making it easy to get almost any kind of product for a reasonable price while helping people who visit brick-and-mortar retail stores become more savvy shoppers. I hardly ever buy anything in a physical store without first whipping out my phone, checking the price on Amazon, and (just as importantly) reading customer reviews to find out if the product is worth buying at all.
Despite getting its start in the distribution of physical goods, Amazon impressed by anticipating the shift toward digital products. Amazon debuted the Kindle in 2007 before most people realized they would want to read electronic books on a handheld device. Today, Amazon is one of the biggest sellers of not only e-books but digital music and video as well. Consumers who don't own any Amazon devices and those who have either a Kindle e-reader or Kindle Fire tablet all take advantage of this online marketplace.
Over the years, Amazon built one of the most extensive and efficient networks of data centers in the world. Obviously, this was necessary to support one of the Internet's most highly visited websites and to manage goods and shipping at its many retail centers. Amazon became one of the most effective technology vendors on the planet, but for a long time it had only one customer—itself. So instead of keeping all its technology advantages in-house, the company unveiled Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2006. This allowed anyone with a credit card to access Amazon's massive and highly efficient IT infrastructure.
The advent of AWS (and, in particular, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) was the key moment in the business world's ongoing shift from physical servers operated on-premises to virtual computing resources accessed via the "cloud." Amazon helped IT customers rebel against traditional hardware vendors by letting them buy only as much computing horsepower as they need, when they need it, instead of stocking up on servers and storage with the risk of under- or over-buying. Need a supercomputer, but only a few times a year? Use Amazon.
An entire generation of businesses is being built on top of Amazon's servers. Amazon frees these companies from having to build their own physical data centers, letting each user of Amazon bring value to the market by creating innovative software. Witness Dropbox, an online storage company that makes it easy for tens of millions of consumers to sync data across all of their devices. Dropbox doesn't store any of its customers' data on its own servers. Instead, Dropbox uses Amazon's Simple Storage Service. Outages at Amazon can disrupt many websites because of AWS's ubiquity, but the Amazon cloud's overall impact has surely been a net positive.
It’s so… easy… to buy!
To get some more thoughts on how Amazon has changed people's lives, we polled the Ars staff:
Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson:
Amazon—specifically Amazon Prime—has totally destroyed my sense of propriety in what should and shouldn't be shipped through UPS and how much shipping is supposed to cost. Dried goods? Buy it from Amazon, get it in two days. Furniture? Buy it from Amazon, get it in two days. Kitchen utensils? Amazon, two days. 300 lbs of home theater gear? Amazon. Two days. I doubt I'll enter a brick and mortar store ever again unless I have to. The instant Amazon starts offering groceries in my area, I'll shift over to that and I'll literally never have to leave the house to shop for anything.
Amazon to me is less of a tech rebel and more of a financial rebel.
Disruptive? It's downright life-changing. It's obviously not Amazon providing the mechanism of transport—the "disruptiveness" of it all would be impossible without the underlying massive system of UPS and FedEx in place—but, man, once I quit having to worry about $10 here for shipping and $15 there... well |
imbalance in the league has spiked. The last time parity was lower than it has been the last two seasons was in 2003, when Barry Bonds could still be counted on for at least 40 home runs a season. Six teams are on pace (by run differential) for 97-win seasons, while four threaten to lose 97 games.
It’s obvious how uneven the league is now when you look at some of the most impressive teams of 2017. The Astros aren’t quite on the historic run that the Cubs managed last year. But they’re close — after 72 games, the Astros project to finish the season with a run differential of +254, slightly better than the impressive rate the defending champions managed last year.
The Astros also have company at the top: The Yankees are just off Houston’s run-differential pace — riding unexpected performances to a strong bid for the division crown. In the senior circuit, the Dodgers are relying on league-best run prevention to power an equally impressive performance. Three of the top six teams in run differential (the Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Rockies) play in the National League West, a surprisingly competitive division that also hosts two of the worst teams in the league.
Speaking of the Padres, MLB’s worst teams have committed wholly to rebuilding, at the cost of any shred of competitiveness. While the Padres’ management doesn’t dare speak the word, executive chairman Ron Fowler said last year that they aimed “to get to.500 in hopefully” 2018. From trading established stars to turning single-A players loose on the field, the Padres have abandoned the idea of contention. That’s an amazing change of fortune for a team that went all-in two years ago, only to fall short. The Phillies are similarly terrible, having traded away their stars in an effort to tank.
Many of these teams won’t finish the year with run differentials as woeful or as impressive as what they’ve posted so far (Rockies, I’m looking at you). The Astros are unlikely to keep up their historic pace, just as the Cubs ultimately fell off their record-challenging midseason pace last year. But the relentless churn of teams willfully plummeting to the bottom and then rising again with fresh talent ought to keep baseball a league of haves and have-nots for the foreseeable future.Via Teleconference
2:02 P.M. CET
MS. HAYDEN: Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining. We wanted to get you together for a quick call on statements -- you either have these or about to receive -- on the President’s decision on the Section 215 Bulk Metadata Program. As you’ll see, the President has decided that the best path forward is for the government not to collect or hold this data in bulk, but instead the data would remain at telephone companies.
And to talk about that a little bit further, I’ve got four senior administration officials to talk to you. This call is on background with no embargo. Our speakers are senior administration officials.
Again, from here on, these are senior administration officials. And with that, I’ll turn it over to our first senior administration official.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks very much, Caitlin. And thanks, folks, for joining the call. Let me just make a few opening comments, and then we’ll have an opportunity to take your questions.
As Caitlin laid out, we’re here to describe the President’s decision about the path forward on the 215 Telephony Bulk Metadata Program, and our desire to work with Congress to see legislation effected to achieve the principles that the President talked about in his January 17th speech.
As you know, in his speech at the Justice Department in January, the President ordered a two-step transition that would end the Section 215 Bulk Telephony Metadata Program as it had previously existed. And he ordered also that we establish a new mechanism to preserve the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk metadata.
So as the first step in the transition of the Section 215 program, the President ordered two immediate and important changes to the existing program. First, absent an emergency situation, he ordered that the government can only query the Section 215 data after a judge agrees, based on national security concerns, and approves a particular number to be queried.
The second change he ordered was that the result of any query would be limited to data two hops from the selection term or number, instead of three hops. So those were two changes that the President ordered right out of his speech, and he talked about them in his speech.
And the government sought these changes after that speech in January, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved them pursuant to a request by the Department of Justice on February 5th.
So for the second step in the transition that the President ordered -- he instructed and he described this in his January 17th speech -- he instructed the intelligence community and the Attorney General to work to develop options for a new program that could basically meet two criteria. One, match the capabilities and fill the gaps that the Section 215 metadata program was designed to address. And the second, to do this without the government holding the data.
The President then put his team on a timeline. He instructed them to report back to him with alternatives for consideration before the program would come up for its regular reauthorization period before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on March 28th. So that brings us obviously to this week.
But there was a significant, rigorous and thoughtful process that went into getting us from January to today. And that involved a series of discussions and careful consideration of the program as it existed, of our capabilities, and of our needs -- all with the focus on how do we do meet the two criteria that the President laid out; how do we maintain the information that we need to keep us safe, as well as addressing the privacy concerns, the very real privacy concerns that the President identified in his speech in January.
So that involved a series of meetings and discussions and focus by lawyers and operators within the intelligence community and the Department of Justice through what many of you are familiar with as the National Security Council Deputies Committee process, and lawyers and operators meeting prior to the deputies’ consideration and the consideration by the principals of the President’s national security team.
That culminated in a meeting and discussion by the President with the key members of his national security team, the intelligence community leaders, and the Attorney General to discuss these options and make a decision. And that happened within the last few weeks.
So as a result of those discussions and consistent with the charge that the President had given them in his speech, the Justice Department and the intelligence community did develop those options, provided them to the President. And after consultation with the Congress, key leaders and members of the judiciary committee and the intelligence committees, as well as the private sector and privacy and civil liberties groups, and others, the President has, as Caitlin laid out, and as he averred to earlier this week, made a decision after considering various options that he believes that the government should not collect or hold the bulk telephony metadata records under Section 215, but rather be able to access this information in a way that meets our national security requirements without the government holding this data.
So under the President’s proposal, a new program would be created with some key attributes, and I’ll kind of lay out what we would like to see legislation contain, key attributes of a new program.
One, the government, as I said, would not collect these telephone records in bulk; rather, the records would remain at the telephone companies for the length of time that they currently do today.
Two, absent an emergency situation, the government would obtain the records only pursuant to individual orders from the FISA Court approving the use of a specific number for queries, if a judge agrees with the government based on national security concerns.
Third, the records provided to the government by the provider in response to queries would only be within two hops of the selection term, or the number being used. And the government’s handling of any of the records it acquires from the provider would be governed by minimization procedures that are themselves approved by the FISA Court.
Fourth, the court-approved numbers could be used to query the data over a limited period of time without returning to the FISA Court for approval, and the production of records would be ongoing and prospective.
And then fifth and finally, the companies -- the telephone companies and providers would be compelled to provide technical assistance to ensure that the records can be queried and produced, and the results are transmitted to the government in a usable format and in a timely way.
So those are the key attributes that we would like to see that would be needed to implement the President’s proposal, and the approach that we think meets the two criteria that the President laid out in his speech.
The administration, as I said, has been in consultation with congressional leadership amongst the intelligence committees and the judiciary committees on this issue. That's been throughout the year, both prior to the President’s speech and afterwards. And we look forward to continuing to work with Congress to pass legislation that achieves the goals the President put forward in January and has talked about since.
And then finally, as I noted earlier, at the end of this week, the current authorization for the 215 program would expire. It’s up for its 90-day reauthorization. So given that the kind of legislation that we’re talking about won’t be in place by March 28th, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities at issue, the President has directed the Department of Justice to seek from the FISA Court a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, along with the substantial modifications that have been in effect since his speech in January and since February, as I mentioned earlier when the court granted the government’s request for those key changes that the President ordered in January.
So that's the description and the rationale behind the proposal that we would like to see as a path forward on the 215 telephone metadata program.
And at this point, I would be happy -- along with my colleagues -- to take your questions.
Q -- to what degree you have spoken with the phone companies about this since the President’s speech in January, just particularly because it seems like the technical assistance piece is a significant element, just in terms of actually making the thing work.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. The first part of your question was cut off a little bit, but I think I’ve got the gist of it.
Q Just since January how much have you worked with the phone companies on this, since the January 17th speech.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. So since January 17th, we’ve had some fairly high-level discussions with some of the providers first and foremost to understand their concerns obviously with a lot of the disclosures that have occurred and the discussion and debate surrounding the 215 program. So we wanted to understand their concerns, and we’ve also wanted to understand what would be possible; and are the types of attributes that I just laid out and the things that we would need in order to maintain and achieve the two criteria that the President set forth for us, are those things that they think could be effectuated.
And I think we’re going to need to work with them and obviously with Congress going forward to put together legislation that can get us this information, as I said, in a format and in a timely usable way.
Q Hi. I’m wondering if you’re going to continue to seek the 90-day reauthorization until legislation is passed.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. Look, as I said, first and foremost, the President has laid out and described the need for these capabilities, but also recognized that the potential privacy concerns for the government holding his data are ones that are significant.
So he’s got a job as Commander-in-Chief to ensure that we continue to maintain this capability, and so we are going forward to reauthorize it. But we really hope that the Congress can act swiftly to both debate and discuss the use and the change in this program, and develop one in legislation that can support the kind of attributes that I just described.
Q Hi, thank you. Thank you for this call. I have several questions. One is, why can't you just administratively end the bulk collection now as you continue to seek legislation to achieve the, for instance, limits on the hops, which you’ve already done administratively anyway? That's the first question.
And secondly, is there any -- would there be any time limit on the court approval for querying the numbers? Will you have to re-up those every 90 or 180 days or every year, or are those ongoing in perpetuity? Is that approval ongoing?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So I’ll take your second I guess question first in terms of the timeline. There would be some limited time period, and I don't think we’ve settled on what that would be, and obviously that's something we’re going to have to talk with Congress about.
But as I referenced in -- I can't remember if it was the third or fourth key attribute, but the ability to produce prospectively in an ongoing basis for a limited period of time responsive data to that query that is based on a judge-preapproved telephone number.
But with respect to the first part of your question, I think that also goes to what Eileen said. Look, we think that the change ought to be made to the program. The President believes the government should no longer collect and hold the bulk telephony metadata. He’s also got a responsibility as Commander-in-Chief to ensure that we maintain the capabilities of this program, and he wants to see it done in a way that also responds to the concerns that have been identified and to create a program and have a discussion about it, and have legislation that would promote confidence in our intelligence-gathering activities.
Q I'm wondering whether there’s consideration being given to paying telephone companies or compensating them for requests that are made or responded to, or offering them protection against lawsuits that may arise. And secondly, I know it's a different program, but whether there’s consideration being given to reforms for email and online activity surveillance -- which I know occurs under a different program, but there’s been a lot of concerns expressed about.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: With respect to the second part of your question, as the President laid out in his speech and as I've just described, what we're talking about here is a path forward on the bulk telephony metadata program that currently exists under Section 215. So that's what we're talking about in this instance.
With regard to your broader question, the President spoke at length and issued a presidential policy directive back in January describing a series of reforms and policy approaches to intelligence activities more broadly. And I'm sure folks here would be happy to provide you that information in a separate forum.
With regard to your question about compensation for the phone companies, I don't want to prejudge -- and I certainly welcome comments from my colleagues -- but I don't want to prejudge where we will get in our discussions with Congress on this, but I certainly would envision, consistent with what the government does today with respect to compensating phone companies and others for their production of records in response to lawful court process, I think we would see a similar approach.
Q I have a couple of small things here. I want to make sure I understand -- is the Justice Department going to issue any kind of guidance publicly of what constitutes an emergency situation that would circumvent the FISC approval process? And then secondly, what is the limited period that you're contemplating that the NSA could keep querying the data once it obtains it?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I'll take your last question first again. I think I addressed that before, which is I'm not going to prejudge what the period of time would be, but I do think it would be limited, it would be circumscribed, and it would all, of course, be based off of a phone number or query that had already been approved by a judge. But I'm not going to presuppose what that time period would be right now.
With respect to the first part of your question in terms of what constitutes an emergency, I'll ask my colleague from the Justice Department to chime in, but certainly I would expect something like that to be in any legislation that we would discuss, but we do, of course, have experience in this context with the emergency exception that exists in the FISA statute already. But I don't know if my colleague from the Justice Department wants to chime in.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: No, nothing to add on that on the querying question as we work it through, but it will be tied to the national security need that led to the approval of the number in question.
Q I want to find out if this just affects collection of data in the United States involving U.S. persons. I'm not sure if that is the 215 program. Can you tell me what, if anything, you are doing in terms of collection of bulk data that involves non-U.S. or overseas persons or entities?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: With the second part of your question, again, I think that goes back to the discussions and the policy and the speech the President made in January, and the Presidential Policy Directive 28, which was issued publicly in a fairly lengthy document, and we're happy to provide that to you.
With regard to the -- I think your question is about what does this data entail. These are records that would be held by the phone companies to include telephone calls into and out of the United States as well as within the United States. That is what the previously existing program addressed and what the proposal that we would advance and want to work with Congress on would also -- the same data would be at issue.
Q I have a couple of questions related to the emergency situation exception. Can you sketch out what steps the government would take in an emergency situation? Would it have direct access to the data? Would it need to make any kind of formal request to the phone company? Would it go back to the FISA Court later? And then, how many times since January 17th has the government invoked an emergency situation?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: On the second part, I’m not going to get into operational details that I obviously wouldn’t be in a position to address anyways. But on your question about the emergency exception, here again I think this is something that -- this is one of the key attributes, as I mentioned, that we look forward to working with Congress to develop. But we’ve got some guide posts in this area, as I said, and we’ve got significant experience dealing with how do we handle emergency exceptions in all manner of intelligence and law enforcement regimes.
So in the FISA context -- and, again, I welcome comment from my Justice Department colleagues -- but there is existing in statute, in the current FISA statute, an emergency exception. It requires a signoff by a senior-level government official. There is a follow-up approach to the court within a set period of time within the current FISA statute -- it’s seven days. And there is documentation that would have to be produced within that time to the court to receive approval of the query.
So this would be a request to the provider based on a finding by a senior-level -- a high-level government official that an emergency exists such that there is not time in advance to go to the court. But the government would have to go very quickly after the fact to the court to document the national security need for that query. Again, that is how it has worked in the FISA context. I think that could serve as a model. But, again, this is something we would want to work with Congress on.
I’d offer my colleagues to chime in if there’s anything they think that I’ve missed in that regard.
Q I was wondering if you can expand a little bit upon some of the concerns that the phone companies brought up during your conversations with them. Are they possibly facing more challenges on the formatting of the data, or is it the timely manner that you request it?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks for the question. I think there is -- I think they’d want to understand what the government’s needs would be. And I think the ability to format the data and produce it in a way that is useful and can be quickly used and analyzed by law enforcement and the intelligence community -- those are all things that they would be interested in.
But, again, those are things I think we would look forward to working with Congress on to make sure that we got legislation that was able to hit that mark and, again, trying to get at the two main criteria that the President laid out: able to maintain the capabilities and still provide our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the information they need while achieving this in a way that doesn’t have the government collecting and holding the bulk metadata.
Q There’s obviously been legislation introduced this week from the House Intelligence Committee leaders, and they pretty much characterized that you guys are coming closer to them in reports about your proposal. I guess can you talk about how closely does what you’re off doing match with what they have brought out? And, more broadly, does it concern you that -- would any proposal that did not include a specific court order before a search include individual number be a deal breaker?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Look, I think with respect to some of the other proposals that have been put forward and the House Intelligence Committee announcement earlier this week, I think we were very pleased to see that they agree with us that the government shouldn’t collect or hold the data. So I think that is a point of agreement that the House had with the President. Of course, the President made that clear back in January that that was one of his main criteria.
I think the other main point, though -- and something the President has been clear about again since January, because he ordered a judicial preapproval of the queries -- that was one of the first step changes that he ordered immediately back in January. And since that time, that’s been in effect. So that’s an area where I think the President has laid out, again, back in January as one of his main criteria and reiterated here today as being one of the main attributes that he would like to see in a path forward on 215.
MS. HAYDEN: We’ll take one more question, please.
Q Hi, thanks for taking the call. I just wanted to clarify what the standard would be in order to do querying. Would it be the RAS standard that would have to be met? And also, what is your expectation for Congress to take up legislation? I mean, obviously, it’s been very difficult to move anything in Congress and I’m wondering what you think the timeline that you’re looking at would be.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think we would hope that the Congress would take something up very expeditiously. Again, we agree and the President has said -- and he said it back in January -- he thinks there needs to be a debate about these tools, and that’s what he would like to see happen. That’s what he has contributed and has identified as a main point to come from all of these discussions. And that’s why he is advancing his views of what the key attributes of a proposal would be.
I think we want to work very closely with Congress, as we have been, to see something effected expeditiously. We’re hopeful that the Congress can come together to produce legislation that would provide the ability for our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get this information in a timely manner, and to get the information they need to address national security and terrorism threats and do so without the government holding the data.
And with respect to the second part of your question, in terms of the standard, here again we’ve got experience in this. And since January, as I noted, the President has asked and directed that the government seek this data or query this data only pursuant to a judicial finding that there’s a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the number is associated with a terrorist or a terrorist group. So that provides I think a good baseline and a good point from which we can work with Congress to develop the proposal that I laid out.
MS. HAYDEN: Thanks, everyone. This is Caitlin. Thanks for joining us. Again, a reminder that this call was on background with senior administration officials. If you have further questions, obviously you know how to find me and my fellow spokespeople in the intelligence community and DOJ. So feel free to follow up with us. But thanks for joining and have a great day. Bye.
END
2:32 P.M. CETThe Spanish region of Catalonia recently announced it would fine drivers using the popular app up to €6,000 ($8,000), which taxi drivers argue threatens their livelihood.
Now police in the region's capital have been given instructions on how to act when they think a driver may be illegally picking up passengers, Spain's El Mundo newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Police will have to separately interview both the driver and the client in the vehicle, those instructions state.
Agents will also have to investigate what type of arrangement the driver of a vehicle has with the firm offering the transport service, what sort of contract the driver has with the passenger, and how any payment is made.
Police are also required to take photographs or screen captures of mobile phones as evidence a taxi app like Uber has been used.
Drivers who are found to have illegally used their private car to pick up passengers will also have their car impounded, the instructions state.
Taxi drivers in Spain have protested against Uber in recent weeks, as have drivers in France, Germany and London.
But the Vice President of the European Commission Nellie Kroes has responded to the strikes by saying that technology is not the problem, and that a solution needs to be found.Editor's note: Mel Robbins, a CNN commentator and legal analyst, is the founder of Inspire52.com, a news and entertainment site for women, and author of "Stop Saying You're Fine." This year, she was named outstanding news talk radio host by the Gracie Awards. Follow her on Twitter @melrobbins. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- On Friday, the Sayreville High School football team was supposed to host a rival team in a homecoming game. But instead of taking the field, seven Sayreville, New Jersey, players were taken into custody, arrested and charged in flagrant sexual assaults on younger players. Many have referred to the incident as pervasive locker room "hazing."
What allegedly happened isn't just hazing, it's rape.
"It would start with a howling noise from a senior football player at Sayreville War Memorial High School, and then the locker room lights were abruptly shut off," NJ Advance Media reported (citing information from the parent of one victim).
"In the darkness, a freshman football player would be pinned to the locker-room floor, his arms and feet held down by multiple upperclassmen. Then, the victim would be lifted to his feet" and sexually abused.
If that's not enough to make you sick to your stomach, consider that these attacks allegedly happened several times -- between September 19 and September 29 -- and to four separate victims.
Consider that there were dozens of players in these locker rooms who allegedly witnessed the rapes and hazing and did nothing to stop, report or thwart them.
One bright spot in this horrific story is Dr. Richard Labbe, the superintendent who acted swiftly and definitively. On October 2, when a parent and student first reported the alleged assaults, the superintendent immediately canceled and forfeited that evening's football game because of a "serious and unforeseen circumstances."
Over the next couple of days, more information came to light, prompting Labbe to cancel the entire season because of "incidences of harassment, intimidation and bullying as constituted by the definition within the anti-bullying statute that took place on a pervasive level." His decision was unanimously upheld by the board of education.
The only thing more disgusting than these allegations are the reactions of the parents in Sayreville who showed up at the board of education meeting to protest.
You only need to read the comments of the mom of one football captain who was questioned by police to understand just how whacked some people are.
As she sees it: "No one was hurt. No one died. I don't understand why they're being punished. I think that the forfeited game was punishment enough." Seems the denial among some parents is just as pervasive as the crimes going on in the locker rooms.
To the parents complaining about lost scholarship opportunities, the fact is that if these charges are true, your son doesn't deserve a scholarship; he deserves jail time.
Among the litany of charges, three of the players are charged with aggravated sexual assault, which carries a five-year sentence if convicted in juvenile court. However, the prosecutor could charge all or some of the players as adults, which would mean substantially more prison time, leave them with criminal records and require their registration as sexual offenders.
So far, Labbe has handled this crisis flawlessly. So what should he do next?
1. Fire the entire football coaching staff.
Many parents are standing by head coach George Najjar, who has brought home multiple championships and run the football program for 20 years. He may win on the field, but he is a loser as a leader. Either he and his staff are grossly negligent for not knowing what was happening, or they knew and did nothing. Either way, it's appalling.
What was allegedly going on in their locker rooms is what you'd expect from a street gang or a prison yard, not a high school football team. The coach and his staff are responsible for the safety and well-being of their players and by allowing 60 to 70 high school boys to be repeatedly unsupervised in a locker room, the coaching staff put these freshman players in harm's way.
2. Cancel next season, too.
Culture takes a long time to change, unless it's forced to change. There was a pervasive abusive culture in that Sayreville locker room, and my hunch is it's been happening for years. You need to send a message to the players, the parents, the victims and the entire community that this will not be tolerated.
And for those players who weren't "involved," guess what: If you knew about the hazing and did nothing, you were "involved" and should feel the sting of punishment, too.
Sports commentator Shannon Sharpe said something very powerful about the hazing incident involving former Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito, who was suspended after allegations of pervasive racial harassment of Jonathan Martin.
Referring to the players who witnessed the alleged hazing, Sharpe said: "If you allow Richie Incognito to walk around (the locker room) and use a racial epithet, that all black Americans know the stigma and hate and vitriol that comes with that word -- if you allow him to do that, you're encouraging him to do that."
To change culture, the message must be clear: Abuse, bullying and hazing will not be tolerated at Sayreville, and neither will indifference.
3. Find the truth, the whole truth.
The truth will come out. Prosecutors will be calling every player in individually for questioning. Players will be asked under oath about the howling, turning off the lights, holding victims down, who did what, how often, whether there were videos or photos. We are at the beginning of this story, because I am certain it didn't start with this season. A locker room does not go from towel snapping to anal rape overnight.
I can only wonder what was done to the seven boys who were arrested when they were freshmen in that locker room.
It doesn't excuse their alleged actions if they were victims of similar crimes, but it does help explain why it happened -- perhaps they were taught to do it. If that's the case, they were once victims, too, and it should be part of the facts considered when the courts determine their fate.
And to the heroes in this story, the student victims who came forward: Our hearts go out to you, and we are all moved by your courage. It's extremely difficult to stand up to abuse, and there's no doubt you saved future students from the same horrible fate. Your parents must be so very proud of you for having the guts to ask for help.
I hope you are also proud of yourselves. Strength of character is a much more valuable asset in life than winning a football game will ever be.
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Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.Terry Francona was ushered into the interview room Wednesday moments after managing the Indians into the World Series, so he was late arriving to their postgame celebration. He walked into the clubhouse just as players stopped spraying champagne and started speaking to the media.
The Indians actually struggled to get the party started. It was if they weren’t exactly sure what to do after beating the Blue Jays and winning the American League Championship Series. For a while, each time they were ready to uncork the bubbly in unison, they realized somebody was missing from their circle.
Francona’s absence, strangely, was overlooked.
It was just as well, as far as he was concerned. To him, the pennant was for the band of brothers in the clubhouse and the City of Cleveland. The Tribe, who had the 23rd-highest payroll when the season began, ran away with the AL Central, swept the Red Sox and dumped the Jays in five games.
“I’m honored that we’re going to the World Series,” Francona said after eliminating Toronto. “We always said, if we could do it with this group, it would be so special. This is as close to a family feel as you can get in a professional setting. For that part of it, it’s beyond feeling good. The only personal things are the relationships.”
Cleveland is back in the World Series for the first time since 1997, when the Indians were five strikes from winning the title and lost in seven games to the Marlins. They haven’t won a Series since 1948. Francona was born in 1959, when his father, Tito, was a rookie outfielder for the Tribe.
Francona’s life in baseball began in Cleveland, so he understood the spirit of the city when he was hired as the Tribe’s skipper in 2013. This year, the Indians were built with players who were flawed in certain areas, but they overcame their shortcomings with the competitive fire and brawn common among the resilient people in Northeast Ohio.
You couldn’t ask for a manager in Cleveland more suited than the cerebral Francona, whose first managing job came in 1993 after former Indians third baseman Buddy Bell hired him to oversee a minor-league team for the White Sox. Francona, literally and figuratively, has put his heart into the game since he was a kid.
In 2001, he was on his way to interview for the Mariners managerial job and instead landed in the hospital for four days with a pulmonary embolism. In 2005, when he was with the Red Sox, he was hospitalized for three days with chest pain. He missed a game this year against the Nationals after having similar problems.
His health issues hardly compromised his passion, which reflected on his players. Look at the 2004 Red Sox, the only team in baseball history to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games. Thursday was the anniversary of them completing the comeback in the ALCS against the Yankees.
The ’04 Red Sox were affectionately known for being a “bunch of idiots,” but really they were a hard-driving, resourceful team that refused to surrender. They exorcised the Curse of the Bambino and handed Boston its first Series since 1918. Three years later, they won another under Francona.
Cleveland has a 7-1 record in the postseason, so it’s not as if the Tribe’s success in 2016 came the way Boston’s did in ’04. Still, the Indians possess the same fundamental qualities as the great Red Sox teams with their great pitching, solid defense, smart base running and relentless hitters who refuse to surrender at-bats.
It’s why he’s among the most revered managers of his time, why Derek Jeter tipped his cap to Francona whenever the Yankees played against teams he managed. Francona, named Manager of the Year in his first season in Cleveland, has 1,381 victories to his name. He’s inching toward the Hall of Fame.
If the Indians win the Series, he should be a lock.
Francona, 57, has a 35-19 record in the postseason. His.648 winning percentage is the highest among managers with at least 50 playoff games. After beating the Blue Jays, he passed Sparky Anderson for seventh all-time in playoff wins. He’ll pass Casey Stengel if the Indians bring home a championship.
The Indians had more adversity test their resolve this season than any pennant winner since the ’04 Red Sox. People forget they lost two of their top starting pitchers, Carlos Carrasco to a broken hand and Danny Salazar to arm problems, in the past six weeks. They were without top hitter Michael Brantley all season.
Trevor Bauer sliced his pinky before the ALCS and was gone after ripping open his stitches in the first inning of Game Three. Francona patched the final 81/3 innings with six pitchers to secure the win. With no other starters available, Ryan Merritt arrived from the Arizona Instructional League to shut down the Blue Jays in Game Five.
Cleveland responded one time after another. They persevered through so much that they practically welcomed another challenge before taking the field Wednesday. Francona pulled Merritt into his office and made it clear his teammates were behind him. He pleaded with him to enjoy the experience, no matter how daunting.
Mike Napoli, the kind of impassioned player who thrives under Francona, hit a double and drove home the only run Cleveland needed. Merritt had a ball while retiring the first 10 batters he faced. Afterward, the rookie left-hander watched his teammates from the periphery like a freshman attending his first frat party.
Francona was nowhere to be found while the champagne flowed, but he certainly wasn’t overlooked. Everybody understood he was the primary reason a bunch of boys playing baseball created a circle and celebrated.
email: bgleason@buffnews.comViolence continued unabated in Haryana on Monday with stone-pelting mobs attacking security personnel trying to clear a road blockade triggering a clash in which three civilians were killed raising the death toll to 19 in the nine-day old stir.
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Besides the clash in Sonipat which also left nine people injured, fresh incidents of arson and violence erupted in several districts including Rohtak, Kaithal and Hissar.
Listen to the audio clip that points to Hooda aide’s ‘role’ in Jat agitation in Haryana
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7:37 pm With day-to-day life limping back to normalcy after the Jat protests in Haryana, supply of fuel and cooking gas almost turned normal in most cities, except Sonipat, Hissar and Bhiwani – epicenter of the stir. “The supplies of petrol, diesel and LPG are now turning normal in most parts of Haryana. Our supplies through trucks also resumed which got stuck in blockades put up by protesters |
. Kite, only one back, hit a fine 6-iron shot to within 10 feet at the 18th but missed. The only player left with a chance was Norman, who had made four consecutive birdies to tie Nicklaus at nine under par. After Norman creased the fairway with a big drive at the 18th, Nicklaus took what action he could.
"I was sitting on a couch, watching Norman make birdies, and I thought, This isn't working very well," Jack says.
"So I stood up. I'm superstitious."
Norman is seen flaring his approach far right, deep into the gallery. It's not the first time Jack has seen it; he caught a replay of the shot soon after that Masters ended. "A few months later Greg led the British Open at Turnberry after three rounds. I found him that Saturday night. I said, 'Remember the swing you made at the last hole at Augusta, and the position you put yourself in? When you come down the stretch tomorrow, don't put the club in that position again.' Greg won the next day. I don't know if my advice helped him, but I did want to pass it along."
Norman followed with a mediocre chip to 10 feet. He missed the putt, and Nicklaus officially had won his sixth Masters. "It was kind of a blur after that," Jack says. "By the time I finished with the press it was dark, and then I had dinner at the club. It was very late when I got back to the house."
The TV broadcast segues to the green-jacket ceremony. Augusta National chairman Hord Hardin congratulates Sam Randolph as low amateur before soliciting comments from Nicklaus. Then Bernhard Langer, the defending champion, helps Jack into his green jacket. The tape ends, and the Nicklaus living room falls silent. There is only one last question for Jack and Jackie Nicklaus, an obvious one: What did winning that Masters mean to them? Says Jackie, "As it relates to Dad on the golf course, that Masters was No. 1.
I'm asked about it frequently, and all I say is, it was awfully special. And I had the best seat in the house."
And Jack? "Several things about that Masters were unique," he says. "My mother had not been to the Masters since my first one in 1959, and she'd said, 'I want to go to the Masters one more time.' So she was there, and so was my sister, Marilyn, who had never been to the Masters. Other family members were there, and a bunch of my friends. At that point in my career, I wasn't having much success. I didn't expect to win, the press didn't expect me to win, the players didn't expect me to win. But my talents were still there, my skills. It was a question of whether I could corral them, keep them in my head, keep myself organized and under control. That was the issue. As I got closer and closer as the round went on, it became more difficult. I did it, and that's what I'm most proud of. And having Jackie there to support me, that was just neat."Galazy Infinity is a vertical shooter focused on 3 objectives, action, infinite levels and competition against other players around the world.
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3 different shots with 6 evolution levels each. It will be a pleasure to destroy your enemies with them.
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Infinity has been designed so that each game is unique and different, with an algorithm that allows each time you play you will not know where the enemies will come and which will increase the difficulty with the development of the game, As well as stronger new enemies.
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-EnglishThe only real way to see a Christopher Nolan movie is in IMAX. The filmmaker specifically makes his films for the large screen format, and with each subsequent movie he innovates in multiple ways. For his latest film, Interstellar, Nolan put IMAX cameras on planes to capture new footage. In the coming weeks, we’ll surely hear more about his IMAX use. Film projection in IMAX is important to him, too, and the flagship location, the TCL Chinese Theater IMAX, is specifically putting in a film projector for Nolan’s movie.
So we’ll say again: the only real way to see a Christopher Nolan movie is in IMAX. And it turns out, you’ll have a chance to do that a few days earlier than anywhere else. Multiple IMAX theaters are selling tickets to see the Interstellar IMAX experience on November 4, three days ahead of the wide November 7 opening.
First Showing spotted the tickets on sale. Inquiries to both Paramount and IMAX have not been returned as of publication.
In their piece, they only noticed that tickets were on sale at a few locations, specifically ones in California. MovieTickets.com has tickets at the AMC Universal City in Los Angeles and an IMAX in San Jose, CA, The Tech Museum of Innovation, is also selling. The TCL is not yet on sale nor is the big New York City IMAX, the AMC Lincoln Square.
Check your local IMAX to see if tickets are on sale as they are sure to go fast. And we’ll update this post when we hear more official information from either the studio or theater chain.
Directed by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Michael Caine and others. Here’s the official synopsis:“Invent your own job; take such an interest in it that you eat, sleep, dream, walk, talk, and live nothing but your work until you succeed.”1 That was Walt Disney’s motto—and exactly how he lived. Passionate about his vision, he persisted until he made it reality, often overcoming seemingly impassible obstacles. In order to succeed in building his entertainment empire, and later his first theme park, Disneyland, Disney made his work his life, an all-consuming, 24/7 state of being. Even in the last years of his life, he ate, slept, dreamed, walked, talked, and lived nothing but his work—but by then his focus had shifted from filmmaking and Disneyland to Walt Disney World.
According to Disney, Walt Disney World was “the most exciting and challenging assignment... ever tackled at Walt Disney Productions.”2 However, the Walt Disney World we know today is a far cry from what Disney himself had envisioned. Walt Disney did not intend it to be the world’s largest vacation resort but rather the epicenter of a transformation in urban planning, which would improve domestic living by imbuing it with groundbreaking technology. The heart of Walt Disney World was to be EPCOT, not the theme park that currently bears that name but an actual Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, a futuristic city that would serve as a proving ground for the latest science and technology. EPCOT was Disney’s pet project in his later years. Sadly, he passed away before it was completed, and without his passion and persistence, the futuristic city he had envisioned would not come to be. His vision and tenacity, nevertheless, are remarkable in themselves.
Long before tackling the EPCOT project, Disney persisted in the face of many setbacks and stumbles, some of which threatened to leave him homeless and hungry. Although he did everything he could to save them, Disney’s first two animation studios failed. His third studio, formed with his brother, Roy, after the two moved to California, finally saw success with its popular animated character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Unfortunately, in the face of this success, Disney discovered that the rights to his creation were actually held by Universal. Forging ahead, he strode past this disappointment by creating Mickey Mouse, who became far more popular with moviegoers than his predecessor and brought the studio much recognition and wealth.
Even after Mickey Mouse had become a regular on the silver screen, however, Disney was eager to innovate again. In his eyes, his production studio needed a “new adventure,” a “‘kick in the pants,’ to jar loose some new enthusiasm and inspiration.”3 In 1934, Disney began developing the studio’s first full-length feature animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Despite his own enthusiasm, however, many friends and associates, including his brother and wife, thought the film would destroy the Disney Studio. Indeed, financial troubles nearly halted production. But Disney refused to give up, mortgaging his house and taking out a loan to complete the film—which became one of the most popular films of 1937 (and, adjusted for inflation, is number ten on the list of top-grossing American films), establishing him as a master in the entertainment industry.
Such persistence and passion would be crucial to the development and creation of EPCOT, which, as Disney conceived it, became a monumental undertaking. He envisioned EPCOT as a revolution in urban planning, “a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing, and testing, and demonstrating new materials and new systems.”4 It was to be a completely functioning prototype city in which captains of industry could test their solutions for the problems of modern-day city living. For this reason, all residents would rent rather than own their homes, and Disney Corporation would constantly update, change, and test the technology therein. As Disney indicated in a 1966 promotional film, residents’ homes would “be built in ways that permit ease of change so that new products may continuously be demonstrated.”5 During the workday, residents would enjoy a city geared toward maximizing their efficiency and productivity. Outside of work, EPCOT would provide them with a safe, convenient, entertaining, and educational atmosphere....Bellator was once Bjorn Rebney's baby, the promotion he founded in 2008 and built from the bottom up. Now? Rebney said he doesn't really consume the product.
Rebney's idea of what Bellator — and MMA — should be seems to be a contrast to the current path the promotion is on at this stage.
"What they've been doing over the last few years obviously isn't how I'd do it," Rebney told Ariel Helwani on a recent episode of The MMA Hour. "Again, that's just business."
Rebney created Bellator and installed tournaments that fighters must win in order to earn title shots. Rebney was very much about the sport of MMA, about a merit-based system. He sold Bellator to media giant Viacom in 2011 and the tournaments were gradually given less importance. In 2014, Rebney was let go as president of Bellator and Viacom hired Scott Coker, former promoter of Strikeforce, in his place.
The Bellator of 2016, which airs on Spike TV, is different from the Rebney days. Coker has signed big stars, formerly of other organizations, and earned major ratings for it, while also attempting to build young prospects from within. The matchmaking, like it is in most MMA promotions like the UFC, is slanted toward entertainment and ratings potential.
Rebney said he wouldn't take the approach of bringing in aging fighters like Kimbo Slice (who passed away earlier this year), Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, and others.
"I haven't watched much of Bellator, because it isn't what I'd choose to watch at this stage," Rebney said. "It doesn't mean it's wrong, it doesn't mean that it's bad and it doesn't mean I disrespect or don't have great admiration for the Franks and or the Kens and for the Royces and those guys. But it's not my thing."
Rebney still swears by the sporting aspect of MMA — champions fighting top contenders regardless of drawing power and an emphasis placed on the competition and not the hype. When he sold to Viacom, Rebney said he had to cede some decision-making to the company, which is just how it works in those situations.
"They're very, very different," Rebney said. "Obviously, very, very different. With that comes the ability of the company to make all of the decisions. Entrepreneurs deal with that sh*t all the time."
Rebney surfaced suddenly after more than two years out of the public eye during the MMA Athletes Association (MMAAA) launch conference call two weeks ago. Rebney said he is working in an advisory role for the association, which is hoping to even the balance of power between the UFC and its fighters. The MMAAA is seeking a settlement for former and current UFC fighters, an equal share of revenue, and eventually a collective-bargaining agreement like the ones in MLB, the NBA, etc.
Rebney estimated on the call that UFC fighters only get paid 8 percent of the UFC's revenue. And a major concern for the MMAAA is that the athletes don't have full-scale health care of protections after retirement, like a pension.
"If this doesn't get fixed, we don't have a sport in 10 years," Rebney said. There is no possible way mixed martial arts can continue on this trajectory."
It was a surprise appearance for Rebney, who has been criticized as a promoter who was hard on fighters at Bellator. Rebney said he wants to be an advocate for athletes now and believes he understands the inner-workings of promotions enough to be a boon for the organization effort.
The MMAAA will not encompass Bellator fighters at this stage. The focus will be on the UFC, as it is the world leader in the space, Rebney said. Bellator is the pretty clear No. 2, though it is not something that currently strikes Rebney's fancy.
"It doesn't make any of that stuff bad or it doesn't make it not the right thing," Rebney said. "It's just not my thing."Has to be able to execute any binary on the system in a domain called sandbox_t.
Since the goal here is to make a general purpose tool that anyone could use in a script, I did not want to limit the user to a particular app.
Can not "Open or Create any files on the system".
Later we added a sandbox_file_t type that sandbox apps can Manage, files, directories, sock_files, fifo_files sandbox_file_t is only currently created if you execute sandbox as root, with the -M flag, this creates a temporary file system mount labeled sandbox_file_t under /mnt
Can not use the network.
Should only be able to read a small amount of the system
Sandbox_t needs to be able to read the executables, in order to execute them, we might experiment with using fexece, although there are currently no python bindings. sandbox_t domain to use shared libraries, so sandbox_t can read all libraries on the system. sandbox_t can use any open file descriptors passed to it by the shell, or any other app that would be able to execute the sandbox domain. But it remember it CANNOT OPEN or CREATE any file. The sandbox command can take a --type (-t) qualifier to allow it to run the job with an alternative domain. So you could write policy to only run sandbox's with out shared libraries, or you could run a sandbox that is able to use one or two network ports.
sandbox command has a --mount (-m) option. This will mount a tmpfs file system under /mnt, labeled sandbox_file_t, then it cd to this directory so the sandboxed apps can write to their current working directory.
Multiple sandboxes could be running at the same time so we want to make sure they can not interact together, so I added "mcs" protection to them. Each sandbox runs with a slightly different MCS label meaning that one process can not interfere with another.
Sandbox is allowed to write to the terminal, since users would expect this.
The other day some of my colleagues and I were discussing a recent request for the Linux Kernel to add "security sandbox" functionality. We talked about how we could do this with SELinux. The discussions brought up an old Bug report of my about writing policy for the "little things". SELinux does a great job of confining System Services, but what about applications executed by users. The bug report talked about confining grep, awk, ls... The idea was couldn't we stop the grep or the mv command from suddenly opening up a network connection and copying off my /etc/shadow file to parts unknown.Could we write an SELinux policy that allows users to build scripts to process untrusted content into some output that they could safely use.cat /tmp/UNTRUSTEDCONTENT | sandbox /sbin/filter.sh > /tmp/SEMITRUSTEDCONTENTAnother possible use case would be to tie sandbox into GRID jobs, or Condor. I could image an administrator saying that I will allow a grid job to run on my machine but I want SELinux to sandbox the job and make sure it causes no harm to my system, or from my system. I do not want GRID jobs becoming Spam Bots or somehow attacking the rest of my system. I definitely do not want them touching my homedir, since that is where firefox stores my credit card data.I decided to write a policy called sandbox, it took me approximately 10 button clicks using system-config-selinux/polgengui in F11. I will show you how I did this later in the blog, if you are interested. You could use runcon to cause unconfined_t user domain to transition to the sandbox_t domain, but I decided to build a new tool called /usr/bin/sandbox that would do this for you.The tool and policy are currently available in selinux-policy-3.6.12-41.fc11 and policycoreutils-2.0.62-12.6.fc11. My current intention with sandbox is not to handle X Apps, since these apps want to write all over the home directory ~/.gconf, ~/gnome., ~/.config... and all over /tmp, along with use privs to talk to the X Server. I have some ideas on this for the future that I hope to experiment with.So what were my security goals in writing sandbox.One test I have run with it is> sandbox id -Zunconfined_u:unconfined_r:sandbox_t:s0:c87,c905This command shows that sandbox ran the id command under the sandbox_t domain and chose the MCS label s-:c87,c905If I wanted to create a file of users on my system from the /etc/passwd file, I could try> sandbox cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd > /tmp/users/bin/cut: /etc/passwd: Permission deniedWhich shows the sandbox domain is not allowed to open /etc/passwdBut I can execute> cat /etc/passwd | sandbox cut -d: -f1 > /tmp/usersBut if I wanted to use sandbox to read random locations on the system,> sandbox ls -lZ /tmp/bin/ls: cannot open directory /tmp: Permission denied[Exit 2]I think this is a very powerful concept and could be used to confine random scripts that handle untrusted data, without the admin needing to write much policy. You can play around with the tool and see what you think, although it will generate lots of AVC messages.Creating the Sandbox policy.I ran system-config-selinux, I selected Policy Modules and clicked on New. When I got to the "Select type of the application/user role to be confined, I selected user application. Sandbox can be run by administrators or normal users so this made sense.I called the policy sandbox, I lied about an executable /sbin/sandbox and thenFinally I told the tool to transition from unconfined_u user roleI just clicked to the end and installed the policy using the generated sandbox.shI could then use the runcon command to run a random binary as sandbox_t.Now I went in an started editing the policy, I removed the "permissive sandbox_t" line which the gui tool adds automatically. I also remove files_read_etc_files. To make it more tightly locked down,I addedfiles_rw_all_inherited_files(sandbox_t)to allow sandbox_t to use any file on the file system that is handed to the process.I also added sandbox_file_t type and allows sandbox_t to manage this type.Say you wanted to create a sandbox domain that can just connect to port 25, you could go through the same steps and when you get to the network connection section you can add the ability to connect to this port.A spokeswoman for Laura Bush on Thursday said the former first lady has requested to be taken out of an ad that features clips of well-known Republicans speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage, CNN reported.
The ad, released by the Respect for Marriage Coalition this week, includes footage of Bush during a 2010 interview with former CNN host Larry King.
“Mrs. Bush did not approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated in any way with the group that made the ad,” Anne MacDonald, a a spokeswoman for the former first lady, said in a statement, according to CNN. “When she became aware of the advertisement Tuesday night, we requested that the group remove her from it.”
The ad also features two other prominent players from the presidency of George W. Bush: former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Watch the ad:Ryan Flaherty didn't want to use the word stubborn to describe Russell Wilson. But he said when the Seattle Seahawks quarterback has conviction in a plan, it can be difficult to change his mind.
So when the pair began to discuss Wilson's offseason training regimen, Flaherty realized he had some work to do.
He has trained athletes in different sports but has become increasingly popular among NFL quarterbacks, having worked with Cam Newton, Marcus Mariota and Carson Palmer.
A year ago, Wilson's focus was clear: He wanted to get faster. While speed will always play a role in Wilson's offseason training, Flaherty wanted him to look at the bigger picture this time around and shift his focus.
"He’s getting to that point where you can’t keep training the way you’ve trained your entire life," Flaherty said. "Because there comes a point in your mid-20s, your late 20s, where your body really starts to change. You can’t continue to beat it down every single offseason in the hopes of getting bigger and stronger and faster, because at some point there’s a breaking point."
"So this offseason, our real focus," Flaherty continued, "as much as it was about keeping Russell in top shape and keeping him fast and all of those things that he wants and needs, it was also really turning the focus to injury prevention and saying, ‘Look, you have not missed a game in four years. You have not even missed a practice. We’re going to keep it that way.’
"So we really turned the focus to keeping his body healthy, his mind right, but really implementing injury prevention as a big, big component into his offseason program."
Russell Wilson figures to be playing at a slightly lower weight than he has the past couple of seasons as a result of a revamped workout regimen. Elaine Thompson/AP Photo
Wilson's durability might be the most overlooked aspect of his success in the NFL. Since entering the league, he has started 74 straight games (playoffs included) and has never missed a practice. He has been sacked 195 times during that span and run with the ball on 462 occasions. But since 2012, every time the Seahawks' offense has come out onto the field in the first quarter, Wilson has been in the huddle.
So why change things now? Wilson has to have been doing something right to stay on the field. Why did Flaherty believe this offseason was the time for the 27-year-old to focus on injury prevention?
"You go back through the years of all the quarterbacks, between generally years four to six is where the majority of the injuries occur," Flaherty said. "And I think a lot of that has to do with guys get into their rhythms, they get into the league, they start to get a feel for it, understand it. But what they don’t understand a lot of times is how their training has to change and evolve as they age.
"You cannot keep training like you did when you were 21 and 22 years old. A lot of people don’t understand that. But you also can’t do the reverse, which is not train. And so, at that age is where I really start to shift the training to where it’s a majority focus on corrective exercises and fixing imbalances. Injuries occur in the body when there’s imbalances."
Flaherty believes in data and quantitative analysis. So when Wilson wanted to know why Flaherty felt so strongly about this specific plan, he was able to show his work. It also helped that Palmer, who has suffered multiple injuries in his career, backed Flaherty up.
"Russell, just starting out, because I got him so young, we’ve been able to address those imbalances," Flaherty said. "His lower body is really balanced, which is huge in terms of injury prevention. When I got Carson, I started training him at 35 years old, there’s a lot of imbalances that we had to correct all last year and last offseason.
"Carson’s like, ‘Dude, don’t do what I did. Really just make sure you follow Ryan’s program. Go with the injury-prevention stuff. It’s so important.’ And so I think that’s one thing for Russell that’s going to be huge. I think he has the possibility based on where he’s at, what his body was like when we started working together, not missing a practice for his entire career, which I think is pretty incredible."
As for the actual training, Flaherty traveled from San Diego to Los Angeles, where Wilson was spending his offseason. His team included a physical therapist and massage therapist. The sessions took place four times a week -- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday -- and lasted from two to four hours.
Some of the changes Flaherty instituted were subtle.
For example, Flaherty explained that the dominant muscles in an athlete's body always want to take over, sometimes making it difficult to work out the smaller, stabilizing muscles. Previously, Wilson's instructions might have been to do four sets of eight reps for an exercise called the single leg Bulgarian split squat. This offseason though, Flaherty timed the reps and made Wilson take six seconds on his way down and six seconds on his way up.
"What that does is it fatigues the bigger muscles quicker, and then it allows the stabilizer muscles, the smaller muscles, to then be activated, and it forces them to work, which then forces them to grow," Flaherty said.
"A lot of times the reason most people have imbalances is because they don’t train the muscles, the body, in a way to where they fatigue the bigger muscles to where you can really get to the stabilization type -- the smaller muscles that are really important in injury prevention."
Wilson is more inquisitive than many of the other athletes Flaherty has worked with. Oftentimes, athletes show up, trust the trainer and do the work. Wilson constantly wanted to know why. Flaherty provided answers.
The quadriceps, for example, should never be more than three times as strong as the hamstring, Flaherty told Wilson. The tear-drop shaped muscle above the kneecap known as the vastus medialis obliquus (VMO) has to be developed in balance with the rest of the body to limit the risk of ACL tears. And so on. Wilson asked, Flaherty explained, and then they came up with a plan.
When Wilson was asked about his offseason focus, he was vaguer, but he still emphasized lower-body strength.
"That’s the biggest thing for me is having my legs really strong so you take those hits, can step up in the pocket, move quickly, move swiftly," Wilson said. "Still keep my eyes downfield and make those plays."
The Seahawks' offensive line could feature three new starters. And the two returning starters are at different positions. The discussion surrounding Wilson's elusiveness has focused on whether to play at a heavier weight to withstand hits or at a lighter weight to outrun defenders.
"Last year, his coaches were always saying, ‘We want you around 218, 219.’ And they say that because they want him to be able to absorb a lot of the hits he’s going to be taking," Flaherty said.
"The more additional body weight that someone carries in order to take those hits and be able to stay healthy, they’ll naturally lose some speed, because he’s carrying extra weight around. It’s like anybody. You put a weight vest on them and they slow down. So it’s kind of like finding that fine balance."
"After last year’s experience," Flaherty added, "I think he’s back to saying, ‘No, no. I want to be a little bit lighter because I want to be able to get away. I don’t want to take those hits.’ I told him before, ‘If you’re fast enough, you don’t need to take hits. So let’s just work on the speed.’ So his body weight’s going to be a little lower this year, which will be good. He’ll be around 212, which will allow him to be faster. So I think his speed’s going to be a little closer to his first or second year than it was in his third or fourth."
And then there's sleep. Wilson said during last season he sleeps five to six hours a night during the week before upping the number to 10 hours on Fridays and Saturdays before games. Flaherty has tried to convince Wilson more sleep during the week is important, introducing him to people like Cheri D. Mah from Stanford, who is an expert in the field.
The sleep argument is one Flaherty has yet to win.
"He’s a tough one because he has a hard time sleeping," Flaherty said. "His mind goes a million miles per hour constantly. It comes down to just sharing information and getting them around experts in different fields.
"I got him introduced to [Mah], just trying to get him educated and understanding that for him to perform at his best, whether it’s him or any other human being or athlete, it requires more than five to six. So we’ve really tried to focus in on that."
Wilson set career highs in completion percentage, passing yards, passing touchdowns and yards per attempt last season. He led the NFL in passer rating. Since he got into the league, Wilson has had a team around him helping him explore ways to get better. That hasn't changed this offseason, but under Flaherty's direction, the focus of his training has shifted.
"We had such a fiery season last year in a good way, making so many plays, especially through the passing game," Wilson said. "And we want to keep that acceleration going."25 July, 2016 16:45
CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Local Sharkies die-hard and lead instigator in the 2005 Cronulla Riots, Sharryd Clayne, says life couldn’t be any better down in The Shire.
“Mate, we’ve got Pauline in the Senate, Trump in the White House and fifteen on the fuckin’ trot” roars the 25-year-old brickies labourer between sips from his 600ml Monster Energy drink.
“I’ve been dreaming about all these things since I was 18 waving that Aussie flag on the beach, telling the wogs to fuck off”
“I am very proud in my country and very proud of my team,”
However, when questioned about the possible parallels between the Cronulla Sharks Football side’s 15-match winning streak, and their recent increase in non-Anglo players, Mr Clayne says he doesn’t notice.
“Mate everyone’s the same colour in that baby blue. And none of ’em are Muslim anyway,”
“I’m not racist I just call it as I see it,”
“Its not like white people don’t get picked on. The sharkies’ last white superstar got sacked for pissing in his own mouth,”
With the Gold Coast Titans scheduled in for round 24 at home, and Pauline Hanson locked in for up to six years in the Federal Upper House, Sharryd says everything’s coming up Claynesy.
“I reckon we’ll be able to get a premiership AND a Whites-Only beach by November” he says.
“Up, up Cronulla”.Honda Award winner as the top collegiate gymnast of 2016. Second such award of career (also won in 2013).
NCAA all-around champion and shared NCAA titles for uneven bars and balance beam. The three wins gives her the Florida record for career NCAA event titles (6). Six event titles is third all-time in the 35-year history of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships.
First Gator and only gymnast in 2016 to earn All-America first-team honors in each of the five events in NCAA Championships' competition. Florida's career leader with 16 All-America honors earned at NCAAs.
Only gymnast in nation to earn All-America honors in each event of the NACGC regular-season awards (first team – all-around, bars, beam, floor; second team – vault).
Top all-arounder in NCAA Super Six (39.65). Super Six all-around leader three of her four seasons.
NACGC Southeast Region Gymnast of the Year.
Six-time SEC Gymnast of the Week in 2016.
Three 10.0s in 2016 [two beam & one floor]. Only gymnast in nation to earn multiple beam 10.0s
Of the six gymnasts in the nation to post an all-around total of 39.70 or better in 2016, Sloan is only one with multiple appearances (39.775/twice; 39.70/once). Of the three to earn the nation's high of 39.775 this season, Sloan is only one to earn the total twice.
Led Gators with 27 event titles (nine all-around, seven bars, five beam, four floor, two vault)
Florida's career leader for: All-Around wins (27) Event titles (95) 10.0 marks (8)
Bridget Sloan (left) with Tracy Caulkins Stockwell at the 2016 Honda Award reception in Los Angeles. Caulkins Stockwell was the first Gator to be named Southeastern Conference Athlete of the Year, as she claimed the first women's honor in 1984.
Southeastern Conference Athlete of the Year Recipients Year Male Female 2016 Jarrion Lawson, Arkansas (track & field) Bridget Sloan, Florida (gymnastics) 2015 Andrew Benintendi, Arkansas (baseball) Lauren Haeger, Florida (softball) 2014 A.J. Reed, Kentucky (baseball) Hannah Rogers, Florida (softball) 2013 Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M (football) Allison Schmitt, Georgia (swimming) 2012 Anthony Davis, Kentucky (basketball) Brooke Pancake, Alabama (golf) 2011 John- Patrick Smith, Tennessee (tennis) Kayla Hoffman, Alabama (gymnastics) 2010 Mark Ingram, Alabama (football) Susan Jackson, LSU (gymnastics) 2009 Tim Tebow, Florida (football) Courtney Kupets, Georgia (gymnastics) 2008 Tim Tebow, Florida (football) Candace Parker, Tennessee (basketball) 2007 David Price, Vanderbilt (baseball) Monica Abbott, Tennessee (softball) 2006 Xavier Carter, LSU (track & field) Seimone Augustus, LSU (basketball) 2005 Ryan Lochte, Florida (swimming) Kirsty Coventry, Auburn (swimming) 2004 Alistair Cragg, Arkansas (cross country/track) Jeana Rice, Alabama (gymnastics) 2003 Alistair Cragg, Arkansas (cross country/track) LaToya Thomas, Mississippi State (basketball) 2002 Walter Lewis, LSU (track & field) Andree' Pickens, Alabama (gymnastics) 2001 Matias Boeker, Georgia (tennis) Amy Yoder Begley, Arkansas (cross country/track) 2000 Kip Bouknight, South Carolina (baseball) Kristy Kowal, Georgia (swimming) 1999 Tim Couch, Kentucky (football) Chamique Holdsclaw, Tennessee (basketball) 1998 Peyton Manning, Tennessee (football) Chamique Holdsclaw, Tennessee (basketball) 1997 Danny Wuerffel, Florida (football) Trinity Johnson, South Carolina (softball) 1996 Danny Wuerffel, Florida (football) Saudia Roundtree, Georgia (basketball) 1995 Todd Helton, Tennessee (baseball) Jenny Hansen, Kentucky (gymnastics) 1994 Corliss Williamson, Arkansas (basketball) Nicole Haislett, Florida (swimming) 1993 Jamal Mashburn, Kentucky (basketball) Nicole Haislett, Florida (swimming) 1992 Shaquille O'Neal, LSU (basketball) Vicki Goetze, Georgia (golf) 1991 Shaquille O'Neal, LSU (basketball) Daedra Charles, Tennessee (basketball) 1990 Alec Kessler, Georgia (basketball) Dee Foster, Alabama (gymnastics) 1989 Derrick Thomas, Alabama (football) Bridgette Gordon, Tennessee (basketball) 1988 Will Perdue, Vanderbilt (basketball) Dara Torres, Florida (swimming) 1987 Cornelius Bennett, Alabama (football) Lillie Leatherwood King, Alabama (track & field) 1986 Bo Jackson, Auburn (football) Jennifer Gillom, Ole Miss (basketball) 1985 Will Clark, Mississippi State (baseball) Penney Hauschild, Alabama (gymnastics) 1984 Terry Hoage, Georgia (football) Tracy Caulkins, Florida (swimming) 1983 Herschel Walker, Georgia (football/track and field) 1982 Buck Belue, Georgia (football/baseball) 1981 Rowdy Gaines, Auburn (swimming) 1980 Kyle Macy, Kentucky (basketball) 1979 Reggie King, Alabama (basketball) 1978 Jack Givens, Kentucky (basketball) 1977 Larry Seivers, Tennessee (football) 1976 Harvey Glance, Auburn (track & field)
University of Florida senioris the 2015-16 Roy F. Kramer Southeastern Conference Female Athlete of the Year, the league announced Thursday morning. Sloan and the male winner, Arkansas track & field athlete |
Ears region, named for the twin buttes that define the landscape, and surrounding San Juan County there are competing claims to the land and its history. The area has been home over the centuries to Native American tribes, Mormon settlers who reshaped the land in the late 1800s and the energy prospectors, ranchers and thrill-seekers drawn to it today.
All lay claim to pieces of the region’s past and all are determined to have a voice in its future.
On May 19, Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R) signed a resolution, passed in a special session, specifically opposing a national monument. But even that measure stipulated that the legislature and governor were in favor of “protection and conservation of the Bears Ears area” if done in “a constitutionally sound, locally driven legislative approach.”
Chaffetz and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) have spent more than three years crafting a lands bill that affects seven counties in eastern Utah, spanning 18 million acres. The process involved extensive deliberations with a wide range of interests—more than 1,200 meetings and more than 120 different groups, according to staffers, as one of Bishop’s aides racked up more than 65,000 miles on his Nissan Versa traveling from one meeting to another.
Forces of opposition
The lawmakers may introduce a bill this month, and earlier drafts set aside four times as much land for conservation as for development. But those proposals have drawn sharp criticism from environmentalists and tribal leaders, in part because they give state and local officials greater say over managing federal lands and redefine what activities can take place in protected areas.
Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, has dubbed the plan the “Plundered Lands Initiative.” He said it “gives away vast amounts of public land, sacrifices landscapes to energy development, rolls back existing protection and fails to protect the Bears Ears.”
And a coalition of tribal groups — including representatives from the Hopi, Navajo, Uintah and Ouray Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Pueblo of Zuni — abandoned what had been fitful negotiations with Utah Republicans in December, saying they were not given a proper voice in shaping the deal. Leaders of the tribes, some of which had warred against each other in the past, said they have found a common cause because of their spiritual and historical connection to the area.
“We put aside the sense of who came here first and who came here last,” said Carleton Bowekaty, a Pueblo of Zuni councilman. “We’re not confined by reservation lines. We’re not confined by state lines.”
A nonprofit Navajo group started pressing for federal protection six years ago, but tribal leaders say the state’s current members of Congress haven’t given them as much say as the late Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), who started the talks. Kenneth Maryboy, who at the time served as one of San Juan County’s three commissioners, attended a listening session with the two lawmakers and members of the community where one rancher openly scoffed at the idea of recognizing tribal claims.
“The damn Indians don’t need another reservation,” Maryboy recalled the rancher saying.
One prominent Navajo backs the congressional approach. Rebecca Benally, a Democrat who defeated Maryboy and sits on the county commission, argues that the federal government cannot be trusted to properly manage a monument.
[Retelling the American narrative with national monument designations]
Feelings are so brittle here that one Utah conservationist, Black Diamond Equipment chief executive Peter Metcalf, remarked in an interview that it embodies William Faulkner’s famous phrase: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Lyman, a critic of both the national monument proposal and the lawmakers’ broader lands bill, lives in Blanding, the town his great-grandfather helped found a century ago. Walter C. Lyman and other Mormon pioneers came from southwestern Utah in the arduous, six-month Hole-in-the-Rock expedition and first established the town of Bluff, which abuts the proposed monument designation. After repeated flooding ruined the settlers’ crops, Lyman managed to bring water onto White Mesa, about 25 miles away, and most of the settlers relocated.
When Lyman discusses his disputes with federal officials, environmentalists and some Navajo activists, he cites historic markers such as the 1865 law Abraham Lincoln gave Utahans, granting the right-of-way to build roads, and a 1933 agreement county leaders forged with the Navajos that gave them 500,00 acres south of the San Juan River, which is now part of a reservation that spans multiple states.
“The whole purpose of it was to create certainty: This is yours and this is ours,” he said. “It was supposed to have settled this.”
At this point, Native Americans — mostly Navajos and some Utes — make up 46 percent of San Juan County’s population. The county’s unemployment rate is more than double the state average, and about a quarter of county residents receive food stamps and medical assistance.
And the fossil fuel and mineral extraction that once drove the local economy have dwindled: The last time a rig drilled a hole in the county was February 2014, according to the oil service company Baker Hughes.
Helpful or hazardous?
Some argue that a monument designation could prove to be an economic asset to the region, in the same way tourism increased at Utah’s Grand Staircase-
Escalante National Monument after Bill Clinton designated it in 1996, as well as other sites that received similar presidential recognition.
Friends of Cedar Mesa Executive Director Josh Ewing, who has sought to broker a legislative compromise, noted that Utah’s “Mighty Five” advertising blitz touts four national parks that were initially protected under the Antiquities Act.
Last week Herbert and Hatch held an event at one of those well-known sites, Natural Bridges National Monument, to reiterate their opposition to another presidential designation in the state.
“It’s the sort of thing that will die down quickly,” said Ewing, an avid rock climber who regularly scales the area’s canyons and cliffs.
Still, Hatch was concerned enough that he warned Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in a private meeting in his office on March 8 that a repeat of what Clinton did 20 years ago could prompt an armed confrontation.
Obama was briefed on the conversation with Hatch, according to several individuals, and instructed his aides to continue exploring the possibility of designating a monument. Jewell plans to visit the area this summer, and no final decision has been made.
But Obama pledged in November that his administration would “review tribal proposals to permanently protect sacred lands for future generations.” Those who have spoken to him about it, including presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, say Obama “keenly wants to do some things [recognizing] Native American culture,” and the proposal meets that test.
Natural Resources Defense Council President Rhea Suh, who served as one of the Interior Department’s top officials before switching jobs about 18 months ago, said that when it comes to such monuments, “You usually wait for the harder ones for the last moment... and the window is closing for permanent protection of some of the grandest landscapes, I think, in the entire United States.”
Jonah Yellowman, who was forced at age 6 to attend a boarding school in New Mexico where he was physically punished for speaking his native language, is waiting for that sort of recognition. Yellowman walks easily along the landscape, pointing out where he collects firewood and the plants Navajos use to camouflage their faces in one ritual and scent sweat lodges in another.
Both Anglo and Navajo politicians have disappointed him before — Yellowman doesn’t have running water or electricity at his remote home near Monument Valley, where iconic Westerns were filmed decades ago. He thinks the tribes have started a movement that can succeed.
“My people, they start something and it doesn’t go nowhere,” he said. “You can tell that this is different. This one, there’s hope.”The rise of online performance marketing has been a revelation for the advertisement industry, but it's far from perfect. Campaigns frequently suffer from ROI-impacting problems like click fraud and severely delayed payments. CROMhub is a blockchain-based solution that eliminates those issues by enabling instant, transparent, and secure transactions via the Ethereum blockchain.
How Does CROMHub Work?
CROMhub uses tokens (CROM) to allow for seamless tracking of a wide range of digital advertising events and the accompanying payments for those events via a smart contract. In the current ecosystem, negotiating payments is a lengthy process that involves a long series of communication steps between advertisers, intermediaries, and publishers, and it often culminates with bank transfers that can take weeks to reach their destinations, reducing liquidity for all of the involved parties.
CROMhub's system essentially cuts out a lot of the steps of this process and vastly speeds the transfer of funds by arranging projects via a transparent, secure smart contract and optionally moving money in the form of the CROM token, which transfers faster and has lower fees than a traditional bank wire. Instead of spending weeks or months waiting on a back-and-forth process that will end in 3%-6% losses in transfer fees, CROM's system allows for the resolution of marketing transactions in minutes with fees of 1%-3%.
The CROMhub system is designed with businesses in mind, so it will use APIs to integrate seamlessly with existing advertising and management systems. And from an advertiser's perspective, there are obvious advantages. Advertisers will pre-pay for campaigns, locking up their funds in a CROMhub smart contract. That eliminates the possibility of extra sales causing budget overages, and in the event of fraud on the part of a publisher, the advertiser can recall their funds. If all goes well, the funds are transferred instantly via the blockchain upon completion of the campaign.
Networks and publishers also benefit from the CROMhub system, mostly in the form of its faster, cheaper transactions increasing liquidity and eliminating the need to offer credit, in addition to offering increased transparency and security. CROM token holders, even if they're not involved at any point in the marketing chain, can still benefit by trading the tokens on exchanges. CROM ownership confers benefits to parties in the marketing chain on CROMhub's system, so demand for the token is likely to be high.
The Current Token Sale
As of this writing, much of CROMhub's vision has yet to be realized – the startup is currently engaged in its ICO, which will conclude on December 15, 2017. There will be a fixed supply of 10 million CROM ERC20 tokens; 2 million have already been distributed to pre-ICO investors, and 4 million are available during the ICO period. The token is priced at 0.1 ETH (about $44 as of this writing), and sales will continue until the 15th or until they hit the 6 million CROM hard cap.
CROMhub says it plans to make the token available for trading on exchanges within a few weeks of the ICO concluding. Then the company will buckle down and focus on building the tech with the funds it raised, aiming to release its first fully-functional product in Q3 2018.
CROMhub's Prospects
With any still-to-be-realized blockchain project, a lot rides on the quality of the team. Thankfully, CROMhub's founding team is well-credentialed, with decades of marketing and entrepreneurial experience between them. The company's tech team is similarly experienced, and the startup is also being advised by industry experts including Silicon Valley investor and former AdMob VP Niren Hiro.
CROMhub isn't without competitors in the blockchain marketing space – AdEx, adToken, Adshares, QChain, Basic Attention Token, etc. – but the CROMhub team believes that while many of these projects have merit, they don't address the same problems as CROMhub and thus aren't likely to be obstacles to CROMhub's success. CROMhub's laser-like focus on becoming a clearinghouse for settlement and tracking in the digital marketing industry make it a front-runner for what it estimates is a $6.8 billion market.“ — Phantom Assassin Play I'm here to blur the line between life and death. ”
Manifold Paradox Wearable Phantom Assassin Rarity: Arcana
Slot: Weapon Weapon With a raspy cackle, the elder smith Craler swung the sword that his family had spent eleven generations to fold and forge. So sharp it was that, with a sound like tearing fabric, a rip in reality tore open. Through this rip, Craler recognized himself from moments before, holding aloft the very same coveted blade. Then, in a fit of greed and madness, he cut this earlier self down to seize the twin sword as his own. Too late, however, Craler felt a familiar wound, and was suddenly filled with the memory of being cut down himself... Created By Released 20 Nov 2014 Origin Purchase TRADEABLE MARKETABLE NOT DELETABLE
This item was made for the Nemesis Assassin Event. New styles were unlocked by accumulating kills during and after the event. Editions purchased before December 7, 2014 come in Exalted quality.
Gems [ edit ]
Customizations [ edit ]
Paradox Memorial [ edit ]
Killing an enemy leaves a Paradox Memorial where they died. The memorial can be selected to view details of the kill. Points can be earned to unlock new colors for the memorial. The Paradox Memorial's appearance is changed upon upgrading the Manifold Paradox.
Customization Preview Kill Detail Gravestone
Epitaphs [ edit ]
Detail windows contain one of thirteen possible epitaphs.
Line Who turned out the lights?
It's dark down here.
I was too slow.
Rest for the wicked.
Don't leave me here!
Dig me up. I dare you.
Should have practiced more.
Never saw it coming.
Should have bought more armor.
Shhh. Taking a dirt nap.
On the wrong side of the grass.
What were the chances?
Ouch.
Hero Icons [ edit ]
Customization Preview Minimap icon Top icon Portrait
Ability Icons [ edit ]
Sounds [ edit ]
Voice Responses [ edit ]
Customization Preview Altered voice for all existing responses Modified Responses
Styles [ edit ]
Selectable styles for the color of the blades and Paradox Memorial can be upgraded by winning games and earning points. Points are recorded on the Rune of the Foreseer's Contract.
During the Nemesis Assassin Event, players earned 3 points per win with any hero.
per win with. After the event ended, players now earn 1 point per win, and only when playing with Phantom Assassin
per win, and only when playing with Resetting the gem's counter will disable any earned styles.
Style Points Blades Paradox Memorial
Style 1 Default
Style 2 40 Points
Style 3 100 Points
Set Items [ edit ]
Lore [ edit ]
The Manifold Paradox was first seen in the short comic The Contract, which was released with Oracle Phantom Assassin
Gallery [ edit ]
Trivia [ edit ]
The sound of fabric tearing when Craler first tried out the Manifold Paradox is a reference to the commonly used metaphor, fabric of reality.
. This item shares aesthetics with Codicil of the Veiled Ones, which changes color depending on Manifold Paradox's selected style.Theresa May has refused an invitation to address a public session of the European Parliament, prompting suggestions that she is unnecessarily making enemies during the Brexit process.
Brussels sources say the Prime Minister was only willing to speak to MEPs behind closed doors after parliament president Antonio Tajani invited her to present her Brexit position to the elected European representatives.
Margaret Thatcher famously faced the European Parliament in 1986 to argue for reforms of the then European Community’s Commons Agricultural Policy. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have also addressed the chamber; David Cameron agreed to do so but suspended his speech and resigned before it could be re-scheduled.
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.
A Downing Street spokesperson did not deny that Ms May had declined to address a plenary session of the EU-wide elected body.
“The Prime Minister has confirmed to President Tajani that she would be happy to address the conference of presidents. A date will now be arranged with his team,” the spokesperson said.
Criticising the decision, Elmar Brok MEP, a German member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering committee, told the Guardian newspaper: “The European parliament remains ready to offer flexible solutions. Why make enemies? It’s ridiculous.”
The PM, notorious for her dislike of unscripted media appearance, may be wary of appearing in public in the Parliament because all proceedings are broadcast live on television. When her predecessor Margaret Thatcher appeared before the body in 1986 she was interrupted by a protester and Ms May has no shortage of enemies on the benches in Brussels who might be willing to cause a scene.
The background to Brexit negotiations appear sto have become increasingly bad-tempered after the stand-still during the latest third round of talks last week.
Shape Created with Sketch. Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. Brexit: the deciders 1/8 European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty 2/8 French President Emmanuel Macron Getty 3/8 German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters 4/8 Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA 5/8 The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty 6/8 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images 7/8 Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA 8/8 After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA 1/8 European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty 2/8 French President Emmanuel Macron Getty 3/8 German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters 4/8 Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA 5/8 The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty 6/8 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images 7/8 Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA 8/8 After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA
The European Commission today released meeting minutes from July in which Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called into question Brexit Secretary David Davis’s suitability to lead the British negotiating team.
On Sunday Mr Davis himself said chief negotiator Michel Barnier looked “silly” for claiming there had been no progress in talks, while Mr Barnier himself has suggested that the British side does not understand the consequences of leaving the single market and EU.
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.
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Ful Mudammas – Learn a historical Middle Eastern recipe from ancient times made with fava beans, olive oil, onion, garlic, and cumin. Ancient Israelite cooking.
The fava bean porridge of the donation
and the garlic and oil of daily life…
– Mishna Tvul Yom 2, 3
MY OTHER RECIPES MY OTHER RECIPES MY LATEST VIDEOS
For Throwback Thursday, I’m revisiting one of the first recipes I covered on my blog – Ful Mudammas. This refreshed version features beautiful new photographs by my talented friend Kelly Jaggers.
I’ve always been curious about the recipes and ingredients of ancient Israel: the grains, meats, vegetables, fruits and spices that were consumed in Biblical times. This period in history has always fascinated me, especially the food—what was eaten, how it was prepared and the ways it was served. Finding out how people lived thousands of years ago is like putting together a complicated puzzle with lots of missing pieces. We rely on the research of archaeologists, historians, and the surviving texts from this period—the Talmud, Roman writings, and of course the Bible. Here, we read the Bible as a history book, gleaning clues from both the Torah and the New Testament to determine the important role food played in Biblical times.
A few years ago I visited two places in Israel that offer a rare glimpse at ancient Biblical life: Nazareth Village and Neot Kedumim Biblical Landcape Reserve. Both of these locations offer a unique opportunity to experience what life was like for the ancient Israelites. At Neot Kedumim I met with Dr. Tova Dickstein, who is known worldwide as an expert on ancient and Biblical foods. She’s been interviewed by National Geographic and the History Channel, as well as the Naked Archaeologist. Tova generously shared her extensive knowledge of Biblical foods with me, which made for a fascinating afternoon.
Tova gave me an educational tour of Neot Kedumim. The reserve stands above a valley where archaeologists have unearthed one of the oldest known agricultural communities. Neot Kedumim was established in the 1960’s by Noga Hareuven, a well-known biblical botanist. He wanted to create an educational park where the landscape would reflect the physical setting of the Bible. The plants, trees and crops that grow there reflect the flora of ancient Israel. After the park was established, archaeologists discovered some incredible things at Neot Kedumim, including ancient wine and olive oil presses. The park also contains reconstructed wheat threshing floors, water cisterns, and ritual baths.
If you’re planning a trip to Israel and you have an interest in Biblical history, I recommend a visit to Neot Kedumim. Here is a link to their website if you want to learn more:
Neot Kedumim Biblical Landscape Reserve
At one point during our interview, I asked Tova what the main protein source was for the ancient Israelites. She explained to me that meat was rarely consumed because it was too expensive for the majority of ancient Israelites; it was considered a “luxury” and was eaten sparingly. They ate a largely vegetarian diet that relied heavily on grains, Mediterranean vegetables, fruits, and legumes. One of most popular legumes in the Biblical diet was the “broad bean,” or what we refer to today as the fava bean.
Fava beans are one of the oldest domesticated food legumes. References to fava beans occur in both the Talmud and the Mishna, indicating they have been part of the Middle Eastern diet since at least since the 4th century. During our interview, Tova told me that fava beans were likely one of the main protein sources for the ancient Israelites. In fact, the ancient method for cooking fava beans is discussed in the Talmud. The beans were immersed in a pot of water, sealed, then buried beneath hot coals so they could slowly cook.
Ful mudammas (pronounced fool mu-dah-mahs), a popular Middle Eastern dish made from fava beans, bears similarity to this ancient method of cooking. Sometimes spelled foul mudammas and often referred to as simply “ful,” this dish is served throughout the Middle East. Ful is known for making you feel full and satisfied due to its high fiber content. In Muslim countries ful is often eaten during Ramadan before sunrise so people can fast more easily during the daylight hours. It is sometimes served on top of chickpea hummus in a dish called “hummus ful.”
Ful mudammas is served in different ways throughout the Middle East; it is particularly popular in Egypt and Lebanon. Some countries top it with hard-boiled egg, others like it with chopped fresh tomatoes. Some serve it mashed, others leave the beans whole. The base of the dish tends to be the same everywhere, including fava beans, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Lemon wasn’t cultivated in Israel at the time of the Torah, though there was a similar citrus fruit called a “citron” that was sometimes used in cooking. That said, lemon juice adds a terrific flavor to ful mudammas. If you would like to keep it strictly Biblical-style, cut the lemon. The rest of the ingredients were available and common to the ancient Israelites.
Ful muddamas is traditionally served for breakfast or lunch, sometimes together with hummus, alongside fresh warm pita bread. The bread is used to scoop up the fava beans. Personally I find this dish quite filling without the bread, so those of you who are gluten-free can readily enjoy this recipe too. I usually use roasted garlic in my ful, which is easier to digest than raw. Either can be used; raw garlic will have a stronger flavor in the finished dish.
Food Photography and Styling by Kelly Jaggers
Recommended Products:
Saute Pan
Mixing Bowls
Potato Masher
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Pin Yum Email +1 2K SharesMOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors called on Tuesday for Kremlin critic and protest leader Alexei Navalny be jailed for 10 years as they appealed against a suspended sentence he received last year in a theft case, arguing it was ‘too soft’.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks out after he visited a local broadcast radio station in Moscow January 14, 2015. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev
Navalny and his brother Oleg were convicted last year of stealing 30 million rubles - nearly $500,000 at the current exchange rate - from two firms, including an affiliate of the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.
Both were given 3-1/2-year jail sentences. Oleg is serving his time in jail, while Navalny, who led street protests against Vladimir Putin in 2011-12, was given a suspended sentence.
“We demand that Navalny be sentenced to 10 years in jail,” state news agency RIA quoted a prosecutor as saying at the appeal at Moscow city court.
The Navalny brothers were found guilty of defrauding companies by overcharging them for mail and parcel services provided by their business from 2008 to 2011.
Oleg allegedly used his position as a senior manager in Russia’s Post Office to attract customers for his mail company, of which investigators said Navalny was registered as the founder.
Other Russian news agencies cited the prosecutor’s statement as saying that Navalny’s suspended sentence was “excessively soft” and that the brothers had to be isolated from society.
Although Navalny, who also campaigns against corruption, has little chance of mounting a serious challenge to Putin, he has promised to lead 100,000 people on March 1 in protest against policies he says are leading Russia deeper into economic crisis.
After the brothers were sentenced on Dec. 30 last year, Navalny said Putin’s “regime” had to be destroyed. Hours later, he violated the terms of his detention by cutting off his house arrest tag to attend a rally of supporters who had gathered near the Kremlin to protest his trial.
At the Moscow city court, Navalny, who says the case against him is an attempt by the Kremlin to stifle dissent, said prosecutors’ demands were “not based on the law and are not worth reviewing”, Interfax news agency reported.
The U.S. State Department called last year’s sentencing a disturbing development “designed to further punish and deter political activism”.
Putin’s popularity ratings have soared since the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea territory and what Russians see as the leaders’ tough stance against the West over eastern Ukraine.
But Navalny, who dubbed his March 1 protest an “anti-crisis” rally, hopes to tap anger over a faltering economy expected to contract this year in the face of falling oil prices and Western sanctions.
($1 = 63.0530 rubles)[ THE INVESTOR ] Samsung Electronics'upcoming flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 will feature facial recognition, adding a layer of biometric security to users along with an iris scanner, Korea Economic Daily reported on March 9.
The decision comes amid speculation that Apple is also likely to replace its fingerprint scanner with a face scanner on its next iPhone 8 that comes out in September.
Related:
Samsung Galaxy S8 rumor roundup: Here’s what we know
Samsung sets shipment target of 60m for Galaxy S8
Larger Galaxy S8 model to feature same battery capacity as Note 7
“Due to some limits of iris scanning such as speed and accuracy, we have decided to add facial recognition to the Galaxy S8,” a Samsung official was quoted as saying. “With a face scanner, it will take less than 0.01 seconds to unlock the phone.”
The report, citing another official, said the mobile business division is already testing the prototypes.
The Galaxy S8 will be unveiled on March 29 before its official launch in mid-April. The phone is widely rumored to have a fingerprint scanning home button on the back, with its display screen covering most of the front body.
The Investor reported earlier that Samsung has set the sales goal for the new phone at the largest-ever 60 million units.
By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)UPDATE: Mark Sheldon of MLB.com reports that Cueto has been placed on the disabled list. He was set to be examined today, but there’s no word yet on the results. The Reds have recalled Logan Ondrusek from Triple-A Louisville in a corresponding roster move while Cingrani will replace Cueto in the starting rotation.
11:20 AM: Troubling development for the second-place Reds last night, as right-hander Johnny Cueto was forced to leave his start against the Rangers in the second inning after aggravating a right lat muscle injury.
Cueto, who has already had two stints on the disabled list this season, initially felt symptoms in the first inning. While he was cleared to stay in the game, he was seen grimacing on a 1-2 pitch to Mitch Moreland in the second inning and was immediately pulled after being visited by Reds manager Dusty Baker and head trainer Paul Lessard.
Baker told Mark Sheldon of MLB.com that Cueto will be sent back to Cincinnati for tests, but another stint on the disabled list appears likely.
“It was the same thing,” Reds manager Dusty Baker said. “We’re going to send him back to see the doctor [in Cincinnati]. We’ll have to contemplate whatever the roster move is. We’ll tell you about it [Saturday].”
Cueto, 27, has a 3.21 ERA and 40/14 K/BB ratio in 47 2/3 innings over eight starts this season. Tony Cingrani figures to replace him in the starting rotation once again.Barcelona will stay at their iconic Nou Camp stadium after announcing a £495m (600m euros) redevelopment, which will increase its capacity to 105,000.
The Catalan club's directors voted against from the 99,354-seater ground to a new location at an extraordinary meeting on Monday.
The remodelling plan will go to Barca's 160,000 members, who collectively own the club, ahead of an April referendum.
Analysis "A key factor behind Barca's desire to update the Nou Camp is their need to take greater advantage of the opportunities available in the highly lucrative corporate hospitality market. "Barcelona is one of the world's most popular destinations for big-money trade shows, and the chance to attract more high-paying business customers is a major potential revenue stream for the club. "The current Nou Camp's facilities in that regard are woefully inadequate, and it's notable that the plans released by the club on Monday include "a new ring of boxes, restaurants and other VIP facilities" with the addition of 3,500 new corporate seats."
The Nou Camp was "an icon of the city", said president Sandro Rosell.
Matches would still be played while the work - which could be finished by 2021 - is carried out.
Home sweet home Barca have lost just one of their last 50 league games at the Nou Camp - winning 46
Barcelona have played at the Nou Camp since it was built in 1957 and the stadium has hosted two European Cup finals - in 1989 and 1999. It also hosted World Cup matches in 1982 and the Olympic football tournament in 1992.
"It has been an important decision for the club - the most important in the last 50 years," added Rosell.
"The option of building a new stadium on a new site has been dismissed as the final cost could have saddled the club and its members with debt and tied the hands of future boards of directors.
"This was a difficult decision, both options were very attractive but we decided to go ahead and stay."
The Spanish champions insist the restructured stadium will still be known as the Nou Camp, but added naming rights could be sold.
The club said the redevelopment, which will see a roof built to cover all spectators but not the playing surface, would generate an extra £24m of revenue per season.
Board member Javier Faus, who added that the cost of the redevelopment would be repaid within eight years, said the move was necessary for Barca to continue competing with Europe's other leading clubs.
"We don't want to bankrupt the club for 30 to 40 years," he added. "We won't take money from the club members or outside investors. The club will run the proposals with our own resources."
The redevelopment, if approved by members, would begin in May 2017 and be completed in February 2021.A still redacted incident prompted both agencies to discuss “concerns about computer hacking into government agencies”
In April 1987, the CIA’s Chief of Information Systems Security submitted a memo detailing a meeting he had recently had with the Director of the NSA’s National Computer Security Security Center.
The meeting had been prompted by an earlier incident, still redacted, that had generated “mass confusion.”
Hints as to what the incident could have been can be gleaned from the meeting’s agenda, which tackled concerns about “computer hacking into government agencies” …
and the fact that as of 1987, there were no reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents at the federal level.
So, a few important takeaways from this meeting that changed the way federal agencies handle cybersecurity FOREVER. One, start reporting those incidents.
Two, start taking advantage of the NSA’s existing database of fixes and, you know, apply them.
And three, make staff generally aware that cybersecurity is a thing, which would probably take care of 99% of the problem right there.
The CIA then sealed this historic partnership in the most literal way possible - handing their counterpart at the NSA a literal seal.
The full memo is embedded below.
Image via 20th Century FOXOn Saturday morning Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the U.S. has engaged in direct communication with the government of North Korea, it's the first time such talks have been publicly acknowledged. His first priority is to deescalate the high tensions between the country's leader Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump after the two have engaged in a war of words as of late, but he failed to issue criticisms of Trump's bombastic threats.
After Tillerson was questioned on how he would engage with North Korea's Kim, and the rising threat between two nuclear powers, he replied, "we are probing, so stay tuned," according to the New York Times.
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"We ask, 'would you like to talk?' We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang," he continued.
Tillerson answered questions during a news conference in Beijing, China, after having met with China's top leaders, but did not indicate if North Korea had responded to U.S. communication efforts, the Times reported.
"We can talk to them," Tillerson said. "We do talk to them."
When asked if the communication lines ran through China he shook his head and said, "directly," according to the Times. "We have our own channels."
Tillerson's top concern is finding ways to decrease tensions between Washington and Pyongyan, but he also seemed to place more blame on the North Korean leader, downplaying the impact of Trump's incendiary rhetoric.
"The whole situation is a bit overheated right now," he said. "If North Korea would stop firing its missiles, that would calm things down a lot."
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He didn't issue a direct criticism of the president, despite his threats to "totally destroy" the entire country of North Korea during his United Nations speech, and tweeted just last weekend that the country "won't be around much longer."
The secret communications somewhat draw comparisons to the Barack Obama administration's efforts to achieve a nuclear agreement with Iran, but Tillerson made a clear difference between the two, and reiterated the Trump administration's unrest with the current nuclear deal with Iran.
"We are not going to put together a nuclear deal in North Korea that is as flimsy as the one in Iran," Tillerson said.Home Daily News Plaintiffs had no First Amendment right to…
First Amendment
Plaintiffs had no First Amendment right to take cellphone video of police, federal judge rules
Image from Shutterstock.
A federal judge in Philadelphia has ruled that citizens don’t have a First Amendment right to take cellphone videos of police unless they are challenging or criticizing the police conduct.
U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney ruled (PDF) on Feb. 19 in consolidated cases involving Richard Fields and Amanda Geraci, the Legal Intelligencer (sub. req.) reports. Fields, a Temple University student, took a cellphone photo of about 20 police officers standing outside a house party because he thought it would be an interesting picture. Geraci, a trained legal observer, tried to move closer to see and possibly record an arrest during a protest of hydraulic fracturing.
An officer handcuffed Fields, searched his cellphone before returning it, and cited him for obstructing the highway and public passages, Fields says. Geraci says an officer physically restrained her to prevent her from recording the arrest. Both sued for alleged First and Fourth Amendment violations.
Kearney said Fields and Geraci would have to show their behavior was “expressive conduct” to support a First Amendment claim. Neither plaintiff could meet that burden because neither told the police why they wanted to capture the images, Kearney said. “The conduct must be direct and expressive; we cannot be left guessing as to the ‘expression’ intended by the conduct,” Kearney wrote.
“Applying this standard, we conclude Fields and Geraci cannot meet the burden of demonstrating their taking, or attempting to take, pictures with no further comments or conduct is ‘sufficiently imbued with elements of communication’ to be deemed expressive conduct. Neither Fields nor Geraci direct us to facts showing at the time they took or wanted to take pictures, they asserted anything to anyone. There is also no evidence any of the officers understood them as communicating any idea or message.”
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of urban neighborhoods, the worse the matchup between stated preferences and actual living arrangements.
This is an important wrinkle to the “revealed preference” arguments of many defenders of the suburban status quo. Recent Census population figures sparked what were only the latest of a long line of scuffles over whether, or to what extent, the “back to the city” movement is real. But if Levine’s argument is correct, measuring demand for urban areas simply by how many people end up living there is flawed, because some people who would like to live in more compact neighborhoods can’t do so because there aren’t enough to go around.
To begin his analysis, Levine classified neighborhoods in both the Boston and Atlanta metro areas according to their level of “urban-ness” on a five-point scale, with “A” neighborhoods being the densest and most urban, and “E” being the most sprawling and exurban. Levine and his researchers then conducted a survey of residents in each of the zones, asking about their housing preferences and satisfaction with their current housing situation.
In Boston, about 40 percent of respondents said they preferred denser, more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, while in Atlanta, just under 30 percent of respondents did so. (Auto-oriented neighborhoods were preferred by 29 percent of people in Boston and 41 percent of people in Atlanta, with remaining respondents neutral.)
And how well did these preferences match actual behavior? Well, in Boston—where neighborhoods in the three most urban categories made up over half of all housing—83 percent of people with strong preferences for urban neighborhoods lived in one of these three urban zones. In Atlanta—where the same top three urban categories make up barely over 10 percent of all housing—just 48 percent of people with strong preferences for urban neighborhoods lived in an urban zone.
In fact, all down the line, people whose stated preferences were more urban were much more likely to actually live in an urban neighborhood in the Boston area than in the Atlanta area—suggesting that in Atlanta something might be preventing them from satisfying their preferences. At the same time, people who expressed preferences for the most auto-oriented neighborhoods were able to satisfy that demand the vast majority of the time in both regions—about 95 percent of those in Atlanta, and 80-90 percent of those in Boston. More rigorous tests prove that this difference is statistically significant.Scotland flanker John Hardie has signed a two-year contract with Scottish Rugby, which will see him join Edinburgh Rugby after the Rugby World Cup.
The 27 year-old joined Scotland’s Rugby World Cup 2015 squad in July as a free agent after his previous playing contract in New Zealand with Super Rugby team, The Highlanders ended.
He played three Rugby World Cup 2015 matches for Scotland, winning the Man of the Match award against Samoa, scoring two tries and only missing two Pool B fixtures against USA and South Africa through injury.
Scottish Rugby identified John’s eligibility for its national team over two years ago through his Scottish ancestry and after positive performances for his country in the Rugby World Cup and earlier summer series offered him an opportunity to continue playing in the northern hemisphere and Scotland with Edinburgh Rugby.
John Hardie said:
“It’s a privilege to have the opportunity to stay in Scotland and play for a Scottish club. I see it as an exciting new challenge in my rugby career and I am really looking forward to joining up with the squad and competing for a place in the team.
"Edinburgh have made a strong start to the season and I hope I can help the boys and contribute to continuing that success.”
Edinburgh Rugby Head Coach Alan Solomons said: “We are very happy to welcome John to Edinburgh Rugby. He is a quality player who will add real value to our squad."
Scott Johnson, Scottish Rugby’s Director of Rugby said: “John has proved himself to be an excellent professional and his performances during the Rugby World Cup consolidated our belief that we would like him continuing his rugby in Scotland.
"This new contract means he can develop his career in Scotland and make himself available for national selection.
"It is also vital we continue to recruit well to develop our professional teams, so his addition to the Edinburgh Rugby squad will strengthen both his connection to rugby in the country and the team.”When It Comes To Policing LA's Skid Row, What Tactics Work?
Enlarge this image toggle caption Kelly McEvers Kelly McEvers
Thousands of people live in roughly 50 square blocks of Los Angeles known as Skid Row. Many are homeless and live on the street, while others live in shelters or short-term hotels.
Some of the city's most vulnerable people — many of them black — are concentrated in this area, and questions of how police should interact with people on Skid Row arise frequently. In the spring of 2015, the fatal police shooting of an unarmed man on Skid Row thrust that discussion back into the spotlight.
Many of the people protesting shootings by police across the country argue the approaches of police are the problem. They say the tactics are too harsh and especially hard on African-American people. Police, however, say civilians don't understand what they're up against.
On this episode of Embedded, Kelly McEvers goes to Skid Row — one of the most challenging places in the country for police to work — to explore policing tactics.
To hear more of this story, listen to Embedded. Keep up with podcast host Kelly McEvers on Twitter at @kellymcevers, and join the conversation using the hashtag #NPREmbedded.Less than a month after a hit and run driver killed Bikestock co-founder Matthew Von Ohlen, another Brooklyn cyclist says an enraged driver followed him into a protected bike lane and tried to intentionally run him over. And when he tried to report the incident to police, he says officers weren't interested.
According to Shawn Wolf, he and a friend were riding south on the Kent Avenue bike lane on Thursday night, July 7th, when they saw a silver Honda Odyssey parked in the bike lane. Wolf said he noticed a number of cyclists ahead of him being forced to merge into traffic, so when he passed the Odyssey, he told the driver to "Get the fuck out of the bike lane." That's when Wolf says the driver began chasing him and his friend in his car down Kent Avenue, and even threw a water bottle at them.
While still being chased, Wolf and his friend turned onto the protected bike lane on Flushing Avenue, but the minivan driver followed down Flushing, cutting into the separated bike lane, which is divided from motor vehicle traffic by Jersey barriers. After Wolf and his friend were able to get around the car, Wolf said the driver fully entered the bike lane and tried to hit the two cyclists, forcing the two to hop onto the sidewalk.
According to Wolf, the driver of the car attempted to exit his vehicle, but the car was so wide that the driver's side door was pinned shut by the Jersey barrier. So after yelling at the two some more, he kept driving in the bike lane until exiting it at Grand Avenue and speeding off.
Wolf said that his first instinct when he got home that night was to let the situation go, but decided that since Von Ohlen had been hit so recently he "didn't want this aggression against cyclists to go unseen." But he says police discouraged him, despite being provided with the vehicle's license plate. While Wolf said that the responding officers from the 88th precinct were sympathetic to his experience (one said "Holy shit, he really was in the bike lane" when he saw the picture, according to Wolf), they ultimately told him that since an officer wasn't on the scene to witness the attempted assault and there was no damage to person or property, they could only classify the incident as "a verbal dispute."
And even that would wind up being Wolf and his friend's word against the driver, despite the picture. When Wolf suggested it could be helpful to report the incident in case the driver wound up in another road rage incident, he says the police discouraged him from filing a report, telling him that it would get buried and be "a waste of time."
Wolf's fiancé Anna Maria Diaz-Balart shared the picture that he took of the car stuck in the bike lane on Instagram. She deemed the police response "unacceptable." Attorney and cycling advocate Steve Vacarro agreed with Diaz-Balart's sentiment, telling us that the driver could have been charged with reckless endangerment in the first degree and attempted assault (both felonies), menacing in the third degree, reckless driving and failure to yield (all misdemeanors). Vaccaro also said that he's "had numerous cyclists raise this issue [police not being interested in charging reckless drivers] with me," and that by not even taking a report, the police were encouraging this driver, and other drivers, to commit more crimes like this."
The NYPD declined multiple requests for comment. Wolf, for his part, acknowledged that telling the driver to get the fuck out of the bike lane "wasn't the most polite way to say it, but he was in the wrong," and that it clearly didn't warrant that kind of reaction.
Wolf said he was disappointed with the NYPD response to someone weaponizing their car like this. "What would the difference in response be if he had chased us down the street with a knife or a gun?" he wondered.× Saudi blogger sentenced to death for apostasy
SAUDI ARABIA — Raif Badawi, a blogger in Saudi Arabia who has been imprisoned for violating the nation’s anti-cybercrime law, was given the death penalty for apostasy by a higher court Wednesday, his wife told CNN.
Badawi founded the Free Saudi Liberals website and was originally given a seven-year sentence in July.
A Jeddah criminal court found Badawi, who has been in prison since June 2012, guilty of insulting Islam through his website and in television comments. His lawyer appealed the sentence, which also included 600 lashes.
A higher court found him guilty of apostasy, his wife said.
“It is an emotion I cannot describe. I never imagined this would happen,” she said. “I thought maybe they would reduce the sentence but this is unimaginable. The whole thing is about a website.”
Badawi’s legal troubles started shortly after he started the Free Saudi Liberals website in 2008. He was detained for one day and questioned about the site. Some clerics even branded him an unbeliever and apostate.
Human rights groups accuse Saudi authorities of targeting activists through the courts and travel bans. Amnesty International has said Badawi’s “is clear case of intimidation against him and others who seek to engage in open debates about the issues that Saudi Arabians face in their daily lives.”
CNN could not reach the Saudi Arabian government officials for comment.
Badawi’s wife, Ensaf Haidar, and the couple’s three children now live in Lebanon.With its kale ice-cream, rose quartz eggs and inhouse shaman, Paltrow’s ‘wellness adventure’ is silly and fun. But is it only for rich, white people who are disproportionately well already?
Culver City, Los Angeles, is socked in by haze, and a line of women in black athleisure – more blondes than one is accustomed to seeing in one place at one time – stretches down the block. Each has paid between $500 and $1500 (£390 and £1,175) to stand in this line and attend In Goop Health: Presented by Goop, the inaugural “health and wellness expo” of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand, Goop.
People are excited, a little nervous and giddy. It feels as if we are waiting for the bus to summer camp, if your summer camp gives out free lube and Nicole Richie is there. At 9am the beefy security team parts and we pour into a courtyard where employees sort us into more lines based on how much we have paid to be here. Colour-coded bracelets indicate whether you are a Lapis ($500), Amethyst ($1,000) or Clear Quartz ($1,500) Gooper. More money means more activities: a foam roller workout, a “sound bath”, even lunch with “GP” herself in the “Collagen Garden”. Apparently, a prohibitively expensive, celebrity-studded self-help salon isn’t exclusive enough: the very rich can’t have fun without a little class hierarchy.
We pass into a second courtyard, which offers clusters of tasteful white furniture ringed by a variety of “wellness adventures”. In one corner, you can sit cross-legged on a cushion and the “resident Goop shaman” will tell you which crystal you “need”. In the opposite corner is a woman who will photograph your aura in a little tent. There is an oxygen bar and an IV drip station. And there is food, of course, just in very small pieces: tiny vegan doughnuts, quinoa and lox swaddled in seaweed, ladles of unsalted bone broth, fruit.
I take a lap of the courtyard and the cavernous hangar where we will be spending the next nine hours (there is no re-entry). Inside, interspersed among the Goop-approved matcha and coconut-water stalls, is the Goop Marketplace, where attendees can buy face potions, rolling pins and Tory Burch’s new line of active wear. For $55, you can buy one of the jade eggs that Goop famously suggested women carry around in their vaginas. Or, a rose quartz egg, if you have “seen results with the jade egg and want to take your practice a step further”. I head back outside and get in line for the shaman.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Probiotic juices are flowing. Photograph: Kolasinski/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock
Turns out, the shaman is a little backed up, so they are scheduling appointments instead. A friendly employee writes my name on a clipboard and tells me to come back at 4.05pm. The line for aura photography is even longer. I wait about 10 minutes before a staffer announces that the schedule is full and we are all fired from the line, but we can check back later. That’s fine. Everyone is feeling good. Employees weave through the crowd with trays of probiotic juice. I decide I like the Goop expo. It is silly, but most of us seem to be in on the joke – like Dungeons and Dragons for your vaginal flora. Why not?
I don’t believe that my proximity to crystals (or lack thereof) has any effect on my wellbeing, but I don’t think it is interesting or sophisticated to mock people who do. These women are having fun. They are sitting on pillows and connecting with each other. It is the kind of spontaneously intimate conversation that happens among women all the time, dressed up in the language of magic and, sure, monetised.
As long as you are not promising miracles and swapping carnelian for childhood vaccines, organising your inner life around crystals doesn’t seem much different than organising it around “bullet journalling”. There is a line, of course, between having fun with rocks and exploiting people’s fears for profit, and I am expecting to approach that soon enough.
I wander back inside and there she is, gliding through the Bulletproof Coffee line like our priestess. Here is just a true fact: Gwyneth glows like a radioactive swan. She emits light. She would be great in a power outage. Though the FAQ specifically directed attendees to wear athleisure (with a link to the Goop store’s athleisure page – just to be helpful!), Gwyneth appears to be wearing a sirocco of flower petals. She leads us, her flock, into the auditorium and the real show begins.
After a brief history of Goop (“I started to wonder: Why do we all not feel well? Why is there so much cancer? Why are we all so tired?”), Paltrow introduces her personal physician, Dr Habib Sadeghi, DO. He talks for an hour about “cosmic flow”; his left testicle; the “magnificence” of Gwyneth (“I’ve been down and I’ve touched her feet … and I’ll do it again”); and his belief that “consciousness precedes phenotypic expression”, which means, basically, that all ailments are on some level psychosomatic and your ovarian cysts are really just little nodules of emotion – or something.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Women connecting with themselves. Photograph: Salangsang/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock
The next panel, on gut health, counters Sadeghi’s consciousness theory with the assertion that all human illnesses are caused by antibiotics, ibuprofen, caesarean sections and legumes. The human gut is a rich rainforest, they say. Antibiotics are “napalm”, and taking one ibuprofen is “like swallowing a hand grenade”. Someone relates an anecdote about a marathon runner who had to get a faecal transplant from her fat niece, and it made the marathon runner fat. In mice, faecal transplants have been found to make fat mice thin, and anxious mice calm. Oh, my God, I realise. Paltrow is going to start selling her own poop.
Dr Steven Gundry, author of The Plant Paradox, reveals that from January to June inclusive, he consumes all his calories between 6pm and 8pm, because “we evolved to search for food all day and then fast”. It’s funny how our understanding of human evolution – of the point at which we were once our truest selves – can shift according to which restrictive diet is on-trend that day. Next to each of our chairs is a complementary bottle of hot-pink, watermelon-flavoured water, sickly-sweet with Stevia. You know, just like the cavemen used to drink.
Gundry argues that human beings aren’t meant to eat any plants native to North America, because we are native to “Africa, Europe and Asia”. At one point, Dr Amy Myers casually distinguishes between the gut bacteria Asian people need (because “they” eat a lot of seaweed) and the gut bacteria that “we” need. You don’t have to glance around the room to know who “we” are.
In Goop Health is shockingly white – even to me, a blond, white person who went in expecting whiteness. Obviously, this is anecdotal – I haven’t conducted a census – but I don’t recall seeing more than 10 people of colour among the attendees, and that’s a generous estimate. The panellists are almost exclusively white. I wonder if anyone at Goop brought up the lack of diversity in their speakers during the planning stages, or anticipated this criticism. But to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge politics, and In Goop Health stays as far away from politics as it can get.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lindy West at Goop in Health. Photograph: Lindy West
However, an event supposedly focused “on being and achieving the optimal versions of ourselves”, as Paltrow put it during her welcome address, cannot truly be depoliticised. You can’t honestly address “wellness” – the things people need to be well – without addressing poverty and systemic racism, disability access and affordable healthcare, paid family leave and food insecurity, contraception and abortion, sex work and the war against drugs and mass incarceration. Unless, of course, you are only talking about the wellness of people whose lives are untouched by all of those forces. That is, the wellness of people who are disproportionately well already.
Towards the end of his speech, Sadeghi tells a story about an epiphany he had in the anatomy lab. He says he discovered that the first valve of the heart flows straight back into the heart: “Selfish little organ there! No, no, not selfish – self-honouring. Wooo! What a difference! I could never give anything to anybody – ask my beloved wife – until I take care of me. Until my needs are met. Right? Right? When you fly down, the first thing that they tell you is that before you put the mask on anybody else, put it on yourself.”
I hear that idea repeated over and over again at the Goop conference – take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Put your mask on first. Hold space for yourself. Be entitled. Take. At a certain point, it begins to feel less like self-care and more like rationalisation. I don’t know anything about the personal lives of the women at In Goop Health – who they give money to, what hardships they have endured, why they were drawn to this event – and every person I interact with is funny and smart and kind and self-aware. But it is self-evident and measurable that white people in the US, in general, are assiduous about the first part of that equation (caring for ourselves) and less than attentive to the second (caring for others).
It is OK to love skin cream and crystals. It is normal and forgivable to be afraid of dying, afraid of cancer, afraid of losing your youth and beauty and the currency they confer. We have no other currency for women. I understand why people spend their lives searching for that one magic supplement, that one bit of lore that will turn their “lifestyle” around and make them small and perfect and valuable for ever. I also understand, especially at this moment in history, why people long to step outside of politics for a day and eat kale-flavoured ice cream (real, not satire, actually good) in a warehouse full of Galadriels. But the idea that anything is apolitical is an illusion accessible only to a very few. And the absolute least the Galadriel-in-chief ought to do is acknowledge that.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The kale-flavoured ice-cream was actually good. Photograph: Lindy West
At 4.05pm I dash outside for my shaman appointment, only to be told they are running about an hour behind. “Should I come back in an hour,” I ask. “I mean, you could try,” the woman says in a way that means, “No”, or maybe, “Not with that bracelet”.
For her keynote to close the day, Paltrow purports to dissect the complexities and woes of being a working mother with a panel of famous gal pals: Cameron Diaz, Tory Burch, Nicole Richie and Miranda Kerr. How do they do it? How do they have it all? The women deliver a bounty of platitudes about ambition, female friendship, self-care, their mothers and sticking to one’s “practice”. They are charming and humble. Richie is funny. But at no point do any of them say the words: “I HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY AND A STAFF.” In the context of a conversation about the challenges facing working mothers, the omission is, frankly, bizarre. It is a basic responsibility of the privileged to refrain from taking credit for our own good fortune. They might as well have been reading from Ivanka Trump’s book proposal. As with all the other panels, they do not take questions.
There is one moment I can’t stop thinking about. Near the end, Kerr casually mentions that she once tried leech therapy as part of her wellness practice: “One was on my coccyx because it’s really good to, like, detox the body, rejuvenate the body … I had a leech facial as well. And I kept the leeches. They’re in my koi pond.”
I am fat. I was the fattest person at the Goop expo. Strangers regularly contact me to tell me that I’m unhealthy and I’m going to die. A sampler from my emails:
“Being obese is NOT OK. It is associated with many health risks including: diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. Go lose some weight you fat slob, and do it before you go on disability so we don’t have to pay for you.”
“I don’t know what sort of message you are trying to send out to young girls/women, but that it is OK to be obese, and it is some sort of feminist sin to want to keep to a natural healthy shape can’t be a good one.”
Kerr’s body is almost certainly what those people mean when they say “a natural healthy shape”, because our society conflates conventional beauty with health. But, I don’t know – I might be fat, but I’ve never felt like I needed to get an IV drip on a patio in Culver City or put leeches on my butt to suck out toxins, and I’m grateful for that.
I guess Goop did make me feel well after all.
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The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.New York Giants General Manager Jerry Reese bristled Monday during an appearance on WFAN with Mike Francesa at the idea the Giants were caught off guard by the way the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft unfolded.
"When somebody don't know what they're talking about, it's easy to depict it that way," Reese told Francesa. "We had our board stacked. We had went through this scenario many times, and we thought that was one of the possibilities that could happen, and our mind was clearly made up that we would be happy with Eli Apple as our pick as No. 10."
The perception heading into Round 1 on Thursday, which yours truly bought into, was that the Giants were targeting either offensive tackle Jack Conklin of Michigan State or Georgia linebacker Leonard Floyd. Picking 10th, the Giants were roundly criticized for standing pat as the Tennessee Titans traded up to No. 8 and took Conklin, and then the Chicago Bears jumped in front of them and snagged Floyd with the ninth pick.
Could Apple have actually been the player the Giants wanted all along?
"He was an easy pick, and it was a value pick, No. 1, because he's the highest player on our board and was a need pick because we have two corners, and like I said during the draft, if you only have two corners, you're one corner short in this league," Reese said.
In addition to the commonly held narrative that media analysts expected the Giants to target Floyd or Conklin, the other narrative was that Vernon Hargreaves of Florida was considered the top cornerback in the draft. Jesse Bartolis wrote Monday morning that perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised that the Giants preferred Apple. While the media consensus was that Hargreaves was the No. 1 corner, I've been told that many NFL teams had Apple higher on their draft boards.
After an initial rocky reaction on Thursday, Giants fans seem to be coming around on the Apple selection. Truth is, we will never know exactly how the Giants stacked their board. All fans can do is hope they end up having selected a player who will play well for them.ES Football Newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Given the box office story and Hollywood ending of Queens Park Rangers’ first season in the Premier League, they must be tempted to make a sequel to ‘The Four Year Plan’.
Mat Hodgson’s compelling documentary aired by the BBC in March still resonates as one of the most revealing insights into the machinations of a modern-day football club.
Amid the whirlwind of impatience created by Flavio Briatore, the scheming and fretting of Gianni Paladini and a cabal of disillusioned managers sacked with the ink still drying on their contracts, vice-chairman Amit Bhatia stood as a voice of reason.
Neil Warnock finally delivered promotion to the Premier League by navigating a way through the madness but Bhatia’s role in creating an environment to thrive was central to that success.
Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone saved the club from bankruptcy in late 2007 but the Italian’s involvement, as the film revealed, had since created an instability that was proving highly corrosive.
Allowing unprecedented access to Hodgson’s film crew and conceding editorial control were remarkably co-operative steps in the usually clandestine world of club management and it made for uncomfortable viewing in the boardroom. “I said when I first saw it that there was no way this thing could ever be released,” Bhatia told Standard Sport, when speaking for the first time about the film.
“I was flabbergasted. We may not have had creative control on it but we still had to sign off on the movie.
“The producers could have been sued if they hadn’t got everyone to sign a waiver but eventually everyone agreed to it because it was a story that had to be told. We tried to apply the principles from past experiences — business for me, Formula One for Flavio and Bernie — to QPR but it didn’t work.
“You can’t compare the fan who goes to the Monaco Grand Prix with the fan who goes to his local football team. They said ‘London has a lot of football clubs but it doesn’t have a sexy, boutique club. Let’s make QPR boutique, let’s make it the Monaco Grand Prix of football clubs. We have the smallest ground, let’s make it the most exclusive ground’. We had cashmere, embroidered jerseys, we had fur slippers. In retrospect, we learned you cannot run a football club like that because you lose your fanbase. It was a lack of experience. I look back and I see myself as such a rookie and knowing very little. You have to treat people better, make decisions that are orientated towards the longer term.”
Rangers are now in a position to learn those lessons after escaping relegation on a dramatic final day at Manchester City. Mark Hughes is the seventh permanent manager in five years but Bhatia is keen to ensure stability now exists where chaos once reigned. “We are trying to take our club to the next level and Mark is central to all that,” he said. “We are moving forward with a new training facility, working with the architects and designers and Mark is very important in that process.
“We want to invest in the academy and youth system. I don’t have that experience but we have a long-term vision and Mark is central to all those decisions.
“Our scouting system isn’t up to par, the infrastructure isn’t good — we need more medical people. We have a shortage of masseurs. He is walking us through all of these ideas. We are going to set new rules at the football club: how people dress, what time they show up, what time they leave. All of these are being rewritten at the moment.
“Setting targets is counter-productive. We were stupid enough to say ‘promotion in four years’. There is no new four-year plan. It is about getting a better infrastructure, a more respected club, a bigger fanbase and playing more attractive football. It would be frivolous to talk about a second four-year plan as we know football now.”
It won’t make a dramatic film sequel but the strategy is equally vital to Rangers’ future.
Bhatia on freezing ticket prices
QPR have frozen ticket prices for next season and Bhatia said: “The fans were vital last season and we are going to need them to come back and support the team. We assessed what it would cost us not to increase prices and decided it was worth it — we didn’t want to price the fans out of a second season in the Premier League.”
Bhatia on the new owners
The Mittal family attempted to buy the club last summer before Tony Fernandes took over.
Bhatia said: “There was a public back and forth that Flavio [Briatore] and Bernie [Ecclestone] believed our offer wasn’t good enough.
“That’s fine, that’s business. The eventual offer that Tony came in with wasn’t too far from what we had offered. I now have a fantastic relationship with Tony and the other two shareholders so it is fine.
“I had resigned over a fall-out involving ticket prices going into the Premier League. But relations remained good and Flavio called me to tell me I should meet Tony and he’d made a better offer. He asked if I wanted to exit but I said, ‘No’.
“I thought about countering Tony’s offer and maybe we would have done it if we didn’t see eye-to-eye with Tony. I didn’t know him well but we found out who he was and his plans. We spent many hours on the phone and he understood we lacked infrastructure.
“He kept using this phrase ‘unpolished diamond’ to describe the club. I wanted the fans to feel proud of the club and for the club to reconnect with them. Tony understood that.”
Bhatia on Kieron Dyer's new deal
Midfielder Kieron Dyer played just seven minutes last season — on the opening day — before suffering a series of injury setbacks but the 33-year-old has been handed a new contract. Standard Sport understands it is a one-year, pay-as-you-play deal, and Bhatia said: “Kieron is there training now and showing real commitment and dedication and Mark Hughes feels he offers a lot around the place off the pitch as well. When it comes down to player decisions, it is up to the manager.”
Bhatia on moving to a new ground
HE claims a move away from Loftus Road is inevitable if the club establish themselves as a Premier League force.
“We have been working on this for the last few years,” he said. “It has been a slow process. We have ambition to try and move to another stadium in the same area.
“We’ve done feasibility studies to try and develop Loftus Road but we can’t expand the stadium by more than a few thousand seats. It is not enough.
“If this club remain in the Premier League, we will need a bigger stadium and so it is smarter plan that we start from scratch and try and build something to make it state of the art. I don’t know where or when it will happen.”
Bhatia on sacking Neil Warnock
Bhatia formed a close bond with Warnock but QPR sacked him in January after eight games without a win. Bhatia said: “It was more difficult for me than for Tony. I had built a stronger relationship with him than any other manager, although we didn’t normally have managers around long enough to build one!
“Tony believed in him when he came on board but every once in a while, difficult decisions have to be made. We thought the club was slightly underperforming after doing well to bring in new players.”Could you afford to retire at 51? I can – all because I’m not ashamed to shop around and save a few pounds here and there, says Nigel Kendall
I’m male, 51 years old, married with no kids, and the owner of a small flat in London and a small house in rural France. Late last year, I realised that perhaps, just perhaps, I could afford to live for the rest of my life without ever going to work again.
It’s not going to be easy. My wife and I will have to get by on a fraction of what we once earned, but we’re used to living frugally. It’s how we got into this situation in the first place.
I’m not from a wealthy family – far from it. My mother raised my brother and me on her own, and we watched every single penny we spent. We never lacked for anything, but we certainly never overpaid for anything either. Living frugally became second nature. It’s part of who I am.
Can money buy happiness? Read more
When I arrive in a new town, the first places I go to are its charity shops. The things that people give away provide an insight into an area’s real nature in a way that only a pub can rival. And there are things such as suits, ties and coats that I would never consider buying new. Chasing down what you’re after is part of the fun of being frugal, and finding things you never expected is the cherry on the cake. Thank you, Langworthy Road, Salford, for that box of 30 imported David Bowie 7in singles (£5).
I have no interest in clothes, but I have spent so many years browsing in the nation’s charity shops that I can spot something well made at 20 paces. Several years ago, I was invited to attend an awards do in London. Black tie. Dinner jacket. I headed to Wilmslow, Cheshire, and dived straight into Oxfam. From the four DJ suits that fitted, I chose the one by Yves Saint-Laurent – £20. Also hanging in my wardrobe are suits by Gieves & Hawkes and Giorgio Armani (£35 and £30 respectively, Cancer Research, Clapham), as well as a wonderful vintage Crombie coat (£25, a local charity, Midhurst).
If you enjoy learning new things, frugality is the perfect gateway to a world of knowledge that comes in useful more often than you might think.
In my younger days, I drove a succession of cars so unreliable that I had a mental map of the finest scrapyards in Britain, where I bought everything from complete engines and gearboxes to doors and headlights. When my windscreen shattered one day on the North Circular, it never occurred to me to do anything other than head to the nearest scrapper, clamber up the teetering pile of cars and pick up a replacement: £10.
I have no overpowering interest in cars, but because I choose to run them as cheaply as possible I have acquired a fairly detailed knowledge of how they work. If I do need to go to a garage, I can offer a description of a problem (and often a diagnosis) and I’ll know if the response is honest and the work has been done.
In the past three years, I have become, at various times, a short-term expert on everything from domestic washing machines (spin speeds, reliability, noise) to Peugeot Citroën diesel engines (fuel economy, reliability, introduction date and effects of diesel particulate filters), internet via satellite (download speeds, latency and VoIP) and the relative cotton thread count and weight of leading T-shirt manufacturers.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thirty imported David Bowie 7in singles for £5? Bargain. Photograph: urbancow/Getty Images
The frugal life is not a modus vivendi for misers, but a positive lifestyle choice, where you take control of your spending power and choose how you allocate your resources. Stop torturing yourself over the things you want to buy next and embrace the joy of living well for less.
I use the word “joy” advisedly. Living frugally is not a punishment. It is fun. By taking control of your spending power, you not only gain materially, but you also learn about your purchases in advance and know that what you do buy is of the highest possible quality.
Frugality is not just about knowing the cost of everything. It’s about knowing its value too. Most of all, it’s about recognising the most important of all your rights as a consumer: the right to consume as, when and how you see fit.
Instead of rushing out to update your phone every 12 months and your car every three years, frugality can give you pause. This |
Sony Norde – Mumbai F.C. (26 years old)
Sony Norde joined Mumbai on loan from 2014-5 I-league champions Mohun Bagan F.C. The Haitian international was one of the more impressive players in India’s other top-tier league, scoring eleven times and racking up a high number of assists. His career started in Argentina with Boca Juniors’ B side, and has also played in the Mexican and Bangladeshi leagues.LUA Radio 7.19 – An Illusive Phantom of Hope: A Critique of Reformism
LUA Radio 7.19 – An Illusive Phantom of Hope: A Critique of Reformism
Tune-in live at 6pm CST @ FPRNradio.com/listen-live
For many years, citizens have been using various methods of reformism to adapt government to their liking.
These methods range from voting, jury nullification, writing your congresscritters, all the way to grassroots lobbying.
All of these have proven to be failures and the size of the federal government has grown exponentially and our slavery has only become more evident as time goes on.
In this week’s broadcast of Liberty Under Attack radio, we will debunk reformism with the help of our good friend, Kyle Rearden, from the Last Bastille blog.
Links:
Download the anthology in PDF format.
Kyle’s blogMaybe the Philadelphia Eagles will be able to trade supposedly disgruntled running back DeMarco Murray after all. According to a rumor from Tim Kelly of Eagledelphia.com, there is at least one NFL team interested in Murray.
Source: AFC team interested in DeMarco Murray https://t.co/QaXq9YCHZD pic.twitter.com/KFALC5WXFW — Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) March 7, 2016
Then there's this note from Jason Ashworth, who once reported Jeremy Maclin's re-signing with the Eagles back in 2014.
File this to the rumor mill: Hearing Murray deal is all but done, as well. Sounds like late round pick. #Eagles — Jason Ashworth (@JayA_975) March 7, 2016
No disrespect to these outlets, but we're obviously not talking about the likes of Adam Schefter and Jay Glazer here. So take these for what they're worth while we wait to hear more. In the meantime, it should be noted NFL insider Ian Rapoport has been pretty insistent that Murray isn't happy in Philadelphia and the Eagles have interest in moving on. The tricky part is that Murray has a big contract and he's coming off a terrible season so he's not the easiest player to trade.
Trading Murray would certainly fit Howie Roseman's objective of correcting Chip Kelly's mistakes from last offseason. The Birds are already set to trade Byron Maxwell and Kiko Alonso to the Dolphins. It's not unreasonable to think they also want to move on from Murray. Doing so would save the Birds $4 million in cap space.Introduction: Stephan Kinsella is a libertarian scholar and attorney in Houston. The Executive Editor of Libertarian Papers and Director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (C4SIF), he is Counsel/Treasurer of the Property and Freedom Society, serves on the Advisory Panel of the Center for a Stateless Society and is also a member of the Editorial Board of Reason Papers and of The Journal of Peace, Prosperity & Freedom [Australia]. He was formerly a partner with Duane Morris LLP, General Counsel for Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. and adjunct law professor at South Texas College of Law. Stephan has published many libertarian articles and books including Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (co-editor, Mises Institute, 2009), Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008; Laissez Faire Books edition forthcoming) and Law in a Libertarian World: Legal Foundations of a Free Society and Copy This Book (both Laissez Faire Books). Stephan’s legal publications include International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (co-author, Oxford University Press, 2005), Louisiana Civil Law Dictionary (co-author, Quid Pro Books, 2011) and several other legal treatises published by Oxford University Press, Oceana Publications and West/Thompson Reuters.
Anthony Wile: It's been a while since we interviewed you. Let's focus on some areas that you've been exploring lately. You've been thinking a lot about the essential basis of the libertarian idea lately, and the relationship between the non-aggression principle, property rights and related matters. Can you give us insight into your thinking? What specifically remains confused? What is the difficulty that people struggle with regarding the non-aggression principle and property rights?
Stephan Kinsella: The core insight of the founding generation of modern libertarian thinkers like Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard is that initiating violence against others is wrong, unjustified, and should be prohibited by law – whether that is state law (in Rand's case) or private law (for anarchist libertarians like Rothbard and Hoppe).
Rand in Galt's speech sets out a "non-initiation of force" principle:
"So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? No man may start—the use of physical force against others."
Rothbard formulated a similar idea but called it an "axiom":
The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the "nonaggression axiom." "Aggression" is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion. [For A New Liberty, p. 23]
And, in The Ethics of Liberty (pp. 60, 45):
"The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that each person must be a self-owner, and that no one has the right to interfere with such self-ownership. … What... aggressive violence means is that one man invades the property of another without the victim's consent. The invasion may be against a man's property in his person (as in the case of bodily assault), or against his property in tangible goods (as in robbery or trespass)."
(I provide elaboration on some of these issues in What Libertarianism Is and other posts such as The relation between the non-aggression principle and property rights: a response to Division by Zer0 and How We Come To Own Ourselves.)
Rand's non-initiation of force principle, and Rothbard's so-called "non-aggression axiom," are usually today referred to as the non-aggression principle, or NAP, by libertarians (some call it the zero-aggression principle, or ZAP). My impression is that "axiom" changed to "principle" over the last few decades for a couple reasons. First, "axiom" was a term heavily used by Objectivists, e.g., in their epistemological reasoning and terminology, and a growing number of libertarians are not Objectivists, and so shun that usage.
Second, calling the principle an "axiom" implies that it is either the primary or only principle, or self-contained or complete; or perhaps that it is simply an arbitrary postulate as in mathematical axioms; or even that it is an undeniable, logically deduced starting point. Because libertarians are diverse in their views on the nature of rights and how they are justified, it seems better to refer to the non-aggression principle – a better way to define what views we all share in common, regardless of how they are arrived at. Randians, for instance, think that the individual rights implied by the non-initiation of force principle (i.e., the NAP) are validated by more fundamental philosophical insights about the nature of man, so they would not want to view non-aggression as some arbitrary or postulated math-type axiom. Utilitarian and empiricist type libertarians, intuitionists, religionists who ultimately base their political ethics on some divine or moral law or commands, etc., might not want to view non-aggression as some self-contained or logically deduced starting point. And so on. So the term "axiom" has become less common. Nonetheless, definitions and categories are necessary – there is something that makes us all libertarian, after all. And the idea of the "non-aggression principle" seems to best capture that, at least as a generally descriptive if shorthand term.
However, one problem that has arisen is that aggression, as commonly thought of, has to do with interpersonal violence: invading another person's body: physical fighting or clashing. If you say you are opposed to aggression, this implies you favor self-ownership or, more precisely, body ownership. But it does not obviously, immediately imply property rights in other resources, such as land or movable objects. One would not think of stealing the owned resources of others as "aggression," as the term is used in everyday talk. Squatting on someone's land or using their hut while they are away might be trespass but it does not seem like interpersonal violence that the term "aggression" seems to be aimed at.
Thus, libertarians tend to elaborate or define the NAP in a somewhat counterintuitive or idiosyncratic way, so that "aggression," as they mean it, covers both interpersonal bodily violence and theft or trespass against other owned resources. In their elaborations they say that we oppose aggression against the bodies or property of other people – and also, that this means fraud is also prohibited … as is contract breach. This is a lot to pack into the notion of aggression, into the NAP, which on its face only prohibits attacking others' bodies without provocation. They take the idea that it is wrong to physically attack others' bodies and then pack into it related libertarian notions such as: homesteading (how property rights arise), trespass (use of someone's owned resource without permission), contract and abandonment (the capacity to transfer or alienate property rights in owned resources) and even fraud theory. This cluster of related ideas or principles is crucial to the libertarian political philosophy, but it is a lot to put under the rubric of "aggression." Both libertarians and our opponents have noticed this, and the former have sought to clarify our principles, and our terminology.
And, thus, the more sophisticated libertarians have recognized that property rights are more fundamental than the non-aggression principle. This is part of what Rothbard was getting at in his insistence that all rights are essentially property rights (see The Ethics of Liberty). It is what Hoppe is getting at in his Misesian-Austrian influenced theory that property rights arise because of the fundamental fact of scarcity: the possibility of conflict. (See, e.g., chs. 1, 2 and 7 of A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, and various papers such as Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization.)
Why are property rights and how they are allocated more fundamental than the non-aggression principle? Well, in the case of bodies, the NAP is virtually synonymous with body-ownership; to say you oppose aggression is to say that you endorse self-ownership and vice-versa. These are basically equivalent normative statements. We do not need a theory of property allocation for bodies, since opposing aggression automatically implies that each person is the owner of his body (for whatever reason; libertarians differ on the rationale, but all consistent libertarians favor self-ownership and oppose interpersonal aggression, for whatever reason). But this is not so in the case of external resources – that is to say, scarce means or goods that were once unowned, unused, unclaimed, but that now are regarded as means of action by some human actors. For such resources, we need a theory of property allocation to determine the owner of the resource, before we can judge a given use of the resource as "aggression" – i.e., trespass, theft – or not. If A enters into a hut B claims, it is trespass, or "aggression," only if B is the owner of the hut. If A is the owner of the hut, then it is not trespass to use it, even if B objects. Contrast this with A using B's body without B's consent (hitting it, say); simply by being opposed to aggression, we take B's side over A's, because to oppose interpersonal, bodily aggression means that each person (at least presumptively) owns his own body. But opposing "aggression" (trespass) for non-human resources requires us to identify who the owner of the resources is. In the case of human bodies, it is obvious who the (presumptive) owner of the body is. Not so for external, previously-unowned, resources.
To be sure, there is definitely a connection between self-ownership and property rights in other resources. One's body is a means of action, as are other scarce means (resources, goods) in the world. There can be clashes or conflict over both, and because the fundamental, unavoidable and undeniable fact of scarcity, only one person, one actor, can have the right to use a body or other resource for a given purpose at a given time.
The libertarian principle, then, is based on recognizing this fundamental condition of human life, and it says that we ought to have property rights assigned in all scarce resources – any means over which there could be conflict – so that humans can peacefully, cooperatively and productively employ scarce means to pursue their goals; and that property rights have to be determined in accordance with some objective criteria – some objective link between the claimant and the resource in question. It has to be a link that is objective so that various contestants who claim the resource can recognize it and come to an agreement about who has the better claim to the resource. In the case of one's body, the obvious answer is: each person himself presumptively has the best link to his body, because of his direct control of it. It is only presumptive, since some actions, like violent attacks on others, can justify the victim using self-defense; but it is the default presumption. And in the case of other resources, things that were once unowned, then obviously the first user of the resource has a better claim than a latecomer, since without what Hoppe calls the "prior-later" distinction, there can be no property rights at all, only a war of all against all and might-makes-right. This latter rule is supplemented by principles of contractual transfer and rectification. That is, the earlier user has a better claim to the resource than some latecomer – unless he did something to change this, such as contractually transfer (or abandon) the thing, or commit some offense (tort) against someone else, which obligates him to transfer some of his property to the victim to make restitution. (For more discussion of related matters, see my Defending Argumentation Ethics: Reply to Murphy & Callahan, New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory and Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide.)
I have no problem with using the concept of aggression, or the NAP formulation, as a shorthand summary of the basic libertarian idea, but it must be kept in mind that it is only shorthand, and its meaning can only be fully grasped by appreciating the nature and purpose of property rights and how they are allocated. We cannot forget the fundamental fact of scarcity is what gives rise to the possibility of conflict and thus for the need for social cooperation and property rights.
In recent years some libertarians have objected to the NAP. I think there are a variety of reasons for this. One is that the relationship between property and scarcity and rights and aggression as sketched above has not been fully comprehended by everyone in our relatively young freedom philosophy (which basically started in the 1960s with Rand and Rothbard, in my view). And, the movement has been growing in recent decades, with a lot of the newcomers coming in through Ron Paul and political activism, rather than through more intellectual Randian or Rothbardianism, resulting in a large number of people with a fairly surface level understanding of the connections between liberty, property rights, aggression and so on. And they sense that the NAP does not capture everything about the libertarian principles. So they reject it, and seek some deeper connections or better formulations.
Another reason is that there are many minarchist or even classical liberal type libertarians who do not oppose the state itself in principle, they do not oppose taxation, they accept the idea of public goods and the need for state provision of law and justice and infrastructure and so on. In other words, they recognize that if we oppose all aggression, on principle, they have to oppose the state, and they do not want to do that. So they essentially do what conservatives and liberals do, which is to count the NAP as just one of many important moral or societal "values" that "matter." So they are against aggression, they will say – but they are also for or against other things too, and all these competing values must be "balanced" against each other. We can't be dogmatic or extreme or doctrinaire, you see. Yes, yes, we want to reduce aggression, but we want to defend the country, we want to fund the state and the police and the roads, we want to prevent people from racially discriminating against minorities and so on – so you have to compromise or bend the NAP. You have to permit the state to commit aggression – to tax, to put people in jail for reading the wrong books or using the wrong drugs or for refusing to fight for the country in a war – for the greater good. In other words, if you are going to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.
Some of these statist-"libertarians" are honest and admit they are in favor of aggression. They think it is unfortunate that we have to permit some aggression, but necessary to prevent some anarchist chaos. Others are more disingenuous about this. For example they will engage in equivocation – equating aggression to all forms of force, including self-defense, and saying that the anarcho-libertarian himself supports aggression (because he recognizes that self-defense is legitimate) so he makes an "exception" too, just like the minarchist-statist does. This is blatantly stupid, or dishonest, in my view, but I've seen it many times.
Then we have the emergence of the soi-disant "bleeding heart" libertarians, the "privilege" checkers and the "thickers," and so on, many of whom are in favor of the state and the promotion of values other than individual (property) rights. They don't want a rigid – i.e., principled – adherence to the NAP to get in the way of using the state or law to pursue their a-libertarian, or even unlibertarian, goals. As a human being, I, like every other libertarian, have values other than liberty. We are not just libertarians, ever. However, we do value liberty, and we oppose aggression. For us it is a "side-constraint," to use Nozick's phrase: we believe aggression is simply wrong, or unjustifiable. When the conservative, or liberal, or minarchist or "bleeding heart" libertarian starts wagging their finger and tut-tutting that they oppose aggression but unlike the simpleminded libertarian it is not their "only value," you can be sure they are setting the stage to propose or endorse or condone some kind of invasion of liberty – some act of aggression. That is, when I hear people, even some libertarians, condescendingly denounce our focus on aggression as the primary social evil, …. I want to hold onto my wallet, because they are coming after it. Or as Ayn Rand says in Francisco's Money Speech, "Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter." Likewise, when someone says aggression is not the only thing that matters, they are about to advocate aggression. Keep an eye on these people.
To be clear here, among some of these "leftish" type libertarians, I would distinguish two prominent groups very differently: the "bleeding heart" libertarians seem by and large to be mushy-headed, non-rigorous and pro-state while the anarchist left-libertarians are largely solid – they are against the state, they are mostly solid on economics and Austrianism (except perhaps for some of the mutualists), they are against war, they are against intellectual property, etc.
In my view, the bleeding heart types are by and large barely libertarian, and promote horrible and statist ideas, such as a basic guaranteed income, an insane proposal that most libertarians for the last fifty years could have instantly recognized as a socialistic and unjustified positive right. By contrast, the anarchist left-libertarians are by and large great. That said, I personally think the best and most consistent approach to libertarianism is Misesian-Rothbardian-Hoppean anarcho-libertarianism, sometimes called anarcho-capitalism. Incidentally, that latter term is one I use less now than I used to, partly because of the damage done to the term "capitalism" by the left-libertarians' relentless campaign against it, and partly because it is somewhat misdescriptive: capitalism refers to only one aspect of the economy of an advanced free market society; and the economy itself is only one part of a libertarian society. Just as the NAP can be used as a convenient shorthand for the libertarian vision of a cooperative, property-rights respecting society, "capitalism" can also be used as a shorthand term to describe the libertarian society, though it's increasingly difficult to do this and the term is fraught with the potential for confusion. Anyway, this is somewhat of a tangent, now, but what I primarily disagree with the anarchist left-libertarians on is their "thickism," some of their cultural preferences and predictions about what a free society would look like, and their endorsement of the left-right spectrum or dichotomy in their use of the left prefix itself. I reject the left-right spectrum. I think the right or conservatism is virtually incoherent (why would there be an alliance of neocons, religious right and free market chamber of commerce types), and the left is soft-socialism, and ultimately the right is some variant of socialism too (see ch. 5 of Hoppe's Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, and definitional matters in chs. 1-2).
Anthony Wile: Murray Rothbard insisted that all "human rights" are property rights – why?
Stephan Kinsella: He talked about this in Human Rights As Property Rights," from his great work The Ethics of Liberty. Rothbard understood that all disputes – all real disputes – are ultimately about control of scarce means of action, i.e., physical resources. The right to freedom of speech or the press makes sense only if understood as a theory of property rights: the right of a publisher or person to use his own paper and ink and body as he sees fit. Rothbard was influenced not only by Rand, but by Mises (Hoppe was in turn influenced heavily by Rothbard and Mises).
Mises's praxeology provides an incredibly lucid and useful analysis of the nature of human action. When humans act, they employ scarce means (including their bodies) to attempt to causally interfere with the universe, so as to bring about a different future outcome than they predict or forecast would otherwise transpire without their acting intervention. In a magical world or the Garden of Eden or the Land of Cockaigne (Hoppe sometimes calls it Schlaraffenland) there is no conflict possible, but human action is also virtually inconceivable. (Just as human action is virtually inconceivable in the unrealistic and hypothetical construct of the "evenly rotating economy," employed by Mises and Rothbard.)
In our world, the real world, there is always scarcity, always the possibility of conflict between actors, always the need to employ scarce means to pursue ends or goals. Property rights are simply conflict-avoidance or conflict-reduction norms that civilized people adopt, respect and abide by because of their basic values: pro-peace, pro-society, pro-prosperity, pro-cooperation and so on (I have referred to these basic values as "grundnorms," drawing on legal philosopher Hans Kelsen's terminology; see note 14 of my What Libertarianism Is). That is why every right, every human right, every individual right, is ultimately a property right. All property rights are ultimately enforceable by physical control of the possessor/user/claimant, and defendable by physical force (e.g., self defense) or the literal use of force implied by a law that protects such right.
All law, after all, ultimately is enforced by the use of force against the body or other possessions of the transgressor. (This is recognized in the so-called "bad man" theory of law espoused by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.) Every conflict, every dispute, is always, ultimately, about who gets to control a given disputed resource. That is why every law, every right, is ultimately about property rights: deciding who the owner is, or should be. There is no way around this. This is why it is frustrating when mainstream thinkers and even some libertarians talk vaguely about "human rights"; it opens the door to legal invasions of property rights. People confusingly say that people fight over religion; they do not. They fight over others' bodies and the physical things, the scarce means (land and so on) that the others have or want to use. If I threaten to kill you if you do not convert to Islam, I am really asserting a property right in your body: I am asserting the right to decide whether to stick a sword into your belly. The libertarian says: you have the right to control what gets stuck into your body. Religion is just an excuse for the property invasion; it is the motivation or reason for the invasion. But it is impossible to own religion and it is literally impossible to "fight over religion." It is always, always, always about property rights.
The same goes for other false and positive rights, such as intellectual property (e.g., patent and copyright). The IP advocate says they support property rights in general but "also" in useful, valuable, "created" patterns and ideas. But what they really support is legal theft: using IP as an excuse to take others' money, or to seize a "negative servitude" over others' already-owned scarce resources.
Ultimately, every political philosophy, every legal system, is about property rights. They specify a set of rules that determines who the owner of any given scarce resource is, in the case of a dispute or contest to control that resource. The libertarian view simply has a unique way of allocating such property rights, different than other systems. All other systems advocate some form of slavery or theft, since they endorse aggression against others, which is a form of slavery, or taking of owned resources from the owner when he does not contractually consent to this.
Anthony Wile: Why is it crucial that libertarian theory have a sound basis for property rights and for its unique property assignment rules?
Stephan Kinsella: Property rights make sense only in a world where there is potential conflict over some identifiable scarce means (meaning: the real world). For humans to live in society they need to acknowledge each other's existence and respect others' right to live. Every human society that has persisted has figured out a way for people to get along – to agree to certain rules that specify who has the recognized right to use or control a given resource. Humans need to use scarce means to achieve results. For those people who recognize that we exist in society, they recognize benefits of being social (trade, intercourse) and drawbacks (you have to curtail certain appetites). The obvious result is the libertarian property assignment or allocation rule: the owner of a resource is determined by inquiring into its origin: original appropriation or contract.
Anthony Wile: Libertarianism rightly focuses on the concept of first use of a previously unowned scarce resource as the key test for determining ownership of it. But some say that land, for instance, can never be owned, only the improvements on the land. Any truth to this?
Stephan Kinsella: "Land" is just a referent to a particular scarce resource. It is surface area on the Earth. Land is just one type of scarce resource, so is not special, in any fundamental sense. This is one problem I have with Georgists, who obsess about land as some special good.
One argument against ownership of land is that the bulk of the value of the land is due to natural features that the user did not cause, so he does not "deserve" the full value of the land, but only that which he himself worked on – the improvement. There are many problems with this argument. First, in a sense, the homesteader of a good is its creator – because of the subjective nature of values, the type of "good" a thing is and whether it is really even a "good," depends on how it is regarded by its user. Second, the argument is anchored in the flawed labor theory of property and value. It assumes that values are what property rights protect; that value can be owned. It cannot. Property rights have to do with the physical integrity of scarce resources, since all conflicts are ultimately about incompatible uses of such resources. There is no property right in the value of resources one owns. Value cannot be owned. Nor can labor. The Lockeans are wrong to say that the reason there is property rights in things like land, is because a person owns his "self" and therefore he owns his "labor" and therefore he owns what unowned things he "mixes" his labor with. Almost every part of this version of Locke is wrong. First, we do not own our "selves"; this is metaphorical nonsense. We own our bodies. Second, you do not own your labor any more than you own your actions. Owning your body gives you the ability and right to use it as you see fit. Just as owning a home gives you the right to contemplate the stars at midnight, but we would not say there is some independent right to contemplate the stars; it is rather a consequence of having respected property rights in land and one's body. And even if you owned your labor, mixing it with some resource – well "mixing" is itself an ambiguous metaphor – but it might well simply result in the loss of ownership of the labor, rather than the acquisition of ownership of the thing mixed with. If you spit in the ocean you lose your spit, you do not homestead the ocean. That said, I think Locke's basic insight was right; it is just that it is too complicated and adorned by imprecise metaphors and unnecessary steps. Hume recognized this. The reason you have a right to own a resource like land is not that you created its value, but that you staked out a claim before anyone else did. Hoppe calls this embordering.
For someone to object to my ownership of a plot of land is for them to assert a property right in the land. For only an owner of the resource has a ground for objecting to my use of it. But if they claim to own it, they have to have a basis. Yet per assumption, I was the first owner, not them. So I have a better claim to the land. This is the essential flaw in the state ownership of national forests and other undeveloped resources: they have not used or appropriated the resource, they have not done anything to establish a legitimate claim to the land (and I would argue no state ever can, since by its nature it is criminal, so that any property rights it ever acquires, either by contract, expropriation, or even homesteading, are owed as restitution to the state's victims), yet they prevent others from homesteading the resource. They are acting as the owner even though they are not a legitimate owner. Something similar is the case in the way the states of the world have coordinated via treaties to claim ownership of the seabeds, the moon, outer space, Antarctica and the like.
So the anti-land-ownership "libertarians," if we can call them that, are taking a line similar to that of statists and tyrants. In denying someone the ownership of a resource, they are themselves acting as owners. Yet they have no basis for this ownership claim.
But there is another argument against land ownership that is more consistent with libertarian principles. This is the objection to the enclosure movement, e.g., in England. The argument is that when the state grants ownership rights in plots of land, they take away existing rights of people to use the land in certain ways, e.g., for passage. Or they assign the rights to their cronies. Or they take the land away from previous owners (e.g., Native Americans in the US). In Hoppe's article Of Private, Common, and Public Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization he sketches a theory that partial property rights can be homesteaded by use. For example in a town a common path is used, establishing a collectively owned easement, a right of passage or right of way (or servitude). Someone who builds a road later has to recognize the pre-existing passage rights, owned by residents of the town or their heirs. I believe I read not too long about some legally recognized right in Italy of the people to cross over privately owned property for purposes of hunting. One could argue this type of law is justified by the "partial homesteading" approach Hoppe outlines. In this sense one could argue that the state recognition and enforcement of property rights in land sometimes amounts to a taking of pre-existing easements that had been privately homesteaded by others. But this only highlights the fact that the state, and its legislation-based legal system, inevitably violates rights and mucks things up. It does not mean that land is special or that property rights in land are not legitimate. It only means that sometimes there are partial usage-rights homesteaded by earlier users of the resource, which property rights must be respected by later homesteaders. In other words, the only coherent objection to property rights in land rests on a recognition of the legitimacy of property rights in land (and on at least an implicit recognition that the state messes things up).
Anthony Wile: Is ownership always defined by first use?
Stephan Kinsella: As indicated above, ownership in one's body is not based on first use, but on one's intimate connection to, and direct control over, one's body. That is, the objective link in the case of the body that connects a person-claimant-owner to "his" body is that it is his body; it houses his identity, and he directly controls it. For other things – that is, scarce resource, scarce means, things that were previously unowned, unclaimed and unused – the objective link between a given claimant and the disputed resource in question, is based upon three factors or principles: original appropriation (first use, or labor-mixing), contract and rectification. In other words, being the original appropriator is not enough to show ownership, because the original owner might have abandoned the resource or contractually transferred it to someone else, or might have a debt to them due to some offense. So all three considerations play a role. But as between any two or more claimants to a given resource, we can in principle decide which one has the better claim by asking: who had it first; was any contractual transfer or abandonment done; is there a debt between the claimants that can or has to be satisfied by a property title transfer. So if A can show he was using the property before B, he has a presumptively better claim (note: A does not need to show that he was the first user of the property; only that he was using it before B). But if B can show that A contractually transferred the property to B, then B has a better claim than A. Or if A harmed B and owes A restitution. Or, if A abandoned the property and then B re-homesteaded it.
Anthony Wile: What constitutes first use?
Stephan Kinsella: Some questions cannot be answered from the armchair. There are more or less general or abstract legal precepts, and then more or less refined, developed and applied concrete rules that develop over time due to custom and the legal system of an advanced society. (See my post The Limits of Armchair Theorizing: The Case of Threats.) That said, we have had over two thousand years of such processes in the Roman law and English common law, so we are not totally in the dark. I would say that the essential principle here is what Hoppe identifies in chs. 1-2 of A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: the idea of embordering. If a resource is not yet claimed or used, then the person who somehow starts to use it in a way that is publicly visible has a better claim than others. There needs to be publicly visible borders or boundaries (one reason I sometimes think the term "private" property is somewhat inappropriate; all property rights are in some sense "public," as in publicly visible), to serve the conflict-avoidance function of property rights. The purpose of property rights is to permit resources to be used without conflict, and the only way they can serve this function is if the boundaries or borders of the resource, or of the usage-right or property rights in the resource, are publicly visible – that is, objectively visible, or as some Kantian-inspired theorists like Hoppe might say, "intersubjectively ascertainable."
And then, also, we have to recognize that if the purpose of property rights is to permit conflict-free use of resources, and if there would be no need for property rights in a conflict-free world, then the only time a question about the scope and nature of particular property rights could ever arise, in the real world, is in an actual, real, dispute, between two or more persons, over a given scarce resource. And in that dispute, the nature of the resource in question will be defined: it is whatever is being disputed or sought by the competing claimants. The very dispute itself helps define what is the resource in question. This, in turn, helps determine what type of usage "counts" for homesteading in the first place. I discuss this in further detail in various articles, such as What Libertarianism Is, n.26; see also Rothbard's discussion of the "relevant technological unit" in Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution.
Anthony Wile: When does a child become "first owner"?
Stephan Kinsella: I do not pretend to have a solid answer to this difficult issue. My view is that rights are bound up with human rationality, the capacity to understand, agree with and respect others' rights. Hoppe implies as much in the opening chapters of A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Rothbard and others imply that it is when the child has enough capacity to say "no" and try to run away. My view is roughly along these lines, but different in some ways. My thinking is this. |
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1About the Ceremony
The Georgia Tech community is always deeply saddened when it loses one of its members. In 2001, a group of concerned students, faculty, and staff realized the community did not have a way in which to collectively honor those whom we had lost. Thus, a campuswide remembrance ceremony was created to honor the memory of those enrolled students and employees of the Institute who had died during the previous year.
Held near the conclusion of spring semester in the shadow of the Tech Tower, the simple ceremony combines Tech’s richest and oldest traditions to create a solemn tribute. Out of respect for the deceased and their families, members of our campus community are asked to refrain from scheduling events during the service. The names of the honorees are published in the student newspaper (Technique) and the faculty/staff newspaper (The Whistle) prior to the event.
Blow on, stern Monarch of Tech's mighty crew,
Be always firm and staid:
To your compelling call we'll e're be true
Til each his part has played. Taken from "A Tribute to the Whistle" as printed in the 1914 Blueprint Signed, A.D.A.
Families of the deceased are led to the site by a bagpiper and the Ramblin’ Wreck, a 1930 Model A Ford that serves as an official emblem of the Institute. Members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps ROTC units escort each family throughout the service.
A unity candle is lit to represent the entire Georgia Tech community—more than 25,000 students, staff, and faculty—and each family representative is invited to light a candle on behalf of their loved one.
Each year, a respected member of the Georgia Tech community is selected to read each honoree’s name aloud, while the family’s candle lighter and ROTC escort walk to the stage to receive the official gift from the Institute on the family’s behalf.
Before the campus Whistle breaks the evening silence, the alma mater is played to remind those present of our time at Tech and to relay the hope that we will always be united as a community.Well, here we are. After 14 epic installments, this is the end of Sidonia. I’m sad to see it go, but then again it was starting to get expensive. I also felt like I was starting to sense Nihei’s fatigue from cranking these things out for the past few years.
If you look at his last series, Biomega, you can see a marked contrast between that style and the end of Knights of Sidonia. This one continues the sparser, more lightly shaded artwork that we have seen in the last few issues. It’s not my favorite but it still carries the weight and scale that he has always excelled at. Also, the story wraps up in fine form and definitively concludes, something which some stories can't seem to do anymore. It was a great series and one which I look forward to reading again without the lengthy break between publishings. If you are looking for more from this artist I recommend Biomega or Blame! which is now in print again and worth collecting as well.Inconsistencies behind the company’s ability to police advertising on controversial content are coming to light
Google’s decision-making process over which YouTube videos are deemed “advertiser friendly” faces scrutiny from both brands and creators, highlighting once again the challenge of large-scale moderation.
The company last week pledged to change its advertising policies after several big brands pulled their budgets from YouTube following an investigation that revealed their ads were shown alongside extremist content, such as videos promoting terrorism or antisemitism.
Havas, the world’s sixth largest advertising and marketing company, pulled all of its UK clients’ ads, including O2, BBC and Domino’s Pizza, from Google and YouTube on Friday, following similar moves from the UK government, the Guardian, Transport for London and L’Oreal.
LGBT community anger over Youtube restrictions which make their videos invisible Read more
Google responded with a blog post promising to update its ad policies, stating that with 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube each minute “we don’t always get it right”.
However, the inconsistencies behind the company’s ability to police advertising on controversial content are coming to light – and it’s not just advertisers who are complaining. Some YouTube creators argue their videos are being unfairly and inconsistently “demonetized” by the platform, cutting off their source of income that comes from the revenue share on ads placed on videos.
Matan Uziel runs a YouTube channel called Real Women, Real Stories that features interviews with women about hardship, including sex trafficking, abuse and racism. The videos are not graphic, and Uziel relied on the advertising revenue to fund their production. However, after a year, Google has pulled the plug.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said. “I can’t trust YouTube any more.”
Policies seem more reasonable when you ask a human, but the algorithm that catches videos originally is really unfair Quinby Stewart
“It’s staggering because YouTube has a CEO [Susan Wojcicki] who is a feminist and a big champion for gender equality,” he said, pointing out that there were other far more extreme videos such as those promoting anorexia and self-harm that continued to be monetized. He also referenced PewDiePie’s videos featuring antisemitic “jokes” that were allowed on the platform for months.
“It’s bad that YouTube attempts to censor this very important topic and is not putting its efforts into censoring white supremacy, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, jihadists and stuff like that,” Uziel said.
He wants Google to be more open about how exactly they moderate content. “I want them to be transparent about what they think to be advertiser friendly,” he said.
Google currently uses a mixture of automated screening and human moderation to police its video sharing platform and to ensure that ads are only placed against appropriate content. Videos considered “not advertiser-friendly” include those that are sexually suggestive, violent, contain foul language, promote drug use or deal with controversial topics such as war, political conflict and natural disasters.
Transgender activist Quinby Stewart agrees there needs to be more transparency. He complained after YouTube demonetized a video about disordered eating habits. “I definitely don’t think the video was even close to the least advertiser-friendly content I’ve posted,” he said.
QueerBean (@QuinbyStewart) lmao of course the first video i had marked as not advertiser-friendly was the one about my disordered eating habits pic.twitter.com/UObYPe4fmM
He complained to the platform and the company has since approved the video for monetization.
“YouTube’s policy is just very vague, which makes sense because I think demonetization needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Their policies seem more reasonable when you ask a human to check it, but the algorithm that catches videos originally is really unfair,” he said.
Sarah T Roberts, an information studies professor from UCLA who studies large-scale moderation of online platforms, said that large technology companies need to be more honest about their shortcomings when it comes to policing content.
“I’m not sure they fully apprehend the extent to which this is a social issue and not just a technical one,” she said.
Companies such as Google and Facebook need to carefully think through their cultural values and then make sure they are applied consistently, taking into account local laws and social norms. Roberts said the drive to blame either humans or algorithms for decisions was based on a false dichotomy as human values are embedded into the algorithms. “The truth is they are both engaged in almost every case,” she said.
The fact that it is now hitting Google’s bottom line should be a wake-up call. “Now it’s financial and is going to hit them where it hurts. That should create some kind of impetus.”
The Guardian asked Google for more clarification over how the moderation process works, but the company did not respond.Jeff Melanson has resigned as president and CEO of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra – a decision the board says was arrived at mutually.
The high-profile resignation comes in the wake of allegations of personal and professional impropriety by Mr. Melanson, outlined in a court document by his estranged wife.
"This is what is best for the TSO," Mr. Melanson wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday.
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The decision followed a board meeting that stretched over two days, and a process described as "thoughtful and considered" by TSO board chair Richard Phillips.
"There are various other things that Jeff has to focus on outside of the TSO that made it perhaps more difficult for him to do as good a job as he would have wanted to as the CEO of the TSO," Mr. Phillips said. "But he is the first to say that."
Mr. Melanson "offered his resignation given other personal matters and the board really accepted that resignation as the best path forward for the TSO," said Sonia Baxendale, a TSO board member who has been named interim CEO.
The resignation follows allegations contained in a court document filed by Mr. Melanson's estranged wife, Eleanor McCain. Ms. McCain alleges that Mr. Melanson married her and took the TSO job to escape serious problems at the Banff Centre, where he was president and CEO – and, according to the document, faced allegations of sexual harassment as well as an inability to deliver on an ambitious redevelopment plan for the arts and conference centre.
The document, filed March 2 by Ms. McCain – a singer, arts patron and daughter of the late billionaire Wallace McCain – alleges inappropriate behaviour by Mr. Melanson at the TSO and the Banff Centre, as well as at the National Ballet School, where he served as executive director and co-CEO until making the move to Banff. She is seeking annulment of the marriage, which, according to the document, was ended by Mr. Melanson abruptly by e-mail in January, 2015 – nine months after they wed.
The allegations have not been tested in court.
Relating to the TSO, the document alleges Mr. Melanson hired the woman he is dating for a position there and that she was later terminated when the board learned she had been brought to the organization by Mr. Melanson, "which was totally inappropriate."
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Neither Mr. Phillips nor Ms. Baxendale would comment on that specific allegation.
Nor would Mr. Phillips comment when asked if there was anything in the 34-page court filing that worried the TSO board. "I think I'll leave that to his personal life." He said there were no complaints about Mr. Melanson at the TSO.
"The discussions at the board," he added, "it really wasn't as sort of gossipy as it might appear from the outside. … I think we did good governance at the TSO and the decision was taken really based on … what's in the best interests of the TSO going forward."
Fundraising is an important part of the job and The Globe asked Ms. Baxendale and Mr. Phillips if Mr. Melanson's ability to do so was compromised in light of the allegations, and whether that was a consideration in the departure.
"I think all of this publicity and these things are a distraction and I couldn't be specific about that, but I suspect that would have an impact," Ms. Baxendale said.
Mr. Phillips wouldn't speak specifically to that either, but said fundraising at a not-for-profit organization is always a challenge, "so you're always looking to make sure you can put your best foot forward with fundraising."
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Mr. Melanson joined the TSO in 2014 after leaving the Banff Centre about halfway into a five-year contract, because he said he wanted to be with his children from his first marriage and his fiancée, Ms. McCain, in Toronto.
Highlights of his truncated tenure include the recent awarding of $7.5-million from the federal government for the TSO's Canada Mosaic project, an initiative for Canada's sesquicentennial. Mr. Melanson also stirred up controversy during his reign when he cancelled the appearance of Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa because of political comments on Twitter.
His resignation took effect Tuesday. The TSO board meeting, which also dealt with other business, commenced last week and concluded Monday, when the decision was finally made.
Mr. Phillips said the parting was amicable and that the board does not regret hiring Mr. Melanson. In fact, he said, it was "grateful" for the good things he had done.
"The TSO really was happy with a lot of the directions that Jeff went in," Mr. Phillips said, adding that the symphony plans to continue to build on Mr. Melanson's strategic vision. "He really did take the TSO to a new level."
A succession committee is being formed to search for the TSO's next leader. Ms. Baxendale is a former CIBC executive who sits on four other boards. When asked about morale, she said the people who make up the TSO are a resilient group.
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"Change is always difficult and there's been a lot of publicity around this. I think that they're comforted [that] decisions have been made and they have a clear message in terms of the path forward. But there's no doubt that this is challenging for people."
In his e-mail, Mr. Melanson declined to comment further about his resignation – or future plans. When The Globe spoke with him earlier this month about Ms. McCain's allegations, he called them "grossly inaccurate" and "incredibly undignified." He said he would not discuss the specific allegations. "I will be responding in due course, but that will be through the courts and not through the press."
In a separate development, plans for Mr. Melanson to publish a book this year are off. He had signed a deal with HarperCollins to publish a social science book called Click, which as of Wednesday was still listed on Amazon with a publication date of Sept. 20, 2016. But that book contract was dissolved several months ago "by mutual decision between the author and publisher," according to Iris Tupholme, vice-president and executive publisher at HarperCollins in Canada.
Mr. Melanson's literary agent, Michael Levine, stressed that the cancellation of the book deal has nothing to do with the recent controversy.
"The timing for the book was wrong and that could be revisited at a later date. He decided some months ago."Butter is not something you'll make every day, but for special occasions or just to treat yourself, nothing is as luxurious
Unless you have a cheap and plentiful supply of cream – a cow grazing in the garden, say – you're unlikely to want to make your own butter day in, day out. But for a special occasion, to go alongside homemade crumpets or sourdough bread, perhaps, it's the icing on the cake.
For 400-450g of butter you'll need 900ml double cream. Let this come to room temperature while you prepare a few litres of ice-cold water. Use some of this to chill a large mixing bowl, two stiff spatulas and the blades of an electric whisk. Empty out the mixing bowl, pour in the cream and beat it at a medium speed for about 10 minutes. First the cream will thicken, then it will make soft peaks and eventually it will become stiff and form crumbly-looking clumps. Keep on whisking and suddenly you'll find a whitish liquid pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The liquid is buttermilk, which you can drink or use in baking.
Carry on whisking for a minute or two, until there's no more liquid to liberate, then remove the whisk. Strain the cream into a container and put it in the fridge. When you have time to use it, Yotam Ottolenghi and Felicity Cloake have some lovely recipes for tarts, cakes and pancakes.
Now you need to wash your developing butter of any remaining buttermilk, which will make it spoil more quickly. Pour in enough ice-cold water to cover the butter comfortably and use the spatulas to press it down as hard as possible. You'll quickly see that the water you poured in becomes cloudy. Tip this away and repeat the washing and squeezing process five or six times until the water runs fairly clear. Don't be afraid to lift up and turn the butter as you go, but work as fast as you can so it doesn't have time to heat up.
Once the washing is finished, sprinkle over a teaspoon of crumbled sea salt (if that's the way you roll, butter-wise) and either shape the butter into two or three blocks with the spatulas, or cram it into a couple of glass pots. It will keep for a week in the fridge, or six months in the freezer.
Phil Daoust is a food writer based in England and France. twitter.com/philxdaoustLionel Messi has spent his whole career at Barcelona
Barcelona's Lionel Messi became the Spanish league's all-time top scorer with a hat-trick against Sevilla.
Messi finally matched Telmo Zarra's 251 goals with a fantastic free-kick, having failed to score in his last three La Liga matches.
Sevilla levelled through a Jordi Alba own goal, but Neymar made it 2-1.
Ivan Rakitic scored a header before Messi's record breaker from a counter-attack and goal number 253 came after a one-two with Neymar.
The 27-year-old's goal tally is all the more remarkable given his goals have come in only 250 starts for Barcelona.
Earlier in the month, Messi drew level with Raul's all-time Champions League record of 71 goals after scoring twice in Barcelona's 2-0 victory against Ajax.
Luis Suarez tweeted this photo, with the message: "Congratulations, Leo, you keep on making history!"
"Messi is without doubt the best player I've seen as a player and a coach," said Barca manager Luis Enrique after that feat.
Against Sevilla he was in irresistible form, equalling the record with a breathtaking free-kick around the wall and past goalkeeper Beto to give Barca a 1-0 lead.
He struck again from close range in the 72nd minute and scored a third goal six minutes later with a powerful low drive from the edge of the penalty area.
After scoring the goal that took him past Zarra's total, Messi's team-mates picked him up and threw him into the air several times while the crowd at the Nou Camp roared its approval.
Messi's records La Liga top scorer: 253 Barcelona's top goalscorer: 368 Champions League top scorer: 71 (joint with Raul) Most consecutive La Liga matches scored in: 21 Most goals in a season: 73 Most goals in a La Liga season: 50 Most Ballon d'Ors: 4 Most goals in Club World Cup: 4 (held jointly with Denilson) Most European Cup top scorer awards: 4 (with Gerd Muller) Most goals in a single European Cup game: 5 (joint with Luiz Adriano) Most La Liga hat-tricks in a season: 8 Most goals in El Clasico: 21 Most goals in a calendar year: 91
The legendary Zarra scored 251 goals in a 15-year stay at Athletic Bilbao in the 1940s and 50s.
Messi, who joined Barca's academy at the age of 13, has taken 10 seasons to overhaul Zarra - also setting a record for goals in a single campaign with 50 in 2011-12.
The Argentine became became the third-youngest player to play for Barcelona when he made his debut aged 17 years and 114 days in October 2004 and scored his first senior goal for the club against Albacete Balompie the following May.
Neymar posted a picture on Instagram with Lionel Messi after the gameThere is nothing that I can say about the shooting of Michael Brown that hasn’t been said before by people whose experience affords them a perspective and an authenticity that I lack for the simple reason that I am white. No matter how deeply and ardently I want to empathize with the plight of black and latino and arab Americans who are racially profiled and harassed, I will always fail because I can never know what it’s like not to live with white privilege. Anything I say or write concerning racial prejudice against another group of people can be academic and it can be emotional, but it cannot be authentic because I have to imagine what it would feel like to have a cop stop and frisk me because of the color of my skin. I can point out the fact that the St. Louis, Missouri-Illinois Statistical Area is the 6th most segregated metro area in America, but that doesn’t mean I have the slightest clue what it feels like to be accosted by an overzealous security guard for the crime of shopping while black. A Hispanic woman living in Birmingham or a black man living in Oakland doesn’t have to imagine; they can just remember. Whether I want to admit it to myself or not, I am one of the majority and I have benefitted from the fruits of a racially biased system. I was brought into this world with an ivory spoon in my mouth and a get out of jail free card in my hand in a country that has blazed with the fires of racial violence for the entirety of its being. I am the negative image of Mike Brown.
For the totality of my primary education, I attended a tiny private college preparatory school in Cincinnati called The 7 Hills School. Cincinnati being the historically Catholic town that it is, 7 Hills was, along with The Cincinnati Country Day School, one of the only two options for parents living in the city who wanted to provide their children with a K-thru-12 private school education, but didn’t want a heaping helping of Jesus to go along with it. When I was in primary school, the decision of whether or not you sent your child to 7 Hills or CCDS said a great deal about your the makeup of your family, specifically with regards to political affiliations.
Located outside the city limits in the posh environs of the suburb of Indian Hill(1), the Cincinnati Country Day School has historically been the home of the city’s moneyed elite and can claim among its graduates the likes of US Senator Rob Portman, former Ohio Governor Bob Taft, Bush (43) White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Florida Marlins Vice President and General Manager Michael Hill. If the school’s name sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because it became embroiled in a minor scandal after the movie Traffic was released with a scene in which one of the film’s coke- snorting teenage trust funders said that she attended Cincinnati Country Day during an interrogation scene.
For their part, The 7 Hills School was kind of like CCDS’s wacky liberal cousin. Built within the city itself in two mixed-income neighborhoods, 7 Hills made up for its lack of upper-class pedigree with an experimental approach to teaching that was kind of a sampler platter of progressive educational philosophies. That’s not to say that the school’s student body didn’t overwhelmingly come from upper- middle class families (it did) or that the tuition there wasn’t prohibitively steep (it was). It’s just that the school’s reformist take on education attracted families and teachers who generally shared more radical designs concerning how and what children should learn.
If 7 Hills had a major shortcoming while I was going to school there, it was that it was still mired in the sort of racial tokenism that is less about creating a genuinely multicultural learning environment than it is about being able to present the illusion of integration in your promotional literature. Having one or (on occasion) two black kids in a classroom doesn’t make a culturally competent school environment. Instead, it just forces the lone African-American student in the classroom into the awkward role of being the unofficial expert on blackness, and god help you if you’re the unfortunate soul who finds him or herself as the only black kid in an English class that’s discussing Huck Finn. I can’t speak from experience, but I don’t think that sitting through an hour long class where all of my white peers proffered their opinions on the societal appropriateness of the most toxic ethnic slur our country has to offer would be my idea of a good time.
When I was senior, the school was still struggling with its overabundance of white students and, in an effort to look forward-thinking, had hired a “diversity consultant” to come into my AP English Lit class and talk to us about racial tolerance and cultural sensitivity and the like. This diversity guru proceeded to spend the bulk of our 45 minute class period lecturing us about all of the attendant virtues of racial integration and urging us to become champions of inclusivity and cross-cultural learning. Throughout the course of her spiel, the woman did her best to try and gently shame us for living a largely whitewashed existence and encouraged the whole class to broaden our proverbial horizons concerning our peer group, as if we had much say over such matters at that time in our lives. What she had to offer were platitudes; crib notes from the 20th century playbook of race relations that vociferously supports racial equality in public while quietly avoiding it in private. We were only being lectured so that the school’s board of directors and marketing department could proclaim to the masses that their school had a “commitment to diversity,” whatever the hell that means. You didn’t need a diversity consultant to figure out that my high school wasn’t exactly a walking, talking Benetton ad. Hell, a 5 year old could have told you that the school wasn’t diverse. 9 African-American and biracial kids in a class of 87 does not make for a diverse student body, especially when the racial makeup of the city the school is located in is split pretty much 50-50 between blacks and whites.(2)
Many people—most of them white—feel that enrolling their kids in schools that reflect the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the regions they live in isn’t terribly high on their priority list. This is not to say that these folks don’t publicly express support for a diverse school environment, because many of them do. In fact, when asked about their general attitudes on the subject, 95% of Americans openly state that they believe black and white children should attend the same school. This may seem like a given to us now, but as recently as 1956 half of American whites were supportive of a segregated educational system. The fact that the vast majority of Americans now say that they support integrated schooling is major achievement, especially when you consider that some of those who support the practice now grew up in families that preached “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”(3).
However, a good number of these endorsements of integrated education exist only in the abstract or in very small doses. For instance, when asked in a 2004 poll what type of racial composition they thought would be preferable in a school environment, 83% of respondents said that they would choose a school that was “mostly mixed”. However, in the same poll, 78% of people said that they would rather leave their children in a local community school that was more or less racially segregated than send them to a diverse school outside of their community. It’s the quintessential non-denial denial of the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) set.“Well, of course I want my boy to go to school with black and hispanic kids. The thing is there just aren’t that many of them in our neighborhood and if you try to bus any of them in or bus mine out, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
With tear gas burning a woman’s eyes, protesters pour milk on her to try and ease her pain. (Photo: Joshua Lott/Getty Images)
For somebody else, the prevailing wisdom has it, racially and economically mixed schools and neighborhoods are fantastic. But they’re not for us. My neighborhood and my family and my children will not be brought down by those people. Now, in this diverse, multi-ethnic, post-9/11 society of ours, the groups referred to as those people can be many and varied, but more often than not, the barb’s intended target is the same as its ever been in the hateful racial history of our nation. The fear and the vitriol and the disdain haven’t gone away. They’ve just moved to the suburbs and the exurbs, where they’ve taken on a gloss of wet, tolerant paint. Despite all this lovely rhetoric about living in a “post- racial America”, our nation’s public schools are more segregated today than they were in 40 years ago and the poverty rate among children of African-American, Hispanic or Latino, and American Indian descent is nearly 3 times that of white children. Government officials and policy wonks often focus on the fiscal effects of “racially isolated” minority school districts whose budgets are considerably lower than their majority white counterparts, but dollars and cents only gets at a small part of the problem. More than anything, it is the physical and emotional distance between white and non- white students that perpetuates a culture of race-based fear and distrust.
It is this distance that not only allows tragedies like the murder of an unarmed 18-year old by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri to occur, but provides them with an environment in which they are commonplace. That the murder of Michael Brown by the St. Louis County Police Department was sandwiched just days between those of Eric Garner by the NYPD and Ezell Ford at the hands of the LAPD is not coincidence and it is not an aberration; it is simply normal. Nor is it coincidence that Missouri Governor Jay Nixon (D), a man who was completely absent from any discussion or action in Ferguson for 5 days after the shooting took place, began his career as Missouri’s Attorney General in 1993 by filing a motion to scrap St. Louis’s court-ordered desegregation program.
Over the past several days, many members of the media and the general public have made the observation that the images they were seeing of uniformed white officers with police dogs at their sides staring down local black residents and phalanxes of militarized law enforcement firing tear gas and rubber bullets at non-violent protesters look like scenes taken from the Deep South in 1964 rather than ones from a border state in 2014. How, many ask, can this be happening here now? How can this be happening when we have a black President and live in a “post-racial society”? I thought we were past this, they say, as if a couple of decades of half-assed bussing programs and affirmative action policies were going to undo more than 300 years of slavery and systemic oppression.
Thus far, the hallmark of civil rights for blacks in the 21st century has been regression and loss. If you want to harp on Barack Obama’s race, then you’re more than entitled to do so, but his success in running for office has about as large a concrete impact on day-to-day experiences of African-Americans in this country as Oprah’s media empire does. The truly important things—the policies that aim to level the playing field for every one of us in this country—have been allowed to wither and wilt. Affirmative action, a policy that has enabled millions of people of color to attend universities that they otherwise would have been rejected from, has been weakened and exposed by a Supreme Court decision that deems it constitutional for states to enact ballot initiatives that ban the practice. The Voting Rights Act, a piece of legislation that had propped open the doors of polling places in the South and all across our country to previously disenfranchised minorities for close to 50 years, was slammed shut by a Supreme Court ruling that allowed 9 states with the longest histories of racially-based voter fraud to pass voting laws without the Federal government’s blessing.
Our schools and neighborhoods are re-segregating, our justice system has been systemically rigged to incarcerate blacks at disproportionate rates for the same crime as whites, our voting rights safeguards are in tatters, affirmative action is in mortal danger, race-based income inequality is skyrocketing and our police forces have been allowed to stockpile obscene amounts of military equipment that have no utility outside of striking fear into the hearts of the people they have been sworn to protect. For me, the operative question isn’t how can this unrest in Ferguson be happening now? It is how has this unrest not happened more often?
———————–
(1) To give you an idea of the type of ultra conservative money that makes its home in Indian Hill, the neighborhood was second only to Manhattan’s Upper East Side in donations to the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign in 2004.
(2) According to the 2010 Hamilton County “Race Report”, the city of Cincinnati was 44.6% African-American and 48.1% White, with no other ethnic group getting more than 3% share of the population. By contrast, the much larger Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes parts of Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana, is 12% African-American and 81.3% White.
(3) This quote comes from former Alabama Governor George Wallace’s inaugural gubernatorial address in 1963, at the height of the pitched battle between the federal government and states in the deep south over desegregation in the wake of Brown vs The Board of Education and the burgeoning civil rights movement in America. In less than 6 months, Wallace would cement his legacy as the south’s most theatrically bigoted governor by standing in the doorway to University of Alabama’s Foster Auditorium, making an asinine attempt to stop 3 young men and women from becoming the first blacks to attend the school. Ironically enough, the man who once pledged to uphold segregation forever in 1963 only backed the institution for another decade or so. Shortly after he was paralyzed from the waist down after an assassination attempt while campaigning for President in 1972, Wallace recanted his earlier statement, acknowledging his wrongdoing and apologizing to civil rights leaders like John lewis for his actions.O aguardado clássico entre River Plate e Boca Juniors, na noite desta quinta-feira, na Bombonera, acabou antes do esperado. O duelo de volta pelas oitavas de final da Libertadores foi suspenso após jogadores do time visitante terem sido atingidos por spray de pimenta na volta do intervalo, que deixou um clima de suspense por mais de uma hora até o trio de arbitragem interromper a partida. No momento do tumulto, o placar estava 0 a 0, resultado que favorecia ao River.
A confederação sul-americana, que nesta sexta-feira teria que decidir a data dos duelos das quartas de final, vai se pronunciar a respeito do destino do confronto, que decide o próximo rival do Cruzeiro. Há duas hipóteses, segundo o regulamento da competição e o Código Disciplinar da competição: dar a vaga ao River Plate, caso o Boca seja responsabilizado, ou recomeçar o duelo do intervalo com o mesmo placar.
O fato é que a próxima rodada do futebol argentino foi adiada em razão da morte do jovem Emanuel Ortega, jogador do San Martín de Burzaco, da quinta divisão local. Isso abriria uma data no fim de semana para um novo jogo. Sem dar qualquer posição oficial, a Conmebol destacou que vai se posicionar em breve.
- A Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol condena categoricamente o vandalismo ocorrido em Boca e River. A Conmebol emitirá um comunicado de imprensa com a resolução definitiva de Boca e River. Lamentamos o ocorrido - se pronunciou, através do Twitter.
Jogadores do River Plate jogam água no rosto após serem atingidos no rosto (Foto: AFP)
Polícia: spray saiu da torcida
Segundo a Polícia Federal da Argentina, a torcida do Boca Juniors, única presente no estádio, soltou o spray quando os jogadores do River deixavam o túnel de acesso do vestiário com destino ao campo de jogo. Resultado: Vangioni, Funes Mori e Ponzio foram atingidos e, além da irritação no rosto, ficaram até mesmo com marcas vermelhas no corpo.
Polícia precisou escoltar dirigentes do River Plate (Foto: Reuters)
- Lamentável. Estamos num espetáculo como esse e acontece uma situação dessa. É lamentável. Estamos esperando há mais de uma hora uma decisão. Os jogadores não estão bem - disse o treinador do River Plate, Marcelo Gallardo.
Atletas "presos" em campo após suspensão
Mesmo após a suspensão da partida, os jogadores das duas equipes levaram muito tempo até deixar o campo, já que alguns torcedores tumultuavam a saída para o vestiário. Ainda no gramado, o goleiro Marcelo Barovero, capitão do River Plate, disse que seus companheiros passam bem, mas lamentou o acontecido.
- É uma lástima, porque é a imagem do nosso futebol. Estou sentindo indignação. Temos que acatar as ordens. Vamos jogar se precisar - disse o goleiro, em entrevista ao "SporTV".
No meio de toda a confusão, um drone ainda apareceu voando sobre campo de jogo com uma provocação ao River, exibindo um fantasma da Série B. Um jogador do time de Marcelo Gallardo tentou derrubá-lo com a bola, sem sucesso.
Os 45 minutos de futebol
Em clima de festa da torcida do Boca, que lotou a Bombonera, o primeiro tempo foi de muitas faltas e poucas chances criadas - nenhum goleiro foi de fato ameaçado enquanto a bola rolou. O River, com uma marcação adiantada, sem deixar os volantes do Boca armarem, foi levemente superior na partida, mas tampouco representou perigo à meta adversária
Um drone invadiu o campo de jogo no meio da confusão (Foto: Reuters)Barack Obama says Angela Merkel 'on right side of history' over pro-refugee stance
Updated
US President Barack Obama has leapt to the defence of Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying the German leader, facing fire at home over a record refugee influx, is on the "right side of history".
Key points: Mr Obama talks Islamic State, Syria and Ukraine with Ms Merkel
US leader's final official visit to Germany
Ms Merkel calls for agreement on Syrian humanitarian zones
"What's happening with respect to her position on refugees here, in Europe, she's on the right side of |
unday installed new surveillance measures near the Lions Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem, the main access point for Muslim worshipers to the adjacent Temple Mount compound.
The Lions Gate area was the scene of a deadly terror attack on July 14 in which three Arab Israeli gunmen shot and killed two Israeli police officers, after smuggling firearms into the compound. The deadly attack prompted Israel to install metal detectors at the Gate of the Tribes access point to the Mount there to prevent further weapons smuggling, enraging Muslim worshipers and setting off increasingly violent mass protests.
In the clearing at the Gate of the Tribes entranceway, Israel put up additional temporary barricades overnight, beyond those already in place from last week, leading worshipers past an array of sophisticated surveillance cameras mounted on newly constructed scaffolding.
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According to Hebrew media reports, the camera can identify suspects carrying weapons without the use of metal detectors. Those spotted behaving suspiciously may then be checked by police with a hand-held metal detector.
As of Sunday afternoon, the metal detector gates at the heart of the controversy were still in place. However, police said, not all worshipers seeking to enter the compound are required to pass through them. Would-be entrants are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Channel 2 News reported Saturday night that the new security measure could see the metal detectors removed “soon.”
Jerusalem city workers, directed by police, set up the new system at the gate.
The Waqf custodians on Sunday said in a statement it would not accept any new Israeli security measures at the Temple Mount.
“We confirm our total rejection of the electronic gates and all new occupation measures that will lead to a change in the historical and religious status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” the statement said.
Worshipers who arrived at the site on Sunday morning refused to enter the compound due to the cameras, JTA reported.
In an attempt to reach a compromise with the Waqf and the Palestinian leadership, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli Coordinator of the Government’s Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said in an interview with Al-Jazeera on Saturday that Israel was looking for ways to ensure the safety of those at the Temple Mount without the metal detectors.
“These days we are searching for other options and solutions that will bring safety and ensure another terror attack won’t be carried out,” he said.
Most worshipers have refused to go through the metal detectors, and clashes with police in and around Jerusalem have been intensifying daily, with five Palestinians killed on Friday and Saturday, including one who died when a Molotov cocktail he was about to throw caught fire prematurely.
On Friday night, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed to death three Israelis at their Shabbat dinner table in the West Bank settlement of Halamish.
Muslim worshipers who arrived at the Lions Gate for prayers Sunday morning vowed to continue their campaign to have all the recent security measures removed. Hundreds of Palestinians have been holding daily prayers sessions outside the gate in protest to the metal detectors.
There are two additional access points to the Temple Mount compound and metal detectors were also installed at those sites. It was not clear if the new camera system had also been set up at the Chain Gate and the Mughrabi Gate.
A police spokesperson said that the force was continuing to update security measures around the Temple Mount and in the Old City, but would not give any further specific details.
The high-level security cabinet was scheduled to meet on Sunday evening to review the continued use of the metal detectors. A previous meeting on Thursday night decided to leave the detectors in place, reportedly against the advice of the IDF and the Shin Bet security services.President Donald Trump has nominated a businessman who has supported the privatization of weather data to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees the National Weather Service.
The nomination of Barry Myers, the chief executive of AccuWeather, has raised concerns among some that installing a non-scientist with a vested interest in privatizing government data could result in the hobbling of an agency that provides a critical function in weather forecasting, oceanography and climate science.
"We've now had several nominees at NASA and NOAA who have really pushed the idea of privatization of government functions," said Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "That just flat out worries me."
In announcing Myer's nomination, AccuWeather issued a statement calling him a veteran leader and saying he would step down from the company if confirmed. His brother, AccuWeather Founder, Chairman and President Joel Myers, said: "On a personal note, as his brother, I have known him all his life, and I know he will be fully dedicated to serve the nation's needs in a rational and ethical way."
In 2005, AccuWeather worked with Sen. Rick Santorum on a bill that would have severely restricted public access to the National Weather Service's forecasts. Two days before Santorum introduced the bill, his political action committee received a $2,000 donation from then-CEO of AccuWeather Joel Myers.
From 2003 until mid-2005, the Myers brothers donated more than $11,000 to Santorum and the Republican party, according to the Associated Press.
The bill, which died in committee, would have allowed commercial weather information providers like AccuWeather to continue to access NOAA's weather data, but it would have blocked NOAA from putting out products that could be considered in competition with what the private sector was making available.
What's to Ensure Future Data Get Collected?
At the time Santorum's bill was introduced, Paul Sandifer was working as a senior scientist at NOAA. He remembers how concerned scientists within the agency were then at the prospect of privatizing data. "Those concerns are some of what I'm worried about now," he said.
"If the collection of data is turned over to the business community, what's to ensure that the data that are really needed for the future get collected? Particularly if it's given over to politically motivated private sector folks," said Sandifer, who was the chief science advisor for NOAA's National Ocean Service when he retired at the end of 2014.
In the last few months, in particular, the strength of NOAA's data and forecasting has been evident as Americans have been caught up in several natural disasters, including wildfires and hurricanes.
"Think about the recent disasters: in every one of those situations there were NOAA government officials talking about the information they had on hand and people understood the validity of that information," Sandifer said. "It wasn't coming from one side or another—it was the right information."
Another NOAA Nominee with Business Interests
Myers is not the only recent NOAA nominee with a business interest in NOAA's work.
In early October, Trump nominated Neil Jacobs to be the assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction. Jacobs is the chief atmospheric scientist for Panasonic Weather Solutions, a private company that, like AccuWeather, has worked toward the privatization of certain data.
In July, Jacobs testified before the House Science Committee, advocating for the proprietary model that his company developed, which he said was "better" than NOAA models. Panasonic currently sells some its data to NOAA—a relationship that could fall under Jacobs' purview if confirmed for the NOAA position.
In announcing the nominations, the Trump administration touted the business acumen of both men.
Myers' Family Business Presents a Conundrum
Rosenberg worried in a blog post that the companies' past ambitions may come to fruition.
"It is easy to see how private weather companies like AccuWeather or Panasonic could directly benefit from decisions made by Myers and Jacobs," he wrote.
In an interview with InsideClimate News, he elaborated: "Myers is going to make decisions on what happens to the Weather Service, the climate programs and so on. And that will directly affect the business that he has built, his family owns and presumably he goes back to."
It presents a conundrum, Rosenberg said: "Does he recuse himself from those decisions? Then he's heading an agency and recuses himself from a quarter of decisions. And if he doesn't, how does he serve the public interest?"
A third NOAA nominee, Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, who is a former Navy oceanographer, has been named to assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management. His nomination was met with praise by members of the scientific community.The Brewers are currently talking with right-hander Francisco Rodriguez about a reunion, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney (on Twitter). Last week, the Brewers were said to be exploring pitching upgrades via free agency and trade, and over the weekend, owner Mark Attanasio told fans that he’d be surprised if the team didn’t make at least one more free agent signing this offseason.
That signing could very well be K-Rod, who over parts of the past four seasons has pitched to a 3.11 ERA with 9.5 K/9, 3.2 BB/9 and 57 saves in 193 2/3 innings for the Brewers. The market for K-Rod hasn’t exactly been robust this offseason, although he has been connected to multiple clubs over the past month. Those teams include the Blue Jays and Rockies, and there was a bit of speculation regarding the Nationals following the trade of Tyler Clippard and signing of Max Scherzer. It’s arguable that he’s the best closing option left on the market; other free agent pitchers with 20 or more saves in 2014 include Rafael Soriano and Casey Janssen, while former closers such as John Axford and Brian Wilson have yet to sign this offseason as well.
The Brewers have also been linked to Soriano recently, and of course last week the team was said to be in serious trade discussions regarding Jonathan Papelbon. However, complications regarding the financial compensation required to due to Papelbon’s $13MM vesting option appear to have slowed, if not entirely halted those talks.There’s this amazingly uncomfortable thing that happened throughout American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson. You know how the story ends, you’re aware of all the things the prosecution did to mess up, but you still find yourself wanting to reach through the television and save someone from making a massive, “Juice”-freeing mistake. You know damn well that glove won’t fit — so for a moment you simply want to pause time and have a quick sit-down with Darden — Come on, man, please don’t make him put that glove on, I promise you it’s not going to work.
But you can’t stop time. So real life happens. And, as they say, the rest is history.
That happened in real life yesterday, as this presidential election finally turned into an episode of ComicView, in the form of the annual Inner Circle production, an annual roast of sorts (much like the White House Correspondents’ Dinner) between the media and those in politics, at the New York Hilton. At a certain point, Mayor Bill de Blasio took the stage with Leslie Odom Jr., dressed as his character Aaron Burr from the musical Hamilton, and soon after the two were joined by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. You know, just a normal Sunday with the Schermerhorn Sisters.
I’m so giddy to tell you what happened next, I can barely type.
To set the scene, the mayor is finally endorsing Hillary, and she uses the opportunity to make a little jab about how late he was, much to the delight of the crowd.
Clinton says, “Thanks for the endorsement, Bill. Took you long enough,” followed by an off-camera “Oh snap” from Odom. So far, so good — this bit is actually working. But now it’s Bill’s turn to deliver some comedy gold.
What’s on your mind, Bill. SAY IT FROM YOUR CHEST.
“Sorry, Hillary.”
This is the moment when you want to freeze time. Something’s off, and it’s worrisome. Bill is about to do a joke — and you want to ask him, “Bill, have you asked people about this joke yet? Has this joke been cleared? If so, who gave the green light? Does your wife, Chirlane, know about this joke? Wait — no, you aren’t going to do the joke about … oh no.”
“I was running on CP— ”
No, Bill. You can’t. There is no way you’re about to overly enunciate this not-great joke while gesticulating every word as if you’re typing out emoji handclaps. Oh no, please someone stop this man before it’s too—
“I was running on CP time.”
Tfw you are the white mayor of New York City and you thought the colored people time joke would work in 2016 because you have a black wife and a son with an afro and there’s a black president but then it doesn’t work because you’re still white and definitely just lost the future white president lady a bunch of black votes open parenthesis jordan cry face close parenthesis.
I take back what I said earlier. This is nothing like Darden. I thought I wanted to save Bill, until I actually heard him say it, followed by the room releasing a collective “Oh no” sigh. To be clear, the sigh was not an “Oh shit, Bill went there — that’s my nigga Bill, he’s got the juice now.” It was definitely more along the lines of “God dammit, white people,” with a pinch of “Oh, so this is how y’all talk about us when we aren’t around.”
But the bit is not even over. Following this, Odom says: “I don’t like jokes like that, Bill.”
When the reports of this story began to circulate, Odom’s line was widely seen as proof that he was genuinely upset. Reading the first reports, my initial reaction was that Odom was even cooler than I thought, by not letting that bad joke slide.
But no. This was all part of the bit. And then Hillary got involved. Looking confused, Secretary Clinton looks out and says, “Cautious politician time?” And yes, this was also reported by some to seem as if Clinton saved de Blasio (in real life) from his terrible blunder. But no — again — still part of a bit. An amazingly unfunny, terribly executed one, yes, but still part of a bit.
It finally all came to a close, with Odom nodding as if to suggest he understands what the mayor truly meant by CP time.
What an amazing 33 seconds this is, both the actions and the reactions. As soon as they made it all the way through the bit, there’s this split second where all three look out, almost to assess the success and/or damage. To my untrained eye, de Blasio and Clinton are like, “Nailed it,” while Odom is like, “Shit, why did I sign up for this? I feel like Darden when I see me in the news.”
So what’s the response to this been? It’s been reported very little — probably because most political reporters don’t know what “CP time” is. But the #FeelTheBurn crowd is calling it racist, because if there’s one thing a wildly passionate white Bernie supporter is good at, it’s claiming that a pro-Clinton white is a worse white. And then there’s Team Hillary, who will hope few people notice that she participated in a colored people time joke only weeks after taking the stage at the televised BET Black Girls Rock! show.
This is the best election ever. I can’t get enough of it. As for de Blasio, hate it had to be you. I kept pausing it before he said it, because I knew it would land as well as O.J.’s glove fit. But unlike those Darden moments — ones in which he would stumble and I’d get sad — when I finally braced myself to hear de Blasio say “CP time,” I nearly broke into tears laughing. The comedy isn’t in the joke — it’s in watching someone stumble so hard.
The mayor played himself. It’s incredible. Watch it over and over again. Seriously, de Blasio getting too comfortable is the gift that keeps on giving. Watch it on loop. Forever.
Oh, laughter, you truly are the great temporary cure for sadness.
This is the worst election ever."You ever wonder if studying actually matters?"
Pyrrha looked up from the pile of notes she'd been pouring through, to find Ruby resting her head on the table – clearly bored to near death. "Well, studies do show that it helps improve test scores, which we need so we can pass and be a certified huntress… so I suppose so. Why do you ask?"
Ruby made an undignified noise, half-whimper, half-groan before picking herself up. "It shouldn't matter as long as we can kick Grimm butt and save people, right? I don't need to know the intricacies of, um… uh…" She rose enough off the table to pull out the thick textbook she'd been using as a pillow, "...some bill that nearly got passed like two hundred years ago in Vacuo but didn't." Silver eyes flickered to Pyrrha. "…about the standard sizes of a brick."
"Well…" Try as she might, Pyrrha couldn't come up with a single way that particular tidbit of knowledge would be useful outside of Doctor Oobleck's class. "…it might be on the exam?"
"Bleh." Ruby sank back down onto the book. "I still don't know how that would help us save people, unless they were being attacked by, like, flying standardized bricks or something…"
"But if you don't study, then you might not do so well in the class, and you could get held back," Pyrrha gently suggested. "Plus, if you study, Weiss won't have anything to remind you about." The comment merely provoked a small grunt from Ruby. "…please…?"
That did the trick, as Ruby pushed herself upright, and gave out a very, very long sigh. "Fineee… I'll do it."
While Ruby looked like she was as unhappy as could be, Pyrrha on the other hand felt a small smile tug at her lips. If she was being completely honest, sometimes Ruby… struggled, with her academics. She'd certainly jumped two years ahead, but not due to her grades but her martial prowess.
To a certain degree, Pyrrha always worried about Ruby in that regard. It was difficult enough trying to bridge two years' worth of skipped schooling on top of whatever Beacon academy offered. For the most part, Ruby had done well. In fact, she'd done extremely well, all things considered. There was a constant struggle in Pyrrha for trying to make sure her girlfriend did well in class… and for not being a stick in the mud.
I'll make cookies after this as a reward. Pyrrha happily nodded to herself, already looking forward to the way Ruby's face always lit up when freshly baked goods were mentioned.
"What do you think would happen if we gave Nora, like… fifty pixie sticks?"
Emerald eyes widened in horror, as she shook her head. "I… I don't want to know." Crimson hair swished as she turned to Ruby. "Please, please don't do that."
"It can't be any worse than the time that I made her coffee."
"…I'm fairly certain 'going into a caffeine coma' is hard to top, Ruby."
"That's still all on Ren."
"I… you…" Words were failing Pyrrha. "I'm just glad she's okay."
"Yeah."
With nothing much left to say, Pyrrha turned back to her textbook.
This is a little dull. Pyrrha had to suppress a sigh from escaping her own lips as she turned the page. I know there is a reason to why we have to study this, to learn from past mistakes, as Doctor Oobleck would say, but it isn't the most engaging material to be honest.
"Who do you think would win in a fight, a pirate or a ninja?"
"Buh-wha?" Pyrrha blinked in surprise. "I-I guess a ninja?" Emerald eyes glanced down at what Ruby was reading, the textbook definitely containing neither of those things.
"Same, ninjas are pretty stealthy and cool!"
"Ruby, you're deathly bored, aren't you?"
"Pretty much, yup."
The elder redhead frowned for a moment. "Well, whenever we finish, I'll make cookies… will that help?"
"Hmm." Ruby's face lit up for a brief moment, before going back to normal. "Nope~"
"You don't want cookies…?" It felt like a gear in Pyrrha's brain had stopped turning, Ruby always loves cookies!
Evidently Ruby immediately regretted what she said, as she panicked, "No, I mean yes, but something else too!"
"Oh… okay, what?"
"Could you maybe-sorta-kinda, sit on my lap?" Ruby asked in the most innocent tone she could muster, complete with puppy-dog eyes.
"…as much as I want, I don't think you'd be able to see anything, much less study," Pyrrha pointed out after a moment. "Perhaps you could sit on my lap?"
"Could we still try it? Pleaseeee?"
Pyrrha had a hard time saying 'no' to Ruby normally, let alone like this. She got up from her seat, eliciting an excited 'yay!' from her girlfriend before slowly sitting down on the much, much smaller girl. It was as if a giant had sat down, comparatively, with Ruby's head only coming up to Pyrrha's mid-back.
Ruby said something, completely muffled by Pyrrha's back, causing the larger girl to get up immediately. "…you were right, I couldn't see anything…" If Pyrrha had less self-control, she would have said 'I told you so', but kept it to herself.
"You could sit on my lap, that way we both could see and be comfortable," and I won't squish you, Pyrrha gently suggested again, keeping the last part unvoiced.
Ruby's eyes narrowed, and she acted as if she was contemplating it with a seriousness that only rivaled when she tinkered with Crescent Rose. "On one condition."
"Name it."
"The cookies have to be triple chocolate chip."
"Deal."
AU: Just a cute chapter this time, nothing particularly special.
Sometimes I worry that chapters like this aren't too well liked because nothing is raising the bar or what not, but on the other hand, it's quite fun to write little fluff nuggets like this.
Acceptance is finally, ponderously, moving into the editing stages. Sorry about that. In other news, I'm debating about doing another MonCon, so you might want to keep your eyes peeled this month for that!
Lastly, any particular wants or suggestions for a Halloween chapter this time around? (I totally have an entirely forgotten and half completed Halloween chapter somewhere that I meant to do last year and failed miserably at… very slothful, I know.)
Thank you for reading, I hope everyone has a wonderful day! :DPeople take part in a protest march through Dublin city center to call for an end to Israeli military action in Gaza and "justice and freedom" for Palestine, Sat., July 19, 2014.
The upper house of the Irish parliament joined the recent trend of passing a motion calling on its government to recognize a Palestinian state.
Irish opposition member Averil Power. You Tube screen grab
The British passed a similar, non-binding motion last week. The upper house, known as the Seanad, has limited power. The lower house, known as the Dail Eareann, is Ireland's principal legislative chamber.
The motion, tabled by opposition senator Averil Power, stated, "Seanad Eireann calls on the government to formally recognize the state of Palestine and do everything it can at the international level to help secure a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
31 of 60 members of the upper house, known as the Seanad, signed the motion last week, according to Ireland's The Journal.
Ireland should "make it clear that statehood is a right of the Palestinian people and not a bargaining chip for the Israelis to play in further sham negotiations," said Power, according to AFP. "In doing so, we will help increase pressure on Israel to pursue a genuine peace process that has a real prospect of delivering peace and justice for both Israelis and Palestinians alike."
Israel's ambassador to Ireland, Boaz Modai, dismissed the motion even before it went to a vote, AFP reported.
"Stunt gestures such as recognizing 'Palestine' unilaterally are counter-productive because they only give excuses to those on the Palestinian side who hope to achieve their goals without talking directly to Israel," the embassy said in a statement.
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However, Power told The Journal after the vote, “The more countries that recognize the State of Palestine, the greater the pressure on Israel to end its illegal occupation and agree to a long-term peace agreement in the region."
Sweden is the only sitting European Union to have voted officially to recognize a Palestinian state. Hungary, Poland and Slovakia all voted to recognize Palestine before joining the EU.Sheriff Joe Arpaio's terrible, no good, very bad day(s)
CLOSE Court largely upholds racial-profiling ruling against Sheriff Joe Arpaio Phoenix
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Photo: The Republic)
You know you're in for a really, really bad day, or series of bad days, when getting smacked down by the a panel of three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals doesn't seem so bad.
But that's how it is for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The bad days are only beginning. On Wednesday the 9th circuit panel upheld a federal judge's ruling against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in its racial-profiling case.
Next week, Arpaio faces a contempt hearing in front of Judge Snow.
Already the sheriff's office has come under supervision of a special monitor. And there have been many other orders. Not all of them have been followed, however. Hence the contempt hearing. of other orders by the district court during an hearing set to begin April 21.
Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project, issued a statement Wednesday saying, "Sheriff Joe Arpaio has continually tried to dodge responsibility for his unconstitutional actions, and once again the courts have rebuffed his attempts. It's time for Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office to face the facts and accept responsibility for violating the Constitution and the public trust. They should focus now on fixing the serious problems that fostered this illegal and discriminatory conduct."
For a very long time Sheriff Joe has acted more like a man who is above the law rather than one who is sworn to uphold it.
He's learning differently, now. Finally.
He's about to have a series of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
Just the opposite for those who have long considered themselves his victims.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1yw7gs2The little boy at the centre of a major fundraising campaign which aimed to raise money for a double lung transplant for the four-year-old has sadly passed away.
The little boy at the centre of a major fundraising campaign which aimed to raise money for a double lung transplant for the four-year-old has sadly passed away.
'Our beautiful boy is with the angels now' - Irish boy with rare illness at centre of 'Hope for Cian' campaign sadly passes away
Over €100,000 had been raised for Cian McDonnell, from Carlanstown, near Kells, Co Meath so that he could have the life-saving operation he required.
Our beautiful boy is with the angels now. He fought so hard. Heaven is so lucky to have him. We are broken hearted. His... Posted by Hope for Cian on Monday, October 5, 2015
However, the campaign group's Facebook page posted yesterday that the little boy had "taken a turn for the worse" and was being admitted to an intensive care unit.
Today, Cian's supporters were informed that "our beautiful boy is with the angels now".
"He fought so hard. Heaven is so lucky to have him. We are broken hearted. His Mammy, Daddy and big sister Chloe held his hand until the end.
"Fly high our beautiful boy where there will be no more suffering or pain."
Cian's family and friends are thrilled with the generous response from all over the world
Read more: Hope for Cian campaign raises staggering €102k in a week... but €880k is needed for little Irish boy's life-saving operation
Cian was diagnosed with a rare condition called Dyskeratosis Congenita shortly before his birth. He went blind before his first birthday.
The little boy underwent a bone marrow transplant almost two years later after doctors realised his blood marrow was failing.
Earlier this year, the sick little boy - who was having trouble breathing - was diagnosed with pinholes in his lungs.
He was getting just 52pc of the oxygen he was breathing, and the percentage was continuing to fall.
Doctors at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin immediately referred Cian to Great Ormond Street Hospital in the UK which specialises in lung transplants.
Read more: Want to own Niall Horan's guitar? One Direction star's auction is in aid of Irish boy's life-saving operation
However, he was deemed unsuitable for their donor lists and an online fundraising drive was launched to raise funds to send Cian to Boston Children’s Hospital for a lung transplant.
Last night, the group said that "big sister Chloe is lying beside him giving him loads of hugs" while Cian's "oxygen saturation levels are dropping significantly".
"Cian is loved so much. We're not giving up on him," read the post.
One Direction superstar Niall Horan had given his backing to the campaign donating his personal guitar to raise funds for the little boy.
Online EditorsAn upcoming episode of Law and Order: SVU will feature a Donald Trump-like character accused of rape, inspired by a dubious civil lawsuit filed against Trump by “Jane Doe.”
Actor Gary Cole will portray a “wealthy and boorish man who makes a run for the White House” on an upcoming SVU episode entitled “Unstoppable” according to Variety.
The plot of the episode will be based on a dubious civil lawsuit filed against Donald Trump by a woman, referred to as “Jane Doe” in court documents, who alleges Trump raped her when she was 13 years old in the mid-1990s.
The lawsuit, presided over by judge appointed by Obama, is scheduled for a hearing in December – after the presidential election.
The episode was reportedly scheduled to air as the second episode of the show’s 18th season, which premiered September 21. However, “adjustments” made to the episode caused issues with the actors and writers, pushing the premiere date to October 26.
Access Hollywood, the source of a highly edited audio recording depicting Trump making lewd comments about women, also airs on NBC, as did Trump’s popular show Celebrity Apprentice.
The decision to depict a character identical to Donald Trump accused of raping women is a concerted ploy to manipulate the people who watch the episode into conflating a fictitious story with reality and conclude Trump is actually a rapist.
While the mainstream media continues to portray Trump as a rapist, they continually cover up any mention of the true abuser of women: Bill Clinton.
Watch: Episode Inspired By Questionable Accusations Of Rape Against TrumpCafé Central is a traditional Viennese café located at Herrengasse 14 in the Innere Stadt first district of Vienna, Austria. The café occupies the ground floor of the former Bank and Stockmarket Building, today called the Palais Ferstel after its architect Heinrich von Ferstel.[1]
History [ edit ]
The café was opened in 1876, and in the late 19th century it became a key meeting place of the Viennese intellectual scene. Key regulars included: Peter Altenberg, Theodor Herzl, Alfred Adler,[2] Egon Friedell, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Anton Kuh, Adolf Loos, Leo Perutz, Alfred Polgar, Adolf Hitler, and Leon Trotsky. In January 1913 alone, Josip Broz Tito, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Stalin, Hitler, and Trotsky (the latter two being regulars) were patrons of the establishment.
The café was often referred to as the "Chess school" (Die Schachhochschule) because of the presence of many chess players who used the first floor for their games.[3]
Members of the Vienna Circle of logical positivists held many meetings at the café[4] before and after World War I.
A well known story is that when Victor Adler objected to Count Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in the Habsburg monarchy, he replied: "And who will lead this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein (Leon Trotsky) sitting over there at the Cafe Central?"[5]
The café closed at the end of World War II. In 1975, the Palais Ferstel was renovated and the Central was newly opened, however in a different part of the building. In 1986, it was fully renovated once again.
Today it is both a tourist spot and a popular café marked by its place in literary history.
Gallery [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Consumer Reports, the influential reviewers' group that blasted the iPhone 4 for a faulty antenna, on Friday gave Apple Inc's latest smartphone a thumbs-up despite echoing widespread complaints about its patchy mapping service.
The organization, which in 2010 withheld its recommendation for the iPhone because of spotty reception when the gadget was held in a certain way, said laboratory tests confirmed that the new iPhone 5 ranked among the best smartphones but its mapping function clearly fell short.
Apple's latest iPhone, sporting a larger 4-inch screen and 4G capability, drew scathing reviews for glaring errors in a new, self-designed mapping service. Chief Executive Tim Cook apologized last week and directed users to rival services run by Google Inc and others.
"Despite the widespread criticism it has received, Apple's new Maps app... is competent enough, even if it falls short of what's available for free on many other phones," reviewer Mike Gikas wrote on the group's website on Friday.
"As Apple has recently apologized and promised to fix these and other map glitches, we expect the Map app to improve in time," he wrote.
Apple's shares were down 1.3 percent at $658.43 in early afternoon trade on Nasdaq.
The consumer electronics juggernaut began selling its latest smartphone last month. Sales of over 5 million in its first three days in stores fell short of outsized expectations as it struggled with supply constraints.
Its homegrown Maps -- stitched together by acquiring companies and employing data from a range of providers including TomTom NV and Waze -- was introduced with much fanfare in June by software chief Scott Forstall. It was billed as a highlight of the updated iOS 6 software.
Errors and omissions quickly emerged after the software was rolled out. They ranged from misplaced buildings and mislabeled cities to duplicate geographical features. Users also complained that the service lacked features that made Google Maps so popular, such as public transit directions and street-view pictures.
The last time Apple faced such widespread criticism -- including from Consumer Reports -- was during 2010's "Antennagate" furor, when users complained of signal reception issues on the then-new iPhone 4. This year the consumer group, which reviews everything from cars to kitchen appliances, also warned initially that Apple's new iPad threw off too much heat.
A defiant Steve Jobs at the time rejected any suggestion the iPhone 4's design was flawed, but offered consumers free phone cases at a rare, 90-minute press conference called to address those complaints.
"Now that our auto experts have completed their tests, including some carried out some days after the launch, they describe the app as relatively streamlined, and concluded that it generally provides clear guidance, including voice and on-screen directions," Gikas wrote.
"However, they did find that it lacks the details, traffic data, and customization options offered by the free Google navigation app found on Android phones."Some heads are making staff use up to six different coloured pens to give different types of feedback
Teachers have complained about a ‘ridiculous’ marking system which forces them to use pink ink for negative comments because it is ‘less aggressive’ than red.
The bizarre system is being implemented by some headteachers who believe pink is a softer colour which will make children feel less like failures.
Many are also making staff use up to six different coloured pens to give different types of feedback to pupils as part of a ‘triple’ or ‘deep’ marking strategy.
Teachers have complained about a ‘ridiculous’ marking system which forces them to use pink ink for negative comments because it is ‘less aggressive’ than red
In one example, a school has asked pupils to respond to teachers’ comments in purple or blue, and if teachers want to give encouragement they have been told to use a ‘positive’ green pen.
It is thought the system was inspired by Marking Matters, a guide from Ofsted, the schools regulator, issued in 2011 but withdrawn last year.
At the conference of the NASUWT teaching union in Birmingham at the weekend, teachers voted to escalate industrial action over the pressures of the marking system.
Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: ‘Too many schools are continuing to impose marking regimes which pupils and teachers find debilitating.
‘Teachers are being subjected to policies which dictate when to mark, how to mark and even the colours of the pens to be used.’
Michael Parsons, who teaches at Roath Park Primary School in Cardiff, said his school uses a system of pink and green pens for marking.
He said: ‘It’s green for growth and pink for progress. To be honest it’s lost on me... and I know it’s lost on the children.’
According to a recent survey, primary school teachers on average spend 10 hours a week on marking
Lee Williscroft-Ferris, a modern languages teacher from Durham, said that in one school he worked at he had to draw a pink box at the end of each piece and insert positive comments in green ink and suggestions for improvement in pink.
According to a recent survey, primary teachers on average spend 10 hours a week on marking.
The government this weekend accepted recommendations made in an independent report to encourage teachers to give more verbal feedback in lessons.
Teachers have long complained that the complicated marking systems create unnecessary extra work and detract from actual teaching.
It is understood heads have adopted them |
; phone, write, text. You might even consider a kind of semi-professional approach; self-help groups to meet people in a similar position.
Learn – I would say this, I’m an academic. Keep your brain active. Engage it. Your brain is the most fantastic machine ever created.
Give – this isn’t political brainwashing. There’s good evidence that getting involved in charitable activity (and it’s probably better to give your time and effort, rather than money) makes people happier.
Stay open-minded – perhaps the trickiest thing to do but it relates directly to rumination.
Mindfulness
Rumination – compulsively focusing your attention on the causes and consequences of a problem – tends to be eased by learning to be mindful: if we’re able to be aware of, and understand how our own thoughts work. This does not mean taking up any kind of religious practice, but some practical techniques for clearing the mind of “clutter” can be helpful.
In part, it means becoming able to decide where to focus your attention. Because if you’re good at this, it’s less likely that your thoughts will always drag back towards rumination.
The CBT approach
If you’re aware of what’s happening in your own mind, you can start to change things. My colleague, Sara Tai, put together a neat summary of cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. But it works like this:
Identify what you are thinking. It’s often really useful to do this when you notice a change in your emotions or if you start doing something that may be a sign of something else, like drinking too much. So if you think someone you know ignores you in the street and you feel sad this can be a cue to examine the thought.
Are you (after engaging your fantastic brain in a mindful manner) thinking sensibly, wisely and proportionately about the situation? Weigh up the evidence – what makes you think they ignored you? Could it be they didn’t see you? Did you “assume” they ignored you and is your mood also now affecting the way you’re thinking?
Change it. Generate an alternative point of view; question the evidence for your negative thoughts and find possible alternatives. It’s not about lying to yourself – maybe they did ignore you. But when in a negative frame of mind, we can assume the worst.
Therapy
If you’ve tried all that then you could try therapy. I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone – many people are probably better off avoiding therapists and using everyday resources and support. But it can be a chance to think things through with a professional in a calm, supportive and nonjudgmental atmosphere, which can be helpful. I personally prefer the straightforward approach of CBT, but there are many others. It’s a question of finding one that suits you.
If all of this was easy, I wouldn’t have a job and you’d have found the secret years ago. But while you aren’t guaranteed lifelong contentment, sort out some of these basics and it might help.CLEVELAND, Ohio – The list of September additions to Netflix Instant is highlighted by the fall TV season. The streaming service will offer recent seasons of several popular shows including "New Girl," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Walking Dead."
Of course, movies will be added as well. There is the good ("Chinatown"), the bad ("Anaconda") and the awful ("Elizabethtown").
You can view an early list below and check back during the next few days for updates:
Movies:
"A Price Above Rubies"
"A Simple Plan"
"Across the Universe"
"Addams Family Values"
"Alfie"
"An Officer and a Gentleman"
"Anaconda"
"Anastasia"
"Arachnophobia"
"Are We Done Yet"
"Audrey Rose"
"Babies"
"Becoming Jane"
"Blink"
"Blue Car"
"Bounce"
"Braveheart"
"Brian's Song"
"Chinatown"
"Cool Runnings"
"Coyote Ugly"
"Crocodile Dundee"
"Days of Thunder"
"Deep Blue"
"Defiance"
"Detention"
"Elizabethtown"
"Flubber"
"Girl Rising"
"Girlfight"
"Good Morning, Vietnam"
"Guess Who"
"Hoodwinked"
"Jay and Sielnt Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie"
"Lords of Dogtown"
"Mirage Men"
"School of Rock"
"Small Apartments"
"Swiss Family Robinson"
"The Believers"
"The Blue Lagoon"
"The Unbelievers"
"All is Lost" (Sept. 5)
"Kid Cannibis" (Sept. 6)
"Le Week-End" (Sept. 6)
"Refuge" (Sept. 6)
"Your Sister's Sister" (Sept. 6)
"Who Is Dayani Cristal?" (Sept. 9)
"Deadly Code" (Sept. 10)
"A Single Man" (Sept. 11)
"Dennis Miller: America 180" (Sept. 11)
"Filth" (Sept. 11)
"The Moment" (Sept. 11)
"Grace Unplugged: (Sept. 11)
"Justin and the Knights of Valor" (Sept. 13)
"Beginners" (Sept. 16)
"One Day" (Sept. 16)
"Silver Linings Playbook" (Sept. 16)
"3 Days to Kill" (Sept. 17)
"The Double" (Sept. 25)
"Bad Grandpa" (Sept. 27)
"Lullaby" (Sept. 29)
"Killing Them Softly (Sept. 30)
TV shows:Komar and Melamid is a tandem team of Russian-born American conceptualist artists Vitaly Komar (born 1943) and Alexander Melamid (born 1945). In an artists' statement they said that "even if only one of us creates some of the projects and works, we usually sign them together. We are not just an artist, we are a movement." Both artists were born in Moscow, but emigrated to Israel in 1977 and subsequently to New York in 1978. The pair's co-authorship of works ceased in 2003–2004.[1]
Education [ edit ]
Komar and Melamid attended the Moscow Art School from 1958 to 1960, followed by the Stroganov Institute of Art and Design (Illustration dept.), graduating in 1967. They began working together shortly thereafter. After 36 years they separated in 2003.
History [ edit ]
Komar & Melamid's first joint exhibition, Retrospectivism, was held at the Blue Bird Cafe in Moscow, 1967. The following year, they joined the youth section of the Moscow Union of Artists and began teaching art. In 1972, Komar & Melamid founded a movement they called Sots Art, a unique version of Soviet Pop and Conceptual Art that combines the principles of Dadaism and Socialist Realism." In 1974, they were arrested during a performance (in a Moscow apartment) of Art Belongs to the People. Later that year, their Double Self-Portrait (similar to dual portraits of Lenin and Stalin) was destroyed by the Soviet government, along with works by other nonconformist artists, at what became known as the Bulldozer Exhibition (because bulldozers were used to destroy the artwork, which had been displayed in an open-air setting).
In 1976, Komar & Melamid's work became more widely known. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, hosted their first international exhibition, but Soviet authorities denied them permission to attend. In 1976, they also made their first attempt at emigrating, but permission was denied. In response, they created their own country, "Trans-State," complete with passports and a constitution. In 1977, they received permission to join relatives in Israel. In 1978, they moved to New York; in the same month, their first museum exhibition opened at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.
Throughout the 1970s, Komar & Melamid also worked in a style they called "Post-Art," pioneering the use of multi-stylistic images, prefiguring the eclectic combination of styles in post-modernism, which became popular in the 1980s. They collaborated on various conceptual projects, ranging from painting and performance to installation, public sculpture, photography, music, and poetry. In one such performance, they established a corporation, Komar & Melamid, Inc., that had as its purpose "the buying and selling of human souls." They bought several hundred souls, including Andy Warhol's (who sold it to them for free), which was smuggled into Russia and then sold for 30 rubles.
Melamid moved to New Jersey in 1980. He continued to work with Komar in New York. In 1981, their Portrait of Hitler was slashed by an ex-Trotskyist disc jockey in Brooklyn. They did not repair the work, considering the attacker a co-author.
Ronald Feldman hosted the exhibition Sots Art in 1982, which was a commercial and critical success. In 1983, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased paintings. From 1981 to 1983, they continued to develop Sots Art in the series Nostalgic Socialist Realism, and from 1984 to 1990 they further developed Post-Art in the Diary Series, Anarchistic Synthesis Series, and Bayonne, N.J. Series.
Throughout the 1980s, many prominent writers and critics discussed their work, and they were invited to participate in numerous exhibitions. They were the first Russian artists to receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. They were also the first Russian artists to be invited to Documenta (Kassel, then in West Germany, 1987).
Komar & Melamid created their first public art sculpture in 1986, a bronze bust of Joseph Stalin, which was installed in the red light district of The Hague, Netherlands. In 1988, they became US citizens. In 1989, a monograph about them, written by Carter Ratcliff, was published by Abbeville Press.
In the early 1990s, Komar & Melamid created two icons for the Holy Rosary Church in Jersey City. In 1992, they began the series Monumental Propaganda, in response to the destruction of Socialist Realist monuments in Russia. At Komar & Melamid's invitation, more than 200 Russian and Western artists created projects for the preservation of monuments. Prolific press coverage of the project forestalled destruction of monuments in Russia.
From 1994 to 1997, the artists worked on the series People's Choice, whereby they created the "most wanted" and "least wanted" paintings of various countries based on the results of surveys conducted by professional polling companies. The book, Painting by Numbers: Komar & Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art, published in 1997, explains the statistical underpinnings of the polling process and provides the results of each country's preferences. Komar & Melamid used the same process in 1996–1997 in a collaboration with composer Dave Soldier to create The People's Choice Music, consisting of "The Most Wanted Song" (a love song with low male and female vocals, of moderate duration, pitch, and tempo) and "The Most Unwanted Song" (in part: an operatic soprano raps over cowboy music featuring least-wanted instruments bagpipes and tuba while children sing about holidays and advertise for Wal-Mart).
In 1998, Naked Revolution, an opera about George Washington, Vladimir Lenin and Marcel Duchamp, was created by Komar & Melamid with Dave Soldier and performed at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Kitchen, New York. It became part of the exhibition American Dreams, along with a series of eight paintings, forty collages, and the artists' collection of George Washington memorabilia.
In 1998, the artists also went to Thailand to teach elephants to paint, resulting in the book, When Elephants Paint: The Quest of Two Russian Artists to Save the Elephants of Thailand. In 2000, Christie's auction house held the first-ever auction of elephant paintings. The revenue generated supported the elephants and their keepers.
In 2001, Komar & Melamid began work on their last major project together, Symbols of the Big Bang, first exhibited at the Yeshiva University Museum, Center for Jewish History, New York. Using abstract symbols, the artists explored their spirituality and the connection between mysticism and science. In 2003, they began to turn some of the symbols into stained glass, which Russian authorities refused to exhibit during the Moscow portion of the exhibition, Berlin-Moscow/Moscow-Berlin (2004). Komar & Melamid ceased collaborating in 2003.[2]
Style [ edit ]
They are perhaps best known as the founders of SotsArt (СоцАрт), a form of Soviet Nonconformist Art that combined elements of Socialist Realism and Western Pop Art in a conceptual framework that also references Dadaism. Komar and Melamid often create many works within a common theme. Their prolific collaboration precludes from mentioning all of their projects, however, some of their best known series and projects are: Sots Art series (1972–1973), Post-Art series (1973), Ancestral Portraits series (1980), Nostalgic Socialist Realism series (1982–1983), Diary series (1984–1986), Anarchistic Synthesism series (1985–1986), Most-Wanted series (1993–1997), Monumental Propaganda (1994), Elephant Project (1995–2000), American Dreams (1994–1999).
People's Choice [ edit ]
Komar and Melamid's People's Choice series, 1994–1997, consisted of the "most wanted" and "most unwanted" paintings of 11 countries, as well as two songs in the same vein. The artists commissioned polling companies in the 11 countries—including the United States, Russia, China, France, and Kenya—to conduct scientific polls to discover what they want to see in art. The use of polls was meant to mimic the American democratic process. Komar said, "Our interpretation of polls is our collaboration with various people of the world. It is a collaboration with [sic] new dictator—Majority." The process was also meant to change the artists role as a leader. Komar and Melamid believe that the broad public is an adequate judge of art, contrary to the historical precedence, much in the same way that the broad public in America is entrusted with electing the President. It is a new type of leader, one that asks questions, instead of a dictator. Melamid said, "Picasso mimicked Stalin, so we try to mimic Clinton."[3]
Komar has said he isn't so concerned that people actually enjoy the work, so long as it provokes thoughts of free will versus predetermination. To tie that concept into their earlier work, Komar said, "In our early work, we arrived at [the] definition of freedom that entailed being free from individual cliches, being free to change intonations and styles. Individuality lost its stability and its uniqueness. Now we are searching for a new freedom. We have been traveling to different countries, engaging in dull negotiations with representatives of polling companies, raising money for further polls, receiving more of less [the] same results, and painting more or less [the] same blue landscapes. Looking for freedom, we found slavery."[4]
A musical version of The People's Choice was produced with composer Dave Soldier resulting in The Most Unwanted Song.
References [ edit ]
^ komarandmelamid.org ^ http://komarandmelamid.org/chronology.html ^ Wypijewski, JoAnn, ed. Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997. ^ Wypijewski, JoAnn, ed. Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1997.I recently published my Super Smash Bros fan trailer “Mario Jumps Into Battle” ready for the upcoming Nintendo Wii U and 3DS games, its here on youtube in case you missed it. I’ve put together some materials from the production of the video to share the process. Shot on the Panasonic GH3, filming at various locations across Tokyo, I also captured reference photography and created spherical HDRI images of all the locations to allow me to recreate the lighting in 3D. More on my kit list can be found here.
Using only my laptop, I spent the following 4 weeks working intensively on the project during the day and rendering over night to get full use of the limited machine time I had and complete the project as soon as possible. To stay true to the games I used the model from the Smash Bros Brawl Wii game as a base reference and worked on the textures to ready the quality for full HD rendering. Using a reference based workflow in Maya, I was able to rig on the fly to make changes during the animation stage, for instance creating additional blend shapes as needed, rather than creating a huge range of shapes that I wouldn’t necessarily use. This, combined with using a separately referenced look development scene to control the shaders and lighting, I was able to make changes to the characters look in every scene by changing one file.
Before animation though I had to track the scenes to reproduce the camera move in 3D. This wasn’t easy due to the guerrilla style filming, I wasn’t able to put down tracking markers, so some shots needed some serious manual work to get them locked in. I’m a big believer in using reference footage as a basis for animation, so I’m used to acting a fool on camera and this project was no different! Several of the shots are based on a run so I created a quick run cycle to give me a starting point before adding on the details.
My lighting setup was fairly straight forward with the HDRI images I captured on location and a few lights to mimic what was really there. Along with final gather, ambient occlusion and a variety of passes available to me I could tweak the character as needed in compositing to integrate him into the back plates. All in all it took over 60 hours of rendering time to bring Mario to the screen, though my laptop is hardly a super computer! There was also quite a bit of rotoscoping required in the comp stage for Mario to run in between people and behind obstacles and so forth. The video below shows an example shot with a rough breakdown of the process from the initial footage through to completion.
Last but far from least is the audio. It is 50% of the final product so I dedicated quite some time trying to get it right. I chose to use the music from Smash Bros Brawl on Wii as I always loved it and I felt it went better with the visuals than the Wii U/ 3DS trailer music. I scoured the internet to find some iconic Mario sounds and voices to help bring him alive and also went out and recorded a bunch of Foley myself, such as foot steps and slides. I am not professional sound artist, but being a personal project I wanted to do it myself and try to put together sounds that carry the action on screen, I hope it worked!
After uploading the video, the massive positive reaction from everyone online has been amazing! A huge thank you to everyone who has viewed my work, shared on youtube, twitter, facebook and so on, you guys have made all the hard work worth while. I had a lot of fun creating this project and it was great work on every stage from filming to colour grading. I hope that I’ve kept the Smash Bros and Mario fans out there happy and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of the new games when the come out later this year.The U-17 World Cup begins in Chile this Saturday, a great showcase for the next generation of emerging talent.
The FIFA U-17 World Cup has an inconsistent history with respect to its ability to identify future stars. For every golden ball winner (Cesc Fabregas or Toni Kroos) or top scorer (Carlos Vela), there is a Sergio Santamaria or Sani Emmanuel, whose senior careers did not or are yet to reach the heights suggested by their strong displays at this level.
The latest edition of the competition kicks off in Chile on Saturday. Here are five players who can be expected to impress and who may eventually progress to become consistent top-flight performers in the senior game.
Timothé Cognat, CM, Lyon/France
Cognat captained France to victory at the U-17 European Championship in May. France's only previous success in the tournament had come back in 2004 with a team featuring Karim Benzema, Jeremy Menez and Samir Nasri, and while attacking talents such as Bilal Boutobba and eight-goal striker Odsonne Edouard again shone, it was Cognat who held the team together with strong leadership and a well-balanced skill set.
Equally adept at linking attacks through midfield as he was in making intelligent supporting runs into the final third, the 17-year-old was the central hub of an attractive and fluid side whose high-tempo passing football brought deserved reward. Tottenham Hotspur are said to be keeping a close eye on the progress of the OL youngster, but a similarly strong tournament on the world stage will surely attract additional suitors.
Constantin Frommann, GK, Freiburg/Germany
Frommann is the latest custodian to emerge from Germany's seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of talented young goalkeepers. He kept five consecutive clean sheets as they progressed through the final of the European Under-17 Championship in May and their eventual 4-1 defeat to France would have been much worse were it not for his heroics. He had earlier made two good saves in the quarterfinal penalty-shootout victory over Spain.
The 17-year-old has all the attributes expected of a modern goalkeeper. He is quick off his line, strong in one-on-one situations and comfortable with the ball at his feet. Add self-confidence to those traits and it is easy to see why he's compared with national team goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. The Freiburg youngster still has a long way to go before he reaches that level but can further his reputation over the next few weeks.
Leandro, FW, Ponte Preta/Brazil
Leandro (sometimes known as Leandrinho) scored eight times in nine appearances to take home the top scorer's trophy from Brazil's success in March's South American U-17 Championship. His partnership with the similarly talented Evander Ferreira was key to their triumph, and the pair's performances are likely to go a long way toward determining whether Brazil can add to their three previous U-17 World Cup trophies.
With slick dribbling skills, a rapid turn of pace and a keen eye for goal, Leandro has already drawn comparisons to Neymar and Robinho -- two players he admits to looking up to. The 17-year-old scored his first senior goal in a Copa do Brasil win over Moto Club MA in May and has already appeared five times as a substitute in the Brazilian top flight. He will join Italian side Udinese when he turns 18 next October.
Pablo López, CM, Pachuca/Mexico
Mexico progressed unbeaten through the group stage of the CONCACAF U-17 Championship earlier this year before comfortably defeating hosts Honduras 3-0 in the final. López was named player of the tournament following a string of influential displays from the centre of midfield, and he will need to re-create those performances in Chile if Mexico are to make it out of a tough group that features both Argentina and Germany.
A dynamic left-footed operator capable of performing a wide variety of midfield tasks, the 17-year-old is one of five Pachuca youngsters included in the Mexico squad. He is highly thought of within the club following a number of successes in their youth categories and has already trained with the first team. Strong displays over the next few weeks may yield his senior debut sooner rather than later.
Lee Seung-Woo, FW, Barcelona/South Korea
The standout player at last year's Asian U-16 Championship scored five goals -- including an outstanding solo effort for his second goal in the quarterfinal victory over Japan -- and provided four assists for the South Korea team that finished the tournament as runners-up. He will again have to be at his best in Chile if they are to advance beyond both Brazil and England.
Quick, intelligent and technically accomplished, the 17-year-old certainly has the necessary tools to help his side. In the western world, he is primarily known for being one of the nine underage players whose recruitment led to Barcelona receiving a transfer ban from FIFA in 2014. Spotted at a youth tournament in South Africa, he moved to the Catalan giants at the age of 12 and has been a prolific scorer on his way up through the ranks at La Masia.
Nick Dorrington is a freelance football writer. Twitter: @chewingthecoca.When did you last see a chicken play the piano?
Jokgu the 19-month-old Buff Brahma chicken can peck out a rendition of "America the Beautiful" with love and dedication that's far from fowl.
Jokgu is a member of the Flockstars -- a band of chickens that can play piano keyboards and the drums. No, really.
While half of the "Heart and Soul" chicken duet could use a little more practice, the birds hit all the right notes when playing other classics such as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."
This reminds me of "The Golden Girls" episode (which you can now watch on Hulu) where Rose, played by Betty White, shows off her pianist showbiz chicken.
Who knew piano-playing chickens were a thing?
Solving for XX: The industry seeks to overcome outdated ideas about "women in tech." Take a look here.
Crowd Control: A crowdsourced science fiction novel written by CNET readers. Read it here.According to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, you'll get to see the preliminary cards for the next two Strikeforce events on HDNet. Along with that, you'll get to watch the weigh-ins on the network as well. Here's a quote from Mr. Coker (via MMA Nation):
"As we continue to showcase some of the sport’s up-and-coming talent on our prelims, we’re excited to be able to air them live on HDNet," Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said. "We’re excited to give Strikeforce fans even more access to great fights."
The first event that will be given the HDNet treatment is the Strikeforce: Heavyweight Grand Prix Semi-Finals card that is scheduled for September 10th. Things change quickly in the land of Strikeforce, but these are the four fights that are currently set for the undercard:
The withdrawal of Josh Thomson from the event might mean that one of these fights moves up to the main card, but there's no way to know until Strikeforce names a replacement to compete against former Sengoku fighter Maximo Blanco. But for all those fans that crave live fights, this is very good news. The next Strikeforce event that HDNet will cover is not confirmed at this point, but with SF having a December 12th card scheduled, you can probably bet on that being the other card in question.
The main card of the September 10th event, which features both heavyweight grand prix semi-finals and a middleweight title showdown between Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza and Luke Rockhold, can be viewed on Showtime.
More SBN coverage of Strikeforce: Heavyweight GP Semi-FinalsSomeone you deceive
Erica D. Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 13, 2015
A few days ago Tom Ashbrook hosted a show on NPR about the opioid addiction crisis in the US. Listening to it will blow the top of your head off, but once you put yourself back together it might set one or two of you on a new course. In essence, the show describes an epidemic that was somewhat-intentionally created by the pharmaceutical industry. No one was sitting in a back room plotting the destruction of the American public, but they were searching, as always, for a blockbuster drug and what better drug than an opium-based drug. The “need” is truly infinite. They marketed these “new” opioids as revolutionary and non-addictive and an important advance. But they were more-or-less the same ole opioids that have been around for thousands of years. And as we all know, are HIGHLY addictive. Opioids are for acute pain, like surgery and traumatic accidents, and shouldn’t be prescribed for longer than 14 days unless the patient is terminal. Nothing about this truth has changed over the decades and indeed over the centuries.
The most shocking moment in the show is when they reveal one of the early oxycontin ads which featured six REAL patients who were taking oxycontin and had “gotten their lives back because of it.” At this point in the sordid history of this drug we know that THREE of those six became severely addicted and TWO lost their lives to addiction. This is the backstory of the company’s own advertisement.
Particularly appalling is the non-action and fecklessness of the FDA. Once the epidemic was running at full tilt, what did they do about access to these drugs? Close to nothing. Until a few days ago when they APPROVED OXYCONTIN FOR CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS 11. It gets harder and harder to believe that nothing nefarious is going on in the face of such absurdity.
This sad story is a very useful lesson about the FDA and the large pharmaceutical companies —and that lesson is that you would be foolish to trust them, though I lay more blame at the feet of the FDA who are charged with protecting the public. Pharmaceutical companies are not charged with protection — they have one job and we all know what it is ($). I don’t intend to demean the good work that has been done developing life-saving drugs and vaccines, many of which are impressive accomplishments that have decreased human suffering. But I doubt any scientist who actually works at a pharma company would dispute that their primary mandate is to create blockbuster drugs, full stop. And this mandate comes with real moral risks that SHOULD be mitigated by the FDA.
I mention this story as a preface to my reaction to a new film about HPV and cancers it causes, Someone You Love. I feel sure that most of the people associated with the film mean well. But I just ask those interested in the topic to remain skeptical as I point out just a couple of things: 1. Let’s look at the language right on the front page of the film’s website. The subtitle of the film is “the HPV epidemic.” Sounds alarming, no? Yet this is from the CDC website: “Most sexually active people will have genital HPV at some time in their lives. There are often no symptoms and it goes away on its own — without causing any serious health problems.” So pretty much everyone will have it at some point in his or her life without knowledge or consequences. Like many viruses. So calling HPV an “epidemic” is silly at best, but deceptive at worst. When HPV does lead to cancer, it is overwhelmingly cervical cancer. So what are the rates of cervical cancer deaths in the U.S.? 4,074 women in the United States died from cervical cancer in 2012 (the most recent year available). So.000016 is the mortality rate in the U.S. If you know someone who has died of this disease, my condolences. These issues, when they are personal, are sheer catastrophe. But looking at the issue from a distance — which is the project of public health policy — we know that “in the past 40 years, the number of cases of cervical cancer and the number of deaths from cervical cancer have decreased significantly. This decline largely is the result of many women getting regular Pap tests” according to the CDC. Pap smears are a proven method of prevention. Furthermore, some current HPV shot series do NOT prevent all cancer causing strains of HPV (have a look at this CBS report that details a study demonstrating this as well as the more alarming finding that “Women who receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine may be more likely to be infected with certain high-risk strains of the virus than women who do not get the vaccine, according to a new study”). You still have to get your annual pap smear even if you are vaccinated. With disease and mortality rates suspiciously low for cancer-causing HPV, and the continued requirement for a pap smear, doesn’t it beg the question about why there is a big push to become aware of the “HPV epidemic”? This brings me to the second point. 2. The director openly refuses to identify the sponsors of the film. Who paid for it? Considering the amount of money at stake in the HPV war, it is disturbing to say the least that the director will not be forthright about this. (Please don’t worry: I’m not anti-vaccination, I’m merely pharma-skeptical and I hope I have demonstrated why this is a reasonable position.) Is this film a giant advertisement (unbeknownst to the subjects, of course)?
Cervical Dysplasia, a symptom-less pre-cancerous condition, is also addressed by the HPV shots, as is genital warts. So perhaps the vaccine’s best usage is for preventing these more common conditions, though once again it’s important to take heed of the following statistics: most cervical dysplasia spontaneously regresses. If left untreated, about 70% of cervical dysplasia will regress within 2 years without treatment. Furthermore, the vaccine cannot protect females who are already infected with HPV. And I can’t help but notice this: “Among women with a chronic HPV infection, smokers are twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop severe cervical dysplasia, because smoking suppresses the immune system. Chronic HPV infection and cervical dysplasia are also associated with other factors that weaken the immune system, such as treatment with immunosuppressive drugs for certain diseases.” In other words, this isn’t an isolated issue of a single virus invading the body — this is a systemic issue. I suppose targeting a virus as if it’s not related to a whole system is simply the way we live now, and clearly it is cheaper, on the individual level, to get a vaccine than to treat the systemic problems that present before and during the onset of these diseases — and that’s something — but I can’t help but be uneasy about the aggressive pushing (by a nameless entity) of a pharmaceutical fix — being recommended for every young person in the country — for a problem that, in the overwhelming majority, simply doesn’t and never will exist.
You might ask, if the vaccine can help prevent even just a small portion of warts, dysplasia and cancer, why not take it? Perhaps the answer is that you SHOULD take the vaccine — perhaps it really is as simple as that. On the other hand, it would be nice if doctors, the FDA and the medication manufacturers could perhaps acknowledge why the American public has become skeptical over the decades given the proliferation of examples like the one provided in the opening paragraphs of this essay. And let’s not pretend this is an isolated example of FDA and pharmaceutical negligence (or whatever you care to call it). We simply cannot automatically depend on large institutions — be they public or private — to protect and care for us even if their intentions are entirely good. If the medical establishment wretches every time an undereducated person refuses genuinely effective medical treatment, perhaps they should consider pointing the finger at themselves for this type of patient behavior. More straightforwardly, we all want to know the answer to some very basic questions: what is the long term effectiveness of these HPV vaccines? did we know that information before they were pushed out into the world? what percentage of patients are not returning for second and third doses of the shot and was implementation really thoroughly thought-through? what about African-American women and the finding that they don’t seem to be particularly protected by the most recent iteration of the vaccine? why was this discovery about African-American patients a surprise? Exactly how much data was gathered before it was put on the market? Given that there is no epidemic (to say the least) of cervical cancer or dysplasia or warts, why was this medication fast-tracked at the FDA?
Oh, just one more thing. An effective immunotherapy drug for HPV-associated cancers is on a path to FDA approval — it’s entering phase 3 trials. It will be a non-invasive, immune-stimulating therapy that targets “the E6 and E7 oncogenes of HPV types 16 and 18.” The same HPV types addressed by current vaccines and which cause most of the cancers. And if you remain a healthy individual, you never have to take it.The Norwegian Government has presented a long-term plan that proposes investments to improve intelligence, situational awareness, and survivability of the country’s armed forces.
The plan recommends an increase in military spending to NOK7.2bn ($861m) over the next four years.
The Norwegian Armed Forces will receive an accumulated total of NOK165bn ($19.7bn) in additional funding over the next 20 years, according to a statement posted on the government’s website.
Norwegian Defence Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide said that the security situation in Europe has deteriorated over the past few years, and the government must make the right investments to ensure the country has the ability to face future threats.
Under the plan, the government will purchase four new submarines, replace Norway’s maritime patrol aircraft, and invest in modern air defence systems as well as the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.
The proposals also include the introduction of longer range weapons to Norway’s current NASAMS II-system, as well as dedicated long-range air defence systems to protect critical areas.
"We are looking to strengthen short-term readiness, to invest in future capabilities and to create real long term sustainability."
Søreide said: "We are looking to strengthen short-term readiness, to invest in future capabilities and to create real long term sustainability.
We have to ensure that we, along with our allies, have the means to present a credible deterrent against the use of force. This plan enables us to do just that.
"While every new generation of equipment and technology allows us to do much more than the previous one that added capability comes at a price. We can no longer accommodate that trend simply by buying fewer platforms or by internal efficiency savings. We cannot have security without sustainability. This plan aims to provide both."
The long-term plan has been presented to Parliament, which will consider it after the summer recess.
Image: The Norwegian Government presented a white paper to Parliament describing the long-term plan for the armed forces for the years 2017-2020. Photo: courtesy of Ministry of Defense / Office of the Prime Minister.Batch 84 voting is now open. The following polls are |
, Cruz seems to occupy a gray zone with these speeches, thanks to some clever interpretation of ethics rules:
Under Senate rules, “it is very easy to classify something that is a political event in front of political supporters as not being a campaign event and being part of your official duties,” said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit that advocates government transparency. “As long as they never use the magic words, ‘Will you vote for me?’ ” Any trip that is paid for with public money should have “some kind of official public component,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. This would be particularly relevant for Cruz, Krumholz said, because he has “inveighed against wasteful government spending.”
[USA Today]
[Image via Shutterstock]
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Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comWASHINGTON — A senior Obama administration official said Friday that the United States was encouraged by the initial inventory that the Syrian government had submitted of its chemical weapons arsenal.
“We were pleasantly surprised by the completeness of their declaration,” said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
“It was better than expected,” he added.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the watchdog group known as the O.P.C.W. that oversees the international agreement banning poison gas, said on Friday that Syria had provided “an initial declaration” of its chemical weapons program.
The submission met the first deadline for Syrian compliance that was set down by the framework agreement that the United States and Russia concluded in Geneva last weekend.OTTAWA—Conservative Senators are quietly using taxpayer-funded literature to target opposition ridings with a partisan crime message as the party gears up for the next election, the Toronto Star has learned. And at least one of the Senators sent the mailers out at the direction of the Conservative Party of Canada’s national campaign office.
Senator Bob Runciman said he sent mail-outs targeting the Liberals at the direction of the Conservative Party of Canada’s national campaign office. ( Rick Madonik / TORONTO STAR )
That Senator was Bob Runciman (Ontario). It is not clear whether Senator Don Plett (Manitoba), who distributed almost identical material, did so at the behest of the party. The tactic of Senators using their office budgets to demonize Liberal MPs in their own ridings is unheard of and an affront to the Senate’s role as a chamber of sober second thought, Liberal Senator Jim Munson, said in an interview. The two Senators sent out some 6,000 brochures in total to the ridings of Liberal MPs Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre) and David McGuinty (Ottawa South) in September urging constituents to join them in demanding stiffer sentences for young offenders while suggesting Liberals were soft on crime.
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“It’s the politics of fear paid for by taxpayers’ money and I find it disgusting,” Munson said, adding that he will be raising the controversial practice in the Red Chamber on Tuesday. “It’s unethical and they should be ashamed of themselves,” Munson said Thursday. But the Senators were unapologetic about spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars, saying Canadians deserve to know what the Harper government would to do to crack down on young offenders. “Anita Neville has shown over and over again that she simply doesn’t want to properly punish crime in my humble opinion,” said Plett, former Conservative Party president, who is among the 35 senators appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the 105-seat upper Chamber. By using the Senators to send out this kind of literature, the Conservative Party gets around the prohibition on MPs using tax dollars to send partisan messages to other ridings, which the House of Commons agreed must stop.
The material, sent to 3,000 homes in each of the two ridings, includes an “official petition to the Senate” that calls for revealing the names of dangerous or violent young offenders and adult-length sentences when warranted, among other things. “Unlike the Liberals, we also believe that the whole point of a criminal justice system isn’t the welfare of the criminal, it’s the safety of you, your family and your home and possessions,” said the identical message in the two mail-outs.
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“I take crime seriously, as I’m sure you do. It’s time we told the opposition parties in Ottawa that we want them to take it seriously too.” McGuinty and Neville say the literature is just further proof the Conservatives don’t hesitate to use taxpayers’ dollars to further their political agenda. “They are targeting those polls (voter areas) in the ridings that they are quite deliberately making an effort to make inroads into,” Neville said. “I think it is certainly duplicitous. They’ve used everything they could in the House of Commons until the outcry became too loud and now they have moved to the Senate to do their dirty work. If they want to do their dirty work then pay for it. Don’t do it on the taxpayers’ bill,” she said. Plett said the fact remains that “we have some serious issues with some crime, especially in the youth crime” and that many people who responded agreed. Neville noted the petition also provides the Conservatives an opportunity to build the party’s database of potential members and donors, all of it done on the public’s dime. Runciman, a former Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP and cabinet minister who has a long history of calling for tougher youth sentences, was frank about his decision to target McGuinty’s riding. “I campaigned there in the last federal election for the Conservative candidate and he did fairly well actually, given the historical nature of the riding,” said Runciman, referring to runner-up Elie Salibi. Runciman received only about 200 names on the petitions and some “blistering negative emails” criticizing him for sending the literature out. “There was not really much of a reaction,” said Runciman, who told the Star it was the “Conservative campaign folks” that put him up to it. McGuinty said the Conservatives have a history since forming a minority government in 2006 of “taking tax dollars and justify spending them in any way in order to achieve their neo-Conservative agenda. It’s that simple.” “That’s what’s going on right now in Ottawa. That’s what your readers have to know. It is out of control and it’s all because Harper wants his majority,” he said.
Read more about:We’re going to cut straight to the chase. Modern browsers can animate four things really cheaply: position, scale, rotation and opacity. If you animate anything else, it’s at your own risk, and the chances are you’re not going to hit a silky smooth 60fps.
Take a look at this side-by-side slow motion video of the same animation:
One is done with transforms, the other isn’t. You can see what a difference it makes, so let’s take look at why that is.
From DOM to Pixels in DevTools
When you use the Chrome DevTools timeline you should see a pattern similar to this:
Chrome DevTools frame mode. The higher up the waterfall you start, the more work the browser does.
The process that the browser goes through is pretty simple: calculate the styles that apply to the elements (Recalculate Style), generate the geometry and position for each element (Layout), fill out the pixels for each element into layers (Paint Setup and Paint) and draw the layers out to screen (Composite Layers).
To achieve silky smooth animations you need to avoid work, and the best way to do that is to only change properties that affect compositing -- transform and opacity. The higher up you start on the timeline waterfall the more work the browser has to do to get pixels on to the screen.
Animating Layout Properties
When you change elements, the browser may need to do a layout, which involves calculating the geometry (position and size) of all the elements affected by the change. If you change one element, the geometry of other elements may need to be recalculated. For example, if you change the width of the <html> element any of its children may be affected. Due to the way elements overflow and affect one another, changes further down the tree can sometimes result in layout calculations all the way back up to the top.
The larger the tree of visible elements, the longer it takes to perform layout calculations, so you must take pains to avoid animating properties that trigger layout.
Here are the most popular CSS properties that, when changed, trigger layout:
Styles that affect layout
width height padding margin display border-width border top position font-size float text-align overflow-y font-weight overflow left font-family line-height vertical-align right clear white-space bottom min-height
Source: http://goo.gl/lPVJY6
Animating Paint Properties
Changing an element may also trigger painting, and the majority of painting in modern browsers is done in software rasterizers. Depending on how the elements in your app are grouped into layers, other elements besides the one that changed may also need to be painted.
There are many properties that will trigger a paint, but here are the most popular:
Styles that affect paint
color border-style visibility background text-decoration background-image background-position background-repeat outline-color outline outline-style border-radius outline-width box-shadow background-size
Source: http://goo.gl/lPVJY6
If you animate any of the above properties the element(s) affected are repainted, and the layers they belong to are uploaded to the GPU. On mobile devices this is particularly expensive because CPUs are significantly less powerful than their desktop counterparts, meaning that the painting work takes longer; and the bandwidth between the CPU and GPU is limited, so texture uploads take a long time.
Animating Composite Properties
There is one CSS property, however, that you might expect to cause paints that sometimes does not: opacity. Changes to opacity can be handled by the GPU during compositing by simply painting the element texture with a lower alpha value. For that to work, however, the element must be the only one in the layer. If it has been grouped with other elements then changing the opacity at the GPU would (incorrectly) fade them too.
In Blink and WebKit browsers a new layer is created for any element which has a CSS transition or animation on opacity, but many developers use translateZ(0) or translate3d(0,0,0) to manually force layer creation. Forcing layers to be created ensures both that the layer is painted and ready-to-go as soon as the animation starts (creating and painting a layer is a non-trivial operation and can delay the start of your animation), and that there's no sudden change in appearance due to antialiasing changes. Promoting layers should done sparingly, though; you can overdo it and having too many layers can cause jank.
Changing the transform of an element boils down to changes to its position, rotation or scale. Often, position is animated by setting the left and top properties. The problem is, as shown above, left and top both trigger layout operations, and that's expensive. The better solution is to use a translate on the element, which does not trigger layout.
Imperative vs Declarative Animations
Developers often have to decide if they will animate with JavaScript (imperative) or CSS (declarative). There are pros and cons to each, so let’s take a look:
Imperative
The main pro of imperative animations happens to also be its main con: it’s running in JavaScript on the browser’s main thread. The main thread is already busy with other JavaScript, style calculations, layout and painting. Often there is thread contention. This substantially increases the chance of missing animation frames, which is the very last thing you want.
Animating in JavaScript does give you a lot of control: starting, pausing, reversing, interrupting and cancelling are trivial. Some effects, like parallax scrolling, can only be achieved in JavaScript.
Declarative
The alternative approach is to write your transitions and animations in CSS. The primary advantage is that the browser can optimize the animation. It can create layers if necessary, and run some operations off the main thread which, as you have seen, is a good thing. The major con of CSS animations for many is that they lack the expressive power of JavaScript animations. It is very difficult to combine animations in a meaningful way, which means authoring animations gets complex and error-prone.
Looking to the future
As web standards evolve, some of the limitations around animation will go away. There is a proposal by Google’s Ian Vollick that investigates the concept of allowing JavaScript animations via workers, providing the animation does not trigger layout or style recalculations.
For those interested in a more declarative approach to animation there is the Web Animations specification, which Jake Archibald has written about extensively.
Conclusion
Animating well is core to a great web experience. You should always look to avoid animating properties that will trigger layout or paints, both of which are expensive and may lead to skipped frames. Declarative animations are preferable to imperative since the browser has the opportunity to optimize ahead of time.
Today transforms are the best properties to animate because the GPU can assist with the heavy lifting, so where you can limit your animations to these, do so.
opacity
translate
rotate
scale
In the future there may be new ways of animating that allow you to be as expressive as you can be with JavaScript, but without the associated main thread cost; or as optimized as CSS animations but without the restrictions, but until then plan your animations for a silky smooth experience.Most powerful hurricane in history of region, entire islands turned to rubble overnight, earthquakes, desertification, rising sea levels that are set to swallow entire islands and big tracts of Florida, chemical and nuclear power plants exploding and contaminating the land, water and air forever, a China that's too polluted to grow food to feed its people.
Shit is hitting the fan and fast. These natural and created disasters are just the beginning, things are gonna get a whole lot worse going forward into 2018. Scientists have been shitting themselves for years, saying there's no way civilization can survive what we've wrought on ourselves.
Canada about to massively increase its fossil fuel footprint. America pulling out of the Paris accord in favor of a return to coal. New Zealand's water bodies irreversibly polluted by the dairy industry.. The list of humanity's crimes against nature goes on and on.
So let's think about all this in terms of how it will affect:
a) Neoliberalism, globalization and NATO expansionism in a world where survivable land is at a minimum
b) Anarchism / communism / socialism / whatever the fuck label you apply to yourself (when the world is burning around us, semantics are meaningless and there will be no workers or 'rights' left to safeguard, and no state to seize/destroy).
c) Continued life on this planet, or not.
Environmental collapse will quickly lead to the collapse of the economy. This is a given, the markets are fragile as fuck to any kind of disruption, let alone worldwide chaos. With the economy, go the jobs, and then everyone from the middle class and down will be on equal footing; broke as fuck and desperate to keep their families alive.
Migration will be rampant. People will need to get away from the hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts and floods and they'll flood to northern lands in the masses.
As we're already seeing, these northern lands (the same ones that have caused the climate crisis, I should note) are scrambling to shut down immigration, those efforts will increase when climate refugees grow. Already 21.5 million people have been displaced due to global warming. That is set to surge to half a billion.
The nation states could make a mad rush to seize land that won't be as badly affected by climate change. Especially land that used to be covered in ice that has now melted. They may firebomb countries, or even their own states just to kill potential climate refugees off before they can migrate.
The rich will barricade themselves into the few lands that are predicted to survive climate change - they've already been busy buying up all that safe land e.g. San Francisco.
The panic to get to survivable land will see the biggest attempted migration in history, and you can expect the Western nations to meet these refugees that scamble to get into their countries with deadly force.
But with the economy in shambles and no taxes coming in (in countries already deeply in debt), the nation states are going to be coasting on their grain reserves. When the grain reserves are depleted and even the rich, the police and the national guard start to starve, the state will no longer serve any purpose and it will quietly go away.
Environment, capitalism, state, falling like legos in that order.
That's when we come in.
People are desperate, millions to billions have died because of neoliberal capitalist greed. Centrism will be a thing of the past - desperate people don't sit on the fence. They'll either go far right or far left.
No state, no capital, people depending on mutual aid to survive... We'll have worldwide anarchy, and we didn't even need to raise a finger to bring it.
But then the work starts...
Fascism will be everywhere. The reactionary preppers, the militias... The far right have been preparing for this chaos for decades. They will have more power than anyone, and they'll use it to build white armies, to grow food - likely using slave labor, and attempt to make their countries into white ethnostates. People will join up with them to survive. Racist attacks in the northern climates will surge. White militias will seize food, land and supplies from PoC.
The groups with the biggest armouries will control the food, and the groups with the food will control the people.
The fear of refugees will be 100 times worse than it is now when people are literally fighting for survival, so anyone even slightly foreign looking will be targeted.
So my question is, how do we as radical leftists or post leftists or whatever the fuck you call yourselves, come out of this whole mess still breathing? How do we convince these scared and desperate and murderous people to reject the powerful fascist militias that are handing out food to their children, and instead join us in building communities, because Kropotkin / Marx / whatever dead white guy wrote this book 100 years ago? How do we convince people that are suffering and dying under anarchy, that anarchy is the way forward if only we do it right?
And if we can't, and fascism takes over, and we learn nothing from the collapse of mega industrial civilization and turn the coal plants and oil rigs back on to aid in spreading fascism to whatever unscorched pockets of land are left for whites to conquer and scorch, does our species even deserve to survive?For a relatively new poker site, like SealsWithClubs, it’s not uncommon discover that new features and upgraded software are what the customer needs. The SealsWithClubs software development team, know as Seal Team 6, has been working hard to implement changes and upgrade. For now though, it seems like Bitcoin poker enthusiasts will have to wait till at least the end of Q1 before seeing some of the new features they’ve been waiting for.
SealsWithClubs chairman Bryan Micon responded to some questions regarding the new software and he explains the following.
Q1 Software Release Might Be Too Optimistic
“We’ve made a few major technological advancements recently, due to security issues. Because of that our new software development is not going as fast as I wanted it to,” Micon said as, from his personal standpoint, things aren’t moving as fast as he wants.
“I just want all the updates right now, and while that’s not possible, we are doing what is called a software sprint.”
“We are working on our software sprint during most of Q1. During the next eight weeks we’re trying to make far advancements in our software. Something like this never exactly goes according to plan when you have a poker site; at least for our group it has shown that this is very hard to plan,” Micon said.
“Our company is run by a group of guys so smart that, if we can pull off building the proper infrastructure, we’ll be able to quickly change this thing. Right now, and we have been for the last couple of months, we’re going ham on our infrastructure. It turns out that creating poker site infrastructure isn’t necessarily easy. I believe the team has done an amazing job at this while also performing major security upgrades as needed.”
The SealsWithClubs poker lobby, image courtesy of PokerScout.com
SwC A Real Contender For The US Facing Poker Market Space?
Online poker has recently been legalized in Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware giving US players hope in these dark online poker days. SealsWithClubs is available for players in the US, and we’ve looked at how they stack up these new and similarly sized websites that are likely to have a much bigger budget for software development and marketing, but have recently been launched.
The big advantage SealsWithClubs has is that it accepts players from all over the world. Playing for Bitcoins, or other crypto currencies, is not illegal in the United States and therefor SealsWithClubs operates in a unique market space. Despite accepting players from all over the world SealsWithClubs largely depends on US players when looking at their peak traffic time.
According to PokerScout, the online poker traffic news website, SealsWithClubs has a 110 seven day player average. The two sites that outrank SwC in the US are Party Poker New Jersey (220), WSOP.com New Jersey (200) while WSOP.com Nevada (110) shows similar numbers. For now SwC outranks Ultimate Poker Nevada (85) and Ultimate Poker New Jersey (16). Bear in mind that these sites don’t offer the option to play for Bitcoin. The next closest Bitcoin poker site in terms of traffic is PocketRocketsCasino with a 10-player seven-day average.
Because of these numbers it’s easy to overestimate the size of SealsWithClubs, even though a software upgrade would very positively affect their potential for 2014.
A reaffirming statistic for SealsWithClubs is the fact that after about 48-hours of downtime, because of a DDOS attack, they immediately regained their usual traffic. Peak traffic in the five days leading up the DDOS attack was 248 compared to 261 in the days following the attack.
An Anonymous Software Development Team
Little is known about the industry-leading Bitcoin poker site that, besides Micon and a few others, remains anonymous. During a recent AMA on Reddit, due to the password hack situation, a user called swc_dr_huh responded to SealsWithClub’s software priorities and we wondered if there might just be one person working on these new changes.
Micon responded to our question about who is working on implementing these changes. The man known as Dr. Huh stated that his priorities for SealsWithClubs were listed as following: Finish rewriting the site, server stability improvements, disconnect problems, late registration for tournaments and protocol changes. You can read his full post here.
“I can clarify some things about Dr. Huh. Just like Satoshi there are a handful of people who like to remain anonymous. It may seem like Dr. Huh is one person, but it’s better to see him as a group, led by one person. We call our software development team ‘Seal Team 6’ and Dr. Huh is a division within ST6,” Micon said.
“There are eight people in our software development team who work in a cloud office. The communication channels vary from day to day and it’s essentially a decentralized group.”
New Features
“We know the features that we need to build and we know what people want. The people want new games, Open Faced Chinese, late registration and a more robust software package to play Bitcoin poker on. We are getting there faster than we have been and we should pick up speed in the next eight weeks,” Micon said.
“Me personally, I’m most excited about late registration as that ups the prize pools. I’m a poker player and action junkie at heart, so I just want to see the biggest Bitcoin prize pools as possible and try to win them,” Micon said.
“Open Faced Chinese poker and Mixed Games are tied for number one when looking at things I want to happen on SealsWithClubs. We’re hoping to finish these within Q1, but we’re not sure if that’s going to happen for OFC. We might have to push that back to Q2, because of the series of security issues that had to come first and foremost, before even considering a new game. You have to make sure the ship doesn’t have any holes in it before you start sailing,” Micon said.
A SealsWithClubs table screenshot, courtesy of PokerSout.com
SealsWithClubs Remains Bitcoin Poker’s Best Option
Big poker websites become big, grow and maintain their level of success because of key aspects. Smoothly operating software is one of the main factors for the aforementioned, besides things like adequate customer support, a safe environment for your money and plenty of players to play against. For now SealsWithClubs keeps diligently working to become an even stronger force within the Bitcoin poker segment.
If SealsWithClubs can be a long-term rival of other US facing Bitcoin, and ultimately centralized currency clients, is a question waiting to be answered. We must wait and see what the new software brings, and for now SealsWithClubs has our praise.
All in all this website might seem like a quirky platform for poker nerds and crypto currency enthusiasts, but when it’s all said and done SealsWithClubs does things right.
Despite their struggles, cashing out has never been a problem, players have been correctly refunded during the DDOS attack and nobody was financially harmed because of the password hack last year. If SealsWithClubs releases its new software in a timely fashion, and lives up to the promises, it may very well beat the Party Poker New Jersey and WSOP.com’s daily peak traffic.The greater insecurity of many people's lives in the current crisis renders the issue more perplexing. In order to examine how a more generous welfare state might yet be pursued in this unpromising context, I describe trends in inequality, poverty and unemployment; present new data on attitudes, media discussion and political platforms; and discuss theoretical approaches from social psychologists, political scientists, sociologists and other commentators.
This article starts out from a puzzle. During the past thirty years, incomes have grown more unequal, a small group at the top has captured a much greater share of resources, and poverty has increased. Despite this, most people are markedly less likely to want government to redistribute income or tackle poverty and are less sympathetic towards those without jobs.
Inequality, poverty and unemployment
Economic growth in the UK during most of the post‐war period has led to higher living standards and the rise of a mass‐consumption society. During the period up to the mid‐1970s incomes rose at roughly the same rate for most population groups and rather more slowly for those at the top, leading to a slight overall convergence. Since then rates of increase have tended to diverge, with the most rapid growth among the highest income groups and those at the bottom falling behind.
This pattern may be summarised in terms of three overall trends:
For the mass of the population, economic inequalities have tended to ‘fan out’ as relatively higher income and lower income groups move away from the median (Figure 1).
For small minorities of the very rich (the top 1 or 0.1 per cent), incomes and wealth have grown very much more rapidly than those of the mass: the top 10 per cent have increased their share of total incomes by a third and the top 5 per cent by a half, while the top 0.1 per cent have improved theirs by a factor of three (Figure 2).
For those at the very bottom, poverty shows a different pattern—initially stabilising, then rising very rapidly in the mid and late 1980s, followed again by stability and a slight fall in the early 2000s, a rapid rise from 2006 to 2007 and a slight decline in 2010–11, as wages fell faster than benefits (Figure 3).
Figure 1 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Income inequality for the mass of the population, 1961–2010 (£ per week before housing costs) Source: IFS
Figure 2 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Top incomes as% of total incomes (1985–2010) Source: World Top Incomes Database
Figure 3 Open in figure viewerPowerPoint Percentage in poverty after housing costs (1979–2011) Source: IFS
Inequalities in wealth also appear to have grown, although data is imprecise. Personal wealth declared for tax purposes roughly doubled from 4 to 8 per cent of incomes between 1977 and 2007, and the holdings of the most wealthy increased much faster. Dorling and colleagues estimate that the percentage of ‘exclusively wealthy’ households (those who use only private schools and health care, and own more than two properties and other high‐value items such as boats) rose from 3.5 to 5.6 per cent between 1990 and 2000, while the proportion of poor households grew from 21.3 to 27 per cent. Wealthy and poor households became increasingly segregated.1
The trend toward inequality in the UK has proceeded more rapidly than that elsewhere in Europe, but slightly behind that in the US and in some large Asian countries. Between 1999 and 2006 a range of measures focused on lower income groups (especially tax credits, the minimum wage, housing benefits andthe guaranteed minimum pension), together with occupational pensions, somewhat reduced the incidence of poverty.2
Commentators have identified four main drivers of the trend to economic inequality: first, the increasing return to skill, resulting from technical advances, higher education levels and greater competitive pressures on the less skilled in a more globalised labour market; second, the trend since the late 1970s for an increasing proportion of the value added in national economies each year to go to capital and a smaller proportion to employees; third, the shift towards ‘winner‐takes‐all’ politics as increasingly wealthy minorities are able to exert more power over distribution and tax policies and gear up inequalities; and fourth, the high positional rents extracted by small groups in areas such as finance.3 These drivers may operate simultaneously. Opinion differs on their relative importance.
Contributory factors include the rise of the service sector, which replaced the adequate working‐class incomes available from skilled and semi‐skilled manual work with a much broader distribution between low‐paid (retail, personal care, call‐centre) and high‐skilled (financial, legal, education and health service) work; population ageing, which reinforces the lifetime component in wealth inequalities; the trend for women to move into full‐time work and to marry men in the same income band, compounding the effect of labour market inequalities; and the decline in taxes on capital and at the top end as governments seek to attract investment and skilled labour.
The 2007–8 crisis produced a real fall in GDP of some 6 per cent, of which about half had been made up by June 2012. Current OBR projections indicate that the rest will not be recouped until 2016–7. The IFS estimates that this will translate into a 7.1 per cent fall in net household incomes at the median between 2009–10 and 2014–5, with a slight narrowing for the mass, a fall in benefit incomes for unemployed families, disabled people and single parents and an increase of some 400,000 in the number of children in poverty.4 Benefits were uprated in line with prices so that they outstripped earnings in 2010–11, and the poverty statistic fell. This effect will be temporary as reforms cut benefits and target them more strictly. The impact at the very top is unclear. Of the long‐term drivers of inequality mentioned above, at least the first two will continue, and the established trends toward greater inequality and higher poverty will persist.
Unemployment remained relatively low during the period of growth in the 1950s and 1960s, rising in the crises of the late 1960s and mid‐1970s and then reaching a peak of 13 per cent in 1983 (using the IMF definition so that measurement is not affected by the various redefinitions during the period). It then fell to about 7 per cent by 1990, rising in the 1993 crisis to over 10 per cent, followed by a gradual decline to below 5 per cent by 2005. It accelerated during the 2007–8 crisis to exceed 8 per cent by 2010. It is not expected to fall below this level until 2014–5 at the very earliest. Many commentators believe current levels do not yet reflect the full severity of recent recessions. The proportion of the labour force unable to find full‐time work and involuntarily working part‐time more than doubled between September 2005 and June 2012, going from 8 per cent to 18 per cent.5Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mason Raymond was angry during the summer, and it turns out he had a good reason to be.
Raymond didn't doubt that he still could be an NHL player, even a top-six NHL player, but no one in a position of power was telling him the same thing. An unrestricted free agent, Raymond couldn't get a guaranteed contract before training camp began, a likely victim of the salary cap going down by approximately $6 million from the 2012-13 season.
"There are a couple of routes you could take in situations like that, but I believed in myself and my capabilities," Raymond told NHL.com. "To be honest, I had a pretty good year last year and that was a big part of it. There are a lot of what-ifs but I focused on what I had to do."
ROSEN'S MAILBAG Do the Oilers stay the course or do you see a major shake-up trade-wise? -- @chrisbutton19 They shouldn't stay status quo, that's for sure. There has been talk, or at least rumors, of the Oilers looking to move Nail Yakupov to get a franchise goalie. The guy always mentioned is Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller, but he has a modified no-trade clause and there's no guarantee that he'd be willing to go to Edmonton. Yakupov is interesting trade bait, but should the Oilers give up on him so quickly? He might just need time to figure out how to play in the NHL. He just turned 20 last month. It would be a mistake to trade him. Ales Hemsky, who is in the final year of his contract, is another possible trade target. Hemsky, though, could be a rental closer to the NHL Trade Deadline if the Oilers don't get back in the race soon. Is there a chance that the Rangers will send Marc Staal to the Carolina Hurricanes? -- @BuyMeABurrito Brothers don't always have to play together in the NHL. The Hurricanes have Eric, Jordan and Jared Staal, but I'd be stunned if the Rangers gave them Marc. He is signed through next season and carries a reasonable $3.975 million salary-cap charge. I think he's the Rangers' best defenseman. He plays 20 minutes a game in all situations. He's even getting better. Due to his multiple concussions, do the Rangers now have to consider buying out Rick Nash in the offseason? -- @BAbassAle They do not have to consider that now, and remember that teams are prohibited from using a compliance buyout on injured players, so if Nash's concussion problems extend into the offseason the Rangers likely won't have the option. Nash needs time to recover. It's way too early to be thinking about what the team will do with him in the offseason. Which goalie can the Islanders obtain through another blockbuster trade and would also make them a serious contender? -- @DallonHorch Ryan Miller should have been the guy they got from Buffalo instead of Thomas Vanek, but there may have been behind-the-scenes talk that the public is not privy to that made Miller to the Islanders impossible. It's hard to find a proven No. 1 goalie if you don't draft and develop him. There are some guys who are backups now that could become options for the Islanders at the NHL Trade Deadline, but they may have to wait until the offseason, when Miller, Jonas Hiller and Jaroslav Halak could be available as unrestricted free agents. If you have a question you want answered in Over the Boards, send it in a tweet to @drosennhl. The Mailbag will be a weekly feature here.
He trained and waited. He stayed ready and optimistic that someone was going to call, that his NHL career would continue.
"You want to prove to everybody you're still worthy of a job in the NHL and make it look like other teams maybe should have grabbed you," Raymond said.
He's doing that now.
Raymond finally got his chance when Maple Leafs general manager Dave Nonis brought him to training camp on a professional tryout contract. Nonis drafted Raymond (No. 51) in 2005, when he was the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks. They trust each other, and so far Raymond has made Nonis' decision look like a genius move.
He was the Maple Leafs' leading scorer in the preseason with five points in five games and that earned him a one-year, $1 million contract. His production has carried over into the regular season. Raymond has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 15 games. He has helped Toronto win 10 of its first 15 games while playing in a top-six role.
"As the summer progressed I thought I would go somewhere and find a new home for my family, and that wasn't the case," Raymond said. "I had to go in on a PTO, but it was an opportunity. It's a process. You go through those steps, and I believe in myself. Dave Nonis was exceptionally good to me and still is. He was a big part of why I went to Toronto."
Raymond said the mental part of changing homes and teams has been easy to deal with because it has been good for him. He likes having new teammates, a new coach and new surroundings. He feels re-energized him after six seasons with the Canucks, and he isn't surprised with how productive he has been so far.
"I totally believed I could do this, whether it was going in on a PTO or going in somewhere on a contract," Raymond said. "People don't like change, but change can be a good thing and it's been a great thing for myself and my family. I'm so grateful to be in Toronto to get the opportunity.
"Change was something that was needed and I'm glad it has happened to me."
Raymond, though, won't allow himself to feel comfortable. It was a tough summer for him and his pride, but he learned that nothing is guaranteed in the NHL, no matter how good you think you are.
"I've learned a lot of things playing |
that are difficult to get, especially if everyone else seems to be doing it. Nutty behavior becomes commonplace when enough people are following along. It’s only afterwards that we stand back and shake our heads and wonder what came over us.There was not a lot of Windows 10 Mobile news at BUILD 2016, but the one stand-out session was the one specific to the OS – Continuum for Phones.
It was also there where we could actually see the effort Microsoft has been putting into developing the OS.
The presentation revealed 4 new features:
Azure Remote Apps (5 minute mark), which would host specific application in the cloud on Azure. This does not appear as if it will be available to consumers, which is a pity as it appears the solution is designed to be almost transparent to users, with icons for the app being pinned directly to the windows 10 mobile start screen. Project Continuum for Phones to Windows 10 (8 min mark), which lets users connect to a Windows 10 PC and use its screen and keyboard as if its a dumb terminal. The ability to use the Xbox controller to control games on your Windows phone (15 min mark). Developers will have to adapt their apps to this, but it is not believed to be difficult to do. Laptop dock for Continuum for phones (16:30 mark) which would be a dumb terminal for Windows Phones which would allow users to use a full screen and keyboard on the go. Phones would be connected via USB-C and USB peripherals could be connected to the dock directly.
See some relevant screen shots below.
Gallery
Other Windows 10 Mobile innovations we expect is hand-off features in Windows 10 which would let users make and answer phone calls from their desktop, improvements to the Notification Centre, and of course the elusive Interactive Live Tiles.
Is that enough for our readers? Let us know below.The chatty, frenetic dispatch hubs of neighborhood car services are getting quieter.
When the phone rings at High Class Limousine and Car Service in the Bronx, the conversation comes and goes in fleeting bursts as the dispatcher turns not to an old two-way radio but to computer screens that silently blink with color-coded letters and numbers tracking the fleet of cars and their calls.
Somewhere on the road, an app on a driver’s smartphone lights up with an address to go to. A fading corner of the industry lives another day.
Phone calls are fewer and fewer as customers shift to smartphone apps. Popularized by the ride-hailing company Uber, apps are being adopted, if not entirely embraced, by more and more of the local car services that have long been as much a part of city neighborhoods as the local parish or the corner bodega.
High Class began using a smartphone app in December, and since then, a small but growing number of ride requests have been made through it.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) - The City of St. Louis is paying roughly $500,000 to move a north city home a few blocks to make way for the NGA's new home.
“Once we looked to see what it would cost us to move her, and what it would cost us to actually pay for getting the home and relocating her, it was roughly equivalent.” said Otis Williams is with the St. Louis Development Corporation. He calls it a win-win situation.
Homeowner Charlesetta Taylor is happy and the eminent domain court judges would have given her around the same reimbursement. However, she would not have saved her family home that's been around since 1945. A home roughly 1600 sq feet costs approximately $260,000 in this area.
This is just one example of what is happening in eminent domain court. Some residents are receiving about three times the appraised value of their home. The city is well on its way to handing over the 97 acres to the Army Corps Engineers in January of 2018.
“We now own all property, we have relocated all of the people who live here with the exception of two businesses, and moving Ms. Taylor's home to it’s new location,” said Otis Williams.
Williams also says keeping the NGA in St. Louis with even more jobs coming and a brand new facility will generate $2.5 million in tax revenue each year.
“It was not about trying to push people out and make them uncomfortable to relocate, we want them to continue with their life,” said Otis Williams.Albert Schweitzer, OM (14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of Justification by Faith as secondary.
He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life",[2] becoming the eighth Frenchman to be awarded that prize. His philosophy was expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, in the part of French Equatorial Africa which is now Gabon. As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ Reform Movement (Orgelbewegung).
Nationality [ edit ]
Schweitzer was born in the province of Alsace, which was a part of the Holy Roman Empire up to the Thirty Year War. In 1648, with the Treaty of Westphalia, the Habsburgs renounced their claims to its territory, when it became a part of France for the first time. In 1871, through the Treaty of Frankfurt, Alsace became a part of the German Empire ("Reichsland"), becoming French a second time in 1919, after Germany's defeat during the First World War. Schweitzer considered himself French,[3][additional citation(s) needed] but wrote mostly in German. His mother-tongue was Alsatian, a Low Alemannic German dialect, although he was also fluent in French and High-German.
Education [ edit ]
Albert Schweitzer's birthplace, Kaysersberg
Schweitzer was born in Kaysersberg, Haute Alsace, the son of Louis Schweitzer and Adèle Schillinger. He spent his childhood in the Alsatian village of Gunsbach, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL, taught him how to play music.[6] The tiny village became home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS).[7] The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose.
Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German language. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893 with Eugène Munch, organist at the Protestant cathedral, who inspired Schweitzer with his profound enthusiasm for the music of German composer Richard Wagner.[9] In 1893 he played for the French organist Charles-Marie Widor (at Saint-Sulpice, Paris), for whom Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music contained a mystic sense of the eternal. Widor, deeply impressed, agreed to teach Schweitzer without fee, and a great and influential friendship thus began.
From 1893 Schweitzer studied Protestant theology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University in Strasbourg. There he also received instruction in piano and counterpoint from professor Gustav Jacobsthal, and associated closely with Ernest Munch, the brother of his former teacher, organist of St William church, who was also a passionate admirer of J.S. Bach's music. Schweitzer served his one-year compulsory military service in 1894. Schweitzer saw many operas of Richard Wagner in Strasbourg (under Otto Lohse) and in 1896 he managed to afford a visit to the Bayreuth Festival to see Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal, which deeply impressed him. In 1898 he went back to Paris to write a PhD dissertation on The Religious Philosophy of Kant at the Sorbonne, and to study in earnest with Widor. Here he often met with the elderly Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. He also studied piano at that time with Marie Jaëll.[12] In 1899, Schweitzer spent the summer semester at the University of Berlin and eventually obtained his theology degree in University of Strasbourg.[13][14][15][16] He published his PhD thesis at the University of Tübingen in 1899.
In 1905, Schweitzer began his study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, culminating in the degree of M.D. in 1913.[13][16]
Music [ edit ]
Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs. With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899 he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.
The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète, written in French and published in 1905. There was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it.[19] The result was two volumes (J. S. Bach), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911. Ernst Cassirer, a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach.[21] During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner, then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf.[22] Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried.[23] He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst, who became a good friend.[24]
His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906,[25] republished with an appendix on the state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century Orgelbewegung, which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further than Schweitzer had intended. In 1909 he addressed the Third Congress of the International Society of Music at Vienna on the subject. Having circulated a questionnaire among players and organ-builders in several European countries, he produced a very considered report.[26] This provided the basis for the International Regulations for Organ Building. He envisaged instruments in which the French late-romantic full-organ sound should work integrally with the English and German romantic reed pipes, and with the classical Alsace Silbermann organ resources and baroque flue pipes, all in registers regulated (by stops) to access distinct voices in fugue or counterpoint capable of combination without loss of distinctness: different voices singing the same music together.
Schweitzer also studied piano under Isidor Philipp, head of the piano department at the Paris Conservatory.
In 1905 Widor and Schweitzer were among the six musicians who founded the Paris Bach Society, a choir dedicated to performing J.S. Bach's music, for whose concerts Schweitzer took the organ part regularly until 1913. He was also appointed organist for the Bach Concerts of the Orféo Català at Barcelona, Spain, and often travelled there for that purpose. He and Widor collaborated on a new edition of Bach's organ works, with detailed analysis of each work in three languages (English, French, German). Schweitzer, who insisted that the score should show Bach's notation with no additional markings, wrote the commentaries for the Preludes and Fugues, and Widor those for the Sonatas and Concertos: six volumes were published in 1912–14. Three more, to contain the Chorale Preludes with Schweitzer's analyses, were to be worked on in Africa, but these were never completed, perhaps because for him they were inseparable from his evolving theological thought.
On departure for Lambaréné in 1913 he was presented with a pedal piano, a piano with pedal attachments to operate like an organ pedal-keyboard.[28] Built especially for the tropics, it was delivered by river in a huge dug-out canoe to Lambaréné, packed in a zinc-lined case. At first he regarded his new life as a renunciation of his art, and fell out of practice: but after some time he resolved to study and learn by heart the works of Bach, Mendelssohn, Widor, César Franck, and Max Reger systematically. It became his custom to play during the lunch hour and on Sunday afternoons. Schweitzer's pedal piano was still in use at Lambaréné in 1946.[30] According to a visitor, Dr. Gaine Cannon, of Balsam Grove, N.C., the old, dilapidated piano-organ was still being played by Dr. Schweitzer in 1962, and stories told that "his fingers were still lively" on the old instrument at 88 years of age.
Sir Donald Tovey dedicated his conjectural completion of Bach's The Art of Fugue to Schweitzer.
Schweitzer's recordings of organ-music, and his innovative recording technique, are described below.
One of his notable pupils was conductor and composer Hans Münch.
Theology [ edit ]
Saint-Nicolas, Strasbourg
In 1899 Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate, and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the following year he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment was made permanent.[note 1]
In 1906 he published Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung ("History of Life-of-Jesus research"). This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as The Quest of the Historical Jesus. Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: but this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931 he published Mystik des Apostels Paulus ("The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle"); a second edition was published in 1953.
The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906) [ edit ]
In The Quest, Schweitzer reviewed all former work on the "historical Jesus" back to the late 18th century. He showed that the image of Jesus had changed with the times and outlooks of the various authors and gave his own synopsis and interpretation of the previous century's findings. He maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism. Schweitzer writes: The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven upon earth and died to give his work its final consecration never existed. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in a historical garb. This image has not been destroyed from outside; it has fallen to pieces...[36] He observes the many verses describing important events that never took place and technically, now, never can take place.
The concept that Christianity started as a Jewish apocalyptic movement is evidenced by the teachings of the historical Jesus concerning the end of days. Not only did he preach he would rise from the grave, but that he would also ascend to heaven and one day return to judge and rule over the world, saying that no one, including himself, knew the exact time of his return, but it would be before the end of the end of the first generation of followers. In The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Schweitzer verifies and cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfillment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers.[37] He noted that in the gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of a "tribulation", with his "coming in the clouds with great power and glory" (St. Mark), and states when it will happen: "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled" (St. Matthew, 24:34) or, "have taken place" (Luke 21:32). Similarly, in 1st Peter 1:20, "Christ, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you," as well as "But the end of all things is at hand," (1 Peter 4:7) and "Surely, I come quickly." (Revelation 22:20).
Schweitzer observes that Jesus very specifically states "not seal up the words of the prophecy" and promises that some of his listeners, as well as the high priest at his trial, would be alive to see him return to the Earth. He says, "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3). St. Paul spoke of the last times, "Brethren, the time is short, it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none," (1 Corinthians 7:29) and "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son," (Hebrews 1:2). Also, "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16:28) as well as "until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power," (Mark 9:1) and "till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27) reinforce this prophecy. Schweitzer observes that St. Paul, urgently, believed in the immediacy of the Second Coming of Jesus.
Schweitzer insists that it is unreasonable for modern followers of Jesus to believe that "coming quickly", "near", and "soon" could mean hundreds, much less thousands, of years of the faithful waiting for a second coming. His evidence is verses "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near." (Revelation 1:3) "And he said to me, 'These words are faithful and true'; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place." as well as "And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book." He references "And he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near" (Revelation 22:6, 7, 10, 12). "All these things shall come upon this generation" (Matthew 23:36) as well. Schweitzer's observations are in stark contrast to many modern variants of Christian belief, those ignoring these verses. Schweitzer concludes that 1st-century Christian theology; first belief, originating in the lifetimes of the very first followers of Jesus, is totally incompatible with modern theology.
The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle The cover of Albert Schweitzer's
The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931) [ edit ]
In The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism: primitive and developed. Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal." Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions."
On the other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of Attis, Osiris, and Mithras. A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself." Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Hegel."
Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive mysticism and developed mysticism. Paul stands high above primitive mysticism, due to his intellectual writings, but never speaks of being one with God or being in God. Instead, he conceives of sonship to God as "mediated and effected by means of the mystical union with Christ." He summarizes Pauline mysticism as "being in Christ" rather than "being in God."
Paul's imminent eschatology (from his background in Jewish eschatology) causes him to believe that the kingdom of God has not yet come and that Christians are now living in the time of Christ. Christ-mysticism holds the field until God-mysticism becomes possible, which is in the near future. Therefore, Schweitzer argues that Paul is the only theologian who does not claim that Christians can have an experience of "being-in-God." Rather, Paul uses the phrase "being-in-Christ" to illustrate how Jesus is a mediator between the Christian community and God. Additionally, Schweitzer explains how the experience of "being-in-Christ" is not a "static partaking in the spiritual being of Christ, but as the real co-experiencing of His dying and rising again." The "realistic" partaking in the mystery of Jesus is only possible within the solidarity of the Christian community.
One of Schweitzer's major arguments in The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle is that Paul's mysticism, marked by his phrase "being in Christ", gives the clue to the whole of Pauline theology. Rather than reading justification by faith as the main topic of Pauline thought, which has been the most popular argument set forward by Martin Luther, Schweitzer argues that Paul's emphasis was on the mystical union with God by "being in Christ." Jaroslav Pelikan, in his Forward to The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, points out that:
the relation between the two doctrines was quite the other way around: 'The doctrine of the redemption, which is mentally appropriated through faith, is only a fragment from the more comprehensive mystical redemption-doctrine, which Paul has broken off and polished to give him the particular refraction which he requires.
Paul's "Realism" versus Hellenistic "Symbolism" [ edit ]
Schweitzer contrasts Paul's "realistic" dying and rising with Christ to the "symbolism" of Hellenism. Although Paul is widely influenced by Hellenistic thought, he is not controlled by it. Schweitzer explains that Paul focused on the idea of fellowship with the divine being through the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ rather than the "symbolic" Hellenistic act of becoming like Christ through deification. After baptism, the Christian is continually renewed throughout their lifetime due to participation in the dying and rising with Christ (most notably through the Sacraments). On the other hand, the Hellenist "lives on the store of experience which he acquired in the initiation" and is not continually affected by a shared communal experience.
Another major difference between Paul's "realism" and Hellenistic "symbolism" is the exclusive nature of the former and the inclusive nature of the latter. Schweitzer unabashedly emphasizes the fact that "Paul's thought follows predestinarian lines." He explains, "only the man who is elected thereto can enter into relation with God." Although every human being is invited to become a Christian, only those who have undergone the initiation into the Christian community through baptism can share in the "realistic" dying and rising with Christ.
Medicine [ edit ]
At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered the call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a medical doctor. However, the committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect". He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned his post and re-entered the university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching.
Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, The Psychiatric Study of Jesus. He defended Jesus′ mental health in it. In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.[46]
In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a medical doctor to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital.[47] In spring 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (Albert Schweitzer Hospital) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raft[48]) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné.
The catchment area of the Ogooé occupies most of Gabon. Lambaréné is marked.
In the first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometers to reach him. In addition to injuries, he was often treating severe sandflea and crawcraw sores, framboesia (yaws), tropical eating sores, heart disease, tropical dysentery, tropical malaria, sleeping sickness, leprosy, fevers, strangulated hernias, necrosis, abdominal tumours and chronic constipation and nicotine poisoning, while also attempting to deal with deliberate poisonings, fetishism and fear of cannibalism among the Mbahouin.
Schweitzer's wife, Helene Schweitzer, was an anaesthetist for surgical operations. After briefly occupying a shed formerly used as a chicken hut, in autumn 1913 they built their first hospital of corrugated iron, with two 13-foot rooms (consulting room and operating theatre) and with a dispensary and sterilising room in spaces below the broad eaves. The waiting room and dormitory (42 by 20 feet) were built, like native huts, of unhewn logs along a 30-yard path leading from the hospital to the landing-place. The Schweitzers had their own bungalow and employed as their assistant Joseph, a French-speaking Galoa (Mpongwe) who first came as a patient.[49][50]
After World War I broke out in July 1914, Schweitzer and his wife, German citizens in a French colony when the countries were at war, were put under supervision by the French military at Lambaréné, where Schweitzer continued his work.[51] In 1917, exhausted by over four years' work and by tropical anaemia, they were taken to Bordeaux and interned first in Garaison and then from March 1918 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. In July 1918, after being transferred to his home in Alsace, he was a free man again. At this time Schweitzer, born a German citizen, had his parents' former (pre-1871) French citizenship reinstated and became a French citizen. Then, working as medical assistant and assistant-pastor in Strasbourg, he advanced his project on the philosophy of civilization, which had occupied his mind since 1900. By 1920, his health recovering, he was giving organ recitals and doing other fund-raising work to repay borrowings and raise funds for returning to Gabon. In 1922, he delivered the Dale Memorial Lectures in Oxford University, and from these in the following year appeared Volumes I and II of his great work, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization and Civilization and Ethics. The two remaining volumes, on The World-View of Reverence for Life and a fourth on the Civilized State, were never completed.
In 1924 he returned without his wife, but with an Oxford undergraduate, Noel Gillespie, as assistant. Everything was heavily decayed, and building and doctoring progressed together for months. He now had salvarsan for treating syphilitic ulcers and framboesia. Additional medical staff, nurse (Miss) Kottmann and Dr. Victor Nessmann,[52] joined him in 1924, and Dr. Mark Lauterberg in 1925; the growing hospital was manned by native orderlies. Later Dr. Trensz replaced Nessmann, and Martha Lauterberg and Hans Muggenstorm joined them. Joseph also returned. In 1925-6, new hospital buildings were constructed, and also a ward for white patients, so that the site became like a village. The onset of famine and a dysentery epidemic created fresh problems. Much of the building work was carried out with the help of local people and patients. Drug advances for sleeping sickness included Germanin and tryparsamide. Trensz conducted experiments showing that the non-amoebic strain of dysentery was caused by a paracholera vibrion (facultative anaerobic bacteria). With the new hospital built and the medical team established, Schweitzer returned to Europe in 1927, this time leaving a functioning hospital at work.
He was there again from 1929 to 1932. Gradually his opinions and concepts became acknowledged, not only in Europe, but worldwide. There was a further period of work in 1935. In January 1937, he returned again to Lambaréné and continued working there throughout World War II.
Schweitzer's views [ edit ]
Colonialism [ edit ]
Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men" but also as a small recompense for the historic guilt of European colonizers:[53]
Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans?... If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible.
Schweitzer was one of colonialism's harshest critics. In a sermon that he preached on 6 January 1905, before he had told anyone of his plans to dedicate the rest of his life to work as a doctor in Africa, he said:
Our culture divides people into two classes: civilized men, a title bestowed on the persons who do the classifying; and others, who have only the human form, who may perish or go to the dogs for all the 'civilized men' care. Oh, this 'noble' culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights... I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic 'gifts', and everything else we have done... We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all... If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be 'Christian'—then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity—yours and mine—has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus' name, someone must step in to help in Jesus' name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless. And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night...
Paternalism [ edit ]
Schweitzer was nonetheless still sometimes accused of being paternalistic, colonialist, and racist in his attitude towards Africans, and in some ways his views did differ from that of many liberals and other critics of colonialism. For instance, he thought that Gabonese independence came too early, without adequate education or accommodation to local circumstances. Edgar Berman quotes Schweitzer as having said in 1960, "No society can go from the primeval directly to an industrial state without losing the leavening that time and an agricultural period allow."[56] Schweitzer believed dignity and respect must be extended to blacks, while also sometimes characterizing them as children.[57] He summarized his views on European-African relations by saying "With regard to the negroes, then, I have coined the formula: 'I am your brother, it is true, but your elder brother.'"[57] Chinua Achebe has criticized him for this characterization, though Achebe acknowledges that Schweitzer's use of the word "brother" at all was, for a European of the early 20th century, an unusual expression of human solidarity between Europeans and Africans.[58] Schweitzer eventually emended and complicated this notion with his later statement that "The time for speaking of older and younger brothers has passed".[59] Later in life he became more convinced that "modern civilization" was actually inferior to or the same as previous cultures in terms of morality.[citation needed]
American journalist John Gunther visited Lambaréné in the 1950s and reported Schweitzer's patronizing attitude towards Africans. He also noted the lack of Africans trained to be skilled workers.[60] By comparison, his contemporary Sir Albert Cook in Uganda had been training nurses and midwives since the 1910s and had published a manual of midwifery in the local language of Luganda.[61] After three decades in Africa, Schweitzer still depended on Europe for nurses.[62]
Hospital conditions [ edit ]
The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people.[63] Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé.[64]
The poor conditions of the hospital in Lambaréné were also famously criticized by Nigerian professor and novelist Chinua Achebe in his essay on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness: "In a comment which has often been quoted Schweitzer says: 'The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother.' And so he proceeded to build a hospital appropriate to the needs of junior brothers with standards of hygiene reminiscent of medical practice in the days before the germ theory of disease came into being."[58]
Reverence for life [ edit ]
Schweitzer in 1955
The keynote of Schweitzer's personal philosophy (which he considered to be his greatest contribution to mankind) was the idea of Reverence for Life ("Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben"). He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation.
In the Preface to Civilization and Ethics (1923) he argued that Western |
could happen in the next five years, Villinger says.
Being able to see reservoirs of HIV replication in living animals is a big deal. The system needs to be fine-tuned, and tested for safety, but if there’s progress, it would one day lead to a tool for monitoring the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapies, Villinger says. And in the meantime, it may give researchers a better idea of how HIV re-ignites in the body. "In my mind that might be the most important asset we can use this technology for," Villinger says. "It’s really trying to better define what happens where — and that’s really critical as we move forward in medicine."If given the choice, many of us would choose to stay young forever. Now, researchers at Salk Institute have found that drug candidate J147 has a host of unexpected anti-aging effects. The paper was published in the November 2015 edition of the journal Aging.The purpose of the J147 is to combat Alzheimer’s disease. About 3.8 million Americans currently experience symptoms of dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease accounts for 60 to 70 percent of those cases. Yet, despite the prevalence of the disease, the exact cause remains a mystery and there is no cure. The most a drug can do is slow the progression of the disease.One of the two major hallmarks of Alzheimer’s is the presence of amyloid plaque deposits in the brain. Alzheimer’s causes certain proteins, produced normally by the body, to abnormally divide. This, in turn, causes the presence of amyloid plaques. These plaques accumulate outside neurons and destroy them. "Most of the drugs developed in the past 20 years target the amyloid plaque deposits in the brain,” said David Schubert, senior author of the paper.The researchers decided to tackle the problem from another angle. Certain aspects of old age may be the primary cause of Alzheimer’s. Thus, the Salk team synthesized J147 using cell-based screens against old age-associated brain toxins. They first published research on the drug in late 2011. The researchers found it improved memory and prevented brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s in mice that had the inherited form of the disease, the most commonly used mouse model in Alzheimer’s research. However, this form of Alzheimer’s only makes up one percent of all Alzheimer’s patients.In their new study, they expanded on their previous research. They wanted to explore the effects of J147 “in a novel animal model more similar to 99 percent of Alzheimer’s cases,” said lead study author Antonio Currais. The researchers used mice that more closely resemble the age-related common human disorder. Specifically, they age rapidly and experience age-related dementia. The team used three groups of the rapidly aging mice: a young group, an old group, and an old group that was fed J147 as it aged.They found that the old mice that were given J147 had improved memory, cognition, and motor movements. It restored synaptic function and even damaged blood vessels, which are a common feature of aging but much worse in Alzheimer’s disease. The mice treated with J147 also experienced reduced inflammation and reduced levels of oxidized fatty acids in the brain."We did not predict we'd see this sort of anti-aging effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters,” said Currais.The results are promising developments in treating both symptoms of Alzheimer’s and aging. The team hopes to begin human trials next year.Source: Salk Institute of Biological StudiesCreepy Geolocation
Geographic Information Theory
There are two main types of geographic information found in files. Geotagging is the information placed in a file with the GPS coordinates of the location. EXIF (Exchangable Image File Format) contains the geotagging information as well as device type and speed. EXIF contains more information and is normally limited by the capabilities of the device creating the file.
What are the common weaknesses? Data leakage from the geographic information can pin point the exact location of where a file created. This information can be used to find detailed maps using software such as Google Earth or create detailed patterns of movement.
What are you trying to do? We are going to connect to Twitter and do geolocation on the @FIFAWorldCup account. Why the FIFAworldcup account? We know where the world cup is happening so it is easy to see if the information is correct.
Getting Started
Get creepy from here: http://ilektrojohn.github.io/creepy/
Ready to Go
For this tutorial it is installed in a Windows 7 virtual machine. The Kali apt-get repositories was not the latest version when this was written. Besides, the OS is just a tool we don’t need to get caught up in an ideological battle about how somebody has to use a certain tool to be a ‘real’ hacker. Being effective is more important than being a zealot.
Edit the configuration: Edit -> Plugins Configuration then select Twitter Plugin -> Run Configuration Wizard -> Next. Enter your Twitter ID and password to authorize creepy by clicking Authorize APP.
Wouldn’t this also be a great time to follow us @SecureNM? I’m not trying to make you feel guilty but you are here reading our stuff. Copy the PIN that Twitter generates into the text box at the bottom of the window and click the finish button.
Creepy should now be authorized but just to be sure select Twitter Plugin and then click the Test Plugin Configuration button. Yay, we are ready to get started. Click OK a few times to get back to the main screen.
From the file menu select Creepy -> New Project -> Person Based Project. This will start the project wizard. Fill in the information as you see fit.
Add the information and select the proper plugin then select Search. In this case we used @FIFAWorldCup.
Click the ID or IDs that you want to creep on, see what I did there? Then select Add to Targets. I added all of the IDs that were found to ensure data for this tutorial.
Select Next -> Next -> Finish.
Analyze the project by selecting the project and clicking the Analyze button
Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and the Maldives are all among the locations of texts sent by the twitter IDs that creepy analyzed. Select one of these locations on the map and through the power of google and GPS you can see the location and possibly a street view. In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves, Whoa!
I know what you’re thinking, wow that was cool but so what. So what you say? This is how you would use it on a real life security engagement. You get a black box test with nothing but a URL. You find the companies twitter account on the website. Feeding this information into creepy gives you locations that are potential targets for social engineering, physical infiltration, and WiFi attacks. See how just a little information can turn the tide in an assessment?Erdogan won't leave NATO, which would be foolish anyway, but he is instead taunting, provoking, snubbing, defying and – worse still –ridiculing the US from within in
On Monday, US National Security Advisor HR McMaster added to tensions in the Middle East when he condemned Turkey and Qatar as prime sponsors of extremist Islamist ideology.
He tore into the Turkish leadership, saying the country’s growing problems with the West are largely due to the rise of the Justice and Development Party in Ankara.
Pro-Erdogan referendum poster
A few days ago, McMaster had described China and Russia as “revisionist powers” encroaching on US allies and undermining the international order, and castigated Iran and North Korea as outlaw regimes that “support terror and are seeking weapons of mass destruction.”
McMaster now rounds on Turkey and Qatar for mentoring a radical Islamist ideology that “is obviously a grave threat to all civilized people.” The stunning part is that Turkey is a NATO ally, while the US Central Command is headquartered in Qatar.
Arguably, Turkey no longer qualifies to be a NATO member. McMaster spoke at a rare public policy platform with his British counterpart Mark Sedwill, at an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank in Washington. How any of this transmutes into Anglo-American policy will bear watching.
(Interestingly, on a visit to Greece last week, Erdogan publicly sought a revision of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which was negotiated under the tutelage of Britain and the US and ceded, amongst other things, all Turkish claims on the Dodecanese Islands and Cyprus.)
Significantly, McMaster’s outburst came within hours of a meeting in Ankara between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, their eighth this year, during a combined day-long trip by the Russian leader which included stops in Egypt, Turkey and the Hmeimim airbase in Syria.
Ironically, if it was the perceived Soviet threat to Turkey that Harry Truman and Dean Acheson blew out of proportion to lay the ground for an enthusiastically pro-American Turkish prime minister, Adnan Menderes, to bring Turkey into the NATO fold in 1952, 55 years later the blossoming of Russo-Turkish cooperation prompts Washington to doubt Turkey’s credentials as an ally.
But then, NATO has no precedents of ousting a member state and its decisions are taken unanimously. To be sure, Erdogan will only leave the NATO tent kicking and screaming. His intent is to shake off US hegemony, which he can do better while inside the NATO tent. He is in turn taunting, provoking, snubbing, defying and – worse still –ridiculing US regional strategies.
Erdogan’s talks with Putin on Monday suggest a new stage in their coordination to undermine US interests in the Middle East. Putin announced that they agreed on a loan agreement, which will be signed “very shortly,” to pursue the “significant prospects for expanding our military and technical cooperation.”
Erdogan added that “the relevant agencies of our two countries are expected to complete what needs to be done this week” with regard to Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile system. It is a huge snub to Washington and some of its NATO allies that the Russian system cannot be integrated into the alliance’s defenses.
Again, Erdogan announced that Turkey and Russia are “determined to complete in the shortest possible time” the Turkish Stream (which will bring more Russian gas to Turkey and use Turkey as a hub to supply southern Europe) and the US$25 billion Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. The US opposes the Turkish Stream, which will frustrate its plans to export LNG to Europe.
Putin joined Erdogan to criticize the US decision regarding Jerusalem. Putin said, “It is destabilizing the region and wiping out the prospect of peace”; Erdogan said he was “pleased” by Putin’s stand. Erdogan said the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) summit in Istanbul on Wednesday would be a “turning point” on the crisis; Putin promised to send a representative.
Most stunning, though, are the emerging contours of a profound Russo-Turkish action plan in Syria. They attribute centrality to the Astana peace process, which also includes Iran but leaves the US and its regional allies in the cold. Following Putin-Erdogan talks, the next meeting at Astana has been announced.
Equally, Russia and Turkey are collaborating to organize a congress of Syrian National Dialogue in Sochi. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu signaled on Tuesday that Turkey no longer objects to Kurdish participation. Evidently, Russia is leveraging its influence with the Kurdish groups. This badly isolates the US, which is increasingly left with rump elements of Kurdish militant groups as its remaining allies. An open-ended US military presence in Syria becomes pointless since the capacity to influence a Syrian settlement is nearing zero.
After returning to Moscow, Putin submitted to the Duma a new agreement on expanding the Russian base in the Syrian port city of Tartus. The balance of forces in the Mediterranean region is dramatically shifting even before a Syrian settlement is negotiated.
Meanwhile, Cavusoglu hinted that Turkey and Russia plan to create new facts on the ground in northern Syria. “Threats for Turkey are coming from Afrin. We may enter this region without a warning. If we carry out the operation there, we will agree on all its aspects with our allies, including Russia.”
Putin apparently heeded Erdogan’s concerns that Afrin is a crucial region for Turkish national security. This is a paradigm shift. If Turkey kicks out the Kurdish militia from Afrin in coordination with Russia, it is a slap to America’s face. A flashpoint may arise.
What emerges is that denying the US any form of land access to Syria’s Mediterranean coast and reducing the American bases in Syria as remote and isolated pockets would be a Russo-Turkish enterprise. McMaster’s rage is understandable.
Source: Asia Timesto get it by
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How cool would it be if the NBA actually allowed Kevin Durant to put “Dark Knight” on the back of his jersey? How ’bout Jamal Crawford breakin’ ankles in a “J. Crossover” jersey? That would be [surfer dude from Spongebob]AAAAAAWWWEEESSOOOOME!![/surfer dude from Spongebob]. I really love Crawford’s choice because it’s got a direct connection to his game… that’s why he got the title nod. You’re the man, Jamal.
Back in the ’70s, the NBA may have actually allowed Crawford to be “J. Crossover.” I don’t see why not… the back of Pete Maravich’s Utah Jazz jersey read “Pistol,” and streetball legend James “Fly” Williams went by his nickname during his time with the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis…
^That’s got to be one of the coolest jerseys in the history of professional sports. My collection will never be complete without it–as well as a Rasheed Wallace Hawks jersey.
Unfortunately, I realize that what happened in the ’70s will never happen again. Hell, Stern doesn’t even allow headbands to be worn upside down anymore. It could be in the NBA’s best financial interest to allow certain nicknames to be used on the back of jerseys, though. As the interviewer in the video pointed out, “Dark Knight” Durant jerseys would fly off the shelves. I understand that putting “Pistol” on the back of a jersey wouldn’t fly in 2011, and if KD were to execute his Batman plan he’d probably be sued or something, but why not “J. Crossover?” It’s harmless and basketball oriented. Take a minute to mull it over, Stern. You must be tired of thinking about the lockout. Maybe allowing nickname jerseys would even score you and the owners some points with the players, helping a new CBA agreement to be reached!
Just a few examples to demonstrate how much potential this has/how great it would’ve been over the past decade…
Note to TJ Ford: putting “Jordan” on the back of your shirt won’t help you play like MJ, or even TJ Ford from 5 years ago. Nice try, but sorry.I purchased this game to play with my sister. We grew up in the N64/PS One and PS2/XBox era and with that there was a lot of couch co-op. These days, we live in separate cities and still reminisce on those days of our childhood and teen years. It's nice we can play games online, but this isn't my favorite type of game. It's a first person shooter, RPG. I'm very much used to single player games with more of a narrative and this game kinda bores me. The story isn't too strong and many of the missions feel repetitive. Some of the later expansions improve on that. My sister has beaten the game and states that the last expansion was really awesome, but I don't feel it. I really only play this game with my sister and her husband. However, just because this isn't my type of game doesn't mean I can't see it's strengths for those that flock to this. There are a lot of awesome things going on here. The vehicles feel organic, the shooting feels intuitive, the power ups are awesome to play with and do not get old, and the armor you can get --some of the best in any RPG. The story, though lacking is kinda cool. It's dark with a lot of mysterious elements, but the way its interlaced feels like an after thought.
Read moreLos Angeles - Police fatally shot a homeless man on Skid Row during a "brutal" videotaped struggle in which a rookie officer cried out that the man had grabbed his gun, the Los Angeles police chief said Monday.
Video showed the man reaching toward the officer's waistband, Chief Charlie Beck said. The officer's gun was found partly cocked and jammed with a round of ammunition in the chamber and another in the ejection port, indicating a struggle for the weapon.
"You can hear the young officer who was primarily engaged in the confrontation saying that 'He has my gun. He has my gun,' " Beck said. "He says it several times, with conviction."
Then three other officers opened fire.
The man was black, as was the rookie officer who was just short of completing his probationary year on the force, police said.
Beck's narrative of the shooting, including photos from video showing the condition of the gun, was rare, emerging just 24 hours after an officer-involved shooting. It came amid heightened attention to killings by police officers that have led to protests, some violent, across the country.
Sunday's violence had echoes of the August police shooting of 25-year-old Ezell Ford, whose death in a struggle with LA officers brought demonstrations in the city. Ford was unarmed. Police said he was shot after reaching for an officer's gun.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said he and the police chief needed to respond quickly to reassure residents that there is a robust investigation into the shooting, which occurred in the downtown area that is home to the city's highest concentration of homeless people.
"I watched the video, I watched the tragic events on Skid Row unfold," the mayor said. "We owe the city a thorough investigation as to what happened."
The shooting was caught by at least four cameras, two held by witnesses and two worn by officers who fired their weapons. There was also a camera in a police car and a security camera on a nearby shelter captured events leading up to the incident.
The American Civil Liberties Union called on the Police Department to quickly release footage shot by the officers' body cameras.
One witness posted his video to Facebook, which drew millions of views.
Police were investigating a reported robbery when they tried to talk with the suspect and he refused to obey their commands and started fighting, Beck said. Stun guns fired at the man had "appeared to have little effect and he continued to violently resist."
As the man took swings, four officers wrestled him to the ground. Two other officers subdued and handcuffed a woman who had picked up a dropped baton.
The struggle became blurry and distant, but shouting could be heard, followed by five apparent gunshots.
A memorial sprung up where the shooting occurred. White roses were placed over a tent, blankets and clothing belonging to the dead man known as "Africa."
James Attaway, 48, said the man's first name was Shawn, but he nicknamed him because he was from Africa, though he had family in Boston. They met six months ago, and Attaway said they slept near each other.
Africa had been living on the street for about a year, Attaway said. They met talking about God and had done that earlier Sunday.
"He was on the spiritual side, very intelligent," Attaway said.
Tents and cardboard shelters cover the sidewalks of Skid Row, where an estimated 1,700 homeless people live. Many of them struggle with mental illness and addiction and are no strangers to the police.
Cmdr. Andrew Smith said the man had previous encounters with officers, though he would not elaborate. Authorities withheld the man's name.
The three officers who fired their weapons were veterans of the beat and had special training to deal with the homeless and mentally ill.
"They were trained to work with homeless," said Police Commission President Steve Soboroff. "It wasn't a SWAT team looking for problems."
The shooting is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department's inspector general and the city's district attorney.
Activists called on Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint a special investigator to examine the killing.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, head of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, urged the city Police Commission to hold a special hearing on use of force by officers in Skid Row.
Two of the officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, including the rookie officer, who is on crutches. All four officers were placed on paid leave.In the new issue of AP, we asked “should bands offer VIP tour packages to fans” with 70 percent of readers responding “yes” and 30 percent saying “no.”
This is an issue close to the heart for ENTER SHIKARI frontman ROU REYNOLDS (pictured second from left), who hit us up almost immediately after we first posted the poll to put together his own response, which follows.
During the last five years, a peculiar concept has been introduced to our alternative music scene that appears to go against every notion of what “punk rock” should stand for, yet has successfully infected it.
Borrowed from the bloated, narcissistic philosophies of Hollywood, the concept I’m talking about is the hallowed meet & greet—the infamous VIP package.
First of all, let’s define this concept in precise, objective terms.
In its most basic form, the peculiar transaction plays out like this: One human being pays—usually a substantial amount of money—to be in close proximity to another human being.
And that’s it.
Sure, there may be a hug and a photograph. Maybe even a poster or a T-shirt (depending on which “tier” of fandom your cold, hard cash grants you access to). Maybe even access to the mythical, otherworldly—and let us speak in hushed tones of reverence—“soundcheck,” i.e., a bunch of guys playing lackluster, hungover versions of their own songs, often without vocals, and usually chock-full of mistakes. Surely logic and goodwill would suggest that if paying ticket holders are enthusiastic enough to be queuing from early in the day, let them in to watch the boring technical stuff for free! It doesn’t cost the band anything to do that. This is something that Enter Shikari (and many other bands) have been doing for years. And that isn’t me attempting petty one-upmanship. This is just something that I’ve always considered normal. If fans have bought tickets with their hard-earned cash, give them a little extra—if you care about them, that is. Don’t treat them like some inanimate object, like a commodity.
So, we’re agreed. In the simplest terms, currency is exchanged to facilitate one person being in another’s presence. Which is weird, eh? And yet, somehow, this has now become a complete normality throughout the “alternative” scene.
Perhaps suffering from lethargy, or maybe negligence, punk rock appears to be submissively allowing this infection to become an accepted part of its body.
If someone believes it is morally justifiable to charge you to meet them, you have to ask yourself the question, “Do they deserve to be met?” In fact, do they deserve to meet you?
Do they deserve your time? It sounds like their head is big enough already. Think of their poor shoulders having to lug around such a bulbous, bulging skull.
At this point, let me try and second-guess a few of the reactions and disagreements some people may be having with me already. I’ll even formulate it in script form, just for your delectation.
[Enter dissenter.]
DISSENTER: Hey, stop right there, whiny British jerk. I paid for a M&G with <insert band> and it was great. Well worth it. This is just supply and demand!
ROU: [Turns away from dissenter and subtly facepalms to the audience, then turns back.]
Of course you’re going to be happy to meet people you look up to. Anyone would be. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that the band chose to exploit their relationship with you. It was their decision to charge you. They could have done it for free!
DISSENTER: [Becoming increasingly irritated.]
No, I heard it’s the record labels/managers/promoters who make bands do it!
ROU: My friend, this is simply not the case. Do you really think band members are treated like slaves, carrying out orders with no say in the matter? Whichever artist told you this is being disingenuous, lying to themselves and being cowardly to you.
DISSENTER: [Looks around frustratedly as if beginning to scrape the barrel in search of other arguments.]
Well, bigger bands probably just have too many fans to realistically meet before a show?
ROU: Granted. But, are there not a plethora of tried and tested ways to organize free M&Gs? For instance, the first 100 in line for the show? Or in-store signing sessions where fans get their purchases signed? Ticket raffles? Social media coordinated events? Even if a band wants to charge, why not give the money to charity, instead of giving yourself a handsome bonus for simply meeting fans. Even bankers who get their colossal bonuses have worked for it (well, worked–lobbied–gambled–manipulated–cheated–stole for it, same thing).
DISSENTER: W-well… well… b-b-but… band members have mouths to feed, Rou! And what kind of fucking name is Rou, anyway?!
[Dissenter runs back to their room to sob and listen to whatever glorified, insipid metalcore band is the flavor of the month.]
ROU: It was the name of the first king of Westeros. And yes, band members have mouths to feed but they don’t need to wave their integrity goodbye to do that. Bands charge for meet and greets because of greed or ignorance. And remember, the root word of ignorance is ignore. And fans shouldn’t be ignored.
[End Scene]
Isn’t the essence of alternative music to break down the boundaries that divide us? To declare, loud and proud, that it doesn’t matter if you’re different, you are free to express yourself here; you’re accepted here; you’re one of us. If you charge people to meet you, you are overtly stating that you think you are superior to them, you think you are better than them. You are basically saying, I am not one of you.
One definition of the word prostitution is as follows: “the unworthy or corrupt use of one’s talents for personal or financial gain.”
I believe that definition almost perfectly describes this new phenomena. If your band is part of alternative culture, offer kids the alternative, don’t offer them the values of greed, offer them the values of gratitude.
Why do you think your fans dig your music in the first place? Because it’s real; it’s passionate; it’s visceral; it’s dynamic. And it means the world to them. So don’t offer them this lifeline of self-fortifying music and then throw it back in their face by exploiting their devotion. You used to feel the same way about other bands as they now do about you. You used to be them. And deep down inside, you still are. So stop kidding yourself. If you want to be Hollywood, fuck off to Hollywood. And let the rest of us to get back to offering the alternative.For each of the past forty-eight years, Congress has passed the misnamed National Defense Authorization Act to set forth the budget of the Defense Department. President Obama just signed into law the latest version of the NDAA, but not without some controversy. The House originally passed this 1145-page bill (H.R.1540) back on May 26 by a vote of 322-96. Only six Republicans voted against the bill (Justin Amash, John Campbell, Jason Chaffetz, John Duncan, Tom McClintock, & Ron Paul). The 926-page Senate version of the bill (S.1867) was passed on December 1 by a vote of 93-7. Only three Republicans voted against the bill (Tom Coburn, Mike Lee, & Rand Paul). The Senate then incorporated the measure in a now 908-page H.R.1540 as an amendment. The original House bill contained an affirmation in section 1034 that the president has “the authority to detain belligerents,” until “the termination of hostilities,” including persons who “(A) are part of, or are substantially supporting, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or (B) have engaged in hostilities or have directly supported hostilities in aid of a nation, organization, or person described in subparagraph (A).” But it is the Senate version that, as amended in two ways, raised such a firestorm of controversy. Conservative, religious, and animal-rights groups were upset with a provision in the Senate bill seen as legalizing sodomy and bestiality in the military. The Senate bill simply says, buried in division A – DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AUTHORIZATIONS, title V – MILITARY PERSONNEL POLICY, subtitle E – Military Justice and Legal Matters Generally, section 551 – REFORM OF OFFENSES RELATING TO RAPE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND OTHER SEXUAL MISCONDUCT UNDER THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE, (d) REPEAL OF SODOMY ARTICLE, that “Section 925 of such title (article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice) is repealed.” This is a reference to title 10, subtitle A, part II, chapter 47, subchapter 10, section 925 of U.S. Code, which states:
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense. (b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall by punished as a court-martial may direct. Section 125 of the UCMJ adds this explanation: It is unnatural carnal copulation for a person to take into that person’s mouth or anus the sexual organ of another person or of an animal; or to place that person’s sexual organ in the mouth or anus of another person or of an animal; or to have carnal copulation in any opening of the body, except the sexual parts, with another person; or to have carnal copulation with an animal. The Senate bill also directed that the two other mentions of sodomy in U.S. Code title 10, subtitle A, part II, chapter 47, subchapter 8, section 843, and subchapter 10, section 918, be excised. Civil libertarians of all stripes were upset with a provision in the Senate bill that would codify the power of the president to use the military to indefinitely intern anyone, without charges or trial, anywhere in the world – including American citizens on U.S. soil. The most worrisome sections of the bill are found in division A, title X, subtitle D, sections 1031 and 1032. I give here the sections in their entirety because we will return to them later. SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE. (a) IN GENERAL. – Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war. (b) COVERED PERSONS. – A covered person under this section is any person as follows: (1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks. (2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces. (c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR. – The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following: (1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111–84)). (3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction. (4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity. (d) CONSTRUCTION. – Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force. (e) AUTHORITIES. – Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States. (f) REQUIREMENT FOR BRIEFINGS OF CONGRESS. – The Secretary of Defense shall regularly brief Congress regarding the application of the authority described in this section, including the organizations, entities, and individuals considered to be u2018u2018covered persons” for purposes of subsection (b)(2). SEC. 1032. REQUIREMENT FOR MILITARY CUSTODY. (a) CUSTODY PENDING DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR. – (1) IN GENERAL. – Except as provided in paragraph (4), the Armed Forces of the United States shall hold a person described in paragraph (2) who is captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40) in military custody pending disposition under the law of war. (2) COVERED PERSONS. – The requirement in paragraph (1) shall apply to any person whose detention is authorized under section 1031 who is determined – (A) to be a member of, or part of, al-Qaeda or an associated force that acts in coordination with or pursuant to the direction of al-Qaeda; and (B) to have participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners.
(3) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR. – For purposes of this subsection, the disposition of a person under the law of war has the meaning given in section 1031(c), except that no transfer otherwise described in paragraph (4) of that section shall be made unless consistent with the requirements of section 1033. (4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY. – The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States. (b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS. – (1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS. – The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States. (2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS. – The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States. (c) IMPLEMENTATION PROCEDURES. – (1) IN GENERAL. – Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall issue, and submit to Congress, procedures for implementing this section. |
vehicle and summoned on a charge of marijuana possession.
According to Page, police noted that the relatively small amount of marijuana that Pert allegedly had with him during the traffic stop appeared to have been freshly harvested.
Later that morning, a licensed medical marijuana grower contacted police to report a burglary at his marijuana growing operation. Page declined to identify specifically where the operation is located and said only that it is in the Ellsworth area.
The grower told police that someone had entered two buildings on his property where he cultivates the plants and had taken 17 of them, according to Page. The grower told police the estimated total value of the plants is $12,800.
After Pert had been released from jail on the firearm possession charge, police went later Thursday to a Trenton motel where Braun and Pert have been staying and questioned him about the burglary. Pert eventually told police he had taken the plants and stashed them in the woods in northern Ellsworth, Page said. The lieutenant declined to say where police recovered the plants.
Pert was arrested again, this time on a charge of burglary and theft. Braun has not been charged in connection with the alleged burglary or theft of the marijuana plants, Page said.
By Friday morning, Pert had been released again from Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth on $500 unsecured bail, according to police and jail officials.
Follow BDN reporter Bill Trotter on Twitter at @billtrotter.( © istockphoto/DrPAS )
Though many Christians overlook the importance of the Holy Spirit, Scripture is clear about not only His vital role, but also His divine actions. Here are 33 of the countless things the Spirit of God continues to do today.
He helps us (Rom. 8:26) He guides us (John 16:13) He teaches us (John 14:26) He speaks (Rev. 2:7) He reveals (1 Cor. 2:10) He instructs (Acts 8:29) He testifies of Jesus (John 15:26) He comforts us (Acts 9:31) He calls us (Acts 13:2) He fills us (Acts 4:31) He strengthens us (Eph. 3:16) He prays for us (Rom. 8:26) He prophesies through us (2 Pet. 1:21) He bears witness to the truth (Rom. 9:1) He brings joy (1 Thess. 1:6) He brings freedom (2 Cor. 3:17) He helps us to obey (1 Pet. 1:22) He calls for Jesus’ return (Rev. 22:17) He transforms us (2 Cor. 3:18) He lives in us (1 Cor. 3:16) He frees us (Rom. 8:2) He renews us (Titus 3:5) He produces fruit in us (Gal. 5:22-23) He gives gifts (1 Cor. 12:8-10) He leads us (Rom. 8:14) He convicts (John 16:8) He sanctifies us (2 Thess. 2:13) He empowers us (Acts 1:8) He unites us (Eph. 4:3-4) He seals us (Eph. 1:13) He gives us access to the Father (Eph. 2:18) He enables us to wait (Gal. 5:5) He casts out demons (Matt. 12:28)
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Great Resources to help you excel in 2019! #1 John Eckhardt's "Prayers That..." 6-Book Bundle. Prayer helps you overcome anything life throws at you. Get a FREE Bonus with this bundle. #2 Learn to walk in the fullness of your purpose and destiny by living each day with Holy Spirit. Buy a set of Life in the Spirit, get a second set FREE.
See an error in this article? Send us a correctionCanada's biggest bank has sounded the alarm about overbuilding in Toronto's condo boom, saying the level of new units coming online coupled with existing ones that are yet to sell have the market in 'high risk' territory.
In a report Friday, economists Robert Hogue and Craig Wright wave a red flag about activity in the condominium segment in many cities, but single out Toronto with being especially problematic.
In the first quarter of 2016, there were almost six new condo units under construction across the country for every 1,000 people, just off an all-time high hit in 2014. "This level is well into the high risk zone," the bank says, which it defines as anything about 4.5 condos under construction per 1,000 people.
The bank credits most of the surge in the national figure with the Toronto market, where condo construction now makes up one-third of all types of new home construction.
So far, the booming market in Canada's largest city has been able to absorb all those new units, as there's still strong demand for housing in the downtown core. Should that change down the line, the sheer volume of new units will cause problems in the entire market.
"High levels of construction entails the risk that many units may reach the completed stage at once, thereby flooding the condo resale and/or rental markets," the bank said.
Those new units come on top of a glut of existing unsold condos, which have inched up to concerning levels in recent months.
As this chart from Royal Bank's report shows, the level of condo construction in Toronto has come down from recent highs but is still in the range that the bank considers problematic. (Royal Bank of Canada)
In Toronto, the amount of unsold but finished condos fell from a 22-year high of 0.58 units per 1,000 population in May 2015 to 0.28 units in April 2016, but both figures are still in the range the bank calls "modest excess supply" which is anything between 0.27 and 0.42.
The bank looked at segments of the housing market all over the country, and, all in all, found little of concern. But the condo market was singled out for being a possible danger in every major city the bank looked at, including the four biggest housing markets of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary.
While Toronto was deemed the biggest threat, the bank said the sheer volume of condos coming down the pipeline could pose problems in almost every market.
"The prospects for high levels of condo completions in the period ahead in markets such as Toronto, Montreal and Calgary maintain above-average absorption risks," Royal Bank said.The more I watch Orange is the New Black, the more prison is starting to look really appealing. The fact of the matter is, I’m not making any money off this stupid website and I can barely survive! Often the thought crosses my mind, wouldn’t it be great if someone would just take care of me? There’s so much I enjoy doing, like reading, writing, and making things with my hands, but I can’t seem to make ends meet. But now that I’ve gotten a good look at prison from OITNB, I’m realizing it might be a perfect fit for me. How do I get accepted into prison? Do I email them my resume?
MEET NEW PEOPLE!
I’m alone all the time, and no one wants to be around me at all ever. But what if my friends were my friends because they had no choice?
Everyone is in that prison together, and from the way things look in Orange is the New Black, they’re not really looking to stab one another. They’re looking to hug. Sure, everyone is bickering, there’s some tension, but you’re gonna form bonds with amazing people, who you never would have met in any other circumstance.
EVERYTHING IS FREE!
Bed. Food. Entertainment. There’s even free cable! I’m watching OITNB on a tiny laptop, I can’t even afford television! And, if you’re lucky enough to become president of television like Taystee does, you can just throw on whatever you want. Planet Earth all day, every day!
Drugs might not be free, but they’ll only cost a blow job or a deal with the porn-stache’d guard to acquire.
LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF!
Spend a lot of time alone with your thoughts and really begin to understand who you are, what you want, and what things mean. And if that gets boring, kick back and relax! You’re already in prison.
Enjoy the time off. Explore your sexuality! Are you religious? Are you not religious? Well, now you’ve got all the time in the world to find God, wherever he’s hiding, and decide if that righteous dude is meant for you. Your meth buddies will even baptize you in the sink!
LEARN TO APPRECIATE THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE AGAIN!
When you get to prison, there’s gonna be a bit of a detox. You’re being torn away from your technology, and all the things you used to be able to just walk to the store and buy, like booze, aren’t so easy to come by anymore.
Personally, I’m drunk and on my cell phone all the damn time! I don’t even enjoy it anymore, it’s just part of the day! Now, on those special occasions when your prison pals have managed to whip up some hooch, you’re really going to know how good it is to have what you have.
SELF IMPROVEMENT!
Do Yoga, jog, get in shape, read books. Do you like to cook? What else do you want to learn? Well, there’s lots of opportunities.
The prison functions a lot like a commune, the inmates prep the food, drive the vans, organize themselves, fix things, and keep the place running. It’s a great way to really maximize your productivity, learn what you like doing and what you’re good at.
GUARANTEED EMPLOYMENT!
I don’t know about you, but I’m not qualified for anything. In prison, your qualifications don’t even matter! You don’t have to apply for a job; you’re assigned a job.
It’s almost like The Game Of Life wasn’t a huge lie, land on the “get a job” space, pick a card, and boom! You’re an electrician!
ELECTIONS!
In Orange Is The New Black, the women campaign in prison to be elected to the WAC committee.
If they win, they get donuts and absolutely no responsibilities at all. It’s simply the best democratically elected position I can think up.
PLAY WITH A DOG!
Look at this dog! It lives in prison. You can play with it!
BE A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST!
I’ve been trying to live off my art for years, and most of what that has served me with is having my power turned off and moving into my parent’s basement.
When you’re serving time, you can make art to express yourself freely and also have guaranteed meals, a bed, and hot showers. You’re also provided with free materials, and you can make whatever you want. And even if it’s awful, you don’t have to get accepted into a gallery to display it. Just hang it right up!
GET LAID!
In church.
In the shower.
With a one legged man even!
Seriously.Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Kathy Spindler
Guest: Tara C. Smith
Tara Smith joins the TWiEBOVsters to discuss the Ebola virus outbreak in west Africa, spread of the disease to and within the US, transmission of the virus, and much more.
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Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tvDave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
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Introduction: The first of several programs dealing with WikiLeaks, this broadcast examines an intelligence-connected mind control cult with which WikiLeaks kingpin Julian Assange appears to be affiliated. As well connected as it is ruthless and criminal, the Santiniketan Park Association of Anne Hamilton-Byrne conditioned children with drugs, sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, torture and ritual sexual abuse in order to produce subjects who bent to the will of the group’s leader.
Although Assange (pictured at left) claims to have been “on the run” from the cult, his claims of links to Australian intelligence plus his strange, “platinum” colored hair (distinctive of children raised in the group) suggest that the connections may run much deeper. (Recall in this context that the group practices rigorous, sophisticated mind-control methodology and Assange himself may be sincerely unaware of the depth of his apparent links to the group. The organization also develops multiple identities for the children raised in its ranks, as well as obtaining multiple passports for them. Assange’s mother claims his hair turned white following a difficult custody case involving a child of his. As will be seen later, Assange claims that Australian intelligence has advised him, and there is an apparent link between Australian intelligence and the cult.)
The title of the program comes from two sci-fi/horror movies from the late 1950’s and 60’s called Children of the Damned and Village of the Damned. Both movies featured a generation of platinum-blonde children with psycho-kinetic powers, preternatural intelligence and a really, really bad attitude. The children are pictured in a promotional poster for the film in the upper left. Cult leader Hamilton-Byrne (inset) and her “children” are pictured above and at right. A still from the film is at right. Assange is pictured twice at left. Is this a case of life imitating art?
Possessing considerable wealth, in control of its own psychiatric hospital, composed largely of well-heeled professional people, utilized as an experimentation center by one of Australia’s leading Catholic psychologists, linked to the Australian minister overseeing that country’s intelligence service, the “Family” as they like to be called, used these connections to escape the punishment that would certainly have followed their activities. Available evidence suggests that the group is an intelligence front.
Even former cult members who have turned on the organization have been drawn back into its fold and reconciled with Anne Hamilton-Byrne.
Targeting Russia, China and some of the Central Asian states that emerged following the breakup of the Soviet Union, WikiLeaks has pursued a political agenda that smacks of a Third Position/UNPO/Underground Reich political orientation. The group has also stung the United States, making an already difficult Afghanistan policy that much more difficult following their leaks of key U.S. documents about NATO involvement in that country.
Program Highlights Include: The group’s excessive secretiveness; the group’s lack of candor about their sources of financing in particular; pharmaceutical company Sandoz’s alleged dispensing of free LSD to Family; partial discussion of WikiLeaks’ connections to the milieu of Pirate Bay and Swedish fascist financier Carl Lundstrom; the Hamilton-Byrne cult’s “caring” for Lord Casey, the Australian cabinet member charged with oversight of the Australian intelligence agency; the Hamilton-Byrne cult’s close association with Catholic psychologist Ronald Conway; Conway’s alleged molestation of people associated with the cult; Conway’s role as an expert commentator on the Church’s molestation scandals; a Time magazine review that reinforces the hypothesis that Assange was part of the Hamilton-Byrne cult.
1. The program begins with discussion of a cult with which Assange appears to have been affiliated, although he minimizes his connection to them. It is worth noting that fleeing this cult apparently dominated much of his life at this point, yet the group’s powerful connections appear to have allowed them to track him and his mother. Note that, although “on the run” from the group, Assange’s mother discussed their whereabouts and frequented some of the same places. This may indicate a lack of imagination and/or resources on the part of Mama Assange, or it may indicate a process of creating a legend–a plausible cover for observed phenomenon.
For example, if someone noted a resemblance between Julian Assange and children belonging to the cult, it could be neutralized by saying that he was an opponent of the group.
In light of the apparent mind control techniques practiced by the group, indications of the group’s possible intelligence connections, as well as deliberate and extensive operations to obfuscate the identity of cult members, one should take much of what Assange says about his relationship to the group with a grain of salt. Might he be a member of the cult, who was “sheep-dipped” to mask his links to the group?
Assange’s own track record indicates a record of deliberate, elusive behavior and statements.
.... When Assange was eight, Claire left her husband and began seeing a musician, with whom she had another child, a boy. The relationship was tempestuous; the musician became abusive, she says, and they separated. A fight ensued over the custody of Assange’s half brother, and Claire felt threatened, fearing that the musician would take away her son. Assange recalled her saying, “Now we need to disappear,” and he lived on the run with her from the age of eleven to sixteen. When I asked him about the experience, he told me that there was evidence that the man belonged to a powerful cult called the Family—its motto was “Unseen, Unknown, and Unheard.” Some members were doctors who persuaded mothers to give up their newborn children to the cult’s leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne. The cult had moles in government, Assange suspected, who provided the musician with leads on Claire’s whereabouts. In fact, Claire often told friends where she had gone, or hid in places where she had lived before....
“No Secrets” by Jeff Khatchatourian; The New Yorker; 6/7/2010.
2. Wikipedia gives a nice overview of the group. Note that Wikipedia should, as a rule, be scrutinized very carefully. It is frequently in error. When sources and links check out, as they do here, it is generally reliable.
Around 1964 Dr Raynor Johnson was hosting regular meetings of a religious and philosophical discussion group led by Hamilton-Byrne at Santiniketan, his home at Ferny Creek in the Dandenong Ranges on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne. Also connected was a series of weekly talks he gave at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, entitled “The Macrocosm and the Microcosm”. The group purchased an adjoining property which they named Santiniketan Park [1] in 1968 and constructed a meeting hall, Santiniketan Lodge. The association consisted of middle class, professional people; it has been estimated that a quarter were nurses and other medical personnel, and that many were recruited by Johnson who referred them to Hamilton-Byrne’s hatha yoga classes.[2] Members mainly lived in nearby suburbs and townships in the Dandenongs, meeting each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evening [3] at Santiniketan Lodge, Crowther House in Olinda or another property in the area known as the White Lodge [4]. During the late 1960s and 1970s Newhaven Hospital in Kew was a private psychiatric hospital owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a Santiniketan member; many of its staff and attending psychiatrists were also members. Many patients at Newhaven were treated with the hallucinogenic drug LSD [7]. The hospital was used to recruit potential new members from among the patients, and also to administer LSD to members under the direction of the Santiniketan psychiatrists Dr John Mackay and Dr Howard Whitaker. One of the original members of the Association was given LSD, electroconvulsive therapy and two leucotomies during the late 1960s. Although the psychiatric hospital had been closed down by 1992, in that year a new inquest was ordered into the death of a Newhaven patient in 1975 after new claims that his death had been due to deep sleep therapy. The inquest heard evidence concerning the use of electroconvulsive therapy, LSD and other practices at Newhaven but found no evidence that deep sleep had been used on this patient. The Newhaven building was later reopened as a nursing home with no connections to its previous owner or uses. Anne Hamilton-Byrne acquired fourteen infants and young children between about 1968 and 1975. Some were the natural children of Santiniketan members, others had been obtained through irregular adoptions arranged by lawyers, doctors and social workers within the group who could bypass the normal processes. The children’s identities were changed using false birth certificates or deed poll, all being given the surname ‘Hamilton-Byrne’ and dressed alike even to the extent of their hair being dyed uniformly blonde[11]. The children were kept in seclusion and home-schooled at Kia Lama, a rural property usually referred to as “Uptop”, at Taylor Bay on Lake Eildon near the town of Eildon, Victoria. They were taught that Anne Hamilton-Byrne was their biological mother, and knew the other adults in the group as ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ They were denied almost all access to the outside world, and subjected to a discipline that included frequent corporal punishment and starvation diets. The children were frequently dosed with the psychiatric drugs Anatensol, Diazepam, Haloperidol, Largactil, Mogadon, Serepax, Stelazine, Tegretol or Tofranil[4]. On reaching adolescence they were compelled to undergo an initiation involving LSD[13]: while under the influence of the drug the child would be left in a dark room, alone apart from visits by Hamilton-Byrne or one of the psychiatrists from the group[4].
“Santiniketan Park Association”; Wikipedia.
3. More about the cult, from an article about a long-overdue bust of the group. Note the difficulty law enforcement had in bringing this group to justice. One of many indications that the organization was “connected.”
The leader of Australia’s most notorious cult, The Family, remains unrepentant two decades after the raid that shocked the nation. Anne Hamilton-Byrne broke her silence yesterday, saying she was ready to die after reconciling with Sarah Moore, the “daughter” who betrayed her to the authorities. The Family made headlines around the world in 1987 when the Australian Federal Police and Community Services Victoria raided the cult’s property at Lake Eildon and took six children into care. Police later found 14 children had been brought up in almost complete isolation believing they were the offspring of Hamilton-Byrne and her late husband Bill. In fact none of them was the Hamilton-Byrnes’, but children of single mothers who had been pressured into giving them up for adoption or cult members who did not want them. But it was the way the children had been treated that really shocked the nation. Hamilton-Byrne had ordered the children’s hair be dyed peroxide blonde and they be dressed in identical outfits. It was also alleged they had been half-starved, beaten and forced to take large quantities of tranquilisers to “calm them down” and even fed LSD when they became adults. Now, in the first ever interview at her sprawling Olinda compound, the cult leader has defended how she raised the children and attacked those who said she mistreated them as “lying bastards”. Of her critics, she said: “I would love to put them right, but I can’t.”...
“Anne Hamilton-Byrne, Leader of the Family, Unrepentant but Ready to Die” by James Campbell; Herald Sun; 8/16/2009.
4. More about the practices of the group, from a policeman who helped to bring them to heel:
Lex De Man, the policeman who spent five years bringing The Family cult leader Anne Hamilton-Byrne to justice, is still haunted by the case and its toll on everyone involved. And while proud that Operation Forest, the taskforce on which he worked from 1989 to 1994, eventually secured her conviction for perjury, he is still angry Hamilton-Byrne escaped punishment for alleged maltreatment of the children in her care. Mr De Man said Hamilton-Byrne was lucky the children who had endured beatings, druggings and starvation at The Family’s Lake Eildon property were too traumatised to testify against their alleged tormentor. “One girl looked like she was seven but was, in fact, 11. She was suffering from psycho-social dwarfism,” Mr De Man said. “I didn’t think at that time – and even today – that many of the kids would be able to sustain giving evidence in the witness box. I think they’d been damaged too much.” The detective’s decision to go after Hamilton-Byrne for falsifying documents came in 1991 when the cult’s solicitor, Peter Kibby, decided to co-operate with police. “Documents don’t lie. People lie on documents. A document might be false, but it’s a human being that puts the information on it,” Mr De Man said. Kibby then persuaded one of the former “Aunties”, Pat MacFarlane, to make a statement. After months of interviews, and later armed with the evidence to secure a warrant to arrest Hamilton-Byrne, police still took three years to find her.
“Painful Justice” by James Campbell; The Herald Sun; 8/16/2009.
5a. Another indication of serious institutional support for the cult concerns the participation in their activities of Ronald Conway. One of Australia’s most prominent Catholic intellectuals, Conway appears to have engaged in molestation of children placed in his care. Conway has also written dismissively of complaints of sexual abuse against Catholic priests. Of paramount importance here is the fact that the hospital at which he conducted his LSD experiments was under the control of the Santiniketan Park Association, “The Family.”
... Conway’s autobiography says that he began his LSD experiments at St Vincent’s Hospital. And former patients say that Conway also administered LSD to them at the Newhaven psychiatric hospital which was situated at 86 Normanby Road, Kew, in Melbourne’s inner east. In the late 1960s and during the 1970s, Newhaven hospital was owned and managed by Marion Villimek, a member of a “New Age” sect called the Santiniketan Park Association, also known as “The Family”. A leader of the sect, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, was also an administrator at the Newhaven. Conway, Eric Seal and other therapists hired consulting rooms there on a sessional basis, and were not involved with the sect. Newhaven ceased being a hospital in 1992. Ronald Conway became one of Australia’s most prominent Catholic intellectuals, writing books and newspaper articles about Australian society. He also appeared in radio and television discussion programs as a psychologist and social commentator. When the church’s sexual scandals became news in Australia in the 1990s, Conway sometimes commented on the issues of celibacy and sexual abuse....
“Ronald Conway: The Hands-On Psychologist Who Helped the Catholic Church’s Trainee Priests”; clericalwhispers.blogspot.com; 5/17/2010.
5b. As one wag who blogged about the Santiniketan Park Association observed; “What good is an LSD mind control religious cult sexual abuse story without the Catholic Church making a guest appearance?”
... “After several sessions with Conway, it was suggested that I undergo LSD therapy in Newhaven Private Hospital as an overnight patient. It was explained to me that this therapy was a way to fast-track psychoanalysis and would be very helpful in accepting my sexuality. Conway, as a psychologist, had no qualifications to administer drugs. I did not understand this at the time. “During the last session I came to believe that I had been in the presence of God who authorized me to lead the sexual life which had been chosen for me. “Conway then suggested that I continue to see him without the use of LSD.I explained to him that my finances were stretched and that it was not possible. He said that it was important that I continue to see him and that if I were willing he would see me at his home in Torrington Street, Canterbury, gratis. “What a shock I got when one night he made advances to me and we ended up on the floor of his sitting room. The room was decorated as if it were the inside of an Egyptian tomb. He said this should not have happened but that, as it had, we should do it properly in his bedroom. It was a spartan room with the bed covers on a single bed already turned down and electric bar heaters turned on resting on tables either side. …”In the early 1990s, when I was 48 years of age, I was a patient in the Freemason’s Hospital and woke up one afternoon to find Ron Conway sitting on my bed holding my hand. He had heard from someone that I was in hospital. I made it clear that I was not happy with his presence.He explained to me that he had been following my life through a work colleague of mine, another psychologist. “Ron Conway never appeared again.”...
Idem.
6. A more detailed–and consequently more horrifying–account of the cult’s practices was presented by dissident member Sarah Moore, who eventually reconciled with Anne Hamilton-Byrne. Note the “breeding program” alluded to here, as well as the use of multiple identities, birthdates and passports.
Note also, Moore’s indication that enemies of the group had “disappeared.”
My mother was Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the leader of a small sect in the Dandenongs called the Family or the Great White Brotherhood. I was a small part of her plan to collect children in what she herself once called a “scientific experiment”. Later I discovered it was her intention that we children would continue her sect after the earth was consumed by a holocaust. She saw us as the “inheritors of the earth”. I didn’t know that then. In those days I was just a child. A child of a guru, but a child no less. Twenty-two to twenty-eight children in all lived at Uptop in its heyday, although the fosters had varying lengths of stay She used to say that she couldn’t remember all the dates very well because she had so many children. Maybe, in retrospect, we should have realised that was weird but then we never thought it was anything out of the ordinary. She decided upon sets of twins and triplets and gave us ages and birth-dates to fit in with that idea. Birthday changes were just something you accepted. It was as if Anne knew so much more about everything than us and she just might be revealing another piece of our life plan if she changed our birthdays. We were the children of The Family, the children of Anne Hamilton-Byrne. We were dressed alike. Most of the girls’ hair was dyed blond, cut into fringes and worn long with identical hairstyles and identically-coloured ribbons. All the boys had bowl haircuts. …Why did she raise us in almost total social isolation, miles from anywhere, with minimal contact with other humans apart from the sect members who looked after us? Why did she subject us to the bizarre and cruel regimen in which we grew up? Was it to demonstrate that she had the power to create a generation that would be reared with her beliefs and believing in her? I suspect perhaps that there were more sinister motives than these alone. Some of us had multiple birth certificates and passports, and citizenship of more than one country. Only she knows why thus was and why we were also all dressed alike, why most of us even had our hair dyed identically blond. I can only conjecture because I will never know for sure. However I suspect that she went to such great lengths in order to enable her to move children around, in and out of the country. Perhaps even to be sold overseas. I’m sure there is a market somewhere in the world for small blond children with no traceable identities. If she did it, it was a perfect scam. Many ex-sect members have said that they were aware that Anne was creating children by a “breeding program” in the late 1960s. These were ‘invisible’ kids, because they had no papers and there is no proof that they ever existed. Yet we Hamilton-Byrne children had multiple identities. These identities could perhaps have been loaned to other children and the similarity of our appearance used to cover up their absence. One little blond kid looks very like another in a passport photo. I don’t suppose we will ever know the truth because only Anne Hamilton-Byrne knows the truth about the whole affair and the truth is something she will never tell. …I am training to be a doctor but sometimes I think my medical career will be sabotaged because there are still many in the sect who have a lot of influence in professional and academic circles. It may sound melodramatic, but I know that some who were Anne’s enemies have disappeared in strange circumstances....
Unseen, Unheard, Unknown; by Sarah Moore.
7. Among those on the receiving end of the cult’s services was Lord Casey, former Governor-General of Australia and the minister in charge of overseeing the Australian intelligence service, with which Assange claims to be connected.
... It has been suggested that Anne would have had no power without a syringe. She claimed a lot of knowledge of medical things. She said she had been the matron of a hospital but there is no evidence she ever did nursing. I can’t emphasise the importance of nursing in the sect enough. It was critical to the way she viewed the Aunties and, it was what she planned for the girls’ future profession. She said nursing was one of the ideal occupations because it was a form of ‘selfless service’ that led to spiritual advancement. We knew that on their weeks off from Uptop the Aunties were either training to be nurses or practised as nurses. Several of the Aunties nursed Lord Casey, a former Governor-General of Australia. [Italics are mine–D.E.] Rumour has it that he made a significant donation to the sect....
Idem.
8. More about Lord Casey, his professional history and ideological outlook:
In public, Casey seemed to be a devoted Cold-War warrior, fervently supportive of Britain and the U.S.A., and deeply hostile towards the Soviet Union and China; he was the minister responsible for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.”
“Casey, Richard Gavin Gardner”; Australian Dictionary of Biography.
9. More about the brutal conditioning program executed by the cult on its accolytes. Notice, again, the use of multiple identities, passports and birthdates for the children. What are they used for?
…Once initiated, came the ‘go-through’ and that meant LSD trips. Everyone knew that it was an inevitable consequence of initiation, one of the rituals that was integral to the spiritual development of the new initiate. I’ve been present at many ‘go-throughs’ of people in the sect and ended up having at least a dozen myself. During a ‘go-through’ you were supposed to look at yourself and see the badness inside, to regress to significant incidents in childhood and in previous lives which affected your personality and retarded your spiritual development. The drug, which Anne sometimes called the ‘herb’ or the ‘dream medicine’, was meant to make this easier. It was also meant to make the spiritual bonding easier between master and disciple. You were supposed to recognise her as the “one true master”, Christ incarnate. She would come in to people when they were under and ask, “Do you know who I am?” The correct answer was, “the Lord Incarnate”. The incorrect answer meant you weren’t ‘working’ hard enough. “Working” was ‘looking at yourself’ and realising what a “horrible” person you were, repenting for your sins and purifying yourself. Before my first ‘go-through’ I was deprived of sleep for several nights and made to read ‘Yoga and the Bible’. Beforehand I’d watched one of my brothers get down on his knees and beg me not to hate him for being a closet homosexual. This confession had been wrung out of him by Anne after several days of intensive ‘working’ under the drug. He felt that he was a failure and I did my best to tell him that he’d never be a failure to me because I loved him. We were all scared of revealing our weaknesses but doubted that we would be able to hold anything back once under the influence of the drugs. Anne’s technique, pretty typical, of keeping us awake for several days before a ‘go-through’ meant that we were incredibly vulnerable anyway. You have to hand it to Anne, she knew her stuff; this was chronic sleep deprivation and it added to the strain of the whole experience. Even today, I find if I am really tired I’m prone to flashbacks of LSD and it is harder to cope than it should be. Add to that the sensory deprivation, for I was placed in a quiet and dark room and never knew whether it was day or night. …It was also at this time in 1984, just before my initiation, that Anne changed my name and gave me a new identity. No longer was I to be called Andree who was born in June, July or maybe September. Now, for some reason that I never knew, I was called Sarah. I was now a triplet and had even changed nationalities: I was now born in New Zealand on 16 November 1970. I even had a passport to prove this. It may seem bizarre now but at the time I took this in my stride. I didn’t even consider it strange that Anne had never told me this information up to now, that previously I had believed I was someone else. This sort of thing – sudden changes in our reality- was par for the course in our lives and we never questioned surprises. We were used to unpredictability as far as Anne was concerned. I hated the name Andree anyway and being a triplet was more interesting than being a single. I now know that there were several passports in my name, a couple of which were Australian. They all had different birth-dates. I also had several birth certificates in different names and in different states....
Unseen, Unheard, Unknown; by Sarah Moore.
10a. Sarah Moore suggests a possible reason for |
My job, unlike Matthew Terry's, is not to sell sexiness, but that doesn't mean I can't feel that way.
Dan: Two thoughts: 1) I have an armpit hair shadow in my photo, which is SO goofy and could probably only happen to me, but 2) I'm realizing I don't even care. This photo shoot was really fun, and I felt so unexpectedly confident during the whole thing. Calvin Klein, if you ever want to do that "Couch" campaign, I'm listening.NEW DELHI: India’s biggest mobile phone company Bharti Airtel is in advanced talks with handset makers to introduce a 4G smartphone in the lead up to Diwali for about Rs 2,500, bundling large amounts of data and voice minutes with the device to take the battle to Reliance Jio for retaining a share of the mass market.The 4G device, which will be co-promoted by India’s top telco and the handset maker but not subsidised by Airtel, will be based on the popular Android operating system. Telco will allow users to download all apps available on the Google Play app store, people familiar with the matter told ET.The launch is likely around the end of September or in early October.“Airtel is talking to some handset manufacturers to bring in a smartphone around Rs 2,500, which will have a bigger screen, better camera and better battery performance than what a feature phone could offer,” a senior industry executive aware of Airtel’s plans said. “Discussions are at a very advanced stage,” the person added.Sources at handset makers Lava and Karbonn confirmed that they are in separate talks with the telecom market leader for a mass-market 4G smartphone. Spokespersons at Karbonn and Lava declined to comment.“We don’t comment on market speculation,” a spokesperson for Bharti Airtel said.Amid the intensifying battle for data customers, both Jio and Airtel are shifting their focus to the roughly 500 million feature phone users who still use voice services and haven’t upgraded to smartphones for reasons of affordability or the lack of express need. Yet, both telcos are adopting separate strategies, with Airtel battling to protect its share against competition from Jio in this price-sensitive but large market. RIL ) is offering a 4G VoLTE feature phone locked in with a Jio SIM, and effectively free of tariffs – a Rs 1,500 deposit is returned to the user after three years.A monthly subscription fee of Rs 153 will ensure unlimited voice and data, allowing access to the Internet and pre-loaded Jio apps, including live TV, cinema, music, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp.Sources say that RIL could well launch more than one model of the 4G feature phone at attractive price points, adding that these devices could be introduced alongside the staple JioPhone, for which prebookings begin from August 24.The JioPhone hits the market in September.RIL and Reliance Jio didn’t respond to emailed queries.Airtel, however, is betting that its low-cost 4G smartphone will provide a better consumer experience through a larger screen, better camera and battery, besides access to all apps on the Google Play store that has a much wider apps ecosystem.“If true, Airtel’s strategy has the potential to disrupt the market because at the moment, there isn’t a 4G smartphone with good specs at Rs 2,500,” said Tarun Pathak, associate director at Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research.Bundled plans with such a 4G smartphone would make a lot of difference as they will act as incentives for a consumer in a market where the average selling price of a 4G smart phone is Rs 11,000, said Faisal Kawoosa, senior analyst at Cybermedia Research.“It (Airtel’s 4G device) could be a bit democratic because the VoLTE feature phones (JioPhone) being launched are closed loop (with operator Jio), while the smartphone on Android leaves the choice open for users,” Kawoosa added.To be sure, Navkendar Singh, senior analyst at International Data Corporation (IDC) India, cautioned that ensuring quality consumer experience on a 4G smartphone priced at Rs 2,500 would remain a challenge. “Having good quality screen, battery, and high-speed processor at Rs 2,500 is a challenge… Also, they’re expecting feature phone users who presently spend around Rs 1,000-1,500 to spend extra money to buy a smartphone,” Singh said. Another industry insider said the smartphone to be launched by Airtel in partnership with a handset maker may well be based on Android Go.It is a variant of Android announced in May, aimed at regions with slow Internet connectivity and has been designed to work smoothly even on lower-end smart-phones. Google declined to comment for this report. Counterpoint’s Pathak said the move would be beneficial for Airtel as it will create an additional revenue source triggered by the consumption of data, which is at the heart of the company’s business.Airtel would be able to generate additional sales without having to manage the end-to-end supply chain of making and selling smartphones.The partnership would also work for smartphone brands that will benefit from Airtel’s large distribution and retail chain spread across the country, say analysts.State Sen. Kevin de León struck a defiant tone Saturday, May 6, in Riverside, saying California will continue to be a world leader on social justice issues threatened by President Donald Trump.
“Our values, our vision, our economic progress is in direct conflict with the new administration’s vision for America,” said De León, D-Los Angeles. “And we’re going to have to fight like never before.”
“We’re not going to back down no matter what the president does,” De León added.
De León, who is president pro tem of the state senate, was the keynote speaker at the “Mexican@ and Latin@ State Summit” at UC Riverside aimed at creating strategies to fight against Trump policies. He was introduced by Assemblywoman Eloise Reyes.
De León was greeted with cheers and applause, but also with taunts from about a dozen Trump supporters in the room.
“Anchor baby,” “lawbreaker,” and “traitor” were among insults thrown at him. Once De León was in the room, one person said, “Where is ICE when you need them?”
De León has been seen as a leader in California’s resistance toward Trump. The morning after Trump was elected president, he released a joint statement with Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, that spoke to California residents.
“Today, we woke up feeling like strangers in a foreign land,” the statement read. The election results, it continued, “are clearly inconsistent with the values of the people of California.”
Since then, De León has been pushing for a bill he authored, known as SB 54, that would create a statewide sanctuary for people in the country illegally.
During his address Saturday, many in the crowd began chanting, “54, 54, 54!” Trump supporters counted, “Build that wall!”
De León lambasted Trump for his pledge to strip federal dollars from sanctuary cities, calling it “morally repugnant” and “unconstitutional.” He defended science and pledged that California would continue to protect the environment by creating new jobs in clean energy. And he scolded Republicans for passing a health care bill that he described as “the largest tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans.”
“Poor people will get sicker and as a result, more people will die when their health care is taken away from them,” he said.
The gathering of more than 100 people got heated at times, as organizers tried to continue their meeting amid disruptions from those in support of Trump. Some of them scolded panelists for presenting in Spanish. Others held signs that read: “America First,” “Fire Kevin de León” and “Trump is our President.”
A number of UC Riverside police officers were at bay and at times escorted people outside to dissuade tensions.
Meanwhile, some Trump supporters were upset they weren’t given more of a chance to speak as organizers laid out rules to abide by during the meeting. Enrique Murillo, a Cal State San Bernardino professor and an organizer of the summit, said no one would be allowed to speak unless recognized.
Robert Lauten, a Trump supporter, said he wasn’t disruptive; all he did was hold a sign calling attention to illegal immigration.
He said he attended the gathering to voice his opposition to open borders. He criticized the state, saying it has high gas prices and low-performing schools. California, he said, is not business-friendly.
Armando Navarro, a professor emeritus at UC Riverside and a lead organizer of the gathering, said he anticipated disruptions.
Navarro said the gathering was held to help “awaken the Mexicano Latino giant.”
“For too long, we have been too complacent. For too long, we don’t seem to understand the power that we have,” Navarro told the crowd. “History is not on our side if we don’t organize, if we don’t politicize ourselves and prepare for the future.”
Among those present were representatives from the Brown Berets, a Chicano civil-rights group; the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates; and immigrant-rights groups TODEC Legal Center and the Alianza de Ex-bracero del Norte based in Los Angeles.
Rubyd Olvera, president of the campus group PODER, which stands for Providing Opportunities, Dreams, and Education in Riverside, said the event was necessary because it “brings to light the problems that we have here.”
“In regards to Riverside itself being really conservative. We obviously saw that today,” Olvera said.
“It goes to show the conversations that need to happen, the organizations that are already putting work into this … but also to move forward because this is not going to be a problem that’s going to solve itself,” Olvera added.
“It’s going to be solved by us and the next generation of leaders,” Olvera said.CLOSE In December, five Arizonans returned home from Disneyland with the measles. A month later, nearly 1,000 people have been exposed to the virus, know to be one of the most contagious diseases known to man.
A look at how one family in Kearny Arizona handled being the catalyst to exposing about 1,000 people to the measles. Five of the family members developed measles after four of them had been in Disneyland during an outbreak of the measles.
Jannae Yslas-Roach (not pictured) went to California with niece Neveah Yslas; children Christian Day, Serenity Biano-Yslas, Isaiah Biano-Yslas, Gabriel Biano-Yslas; and husband Aaron Roach. (Photo: Kearny Family / Family photo)
For days, Jannae Yslas-Roach nursed herself and three of her children through the scourge of measles. Nausea, high fever and rash deposited their insidious calling cards throughout her Kearny household.
When the illness finally lifted, Yslas-Roach began questioning her long-held conviction against vaccinations.
At her computer, she printed out page after page about the disease and its vaccine, collecting the documents into a pile on her coffee table.
The 32-year-old, whose family history led her to fear that vaccinations might do more harm than good, started to wonder: Was I wrong all these years?
It was mid-January. Before the end of the month, Yslas-Roach would face a new battle: scorn from some residents of her tiny community and beyond for having exposed hundreds of people to the highly contagious virus.
In Kearny, with a population of about 2,000, some soon guessed who the "measles family" was, even though warnings from school and health officials about the outbreak did not disclose their identity.
Social-media posts exploded, accusing the family of being reckless in where they went and who they saw while infected, and speculating wildly about their reasons for shunning vaccination.
So much about those accounts were one-sided and misleading, Yslas-Roach says.
The backlash stung. But it matters little to her self-examination about the stance her own mother had taken against vaccinations, which Yslas-Roach followed when she became a mom.
If she now changes her mind, she says, it is because she does not want to see her children suffer again through an illness that could be prevented.
She knows telling her story — how family members warned officials they might have measles, how long it took to get the proper diagnosis, how exposure could have been greatly limited much sooner — might not change anyone's opinion.
"But people think we were willy-nilly exposing people," she says. "That's not the case; that's not what happened. That is something that is really important to me and that I want people to understand."
The diagnosis
Yslas-Roach's private choice against vaccination became a matter of public debate when she and her husband, Aaron Roach, took their family to Disneyland for five days in mid-December.
"It was to be the big Christmas present for the kids," she says of the children in her home: sons Christian Day, 13, Isaiah Biano-Yslas, 9, and Gabriel Biano-Yslas, 5; daughter Serenity Biano-Yslas, 7; and niece Neveah Yslas, 7.
Aaron and Neveah are the only members of the household who have been vaccinated. And Disneyland in December was the staging ground for a measles outbreak that swept across the country, infecting at least 140 people and exposing as many as 1,000 in Arizona.
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Of the seven confirmed measles cases in Arizona, six are tied to Yslas-Roach and her family. The seventh was identified as a Maricopa County woman in her 50s who had traveled to Disneyland in mid-December.
Four members of the Yslas-Roach household got sick with cough, high fever and rash in early January. During the next two weeks, Yslas-Roach says, family members visited medical professionals on three occasions — Jan. 2, 11 and 14 — without getting a firm diagnosis.
Gabriel was the first to get sick, with a fever and rash on his forehead, on Jan. 2. Yslas-Roach brought Gabriel to Dr. Jeff Crawford in Kearny, who said he could not determine if Gabriel had measles or scarlet fever, a strep infection, she said.
The doctor said it was too late in the day for a blood test for measles because the lab companies had already made their rounds to collect samples, Yslas-Roach says. He prescribed an antibiotic.
In a telephone interview, Crawford confirmed Yslas-Roach's account of the visit.
He also said that he knew Gabriel was not immunized against measles but that his visit did not expose anyone else in the office.
Crawford's treatment seemed to work, Yslas-Roach says. After three doses of the antibiotic, Gabriel's fever and rash disappeared and he began to feel better. Crawford gave Yslas-Roach permission to send Gabriel back to school.
But by Jan. 7, Yslas-Roach, Christian and Isaiah had come down with 103-degree fevers, cough, rash and nausea. Serenity had a high fever but no rash.
Yslas-Roach thought they had caught scarlet fever from Gabriel. She quarantined the family, staying home from her job at the Carlota Copper Mine in Miami and keeping the sick kids out of school.
By Jan. 11, Christian's condition had worsened and his father, Danny Day, decided to take him to a doctor. But it was a Sunday and no clinic was open in Kearny, so Day and Christian made the 60-mile trip to the Phoenix Children's Specialty and Urgent Care East Valley Center in Mesa.
Jannae Yslas-Roach (with husband Aaron Roach) says she and her family have faced scorn from residents of Kearny and beyond for having exposed hundreds to the measles virus. (Photo: Family photo)
The family knew by now of the measles outbreak, and Day said he alerted the center that his son had been to Disneyland. Day further said he told attending physician Dr. Emiliano Higuera that Christian had not been vaccinated and inquired whether he should be tested for measles.
Day said Higuera decided against the test and diagnosed Christian with a viral infection.
Pinal County Public Health officials later determined that Christian had measles and that his visit exposed 18 people, one of whom, a woman, became infected. The woman later returned to the East Valley Center and exposed at least 195 others.
Higuera declined to be interviewed. In an e-mail to The Arizona Republic, Debra Stevens, a spokeswoman for the center, confirmed that the family told Higuera about the Disneyland trip and asked him to test Christian for measles. She said, though, that Christian's medical record showed he was up to date on his vaccines.
She wrote: "Based on the exposure time frames provided by Christian's dad, the signs and symptoms Christian had on presentation to Urgent Care, the patient's vaccine history given by dad as 'Up To Date,' and review of CDC guidance, Dr. Higuera did not believe that a measles test was medically indicated."
The statement continued to say that Higuera provided information on measles and reviewed it with Day, adding, "Mutual consensus was reached between the two that measles testing did not need to be done at that time."
In a second statement, Stevens wrote: "If our doctor had known that the child was not vaccinated, it certainly would have changed his decisions regarding diagnostics and treatment."
Day disputes the hospital's account. He said the doctor merely attached material about measles to the discharge papers, without review or discussion.
"I boldly stated to him that he was not vaccinated for measles, and I asked him how to go about getting him vaccinated," Day said. "There was no mutual consensus that he didn't need to be tested."
Yslas-Roach was the next family member to seek medical help. On Jan. 14, Yslas-Roach recalls, she sat up in bed around midnight, barely able to breathe.
"Something's wrong," she whispered to her husband. "I've got to get to the hospital."
With no medical clinic open in Kearny, they made the one-hour trip to Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center in Globe. First, Roach called with a warning: My wife may have the measles.
Roach says the hospital told him to have her put on a face mask when they entered.
Yslas-Roach says that after several minutes in the intake area, she was taken to a room, examined and sent for a chest X-ray.
"We can hear the doctors and nurses standing outside the door, asking each other who has had the measles," Yslas-Roach says.
The hospital staff tested her blood and took a throat culture. Yslas-Roach says she was told she might have a viral infection.
Evelyn Vargas, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the staff did its best to minimize exposure to others in the hospital. She said the test given to Yslas-Roach was inconclusive for measles.
Yslas-Roach says the family learned definitively they had measles on Jan. 22, after testing by a team from the Pinal County Public Health Services District. The county got involved because Tiffany Boyd, the school nurse, knew the family was not vaccinated and had traveled to Disneyland. She worried the children's absences were tied to the measles outbreak.
Pinal County determined Yslas-Roach's visit to the Globe medical center had exposed 17 people to the virus. All but one have either had the measles or had been vaccinated. The one who was not protected self-quarantined himself and did not develop the measles.
Day, too, had become sick and after testing, the county team determined he likely caught the measles from Christian. Although Day had been vaccinated, he had received only one of the recommended two doses.
But before he was told he had measles, Day had made several trips around Kearny doing errands, thinking he had been immunized but in reality exposing an undetermined number of people.
"I never in a million years thought this would go as far as it has," Yslas-Roach says. "I'm a believer that if you do not vaccinate your children, you have a responsibility to keep your kids out and away from others, if they're sick."
On Jan. 23, the Pinal County Public Health Services District issued a news release that a family of four in Kearny and an adult male in the community had come down with the measles.
The news release helped fuel the backlash, Yslas-Roach says, but Christian's trip to the clinic in Mesa led to some of the harshest comments.
The woman who Christian exposed on Jan. 11 was contagious with the measles when she returned to the center between Jan. 20 and 21. During that period, the woman exposed 3-year-old Maggie Jacks, the daughter of Gilbert pediatrician Tim Jacks.
Jacks said his daughter is being treated for leukemia and cannot be vaccinated because of her weakened immune system. He and his wife, Anna, also have an infant, Eli, who at 11 months is too young to be vaccinated.
When Jacks learned that Maggie had been exposed, he shared his feelings in a blog in late January, which went viral on social media and led to appearances on national news programs.
In part, he wrote: "I have a number of strong feelings surging through my body right now. Toward my family, I am feeling extra protective like a papa bear. Toward you, unvaccinating parent, I feel anger and frustration at your choices."
Yslas-Roach says she "feels horrible" that his daughter was exposed to the measles, adding, "it completely broke my heart. We didn't do this intentionally." If Christian had been tested Jan. 11, Yslas-Roach says, the results would have been back in time to prevent the exposure to Maggie and others. "Our family has gone through hell, dealing with the commentary on social media and from the regular media over the fact that people think we were running around exposing people."
Jacks said in an interview with The Republic that he doesn't "have any hard feelings" toward Yslas-Roach and her family. His children did not get measles.
He said his blog was written not to bash the family "but to really educate them. I hope that's how it came across. I know my wording was fairly emotional but my kids are at risk."
A change in perspective
A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Health Services says the statewide measles outbreak concern will be over by the end of next week as long as no new cases emerge, but the agency is asking doctors to stay on alert for possible new measles cases.
Most people are either vaccinated or immune to the disease; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says measles has been virtually eliminated in the United States since 2000.
Yslas-Roach recognizes that many medical professionals today have never seen a case of measles, and she does not blame the doctors whom they visited. She explains that she was not immunized in childhood because her uncle had a severe reaction to a vaccine and her mother "worried I might have a genetic problem."
When Yslas-Roach had her first child at 19, she also chose not to immunize "because I was worried about a one-size-fits-all vaccine."
But now that her children have recovered from measles and their immune systems are strong enough, she's considering having them vaccinated against mumps and rubella.
She may even get the vaccine herself.
"All the research is on my table," she said.
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1BAsLsMAmid all of the media and public fascination with threats like Stuxnet and weighty terms such as “cyberwar,” it’s easy to overlook the more humdrum and persistent security threats, such as Web site vulnerabilities. But none of these distractions should excuse U.S. military leaders from making sure their Web sites aren’t trivially hackable by script kiddies.
Security vendor Imperva today blogged about a hacker who claims to have access to and control over several top dot-gov, dot-mil and dot-edu Web sites. I’ve seen some of the back-end evidence of his hacks, so it doesn’t seem like he’s making this up. Perhaps out of deference to the federal government, the Imperva folks blocked out the best part of that screen shot — the actual names of the Web site domains that this hacker is selling. For example, the hacker is advertising full control and root access to cecom.army.mil, a site whose stated purpose is “to develop, acquire, provide and sustain world-class…systems and Battle Command capabilities for the joint warfighter.” It can be yours, for just $499 (sorry, no credit cards accepted; only the virtual currency Liberty Reserve).
Here is an unredacted (well, mostly) shot of that site:
According to Imperva, this enterprising hacker is also selling info personally identifiable information from hacked sites, for $20 per 1K records. The company mined this hacker’s postings on other forums, and found evidence that he was able to hijack the sites via SQL injection vulnerabilities, most likely with the help of an automated vulnerability scanner.
I find it ironic that one of these sites allegedly for sale is the Department of Defense Pharmacoeconomic Center, which is a DoD site tasked with “improving the clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes of drug therapy in support of the…military health system.” In all likelihood, if access to this site is purchased, it will be by someone looking to plant links to rogue online pharmacies of the sort frequently advertised in junk e-mail. People who get paid to promote these rogue pharmacies typically do so by hacking legitimate Web sites and including links back to fly-by-night pharma sites, and they particularly like dot-mil, dot-gov and dot-edu sites because search engines tend to treat links coming from those domains with more authority than random.com sites.
By the way, that “Undetected Private Java Driveby Exploit” that this guy is selling is none other than the social engineering trick I blogged about last week here.
Tags: cecom.army.mil, cyberwar, Department of Defense Pharmacoeconomic Center, imperva, java, Liberty Reserve, sql injectionZookeepers holding a net to capture a zookeeper dressed as zebra (C) during a drill to practice what to do if an animal escapes at the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. (AFP Photo)
A runaway zebra led police on a dramatic chase across a golf course in Japan, until its bid for freedom ended in death when it collapsed in a water trap.The creature's odyssey, which was broadcast live on national television, saw officers in hot pursuit as they tried -- in vain -- to recapture it alive.After unsuccessfully attempting to corral the stripy animal, vets shot it with a tranquiliser dart -- only to watch as it plunged into a small lake on the golf course."It collapsed in the pond, so we hurriedly pulled it ashore, but its heart had already stopped beating," said Takahiro Taniguchi, a police spokesman in central Gifu."Veterinarians performed cardiac massage," he said, but it was not enough to prevent the "bitter aftertaste" of the animal's demise.The zebra had bolted on Tuesday from the Mikuni West Farm in neighbouring Aichi.The failed attempt to recapture the creature came just a month after a Tokyo zoo held a drill practising this very eventuality.Every year, a zookeeper dresses as an animal and stages an escape, giving colleagues the opportunity to hone their techniques.This year's creature was a zebra, which was successfully collared and returned to its pen.But as if to prove that practice doesn't always make perfect, this week's real life response didn't quite go to plan.According to Ueno Zoo, which staged the zebra escape drill last month, the animals are easily panicked.Japan has previously had more success with animal escapes.In 2012 a penguin on the run from a Tokyo aquarium outwitted authorities for 82 days before being caught. There were more than 30 sightings of the 60-centimetre (two-foot) bird, known only as Penguin 337, who was spotted around various locations, including swimming in Tokyo Bay.HBC under fire for selling'skinny' T-shirt
The Hudson's Bay Company is getting bad reviews on Twitter over a T-shirt that critics say promotes eating disorders. The white T-shirt depicts a mock food nutrition label and reads: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." It was spotted at an HBC store in Toronto.
Storified by CTVNews.ca· Tue, Jun 24 2014 16:35:36
Plz RT: @TheHudsonsBayCo is promoting #eatingdisorder culture. We are #NotBuyingIt http://t.co/rY8kteVcRmKathleen Pye
The motto was made infamous by supermodel Kate Moss in 2009. Ads for a children's T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan were banned in Britain in 2011 after outraged parents complained.
Really, @TheHudsonsBayCo?! This is the message you want to send to your customers? Disappointing... #notbuyingit http://t.co/UH67Zvz8jhSamantha Cambridge
One Twitter user who complained directly to HBC said she received this response:
Update on @TheHudsonsBayCo #tastesbetterthan tee: received sloppy, canned response to my emailed complaint. Excerpt: http://t.co/syBy6u4MiCKristin Foster
After several angry tweets directed at HBC, another user noticed that the T-shirt may no longer be available for purchase online.
Is @TheHudsonsBayCo pulling back? "We're sorry you have reached a product page that is no longer available." http://t.co/jbF96bf6gS #EDDysthymic Dad
The T-shirt's designer, Christopher Lee Sauve, defended the use of the slogan. He wrote on Tumblr that the T-shirt is actually a "protest" against "absurd" statements in the fashion industry.
Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels<p><span>I am being bombarded with hate mail, tweets, Facebook messages from people protesting my design <strong>"Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels"</strong> selling at The Hudson Bay and Patricia Field. The design was not intended to be pro-anorexia but the opposite. Clearly the nutritional label that is on the t-shirt states that you are not consuming any calories or nutrition by not eating therefor </span><a class="profileLink" href="https://www.facebook.com/katemoss" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=1437354003182442">Kate Moss</a><span> statement from 2009 is ridiculous and therefor the t-shirt is a protest against her actions and the absurd remarks that occur in the fashion industry as all of my work portrays.</span></p>
Sauve got plenty of support from those who accused critics of overreacting and failing to see the T-shirt's "real" message.
Stop being so inflexible, @chrissauve tees are always thoughtful art waves, not random tacky propaganda. Think more! http://t.co/OZiT10NRV0Sally McAlister
@chrissauve Stop overreacting people! It's so not pro-anorexia.NaomiBurtonIsaacs
@chrissauve nothing feels as good as your tees on me! You're brilliant. Not at all hateful. #misunderstood #loveRobyn Roberts
But not everyone was convinced that Sauve is a misunderstood artist.
@SterlingJoy94 @chrissauve @AnnieBee_61 I'm sorry...but how is reprinting a hollow nutrition label & stupid pro-starvation quote "art"?Recovered AnorexicThe name of a Minnesota man might grace the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records after he battled through intense boredom over the weekend.
Rick Swenson, of Grand Forks, floated nearly 26 miles Saturday in a pumpkin down the Red River, the Duluth News Tribune reports. Swenson’s journey shattered the previous pumpkin float record by more than 10 miles.
“It was getting boring towards the end,” Swenson told the newspaper. “I mean it was beautiful, but you knew you were getting towards the end and you didn’t want to stop and it was starting to get really boring.”
Swenson’s quest to break the world record started with a big setback.
When he set sail from Grand Forks, he and his team thought he just had to float 8 miles to make it into the record book.
But, as he was nearing the 8-mile mark, they released the record had been broken just 15 weeks ago. Swenson said the realization was “completely demoralizing.”
Still, he pressed on.
On his sturdy pumpkin, which was decorated with orange lights, he slowly floated down the winding river to Oslo. The entire trip took about 13 hours and 40 minutes.
Swenson says he’ll never do something like that again. His trusty pumpkin, meanwhile, will be put on display at a zoo before being fed to animals.Thanks to the folks at Marvel Studios, every Hollywood studio is now scrambling to have or be part of a connected universe. Whether it be Godzilla, Transformers, or the Universal Monsters, everyone’s got to get them a piece of that sweet cinematic universe money. The Mummy is no exception to this trend but offers a crucial lesson to studios that want interconnected movies: before you announce multiple films in a shared universe series, you better make damn sure the first one is good. The Mummy is not that.
A reimaging of the Mummy franchise, The Mummy is the story of Nick Morton (Tom Cruise). Morton is a soldier of fortune who plunders ancient sites for timeless artifacts and sells them to the highest bidder. When Nick and his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) come under attack in the Middle East, the ensuing battle accidentally unearths Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), a betrayed Egyptian princess who was entombed under the desert for thousands of years. With her powers constantly evolving, Morton must now stop the resurrected monster as she embarks on a furious rampage through the streets of London. Directed by Alex Kurtzman, The Mummy feels less like a movie and more like a limp wristed corporate outing. It doesn’t feel like a movie that was made by a director with a distinct point of view or really anybody with passion. Literally anybody could have made this film. The Mummy isn’t a movie as much as it is a producer’s checklist adapted for the screen.
If you ever imagined what it would be like if someone decided to deliberately make a film with no original ideas or thoughts, it would be this film. Every stylistic and plot decision made in the film feels like a cynical attempt at making a blockbuster film franchise without doing the work. Every awful trend of the last five years is woven into this film with almost surgical precision. Do you like plot threads that set up sequels? They’re in here! Do you like an underdeveloped romance with barely any chemistry between two human beings? Oh boy, have I got a film for you! Do you like cringe worthy name drops of other figures in your potential franchise? Buy your tickets now!!!
How’s the acting in this film? Let me break it down for you. How’s Tom Cruise? Well, he’s playing the same character he always plays except this time…he’s a selfish dick. Annabelle Wallis? She’s a person who does things, I guess. Nothing memorable or interesting, but she’s in the movie. I don’t even remember her character’s name. Jake Johnson? He’s hilarious on New Girl…and he’s kind of there in this movie. He says lines that are kind of funny at points… Sofia Boutella as the Mummy is trying her best and deserves a much better role and Russell Crowe kind of imitates the late great Bob Hoskins at one point.
So...We're going to do more of these, right?
It’s hard to talk about this movie as a movie because it feels like a shambling corpse made of the elements of better movies. It’s not the worst thing I have ever seen but it is something far worse than boring…it’s dull. Movies are supposed to make you feel things. We go to the movies to try and feel things like suspense, sadness, and excitement. That’s part of the fun of going to the movies is experiencing something new. The Mummy offers nothing new to the viewers out there. It’s just two hours that could be spent seeing much better films. It’s a damn shame, as the Universal Monsters deserve something so much better than this. Much like the titular figure, some things should stay buried.
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-Liam S. O'Connor'I don't understand why everybody is so afraid to be in a rock band,' says singer
Alice Cooper has claimed that branding Mumford and Sons a rock band would be an “offence to rock ‘n’ roll”.
Speaking to Fuse, the shock-rock singer said that modern musicians were “afraid to be in a rock band” and claimed that the current generation need to “quit eating vegetarian food” and “eat a steak” instead.
Asked for his views on current rock music, he said: “I just feel that this whole generation needs to all eat a steak. Maybe they just need to quit eating vegetarian food and get out there and get some blood pumping in their system. Rock ‘n’ roll is not about ‘Happy happy happy, everything’s okay. We’re The Lumineers, let’s clog dance.’ Hey, there’s a place for that. If I wanted to see a great clog dancing band, I’d see The Lumineers.”
Using Mumford And Sons as an example, meanwhile, he went on to add: “Mumford And Sons are great at what they do. But it’s not rock ‘n’ roll. Don’t call it rock ‘n’ roll. It’s an offence to rock ‘n’ roll.”
“I get they want to be folk rock, and I guess they want to look like everybody else,” he continued. “I’m |
’m pretty sure they will be the envy of all her friends! A girl can’t have too many amazing shoes after all!
All This & Brains Too Zombie Pinup PillboxCheck Price Til Zombies Get You Keychain & Bottle OpenerCheck Price Zombie Stompers – Glow in the Dark Limited EditionCheck Price
You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned The Walking Dead today – that’s because Cold put together his The Walking Dead Mega Gift Guide post just a couple of weeks ago so I’m going to suggest you have a look through that post for Valentine’s Day gift ideas – maybe your Valentine is a fan of the show in which case, it’s the perfect shopping guide for you.
Valentine’s Day gifts don’t all have to be romantic – just knowing that my Valentine has spent time finding a perfect gift for me is just as romantic as any heart & flowers type gift. It does help if there are chocolates included though – I am a girl after all and I’m a confirmed chocoholic too!Middle East experts say Turkish military’s apparent attempt to seize power on Friday has sent shockwaves through Nato and across the world
The attempted coup in Turkey threatens to dangerously destabilise a western ally in a region already reeling from war, terrorism and mass migration, according to experts and analysts in the region.
The Turkish military’s apparent attempt to seize power on Friday unleashed panic in the streets and sent shockwaves through Nato and across the Middle East.
Reports of tanks opening fire near the parliament, and fighter jets downing a helicopter filled with coup plotters, left the outcome unclear, but there were early indications the power grab would fail.
Crowds filled the streets in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in defiance of a declared martial law and curfew. With the state broadcaster TRT off the air, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used his iPhone to broadcast an appeal to Turks to resist the coup.
The extraordinary turn of events baffled many in the foreign policy community, many of whom perceived Turkey’s elected government as relatively stable.
Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and one of the few foreign policy experts who has been warning of the risk of a military coup in recent months, said a critical question would be the degree to which the entire military command was involved in the attempted coup.
He said the most dangerous risk was a breakout in fighting between divisions within the Turkish military and civilian and intelligence factions aligned with Erdoğan, who was recently re-elected.
This will rattle the Turkish markets. It will tarnish the country’s image... This will be embarrassing for Erdoğan Professor Omer Taspinar
“Right now the question is whether the attempted coup is from the top command, with the top brass involved, or a colonel or officer-coup, from a certain segment of the army. There are indications right now that it is the latter. The chief of staff of the military has not spoken yet, and traditionally with Turkish coups you would expect the head of the military to be on TV taking command.
“This will rattle the Turkish markets. It will tarnish the country’s image. My analysis is that this will certainly be embarrassing for Erdoğan. The signs are chaotic right now, but I think the rumors of Erdoğan’s demise would be highly exaggerated given he has been on TV.”
Taspinar said it was especially embarrassing for the Turkish president because of the history of Turkish coups. “Each time the military intervened in the past, it was at a time when the government was very unpopular.”
The most significant risk, Taspinar said, was a descent into bloody clashes between police forces loyal to Erdoğan’s ministry of the interior, over which he has an iron grip, and a segment of a rebellious military. “I don’t expect that to happen, but if it does, it would be devastating to Turkey.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish soldiers block Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. Photograph: Burak Kara/Getty Images
The former prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told al-Jazeera a military clique had staged the coup and that it would fail.
Kemal Kirisci, senior fellow and director of the Turkey Project at Brookings, said the coup, along with Islamic State attacks, Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and other developments, gave a sense of events spinning out of control. “The immediate damage here is to democracy.”
Stephen Flanagan, who served in the Obama administration’s National Security Council and is now an analyst for the Rand corporation, said Turkey’s military wanted tougher measures against Kurdish insurgents and to tighten its frontier with Syria.
“The military does not want to become engaged on the ground in Syria but does want to tighten up the borders to make sure that turkey is not dragged into a ground war in the region. And it wants to step up the fight against the PKK.”
Islamic State operatives in Turkey may chafe under tighter military controls in the short term, but on balance, this was good news for the terror group, he said. “Continued turmoil could deepen divisions in Turkey. And distract it from doing more to help the coalition in Syria.”
The White House, a critic of Erdogan’s perceived authoritarian drift and ineffective policies, released a statement saying Barack Obama and John Kerry, the secretary of state, “agreed that all parties in Turkey should support the democratically-elected Government of Turkey, show restraint, and avoid any violence or bloodshed”.
Turkey, which has the second-biggest army in Nato after the US, was a crucial ally during the cold war and is now an ally, albeit with significant political differences, in the fight against Isis. Last year, Turkey agreed to let US warplanes and armed drones use the Incirlik airbase, just 60 miles from the north-west Syrian border. The aircraft had previously flown from Iraq or Arab allies such as Jordan.
Loss of the base would be a severe blow to the effort against Isis, especially after recent terrorist attacks within Belgium, France, Turkey and the US.
Eric Bordenkircher, of UCLA’s Center for Middle East Development, said the turmoil could snarl military cooperation with Ankara. “The US military will need to see whether we should continue to operate in Turkey with a non-democratic government.”
Turkey, which hosts 2.5 million refugees, mostly from Syria, has objected to US support for Kurdish forces operating in northern Syria against Isis. Washington has said it draws a clear distinction between the PKK, a foreign terrorist organisation, and the Syrian Kurds, whom it sees as one of many groups fighting Isis.
The attempted takeover marked a return to an era that had supposedly passed. In the past, army chiefs in Turkey repeatedly removed politicians with whom they disagreed or who struggled to respond to turmoil.
In 1960, army officials removed a premier and later hanged him, and three more coups took place over the next four decades, according to Reuters.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tanks move into position as Turkish people attempt to stop them in Ankara, Turkey. Photograph: Burhan Ozbilici/AP
The period of military domination lasted until 1965.
In 1971, following widespread unrest during a recession, the military intervened anew to “restore order”. Fahri Koruturk, a retired naval officer, became president.
The next coup happened in 1980 and became the most brutal military coup in modern Turkish history. The military executed 50 people and about 600,000 were arrested. Hundreds disappeared.
In 1997, during Turkey’s first Islamist-led government, the prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, was toppled in a so-called “post-modern coup”.
Taspinar, the Brookings analyst, said Friday’s chaos was especially embarrassing for Erdoğan because the previous coups all occurred when government appeared unstable and unpopular.Dominique Soguel, The Associated Press
ISTANBUL -- Turkey declared a national day of mourning and paid tribute to the dead Sunday after two bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and wounded 155 others near a soccer stadium. The carnage was claimed by a Turkey-based Kurdish militant group.
The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, said two of its members had sacrificed their lives in the Saturday night attack that targeted security forces outside the Besiktas stadium shortly after the conclusion of a match.
"Two of our comrades were heroically martyred in the attack," according to a statement posted on TAK's website.
It described the blasts as reprisal for state violence in the southeast and the ongoing imprisonment of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. TAK is considered by authorities as a PKK offshoot.
The twin car-and-suicide bombings near the stadium enraged top officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who vowed to hunt down the perpetrators. The attack was the latest large-scale assault to traumatize a nation confronting an array of security threats.
Turkey is a NATO member and a partner in the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group.
The attack targeted police officers, killing 30 of them along with seven civilians and an unidentified person, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters. He said 13 people had been arrested in connection with the "terrorist" act.
In an address at a funeral for the slain police officers before TAK's statement was released, a furious Soylu condemned Kurdish rebels and their allies in the West, referring to the PKK as "animals."
"Have you accomplished anything beyond being the servants, pawns and hit men of certain dark forces, of your dark Western partners?" he asked.
Turkish officials didn't make any further comments after the TAK claim of responsibility was posted.
The battle between the PKK and the Turkish state has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of citizens. Turkish officials frequently accuse the West of supporting the Kurdish insurgency and of interfering in Ankara's fight against the militants.
Erdogan vowed his country would fight "the curse of terrorism till the end" after paying a visit to some of the wounded at Haseki Hospital in Istanbul.
Hundreds of flag-carrying demonstrators marched along Istanbul's coastline toward the stadium at the heart of the blast area. Flags flew at half-staff across the country and at Turkey's foreign missions. Passers-by placed flowers on barriers surrounding the soccer stadium.
The first and larger explosion took place about 10:30 p.m. Saturday after Besiktas beat Bursaspor 2-1 in the Turkish Super League. Erdogan said the attack's timing aimed to maximize the loss of life, but most fans had left before the detonation.
Soylu said the first blast was caused by a passing vehicle that detonated in an area where police special forces were located at the stadium exit. A riot police bus appears to have been the target. Moments later, a person who had been stopped in nearby Macka Park committed suicide by triggering explosives, according to the minister.
He said 136 people remained hospitalized Sunday after the attack, including 14 in intensive care.
TAK claimed the Turkish people weren't their target but warned "no one should expect a comfortable life" as long as the ruling party "continues to torture the mothers of Kurdistan every day."
Armed conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish militants resumed in July 2015 after peace talks unraveled. While much of the violence has concentrated in the impoverished and pre-dominantly Kurdish southeast, it has also spread to other cities, including the capital, Ankara, where TAK has claimed February and March suicide bombings.
Experts have determined that up to 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of explosives were used in the car bomb, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told CNN Turk.
To the mournful sound of trumpets, funeral services were held at Istanbul's police headquarters for some of the slain officers. Their comrades solemnly carried the coffins, which were draped in the Turkish flag, as a sea of mourners wept around them.
Erdogan presided over a security meeting after the funeral ceremony and hospital visit.
Soccer fans proved their resilience by showing up to watch a game pitting Istanbul's Galatasaray and Gaziantepspor at a different stadium.
"What happened last night was extremely saddening but they need to know that Turkish people will not yield to such things," Galatasaray supporter Erkan Duman told The Associated Press. "It's not like we will give up things, especially things we love, just because they want us to."
Turkey has witnessed a spate of IS and Kurdish-linked attacks this year. Saturday's bombings were one of the bloodiest to hit Istanbul, a city at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, until recently a popular tourist destination.
That changed after a series of IS-linked suicide bombings targeting tourists, including a sophisticated attack on the city's Ataturk Airport in June that killed 44 people and wounded scores of others. PKK-linked militants have claimed other deadly attacks in Ankara, Istanbul and areas in southeast Turkey.
A state of emergency is in force following a failed July 15 coup attempt and the resulting government crackdown on alleged coup sympathizers has landed thousands in jail and forced tens of thousands of people from their jobs. Critics call the move a witch hunt.
Cinar Kiper, Ayse Wieting and Bulut Emiroglu contributed to this report.Wollongong Coal expansion 'totally stranded' by planning report, mining analyst says
Posted
An analyst says a coal company's plan to mine further into the Sydney drinking water catchment appears to be "totally stranded" by the findings of an independent body.
But Wollongong Coal has played down the Planning Assessment Commission's (PAC) most recent report, saying it has options and "the ball is in the company's court".
The commission's second review into Wollongong Coal's proposed expansion of its Russell Vale coal mine has found water and subsidence issues remain unresolved.
Tim Buckley is a director at the Sydney-based Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
He said the commission's outcome was fair given the risks to the community were greater than the company had let on, but he held concerns about the assessment process.
"I think one of the telling things about the PAC report is they have not assessed the financial capacity of the proponent, because that's outside of their remit, but it's 100 per cent entirely within the remit of the NSW Government," Mr Buckley said.
"To me it's just a major shortcoming in the entire review process that we are wasting government and community time assessing a project for a proponent that is effectively, according to their own auditors and their own management reports, in financial distress and unable to continue as a going concern without a continued lifeline from their parent in India," he said.
"Because it's a one way bet: if the project were to go ahead, the proponent were to find funding from Jindal Steel and then something goes wrong, Jindal Steel can head back to India and leave the proponent in administration and the local community will wear the cost."
Wollongong Coal currently has no capacity to repay its debts unless it is thrown another financial lifeline by parent Jindal Steel & Power (Australia) Pty Ltd.
Its future hinges on the so-called Underground Expansion Project, to mine 5 million tonnes of coal in eight new longwalls over five years.
Wollongong Coal says it has 'any number of options'
Wollongong Coal now has an opportunity to respond to the independent PAC's findings.
A spokesman said there were "any number of options available to the company" and "the ball is in the company's court".
But Mr Buckley said the major issue was that the proponent had no capacity to remedy any damage it could cause to the catchment.
"It's ludicrous the company is still listed in the stock exchange, and for me the whole process is ludicrous," he said.
"The Government should just be assessing 'does the entity have the financial capacity to actually undertake the project, to fund the project, and to fund the environmental damage should it occur'," he said.
"They just put out a notice to their shareholders that they are issuing yet another two and a half billion new shares, because they can't afford to repay a $14 million convertible note loan that has been outstanding for more than a decade."
In those circumstances, Mr Buckley said a Russell Vale sell-off was unlikely.
"It's not a mine. There is no coal coming out of this mine," he said.
"The mine was closed six months ago, the entire workforce was sacked six months ago, so we're not talking about selling an existing operating asset, we are talking about selling a permit.
"So would someone buy a permit and spend $85 million building a new mine in this market where the coal price is down 60 per cent, where it's falling every month for the last five years and where the demand outlook is deteriorating every day?"
'Magnitude of impacts to the environment': PAC
The PAC's review of the proposed expansion of the Russell Vale coal mine was the second and found a number of issues remained unresolved by Wollongong Coal.
"Concerns were raised by WaterNSW, Office of Environment and Heritage, Department of Primary Industries, Environment Protection Authority, and the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development," the PAC's determination read.
"Their concerns include risk of water loss, risk to upland swamps, noise impacts on nearby residents and along Bellambi Lane, potential hydrological impacts and loss of ecosystem functions," it read.
Intermediate short term benefits of the project were acknowledged by the PAC, including the creation of 300 jobs, $23 million in royalties for NSW and $85 million in capital investment.
But it determined the degree of water loss due to subsidence and cracking in the catchment was uncertain.
Topics: mining-industry, urban-development-and-planning, wollongong-2500, russell-vale-2517, sydney-2000Excerpted from Northern Liberties: The Story of a Philadelphia River Ward, recently published by the History Press)
With our electoral system bogged down by special interest cash and corporate influence, perhaps it’s useful to recall how much our democratic institutions have changed. Voting in 1806, the year depicted in this watercolor, a free male –black or white (for the African American right to vote wasn’t rescinded until 1838)–living in the Northern Liberties, could go to Commissioners’ Hall, at Second and Fairmount, to place his ballot.
The Northern Liberties, of course, was the sixth largest city in the nation until 1820 and a top tier city until it was consolidated with the rest of the county of Philadelphia in 1854.
Commissioners’ Hall was inside the Northern Liberties Town House, with its market shed in the back taking up the center of the broad road. Here was the office of the mayor, police headquarters, and other government officials.
The Town House was built in 1796–97. The brick building, 24 feet wide and 30 feet deep, was constructed 40 feet north of Coates Street in the center of Second Street. It had a cupola on top and resembled the head-house still standing at Second and Pine.
Rapid growth in the Liberties crowded the hall, as it could not accommodate all the officers and administrators of the borough. So in 1814, the Commissioners of Northern Liberties purchased a large building on the east side of Third Street, midway between Buttonwood (then St. Tammany) and Green–where Spring Garden Street passes nowadays. This became the Commissioners’ Hall of Northern Liberties.
The structure had been constructed back in 1757 by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly as the central barracks for British soldiers who were stationed in the Philadelphia area. The king’s troops had encamped in this zone since 1745, giving it the name Campington (later shortened to Camptown). The “aged John Brown” told annalist John Watson that the ground was “a field of buckwheat, which was cut off [down], and the barracks built thereon and tenanted by three thousand men.” Campington was between Second and Fourth, around Spring Garden Street; a parade ground faced Second Street.
Watson also reported that in 1772 King George III’s birthday “was celebrated at the British barracks by a discharge of twenty-one cannon.” How remote these parts were in those days!
The central barracks was a three-story building with a courtroom on the first floor and officers’ quarters on the upper floors. After the War of Independence, it was used as a tavern until the Commissioners of Northern Liberties purchased it as their new assembly hall. They first met there as a body on February 17, 1815.
Facing Third Street, the hall became a local landmark that hosted elections (this was the central place to vote in the Liberties), civil proceedings and other public meetings. In later years, the office of the mayor of Northern Liberties was in a separate cabin at the rear. The hall was also used by various churches for religious meetings and services in the era when such gatherings could take place in government offices. Among them, a pair of assistants at Christ Church (Second and Market) started an afternoon Sunday school at Commissioners’ Hall in the fall of 1814. Besides being the first Sunday school started by the Episcopal church, this was reportedly the first Sunday school officially incorporated by any religious organization in America. The informal school resulted in the formation of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church, erected in 1816 and now known as Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church.
The Commissioners’ Hall of Northern Liberties was used for various purposes after city offices consolidated in 1854. It was torn down ten years later for the erection of Northern Liberties Grammar School. This school building was removed in the 1920s for the construction of Spring Garden Street, which until that time only it made to Fifth Street from the west (as unlikely as this may seem today). At that time, Northern Liberties Grammar School was notorious for its collapsing floors, lack of fire escapes, and rats in the hallways.
The Fire Administration Building now stands on this same site at Third and Spring Garden Streets. Opened in 1976, this structure also accommodates the Fire Communications Center and the Office of Emergency Preparedness.4:55pm EST - No sign of the update yet, Jenkins is still doing his thing.
4:10pm EST - Steam and Jenkins are back, we're in business!
4:00pm EST - Welp, Steam is down.
3:48pm EST - Jenkins has been offline for a bit now. That is not good.
3:27pm EST - Jenkins is being so fucking slow today! I'm guessing that is going to cause the update to launch later than normal. Also, doesn't look like Hapis is going to be unsucked this week.
2:55pm EST - We've got some movement on the unsuck Hapis branch... might that make it into main today? I hope so...
2:45pm EST - Helk just shared with me a fun thing about the beancan grenade: If the fuse fails and you pick it up, there is a small chance the fuse will start again and blow in 3 seconds... lol.
2:20pm EST - Submachine gun (SMG) is in!!
1:46pm EST - The dev build is still fucked as Jenkins continues failing uploads. Looks like some connectivity issues at Facepunch may be the culprit. Either way, this doesn't bode well for an early update release today...
1:19pm EST - Created a poll for how often blueprints should wipe now that the research table is in.
12:06pm EST - Added a quick video of the beancan grenade.
11:10am EST - Added more info and pictures below of the research table and beancan grenade.
2:40am EST - That’s right, it’s motherfucking update day! We’ve got a good one in store for you this week: a research table, beancan that goes boom, paper maps, and even an unsucked Hapis map. If anything like the past weeks, this update will go live between 4 and 6pm EST (8-10pm GMT). A map wipe will not be forced, however, servers are subject to wipe at owners discretion (Rustafied server wipe status below). As always, I’ll keep you posted here and on @Rustafied throughout the day. Before we get into it, I have a request…If you haven’t seen MTV’s hit show Catfish, you’re losing on life.
The premise of the show begins with a once gullible guy named Nev Schulman, who fell in love with a woman online, only to later find out that she wasn’t who he thought she was.
The blonde perfect 10 he had fallen in love with was actually a lonely, desperate woman who wasn’t necessarily hit with the good gene stick.
DETAILS: Did Manti Te’O Get Catfished By “Dead” Girlfriend?
Since then, Nev has been on a quest to help other online daters meet their online loves. Most of the Catfish episodes don’t end well, and someone always leaves disappointed.
Just when we couldn’t get enough Catfish stories, Notre Dame Linebacker Manti Te’o revealed he had been Catfished by a woman online who allegedly died of leukemia.
GlobalGrind decided to write a guide unveiling 10 tell-tale signs that your online lover isn’t who they say they are.
Check out the 10 tell-tale signs you’re getting Catfish’d below!
1. If your online lover looks way better than you.
If you’re overweight, ugly, and have a unibrow and your online lover looks like America’s Next Top Model, then you’re probably getting swindled. No hottie with a body is going to fall in love with a couch potato. It sounds harsh, but this is real life.
2. If your online lover claims he/she doesn’t own a cell phone or won’t speak with you on the phone.
If your online love interest refuses to speak with you on the phone, he or she is hiding something. Also, if your love interest claims he or she doesn’t own a cell phone, they’re a damn liar! It’s 2013, everyone in the world has a cell phone, literally.
3. If your love interest doesn’t have a webcam or Skype.
Although everyone may not have a new computer with a built-in webcam, there are attachable webcams available. If your love interest is always claiming that their webcam is broken, that means they don’t want you to see the REAL them.
4. If your online lover is always traveling, but never seems to travel anywhere near you or never comes to visit.
If your online lover loves to travel, then he or she shouldn’t have a problem coming to visit you.
5. If your online lover has less than 100 friends on Facebook.
If you or your online lover don’t have more than 100 friends on Facebook, something is wrong – very, very wrong. A small amount of Facebook friends is a tell-tale sign that the person you’re chatting it up with isn’t real. Take it as a sign from the Facebook gods.
6. If you and your online lover live in the same state and have never met.
With the exception of vast states like California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and New York, most people living in the same state shouldn’t be more than 6-8 hours from each other. If you and your online lover live in neighboring towns, and have never met, there is some Catfishing going on.
7. If your online lover doesn’t tag his or her friends in any of their pictures.
Back to good ol’ Facebook. Facebook is a social network where people are meant to be social. If your online lover is always pictured with various nameless people, it’s because they probably don’t know them in real life.
8. If you do a little research on your online lover and something fishy pops up.
The internet is made for research. If you come across a few things that don’t seem to add up, it’s probably because they don’t. Take those weird fact inconsistencies as a sign from the Catfish angels.
9. If your online lover never seems to age.
If you’ve been chatting it up with a girl or guy for three years and they still look like they did when you first met them, there’s a problem.
10. If your online lover is vague.
If you’ve been chatting online with your love interest for a considerable amount of time and know nothing about their past, present, or future, something is up. Also, if your online interest seems to be open about virtually everything except details about family and their past, then you may have an issue.
Don’t let it happen to you – or do, and then maybe you can meet Nev…
Also On Global Grind:A lot of controversy surrounds the fatal car crash of reporter Michael Hastings. There's no accident report yet; no toxicology report, either. That might take months, as high-profile cases like this often involve a lot of lawyers. Even when there's less controversy, a fatal car crash will involve insurance companies, legal wrangling, and in most states and some major cities (like Los Angeles), a Collision Reconstruction Unit (CRU). Think of it as CSI for car crashes: Investigators painstakingly sift through evidence to make sure that they can accurately say what happened during an accident. All of this means it could be a very long time for official findings on Hastings's accident to be released.
But even without official reports, there's no lack of information about his deadly wreck.
What's known is that a camera mounted on the dash of an LAPD cruiser showed his C250 running a red light at a high rate of speed around 4:20 a.m. on the morning of June 18, 2013. Just a few minutes later, the same cruiser was called to the scene of the accident, where the C-class was engulfed in flames after apparently hitting a tree, its engine ejected from the hood of the car. Hastings was found in the driver's seat, burned beyond recognition.
Immediately, conspiracy theorists jumped to conclusions. Because Hastings had blown the lid off General Stanley McChrystal's insubordination and was a pioneering muckraker, Internet posts started spinning the idea that Hastings's car had been sabotaged. C-class Benzes just don't blow up like that, the theories went; and their engines don't randomly pop free of their mounts and fly out from underhood.
Without some form of foul play, how could Hastings's crash have been so violent, so deadly?
Sadly, the answers we've found almost entirely point to the less-exciting conclusion, that when a car hits a stationary object like a tree, a brick wall, or a telephone pole, very bad things happen. Here's the grim how and why.
THE REALITIES OF A HEAD-ON CAR CRASH
"When I first started in New York's Collision Reconstruction Unit 19 years ago," starts Lieutenant Dan Bates, who now supervises said 76-person department for the state, "we'd see that if you hit a solid object, like a house or a tree, you'd stand a good chance of dying if you were traveling at around 20 miles per hour. Now, we're seeing survivors even above 40 miles per hour."
That's the end of the good news from Lt. Bates.
He explains what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has seen in the lab and from evidence provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) examining thousands of deadly accidents.
"You almost never hit an object squarely," Bates continues. "That's a serious problem, because the primary safety device in the cockpit of your car, besides of course the seatbelt, is the front airbag. When you're going 40 miles per hour, you don't realize you're traveling at 58 feet per second."
It's not just the car traveling that fast, it's you, essentially traveling through space at that speed. If your car hits a telephone pole or another car at that velocity, your body will still hurtle forward; meanwhile, the car is decelerating rapidly.
Worse, and most catastrophically, if the impact wasn't square, now the car is starting to rotate, and that rotation is exceedingly harmful, both to your car and to you.
THE SCIENCE OF A HIGH-SPEED HEAD-ON CRASH
In 2007, the IIHS examined evidence from the NHTSA that showed a very disquieting trend. David Zirby, the IIHS's head research officer, says that their Moderate Overlap Test (where 40 percent of the front of the car engages a solid object) was designed to demonstrate what happens in most head-on accidents. They already knew these collisions were rarely dead-square, but the NHTSA's database showed that when 25 percent or less of the front of the car took the brunt of the impact, the resulting injuries proved disproportionally fatal. Although a bit reductive, the IIHS's findings suggest that the less the front of the car is involved, the more deadly the accidents are. Think sideswipes rather than head-ons. Think telephone pole or tree, smacked with just one headlight, but at a high speed.
"These were accidents that almost didn't happen," Zirby says.
To figure out what was going on, the IIHS devised its own tests, which eventually became the Small Overlap Test, first used systematically throughout the U.S. fleet in 2012.
The IIHS's findings started to reveal, as far back as 2007, that these accidents were deadly because cars' safety cells were designed as secondary accident mitigation. It's the opposite of NASCAR, where an entire safety cell is built to withstand the violence, even if the front of the car breaks away. Passenger cars aren't made that way, and these offset wrecks were showing why that's so dangerous.
OFF-KILTER
Let's say a car hits a telephone pole off-center, with only 25 percent of one side of the bumper striking first. At the moment of initial impact, the frame rails—which essentially stick out from the firewall as extensions of the frame—are too far inboard of the impact to be engaged.
Missing the frame rails results in less deceleration time and a far more violent stop. "Just 40-50 milliseconds more deceleration time can be the difference between life and death," says Christopher Puckett, accident analyst for Digits LLC and is a former state trooper for New York's CRU.
Only a quarter of the mass ahead of the safety cell remains to absorb the impact, and that's not enough. The impact then pushes right through the front wheel, driving the suspension backwards. Depending on the vehicle and its speed, this could collapse the steering column, buckle the A pillar (pushing it back toward the driver or front passenger), and if the accident is severe enough, begin to crimp the door frame, front floor section, and door rail.
THE DEADLY PART
If all of the above happened, you might still have decent odds of surviving. After running his own tests in the lab and researching NHTSA photographic evidence reports, Zirby has found that partial overlap accidents introduce rotational force.
Rotation makes you miss the airbag. Here's why: "You're now moving sideways relative to the car. When we slow down the film, we see the crash-test dummies miss or slide off the airbag. [The dummy] hits the A-pillar or the IP (instrument panel)." Zirby claims that if the steering column is engaged in the impact, it can make matters even worse. "The steering wheel takes off right, and the dummy takes off left."
All of this is happening with your body still flying forward, maybe at 50 feet per second or more. The airbags blow, but you're heading away from them, in most instances, toward either the center of the vehicle, or the A-pillar, or a window. You're missing the airbags entirely. Meanwhile the car's corners are caving in toward the front passengers.
WHAT THE HUMAN BODY CAN AND CANNOT SURVIVE
"It seems like several times a year we get to a car crash and someone is walking around outside the car, alive, and then they go home and die," says Bates. The cause is a tear in an internal organ or vessel. "They're bleeding out from the force of the crash," Bates continues. He advises that anyone who's experienced a serious car accident should go to the hospital immediately, despite feeling perfectly fine.
This kind of damage is more common for passengers who aren't belted, Bates explains, because they're more likely to be exposed to even greater deceleration. Either way, the rotation of the vehicle plays a role, and so does the ricochet off the solid object, which contributes to what Zirby calls "violent yawing."
"It's not uncommon for the car to have the initial impact and then spin backwards off the road or into another car or stationary object," Zirby says. They've also seen seats break free from their moorings, or hit the dummy in the back of the head on the ricochet off the solid barrier, causing even more carnage.
Arnold Wheat, an ex-CRU officer with more than 30 years of experience for both Colorado and New York and author of several studies on car accidents, says that most of what you see is grimly obvious: A head strikes against the A-pillar, the window glazing, the steering wheel, or the dash.
EXPLOSIONS AND ENGINE EJECTIONS
Conspiracy theorists probably don't want to hear it, but Puckett says he's seen all sorts of mechanical combustions, from engine ejections to vehicle fires to cars sawed in half by stationary objects. "The engine is hot," Puckett says. "There are any number of fluids that can ignite, and I'm sorry to say that [that] isn't indicative of foul play."
Wheat, Zirby, and Bates also corroborate Puckett's conclusion; cars traveling at a high velocity slamming into hard objects aren't really designed to prevent such violent ends. While engine ejections and explosions aren't necessarily the norm, they aren't as rare as most of us would guess.
"I think we've become complacent, where we think all this technology is going to save us no matter what," says Bates. "But you have to keep in mind—there are crashes that are not survivable."
THE FUTURE OF CAR CRASHES
Hitting a tree or a utility pole with a car is never going to have a positive outcome. Not hitting that tree, however, is a matter that might be decided by one very old form of technology: money.
Today, automobiles are frequently tethered to mobile phones via wired connections, Bluetooth, or both. Increasingly, insurers and law enforcement are subpoenaing both phone records and so-called "black boxes" from cars (already present in the majority of new models, and mandatory starting in September 2014) to piece together critical data from the time of an accident. This recorded data includes the speed of the car, whether the driver braked, how hard he or she braked, rotation of the wheel (to determine if the driver swerved or not), and, of course, whether the driver was texting or talking on the phone.
Distracted driving was cited as a huge concern by all of the CRU and ex-CRU investigators we spoke with, and most believe that, even if laws don't mandate that these driver-beh |
to be still; they are also able to open the door for others to be still. Peace, stillness, calmness and trust are important ingredients in any healthy community, and are essential when these qualities are rooted in Jesus. The louder the culture, the more absent they may seem. We must ask: how can we pray, grieve, contemplate or discern if there is no stillness? How can we wait and meet God if we never stop?
6. INTROVERTS ARE PERCEPTIVE
Finally, introverts have a tendency to notice things because they are relatively free from the driving need to interact with others. The more we need from someone else, the more care we take over ourselves, and that limits the amount we take in.
Introverts can be surprisingly perceptive. If you don’t believe me, why not befriend one and ask them occasionally what they have noticed about a particular person or gathering?
In a charismatic church, this gift of perceptive observation is essential; noticing what God is doing, how others are, who is not joining in or is displaying other signs of need. It is hard to respond to the Spirit, just as it is hard to love people, if we don’t attend to those who notice.
So introverts matter, and all churches need them and the gifts they bring. God has made us gloriously diverse and reached out to each of us in Jesus. If we are serious about being his people, working together for the coming of his kingdom, we need all the gifts that he has entrusted to his people. Only as we respond to his invitation with integrity of character and embrace the different perspectives that others bring as they do the same can we truly be the people he calls us to be, with the mission he gives us to fulfil, in the world he sends us to love.
MARK TANNER is warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham. His book The Introvert Charismatic: The Gift of Introversion in a Noisy Church (Monarch) is out nowPerhaps no other sub sector of the fintech arena has received as much institutional and retail interest as the robo advisors. The business of financial planning and personal investment affects large pools of capital and large investor segments. Innovation in the investment technology space is creating a fierce race among startups, brokerages, wealth management firms and insurance companies to serve a shifting and evolving account base. But there are many factors to consider as competition heats up.
Who Are the Robo Advisors?
By now, the robo advisors are familiar to almost all fintech watchers. These are the startups which have garnered media attention and customers given digital native investment accounts. Their services include automated portfolio planning, automatic asset allocation, online risk assessments, account re balancing and other digital tools. Fees are competitive and range between 15 to 35 basis points of AUM. Well known players include Betterment, Wealthfront, Motif and Folio, among others.
In general, robo advisors allow more people, who otherwise may not be able to invest with confidence or meet account minimums, to enter the market in a passive fashion. Traditional wealth management firms and financial advisers charge 1% of AUM or higher. Robo advisors satisfy a need for more economical, automated and digital planning tools which might be preferred by younger, digital savvy investors or those who want more privacy and control over their portfolio. In what may be a sign of the times, lower yields and low long term interest rates, are also prompting investors to look for new strategies to plan out their financial futures.
Competition in the Playing Field
However, it’s not just the Millennials and other younger generations who prefer digital investment tools. A recent E*Trade Streetwise study shows that in all three age groups of 25-34, 35-55 and 55+, the majority prefer some level of robo or digital toolkits combined with personal advice. Firms have figured this out and are beginning to compete with the robo advisors.
For online brokers, robo advising feels like a natural extension of what was already an electronic service. Stock brokers went through a massive transformation in the late nineties during the first dot com boom and most, if not all, became online brokers. More interesting is the level of interest in robo advisors from very traditional players such as insurance companies, asset managers and wealth management firms. These firms are aggressively moving to build, buy and partner with robo technologies.
Recent Strategic Moves
Below is a list of some of the announced combinations and launches in the last two years:
Challenges and Considerations
The decision for traditional financial institutions to compete with robo advising is, on the one hand, almost obvious, while still involving some complex considerations. Lower fees and the digital transformation affecting the financial services sector has become a universal theme. The main strategic issue for traditional players who enter robo advising seems to be the impact to their current business.
A vexing issue for those players with a very large AUM base is the potential cannibalization of their fee revenues. If these players shift to a robo advisor model and charge lower fees for the same AUM, they will, in essence, have to attract a larger AUM base to make the same fees as before, while at the same time investing in new technologies to support the automated planning and digital toolkits. To maintain profitability in the midst of these capital outlays, cost cuts might have to come from a reduction in headcount among their financial adviser sales force.
But it can be even more complicated for those players who want to offer a hybrid service which includes the digital toolkits of a robo advisor while still offering light touch human advisor services. For these types of offerings, different tiered account services, with varying fee levels might be a smarter strategy.
Offering a robo advisor service might be an opportunistic play for wealth management firms who sit at the nexus of the inter generational wealth transfer that is taking place. Losing accounts through the inter generational wealth transfer is a worry for firms who heavily rely on the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers for much of their fees. While older generations may have benefited from traditional advisers during an era of very high yields and interest rates, the situation is very different today. Firms must navigate these waters carefully to not appear too digital to their traditional client base, while also not appearing to be laggards to a prospective younger client. While a robo advisor service might be a great way to keep AUM levels steady inside the firm, as younger family members inherit assets from older ones, it may need to be branded separately from other types of accounts.
But for some very traditional and ultra high net worth families, robo advice may never catch on. In these cases, the technology and digital toolkits can scale their human work forces and increase their productivity, freeing up their time to offer more personalized attention to their clients.
As the robo advisor race continues, firms will need to consider these trade offs and craft an appropriate entry strategy to evolve and compete.WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump Thursday in his first comments since the GOP presidential nominee declined to endorse the speaker in an upcoming Republican primary.
“He won the delegates. He won the thing fair and square. It’s just that simple,” Ryan said in an interview on the “Jerry Bader Show” on WTAQ radio in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Ryan brushed off Trump’s non-endorsement, adding: “The only endorsements I want are those of my own employers here in the First Congressional District, and that’s really what my focus is.”
Ryan faces a longshot conservative challenger, Paul Nehlen, next Tuesday. Trump shocked Republican leaders yet again this week when he refused to declare support for Ryan, instead stating that “I’m just not there yet.” The phrase echoed Ryan’s own words in May, when he demurred on Trump, saying “I’m not there right now,” before eventually going on to support him.
Ryan has been highly critical of Trump’s attacks on a bereaved couple whose son died in Iraq and who took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to criticize Trump.
On Thursday, Ryan again condemned Trump’s remarks about the Khans as “beyond the pale” and acknowledged that at some point, Trump could go too far for Ryan to be able to continue to support him.
Ryan said he didn’t want to get drawn into “hypotheticals” but said, “None of these things are ever blank checks. That goes with any situation in any kind of race.”
He also criticized Trump’s wildly undisciplined campaign in the days since the Republican convention.
“We just came out of our convention, and yeah, he’s had a pretty strange run since the convention. You would think we’d ought to be focusing on Hillary Clinton and all of her deficiencies,” Ryan said. “She is such a weak candidate that one would think we’d be on offense against Hillary Clinton, and it is distressing that that’s not what we’re talking about these days.”
The speaker said it is his duty to speak up against Trump on issues like the Khan family or his criticism of an American-born judge of Mexican descent whom Trump had also attacked.
“I don’t like doing this. I don’t want to do this. But I will do this,” Ryan said. “Because I feel I have to, in order to defend Republicans, and our principles, so that people don’t make the mistake of thinking we think like that.”A man in the Jackson County jail on a first-degree murder charge was wandering the halls of the jail for almost two hours with two other inmates before he allegedly raped a woman, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
Another inmate let the alleged attacker out of his cell with a key he had taken two days before when a guard left her keys in his cell door. When the inmate returned the guard’s keys, he kept the key to his cell, court records say, and later let himself and the attacker out of their cells.
Accusations that inmates sexually assaulted two inmates have roiled the jail since they came to light late last month. The attack prompted police to release or transfer all 23 female inmates out of the Jackson County Regional Correctional Center. And on Tuesday, Jackson County legislators ordered the hiring of an independent auditor to review all procedures and operations of the jail and two adjacent facilities.
The Jackson County prosecutor on Wednesday charged Dontae D. Jefferson, 29, with first-degree rape, first-degree burglary and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse in an attack on Aug. 26. Charges haven’t been filed in the other alleged assault.
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In a statement released Wednesday through the Jackson County Prosecutor’s office announcing Jefferson’s charges, the victim said, “My life and the lives of my family have been in turmoil since the events of last week. We are struggling to move forward. I am praying those responsible will be held to a measure of justice.”
The victim has been released from jail.
At the time of the alleged rape, Jefferson was being held at the jail while awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge and five other felonies in an April 2014 attack at a gas station at 45th Street and Cleveland Avenue that left a man dead and paralyzed his son.
Officials initially said the victim was in the adjacent Jackson County Regional Correctional Center, where Kansas City municipal violators are held. However, it appears from the charging documents that the assault occurred in the ground-floor lockup area that is shared by both facilities. A city official confirmed that to be the case. It was unclear why an inmate who has been awaiting trial for two years was in the lockup area.
A spokeswoman for the office of Jackson County Executive Frank White said Wednesday that the county would continue to work and provide assistance to Kansas City police and the Jackson County prosecutor to ensure that those responsible were held accountable.
“Today, as has been the case since we first learned of this horrible crime, our focus remains and will continue to remain on the victims and the safety of all those within our care,” the statement said.
White’s office said one jail guard remained suspended without pay pending the outcome of an independent investigation by former U.S. Attorney Todd Graves. The independent performance audit ordered by the legislature is separate from Graves’ investigation.
According to court documents:
Kansas City police went to the jail on Aug. 26 to investigate a reported rape. The victim told police that she was fondled by a man whom she thought was a guard.
The next day at the hospital, she told police that she hadn’t told them all of the details because she was scared to speak in front of the jail staff.
She told police that a man, whom she later identified as Jefferson, entered her cell, according to the documents. Once inside, he began to fondle her. When she pushed him away, he strangled and punched her.
Her attacker then sexually assaulted her until he heard someone whistle from the hallway, according to the documents. He hid for a while and then left her cell.
During the investigation, a witness told police that an inmate had taken jail keys two days before the attack after a guard left her keys in the door. The keys were later returned to the guard, but an inmate kept a key.
In an interview with police, the guard admitted to losing control of her keys when she left them in a door. She told police she got them back and that they had all been accounted for.
Surveillance video from the jail shows that on the day of the attack, three inmates wandered freely about the lockup area between 2:40 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.
The video shows a guard escort the victim to her cell about 4 a.m.
After the guard leaves, the video shows one of the inmates and Jefferson leave their cells and go to the area of the victim’s cell. The inmate returns to his cell about 4:22 a.m. Jefferson returns to his cell about 5 a.m.
Crystal Williams, who chairs the Jackson County Legislature, said she remains “heartbroken about this whole thing” and has asked corrections officials to explain how such security lapses could have possibly occurred. So far she hasn’t gotten any answers, she said, but is confident the truth will come out.
Legislator Dennis Waits, who initiated the call for the audit, said he is also confused about the circumstances leading up to the assaults.
“It has been a little bit confusing because we have just gotten bits and pieces of things,” he said, adding that he hopes an outside auditor can make suggestions that will help ensure the safety of inmates in the future.
“You simply can’t have this happening,” he said.
Robert A. Cronkleton: 816-234-4261, @cronkbThe Hunger Games, Twilight, and more big Hollywood movies are now available on Steam, Valve's PC-gaming platform. Today Valve announced a deal with Lionsgate, which will bring more than 100 films to the service, and it includes some of Lionsgate's biggest franchises, like Saw, Crank, and Divergent (there's also the entire Leprechaun series, if that's your thing).
At present the titles are available as streaming rentals only, and not for download. You will, however, be able to watch them on all platforms Steam is available on, including PC, Mac, Linux, SteamOS, and even SteamVR. While Valve has previously dabbled in releasing films on the platform, including documentaries like Indie Game: The Movie, this marks the company's first big effort at expanding into traditional blockbuster movies.
Lionsgate says that the number of films available will expand as "the partnership continues to expand worldwide."Meet the real Justice League: the federal courts that, over the past several decades, have issued rulings that decided the fates of superheroes, robots, zombies, mutants and entire galaxies. Here are ten court rulings that meted out justice in the world of nerdery.
1) Mutants Are Not Legally Human Beings
(Toy Biz, Inc. v. the United States, U.S. Court of International Trade, 2003)
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In 1996, Toy Biz, a Marvel Enterprises subsidiary, sued the U.S. Customs Service and urged a federal court to declare that its X-Men action figures imported from China were not "human."
At the time, tariffs placed higher duties on dolls than on other toys. According to the U.S. tariff code, dolls are defined as representations of human beings, while figures representing animals or "creatures," such as monsters and robots, are deemed toys. By legally stripping the X-Men of their humanity, Toy Biz would pay significantly lower taxes.
The case dragged on for several years in the U.S. Court of International Trade, as Judge Judith Barzilay scrutinized more than 60 X-Men action figures and considered the opposing arguments.
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Toy Biz declared that the action figures "stand as potent witnesses for their status as nonhuman creatures," noting that they possessed "tentacles, claws, wings or robotic limbs." The U.S. Customs Service, however, argued that each action figure was a human being whose enhanced abilities reflected a "distinctive individual personality." Wolverine, the federal legal team said, was simply "a man with prosthetic hands."
Ultimately, Judge Barzilay sided with Toy Biz, noting in her 2003 decision:
First, most of the figures at issue exhibit at least one non-human characteristic. The court does not agree with Customs that the few non-human characteristics the figures possess, such as claws or robotic eyes, "fall far short of transforming [these figures] into something other than the human beings which they represent" Second, these Marvel characters are known in popular culture as "mutants."….They are more than (or different than) humans. These fabulous characters use their extraordinary and unnatural physical and psychic powers on the side of either good or evil. The figures' shapes and features, as well as their costumes and accessories, are designed to communicate such powers. Third, the "X-Men" figures are marketed and packaged as "mutants" or "people born with `x-tra' power." That they are denoted as such by the manufacturer or the importer lends further credence to the assertion that they represent creatures other than (or more than) human beings.
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Clearly, this was a huge setback for mutant rights. Marvel went so far as to issue a statement:
"Don't fret, Marvel fans, our heroes are living, breathing human beings — but humans who have extraordinary abilities….A decision that the X-Men figures indeed do have 'nonhuman' characteristics further proves our characters have special, out-of-this world powers."
But, fans were not mollified, including Chuck Austen, who, one year earlier, had become the writer of the "Uncanny X-Men" comics. He had worked hard, he said, to emphasize the X-Men's humanity, to show "that they're just another strand in the evolutionary chain."
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2) Dungeons & Dragons Is A Security Risk
(Singer v. Raemisch, U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, 2010)
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In 2004, an official at Wisconsin's Waupun Correctional Institution received an anonymous letter from an inmate. The letter expressed concern that a small group of prisoners were forming a "D&D gang" and were trying to recruit others to join by passing around their D&D publications and touting the "rush" they got from playing the game.
In response, prison officials banned D&D, and confiscated all game-related materials. Inmate Kevin T. Singer, a D&D enthusiast since childhood, argued that the ban on D&D violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.
Captain Bruce Muraski, the prison's resident gang specialist, defended the ban. According to court documents:
He explained that the policy was intended to promote prison security because co-operative games can mimic the organization of gangs and lead to the actual development thereof. Muraski elaborated that during D&D games, one player is denoted the "Dungeon Master." The Dungeon Master is tasked with giving directions to other players, which Muraski testified mimics the organization of a gang. Muraski's [also] asserted governmental interest in the D&D ban was inmate rehabilitation. He testified that D&D can "foster an inmate's obsession with escaping from the real life, correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior," which in turn "can compromise not only the inmate's rehabilitation and effects of positive programming but also endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution."
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I'm trying to imagine what a D&D-inspired gang fight would look like. Would inmates have "chaotic evil" and "lawful good" tattooed on their forearms? Would they swing dice bags at one another, or use +3 shivs of protection?
Anyway, the court sided with the prison officials—but not without generating some controversy within the legal community. Ilya Somin, an associate professor of law at George Mason University, posed the question, "Should prisons ban 'The Count of Monte Cristo' on the grounds that it might encourage escape attempts?"
Somin also said the prison's action was reminiscent of a media frenzy in the 1980s surrounding the supposedly pernicious effects of gaming. "Ideally, you should really have more evidence that there is a genuine harm before you restrict something."
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3) Zombies Are Protected By The First Amendment
(Irwin v. Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. District Court, ED, Tennessee, 2013)
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On July 20, 2011, protesters gathered in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to oppose a plan by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to revive construction of an uncompleted nuclear power plant. The protesters dressed up as the undead, describing the power plant as a "zombie" reactor that had "previously been killed and then resurrected."
Two months later, the TVA convened a "listening session," inviting members of the public to express their views on the project. However, the TVA— afraid that the zombie hoard would reappear—announced that:
To help ensure the safety and security of all participants, members of the public dressed in costume will not be allowed to enter the listening session.
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Six protesters took the TVA to court, saying that the ban on wearing costumes was a violation of their First Amendment rights. They argued that none of their costumes obscured their identities or created a security risk. All of them were willing to provide identification and be searched for weapons before entering the TVA building.
The court sided with the protesters:
TVA asserts that the non-zombie costumes were nonsensical (i.e., the costumes were not associated in any way with the Bellefonte project or the earlier protests where members of the public were clad in zombie costumes). Accordingly, TVA contends, those costumes could not have conveyed any particularized message. [However] given the events that led up to the August board meeting, the likelihood was great that TVA board members and others associated with, or in attendance at, the board meeting would have understood, and did understand, the message.
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4) You Have The Constitutional Right To Play Video Games Without Being Accompanied By An Adult
(City of Mesquite v. Aladdin's Castle, Inc., Supreme Court of the United States, 1982)
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In the early 1980s, moral panic swept across the U.S. in response to the growing popularity of video games—and those dens of immorality known as "video arcades."
Cities and towns all over the country began passing laws to protect America's youth from this latest scourge. A typical case was Marshfield, Massachusetts, where, UPI reported:
Residents, worried their kids might become hopelessly addicted to PacMan and Space Invaders, have voted to ban videogames and pinball machines and gave owners three months to get them out of town. ''I'm a former narcotics officer, and I've seen what these machines do to kids and the amount of money that is wasted on them,'' said Tom Jackson, author of the anti-videogame regulation. Residents of the community just north of the Pilgrim town of Plymouth voted Tuesday night at a town meeting to prohibit the use, operation and possession of the games and to fine violators $200 for each offense — effective in three months.
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But, the video game industry won an important court case in 1980. A few years earlier, the small town of Mesquite, Texas had passed an ordinance restricting minors from playing video games at the local arcade.
Attorneys for the arcade, Aladdin's Castle, argued that the law violated the freedom of expression of both the players and the operators of the games and that the city had denied people under 17 their constitutional right to free association.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, agreed with Aladdin's Castle, and issued a decision stating that:
The decision to bar all people under 17 years of age from all coin-operated amusement centers at all times is patently irrational….Such disapproval may justify private action, such as the withholding of patronage, but mere disapproval is not enough constitutionally to justify bringing the full weight of the municipality's regulatory apparatus into play. Before coin-operated amusement centers existed, children found places and opportunities for truancy, and they would find places were such centers to become extinct. Singling out coin-operated amusement centers from all other establishments is an act of discrimination, not policy.
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Two years later, the Supreme Court heard an appeal, but bounced the case back to the 5th Circuit Court, instructing it to clarify whether its decision was based on federal or state law. The court let stand its decision that the age restriction was unconstitutional.
5) The Batmobile Is A Fictional Character
(DC Comics v. Mark Towle, U.S. District Court, CD California, 2013)
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As Lauren Davis reported on io9, a U.S. District Court ruled that the Batmobile is subject to copyright because the Batmobile is itself a fictional character in the Batman franchise:
California resident Mark Towle runs car customizing shop Gotham Garage, which makes replicas of cars from TVs and movies. Naturally, Batmobiles were on the menu, at least until Warner Bros. smacked Towle with a lawsuit for violating its intellectual property. Under normal circumstances, vehicles are subject to patents, with utility patents (on inventions that improve the functioning of a car, for example) lasting 20 years from the date of application and design patents (on the design of individual parts) lasting 14 years. But DC's suit alleged that Towle was in violation of its trademarks and copyrights. Judge Ronald Lew ruled that, in making and selling Batmobiles, Towle violated DC's copyright on the character of the Batmobile….Lew cited an earlier case, Halicki Films LLC, v. Sanderson Sales and Mktg. et al., which investigated whether or not the "Eleanor" car in the 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds was a copyrightable character. Although the Ninth Circuit did not resolve whether Eleanor was herself copyrightable, the discussion of the case indicates that a plain old non-sentient vehicle is not necessarily excluded from character copyright protection as long as it fulfills the other requirements of a character copyright. And, in Lew's analysis, the Batmobile fulfills those requirements.
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6) Superman v. Captain Marvel
(National Comics Publications v. Fawcett Publications, U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, 1951)
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Fawcett Publications, which was founded in 1940, had an immediate hit on their hands with Captain Marvel, the character created by writer Bill Parker and artist C.C. Beck. In fact, Captain Marvel soon began outselling his spandex-clad predecessor, Superman.
National Comics, then the publisher of Superman, sued Fawcett for copyright infringement. Initially, Fawcett ceased publication of Captain Marvel—but, because the title was so important to the company, it eventually decided to take its chances in court.
The case dragged on for years and, at first, the U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, issued a decision that represented both bad news and good news for Captain Marvel.
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The bad news was that the court concluded that Captain Marvel had been clearly plagiarized from Superman:
Both "Captain Marvel" and "Superman" have the same athletic physique. Both have substantially the same clean-cut faces. Both wear the conventional regalia of the gymnast or circus acrobat — skin-tight uniforms, boots, and a cape which is used in flying. The only real difference is in the color of their costumes, "Superman's" being blue and "Captain Marvel's" red. The incredible feats, performed by both, such as leaping great distances, flying through the air, exhibitions of marvelous strength and speed, and imperviousness to bullets, shells, explosions, knives and poisons, are identical, and the settings in which the feats are performed are often closely similar. Substantially all of the feats performed by "Superman" are later duplicated by "Captain Marvel." Identical phrases, expressions and dialogues are frequently found in the panels.
But, the good news for Captain Marvel was that the court ruled that National Comics had never fully copyrighted all of its Superman strips.
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That victory, however, was fleeting. A year later, in 1951, National Comics appealed the case, and this time the court ruled entirely in the Man of Steel's favor. By this time, Captain Marvel wasn't the moneymaker that he had once been. (The popularity of all superhero brands had begun fading, with the emergence of horror comics.) So, Fawcett didn't challenge the decision—it paid National Comics $400,00 and killed off the Captain Marvel line.
In 1972, DC comics licensed the rights to all of Fawcett's superheroes, and resurrected Captain Marvel with the 1973 publication of its Shazam! comic book. The cover featured a grinning Superman introducing readers to his former legal nemesis:
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7) You Cannot "Realistically" Depict A Celebrity In Fiction
(Keller V. Electronic Arts, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th District, 2013)
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As Annalee Newitz previously reported on io9, an obscure lawsuit against Electronic Arts could have wide-ranging implications for movies, television, and even books — especially if they strive for realism:
The court determined that creators cannot "realistically" depict a celebrity in fiction, even if they do not use the celebrity's name. This would be a violation of the celebrity's "right of publicity," which is sort of like the right to privacy for public figures. Based on this ruling, a court might actually be able to issue an injunction against showing a movie like The Social Network, because it realistically depicts Mark Zuckerberg. But it's even weirder than that, because the celebrity in this case wasn't even named in the game where his so-called likeness appeared. He was just depicted in a "realistic" way. Imagine you're writing a hard science fiction story about the near future, and you want to include references to today's celebrities or political figures — but 20 years from now. Or maybe you just want to include people who are kind of like these celebrities. Either way, this ruling could allow those celebrities to sue you for using their likenesses. What's dangerous about this ruling is that it punishes creators who strive for realism. Futurama's use of famous people's heads in their stories would likely be protected because the scenario isn't "realistic." But that dark, futuristic story you were thinking of writing about the exploits of an American ex-president who is obsessed with placing his entire nation under surveillance using drones? That might just be so realistic that it gets your story sued out of existence.
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8) Star Wars v. "Star Wars"
(Lucasfilm Ltd. v. Committee For A Strong Peaceful America and High Frontier, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, 1985)
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When the Reagan administration unveiled the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, the media—and soon, everyone else—began referring to the proposed orbiting arsenal of interceptors and lasers as the "Star Wars" program.
The litigious creator of the Star Wars franchise, George Lucas, tried to put a stop to this use of his trademark. He sued two public interest groups, High Frontier and the Committee For A Strong Peaceful America for using the "Star Wars" name in their advertisements that were, respectively, opposed to and in favor of SDI.
District Court Judge Gerhard Gesell, who ruled against Lucas, clearly had fun writing the court's decision, which reads, in part:
Not so long ago, in a studio far, far away from the policymakers in Washington, D.C., George Lucas conceived of an imaginary galaxy where fantastic creatures and courageous knights battled an evil empire with spaceships, "blaster" guns and light sabers. Meanwhile, in the real world of defense strategy and international politics, newspapers, politicians, scientists and spokesmen of allied and enemy nations have chosen to characterize the Reagan Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) as its "star wars" program. SDI seeks to develop defenses against a nuclear attack with weapons based in space somewhat reminiscent of those depicted in the STAR WARS movies. When politicians, newspapers and the public generally use the phrase star wars for convenience, in parody or descriptively to further a communication of their views on SDI, plaintiff has no rights as owner of the mark to prevent this use of STAR WARS. Even though the descriptive meaning is originally derived from the trade use, courts obviously cannot regulate the type of descriptive, non-trade use involved here without becoming the monitors of the spoken or written English language. Since Jonathan Swift's time, creators of fictional worlds have seen their vocabulary for fantasy appropriated to describe reality. Trademark laws regulate unfair competition, not the parallel development of new dictionary meanings in the everyday give and take of human discourse. Plaintiff is in the difficult position of objecting because what he has depicted as fantasy may be frightening when depicted as a potential reality. Plaintiff must be left to his own devices to maintain the strength of his trademark by making the differentiation clear and convincing.
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9) Star Trek Fans Are Not, By Definition, Mentally Impaired
(Bouldin v. Colvin, U.S. District Court, MD Tennessee, 2013)
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The attorneys for Tennessee resident Gary Lee Bouldin presented an impressive list of medical evidence to support the claim that he had been unjustly denied Disability Insurance Benefits from the federal government.
Judge E. Clifton Knowles, however, was underwhelmed by the dubious assessments of Bouldin's health—including a statement saying that Bouldin's passion for collecting Star Trek memorabilia was evidence that he couldn't fully function as an adult.
As the court decision graciously notes:
The fact that the claimant collected Star Trek memorabilia into his 40s, while perhaps not the norm in rural Tennessee, is a hobby that literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people routinely engage in, as evidenced by the well-attended Star Trek conventions and brisk sales of Star Trek memorabilia on Ebay. Some people even dress up as their favorite characters on Star Trek when attending the conventions. This does not establish they are mentally ill.
10) Transformers: Less Than Meets The Eye
(Hasbro, Inc. v. Asus Computer International, Inc., et al., United States District Court, CD California, 2012)
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In January 2011, Asus announced the release of its first "Eee Pad Transformer TF 101 tablet." According to Asus, it chose the term "Transformer" because the tablet could transform into a laptop when connected to its mobile docking station. Nine months later, the company announced the second generation of its product, the "Eee Pad Transformer Prime"— so named, because it was a "premium tablet slated to be the world's first tablet computer to offer the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor."
Hasbro's attorneys leapt into action, claiming trademark infringement against the Transformers robots and the company's newest animated series, Transformers Prime.
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In making its case, Hasbro argued that the similarity in names could lead customers to believe that they were buying a product that was related to the Transformers franchise:
Hasbro points to the fact that a Google search for "optimus prime tablet" picks up Asus's "Transformer Prime" tablet, a search for "Transformer prime" causes Amazon to search its own site for "Asus transformer prime," and that a search for "transformers prime" returns "several Asus hits and Transformers Prime hits." According to Hasbro, this "overlap in search results is bound to cause confusion."
Judge Philip Gutierrez, however, was not won over by the argument, noting that buyers of high-end electronics, who would be paying $550-$750 for an Asus tablet, "can be expected to exercise greater care in making purchases" and are less likely "to be flummoxed by search engine results than the general population."
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Another key legal issue was whether the word "Transformer" was a reasonable, descriptive term of the tablet, or if it fell into the same category as "Visa"—a word that could found in any dictionary, but had become so famously associated with a brand name, that its use would be considered infringement.
Here too, the court decided against Hasbro, arguing that, despite the success of the Transformers franchise, it was not enough of a "household name" to claim exclusive rights to the term.
Expect the courts to revisit this case if anyone manufactures a Decepticon tablet.Spread the love
Coconut Creek, FL — A Florida cop, with a history of corruption, is in hot water after being caught on camera engaging in acts that the state has deemed illegal.
Coconut Creek Police Officer James Yacobellis has been drawing his $90,000 annual salary for the last 16 months while he’s been on paid vacation for his misdeeds.
Yacobellis was being investigated for lying about the details of a marijuana arrest, failing to report the fact that he tormented a suspect with his taser, and taking three-hour lunch breaks. However, none of these things got him fired. After an “investigation” and a paid vacation, he was allowed to return to work.
Not until Yacobellis engaged in a mutually beneficial arrangement with an Asian massage therapist, was this cop fired.
Yacobellis was caught on several hidden cameras that were placed in the O Asian Wellness Spa and Massage parlor by the Coconut Creek police department.
Lying about arrests and brutalizing people is apparently acceptable if you are a Coconut Creek cop. However, paying a willing person for special treatment during a massage is a big no-no.
How exactly did Coconut Creek cops get those hidden cameras in the spa in the first place?
Since Yacobellis was an officer of the law, he’s avoided any criminal punishment by agreeing to attend a special program, but the incident ended his career with the Coconut Creek Police Department.
“The city has no choice but to terminate your employment,” Chief Michael Mann wrote in a letter. “Unfortunately, you knowingly and admittedly violated the law and engaged in immoral and inappropriate conduct, even after previously having been issued disciplinary actions related to poor judgment.”
But this begs the question. What is more “immoral,” exchanging money with a willing provider of sexual services, or kidnapping and caging people who want to engage in voluntary |
animals upon a human corpse fall into the category of “natural behavior”? Even if it doesn’t, should every bear who feeds upon a dead man be condemned to die? When I was Green Beret medic in Vietnam, there were plenty of stories of tigers eating the bodies left dead by military collateral damage, and more tales that the big cats developed a distinct taste for human flesh. I have no idea if any of this crap is true. But these issues are clearly a consideration for the superintendent and other managers in the park.
Prior to 2011, bear policy often forgave defensive attacks by mother grizzlies, even if the human was killed. The attitude toward bears who may have tasted human flesh was reasonably unclear because if the body was out in the wilderness for any amount of time, many different bears may take turns at devouring the corpse. With DNA evidence, individual bears who ate human flesh can be identified, but does this mean the park service thinks they all should be killed?
Clearly not, because in 2011, Yellowstone experienced two human fatalities from grizzly attacks—the first in July from a mother with two cubs. The authorities deemed this a natural, defensive response and the grizzly family was allowed to live. The second fatality, involving a male hiker from Michigan, took place six weeks later and eight miles to the west of the first fatality. August is a hungry month for bears starved for protein. Grizzlies in Yellowstone who are not eating insects this time of year are on the lookout for dead animals, especially dead bison, the accidental casualties of the violent rutting season.
That’s what contributed to the demise of the Michigan man; he stumbled onto a grizzly, probably a dominant male on a day-bed, close to a dead bison, and the bear killed the man in the course of defending the carcass. The lack of hard data was partially due to the fact that by the time the rangers found the man’s body, many different grizzlies had fed upon the carcass, including the mother and cubs from the season’s first fatality. Park authorities found her double sin of a fatal defensive attack, followed six weeks later by feeding on another human, unacceptable and destroyed all three bears. But other grizzlies who fed on the man’s body were excused because it is natural to treat any carcass as food and the park couldn’t just kill off the dozen or so culpable grizzlies: The public wouldn’t stand for it, nor would such mass executions stand up to the test of “best available science.” Fear of litigation was a big consideration.
There is an important distinction here that’s central to grizzly bear management in Yellowstone: These two events are not connected. The defensive killing of a human by a bear defending cubs or a carcass is not the same as killing a human with intent to eat him or her.
There’s a crucial disconnect for the bears between the fatal natural defensive mauling by the Lake Village mother grizzly, and the subsequent feeding and stashing of the body. Yellowstone could have shed light on this most common of bear misunderstandings and still justified what they had already decided—to kill the mother grizzly and put the cubs behind zoo fences.
Instead, on Aug. 13, they killed the mother and the park issued this news release: “An important fact in the decision to euthanize the bear was that a significant portion of the body was consumed and cached with the intent to return for further feeding. Normal defensive attacks by female bears defending their young do not involve consumption of the victim’s body.”
At best, this statement is both wrong and misleading. Grizzly mothers never kill people with chow on their charging minds or in order to get food. The “consumed and cached” event is a separate issue.
This murky government policy represents the decision-making used this week to kill the Lake Village mother and condemn her cubs to zoos. It’s largely a judgment call from a closed-door, opaque policy that worries about lawsuits and covering their “public safety” ass. The public is not involved this insular governmental discussion.
In partial reaction to being left out of the process, 40,000 people signed a petition asking park officials to spare the life of this bear family. Many were outraged. Author Terry Tempest Williams, in a letter to the Livingston Enterprise, spoke against killing the bear family: “One tragic death does not warrant three more,” she wrote. The Yellowstone spokesperson responded: “A bear that has fed on human flesh can’t be left at large in the ecosystem,” adding that “Yellowstone is a national park, not a wildlife preserve.”
In defense of that ambiguous policy—full of contradictions and lacking a clear definition of how park wildlife are to be preserved for future generations—the feds do have hazy considerations that they do not usually share with the public at large. The euthanized mother, about 20 years in age, raised several litters of cubs in the developed areas of Lake Village and Fishing Bridge (these are little centers of commerce within the interior of the park). Though she had never been a “problem bear” and had shown remarkable restraint when harassed by aggressive wildlife photographers, she was considered “habituated,” meaning used to people—a grizzly who got accustomed to human food by scavenging garbage and grease from behind the Fishing Bridge restaurant. One of her male offspring, a subadult grizzly 3- or 4 years-old, was killed by park bear managers for ripping open a small backpack a hiker had thrown at him.
I stand with Williams: “One tragic death does not warrant three more.” Despite the 40,000 protests, the bear family is gone. My chief concern is how easy it has become to kill a grizzly in Yellowstone. At least the Lake Village grizzly incident played out in front of a large human audience. Other bears live near the remote edges of the park’s ecosystem where, for instance, they sometimes stray into ill-advised sheep grazing allotments. We seldom hear of these grizzly bears. Their lives are expendable and “problem” bears can be quietly euthanized as a prophylactic against future depredations. Here is arbitrary and often secret decision-making by bear managers.
It’s difficult to see any “policy” at all.
“As managers of Yellowstone National Park, we balance the preservation of park resources with public safety,” says Superintendent Wenk. “Our decision [to remove the grizzly family] takes into account the facts of the case, the goals of the bear management program, and the long-term viability of the grizzly bear population as a whole, rather than an individual bear.”
Making matters worse, the park’s new goal of bear management will soon involve stripping the grizzly of its threatened status under the Endangered Species Act and, yes, their decision to get rid of this grizzly family fits smoothly into this conversion. This federal program is known as delisting.
The government’s promise to remove all current federal protections for grizzlies constitutes the greatest threat to the bears stranded in the Yellowstone ecosystem. The final report of the Interagency Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Study Team was released to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2014. All members, including those working directly for Yellowstone, voted unanimously to strip the grizzly of Endangered Species Act protections.
Upon delisting, grizzly bear management would be handed over to the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, which have planned to immediately begin issuing trophy grizzly bear hunting licenses. They’ve already said so. Exactly how many hunting permits will be offered and how successful those hunts will be is unknown, but what is clear is that an atmosphere will be created throughout the greater Yellowstone ecosystem where it is very easy to kill a grizzly—for any reason.
Grizzlies have one of the lowest reproductive rates of any land mammal; once the number of bear deaths outstrip the number of cubs born, the Yellowstone grizzly is on the road to extinction. I believe this is what delisting the Yellowstone grizzly will lead to. Female grizzlies, like that Lake Village mother with her two cubs, are the reproductive engines that determine a viable bear population. Individual bears do matter.
With the cavalier, deadly treatment of this particular grizzly family, Yellowstone’s bear management policy already seems to have begun the transition to delisting. Grizzly lives are cheap and are about to get cheaper.The CrushTheStreet Staff Is Consistently Researching The Most Important Investment Research. Our Goal Is To Magnify Your Financial Education At These Critical Times. Gain Immediate Access To Our Wide-Range of Top-Conviction Reports HERE!
Amid the noise of the U.S. financial markets, one sector is quietly falling behind. So-called “one dollar” discount retailers, or dollar stores, have been conspicuous laggards in the current equities cycle. In fact, dollar stores enjoyed only a temporary respite from the “Trump rally.” Now, it seems as if they’re struggling to stay afloat.
Two of the most popular dollar stores — Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Dollar General Corp. (NYSE:DG) — are both underwater in terms of year-to-date performances. DLTR stock is the least affected between the two, down nearly 2%, whereas DG stock has shed a more disconcerting 7% in the markets. Both suffered severe choppiness and volatility in 2016, and the situation does not seem very promising for the rest of 2017.
On the surface level, the bearishness towards discount retailers might be thought of as bullish for the underlying consumer economy. After all, dollar stores only sell the cheap stuff. If sales are falling at discount retailers, then logically, one might assume that sales are increasing in higher-premium stores.
But how does one explain the severe fallout of Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT)? Of course, they’re not a luxury outlet by any stretch of the imagination. However, they are a far cry away from the aisles of dollar stores and other discount retailers. Yet TGT stock is down 26% YTD — a shockingly bad figure.
Even the trendy, upper-class stores are hurting “bigly.” For example, Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM) is in a similar plight with Dollar General, shedding about 7% YTD. Serving the affluent consumer with organic foods and imported products has not been a formula for consistent success.
This sets up an extremely worrying proposition — neither the cheapo dollar stores nor the high-end retailers are making much money. And corporations like Target, which serve as the “in-betweeners,” are also getting gutted. Is no one in the retail sector doing well?
Of course, somebody has to be making the money. But the more important point is that competition is extremely fierce among all categories of retailers. For the broader consumer economy, the plight of discount retailers is the indicator to which we all need to pay attention.
First, dollar stores are failing in the financial markets for reasons other than consumer flight to more expensive retailers. This paints an ugly picture that American families may be hurting more than we realize or appreciate.
Second, because discount retailers are in a cutthroat business, one or more of them could fail on a permanent basis. Elimination of the competition, though, would lead to higher prices for the consumer. That could become a knockout blow, particularly when the economy is so disjointed as it is.MONTREAL — Speaking to delegates this week, the president of one of Quebec’s largest labour groups warned the province is headed for yet another period of social upheaval.
The Liberal government’s plan to eliminate the deficit within two years is “cutting Quebec in two,” Jacques Létourneau told members of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux.
Today’s Liberals, he lamented, seem to forget how trade unions and their allies brought the Jean Charest government to its knees in 2003, and how the 2012 protests over tuition increases drove it from power. If the Liberals under Premier Philippe Couillard try cutting social programs, they can expect more of the same. “We have to lead this battle,” Mr. Létourneau said.
The bellicose rhetoric elicited little more than a shrug from Mr. Couillard’s austerity point man, Treasury Board president Martin Coiteux. As he spoke by phone from Quebec City Thursday, students were tuning up outside the National Assembly for a musical protest against rumoured cuts to the provincial network of music conservatories. “Mobilization is a state of life here in Quebec whenever we’re making important changes, so this is really nothing new,” he said. “I don’t think we’re in any particular situation of excessive stress over what is going on.”
The Liberals are calculating this time, there is something new. Unions and the Parti Québécois opposition are up in arms over reports government services ranging from cheap daycare to wildlife protection will have to be curtailed, but there are signs Quebecers are coming around to the idea they are living beyond their means.
The past month has seen a steady stream of media reports showing the Liberals are sharpening their axes: subsidized daycare, generous parental leave, free in-vitro fertilization, homework help, milk for schoolchildren and youth protection are a few of the programs rumoured to be targeted for cuts. Yet a CROP poll published Friday in La Presse found the popularity of Mr. Couillard and his government is not suffering.
“The Couillard government’s star has not faded despite the gloominess,” its headline declared.
True, protests have yet to hit high gear, but a clue to Mr. Coiteux’s nonchalance can be found on a government website launched this month, seeking the public’s suggestions on where the cuts should come.
It turns out Quebecers are brimming with ideas. In just over three months, nearly 3,000 messages have been published on the program review website.
“The citizen wants to be listened to without the traditional filter of organized groups, which is exactly what we’re offering,” Mr. Coiteux said. The silent majority that doesn’t care for placards and chants is having its say.
As in any exercise of this nature, the website has attracted some far-fetched proposals. Denis Lachapelle argued this week all state activities should be privatized. Stéphane Bernier suggested Montreal’s Olympic Stadium be sold for $1 to an international entrepreneur like Richard Branson who could make something of the site “without begging for a subsidy,” like Quebec developers do.
Gaston Tremblay was brief, if not particularly constructive: “I’m sick of paying taxes. Shouldn’t have to pay more taxes for all the others. Lower my taxes.”
There are also people defending particular programs, such as support for the disabled, private-school subsidies and in-vitro fertilization. Serge Desharnais accused the Liberals of “cannibalizing” Quebec and surrendering gains made over the last 40 years. But most contributors agree the status quo cannot continue.
“Reduce the cost and the payments tied to the parental-leave program,” José Fortin wrote. “The choice of having children is firstly that of the parents and it is primarily up to them to assume financial responsibility for these choices.”
Sylvain Tremblay said the time has come to cut non-essential services. The province’s universal $7-a-day daycare (set to increase to $7.30 next week) should be replaced by a system where parents pay according to their means. He also called for a user fee in hospital emergency rooms to discourage unnecessary visits and the abolition of school boards as an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
Diane Corriveau went further: Stop subsidizing in-vitro fertilization, raise tuition, reduce subsidies for private schools, abolish subsidies for established artists, increase daycare fees in line with inflation and ensure only working parents use the system. And while you’re at it, abolish the post of lieutenant-governor.
A program review committee created by Mr. Coiteux in June will examine the proposals. Headed by former federal Liberal cabinet minister Lucienne Robillard, it is expected to make its first recommendations next month. It is charged with examining all government programs to identify whether they respond to a priority that should be part of the state’s mission, whether they are administered efficiently and are affordable.
“The time has come to acquire an effective government, rooted in the 21st century,” Mr. Coiteux says in a message on the website inviting public input.
“The time has come to establish priorities and no longer mortgage the future. We must henceforth finance more effective programs that must keep with our citizens’ ability to pay.”
The former Bank of Canada economist, who was elected for the first time in April, said he is confident people will get onside. He stressed all reports of looming cuts so far have been just rumours. The tough decisions will be made in time for the next provincial budget, likely in March.
“I think everyone agrees on the seriousness of the situation, on the fact that we have to make choices,” he said. “We cannot invent means that we don’t have, and the way to be successful is to work together with a spirit of collaboration.”
Marcelin Joanis, a professor of economics at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique, has been writing about the need for Quebec to gets its finances in order for the past decade. With credit agencies keeping a close eye on the province’s heavy debt, it is more important than ever the Couillard government stick to its target of balancing the budget by 2015-16, he said.
“Ten years ago, when we were addressing this issue of public debt, there was a feeling that people were not aware of the problem or were not willing to do what it takes to address it,” he said.
“Now, when we conduct polls of Quebecers, I’m always surprised at how conscious Quebecers are of the problem. I think that a fair number … now are aware that the debt burden has to be reduced. Talking about a consensus on this issue may be a bit strong, but compared to other issues, I’m always surprised by how high it ranks in the priorities of Quebecers.”
The test will come with the move from the abstract to the concrete. Battered by revelations of collusion and kickbacks at the Charbonneau corruption inquiry, the government has judged Quebecers, already among the most heavily taxed in North America, are in no mood for additional taxes.
“We’re having a bit of a crisis where people feel that they don’t get bang for the buck from what they send to the government,” Prof. Joanis said. “To me that’s a political choice, and because of that we’re putting the onus on the spending side. It’s hard, and it’s no surprise that some people are not going to be happy.”
In the National Assembly this week, a string of PQ MNAs did their best to fuel that unhappiness.
Mathieu Traversy accused the Liberals of “declaring all-out war on families” by considering a new funding structure for daycares and an overhaul of the parental-leave program. Nicole Léger said they were targeting kids, citing an end to after-school homework help and cuts to food programs for the under-privileged at a Sherbrooke school board.
For Véronique Hivon, the Liberal war was on music, citing the rumoured closing of conservatories. Guy Leclair criticized the layoffs of 16 game wardens for imperilling hunter safety and opening the door to “a Quebec poaching festival.”
The Liberals are helped by the fact the PQ, still stinging from its election loss, is preoccupied with choosing a new leader and finding a way to revive the separatist cause.
The other main opposition party, the Coalition Avenir Québec, is an advocate of small government.
And the Quebec trade union movement is not exactly experiencing its finest hour. The Charbonneau commission exposed shady practices among leaders of the main construction union, while people were revolted when unionized firefighters stormed Montreal city hall to protest pension cuts.
“It’s a battle for public opinion,” Mr. Létourneau said in an interview. “Remember that in 2003, the Charest government took another direction once public opinion changed concerning its plans.”
This time, Mr. Coiteux said, the government believes it has the public on board and will not be swayed — not by protest concerts outside the National Assembly or mocking papier-mâché effigies paraded through the streets.
“It’s inevitable” people will be unhappy, Mr. Coiteux said. They can play all the sad violin music they like, but it will not derail what he calls a national recovery effort. “Everybody, according to his or her means, has to contribute,” he said.
National Post
• Email: ghamilton@nationalpost.com | Twitter: grayhamiltonThe war between the producers of Youngistaan and a soft drink company hots up following a legal battle over the title.On February 13, Mirror reported that the producers of Youngistaan, MSM Motion Pictures and Vashu Bhagnani’s Puja Films, was involved in legal battle with PepsiCo Inc over the title. The soft drink company sent the filmmakers a legal notice pointing out that they had copyright over the term ‘youngistaan’, which had been coined by them several years ago.The producers of the film were told to change the title with immediate effect. The notice further reiterated that they should withdraw all promotional material that mentioned the title.While hearing a petition filed by the soft drink brand, the judge at the Bombay High Court had earlier advised the two parties to sit down together and amicably sort out the issue. In the last hearing both parties presented their proposals to the court. However, neither was prepared to reveal the content of the proposals made in court.Confirming this, Pranjal Khandhdiya, Executive Producer, MSM Motion Pictures, admits that there were talks and options were discussed.According to a source, one of this was going with the sms spelling of Youngistaan.The source further adds that the producers were even toying with the idea of calling the film Faltu 2.Khandhdiya dismisses this report saying, “Faltu is another brand and our film is not an extension of it but a new film. So why would we want to call it Faltu 2," he argues.Yesterday, a verdict was expected by evening. But the High Court postponed the final order to a later date which has not yet been intimated.With the film’s release date-March 28-looming, MSM Motion Pictures has now decided to stay with their original title. “We will fight it out because the title was granted to us by the film associations. Once they clear it, no one should raise objections to it. If we give in now, the system collapses. Tomorrow, even a smaller brand can claim copyright and create hindrance for another producer. So we have now decided to fight it out,”Khandhdiya reiterates.PepsiCo India’s spokesperson reverted to our mail saying, “Youngistaan is a registered trademark of PepsiCo. Inc and has been extensively used in its campaign. As the matter is pending in court, we will not be able to further comment on the matter.”Public radio's popular weekend feature program “This American Life” on Friday retracted one of its most popular stories — about conditions for factory workers who make Apple products in China — and prepared to devote its entire program this weekend to an account of how the report misled listeners.
"This American Life" founder and host Ira Glass said in a statement that performer Mike Daisey had lied to the “This American Life” staff when producers tried to fact-check his detailed, firsthand account of meetings with Chinese workers who make iPads and other products.
The radio host said Daisey manufactured characters and settings in his report, drawn from his acclaimed stage performance, “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” Glass said the fabrications came to light when Rob Schmitz of public radio's “Marketplace” tracked down Daisey’s Chinese interpreter.
The interpreter reportedly said that Daisey had concocted not only small details but some of the more dramatic moments in the piece, including reported meetings with child laborers and with a man whose hand was mangled as he made iPads for the Apple supplier Foxconn. The interpreter said those accounts were concocted.
The ironies of the story and its reversal were many, including this one: Daisey admitted in the radio program to a subterfuge: He told the interpreter he would pose as various American businessmen, to gain access to factories.
“And she says, ‘You will lie to them,’" Daisey says at one point in the monologue. “And I say, ‘Yes Cathy, I'm going to lie to lots of people.’ " After initially balking, the interpreter, who went by the name Cathy Lee, went along with the ruse, Daisey said.
Daisey said his mistake was not the stories he told but the fact he presented them on a news program like “This American Life.”
“What I do is not journalism,” Daisey said Friday on his blog. “The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed ‘This American Life’ to air an excerpt from my monologue.”
In his own statement, Glass said: “Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.”
Listeners downloaded Daisey’s 39-minute report 888,000 times, making it the single most popular podcast in the history of “This American Life.”
Daisey’s one-man show on the same material ends its run at the Public Theater in New York on Sunday. The theater released a statement Friday saying that “we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was and wasn’t his personal experience in the piece.”
But the theater planned no changes. “In the theater, our job is to create fictions that reveal truth-- that's what a storyteller does, that's what a dramatist does,” The Public's statement said. “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’ reveals, as Mike's other monologues have, human truths in story form.’
“In this work, Mike uses a story to frame and lead debate about an important issue in a deeply compelling way. He has illuminated how our actions affect people half-a-world away and, in doing so, has spurred action to address a troubling situation. This is a powerful work of art and exactly the kind of storytelling that The Public Theater has supported, and will continue to support in the future.”
ALSO:
Daisey monologue will be back at the Public
Katie Couric's talk show gets premiere date
Stephen Colbert launches Twitter attack on Rick Santorum
-- James Rainey
Twitter: latimesrainey
Photo: An abbreviated performance of Mike Daisey's show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" became a huge hit on public radio's "This American Life." Credit: Chris BennionMr. Nobody is a 2009 science fiction drama film written and directed by Jaco Van Dormael and starring Jared Leto, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, Linh Dan Pham, Rhys Ifans, Natasha Little, Toby Regbo and Juno Temple. The film tells the life story of Nemo Nobody, a 118-year-old man who is the last mortal on Earth after the human race has achieved quasi-immortality. Nemo, memory fading, refers to his three main loves and to his parents' divorce and subsequent hardships endured at three critical junctions in his life: at age nine, fifteen, and thirty-four. Alternate life paths branching out from each of those critical junctions are examined. The speculative narrative often changes course with the flick of a different possible decision at each of those ages. The film uses nonlinear narrative and the multiverse hypothesis style.
Mr. Nobody had its world premiere at the 66th Venice International Film Festival where it received the Golden Osella and the Biografilm Lancia Award. Critical response was generally strong and the film was nominated for seven Magritte Awards, winning six, including Best Film and Best Director for Van Dormael. The film was mostly funded through European financiers and was released in Belgium on 13 January 2010. Since its original release, Mr. Nobody has become a cult film, noted for its philosophy and cinematography, personal characters and Pierre Van Dormael's soundtrack.[1]
Plot [ edit ]
In 2092, humanity has conquered mortality through the endless renewal of cells. The world watches in fascination as the 118-year-old Nemo Nobody, the last mortal on Earth, edges towards death. Curious to know of life before quasi-immortality, they interview Nemo. Dr. Feldheim, a psychiatrist, uses hypnosis to help Nemo recall some of his memories, while Nemo relates other memories to a journalist. As he is prodded, Nemo makes contradictory statements. He recounts his life at three primary points: at age 9, when his parents divorced, at age 15 when he fell in love, and at age 34 as an adult. All three unfold into their many possible outcomes.
Nemo explains that before birth, children remember everything that will happen in their lives. At the moment of conception, the Angels of Oblivion erase their memory. The Angels, however, forget about Nemo, allowing him to "remember" different possible futures for himself. At age 9, at a railway station, he is forced to choose as his mother leaves on a train while his father stays on the platform. In one case, he manages to board the train while in another he stays with his father.
Life with mother [ edit ]
A rebellious Nemo lives with his mother and her new partner, Harry, in Montreal. He sees a new girl, Anna, in his school and is immediately smitten. One day on the beach, Anna asks if he would like to swim with her and her friends. Nemo insults her friends and they barely see each other again.
In an alternate story line, Nemo admits to Anna he cannot swim; the two spend time together and fall in love. Anna turns out to be Harry's daughter and the two step siblings begin an affair. They pledge their lives to one another. When Harry and Nemo's mother break up, Anna goes to New York with her father, and they lose touch. Years later, Nemo works as a pool cleaner, hoping to run into Anna by chance. They finally see one another at the train station and immediately recognize each other in a crowd of passers-by. After a passionate reunion, Anna announces she is not ready to immediately resume the relationship. She gives him her number, asks him to call her in two days and meet at the lighthouse. However, he loses her number when a sudden downpour makes her note illegible. Nemo waits at the lighthouse every day, but Anna does not come.
In a different storyline, Anna and Nemo are married with children. Nemo works at a television studio narrating educational videos. One evening, while returning home, he hits a bird, loses control of his car, plummets into a lake and drowns.
Life with father [ edit ]
Nemo stays with his father, who later becomes disabled. He works in a shop and spends his free time at home at the typewriter, writing a science fiction story about a journey to Mars. At a school dance, he meets Elise and falls in love. A few days later, Nemo goes to Elise's house but sees her with her 22-year-old boyfriend. Frustrated, he speeds away on his motorcycle, has an accident and is hospitalized in a vegetative state. Though he can perceive the world through his senses, Nemo cannot move or speak. He detects his parents' reunion at his bedside. Nemo tries to remember the movement of his fingers on the typewriter keyboard and eventually manages to lift a finger as this story line comes to a close.
In yet another alternate timeline, Nemo speaks with Elise at her house, and learns that she is still in love with her boyfriend, Stefano. Nemo does not back down and keeps assuring her of his feelings. Finally, Elise gives in and a few years later, they get married. In one version of the story line, Elise dies in an accident on the return from the wedding. Nemo keeps her ashes, having promised her to spread them on Mars. In a far future, Nemo carries Elise's ash to Mars and spreads them on the planet's surface. Aboard the spacecraft traveling back to Earth, he meets Anna. Before they can say much to each other, the ship is destroyed by meteoroids. In an alternate version of events, he works at the same television studio but his assistant drowns instead. The assistant's widow is Anna, whom he recognizes. Another storyline has Nemo and Elise married with three children. However, their marriage is unhappy as Elise suffers from borderline personality disorder and chronic depression. She has attacks of hysteria and, despite Nemo's attempts to save their marriage, ultimately leaves him to pursue Stefano.
Alternatively, after being rejected by Elise, Nemo resolves to marry the first girl who will dance with him at the school prom. That night, he dances with Jean. While taking her home, Nemo pledges to marry her and be successful. Despite being successful and having two children, Nemo is unhappy and bored with his life. Nemo writes over all his possessions to Jean and leaves his family. Now making all of his decisions randomly via coin toss, he goes to the airport, and pretends to be a passenger named Daniel Jones and is taken to a hotel by a waiting chauffeur. At Jones' hotel room, Nemo is murdered while taking a bath, and his body is dumped in the woods by assassins, confused by contradicting description given to them about Daniel Jones and the man they just murdered.
Running throughout all the many paths his life could take or has taken, the adult Nemo recurringly awakens in a surrealistic world dominated by argyle patterns. This setting seems artificial, like a movie set, and often appears to bleed over into his other lives. Following clues that he finds scattered throughout this city, he ultimately arrives at a crumbling, abandoned wooden-framed house. He stumbles upon a DVD player hooked up to a television screen. In the strangely interactive video, the 118-year-old Nemo converses with the 34-year-old one. He explains that the younger man does not exist. This is a universe where Nemo Nobody was never born, and his consciousness is stuck in some sort of limbo. He states that he is experiencing the story from the end and that he must stay alive until 5:50 AM on 12 February 2092.
Epilogue [ edit ]
Before his death, Mr. Nobody tells the journalist that neither of them exist. They are figments in the mind of the 9-year-old Nemo at the train station, as he was forced to make an impossible choice. The young boy tries to find the correct decision, following each choice to its conclusion. Eventually, the boy takes a third option: to not make the choice at all. He leaves both parents and runs away towards an unknown future. This ambiguous choice somehow leads to him and Anna reuniting happily. The film returns to old Nemo on his death bed. The calculated time arrives and Mr. Nobody's last words are watched by the world. The expansion of the universe comes to a halt and time appears to reverse. The universe ceases to dissipate, and finally begins contracting. Consequently, Nemo's life simplifies itself. He is able to return to his childhood, watch his parents get back together and be with Anna. The 118-year-old man cackles triumphantly as he springs back into awareness with the realization that his younger self has finally found his one true love and life.
Cast [ edit ]
The cast at the premiere for the film in September 2009 (left to right): Linh Dan Pham, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, and Jared Leto
Director Jaco Van Dormael makes a cameo appearance as the Brazilian man.
Production [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael began seeking to film Mr. Nobody in 2001, an attempt that lasted six years before the director was able to make his English-language feature debut in 2007.[8] Van Dormael's project differed from other Belgian productions in being filmed in English instead of in one of Belgium's main languages. The director explained, "The story came to me in English. It's a story set over very long distances and time frames. One of the strands of the plot is about a kid who must choose between living with his mother in Canada or his father in England. There are also some incredible English-speaking actors I wanted to work with."[9] Mr. Nobody is Van Dormael's first feature film since the Belgian film Le huitième jour (The Eighth Day) in 1996. Van Dormael began preparing production of Mr. Nobody in February 2007 with actress Sarah Polley the first to be cast in the film.[5] Actor Jared Leto was later cast into the primary role of Nemo Nobody.[10]
The production budget for Mr. Nobody was €33 million (US$47 million), ranking it the most expensive Belgian film to date.[11] The budget was approved before casting was done, based on the prominence of the director's name and the strength of his script. Half of the budget was provided by the film's French producer Philippe Godeau through his production company Pan-Européenne, and the other half was financed by distributors Wild Bunch and Pathé.[9] Production took place throughout 2007, lasting 120 days and filming in Belgium, Germany, and Canada. Scenes were filmed on location in Montreal, Canada and at Babelsberg Studios in Berlin, Germany.[12] Van Dormael said, "I think the film needed that for these multiple lives. Each time a new style of setting is required. And each life is filmed in a different style, with a different grammar for the camera, the colours, the decor. At the same time, if all the styles have to be very contrasted, they knock together by fusing."[13] The three lives that Nemo Nobody experiences were separated by color-coding and musical cues. Each life's design was also based on the work of British photographer Martin Parr.[14]
Writing [ edit ]
The idea of parallel lives has been explored before in films such as Run Lola Run (1998) and Sliding Doors (1998) which influenced Van Dormael's writing. Unlike any of those, Mr. Nobody has philosophical underpinning inspired by scientific tomes on chaos theory and the butterfly effect, pigeon superstition, and the space-time continuum.[14] Van Dormael stated, "My starting point was a 12-minute short I made in 1982 called È pericoloso sporgersi. A kid runs behind a train with two possible choices: to go with his mother or with his father. From there we follow two possible futures. I started one version based on the fact that a woman jumps or doesn't jump on a train. Then Sliding Doors by Peter Howitt came out, followed by Run |
who treat them. They found that most of the young people classified as web addicts – a clinical assessment that is fairly common in China but has not yet found its way into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – had spent so much time online that they believed the virtual world was more engaging and more real than the real world. That led many of them to disengage socially.
A young man named Wu Huhu explains in the film that he once spent some 300 hours – nearly 24 hours a day for 15 days – in an marathon session playing World of Warcraft. Another young man chimes in to reminisce about spending an entire summer break playing the game. It's a jovial exchange between a bunch of kids with a shared experience, but also a haunting lesson in why web addiction is taken so seriously in China.
Internet abuse – and the web in general – will be a popular theme at Sundance this year. In addition to Web Junkie, the documentary Love Child examines the case of a South Korean couple whose baby died in 2010 while they were gaming at an internet cafe. The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz looks at the impact of the young internet activist who died a year ago, and the narrative film The Signal tells the story of two MIT students who follow a rival hacker's clues and find themselves imprisoned. The lineup of films shows just how much the internet has become an integral part of many of the best stories.
More on the web's impact on the Sundance Film Festival coming soon. In the meantime, check out the entire World of Warcraft conversation in an exclusive clip from Web Junkie above.Hello Fran,
It’s official: the Revs will finish this season higher than the last – second in the East – and have the home-field advantage in the Conference Semifinals. But there’s still one more game: the last home game of the regular season, this Saturday against Toronto. A win has CONCACAF Champions League implications, and the pre-and-post-game festivities will be worth the trip as well:
We’ll be having an Oktoberfest-themed tailgate before the game, so bring your best lederhosen – or just whatever beer, sausages, or other Oktoberfest-ish things and meet us in the supporters’ lots. There will be an MLS film crew at the tailgate lots, and in the Fort, filming supporters for an upcoming piece called “For the Love of the Crest.” Let’s show them who the Riders are, and what New England supporter culture is about.
Don’t have tickets? Want to get more and bring your friends? We’ve got you covered. Go here and use special code RIDERS for discounted Fort tickets – purchase deadline is noon Saturday. Then…
Get. On. The. Bus. That’s right, we’ve got a bus headed to the last game. Get your spot at that link (deadline noon Thursday) with password 8ef4197af9c to join us on the road, in the lots, and in the Fort. The bus will not go unless it crosses the signup threshold, so make sure you get yours before noon Thursday!
Then stick around after the final whistle because the Man of the Year will be announced after the game, at the front of the Fort. The award was determined by Riders’ Man of the Match voting all year long at the Member Portal. Make sure to be there as we cheer for the Riders’ top pick this season and celebrate another improved regular season.If you’re anything like me, you will carefully study every old and yellowed newspaper you ever come upon, hoping to discover some charming or shocking bit of historical trivia, only to throw down the paper in disgust when you realize it was just the 2006 Washington Post NFL preview section, or a 2001 profile of an expert gardener, or something similarly boring.
But reader Steve Chakerian discovered a pot of gold when his mother started re-doing the kitchen in her Georgetown townhouse: a 1938 edition of “Washington Shopping News,” stuffed in the wall space, with a Redskins ad.
The text (see below for the image):
CHALLENGE TO ANY COLLEGE FOOTBALL TEAM IN AMERICA
“The (Washington) Redskins offer to go anywhere and play any single college team in the country a sixty-minute game under any rules, behind closed gates, without benefit of [UNREADABLE] office, to prove they can beat a college [UNREADABLE] any day in the week.”
If you look at the bottom, this challenge appears to have been signed by George Preston Marshall.
“As you can see, the paper is so delicate it pretty much breaks apart upon the slightest touch,” Steve noted in his message. “It has been in the wall of a Georgetown home for 74 years.”
Steve plans to get this framed, appropriately. He also pointed out that if the Redskins tried this tactic nowadays, it might help their record.BEIJING — Chinese leaders, grappling with some of the world’s worst air pollution, have long assumed the answer to their woes was gradually reducing the level of smog-forming chemicals emitted from power plants, steel factories and cars.
But new research suggests another factor may be hindering China’s efforts to take control of its devastating smog crisis: climate change.
Changing weather patterns linked to rising global temperatures have resulted in a dearth of wind across northern China, according to several recent studies, exacerbating a wave of severe pollution that has been blamed for millions of premature deaths. Wind usually helps blow away smog, but changes in weather patterns in recent decades have left many of China’s most populous cities poorly ventilated, scientists say.
The findings, some of the first to link climate change to smog, may escalate pressure on Chinese leaders to move more swiftly to shutter steel factories and coal-fired power plants amid rising public anger over smog caused by soot and gases like sulfur dioxide. The research could also push China to assume an even more forceful role in international efforts to curb climate change by reducing carbon emissions, at a time when the United States, under President Trump, appears to be backing away from the issue.Beware, the future of Christianity looks like this: plaid button-ups, skinny jeans and smartphone-accessible bible verses. But rest assured, it's "super, super, super dope."
Last night's "Daily Show" featured a correspondent segment which poked fun at America's megachurches, zeroing in on the impossibly hip Hillsong church which has long been shaping Christian youth culture.
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According to New York Times' 2014 write-up, Hillsong is remarkable not just because of its hipness but because of what its hipness transcends: "Its target is young Christians in big cities, where faith seems out of fashion but where its services are packing them in," Michael Paulson writes in "Megachurch With a Beat Lures a Young Flock."
Diving into this phenomenon, "The Daily Show" presents us with Pastor Carl Lentz, the pastor of Hillsong NYC Church, who has "both believers and Beliebers." "He had it all," the segment opens with. "The skinny jeans, the douche beanie and he played Grand Theft auto... in gore mode."
Watch the clip below:Looking for news you can trust?
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During his recent swing through New Hampshire for CNN’s presidential debate, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty courted more than a hundred Republicans at a house party in the town of North Conway. But the Pawlenty campaign’s choice of a host for the event, which was arranged by the candidate’s regional field manager in the Granite State, was nothing if not controversial. The party took place at the home of Ray Shakir, a local Republican activist and retired construction executive, who calls President Obama a “jungle alien,” Hillary Clinton “Osama’s dream girl,” and once labeled certain disabled children “uneducatable” and thus undeserving of taxpayer-funded schooling.
In an interview, Shakir says Pawlenty addressed tough issues at the house party, such as cutting subsidies for corn ethanol and implementing right-to-work legislation, which would allow employees to opt out of union membership but still receive union-won benefits. Shakir praises Pawlenty as “a real nice guy, very gregarious,” adding, “at this point in the game, Tim Pawlenty is my choice for president.”
But why did the Pawlenty campaign, running on a “Time for Truth” message, turn to Shakir, an activist whose eyebrow-raising comments on a range of topics fly in the face of that theme? Pawlenty, for instance, has repeatedly dismissed the unfounded rumors questioning President Obama’s US citizenship. Shakir, however, says Obama is “a jungle alien. Because that’s what he is—he’s not an American. You can call me a birther if you want.” Shakir claims the long-form birth certificate recently released by the Obama administration is merely a clever forgery. (The Pawlenty campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)
Moving to other issues, Shakir called human-caused climate change “bullshit” and accused liberals of “trying to destroy this country.”
“They’re brainwashing people,” he says.
Shakir says Obama is “a jungle alien. Because that’s what he is—he’s not an American. You can call me a birther if you want.”
Shakir has a history of rhetorical flamethrowing. He’s referred to President Obama as “Borat Hussein O’Bummer” and suggested he is “a radical, subversive, con-artist fraud.” His repertoire also includes referring to Democrats as “Democ-Rats,” Bill Clinton as a “charlatan,” and former vice president Al Gore as “vice circus barker.” In 2007, he called then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “Osama’s dream girl.” And he once derided people who support a sales or income tax in New Hampshire as “pathetic individuals [who] are obviously deaf, dumb, and blind (oops…audibly, mentally, and visually challenged).”
In March, Shakir sparked outrage during a meeting of the Conway budget committee, of which he’s a member. At the time, citizens were enmeshed in debate over a proposed 11-percent budget cut to school spending (which was ultimately voted down). In response to a special education official who said there was “no such thing as an uneducatable person,” Shakir told a gym full of citizens: “I would dispute that fact. There are certainly individuals that are uneducateable. I am simply suggesting to you and everybody else that there should be a line drawn where the taxpayer is responsible to educate certain people.”
Shakir’s statement drew a chorus of boos, calls to resign, and even a comparison to Hitler. To which Shakir responded, “If you don’t like it, that’s the way it is. You people are divorced from reality.”
To boisterous cheering, a local pediatrician, Rich Laracy, thundered back that Shakir was “physically making me sick right now. What you are saying, Mr. Shakir, is immoral, unethical, and illegal. I demand your immediate resignation from this budget committee.” At that point Shakir got up and left the meeting, to even louder cheers. “Ignorance,” Laracy called after him, “is the worst disability.” (You can watch the exchange here; it’s the second, smaller video.)
Yet despite Shakir’s track record of radioactive remarks, he is apparently in high demand by some of the GOP’s 2012 contenders. Shakir tells Mother Jones that Mitt Romney’s campaign has contacted him to inquire about holding their own event at his house. That’s news to Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, who wrote in an email that he’s “not aware of anything.”PoliZette Loophole Has Allowed Over 1,000 DACA Recipients to Obtain Citizenship Obama executive amnesty left pathway for illegal immigrants to achieve permanent legal status
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program used a loophole to obtain green cards, and more than 1,000 already have become American citizens, according to new data released Friday.
The judiciary panels in the Senate and House of Representatives, which requested the data, put out a joint news release highlighting the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics. As of August 21, 45,447 DACA recipients obtained permanent residency, and 1,056 already had become citizens.
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DACA, which former President Barack Obama created by executive order in 2012, issues work permits to illegal immigrants brought to America as children and who had been continuously present in the United States since June 16, 2007. It also exempts them from deportation as long as they do not commit crime or break other rules.
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday that President Donald Trump would decide by Tuesday whether to keep the program in place.
DACA is not supposed to provide a path to citizenship, but tens of thousands discovered they can get around that by exploiting an Obama-era loophole known as “advance parole,” a mechanism by which people who are not legal residents can leave the United States and then return legally. According to experts, it typically had been granted to people with pending green card applications who had compelling reasons for wanting to return home, such as to care for a critically ill relative.
Under the Obama administration, however, DACA recipients began receiving permission to leave America under advance parole and then come back. Critics contend the administration employed a broad definition of the word “compelling.” Getting admitted back to the United States legally allowed DACA recipients to apply for permanent residency as long as they had a legal sponsor, such as an American spouse or an employer.
The 45,447 who have gotten green cards represent a significant increase over the 22,340 people who got it by the end of the year in 2015, according to statistics released by the government in the past year.
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The total number is a relatively small share of all DACA recipients. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said this is probably due to a combination of a lack of awareness and the fact that some recipients simply do not have a qualifying sponsor.
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“I think it’s both. I think it’s primarily the first, that most people don’t know they can do this,” she said. “The DACA population apparently is not an extremely savvy group of people.”
The newly released statistics suggest most DACA recipients who have applied for advance parole have received it. Only 3,993 applications have been denied, for an approval rate of 92 percent. Overall, 60 percent of DACA residents who have applied for green cards have received them. That includes people who pursued a different avenue to permanent residency by claiming their removal would cause an extreme hardship to an American.
Using advance parole is preferable from the standpoint of the immigrant, said Vaughan, because it is substantially cheaper.
(photo credit, homepage and article images: Annette Bernhardt, Flickr)Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Following the big news on Monday that Microsoft had acquired the Minecraft franchise in a $2.5 billion deal, the company said it plans to "continue to make Minecraft available" across non-Microsoft platforms like iOS, Android, and PlayStation, as well as Xbox and PC, of course.
But what about the upcoming PlayStation Vita version, which is the only version of the game announced for a major platform but still to be released? Should gamers still expect that version to be released? One fan asked Xbox boss Phil Spencer that very question on Twitter, and the Microsoft executive said the game "should" come to the platform, though he didn't confirm it.
@TengokuNinja Mojang deal isn't closed so I have no input now but I think Minecraft should ship on Vita. — Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) September 18, 2014
In its own post about selling to Microsoft, Mojang wrote that "there's no reason for the development, sales, and support of the PC/Mac, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Vita, iOS, and Android versions to stop." However, the company cautioned that "Microsoft can't make decisions for other companies or predict the choices that they might make in the future."
The Microsoft-Mojang deal was only announced Monday, and like Spencer said, it has not yet closed. Pending standard closing conditions and a possible regulatory review, Microsoft's acquisition of Mojang is expected to close in "late 2014." Until then, we may not get any further clarification about the future of Minecraft and how Microsoft will treat versions of the game for competing platforms.
In the meantime, Minecraft is playable on PS Vita through Remote Play. The standalone PS Vita version is expected to launch sometime before the end of the year.
Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuchThe website iFixit got its hands on a brand-new iPhone 5 Friday morning as soon as the device went on sale in Australia. As expected, the inquisitive crew immediately dissected it to assess its hackability – and to give us some delicious gadget pr0n.
Apple's new phone gets a very reasonable 7 out of 10 repairability rating, scoring just above last year's iPhone 4S, which earned a 6 out of 10. But for home repair aficionados, there are still a number of integrated components that can make repair costs add up quickly.
Unsurprisingly, Apple still uses those fancy pentalobe screws to keep the iPhone's exterior intact. But once those are removed, the display portion is easily accessible, and more so than on the iPhone 4 or 4S. This is welcome news for the DIY-minded – not to mention the clumsy among us, since shattered display glass is one of the most common iPhone injuries. However, the front glass, digitizer, and LCD are combined into a single unit, so screen replacement will still be costly.
After taking the screen off, the iFixit team consulted a high-precision scale and found the weight difference between the 4S and 5 to be stunning.
"The entire rear case of the iPhone 5 weighs only slightly more than just the glass rear panel of the 4S," they say.
Inside, it's got a 3.8V, 5.45Wh, 1434mAh battery that uses a different battery chemistry than that of the 4S. It's supposed to provide 25 more hours of standby time while providing the same amount of general usage levels (8 hours of 3G). The battery can be removed and replaced with "a little bit of prying," according to iFixit.
The logic board and iSight camera innards of the iPhone 5. Image: iFixit
The home button now features a built-in metal support bracket. This should help it last longer and make it easier to replace. At the other end of the device, it's also fairly pain-free to pop the speaker off of the display assembly.
For 4G connectivity, the phone uses a Qualcomm MDM9615M chip, which handles multi-mode, multi-spectrum LTE. Apple sources other chips from Broadcom (the touchscreen controller), Texas Instruments (the touchscreen system-on-a-chip), and STMicroelectronics (the three-axis accelerometer).
Interestingly, the iPhone 5 uses the same type of vibrating motor – a rotational motor with a counterweight – found in the iPhone 4 and earlier iPhones, and not the quieter linear-oscillating vibrator used in the iPhone 4S.
For the complete teardown, head on over to iFixit.Gov. Mary Fallin has signed a bill allowing a medical pilot program for cannabis oil.The bill, known as "Katie and Cayman's Law," would allow medically supervised use of cannabis oil. Parents say that it is effective in treating children with epileptic seizures.“This bill will help get sick children potentially life-changing medicine,” said Fallin. “By crafting the legislation in a way that allows for tightly controlled medical studies, we can ensure we are researching possible treatments in a responsible and scientific way.”Fallin said she remains opposed to legalizing marijuana.“The CBD oil we are studying is a non-intoxicating derivative of marijuana,” said Fallin. “It is not marijuana, and it is not anything that can make you ‘high.’ This law has been narrowly crafted to support highly supervised medical trials for children with debilitating seizures. It is not a first step towards legalizing marijuana, and I will never support the legalization of marijuana in Oklahoma.”
Gov. Mary Fallin has signed a bill allowing a medical pilot program for cannabis oil.
The bill, known as "Katie and Cayman's Law," would allow medically supervised use of cannabis oil. Parents say that it is effective in treating children with epileptic seizures.
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“This bill will help get sick children potentially life-changing medicine,” said Fallin. “By crafting the legislation in a way that allows for tightly controlled medical studies, we can ensure we are researching possible treatments in a responsible and scientific way.”
Fallin said she remains opposed to legalizing marijuana.
“The CBD oil we are studying is a non-intoxicating derivative of marijuana,” said Fallin. “It is not marijuana, and it is not anything that can make you ‘high.’ This law has been narrowly crafted to support highly supervised medical trials for children with debilitating seizures. It is not a first step towards legalizing marijuana, and I will never support the legalization of marijuana in Oklahoma.”
AlertMeEach Spring, the Nürburgring opens its gates to car manufacturers eager to flog their winter projects on track for the first time. Needless to say, this time of year draws throngs of photographers to the circuit, who sell snaps of car companies' camouflaged prototypes to motoring journalists hot for a scoop.
This was the scene, back in March, 2011, when BMW showed up at the famed German racetrack with an E92 M3 pickup truck.
The timing couldn’t have been better. Knowing the spy photographers would be out in full force on the first industry days of the year, BMW engineers wrapped the pickup in standard, spy-thwarting camouflage and did some hot laps; all while laughing inside their helmets. After all, it was less than a month before April Fools Day.
Naturally, spy photographers did what spy photographers do: they sold their shots of "the first ever BMW M3 pickup" to car magazines and blogs around the world. Us goofy car journalists took the bait, and we were dumbfounded. Was BMW insane? Had they built an M3 ute for Australia? Was the nascent El Camino market in the US secretly heating up?
Negative. The car was never meant for production, but it was a standard E92 M3 Convertible. The hard-top roof and trunk were replaced with a truck bed. It was an after-hours project for those at BMW M. And while the odd M3 became an April Fools joke of epic proportion, it also had a purpose: With its bed of gleaming diamond plate, engineers and techs at the BMW M campus outside of Munich used it as a shop truck.
These days, the M3 pickup resides at BMW M’s headquarters, along with a panoply of strange prototype vehicles you’ll never see at a dealership or museum. There are cars and SUVs made by BMW engineers for various reasons—development exercises, product studies, and the like—but are rarely seen.
I got to drive the M3 pickup for an upcoming /DRIVE on NBC Sports episode, and it was as bizarre as it looks. With more than 12,000 kilometers on the clock, it's obviously been well used. And we've all learned a valuable lesson. Maybe.
Check out the /DRIVE on NBC Sports BMW M special episode this Friday, October 21 at 6:30pm ET on NBCSN.This article is about the beetle. For the dinosaur, see Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannasorus rex was a species of beetle known to exist in the Miocene epoch and the sole member of the monotypic genus Tyrannasorus. A fossilized example scarabaeoid was found embedded in the amber resin of Hymenaea protera in the Dominican Republic. The species was described by Brett C. Ratcliffe and Federico Carlos Ocampo in 2001.[1]
Holotype [ edit ]
The observed specimen is assumed to be female based on similarities to the female specimens of the genus Apalonychus. She was trapped in the resin produced by Hymenaea protera, now also extinct. The amber was previously dated to Oligocene or Eocene, but these datings are since considered incorrect, and it is accepted that the amber was formed between late Early Miocene and Middle Miocene (15–20 million years ago). The amber came from Dominican Republic, probably from the mountain range north of Santiago de los Caballeros. It is too dark for ventral characteristics of the insect's body to be observed.[1]
Description [ edit ]
Unlike other hybosorids from the West Indies, whose antennae are 10-segmented, Tyrannasorus rex had nine-segmented antennae. The species is most similar to the genera Coilodes and Apalonychus; their shared characteristics include convex and not quite spherical body and reddish-brown colour. The most prominent difference between Coilodes and Tyrannasorus is in the shape of antennal club, which is slightly concave in Tyrannasorus but cup-shaped in Coilodes. Furthermore, the former's labrum is wider than the latter's and, unlike the former's, the anterior margin of the latter's pronotum is sinuate. Species of the genus Apalonychus have a much more elongated club of the antenna compared to Tyrannasorus and, unlike Tyrannasorus, eyes of the specimen are subglose and easily visible in dorsal view. Their labrum is also wider than that of Tyrannasorus and the anterior margin of their pronotum is not sinuate. As with other insects, the beetle's six legs consisted of a pair of prolegs, a pair of middle legs and a pair of posterior legs. The insect's elytra have a smooth surface.[1]
Etymology [ edit ]
It was named after Tyrannosaurus rex, the dinosaur, although its discoverers provide an etymology for the name based on the word Hybosorus, the genus that formed the basis for the subfamily, known as Hybosoridae, to which the species belongs. The stem of the generic name is derived from the Latin tyrannus, meaning "master" or "tyrannical", while the suffix -sorus means "pile" or "hump" in Latin. The name, "tyrannical hump", ultimately refers to the mound of sap in which the observed specimen was fatally trapped.[1][2]Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" was published on this day in 1847.
While I'm a very big fan of most Victorian literature, "Jane Eyre" made an impression on me that other novels formerly hadn't. "Jane Eyre" is not just a gothic romance novel. It's a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story. It is the first of its kind in some ways, as it's written by a woman about the interior life of a woman. Female thoughts and feelings were exposed. Brontë has been referred to as "the first historian of the private consciousness."
I love that Jane Eyre is an unconventional heroine. She is not beautiful, but instead is rather plain looking. She is an underdog who the reader roots for through the entire novel. I love that Jane Eyre overcomes her troubled, impoverished past. I love that Jane Eyre does the right thing for herself. She is the epitome of a strong woman. She teaches the importance of self-reliance. She supports herself at a time when it was extremely hard for a woman to do such a thing on her own.
The novel was very shocking for its time. One reviewer said that the book "might be written by a woman but not by a lady." People were scandalized that Eyre returned to Rochester. However, the first edition still sold out in six weeks.
Every time I encounter a woman who hasn't read this book, I advise reading it immediately. Women can learn so much from this great Victorian heroine.
This is not to suggest that Jane Eyre didn't have flaws. She continues to call her love interest "master," which is pretty bizarre. She can be semi-subservient to him. She isn't a perfect character, which I love about her, too.
Still, there's much to be learned from the way she chooses to live. Here are some pieces of wisdom that women could learn from "Jane Eyre":
1. You can overcome your past, no matter how bad it is. Jane Eyre is tortured and made miserable as a child by her horrible relatives. I seriously cried through the whole first half of the book at how cruel the people who raised her were. Her cousin, John, is the worst. He constantly reminds her that she's an orphan, the children exclude her from their games, she is punished by being locked in the room that her uncle died in. Jane at first harbors grudges. She confronts her aunt before she leaves for boarding school, and essentially cuts this family out of her life. Who wouldn't? But she learns a lot about letting go when she is sent to boarding school and befriends a sickly girl named Helen. As Helen notes, "“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.”
2. “Your will shall decide your destiny.” You can do whatever you want to do. It is up to you, and how much you really want something determines whether or not it will happen. Jane faces so much adversity in her youth. People are constantly mean to her, and she is made to feel very unimportant. But she believes in herself and her ability to overcome. Despite having no family and no money, she still finds a governess job and manages to live well. And you know what? Despite that during most of the book, only bad things are happening to her, she still goes on to live happily ever after.
3. Tell the guy you want to date him already! Jane says, “'...it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.'" Secretly crushing on that barista at the coffee shop or the person you see on the subway every day will get you nowhere. Just ask him out. It will be a lot less painful than pining away in silence.
4. Loving and respecting yourself is essential, and is the key to independence. When that naggy inner voice we all have in our heads confronts Jane and asks her who will care for her now that she has left Rochester, she responds with, “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” Jane knows that marrying this man, who is already married to another, is wrong, no matter how much she loves him. She has too much love and respect for herself to marry someone who has so misled her (although I know, I know. She DOES marry him later. But by that point, she has had enough time to reflect on and think about the situation thoroughly and come to her own conclusions, rather than let Rochester convince her that marrying would be okay).
5. Be positive. When Jane Eyre was younger, she had a tendency to feel sorry for herself. And she had a lot to feel sorry about! Her life was miserable. But, as she gets older, she begins to see that everything has a silver lining. She learns to be happy despite her past. She even relates that as a child, “Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.”
6. Don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do something just because you're a woman. Take a look at this awesome passage and let it inspire you. Remember that this was published in 1847! "Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, to absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”
7. You are stronger than you think.Yet another pieces of Helen's wisdom: “Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.” No matter what happens to you, you will find a way to overcome; as humans, we are resilient. We bounce back.
8. "Most true is it that 'beauty is in the eye of the gazer.'" Jane Eyre is not a beautiful woman by conventional standards. Nor is Mr. Rochester a handsome man. Brontë is realistic: life is harder for Jane because she is not attractive. But Brontë is criticizing Victorian culture for putting so much value in beauty. Jane is an amazing person, beautiful or not. This is also a good argument for losing your judgmental streak. You'll be a happier person if you stop caring so much about appearances (which I know is easier said than done).
9. The possibilities for life are endless for those who take risks. Jane notes, “I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.” If Jane hadn't been brave, she might have returned to the cruel woman who raised her and never sought anything better for herself.
10. Don't be afraid to speak your mind. Jane Eyre is no shrinking violet. She confronts her evil aunt who mistreated her. She confronts Rochester after finding out he is married to another. On a separate occasion, she turns down another marriage proposal. She is not scared to voice her opinions when necessary. Sometimes confrontation is the key to letting go. It is much better to talk about things than to harbor unspoken resentments. Talking can also obviously heal relationships as well (as in the case with Rochester).Grambling State Fires Student Newspaper’s Online Editor, Suspends Opinions Editor Over Football Mess Posted by College Media Matters on Monday, October 21, 2013 · 8 Comments
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UPDATE: Monroe’s suspension has been overturned and Lankster’s termination has been changed to a suspension — yet he plans to resign anyway.
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The online editor of the Grambling State University student newspaper has been fired and the opinions section editor has been suspended due to their coverage and support of the recent football program protest.
As sports fans are aware, Grambling football players have made headlines over the past few days for publicly criticizing the poor conditions of their practice facilities and rough-at-times away game road-trips. To show their collective dismay, they refused to play over the weekend against conference rival Jackson State University, forcing the team to forfeit.
As part of his reporting on the protest and the problems from which it sprung, The Gramblinite online editor David Lankster Sr. tweeted out photos of the team’s “sh*tty work conditions” through the paper’s Twitter account. Some of the tweets start with the all-caps grabber “LOOK,” with subsequent images revealing mold, mildew, a collapsed roof, missing exercise mats and exposed pipes.
LOOK: Here is Brown Hall, where a restroom roof collapsed leaving pipes exposed. Reports made, yet no repairs. pic.twitter.com/WJBbvUw0sb — The Gramblinite (@TheGramblinite) October 19, 2013
LOOK: Mold and Mildew on the walls of the GSU men football complex. #Grambling #revolution pic.twitter.com/Bqf5ktWpmB — The Gramblinite (@TheGramblinite) October 20, 2013
According to allDigitocracy, the university has fired Lankster for these snapshots. Lankster accuses Will Sutton, Grambling’s director of public relations and communications and a former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, of censorship. In his words, “I was behind it [the photos]. I was the only one on the ground hearing from the students and players. Sutton was trying to mute our voice because we were tweeting the real news, the truth about what was going on.”
In a public statement, Sutton alleges he was not involved in Lankster’s removal. He says his problem with the paper centers on its recent anonymous sourcing. As he explains, “It would be silly to compare this situation … to Watergate because even those Washington Post reporters knew that they couldn’t simply go with what ‘Deep Throat’ told them; they worked to confirm everything before publishing — and not before.”
Meanwhile, Voices editor Kimberly Monroe was hit with a two-week suspension for organizing and participating in a “State of Emergency” student rally calling out the school’s perceived flaws including “crumbling buildings and the student-teacher ratio.” In an email to Monroe announcing the suspension, Gramblinite adviser Wanda Peters writes:
“As a member of The Gramblinite, you should not have become involved in a public rally, as you did yesterday. I know Mass Communication was not your undergraduate major so you missed the classroom instruction regarding conflict of interest. But the Code of Ethics that you must read and sign each semester as part of your Gramblinite application outlines certain behaviors that are expected of you. Item No. 4 of the Code reads: ‘We report the news without regard for our own interests, mindful of the need to disclose potential conflicts. We avoid involvement in campus events, politics, demonstrations and social causes that would cause a conflict of interest, or the appearance of such conflict.'”
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Yet, Monroe tells allDigitocracy she did not sign an ethics code at the start of the semester and also had a run-in with Peters after refusing to remove “parts of a column submitted by Grambling’s student government president, including the president’s email address that he asked students to use to report problems on campus.” She did confirm her work staging the rally, but said it grew into a media spectacle beyond her control or simple goals once football players decided to participate.
Student Press Law Center executive director Frank LoMonte: “It’s disturbing if non-student Grambling employees are firing or suspending student journalists for what they decide to publish, particularly on social media. It’s fine for Mr. Sutton or Ms. Peters to express a strong |
at an undisclosed location on the Mendip Hills
Amateur archaeologists have unearthed what is believed to be a Saxon workshop in a dig in Somerset.
The foundations were uncovered along with a large Norman building at an undisclosed location on the Mendip Hills.
Saxon keys and a 13th Century jug were also among the finds.
Project leader Pip Osborne, said: "There's no written record of a building here but ever since I moved here I've been intrigued by the field."
'Had a hunch'
The find was made by a community archaeology group on a plot of land near the centre of a Mendip village.
The land, according to Ms Osborne, was given to the Abbey of Jumieges in Normandy in France by William the Conqueror in about 1080.
"I had a hunch about this empty field. I ran the machines over it and there was an image of something quite strong on the geophysics and I thought this has to be investigated," she said.
Image caption Pot shards of a glazed 13th century jug were among the finds
Beneath a 35m (114 ft) building, which was believed to have been erected "just after the Norman conquest", the archaeologists found a thick black soil containing industrial waste.
It was within this "black ashy soil" that crucible fragments and artefacts suggesting "some kind of furnace" or a "Saxon forge" were found.
"The furnace maybe was to do with glass manufacture or recycling," said Ms Osborne.
"But whatever they were doing here was in small quantities."
The Anglo-Saxon period lasted about 600 years from the 5th Century to the Norman invasion of 1066.
The purpose of the Norman building has not yet been established but it is thought it could have been agricultural.Image via Getty
Let's get this out of the way: The sound sucked. It was terrible. Unless you were one of the diehard Lana del Rey fans at Governors Ball—which, judging by the number of Lana shirts visible throughout the day, was a large enough group to dwarf the audience for pretty much any other act by itself—you probably could not hear what was happening. We were packed in tighter than we'd been all weekend, just a few yards behind the sound booth (usually a pretty reliable spot for good sound), and the crowd stretched out endlessly behind us. But almost as soon as it started, eagerness turned to disappointment. Nobody could hear. Someone quipped that she would be better off listening on her phone. Someone else asked if there was a livestream he could watch at home. The girls next to me, who had just done a couple of bumps of cocaine in anticipation, decided to go see The Black Keys instead. The crowd emptied out in droves. After a couple songs, as people increasingly realized they weren't the only ones who couldn't hear, a chant of “turn it up!” started between songs. Eventually, it did seem to get marginally easier to hear. Or maybe we just got closer. By the end of the night, you were able to see pretty much the exact line at which the sound cut out because the field was entirely empty behind that.
And yet. It was Lana del Rey, in real life, wearing an impeccably cool New York Yankees dress—retro, timeless, appropriately referential. She was flanked by cartoonish stage set renditions of high rise buildings, giving the whole show an airbrushed film noir vibe. A cigarette dangled daintily from her fingers as she sang some song. She was a lounge act singing for a lounge of ten thousand people. Live video of her flickered on the screens in black and white, the old film filter and the way it was just her, solitary, framed in the vulnerable, slightly confessional style of archival footage giving it the look of an unearthed video reel. She was some forgotten entertainer, performing at the Waldorf Astoria. She was eternal, pulled straight from the collective memory of New York, and the way the music came across as a barely audible drift, without much discernible melody, almost added to its nostalgic spell.
Continued below.
It was cool because of course it was cool. That's Lana del Rey's appeal. “She's so gorgeous, but I can't hear her,” I overheard one fan say. And, later: “I can finally see her,” another fan said, to which her friend responded, “that's all that matters!” Lana del Rey offers us exactly what we want. Her art is a perfectly executed aesthetic experience, bolder and more all-encompassing than anything else I saw this weekend. The tattoos on the outside of her hands, which read “paradise” and “trust no one” according to lanadelreyfan.com, look so enviable when she cups the microphone. The video that plays behind her of her posing with a model's pout and turn of the head overlaid on images of flames exploding is her deftly appropriating the images everyone knows people like, or at least have been drilled by pop culture into responding to: babes and fire. Critics—especially the male rock kind who I guess prefer to trawl for meaning in the unexplained guitar drifts and sighed lyrics of bands like Tame Impala and the War on Drugs, who both played sonically impressive but visually uneventful sets earlier in the day—are scared of such image-heavy music. But that's the very reason it's so appealing.
It packages Americana in its most flattering light. It means exactly what it says it means. It sounds kind of like the feeling of driving down a dark road late at night, and, sure enough, there is a video behind Lana of driving down a dark road late at night. What is that wistful, sort of enamored, sort of bored, not-sure-exactly-what-it-is-but-it's-definitely-something emotion this song reminds you of? Ah, yes, your boyfriend's in the band, and here you are at the show, watching him play guitar (incidentally, it was this line that got the biggest sing-along of the night, including from myself, who has never had a boyfriend, let alone one in a band; having your boyfriend in the band truly is a state of mind). This plainly referential style is part of why Lana del Rey is so confounding to critics: She draws their associations and metaphors herself, and they fumble because where else, then, can they take their discussion? That's obvious, Lana, still one step ahead, seems to respond: It's about feelings, especially those vague ones that you can't quite articulate but you definitely know matter. Lana del Rey has perfected the set of aesthetic cues—the pretty, washed out visual effects, the pretty, washed out sonic effects—that convey a specific if hard to name emotion.
This vagueness is another reason, I suspect, so many critics stumble with Lana: Traditional written criticism is an art of naming things precisely as they are, and Lana del Rey operates in a world of emotional imprecision. With the caveat of this being a huge generalization, I think women tend to be more comfortable with that interior uncertainty than men, which is, once again, why many men are baffled by Lana del Rey. Yet there's a strong musical tradition of exactly this vibe: Lana del Rey is, in effect, conceptually the first shoegaze pop star (shoegaze being historically, as my colleague Megan Fredette convincingly argued earlier this year, a more feminine alternative to the otherwise aggressive world of rock). She may put her face front and center instead of staring at guitar pedals, but she's undeniably focused on that same aesthetic of not-quite-specified but definitely profound emotion.
So it was only appropriate that, after leaving a moment early to beat the crowd, we stopped on the walkway of the bridge back to Manhattan to listen to Lana play her breakout hit, “Video Games,” and stare at the skyline behind her. We stood there, not talking, and I thought about the city and life and stuff. I didn't know exactly what I was feeling, but whatever it was, it mattered.
Kyle Kramer's got that summertime sadness. Follow him on Twitter.Back in August, Once A Metro addressed Dax McCarty's status as one of the New York Red Bulls' all-time appearances and minutes-played leaders. He had played all-competition 13,000 minutes for RBNY in his career at that moment, and he was already the player with the most minutes for the team since 2010.
If he plays another year with the club, he is quite likely to surpass Mike Petke as the team's record holder in career games played, starts, and minutes. For now, he is mostly second only to Petke in almost all those categories.
Most recently, in the team's 4-1 against Philadelphia Union on October 18, McCarty hit a major RBNY milestone for MLS regular season minutes: he became just the second player in club history (you can guess the first) to pass 12,000 league minutes played for the team.
He left the game in the 65th minute, having contributed two assists to the rout. He has now played a total of 12,023 minutes in MLS regular season games for RBNY.
Congrats, Captain!national
The project got a nod from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests yesterday, but the BMC-appointed consultant for the venture has not yet prepared a final detailed report on it
Mumbai's ambitious coastal road project finally got a nod from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests yesterday. However, the consultant appointed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to prepare the final detailed project report (DPR) for the 35-km long road.
The project is expected to cost Rs 8,000-10,000 crore and will take about five years to be completed. The state government had first mooted the plan of having a coastal road connecting Nariman Point to Kandivli in 2011.
During the Assembly elections, both the Shiv Sena and BJP had made it their poll plank, with Minister for Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar promising a nod if the BJP came to power. And so, on Monday, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced on social networking platform Twitter, “Thank you @PrakashJavdekar jee for approving coastal road for Mumbai. It’s a dream come true. Best gift to Mumbai by Modiji’s Govt.”
Fadnavis further said on Twitter that the coastal road would decongest the traffic of Mumbai and create 91 hectares of green space. In this context, green space is interpreted as the beautified patches beneath the elevated portions of the coastal road. The first draft notification for the project will be issued by June 15 and a final notification by August 15.
On June 6 (Saturday), the state government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of The Netherlands to obtain technical advice for the coastal road project as well as combining it with the Metro 3 project. The Dutch are renowned for their environment-friendly reclamation and the use of the sea, where there is land shortage.
Delay
The BMC, as a representative of the state government, is now supposed to construct the 35-km stretch between Nariman Point and Kandivli within five years. But when mid-day checked the status of this programme, it was found that the DPR for this project was supposed to be submitted by March.
Three months on, the BMC-appointed consultant has still not submitted it. “Once the DPR is created, the BMC can start the tendering process and work orders will be issued. But reclaiming land for this road is also going to be a challenge since there is encroachment on some stretches.
We will need to clear them (encroachments) before the land can be reclaimed. The road will then run in alignment with the sea,” said a senior civic official from the Roads and Traffic department. But when asked the reason for the delay, he said he would have to find out.“It was too tired to swim. It was trying to find a place for his final rest. He came here to die.”
The Cuvier’s beaked whale was found stranded in shallow waters off the island of Sotra, Norway. The local residents, personnel from the fire department and the Department of Wildlife Conservation repeatedly attempted to herd or tow the animal back into the deep.
However, three times the whale swam back into the shallow cove. When it returned for a third time, exhausted and lethargic, the wardens, realising it would not live, decided to put it down.
What the scientists, intrigued by this strange behaviour, found inside the whale was shocking. The two tonne animal had about 30 plastic bags and other garbage packed in its stomach.
There was “no food, only some remnants of a squid’s head in addition to a thin fat layer,” said University of Bergen zoologist Terje Lislevand.“It wasn’t like it was in just part of the stomach. It filled up the whole space. It’s the explanation of why the animal acted so strange and stranded.”
One piece was a flimsy sheet more than two metres long. But most were plastic bags, some still with ghostly writing which gave away their origins. One used to contain a chicken from Ukraine and another carried ice cream from Denmark.
There was also the outer wrapper from a six-pack of Walkers crisps, the UK copyright and recycling symbol still visible.
Lislevand said he believes the animal was in serious pain for a long time.
“I’m afraid to estimate how long it could have taken before his stomach was totally full,” he said. “In this case the plastic particles accumulated and created a barrier in the system.”
The whale is another in a mounting tally of victims claimed by plastic pollution of the ocean. Whales and other marine life are starving, distressed and in pain as a result of us recklessly polluting the oceans with plastic.
In January 2016, 29 sperm whales were stranded on the shores around the North Sea. The animals’ stomachs were filled with plastic debris. A 13-metre-long fishing net, a 70cm piece of plastic from a car and other pieces of plastic litter had been inadvertently ingested by the animals, who may have thought they were food, such as squid, their main diet, which they consume by sucking their prey into their mouths.
Only a few days ago, a dead whale was found on the Isle of Skye, UK with 4kg of plastic rubbish inside it. Dr Andrew Brownlow, a veterinary pathologist for Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, said the 4kgs of plastic bags and sheeting had filled the whale’s stomach, twisted into its intestine and completely blocked its digestive system. There were black bin liners, carrier bags and zipped freezer bags.
“For every one of these pieces it is possible that there would have been some form of human action that could have stopped it from getting into the marine environment,” said Dr Brownlow.
The United Nations estimates indicate that about 8 million tonnes of plastic trash is dumped into the ocean every year. A World Economic Forum study also found that there are currently at least 150 million tonnes of trash in the ocean.
Not only are we killing marine life with plastic but we are also harming ourselves.
A 2015 study by researchers at the University of California, Davis and Hasanuddin University in Indonesia found that one-quarter of fish sampled in fish markets in California and Indonesia had plastic or some other fibrous garbage in their bellies.
Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium recently calculated that people are eating up to 11,000 plastic fragments in their seafood each year.
What can we do about it?
Manufacturers need to design products that are easier to recycle, supermarkets must reduce plastic packaging and authorities should develop better ways of collecting and processing plastic waste.
We as consumers also need to rethink our use of single-use plastic, and to redouble our efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle.
Individual pledges to cut back on plastic may seem futile. But if everybody changed their behaviour those small actions would add up to a lot and help to protect our oceans and the animals that live in them.
The story of the whale in Norway is a disgraceful reminder of what we have been doing to our oceans.The other day I was continuing on with my Bingo Boffin adventures in Lord of the Rings Online when Mr. Boffin decided he was going to sneak his way across battle lines and into Mirkwood Forest. Like most of his encounters, I don’t think he ended up loving it quite as much as he anticipated, but you know what? I did.
You see, ever since Siege of Mirkwood came out with LOTRO’s second expansion, I’ve always been quite partial to this odd little zone in Middle-earth. Perhaps this makes me the odd man out among the community; I rarely see anyone speak highly of Mirkwood (or, these days, speak of it at all). It seems like it’s forgotten, this strange cul-de-sac of the game world that only exists to be a stopping point on the epic story before players have to turn around and go back the way they came.
Yet as I was running all over the place trying to secure first AND second breakfastses for Bingo Boffin, I was reminded of how much I love this zone. I’d even say that Mirkwood is in my top five zones of the game as a whole (alongside The Shire, Forochel, West Rohan, and North Ithilien). It’s time this forgotten land got some recognition, so here goes.
The lay of the land
Mirkwood is a level 61 to 65 zone that lies just on the other side of the Great River Anduin from Lothlorien. It should be pointed out that what we get in the game is only a very small part of Mirkwood Forest as a whole, which is a truly gigantic and sprawling tract of wilderness that is home to Wood Elves, gigantic spiders, and even its own mountains.
Part of the enduring reputation of Mirkwood as a disappointing and disposable zone is the fact that this one zone represented the whole of a much smaller expansion than Mines of Moria (Siege of Mirkwood only contained five new levels and split its focus with the then-new skirmish system). It’s also hampered by the fact that the forest isn’t as large of a setting in the Lord of the Rings books as it was in The Hobbit, and so might not have been as appreciated by fans who wanted to stay on the trail of Frodo rather than take an excursion after the tradition of Bilbo.
If you look at the map, Mirkwood comes off as anything but sprawling and vast. It’s ringed on three sides by impassible cliffs and can only be accessed via boat, which makes it impossible to enter or leave in a seamless transition like much (but not all) of the rest of the game world.
Taking a closer look at the map, however, reveals that there is a lot packed into this dense and surprisingly diverse region. There are approximately nine sections of the forest, ranging from the spider-filled maze of the Scuttledells to the eerie marshesof Drownholt. Naturally, there are plenty of trees, although Mirkwood is a different type of forest than, say, the Old Forest or Fangorn. It’s not “alive” — or at least mobile — in the way that those other woods are, nor are the trees and foliage so closely packed that it makes navigating difficult.
The region and storyline both end up funneling players to one place: Dul Guldur to the east, the former headquarters of Sauron and current apartments of some of his nastiest followers. It’s an imposing sight to be traveling along and see this gigantic castle stretch up into the sky far above the treetops, with no way around or through it.
A dark love
Really, Mirkwood has gotten a bad rap that’s far independent of its actual zone and story design. Personally, I have to look past the focus on Elves, since they’re my least favorite fantasy race (and that is an understatement if you know me), to see one of the most unique locations in the game.
My love starts with its location, which currently stands as one of the “frontier’ zones of the game. Mirkwood is as far northeast as you can travel in LOTRO, setting it far apart from the more civilized lands of Rohan, Gondor, and Eriador. When Bilbo and the Dwarves passed through it on the Old Forest road back in the Hobbit, I found myself captivated by a forest that was a mystery, a threat, and a wonder wrapped into a single package. I could hardly wait to explore it here.
But more than that, my appreciation for this zone comes down to its overall art design. Mirkwood is, to lack a better term, a perfect “Halloween zone.” If the Trollshaws are Elvish lands in early autumn, Mirkwood is what the world looks like as the end of October rolls around and the unsettling nights start to creep in. It’s always gloomy, even in the day, and contains some of the best ground shadows I’ve seen in the game. Shadows may seem like a strange thing to compliment, but there are a few places where Mirkwood’s artists make that zone look striking and wild in a way I haven’t seen anywhere else in the game.
Mirkwood isn’t a friendly port of call for travelers; it’s a wild, untamed land that makes it known that invaders are not welcome. It feels isolated and cut off from the rest of Middle-earth, with spiders, ghosts, Orcs, will-o-wisps, and leathery flying things moving through and above the trees.
Look at the Haunted Inn, which seems to be the perfect icon for this zone. Inns are supposed to feel warm and friendly, even when the world around it is anything but. The Haunted Inn, as you may have guessed, is hardly better than sleeping outside. It feels like everyone inside is huddling in subconscious fear, and the fact that there are actually ghosts (which you can sometimes see) roaming the place doesn’t help.
And if the visuals aren’t enough, Mirkwood’s audio design is amazing. Do me a favor: Make a trip to Mirkwood in the game, turn off the music, turn up the ambient sounds, and listen with headphones as you travel. It’s amazing how well-done and honestly terrifying the sound design is in this area. The creaking trees, the far-off growls, and this deep undertone all keep you from becoming too comfortable with the region.
More Mirkwood, please
Mirkwood’s reputation can be redeemed, even still. As everyone — developers and players alike — muse over where the game can go after Mordor is wrapped up, I say that forging further into Mirkwood and Rhovanion is a terrific contender.
Obviously, there’s a lot more to Mirkwood than we currently can experience in the game, so much so that I could envision two or even three additional zones to flesh it out. And by connecting these new regions to the old Mirkwood, it would alleviate the current bias presented by cartography.
Plus, Mirkwood is an excellent example of how the devs can make a dark and oppressive zone while still keeping it from becoming annoying or ugly (a lesson that Angmar sorely needed). More of that would be welcome in the game, and I imagine that after Mordor, getting back to a forested landscape would also be a relief.
What is your opinion about Mirkwood? Do you have any ideas what could be done with this region? Sound off in the comments!SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane ranked as the number seven most hipster city in the United States, according to the U.S. Hipster Index.
But what makes a city qualify as “hipster”?
Some cities around the world are known for being hotspots for millennials. Cities like Portland, Oregon, which has a TV show inspired by the people and culture of the area.
This group of people, also known as hipsters, is “a subculture of 20-to 30-somethings who position themselves as non-mainstream pioneers; free thinkers and non-conformist conformists,” according to MoveHub.
MoveHub and the U.S. Hipster Index came up with its list of most hipster cities in the U.S. using five main factors: The amount of microbreweries, thrift stores, vegan restaurants, tattoo studios and rent inflation.
Three cities in the state of Washington made the top 10 list. Spokane ranks as number seven, Tacoma at number six and Vancouver at number one.
Out of the entire top ten list, all cities have a population of less than 500,000 people, according to MoveHub.
The full report from MoveHub and the U.S. Hipster Index can be found here.© PA Photos Enlarge Roberto Martinez will join his Liverpool counterpart Brendan Rodgers in speaking at the memorial event
Everton manager Roberto Martinez will give a reading at a service to mark the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in April.
Martinez will join his Liverpool counterpart Brendan Rodgers in speaking at the memorial event, to be held at Anfield.
The Hillsborough Family Support Group (HFSG), which has campaigned for justice on behalf of the victims of the tragedy for the last quarter of a century, confirmed that the Everton manager had accepted their invitation to speak at the service.
Everton chairman Bill Kenwright spoke at last year's service, which was the first after an independent report exonerated fans of any blame for the disaster, and highlighted the extent to which the police and emergency services attempted to cover up their own culpability.
Ninety-six Liverpool supporters were crushed to death on an overcrowded section of terracing when they attended an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough stadium on April 15, 1989.
The publication of the Hillsborough Independent Panel's report in September 2012 led to the opening of two separate investigations into the conduct of the police and emergency services during and after the disaster, as well as the quashing of the original inquest verdicts of accidental death.
Fresh inquests are set to open in Warrington, Cheshire, on March 31, little more than two weeks before the 25th anniversary service.
Demand to attend this year's service is expected to be so great that tickets, which will be free of charge and limited to four per application, will be required for entry.
Margaret Aspinall, the chair of HFSG, said: "It is a shock to me the numbers who turn up every year. It's amazing. With the inquests having started two weeks before the anniversary, there will be a lot more interest.
"I know some of the fans who haven't come in previous years want to be at the 25th anniversary service. We expect the service to be busy so we urge everyone to obtain tickets as early as possible and only request the amount of tickets needed.
"Roberto will doing a reading this year, and also Brendan."
© ESPN Sports Media LtdLast month, we offered a million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone who rigged a federal election on November 6th. We urged computer experts to contact us with information about any election manipulation of the tabulation results.
We Received A Letter
On November 12th, we received a letter from “The Protectors,” apparently a group of white hat cyber sleuths, mentioning our reward and stating that two months ago, they began monitoring the “digital traffic of one Karl Rove, a disrespecter of the Rule of Law, knowing that he claimed to be Kingmaker while grifting vast wealth from barons who gladly handed him gold to anoint another King while looking the other way.”
“The Protectors” said that they had identified the digital structure of Rove’s operation and of ORCA, a Republican get out the vote software application. After finding open “doors” in the systems, they created a “password protected firewall” called “The Great Oz,” and installed it on servers that Rove planned to use on election night to re-route and change election results “from three states.”
The letter indicated that “ORCA Killer” was launched at 10am EST and “The Great Oz” at 8pm EST on November 6th. “The Protectors” watched as ORCA crashed and failed throughout Election Day. They watched as Rove’s computer techs tried 105 times to penetrate “The Great Oz” using different means and passwords.
Finally, they issued the following warning to Mr. Rove: don’t do it again or they would turn over the evidence to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
We are not in a position to vouch for the contents of this letter anymore than we can vouch for the video by Anonymous warning Karl Rove not to rig the election. However, we can analyze that content under the prism of Mr. Rove’s history and facts over the past few weeks. We do so in the hope that this will lead to an investigation of Mr. Rove’s entire operation ala General David Petraeus. In that spirit, we provided this information to the FBI prior to publication, and followed up after publication. For years, we have campaigned for a complete investigation of Mr. Rove. And we have provided extensive legal memos and evidence to the FBI to support such an investigation.
We urge others who have information to about election tampering or other criminal violations by Mr. Rove, including violations of campaign finance laws, to provide that evidence to the FBI. We also urge people who gave money to Mr. Rove and his organizations to contact the FBI if they were misled, promised things that did not happen, or were otherwise defrauded.
Rove’s Background And Election Night Meltdown
Karl Rove has a history of rigging elections going back several decades, including in 2004 when he orchestrated a man-in-the-middle attack to change the votes from Ohio.
In 2012, Mr. Rove’s SuperPacs raised and spent hundreds of millions on behalf of GOP candidates. He courted billionaires and promised them that his candidates would win.
Days before the 2012 election, Mr. Rove predicted a strong Romney win. His spinners lionized him in articles that portrayed him as invincible.
On election night, Mr. Rove worked the three states that held the key to the election – Ohio, Florida and Virginia. But when he tried to access the Ohio election website, he kept getting error messages.
Finally, immediately after Ohio was called for President Obama around 11:30 EST, Mr. Rove appeared on FOX News to dispute the call, saying the election there is far from settled and the call was “premature.”
Fox News’s Chris Wallace said the Romney campaign does "not believe Ohio is in the Obama camp,” noting that he got an email from a top Romney aide who said the campaign disagrees with the network’s call. He then asked Rove if he believed Ohio has been settled.
“No, I don’t,” Rove said.
“I think this is premature,” he added. “We’ve got a quarter of the vote. Now remember, here is the thing about Ohio. A third of the vote or more is cast early and is won overwhelmingly by the Democrats. It’s counted first and then you count the election day and the question is, by the time you finish counting the election day does it overcome that early advantage that Democrats have built up in early voting, particularly in Cuyahoga County.”
Rove said the network needs to be “careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to count. Even if they have made it on the basis of select precincts, I’d be very cautious about intruding in this process.
The Failure Of ORCA On Election Day
The Rove/Romney coalition created Project Orca, which was supposed to enable poll watchers to record voter names on their smart phones, by listening for names as voters checked in. This would give the campaign real-time turnout data, so they could redirect GOTV resources throughout the day where it was most needed. They recruited 37,000 swing state volunteers for this.
According to various sources, however, ORCA totally failed on Election Day: PIN numbers and passwords did not work, reset tools failed, customer support was ineffective and unavailable, Comcast shut down access for fear of a DDOS attack, and the system crashed and had trouble re-booting. “At one point during Election Day, the system had malfunctioned so badly that desperate volunteers wondered if the program had been hacked.”
Anonymous Warned Rove Prior To The Election
Two weeks prior to the November 6th election, the hactivist group Anonymous posted a video warning Karl Rove not to rig the election.
They told Mr. Rove that he was being watched and that if he attempted to rig the election, he would be stopped. That video went viral in just days.
The Letter From “The Protectors”
The letter we received just days after the election ties together all the information set forth above about the digital difficulties faced by Karl Rove and the GOP on November 6th.
· Karl Rove’s digital architecture surrounding the election was identified and compromised by cyber sleuths in a way that denied him the ability to manipulate election results;
· Project Orca was not secure and had numerous flaws that were exploited to ensure failure;
· Karl Rove was focused on three states—Ohio, Virginia and Florida;
· “Orca Killer” was launched early in the day resulting in failures starting in the morning;
· “The Great Oz” was launched at 8pm, just as polls closed on the East Coast;
· The Ohio Secretary of State results were inaccessible to Mr. Rove after 8pm;
· Mr. Rove disputed the call for Ohio, and told FOX News that it was “premature” as he kept trying to access the results;
· Mr. Rove, Mitt Romney, the GOP, its billionaires, and its talking heads were all “convinced” up to the last minute that Mr. Romney would win, some even saying “by a landslide;”
· Prior to the election, Anonymous warned Mr. Rove that it had identified his digital structure and was watching for any manipulations;
· Mr. Romney and the GOP leadership were “shell shocked” when President Obama won the election.
The Upshot Of All This
Apparently, “The Protectors” were able to completely thwart Karl Rove’s attempts to manipulate this election by employing a firewall to stop man-in-the-middle tabulation attacks and improper transfers of tabulation data. Moreover, apparently, they were able to pinpoint and exploit flaws and structural weaknesses in Project Orca that caused a cascading of problems and subsequent catastrophic failure. Apparently, there was some connection between Mr. Rove and Project Orca, and they were probably both plugged into the same voter database.
Lessons Learned And Our Position
At VR, we have spent the past decade exposing flaws in the election process, especially the use of electronic voting, secret software and cyber attacks on tabulation systems. Princeton computer scientists, Argonne Laboratories experts, GOP insiders and even the CIA have shown that electronic election manipulation is both possible and occurring.
Based on our experience and the supporting evidence, we take the letter from “The Protectors” at face value. Karl Rove had the means, motive, experience and opportunity to do whatever it took to win the election for his clients. If he, in fact, intended to use improper and illegal means to digitally manipulate the election, and white hat cyber sleuths who stopped it discovered that, then that is a good thing. We hope that those cyber sleuths will provide that evidence to the FBI, post it publicly or send it to us to do so.
One thing that is not clear from the letter is the relationship between the cyber manipulation and Project Orca. Were they both part of Karl Rove’s scheme? Were they using the overlapping servers or databases? Did “The Great Oz” automatically cause problems for Project Orca? Did Mr. Rove plan to use the data from “Project Orca” to help the cyber manipulation scheme succeed? We would like to know the answers to these questions so we can more fully understand the legal and moral implications of “Orca Killer.”
As far as lessons learned, we are hopeful that those who have been skeptical and opposed to greater security in elections will now get on board in a bipartisan manner to, as President Obama said, “fix” the broken election system. We are hopeful that billionaires, SuperPacs and politicians will see, as governments in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere have seen, that a few dedicated cyber sleuths can protect democracy from corrupt power brokers by thwarting electoral crimes. We are hopeful that everyone will see Karl Rove for what he is – a scammer who can’t win without cheating and manipulating election results.In a column in the newspaper O Globo, he wrote that Brazil was becoming a country in which someone criticizing a Workers’ Party sympathizer automatically risked being branded a “scoundrel or a putschist.” “This has a name: fascism,” Mr. Andreazza wrote.
Some fans of “Aquarius” worry that the discord is distracting attention from the film’s attributes. The director’s debut feature, “Neighboring Sounds,” which was Brazil’s submission in 2012 for the Oscars, also dealt with class tensions by focusing on ways in which masters and servants related to one another on a single block in Recife.
“Aquarius,” while also touching on such tension, goes further by exploring the model of urban development prevailing in cities across Brazil, where construction magnates operate largely with impunity. Razing architectural gems, they erect mediocre apartment towers that contribute to traffic congestion and the isolation of the middle class behind high walls.
Ms. Braga, 66, plays Clara, a retired music writer, refusing to budge when developers try to buy her out of her Art Deco apartment. They resort to tactics like smearing the hallways of her building with excrement and using an empty neighboring apartment for an orgy, setting off a series of reactions by Clara.
The film dovetails with the simmering anger in Brazil over the construction giants at the center of the graft scandals engulfing the political establishment. But Bruno Barreto, the director who presided over the Oscar committee, said the panel was not under pressure from Mr. Temer’s government to vote against “Aquarius.”
In explaining the selection, Mr. Barreto, 61, who directed the 1976 film “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands,” which also featured Ms. Braga in a starring role, told reporters that the committee “had to choose a film that’s not necessarily the best, but that has the profile of the Academy of Hollywood, which is made up of older people.”
For his part, David Schurmann, the director of “Little Secret,” which will represent Brazil at the Oscars even though it is not expected to be nationally released until November, said he liked “Aquarius” to the point of giving it a standing ovation in Cannes.Season 3 DVD and Blu-ray cover Background COUNTRY OF ORIGIN |
embarked on a 10-year reconstruction project costing about 31.5 trillion yen, or about $255 billion, which includes the construction of tsunami seawalls along Tohoku’s Pacific coast. Critics of the program have voiced skepticism about the effectiveness of seawalls.
However, new findings detailed in a research paper appearing on Aug. 10 in the journal PLOS ONE, may bolster support for seawalls and coastal forests. (A YouTube video is available at https://youtu.be/fU2GkLpn66k).
“Some have suggested that seawalls cause a sense of complacency in residents, leading to lower evacuation rates and the tendency to develop residences in hazardous low-lying areas,” said Seth Guikema, an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. “However, our results cast serious doubt on this theory. The presence or size of seawalls and coastal forests does not strongly influence residents’ decisions on whether or not to evacuate.”
The new research findings demonstrate that both seawalls higher than 5 meters and coastal forests do, in fact, reduce damage and death from tsunamis. The paper’s lead author was Roshanak Nateghi, an assistant professor in Purdue’s School of Industrial Engineering and Division of Environmental and Ecological Engineering. She co-authored the paper with Bricker, Guikema and Maryland Institute College of Art student Akane Bessho.
The heights and construction methods of sea walls vary widely from one community to another, and even within the same town.
“In fact, there are many sub-municipalities that still don’t have seawalls,” Nateghi said. “We analyzed these four tsunamis and found that statistically, seawalls above 5 meters are related to a decrease in destruction rate.”
Nateghi used a modeling method called Random Forest, which harnesses numerous “decision trees” to capture complex non-linear relationships of data. Seawalls more than 5 meters high were shown to reduce the destruction rate, and, more specifically, a 10-meter increase in height was associated with about a 5 to 6 percent decrease in the destruction rate.
Findings also showed the protective value of coastal “tsunami control” forests.
“We saw that in the areas with a lot of coastal forest you have reduced damage and destruction, and the extent of flooding is a big predictor in our models,” Nateghi said.
Moreover, the presence of coastal forests was found to reduce death and destruction rates by displacing development that would otherwise have been damaged.
The findings showed the extent of flooding is a critical factor in death rates and building damage rates, suggesting that additional measures, such as multiple lines of defense and elevating topography, may have significant benefits in reducing the impacts of tsunamis.
The same analysis method also could be used to study tsunamis in other regions.
“All the insights are conditioned on the type of infrastructure you have in place, the topography and intensity of the tsunami,” Nateghi said. “But the methodology is extendable. You could do similar analyses for other regions using this method.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. The paper is available at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158375.
Writer: Emil Venere, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu
Sources: Roshanak Nateghi, 765-494-7059, rnateghi@purdue.edu
Seth Guikema, 734-764-6475, sguikema@umich.edu
Jeremy D. Bricker, bricker@irides.tohoku.ac.jp
Note to Journalists: A copy of the research paper is available at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158375, or by contacting, 415-590-3559, plosone@plos.org or Emil Venere at Purdue, 765-494-4709, venere@purdue.edu. A YouTube video is available ab https://youtu.be/fU2GkLpn66k). Google Drive for additional images and video: https://goo.gl/WUiZn0.
ABSTRACT
Learning from Historical Data: The Role of Seawalls and Coastal Forests in Reducing Tsunami Death and Damage Rates along the Coasts of Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures Roshanak Nateghi1, Jeremy D. Bricker2, Seth Guikema3, Akane Bessho4 1 School of Industrial Engineering and Division of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA 2 International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 3 Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA 4Undergraduate Program in Architectural Design, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, USA Corresponding author E-mail: rnateghi@purdue.edu
The Pacific coast of the Tohoku region of Japan experiences repeated tsunamis, with the most recent events having occurred in 1896, 1933, 1960, and 2011. These events have caused large loss of life and damage throughout the coastal region. There is uncertainty about the degree to which seawalls reduce deaths and building damage during tsunamis in Japan. On the one hand they provide physical protection against tsunamis as long as they are not overtopped and do not fail. On the other hand, the presence of a seawall may induce a false sense of security, encouraging additional development behind the seawall and reducing evacuation rates during an event. We analyze municipality-level and sub-municipality-level data on the impacts of the 1896, 1933, 1960, and 2011 tsunamis, finding that seawalls larger than 5 m in height generally have served a protective role in these past events, reducing both death rates and the damage rates of residential buildings. However, seawalls smaller than 5 m in height appear to have encouraged development in vulnerable areas and exacerbated damage. We also find that the extent of flooding is a critical factor in estimating both death rates and building damage rates, suggesting that additional measures, such as multiple lines of defense and elevating topography, may have significant benefits in reducing the impacts of tsunamis. Moreover, the area of coastal forests was found to be inversely related to death and destruction rates which was expected since they displace development that would otherwise have been damaged.While Dropbox was quick to embrace transparency reports, it's been pretty opaque about data requests from outside the US. How do you know which countries want your info? You don't have to wonder any longer. The cloud storage outfit has published its first transparency report revealing data requests from beyond American borders. There aren't many at all (just 20 in total), but it's clear that some governments are nosier than others. Half of all requests came from France and Germany, while the rest are spread between nations as far-ranging as Australia and Brazil. The report now covers the number of accounts affected by these demands, too. More detailed stats won't do much to end intrusive surveillance, but they'll at least let you know who might be poking around your online files.Liam Gallagher’s debut solo album has gone straight in at number one, knocking Shania Twain’s comeback record off of the top spot.
The former Oasis frontman celebrated As You Were’s chart triumph by thanking all of his fans on Friday evening.
“Well, well, well, what do we ‘ave here? I reckon it looks like a Number 1 record, brothers and sisters,” he told OfficalCharts.com.
“Woohoo! I wanna thank everyone who bought it. I want to thank everyone who helped make it. As you were.”
Liam Gallagher - In pictures 27 show all Liam Gallagher - In pictures 1/27 Liam Gallagher arrives for the special screening of Oasis documentary "Supersonic" Getty Images 2/27 Liam Gallagher and girlfriend Debbie Gwyther arrive at the Etihad Stadium PA 3/27 Members of the British rock band "Oasis" Gem, Noel Gallagher, Andy Bell and Liam Gallagher hold a photocall in Hong Kong on February 25, 2006 AFP/Getty Images 4/27 Liam Gallagher, former Oasis front man, arrives in Glasgow to open the clothing store Pretty Green on January 7, 2011 in Glasgow, Scotlan Getty Images 5/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis, Ricky Hatton of England, Noel Gallagher of Oasis and boxer Matthew Hatton celebrate Ricky Hatton's 11th round TKO victory against Paulie Malignaggi after their light-welterweight fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena November 22, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada Getty Images 6/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis adopts a novel pose for receiving the band's Brit award from Chris Evans (with glasses), chatting to brother Noel Gallagher in rear, at a star-studded ceremony at London's Earl's Court PA 7/27 Liam Gallagher accepts Oasis' award for 'Best Album of 30 Years' on stage at The Brit Awards 2010 at Earls Court on February 16, 2010 Getty Images 8/27 Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher "Che Tempo Che Fa" Italian TV Show on November 9, 2008 in Milan, Italy Getty Images 9/27 Liam Gallagher, of Oasis, and Damon Albarn, of Blur, during the second Music Industry 'Soccer Six' football tournament at Mile End Stadium PA 10/27 Oasis receive their 'Best British Newcomer' award from Kinks lead singer, Ray Davies. (L/R) Noel Gallagher, Paul McGuigan, Liam Gallagher, and Ray Davie PA 11/27 Liam Gallagher of 'Beady Eye' performs live on the Other Stage at day 2 of the 2013 Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm on June 28, 2013 Getty Images 12/27 Liam Gallagher of Beady Eye performs live for fans at the 2014 Big Day Out Festival on January 26, 2014 in Sydney Getty Images 13/27 Liam Gallagher visiting his new son, Lennon, and wife Patsy Kensit at the private Portland Hospital, London in 1999 PA 14/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis 15/27 Liam Gallagher with Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Bradley Wiggins at the 2012 GQ Men Of The Year Awards at the Royal Opera House, Bow Street, London PA Wire/Press Association Images 16/27 Liam Gallagher performing with his band Beady Eye during episode 12 of the BBC reality show The Voice PA 17/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis 18/27 Liam Gallagher performs during the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony at the Olympic Stadium PA 19/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis 20/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis PA 21/27 Getty Images 22/27 Dave Benett 23/27 Getty Images 24/27 Getty Images 25/27 EPA 26/27 PA 27/27 1/27 Liam Gallagher arrives for the special screening of Oasis documentary "Supersonic" Getty Images 2/27 Liam Gallagher and girlfriend Debbie Gwyther arrive at the Etihad Stadium PA 3/27 Members of the British rock band "Oasis" Gem, Noel Gallagher, Andy Bell and Liam Gallagher hold a photocall in Hong Kong on February 25, 2006 AFP/Getty Images 4/27 Liam Gallagher, former Oasis front man, arrives in Glasgow to open the clothing store Pretty Green on January 7, 2011 in Glasgow, Scotlan Getty Images 5/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis, Ricky Hatton of England, Noel Gallagher of Oasis and boxer Matthew Hatton celebrate Ricky Hatton's 11th round TKO victory against Paulie Malignaggi after their light-welterweight fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena November 22, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada Getty Images 6/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis adopts a novel pose for receiving the band's Brit award from Chris Evans (with glasses), chatting to brother Noel Gallagher in rear, at a star-studded ceremony at London's Earl's Court PA 7/27 Liam Gallagher accepts Oasis' award for 'Best Album of 30 Years' on stage at The Brit Awards 2010 at Earls Court on February 16, 2010 Getty Images 8/27 Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher "Che Tempo Che Fa" Italian TV Show on November 9, 2008 in Milan, Italy Getty Images 9/27 Liam Gallagher, of Oasis, and Damon Albarn, of Blur, during the second Music Industry 'Soccer Six' football tournament at Mile End Stadium PA 10/27 Oasis receive their 'Best British Newcomer' award from Kinks lead singer, Ray Davies. (L/R) Noel Gallagher, Paul McGuigan, Liam Gallagher, and Ray Davie PA 11/27 Liam Gallagher of 'Beady Eye' performs live on the Other Stage at day 2 of the 2013 Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm on June 28, 2013 Getty Images 12/27 Liam Gallagher of Beady Eye performs live for fans at the 2014 Big Day Out Festival on January 26, 2014 in Sydney Getty Images 13/27 Liam Gallagher visiting his new son, Lennon, and wife Patsy Kensit at the private Portland Hospital, London in 1999 PA 14/27 Liam Gallagher of Oasis 15/27 Liam Gallagher with Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Bradley Wiggins at the 2012 GQ Men Of The Year Awards at the Royal Opera House, Bow Street, London PA Wire/Press Association Images 16/27 Liam Gallagher performing with his band Beady Eye during episode 12 of the BBC reality show The Voice PA 17/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis 18/27 Liam Gallagher performs during the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony at the Olympic Stadium PA 19/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis 20/27 Liam Gallagher with Oasis PA 21/27 Getty Images 22/27 Dave Benett 23/27 Getty Images 24/27 Getty Images 25/27 EPA 26/27 PA 27/27
Gallagher celebrated eight number one albums while part of Oasis, bringing his chart-topping total level with the likes of Queen, ABBA and George Michael.
As You Were had a combined sale of 103,000 units during its first week of release, outselling the rest of the top 10 combined.
Giggs is another high new entry, with his album Wamp 2 Dem shooting straight in at number two, while Ed Sheeran’s Divide clings on to the number three spot.
Killers album Wonderful Wonderful is at number four this week, while Concrete and Gold by the Foo Fighters is at number five.
Over in the singles charts, Post Malone is celebrating a second week at number one with Rockstar, while Camila Cabello’s Havana is at number two.
Gallager fans were just as impressed with his take on politics as his new album when he spoke out about Brexit earlier in the week.
“No thoughts on it, man. I love Europe. I guess the borders have got to be tightened but all that stuff about going ‘This is my country,’ I don’t get that. We all live under one sky,” he told NME.This low-cost EP clocks in at over 30 minutes (That length might constitute a regular CD release for another artist). The songs are all well-played.
The only noticeable change in approach I observed from Ryan's previous CD, "Easy Tiger", is that Ryan seems a little restrained vocally here. He kind of trails off at the end of some songs instead of really selling them. If I remember correctly I think one song where he does this is the new recording of "This Is It".
This EP goes down pretty smoothly except for the finale of the second song. The second song concludes with an extended instrumental section with a distorted guitar brought up way too high in the mix. I think Ryan may have used a similar effect on the end of the song "Night Birds" from the CD "29". The distorted guitar is less effective here though than it was on "Night Birds". I'm not going to complain too much about one instance on an EP which is otherwise so listenable though.One of the things I love about analog video synthesis is it’s so experimental and chaotic that it gives you a lot of great original source material for your creative projects. I have a small setup of three Critter and Guitari video synths being run into an Edirol v4 mixer, and the mixer running out to an old Sony television. This setup allows for a lot of fun, but I thought to myself the other day wouldn’t it be great if I could run this analog setup through some of the digital effects I have on my laptop.
So after doing a little research I started working on a solution. I found the Elgato Video Capture adapter/software first and was able to record my analog video experiments into the computer, but I still wanted realtime. So I looked into whether you could syphon video from the Elgato software into any vj software. You can, there’s a program called OBS that people use for game streaming.
OBS allowed for me to syphon inject my video stream into CoGeVJ. Now that I had the video stream in CoGeVJ I was able to apply whatever effects I wanted to my hearts content. Then I just used CoGeVJ’s fullscreen mode and output to my television through HDMI as a second monitor.
Here’s a breakdown of what I had to do for the technical setup:
Elgato
Hook up the adapter and open the software for Elgato Video Capture
Confirm that video is showing up within the Elgato video software
OBS
Open up OBS, and look in the bottom left for sources, if there are none listed add one by clicking on the little plus button and selecting Game Capture (Syphon)
Right click on the Game Capture (Syphon) source and go to Properties
From the properties menu select Elgato Video Capture from the source dropdown
Make sure the checkbox beside “inject” is checked and then click launch syphon inject
Then “OK” out of or close any dialog boxes open in OBS
You should be able to see your video in OBS, if it’s really tiny right click the Game Capture (Syphon) and go to “transform/fit to screen”
CoGe VJ
Now open up CoGeVJ and go to interfaces and create a syphon source
On the syphon server select your source and turn on the fx chain
Right click in the diagonally lined area of the fx chain and add any effect
You should now see you analog video with effects applied
From here its pretty open as to what you can do next. You can record videos with your smartphone, webcam or even syphon recorder as I’ve detailed in a previous tutorial. For more articles on video synthesis check out Using CoGe VJ for Video Synthesis, Create a Video Synthesizer with Vizzie & Max MSP or Create a Video Synthesizer with VSynth & Max MSP.All the talk about a new Kings arena in Sacramento will get real in late July, when construction crews start working 17 hours, six days a week. Some days, they’ll be there round the clock hauling heavy materials and enormous pieces of equipment into the heart of downtown.
Kings officials said demolition on three square blocks of Downtown Plaza will begin in late July. By late December, a temporary, 30-foot-deep canyon will gape where shops once stood. Barriers will surround much of the site, sidewalks will be closed, and traffic lanes on busy L Street will be altered. Viewing areas will be set up on two sides of the mall, allowing onlookers to catch a glimpse of one of the city’s largest development projects in its history.
“It’s a massive undertaking,” Kings President Chris Granger said. The team’s owners, led by Silicon Valley tech executive Vivek Ranadive, have committed to delivering a new arena for the NBA team by October 2016.
Hundreds of construction workers will be involved in the project, carrying out the mall piece-by-piece in 10,000 truckloads. They’ll work from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with a few 24-hour shifts sprinkled in when crews will haul enormous equipment and materials to the site in the middle of the night.
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The outside shell and roof of the new arena should be completed by the fall of 2015. Kings officials are confident they’ll be able to install seats, a court and other fixtures inside the building in time to open the 2016 NBA season.
“I don’t think it’s too aggressively fast, but we’re certainly moving at a good pace,” Granger said.
Barriers will be set up around the site after the Kings close on their first wave of financing for the project, expected in mid- to late July. Some work has already started, including the removal of furniture from empty stores at Downtown Plaza. Crews are also shutting down power and water service at the site.
“Everyone is asking, ‘When does it start, when do things get blown up?’ ” Granger said. “We’ve already started, there are just so many considerations along the way. We just want to make sure we do it correctly.”
Downtown workers, commuters and shoppers should expect some changes once the work picks up later this summer.
All three lanes of vehicle traffic on L Street will be shifted left, toward the southern curb, for two blocks in order to create a buffer for the arena construction zone. One lane of Fifth Street will be removed where the street passes through the site, and pedestrian traffic will be blocked along one block of J Street where it borders the mall.
Construction vehicles will add to downtown traffic, entering the arena site from J Street and exiting on L Street. The trucks will haul an estimated 94,000 tons of concrete, steel and construction debris to recycling and salvage centers in Northern California and the Central Valley.
Barricades at Seventh Street and Fifth Street will force pedestrians to walk around the mall to travel from K Street to the Downtown Plaza movie theaters and Old Sacramento. Viewing windows into the site will be set up at both Seventh and Fifth streets.
Much of the parking under the mall will be lost. Garage entrances at Sixth and L and Sixth and J will be closed, but drivers will still have access to parking spots in the garages at Third and L, Fifth and J and under the 24-Hour Fitness on Seventh Street. A total of 2,080 of the 3,700 spots at the mall will remain available during construction.
Shops west of Fifth Street will stay open, including Macy’s, River City Brewing Co. and the mall movie theaters. At the other side of the mall, 24-Hour Fitness and the shops inside a building at 630 K St. will remain as well.
The Kings said sound barriers will be erected around the site, cutting down on the noise for nearby shops and offices. The hole left by the demolition of much of the mall will also create a buffer for construction noise, Granger said.
Asked if nearby businesses would suffer during the effort, Granger said he’d “like to think not.”
“I think there’s going to be a lot of interest that creates foot traffic coming by to see what’s happening,” he said.
A group that has asked the Kings to enter into a community benefits agreement to help small businesses and create affordable housing downtown has said it heard from some downtown businesses worried about the project. The group wants the Kings to create a loan fund for small businesses near the arena and to help businesses relocate from the area, if those businesses can prove the construction hurt their bottom line.
The stylists at Hair To Dye For – a hair salon on Merchant Street, a narrow passage that runs between Seventh and Eighth streets near the mall – said they are worried about the construction period. The shop has around 1,000 clients, most of whom drive to the area, and the street already has limited parking.
“(The city and Kings) don’t understand it takes years to build a clientele and only a short time to lose it,” stylist Toni Fletcher said.
Inna Mironyuk, another stylist at the salon, said nobody has provided official information on the construction timeline.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “The arena is going to be great for the city, but we might go down.”
Some downtown shoppers are concerned as well. Anabel Ruiz, a state worker who was shopping at Macy’s this week, said she is confused about how accessible the mall will be during construction.
“If it looks like it’s going to be a big hassle, I probably won’t be coming,” she said. “I like the convenience of being able to get in and out.”
The Downtown Sacramento Partnership has conducted outreach sessions with businesses. Kings officials have set up a website – www.SacramentoESC.com –and a hotline at (916) 741-ESC2 (3722) that will provide information on the project.
Some nearby business owners expressed limited concern about the project. Others said they were eager for the work to start.
Michael Doyle has operated his M.J. Doyle jewelry and watch shop for 30 years on Merchant Street. He said he isn’t greatly concerned about the next two years of arena construction, given that his shop has survived other ordeals.
“We’ve been more impacted by the gradual deterioration of the mall,” he said. “It’s not like they’re closing some thriving mall.”
He said if the arena changes the perception that downtown is rundown, small businesses like his will be better off in the long run.
Pete Lee is optimistic about the short-term effects. His K&C Gift Shop sells everything from hot dogs and cigarettes to wigs and knives in a crammed storefront on the 700 block of K Street.
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “It could be better when they start and those construction workers come in here and buy stuff.”
On the other side of the mall, Beth Ayres, the co-owner of River City Brewing Co., is also anxious for the work to begin.
“Where are all the construction workers?” she said. “We need them.”
Ayres agreed with Granger’s notion that the project would become an attraction. The influx of onlookers could offset the loss of people who will think the entire mall has closed, as well as those who no longer come to the area.
“We’ve definitely seen a decline” in business since the eastern part of the mall closed, she said.
Murad Kabani, manager of Zee Jewelers inside Downtown Plaza, said his business’s future over the next two years is “very uncertain” because of the construction. He said Zee thought about leaving the mall but wants to be there when the new arena opens.
“We would like to be here for the long term,” he said. “We wanted to give it a shot.”Cider brings big business to Asheville area
Cider — the hard type — is a booming industry. Because it's so popular, a number of cider makers nationwide are reporting difficulty sourcing "spitter" apples, a colloquial term for the bittersharp apples best pressed for cider.
Many of those spitter apples, such as Muscadet de Berney and Golden Russet, come from heirloom variety trees, planted by cider makers in Colonial America and felled by the axes of teetotalers during Prohibition. They've been sparsely planted since, even as demand increases.
But locally, cideries such as Noble Cider, Flat Rock Cider Works and the forthcoming Mills River expansion for Bold Rock, are learning to work around that paucity, turning the local abundance of dessert apples, like Gala and Mutsu, into profit. Noble Cider last year increased production by 1,000 percent, and this year, it will double that again when it moves to a larger facility.
Some apple farmers are getting into the hard-cider business, creating an outlet for ugly apples that might otherwise be hard to sell.
"Cider, especially hard cider, is growing almost 1,000 percent a year the last few years," said Kenny Barnwell, owner of more than 200 acres of eponymous orchards and past president of the Blue Ridge Apple Grower Association. "Anything we can use as a secondary market for our apples is a benefit to us — as long as I don't have to put them on a truck and ship them 500 miles away like we're having to do now, anything different than that is better."
The cider boom is already a boost for North Carolina, the seventh-largest apple producing state in the country. But it could soon be a big business for Henderson County, which grows 65 percent of the apples in the state.
To be sure, according to Barnwell, the bittersharp apples so in demand in the rest of the country, aren't as celebrated by local apple farmers. "No one I know in Henderson County is going back and planting the old cider apples," he said.
That's because those bittersharp apples are mainly too bitter to eat, making them one-hit wonders, and Barnwell only plants apples appropriate for a variety of uses — meaning today's cider apple could also be tomorrow's baby food. "Everything I put in has got to be able to go at least a couple of different ways," he said. "If you don't, you'll end up with a situation where you can't get rid of them."
But cideries can also use Arkansas Black and Stayman Winesap apples — which grow well in Henderson County — fermenting the apples' juice like wine.
"The flaw that is often pointed out in apples is the lack of tannins," said David Bowman, of Black Mountain Ciderworks, which uses North Carolina apples. "While true, the lack of tannin is easily remedied with the addition of a touch of wine tannin, as most winemakers do as well. Conversely, our apples have splendid levels of sugar and acid, which lend a snappy brightness when properly exploited."
Tree to bottle
Mark Williams, executive director of Agribusiness Henderson County, said having another outlet for apples is always good for business.
"Any time you get more demand, it should help the price and the opportunity to sell fruit, when you otherwise might not have an opportunity," he said.
But he thinks the best boon for apple farmers comes when they learn how to make their own cider, cutting out the middleman and effectively diversifying crops. Flat Rock Cider Works, one local farmer-driven cidery, began selling a brand called Naked Apple in May.
"What I really like about those guys is they're taking it from the apple tree to the bottle," Williams said. "I love seeing vertically integrated, completely local businesses like that. They've been in Henderson County for a long time — it's a true local success."
According to Williams, there's a half dozen or so other growers producing their own hard cider in Henderson County. "They're not jumping on a bandwagon, they've been in the business on some level for many generations," he said.
But are North Carolina's apple farmers missing out on another source of income by not planting heirloom apples with names like Porter's Perfection and Foxwhelp?
Williams said some cider makers may look to plant trees specifically for cider production, but not many.
"We can find a point where we reach a limit on the apples suitable for cider production," Williams said. "We do have plenty of juice apples, but do we have the right apples — that's the question. Opportunities have opened up, but some of the purists like to have certain varieties, and supply is rather limited."
Spitting image
"There are not enough of those'spitter' apples grown in the United States, that's true," says Joanna Baker, co-owner of Asheville's Noble Cider. "Is it going to be a detriment to our hard cider industry here in Western North Carolina? Not at all."
Pending financial arrangements, Noble Cider intends to expand its facility this September. The Bakers are looking at a 9,000-square-foot-warehouse on the far west end of town for a new location.
"It's going to allow us to increase our production and get into bottles," said Baker. "We plan to expand to at least 40,000 gallons this apple season."
Noble negotiates with an apple broker and local farmers to buy Henderson County apples such as Mutsus and Pink Ladies. But she and her husband, Trevor Baker, are also working with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension to plant 80 heirloom varieties, including English and French hard cider apples, in the Hendersonville research orchard. They'll watch those trees for the next three years to see how they fare in WNC's climate.
The apples, which include varieties popular in Colonial America, will make interesting special and seasonal brews, said Baker. But he also thinks local farmers don't have the luxury of taking risks with fruit that fares best in New England.
"Growers already take risks every year, so why add more on top of that?" he said.
Baker is willing to pay a bit extra for local apples; it's important for him to build relationships with farmers, he said, even if it means skipping the heirloom apples the rest of the country so covets.
"I'm an advocate of working with what you have and not complaining about what you don't have," he said. "Do we want to branch out and try new varieties? Of course. But we haven't had any trouble getting the apples we want to get and turning them into hard cider."
Like a rock
So great is the Western North Carolina apple inventory that some larger cider makers are eying the area for expansion. Bold Rock, a Virginia-based cider maker that presses "hundreds of tons of apples a year," is looking to open a cidery in Mills River. "We're still in the contingency period," Bold Rock owner John Washburn said. "It's looking very good to go through."
Washburn said Bold Rock has been "unexpectedly and significantly popular" in Virginia. "We thought we would sell 8,000 cases the first six months, and we sold 46,000," he said. Now the cidery sells up to 15,000 a month, a number that's steadily increasing.
Washburn is attracted to Mills River since "it's the apple kingdom of North Carolina." He also thinks that this area's reputation as a destination for beer breweries is a help, not a hindrance, to local cider makers.
"Wherever craft breweries do well, cideries do well," said Washburn. Indeed, Sierra Nevada, one of the largest craft breweries in the country, opened its Mills River facility earlier this year. And recently, Bold Rock signed with Budweiser of Asheville to distribute its four cider products
Brian Shanks, Bold Rock's cidermaker, uses Winesap, Macintosh and Granny Smith, all common varieties in Western North Carolina. If all goes as planned, Washburn said he expects the company will triple its production within the first two years of moving to Mills River.
"And after that, we plan to ramp up from there," he said. "Apple growers, here we come."
Read or Share this story: http://avlne.ws/1m4v5ikLow Carb Velvety Heaven!
Just in time for Mother’s Day, we’ve created a dessert to please anyone, low carb or not! Taking two American classics, red velvet cake and cheesecake, we combined the two to make a delectable little dessert with only 2g of carbs! We’re really excited to give this two layered dessert to our moms and hope you’ll make a batch to gift too! (Or enjoy it alone, they’re insanely delicious!)
These red velvet cheesecakes use erythritol, a sugar alcohol, and low carb almond flour. We love using our trusty Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour- it’s available in lots of grocery stores and is super fine for baking!
This red velvet cheesecake makes for a perfect ketogenic treat because of the low carb count and high-fat content! Each one has 36g of fat! The cream cheese, butter and almond flour are all high-fat ingredients with lots of healthy nutrients to contribute. We also added cinnamon butter to this recipe to give it a unique twist and some spice. We made cinnamon butter for a Sunday breakfast to go with our almond flour pancakes and wanted to use it again! It added just the right sweetness to the cheesecake layer- not too much since cream cheese is sweet enough on its own!
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Here‘s some more info on erythritol if you’re not familiar with it.
Tips & Tricks
The entire process took only about 40 minutes! Depending on your tastes, you can eat/serve these cheesecakes hot, warm or chilled for a few hours. When chilled, the cheesecake layer becomes denser since it “deflates” a little when cooling. We prefer eating these warm and think a combination of cooling overnight and then reheating in a toaster oven would create the perfect consistency. We haven’t tried it yet though since taking a bite out of mom’s dessert could be a dangerous thing to do 🙂
We would really recommend an electric hand mixer to beat the cream cheese and butter. You need that aerated batter to make some fluffy and non-clumpy cheesecake layers. We also used our ramekins for even and quick baking and beautiful presentation, but you can combine each layer of the batter and pour it into a small baking dish. The bake time will be a little higher though because of the volume of batter you’re baking all at once.
Another variation, if you’re baking for a crowd, is to make mini mini red velvet cheesecakes by using tiny 4 oz mason jars to cook your cakes. They’re made of glass and will show off the layers of the red velvet cheesecake beautifully! However, if you choose this method, your cook time will likely be only 10-15 minutes because of the small amount of batter in each jar. You can also use your trusty muffin pan, but consider adding cupcake liners if you choose this route.
Happy baking!
Red Velvet Cinnamon Cheesecakes Votes: 79
Rating: 4.56
You: Rate this recipe! Print Recipe Macros per serving:
• 420 Calories
• 36g of Fat
• 17g of Protein
• 2g of Carbs
Serves 4 servings Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 20 minutes Serves 4 servings Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 20 minutes Red Velvet Cinnamon Cheesecakes Votes: 79
Rating: 4.56
You: Rate this recipe! Print Recipe Macros per serving:
• 420 Calories
• 36g of Fat
• 17g of Protein
• 2g of Carbs
Serves 4 servings Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 20 minutes Serves 4 servings Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 20 minutes Servings: servings Ingredients |
time and Band is hilarious. Here it is, THE 2015 TOP 20 HILARIOUS THINGS SEEN AND HEARD AT GRAND NATIONALS! Don't forget to record in landscape mode.
By DJ Corchin
Posted November 18, 2015
Here's my Top 20 for this year in the order of which I cut and paste them from my notes app: There were bass drums being worshiped in a temple on a sacrificial altar with built-in barbecue. Math. There was math on the field. Clearly the year of giant columns and pillars. They broke the 1st rule of marching band; never have more pillars than tubas. Director yells "I love you" to a band before they begin their performance. Person behind me adds, "But I'm not IN love with you." I now hear in my sleep an entire band forcefully yelling at me to not go gently into the night. I'm just saying it's hard to go gently into the night with an entire band forcefully yelling at me to not go gently into the night. Everyone praying to a flugelhorn. That was a thing. It will not occur for another 200 years. A tornado caused by a single quad player. Go figure a percussionist is responsible for that type of destruction. Drum Majors mind controlled by TV. So, in this case you CAN blame TV. I was hypnotized by a band. Afterwards, I walked six blocks to the grocery store. Bought cottage cheese and Apple Jacks. Sat down in the grass outside yelling, "Watch me Nae Nae" while eating both in a bowl with a spatula. A band that gave me the pin drop locations of every Starbucks in Indiana. An entire ecological disaster covered a band. We had to hand scrub every little baritone player to clean it up. I finally had the white-picket fence relationship with a band I always hoped for. Cat trust fall. The band was literally a puppet. Not that whole metaphorical "the director pulls the strings" thing. An entire band laid eggs. So that's where freshmen come from. The Time Portals from Austin Powers made an appearance. An entire band with no faces. How, how do you eat? A woman in the audience wearing a witch hat demanding I give her an R. I don't mess with witches. I gave her the R. The severed head of Medusa. In a bag. On the 50. A full blown circus on the field. I mean, more than usual.
BONUS: Overheard a gentleman having a 45-second argument with himself on whether the guard was wearing primary colors or fluorescent. Broken glass everywhere on the field and players. If my mom was watching she would have stopped everything and made us wait until she was done sweeping. Solo sabre toss from the top of a glacier and no net. Extreme spinning is the new sport of the future. Most of the time I was either in a dark forest or space. They said it was a giant yarn ball, but I'm pretty sure it was a hairball that came out of a tuba. It has that certain "aroma."
So there it is in all its glory. Bask in it. Marinate in it. Let it get in your bones. Then prepare for another year of amazing music ;)
About the Author: DJ Corchin is an international award-winning author and illustrator and a music education advocate. His alter ego, The 13th Chair has written the celebrated humorously inspiring Band Nerds book series including Band Nerds Poetry From The 13th Chair Trombone Player, The Marching Band Nerds Handbook, Band Nerds Confessions & Confusion, and The Marching Band Nerds Awards. You can follow his blog The13thChair.com to catch his thoughts in real time. He was a featured performer in the first national Broadway tour of the Tony and Emmy award winning show, BLAST! where he was best known as the "unicycling trombonist." Now living and working in Chicago as a children's author, his other publications are available world wide and include the award-winning I Feel...Children's Series and Mystical Rules For My Magical Daughter. He has published more than 15 additional children's books celebrated for their witty socially conscious messages. A former high school band director, he continues to be involved in marching bands and music education through speaking events, competitions, and organizations such as Music for All. Mr. Corchin welcomes your comments via email. For more of his work please visit www.djcorchin.com. Mr. Corchin is an independent contributor so his views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Marching.com.
Text by DJ Corchin. Trombone illustration by Dan Dougherty.
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By DJ CorchinPosted November 18, 2015Here's my Top 20 for this year in the order of which I cut and paste them from my notes app:So there it is in all its glory. Bask in it. Marinate in it. Let it get in your bones. Then prepare for another year of amazing music ;)Recent Headlines: 2018 Tournament of Roses Bandfest PhotosAt Xbox, we put gamers at the center of everything we do and remain committed to giving you the freedom to play the games you want, with the friends you want, on the devices you want. This year is shaping up to be an exciting one for gamers. As we prepare to launch Project Scorpio this holiday, bringing the most powerful console ever made to the Xbox One family of devices, we continue to make platform improvements to connect the growing community of players on Xbox Live and add to a robust and diverse portfolio of games across Xbox One and Windows 10.
Today, we’re continuing our commitment to give you more options to diversify and expand your library of games with Xbox Game Pass, a new gaming subscription service coming later this spring. Xbox Game Pass gives you unlimited access to over 100 Xbox One and backward compatible Xbox 360 games – all for $9.99 per month.
With great games from top industry publishers such as 2K, 505 Games, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, SEGA, SNK CORPORATION, THQ Nordic GmbH, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft Studios, there’s something for everyone to enjoy and you will always find something exciting to play across a variety of genres. Some of the fan-favorite titles coming to Xbox Game Pass when it launches to the broader Xbox community later this spring include Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and SoulCalibur II.
One of the best things about Xbox Game Pass is that you can discover and download the full titles directly on your Xbox One. That means continuous, full-fidelity gameplay without having to worry about streaming, bandwidth or connectivity issues. In addition, all Xbox One games in the catalog – and related add-ons – will be available to purchase at an exclusive discount for Xbox Game Pass members, so you can make the games you love part of your permanent library to play whenever you want. Every month new games will cycle into the subscription with some cycling out, giving you a constantly-updating library of games. Xbox Game Pass is your ticket to endless play.
It’s important to us that Xbox Game Pass provides an enjoyable and seamless experience. Before the program rolls out to the broader community later this spring, we’ll be testing Xbox Game Pass with select members of the Xbox Insider Program in the Alpha Preview ring starting today with a very limited number of titles. The titles that are available in Preview are just a small glimpse at the expansive catalog of games that will be available when Xbox Game Pass launches this spring. Xbox Live Gold members will also be receiving exclusive access to Xbox Game Pass prior to the program launching to the broader community. We’ll have more details on timing closer to launch.
We hope you enjoy Xbox Game Pass and all that it has to offer. We’re looking forward to hearing the feedback from the gamers in the Xbox Insider Program and then from the rest of the Xbox community when it’s broadly available later this spring. Your feedback will make this program better for all gamers.
Thank you for your continued passion and support of Xbox.
Phil Spencer
Twitter: @XboxP3
GT: P3American professional wrestler, actress, author, mixed martial artist and judoka
"Rousey" redirects here. For the 2005 bankruptcy case, see Rousey v. Jacoway
Ronda Jean Rousey (;[11] born February 1, 1987) is an American professional wrestler, actress, author, mixed martial artist and judoka. She is currently signed to WWE, performing on the Raw brand,[12] where she is the current Raw Women's Champion in her first reign. Her longstanding nickname, "Rowdy", was inherited from late professional wrestler Roddy Piper.[1]
Rousey began her professional career as a mixed martial artist in 2010, after becoming the first American woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo, by winning bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympics. After a string of successful bouts in both King of the Cage and Strikeforce, which included a reign as the last ever Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion, Rousey signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 2012.[13] In UFC, Rousey enjoyed a two and a half year undefeated streak, during which she became the first female champion in the promotion's history, and holds the record as the longest ever reigning UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion. Rousey also gained plaudits for her explosive and dominant fighting style, characterized by first-round knockouts and trademark armbar submission hold.[14][15][16][17] She later became the first female fighter to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.[18]
In 2018, Rousey began a career in professional wrestling, signing a contract with WWE.[19] She made her in-ring debut at WrestleMania 34, and won the Raw Women's Championship, her first WWE and professional wrestling title, at SummerSlam 2018.
Rousey has also enjoyed success as an actress and author, appearing in the films The Expendables 3 (2014),[20] Furious 7 (2015),[21] and Mile 22 (2018),[22] and releasing her autobiography My Fight / Your Fight in 2015.[23]
Rousey has been credited for breaking down several hurdles regarding female mixed martial arts sports, as well as challenging barriers regarding body image and female conformity.[24][25] She has been regarded as a symbol of female empowerment,[26] and has been praised for her involvement in the polarizing female mixed martial arts industry, in which she became one of the highest pay-per-view draws in the world.[27][28] Rousey was described by Fox Sports as "one of the defining athletes of the 21st century."[29]
Early life
Ronda Jean Rousey was born in Riverside, California[30] on February 1, 1987, the youngest of three daughters of AnnMaria De Mars (née Waddell) and Ron Rousey,[31] for whom she was named.[32] Her mother, a decorated judoka, was the first American to win a World Judo Championship (in 1984). Rousey is of English, Polish, Trinidadian, and Venezuelan ancestry.[33] Her Venezuelan maternal grandfather was partly of Afro-Venezuelan descent and her Trinidadian maternal great-grandfather, Alfred E Waddell, was a doctor who emigrated to Canada and became one of the first black physicians in North America.[34][35][36] Her stepfather is an aerospace engineer.[37] Her biological father, after breaking his back sledding with his daughters and learning that he would be a paraplegic, committed suicide in 1995 when Rousey was eight.[32][38] AnnMaria pursued a Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of California, Riverside as her daughters grew up.[32][39]
For the first six years of her life, Rousey struggled with speech and could not form an intelligible sentence due to apraxia, a neurological childhood speech sound disorder.[40] This speech disorder was attributed to being born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. When Rousey was three years old, her mother and father moved from Riverside, California, to Jamestown, North Dakota, to obtain intensive speech therapy with specialists at Minot State University.[41][42] Rousey dropped out of high school and later earned her GED.[43] She was raised between Jamestown and Southern California, retiring from her judo career at 21 and starting her MMA career at 22 when she realized that she did not want to spend her life in a conventional field of work.[44]
Olympic judo career
Rousey began judo with her mother at the age of 11. Rousey trained with her mother until she was 13 after accidentally breaking her mother's wrist.[45] At 17, Rousey qualified for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, becoming the youngest judoka in the entire Games. Rousey lost in her first match to silver medalist Claudia Heill in the 63 kg bracket. Also in 2004, Rousey won a gold medal at the World Junior Judo Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
In April 2006, she became the first female U.S. judoka in nearly 10 years to win an A-Level tournament as she went 5-0 to claim gold at the Birmingham World Cup in Great Britain. Later that year, the 19-year-old won the bronze medal at the Junior World Championships, becoming the first U.S. athlete ever to win two Junior World medals.[46]
In February 2007, Rousey moved up to 70 kg where she ranked as one of the top three women in the world. She won the silver medal at the 2007 World Judo Championships in the middleweight division and the gold medal at the 2007 Pan American Games.[47]
In August 2008, Rousey competed at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. She lost her quarterfinal to the Dutch ex-world champion Edith Bosch but qualified for a Bronze medal match through the repechage bracket. Rousey defeated Annett Boehm by Yuko to win a bronze medal (Judo offers two bronze medals per weight class.) With the victory, Rousey became the first American to win an Olympic medal in women's judo since its inception as an Olympic sport in 1992.[48][49]
Mixed martial arts career
Training
Rousey retired from judo at 21 after the Olympics. After winning her Olympic medal, Rousey shared a studio apartment with a roommate in Venice Beach, California and worked three jobs as a bartender and cocktail waitress to support herself and her dog.[50]
When Rousey had started learning judo, her mom had taken her to judo clubs run by her old teammates. Rousey went to Hayastan MMA Academy run by Gokor Chivichyan, where she trained with fellow future MMA fighters Manny Gamburyan and Karo Parisyan. According to Rousey, Hayastan practiced "a more brawling style of judo versus the more technical Japanese style." Rousey trained mostly with males bigger than her and often got frustrated and cried when she got thrown and couldn't throw somebody. "Probably from 2002 to 2005 I cried every single night of training," Rousey remarked.[45]
Rousey trained closely with Gamburyan. After tearing up her knee when she was 16, Gamburyan volunteered to open the gym every afternoon and work with her personally. Back in 2004, her teammates thought Rousey "would kill these girls" in MMA, but also thought she was "too pretty to get hit in the face" and should keep doing judo. While Gamburyan and Parisyan went into MMA, Rousey stuck with judo but remained in touch with MMA through them. The first MMA fight she took an interest in watching was Manny Gamburyan versus Nate Diaz in The Ultimate Fighter finale. Rousey stated she never got as excited watching judo or any other sport. After the 2008 Olympics the following year, she decided to start MMA through Team Hayastan.[45]
Rousey also trains at the Glendale Fighting Club, which she was introduced to through Gamburyan and other Hayastan teammates. She started training under her current coach Edmond Tarverdyan at GFC.[51]
She trained in Jiu Jitsu at Dynamix MMA with Henry Akins from 2011 to 2014[52] and has since trained with Ryron Graice and Rener Gracie of Gracie Academy,[53] as well as BJ Penn of Art of Jiu Jitsu.[54]
Early career (2010–2011)
Rousey made her mixed martial arts debut as an amateur on August 6, 2010. She defeated Hayden Munoz by submission due to an armbar in 23 seconds.[55]
She entered the quarterfinals of the Tuff-N-Uff 145 lbs women's tournament on November 12, 2010, and submitted promotional veteran Autumn Richardson with an armbar in 57 seconds.[56]
Rousey faced Taylor Stratford in the Tuff-N-Uff tournament semi-finals on January 7, 2011, and won by technical submission due to an armbar in 24 seconds. She then announced plans to turn pro and was replaced in the tournament.[57] Rousey has a perfect 3-0 record in amateur MMA competition, and the combined duration of all her amateur fights is under 2 minutes.[44]
Rousey made her professional mixed martial arts debut on March 27, 2011, at King of the Cage: Turning Point. She submitted Ediane Gomes with an armbar in 25 seconds.[55][58]
Rousey faced kickboxing champion Charmaine Tweet in an MMA bout at Hard Knocks Fighting Championship: School of Hard Knocks 12 on June 17, 2011, in Calgary, Canada.[59] She submitted Tweet with an armbar in 49 seconds.[60][61]
Strikeforce (2011–2012)
Early success
Rousey was scheduled to make her Strikeforce debut against Sarah D'Alelio on July 30, 2011, at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.[62] The fight was pushed back and eventually took place on the Strikeforce Challengers 18 main card on August 12, 2011, in Las Vegas, Nevada.[63] Rousey defeated D'Alelio by technical submission due to an armbar early in the first round. The victory was controversial. Rousey claimed that D'Alelio yelled "tap" more than once and that D'Alelio denied this and claimed to have yelled "AAAAHHH". According to the unified rules of mixed martial arts, either one of these utterances would still be a verbal submission.[64]
Rousey faced Julia Budd at Strikeforce Challengers 20 on November 18, 2011, in Las Vegas.[65] She won via submission due to an armbar in the first round, dislocating Budd's elbow in the process. Following the fight, she announced plans to move down to 135 pounds to challenge Miesha Tate, the Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion at the time, with whom she had developed a much-publicized rivalry.[66][67]
During his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Rousey's trainer Edmond Tarverdyan said that Rousey started her MMA career in the 145 lb division because she had to be able to make weight at short notice, due to the difficulty of finding willing opponents.[68]
Women's Bantamweight Champion
Rousey challenged Tate for her Strikeforce title on March 3, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio. She defeated Tate by submission due to an armbar in the first round, again dislocating her opponent's elbow, to become the new Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion.[69][70]
Rousey appeared in All Access: Ronda Rousey on Showtime. The half-hour special debuted on August 8, 2012.[71] UFC President Dana White revealed during the program that "In the next 10 years, if there's a woman in the octagon, it's probably going to be Ronda Rousey."[72] The second installment of the special aired on August 15, 2012.[73] Rousey also appeared on Conan.[74]
Rousey defended her Strikeforce title against Sarah Kaufman at Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman on August 18, 2012, in San Diego, California.[75] Rousey said that she would throw Kaufman's arm at her corner after ripping it off with an armbar, and threatened to choke or pound Kaufman's face to death.[76] During the fight, Rousey would quickly take down Kaufman and submit her with an armbar in just 54 seconds to retain the Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship. After the fight, Rousey announced that if former Strikeforce Women's Featherweight Champion Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos wanted to fight her, it would have to take place at bantamweight.[77][78][79]
Ultimate Fighting Championship (2012–2016)
First female UFC Champion
Rousey in 2012
In November 2012, the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced that Rousey had become the first female fighter to sign with the UFC.[13][80] UFC President Dana White officially announced at the UFC on Fox: Henderson vs. Diaz pre-fight press conference that Rousey was the first UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion.
Rousey originally opposed using the nickname her friends gave her, "Rowdy", feeling it would be disrespectful to professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. After meeting Piper (circa 2012 or 2013) through Gene LeBell, who helped train both of them, Piper personally gave his approval.[1]
Rousey defended her title against Liz Carmouche on February 23, 2013, at UFC 157. Despite being caught in an early standing neck crank attempt from Carmouche, Rousey got out of it and successfully defended her Bantamweight Championship title, winning the fight at 4:49 into the first round by submission due to an armbar.[81] Carmouche dislocated Ronda Rousey's jaw during the fight.[82][83]
After Cat Zingano defeated Miesha Tate at The Ultimate Fighter: Team Jones vs. Team Sonnen Finale, Dana White announced that Zingano would be a coach of The Ultimate Fighter 18 against Rousey. On May 28, it was announced that Zingano would not be a coach and opponent for Rousey after Zingano suffered a knee injury earlier that same month which would require surgery; therefore, Miesha Tate instead would coach on The Ultimate Fighter 18 against Rousey.[84]
Rousey faced Miesha Tate, in a rematch from Strikeforce, at UFC 168 on December 28, 2013. After going past the first two rounds, with Tate surviving an armbar attempt and a triangle attempt, Rousey finally submitted Tate via armbar in the third round to retain her Bantamweight Championship.[85] In an interview with Los Angeles Daily News, Rousey said she had lost muscle during her film commitments and not been able to regain her full strength for the Tate fight.[86]
Quick victories
It was announced at the UFC 168 post-fight press conference that Rousey would defend the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship against fellow Olympic medalist and undefeated fighter, Sara McMann in the main event at UFC 170 on February 22, 2014. Rousey won the fight by TKO after knocking down McMann with a knee to the body in just over a minute into the first round. This marked Rousey's first career win via a method other than armbar. The stoppage led to controversy, with some sports writers and attendants finding it premature.[87][88][89]
In 2014, Rousey was named one of espnW's Impact 25.[90]
On April 11, 2014, it was announced that Rousey would defend the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship against Alexis Davis in the co-main event at UFC 175 on July 5, 2014. She won the fight via knockout just 16 seconds into the first round. Rousey broke her thumb during the fight.[91] The emphatic win also earned Rousey her second Performance of the Night bonus award.[92]
A match between Rousey and Cat Zingano was scheduled to take place at UFC 182 for the women's bantamweight title.[93] However, the fight was moved to February 28, 2015, at UFC 184.[94] Rousey defeated Zingano with an armbar in 14 seconds, the shortest match in UFC championship history.[95]
Rousey fought Bethe Correia on August 1, 2015, in Brazil, at UFC 190, winning the bout by knockout 34 seconds into the first round.[96] Rousey dedicated the match to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, who died the day before, commenting that Piper was one of her inspirations and had endorsed her use of his nickname.[97]
The completion of this bout marked Rousey's sixth official with the UFC, all of which had been victories. She spent 1077 seconds in the octagon to attain all six and accumulated $1,080,000 in prize money; this equated to nearly $1002.79 for every second spent fighting.[98][99] Her average time of 2 minutes and 59 seconds was less than the average time of a single match in every UFC weight class, the fastest of which was the Heavyweight division with a time of 7 minutes and 59 seconds.[100]
Title loss and subsequent loss
In her seventh title defense, Rousey faced Holly Holm in the main event at UFC 193 on November 15, 2015.[101] Despite being a heavy betting favorite, Rousey was unable to get Holm to the ground and had no answer for Holm's superior striking. Early in the second round, Holm knocked Rousey out with a high kick to the neck, ending Rousey's three-year reign as champion. It was also her first loss. After the fight, Rousey and Holm were each awarded a Fight of the Night bonus of $50,000.[102] She was also medically suspended by UFC on November 18, 2015, which included a no-contact suspension for 45-days, and no fights for 60-days, and would have to depend on CT scan results to have the suspension reduced.[103] She was medically cleared on December 9, 2015.[104]
After over a year away from the sport, Rousey returned to face current champion Amanda Nunes on December 30, 2016, in the main event at UFC 207.[105] She lost the fight via TKO due to punches at just 48 seconds into the first round.[106] Rousey had no answer to Nunes’ straight and overhand shots. Sports columnist Martin Rogers wrote, "Even with all that time to recuperate and prepare, Rousey did not learn an effective jab, the first and most basic tenet of boxing, one of MMA’s core disciplines."[107]
UFC pay-per-views
(main event and co-main event)
Mixed martial arts fighting style
While some fighters strike an impassive pose … Rousey is nothing if not expressive. She smiles often, squinting so tightly that her eyes disappear. She cries easily, a girlhood habit she never outgrew. And before each fight she glares at her opponent as if she were getting ready to put a permanent end to a lifelong feud. After the fight, she is all smiles again, and usually unblemished. - The New Yorker, 2014[43]
In a 2012 interview[108] before her first match with Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey said "When I was doing judo my main advantage was my conditioning and my pace; I used to wear people out." She had taken to heart a quote from Ryoko Tani to fight every five seconds as if it was the last five seconds of the match.
A decorated judoka, Rousey typically grounds an opponent with hip throws and sweeps, then seeks to finish with strikes or submissions.[109][110] From top position, she usually attacks with punches from side control; in rear position, she often secures a back mount and attacks with head strikes.[111][112][113] Rousey is right-handed, but is a left-handed judoka fighting in an orthodox stance as a striker.[114]
Rousey's favorite MMA fighter is Fedor Emelianenko, whose fighting style she works to emulate.[115]
Rousey is well known for her skill in grappling and is particularly noted for her string of victories by armbar. Against accomplished strikers, such as Julia Budd and Sarah Kaufman, Rousey has typically brought the fight down and sought a quick submission.[110][116] Only powerful grapplers, such as Miesha Tate and Liz Carmouche, have been competitive with Rousey on the ground.[109][111]
During early fights in her MMA career, Rousey mainly used striking to set up judo. She became a more proficient striker following her UFC debut, leading to her first wins by way of stoppage. While standing, Rousey normally uses jabs, knees, and overhand rights.[117][118] She also seldom stands side on with a set boxing stance, but rather squaring up to the opponent, but still generate great striking power, especially when they are near the fence, or clinching opponents with the left hand to close the distance, while pummeling opponents with strikes, much akin to a muay thai fighter launching kickers from the clinch.[119]
While discussing her signature armbar in an interview, Rousey noted that her judoka mother jumped on her every morning to wake her up with armbars.[120]
Rousey is notable for introducing trash talking to women's MMA. In many interviews Rousey has used harsh language and openly downplayed the abilities of her opponents, which she explains as a way to generate more publicity for the sport.[121][122]
Views on MMA
Rousey has challenged the notion of MMA being anti-woman. She argued, "There are so many ridiculous arguments that MMA is somehow anti-woman. Fighting is not a man's thing, it is a human thing. To say that it is anti-woman is an anti-feminist statement."[123] Some journalists have characterized Rousey as a feminist,[124] while others have described her as "antifeminist".[125]
Professional wrestling career
Background
Rousey is a professional wrestling fan. Her nickname, "Rowdy", was taken from late professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, whom she asked for permission.[126] She, Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir have dubbed themselves "The Four Horsewomen," a play on The Four Horsemen professional wrestling stable, with the blessing of members Ric Flair and Arn Anderson.[127]
WWE
Sporadic appearances (2014–2017)
The Four Horsewomen were acknowledged on camera and commentary as such, in the front row at WWE's SummerSlam event in August 2014. The group also went backstage during the event, meeting Paul Heyman, among others.[128] Rousey was interviewed by WWE.com that night; when asked if she, like Brock Lesnar, would cross over to wrestling, she replied "You never know."[129]
At WrestleMania 31 in March 2015, the Four Horsewomen were seated in the front row. During an in-ring argument between The Rock and The Authority (Stephanie McMahon and Triple H), McMahon slapped the Rock and ordered him to leave "her ring". She taunted him, saying he would not hit a woman. He left, paused and walked over to Rousey to a loud ovation. He then helped her into the ring and said that she would be happy to hit McMahon for him. After a staredown, The Rock attacked Triple H. When he stumbled toward Rousey, she tossed him out of the ring. McMahon tried to slap her, was blocked and Rousey grabbed her arm, teasing an armbar, before throwing her out of the ring. Rousey and the Rock celebrated in the ring, while the Authority retreated with the implication of revenge.[130] The segment was replayed and discussed throughout the next night's Raw with the commentators hyping a tweet Rousey made earlier that day, in which she implied a return to WWE with "We're just gettin' started...".[131]
On July 13, 14, and September 12, 2017, the Horsewomen appeared in the audience of the Mae Young Classic to support their compatriot Shayna Baszler, who was making her WWE debut in the tournament. Additionally during the event, all four Horsewomen had a face-off with Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Bayley, who, in WWE together with Sasha Banks, are also known as the Four Horsewomen, hinting at a possible future feud between the two groups.[132][133][134]
It was reported in 2017 that Rousey had signed with the WWE on a full-time basis and had been training at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando.
Raw Women's Champion (2018–present)
Rousey made a surprise appearance at Royal Rumble on January 28, 2018, confronting Raw Women's Champion Alexa Bliss, SmackDown Women's Champion Charlotte Flair, and Asuka, who had just won the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match. ESPN immediately revealed during the segment that she had signed a full–time contract with WWE.[19][135][136] The jacket which Rousey wore during this appearance belonged to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, given to her by his son.[137] On February 25 at the Elimination Chamber pay–per–view, Rousey was involved in an in–ring altercation with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, after which she signed her contract (in storyline), thus making her a part of the Raw brand.[138][139]
On the March 5 episode of Raw, it was announced that Rousey will make her in–ring debut WrestleMania 34, WWE's flagship event, in a mixed tag team match pitting Rousey and Kurt Angle as her partner against Stephanie McMahon and Triple H.[140][141] At the event, Rousey submitted McMahon with her trademark armbar submission hold to secure the win for her team.[142] Her debut performance was widely praised by both fans and wrestling critics, with Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer noting that she "at no point looked out of her element, she was crisp in just about everything", calling her performance "one of the better pro wrestling debuts I've ever seen".[143][144][145] The Washington Post noted the positive fan reaction, stating "The match exceeded expectations, with fans firmly behind Rousey" and "[fans were] surprised [at her] high–level coordination and quality of wrestling. Even those who were not agreed the match was entertaining."[146]
In May, after she was challenged by then–champion Nia Jax, it was announced that Rousey will get her first opportunity at the Raw Women's Championship at the next pay–per–view, Money in the Bank.[147] At the event, Rousey would go on to win the match by disqualification after an interference by Alexa Bliss who attacked both Rousey and Jax and cashed in her Money in the Bank contract (which she won earlier that night) to win the title instead.[148][149] For her ever first singles match and title opportunity, she was once again praised by fans and critics for her performance, with CNET stating "For the first time, [WWE's] biggest mainstream star is a woman."[150][151] They believed that despite "worry was that the match would expose Rousey's own inexperience, which would greatly damage her aura and star power", she "came across as a formidable, believable star wrestler. The match was good, but she was awesome".[150] Throughout the next two months, Rousey would start her first feud as part of WWE with Alexa Bliss over the title, which included a suspension (again in kayfabe) after Rousey attacked Bliss, Kurt Angle and multiple officials.[152][153] After honouring her suspension from in–ring competition, Rousey received a Raw Women's Championship match by Raw General Manager Kurt Angle against Bliss at SummerSlam.[154] At the event on August 19, Rousey squashed Bliss to win the title, her first championship win in WWE.[155] In a rematch between the two, that took place a month later on September 16 at Hell in a Cell, Rousey once again submitted Bliss.[156]
Throughout her championship reign, Rousey went on to fend off title contenders such as Nikki Bella (in the main event of the first ever all women's pay–per–view Evolution),[157][158][159] Mickie James,[160] Nia Jax,[161][162] Natalya[163][164] and Sasha Banks.[165][166][167][168] In November, Rousey was supposed to face Becky Lynch at the Survivor Series pay–per–view in an interbrand champion vs. champion match, however, Lynch was injured during an invasion angle just minutes after she attacked Rousey backstage.[169] At the event, on November 18, Rousey faced Charlotte Flair instead, and won via disqualification after Flair brutally attacked her with a kendo stick and steel chairs.[170] A month later, on December 16, at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs, Rousey gained revenge against both Flair and Lynch as she pushed them off a ladder during their match, also helping Asuka win the SmackDown Women’s Championship.[171] Shortly after she retained her title against Bayley, on the January 28, 2019, episode of Raw |
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Things don’t look rosy for AMD right now.
The company’s CPU market share dropped from 23% to 17.7% in the past year. AMD’s weakness in desktop CPU performance, coupled with its limited mobile PC processor line, all contributed to the company’s decline in share.
AMD also continues to post quarterly losses, though the $100M loss reported recently was a significant improvement.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing the first reviews of Intel’s new Core i7 processors, with the official product launch of Intel’s latest architecture slates for later this month. Previously, AMD had argued that Intel’s approach to quad core CPUs was flawed, since a Core 2 Quad CPU really consisted of a two distinct Core 2 Duo dies in one package. Some of this was reflected in certain server applications, where Intel’s shared front-side and off-chip memory controller allowed AMD CPUs to better run certain applications sensitive to memory latencies.
But only a few apps benefited from that, while most server and workstation applications running on Intel outpaced those on AMD platforms.
That didn’t prove the case in most desktop applications, as lower clocked Intel CPUs easily outpaced higher clocked AMD parts, which also drew more power. On the desktop, AMD was relegated to the budget and low power play, trying to make the best of its strengths.
Core i7 pretty much eliminates whatever slender advantage Opteron may have had. Core i7’s integrated memory controller and QuickPath interconnect (QPI) replicate in functionality, if not in specific technologies, AMDs strengths. Core i7 is “true” quad core, and QPI’s high bandwidth and point-to-point nature removes all the bottlenecks inherent in the older front side bus approach.
There have been a few tidbits of good news from AMD recently. AMD’s move to shed its fabs should improve its balance sheet. Meanwhile, on the GPU front, AMD’s ATI subsidiary has been doing well, punishing Nvidia’s balance sheet. The company continues to roll out cost effective GPUs, including the recent release of the Radeon HD 4830.
Still, the company’s bread and butter is CPUs. AMD’s current product mix is still heavily mired in its aging 65nm manufacturing process, but the 45nm ramp seems to be moving right along. The latest 45nm Opterons have been sampling already, and 45nm desktop CPUs based on the Shanghai core look to arrive in early 2009. Early indications, however, are that Shanghai won’t really recapture the performance crown, or even achieve performance parity. But it will at least enable AMD to be competitive across a wider range of products.
Competition is a good thing. It was, after all, competition from AMD’s x86-64 product line that force Intel to move away from the point heat source that was Prescott to the much more efficient Core architecture. Intel’s never been particularly good at competing with itself, with its tendency to believe the direction its currently heading is the right one. Like any large company, Intel occasionally needs to be prodded, so that it will sit up and notice different ways of accomplishing the same goals. And AMD has certainly been good at that prodding.
Still, something seems to be missing from the new AMD. Gone are the wild men, the Jerry Sanders and Fred Webbers, who loved tweaking Intel, but were willing to back up the tweaking with interesting new approaches that were nimble and made efficient use of AMD’s lean resources. AMD’s last CTO, Phil Hester, was a very middle-of-the-road kinda guy–someone that would be good to have a beer with, but not someone who had new insights into how CPUs could work, or inspire other architects to that end.
So what’s next for AMD? Will the newly streamlined AMD pull of a cool new Fusion product, melding the best of the CPU and GPU in a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts? Or will it simply limp along, envying Intel’s seemingly limitless resources and forgetting that being nimble and having new insights doesn’t require a huge budget?
I can’t say for sure, but I can say that an Intel without an AMD will be less driven and less innovative. And that would be unfortunate.Read more: http://www.lenntech.com/library/adsorption/adsorption.htm#ixzz0iEA0nCB3 WTF? THC and cannabinoids are very non-polar. Anyone who has taken a chemistry lab and has used activated carbon knows that it has a high affinity for non-polar organic compounds. THC and cannabinoids are extremely non-polar. Activated carbon is also used to remove phenols. Activated carbon is also useful in odor control and water purification to remove taste. A large number of taste and odor compounds come from large bulky aromatic ring molecular structures and tannins. AC also removes large bulky molecules that do not have a thin shape. So whats the point? Cannabinoids are terpenophenolic compounds. They also have very bulky ring structures that make them very easy to get stuck inside of the AC pores. In other words, AC is designed to filter out compounds that resemble cannabinoids. ROOR uses dry AC but it makes no difference, the principles are the same. The reason there is so much less taste is because of less tannins/cannabinoids. So my completely blitzed self went out the next day and picked up some wet AC at Petco for $10 that they use for aquarium filters. I filled up the beaker bottom of my bong with AC and put just a little water in so that when I took a hit no bubbles would jump out from the activated carbon slurry. Now why the hell would I do this if AC seems so flawed? Simple answer- it's healthier- the majority of small smoke particles are removed, carcinogens removed, and much cleaner hits with a crystal clear high. The taste is lighter but seems to be much more fruity and I can really taste the differences in strains. I really didn't notice a reduction in being high, maybe because of all the shit that is filtered out so the cannabinoids contact a greater surface area of the lungs that arent clogged with crap. But what about all of the lost cannabinoids that were absorbed by the AC?There is a solution. When the AC starts to get old, I will just pour it into an open ended PVC pipe with a screen at the bottom and will use a butane extraction to make hash. Butane is sprayed into the top of the PVC pipe. Butane is normally a gas @ STP and will act as a liquid solvent and will saturate the AC pulling off the nonpolar cannabinoids. As the butane evaporates, the sticky hash is left behind. I will give this a try and will let you guys know if any killer hash can be extracted. And one last thing, use an ash catcher so that ash and big chunks of herb don't end up smelling and rotting in the AC.Ah, the memories. Well, the ones that settled in despite the concussions.
Earlier this month, the Star-Ledger reported the legendary Action Park — the fun-filled, fast-paced amusement park that, statistically speaking, probably didn't kill you when you went in the 1980s or 1990s — is coming back.
It's been a long time since the property in Vernon became Mountain Creek Ski Resort, and since 1998 what's left of the park itself has been operating as Mountain Creek Waterpark (with significant safety upgrades). But the park's current owners say nostalgia for the old, infamously dangerous park has gotten the better of them, and they've got some new rides planned that they say will scare the cold, wet shorts right off you. So when the site reopens June 14, it'll be Action Park once again.
A few days ago, we showed you the absolutely insane Canonball Loop, which was so hazardous it was open for only one month in 1985. You might say that ride, with its are-you-kidding-me ending, is all you need to know about what made Action Park either amazing or massively irresponsible (or both).
Then again, you might not. Here's 10 things you probably didn't know about Action Park:
(Oh! But before we get started: Tell us what you remember about the park in the comments. And we'd love to see your photos! Shoot them to lhochman@nj.com).
1. "Only" six people died at Action Park: Oh, is that all? As Mentalfloss.com notes, the list grows and grows in our memories. "Ask anyone born in Jersey between 1970 and 1984, and you'll hear a ranging toll. Twenty. Thirty-six. North of 100. But the real answer is only six," according to the site. That includes three drownings in the Wave Pool (nicknamed the Gravepool), a park employee's death on the infamous Alpine Slide (more on that below), an electrocution on the Kayak Experience and a heart attack supposedly brought on by cold water in the pool beneath the Tarzan Swing.
2. Someone once called the Alpine Slide "the safest ride there is:" This was a giant slide on which you'd sit on a sled, then descend down concrete tracks using levers to brake — if you were the sort of person who cared to brake. If you couldn't control your speed on the way down, you might wind up crashing through hay-bale barriers and smashing up on the hillside rocks. But Weird NJ quotes a 1986 New Jersey Herald Article in which a park official called the slide "the safest ride there is" and noted a 90-year-old grandmother and mothers with babies on their laps had made the way down. The same posting says at least 14 fractures and 26 head injuries caused by the slides were reported between 1984 and 1985, and the slide was responsible for “more accidents, the majority of the lawsuits and 40 percent of the citations” against the park.
RideAccidents.com says of a death on the slide in 1980: "In an accident at an amusement park in New Jersey, a malfunction caused a wheeled sled to derail from its cement track after it failed to properly negotiate a curve. The victim, a 19-year-old male, was thrown from the car down an embankment. He sustained a fatal head injury when his head struck a rock. He died 8 days later."
3. Heard the legend of the dummies on the Cannonball Loop? Just a few days ago, we showed you that video of what may have been Action Park's craziest and most dangerous ride (though the competition was pretty fierce), the Cannonball Loop. The waterslide, with its 360-degree totally-seems-safe loop at the end, was shut down after just a month, though it stayed on site as a reminder of the park's... let's call it "eccentricity." According to Weird NJ: "It supposedly dismembered test dummies and maybe even a few park employees in trial runs." Buzzfeed quoted someone who claimed his father built the slide: "The story about the dummies is completely true! They used the dummies to test several of the rides at the park and every time a dummy came off the ride dismembered they would try it again until it stayed in one piece, then they would pay someone to test it!”
4. You could JOUST at Action Park: Well, you could if you first made it through an obstacle course composed of downward-moving conveyors, a 24-foot hand ladder, a cargo net climb, a zipline, a 10-foot wall and a 16-foot rotating cylinder, The Gazette reported in 1992. If you made it that far, you'd challenge a gladiator on a three-foot podium (with large, padded sticks — though the padding sounds awfully un-Action-Park-like to us). If you made it through that, you'd get to have the stuffing beat out of you by "Titan," an even bigger gladiator on an even bigger podium.
5. Action Park's owners wound up buying ambulances for Vernon: Citing a Jersey Sunday Herald Article, Sometimes-Interesting.com reports: "In 1987, the director of a nearby hospital’s Emergency Room admitted 'five to ten' people were being brought in daily from the park. Reported injuries ran the gamut: Ankle sprains, broken bones, and cuts and contusions, dislocations, and concussions. The park denied wrongdoing, but Great American Recreation purchased additional ambulances for the town of Vernon to keep up with the increased volume."
6. Action Park was often let off easy: Citing a 1986 New Jersey Herald article, Weird NJ reports that in 1985 there were more than 110 injuries at Action Park, including 45 head injuries and 10 fractures. But Action Park was fined just once between 1979 and 1986 for not following procedure. Other amusement parks were fined for first offenses, but not Action Park, according to the report.
7. Employees knew how to make things more dangerous: While much of Action Park's legend comes centers around its Waterworld, its Motorworld, across Route 94, could also be awfully hazardous. Weird NJ reports that patrons treated Super-Go Karts like bumper cars, and park employees knew how to override their speed governors with tennis balls — sending the karts whizzing around at up to 50 miles per hour. "One employee recalls hearing the sick snap of a patron’s arm breaking as a result of a crash," the magazine says.
8. The NEW Action Park is promising to be awfully scary, too: Mountain Creek president Bill Benneyan told News 12 the park will have a ride called the Zero-G. "It's the world's tallest and only double-looping drop-gate slide. It's going to scare the heck out of you," he said. Are we talking about get-the-adrenaline-pumping scared or get-your-affairs-in-order scared? Well, Mountain Creek has spent a lot of time and energy renovating the old park, and Benneyan says it's spent $5 million on new rides that we presume are subject to some sort of safety codes. "Action Park was extreme before extreme was extreme," Benneyan says. That's one way to put it.
9. Action Park wasn't the only Action Park: The infamous Action Park was, of course, in Vernon, but during the 1980s, two other offshoot locations were opened — Pocono Action Park an Motor World in Tannersville, Pa., and Action Park in Pine Hill. The latter was renamed Action Mountain within a year, and financial problems closed both down before the 1980s were over.
10. Cory Booker can't wait to go back:
WOW! Action Park is back! I still have scars from long ago visits but I so want to go again RT http://t.co/pmgX52NQAq — Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) April 3, 2014
Bonus: Somehow, reporter Louis C. Hochman didn't know anything about Action Park 24 hours ago. Seriously. He (I) grew up in New Jersey in the 1980s and 1990s, but somehow Action Park was entirely off his radar. No one he's told believes that's possible — but he sure has spent a lot of time over the last day catching up on the apparently infamous site.
So tell us what he's missing: What do you remember about Action Park? And remember to shoot your photos to lhochman@nj.com.Operation "Warm Winter" has finished its first stage – targeting terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip neighborhoods of Sajaiya and Jabalya, the IDF said Saturday.
The operation's first stage also targeted ditches and similar places used as firing grounds by launchers, which were blown up. The second stage of the operation includes patrolling urban areas on a search-and-destroy mission – a hunt for hidden weapons.
Military Might 70 Palestinians killed in IDF operation in Gaza Hanan Greenberg Israeli forces launch military operation Friday night near town of Sajaiya in northern Strip. Some 70 Palestinians killed in heavy exchanges of fire with soldiers, dozens of casualties reported 70 Palestinians killed in IDF operation in Gaza
Warm Winter's weekend resulted in dozens of Palestinian fatalities; as the Israeli side suffered two fatalities, and seven casualties.
"The military operation against all ranks responsible for Qassams will continue. The gloves are off and we have no intention of sitting on the sidelines while rockets are being fired," said a security source. The massive strikes, he added, will continue and may even increase.
IDF forces in the field reported most of the Palestinian casualties were affiliated with Hamas. The IDF denied the Palestinians' claims of mass casualties among innocent residents, citing only a few such incidents were known.
Hamas, said the IDF, often states false casualty claims in order to generate sympathy in the international community.
Senior defense establishment officials held a security briefing Saturday night in which it was decided that the IDF will continue its operation, as means to foil Hamas' plan to have a large-scale ground incursion claim many innocent lives in the Strip.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin, Israel's military intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin and other officials attended the briefing.
"The operation in Gaza is ongoing," said Barak. "Hamas will be held responsible… we are not happy Gaza residents are hurt, but the responsibility lies with Hamas and those firing rockets. Our responsibility is to keep the residents of Sderot, Ashkelon and the Gaza vicinity communities safe, and that we will do."
The IDF's main concern continues to be Warm Winter's final price tag: Hamas has fortified its strongholds and has snipers war-ready. "Overall, our forces are doing admirable work," said the officers present at the briefing.
The IDF operation in Gaza is currently engaging combatants from the Givati Brigade, the Ninth Armor Battalion, IAF forces and Engineers Corps' combatants; and while no large-scale operation was launched during the weekend, a lot depends on the coming developments.
IDF officials did not rule out a possibility of the operation leading to yet another escalation, which in turn lead to a large-scale operation; but some believe several in-depth pinpoint operations may cause Hamas to rethink the ceasefire.
According to the IDF, some 130 have been fired at Israel since Wednesday.Image copyright EPA Image caption Binali Yildirim appeared at the party congress with his wife Semiha
The ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has been nominated as the country's new prime minister has called for a move to presidential rule.
Addressing a congress of the ruling AK Party before it confirmed him as party leader, Binali Yildirim called for a new constitution.
He said it was time to make the current "de facto situation" a "legal" one.
Mr Erdogan came to office in 2014 when Turkey held its first presidential election by direct national vote.
Previously, presidents had been elected by parliament.
As leader of the party, Mr Yildirim has been asked to form Turkey's next government.
The promotion of Mr Yildirim, who was previously transport minister, comes after Ahmet Davutoglu quit as prime minister over a rift with Mr Erdogan.
Among challenges Turkey faces are security threats from PKK Kurdish militants and the Islamic State (IS) group, and its ambition to join the EU while tackling the migrant crisis.
A role effectively scrapped: Mark Lowen, BBC News, Ankara
Image copyright AP Image caption A banner of Binali Yildirim (left) and Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the AKP congress
He does not ooze political pizzazz but Binali Yildirim has been named as the next AK Party leader for his loyalty to President Erdogan.
He is succeeding Ahmet Davutoglu, forced out for disagreeing with the president on some policies and doubting Mr Erdogan's aim of changing the constitution to enhance his own position.
The president's critics fear his tightening of power, some Western leaders finding him hard to deal with and opponents believing an unchecked Mr Erdogan will clamp down further on dissent.
The president's diehard supporters, mainly conservative, pious Turks, still see him as the man who gave them a political voice, insisting he is right to exert his control.
What is clear is that the incoming prime minister will not step out of line with Mr Erdogan, even ready to support a constitutional change that would see his role effectively scrapped.
Mr Yildirim was the sole candidate for party leader and prime minister at the extraordinary AKP congress in Ankara.
"Turkey needs a new constitution," he told the AKP congress, to applause.
"Are you ready to bring in a presidential system?"
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC speaks to supporters of three different parties, whose views show how divided the country has become
"What has to be a priority now is moving from the current de facto system to a legal system," he said.
On Turkey's long-standing EU membership bid, he said: "There is one thing that needs to be done by the European Union.
"This confusion over Turkey's full membership and the migrant issue has to be brought to an end. It is time for us to know what the EU thinks about Turkey."
He vowed to continue the struggle against Kurdish militants and IS. A ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK ended weeks after elections in June 2015, and the renewed conflict has claimed hundreds of lives on both sides, particularly in the south-east.
Mr Davutoglu, who resigned two weeks ago, also addressed the congress, praising the party and Mr Erdogan, but saying that it had not been his choice to step down.
Image copyright Riza Ozel Image caption Ahmet Davutoglu (right) sat alongside Mr Yildirim and his wife at the congress in Ankara
"The sole reason behind my decision to hand over the position is the value I place on the unity of our party and my concern that the AKP movement does not come to any harm," he said.
Suat Kinkliogu, a member of the AKP's executive board until he quit politics, told the BBC that executive power was in effect being concentrated in the president's hands.
"Unfortunately President Erdogan has taken all of the strings of the party, the state and the parliament and this appointment pretty much means we will see a much more low-profile prime minister who will be very compliant and going along with what Mr Erdogan wants him to do," he said.Silicon Valley doesn’t seem to love President Barack Obama the way it used to, he readily admitted in an interview with Re/code’s Kara Swisher* on Friday, after a cybersecurity summit at Stanford that companies including Google, Facebook and Yahoo declined to attend.
“The Snowden disclosures were really harmful in terms of the trust between the government and many of these companies, in part because it had an impact on their bottom lines,” Obama said.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released a massive trove of internal government documents beginning in 2013, which among other things revealed a secret surveillance program to suck user data from tech companies called PRISM.
Obama acknowledged that the NSA had done too much to gather intelligence internationally, and that its actions had harmed Silicon Valley’s ability to compete in countries where people are concerned that using their services means being spied on.
In his discussion with Swisher, Obama paid more attention to the business case than the civil liberties aspect of the American government’s widespread online surveillance.
By contrast, tech companies have framed privacy and transparency reforms mostly as a consumer protection issue. It’s still unclear how complicit they were, and they are not allowed to say.
“When you look back at what we’ve done, I have constantly tried to update the laws and rules governing how we operate in cyberspace with these new technologies,” Obama said. “In the case of the NSA, we were probably a little slow. What we did with respect to U.S. persons, what we did in this country, was strictly circumscribed. Generally speaking, I can say with almost complete confidence, that there haven’t been abuses on U.S. soil.”
“It’s a global internet world, and there are businesses,” Swisher interjected.
“And that’s been the challenge,” Obama replied. “What is true is — and I’ve said this publicly, so I’m not saying anything that’s classified in any way — our capacities to scoop up information became so great, and traditionally there haven’t been any restraints on our intelligence community scooping up information from outside our borders and non-U.S. persons. So what ended up happening is in places like Germany, this had a huge impact not just on government-to-government relationships, but [business relationships].”
Obama concluded, “I think we have made real progress in narrowing the differences between the national security-privacy balance. There are still some issues like encryption that are challenging.”
For more on the encryption rift, see that portion of the interview.
* Kara Swisher is married to but separated from Megan Smith, chief technology officer for the Obama Administration. See her ethics statement here.Worried about the end of the world? A group of engineers has created a series of do-it-yourself machines for building (or reconstructing) society anywhere with access to light, water and soil.
At eight times cheaper than their retail counterparts, these forty gadgets by Open Source Ecology are a globally-accessible alternative for disaster preppers and engineering geeks alike.
Think of them like large-scale LEGOs – the fewest necessary interchangeable parts required to construct essential wells for habitation, basic agricultural equipment for food production, steam engines for energy, 3D scanners and printers for industry and more.
“Open Source Ecology is accelerating the growth of the next economy – the Open Source Economy – an economy that optimizes both production and distribution – while promoting environmental regeneration and social justice. We are building the Global Village Construction Set. This is a high-performance, modular, do-it-yourself, low-cost platform – that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes – to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.”AP While billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson may have rescued Newt Gingrich's campaign in its early days, today, he may have just buried it.
Bloomberg News reports that Adelson, who has donated $11 million to Gingrich's Super PAC, does not plan to send any more money Gingrich's way. Bloomberg is citing an anonymous source "familiar with their deliberations," though an Adelson spokesman declined to comment.
The move seems to be weeks in the making. After poor showings by Gingrich in the last several races and the re-resurgence of Rick Santorum, the former House speaker has once again been pushed to the back of the Republican field. And Adelson may be shifting his focus. According to CNN, Adelson met with Mitt Romney in Nevada last week and "assured Romney that he will be behind him 100 percent should he become the nominee."
What may be more alarming though is as money seems to be flooding out of the Gingrich camp, it appears to be heading into to Santorum's, no doubt helped by his three-state sweep Tuesday.
In an earlier interview with Bloomberg, Foster Fries, a major donor to Santorum's Super PAC, said money is "absolutely rolling in." He also said that another donor just contributed $1 million to the fund.
Still, Gingrich's SuperPAC is saying that it will keep pressing on, shifting to a more grassroots approach. Rick Tyler, senior adviser to the Super PAC, said that the organization will be targeting smaller donors and amounts between $2,500 to seven figures.
"We will be fine," he said. "Fundraising definitely has its ebbs and flows. We could get a check this afternoon."via press release:
TIME PERIOD WINNING SURVIVOR LEAPS +14% IN A18-49 AND +8% IN VIEWERS FROM LAST WEEK’S TWO HOUR EPISODE
· CRIMINAL MINDS IS WEDNESDAY’S MOST WATCHED PROGRAM
· STALKER FIRST IN VIEWERS AND A25-54
· CBS WINS THE NIGHT IN VIEWERS
At 8PM, the penultimate episode of SURVIVOR was first in viewers (9.39m, up +8% from 8.71m last week), A18-49 (2.4, up +14% from 2.1) and A25-54 (3.1, up +11%). SURVIVOR’s two-hour finale airs next Wednesday.
At 9PM, CRIMINAL MINDS was first in viewers (10.08m) and second in A18-49 (2.1) and A25-54 (3.0). CRIMINAL MINDS was the night’s most watched program.
At 10PM, STALKER was first in viewers (7.29m) and A25-54 (2.0) and second in A18-49 (1.4, tie).
For the night, CBS was first in viewers (8.92m) and close second in A18-49 (2.0, -0.1 out of first) and A25-54 (2.7, -0.1 out of first).SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Stung by plunging approval numbers at a low point in his presidency, President Barack Obama is urging donors to buck up while making a thread-the-needle appeal for bipartisanship with Republicans even as he calls for replacing the House GOP majority and holding his Democratic edge in the Senate.
Obama is seeking to gain back his political standing in the aftermath of his administration's botched launch of health care enrollment by defining himself as a pragmatic victim of tea party conservatives. At the same time he is casting his policies on the economy and immigration as popular remedies that could win bipartisan support.
"Right now in this country there is at least one faction of one party that has decided they are more interested in stopping progress than advancing it, and aren't interested in compromise or engaging in solving problems and more interested in scoring points for the next election," he told Democratic donors in San Francisco on Monday.
For Obama, the call for compromise is a veiled olive branch that also disguises a threat.
"What we're looking for is not the defeat of another party, what we're looking for is the advancement of ideas that are going to vindicate those values that are tried and true," he said at a fundraiser Sunday with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi seated among about 60 high-dollar donors. "But to do that we're going to need Nancy Pelosi as speaker, because there's just a lot of work to be done right now."
Less than 24 hours later, pressing for an overhaul of immigration laws, Obama extended a hand to House Republican Speaker John Boehner.
"Speaker Boehner is hopeful we can make progress" on immigration, Obama said Monday in San Francisco. "I believe the Speaker is sincere, I believe he genuinely wants to get it done."
The diverging messages reflect Obama's dual desire to win a legislative victory even as he performs his duties as leader of the Democratic Party.
"I'm not a particularly ideological person," he said at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday.
Raising money in Washington and California, states he won handily in his two elections, Obama faced protests and hecklers from his liberal flank. During his immigration remarks in San Francisco, he was interrupted by a protester standing immediately behind him. The young man condemned the Obama administration's record number of deportation of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
"Stop deportation, stop deportation!" the young man yelled.
Obama argued he is required to follow the law and said that could only change through the democratic process.
"But it won't be as easy as just shouting," he said. "It requires us lobbying and getting it done."
Later, as he arrived at a fundraiser for Democrats at the San Francisco Jazz Center, a crowd of about 200 protested at a nearby corner against approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The administration has yet to make a decision on the pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
Obama's money tour comes after Democrats posted a successful fundraising month in October, benefiting from the partial government shutdown. Polls showed much of the public blamed Republicans for the inability to pay for government operations for 16 days.
House Republicans say they expect to post better numbers in November than in October, in part because of the botched start of the health care law's enrollment period and Obama's misleading claim that all insurance holders would be able to keep their insurance. Obama has sought to correct that with an administrative fix.
In the aftermath of the disastrous rollout of the heath care website, public opinion of Obama has sunk. Obama's approval rating in most polling is around 40 percent these days. And an ABC News-Washington Post poll showed that 52 percent of the public viewed him unfavorably, the first time he was viewed unfavorably by a majority in their polling.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said donors, in their private sessions with Obama, do not express concern over his poll ratings, but do inquire about the status of his initiatives, particularly the health care website.
Democratic Party officials say there is no evidence that the troubles with health care or Obama's low poll ratings are affecting fundraising.An explosive child sex scandal — allegedly orchestrated by a trio of Ohio pastors — has now ensnared one of their wives.
Laura Lloyd-Jenkins, 43, was arrested Friday in Toledo for obstructing a sex trafficking investigation and making a false statement. She has pleaded not guilty.
She had recently been fired from her job as a county administrator. Lloyd-Jenkins had previously worked for the local Children’s Aid.
“The grand jury has found probable cause to both of these charges and we look forward to seeing this process through,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Freeman told the Toledo Blade.
Three pastors — Rev. Cordell Jenkins, 47, (Lloyd-Jenkins’ hubby), Rev. Anthony Haynes, 38, and Rev. Kenneth Butler, 37 — have all been charged with sex trafficking of children and producing child pornography.
FBI agents accused the allegedly twisted trio of sexually assaulted a girl who was just 14-years-old in 2014.
Laura Lloyd-Jenkins is charged with obstructing justice.There are at least three victims, cops said, with the 14-year-old being the youngest. The trio conspired to recruit young girls to have sex with them and shared photos and videos of the victims, according to police.
“It says to me what we already knew, that sex trafficking is a business,” Celia Williamson of the University of Toledo told the Blade. “Of course, they (allegedly) worked together. That’s how it thrives.”
Jenkins allegedly had sex with the young girls at home, his church office and a hot-sheet motel.
The men face life in prison if convicted.Ever since Pokemon Go launched, trainers have been waiting patiently for trading to be added to the game. The feature was teased in the original trailer last September, but two and a half months later, it still hasn’t made its way into the game.
Although Niantic hasn’t given a specific timetable for trading, some perceptive fans have found signs of the feature in the code of the latest update.
MUST SEE: Pokemon Go cheat: get a bunch of rare Pokemon with this weird incense trick
Without getting into the nitty gritty of what Pokemon Go Hub found in the code dump of the Pokemon Go 0.37.1 APK, here’s a summary of what it all means:
You are able to search for “Trading Players”
for “Trading Players” You are able to create, cancel and complete Trade Offers
Trade Offers You can currently trade only Pokemon
No info on the visibility and range of Trade Search – it’s too early to say if you’ll be able to trade worldwide or not
The trading seems resilient to “connection loss” and will retry once the connection is available again It’s inconclusive what type of connection trading will use… … although it does communicate with the server side to load Trade offers and responses
Keep in mind that none of this is definitive until Niantic actually announces it, but considering how much we learned about the Buddy Pokemon before that feature launched, I have a feeling that much of this is basically finalized.
That said, it looks like we will be able to trade Pokemon when the feature rolls out, but not items. Also, the ability to search for trading players makes it sound like you won’t need to be friends with a player to trade. Instead, you can just search the area and see if anyone in the vicinity (or possibly around the world?) is willing to trade one of their Pokemon for one of yours.
The more we hear about trading, the more likely that an official launch date is approaching. Keep your eyes peeled for more in the coming days.Francesco Moser has cast a critical eye over Italian cycling at the end of a fourth successive season without a victory in a monument classic, declaring that Vincenzo Nibali is not a champion and bemoaning the scarcity of leaders in the peloton. Related Articles Gallery: Francesco Moser jumps in New York race
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In an interview with the Gazzettino newspaper, the triple Paris-Roubaix and 1984 Giro d'Italia winner said that he had been underwhelmed by Nibali’s performance at the Tour de France, where he finished third between the Sky pair of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
“He made a couple of little attacks and then he stopped… Not much for the strongest to be worried about,” Moser said of Nibali’s showing in July. “Nibali is only a good rider, not a champion. You need a lot more to merit that title. He tries and he tries, but he’s always lacking something.”
Nibali will complete a lucrative switch from Liquigas-Cannondale to Astana during at the end of the season, but Moser maintained that the Sicilian’s status owed more to the paucity of the current peloton than his own talents.
“Lucky for him. In my time, riders were stronger and earned less. People are getting excited about very little because they have very little to get excited about,” said Moser, who was prepared by controversial doctor Francesco Conconi to break the hour record in Mexico in 1984.
Nibali was the leader of the Italian team at the world championships in Valkenburg, where for the second year in a row, the squadra azzurra’s best finisher came home in a lowly 13th place.
“Unfortunately, we have too many so-so riders and no element of leadership, so our rivals dominate and win,” Moser said. “I don’t feel I can criticise [Italian coach] Paolo Bettini, because the material at his disposition was scarce. Unfortunately, there are no Mosers or Bettinis out there anymore.”
The next Moser
There is a Moser in the peloton - Francesco's nephew, Moreno Moser, who rides for Liquigas-Cannondale. He was part of the Italian team in Valkenburg. The |
1998 -- yes, when Barry Sanders was still patrolling the Silverdome -- tried repairing the running game in 2015. It drafted Ameer Abdullah in the second round that year, plus added a guard (Laken Tomlinson) in the first and even a fullback in the fifth (Michael Burton).
But the running game actually got worse that year, falling to last in the league, and it improved to only 30th last year, though its per rush average actually dropped from 3.8 to 3.7. The club has finished no better than 28th in rushing since the arrival of coach Jim Caldwell in 2014.
So now they're back in the running back market and considering prospects of all shapes and sizes, even with Ameer Abdullah, Theo Riddick, Zach Zenner and Dwayne Washington all under contract for next season.
"I think the running back position as a whole in the National Football League, there's very few guys that just carry the ball 30 times a game," Quinn said this week in Indianapolis. "So we're not going to just put all our eggs in one basket and say, 'You know, Ameer Abdullah's going to carry it 25 times.' I don't think that's realistic. I think the stable of backs that we have with Ameer, Theo, Zach and Dwayne is a good set of backs.
"We've just got to improve the entire running game. That includes, like, how the receivers block, how the tight ends block, the offensive line, the playcalling. Like, everything needs to get evaluated, and we're in the middle of that process right now."
Lucky for Detroit, this draft is stocked with more running back talent than scouts have seen in years. Multiple backs have been selected in the first round just once since 2012, but three are widely expected to go that early this year, and a couple more are on the periphery.
LSU's Leonard Fournette and Florida State's Dalvin Cook headline the class, and both are expected to be selected in the first round. In fact, both could gone by the time the Lions are on the clock at 21st overall, and if either happens to remain, he'd draw a long look from Detroit.
Many analysts also give a first-round grade to Stanford's Christian McCaffery and Kamara, while Foreman is on the fringe of that discussion.
Of that mix, Foreman could make the most sense for Detroit. The reigning Doak Walker Award winner is a physical back who could provide some thunder to the lighting of Abdullah and Riddick. He rushed for 2,028 yards last year at nearly 250 pounds, and carried the ball 51 times in a 250-yard outburst against Kansas.
He's trimmed some weight for the combine, but still checks in at a burly 233 pounds and is perhaps the draft's best banger in the backfield.
"I feel like the way I'm built, just the size and speed and the way I move, I just think I'm unique," Foreman said. "I don't see anybody I run like, honestly."
Quinn drew some headlines this week when he said he wanted to meet with Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon, who might have been a first-round prospect had he not broken a woman's face with a punch in 2014, but his sidekick in the Sooners' backfield could intrigue Detroit as well.
Perine is another banger who, like Foreman, also weighed in at 233 pounds. He's a bully who once ran over Kansas for 427 yards, then rushed for 214 this past season against Texas and another 239 against Oklahoma State, even though he was sharing the backfield with Mixon.
He went on to break Billy Sims' school rushing record with 4,122 career yards.
"With all the great backs there, you don't ever think that you're going in as a freshman and going to be the top dog by the end," Perine said. "It's still surreal, and I haven't really wrapped my head around it yet. But sooner or later, that'll sink in and I'll just sit back in amazement."
Hunt is a mid-round prospect out of Toledo whom the Lions have been tracking for a while now. They've also been asking his teammates about him.
Pumphrey is a much smaller back, at 5-9 and 180 pounds, and there are questions about durability and how he'll handle the NFL grind. But the production is undeniable, leading the nation with 2,133 rushing yards last year, and breaking Ron Dayne's all-time NCAA rushing record (6,405).
"I feel like I'm kind of like a Darren Sproles, maybe not size-wise, but that's how my game is -- how I'd fit in at the next level," Pumphrey said. "A Danny Woodhead, just a guy that gets in space, like Tyreek Hill."
In other words, a Theo Riddick. And the Lions already have one of those.
But no matter what they're looking for -- whether it's another Riddick, or a jackhammer, and whether it happens in the early rounds or later rounds -- it's clear they are going to have a lot of options to consider.
"I don't remember this amount of running backs coming out," Vikings GM Rick Spielman said. "We just got out of our draft meetings, and there's a significant amount of talent at that position.
"To be honest with you, I can't remember a year where the draft class at running back is this deep."2.18 - Up the Long Ladder
While I was watching this episode, I thought to myself, “this has to be from the second season…it’s too bananas to be any later, but Riker has a (very sexy) beard.” (I then realized the presence of Dr. “You Ain’t No Crusher” Pulaski should have been enough to tip me off.) And lo and behold! It is, indeed, a second-season episode. Part of the bananas-ness is just the plot itself, which is ridic, but part of it are the number of completely unfinished storylines that are touched on and never returned to.
For example, in the cold open, Worf is shown at his security panel on the bridge, making Klingon discomfort-noises. He then later faints (“Klingons don’t faint,” he complains) and Dr. Pulaski (ugh) keeps it under her hat, so he thanks her by showing her the Klingon Tea Ceremony, which is apparently a thing. All of this happens before the second commercial break. It is then NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. It doesn’t relate to the rest of the episode, it’s not somehow a parallel, it’s just like “oh, here’s some stuff that happened.”
And the thing is that the A plot is crazy enough that all this Worf business is totally unnecessary. So the Enterprise is, as they are wont to do, driving around being boring when - HEY! A mysterious colony no one knew about! Let’s check it out! They find the colony, which happens to be on a planet that is about to be consumed by solar flares, so they transport the colonists up to the Enterprise, which makes the transporter room look like this:
Hay girl hayyyyyy
Really? They transported buckets? And hay? You expect me to believe that the transporter accidentally brought that hay along? Although I guess if there are GOATS on the Enterprise, you’re going to need hay.
You may have noticed that these people aren’t exactly dressed “futuristically.” That’s because they are the descendants of some colonists who, in 2123, left Earth to create a utopian society that connected back with nature.
This, of course, can mean only one thing: SHAWLS FOR ALL.
So Picard is like “wtf is going on in the transporter room?” and goes there to check it out. This is what he sees:
Cock blocked
I don’t care who you are or if you have ever seen an episode of Star Trek. This image is hilarious. Maybe because chickens are inherently hilarious?
So Picard is like, “who is responsible for these animals?” and the leader of the colony, Danilo, is like “heidy deidy deidy I am.”
This hat: more or less Irish than Jameson? Discuss
As with the Twilight Saga’s obsession with the Trite Native American Stereotype Store, this episode of TNG has done all their research at Irish Stereotype National Headquarters, Inc. All of the colonists (who are Irish for no reason whatsoever) speak with what can only be described as a Lucky Charms leprechaun accent. The leader is an alcoholic. The daughter of the leader is extremely feisty. I’m surprised that no one did an actual jig at any point.
This jacket: more or less Irish than the hat? Discuss
So Danilo, in his ascot and tiger-stripe shirt, and hobo pants with corduroy jacket, asks Picard if he knows what happened to the other colony. See, back in 2123, these colonists shared a spaceship with some other colonists, some more sciencey ones. So Picard is like, “uh, what” and they set off to find this other colony, with a shit-ton of chickens and goats in Cargo Hold 7.
LOLPicard
“Sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.” SO TRUE, JLP. So true.
In the meantime, though, it’s time for SexyTimes with William Riker. So remember how the leader of the colony has a feisty daughter? Well, of course she’s super cute:
So feisty she could have a hit song on an Apple commercial
Of course she has a shawl. She loves nature! People who love nature also love shawls!
Even though I’m pretty sure that top is a bodysuit that was purchased at County Seat, I’m a little into it? It’s a good color on her, and that’s a flattering neckline. But the outfit as a whole is very early 90s, and not, as Heidi Klum might say, in a good way.
Riker, of course, is like, “daaaaaaaaaamn.” This is actual dialogue between them:
Brenna: What, have you never seen a woman before?
Riker: I thought I had. [gives sexy eyes]
This is when Jonathan Frakes was auditioning for The Hills
This is supposed to be come-hither, but it’s more like “…….” Brenna responds in kind:
Eyelids…so…heavy…….
I promise you, this was much more romantic on the show. Probably because of the Irish flute playing in the background.
So Brenna, who, like any girl would be, is like “who is this sexy bearded man?” and asks Riker where a girl can wash her feet, revealing a precursor to the current bane of my existence, the gladiator sandal:
Nothing like implying your feet are dirty to get a man interested
Everyone on this colony is wearing LAYER upon LAYER of clothing, always topped with a shawl, and yet they wear SANDALS? Surely in the 300 years they have colonized that planet, SOMEONE learned to cobble. Come on.
So they go on a date, I guess, that involves showing Brenna the many wonders of the Enterprise. I really hope Riker uses that as a pickup line. “I’d like to show you the many wonders of the Enterprise, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.” He takes her back to his quarters, where her date outfit is revealed:
Back to nature means back to crop tops
Yes, your eyes do not lie. That is a straight-up CROP TOP, paired with a voluminous peasant skirt. But wait - it gets better. ENHANCE:
Cable-knit sweaters: Ireland’s lingerie
It’s like the costume designer said to himself, “well, it needs to be sexy…but it also needs to fit into our Stereotypical Irish Design Concept. Bring me something that marries the Aran Islands with Ibiza.” Even the back is elaborate:
Slouchier! I mean sexier! I mean…I don’t know what I mean
It just occurred to me in writing this that there are only two options for how this thing got on the show:
- someone had to knit it (and I know how long that shit takes)
- this was a commercially-available product that could be purchased (probably at the store where you can get Guatemalan gloves and glass pipes “for tobacco only”)
Either option is equally terrifying.
But let’s not dwell on that scary sweater. Let’s talk about HOW SEXY THIS SCENE IS.
First, Brenna basically accuses Riker of being gay (“Don’t you like girls?”) while slipping off her peasant skirt to reveal a skirt that could not possibly stay up under normal gravitational circumstances:
Then, the seduction begins…on both ends.
Riker: So, is there any special technique to this foot-washing?
Brenna: You generally start at the top and work your way down.
Taking down a woman’s hair: hott
Riker: I think I can handle that.
Where’s your feistiness now
Brenna: I was hoping you might.
SPACE MAKEOUT
Not gonna lie, guys…this was PRETTY SEXY, especially considering Brenna was covered in thick wool up top.
So back in the plot, Danilo is requesting whiskey from the replicator (GET IT? BECAUSE HE’S IRISH) and the Enterprise is wending towards the other colony. When they get there, they learn a couple of things:
- the clothes in the new colony are super boring/do not involve shawls
- they are ALL CLONES, leading to this bit of stellar dialogue:
Dr. “Bad Hair” Pulaski: Tell me, is your entire population made up of clones, Prime Minister?
Worf: Clones?
Riker: Clones?!
Prime Minister: Clones.
As if this episode wasn’t already crazy enough, we add some fucking CLONES to the mix. So the main problem with this new colony, which is called “Mariposa,” is that if you clone a clone, you’re getting a copy of a copy, and eventually, the copy is going to be so bad that it’s not going to look like anything. We all saw Multiplicity, right? That last Michael Keaton was effed up. So Mariposa is like “can we have some of your DNA to refresh our population” and the crew of the Enterprise is like “uh, no, creepy,” but the Mariposa people STEAL their epithelial cells (the best ones for cloning) anyway.
SO THEN:
Riker and Pulaski have to go DESTROY the clones of themselves and the Mariposa people are like “NOW what are we going to do?” and Picard is like “you don’t need more clones, you need breeding stock, and we have some in Cargo Hold 7.” The homeless Irish will have a place to live, and the Mariposa people will have someone to bone! Everyone wins!
But we are left with SO MANY STRINGS:
- Brenna deserts Riker for a new colony
- the Mariposa people are, apparently, forgiven for stealing Riker’s and Pulaski’s DNA (like you would want a planet of Pulaskis anyway)
- Worf FAINTED earlier
- there is goat shit all over the cargo hold
But we got to see this:
…and that is worth a million unfinished plotlines.DURANGO — Environmental Protection Agency officials facing sad, scared and angry residents whose river is being poisoned after botched federal work on an old mine apologized Friday, calling it a tragic disaster and revealing some of the contaminants in the water.
The soupy yellow-orange Animas River contains arsenic, lead, cadmium, aluminum and copper — among other potentially toxic heavy metals — “at varying levels,” the officials said in a packed public meeting.
But exactly how much remained uncertain Friday night, frustrating local authorities scrambling to protect public health and line up sufficient alternative water sources.
An acidic, yellowish discharge still was leaking out of the Gold King Mine portal, about 60 miles north of Durango (population 17,000), at an estimated rate of about 1,200 gallons a minute, state and federal officials said. EPA crews at the mine were trying to create a large hole to catch the contaminant-laced wastewater and try to clean it before it reaches streams and rivers.
EPA regional chief Shaun McGrath told residents the spill may be worse than a one-time belch from the mine with long-term downriver impacts leading to possible closures next spring and after as river currents re-churn deposited heavy metal contaminants.
“If you are seeing signs of animals that are suffering or dying, let us know,” McGrath told residents, urging cooperation and pledging support from keeping officials better informed to lining up safe water supplies. Domestic wells along the river will be tested for contamination, EPA officials said, and irrigation ditches that weren’t closed in time and took in contaminants would be addressed.
A yellow-orange plume from an initial surge estimated at 1 million gallons — still visible in Durango on Friday afternoon — was moving toward New Mexico and Utah. Federal and state agencies in those areas were mobilizing to track downriver impacts along the San Juan River and other waterways in the Colorado River Basin.
EPA workers triggered the spill Wednesday morning while they were investigating a worsening acid discharge from Gold King and three other mines in the mountains north of Silverton.
They were using a heavy digging machine. EPA’s on-scene coordinator, Hays Griswold, said “We were investigating where we could put in a pipe” to try to drain rising waters inside the mine. The EPA crew had stopped working momentarily.
“We had found the hard rock I wanted to find overhead,” Griswold said. “All of a sudden, there was a little spurt from the top.”
Then a flood of the built-up acid discharge blew through lose dirt, the only barrier between the collapsing mine portal and waterways. The bright orange wave tore down into Cement Creek, which flows into the Animas River.
EPA chiefs flew in Friday and acknowledged an inappropriate initial response Wednesday in which they downplayed the severity and failed to anticipate the downstream impacts.
Durango identifies itself as the “River City,” and residents’ lives revolve around fishing, swimming, tubing and entertaining tourists along the Animas River.
Most longtime residents know too well the problem of old mines that leak heavy metals into headwaters — an issue around Colorado and the western United States — but never expected a ruinous onslaught like this.
Holly Jobson, 62, walking at noon along banks where yellow sediment was glomming onto rocks, said Silverton ought to push for a proper federal cleanup around mines. Silverton officials in the past have resisted, fearing the stigma of a federal Superfund cleanup designation and the impact on tourism.
“I don’t know why we can’t get the best possible cleanup,” Jobson said. “This is awful. All that wildlife along the river. It may kill everything. And the water. Rivers are wonderful. And to have this happen?”
Some wept openly after waking up Friday and seeing the orange-yellow currents. From store clerks on Main Street to county officials at a basement command post, they were asking one overriding question: “What is in the water?”
That question still wasn’t fully answered Friday evening as the EPA’s top officials returned to Denver. They said they need more lab test results to know levels of contaminants. They said they must sample more water and analyze the data but that now they will use a local lab to speed their process.
The river remains closed, La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith said. County health officials said that, based on the limited information, health risks remain high.
The discharge still flowing out of the mine Friday evening was darker in color, and Dave Ostrander, the EPA’s regional director of emergency preparedness assessment and response, said the initial “slug” moved beyond Silverton.
“We are very sorry for what happened. This is a huge tragedy,” Ostrander told residents. “It’s hard being on the other side of this. Typically we respond to emergencies; we don’t cause them. … It’s something we sincerely regret.”
Ostrander acknowledged that EPA public records on the Gold King Mine site were not accessible to the public and promised to change that.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet issued a statement saying he called EPA officials in Washington, D.C., urging attention to the spill and that there must be a follow-up look at what happened.
U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, who represents the district, said the EPA must be held accountable and pay restitution and damages.
“If a mining operator or other private business caused the spill to occur, the EPA would be all over them,” Tipton said in a statement. “The EPA admits fault and, as such, must be accountable and held to the same standard.”
State Sen. Ellen Roberts, who lives near Durango and sat by the Animas for six hours Thursday as the yellow-orange plume was approaching, said Friday this was “an EPA-caused Love Canal” where the EPA worsened the harm by not warning locals until it was too late and then leaving the community “disarmed” in responding.
“It is an improvement to be hearing the words ‘tragedy,’ ‘disaster,’ and that they caused it and that they are sorry,” Roberts said.
“Those are important words for us to hear. But they don’t change the fact that our river is still orange and that there are question marks about its future — which is intertwined with our future,” she said.
“Now we need action.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/finleybruceExperts warned that original draft legislation would have legalised disappearances, allowing police to hold suspects without informing families
China has unveiled legislation enshrining police powers to hold people at unknown locations, but has removed a controversial secrecy clause after an outcry.
Experts had warned that the original draft would have legalised disappearances by allowing police to hold some suspects for up to six months without informing their families.
The revisions to the criminal procedure law were unveiled at the National People's Congress on Thursday, and will be passed by what is essentially a rubber stamp parliament. Lawyers have welcomed other elements offering additional protection to suspects. Reformers have long battled for such measures – which include improving legal access, increasing protection for juveniles and outlawing evidence gathered through torture – although many are sceptical about how they will be observed.
"The real issue is not what the laws say, but how they are enforced," Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer who has taken on sensitive cases such as those involving dissidents, said.
"The pattern is that the Communist party can play by rules when there aren't special circumstances – but whenever there are special circumstances, it doesn't have to play by them."
Police later arrived at Pu's office, preventing him from granting further interviews.
Many of the dissidents detained in a sweeping crackdown last year, including the artist Ai Weiwei, appear to have been held under "residential surveillance" at unknown locations.
Some experts believe that is illegal, while others say the existing law does not spell out whether the measure should only apply at someone's usual residence.
"The law has not only not changed to prevent that practice but has embraced it, and that is what I find disturbing," Joshua Rosenzweig, an independent human rights researcher in Hong Kong, said.
Many of those held last year said they suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and other abuses.
The new law states that police have the right to hold suspects or defendants at places other than their home or an official detention centre if they are "involved in crimes concerning state security, terrorism or especially serious corruption and notification of where they are residing could obstruct investigations".
Experts said that that police would not have to disclose where they were holding suspects, although they believed in theory suspects would have a right to legal access.
State security crimes include subversion and other vaguely-worded charges often used against dissidents.
But the clause that most alarmed campaigners – by stating that, in such cases, police did not have to notify families within 24 hours if it could impede the investigation – has now been removed.
"It makes a world of difference whether you notify people or not," Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch, said. "People inside and outside the system have prevented this from being introduced. It was not an easy battle, and it has to be noticed."
But Rosenzweig said the law was still "extremely problematic". He said: "Detention of this kind was originally intended to be relatively lenient, but I have heard from people held this way that they would rather have been in a jail.
"It is still six months where the police do not have to really justify anything they do to you."
Wang Songlian, of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders Network, added: "Detention centres are not pleasant, but they at least have minimum safeguards and standards.
"[With this] there is a high risk of mistreatment and torture over a very long time."
Chen Guangzhong, a professor at the Chinese University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, who criticised earlier drafts – including the secrecy clause – said the revised law marked a necessary curtailment of police powers.
"This change is significant," he said. "It means China is making further effort in improving human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In the past, judicial authorities had too much power."At a seminar I delivered to Thai boxers in Cork, Ireland, there were some very experienced fighters — having invested many years of training both domestically and in Thailand, and amassing a large number of fights internationally. You wouldn’t describe these guys as ‘beginners’… or would you?
A small part of this particular seminar looked at a few fundamental movement patterns used to train strength and conditioning exercises. Some fighters were surprised to find that they struggled to perform simple movements. I remember attempting my first correctly coached full-depth squat, ‘What the #@%*? I can’t do this right!’ I’m constantly finding movements that I can’t do, and working on them to develop the mobility, stability, strength or coordination that I lack.
The truth is that your body is good at cheating it’s way around movements it can’t do without you knowing. It can reproduce a lookalike movement pattern that doesn’t have the same efficiency, reliability or safety, despite how it may feel – you’ve unconsciously learned to work around a limitation and formed a habit.
It’s a humbling to find an apparently simple movement pattern so challenging, especially when you’re a high performing athlete. At this moment, take a step back and observe your ego in the spotlight. Do you accept that despite your prowess in the ring, that you have some limitations that need addressing? It’s interesting to observe an experienced fighter battling their ego like this… but the best fighters take it for what it is, an opportunity to grow and improve.
The seminar crammed a lot in, and while discussing how to programme supporting strength and conditioning work around Muay Thai training, I explained that although you may have an advanced training age when it comes to Muay Thai, you can simultaneously have a novice training age in strength and conditioning. As an analogy, just because you’ve passed your driving test, you wouldn’t expect to jump straight on a motorbike without having to learn from the beginning.
If you have less than a years experience of resistance training, you’re new to this element of training and you need to craft the fundamentals. Strength and conditioning is a long-term pursuit with gradual progression, start by establishing your foundation. Just like Muay Thai training, there’s a progression from beginner, intermediate to advanced, and the same is true with all disciplines. In fact, every mode of training, even each exercise has an associated training age which will determine which progression/regression is applicable for you as an individual.
So once again, keep that ego in check and work on what’s going to bring you on the quickest — and it’s rarely the most advanced, sexy looking exercise variation that you’ve seen on YouTube.Airline stocks such as Delta and U.S. Airways are set to soar on better-than-expected earnings as consumer confidence increases, capacity continues to come offline and fuel costs remain tame.
"There are fewer of them now so they have pricing power and synergies which give them an EPS cushion, and they're hedged on fuel costs," said Stephanie Link, money manager and director of research at TheStreet.com.
Shares of Delta are already up 60 percent this year to lead the pack, while United is up 35 percent. U.S. Airways and Southwest are both up 30 percent for 2013. Those gains many continue this earnings season if history is any guide. The group is set to report two weeks from now.
(Read more: Worst airports for connections)
Delta's earnings exceed analysts' estimates 54 percent of the time, according to data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group. That beat causes the shares to jump 6 percent, on average, a week following earnings, Bespoke data shows.A fine puzzle for a gentleman.
Gorgeous art style, interesting characters, and a tightly wound story are important qualities of the Professor Layton games, and the series may not have nearly the following it does without the romanticized, period-piece charm that supports its gameplay. However, these qualities are also a means to an end, and that end is puzzles. All roads of plot in Layton’s 3DS debut, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, lead back to these myriad brain exercises, and without a deep supply of interesting and complex puzzle experiences, the games would have no support for the narrative lengths to which they reach.
This important puzzling slice of a Layton game is a known quantity. It's enough to say that the puzzles in the latest are wily, always interesting, and well paced, which is about as much as they could hope to be in the brief instances you mess with each. No puzzle (with the exception of those saved for the finale) needs to burn the world down, in difficulty or in payoff. It's better that puzzle experiences be consistently interesting, challenging, and rewarding on a small scale. As with its predecessors, Miracle Mask seems to adhere to this policy, using dozens upon dozens of these devious activities to support its other, mostly interesting ventures.
Miracle Mask's story concerns the disruptive and increasingly ominous magical acts of a character known the Masked Gentleman in the desert city of Monte d'Or - a situation an old high school acquaintance calls Layton in to clear up. More familiar faces show up over the course of the investigation, many from this particular period in Layton's past. In addition to the dark elegance and various activities of the present day situation, the game devotes several flashback chapters to more clearly defining the repercussions of dramatic events involving Layton and his closest friends, while also roping in some interesting puzzle variants.
While these chapters begin with Layton and co. solving puzzles of standard stock in school and village environments, story turns conspire to draw Layton and his best friend, Randall, into the ruins of an ancient civilization. Here, the game shifts into a different, temporary play style: instead of wrestling with puzzles in a static environment, you gain physical control over Layton. With this direct interaction, the game has you maneuvering the character through and interacting with 3D puzzles, which involve careful management of your own space and that of other objects. This change of pace succeeds as a tactic to match the tone of the situation, i.e., the flashback's emphasis on the teamwork and deep relationship between the young, conservative Layton and the enthusiastic Randall. These well-paced chapters provide a strong backstory that runs in parallel with the present day events, and add definition to the identities and motivations of the characters involved.
Miracle Mask takes aggressive advantage of the series’ first outing on the 3DS. While elements of the inviting 2D animation aesthetic remain in the game's numerous locales, Miracle Mask bolsters the structure and personality of Monte d'Or and its residents through the system's capabilities. Character models look superb in both polygonal and stereoscopic 3D as they converse and sort out situations among themselves on the top screen with natural expressiveness and gesticulation. While Miracle Mask includes the series' trademark animated cut scenes, it also often defers to presenting short, nicely framed cinematic moments using the polygonal characters.
Moving through Monte d'Or along the different points of the 2D overhead map creates a microscope-like effect as you delve deeper into the city's structure, peeling back layers and probing the unique areas within. Using the touch screen to look around each distinctive area for puzzles, hint coins, and other items on the top screen imparts a feeling of actually looking, in that, from your position as a person on the street, you can't take in everything from a fixed perspective. The game lets you move your gaze all about, which often exposes the different angles and layers of the inspected section in a neat way.
Miracle Mask throws in several unconnected extra modes, sections of which unlock as you progress the story or find them in the wild. Some, like the mini-game that has you guiding a small robot around 3D puzzles or the shop mini-game in which you strategically stock related items to manipulate each customer's interest, have interesting hooks that reward in the short term. The others, a Nintendogs-like rabbit training activity and a poorly controlling horse-racing event, feel less complete, and lack the sense of purpose and challenge that make the others worth messing with.
If you equate a new Layton release to the promise of fresh puzzles, Miracle Mask should fulfill that desire handily, with a year's worth of downloadable daily puzzles coming on top of those already available. However, the game also takes notable advantage of its new handheld home, using a number of narrative and aesthetic devices to weave its refined style of gameplay and emotional, spiraling story into a tight experience that rewards on all accounts."Folk traditions. Come on. What Christmas songs you should sing, how you celebrate Christmas and Easter — this isn't what politics is about," he told reporters in The Hague
The Geneva-based U.N. committee, which does not have the power to enforce its recommendations, said the Dutch government should work to get rid of negative racial stereotypes in the depiction of Black Pete, an assistant to a white St. Nicholas. "[The stereotypes] are experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery," it added.
Black Pete, often depicted with bright red lips and a curly black wig, has become a fraught topic in a country which has long regarded itself as progressive and tolerant.
In the run-up to Christmas last year, police arrested 90 demonstrators in Gouda, 40 miles south of Amsterdam, for picketing the annual St. Nicholas parade. Some carried "Black Pete is racism" banners as others demonstrated in support of the character.
Surinamese, Antillean and African minorities perceive the tradition as a legacy of colonial racism. The National Platform on Slavery, a group that campaigns for atonement for the Netherlands' role in the slave trade, said many black children find the depiction disturbing.
Last year an Amsterdam court ruled that the Black Pete depiction is racist, but the decision was overturned by the country's highest administrative court.
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The Zen 2.0 is the finest creation of our main lineup. Our Chief Sound Engineer, KK, designed the Zen 2.0 to incorporate the full sized headphone experience to an earbud. We wanted to show the audiophile community that it is indeed possible to achieve such an amazing feat.
The Zen 2.0 are tuned to have a warm sound signature. It has been specifically tuned to replicate the expansive soundstage of a full sized headphone. The Zen 2.0 requires a powerful amplifier to bring it to life. If you don’t already have one, we highly suggest getting one of our amplifiers to pair with it. Head over to our amplifier section and pick one according to your budget and requirements.
The Zen Omega Edition is the detachable version of the Zen 2.0 with a redesigned shell. With this, you can customise the sound signature even further by changing the cable to any 0.78mm terminated cable like our Oyaide 102 SSC & VE Standard Pure Blue Cable (pure silver)
Our Facebook Community or Customer Service can assist you should you require further assistance. Simply click the “Facebook” icon at the top of the website or click the “Contact” icon.
Upgrade Cable for Monk Omega Edition: Oyaide 102 SSC
black edition (comes in balance and single-end, since it is customized item, we can terminated with any plug if needed, the default is 3.5mm straight plug from Oyaide,. and the cable is Cardas Golden Selection AWG 26.5)
Important: Black and White editions are customized product. Returns and Refunds is not allowed. But we provide Unlimited Warranty to maintainance services.
Pretty Plz take some time to read this through before making the payment!!!
To sum it up, it is now an early bird deal
Give a set of Monk Plus Extra, So all in all you are getting
the Zen 2.0 + carrying Case + Expansion Pack + Monk Plus x 1+Zen LLHundreds of community activists gathered in downtown Caracas on November 16 and 17 to demonstrate their steadfast support for the socialist policies of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro used the occasion to repeat: “Venezuela’s communes must be consolidated if we are to truly carry out the program elaborated by our leader, Hugo Chavez.”
Duilliam Virigay agrees. National spokesperson of the Simon Bolivar National Communal Front (FNCSB), he was in Caracas to take part in the national assembly of the Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ), a social movement dedicated to pushing the Bolivarian revolution forward. The communes are made up of elected representatives from the communal councils, grassroots bodies that bring together local neighbourhoods.
In this interview, Virigay describes the difficult challenges faced by Venezuela’s radical experiment with participatory democracy. It was first published by Correo del Orinoco International. Click here for photos from the the first National Communal Economy Fair in Caracas.
* * *
How did the FNCSB first come together?
Before the FNCSB came to be, our people were actively involved in building the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ). In 1998 and 1999, the FNCEZ was working with rural people in the struggle for agrarian reform. This struggle for |
from an Axact university: “Haan, I went to fix your hose pipe, but I discovered a few other problems. One thing led to another, and you should just probably buy a new engine now.”
Several years ago I took my Nissan Sunny to one such mechanic, who replaced my fuel pump mistakenly with the wrong model from a vehicle with twice the horsepower. Unfortunately, this one was so powerful; it burst petrol through the fuel injection system, which he had also messed around with, lighting a spark that set my vehicle on fire.
Yes, this actually happened.
Exhibit A of my destroyed Nissan Sunny – Photo by author
Thankfully, I managed to escape just in time, though ended up having to sell my Nissan for scrap. Meanwhile, all the mechanic could manage was: “Ooops."
Exhibit B – Photo by author
I suppose this is as good a time as any to speak of all the other frustrations drivers face on the road.
1) Traffic signals
Normally, stopping at a traffic signal is a good way to contemplate what you have been doing with your life, or fantasize about how you would like to cover your ex-mechanic in delicious honey and toss him into a bear cave.
Unfortunately, traffic signals are no time to relax in Pakistan.
As if the claustrophobic conditions of a traffic jam weren't enough, one has to fend off the advances of squeegee boys and their roadside peers
As if by instinct, I instantly start shaking my finger at all those walking around me at a traffic signal as if to say, “No…no…no!”
Traffic signals are a little like Formula One pits stops, where you are quickly harassed by squeegee boys armed with wipers and water bottles, ready to ‘clean’ your already spotless windshield with their dirty soap water, or members of the well-meaning transsexual community, who will wish you the best, tell you how handsome you are even if you have a face that leaves little children crying, and openly pray that you have a dozen children with the woman sitting in the passenger seat next to you even if it happens to be your sister, at which point you politely remind tell them: “Our last name isn’t Lannister.”
More frustrating in the congested traffic is how some genius will decide the green signal is the right time to slowly shuffle across the street at a speed reserved for Hanif Mohammad, or to be stuck at this go time behind a driver screaming, crying or pleading for a gang of inspired squeegee boys to leave his vehicle alone.
On the rare occasion you find yourself unmolested at a traffic signal, you sit back and relax in your car, enjoying the peace in silent bliss, when you are suddenly delivered a heart attack by a beggar who chooses this exact moment to sharply rap on your window like a target killer high on angel dust.
2) Motorcyclists
Motocyclists have no qualms weaving in and out of traffic, causing one road hazard after the other in their wake – Photo: Dawn
Traffic is often congested in the city, with honking cars having the luxury of very little space between them.
Sometimes, it seems as if a motorcyclist see the tiny gaps between vehicles and says to himself, “challenge accepted.” He is determined to drive through these small spaces by doing as much damage to rearview mirrors, paint jobs and bumpers as possible.
No, you haven’t driven in Karachi without your rear view mirror smashed by a motorcyclist who turns back to glare at you in anger.
Yes Mr. Motorcyclist, after zigzagging across the road like an intoxicated snake, you hit me, and it is somehow my fault.
3) Rain
There are two moments when citizens of Karachi drop whatever it is they are doing and rush home with the uncontrolled energy of a dog at a park.
The first is when Altaf Bhai is angry – because when the brother from London is upset, you know you have to head back to the safety of your house – and the second is when it starts to rain a little.
Unfortunately, everyone else in the city also has the same bright idea at this time, leaving the city resembling a race between water buffalos across a lake. No, there isn’t a citizen in Karachi who hasn’t narrated a long horrific story of nearly drowning on the street to their therapist.
Fear of drowning on the Karachi streets should be registered as a phobia – Photos: Dawn
Worse still is how muggers take advantage of these catastrophes to make a killing. When dark clouds form on the Karachi skyline, regular people look forward to a change in weather, but thieves see the formation of opportunity. To them, a long traffic jam is nothing but a nice tasty buffet: “Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, and Suzuki… yum!"
4) The VIPs
Few experiences are as frustrating as getting caught in a traffic jam because of a protocol of government cars driving through the streets, or even getting stuck in front of one.
The only time we find the roads clear in broad daylight is when the passage of a VIP protocol has blocked access to them
Here, no courtesy is shown by law enforcement officials as they blast their sirens and scream and shout on their loudspeakers for you to move and let them pass, even if there is no space for you to safely do so. Clearly, the only life they are concerned with preserving is the VIP tasked to them.
5) The big boys
The two largest predators patrolling our urban jungle are minibuses and big Prados. Neither is to be trifled with.
Drivers in Karachi learn to be wary of this beast early in the game
Minibus drivers, usually high on some stimulant, make their own rules, driving and stopping when they please, squashing whatever comes in their path. Essentially, they are like fast moving, slow thinking elephants.
A minibus is only more dangerous when its driver decides that a perfectly busy road, full of men, women, and children, is the right time to race another bus. Unfortunately, the resulting traffic hazards are no laughing matter. I have, myself, witnessed disturbing scenes where a minibus crushed a poor motorcyclist on one occasion, and fell on a rickshaw on another.
Similarly to minibuses, the drivers of Prados have a bad reputation. These SUVs coast through the night as if the rules do not apply to them. Worse still is how dangerous men sometimes use these vehicles to prey on unsuspecting people.
Black Prados have also became an object of fear in the middle of the night – Photo courtesy pokal.com
In late 2012, there were rumors that the inhabitants of a black Prado were kidnapping women. These rumors, spread across text messages as well as Facebook, resulted in fear across the port city.
I can’t verify if these reports were true, but I can share an experience where my wife escaped a black Prado during the peak of these reports. I can confirm, because I was driving right behind her during the chase.
My future spouse and I met at Zamzama Commercial Street one evening, arriving at the location separately in our own cars.
For those unaware, Zamzama is a popular double-street in Karachi, on the either side of which are many eateries and clothing shops. There, we met at around 8pm, and spent the next three hours together, until we decided to call it a night.
As usual, I decided to escort her home by driving behind her Khyber in my own Nissan. As it turns out, it was a great thing I did.
As my wife-to-be drove out of the Zamzama parking lot with me on her tail I noticed a hulking black Prado behind us, snarling through the night like a mechanical beast. What happened next was nothing short of a Fast & Furious-style car chase, albeit with decidedly less glamorous vehicles. For several minutes, the black Prado proceeded to stalk my wife, speeding up when she sped up and slowing down when she did.
At one point, the Prado accelerated ahead of my wife's car and parked in the middle of the road, as if to block her path. We only escaped the situation by taking a U-turn at a poorly lit spot that the Prado had obviously overlooked in its pursuit.
Later, I learned from my wife that she only saw the driver of the vehicle who was a man in his late 30s. But I had certainly seen more than one occupant, and I'm loathe to think what would have happened if I hadn't been following her...
So there you have it… the good… the bad… and the ugly… of driving in Karachi.Review
'A film version of the novel might be exciting but it would not be a patch on Glen Duncan's wonderful act of ventriloquism' -- Times Literary Supplement
'Clever and challenging...sizzling with mephitic energy' -- Independent
'Duncan is a sharp, sometimes savage observer of the human condition, whose talents are as many as the legions of Hell' -- Matthew Baylis
'Fiendishly funny, wickedly eloquent' -- Big Issue
'Lucifer is charming and sexy and very very funny. Glen Duncan knows way too much and says it far too well. I fear for his soul' -- Stella Duffy
Synopsis
A brilliantly written portrait of Lucifer encountering the world of the senses, telling his version of the Bible, and discovering what it's like to be human - in Clerkenwell. 'Now, Your million questions. All, in the end, resolvable into one: What's it like being me? What, for heaven's sake, is it like being me? In a nutshell (which, thanks to me, is the way you like it in these hurrying and fragmented times), it's hard.' Finally, the other side of the story. The Prince of Darkness has been given one last chance: he will be readmitted to the company of his fellow angels if he agrees to live out a human life. Highly sceptical (naturally), the Old Deal-maker negotiates a trial period - a summer holiday in a human body, with all the delights of the flesh. The body, though, turns out to be that of Declan Gunn, a depressed writer living in Clerkenwell, interrupted mid-suicide. Making the best of a bad situation, Luce himself takes to writing - to explain, to strip back the Biblical spin, to help us see the whole thing from his point of view. And to knock that Jesus off his perch.
Beset by distractions, miscalculations and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to, Lucifer slowly begins to learn what it's like to be us. Glen Duncan's brilliantly written new novel is an investigation of the world of the senses - the seductiveness of evil, and the affection which keeps us human. See all Product descriptionUS Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki said that the comments by former US Army Major General Robert Scales urging to kill as many Russians as possible to end the Ukrainian conflict do not represent the US position.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The comments by former US Army Major General Robert Scales urging to kill as many Russians as possible to end the Ukrainian conflict do not represent the US position, US Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki told journalists on Friday.
“It sounds like you are referring to a retired individual who does not speak for the US government and certainly it is not consistent with our beliefs, Psaki said, when asked to comment Scales’ remarks.
Fox Business Channel Moscow Launches Criminal Case Against Warmongering General Who Rallied to 'Kill The Russians'
The Russian Investigative Committee announced in a statement on Thursday that a criminal case was opened against Scales under the charges of “public incitement to an aggressive war using mass media.”
On Tuesday, Fox News aired an interview with Scales, a military analyst, who said Washington should help Kiev kill "so many Russians that even [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's media can't hide the fact that Russians are returning to their motherland in body bags."
The United States has been blaming Russia for escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where more than 6,000 people have been killed since hostilities began in April 2014. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement.Web designers find themselves in a tough situation - they have to build beautiful user interfaces that are intuitive and usable in the same time. Sometimes, despite our earnest efforts, web applications may become difficult to use for novice users. One solution is to create some sort of a tour of your application's features. The other is to incorporate visual cues in the design itself.
In this tutorial, we will be writing a jQuery plugin that will help you draw users' attention to a specific part of the page, in the form of a small arrow that is displayed next to their mouse cursor. This can be useful for pointing to missed form fields, buttons that need to be pressed, or validation errors that need to be scrolled into view.
How it works
Lets dive straight to the code - it comes at around 100 lines (with comments), so it is not difficult to follow.
jquery.pointpoint.js
(function($){ // Defining our jQuery plugin $.fn.pointPoint = function(prop){ // Default parameters var options = $.extend({ "class" : "pointPointArrow", "distance" : 30 },prop); var pointers = []; // If CSS transforms are not supported, exit; if(!$.support.transform){ this.destroyPointPoint = function(){}; return this; } this.each(function(){ var findMe = $(this), point = $('<div class="'+options['class']+'">').appendTo('body'), offset, center = {}, mouse = {}, props = {}, a, b, h, deg, op, pointHidden = true, rad_to_deg = 180/Math.PI; pointers.push(point); // Calculating the position of the pointer on mouse move $('html').bind('mousemove.pointPoint',function(e){ if(pointHidden){ point.show(); pointHidden = false; } offset = findMe.offset(); // The center of the element we are pointing at center.x = offset.left + findMe.outerWidth()/2; center.y = offset.top + findMe.outerHeight()/2; mouse.x = e.pageX; mouse.y = e.pageY; // We are treating the mouse position and center // point as the corners of a right triangle. // h is the hypotenuse, or distance between the two. a = mouse.y - center.y; b = center.x - mouse.x; h = Math.sqrt(a*a + b*b); // Calculating the degree (in radians), // the pointer should be rotated by: deg = Math.atan2(a,b); // Lowering the opacity of the pointer, depending // on the distance from the mouse pointer op = 1; if(h < 50){ op = 0; } else if(h < 160){ op = (h - 50) / 110; } // Moving and rotating the pointer props.marginTop = mouse.y-options.distance*Math.sin(deg); props.marginLeft = mouse.x+options.distance*Math.cos(deg); props.transform = 'rotate('+(-deg*rad_to_deg)+'deg)'; props.opacity = op; point.css(props); }).bind('mouseleave.pointPoint',function(){ point.hide(); pointHidden = true; }); }); this.destroyPointPoint = function(){ // Unbind all the event handlers // and remove() the pointers $('html').unbind('.pointPoint'); $.each(pointers,function(){ this.remove(); }); }; return this; }; })(jQuery);
When you call pointPoint(), it creates an event listener for the mousemove event. Inside it, the plugin calculates the position and rotation of the arrow using trigonometry functions. Check out this Wikipedia article if you'd like to learn more.
I am also using the transform.js CSS hooks for jQuery, which level the support for CSS3 rotations in browsers that support them (this means the plugin will not work in IE678).
How to use it
To include jQuery PointPoint in your website, you need to copy the jquery.pointpoint folder (located in /assets in the downloadable zip) in your directory structure. After this, all you need to do is include the two js files and the stylesheet, that you find inside, in your page. Refer to index.html as an example.
The plugin itself is simple to use. You just need to call it on the element which you need to point to. The plugin will automatically find the position of the element and update the arrow when you move the mouse. You can also pass an arguments object with two properties - "class" and "distance".
$('#pushButton').pointPoint(); /* // You can also pass arguments: $('#pushButton').pointPoint({ "class":"myNewPointer", "distance":100 }); */
The snippet above adds an arrow next to the mouse cursor, which points to the element with an id of "pushButton". The arguments in the second example will set a custom class on the arrow (in case you want to customize the styling) and move it further away from the mouse cursor. The default styles of the arrow are defined in jquery.pointpoint.css.
When you call the plugin, it returns a jQuery object, so you can use it inside method call chains. There is one one minor difference, however - this object has an additional method - destroyPointPoint(), which you can use to cancel the plugin:
var pp = $('#pushButton').pointPoint(); $('body').click(function(){ pp.destroyPointPoint(); });
This will remove all arrows and destroy the event listeners for the mouse move event.
We are done!
I hope you find the plugin useful and only use it for good, not evil. As usual, share your suggestions in the comments section.With St. Patrick’s Day celebrations planned for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts, I visited one of our consumables locations to survey some of the yummy, holiday-themed treats they have made this year. You may recall that several of our merchandise locations contain a show kitchen, which is an on-stage kitchen where cast members make delicious goodies for all to see. This year, the cast members in the show kitchens have added a splash of green to some of their most popular items including Mickey Mouse-shaped cake pops and crispy treats.
They also have created my favorite treat – pretzel rods covered in green sugar or sprinkles. The pretzel rods join sprinkle-covered or chocolate-dipped marshmallow wands.
Finally, I spotted a Leprechaun-like candy apply complete with chocolate, green sugar and a marshmallow. Nearby, I found a character apple that resembles Kermit the Frog from The Muppets. I figured I’d include him in this story because he’s green (plus, I can’t wait for “Muppets Most Wanted” to be in theatres on March 21!)
If you are visiting Disney Parks during St Patrick’s Day, please stop by these locations:
Disneyland Resort
Walt Disney World Resort
(Nick Ansell / PA Wire/Press Association Images)
Hey, grandma – what's up?
Oh yeah, thanks, I really would like a cup of tea that takes you 20 minutes of tinkering about in the kitchen to make because you insist on using a teapot every time – even though teapot tea tastes exactly the same if not worse than mug tea because you are using teabags not loose leaf; how are you a thousand years old and you don't even know this yet – but yes, thank you, grandma, I will have a small porcelain plate with three pink wafer biscuits on it, thank you.
Hey, so, grandma, just a quick one: what the fuck.
What the fuck, grandma.
Lean your wrinkly little face close to me and tell me what the fuck.
Yo, grandma, check it. Check this graph. Put on your readers. Put on your additional readers. Put on your third, industrial-strength pair of readers. See this breakdown of Brexit voting by age:
See you in there? You are that pink, blobby, soon-to-die bit out by the bottom. Do you know how long it is going to take us to negotiate leaving the EU? The conservative estimate is two years – the exact same timeframe your doctor gave you the last time you had a check up. Tell me, grandma: why did you vote for a change you will never get a chance to see? Are you messing with me, grandma? Is this payback for a crime I do not remember committing? Is this because I shat on you that time? Grandma, I was eight months old. I shat a lot back then. I don't know why you think that, because you wiped my arse a few times when I was younger, I have to respect your bad opinions now.
A quick note about your doctor: your doctor is one of about 10 percent of doctors who come from the EU. This is for a variety of reasons – we won't get into why you can't have a Nice British Doctor with Nice British Hands because of the whole Conservative government forcing the hand of the junior doctors upon which the service relies – but a lot of it is to do with the fact that to have an effective NHS, i.e. a health service with a diverse array of specialists and experts in different fields, you have to recruit from other countries. But now that's all gone fuck-a-doodle because the Brexit means it's going to be harder for the NHS to recruit doctors from Europe and harder for our doctors to go and work there, too. Let's not get onto the impending care crisis and how the 6 percent EU employment rate in an already stretched-to-breaking-point sector is going to be even more perilous once Brexit comes through. Yes, I know you don't trust Oana when she comes over twice a week because you "think she's going to steal your decorative plates", but she knows her way around a catheter tube.
Grandma, did you see that nice man Nigel who you like on the TV this morning? You like Nigel, don't you? He wears a tie. You know that bus he did that said the £350 million we supposedly pay to the EU a week will now be funnelled directly into the NHS? Did you see him literally come out and say that was a lie, this morning? Hold on, I'll pull the video up on my phone. I know you don't understand phones. I know you don't understand "this Facebook". I know you don't understand things. Just watch the video where he admits literally hours after winning that the central tenet of his campaign was a lie.
You know how you say you can't get a doctor's appointment these days "because of immigrants"? You know how that is a lie, yeah? You know it's actually because public services are pushed to breaking point by a fundamental lack of funding and support, all backed by a government you just handed more power to? Also, you know how you wake up at 5AM every day just so you can be the first person to call the doctor and ask for appointments? How you go to the doctor, like, ten, 15 times a week? You go to the doctor an obscene amount. And it doesn't even matter how often you go to the doctor, grandma. Unless he turns your body into a robot and your mind into a computer and powers you via solar, you are not going to be around to see these changes come into play.
Do you remember how you went to university for free? That was good, wasn't it? Do you remember when you bought your house in shillings, or whatever the fuck money was called back then? That was good, wasn't it? You got a pretty good pension, all in, didn't you, and retired on the dot at aged 60, didn't you? That was good. No, you're right, though – it's millennials who are entitled.
I'm sorry, grandma, I'm just exceptionally mad and sad about the future. It's just: it's weird how you can barely make it to the Tesco Metro across the road from here without six frantic phone calls to mum and a fucking £4 taxi and then another, additional, post-Tesco phone call to mum telling her how bad Tesco was, but that you sure as shit found the chutzpah to shuffle down to the polling station yesterday to make sure you voted out of the EU, based on a vague prang of fear about losing our identity as a country.
Hey, grandma: weird that you are allowed to vote on a future you will never, ever see, but 16-year-olds aren't legally allowed to vote on the hell you are making them live through, and 18-to-24s are not actively targeted in voting campaigns, isn't it? It's almost like the only excuse you've had to leave the house in the last year-and-a-half is to go and carefully – with a pen you bought from home, because you're mad now – decide to fuck up the future for me and everyone I know.
Didn't know you hated disabled people, people of colour and women, grandma, but seeing as they are getting the sharp end of this Brexit fallout – and there is fallout, remember; the only things that are definitely happening as a result of Brexit are all bad and backed up by experts, and all the possible future good things are Nigel Farage and his ilk saying "maybe it'll be good now we don't have a European safety net? idk" and "immigration, which won't immediately go down in any discernible way, is still bad" – and that is thanks to you, grandma. This is all thanks to you. HONESTLY, for eight. I don't know why we have to have Countdown on in the background every time we talk, but look: HONESTLY. Eight points. They're not going to get it. TONES, he's gone for. Five. There's not really any point being on Countdown if you're only chucking fives.
I am leaving, now, grandma, but I just wanted to say this is war now. We are at war. Oh, you'd like to sit down on the bus? Well, I'd like to not live through another recession, so I guess it's tough shit for both of us. What – you wanted to go to the garden centre with us on Sunday? Well, I quite wanted to go to Croatia this summer, but that's immediately costing me about 25 percent more thanks to your shonky voting. Oh, you'd like me to come visit you now and again? Dunno, grandma, a lot of my friends are now quite worried about their status in this country and whether they have to get visas now and I think I'd rather hang out with them. Nah, but at least you've got your national pride back, isn't it? Sit here, grandma, with your doilies and your scones and your Keep Calm and Carry On tea towel, and your well dressing, and your framed photograph of the Queen, and your little Union Flag. You did it. You voted for this. Thanks a fucking bunch, grandma.
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A Clydesdale horse sculpture missing from a Hamilton retail park has been found in a house in Wishaw.
In addition, police also discovered £10,000 worth of cocaine there.
Police recovered the striking, 6ft blue and white statue, called Angus Chan, after a raid at a town centre property last Tuesday afternoon.
The sculpture is part of the Ready Steady Gallop! project that has 25 Clydesdale statues dotted around Hamilton to attract tourists and shoppers into the town centre during the Commonwealth Games.
Angus Chan had been missing for exactly a week after it had mysteriously vanished from the Palace Grounds Retail Park, near Argos, between last Tuesday night and the following day.
Before Angus Chan was found, a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter got underway last week to find the missing sculpture.
Hamilton Business Improvement District, who are behind the project, reported the incident to police.
A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed the horse sculpture had been recovered by officers from a property in Wishaw, who also discovered £10,000 worth of cocaine.
A 22-year-old man was arrested in connection with both incidents.
In pictures: Ready Steady gallop exhibition in Hamilton
Mark Calpin, chairman of Hamilton BID, said he was delighted that Angus has been safely returned.
He added: “We’d like to thank the public for sharing our request for information on social media, and the police for their great work in tracking down and recovering Angus so quickly.
“The trail is still in place for another four weeks, so we encourage people to make sure they visit before the horses are auctioned off for the very deserving Kilbryde Hospice charity.”
Last Tuesday, a team of officers could be seen carefully getting the intricately designed, blue, gold and white horse statue out of the house.
Our pictures show officers turning the statue upside down to get it out the front door before carrying it out the front gate and into a white van parked in the street.
The statue emerged from the house with part of its ear missing, but the damage should be easily repaired.I couldn't help but notice this article from Breitbart on Friday:
U.S. Baby Boomer Gentrification Wreaks Havoc on City in Socialist Ecuador By Frances Martel, June 8, 2017 The small city of Cuenca, Ecuador is struggling to address a growing wave of American “Baby Boomers” who have decided to retire there to take advantage of a socialist welfare state designed for its locals. U.S. retirees, a recent city study revealed, are also causing conflict in the city, raising real estate prices, demanding English-language service, and threatening to sue locals accustomed to more “casual” business contracts. In a report this week, the Miami Herald highlights the blissful existence of upper-class white American migrants who have flocked to Cuenca, attracted by retiree blogs and news sites that emphasize the appeal of its temperate weather and inexpensive healthcare and real estate. “In Cuenca, a city of about 350,000 people, they’ve found robust public transportation, an extensive museum network, solid healthcare and markets bursting with fresh fruits and produce,” the Herald notes. [ Retirees flock to Latin America to live an upper-class lifestyle on $1,500 a month, By Jim Wyss, June 3, 2017] [More]
Now isn't this just the most interesting thing ever? I can't help but NOT be sorry for any Latin American country that exported its poor north to the U.S. when it starts to complain about the reverse effect caused by our Boomers moving south.
James Fulford writes: The Ecuadorians are right that the retirees, though their money comes in from outside the country, are essentially parasitic on the previous investment in the socialized healthcare system. This is much, much truer of the millions of Latin Americans who move to the United States, legally and illegally, but it’s racist to use the word parasite about Latin American immigrants.(01/25/16) - From behind bars, former disgraced Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is taking to social media with comments on the Flint Water Crisis.
In a lengthy Facebook message, Kilpatrick said he knew about the issues with the Flint water system back in 2004, despite the city being with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department until 2014. He says he wasn't the only one with knowledge of the issues in Flint.
Kilpatrick also wrote that Governor Rick Snyder is misleading people by saying he recently found out about the issue.
His entire letter reads:
"FYI
Just so you all know. We (The Detroit Water and Sewage Department) were talking about the problems of the Flint Water Department (financial management, ability to perform, cleanliness of water, elimination of contaminants, mercury levels, lead levels) back in 2004. We knew (our folks in Detroit, SEMCOG, Genesee County Officials, some members of the State Legislature, and the Governor at that time) new that there were significant issues with all of those items.
In 2006 we attempted to craft a deal to put them on our water system. We were in negotiations, led by Victor Mercado, for months, and I wanted to make it work. I attended one meeting, and was on a conference call for another, expressing my willingness to make this work. SEMCOG and Judge Fiekens was also aware of this. SEMCOG was against the Agreement!
BUT, the people in Genesee County, at the table during that time (the County Drain Commissioner & his staff, a State Senator, and a State House Member all from Genesee County) wanted to keep control of the system.
Also, former Michigan Governor, Jennifer Granholm, was well aware of the issues with the Flint Water Department, and their inability to produce contaminant free water moving forward, nor afford the equipment & technology to do so.
When the current Governor of Michigan says that he "only recently was made aware of this issue", he is being misleading at best. But more than likely, he is being viciously, aggressively, and deliberately untruthful. I pray that the truth comes out. That's what everyone in Michigan wants right? The Truth! Well, my prayer is that you all will have an opportunity to warm yourselves at the fire of Truth.
I am here in prison, with a 28-year sentence, for a case where there is NO EMBEZZLEMENT, NO MISUSE OF PUBLIC FUNDS, NO BRIBERY, NO STEALING OF ANY MONEY, as a matter of fact, NO PUBLIC MONEY AT ALL. And NO CHARGES THEREOF! 99% of Detroiters have NO idea why I'm here. They don't know the charges, nor what I'm sentenced for. They sure do know the rumors.
I wonder how much time you get for knowingly & actually delivering unsafe, dangerous, and poisonous drinking water to the people you represent? Which in-turn causes deaths, permanent illnesses, and disabilities. Can you actually be hated, hurt, and imprisoned for ridiculous rumors about murder...and not be for actually killing people?
I pray for justice for the people of Flint! And I also pray that God will give to all of you in Michigan the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. That you all may have your eyes opened with understanding.
The blindness is hurting lots of people. Its even killing some. OPEN YOUR EYES!
KMK"CYPRESS, TX — A man who tried to rob another man at gunpoint in a northwest Houston suburb was shot Sunday evening.
Harris County Precinct 4 Deputy Constables were called to the 23900 block of Creek Ridge Drive in after residents in the area reported hearing gunshots. (Want to get daily updates about traffic news and other events going on in your area? Sign up for the free Houston Patch morning newsletter.)
When deputies arrived, they found a black man, identified as Derek Cooper with two gunshot wounds to his abdomen.
Investigators learned that the person who shot Cooper was trying to sell him a cellphone he'd advertised on Craigslist.
The victim met with Cooper and a juvenile at that location for the exchange of the phone for money, when suddenly the juvenile pointed a handgun at the complainant and demanded all his money.
The victim handed over the phone and money, and then the juvenile and Cooper demanded all he had in his vehicle.
The man told investigators he went to his car, grabbed his own handgun and fired two rounds, hitting Cooper twice.
The juvenile ran off, but was quickly caught by deputies, who were responding to the area.
Derek Cooper was arrested, and charged with robbery, and is in the hospital and will be booked into the Harris County Jail upon his release, according to the Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office.
His bond has not been set.
The juvenile was arrested, and charged with robbery and booked into the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center.
No other charges were filed.
Image: Harris County Constable's Office
Follow Us On Facebook: Engage with your neighbors in the Metro Houston area and keep up with the talk of the day by liking one of our Facebook pages. Houston / Midtown Houston / Houston Heights / Galleria - River Oaks / Bellaire / Meyerland / Humble-Kingwood / Conroe-Montgomery County / Sugar Land / Pasadena / The Woodlands / Clear LakeChristmas celebrations in New England were illegal during parts of the 17th century, and were culturally taboo or rare in former Puritan colonies from foundation until the mid-18th century. The Puritan community found no Scriptural justification for celebrating Christmas, and associated such celebrations with paganism and idolatry. Indeed, Christmas celebrations in 17th-century England involved Carnival-like behavior including role inversion, heavy drinking, and sexual liberties.[1]
The earliest years of the Plymouth Colony were troubled with non-Puritans attempting to make merry, and Governor William Bradford was forced to reprimand offenders. English laws suppressing the holiday were enacted in the Interregnum, but repealed late in the 17th century. However, the Puritan view of Christmas and its celebration had gained cultural ascendancy in New England, and Christmas celebrations continued to be discouraged despite being legal. But by the mid-18th century, Christmas had become a mainstream celebration in New England, and by the beginning of the 19th century, ministers of Congregational churches, the church of the Puritans, actually called for formal observance of Christmas in the churches.[1]
When Christmas became a federal holiday in 1870, late 19th century Americans widely fashioned the day into the Christmas of commercialism, spirituality, and nostalgia that most Americans recognize today.
The Puritan view of Christmas [ edit ]
In Puritans at Play (1995), Bruce Colin Daniels writes "Christmas occupied a special place in the ideological religious warfare of Reformation Europe." Most Anabaptists, Quakers, and Congregational and Presbyterian Puritans, he observes, regarded the day as an abomination while Anglicans, Lutherans, the Dutch Reformed, and other denominations celebrated the day as did Roman Catholics. When the Church of England promoted the Feast of the Nativity as a major religious holiday, the Puritans attacked it as "residual Papist idolatry".[2]
Puritans heaped contempt on Christmas, Daniels writes, calling it 'Foolstide' and suppressing any attempts to celebrate it for several reasons. First, no holy days except the Sabbath were sanctioned in Scripture, second, the most egregious behaviors were exercised in its celebration (Cotton Mather railed against these behaviors), and third, December 25 was ahistorical. The Puritan argued that the selection of the date was an early Christian hijacking of a Roman festival, and to celebrate a December Christmas was to defile oneself by paying homage to a pagan custom.[2] James Howard Barnett notes in The American Christmas (1984) that the Puritan view prevailed in New England for almost two centuries.[3]
The Puritan calendar was one of the most leisure-less ever adopted by mankind, with approximately 300 working days compared to the 240 typical of cultures from Ancient Rome to modern America. Days of rest in the New England calendar were few, Innes writes, and restricted to |
selling Nexus 7 to customers with early pre-orders as of July 13th. He told us that each GameStop location is only receiving enough stock to fill those initial pre-orders on the first wave, with a second wave of shipments expected in August "at the earliest." If you put in a pre-order, you may also receive an automated text alerting you to come in and pick up your new Android tablet.
Google Play: An automated message from Google Play phone support confirms that pre-orders are now shipping.
Locked and loaded, ready to play: we’ve started shipping +Nexus 7 pre-orders today! google.com/nexus/#/7 — Google Nexus (@googlenexus) July 13, 2012
Ebuyer: Listing has now been switched back to pre-order. Availability expected 7/19. 16GB
Office Depot: Though the web listing appears to have been temporarily removed, we're seeing numerous reports that the Nexus 7 is now available at Office Depot retail locations.
Sam's Club: Currently sold out online, but you may have better luck at the store nearest you. 16GB
Staples: In-store sales of the 16GB Nexus 7 at Staples are scheduled to kick off July 20th.
Be sure to check back! We'll be updating this page as more retailers make the Nexus 7 available for purchase.Story highlights Pompeo said he's sure the North Korean people would love to see Kim go
He said Kim's ouster wasn't an "unadulterated good" for the US
Washington (CNN) CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday evening offered some of the most aggressive comments yet from the Trump administration with regard to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Although Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has in the past said the US was against forcing Kim out of power or the collapse of his government, Pompeo said that the administration needed to find a way to separate Kim from his growing nuclear stockpile.
"It would be a great thing to denuclearize the peninsula, to get those weapons off of that, but the thing that is most dangerous about it is the character who holds the control over them today," Pompeo said in a discussion moderated by conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens at the Aspen Security Forum.
He continued, "So from the administration's perspective, the most important thing we can do is separate those two. Right? Separate capacity and someone who might well have intent and break those two apart."
Pompeo said both the intelligence community and the Department of Defense have been tasked with drafting plans for what "ultimately needs to be achieved" with regard to the North Korean nuclear threat.
Read MorePreparations for war in North Korea I. North Korean preparations for war A. ACTUAL PREPARATIONS (1) Kim Jong-il's strategy and determination [War according to Kim Jong-il] �� Kim Jong-il has confidence in DPRK's decades of war preparations and the numerical superiority of his armed forces, and their victory over what he regards as inferior ROK armed forces. �� The junior Kim has vowed 'complete liberation of the peninsula', a task left 'half-done' by Kim Il-sung. He is apparently determined to become 'the president of a unified Korea' through armed force. �� North Korea has stockpiled war materiel for six months only, confident that any conflict it starts will not last longer than the said period. - The North will commence its offensive after fabricating an 'invasion north' by its commando units in ROK uniforms. Artillery bombardment will leave Seoul in ruins in five or six minutes, and then armored forces will launch a general offensive along the DMZ, occupying Pusan and the entire southern half of the peninsula before reinforcement by US Pacific forces.
- US intervention will be countered by threats of missile attacks on several Japanese cities, including Tokyo, thus stalling reinforcement by US forces until occupation is complete. [Kim Jong-il's will to aggression] �� War preparation has become a priority for all government agencies since Kim Jong-il's rise to political power in the 1970's, and war set the tone for the general society after he was elected Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army in Dec. 1991. �� Kim Jong-il has touted the armed forces as the 'vanguard of unification and the only hope for the state'. He has issued directives to the effect that 'everyone must do their utmost in support of the armed forces' on frequent occasions. �� Kim Jong-il and the KPA brass have absolute confidence that North Korea will prevail over the ROK, and most North Koreans refer to the ROK armed forces as'scarecrows' and 'pushovers'. �� Kim Jong-il once went so far as to declare 'the world does not deserve to exist without the DPRK', and should North Korea implode, "we will take the rest of the world with us". �� The upper echelons of the DPRK hierarchy admit to the ROK's economic superiority, but also regard it as a military pygmy, and unification by force is a forgone conclusion if not for US support for the ROK. A greater percentage of North Koreans believe war is preferable to a persisting food crisis and chronic starvation. (2) PREPARATIONS �� The Cuban Missile Crisis became the impetus for Kim Il-sung's simultaneous development of the economy and the military. The elder Kim declared, "Money in one's own pocket is better than money in your brother's, and it is always best to keep one's wallet full', after hearing of the crisis. �� Kim Jong-il has personally supervised construction of military facilities since his graduation from Kim Il-sung University in 1964, and has participated in every area of military planning. �� North Korea's quasi-military organization of its society allows for its direct conversion to a war footing once war is declared, and all munitions are produced domestically, including production of helicopter gunships, missiles, and rocket launchers. �� Kim Il-sung once escorted the junior Kim on an inspection tour of the Fifth Corps headquarters in Pyonggang, built as an underground fortress with living quarters for all personnel, and movable portals for heavy guns. �� Electricity for underground military facilities cannot be diverted elsewhere, including factories on the verge of closure. Underground facilities in the vicinity of Pyongyang are replete with state-of-the-art lighting, water, and ventilation systems. �� All heavy equipment in North Korea's military inventory is self-propelled, as featured in the military's sixtieth anniversary parade in 1992. The military openly boasts enough weapons to turn South Korea to ruin 'three times over'. �� Each North Korean special forces unit has been assigned a specific target in South Korea, usually strategic objectives such as missile bases and airfields. The units will be delivered to their targets by parachute or hovercraft. �� All North Korean citizens are required to donate rice as rations to the military, ranking cadres and ordinary persons alike. The party maintains records of donations by individual cadres as a measure of personal loyalty to the state, and donations among the cadres tend to be quite competitive. (3) BIDING TIME �� The North saw its best opportunity for a second strike south during the April 19th Uprising, though the offensive did not materialize due to Soviet and Chinese advice to the contrary, and the fact that they had only just completed their postwar rehabilitation. They are waiting for another opportunity to present itself during the current election season. �� The Korean peninsula was on the brink of war following the Pueblo Incident (Jan. 1968), the downing of a US EC-121 aircraft (April 1969), and the Panmunjom Axe Murders (Aug. 1976). North Koreans thought war was imminent in the wake of the above incidents, and removed the population to shelters and prepared for armed conflict. �� North Korea sees political chaos in South Korea as the best window of opportunity, though US and Chinese reactions to the attack remain important variables. The North will attempt to instigate turmoil in the south through its underground espionage network, and strike when turmoil combines with an international incident that necessitates large-scale dispatch of US troops elsewhere. �� The North Korean leadership will become ever more dependent on its military machine as the economy slides into a deeper recession and popular discontent rises. War will be the only option left if the situation becomes absolutely desperate. (4) CHAIN OF COMMAND AND NORTH KOREAN STRATEGY �� North Korea formerly maintained a four-stage chain of command, where orders from the president first had to pass through the minister of defense, chief of the political bureau, and JCS chairman before troops could be mobilized. The junior Kim eliminated the defense minister and the political chief from the apparatus, and the JCS chairman takes his orders directly from Kim Jong-il himself, making mobilization for war possible at a moment's notice. �� Special mobilization of the society and population in the event of war is not necessary, as is the necessity for a war government, due to the militarized nature of North Korean government apparatus and society. �� North Korean strategy is a combination of the steamroller' and blitzkrieg, with special forces assault on strategic military facilities to be followed by a mobile armored offensive to occupy the entire southern half of the peninsula. �� Another strategy developed after the passing of the elder Kim involves leveling Seoul and destroying strategic facilities with overwhelming artillery bombardment, and subsequent political negotiation from a position of strength. �� The master plan for North Korea's invasion southward was completed by Kim Jong-il and the military's strategic planners two years before the death of Kim Il-sung. The top brass was impressed with the plan and called for its immediate implementation, only to be countermanded by the elder Kim, who called for recovery of deteriorating standards of living before any mobilization for war. �� Diplomatic isolation of South Korea from the US, Japan, China, and Russia and withdrawal of US forces in Korea are to be included in preparations for invasion. The emphasis is on getting the Americans to leave, and Kim Il-sung once declared that he could "do without Cheju island if the USFK withdraws." �� Prepared to initiate kamikaze and kaiten-style attack on US warships. North Korea is confident the sinking of major US warships, including carriers, by suicide attacks will ignite anti-war demonstrations in the United States. The US will face further challenges from North Korea against its involvement in the form of threats of attacks on Japanese cities with long-rage missiles. �� North Korea does not expect aid in any form from China or Russia in its invasion southward, its mutual security treaties with both countries notwithstanding. However, North Korea counts on China to come to its defense in case of an invasion north by combined ROK/US forces. (5) KIM JONG-IL'S HOLD ON THE MILITARY AND THE TOP BRASS �� Kim Jong-il assumed total control over the military with his election to the post of Supreme Commander of the KPA (Feb. 1991) and as Chairman of the National Defense Commission (April 1993). This control is bolstered by his appointment of loyalists to top posts and apparati to scrutinize loyalty of the top brass (command center/ Political Bureau/ Defense Security Command). �� Kim Jong-il's absolute authority has reduced the JCS chairman to simply implementing his orders, and even trivial suggestions or advice contrary to the junior Kim's is not tolerated. Kim's closest military advisors are Cho Myung-rok (Political Bureau Chief), Kim Yung-choon (JCS chairman), and Won Eung-hee (Defense Security Commander). [Hwang's assessment of the top brass] - Cho was formerly commander of North Korea's air force and was promoted to be the military's political chief for his loyalty. Kim Yung-choon has no political skill, and is even less of a strategist. Former JCS chairman Oh Keuk-ryul was dismissed in favor of Kim Yung-choon, but he was soon appointed chief military strategist for the Worker's Party, owing to his ability as a brilliant military strategist and a heavy following within the defense establishment. B. ADDITIONS TO THE WAR MACHINE (1) ARMS PRODUCTION AND PROCUREMENT OF TECHNOLOGY �� North Korea has imported outer panels removed from Russian submarines to construct external hulls for its own submarine fleet, and sophisticated parts and equipment necessary for their operation are also imported, mostly from Japan. �� North Korea's view of Chinese military technology is not favorable, and has terminated import of weapons or technology from the PRC. Even state-of-the-art weaponry from Russia is ignored by North Koreans as antiquated, and weapons manuals for Russian weapons often go unread. �� Foreign personnel necessary for weapons projects are recruited in secret by the foreign ministry. (2) PRIORITY TO THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX �� Priority was placed on military and munitions production ever since plans for simultaneous development of the economy and the military were established at the Fifteenth Plenary Session of the Fourth Worker's Party Assembly in 1967.
- The assembly concluded North Korea would be alone in its effort to unify the Korean peninsula by force, following analysis of the political situation in the region. All factories and state firms were required to donate a certain part of their output to the military. �� Kim Jong-il has resorted to some extreme measures to ensure an adequate material stockpile for the military. For example, all plants and state firms must produce their required supply quota for the military, even if it results in shortage of supplies for the civilian sector. Military tribunals await managers of plants who fail to do so.
- The cabinet was excluded from control of military industries, which are instead supervised by the Munitions Bureau of the Party Central Committee (Sec. Chun Byung-ho). Munition bureau offices were established in plants for civilian production as well, and all production activity is supervised by the military. �� Members of the Party Military Committee, standing members of the politburo, provincial party heads, and party secretaries and managers from individual plants and firms hold regular assessment sessions to verify proper implementation of party plans and directives. Those found to be responsible for inadequate production are severely reprimanded. (3) STOCKPILES �� Munitions and Mobilization Agency is responsible for all stockpiling of war materiel. The agency is headed by a three-star general, who is also a member of the party politburo. It operates as a individual administrative agency much in the manner of the Escort Bureau (Secret Service). �� Procurement of foreign exchange for weapons imports is the exclusive responsibility of the No. 2 Economic Committee, operating independently of the cabinet or other government agencies. C. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (1) NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM �� Kim Il-sung compared the PRC's 1964 atomic weapons experiment to "a general trying to wear his sword before his trousers". It can be concluded that he had no intention of building a nuclear arsenal at the time. �� The Soviet ambassador to North Korea questioned then-secretary Hwang Jang-yop about the possibility of a nuclear weapons program in North Korea, and urged North Korea to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Hwang Jang-yop feigned ignorance and reported to the elder Kim afterwards. The elder and junior Kim ordered Hwang to withhold comments in response to Soviet suspicions. �� Foreign minister Kim Young-nam signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in Dec. 1985 and the Nuclear Safety Accords in April of 1992. The signing became fodder for criticism by munitions bureaucrats for allegedly making their work'more difficult.' �� The possibility of possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea has been ambiguous, due to lack of direct confirmation of weapons or related sites. However, reasonable proof was provided by its withdrawal from the NPT regime (March 1993) after the IAEA insisted on inspections in 1992, and a majority of North Korean cadres believe a nuclear weapon has become part of their weapons cache. (2) AGREEMENTS BETWEEN THE US AND NORTH KOREA �� North Korean bargaining strategy was micromanaged by direct orders from Kim Jong-il to Kang Suk-ju, North Korea's chief negotiator, and other agencies were denied any role in the talks. �� The main justification for North Korea's selection of the light-water over a thermoelectric units is the possibility of large deposits of uranium in North Korea, combined with their inability to secure supplies of petroleum necessary to operate a thermoelectric plant. �� North Korea has closed off Shinpo to the general population, preventing their contact with the team of South Korean workers dispatched to the location for the construction of the nuclear reactor. (3) THE NUCLEAR AND RELATED QUESTIONS �� North Korea's agreement to the Declaration for Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a political ploy designed to portray North Korea in a peaceful light on the international stage, and to elicit division within South Korea over the nuclear issue. The agreement has no significance politically for policy-makers in North Korea. �� The Soviets provided North Korea with the necessary means to build a nuclear reactor in 1985, as part of the political deal surrounding North Korea's entry into the NPT regime (Agreement for delivery of four 440MW light-water reactors signed between North Korean and the USSR in Dec. 1985). �� The negotiation and signing of the Nuclear Safety Accord (April 1992) and the Geneva Agreement (Oct. 1994) were parts of a North Korean strategy to buy time for itself. The North believes it has profited from the two agreements, based on guarantees to deliver the light-water reactor and a half-million tons of diesel fuel without incurring any losses on the political front. �� A number of ranking cadres cite international tensions over North Korea's nuclear program as proof that the foreign ministry signed North Korea into a political trap of its own making following agreement to the Nuclear Safety Accord with the IAEA on April 1992. (4) CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS AND MISSILE TECHNOLOGY �� There is reason to believe North Korea possesses large stockpiles of chemical weapons, and North Korea has repeatedly confirmed that it will never sign the Chemical/Biological Test Ban Treaty. Higher echelons of the North Korean leadership have also hinted at possession of biological weapons. �� North Korea has threatened to 'annihilate��Japan with long-range ballistic missiles with chemical warheads as a countermeasure against US involvement in Korea when it launches an invasion against the ROK. �� Three are unconfirmed reports of bombs capable of depleting oxygen within a limited area upon explosion (most likely fuel-air explosives), in North Korea's weapons inventory. D. ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE R.O.K (1) VIEWS OF THE USFK AND THE ROK ARMED FORCES �� North Korea's political and military leadership views the KPA as the fourth largest conventional force in the world both in terms of size and capability, replete with one of the best chemical weapons inventories in the world. Another entrenched assumption is that the ROK armed forces will not mount a serious challenge, and North Korean victory is certain if not for the USFK.
- In addition, they claim ability to track movement by all South Korean combat aircraft and warships, and enough artillery to level Seoul completely within five or six minutes, regardless of the southern defense budget that far outstrips the North's. �� The North Korean population has been led to believe that its special forces can infiltrate the US just as easily as the South Korean coast, by their propaganda machine. It also claims the US mainland will not be safe from combat, unlike the wars in the past. �� North Korea has vowed to counter any US offensive with suicide attacks upon American aircraft and warships, which they conceive will be effective at keeping US forces at bay. The DPRK military belittles the military significance of the Gulf War, and claims that it has the technological capability to match the US military. �� Kim Jong-il and his planners analyzed potential weaknesses of US weaponry after the Gulf War, and produced a film concerning North Korean victory over US weapons systems. The film was made required viewing for the military commanders in strategy and other departments, for purposes of augmenting confidence in the possibility of triumph over the US forces. �� A successful suicide attack and sinking of even one US cruiser will ignite anti-war protests that will take the US out of the war, and threats of is enough to cow the South Korean population into submission, according to North Korean propaganda. (2) VIEWS ON THE TEAM SPIRIT MILITARY EXERCISE �� The following are common assumptions held by the North Korean leadership concerning the Team Spirit Military Exercise:
��Use the forces massed for the exercise to launch a surprise attack on North Korea ��Create an atmosphere of war, and subsequent preparations in North Korea will halt production and paralyze the North Korean economy �� The KPA is placed on maximum alert during the exercise, necessitating full readiness of equipment that requires massive expenditure of petroleum in the face of adequate stores and supplies. The withdrawal of all military personnel from economic production places a severe burden on the North Korean economy. �� North Korea declared a virtual state of war during the exercise in March, 1993, due to added tensions surrounding inspection of its nuclear facilities.
- Kim Jong-il conducted his activities in the situation room in an underground bunker beneath his office building.
- A contingency team consisting of members from all party departments was on emergency duty at the party central committee. All vehicles were placed on waiting for emergency mobilization, and troops were made to stand by in underground bunkers and tunnels.The Eagles insisted all spring they were copacetic with Kurt Coleman opposite Nate Allen, backed up by 2011 second-rounder Jaiquawn Jarrett, who barely got on the field as a rookie. Then, after reviewing all the spring tape, the Birds signed veteran O.J. Atogwe. I'll be shocked if Allen doesn't start, but after that, who knows? Coaches built up Coleman all spring — not sure anybody works harder to improve — but he was a 2010 seventh-round draft pick for a reason. He isn't big or fast, and he misses tackles. Coleman is a guy you want on your team, maybe not as a starter. Atogwe, franchised by the Rams 3 years ago, is 31 now, and he was cut loose in January by a 5-11 Redskins team. He missed all the Eagles spring work and will be learning the defense from scratch at Lehigh. The guy I think is on the roster bubble here is Jarrett, the former Temple star, who as a rookie didn't seem to have the frame or the quickness to back up his big hitter rep. It's not that big a deal, in a lockout year, for a rookie not to get a lot of snaps from scrimmage, but Jarrett couldn't seem to make himself useful on special teams. That's a red flag.Galway to Krasnoyarsk is 5,905km as the crow flies.
Galway to Krasnoyarsk is 5,905km as the crow flies.
CONNACHT HAVE BEEN sent to Siberia after losing a game of Russian roulette.
Pat Lam’s men face the nightmare 12,000km round-trip to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in November after being drawn to face Russian newcomers Enisei-STM in the European Challenge Cup.
Connacht drew the short straw at a draw in the EPCR headquarters at Neuchatel in Switzerland, and face the difficult trip to Siberia for the opening round of the Challenge Cup in November.
The Russian champions wanted their pool games in their home city Krasnoyarsk, which is five hours east of Moscow.
A compromise was reached that they would play one of their pool games there and the other two at the more accessible Winter Olympic city of Sochi, close to the Georgian border.
Weather conditions will also play against Connacht, with the average daily temperature in Krasnoyarsk as low as -3 degrees, and the average nighttime temperatures falling to around -10.
It is believed that the EPCR will assist Connacht in travelling to Siberia, probably by providing a charter flight, but it will still be an arduous task for Lam’s men, with a seven hour time difference to be factored into a journey which will be ten hours, not including stops.
Connacht, Brive and Newcastle Falcons watched on Skype as the draw, which was overseen by a legal scrutineer, took place in Neuchatel.
The EPCR are expected to soon announce the Pool 1 fixtures for the Challenge Cup.Using 3D graphics, Neil Oliver explores a recently-discovered 5,000-year-old temple in Orkney that has triggered new thoughts about the beliefs of Neolithic people.
Neil Oliver investigates the discovery of a 5,000-year-old temple in Orkney. Built 500 years before Stonehenge, the temple has triggered new thoughts about the beliefs of Neolithic people, turning the map of ancient Britain upside down.
The vast site lies undisturbed until now, set within one of the most important ancient landscapes in the world. There have been some incredible finds, including the first ever discovery of Neolithic painted wall decorations, and even the pigments and paint pots used by Stone Age artists.
Special effects have been used to bring this archaeological evidence to life, creating a 3D model of the entire temple, allowing Neil to walk inside in a bid to understand just how it might have been used.New York, October 5, 2017--The Committee to Protect Journalists called today for the Uzbek authorities to immediately release journalist Bobomurod Abdullaev, who went missing on September 27 and has since been secretly tried in a criminal court in Tashkent, the capital.
Abdullaev faces criminal charges of "attacking the constitutional order" of Uzbekistan and is in the custody of Uzbekistan's National Security Service (SNB), according to the independent regional news agency Fergana. Fergana reported on October 3 that Abdullaev faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Citing Tashkent-based human rights defender Surat Ikramov, Fergana said it is unclear why the chargers were brought against Abdullaev.
"Bobomurod Abdullaev's disappearance and the charges against him are extremely disturbing. If authorities believed the journalist had committed some crime other than voicing his dissent, they would have no reason to hide his trial behind closed doors," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "We call on the Uzbek government to immediately release Bobomurod Abdullaev, drop the charges against him, and stop its ruthless anti-press campaign."
Abdullaev worked for years as a freelance journalist, contributing to the Uzbek service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, locally known as Ozodlik, as well as the London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting. He also founded an independent news website, Ozod Ovoz (Free Voice), which Uzbek authorities shut down following the May 2005 crackdown on antigovernment protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan.
Abdullaev was one of few independent journalists who did not flee Uzbekistan following the Andijan events, and continued to openly criticize the Uzbek government in YouTube videos, his interviews with Ozodlik, and other media outlets.
Last week his wife, Katya Balkhiboyeva, told media outlets that her husband at noon on September 27 left their house in Tashkent to take his car to a local repair shop and never returned.
Balkhiboyeva filed a missing person report with local police on September 29. A few hours after she filed the missing person report, police raided the journalist's apartment, Abdullaev's wife told the BBC Uzbek service.
During the BBC interview, which took place as police were raiding the apartment, Balkhiboyeva said police refused to inform her about her husband's whereabouts or any charges against him.
According to Fergana, Abdullaev's relatives have yet to receive an official notice about the arrest of and charges against the journalist.
Nadezhda Atayeva, who heads the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia from exile in France, wrote on her Facebook page that Abdullaev complained about being followed before his September 27 disappearance.
On September 27, the same day Abdullaev was first detained, Uzbek authorities also detained dissident writer Nurullo Otakhonov at the Tashkent airport upon his return from self-imposed exile in Turkey, and charged the writer with anti-state activities.Pearn also has a gold medal as coach (1993) and two golds as an assistant (1990, 1991) with Canada's national junior team at the IIHF World Junior Championship.
Pearn, 65, has worked 22 seasons as an NHL assistant with the Vancouver Canucks, Ottawa Senators, New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets. He began his NHL career as an assistant in Winnipeg in 1995-96.
For additional insight into the Stanley Cup Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators, NHL.com has enlisted the help of Perry Pearn to break down the action from the Predators' perspective. Pearn will be checking in throughout the Final.
NASHVILLE -- Nashville Predators goalie Pekka Rinne is under plenty of scrutiny after two games of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have scored a total of nine goals and lead the best-of-7 series 2-0. Game 3 is at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVA Sports).
[RELATED: Coach's analysis: Guentzel changed tone of Game 2 | Complete Stanley Cup Final coverage]
You will not find former NHL assistant Perry Pearn in the chorus of those critical of Rinne.
"Everybody's talking about him but I feel that's an awful tough thing to be doing," Pearn said after Game 2, a 4-1 win by the Penguins. "Probably most goalies wouldn't want to give up the rebound that he gave on the second Pittsburgh goal, the game-winner by Jake Guentzel, in Game 2. But that's easy to say, tough to do, tough to put that rebound where you'd like, and I have a tough time faulting him on that one.
"If you analyze the eight goals that have gone in (the Penguins had an empty-net goal in Game 1), for me as a coach, I have a really hard time laying a whole lot of that on his plate. He's just been too good for them in the playoffs. I have no doubt they have confidence in him."
Pearn said he could find little, if any fault with Rinne in the third period of Game 2, when the Penguins broke a 1-1 tie with three goals in the first 3:28 of the period.
"It's a tough play when the puck goes off a player coming back to the net to help out, but Scott Wilson's goal for Pittsburgh goes off Vernon Fiddler," he said. "And the other one is [Evgeni] Malkin going right down the slot with a good look. It's hard to say, 'Wow, Rinne didn't play well enough.'
Video: NSH@PIT, Gm2: Wilson tips a puck home off Fiddler
"[Pittsburgh goalie Matt] Murray has played really well but he has given rebounds similar to Rinne and been able to get across or get help from a defenseman. That, and Nashville hasn't been as good at capitalizing.
"I would certainly think that Nashville will be downplaying all of this. Rinne is going to be the guy if they're going to come back in the series. If that happens, it will be that Pekka Rinne will be great in Games 3 and 4."
The third period of Game 2 saw critical breakdowns in front of Rinne, Pearn said.
"Nashville looked like they were really put back on their heels off the first goal of the period, 10 seconds in," he said. "They looked rattled after that. All three goals in the third were scored exactly the same way.
"The first one was the first faceoff, and Pittsburgh beat the pinch of the Nashville defenseman that created the opportunity. Then it was a pinch on the third Penguins goal, a defensemen, with Austin Watson covering up and Watson made a bad decision to step forward one more time. They probably accomplished what they wanted on the pinch but it got chipped by and it turned into a 2-on-1."
Another mistake by Colton Sissons led to Malkin's goal that made it 4-1.
"He was in good position but Malkin read he was there and the one thing you can't do is let the puck get by you and Malkin chipped it by to create the 2-on-1," Pearn said. "Nashville's defenseman wasn't aggressive on the puck carrier on that one -- of course it was Malkin -- but mostly they've done a good job on those 2-on-1's. But at 4-1, the game is over.
"I think it's part of their game plan, the pinching and pressuring, so I don't expect them to go away from it. But [Wednesay] night, they made more mistakes surrounding the pinch than they had previously in the playoffs and paid a high price for that."
Video: NSH@PIT, Gm2: Malkin goes bar-down to pad lead
Pearn said Nashville played its game well for two periods in Game 2, but slipped noticeably in the third.
"Nashville, in the first period, were winning a lot of faceoffs and putting a lot of pressure on," Pearn said. "They missed their biggest opportunity of the game to take control when they didn't score on the 5-on-3. Having watched the Anaheim series closely, and now two games in this series, they've had three opportunities like that they haven't taken advantage of. You look back and say you had to score there. It's one of the things they'll look at.
"The flip side of that, they've continued to be very, very good on their penalty kill. They've been aggressive, pressured the puck and I've been impressed with their whole penalty kill and they have frustrated Pittsburgh. It looked like after two periods, that their quality penalty killing was going to serve them well in the outcome."
Pearn said that the Predators have done a lot with unheralded young players like Pontus Aberg and Watson.
"Those guys have stepped up, and a few others, too, but you really have to say the same thing about Pittsburgh," he said. "Guentzel has 12 goals in the playoffs and their young guys have played a big role, too."Fun fact about alligators: they can regrow any of their eighty teeth up to fifty times. Which is pretty impressive, especially compared to us relatively dentally challenged humans: when we lose adult teeth, there’s no regrowing them.
Regrowing Teeth
But that may change. Hoping to save the toothless among us from being fated to wearing dentures, scientists are studying how alligators regrow teeth and how the same process may be able to work in humans.
Using X rays and tissue samples, plus lab grown gator tooth cells and computer models, scientists have learned that for each gator tooth there are two tooth precursors, both of which are triggered to grow when a mature tooth is lost.
The growth process begins when a band of tissue called the dental lamina begins to bulge. This wakes up stem cells and signaling molecules that kick start new tooth growth. And finally a new tooth grows in to replace the one that was lost.
Evolution
Now, it’s difficult to take what nature and evolution have combined to create in one species and somehow make it happen in another. But we humans do have remnants of dental lamina. And scientists are trying to figure out how to manipulate it to enable tooth growth in people similar to how it works in alligators. We could potentially use that same knowledge to turn off the processes in humans that sometimes cause problems like growing too many teeth or oddly shaped and spaced teeth.
The alligator research is still in the early stages, so regrowing human teeth is still a ways away. But before too long, replacing a lost adult tooth may be as simple as growing it back.It has become clear that, at least until Donald Trump nominates a Supreme Court Justice (and quite possibly beyond that point), congressional Democrats intend to make opposition to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination as Attorney General the centerpiece of their early resistance to the new president. The talking point you will hear and read about the most is alleged racism by Sen. Sessions. However, the true reasons for the opposition are (1) his desire to enforce, rather than ignore and revamp, U.S. immigration law and (2) his color blind vision of civil rights law.
As long as Sessions has a relatively gaffe-free confirmation hearing, casting Sessions as a racist based on his views on immigration and civil rights law, coupled with stale and largely discredited allegations from more than 30 years ago, isn’t likely to endear Democrats to the voters with whom they have fallen out of favor. Indeed, it seems to me that this sort of demonizing is a big reason for the falling out.
The electorate has some sympathy both for illegal immigrants and affirmative action. But it has little sympathy for branding as racist public figures who take a hard line on these matters.
Moreover, allegations of racism against this particular public figure — Sen. Sessions — cannot be sustained. We have explained why here, among other places.
Now comes a powerful character witness to take on the racism slander. He is Donald Watkins, a prominent African-American attorney from Alabama. The Washington Times reports:
Donald V. Watkins said he first encountered Mr. Sessions during their days at law school, when the future senator was the first white student to ask him to join a campus organization — the Young Republicans. Mr. Watkins declined, but said his interactions with Mr. Sessions throughout the years have convinced him the man President-elect Donald Trump wants to make the next U.S. attorney general is a good man.
“Jeff was a conservative then, as he is now, but he was NOT a racist,” Mr. Watkins wrote in a Facebook post in May, which he reposted Friday afternoon, just hours after Mr. Trump announced Mr. Sessions as his pick. Mr. Watkins said he wished he’d come forward in 1986, when Mr. Sessions had been nominated to be a federal judge. His appointment was derailed by Senate Democrats, including then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden and current Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary, who said Mr. Sessions had shown racist tendencies. The late Sen. Arlen Specter, who at the time was a Republican but later switched parties, also joined in opposing Mr. Sessions. A few years later, Mr. Watkins said he ran into Mr. Sessions in Birmingham and said he was surprised Mr. Sessions didn’t call him as a witness. “At the end of our conversation |
U vs. Kennesaw State
JOHNSON, CITY, Tenn. (Sept. 9, 2015) – The ETSU football team opened its 2015 season last Thursday night when a capacity crowd of 8,217 fans saw the Buccaneers host Kennesaw State at Kermit Tipton Stadium.
The Buccaneer Sports Network takes a look back at the historical night with this special video tribute capturing scenes from the event.
ETSU returns to action next Thursday night at home, hosting Maryville at 7:30 p.m. inside Kermit Tipton Stadium. Fans can learn more about ETSU football by visiting ETSUBucs.com and clicking on the football link.
For complete information on ETSU Football, follow the program via social media on Twitter (@ETSUFootball), Instagram (@ETSUFootball), Snapchat (@ETSUFootball) and on Facebook (ETSU Buccaneer Football).
For more information on Buccaneer football, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the football page.Weather Information for Obsidian
See the original blog post if you want to learn about Obsidian in general.
By far the most requested feature for Obsidian, my watch face for the Pebble smartwatch, was to add weather information. Over the last few days, I've implemented this feature. It's fully configurable and the weather information moves out of the way of watch hands so that it is never obstructed.
Here are a few screenshots of what the weather information looks like on the Pebble Time
and on the Pebble Time Round
The source of the weather information can be configured to be openweathermap.org or forecast.io, the temperature can be displayed in Celsius or Fahrenheit, and the color can be fully customized. By default Obsidian will display the current weather conditions, but this can be changed to today's conditions. One interesting feature that I haven't seen in other watch faces is that Obsidian allows for a mix between current conditions and today's weather in the following way: In the first part of the day, Obsidian will display today's weather, and then at 2pm it will switch to the current conditions. That allows the user to get a sense of today's weather in the morning with the day's maximum temperature (e.g., to decide what to wear), and then around the time of the highest temperature, the watch will switch to current conditions as today's high is no longer useful information. Finally, weather information is displayed for the current location by default, but it is possible to set a fixed location.
I have borrowed some of the fonts from Minimalin, another great watch face for the Pebble. Thanks to the people behind Minimalin for making everything available. The latest version of Obsidian can be downloaded here:
obsidian-3.6.pbw.
Furthermore, Obsidian is also source, and you can check it out at github.com/stefanheule/obsidian.Trials of Ebola vaccines could begin in West Africa in December, a month earlier than expected, and hundreds of thousands of doses should be available for use by the middle of next year, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
Vaccines are being developed and made ready in record time by drugmakers working with regulators, the UN health agency said, but questions remain about their safety and efficacy which can only be settled by full clinical trials.
“Vaccine is not a magic bullet, but when ready they may be a good part of the effort to turn the tide against the epidemic,” senior WHO official Marie-Paule Kieny told a news briefing after a meeting in Geneva of industry executives, global health experts, drug regulators and funders.
“We are talking now about starting in December and not January. So this shows again how everything is really pushed forward and the massive effort which is undertaken by everybody to make this happen.”
While financing was discussed, there were no details of specific funding pledges for Ebola vaccines’ development, distribution and deployment.
“There is a broad understanding that money will not be an issue,” said Ms Kieny, the WHO’s assistant director general for health systems and innovation. “And on commitment of vaccine manufacturers, of course there is commitment for affordable prices.”
Ms Kieny said the World Bank would help to put together a fund to indemnify companies in case people had adverse reactions to the new Ebola shots, with financing from development agencies. Britain had suggested setting up the fund and others had shown they were also in favour of contributing, she said.
Two leading vaccine candidates from GlaxoSmithKline and NewLink Genetics are already in human clinical trials, and another five experimental vaccines would begin clinical trials in the first quarter of next year. One from Johnson & Johnson will start trials in January.
Experts aim to conduct a range of different clinical trials in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea to produce the first efficacy data by around April, she said. Plans are most advanced for Liberia, where 20,000-30,000 volunteers would receive one of two Ebola vaccines or a placebo - likely a vaccine for hepatitis, influenza or rabies.
At least 4,877 people have died in the world’s worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, and at least 9,936 cases of the disease had been recorded as of October 19th, the WHO said on Wednesday, but the true toll may be three times as much.
Mali on Thursday became the sixth West African country to have a confirmed Ebola case in the worst outbreak on record of the haemorrhagic fever.
If data from accelerated safety trials in human volunteers suggests they are safe to use, the plan is that several thousand doses will be given to high risk groups such as frontline health workers in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia by early next year.
“The message we heard from WHO that the people fighting the epidemic will be among the first to test Ebola vaccines and treatments is exactly the one we needed to hear,” said Bertrand Draguez, medical director for international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
“Today, doctors and nurses involved in the struggle against Ebola are getting more and more frustrated as they have no treatment for patients with a disease that kills up to 80 percent of them.”
MSF and some of the WHO’s donor countries have pledged to finance vaccines, Kieny said, and the World Bank and Gavi, which funds vaccines for developing countries, were also interested. A Gavi board meeting is set for December on the issue, she said.
A mass immunisation programme would not happen until much later, when vaccine production has been ramped up.
A key unknown is how much vaccine each individual will need to get protection. If all goes well, and dosing per person is moderate, drugmakers hope to produce millions of vaccines shots by the end of 2015, reflecting an expected steep ramp-up in production during the year.
Despite the sense of urgency, one person involved in this week’s discussions in Geneva said coordinating all the parties in the process was not easy and there was still considerable debate about how clinical trials should be designed and the standard of evidence needed for regulatory approval.
ReutersAngelenos have been hearing for the past four years that street vending could be legalized soon, but there always seems to be just a little bit more to do. This week was no different.
With some saying it is past due for a major city like Los Angeles to start permitting vending, city leaders took yet another step forward Wednesday in committee. They advanced a slightly more detailed series of operating rules and restrictions that could apply to street vendors selling everything from hotdogs and fruits to toys and other wares on Los Angeles sidewalks.
The hard part has been to create a program that works across the city, and that is also not too cumbersome for vendors, some say.
“Our end goal is to find a comprehensive policy to sidewalk vending that works for everyone,” said Harbor area councilman Joe Buscaino, who has been advocating for the city to move faster to legalize vending.
Sidewalk vendor are at City Hall to urge for their businesses to be legalized. The quilt shows a map of where vendors operate in LA. pic.twitter.com/CaKl4ktUqw — Elizabeth Chou (@reporterliz) November 8, 2017
Some say the council is ready this time around to really make something happen, especially with President Donald Trump taking tough stances on illegal immigration. The fear that street vendors, many of whom are undocumented, could be deported if they are given criminal citations seems to have spurred faster action this year.
“There is a different room temperature from the City Council than existed when we first proposed a street vending ordinance and if that inspires action, then great,” Councilman Jose Huizar said in a statement. “Let’s move on it.”
But while city leaders say they are closer than ever, some issues remain that stand between the estimated 50,000 vendors that are already operating in L.A., and their ability to apply for a city permit.
People don’t agree on whether vendors should be able to operate citywide
The discussion on the council has moved away from a model in which vending would only be legal in areas that want it, and is now settling toward legalizing vending citywide, with some areas potentially being able to opt-out. Now, the conversation appears to be primarily around the process for being able to opt-out.
Communities that oppose vending should be able to opt out entirely, according to San Fernando Valley Councilman Mitchell Englander. He says the culture and geography differs across Los Angeles, and communities should not be forced to adhere to a “one-size-fits-all” approach to the permitting program. His district includes Chatsworth and Northridge, two areas where the neighborhood councils submitted letters to oppose the legalization of sidewalk vending in their areas.
But other city leaders are pushing hard the other way, saying that vending should only be disallowed if there are “rational and legitimate” reasons for why an area is unsuitable for the activity, such as if it creates a public or health safety hazard. The city still needs to settle on a criteria for allowing certain areas to opt out or set up “special districts” that impose stricter rules.
The committee did move forward on a proposal that would specifically restrict vending within 500 feet of touristy or crowded venues with high pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks, such as Hollywood Boulevard, Dodger Stadium, Hollywood Bowl, the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Neighborhood councils in other areas of the city, like Studio City, the Harbor area, Hollywood Hills and West Los Angeles also oppose a citywide vending program. But in places like North Hollywood, Lake Balboa, Echo Park and Highland Park, the neighborhood councils have expressed support for the citywide approach.
In an attempt avoid past mistakes, LA leaders are puzzling over how to ensure that most vendors will want to join the legal permitting program
The city tried more than 20 years ago to legalize vending, but many say that effort failed because the rules were too restrictive, and only one area of the city, MacArthur Park, was able to set up a legal vending zone. At the time, the multiple rules and limited areas for legalized vending resulted in legal vendors being easily undercut by vendors outside the district who decided it was better to continue flouting the rules.
Activists for street vendors say permit fees should be affordable enough for vendors to be able to pay for, and the operating rules and application requirements should not be too cumbersome. They also argue that the proposed rules, which include a cap of two vendors per block, are still too restrictive. They also say the city appeared to have “lifted” the rules from those that are meant for news racks, rather than specifically tailoring the rules to vending. Some of those proposed restrictions could prevent vendors from operating near parking meters and bus stops, which are abundant throughout the city’s commercial areas, for example.
City leaders have not made any proposals about the best way to pay for enforcement of vending rules
Residents, brick-and-mortar business, and the vendors all want to make sure the vending rules are enforced. But this might be the most expensive part of the program, city officials say.
The members of the committee this week made few recommendations on what type of enforcement model to use, and how to fund it. They went only as far as asking staff to study the issue further.
Enforcement costs could be covered by “certificate of operation” fees. City officials looked at a fee levels ranging from $125 to $1000. If the fee is set at the lowest level, city officials say that might require more than 23,000 vendors to obtain permits, in order to come up with about $3.3 million to pay for enforcement.
So city leaders still need to consider what level of fees is affordable for vendors, and how it might fit in with the vendors’ overall operating costs. A sidewalk vendors’ operating costs, such as insurance and equipment, can range from $2,932 to $21,861 in the first year, according to officials.
Also there may be a limited number of permits that can be issued. A proposed a cap of two vendors per block means permits will be limited by the number of blocks in a city. The vending program would likely only allow vendors on commercial and industrial blocks, with limited pushcart vending in residential areas. The number of permits that could could also be further limited depending on whether certain areas of the city opt-out of legalized vending.
Nothing is decided yet on whether vendors will need to gain the consent of brick-and-mortar businesses to operate nearby
Cities like Portland and San Francisco that already have a legal vending program require vendors to ask for a nearby storefront’s consent before setting up show nearby. So LA is likely to head in that direction.
But city leaders are hearing from activists, who say a rule requiring a “letter of consent” could lead to storefront businesses extorting vendors. Activists say they prefer a non-regulatory way of resolving any conflicts between storefront business operators and vendors.
Meanwhile, business groups that are generally supportive of legalized vending say that the requirement that vendors obtain permission from brick-and-mortar businesses is important because it gives them control of what’s happening just outside their door.Rudy Rucker has posted his kick-ass, weird-ass post-cyberpunk novel Postsingular to the net as a free, Creative Commons-licensed download. I reviewed Postsingular when it came out earlier this month:
In Postsingular, a mad scientist creates a race of nants -- nanites -- that digest the planet and turn it into a computational simulation of Earth, called Vearth. However, an autistic child memorizes a long string of numbers that poisons the nants and causes them to reverse themselves (luckily, they're engaged in reversible computation) and put the planet back. That's the setup.
Some time later, another race of benign nanos are released on the earth, the Orphids. Orphids are mezzoscale computers that organize themselves into an intelligent global network, tapping into every human brain and giving people access to outboard cognition facilities, so that anyone can drop out, tune in, and become hyperintelligent. The orphidnetters are haunted by spooks from a parallel dimension, who seek to prevent them from using the smarts of the orphidnet to develop interdimensional travel.BARCELONA – 3D animated movie “Foosball,” the latest film from Juan Jose Campanella (“The Secret in Their Eyes”), rewrote the history books Thursday in Argentina, opening in cinemas theaters to a first-day Pesos 4.3 million ($774,000) box office and 104,000.
Thursday figures are the best opening ever for an Argentine film, the biggest for Universal in Argentina, and the second highest bow of all time for a film of any nationality in the country.
A humor-tinged adventure-love story centering on a boy, Amadeo, whose table football figures come alive, helping him to save his hometown and win back his childhood sweetheart, “Foosball” bowed on the first day of Argentina’s so-called Winter Vacation.
That may have goosed results, but “Foosball’s” first commercial release anywhere in the world was made in the face of tremendous competition from Universal-Illumination’s “Despicable Me 2” (which sold 83,000 tix), Pixar’s “Monsters University” (55,000) and DreamWorks Animation’s “Turbo” (46,000).
Costing a final $21 million, “Foosball” already boasts two more records, as the biggest-budgeted Argentine film of all time and the biggest Latin American animated feature ever.
The first-day result suggests box office will justify the risk.
“We are really excited and are now showing the film in the U.S., and aim to close a deal by the middle of August,” said “Foosball” producer Jorge Estrada Mora.In May 1981, a left-wing leader was elected on a programme of mass nationalisation, wealth taxes and a higher minimum wage. François Mitterrand was the first Socialist president of France’s Fifth Republic and promised a “complete rupture” with capitalism (his government included Communist ministers for the first time since 1947). Twelve industrial conglomerates and 38 banks were taken into public ownership, including Paribas and Banque Rothschild, and the minimum wage was increased by 10 per cent.
“We want to develop a mixed economy. We are not revolutionary Marxist-Leninists,” Mitterrand reassured the French employers’ federation. But his socialist experiment faced immediate resistance. Capital fled France at a rate of two billion francs a day and private firms launched an investment strike. Inflation, meanwhile, reached 12.6 per cent and the country’s trade deficit surged. The European Monetary System (EMS), a precursor to the euro, which pegged the franc to the deutschmark, limited the scope for currency devaluation and capital controls. “I am divided between two ambitions: constructing Europe, and social justice,” lamented Mitterrand.
Faced with a choice between leaving the EMS and pursuing economic protectionism, or remaining and accepting the dictates of the market, the president chose the latter path. Under the tournant de la rigueur, or “austerity turn”, of 1982-83, public spending was cut by 44 billion francs, taxes on workers and consumers were increased by 40 billion francs, budget deficits were capped at 3 per cent of GDP and wages were delinked from prices. The most ambitious postwar socialist experiment in western Europe was over.
Mitterrand’s fate remains resonant today. After the left-wing Greek party Syriza entered office, it faced a comparable choice between euro membership and austerity (embracing the second). For Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, which has adopted its most radical programme for decades (including the renationalisation of public utilities, the abolition of university tuition fees and a £10 minimum wage), there are also lessons.
Socialists are wise to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. At a fringe event during the recent Labour conference, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, revealed that he was planning for the economic woes that afflicted Mitterrand. “What if there is a run on the pound? What happens if there is this concept of capital flight? I don’t think there will be, but you never know, so we’ve got to scenario plan for that.”
The UK’s current account deficit of 5.9 per cent of GDP – the largest of any major economy – reflects its dependence on what Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, calls “the kindness of strangers”. If international investors lost confidence in Britain, the pound would further depreciate, increasing inflation and reducing living standards.
The French experience demonstrated the importance of internal unity. Mitterrand was restrained by his more moderate finance minister, Jacques Delors, who prioritised currency stability over Keynesian reflation. Corbyn, by contrast, defied the wishes of trade union leaders to name McDonnell, his closest political ally, shadow chancellor.
Both Syriza and the French Socialists faced external constraints: the EMS and the euro. The Labour left’s long-standing Euroscepticism reflects its desire to avoid such limitations. Though the restrictions imposed by the EU’s single market are smaller than some suggest, the UK would be even freer to pursue state intervention outside of it.
Labour’s 2017 manifesto was modest compared to Mitterrand’s 110 Propositions for France. But the implementation of a left-wing programme in an economy far more globalised than in the 1980s would pose a significant challenge.
“In economics, there are two solutions. Either you are a Leninist, or you won’t change anything,” Mitterrand eventually concluded to his aides. A Corbyn government would be the greatest test of that thesis since the Frenchman's botched experiment.Typical music videos are usually something along the lines of a band performing live with some kind of storyline that is either incorporated with the band playing or separate altogether. Icarus the Owl decided to abandon that altogether and come out with one of the most creatively inspiring music videos of 2017. Their sound originates from the more progressive post-hardcore scene that has bands like DGD, Stolas, and A Lot Like Birds.
This music video comes right after the release of 2 other singles, Dream Shade and Failed Transmissions, both which are unique in their own ways. However, the attention to detail on their newest music video is something to admire even if you don’t find the music all the exciting. It takes on a journey of the two main characters who are both in comas but communicate their love for each other through their dreams. While the message is nothing new, the amount of work put into the music video is something not many bands would think of or attempt to do.
Coma Dreams as a song stays interesting, with plenty of harmonies to back up the powerful vocals provided by their singer Joey. This song stays more laidback throughout its entirety, while other songs they’ve released from their upcoming album are a bit more intricate in their instrumentation. It has a subtle catchiness to it that brings you in while never becoming monotonous compared to the mainstream songs we hear on the radio.
Putting a bass intro was a nice touch as well, seeing as their previous 2 singles started off with guitar and full band. There are random moments that you hear a piano or vibes make an entrance, adding various different little elements for the listener to focus on with each new listen. Particularly in the bridge when we get the repetitive piano lick that quickly builds up in the drums and the rest of the band as well. Check out the music video for yourself down below!
You can pre-order their new album titled “Rearm Circuits” on their website down below, which comes out on December 1st. Just in time for their run with Dance Gavin Dance, Polyphia, and Wolf & Bear.
https://icarus-the-owl.myshopify.com/
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Dance Gavin Dance, Polyphia, Icarus the Owl, Wolf & Bear Tour
[Total: 0 Average: 0/5]This year, Moreno Moser will ride Giro d'Italia for the first time in his career. Troubled by a knee problem in the past weeks, the young gun from Cannondale is determined to reanimate his season in la Corsa Rosa.
Moser suffered a sore knee during the Tirreno-Adriatico and had to skip all the races afterwards, including Milan-Sanremo, one of his main objectives in the spring. However, he claims that he is problem-free now and sets his sight on the Italian Grand Tour. "Yes, it's safe to say I will ride Giro d'Italia. The knee problem is gone, so I can work full gas now. I'm confident about the rest of the season," said Moser in an interview with Trentino Corriere Alpi.
This will be Moser's second shot to ride a Grand Tour. His only experience before comes from last year's Tour de France, where he finished 94th overall with an impressive third place on the stage finishing atop the legendary climb Alpe d'Huez.
Prior to Giro d'Italia, the trentino native will ride Giro del Trentino on his home soil to find racing rhythm. He will likely to race the Ardennes showdown, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, too.NRC Proposal: The Shawn Mackay Memorial Shield
It has been bandied about both on the GAGR forums and the general twitterverse that the NRC could use something like the Ranfurly Shield. That’s a link to another part of the interwebs so go read it if you don’t know what the Ranfurly Shield is, you pleb. We’ll all wait here.
Done? Good.
The Log O’ Wood, as it is affectionately known, is often viewed with more import than the trophies for winning the competition. Primarily, the “challenge” aspect of it, where it can ONLY be won on the holder’s home ground, makes it extremely difficult to win. You only need to look at the two Unions on top of the “most wins” table in that wiki article (go back if you need to) to understand why: the big boys don’t like sharing.
A team that wins the Log is a team of legend. Records are set defending the Shield, and teams who hold it are judged across eras by how many times they defended it, or for how long. The mere presence of it causes even the dourest of Kiwi men to grin like schoolboys after their first kiss (ovine or otherwise), and Kiwi women have been known to fall pregnant just by walking into the same room*.
When the Shield is being played for on your home turf, no matter how badly the season is going, the crowd will swell, the cheers will ring louder, and the defenders will grow an extra leg and two lungs to make sure the challenger has to earn the right to hold it, often spilling blood and teeth in the process.
* These two facts may be related… and possibly one of them is not true.
During the twitter stream tonight, where such notaries as Greg Clarke from Fox Sports was hailing the Hawkes Bay victory in their Shield Challenge over Counties Manukau, I got to thinking about finding a meaningful name for this trophy.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, what equivalent can we muster in Australia? Lord Ranfurly is lone gone, and we’re not in the habit these days of just letting random Governors hand out trophies with their name on it (though I’m sure they’re lovely people). You can call up your Eales’, your Hipwells, Gregans, Larkhams, Burkes… a lot of those blokes have stuff named after them already.
So when we are thinking about a suitable trophy for this new competition, it has to be something that stands for the new order. The fact that we’re bringing the club guys together with the Super players and welding it into a new competition, with new identities. Presenting an opportunity, while representing the values of Australian Rugby across this great brown land.
Which brings me to this bloke: Shawn Mackay (that’s another link to wikipedia – go read etc. etc.) was a rugby player, tragically killed while on a night out during the Brumbies tour of South Africa in March, 2009.
He was 26.
He got around a fair bit in rugby, being part of the Waverley first XV before a stint playing league in his junior years and winning a Jersey Flegg title with the Roosters (What? Jeez do I have to do everything?!! OK here it is: Jersey Flegg Cup).
He played Sevens rugby for Australia, including the captaincy at the 2006 Commonwealth Games tilt, and played for the Waratahs and the Brumbies. As well as 4 seasons with Randwick, he coached the Australian Women’s Sevens Team to the Oceania title in 2008, being remembered fondly as “one of the girls” by captain Cheryl Soon.
The light started to flicker when I thought about a suitable candidate to have their name put on this item. For some reason, Shawn’s name popped into my head.
I hadn’t really paid a great deal of attention to his time on the field, beyond noting he was a rare combination of skill, size, and pace. In addition, while he was a rookie at Super Rugby, he was the other side of 25 which was late for the professional 15-man game, when players were being signed out of high school.
But I saw how badly this event affected those around him, as you’d expect with such a tragic loss. In rugby, we are all brothers and sisters; we are family.
It was when I re-read the wikipedia article in full tonight, that two facts about Shawn Mackay stood out for me and the light finally stopped flickering, and came on in its full, 2500 lumen LED glory!
He played for the Melbourne Rebels in the original Australian Rugby Championship (ARC), which dovetails nicely into the current NRC.
But the bigger factor was the Brumbies’ next game against the Stormers, the crowd stood for a minute’s applause
This was an organisation where several of his good mates still had to get out there and play every week. But this was no time for shutting down and letting the world cave in; this was a time for celebrating a life lived in sport – in rugby – and time to go out there and do what Shawn loved doing, not just for himself, but with his mates.
So to everyone out there, I submit that we establish, via the rugby authorities, a shield to be held this year by the premiers, and name it in honour of a man who was not a necessarily legend of the game’s record books, but who represented the greatest values of that game for the short, full life he had.
I propose that this year’s NRC Premier received the Shawn Mackay Memorial Shield, and receive challenges for it at every regular season home game in NRC 2015.
(And yes I realise the Brumbies already have a medal named after him)Copyright by WCMH - All rights reserved NBC News video capture
Copyright by WCMH - All rights reserved NBC News video capture
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - San Antonio police say two suspects are in custody after a robbery inside a shopping mall ended in a shooting that left one man dead and several injured.
In a statement early Monday, police say both suspects face preliminary charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
The robbery happened Sunday afternoon at a jewelry store inside Rolling Oaks Mall. Police Chief William McManus said Sunday that one of the suspects fatally shot a "good Samaritan" who tried to stop them as they fled the store.
Authorities say two other people were shot and two women suffered non-shooting injuries.
One suspect was shot by an individual who had a licensed concealed handgun. Police say that suspect is hospitalized in critical condition.
Officials say the second suspect was later arrested in nearby Converse.One of the last remaining members of the famous “Band of Brothers” paratroopers died Feb. 1, leaving behind a legacy as both a famous soldier and career teacher.
Edward Tipper, a former member of the 101st Airborne Division’s famous Easy Company, died at his home in Lakewood, Colo., according to Kerry Tipper, his daughter.
Tipper and his fellow brothers-in-arms were made famous by the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers,” which told the story of the 101st Airborne Division’s Easy Company during World War II, from their first jump into German-occupied France on D-Day all the way to the end of the fight in the European theater.
Tipper was born in Detroit in 1921 and volunteered as a paratrooper shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He participated in the combat jump on Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the subsequent fight for the French town of Carentan. Tipper was hit by a mortar shell while clearing a house in the town, which cost him two broken legs and his right eye. He won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his participation in the battle.
His daughter recalled that Tipper never gave in to his injuries, defying doctor’s warnings on what he could and could not do.
“He was defiant above all,” she told The Denver Post. He reportedly took up handball simply to prove he could do it, and was a frequent skier into his 80s.
Tipper attended the University of Michigan, the University of Northern Colorado and the Colorado State College of Education after the war. He started his teaching career in Iowa, eventually returning to Colorado to teach English and literature. He also ran drama programs in Jefferson County, west of Denver.
“So much of what people talk about with him is what he did in the war. That was two years and really six days starting on D-Day,” said Kerry Tipper. “Teaching was 30 years.”
Tipper will be laid to rest at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Time is a funny thing. In the early 90’s Weezer came out with the classic “Blue Album.” A smash upon its release, these guys could have done anything they wanted for a follow-up to one of the best-selling rock albums the year of its release. In fact, they did do whatever they wanted, except it didn’t really turn out the way people had hoped.
At the time, the bands sophomore album “Pinkerton,” crashed and burned and Weezer went from being the next big thing to just another band that only had one good album in them. Like I said, time is funny, and often fickle. Along the way. something amazing starting to happen. People started to realize that this second album, wasn’t a flop at all. It was brilliant, emotional, very dark album in ways that it’s predecessor wasn’t, and since then it’s become known as one of, if not the best album the band has ever recorded. I present to you Weezer’s 1996 once vastly underrated second album, “Pinkerton.”
Almost from the opening of “Tired of Sex” you can tell this isn’t a happy pop rock record. The bass line is rough in ways it hadn’t been before, and the forlorn lyrics set you up for one of the most overlooked albums to come out at that time. I’d like to say I was one of the people who fell in love with this album when it came out, but I wouldn’t discover it until about 4 years later. It was late, but it was also perfect timing. At the time of the release I wasn’t really capable of understanding the depth of Cuomo’s pain, but years later, it spoke to me and only me.
The story goes that Rivers Cuomo had decided to attend Harvard after the massive success of the first album, and in the process of his studies, had fallen in love with a girl. He would never formally meet this girl, but for a romantic meeting the person isn’t really a requirement. Also helping with the somber, darkened tone of the album was the fact that Rivers’ was going through a painful procedure to add length to one of his legs so he could be on even ground. This was done by turning knobs that attached to bolts in his legs. Sounds like fun right?
“Pinkerton” perfectly sets the mood for a lonely, cold winter up north, and in the end, it’s the ultimate depressing album. The reason it works so well also has to do with how polar opposite it is from the first album. In the way the “Blue Album” had tinges of sadness among light positively themed songs, “Pinkerton” has downright unsettling songs intermingled with the occasional more chipper passages. This doesn’t happen too often though.
“Why Bother?” has a particular downtrodden feel to it. I know for certain that I’ve felt the “fuck the world” vibe before, as thought it wasn’t worth it to even try. This song is that emotion. This is a band that doesn’t care, and they’re upset at the situation, and they intend to take it out on everyone paying attention. The next selection, “Across the Sea,” might be the most lovely song on the album. The piano beginning is sweet, and the lyrics on this track are some of the best on the whole collection of songs. We’re treated to a true story about a fan from Japan who was fascinated by the band, and over time Rivers’ becomes quite enamored with her, and this young ladies gift for loving the band is the love of the main songwriter and a song specifically about her. How cool would that be? But also, the song still presents the pain of wondering if the person you’re meant to be with is stranded on an island all the way across the world waiting for your hearts to be together.
If you’re hoping the second half of the record is a little lighter, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, it’s probably worse. Back to back we’re treated to the chipper sounding but lyrically bitter “The Good Life,” which is then followed by the downright strange “El Scorcho.” “The Good Life” reeks of resentment. I imagine a man in his late 40’s who’s been burned multiple times by people in general, and he’s just trying to get his style back. The slow down and subsequent buildup on the song are also one of the best decisions the band made. They’re able to jump into a dreamy tune from a aggressive one, and the upward momentum is reminiscent of the “Blue Album” track “Only in Dreams.” To this day the song is one of my favorites on the album, and it should be yours too.
“El Scorcho” comes at us from left field, and it’s on of the few songs that is both catchy and isn’t wrist slitting depressing. Witnessing thousands of people sing this song is still one of the coolest things ever, and the funkiness of song makes it a good time for all.
When I first got this record, my life was vastly different. I was depressed about my state in life, and had no idea what to do about it. I was living at home, had no girlfriend, and no prospects for one. This album was my escape. I could relate perfectly to the angst presented here, and through time, and a growth of maturity, this album helped me to figure things out.
“Falling for You,” followed by “ Butterfly,” close the album, but it get’s worse before it get’s better. In fact it doesn’t get better. “Falling for You” is helpless in the same way that love can be. The band is playing like they have no idea how to continue, and of course, the person Rivers’ is falling for may or may not feel the same way. This is the appropriate time to discuss the guitars on this record. Brian Bell absolutely tears it down on multiple songs, and in some ways, it’s the glue that keeps the songs going. This band, while known for catchy songs, is also at times over looked in the department of playing ability. They all know what they |
Yo, dog, we need your information." I'm like, "Oh, wow! I'm a businessman now! Word." He made that happen.
I heard it on the radio one night — I don't know if it was Special K and Teddy Ted, I don't know who played it — but I'm walking through the projects late one night and I see these older dudes by the radio, by a car, they sitting by they car, talking, they were drinking beers and they were — late! They were playing the radio out they car. So I'm just sitting, I don't have nowhere else to go at this point. I ain't seen none of my boys so I'm just hanging out where they at — and then the record comes on.
So I'm like, "Oh." I'm in a trance. Like, "Yo, that's me! Yo, that's me!" I'm like, "Yo!" I'm trying to tell them, "Yo, that's me!" But they all in they conversation, they yelling and talking amongst each other, they not listening to the radio. I'm trying to tell them that's me, they're like, "Yeah, alright, alright." They not even — so I block them out. I'm in my zone, I'm listening to me. So that walk from 12th Street to Vernon, back to my block, I was in a trance, you know what I mean? I wanted to call Paul and say, "Yo, they playing your record," cause I would call him anyway if they were playing his record: "Yo, I heard your record. Yo, people like it," whatever, give him feedback. So I wanted to call him and say, "Yo, they played the record, dog! But they played THE record! The one I'M on."
From there, I was on. I felt like, "I'll be alright." It didn't happen like that, but I felt like I'd be alright. In the long run, it came together. Then I met Serch and he put me on "Back to the Grill" which was like a Part 2 to "Live at the Barbeque," but I'm the only one from "Barbeque" on the song. He already had Chubb Rock on it, Red Hot Lover Tone, so he put me on it. Wow, this is a lot, dog! We getting in, we getting it in right here!
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KELLEY: OK, so then Serch works on "Halftime"? Or you sign with Serch first?
NAS: Serch told me that everybody at Columbia Records was looking for me.
KELLEY: Right.
NAS: And I would hear rumors, like, people had been looking for me, but I wasn't — when I went looking for record deals, I got exhausted quick.
MUHAMMAD: Why?
NAS: I wasn't with trying to sell myself. It's the wrong phrase, "selling myself." But I wasn't with trying to convince somebody they should invest in me. Either you've got it or you didn't. Cause I didn't know nothing. So I'm just like, "Y'all don't get it?" I'm like, "Alright, we out." You know what I'm saying? Two trips like that, I was done. I would hear, "Yo, this one want to meet you. I know somebody that's looking for you." I didn't even believe it.
So when Serch said it — we at the studio. Some guys took me to the studio where he was at and I was just hanging with them. They wound up taking me there just to hang out. I didn't have any intentions to get on his record; I didn't have any intentions but to say what's up and just hang with the guys I was hanging with at the day. But he's, like, staring at me. He's like, "Yo! Yo, you that kid! Yo, yo!" And he's like, "Yo! Columbia Records, yo!" And I'm like, "Oh, I want to rock with Columbia! That's who I want to rock with. You know how to get me in there?" He's like, "Yeah." He hooked up the meeting. We go in and we kick it. And then they like, "Let's do this." So after the meetings and everything, Serch is like,"Yo, dog, since I brought you here, would you mind? You know, I got this production company." I said, "Say no more. Whatever you want to do, we doin' it." And that's what we did.
KELLEY: Got it.
NAS: But we took a few trips to Philly also because they had the subsidiary — they had Ruffhouse in Philly with Chris Schwartz. And he had The Fugees, he had Cypress Hill, I think he had this cat Kurious Jorge — Puerto Rican cat, I think, from the Lower East Side — and they wanted me.
I felt like that was better: to massage me into the huge Columbia Records system. To just go right in? You'd always want to go through a Cold Chillin' — which was a big label back then — or some type of label that was rap-oriented so that you'd be really pushed and protected and all of that. I thought it was a great idea. So I managed to figure out how to do this deal with Serch, Ruffhouse and Columbia CBS — this was before Sony — this was Columbia CBS. I was like, "As long as that Columbia and CBS is in there, we good." So we were able to do that deal.
MUHAMMAD: The only other thing that was going on with Columbia CBS — I don't even know if they were still had that relationship at the time you signed — was Def Jam, right?
NAS: Def Jam. Yes, it was. They actually dropped Def Jam. They dropped Def Jam. At one point, Russell and Lyor didn't even have a deal for Def Jam. I watched them drop them, and I was like, "How does Def Jam get dropped?" But this was me on the inside watching, you know, the insides of what's going on with record companies. And the major, major record companies and independent record companies and back-ends and who's putting up the money and all of this stuff. So they let Def Jam Go. They let Ruffhouse go. I wind up directly on Columbia Records.
MUHAMMAD: Yeah.
NAS: Which was what I wanted in the first place. All respect to Chris Schwartz; he was a great visionary that a lot of people don't talk about too much. Respect to MC Serch. But I was trying to get there anyway. I wound up getting there — to just be on Columbia Records cause everybody else couldn't keep up.
KELLEY: Right, OK. So after you signed, after the dust settles, do you go right in the studio?
NAS: Well, yeah, I wanted — I had these ideas, and I think Serch thought that I was just dreaming too big. I wanted to work with Tribe; I wanted to work with Premier; I wanted to work with Pete Rock. Could you imagine? I'm this — I'm brand new, you know what I mean? I got like two verses out there. How am I going to get a beat from Q-Tip? How am I going to get a beat from Premier and Pete Rock? Luckily enough, Paul — Large Professor — already was friends with you guys, and friends with Pete and friends with Premier. So he's the liaison. He liaised on that, or he really introduced me to everybody. They had been familiar with my verses, so they were interested. I was lucky to have them produce for me at that stage.
But Serch at the beginning was like, "Huh?" When we talked about making the album, he was producing tracks. He had gave me a bunch of tracks, and they were cool tracks. But they were not for my album. I was trying to explain that. He was disappointed because he really wanted to produce my album. But I had to really explain to him my vision and what I wanted to do. So Serch kind of just said, "Alright cool." He backed off. He backed all the way off, and I just started running out there and started putting my album together, yeah.
KELLEY: So did you then, all of the sudden have some open studio time?
NAS: Yeah, yeah. The original Chung King Studios, yeah. Yep.
KELLEY: And what was happening in the studio? This is, like, '93?
NAS: This is '92.
KELLEY: OK.
NAS: This is '92. I do "Halftime." It's the first song I do. And they needed it for a soundtrack and I thought that was cool. So we give 'em "Halftime."
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KELLEY: It was a Michael Rapaport soundtrack?
NAS: That was his first movie, too.
KELLEY: Yeah, Zebrahead?
NAS: Yeah. His first movie, my first single, yeah. From there we just kept recording.
KELLEY: OK.
NAS: I wound up in Battery Studios with Q-Tip and the guys and I wound up in Pete Rock's basement — the famous basement in Mount Vernon — D&D Studios with Premier, famous D&D Studios. I was bouncing around from all these places.
KELLEY: And were you writing there or were you writing at home?
NAS: I had half of the album already written.
KELLEY: OK.
NAS: It was already done. So it was all about making it all up-to-date, like tweaking it and making it up-to-date. Well, "One Love," with Tip, that was written once I got there. Once he gave me the sample, he just looped the sample and gave it to me and I wrote it.
KELLEY: OK.
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NAS: Yeah, so that was fresh. It was a few, maybe one or two or three. "Life's a B----" was fresh. But most of "New York State of Mind" was already written, most of "Represent" was already written, yeah.
KELLEY: There's nine songs on the album — did you want there to be more?
NAS: I thought — yeah. I thought I would have at least 10 songs, and one more. I thought that the game was gonna be mad at me. I was like, "Aw, I gotta just put --" but it wasn't fitting. Anything that I tried — it was last minute, and I tried to attempt to do one more song and it just didn't work. It wasn't meant to be. And I was like, "Alright, I'm cool with nine. It feels good at nine, like you play it from beginning to end..." But I still wanted — just for, just the way it's supposed to be — I wanted 10 songs. But I didn't fight it too much.
KELLEY: And what was the time pressure? Cause it leaked?
NAS: Well, it leaked and from the moment they signed me two years had went by. I wasn't in the studio all the time. Like today, I'm not in the studio all the time. So two years went by and they were like, "What are we doing?" I had spent maybe $250,000 on the budget at that point and kept needing more money for the budget to open back up. And it was like, "How much is this gonna cost? This is a rap album from a new kid in 1993." You know, "What are you doing?"
KELLEY: Yeah.
NAS: And by that time, you know, I'm playing it in my boys' cars, I'm leaving copies there and here. I'm giving everybody copies around me and, you know, it leaked. People in the record company had copies and it leaked. So it was a combo. It was a combo of it being leaked on the streets already and that I was spending more and more money to go in the studio and really just hang out. I wasn't doing too much. So it was like, "Let's do this and put it out."
KELLEY: Then what happened? Did you hit the road?
NAS: No. I started to do in-stores and, yeah, I hit the road on a promo side. It took me to Europe and all that.
MUHAMMAD: I'm excited to know what's the next, the next record? But I don't want to beat you up about that. I don't want to harass you about what's coming. I'd like to respect the --
NAS: It's all good.
MUHAMMAD: The space.
NAS: It's all good. It took me a while to jumpstart it. I started working with Tim, I want to say a year and a half ago. I think it was the same year I dropped my last album, Life is Good. I started with Tim and it felt really powerful; it felt like it was really powerful. And I stepped back from it. Tim's like, "What are you doing?" and I'm like, "I just need a minute to like — I just need a minute to take it all in, just live a little and enjoy day-by-day stuff and daily stuff I'm doing." It's just — I didn't want to go back in the studio that quick. I felt like I needed to be inspired.
I wasn't really, really, really inspired, to tell you the truth, until we started to, kind of, embark on this 20th anniversary. It wasn't 'til then that I really started to feel it. Cause I got a chance — and I gotta give credit to the documentary guys. Them showing me the footage and stuff really like — it really lets you know where you come from and everything, and where you at now. I salute them dudes, man — One9, Erik Parker, the whole crew over there that's put that film together — because that's helped me find the inspiration. I found it.
So I jumpstarted the album again — the new one. Because I started maybe a year and a half ago with the ideas, No I.D., I'm there. Now I'm at a place where — I laid down ideas, so the ideas I lay down then, now, I'm kind of like going through 'em and I'm fixing 'em. Now I'm at a place where I could play a song for somebody and they really get it and they really understand — they really feel it. At first I didn't, so I'm happy to say I'm at a place where it feels right. I talked to Swizz, and we went through joints. And No I.D. and Timbaland, you know. This the only interview I'ma talk about it. Cause I know once this comes out, people might ask me about the record and, man, I just want to finish it and get it done.
MUHAMMAD: That's what's up. That's why I didn't want to ask you. Cause that's what I'm saying: I respect the space. And people will want to know. I try to stay away from the normal "people want to know" questions.
NAS: Hopefully this thing here — I'm charged right now as I'm going in there. Two years I think it's been, since my last album. So this new one is — I'm happy to get it together and get it out there.
KELLEY: Who are you making this one for? And do you still feel as strongly that you gotta be Number 1? Who is your competition?
NAS: Me. Myself is my competition.
KELLEY: You mean your legacy?
NAS: You could say that.
KELLEY: Your 19-year-old self?
NAS: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 — all of them. All of those years is my competition. Who am I making it for? I'd have to say the same people I was making it for back then, but they grew up.
KELLY: Right.
NAS: They grew up. I kind of sometimes feel bad for them because some of them don't want to hear what's going on today. And that's not right — you supposed to give everybody a listen — but some of them don't want to hear certain things. A lot of people kind of like, I want to say grew up with me in a lot of ways, and there's a lot of people that was really into my last album. And this is the next step. This is the next step right here so it's a continuation of what I been building through the years.
KELLEY: I saw you perform at SXSW and it seemed like you were really happy to do the old songs, to do Illmatic -- other albums also. But does it still feel --is it repetitive? Is it boring to you to do that still?
NAS: Because it's 20 years, it's a party. So you saw me partying. It's a real celebratory mood. I'm in that space: I crack a bottle of Henny on the stage and take it to the neck and I feel life. It's a feeling I can't explain. Yeah, it's a party. I'm having a party.
MUHAMMAD: Yo, not too many people can have an album 20 years later that the world still craves.
NAS: But, you know, it's an honor. I'm honored that people would still like it. Cause the content is relevant to today.
MUHAMMAD: Absolutely.
NAS: Shout out to everybody out there that has an anniversary thing going on — there's a few people. Shout out to Def Jam and their 30th anniversary, cause they are a historical record company in the history of music and I was happy — it's one of my three dream labels. Well, I'll give you my three dream labels: Columbia, Def Jam, Cold Chillin'.
MUHAMMAD: Ooh!
NAS: People today don't know Cold Chillin', but that's Biz Markie...
MUHAMMAD: That makes sense though.
NAS: Yeah, it makes sense, that's where I'm from. It's Marley Marl and Queensbridge. So, Cold Chillin'. I still want one of those Cold Chillin' varsity jackets right now, you know what I mean? I still want that. I always wanted the Def Jam jacket, and of course Columbia Records is everything to me. So I been lucky to be able to go to all of these places — except for Cold Chillin' because I don't think there is no more Cold Chillin'.
MUHAMMAD: Nah.
NAS: But if y'all do — if Cold Chillin' pops back up, I'll give you one album; I'll give you one.
KELLEY: Where is Marley? Call him.
MUHAMMAD: I know, right? That may — well, Marley talked to us about the whole Cold Chillin' thing.
But the music is timeless, man. The lyricism is timeless, the stories are timeless. It'll be 20, 40 years, whatever. You definitely are an important person for the story of hip-hop. I say thank you for sharing your art with the world, man.
NAS: Appreciate it, man. Appreciate you guys having me here. That felt comfortable to explain my story. And I've done a few interviews, one with Rap Genius recently, another one with BBC, I don't know if I can shout all those out but yeah. This is another interview that I feel real comfortable talking about it, man, cause, for one, it's with you — I've known you forever. You guys are easy for me to just open up to.
It's not easy to go back. It's not always easy to go back, man. Shout out to AZ, who's on that album, man, incredible lyricist. DJ L.E.S., who's not as known as the rest of those legends. I was happy to just put somebody from Queensbridge on the album with those incredible producers, so shout out to DJ L.E.S. And everybody that was involved. Thank you.
KELLEY: Why isn't it easy to go back?
NAS: I mean, when's the last time you went back?
KELLEY: OK, yeah.
NAS: You got it that quick? You feel me? And then it's in front of the public, you know what I'm saying? When you go back on the air, you going through stuff, you vulnerable, you going back through memories. Like we were talking and I started to remember a time when I saw Jarobi — and that was big for me — for the first time. I followed them cause I heard them talking about going to a club, you know, I followed them and found out what was hip and then I met more people and heard about what other clubs was popping in the city and so on and so forth. You go back and you talk about times that's private, you know what I mean, private and personal to you. But here it is. This is what we do; we share with the world. It's not that big a deal, it is what it is.
KELLEY: Well, do you care? I mean do you get anything out of good music journalism? Do you pay a price for bad music journalism or does the music and the culture? Does it matter?
NAS: Yeah, in a big way. Of course, if you're Sade, it doesn't matter. She does what she does. But for all of us, journalism is a huge deal because you guys study the craft more than artists. It wasn't fair to throw me, as a 20-year-old guy, in front of seasoned journalists on my first album. They were asking me questions that I didn't have answers to, that I didn't understand, and I didn't understand why they would ask me this when I hadn't even have that much experience. They were asking me questions you should ask Sting and David Bowie and Miles Davis.
KELLEY: Yeah.
NAS: You know what I'm saying? But it prepared me for what was to come. And in a lot of ways journalists — like there's one that takes credit for helping write "Sexual Healing" for Marvin Gaye. In a lot of ways, journalists are helpful. We're on the same team in a lot of ways.
KELLEY: Sure.
NAS: Even the guys that criticize you, they can get you on your game; they get you back on your game. They're not the nicest things that's being said about you, but they're here to criticize. Or they're here to even help explain what you've done, when you might not even understand it. And that's what the documentary, Time is Illmatic, has done for me so far. I'm like, "Good looking, y'all," because I needed to see how someone else saw this thing play out.
KELLEY: Right, right. Thanks. I'm good.
MUHAMMAD: I'm good. We try to make sure that Microphone Check is a home so we not up in here, you know, stirring it up the wrong way. I certainly have not lived my life like that.
NAS: Well, any time you guys. I'm coming back to chop it up. Thanks, Microphone Check. Salute.A clutch of public interest groups, unions and media companies including Dish Network and Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze have formed the “Stop Mega Comcast” coalition to advocate against federal approval of the $45 billion cable merger.
The group spearheaded by the non-profit org Public Knowledge said it would focus on blocking the union of the nation’s two largest cable operators outright because “no set of conditions can address the substantial harms that will be caused by the merger.” The strident opposition to the merger by the coalition members is nothing new, but the Stop Mega Comcast forum may amplify their arguments at a time when there’s growing speculation about the possibility that regulators will reject the deal.
In announcing the effort, the group listed familiar concerns about the merger, including the fact that the combined company would control nearly 50% of the broadband service in the U.S. — although Comcast maintains the figure is 35%. Broadband is a hot button for regulators at a time when the FCC is evaluating its net neutrality policies. Comcast has said it would abide by the FCC’s net neutrality rules that were put in place several years ago, even though a federal appeals court struck them down in January.
Comcast described the coalition as comprised of “self-interested opponents” with competitive motivations for seeking to block the merger.
“Hundreds of community organizations, programmers, lawmakers and diversity groups have praised the pro-consumer benefits of this transaction. It is no secret that some companies that want billions of dollars in higher fees for consumers are paying lobbying firms to organize against this transaction,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast’s VP of government communications. “This minority of self-interested opponents has used the same tactics in our past deals, and their claims were not found to be credible by the expert agencies. We believe the same will be true here.”
The Writers Guild of America West is among the industry orgs in the coalition, along with the Consumer Federation of America, Greenlining Institute, Parents Television Council, Sports Fan Coalition, WeatherNation TV, FairPoint Communications, Future of Music Coalition, Hargray Communications and NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association.
In a conference call with reporters, execs with the various orgs emphasized that the combined Comcast-TW Cable would have a dangerous amount of “gatekeeper” control over aspects of the media and entertainment marketplace. They pointed to Comcast’s track record in fighting a condition of its 2011 NBCUniversal takeover — the stipulation that it carry Bloomberg TV in the same “neighborhood” as its own biz channel CNBC — as a sign that conditions would not be strong enough to police the company’s power.
Ellen Stutzman of the WGA West said flatly that Comcast, through its cable and studio divisions, would have “unprecedented” power over programming, which would ultimately mean that “writers would have fewer outlets to sell to, and they’d be paid less to create and innovate.”
The group has launched a website and plans to meet with officials at the FCC and Justice Department as they hunker down on the review of the merger, which was unveiled in February. Gene Kimmelman, prexy-CEO of Public Knowledge, also noted that they feel momentum is on their side as in the past few months there has been growing speculation that the deal will be nixed entirely or saddled with so many conditions that it becomes unattractive to Comcast.
“The conversation has been different in the last month or two,” Kimmelman said. “The concerns we want to raise could fall on receptive ears at the enforcement agencies.”
Lynne Costantini of TheBlaze said the nature of the questions that have been asked of merger opponents by FCC and Justice Dept. staffers indicates that they are grappling with the issues raised by the size and scope of Comcast post-merger. “This is not a run-of-the-mill review. They’re thinking about this in new and different ways,” she said.
The coalition cited Comcast’s overwhelming market share in the traditional cable biz as well as its size as a programmer through NBCUniversal. Other areas of concern cited were the sway that the enlarged Comcast would have to provide the broadband for connected consumer devices; the market share it would command in local cable advertising; and the impact of its size in markets with high concentrations of minority viewers.
The org’s media strategy is being handled by D.C.-based Glover Park Group, the communications firm known for its work on politically charged issues and regulatory fights such as Comcast’s 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.Nuit Blanche 2017 in Toronto might once again lack the corporate backing its enjoyed in the past, but the curators have embraced this situation with programming that celebrates the revolutionary spirit and fierce independence that often accompanies artistic creation. This is the year that Nuit Blanche commemorates protest as an art form.
Here are my picks for must-see exhibits this September 30 at Nuit Blanche 2017.
Zone: Monument to the Century of Revolutions
This interactive exhibit by the Justseeds Artists' Collective takes place in one of the many shipping containers stacked in Nathan Phillips Square. A makeshift silk screen studio will be used to create banners, t-shirts, and posters that can be pasted around the city or taken home as souvenirs.
Tings Chak uses a 1:1 scale installation to represent a maximum security prison cell. The space explores audio, textual artifacts and physical space to incite oppression and immobilization.
LAL's sound installation highlights the unknown and disappearing histories of Toronto's neighbourhoods in a 10 minute soundscape. Neighbourhoods include Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Bangladesh and Kensington Market, to name just a few.
Zone: Taking to the Streets
You'll hear this sound installation before you see it, as a series of cars pump out bass-heavy music on powerful interconnected sound systems orchestrated by Joe Namy under the Wellesley Street Bridge at Queens Park. Expect this one to be a popular stop over the course of the night.
For an entirely different experience, head to U of T's Faculty of Music for Abbas Akhavan and Kristina Lee Podesva's invitation to take a bit of respite on cots laid out throughout the building. The pillows and coverings have been prepared by newcomer women in collaboration with the Toronto-based chapter of Mes Amis Canada / Darzee.
This all-night performance features artists, activists, and rotating live DJ sets at Queens Park atop a flatbed truck. Inspired by the March 26, 2016 Black Lives Matter events at Toronto Police Headquarters, this series of performances celebrates activism, community bonds, and reanimates lost histories.
Zone: Life on Neebahgeezis
Through the power of storytelling, Aanmitaagzi Company uses a series of sculptural installations, theatrical performances, and a 15-foot puppet to explore our relationship with consumption.
Marianne Nicolson's ghost stories recall the supernatural spirit world. Her animated projection on the clock tower at Old City Hall exposes the haunting of institutional buildings as symbolic of Toronto's (and the nation's) history.
Zone: Calculating Upon the Unforeseen
Exploring the peculiar cultural and geographic dynamics of the embassy as a home in another home, this makeshift structure built by Cedric Bomford and Verena Kaminiarz is meant to represent a perpetual state of becoming, where viewers must actively imagine its completion as a political and social project akin to our own political ideologies.
The AGO's Walker Court comes to life for Nuit Blanche with Will Kwan's interactive performance piece that involves the use of a "human microphone" through which participants will amplify a series of messages and stories related to the passage of time.
Special Projects
Brian Leitch aka KWEST, uses recycled clothing and textiles from H&M; to create an artistic piece. The garments become a symbol of the ways in which people and things are rejected or thrown away. Expect a wild scene at Yonge-Dundas Square.
Major Institutions
Quite possibly the most intriguing venue for Nuit Blanche this takes place in collaboration with the EDIT Festival at the old Unilever soap factory at East Harbour. You can explore the first floor of the old industrial site with an installation that imagines a future world.
Artscape Youngplace is turned into an immersive gallery for Nuit Blanche this year with a series of exhibits organized around the theme of communal experience. This could be a prime place to stop in the event that you need to warm up or dry off as it's all indoors.
It's going to be party central at the Gladstone Hotel during Nuit Blanche, but even better, the second floor studios will play host to a series of installations and exhibits by Nicole Beno, Tori Fleming, Joel Ong, Elizabeth Milton, Whyishnave Suthagar, and Yifat Shaik.
Independent Projects
Experience a world surrounded by endless stars! Stretching across an alleyway on Camden Street, F_RM lab digitally generates stars on an undulating canopy. Audiences are placed between two worlds: fantasy and the stark reality of a light polluted sky.
This sound and visual installation provides personal narratives of residents from six Toronto neighbourhoods. Warm Up To Me Collective explores people's memories of place and how stories can connect each one of us both locally and globally.
Want to create your own unique visual experience of life in the city? Immerse yourself in the layers of images in this new media installation by Anne Hanrahan, a maze-like configuration that shifts with each audience's movement through the space.
Eight boxes reveal the individual experiences of eight Glory Hole Gallery artists. Look through the holes to see the world from a different perspective.
Visit the lawn of a century-old high school where you'll be surrounded by tarot cards, fortune-tellers, and popular activities like the Japanese gambling game "pachinko." This unique installation by visual arts students at UTS uses icons of "luck," "fortune," and "determination" as allegories of migration and settlement.
Special Events
For the best perspective on all the action taking place at Nuit Blanche this year, the Hendrick's Hot Air Balloon will be the place to be. Hovering at almost 45 feet above Nathan Phillips Square and covered in cucumber-themed art, this is will be a spectacle worthy of Nuit Blanche.
You'll have to apply for a chance to get on the balloon, which you can do on the website or you can try your luck during the night by going to Nathan Phillips Square where you have a chance to win a ride.
You can also apply for a chance to ride by visiting the following restaurants and bars: Alo, Civil Liberties, Pure Spirits Oyster House, Pinkerton's Snack Bar, Cluny, Cocktail Bar, DaiLo, Pretty Ugly, and Patois.
Photo contest
Nuit Blanche is a huge photo opp, so why not tag your photos on Instagram for a chance to win prizes? The contest starts when Nuit Blanche does at 6:58 p.m. on Saturday September 30 and the deadline to submit is the end of day October 1.
All you have to do is tag your best shots with the #blogTOnbTO hashtag. Not on Instagram? You can also e-mail the photos to us at challenge [at] blogto [dotcom].
We'll then narrow the entries to ten finalists and put the winners to a vote from October 2 to October 8 after which the winners will be announced.
Prizes for the top three photos include:Share. Ogling like it's 1999 Ogling like it's 1999
I loved the original Homeworld, but I was never, how do you say, "good" at it. So you can imagine that when I sat down to play the Homeworld Remastered Collection, I was pretty scared of making a fool out of myself, given that over a decade has passed since I last played it, poorly, on the best gaming PC a broke college student could afford. Thankfully, the folks I was meeting with anticipated this, and had a map all set with a large fleet for me to bound-box, and send into the fray - and just like that, with a single right click, the fireworks began.
Exit Theatre Mode
Homeworld's massive, three-dimensional space brawls were more or less the first of their kind, but very few games have recaptured that sense of scale. With this shiny new coat of paint, there are few, if any space-based RTS games that offer such a spectacle. Seeing the remastered version right next the classic version (which is also included in the Homeworld Remastered Collection) was beyond night-and-day different, to the extent that someone seeing Remastered for the first time would fully assume they were looking at a recently developed game.
Don't take that to mean that returning fans will find it unrecognizable though. Gearbox consulted with members of Homeworld's original developer, Relic, to assist with the remaster, ensuring that the spirit of the original would be maintained. It totally paid off too. Homeworld's ships looked futuristic and functionally rugged all at once, and those traits are preserved beautifully.
Exit Theatre Mode
My session ended, unsurprisingly, with my entire fleet decimated. That single right click I made? The enemy mothership. I wasn't even paying attention honestly, I was just doing what I always used to back when Homeworld first came out: picking out individual ships, focusing in on them to admire all their little details, and watching happily as they streaked toward a beautiful, fiery death. Thanks to how good the Homeworld Remastered Collection looks, I can happily ogle as if it were 1999.
Vincent Ingenito is IGN's foremost fighting game nerd. Follow him on Twitter and argue with everything he says about them.At least four obvious areas of concern regarding transparency confronted President Obama when he entered the White House.
The first involves the problem of classification, and it is, to be fair, a bright spot on the president’s record. Soon after taking office, Mr. Obama repealed a directive, issued by Mr. Bush’s attorney general, John D. Ashcroft, in October 2001, authorizing the government to classify information whenever its disclosure might potentially harm national security. This standard ignored the competing national interest in preserving an open and responsible government. Prior administrations had employed a more open approach, and President Obama’s repeal was a significant step in the right direction.
But his record on whistle-blower protection, another key area of concern, has been less laudable. In early 2009 members of Congress enthusiastically introduced the Whistle-Blower Protection Enhancement Act, which promised substantial protection to certain classes of government employees who report matters of legitimate public concern to lawmakers or the media. Although as a candidate Mr. Obama had expressed support for such a law, his administration cooled to the idea and let it die in the Senate in late 2010 (it was reintroduced in April 2011). Sadly, as a number of high-profile criminal cases against whistle-blowers show, the Obama administration has followed its predecessor in aggressively cracking down on unauthorized leaks.
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President Obama has also followed Mr. Bush in zealously applying the state secrets doctrine, a common-law principle intended to enable the government to protect national security information from disclosure in litigation. Although legitimate in theory, the doctrine |
Germany striker Miroslav Klose became the record scorer in World Cup history by netting his 16th finals goal in the 7-1 semi-final victory over Brazil.
The 36-year-old Lazio striker put his country 2-0 ahead as they opened up a 5-0 half-time lead in Belo Horizonte.
Klose moved level with former Brazil striker Ronaldo by scoring against Ghana earlier in the competition.
Germany's leading goalscorer with 71 goals in 136 games, he is the third player to net at four World Cups.
Brazil legend Pele and West Germany's Uwe Seeler both scored at the 1958, 1962, 1966 and 1970 finals.
Klose's goal against Brazil came in his 23rd World Cup appearance, a tally only compatriot Lothar Matthaus has bettered.
Germany have never lost a game in which he has scored.
"Klose is not a Ronaldo, or a Pele or that kind of footballer," said Match of the Day presenter and former England striker Gary Lineker. "He is a poacher but to break that record is a phenomenal achievement."
Former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, working as a pundit in Brazil, added: "He does not excite you outside the box but he is a pure goalscorer.
"When the ball comes into the box, he comes alive."
Miroslav Klose 16 goals in 23 World Cup games - a World Cup record. Third player to net at four World Cups, after Pele and Uwe Seeler. Germany have never lost in a game in which he has scored any of his 71 goals. He had never before netted in a World Cup semi-final or final.
Top five World Cup goalscorers Position Name Country Goals Matches Played Goal Average Tournaments 1 Miroslav Klose Germany 16 23 0.70 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 2 Ronaldo Brazil 15 19 0.79 1998, 2002, 2006 3 Gerd Muller West Germany 14 13 1.08 1970, 1974 4 Just Fontaine France 13 6 2.17 1958 5 Pele Brazil 12 14 0.86 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970
For the best of BBC Sport's in-depth content and analysis, go to our features and video page.A man was shot dead on the sidewalk at the entrance to the alley Friday afternoon near Armitage and Humboldt Boulevard. (DNAinfo/Paul Biasco)
LOGAN SQUARE — Early Friday night, with the sun still up, a 20-year-old man was shot dead directly across the street from Parson's, a popular Logan Square restaurant with a regularly packed outdoor patio.
A 21-year-old employee at a cellphone shop across the street was handing out flyers on the sidewalk when he was shot twice in the leg during the same incident.
That shooting put business owners and residents near the intersection of Armitage Avenue and Humboldt Boulevard on edge. And that was before a second shooting near the location early Tuesday.
"It's scary stuff; everybody's worried," said Mohammad Ali, an employee at the Metro PCS cellphone shop his brother owns at 2929 W. Armitage Ave. "My customers are, too."
An employee of this cellphone shop across the street from Parson's was shot twice in the leg during Friday's shooting. (DNAinfo/Paul Biasco)
Ali didn't know the condition of his fellow employee named Jeffrey who got shot twice in the leg, but said he was "lucky to be alive."
Mary, a hairstylist at Jessica's Beauty Salon, was cutting a customer's hair when the shots rang out Friday right outside the shop, two doors down from the cellphone store.
When she came to the window, she saw a big crowd outside Parson's Chicken and Fish. Everyone was looking at 20-year-old Daniel Alcantana's lifeless body on the sidewalk in front of an alleyway.
"It was terrible. There were a lot of people out. People at Parson's. It just gets really packed," said Marco Lopez, 43, who lives near where the shooting took place. "My wife was very shaken up."
There have been two more shootings in the neighborhood over the past four days.
On Monday night, a 6-year-old girl was shot in the back about 8:10 p.m. That shooting was a drive-by on a residential pocket of the neighborhood in the 2100 block of North Bingham Street, police said.
A witness said she heard as many as nine shots fired from a car window. One went into the girl's back.
She was listed in critical condition Tuesday, police said.
About 2:50 a.m. Tuesday, less than 12 hours after the 6-year-old was shot, a 21-year-old was shot in his leg on the same block as the shooting outside Parson's.
Lopez, who has lived near the intersection of Armitage and Humboldt for seven years, woke up to the shots being fired.
"Fortunately or unfortunately I had the opportunity to live in Little Village a while back in my life and obviously I block that part out of my life, but these things happen," he said. "These guys start to get retaliation and it starts to escalate."
Lopez contacted the police department requesting help with an increasing presence of gang members near Richmond and Armitage mourning the loss of Friday's victim.
Alcantana was a documented gang member and was "well known" to officers in the district, according to an email from a CAPS officer.
"Unfortunately he did not heed our warnings and declined our multiple offers of assistance to change his life," the email stated. "Our focus right now will be to locate the offender of this crime and prevent further/retaliatory violence."
Police told Lopez they plan to increase patrols in the area of Armitage and Humboldt and are organizing an outdoor roll call at 6 p.m. on June 14 at Richmond and Armitage.
"Who knows if they are related or not, but it's still very scary that there’s no stopping it," Lopez said of the multiple shootings. "I think the violence will continue for a little bit, but hopefully will stop soon.... I haven't seen anything like this."
Wondering why traffic on Armitage is shit and then I realize there's been a shooting right near Parson's. Jesus. — Courey G. (@LonelyCataloger) June 4, 2016
There was a shooting in Logan Square where we are, right across from Parson's Chicken & Fish--shot a woman in the chest. We're fine but wow — molly w steenson (@maximolly) June 4, 2016
There have been nine shootings so far this year in the Logan Square community area, with 10 victims and five killed.
During the same period in 2015, there were eight shootings with 10 victims and five killed.
From Jan. 1 through June 7, 2014, there were 15 shootings with 18 victims, and three were killed. In 2013 there were nine shootings with 10 victims, one victim died. In 2012 there were three shootings, four victims and no murder victims up until this point in the year.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:About [ edit ]
The 2014 KeSPA Cup is a WCS Tier 1 offline tournament organized by KeSPA.[1]
Casters [ edit ]
English stream [ edit ]
Wolf & Brendan Valdes
Format [ edit ]
Invites [ edit ]
Proleague top 2 players are invited as well as the top 2 players of WCS America Season 2, WCS Europe Season 2 and GSL Season 2.
Qualifier [ edit ]
A qualifier is held on August 18 where the top 8 players will be allowed to advance to the main tournament.[2]
Main Tournament [ edit ]
Single-elimination bracket of sixteen players.
Matches are best of 5.
Final match is played in best of 7.
Prize Pool [ edit ]
80,000,000 KRW (~78,320 USD ) and 7,000 WCS Points are spread among the players as seen below. Additionally, the winner receives a direct seed to the IeSF 2014 World Championship[3] and a seed into WECG 2014: South Korea Qualifier National Finals.
* Currency conversion is based on the currency exchange rate (taken from xe.com) on 2014-06-05.
* Players must advance one round in order to claim WCS points for that placement. Being seeded through qualifiers counts as advancing one round.[4]
Participants [ edit ]
Results [ edit ]
Round of 16 (Bo5) Classic 3 Rogue 1 San 3 ByuL 1 Pigbaby 0 Zest 3 sOs 3 Reality 0 StarDust 2 Flash 3 soO 1 Super 3 herO 3 Sorry 1 Bomber 3 Rain 1 Quarterfinals (Bo5) Classic 3 San 0 Zest 3 sOs 2 Flash 3 Super 1 herO 3 Bomber 1 Semifinals (Bo5) Classic 1 Zest 3 Flash 0 herO 3 Finals (Bo7) Zest 4 herO 1
Distribution [ edit ]
Race
WCS Region
Show All Protoss Terran Zerg Random Round of 16 9 4 3 Quarterfinals 6 2 Semifinals 3 1 Finals 2 Champion 1 Americas Europe Korea Other Round of 16 2 2 12 Quarterfinals 1 1 6 Semifinals 4 Finals 2 Champion 1
VODs [ edit ]
Spoiler-Free Official YouTube VODs @ SC2CastsThis post is about a kind of French song where syllabes are repeated from one verse to the next. To my knowledge it has no equivalent in English This post is thus written in French.
La chanson Trois petits chats est une ritournelle bien connue :
Trois p'tits chats, trois p'tits chats, trois p'tits chats, chats, chats, Chapeau d'paille, chapeau d'paille, chapeau d'paille, paille, paille, Paillasson, paillasson, paillasson, -son, -son, Somnambule, somnambule, somnambule, -bule, -bule...
La chanson continue de la sorte, chaque vers répétant en première syllabe la dernière syllabe du vers suivant, pour généralement finir par revenir à "Trois p'tits chats".
zorun a eu la mauvaise idée de me poser la question : serait-il possible de générer des chansons de ce type, voire des chansons plus longues, de façon automatique? Ce billet répond par l'affirmative à cette importante question. Voici un exemple de chanson générée automatiquement, avec 86 vers, en utilisant Lexique :
Lingala, lingala, lingala, -la, -la, Laticlave, laticlave, laticlave, -clave, -clave, Clavecin, clavecin, clavecin, -cin, -cin, Sainte nitouche, sainte nitouche, sainte nitouche, -touche, -touche, Touchotter, touchotter, touchotter, -ter, -ter, Télégramme, télégramme, télégramme, -gramme, -gramme, Graminée, graminée, graminée, -née, -née, Nécessaire, nécessaire, nécessaire, -saire, -saire, Cervidés, cervidés, cervidés, -dés, -dés, Démesure, démesure, démesure, -sure, -sure, Zurichois, zurichois, zurichois, -chois, -chois, Quadrature, quadrature, quadrature, -ture, -ture, Turquerie, turquerie, turquerie, -rie, -rie, Richissime, richissime, richissime, -sime, -sime, Symétrie, symétrie, symétrie, -trie, -trie, Triqueballe, triqueballe, triqueballe, -balle, -balle, Baliveau, baliveau, baliveau, -veau, -veau, Vocalise, vocalise, vocalise, -lise, -lise, Liséré, liséré, liséré, -ré, -ré, Réticule, réticule, réticule, -cule, -cule, Culbuto, culbuto, culbuto, -to, -to, Taurobole, taurobole, taurobole, -bole, -bole, Bolcheviks, bolcheviks, bolcheviks, -viks, -viks, Victimaire, victimaire, victimaire, -maire, -maire, Mercredi, mercredi, mercredi, -di, -di, Dipsomanes, dipsomanes, dipsomanes, -manes, -manes, Managers, managers, managers, -gers, -gers, Jerricane, jerricane, jerricane, -cane, -cane, Canapé, canapé, canapé, -pé, -pé, Pécheresse, pécheresse, pécheresse, -resse, -resse, Restaurant, restaurant, restaurant, -rant, -rant, Rancissure, rancissure, rancissure, -sure, -sure, Survenue, survenue, survenue, -nue, -nue, Numismate, numismate, numismate, -mate, -mate, Matelot, matelot, matelot, -lot, -lot, Locataires, locataires, locataires, -taires, -taires, Thermostat, thermostat, thermostat, -stat, -stat, Talmudiste, talmudiste, talmudiste, -diste, -diste, Dysthymie, dysthymie, dysthymie, -mie, -mie, Misogyne, misogyne, misogyne, -gyne, -gyne, Gynéco, gynéco, gynéco, -co, -co, Connétable, connétable, connétable, -table, -table, Tableautin, tableautin, tableautin, -tin, -tin, Tintamarre, tintamarre, tintamarre, -marre, -marre, Marabout, marabout, marabout, -bout, -bout, Boulangère, boulangère, boulangère, -gère, -gère, Gerberas, gerberas, gerberas, -ras, -ras, Radicale, radicale, radicale, -cale, -cale, Califat, califat, califat, -fat, -fat, Phallophore, phallophore, phallophore, -phore, -phore, Formica, formica, formica, -ca, -ca, Capitale, capitale, capitale, -tale, -tale, Thalamus, thalamus, thalamus, -mus, -mus, Muscadine, muscadine, muscadine, -dine, -dine, Dynamo, dynamo, dynamo, -mo, -mo, Monoplaces, monoplaces, monoplaces, -places, -places, Placebo, placebo, placebo, -bo, -bo, Bogomiles, bogomiles, bogomiles, -miles, -miles, Milonga, milonga, milonga, -ga, -ga, Galalithe, galalithe, galalithe, -lithe, -lithe, Liturgie, liturgie, liturgie, -gie, -gie, Gyrophare, gyrophare, gyrophare, -phare, -phare, Pharmacie, pharmacie, pharmacie, -cie, -cie, Silicate, silicate, silicate, -cate, -cate, Catalpa, catalpa, catalpa, -pa, -pa, Palikare, palikare, palikare, -kare, -kare, Carambar, carambar, carambar, -bar, -bar, Barricade, barricade, barricade, -cade, -cade, Caducée, caducée, caducée, -cée, -cée, Séfarade, séfarade, séfarade, -rade, -rade, Radical, radical, radical, -cal, -cal, Calamines, calamines, calamines, -mines, -mines, Minéral, minéral, minéral, -ral, -ral, Rallumage, rallumage, rallumage, -mage, -mage, Magistrat, magistrat, magistrat, -trat, -trat, Traversine, traversine, traversine, -sine, -sine, Cinéma, cinéma, cinéma, -ma, -ma, Martingale, martingale, martingale, -gale, -gale, Galoubet, galoubet, galoubet, -bet, -bet, Betterave, betterave, betterave, -rave, -rave, Ravioli, ravioli, ravioli, -li, -li, Libérale, libérale, libérale, -rale, -rale, Ralenti, ralenti, ralenti, -ti, -ti, Tisserande, tisserande, tisserande, -rande, -rande, Rendement, rendement, rendement, -ment, -ment, Mandoline, mandoline, mandoline, -line, -line, Lingala, lingala, lingala, -la, -la,
Le reste de ce billet donne plus de détails sur la façon dont cette chanson a été calculée ; le code est également disponible.
J'utilise Lexique, que je trie en mettant d'abord les formes non-dérivées (e.g., le singulier avant le pluriel, même s'il y a parfois des erreurs), puis par ordre de fréquence décroissance (pour privilégier les mots courants en faveur des mots rares, même si le programme n'hésitera pas à utiliser un mot rare quand c'est la seule manière d'aller d'une syllabe à une autre).
Lexique indique heureusement des informations de découpage en syllabes au niveau phonétique et orthographique, donc il est facile de retenir les mots de trois syllabes. Je ne retiens que les noms, à peu près comme dans la chanson originale (mais il y a là encore des erreurs). Je ne garde que les mots de lexique avec des informations de découpage complètes (elles sont parfois absentes dans Lexique).
La chanson originale contient, outre des noms, des groupes nominaux (par exemple "Trois p'tits chats"), que Lexique ne contient pas. J'ai envisagé de tenter de récupérer de tels groupes (par exemple, à partir de titres d'articles Wikipédia), qu'il faudrait ensuite consolider avec Lexique, mais finalement je ne l'ai pas fait, eu égard par exemple à la difficulté qu'il y aurait à déterminer si les élisions entre un mot et le suivant sont possibles.
Je filtre encore les mots : étant donné qu'en répétant la dernière syllabe on veut toujours garder une consonne avant, on peut éliminer tous les mots qui commencent par une voyelle, ou qui se terminent par deux sons vocaliques en succession (par exemple "hévéa" ou "casoar").
J'observe ensuite que, dans la chanson originale, on aime bien répéter un 'e' muet final sur les lignes paires (par exemple "pail-leuh", "somnambu-leuh"). J'identifie les 'e' muets en testant pour une finale en 'e' ou "es" qui ne soit pas précédée de 'i', 'u', ou 'é', et je décide d'imposer l'alternance entre de telles finales et des mots qui n'en disposent pas, un peu comme l'alternance entre rimes féminines et masculines en poésie (les règles diffèrent, cependant, par exemple "-ie" est tout de même une finale féminine en poésie).
Je considère qu'un mot u peut être atteint à partir d'un mot v si la dernière syllabe de la prononciation v, entière, est un préfixe de la prononciation de u. Ainsi, j'impose que la dernière syllabe soit entièrement préservée, afin de pouvoir la répéter ("radiogramme, -gramme, -gramme", et non "radiogramme, -ramme, -ramme"), mais on peut aboutir à un mot dont la première syllabe est suivie de davantage de sons consonantiques que la finale du vers précédent.
J'obtiens ainsi un graphe orienté de 205 sommets et 629 arêtes : pour chaque passage d'un couple "syllabe, genre" (masculin ou féminin) à l'autre, je ne retiens que le premier mot qui le permet dans la liste d'entrée (donc, normalement, le plus courant). Ce graphe a été écrémé pour ne conserver que les sommets accessibles et co-accessibles pour un point de départ arbitrairement choisi. J'interdis également, par souci esthétique, les arêtes qui restent sur la même syllabe en changeant de genre, e.g., "trinitrine"
Je recherche ensuite un cycle dans ce graphe, que je tente de rendre aussi grand que possible, mais je lui interdis de passer deux fois par la même paire "syllabe, genre", parce que dans ce cas on peut raccourcir la chanson. Ce problème d'optimisation est difficile : il est en fait NP-dur, vu qu'on peut facilement y réduire celui de la recherche d'un cycle hamiltonien. Je ne connais pas de manière simple d'approximer ce problème pour chercher un grand cycle, donc j'ai à la place implémenté une approche naïve qui énumère tous les chemins par parcours en profondeur. Cette approche génère le cycle de longueur 86 que j'utilise pour formatter les paroles ensuite. Sans doute peut-on en trouver un plus long ; c'est certainement le cas si on tente de corriger Lexique pour pouvoir conserver les mots avec des données incomplètes...
À titre expérimental (et pour récompenser le lecteur patient qui est parvenu jusqu'ici), j'ai tenté de combiner la mélodie avec le système de synthèse vocale Festival. Malheureusement, je ne sais pas comment lui indiquer la prononciation des paroles, et je ne peux donc indiquer que les paroles sous forme orthographique, qui est par ailleurs interprétée comme de l'anglais par le logiciel, avec des problèmes manifestes de gestion des caractères accentués. Le résultat se passe de commentaires...A new project aimed at “countering illegal use of the Internet” is making headlines this week. The project, dubbed CleanIT, is funded by the European Commission (EC) to the tune of more than $400,000 and, it would appear, aims to eradicate the Internet of terrorism.
European Digital Rights, a Brussels-based organization consisting of 32 NGOs throughout Europe (and of which EFF is a member), has recently published a leaked draft document from CleanIT.
On the project’s website, its stated goal is to reduce the impact of the use of the Internet for “terrorist purposes” but “without affecting our online freedom.” While the goal may seem noble enough, the project actually contains a number of controversial proposals that will compel Internet intermediaries to police the Internet and most certainly will affect our online freedom. Let’s take a look at a few of the most controversial elements of the project.
Privatization of Law Enforcement
Under the guise of fighting ‘terrorist use of the Internet,' the “CleanIT project," led by the Dutch police, has developed a set of ‘detailed recommendations’ that will compel Internet companies to act as arbiters of what is “illegal” or “terrorist” uses of the Internet.
Specifically, the proposal suggests that “legislation must make clear Internet companies are obliged to try and detect to a reasonable degree … terrorist use of the infrastructure” and, even more troubling, “can be held responsible for not removing (user generated) content they host/have users posted on their platforms if they do not make reasonable effort in detection.”
EFF has always expressed concerns about relying upon intermediaries to police the Internet. As an organization, we believe in strong legal protections for intermediaries and as such, have often upheld the United States’ Communications Decency Act, Section 230 (CDA 230) as a positive example of intermediary protection. While even CDA 230’s protections do not extend to truly criminal activities, the definition of “terrorist” is, in this context, vague enough to raise alarm (see conclusion for more details).
Erosion of Legal Safeguards
The recommendations call for the easy removal of content from the Internet without following “more labour intensive and formal” procedures. They suggest new obligations that would compel Internet companies to hand over all necessary customer information for investigation of “terrorist use of the Internet.” This amounts to a serious erosion of legal safeguards. Under this regime, an online company must assert some vague notion of “terrorist use of the Internet,” and they will have carte blanche to bypass hard-won civil liberties protections.
The recommendations also suggest that knowingly providing hyperlinks to a site that hosts “terrorist content” will be defined as illegal. This would negatively impact a number of different actors, from academic researchers to journalists, and is a slap in the face to the principles of free expression and the free flow of knowledge.
Data Retention
Internet companies under the CleanIT regime would not only be allowed, but in fact obligated to store communications containing “terrorist content,” even when it has been removed from their platform, in order to supply the information to law enforcement agencies.
Material Support and Sanctions
The project also offers guidelines to governments, including the recommendation that governments start a “full review of existing national legislation” on reducing terrorist use of the Internet. This includes a reminder of Council Regulation (EC) No. 881/2002 (art. 1.2), which prohibits Internet services from being provided to designated terrorist entities such as Al Qaeda. It is worth noting that similar legislation exists in the US (see: 18 U.S.C. § 2339B) and has been widely criticized as criminalizing speech in the form of political advocacy.
The guidelines spell out how governments should implement filtering systems to block civil servants from any “illegal use of the Internet.”
Furthermore, governments’ criteria for purchasing policies and public grants will be tied to Internet companies’ track record for reducing the “terrorist use of the Internet.”
Notice and Take Action
Notice and take action policies allow law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to notify and act against Internet companies, who must remove “offending” content as fast as possible. This obligates LEAs to determine the extent to which content can be considered “offensive.” An LEA must “contextualize content and describe how it breaches national law.”
The leaked document contains recommendations that would require LEAs to, in some cases, send notice that access to content must be blocked, followed by notice that the domain registration must be ended. In other cases, sites' security certificates would be downgraded.
Real Identity Policies
Under the CleanIT provisions, all network users, whether in social or professional networks, will be obligated to supply their real identities to service providers (including social networks), effectively destroying online anonymity, which EFF believes is crucial for protecting the safety and well-being of activists, whistle-blowers, victims of domestic violence, and many others (for more on that, see this excellent article from Geek Feminism). The Constitutional Court of South Korea found an Internet "real name" policy to be unconstitutional.
Under the provisions, companies can even require users to provide proof of their identity, and can store the contact information of users in order to provide it to LEAs in the case of an investigation into potential terrorist use of the Internet. The provisions will even require individuals to utilize a real image of him or herself, destroying decades of Internet culture (in addition to, of course, infringing on user privacy).
Semi-Automated Detection
The plan also calls for semi-automated detection of “terrorist content.” While content would not automatically be removed, any searches for known terrorist organizations’ names, logos or other related content will be automatically detected. This will certainly inhibit research into anything remotely associated with what law enforcement might deem “terrorist content,” and would seriously hinder normal student inquiry into current events and history! In effect, all searches about terrorism might end up falling into an LEA’s view of terrorist propaganda.
LEA Access to User Content
The document recommends that, at the European level, browsers or operating systems should develop a reporting button of terrorist use of the Internet, and suggests governments draft legislation to make this reporting button compulsory for browser or operating systems.
Furthermore, the document recommends that judges, public prosecutors and (specialized) police officers be able to temporarily remove content that is being investigated.
Banning Languages
Frighteningly, one matter up for discussion within the CleanIT provisions is the banning of languages that have not been mastered by “abuse specialists or abuse systems.” The current recommendation contained in the document would make the use of such languages “unacceptable and preferably technically impossible.”
With more than 200 commonly-used languages and more than 6,000 languages spoken globally, it seems highly unlikely that the abuse specialists or systems will expand beyond a select few. For the sake of comparison, Google Translate only works with 65 languages.
At a time when new initiatives to preserve endangered languages are taking advantage of new technologies, it seems shortsighted and even chauvinistic to consider limiting what languages can be used online.
What Is Terrorism, Anyway?
While the document states that the first reference for determining terrorist content will be UN/EU/national terrorist sanctions list, it seems that the provisions allow for a broader interpretation of “terrorism.” This is incredibly problematic in a multicultural environment; as the old adage goes, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Even a comparison of the US and EU lists of designated terrorist entities shows discrepancies, and the recent controversy in the US around the de-listing of an Iranian group shows how political such decisions can be.
Overall, we see the CleanIT project as a misguided effort to introduce potentially endless censorship and surveillance that would effectively turn Internet companies in Internet cops. We are also disappointed in the European Commission for funding the project: Given the strong legal protections for free expression and privacy contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union [PDF], it’s imperative that any efforts to track down and prosecute terrorism must also protect fundamental rights. The CleanIT regime, on the other hand, clearly erodes these rights.NEW DELHI: The road transport and highways ministry has sought over Rs 80,000 crore from the finance ministry to fuel its highway expansion plan in the fiscal year beginning April 1.The amount is almost double of what the ministry had received in the budget for 2015-16. A senior official said the ministry plans to use most of the funds sought for the government’s ambitious Bharat Mala project, which envisages construction of 25,000 km of roads along India’s borders, coastal areas, ports, religious and tourist places as well as over 100 district headquarters.The ministry aims to complete the project by 2022."We will be undertaking the construction of some of the Bharat Mala projects through government-funded engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) model. The focus will still be on constructing highways through public funding as the private sector will still take some time to come forward," the official said, requesting anonymity.Road, transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari will be setting up an aggressive target of awarding around 15,000 km of roads next year, of which 30 per cent will be done through private participation and the rest through the EPC model. The ministry is also looking to raise funds through tax-free bonds Gadkari is expected to meet finance minister Arun Jaitley by the end of this week to put forward his proposal.Road construction has been among the top priorities of the Narendra Modi-led government. It allocated Rs 42,000 crore for road and highway construction in the 2015-16 Budget.Gadkari has said that construction of highways needs to be accelerated to 30 km per day from the current pace of around 13 km.The ministry, which has proposed Bharat Mala as an umbrella scheme, estimates an investment of Rs 80,000 crore on the 7,000 km stretch of border and coastal roads, Rs 85,000 crore on religious and tourists places connectivity, and Rs 30,000 crore on Setubharatam, which includes construction of 1,500 bridges and over-bridges.The government also plans to build 9,000 km of roads connecting over 123 district headquarters at an investment of Rs 60,000 crore, another 7,000 km in backward areas at Rs 80,000 crore and the 900-km Char Dham stretch, connecting Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri and Gangotri, at Rs 11,700 crore. The grant being sought will include the special funds for the north east region, fuel cess and central road fund.The ministry has also proposed to construct 15 expressways, out of which eight have already been approved by the Cabinet. These expressway projects would be taken on the newly-conceived hybrid annuity model.Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Will Not Allow You To Play With Japanese Players
By Ishaan. June 9, 2014. 12:10am
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will allow for online multiplayer on a handheld platform for the first time, but online is still slightly restricted by region, according to Capcom.
Over on Capcom Unity, Capcom Community Specialist Yuri confirms in a comment that western players will not be able to play online with Japanese players, since the Japanese and western releases of the game will be hosted on different servers.
This is in line with Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which—following a patch—allowed American and European players to play with one another, but not with Japan. One could argue that this makes sense, since Monster Hunter is so heavily reliant on cooperative play, and the language barrier between Japan and the West could prove to be a major hindrance.
On the bright side, Yuri confirmed that you will be able to play online with anyone, not just people on your friends list.
Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate will be be released in Japan this Fall. North America and Europe will get the game in early 2015.A new Channel 4 documentary shows British teachers telling pupils there are “a lot of similarities between Hitler and Trump”, and suggesting the most important people to look after following the Manchester Arena terror bombing are Muslim pupils.
Harrop Fold School in Salford, Manchester, was formerly ranked one of the worst in Britain and is led by three brothers: Headteacher Drew Povey, Deputy Head Ross Povey, and Ben Povey on the Behaviour Team.
Channel 4 puts heavy emphasis on Middle Eastern migrant pupils in the film, particularly a Syrian boy named Rani, who is taken under the wing of a local boy named Jack.
Drew Povey notes that when he began working at the school 12 years ago, it was 99 per cent White British, but this is no longer the case — resulting in “challenges”.
Asked about the migrant influx, one young white pupil named Freya says: “They could be at war and they need to come over so they’ve got a safe place to be, but at the same time there’s not enough places to live in this part of the country for other people.”
UN demands the UK commits to accepting an additional 10,000 asylum seekers and opens the family reunion floodgates https://t.co/ReivsiOCjo — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 9, 2017
One scene shows a woman who appears to be a teacher asking her class: “Hands up if you were born elsewhere?”
She goes on to say, “Just because some of us is an immigrant, I don’t get why people put a negative slant on it.”
Then after what appears to be an awkward cut in the film, she is shown telling the class: “There’s a lot of similarities between Hitler and Trump, yeah?”
“But Trump’s got better hair than him,” jokes a Czech pupil in response.
“Mmm, I don’t think he does,” huffs the teacher, unwilling to concede even this much to the U.S. president.
Star computer science teacher blows whistle on "Left-wing brainwashing" and anti-#Brexit bias in our schools. https://t.co/xJVtv2Cx4w — Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) July 15, 2017
Some pupils at the school were at Manchester Arena when Salman Abedi, the son of a Libyan Islamist who came to Britain as a refugee, carried out a suicide bombing, killing 22 people and injuring many more.
One boy, who was there with his younger female cousin, breaks down in tears recounting how he escaped |
licts Fire damage in a two-cell circle (the area of effect does not change). Targets in a “Telefrag” state are teleported by the same distance in relation to the centre of the area of effect. Removes “Telefrag” state.
Cast Teleportation spell on the cawwot. The destination cell is occupied by the Iop, which creates a Telefrag. The Iop is in a “Telefrag” state. Cast the Temporal Dust spell on the Iop without being in the centre of the area of effect. He is teleported to the centre of the area of effect. He also loses his “Telefrag” state. The Iop is no longer in a “Telefrag” state, so casting the Dust a second time doesn’t teleport him again.
Slow Down : Inflicts Water damage and removes one dodgeable AP. If the target is in a “Telefrag” state, he loses two dodgeable AP. The spell costs two AP.
: Inflicts Water damage and removes one dodgeable AP. If the target is in a “Telefrag” state, he loses two dodgeable AP. The spell costs two AP. Time Theft : Inflicts Water damage. On his next turn, the caster gains one AP. If the target is in a “Telefrag” state, he loses one dodgeable AP.
: Inflicts Water damage. On his next turn, the caster gains one AP. If the target is in a “Telefrag” state, he loses one dodgeable AP. Clock: Inflicts Water damage. On her next turn, the caster gains one AP. If the target is in a “Telefrag” state, she loses one dodgeable AP.
Dark Ray : Inflicts Earth damage in a straight line. The target takes more damage if he is in a “Telefrag” state.
: Inflicts Earth damage in a straight line. The target takes more damage if he is in a “Telefrag” state. Loss of Motivation : Inflicts Earth damage. The target loses a bewitchment turn if he is in a “Telefrag” state. Removes “Telefrag” state.
Inflicts Earth damage. The target loses a bewitchment turn if he is in a “Telefrag” state. Removes “Telefrag” state. Xelor’s Punch: Inflicts Earth damage. The target is teleported by the same distance to the caster if he is in a “Telefrag” state. Removes “Telefrag” state.
Cast Teleportation spell on the cawwot. The destination cell is occupied by the Iop, which creates a Telefrag. The Iop is now in a “Telefrag” state. Cast “Xelor's Punch” spell. The target is teleported by the same distance to the caster and loses his “Telefrag” state. At the second casting, the target is not teleported because he is no longer in a “Telefrag” state.
Shrivelling : Inflicts Air damage. Deals more damage to targets in “Telefrag” state.
: Inflicts Air damage. Deals more damage to targets in “Telefrag” state. Frostbite : Inflicts Air damage. The target is teleported to her previous position if she is in a “Telefrag” state. Removes “Telefrag” state.
: Inflicts Air damage. The target is teleported to her previous position if she is in a “Telefrag” state. Removes “Telefrag” state. Synchro: Replaces the “Homing Hand” spell. Calls upon a stationary Hand that gets stronger every time a spell generates a Telefrag (once per spell). When the Hand itself suffers a Telefrag, it dies and inflicts damages in the surrounding area. A portion of the damage is linked to the Xelor’s Agility.
The Hand is placed. The Xelor casts the Teleportation spell on it. The destination cell is occupied, which creates a Telefrag with the Iop. The Hand gets a bonus and becomes stronger. Next, Xelor’s Punch lets the Xelor teleport the Iop, in order to create a Telefrag with the Hand. The Hand dies and inflicts Air damages around it, because it was in a Telefrag state.
Questions/Answers:
Will my Xelor be less powerful?
But without Devotion, won’t my Xelor be useless?
The four characters are positioned equally in relation to the Dial. Cast the “Temporal Paradox” spell: All targets will enter into a “Telefrag” state. The Dial gives two AP to all targets in a “Telefrag” state.
Will it be harder to play Xelor?
What is the reason for the Xelor rework? Removing or granting AP were great methods of time control!
What about spell animations?
Will combat with a Xelor be more difficult to follow?
There’s no mention of 10% probability of gaining 1 AP on Xelor spells; is this intentional?
What happens if a bunch of Xelors are playing together?
Will a Magical Orb be given out?
There were many reasons why we launched this revamp in particular.To begin with, Xelor’s role rested almost entirely on a single ability: massive AP loss. This ability poses large balancing issues:It’s a potentially interesting ability, but not enough so that the only role of one class is to use it or abuse it: massive losses are too powerful and uninteresting to play or take.Minor losses make combat interesting, but they are not enough to constitute a role in their own right.During previous updates, we gave Xelors a new positioning role based on atypical spells like Rhol Bak or Rewind. This new role seems more promising to us, because it can potentially justify a Xelor’s place in a group, no matter the circumstances. However, we also want each class to have several workable roles. That’s why Xelors are keeping part of their AP loss role. Their damage-dealing abilities will be strengthened and diversified, while gaining a role that from now on will be much more real and powerful than “temporal positioner”. In order to reach all these goals at once, we have reworked all Xelor spells. The majority of spells will keep a nearly identical role and use, most will gain new effects, and some have been completely revised, because they no longer corresponded to our expectations for this class. Before getting into detailed descriptions of the new spells, there are a few new mechanics to understand.Xelors will be able to teleport (and therefore move) a target in five different ways:It is possible that the destination cell where the target or the caster is supposed to teleport may not be available. If that cell is a decoration, the teleport is cancelled but still used (cost in AP deducted and cooldown time used).If the destination cell is occupied, the teleported character and the entity on the occupied cell change places: a Telefrag occurs and the two characters whose places were exchanged are the targets of the Telefrag. In DOFUS, a Telefrag (reference: http://quakewiki.org/wiki/Telefrag ) is a change of position between two entities, created when a destination spot is already occupied by an entity.For Xelor spells, when this scenario occurs, all affected targets enter a “Telefrag” state for two turns.There is one exception: Xelors cannot use a “Telefrag” state by means of a teleport.Telefrag will play an important part in Xelor gameplay and will be the source of many combos.To illustrate a Telefrag, here is a little animated gif showing the new version of the “Teleportation” spell. This spell will now allow the caster to teleport by the same distance as a target.But that’s not all. When a Telefrag occurs with one of their spells, whichever it is, Xelors can immediately recast their “Teleportation” spell (but not on the same target) and get two AP for one turn (this effect can only be triggered once per spell per turn). This makes some Xelor spells practically free (especially the Teleportation spell), as long as they manage to create Telefrags.Finally, the “Telefrag” state is used for all elemental spells (spells that inflict damage in an element) to apply an additional effect to each of them: a teleport, an unbewitchment, additional damages, or a more substantial AP loss. However, in the case of teleportation or unbewitchment, the “Telefrag” state is used (it is removed). These spells are not listed in the order that they are obtained.: These spells do not inflict direct damage.: The effect of teleporting back to cell positions from the beginning of combat seemed too powerful to us to be able to find a satisfactory balance. So we’ve revised the spell so that it teleports everyone back to their previous position. The spell’s AP cost and cooldown time have been reduced as a result.: We are aware that this spell was Xelor’s main source of mobility. But it made Xelors too mobile: its effect was immediate, and Xelors were not vulnerable to a lock. We have therefore modified this spell so it works differently. Now, it teleports the target (ally or enemy) to his previous position, but only on Xelor’s next turn.: Despite the loss of Flight as an instant mobility spell, Xelors should still have a great amount of mobility in part due to the new way the Teleportation spell works. For a low cost, Xelors can teleport by the same distance as a target. Plus, if a Telefrag is created (including by another spell) or used (by an elemental spell), Xelors can teleport again immediately (cooldown time is reset).: There are no modifications to this spell.: Although this spell still exists, the role of Xelor's Dial has nevertheless been changed. It no longer removes AP loss resistance from opponents. However, now it lets Xelors give AP to allies who are in a “Telefrag” state, as long as they are less than four cells away. It also inflicts damage on enemies who are in a “Telefrag” state, within the same distance.: This spell replaces the “Devotion” spell, which has been removed. It allows for all entities within four cells of Xelor’s Dial to teleport by the same distance. All targets moved in this way move again at the beginning of the Dial’s turn (that is, at the end of the Xelor’s turn). With a little imagination and practice, you can create lovely temporal paradoxes that we will let you discover on your own :]: This spell now reflects 50% of damages onto the attacker when Xelors are attacked in close combat (within one cell from Xelor). But it also reflects 10% of close combat damages onto all enemies who are in a “Telefrag” state.: This spell now removes two undodgeable AP from all targets included in the area of effect for one turn. But all affected targets get back two AP on the next turn. In its previous form, if no ally was affected and several enemies were affected, the Haziness spell became an inescapable and too-powerful choice. Giving this spell a counterpart and making its casting free for Xelors means this spell can be used more often, while its use becomes less systematic, more balanced, and much more tactical. It can even be used effectively on allies.: The way this spell works has been changed: Xelors can no longer inflict direct damage with their elemental spells while they are under the effects of this spell. However, they gain two MP, everyone immediately enters a “Telefrag” state, and each enemy in a Telefrag state takes damages in all four elements (fire, air, water, and earth). We wanted to use this spell to give a “joker” to Xelors who have trouble creating Telefrags. But it comes at a price!We want to make it possible to play the Xelor class easily and effectively without having to use the advanced techniques of time control spells. To do this, we’ve kept most of the spells with straightforward, instantaneous effects.Xelors can keep the roles of AP loss, damage-dealing, and effective placement, thanks to all the elemental spells and very easy-to-use spells, such as the Teleportation spell.In conclusion, it is difficult to summarize in one Devblog post all the possibilities offered by this class revamp. We hope to offer you a rich, interesting, and effective class (at the very least!). We’re excited to see what temporal combos you come up with! No! The class’s potential has clearly increased on many points. While chances for massive AP loss may be a bit less effective, everything else has been distinctly improved, like damage and positioning skills, among others!That would be very simplistic. We haven’t removed the ability to grant AP. Instead, we’ve moved it and made it harder to use, because it is a very powerful skill that would become too strong in combination with the new spells that have been added in this class rework. However, here is a fairly easy way to give two AP to everyone on a four-person team:There are about 10,000 ways to get the same result, even with eight characters, so nothing is impossible.Not necessarily, to get the same results as before the revamp! However, to do actions that are more powerful than before, you’ll probably have to think a bit harder. This will let the best players shine.We think that removing or granting AP are not abilities that effectively illustrate time control. It seemed too bad to limit ourselves to these skills. AP loss is also a relatively dangerous skill in terms of balanced gameplay and enjoyment of the game for Xelor’s opponents. We preferred to let Xelors remove enough AP to change the outcome of opponent turns, forcing enemies to regularly review their combos and tactics, while also allowing Xelors to truly control time through their temporal movements.We hope we will have time to review the majority of Xelor spell animations. You can’t see them in the images included in this post, because they hadn’t been finalized yet when the screenshots were taken.It’s a possibility. We’ve done our best to make it possible, if you are familiar with the class, to have a very specific idea of the actions that Xelors can perform during their turn. But obviously, the better the player, the more chances to surprise you (for better or worse!). The restrictions for casting powerful Xelor spells remain reasonable, and teleport effects only occur during the Xelor’s turn, which should limit the “I don’t know what just happened” effect in combat against a Xelor.Absolutely. This ability will disappear completely. However, Xelors earn AP every time they cause a Telefrag, which partially compensates for this loss by removing the random effects of AP gains, which didn’t satisfy us.Only one Dial and one Synchro are allowed per team; placing a new one of either of these removes the previous one from gameplay. There is bound to be shared cooldown time between certain spells, particularly Haziness and Mummification. In terms of the “Telefrag” state, they won’t conflict when two Xelors are on the same team. If one Xelor puts a character in a “Telefrag” state, the other one benefits in the same way. On the other hand, it is quite different if the Telefrag is caused by an enemy. If an enemy Xelor creates a “Telefrag” state on a character, an ally Xelor cannot use it. For this reason, we will actually have two “Telefrag” states: an “Ally Telefrag” (put on allies who suffer a Telefrag) and an “Enemy Telefrag” (put on enemies).All characters will see their characteristics reset for the December update! But don't worry, we'll have a full news with more information about the process on Monday. We are taking this chance to review and standardize the levels of Xelor characteristics.We hope we will be able to do the same for the other classes throughout 2015.Disney-Pixar’s animated comedy “Coco” easily repeated as the winner of the North American box office with a solid $26.1 million at 3,987 locations during a moderate weekend.
The third weekend of Warner Bros.-DC Entertainment’s “Justice League” finished second with $16.6 million at 3,820 sites, with the superhero tentpole dropping 60%.
Lionsgate’s “Wonder” continued to perform well with $12.5 million at 3,449 venues to come in third followed by Disney-Marvel’s fifth frame of “Thor: Ragnarok” with $9.7 million at 3,148 sites, the fourth weekend of Paramount’s “Daddy’s Home 2” with $7 million at 3,403 venues and Fox’s fourth weekend of “Murder on the Orient Express” with $6.7 million at 3,201 screens.
Awards contenders “Lady Bird” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” tied for seventh place with $4.5 million each. A24’s “Lady Bird” expanded by 403 sites to 1,194 and Fox Searchlight’s “Three Billboards” doubled its run to 1,430 screens.
Sony’s third weekend of faith-based animated drama-comedy “The Star” finished ninth with $4 million at 2,822 locations, followed by STXfilms’ fifth weekend of “A Bad Moms Christmas” with $3.5 million at 2,251 sites for a 33-day total of nearly $65 million.
Related Pearl Studio Doubles Down on Stories That Will Appeal to Chinese and International Crowds Netflix Signs Development Deal With Oscar-Winning ‘Coco’ Producer Darla K. Anderson (EXCLUSIVE)
The major studios opted to rely on holdovers during the session and held off on any wide openings. A24 generated strong performance from its limited launch of James Franco’s “The Disaster Artist” with $1.2 million at 19 locations for a $64,254 per screen average — and 12th place on the domestic chart. Fox Searchlight’s “The Shape of Water” saw an impressive $166,800 at two theaters and Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel” debuted with a solid $140,555 at five sites through Amazon.
Sony Classics’ second weekend of “Call Me By Your Name” posted a stellar $281,280 at four screens for a 10-day total of $908,175. It won best feature at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Nov. 27.
“Coco” has now taken in $108.7 million in its first 12 days following a 47% decline from its opening. The film, based on the traditions surrounding the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico, centers on a 12-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a musician. The film has been embraced by critics with a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Disney’s “Moana” performed slightly better during the same period last year with $119.8 million after 12 days.
“Coco” is maintaining a strong hold on audiences with comScore’s PostTrak survey showing 79% of patrons saying they would “definitely recommend” the movie and another 19% saying they would “probably recommend” it. The studio has not released a price for “Coco.” Disney-Pixar titles are usually budgeted in the $175 million to $200 million range.
“Justice League” has finished its first 17 days with $197.3 million domestically. The movie, which teams up the DC characters in the same manner as Disney-Marvel’s superheroes, is the 10th highest-grossing title released in 2017. It’s been the lowest performer among the five films in the DC Extended Universe, with “Wonder Woman” grossing $275.1 million in its first 17 days in June and “Suicide Squad” taking in $262.4 million in its first 17 days last year.
Gal Gadot stars as Wonder Woman along with Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as the Flash, and Ray Fisher as Cyborg as the superheroes team up to save the world. Warner Bros. has not disclosed the production cost, which is believed to be as much as $300 million.
“Justice League” also grossed $35.7 million on approximately 20,375 screens in 66 international markets, bringing the overseas total to $370.1 million and the global total $567.4 million.
“Wonder” strengthened its status as a sleeper hit with its 17-day total of $88 million. The drama, starring Jacob Tremblay as a fifth-grader with a facial deformity, is already a major money-maker for Lionsgate with a $20 million budget.
“Thor: Ragnarok,” which was the key contributor to a solid November, is winding up the weekend with a $291.4 million domestic total after 31 days. It will become the 71st title to top the $300 million mark within the next week.
Overall domestic moviegoing totaled $104 million, up $8 million from the same frame in 2016 and the biggest post-Thanksgiving weekend in five years, according to comScore.
“The biggest post-thanksgiving weekend since 2012 proves that there was no need for a wide release newcomer to drive large numbers of moviegoers to the multiplex that is already chock full of appealing titles from both the blockbuster side of the ledger and awards season favorites,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore.
Year-to-date domestic box office is down 3.9% to $9.86 billion as of Sunday, according to comScore. Even with a blockbuster performance by Disney-Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which opens Dec. 15, the final 2017 box office number is likely to finish at least 2% down at the end of the year.Marussia becomes Manor and pays 2015 F1 fee
Manor, formerly known as Marussia, is plotting its course for a return to the 2015 Formula 1 grid.
Earlier, the backmarker appeared doomed, as administrators auctioned equipment and the 2016 entrant Haas moved into its Banbury headquarters. But last week, there were crucial signs of life.
‘Manor F1 Team’ emerged on the internet and with official social media profiles featuring the slogan ‘Get ready’, announcing it is preparing to exit administration.
Rival Force India, however, threw a spanner in the works when a bid for Manor to field the 2014 Marussia car this year was blocked.
The move was slammed by Gian Carlo Minardi, the former owner of a famous F1 backmarker, as “absurd and unsportsmanlike”, but Manor insists it is still working on its 2014 and 2015 cars, apparently now at a new base in Dinnington.
Autosprint, meanwhile, reports that Manor has paid its official entry fee to the FIA for the 2015 season.
“The FIA,” added the report, “is keeping the door open for the former Marussia team by not yet finalising the official entry list.
“According to reliable sources,” said Autosprint, “important discussions will be held this week, after which the Federation will decide on Manor’s admission.”
Team representative Graeme Lowdon said earlier this month, “We are doing everything possible to adhere to the process set out for us to return to the 2015 grid. This is a fantastic good news story for the whole sport and we just want to go racing.”Tourists, not trash
Lachen is a small picturesque village in northern Sikkim inhabited by the Lachenpa community and occasionally visited by the elusive red panda. Placed in the lap of the Himalayas, the village literally means “the big pass”. Of late, it has become a popular tourist destination.
I arrived at Lachen after a bumpy six hour ride from the state capital of Gangtok. The roads were treacherous but lush hills and sudden springs made up for the dizziness of travel. About four in the evening I passed Chungthang, the last big town before ascending towards Lachen. With the construction of the Teesta III hydroelectric project in full swing, Chungthang was an eyesore—a gigantic wall put brakes on the meandering Teesta river. The dam under construction was severely damaged during the 2011 earthquake and Chungth ang town was among the worst affected.
By the time I reached Lachen it was pitch dark. “There has been no electricity for the past one week due to a gale storm,” said my host, 30-year-old Chwang Lachenpa. The mobile network is not available at an elevation of over 2,750 metres, and connection to the outside world is as fragile as the young mountains. The December chill, at -10°C, hit me in the face as I stepped out of the car. Chwang’s house had all the warmth I needed—a neat fireplace that doubled up as an oven with a large pot of water on it. The tea, served in ceramic mugs with a cap, was hot and salty.
Chwang works as a temporary staff with the health department, but he is passionate about Lachen Tourism Development Committee (LTDC)—a group of 32 young Lachenpas who got together in 2006 “to do something for their village”.
Chwang and his friends started with promoting cultural tourism—organising traditional dance and food shows for tourists. Lachen is an overnight stopover for nearly 15,000 tourists who visit Gurudongmar Lake every year. The biggest glacial wetland in Sikkim and one of the highest lakes in the world at an altitude of 5,183 m, Gurudongmar is considered sacred both by the Hindus and the Buddhists. Lachen, a village of 300 households with 30 hotels and a few homestays, is also a stopover for trekkers on their way to the Chopta valley and Khangchendzonga base camp.
As the number of tourists increased over the years, so did the pile of garbage at Gurudongmar lakeside and Lachen village—milk tetrapacks, water bottles and chips and biscuit wrappers. Every year at the end of the tourist season LTDC organised clean-up drives. Initially, they collected the non-biodegradable trash and burnt it, unaware that their passion was spreading pollution via toxic fumes.
In 2010 the youths were introduced to the concept of zero-waste by the Zero Waste Himalaya Group, a coalition of non-profits which believes in segregating waste at source and recycling it, rather than depending on a landfill.
"Soon after, LTDC was segregating the waste, packing and sending it to a waste dealer in Chungthang. “Tackling mineral water bottles was most problematic. They were everywhere—beside the lake, choking streams and drainage channels in the village, and floating down the Teesta. A yearly cleanup drive was not enough,” says Chwang, also the secretary of LTDC.
It was then that the young Lachenpas decided to do away with mineral water bottles altogether. They contemplated a ban but the final word had to come from the dzumsa. This traditional governing body of the village, which comprises elected representatives and is chaired by two heads, pipons, governs all aspects of village life. In Lachen, the word of the dzumsa is like that of god. Even after the panchayati raj system was introduced in Sikkim, there is no panchayat in Lachen and it continues to be governed by the dzumsa, literally “the gathering place”. Unlike panchayats, the dzumsa has revenue collection powers and can impose taxes and fines.
“Initially, the pipons were hesitant. They thought a ban on bottled water would hamper tourism and the income it generates,” says Chwang. But the youth persisted and asked: “Why would anyone want bottled water when they can get spring water right from the Himalayas?” Finally, when two young pipons took the charge in 2012, they concurred with LTDC. On February 2, 2012, on the World Wetlands Day, a ban was imposed on mineral water bottles in Lachen and Gurudongmar—hotels and shops were asked not to stock or sell bottled water; tour agents from Gangtok were told that tourists cannot bring packaged water to Lachen; and a hefty fine of Rs.5,000 was imposed on violators.
LTDC and the Lachen dzumsa did not stop at the ban. They installed water filters at all shops and hotels, water sources were regularly inspected for potability at the state-owned laboratory in Gangtok. The non-profit WWF’s Khangchendzonga Landscape Programme pitched in and offered 45 water purifiers, banners and stickers. Together with LTDC, it organised awareness drives among schoolchildren, shopkeepers and hoteliers to enforce the ban.
On the morning of December 19, after a good night’s sleep, I opened the door of my hotel room. The entire village, covered in a thin film of snow, looked like a monochrome painting. It was the first snow of the season. At the restaurant of the hotel I saw stickers pasted on the glass panes. “Lachen welcomes you, not your mineral water bottle,” read a sticker. On the next pane were pasted the test results from the state water quality testing laboratory. The spring water is fit for consumption, even without filtering, the results showed.
More than a year after the ban was imposed there is overwhelming support from the local community, including shopkeepers and hotel owners. But the dzumsa did not have to impose fine even in a single instance. Gyatso Lachenpa, secretary of the hotel association, says, “Tourists have complied with the ban and are happy to drink fresh spring water. Sometimes travel agents in Gangtok do not brief them. If by mistake anyone enters the village with a bottle we make sure they take it back with them.”
Kalzan Lachenpa, a woman in her mid-30s and owner of a grocery store, used to sell two crates of bottled water daily before the ban was imposed. For 24 bottles she would make a handsome profit of Rs.240 per day. Still, Kalzan would not like the ban revoked. “All of us are together in this. The money is nothing compared to the freedom from litter and choked drains,” she says.
Chwang and his friends have now moved towards zero waste. They are developing a resource recovery centre, supported by the Rural Management and Development Department (RMDD), where all non-biodegradable waste collected from households will be segregated and packed off to the waste trader in Chungthang. RMDD is providing them mechanised shredder for the waste that cannot be recycled, such as multilayered tetrapacks and chips packets. The youths plan to use the shredded packets as fillings in cushions, and knitting tetrapacks into bags and garbage bins.
“What a bunch of enthusiastic youths has done in a remote corner of Sikkim is for the whole country to emulate,” says Yishey D Yongda, joint secretary at RMDD. Last year, the state department won the Prime Minister’s award for excellence in public administration. "We hope other tourist destinations will impose similar bans. Sikkim can be a state free of bottled water one day.”
But how plausible is a ban on bottled water for a place like Tsomgo Lake, which receives a phenomenal 300,000 tourists every year? Priyadarshinee Shrestha, Gangtok coordinator at WWF, says, “The lake conservation committee has distributed water filters at Tsomgo. It is also formulating a plan for the supply of clean drinking water. Whether a ban can be imposed will depend on the commitment of the locals.” I remember Chwang telling me that Lachung, another tourist destination near Lachen, was also contemplating a ban. But enforcing a ban will be difficult in villages without the traditional dzumsa system of local governance, he had said.
Like Lachen, which became the first village in the country to ban bottled water, the state has many firsts to its credit. Sikkim is India’s first polybagfree state. By 2015, it aims to become fully organic by growing its food without chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
Not for nothing, that Sikkim beat Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Horuriku in Japan to be listed as the top travel destination in 2014 by Lonely Planet, a travel guide book. “Sikkim has set new benchmarks for responsible travel in the country. Checkbox sightseeing has rapidly made way for sustainable community-based tourism in less developed areas, while eco-friendly policies have lent new vigour to the virginal Himalayan wilderness that drapes the region’s mountains,” reads the Lonely Planet travel advisory. Is the rest of India listening?What does the concept of blockchain remind you of? A distributed ledger? An emerging industry? A new Internet technology? An investment opportunity? Is that all?
I have been asking myself the same question in the past several months. Is that what blockchain is all about?
Let’s start with the Internet.
What if there were no BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) providing online payment services? No UnionPay? No other online payment services? Can you imagine what the Internet would be like?
Years ago, one could only download songs, chat on QQ (a free instant massager developed by Tencent), play games on the Internet. That’s all. No online payment. No online shopping. No remote training.
The value of the Internet was unlocked when Alipay and other online payment services came into being. Now Chinese people buy virtually everything on the Internet, from purchasing a BMW to a dozen eggs. Even street food vendors are using WeChat Pay.
But could this be an illusion?
Have you ever thought of the fact that the money you deposit to your Alipay account is not cash anymore? It is actually just an IOU for you to consume in different scenarios.
But is the current online payment as sustainable as the Internet? The Internet is borderless. The current online payment system, though enables payments beyond borders, is yet to be universal.
Blockchain in itself is an Internet-based value transfer system. It could evolve into an indispensable part of the Internet. Bitcoin just represents a great application of blockchain tech.
The core of blockchain tech lies in its distributed database management, which could be perfectly compatible with the Internet, a decentralized network. Theoretically, blockchain is able to store assets on the Internet forever. Additionally, as blockchain is borderless, assets stored on it can flow globally.
Assets would be valueless without fluidity. Gold is no different from dust if could not be traded. Blockchain, however, enables assets to flow freely on the Internet.
At 30 years old, the Internet has changed the world, but the best is yet to come. Blockchain will play a vital role in evolving the Internet and change the world in a way we cannot imagine yet.
Everything Is Moving Toward the Internet
Transfer of Information The Internet makes it easier for us to share info, making recorders, CD, broadcast old-fashioned. Transfer of Life Style Now we cannot live without the Internet: shopping, Facebook, Uber, food ordering. We even buy a dozen eggs on the Internet. Can you imagine what life would be without the Internet? Transfer of Assets A growing number of people are managing their assets on Alipay, WeChat or other online payment businesses. But the hard fact is that it is barely different from depositing money in a bank.
As blockchain is decentralized and transparent, assets stored on it could rise tremendously. One dollar in bank is still one dollar, but one dollar on blockchain, given time, could be worth ＄1000. (e.g. bitcoin and ETH) Most people, however, remain unaware of this.
Exchange your fiat money for blockchain assets would be like exchanging dollar for gold before Bretton Woods System crashed.
Assets on blockchain is as valuable as gold. Fiat is just like an IOU issued by the PBOC. It would be a wise thing to do to transfer your assets on the Internet in the long run. The only thing you should worry about is that whether such an asset will be widely accepted in the future.
It’s safe to say that assets on blockchain do not have a life cycle. It offers us an exciting opportunity to get rich living in a world dominated by fiat currency. It will be an irreversible trend to transfer assets on blockchain.
As of today, I added the top 40 currencies on https://coinmarketcap.com and the total number is ＄26.7 billion. If blockchain is the future of asset management, how come its market cap is so low?
This is just the very early beginning.
Human Marching Toward the Internet
Actually, I am pretty nervous to say things like this. I realize that those who first read such an expression would find it too far-fetched to be true. But I believe anyone who has read A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari will accept it as a future fact.
Moore’s Law predicts that the Internet and chips are able to build a model of human brain in less than 30 years. When assets are totally digitized, it’s nothing strange to transfer our consciousness to the Internet. It’s as natural as you would move to another country when you’ve already transferred all your assets there.
When Is the Best Time to Sell Blockchain Assets?
I guess this is what most people are interested in. If you regard Renminbi as cash and blockchain assets an investment, then sell them for cash when you believe you’ve earned enough.Share. Plus, see an exclusive behind-the-scenes video focused on Tony's return. Plus, see an exclusive behind-the-scenes video focused on Tony's return.
While 24: Legacy is definitely in the same universe as the original show, there have only been a few Easter eggs for fans to identify so far in the story. That changes in Monday’s new episode, as Tony Almeida’s return bridges the gap, solidifying the connection between the original long-running series and Legacy.
I recently got to chat with Carlos Bernard about his return to the franchise and how he sees his character as part of an iconic piece of television pop culture.
In addiiton, you can check out this exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Tony's return, featuring the 24: Legacy cast and producers discussing what it means to bring the character into the series.
Exit Theatre Mode
The last time we saw Tony Almeida, he was planning his escape from prison, as seen in the shot called Solitary feature on the the 24: Live Another Day Blu-ray. As Bernard explained, “Solitary functioned as an out. They love the character and knew they wanted to use him again. The time constraint of the show made it hard. You can’t take time away from the main story for a prison break.”
When writers began work on a rebooted version of the show, they knew just who to reach out to. “I’m always in contact with the writers,” noted Bernard. “We’re friends, we hang out. They told me about the extra scene. They weren’t sure if there would be another season, or a spinoff. Eventually they told me about [Legacy’s] Bin Khalid and the plan. I would be the only original character to help the spinoff.”
Arguably no character in |
$3.5 billion in profit in the last quarter of 2016 alone.
But there’s a dark side to our favorite website’s success that threatens each of us individually and the nation as a whole.
ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook’s financial success is based on a combination of incredible penetration and population level reach, the ultimate big data type accumulation of personal information, and sophisticated tools that allow advertisers to slice and dice us into minuscule market segments.
This combination allows advertisers to target us with finely-tuned ads, designed for maximal impact on each thin slice of the population. And then, to complete the deal, Facebook gives advertisers the ability to go into stealth mode: pushing content into our feeds and timelines that masquerades as organic, user-generated content.
In most cases, advertisers use Facebook’s data and targeting resources for somewhat benign purposes — growing a customer base, selling a product, increasing awareness of a service. But the Trump presidential campaign clearly demonstrated how these tools can be used for social and political manipulation.
Before laying out the Trump team’s Facebook strategy and suggesting how we can prevent more large-scale manipulation in the future, let’s review the Facebook marketing recipe
Micro-targeting
Facebook advertisers select and combine a large number of data points that pinpoint user attitudes, political orientations, buying habits, demographic attributes, and even emotional vulnerabilities. Facebook pulls in and converts Facebook activity — such as messages, comments, shares, Likes, posts, profiles, photos, purchases, and friend networks — into usable data. Facebook also buys and incorporates outside data from credit bureaus and other data banks.
A Mashable article put it in concrete terms: advertisers can target us based on things like relationship status, anniversaries, long-distance romances, recent relocations, heavy alcohol buying, cold and allergy medicine purchases, frequency and type of vacations, birthdays, pregnancies, type of mother (soccer, trendy, etc.), likeness of auto part needs, posting habits, number of credit lines, grocery types, beauty products, restaurant choices, store preferences, household shopping volume, and commutes — and much more.
Personality profiling
Access to big data and sophisticated analytic techniques allows companies like Cambridge Analytica — owned by reclusive, right-wing hedge-fund billionaire, Robert Mercer — to create “psychographic” and scientifically valid personality profiles.
Cambridge Analytica itself boasts an accumulated database of 220 million U.S. adults, with nuanced personality and market segmentation profiles based on thousands of data points per individual. These profiles help advertisers shade the emotional and content dimensions of ads to push our buttons and trigger purchasing, voting, or other behavior.
Stealth advertising
The blurring of organic content and paid advertising is the final component of the Facebook business model and threat. We recognize the ads on the margins of Facebook pages for what they are. But Facebook allows advertisers to “promote” or “boost” normal-looking posts and content, giving this content greater visibility and priority in timelines and feeds.
The Trump campaign strategy. Trump’s campaign used these Facebook tools to sway key voting blocs — and this most likely helped Trump win the electoral college. The campaign’s digital unit was a home-grown operation built by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner (with help from savvy marketing friends in Silicon Valley).
Then, Mercer — who Steve Bannon says has had more political impact than the billionaire Koch Brothers--threw his support from Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Trump endorses Cornyn for reelection as O'Rourke mulls challenge MORE to Trump. Mercer brought to the campaign big money, long-time associates Steve Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, Breitbart, and — perhaps most importantly — Cambridge Analytica to bolster Kushner’s team.
A Trump campaign official said the campaign’s strategy in the final months of the campaign was a nuanced, digital version of Republicans’ longtime voter suppression efforts. The Trump voter suppression operation used Facebook’s tools and data to target three groups of lukewarm Clinton voters and persuade them to stay home.
The content that Trump’s team pushed to each sliver of the population in critical battleground states was tailored for each group. Spending up to 45 percent of its monthly budget on digital research and campaigns, the Trump operation reportedly created up to 100,000 different online ads to reach targeted audiences at different times.
In this way, Trump’s operation could send reminders to African Americans about Clinton’s single statement about “super-predators” some years ago; remind Sanders’ voters about charges that Clinton cheated him out of the nomination; and target residents in Miami’s Little Haiti for content accusing the Clinton Foundation of nefarious activities in Haiti.
We don’t yet know if it happened, but the most dangerous kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia would have been coordination around Facebook targeting and messaging. Russia’s East European fake accounts and bots drove the spread of fake news, smears, and propaganda. But we don’t yet know if there was coordination between Kushner’s top-down paid campaigns and Putin’s bottom-up “organic” posting.
What Next? The likely digital theft of a presidential election may only be the beginning of “dark web” manipulation. Are other domestic or foreign entities using Facebook and its cousins to target and manipulate us? What is to stop a set of business or political interests using Facebook's tools to create support for, say, a foreign invasion or war?
Our first step should be to understand what happened in the presidential campaign. Facebook should open up its records to a panel of independent experts, who would report back about how the Trump campaign targeted slivers of the population—and whether foreign fake account activity appeared to be coordinated with this effort based on timing, content, and targets.
Facebook’s data could also help us understand if the Trump voter suppression strategy was effective: Did districts targeted with voter suppression stealth advertising lineup for Trump more than nearby, comparable districts?
A second step is to realize that our approach to online data ownership and privacy has been completely inadequate. Online monopolies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter should be regulated to prevent abuses — just as the government regulates other commercial monopolies to protect consumers.
A recent New York Times column laid out a framework for a new social media/internet data regime in which we own the rights to our own data and online activity. This approach would also create competition among social network platforms, allowing them to interface with Facebook and each other through common socio-graphic data standards (which Facebook has already established for other purposes).
Congress should also pass legislation giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the duty to regulate online advertising: paid content, and the source of the ad, should be immediately and visibly obvious; targeting and profiling should be transparent; micro-targeting should be restricted; and users should give explicit consent to any integration of website-specific data with outside data.
Finally, let’s re-establish personal responsibility by ending online anonymity. Anonymity is not a right, and it encourages irresponsible, uncivil behavior like trolling, harassment, and death threats. Just this week, the destruction of personal responsibility by online anonymity was made clear in a sensational way: The unnamed private citizen who created the video of Trump beating up on a CNN-headed wrestler begged CNN to keep his identity private and promised to stop his racist, anti-semitic, and anti-Muslim posting.
Protecting ourselves and our democratic freedom from the evolving social-control potential of our favorite digital platforms will require overcoming the interests of the corporate giants themselves. But unless we control Facebook, Facebook will continue to help others control us.
Mark Feinberg Ph.D, is a research professor at Pennsylvania State University.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.Hello to all my Fresno Satoshis!
We're announcing a special meetup event at Root Access Hackerspace coming up Wednesday, September 20th at 6pm.
Fresno's premier hackerspace, Root Access Hackerspace, has invited us to their lab to give a presentation on blockchains and mining.
While there you'll also get a chance to meet the founders of Root Access Hackerspace and learn more about their hackerspace.
About Root Access Hackerspace:
In June 2017, after years of lamenting the lack of local access to technology hardware and hobbyist electronics, Derek Payton and Andrew Runner decided to pick up the baton and forge a new space for Fresno's hackers and tech makers. A space to get the hardware you need, right now. A space filled with the tools you need. A space to learn, and to build cool stuff. Root Access Hackerspace was born.
You can do anything when you have root access.
https://rootaccess.space/
https://www.facebook.com/RootAccessHackerspace/
https://twitter.com/RootAccessCA
https://www.meetup.com/rootaccess/
Hope to see everyone there.
Cheers!The political press has a way of avoiding the obvious when stating the obvious involves calling out racism. So when Donald Trump attacked a sports figure on Wednesday, again, the obvious was left out of the news stories in the Associated Press, New York Times, Washington Post and CNN.com, among others.
A composite photo shows LaVar Ball, seen in Las Vegas in a July 7 file photo, and Donald Trump, seen at the White House Tuesday. Ball is the latest in a long string of Black sports figures to draw the president's ire. ( AP Photo/John Locher and Manuel Balce Ceneta )
Here’s what’s obvious. The sports figure, LaVar Ball, is Black. All of Trump’s recent targets in sports have been Black. And the president of the United States is either calculatingly using racism for strategic purposes, again, or being instinctively racist himself, again. Of course, it can be both. But it’s not neither. Not after this many of these moments. “It’s a pattern that to me, and to most observers, is an obvious pattern. They’ll try to deny it because he’s taken pictures with Black people, because he has Black people working in the White House. But to me that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t take for him to wear a hood for him to be a white supremacist,” said Donte Stallworth, a former NFL player and now a CNN contributor. “In his actions, he is a white supremacist. And we shouldn’t be afraid to say that. It’s a damning charge, but it’s something that if you observe the facts, you will see the certainty of who he is.”
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In the last two months, Trump has criticized Black NFL players as “sons of bitches” for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Trump has criticized entirely uncontroversial NBA star Stephen Curry for no apparent reason. Trump returned to the NFL on Monday, criticizing running back Marshawn Lynch for sitting during the anthem.
And on Wednesday, Trump attacked Ball, a famously outspoken basketball dad, as an “ungrateful fool” for dismissing the president’s claimed role in freeing three teenage college basketball players, including Ball’s son LiAngelo, after their shoplifting arrest in China. Stallworth noted that Trump has said nothing about Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr, two white NBA coaches who have regularly roasted him at length, or Eminem, the white rapper who delivered a scathing attack rap about him at the BET Hip Hop Awards in October. In tweeting about the Balls, though, he had a chance to strike two of his favourite themes: the criminality of Black people and the ingratitude of Black people.
“Just think…LaVar, you could have spent the next 5 to 10 years during Thanksgiving with your son in China, but no NBA contract to support you. But remember LaVar, shoplifting is NOT a little thing. It’s a really big deal, especially in China. Ungrateful fool!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
During his election campaign, Trump described Black “inner cities” as lawless hellholes. Tellingly, he always made the speeches in white suburban and rural towns, not the cities he was promising to transform.
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He was speaking about Black people, but to white people, in a kind of half-hearted code. In lecturing Ball about the importance of respecting the law, he did it again. “He doesn’t use overt racist language, and he couldn’t, but he stops just short of that,” said Ben Carrington, a University of Southern California professor and the author of the book Race, Sport and Politics. “And I think the base he appeals to hears him.”
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly listens to Donald Trump speak at a Sept. 22 rally in Huntsville, Ala. It was here that Trump called NFL players as "sons of bitches" for kneeling during the national anthem. ( TOM BRENNER/The New York Times )
Trump knows how well anti-Black racism can work for him. His entire career in Republican politics emerged out of a racist campaign to “prove” the first Black president was not born in America. Today, with few policy accomplishments to speak of, dumping on Black people helps keep the bigoted portion of his base on his side. “Whenever Trump feels threatened or senses that the support from his base may be wavering, he tries to create some common opponent in an effort to solidify it. I think he finds wealthy, supposedly ungrateful Black athletes to be really useful for this, a convenient ‘other,’” said Phil Taylor, a former longtime Sports Illustrated columnist and now a contributing writer for The Athletic. Trump’s use of racism, however, can sometimes be too quickly attributed to strategy rather than deep-rooted belief — a cunning attempt to secure his core voters rather than an expression of his own core. Trump has a history of demonstrated animosity to Black people that runs more than 40 years. In the early 1970s, his family real estate empire, for which he served as president, was sued by the federal government for anti-Black discrimination that included marking the applications of Black people with a “C,” for “coloured.” “Perhaps Trump is playing a cynical game of base management, assuaging his core supporters with dog whistles and bigotry. But looking at his life, the more likely explanation is also the simplest one: Donald Trump goes after Black people because he doesn’t like them,” wrote Slate columnist Jamelle Bouie. Trump’s charge that Ball is “ungrateful” echoes his September claim that a football player should not be allowed to kneel during the anthem if he “wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL.” In both cases, Trump was continuing a long racist tradition of suggesting that Black success, in sports and elsewhere, is a gift of white people. From the time American sports were desegregated, Carrington said, Black athletes have been told to “shut up and play” if they dare to speak out against the white powers that be. “The ungrateful charge is based in racism. In my experience, Black athletes are criticized for lacking gratitude much more often than white ones,” said Taylor. “In the case of Ball and the UCLA players, Trump was indicating that he doesn’t think they were entitled to his help simply by virtue of being U.S. citizens, that for these four Black men, simply being treated like any other American is somehow a special favour.” Athletes, of course, are not the only Black figures Trump has attacked this year. Trump is fresh off his assault on the integrity of a Black congresswoman who relayed how he had hurt the feelings of a Black military widow. Just prior to his inauguration, he attacked Black civil rights icon John Lewis, a Democratic congressman, as “all talk” and “no action or results” — in fixing a district Trump uncoincidentally said was “crime infested.” Carrington was struck by the phrase Trump used to describe the Pittsburgh Penguins, an all-white mostly non-American team of Stanley Cup champions that visited the White House in October: “Incredible patriots.”
Three UCLA basketball players detained in China on suspicion of shoplifting returned to Los Angeles Tuesday, and were met by a frenzied media as they exited Tom Bradley International Airport and made their ways to an awaiting vehicle. (The Associated Press)
“You can be a white Swede or white Canadian,” he said, “and in Trump’s eyes you can be more of a true patriot than an African-American basketball player, because you’re white.”
Read more about:Hennessy cognac is well known for its wide appeal the world over, from aristocratic gentleman’s clubs to American rap songs to your Irish Nana’s liquor chest, but did you know that its origin story goes back to one of the most important moments in Irish history?
As part of the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, the Irish forces of Patrick Sarsfield, who had fought the army of William of Orange to a standstill, were given the option of sailing to France to join the Catholic pretender James Stuart.
Shortly thereafter Sarsfield signed the Treaty of Limerick, a French fleet arrived with reinforcements and many urged Sarsfield to tear up the Treaty and fight on. This he would not do; having given his word of honor, he kept it.
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Believing they had negotiated a treaty that guaranteed the rights of their people, perhaps as many as twenty thousand Irish soldiers sailed with Sarsfield to France. The treaty that Sarsfield had honored would never be honored by the British.
With cruel irony the British tore up the treaty and replaced it with the Penal Laws, which stripped Irish Catholics of their land, persecuting them for their religion, and removed every right of citizenship. On this note of dishonor and betrayal began the saga of The Wild Geese.
For the next hundred years the French Army included an Irish Brigade, which began with Sarsfield's soldiers, and the men of Justine MacCarthy (Lord Mountcashel) who preceded them, and was then fed by a continual stream of young men from Ireland, whose options had been severely limited by the oppressive Penal Laws.
Many of the "Wild Geese" rose to prominence in the armies of Europe. George Brown of the Austrian army was made a Field Marshal by Emperor Charles IV and 11 different men named Walsh became Field Marshals or generals there. Francis Maurice Lacy was a Field Marshal in the Austrian and Russian armies and many reached high commands in France and Spain. A McMahon became Minister of War and President of France. These "Wild Geese" fought in battles all over Europe and the world through the years. In South America, Bernardo O'Higgins became the Liberator of Chile and Admiral William Brown, from Mayo, became the Father of the Argentine Navy.
One of the most famous of the Wild Geese was Richard Hennessy, the youngest son of Lord Ballymacmoy, whose ancestral home still stands in Killavullen, in the northern part of Co. Cork.
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At the age of 20, Richard Hennessy departed from Ballymacmoy House for France in 1724 to fight in the French Army of King Louis XV. He sustained injuries in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, in which the French were victorious, though the Irish Brigade suffered some of the highest casualties on the French side.
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He then settled in the Cognac region, on the banks of the Charente River, where he began distilling wine to produce brandy. Thus, Hennessy cognac was born.
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What Richard Hennessy started his son James ran with, and by the 1800s Hennessy had established deals with traders in London and New York, marking the start of a global beverage empire that celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2015.
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Today, 60 million bottles of Hennessy are sold in 120 countries around the world each year. No doubt Richard Hennessy would be proud.The evolution of Super Rugby is set to expand into Asia with SANZAR confirming that tenderers from Japan and Singapore will vie for the license to run a team when the competition grows to 18 participants in 2016.
Following an initial expression of interest process, SANZAR has created a shortlist of these two Asian-based applicants that best meet the criteria required to successfully run a Super Rugby franchise and will subsequently proceed with the full tender before a decision is reached in September/October.
SANZAR CEO Greg Peters said, "We are now able to confirm that two parties from Asia will compete for the opportunity to join an expanded Super Rugby competition in 2016. Asia is a region that has been the focus of considerable investment by the International Rugby Board in recent years and is a strategically sound location for the evolution of Super Rugby.
"We were happy with the number of responses received, however the two stand-out expressions of interest that were most attractive to the SANZAR Unions were received from Japan and Singapore.
"Each bid has the support of the respective National Unions and includes other interested parties who will provide commercial and business support required for a venture of this nature."
The two bidders now have until mid-August to submit formal tender documents, outlining why they are best-positioned to join the world's premier international provincial rugby competition when it expands to 18 teams in 2016.
The bids will be assessed against the key criteria of commercial value, infrastructure, geographic location, rugby readiness and ongoing sustainability.
The return of the Kings from South Africa's Eastern Cape and a team based in Argentina have already been confirmed by SANZAR when the format was announced in May.
Outline of the Super Rugby Competition Structure
The four conference, two group future of Super Rugby will be structured as follows, with each team playing 15 games and having two byes across a 17-week Regular Season:
Super Rugby Finals Series
The Regular Season will be followed by a knockout Super Rugby Finals Series featuring eight teams; the four conference winners plus the three next highest-ranked teams from the Australasian Group and the next highest-ranked team from the South African Group.
Conference winners will be seeded 1-4 based upon overall points from the Regular Season and the highest-ranked team will play at home in each match-up. The Super Rugby Finals Series will be structured as follows:
The Evolution of Super Rugby at a glance:
Expansion to 18 teams from the 2016 season
New teams to come from South Africa, Argentina and Japan OR Singapore via a tender process
Four Conferences in Two Groups:
Australasian Group: Australian Conference, New Zealand Conference
South African Group: Africa Conference 1, Africa Conference 2
Australasian Group: Australian Conference, New Zealand Conference South African Group: Africa Conference 1, Africa Conference 2 Existing Australian and New Zealand Conferences to remain in their current form, comprising the Australasian Group
Existing South African Conference to expand to eight teams and be split into two Conferences of four teams each, comprising the South African Group (composition still to be determined)
15 Regular Season games per team (8 home/7 away or vice-versa over a two-year cycle)
Two byes per team
135 Regular Season and 7 Finals matches (up from 120 and 5 currently)
Eight-team knockout Super Rugby Finals Series to be staged over three weeks (5 qualifiers from the Australasian Group and 3 from the South African Group)
The four Conference winners automatically qualify for the Finals Series, along with the next three highest-ranked Australasian Group teams and the next highest-ranked South African Group team
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE "EVOLUTION OF SUPER RUGBY" DOCUMENT (7MB)Melania Trump is loving her winter whites!
The first lady visited the Children's National Hospital in Washington D.C. on Thursday where she read Christmas stories and visited some of the patients. Melania donned all-white for the occasion -- a pencil skirt, sweater and Max Mara wool coat that she draped over her shoulders.
11 PHOTOS Melania Trump dons Max Mara coat for hospital visit See Gallery Melania Trump dons Max Mara coat for hospital visit US first lady Melania Trump arrives for reading to young patients at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump arrives to read to patients at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump reads to patients at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 07: First Lady Melania Trump arrives to greet children and read the Christmas book, The Polar Express at Children's National Medical Center, on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. First ladies dating back to Jacqueline Kennedy have made the annual visit to the Washington area hospital during the holiday season. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump greets young patients after reading to them at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump leaves after reading to young patients at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump reads to patients at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 07: First lady Melania Trump sits between Damian Contreras (L) and a person dressed as Santa Claus as she reads the Christmas book, The Polar Express at Children's National Medical Center, on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. First ladies dating back to Jacqueline Kennedy have made the annual visit to the Washington area hospital during the holiday season. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) US first lady Melania Trump greets patients after reading to them at Children's National Medical Center December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. / AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 07: First lady Melania Trump sits with a person dressed as Santa Claus before reading the Christmas book, The Polar Express to children at Children's National Medical Center, on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. First ladies dating back to Jacqueline Kennedy have made the annual visit to the Washington area hospital during the holiday season. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 07: First lady Melania Trump greets children after reading the Christmas book, The Polar Express at Children's National Medical Center, on December 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. First ladies dating back to Jacqueline Kennedy have made the annual visit to the Washington area hospital during the holiday season. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
She kept her brunette tresses, which looked like it had been freshly cut, in a blown out style and her makeup simple with a swipe of light pink lipstick.
This isn't the first time Melania has stepped out in an all-white look this holiday season. At the unveiling of the White House holiday decorations, she donned a Dior dress that truly stole the show.
"She's beautiful like an angel!" one child said as the first lady, dressed in a gorgeous cream Dior dress with bell sleeves and a fluid skirt that hit below her knees, walked into the East Room to help a group of kids make a garland.
It wasn't just her outfit that garnered attention during Thursday's event. A 10-year-old boy asked where she'd most like to spend the upcoming holiday, to which she replied: "I would spend my holidays on a deserted island, a tropical island -- with my family."
RELATED: Melania Trump's best style moments in 2017:
122 PHOTOS Melania Trump's best style moments in 2017 See Gallery Melania Trump's best style moments in 2017 WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: First lady Melania Trump waves to supporters in the inaugural parade on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump was sworn-in as the 45th President of the United States. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch - Pool/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk in their inaugural parade on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. Donald Trump was sworn-in as the 45th President of the United States. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch - Pool/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump address the Freedom Inaugural Ball at the Washington Convention Center January 20, 2017 in Washington, D.C. President Trump was sworn today as the 45th U.S. President. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump take the stage at the Freedom Inaugural Ball, January 20, 2017, in Washington, DC. / AFP / Robyn Beck (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump arrives for the 60th Annual Red Cross Gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on February 4, 2017. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive for the 60th Annual Red Cross Gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach on February 4, 2017. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 03: U.S. President Donald Trump walks with his wife Melania Trump on the tarmac after he arrived on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport for a visit to his Mar-a-Lago Resort for the weekend on February 3, 2017 in Palm Beach, Florida. President Donald Trump is on his his first visit to Palm Beach since his inauguration. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 03: U.S. President Donald Trump walks with his wife Melania Trump on the tarmac after he arrived on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport for a visit to his Mar-a-Lago Resort for the weekend on February 3, 2017 in Palm Beach, Florida. President Donald Trump is on his his first visit to Palm Beach since his inauguration. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) WEST PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 10: President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International Airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend together at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The two are scheduled to get in a game of golf as well as discuss trade issues. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) WEST PALM BEACH, FL - FEBRUARY 10: President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive on Air Force One at the Palm Beach International airport as they prepare to spend part of the weekend with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe at Mar-a-Lago resort on February 10, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida. The two are scheduled to get in a game of golf as well as discuss trade issues. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump (L) and Akie Abe, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, tour Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida, on February 11, 2017. / AFP / Gaston De Cardenas (Photo credit should read GASTON DE CARDENAS/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump (L) and Akie Abe, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, tour Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida, on February 11, 2017. / AFP / Gaston De Cardenas (Photo credit should read GASTON DE CARDENAS/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, D.C. - FEBRUARY 15: (AFP-OUT) U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait to greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu at the South Portico of the White House on February 15, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Netanyahu is trying to recalibrate ties with the new U.S. administration after eight years of high-profile clashes with former President Barack Obama, in part over Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. (Photo by Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as they arrive at the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. / AFP / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) MELBOURNE, FL - FEBRUARY 18: President Donald Trump and Melania Trump stand together during a campaign rally at the AeroMod International hangar at Orlando Melbourne International Airport on February 18, 2017 in Melbourne, Florida. President Trump is holding his rally as he continues to try to push his agenda through in Washington, DC. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrrive at a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on February 18, 2017 in Melbourne, Florida. / AFP / NICHOLAS KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 17: U.S. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron Trump depart the White House March 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The first family is scheduled to spend the weekend at their Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) US President Donald Trump (R), wife Melania (L) and son Barron (C) make their way to board Air Force One before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on March 17, 2017. Trump is heading to Palm Beach, Florida where he is scheduled to spend the weekend at the Mar-a-Lago estate. / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk into the East Room to attend an event celebrating Women's History Month, at the White House March 29, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, USA - MARCH 29: First Lady Melania Trump delivers a speech to women from around the world as she welcomes them to recognize their great deeds and present them with a fellowship award from the U.S. Department of State during the 2017 International Womens Awards in Washington, United States on March 29, 2017. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 05: U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump welcome King Abdullah II and Queen Rania of Jordan outside the West Wing of the White House April 5, 2017 in Washington, DC. President Trump held talks on the Middle East peace process and other bilateral issues with King Abdullah II. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 05: (AFP OUT) Queen Rania of Jordan, left, and first lady Melania Trump, right, walk along the Colonnade of the White House on April 5, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump and King Abdullah II of Jordan are meeting at the White House. (Photo by Ron Sachs - Pool/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump awaits the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump (R) and President Donald Trump (2nd R) pose with Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd L) and his wife Peng Liyuan (L) upon their arrival to the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017. / / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump and the People's Republic of China First Lady Peng Liyuan visits the Bak Middle School of the Arts in Palm Beach, Florida April 7, 2017 / AFP PHOTO / Michele Eve Sandberg (Photo credit should read MICHELE EVE SANDBERG/AFP/Getty Images) US First Lady Melania Trump visits the the Bak Middle School of the Arts, with the People's Republic of China First Lady Peng Liyuan(not shown) on April 7, 2017 in West Palm Beach, Florida. / AFP PHOTO / Michele Eve Sandberg (Photo credit should read MICHELE EVE SANDBERG/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 17: U.S. first lady Melania Trump prepares to read 'Party Animals' by Kathy Lee Gifford during the 139th Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House April 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. The White House said 21,000 people are expected to attend the annual tradition of rolling colored eggs down the White House lawn that was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) U.S. First Lady Melania Trump leaves the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, April 17, 2017. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania presided over their first Easter Egg Roll, a 139-year-old White House tradition. Photographer: Olivier Douliery/Pool via Bloomberg U.S. First Lady Melania Trump walks out of the South Portico of the White House with U.S. President Donald Trump, not pictured, to greet Mauricio Macri, Argentina's president, and Juliana Awada, first lady of Argentina, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, April 27, 2017. In meeting with Macri on today, Trump is eschewing a tradition in which an incoming U.S. president meets first with Mexico, its largest trade partner in the region, and with Brazil, Latin Americas largest economy. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 27: U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump (L) welcome President Mauricio Macri |
- who has experience living in and negotiating with the West having served as Iran's envoy to the UN - will take over responsibility for the talks.
Talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are resuming on 27 September.
Correction 10 September: The estimated size of Iran's Jewish community has been amended in this story.ENERGY giant ExxonMobil has been forced to pay the biggest fine for an environmental offence in British history for failing to report greenhouse gas emissions from its chemicals plant in Scotland.
The world’s largest oil company was hit with the £2.8 million fine by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) for neglecting to account for 33,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from its ethylene plant in Fife.
The fine was not publicised by Sepa when it was levied in September 2010 and was buried in a report issued last week by the government’s anti-pollution agency.
Environment groups said the scale of the fine should have been broadcast widely to highlight “complacency” in the oil industry and as a deterrent to other companies.
ExxonMobil is most famously associated with the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska in 1989. The company’s Fife Ethylene Plant in Mossmorran was opened in 1986 and can produce up to 830,300 tonnes of ethylene a year, much of which is used to make plastic. It is the third-largest source of greenhouse gases in the UK’s chemicals sector.
In 2005, the European Union passed regulations on carbon emissions that put in place stringent fines for not complying with the legislation.
Sepa’s enforcement statistics report, covering activity in the financial year 2010/11 and published last Wednesday, says ExxonMobil Chemical Ltd had informed the agency that it had identified three sources of carbon dioxide that had not been reported in its return for 2008. According to EU statistics, the Fife plant had verified emissions of 708,369 tonnes of carbon dioxide that year but it only reported 675,403 tonnes, a discrepancy of 32,966 tonnes. Each tonne attracts a $100 fine, making the final bill $3.3 million or £2.8m.
ExxonMobil said it “regretted” the error and reported the mistake as soon as it was spotted. Previously the largest fine handed down for an environmental offence was £1m paid by Shell in 1990 for polluting the river Mersey.
The company was also forced to pay a second penalty of £844,765 for a similar mistake at the group’s Esso Petroleum Company in Fawley near Southampton.
An insider at ExxonMobil said there had been a “sharp intake of breath” at the size of the fine. The money, paid to Sepa, was passed to the Scottish Government, which has spent it on community environmental projects.
Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said it was “disappointing” the level of fine had not been published at the time. “This is yet another example of complacency and misinformation from the oil industry – an industry that has a reputation for poor practice, and one that often puts the environment and people at risk through its failure to act properly.”
Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said: “It’s surprising that a company this big has made such a significant error. It’s a serious lesson for them and I hope they have learned that lesson.”
Following the levying of the penalty in 2010, ExxonMobil’s name was mentioned, but not the size of the fine, on an obscure part of Sepa’s website.
Details were only revealed in the enforcement report and subsequently uncovered by the latest edition of the environmental campaigns journal Ends.
A spokesman for Sepa said:. “The Exxon Mobil Chemical Limited case was a reporting error, and the penalty was a mandatory consequence of breaching the EU Emissions Trading Scheme regulations. Unlike prosecution cases, there was no direct environmental impact caused by Exxon Mobil’s error, and Sepa was not required to carry out an investigation or report the matter to the Procurator Fiscal.”
In a statement ExxonMobil, based in Texas, said: “We regret the errors made at Fife and Fawley relating to the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions under the European Union Emissions Trading System. In both cases these inaccuracies were identified by ExxonMobil’s internal systems and were immediately reported to the regulator. We have now fully reviewed and improved our procedures at both sites to address the issues we identified.”
• www.endsreport.comWay before the sun peeks over the horizon, a few chosen people awaken from their slumber and dive head first into their day. These chosen few accomplish a ton before the rest of us would ever consider rising from our nice warm beds.
Who are these juggernauts that have command over the morning hours?
In theory, your productivity level shouldn’t differ if you rise at 4am or 11am. What matters is the quality of sleep that’s giving your mind and body sufficient time to recover.
These early rising juggernauts, these unstoppable agents of productivity, they see things differently. They see these early hours as their chance to lay claim to their share of the day. They rise with purpose, act with determination, and achieve ruthlessly. The sun has not caught me in bed in fifty years. – Thomas Jefferson
The world is in awe of these special people, so let’s take a look at what pops them out of bed like a toaster strudel and what gets them up, sometimes before the alarm!
Appointment With Waking
The harsh truth about the human body is that we’re creatures of habit. In some ways this can be extremely inconvenient when trying to take on new things. However, if we allow ourselves to live within the rules of our body’s natural cycle, which is a 24-hour circadian rhythm, we will be pleased with the body’s functionality.
This means that when you find a waking hour that will work best for you each day of the week, you should stick to it. This will allow your body to want to support you in your endeavor of waking up, and rise you out of bed feeling fresh as a daisy.
The King and The Pauper Way Of Eating
The way our bodies function optimally is if we eat like a king in the morning and a pauper in the evening. This means that it’s best to eat heavier, bigger portions in the morning because these meals will give us high energy throughout the day and then burn off.
Eating like a pauper, meaning small light meals, in the evening allows us to go to sleep on an empty stomach. If your body is functioning normally, and you don’t have stomach ulcers, going to sleep on a mostly empty stomach will allow you to sleep better. This nightly fast allows your body to take it’s focus away from digestion and put it towards repair and rejuvenation of the body’s cells.
Living With Purpose
Young children will do anything to avoid going to sleep at night. These same children are also the ones that can’t wait to get out of bed first thing in the world. The simple reason for this non-lazy behavior is that they don’t want to miss a thing.
As adults we may need more persuasion than ‘not wanting to miss a thing’. This is why we take extra steps in creating fun, life changing goals, and scheduling specific ways of how we’ll get a step closer to these goals during this coming day. What we all need is not necessary a cause we’re willing to die for, but at least a cause we’re willing to LIVE for.
Plan Your Day
We can say we’re going to live with purpose, but unless we plan, we can tell ourselves that we’ll start living with purpose next week, or the week after that. Planning is one of the fundamental ways to maximize your mind to achieve your goals, and as such it plays a critical role in allowing us to have an awesome day, everyday. We need not do more than take 15 minutes the night before to succinctly organize the next days schedule.
A schedule complete with waking time, most important things of the day, eating and recreational allowances. Having a tight schedule allows me to live out my day with definitive purpose, while getting more done, having more fun, and not wasting precious moments of my life.
“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results” – Dennis Wholey
The Water Hack
A bit of water before bed and half a liter as soon as you get up. The water before bed will serve in the rejuvenation process we mentioned above. While you sleep all your cells will fill up with this fresh water and create an over all well being within your body.
The water in the morning does two things. One is it provides your first dose of water to get your mind and body going. Another function, as told to me by my endocrinology teacher (a very qualified person to say this), is that a dose of water in the morning triggers a cascade of physiological functions that engages your digestive system and causes you to excrete feces. You’ll feel nice and light first thing in the morning!
Work That Body
In number 1 above I mentioned that our bodies adapt around a 24-hour circadian rhythm. This works for sleep, eating, exercise, and many other bodily functions. We’re a pretty efficient physiological machine when you think about it. This is why getting a dose of exercise is optimal in the morning. It gets the blood flowing and stimulates you to function on a higher level. “Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.” – Edward Stanley
Once you’re used to this routine, your body will prepare by providing you with high energy before you start to work out. As you can see, if you wake up with this high energy, you’re going to just pop out of bed.
Have ‘Me’ Time
No morning is completely satisfying unless you’ve scheduled in some ‘Me’ time. Whether you enjoy meditating to clear you mind and give you laser sharp focus, or reading to gain some new knowledge about the world, make sure you schedule in this time.
There may very a variety of things you enjoy doing, so this will be custom tailored to the individual. The point is that when you have something you REALLY enjoy doing right when you get up, you won’t be able to wait until that alarm goes off till you jump out of bed and get to it!
See, that’s all it takes! 🙂
Written by Alex Shalman who is the author of How to Get a Girlfriend and Practical Personal Development Blog and Podcast. Republished 7/20/2011. Photo Credit: aramolaraAs the BTCC circus descends on Snetterton this weekend, there will be one key member of the supporting cast absent – much to the disappointment of her loyal legion of fans.
In just half a season of Ginetta Juniors, Sophia Floersch has made quite an impact, a superb brace of victories at Thruxton in May transforming her into the talk of the TOCA support paddock.
Coming in just her fifth and sixth races out of karts, those wins, backed up by a string of top-four finishes in the two following rounds, have marked the German out as one to watch.
Nonetheless, Floersch and her backers have since chosen to call time on her Ginetta campaign in order to begin preparations for an assault on the German-based ADAC Formula 4 series in 2016 – the next step towards her ultimate goal of competing in F1.
If next year goes well, it could change my whole life, so it’s important that I prepare as much as I can. Sophia Floersch on quitting Ginettas
“It’s so competitive in ADAC F4 and starting testing early gives me the best possible chance,” she explains, speaking with a maturity that belies her tender age of just 14 years.
“Besides, nobody is really interested in Ginettas in Germany, and because of the exchange rate between pounds and euros it has cost more than we thought it would.
“So we thought it was better to use the available budget to test F4 instead – if next year goes well, it could change my whole life, so it’s important that I prepare as much as I can.”
To that end, Floersch has racked up 700 kilometres in testing this week alone – and she says learning the tracks on the ADAC F4 calendar will be crucial.
“The more laps I do, the better I get,” she says, “and then there’s knowing the tracks I’ll be racing on, because I only know the two that I’ve tested on so far, Oschersleben and Spa.
“There are drivers who did Formel Masters [the forerunner to ADAC F4] last year and the year before, so they will have a big advantage over me knowing the circuits already.”
Getting used to the spotlight
Because of her age, Floersch was unable to start her single-seater journey this year, forcing her to make a choice between Ginettas and another year in karts.
As well as helping to further develop her racecraft, she says the best thing about opting for the former has been the considerable following she has gained from her Ginetta exploits.
“Maybe a hundred people come to watch a kart race, but there I was in front of 40,000 fans at Brands Hatch for my first race weekend. I was so nervous!
“But by the time we got to Donington Park for the next round I had learned to cope with it, and then when I won those races at Thruxton I suddenly got another thousand followers on Twitter.
“All the support has been amazing, and I wouldn’t have got that just carrying on with karts for another year – so I’m really glad we chose Ginettas.”
Floersch is certainly aiming high in her first year of ADAC F4; asked about her specific targets for 2016, she says: “I think being in the top five or six in the championship is realistic.
“At the start it will be tough because of my lack of experience, but I hope I can get one or two wins before the end of the season.
“We have to see – if it goes well next year, we could change to F3 for the following year; if not I’ll probably stay in F4 for a second season.”
Catching Red Bull's eye
It’s become increasingly expensive in recent years for young drivers to ascend the single-seater ranks, but fortunately for Floersch, she has already succeeded in catching the eye of a certain energy drink company renowned for its backing of emerging talent.
Scouted as a young go-karter by Red Bull three years ago, she enjoys a loose affiliation with the Austrian firm, something that will stand her in good stead for the journey ahead.
“I go to the factory eight times per year to do two hours of simulator training and two hours in the gym,” she reveals, “although I’m not a Red Bull athlete as such.
“Being a part of their young driver scheme in future is certainly possible, although nothing is decided at the moment.”
Nobody better than Floersch herself knows that there’s an awfully long way to go between where she is currently and potentially becoming the first woman to start a Grand Prix since Lella Lombardi.
But, the buzz she has generated in less than a dozen Ginetta races has been nothing short of remarkable – a sure reflection of a prodigious talent, which, combined with the necessary backing, could well see her go all the way to the top.It appears that the Philippine Information Agency website was hacked.
On the government operated information website designed to keep the public informed on issue around the archipelago, it is proclaimed in two areas–Good Governance and World which say Website hacked!!! as of 6 pm EST.
The title of the posting says: Calling all citizens of the Philippines!!!!!, which is followed by anti-government rhetoric (see screen shot below).
If the PIA site is hacked, it wouldn’t be the first such situation in the Philippines this year.
Last month, the official website of President Benigno Aquino III of the Philippines was defaced by “Anonymous Philippines”.
The hacking group has in the recent past also struck the websites of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Department of Health Anti-Smoking and the University of the Philippines’Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis, to name a few.
The PHILIPPINE INFORMATION AGENCY (PIA)was created in 1986 by virtue of Executive Order 100 signed by former President Corazon C. Aquino.
Its listed functions include:Share
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The Subaru Viziv-7 is the latest in a series of Viziv — short for Vision for Innovation — SUV concepts the Japanese automaker has shown over the past few years. It previews a seven-seat, three-row midsize SUV Subaru plans to launch in North American in early 2018. It is exactly the kind of car America seems to want right now, but that Subaru has resisted building for some time.
The Viziv-7 looks like someone put a Subaru Forester in a photocopier and dialed the enlargement setting up to 125 percent. It features traditional SUV styling cues like boxy wheel wells and an upright, squared-off roof, which should at least give the interior a nice, airy feeling. The grille and headlights mimic those of other recent Subaru production and concept cars. However, some elements of the design, like the Subaru badge placed near the top of the grille, make the Viziv-7 look a bit like a Toyota Highlander.
Subaru would not discuss the powertrain, but its last SUV concept, the Viziv Future unveiled at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show, used a hybrid setup. A 2.0-liter boxer-four engine powered the front wheels, while an electric motor powered the rear wheels. It is possible that something like this will be used on the production model the Viziv-7 previews or Subaru may simply go for a non-hybrid powertrain with one of its existing boxer engines.
The SUV mania at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show reflects the current boom in SUV sales, something Subaru is likely planning to exploit. The company has had success with the smaller Forester, and with luring SUV buyers into its all-wheel drive wagons, hatchbacks, and sedans, but its last seven-seat SUV, the Tribeca, was a bit of a dud.
The new SUV due in 2018 will be larger than the Tribeca and will be built at the company’s U.S. factory in Lafayette, Indiana. Unlike the Tribeca, which was named after a trendy New York City neighborhood, Subaru previously said the new SUV would “carry a name synonymous with outdoor adventure,” similar to the Forester, Outback, and Crosstrek. So it probably will not be called the Subaru Williamsburg.West Coast could be rocked with a second ruckman knee reconstruction, with Scott Lycett revealing the major surgery might be in play after his visit to Melbourne on Wednesday to consult with specialists.
It has already been reported Lycett would have extensive surgery to the damaged left knee he carried through the last month of the season, with a torn posterior cruciate ligament, almost ruptured muscle tendon and significant cartilage tearing.
But after limping through last week's finals loss to the Western Bulldogs, he travelled to Melbourne on Wednesday and the news he received does not seem to have been positive.
"We're not sure - the club will announce something soon [about a potential reconstruction] and I'll pretty much go under the knife from there," Lycett told Radio 6PR's Breakfast program.GCC's move to C++
Did you know...? LWN.net is a subscriber-supported publication; we rely on subscribers to keep the entire operation going. Please help out by buying a subscription and keeping LWN on the net.
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) was, from its inception, written in C and compiled by a C compiler. Beginning in 2008, an effort was undertaken to change GCC so that it could be compiled by a C++ compiler and take advantage of a subset of C++ constructs. This effort was jump-started by a presentation by Ian Lance Taylor [PDF] at the June 2008 GCC summit. As with any major change, this one had its naysayers and its problems, as well as its proponents and successes.
Reasons
Taylor's slides list the reasons to commit to writing GCC in C++:
C++ is well-known and popular.
It's nearly a superset of C90, which GCC was then written in.
The C subset of C++ is as efficient as C.
C++ "supports cleaner code in several significant cases." It never requires "uglier" code.
C++ makes it harder to break interface boundaries, which leads to cleaner interfaces.
The popularity of C++ and its superset relationship to C speak for themselves. In stating that the C subset of C++ is as efficient as C, Taylor meant that if developers are concerned about efficiency, limiting themselves to C constructs will generate code that is just as efficient. Having cleaner interfaces is one of the main advantages of C++, or any object-oriented language. Saying that C++ never requires "uglier" code is a value judgment. However, saying that it supports "cleaner code in several significant cases" has a deep history, best demonstrated by gengtype.
According to the GCC Wiki:
As C does not have any means of reflection [...] gengtype was introduced to support some GCC-specific type and variable annotations, which in turn support garbage collection inside the compiler and precompiled headers. As such, gengtype is one big kludge of a rudimentary C lexer and parser.
What had happened was that developers were emulating features such as garbage collection, a vector class, and a tree class in C. This was the "ugly" code to which Taylor referred.
In his slides, Taylor also tried to address many of the initial objections: that C++ was slow, that it was complicated, that there would be a bootstrap problem, and that the Free Software Foundation (FSF) wouldn't like it. He addressed the speed issue by pointing out that the C subset of C++ is as efficient as C. As far as FSF went, Taylor wrote, "The FSF is not writing the code."
The complexity of a language is in the eye of the beholder. Many GCC developers were primarily, or exclusively, C programmers, so of necessity there would be a time period in which they would be less productive, and/or might use C++ in ways that negated all its purported benefits. To combat that problem, Taylor hoped to develop coding standards that limited development to a subset of C++.
The bootstrap problem could be resolved by ensuring that GCC version N-1 could always build GCC version N, and that they could link statically against libstdc++. GCC version N-1 must be linked against libstdc++ N-1 while it is building GCC N and libstdc++ N; GCC N, in turn, will need libstdc++ N. Static linking ensures that each version of the compiler runs with the appropriate version of the library.
For many years prior to 2008, there had been general agreement to restrict GCC code to a common subset of C and C++, according to Taylor (via email). However, there was a great deal of resistance to replacing the C compiler with a C++ compiler. At the 2008 GCC summit, Taylor took a poll on how large that resistance was, and approximately 40% were opposed. The C++ boosters paid close attention to identifying and addressing the specific objections raised by C++ opponents (speed, memory usage, inexperience of developers, and so on), so that each year thereafter the size of the opposition shrank significantly. Most of these discussions took place at the GCC summits and via unlogged IRC chats. Therefore, the only available record is in the GCC mailing list archives.
First steps
The first step, a proper baby step, was merely to try to compile the existing C code base with a C++ compiler. While Taylor was still at the conference, he created a gcc-in-cxx branch for experimenting with building GCC with a C++ compiler. Developers were quick to announce their intention to work on the project. The initial build attempts encountered many errors and warnings, which were then cleaned up.
In June 2009, almost exactly a year from proposing this switch, Taylor reported that phase one was complete. He configured GCC with the switch enable-build-with-cxx to cause the core compiler to be built with C++. A bootstrap on a single target system was completed. Around this time, the separate cxx branch was merged into the main GCC trunk, and people continued their work, using the enable-build-with-cxx switch. (However, the separate branch was revived on at least one occasion for experimentation.)
In May 2010, there was a GCC Release Manager Q&A on IRC. The conclusion from that meeting was to request permission from the GCC Steering Committee to use C++ language features in GCC itself, as opposed to just compiling with a C++ compiler. Permission was granted, with agreement also coming from the FSF. Mark Mitchell announced the decision in an email to the GCC mailing list on May 31, 2010.
In that thread, Jakub Jelinek and Vladimir Makarov expressed a lack of enthusiasm for the change. However, as Makarov put it, he had no desire to start a flame war over a decision that had already been made. That said, he recently shared via email that his primary concern was that the GCC community would rush into converting the GCC code base to C++ "instead of working on more important things for GCC users (like improving performance, new functionality and so on). Fortunately, it did not happen."
Richard Guenther was concerned about creating a tree class hierarchy:
It's a lot of work (tree extends in all three Frontends, middle-end and backends). And my fear is we'll only get a halfway transition - something worse than no transition at all.
The efforts of the proponents to allay concerns, and the "please be careful" messages from the opponents give some indication of the other concerns. In addition to the issues raised by Taylor at the 2008 presentation, Jelinek mentioned memory usage. Others, often as asides to other comments, worried that novice C++ programmers would use the language inappropriately, and create unmaintainable code.
There was much discussion about coding standards in the thread. Several argued for existing standards, but others pointed out that they needed to define a "safe" subset of C++ to use. There was, at first, little agreement about which features of C++ were safe for a novice C++ developer. Taylor proposed a set of coding standards. These were amended by Lawrence Crowl and others, and then were adopted. Every requirement has a thorough rationale and discussion attached. However, the guiding principle on maintainability is not the coding standard, but one that always existed for GCC: the maintainer of a component makes the final decision about any changes to that component.
Current status
Currently, those who supported the changes feel their efforts provided the benefits they expected. No one has publicly expressed any dissatisfaction with the effort. Makarov was relieved that his fear that the conversion effort would be a drain on resources did not come to pass. In addition, he cites the benefits of improved modularity as being a way to make GCC easier to learn, and thus more likely to attract new developers.
As far as speed goes, Makarov noted that a bootstrap on a multi-CPU platform is as fast as it was for C. However, on uniprocessor platforms, a C bootstrap was 30% faster. He did not speculate as to why that is. He also found positive impacts, like converting to C++ hash tables, which sped up compile time by 1-2%. This last work is an ongoing process, that Lawrence Crowl last reported on in October 2012. In keeping with Makarov's concerns, this work is done slowly, as people's time and interests permit.
Of the initial desired conversions (gengtype, tree, and vector), vector support is provided using C++ constructs (i.e., a class) and gengtype has been rewritten for C++ compatibility. Trees are a different matter. Although they have been much discussed and volunteered for several times, no change has been made to the code. This adds credence to the 2010 contention of Guenther (who has changed his surname to Biener) that it would be difficult to do correctly. Reached recently, Biener stated that he felt it was too early to assess the impact of the conversion because, compared to the size of GCC, there have been few changes to C++ constructs. On the negative side, he noted (as others have) that, because of the changes, long-time contributors must relearn things that they were familiar with in the past.
In 2008, 2009, and 2010, (i.e., at the beginning and after each milestone) Taylor provided formal plans for the next steps. There is no formal plan going forward from here. People will use C++ constructs in future patches as they deem necessary, but not just for the sake of doing so. Some will limit their changes to the times when they are patching the code anyway. Others approach the existing C code with an eye to converting code to C++ wherever it makes the code clearer or more efficient. Therefore, this is an ongoing effort on a meandering path for the foreseeable future.
As the C++ project has progressed, some fears have been allayed, while some developers are still in a holding pattern. For them it is too soon to evaluate things definitively, and too late to change course. However, the majority seems to be pleased with the changes. Only time will tell what new benefits or problems will arise.It was an unpleasant Saturday night on the Divisadero corridor, as a duo of armed robberies—possibly related—went down in quick succession.
According to police, the first robbery occurred at 11:45pm, when a 37-year-old man was approached from behind at Page and Broderick streets as he was walking home. One male suspect pointed a handgun in his direction, while the second took his "electronic device." They then fled on foot on Broderick, turning onto Page.
Just 15 minutes later, at 12:01am, a 20-year-old man was also robbed just two blocks away, at Page and Scott streets. A male suspect approached him with a handgun and demanded his belongings. The man handed over his cell phone and wallet (containing cash), and the suspect fled on foot.
Arrests were not made in either case, and police haven't confirmed whether or not the two robberies are related. We'll update this post if we learn more.Here’s an incident that’s worth noting:
Back in early 2017 –Freelance photographer Daniel Diaz created an Instagram account and started posting pictures on a regular basis. His aim was to expand the business of photography on a global level and venture into various sectors of photography in due course of time. Soon, he started getting followers and the number amounted up to 10,000 within a short span of time. At a specific point, when he was quite desperate for cash to expand his business, all he did was to ask his followers for likes and the response was overwhelming. Of course, you could also buy instagram followers – plenty of services around (such as Buzzoid, etc).. but not everyone has the funds for this.
Cut to 2018 – Daniel has a sprawling online photography business and most of his clients want a print of those. Not just that, but as per latest news, his business strategy for future is also venturing into destination photography (country specific).
So, what does this story depict? It clearly shows as to how an Instagram account transformed a mere online format into a full-fledged photography brand.
Now, that’s not all! There’s more to brand awareness details than what Mr Diaz has to show.
Currently, Instagram has 700 million followers on a monthly basis.
Compared to Facebook video advertising that garners 1500 impressions on an average, Instagram garners 11,000 impressions. Along with this, it brings on 20 new followers.
80% Instagram users connect voluntarily with a brand. This is 84 times more than Twitter and 54 times more than Pinterest on an average!
Hence, these details clearly depict how Instagram helps in brand awareness on a wider platform. Now, the query that one may have is – every brand is moving in the same direction to garner positives on Instagram. What is that ‘IT’ factor which would help ‘my’ brand grow over its contemporaries and competitors?
What are the ‘general backlogs’ that a brand has?
It was not long ago that trade pundits had predicted, the online marketing zone would become a ‘war-arena’ with filler content being repeated. This is the case now. Hence, it is important to check out those backlogs that normally a brand has which negates its business marketing strategies.
Lack of a correct acquisition strategy
Disconnect with the target audience
Rolling similar contents – nothing new!
With the visual power of Instagram, these backlogs can be negated, and one can not only create but enhance one’s brand awareness to a great extent.
Instagram is a place to visualize stories – a future that you promise your audience!
The Gen – Z audience and their demands:
The current generation towards whom that concerned brand is dedicated are –
Buyers who look for reality rather than traditional fame of that brand.
Is tech-savvy and hence, lacks attention for a wider span of time.
Looks for customization and innovative stances.
Wants to be a part of the feedback loop.
Hence, one must cater to these aspects while going in for updating one’s official Instagram marketing strategies to enhance brand awareness.
What are the steps to make it to the top?
Step 1: Tease your audience
Have you seen the current trend of releasing teasers of films before the trailer? Well, that is exactly the trend and Instagram does wonders when such things come to the fore. These teasers help in creating the much-needed anticipation and hence, awareness about this brand extends on a wider platform.
**What Insta does? Most of the brands which have made it big via Instagram have used this technique. So can you!
Step 2: Stay consistent to your brand and use hashtags strictly
Consistency is an aspect that not only clients love, but also does Instagram, albeit with innovation! Hence, one who wishes to make it big via social media needs to ensure that one’s brand’s image is protected. Also, one must use hashtags strictly and only to promote and share aspects related to one’s brands.
**What Insta does?Now, Instagram ensures that such brands with strong basic presence and strict usage of hashtags garner more priority than others. This is how the whole marketing technique of Instagram is carried out, thereby, helping a business to create awareness about their brands on a public platform.
Step 3: Create your community and cross promote posts
The biggest plus-point that Instagram gives its audience is a chance to create their own community. When multiple branches with similar considerations are on the same field, a particular community is created. This, with time, assists to build a specific zone which enhances demands of your business and improves the look of your brand.
Another very important point is to cross-promote posts. With Instagram as the base, move ahead and take up LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest as your other tools.
**What Insta does?In this case also, this social media profile has a huge role to play. With creation of specific community and cross promotion of posts, Insta helps a business improve its brand marketing and reach out to certain restricted zones. Thus, on the whole, it provides a level playing field – a social field that is much-needed.
Step 4: Engage your clients – one has to innovate
Instagram stories (with a validity of 24 hours) are a tool that helps to garner visual appeal from one and all. Therefore, it is an automatic and innovative filter for success.
Arranging contests and integrating viewers into this purview is a prime mode to make it big in the business world. Brand engagement via comments, contests and likes has risen to a whopping 35%.
Regular posting is most important. Almost 5% of the top brands post innovative notes, on an average 50 times a month. All that Instagram has to do is – connect the correct dots.
**What Insta does?As the statistics state – Instagram becomes that bow which can release multiple arrows, that too in different directions to benefit one’s brand image. If upping the brand quotient is the job – use Instagram as the tool.
With these abovementioned strategies, one is bound to guide one’s brand reach the top and carve out that noticeable niche. So, keep it authentic on Instagram and see your dreams touch the sky!Doug Mataconis · · 17 comments
Count former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson as a no on the “traditional marriage” pledge put out by Iowa “pro-family” group The Family Leader:
July 9, 2011, Las Vegas, Nevada – Presidential candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson charged today in a formal statement through his campaign that the Family Leader “pledge” Republican candidates for President are being asked to sign is “offensive to the principles of liberty and freedom on which this country was founded”. Governor Johnson also plans to further state his position against the Family Leader pledge this afternoon in Las Vegas, NV at a speech he will deliver at the Conservative Leadership Conference.
Johnson went on to state that “the so-called ‘Marriage Vow” pledge that FAMILY LEADER is asking Republican candidates for President to sign attacks minority segments of our population and attempts to prevent and eliminate personal freedom. This type of rhetoric is what gives Republicans a bad name.
“Government should not be involved in the bedrooms of consenting adults. I have always been a strong advocate of liberty and freedom from unnecessary government intervention into our lives. The freedoms that our forefathers fought for in this country are sacred and must be preserved. The Republican Party cannot be sidetracked into discussing these morally judgmental issues — such a discussion is simply wrongheaded. We need to maintain our position as the party of efficient government management and the watchdogs of the “public’s pocket book”.
“This ‘pledge’ is nothing short of a promise to discriminate against everyone who makes a personal choice that doesn’t fit into a particular definition of ‘virtue’.A new contender in the GeForce GTX 600 series, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST is designed for PC users and gamers wanting 1920x1080 gaming with high-detail settings at a great price. Compared with the 928MHz base clock and 128-bit memory interface of early released GeForce GTX 650 Ti, the GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST is an evolved version that features 980MHz base clock and 192-bit memory interface, highly acclaimed GPU BOOST technology that pushes core clock to 1033MHz, and 2-way SLI technology.
This MSI N650ti- |
Port Adelaide in Round 15.
Hurley’s injury is a blow to the Bombers but provides an opportunity for Gumbleton who is set to play his first match since the club’s Round 10 loss to Sydney.
Gumbleton put in a strong display against Bendigo in the VFL last round bagging five goals and taking ten contested marks.
Hardingham has played just three games at AFL level this season despite strong form in the VFL he has not had an opportunity in the senior team since Round 7 against Geelong.
The Bombers are coming off a loss to Hawthorn and a 9-day break in the lead in to Sunday afternoon’s match, which is expected to draw a big crowd under the lights at the MCG.
Click here to see the full team.Hungover. Trying to motivate myself to drive from Colorado Springs to Denver for the second annual Crypto-Cannabis conference. It’s 1 pm.
Chris Derose messages me:
“This conference is weird!”
“How so?”
“Well, there’s a lot of bitcoin pumping, with newbs. And this porn star is getting trashed. Shitfaced.”
“I should be there. I’m headed up.”
“There’s tons of beer, too much beer. And people are taking smoke breaks. It’s not a big crowd.”
Soda water. Cigarettes. And go.
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Pink Floyd. Seems fitting as more and more of the bitcoin industry gets co-opted by corporate interests. Even Bitcoin Core developers – Hearn, Grigg, Garzik – are leaving the volunteer work to join startups for the incumbents now.
I’m going as a bitcoin skeptic. No. Not that. Bitcoin is working, although more speculative than a woman without the will to day trade cares for. But it’s working. Blockchain, though… That I’m skeptical about that. I won’t be alone. Derose is vehemently so.
Blockchain isn’t a revolution.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl
Year after year.
Derose and I have both been in the industry long enough to know the rallying cry is a lie, that nearly all these blockchain-based businesses will find the struggles of competing at scale with the incumbents too much. And they’ll move on to a new industry. First finance. Then healthcare. Insurance as well. And then others.
Day 1
An hour and a half later, I walk into a small space with about 10 people spread out across seven church pews listening to a man talk about the benefits of hemp.
The plan: To smoke a small amount of weed, which would be a large amount of weed for me, and go Gonzo. This isn’t applicable to Gonzo-ing.
A little after 3.30 pm. I sit down next to Derose. This thing is supposed to wrap up at 4.20 both days. Cute. But they’re running late. Probably the smoke breaks, the keg outside and a box full of gallon bottles of hard alcohol in the back room.
There’s one other woman in the room. Pretty standard for a bitcoin conference. Until a thin woman with dreadlocks walks in from the smoking patio.
“That’s the porn star,” Derose whispers to me.
“That doesn’t look like a porn star.”
She doesn’t have huge breasts flopping out of a skin-tight sequins dress? He shrugs.
“And what does cryptocurrency have to do with this new hemp industry?” asks the speaker, Michael Bright, chief financial officer and national sales director at The Hemp Connoisseur (THC) Magazine. “Most of these people can’t get bank accounts. Bitcoin solves all that.”
I haven’t seen it yet.
While bitcoin can be used without interacting with the traditional financial system, many people and businesses won’t use it like that for various reasons and so must follow the rules of the traditional financial system.
One of those reasons is volatility.
Merchants, like legal marijuana dispensaries won’t want to be exposed to bitcoin’s price fluctuations so they’ll use a third-party merchant processor to immediately exchange the bitcoin into cash. And many bitcoin merchant processors aren’t accepting businesses in the gray areas of commerce, like guns and ammo dealers and dispensaries, since that might then cause those service providers to take on quite a bit of risk (risk the bank’s have decided they’re better off not taking) and possibly lose their bank account. As an audience member says, he’s lost around six.
A panel of the morning’s speakers is up next.
But “if you stay in the crypto-space, you stay in that sphere and won’t run into the burdens of regulations and compliance,” said Joseph Ciccolo, founder and president of BitAML, which provides AML compliance help to digital currency startups.
“That could be powerful,” he says after explaining that he’d like to see a more circular economy spread through the cannabis industry with dispensaries paying their suppliers and employees in bitcoin, as well as accepting it from customers.
It could be. Cheaper. Sure. Less overheads. Faster. Yes. Ten-minute transactions too. Although the US is looking to move to a real-time payments system soon. Better. That’s ideological usually.
And while I have no doubt bitcoin will work its scaling problem out, currently there’s still a problem there, especially if another 100,000 dispensaries come online.
So why hasn’t it happened? Same old, same old chicken-and-egg problem.
Most of the small merchants that accept bitcoin don’t see much volume. That can be said about clothing and accessory shops in New York City, casinos in Las Vegas and even medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado Springs.
In MyCelium community manager, Dmitry Murashchik’s mind, we just need more bitcoin ATMs.
Riiight.
Most bitcoin ATMs don’t get much volume either, which is why – as one audience member mentions – most are out of service or gone within four months.
Murashchik’s sentiment also seems off – strange as a self-described anarcho-capitalist who advocates for individual sovereignty (I’m into that), private property (this has got a long history according to Guns, Germs and Steel of developing the classist nations we have today) and free markets (that’s the kicker).
So here we have a free market champion telling us that to see more bitcoin usage, we need more bitcoin ATMs. According to Wikipedia, free markets are “a result of a need being, then the need being met.”
Murashchik’s sentiment is not a free market. That is not supply and demand. That is pushing supply in our face and hoping we demand more.
No one seems to notice the discrepancy.
But Derose is instigating the panel nonetheless, telling them that most bitcoin ATM users will drive hours to get to use one and they have no problem taking the high fee (sometimes 10%) for service. Because they’re looking for something bitcoin ATMs offer over online exchanges and the traditional banking system, immediate fungibility while obscuring their identity.
“Why else wouldn’t they use Coinbase online?” Derose asks.
We’re working up to it.
“What’s the demographic of a typical ATM user?” Derose continues.
Oh boy. Here it comes.
Ciccolo responds, sidestepping. “We had operators that would put them on college campuses where there were a lot of international students. But that didn’t work very well. The areas where terminals work the best are those areas where underbanked individuals live.”
“So inner city neighborhoods where there are a lot of minorities. Would you say most bitcoin ATM users are black?” Derose asks.
That’s what he sees in Florida (where he lives). That’s what I’ve seen and heard from bitcoin ATM operators who wish to remain anonymous. But no one wants to go on the record and say that. No one.
“I’m not going to answer that,” Ciccolo says.
“Any other questions from the audience?” the moderator asks.
Ten people are silent. You can count on Derose not to be. He’ll continue asking leading questions. And while it can seem headless and a bit cocky, he generally makes good points.
But it’s descended into experiential arguments. I saw this in Aruba. I saw that in Stockholm. I see this in Florida. And it’s nauseating.
Maybe that’s the hangover?
I’m getting out of here.
Day 2
Derose messages me at 1pm as I haven’t made an appearance yet. The morning is hands-on bitcoin basics sessions and I’m not interested.
“Seems like you made an impression on the porn star yesterday.”
“Oh yeah? What’d she say?”
“She thought you were hot, wants to hook up tonight. :)”
For fucks sake.
I pop a quarter of a cannabis-infused gummy candy in my mouth before entering the space. Edibles typically help relax my paranoia as I forget I’ve even indulged.
“The real problem is that we don’t have the infrastructure.”
Talking about industrialized hemp. But isn’t that the truth about everything. There are new and better ways of making paper, creating energy, managing money, but we’ve built ourselves into these huge, complicated structures that aren’t easily moved. Loggers, ‘Big Oil’, ‘Big Banks’…
The next speaker, Adella Toulon-Foerster, an independent consultant focusing on bitcoin and blockchain and an associate at Cogent Law Group in Washington DC picks up the bitcoin ATM conversation again. In all states, a bitcoin ATM operator would have to apply at the federal level as a money transmitter.
“That’s the easiest part,” she says.
The harder part is applying for licensing state-by-state, each state with its own definition of money transmission and a provider’s requirements. This process can cost up to $2m, she says.
Another contradiction for a group of people that claim the federal government is a disaster which should be disbanded for individual sovereignty. State sovereignty, it seems, is making things more challenging. Centralized institutions and their umbrella rules have a place.
During Toulon-Foerster’s talk, a man in the audience recounts his struggles with the traditional financial services industry. He’s a bitcoin entrepreneur of some sort with a know-your-customer (KYC) policy and has lost six bank accounts. He’s now blacklisted from many other financial institutions.
And this is why:
Dispensaries are afraid of bitcoin, says Kevin McKernan, founder, CEO and chief sales officer at Medicinal Genomics, a company that distributes platforms for safe, quality testing of cannabis products for clinical applications.
“Because they already have the stigma of cannabis and then they don’t want to put the bitcoin sticker on there too so they have that stigma as well,” he says.
A break. A smoke. For me just a plain old cigarette, but for most others the product of the conference’s namesake. I’m floating a bit already.
Derose is talking to me about the ridiculousness of most of the private blockchain projects.
Sure, you can hash information onto a blockchain. A hash which unlike encryption cannot be reverse-engineered. And the blockchain puts a nice little time-stamp on that hash.
“But timestamp servers already exist,” he says.
“I know. I know. That’s why all these blockchain startups talk in big, tech-heavy words that most people won’t understand. Because all they’re actually doing is hashing data and timestamping it for integrity of that data. It’s simple. But they don’t want people to know that.”
“Because then they won’t get funding.”
It’s a damn conspiracy.
I grab a beer to ground me.
Back inside, another talk about cannabis or hemp, I can’t remember. A young man sits beside me in the back church pew.
“What are you, like 27?” “Yes. Good guess.”
I’m short. I can tell by the way he moves – that tech bro “I am on the cutting edge” pseudo-swagger – he’ll piss me off.
He starts talking about pumping and dumping different coins, using their acronyms. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh,” he laughs, going into how XST or was it SDC is an altcoin like DarkCoin, now DASH.
He makes lots of money – 100%, 1000%, one time he could have made 10,000% but he cashed out early.
“I’ve learned not to be greedy,” he says.
“I guess. If making 10,000% by pumping altcoins isn’t greedy.”
He laughs. I don’t.
“Are you writing a story about the conference?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure to pump CureCoin.”
He laughs. I don’t. I give him a fake smile and type CureCoin in my notes under the label, douchebag.
I stop listening to the speaker. Just the wahhh, waaahhh, wah, like the teacher on Charlie Brown as I check Twitter.
“Did you used to be chunky?” the young man says.
“Excuse me?”
“Did you used to be chunky when you were younger?”
“Uh. No.”
Silence.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“I just think I’m good at reading people. And I would have thought you were fat when you were younger.”
I stare in front of me. I try to yell “Fuck you” but “That’s appropriate” comes out. The meekness you learn as a woman in a male-dominated industry. This is the kind of shit that keeps diversity out of this industry. And gives me a bad high.
A question from the audience: How much has bitcoin materialized rather than just being talked about in the cannabis industry?
Not much.
“I think at the beginning it was just a dark market conversation … and I don’t think it’s gotten past that so far,” THC Magazine’s Bright says.
What the bitcoin and cannabis industries really need is marketing and loyalty cards, he argues. If you got one free ounce every tenth time you bought weed with bitcoin, in his eyes, that would up adoption.
Derose remains skeptical.
“When we go to people and say they should accept bitcoin, there has to be a lot of friction there for them to see an incentive,” he says. “So for above-board marijuana dispensaries, I think there’s a long way to go. But in the black markets, there are people that are using bitcoin to sell drugs now.”
Another break. After every talk or panel.
Outside Devon Konopa, a self-employed Wisconsinan strikes up a conversation. He’s got an idea to put bitcoin ATMs inside dispensaries, “that way you can just bring cash in and exchange it for bitcoin right there.”
Not that it won’t work, “but why wouldn’t you just use the cash then, so you don’t have to pay the ATM fees?”
“Well dispensaries could offer discounts to those people that use bitcoin.”
“They could. But would they? Or would they just keep the extra profit?”
As businesses do.
“I think they could offer a discount that would keep customers loyal and that’s what these merchants are looking for.”
“And what about the risk of holding?”
He’s thinking about setting up a mechanism for locking-in certain prices for the dispensary. And then he can day trade on the backend.
Another participant walks up, smoking a blunt. Devin, who’s been smoking while we’re talking, tries to pass it.
“Is this Indica?”
She takes it.
“Yeah. Well it’s a hybrid, Sativa heavy.”
She hands it back. “No, thank you.”
There’s so much talk about bitcoin ATMs. More experiential examples are flying through the clouds of smoke.
Zane Tackett, director of community and product development at Bitfinex, says in the Philippines and Vietnam there are bitcoin ATMs everywhere. When you get off the plane, there’s a bitcoin ATM in the airport to cash in or out immediately.
Well, isn’t that nice. That’s not going to work here. Honestly no one fucking cares here in the US. As exhibited by my ability to exact count the attendance here.
It’s Derose’s turn to speak. I gotta hear this.
When we get inside, his first slide is a background of small circles representing altcoins with the word “SCAMS!!” in big letters over top. This should be good.
“I got into bitcoin early. I saw it as interesting but something that would never amount to anything,” he said. “Then I found Silk Road, then I bought drugs on Silk Road and then I realized what it was all about.”
Gray areas. Illicit markets. It’s the one area bitcoin has been outrageously successful in, not without victims (see Ross Ulbricht doing life in prison for developing Silk Road). But the one area the bitcoin industry would rather not acknowledge.
“People are here for a variety of reasons. There are people who are here for ideological reasons. They want to end the Fed … and reboot the system. There are people here to get rich, the altcoin speculators, all here to gamble.”
I move to a one-off chair by an outlet so I don’t end up sitting by the young douche again.
“And then the last class of people are those that don’t have any other choice,” Derose says. “And those are the most relevant in the space. Those who need to use this to put food on the table.”
For all his (and my) harping on bitcoin as a tool only for drug use, neither one of us thinks it’s a bad thing. Some people, disenfranchised from the traditional system, have to sell drugs to survive. It’s not a condemnation. It’s solidarity.
For these underserved people, there’s an efficiency in using bitcoin. But in working with underserved populations, companies get hit with regulations because generally underserved people are that way because they’re risky customers.
“Blockchains perform regulatory arbitrage, which in this sense means regulatory compliance, which basically just means passing the liability,” Derose continues.
If you have a company that’s working with the blockchain but also the traditional financial system, the system will make you follow the rules so as not to exploit this handing down of liability, and then you’re going to lose the blockchain’s efficiencies.
Although the cryptocurrency space, still young and small hasn’t seen a clamp down yet.
This arbitrage has led to the numerous shitcoins we’ve seen over the past several years since bitcoin’s inception. Because the risk falls on the consumer, a founder of an altcoin and his buddies can pre-mine or buy up a whole bunch, tout the cryptocurrency’s benefits, get more people to buy in raising the price of the coin and then run away with the money they just made, leaving the rest of its users at a disadvantage.
Although, Derose contends, scamming isn’t most of the time intent-based. Most people have the best intentions but because of ignorance end up scamming people out of money.
“This is why you have a regulatory environment like you do, all these rules to protect us from our own ignorance, not our maliciousness,” he says.
And this is the vicious cycle in the bitcoin/cryptocurrency/blockchain/smart contract (whatever the hell you want to call it) industry.
It creates products and services without all the bases covered, markets them to people that don’t have all the information to make a good choices, labels them idiots and then bitches about the regulations that want to protect them.
On the way out, someone else offers me a smoke, but I decline. At that point, I’m all but burned out.
Conference images via Bailey Reutzel for CoinDesk. Cannabis image via ShutterstockAs well as an attempt to remove a student’s hijab at the University of New Mexico, books across the country have been defaced
A spate of racist incidents has been reported by US librarians in the aftermath of the presidential election. According to data gathered by the American Libraries Association (ALA), copies of the Qur’an and books about Islam have been defaced with swastikas and hate speech at locations across the US.
In the worst incident, four days after the election of Donald Trump, a man attempted to forcibly remove a student’s hijab as she studied in the library of the University of New Mexico. In November, in libraries as far apart as Oregon and Illinois, copies of the Qur’an have been defaced. In the Illinois incident, police were called in to investigate after seven books were vandalised in Evanston public libraries. As well as swastikas and comments about the prophet Muhammad in a copy of The Koran for Dummies, copies of the Qur’an, textbooks and conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s It’s All About Islam were also defaced.
ALA president Julie Todaro expressed alarm at the increase in the hate crimes perpetrated in libraries. She laid blame upon divisive rhetoric during the recent presidential election campaign. “These crimes – from defacing library materials in public libraries to offensive graffiti on the walls of academic libraries – have begun to mirror the divisive rhetoric of this campaign season,” she said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photo posted by Evanston public library librarian Lorena Neal on Facebook. Photograph: Lorena Neal/Facebook
Until now, the ALA had not collected data on hate crimes based on the legal definition, but Todaro was certain that incidents had risen sharply over the past month. “While libraries have always reported on a wide variety of crimes, and we have always had serious incidents of defacing library materials and graffiti, we are just now beginning to hear of many more specific instances of incidents of bigotry and harassment within libraries,” she said.
The most beautiful libraries in America – in pictures Read more
Public libraries, she added, should be regarded as safe spaces by users, but “visible crimes of this nature, while being in direct opposition of our values of diversity, unity and inclusion also alarm us greatly” because, she said, they send a message that the institutions were either dangerous or less safe for users from diverse backgrounds.
The move of hate crimes into public libraries reflects an overall trend in the US, according to the latest FBI statistics. These revealed a 67% jump in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2015, rising from 154 incidents in 2014 to 257 a year later during the presidential primaries.Best Answer: Carbonated water, also known as seltzer water or club soda, is another story. Seltzer is made by infusing the gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into plain water. Once in the water, a mild acid, carbonic acid, is formed. Much of this acid is released when the cap is removed and the pressure is let off. While some of the carbon dioxide escapes with the bubbles, the remaining CO2 is ingested with the water. More CO2 will also exit the body in the characteristic belch associated with drinking any carbonated beverage.
While carbonated water itself does not pose the same risks as soda, it can contain some ingredients that may surprise you. Some flavored seltzer contains sweeteners, and many have added mineral salts to balance the pH. The primary mineral salt is sodium bicarbonate, making it higher in sodium than you might think.
For the most part, an occasional drink of carbonated water is not a problem, especially if it is a brand with no added ingredients. On the other hand, it's possible that long-term consumption of large quantities (even without the added ingredients) may pose a health problem down the road. Although it may be boring advice, moderation is generally the key to safeguarding your health, even with more benign habits. Alternate your consumption of carbonated water with what the Europeans call "flat" bottled water and you should be fine
Source(s):
dave O · 1 decade ago
0 Thumbs up 0 Thumbs down Report AbuseThe list of relatives and “close or continuous contacts” is a standard part of the forms and interviews required of American officials every five years for top-secret and other high-level clearances, and government officials consider the lists to be especially delicate.
In 2010, when The New York Times was preparing to publish articles based on 250,000 secret State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks, the newspaper complied with a request by the department to redact the names of any Chinese citizens who were described in the cables as providing information to American Embassy officials. Officials cited fear of retaliation by the Chinese authorities.
Officials say they do not know how much of the compromised data was exposed to the Chinese hackers. While State Department employees, especially new ones, are required to list all their foreign friends, diplomats have so many foreign contacts that they are not expected to list them all.
But other government officials are frequently asked to do so, especially in interviews with investigators. The notes from those interviews, conducted by a spinoff of the personnel office called the United States Investigative Service, were obtained by hackers in the earlier episode last year.
Intelligence agencies use a different system, so the contacts of operatives like those in the C.I.A. were not in the databases.
But the standard form that anyone with a national security job fills out includes information about spouses, divorces and even distant foreign relatives, as well as the names of current or past foreign girlfriends and boyfriends, bankruptcies, debts and other financial information. And it appears that the hackers reached, and presumably downloaded, images of those forms.
“I can’t say whether this was more damaging than WikiLeaks; it’s different in nature,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which was briefed by intelligence officials, the Department of Homeland Security and the personnel office on Tuesday. Mr. Schiff, who declined to speak about the specifics of the briefing, added, “But it is certainly one of the most damaging losses I can think of.”Since I started writing this column, I've enjoyed the opportunities I've had to communicate with the fine people who create the visuals for the Magic universe. As an old-school player who first picked up a Revised starter almost eight years ago, I really wanted to interview the artists who worked on the iconic pieces that started me on the game. Unfortunately, old-school Magic artists who still illustrate cards for the game are a dying breed. So, needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to interview Mark Tedin at Worlds in Sydney, Australia, a few months back. Mark has been with the game from the start and is the man behind such classics as Juzam Djinn and Lord of the Pit, as well as new, memorable pieces like Phyrexian Colossus and Scalpelexis. As this was a special interview, I decided to change the format a little and just let the tape run so that I could transcribe word for word what Mark said.
Wachter: What first got you into art?
Tedin: That would have to be my brother Christopher. He [is] about three years older than I [am]. He [used to make] pictures, and I thought "Wow, that's really cool! I want to do that too!" So, I went ahead and did that as well. He's also an artist; he teaches computer graphics in Illinois. We both went the art route for that very reason. Also, I think that when I was a little kid I wanted to be an astronaut...
Wachter: A few artists I've interviewed have said that. They say, "I saw Star Wars and wanted to be an astronaut."
Tedin: Right. Actually this was before Star Wars. My teachers were giving me all these pictures of space shots, and, of course, I was drawing spaceships all the time, and whenever it was on TV I'd be watching it. Pretty soon, instead of wanting to fly spaceships, I just ended up drawing them a lot. So, monsters and spaceships.
Wachter: At what point did you realize this was something you could make a career out of?
Tedin: Let's see. I was eighteen and I was in college, and I briefly flirted with the idea of being a comic-book artist because I was doing comic book - related art at the time as well. But after college, my friend Anson Maddocks told me about Wizards of the Coast, and a friend of his was the art director for Wizards. They were both still in school at the time. So, he was bringing in some people to do roleplaying game illustrations. I had just finished grad school in St. Louis, so I decided to just set up camp in Seattle. From then on, it was pretty much doing a lot of stuff for Wizards of the Coast. The Magic game started six months later.
Wachter: Wow, so that was your first paying gig? You went from student to professional, and Wizards was your springboard?
Tedin: Basically it was. I was doing some roleplaying games for Wizards. They had a game called Talislanta. This was one of their first products -- they sold it off a few years later once Magic snowballed. So [for a while] I was doing that at the same time [as] Magic. Magic pretty much started at the very end of '92 and the beginning of '93. That's when we first started producing the artwork, and it was ready for Gen Con the following fall. It just took off.
Wachter: Where did you go for art education? Did it help at all, and if so, how?
Tedin: Oh, definitely. I went to four years of undergraduate school at Gonzaga University in Spokane. They had a really good art program there, but it was also liberal arts, so it wasn't just all art. We had history and philosophy and all the liberal arts stuff, which makes it stimulating. Because if you [have] nothing to say with your art, then it's pointless. Then I went for two years of grad school at Washington University in St. Louis, with a focus on painting. I was pretty much doing these four-foot-large oil paintings. Then, when I got to Seattle, of course, the Magic art shrunk really small. The electronic scanners at the time weren't that big. We had to make the art smaller because the scanners could only handle so many pixels.
Wachter: How would you describe your style?
Tedin: I don't know. It's changed over the years. I suppose it's a little impressionistic, although I try to up the focus a bit, especially with larger pieces. But, because the pieces for Magic were originally so small, it actually sort of works better if I have a loose style. Although, in the end, I layer it and layer it until it looks like it has a focus to it. It looks like it has more detail than it really does. [For] some of the larger cover pieces of course, you need to focus in and really tighten up the work.
Tedin's reinterpretation of Juzam Djinn for The Duelist. The original card is shown for comparison.
Wachter: You mean magazine covers?
Tedin: Yeah, The Duelist covers. I actually did an advertisement for The Duelist with Juzám Djinn, which was a lot more detailed than the original. I was really happy to redo it.
Wachter: What do you like about making fantasy art?
Tedin: Geez, that's a broad question. I guess it's just being able to do what I've been doing for the longest time. Even in grad school I was making pictures of spaceships and monsters in my sketchbooks. That kind of vexed my professors, but I'm still pretty much doing the same thing. I don't know...probably the ability to just go to a different world. It's a bit escapist I suppose.
Wachter: Is there anything you specifically like about making art for Magic?
Tedin: Probably the semiblend of fantasy, but it's not too Tolkien-esque. That's been done for the past thirty years. Fantasy art had a very specific stamped look to it. With Magic it's a bit more open-ended. It's got a slight lean towards science fiction, but with a slight sort of Jules Verne-ian feel to the technology, which can be a lot of fun. It doesn't have to stick to a dark ages hack-and-slay sort of thing.
Wachter: The whole cliché dragons and wizards thing.
Tedin: Yeah, dragons and dwarves aren't exactly my favorite sort of genre.
Wachter: I haven't seen you do many of those actually. How was doing art for Magic back when it first started different?
Tedin: Well, besides the scale of the art... originally the art descriptions were much more open-ended. They didn't have storylines and a lot of the mechanics didn't require so much of a description. So, we'd basically get a title for the card and you'd come up with your own interpretation. The art description name for Lord of the Pit was just called "Balrog." That was just the working title. So, it was easy to come up with a dark image and an interpretation of what I thought a Balrog could look like. But, then of course it got changed to Lord of the Pit during the final run because they couldn't use Balrog.
Wachter: Eight, nine years later, how do you compare how things were then to how they are now?
Tedin: There's more of a storyline that runs through the cards, which can be okay. Actually, when I was working as one of the style-guide artists on staff, it was easy for me to go ahead and do a lot of the designing and, of course, interpret some of my designs. Some card assignments are still open-ended and leave a lot of room for interpretation, but sometimes the artwork will be very specific with art descriptions. Sometimes it can go too far. If someone gives you an art description where they want five thousand soldiers all having pocket watches inside of their pockets and they want you to visually describe something that just isn't possible, you have to back off and kind of reinterpret again and be ready with an alternate suggestion.
Wachter: Can you elaborate a little on being one of the style-guide artists?
Tedin: For three and a half years Jesper Myrfors brought myself, Anson Maddocks, Anthony Waters, and Matt Wilson [together] to put together style guides. That was right when Weatherlight started. I was actually the only guy to stay on throughout the whole Weatherlight saga. There was a specific storyline involved with the card game now, and they had to have people make consistent designs for certain characters or environments or artifacts like the Weatherlight or Gerrard's costumes or an environment like Rath. So, the style guide would be assembled and would be shipped out to the artists so they had an idea of what the world was like.
Wachter: Continuity.
Tedin: Right, it was basically continuity.
Wachter: And what was that experience like?
Tedin: Oh it was great -- it was like working on a minimovie. Although, the deadlines got shorter and shorter later on. But, in the beginning we'd have two months or so with each expansion. It was a lot of fun.
Wachter: When you first started doing art for the game, there wasn't any precedent for what it should look like since it was entirely new. How did you decide on a style? Were you aiming to achieve a specific look?
Tedin: I'm not sure if I had a specific style in mind when I did the first batch of cards. I think I might have done fifteen cards or so; Anson may have done around twenty-five. We just pulled images out as fast as possible, and I think with the process of accumulation with all the different artists, Magic sort of developed a look or feel to it that later on people could emulate or expand on. I'm not sure if there was a conscious decision on my part to make some of the images a certain style. The universe itself was very nebulous. A lot of the early cards were kind of abstract in nature. Then again, it wasn't heavily medieval fantasy looking. It still had the ability to have a science fiction or at least an alchemical flavor.
Wachter: In general, looking at the Magic universe when the game first started and how things are now, what do you think of the comparison almost ten years later?
Tedin: Well, I don't know. The goblins changed. Things like the goblins and the Phyrexians definitely gelled into more specific imagery. How does it compare? I'm not sure. I think the storylines have definitely affected the look and feel of Magic.
Wachter: In a positive or negative way?
Tedin: Mostly positive. Although as a personal opinion, because the storyline sort of ties down some of the freedom... I don't think Magic has the same variety it did in the beginning, because people know to paint by example. So, it doesn't lend itself to having as much off-the-wall, original artwork.
Cards signed by Tedin: Fireball, Scalpelexis, Mindstab Thrull.
Wachter: What's your favorite piece you've done for Magic and why?
Tedin: I always say that mindstab thrull2 is an easy one for me to...
Wachter: There were three versions, but you just did one right?
Tedin: Right. Originally it was called Mutant Saboteur, because he has some lockpicks on his arm, but they changed the name to mindstab thrull. It worked out well because I had a clear idea in my mind, and the artwork came out exactly the way I wanted it to, which doesn't happen all that frequently. More recently, maybe Red Barbarian (Barbarian Outcast). That's another example of a card that came out close to the way I wanted it to.
Wachter: How does it feel to be the artist voted to illustrate the first player-made card?
Tedin: I was very honored. It was a pretty close call. There was a lot of great competition. So far, it's been a lot of fun.
Wachter: Is there any added pressure because this is the first player-created card?
Tedin: Oh, definitely. I always wonder what the other artists' interpretations would have been, and I want to top that. It's not competitive, but I don't want to skimp on it. I just want to make it as good as possible so that the other artists won't feel bad.
Wachter: So then you have pressure from the players and your fellow artists?
Tedin: I know that Matt Wilson and Matt Cavotta were both close-call contenders. I can only picture what those two would have done and at least want to do something as good as what they would have come up with.
Wachter: What work have you done outside Magic?
Tedin: Lots of illustrations for lots of games, including Vampire, L5R [Legend of the Five Rings], LBS [Legend of the Burning Sands], Battletech, Netrunner, and Doomtown.
Wachter: What experience have you had playing the game, if any?
Tedin: When the game first came out way back when, Anson Maddocks and I would try to get the work done for the game and for other projects, and playing Magic was taking up so much time from our day. We wouldn't get any work done. Later on, we found out we were playing it wrong. We didn't read the rules exactly, so a game that should have taken fifteen minutes instead lasted about an hour. |
difference. The side with the cooling plate absorbs heat which is then moved to the other side of the device where the heat sink is. Thermoelectric Coolers, also abbreviated to TECs are typically connected side by side and sandwiched between two ceramic plates. The cooling ability of the total unit is then proportional to the number of TECs in it.
Some benefits of using a TEC are:
No moving parts so maintenance is required less frequently
No chlorofluorocarbons (CFC)
Temperature control to within fractions of a degree can be maintained
Flexible shape (form factor); in particular, they can have a very small size
Can be used in environments that are smaller or more severe than conventional refrigeration
Long life, with mean time between failures (MTBF) exceeding 100,000 hours
Controllable via changing the input voltage/current
Some disadvantages of using a TEC are:
Only a limited amount of heat flux can be dissipated
Relegated to applications with low heat flux
Not as efficient, in terms of coefficient of performance, as vapor-compression systems (see below)
Performance [ edit ]
A single-stage TEC will typically produce a maximal temperature difference of 70 °C between its hot and cold sides.[2] The more heat moved using a TEC, the less efficient it becomes, because the TEC needs to dissipate both the heat being moved and the heat it generates itself from its own power consumption. The amount of heat that can be absorbed is proportional to the current and time.
Q = P I t, {\displaystyle Q=PIt,}
where P is the Peltier coefficient, I is the current, and t is the time. The Peltier coefficient depends on temperature and the materials the TEC is made of.
In refrigeration applications, thermoelectric junctions have about 1/4th the efficiency compared to conventional means (they offer around 10–15% efficiency of the ideal Carnot cycle refrigerator, compared with 40–60% achieved by conventional compression-cycle systems (reverse Rankine systems using compression/expansion).[3]) Due to this lower efficiency, thermoelectric cooling is generally only used in environments where the solid-state nature (no moving parts, low maintenance, compact size, and orientation insensitivity) outweighs pure efficiency.
Peltier (thermoelectric) cooler performance is a function of ambient temperature, hot and cold side heat exchanger (heat sink) performance, thermal load, Peltier module (thermopile) geometry, and Peltier electrical parameters.[4]
Requirements for thermoelectric materials:[citation needed]
Narrow band-gap semiconductors because of room-temperature operation
Heavy elements because of their high mobility and low thermal conductivity
Large unit cell, complex structure
Highly anisotropic or highly symmetric
Complex compositions
Common thermoelectric materials used as semiconductors include bismuth telluride, lead telluride, silicon germanium, and bismuth-antimony alloys. Of these bismuth telluride is the most commonly used. New high-performance materials for thermoelectric cooling are being actively researched.
Uses [ edit ]
A USB-powered beverage cooler
Thermoelectric coolers are used for applications that require heat removal ranging from milliwatts to several thousand watts. They can be made for applications as small as a beverage cooler or as large as a submarine or railroad car. TECs have limited life time. Their health strength can be measured by the change of their AC resistance (ACR). When a TEC gets "old" or worn out, the ACR will increase.[citation needed]
Consumer products [ edit ]
Peltier elements are commonly used in consumer products. For example, Peltier elements are used in camping, portable coolers, cooling electronic components and small instruments. The cooling effect of Peltier heat pumps can also be used to extract water from the air in dehumidifiers. A camping/car type electric cooler can typically reduce the temperature by up to 20 °C (36 °F) below the ambient temperature. Climate-controlled jackets are beginning to use Peltier elements.[5][6] Thermoelectric coolers are used to augment heat sinks for microprocessors. They are also used for wine coolers.
Industrial [ edit ]
Thermoelectric coolers are used in many fields of industrial manufacturing and require a thorough performance analysis as they face the test of running thousands of cycles before these industrial products are launched to the market. Some of the applications include laser equipment, thermoelectric air conditioners[7] or coolers, industrial electronics and telecommunications,[8] automotive, mini refrigerators or incubators, military cabinets, IT enclosures, and more.
Science and imaging [ edit ]
Peltier elements are used in scientific devices. They are a common component in thermal cyclers, used for the synthesis of DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common molecular biological technique, which requires the rapid heating and cooling of the reaction mixture for denaturation primer annealing and enzymatic synthesis cycles.
With feedback circuitry, Peltier elements can be used to implement highly stable temperature controllers that keep desired temperature within ±0.01 °C. Such stability may be used in precise laser applications to avoid laser wavelength drifting as environment temperature changes.
The effect is used in satellites and spacecraft to reduce temperature differences caused by direct sunlight on one side of a craft by dissipating the heat over the cold shaded side, where it is dissipated as thermal radiation to space.[9] Since 1961, some unmanned spacecraft (including the Curiosity Mars rover) utilize radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that convert thermal energy into electrical energy using the Seebeck effect. The devices can last several decades, as they are fueled by the decay of high-energy radioactive materials.
Photon detectors such as CCDs in astronomical telescopes, spectrometers, or very high-end digital cameras are often cooled by Peltier elements. This reduces dark counts due to thermal noise. A dark count occurs when a pixel registers an electron caused by thermal fluctuation rather than a photon. On digital photos taken at low light these occur as speckles (or "pixel noise").[citation needed]
Thermoelectric coolers can be used to cool computer components to keep temperatures within design limits or to maintain stable functioning when overclocking. A Peltier cooler with a heat sink or waterblock can cool a chip to well below ambient temperature.[10]
In fiber-optic applications, where the wavelength of a laser or a component is highly dependent on temperature, Peltier coolers are used along with a thermistor in a feedback loop to maintain a constant temperature and thereby stabilize the wavelength of the device.
Some electronic equipment intended for military use in the field is thermoelectrically cooled.[citation needed]
Identification [ edit ]
Peltier elements all conform to a universal identification specification
The vast majority of TECs have an ID printed on the cooled side.[4]
These universal IDs clearly indicate the size, number of stages, number of couples, and current rating in amps, as seen in the adjacent diagram.[11]
See also [ edit ]Two professors at Oregon State University (OSU) recently published an academic article warning that personal trainers and gym instructors are guilty of perpetuating “fat oppression” and “anti-fat bias” while on the job.
Published in the journal Fat Studies, the article was written by Vicki Ebbeck, a professor in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at OSU, alongside Shannon Austin, a graduate teaching assistant at the school.
In their article, Ebbeck and Austin argue that fitness instructors are guilty of fat oppression because they often work with gym-goers to help them become more active. Exercise, they warn, is “often promoted as a way to manage, control, or manipulate body weight.”
There are numerous ways that gym instructors reinforce fat oppression, according to Ebbeck and Austin. For example, some fitness coaches may encourage clients to “burn that fat” during a workout, or believe that normal weight is “important to one’s health.”
Even when clients yearn to lose weight, fitness instructors may risk perpetuating “anti-fat bias” if they fail to warn their clients about the "advisability of even having weight loss goals,” according to Ebbeck and Austin. In agreement with the general outlook of the Fat Studies journal, they foreclose upon any possibility that health is linked to body weight.
They maintain the ethos of health-denialism, despite hundreds of academic studies finding that obesity increases one’s risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and a host of other chronic health issues. Grounded in public health concerns instead of social justice theory, these studies are generally considered valid by the overwhelming majority of Americans.Central Florida kicker Donald De La Haye plans to keep his YouTube channel online and will let the NCAA decide whether revenue generated from the videos is a violation of his amateur status.
De La Haye posted a video Sunday titled "Choosing Between College Football or YouTube," in which he said he plans to continue to generate content.
"I'm going to upload regularly to this channel. I'm not stopping that. I'm not demonetizing. I refuse to. So it's out of my hands now," De La Haye said. "The decision is in the NCAA's hands, whether they want to suspend me or whether they want to let me do me."
UCF kicker Donald De La Haye says he doesn't plan to shut down his YouTube channel and will leave its fate in the NCAA's hands. Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
Last week, the kicker posted a video saying the school had asked him to stop making money off of his videos.
"I feel like they're making me pick between my passion in what I love to do -- make videos and entertain, be creative -- and my other passion, which is playing football," De La Haye said in a video.
A source told ESPN's Andrea Adelson last week that UCF never gave De La Haye an ultimatum; rather, he met with members of the compliance staff and they offered to work toward a solution. The NCAA referred all comments to UCF, saying that it has not received a waiver from the school in regard to the matter.
In a statement, UCF said, "UCF Athletics is committed to rules compliance. Our compliance staff strives to make sure our student-athletes are informed about all pertinent NCAA bylaws. Student-athletes attend regular educational meetings regarding NCAA eligibility. One of our goals is to help our student-athletes learn about the bylaws that govern intercollegiate athletics, in an effort to help them maintain their eligibility."
De La Haye's videos show his daily life, including what it's like to be a student-athlete. Because he hit 10,000 lifetime views, he was able to make money off of ads placed on his videos. At issue is NCAA bylaw 12.4.4, which states that an athlete "may establish his or her own business, provided the student-athlete's name, photograph, appearance or athletics reputation are not used to promote the business."
Since De La Haye mentions his career as a UCF football player, he could be in violation of this bylaw.
De La Haye, a marketing major, said he created the channel as a way to further his career and to make a little extra money -- money the Costa Rica native said his family needs.
"Basically, I'm not allowed to make any money off my YouTube videos,'' he said in last Monday's video. "So I'm working hard -- basically like a job, filming, editing, creating ideas -- and I'm not allowed to make any money. And if I do, bad things will happen.''
De La Haye serves as UCF's kickoff specialist. He appeared in all 13 games last season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.MSNBC says newly released e-mails from Alaska show that Todd Palin, husband of former governor Sarah Palin, was actively involved in a range of state matters such as judicial appointments and contract negotiations with employee unions and even added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments.
Click here to read the full report and to find links to the emails.
MSNBC says the e-mails, released to the news organization under the public records law, "open a curtain on the behind-the-scenes preoccupations of the Palins, particularly the flash points of family and the media, personal finances and state finances."
MSNBC says that, among other things, the emails show:
The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.
Palin and her staff "stewed" over a state agency's refusal to provide a plane so their children could fly to Todd's family's home in Dillingham even though the Palins said it could be justified since they were going to attend a bill signing. Sarah Palin called the decision "outrageous," and an aide said it provides "a great excuse to privatize" the governor's jet service.
The manager of the Palins' travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification ("I just need one") to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin's daughter, Willow, who made the trip but had missed the event given as its justification.AlexNTV/YouTube Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET
Mental discomfort often has irrational roots.
There are those who walk into art galleries and feel intimidated by all the serious faces. There are those who stare at menus written in a foreign language and wish they weren't on vacation.
And there are those who look at math problems and wish they had some Xanax.
If you're one of those who is pained by your mathophobia, please let me mop your brow. For the discomfort you feel is, scientifically speaking, little different from physical pain.
I am relieved that my regular reading of Medical XPress has unearthed a startling finding: mathophobes experience brain responses to math that are similar to their responses when someone punches them in the face. Or pinches their arm. Or pulls their hair.
At the University of Chicago, they are delving deeply into mathophobia. (Yes, I did just make up that word.)
Using brain scans, they concluded that the mere thought of having to solve a math problem causes quasi-physical pain.
Medical XPress quoted Ian Lyons, a psychology graduate from the University of Chicago and a postdoctoral scholar at Western University in Ontario, Canada: "The brain activation does not happen during math performance, suggesting that it is not the math itself that hurts; rather the anticipation of math is painful."
Math hurts because fear of math hurts.
To be more precise, it hurts in the posterior insula. This is deep inside the brain, just above the ear. It's where your brain begins to register the threat of pain.
Anxiety in general can often impede performance. When it comes to math, there seem often to be a simple divide between those who can and those who can't.
Yet those who supposedly can't might simply be experiencing a painful fear, rather than an inability.
Some of the University of Chicago's work has shown that if you write about your math anxiety before you confront the math itself, you are likely to do better.
Perhaps writing is the cure for so many phobias.
Next time you fear math, please don't resort to crying, chocolate or some other tired old remedy.
Write a poem about your fear. And watch yourself turn into a cross between Pablo Neruda and Einstein.As a Muslim I condemn the massacre in Orlando, just like all right-thinking people do. As an Afghan who has lived in a war zone much of my life and lost many family members, I understand the depth of the grief and pain of the families and friends of the victims. My heart goes out to them, and I offer them my prayers.
The presidential candidate Donald Trump was quick to point out that Mateen was a Muslim, whose parents where from Afghanistan. Trump decried Afghan immigration to the United States, despite the fact that the shooter himself was born in New York, and claimed that people from Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region hold “oppressive views and values” that shouldn’t be brought to America. Many of the Afghans living in the U.S. know these oppressive views and values all too well. They didn’t come to bring them here. They came to escape them.
Growing up in Kabul, I was taught from an early age that one of America’s core values is providing opportunities to make a good life, especially for those escaping oppression and extremism in their home countries. After all, the United States was founded by Europeans fleeing religious persecution; its purpose from the very beginning was to be a refuge. When I arrived as a graduate student in 2012, most of the Americans I met clearly lived by that welcoming creed. Many were eager to hear about my country and to know my story.
Until I was 10, I told them, my family at least had a good life, though Soviet troops were slaughtering thousands of people elsewhere in the country. Then the Soviets withdrew, and three years later, the government they had backed collapsed. In 1992, civil war erupted and changed everything. Our middle-class neighborhood of comfortable homes, tree-lined streets, and courtyards filled with gardens suddenly became the front line in a war between competing Afghan warlords.
For four and a half years, hundreds of rockets fell in our neighborhood every day. My family hid in our cellar. We had little to eat and hardly dared even to go to our garden to dig up carrots. Thugs sent by the warlords stole all our valuables. One day during a ceasefire, my father and I were captured by a faction and enslaved for two weeks. Our family thought we were dead. When we arrived home, we found them holding funerals for us.
The Taliban brought peace, but after a while they started making strange laws. They beat men for not dressing a certain way, or not having a beard. They forced women to wear burqas and forbade them from going to schools or working outside of their houses. One day they arrested me for not wearing a hat. I spent two weeks in a jail where they hung me from the ceiling in chains, and they beat me every day with a heavy electric cable. Many of the Afghans living in America can tell stories like mine.HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam’s police have arrested the chief executive officer and four other staff of a troubled partly private bank which has been under central bank surveillance since August last year, the bank said on Saturday.
A client counts Vietnamese dong banknotes at a bank in Vinh Yen city, Vietnam, August 19, 2015. Vietnam devalued the dong on Wednesday for the third time this year as authorities moved to bolster a languid export sector facing fresh challenges from a surprise devaluation of the Chinese yuan. REUTERS/Kham
Former CEO Tran Phuong Binh and four staff of the Ho Chi Minh City-based Dong A Bank, who have been suspended since August 2015, were taken into custody as the police were investigating the lender over its banking and monetary operations, the unlisted bank said in a statement.
The State Bank of Vietnam, the country’s central bank, placed Dong A Bank, under special supervision on Aug. 13, 2015 “for violations in financial management and credit grants” by some executives, the statement said.
Vietnam’s fragmented banking sector has undergone major reform in the past few years, with stricter lending and debt classification, forced takeovers, numerous fraud investigations and the formation of a state-run asset management company to support commercial lenders.
Bad debts have been cut to 2.62 percent of the sector’s total outstanding loans in September, from 2.93 percent in September 2015, based on central bank data.
Dong A Bank, 6.87 percent owned by the Communist Party chapter in Ho Chi Minh City as of late 2013, said it recorded positive lending growth since this August, while the ratios of its reserves for ensuring liquidity and repayments have now been above the central bank’s requirements.
The bank statement reaffirmed “all its business activities have been normal, clients’ benefits are ensured.”
On Friday Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said the government was seeking to step up dealing with banks’ bad debts and that the Asian Development Bank and a Vietnamese private partner were planning to buy one of the country’s weak banks.
He did not name the bank in question.
Earlier this month, Moody’s said its “outlook for Vietnam’s banking system over the next 12-18 months was stable, as it has been since December 2014.”
Vietnam’s macroeconomic stability and resilient economic growth will continue to support the banks’ weak credit profiles, “while capital buffers will continue to deteriorate because of high loan growth,” Moody’s said.
The central bank estimated loans to grow 18 percent this year from 2015, accelerating from an annual expansion of 17.26 percent last year.In this strange NFL season, having a top-shelf quarterback is hardly a guarantee for dominance.
My top six signal callers below have a combined record of 19-18 as starters this season. Out of that group, only Tom Brady plays for a team that is considered a true title contender.
Trying to separate a quarterback from the team around him is one reason I enjoy writing this article in the first place. Andrew Luck has made a calculated effort to dial back his mistakes without losing what makes him special. The Saints are wasting another top-five season from the ageless Drew Brees. (The 37-year-old's prime was supposed to be over years ago.) Matt Ryan connected on more incredible throws over the last two weeks than in any other stretch of his season -- his outing at Seattle ranks among the best performances by any quarterback all year -- yet Atlanta lost both games. So, in this file, I'll focus on some obstacles players have overcome that don't always show up in the standings.
This is the Quarterback Index. Each week, we rank every starter based on 2016 performance alone.
Top shelf
1) Tom Brady, New England Patriots (Last week: 1)
2) Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons (LW: 2)
3) Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers (LW: 6)
4) Matthew Stafford, Detroit Lions (LW: 4)
5) Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints (LW: 5)
6) Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts (LW: 10)
7) Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks (LW: 3)
Three of Rivers' favorite targets (Keenan Allen, Danny Woodhead and Stevie Johnson) were all gone by mid-September. A fourth (Antonio Gates) is not close to his old self. Yet Rivers still pilots the second-highest scoring team in football, in large part because he's still the best at throwing from a crowded pocket. The Chargers' offensive line has improved from "not there" a season ago, but it's still a lackluster unit in pass protection. Rivers' ability to connect on third-and-longs with pressure in his face is awe-inspiring. His zeal for the game remains the same no matter the situation or record. He looked like he was punched in the stomach after Melvin Gordon failed to convert a first down late against Atlanta, doubled over as he crouched near the ground. Then he stepped up on the very next play and connected on a fourth down throw that kept the Chargers alive.
Brady's ability to problem-solve stands out more than ever. The Bengals and Steelers both confused him for prolonged stretches the last two weeks, and then Brady figured out how to adjust. That resulted in 32 points over the final 33 minutes vs. Cincinnati, and back-to-back touchdown drives two times against Pittsburgh. When the Patriots score, they do it in bunches.
Luck's No. 2 receiver Sunday was Jack Doyle -- and his No. 3 was Erik Swoope. His pass protection was far more QB hit than miss, like it has been all season. Yet he still delivered 353 yards and three scores in a mistake-free performance. He's still the best thing going in the AFC South.
Knocking on the door
8) Derek Carr, Oakland Raiders (LW: 12)
9) Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers (LW: 11)
10) Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys (LW: 8)
11) Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals (LW: 14)
12) Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers (LW: 15)
13) Sam Bradford, Minnesota Vikings (LW: 9)
This version of Andy Dalton could have taken the Bengals deep in the playoffs the last four years. Cincinnati's MIA running game and diminished weapons have especially hurt, yet Dalton plays around his own limitations -- and the limitations of his team -- so well. The mental lapses are gone. He's maxing out his ability and just needs the rest of the organization to catch back up to him. It's basically 2012-14 in reverse.
Time will tell if Minnesota's Week 7 loss to Philadelphia was a tipping point for the Vikings' pass-protection problems, which Sam Bradford had overcome in prior games. Even Rivers would not be able to operate under the pressure Bradford saw against the Eagles.
Middle of the pack
14) Tyrod Taylor, Buffalo Bills (LW: 17)
15) Carson Wentz, Philadelphia Eagles (LW: 13)
16) Alex Smith, Kansas City Chiefs (LW: 19)
17) Joe Flacco, Baltimore Ravens (LW: 18)
18) Jameis Winston, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (LW: 22)
19) Carson Palmer, Arizona Cardinals (LW: 16)
Smith is showing signs of breaking out of an early-season malaise, in his own Smithian way. He's more willing to push the ball down the field and is getting comfortable using all the options at his disposal. Smith has targeted 10 different receivers in each of the last two games despite throwing 24 passes or fewer in both contests. No Chiefs receiver topped five targets in either game. This is coach Andy Reid's offensive dream: a buffet of acceptable options for Smith to choose from without stuffing himself on any one dish. (Sorry to Travis Kelce fantasy owners.)
The transformation of the Cardinals into a team led by defense and running was on display for all to see Sunday night. This was an offense built the last two seasons on an aggression that bordered on cockiness. Palmer doesn't trust his deep threats (John Brown and Michael Floyd) or the right side of his offense. Bruce Arians, in turn, doesn't trust Palmer as much. Through seven games, this is a below-average passing attack.
Getting by
20) Trevor Siemian, Denver Broncos (LW: 20)
21) Kirk Cousins, Washington Redskins (LW: 25)
22) Eli Manning, New York Giants (LW: 21)
23) Ryan Tannehill, Miami Dolphins (LW: 26)
24) Brian Hoyer, Chicago Bears (LW: 24)
25) Marcus Mariota, Tennessee Titans (LW: 23)
It's the most important position in football -- and the most enigmatic. Michael Silver talks to players, coaches and executives about a nearly impossible job: quarterbacking an NFL team in 2016.
The Giants are trying to win with an up-tempo offense featuring the worst running game in football and a total lack of vertical passing. That leads to lots of short drives and defenses sitting on Eli's dinks and dunks. It's a terrible sign Big Blue couldn't move the ball on the Rams' defense -- a unit susceptible to patient marches down the field.
Hoyer, who broke his arm last Thursday, is included for the last time this season. His brief run as Chicago's starter is a reminder that he's the perfect backup. He can operate a variety of offenses at a professional level and outplay starters who have more raw talent. Brock Osweiler's play in Houston is a reminder that teams aren't always better off with Door No. 2. Hoyer is a free agent again in 2017 and will probably be caught continuing the cycle as option 1B for another bad team.
Mariota has been forced to overcome a strange mix at receiver, yet his struggles can't all be attributed to his surroundings. He's getting excellent protection overall and has not been especially accurate, making too many poor decisions for an offense not built on taking chances.
Known unknowns
26) Ryan Fitzpatrick, New York Jets (LW: 32)
27) Case Keenum, Los Angeles Rams (LW: 29)
28) Blake Bortles, Jacksonville Jaguars (LW: 28)
29) Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ers (LW: 31)
30) Brock Osweiler, Houston Texans (LW: 30)
31) Landry Jones, Pittsburgh Steelers (LW: NR)
32) Kevin Hogan, Cleveland Browns (LW: NR)
Sunday was one of the lowest moments of the Blake Bortles era in Jacksonville. Bortles' crazy mechanics have been dissected to death and his total lack of accuracy is far from his only problem. On so many of his dropbacks against Oakland, Bortles had all day to throw -- but his decision-making moved in slow motion. The third-year QB stared down receivers and often had a hitch in his throw. That led to eight passes defensed by Oakland on a day when Bortles was very lucky to only have two interceptions. This used to be a big-play offense. Now? Bortles routinely checks the ball down on third-and-long, often throwing heaters to his receivers only a few feet away.
Gus Bradley has stood behind Bortles, which is understandable. In Year 2, Bortles put as many "wow plays" on film as any quarterback in football. A total system failure like this, however, might only be solved with a break. Chad Henne is not the answer, but Bortles might be better off watching from the bench for a few weeks if he stays at this level Thursday night against the Titans.Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
When good decisions are no longer possible, bad decisions are inevitable.
If we had to summarize the response of the Federal government and the Federal Reserve to the structural financial crisis of 2008-2009, we could say that both institutions went all-in to obscure the real price of credit and capital.
The real cost of credit and capital is discovered by open, transparent markets. When a central bank sets the price of credit, it destroys the market's price-discovery process. When the government subsidizes certain types of credit, for example, home mortgages and "cash for clunkers" auto loans, it destroys the market's price-discovery process.
This distorts not just the price of credit, but the price of everything purchased with credit. This is the origin of bubbles, and of the resulting busts.
The state and central bank manipulate the price of money (credit and capital) to incentivize decisions that the state and bank want people to make. The state and central bank want people to consume more to prop up a dysfunctional economy, and since most people don't have the cash to consumer more, the state and Federal Reserve want people to go further into debt, as this is the only way people can buy more stuff.
These institutions are terrified of recession (translation: a reason for people to vote out the ruling party of bought-and-paid-for toadies) and the creative destruction of unfettered capitalism, which eventually wipes out leveraged speculation and all those who indulge in such risky gambles--for example, all the banker and financier cronies that the Fed protects.
When the real price of anything is subsidized, manipulated or obscured, people lack the information needed to make good decisions. Lacking the information of the real price, they can only make bad decisions. There is no way to make good decisions when the information is incomplete or misleading.
When a commodity--for example, water--is collected and piped at great expense to farms and cities and then given to consumers at a subsidized price well below the actual systemic costs of collection, purification and delivery, then the water is squandered, for it is priced as if it were forever free and abundant.
When credit (capital) is priced at near-zero by the central bank, people squander the "free money" on mal-investments and risky speculations. This is the rational response to anything that is nearly free and abundant; why bother conserving it or using it wisely?
Having access to nearly free money from the Fed is the equivalent of having no skin in the game. If you lose a speculative bet, just borrow more from the Fed. Since it costs almost nothing to borrow enormous sums, There is no need to put any real capital (i.e. your own money) at risk. And with no skin in the game, then there's no upper limit on leverage or risk: the money is nearly free, and the gains (if any) are yours to keep.
Obscuring the true price via subsidies or manipulation necessarily leads to bad decisions. And what are the consequences of serial bad decisions? Disaster.
This dynamic--that obscuring the real price necessarily leads to bad decisions--is scale-invariant. If a parent gives a child false price information or subsidizes the cost of a choice, the child cannot make good decisions based on the distorted data: their only choice is a spectrum of bad decisions.
The same is true of households, communities, enterprises, states and nations.
As a result of policies that explicitly distort the price of credit and capital, we are making bad decisions as individuals and as a nation. If the real cost of credit/capital is 7%, then the only way to make good decisions is to begin with the price of money being 7%. Lowering the price to 0% generates bad decisions.
When good decisions have been precluded by distorting the price of everything, only bad decisions are possible. If you wonder why the Status Quo is well and truly doomed, you can start with this: good decisions are impossible, and so bad decisions are inevitable.The FBI has found a way into San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and is now dropping bids to force Apple to help it crack into the phone. See all the latest developments in the case — and why the case isn’t over yet. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
The FBI has found a way into San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and is now dropping bids to force Apple to help it crack into the phone. See all the latest developments in the case — and why the case isn’t over yet. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)
The U.S. government’s revelation that it had accessed the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone without the help from Apple that it had so desperately sought indicates the FBI was either disguising its technical capabilities or its agents and employees remain outmatched by tech workers in the private sector, according to current and former bureau officials and legal scholars.
The bureau in recent years has launched a recruiting blitz to attract employees with cyber expertise, and the National Science Foundation has even made scholarship money available to students who study cybersecurity and later work in government. But former FBI officials said the bureau will always face an uphill battle against private firms, which can offer much more money, a less rigorous code of conduct and more opportunities to do creative work.
Ernest Hilbert, a former FBI special agent focusing on cybercrimes, said the bureau had lost tech talent in recent years. “The most an agent can make is 180K,” he said. “That’s like a starting salary in the private sector. You have a big push by private industry to pull out these individuals.”
That bureau officials were able to access Syed Rizwan Farook’s phone allows the government to avoid — at least for now — a showdown with Apple over the extent U.S. law compels the company to help in a criminal investigation.
But the high-profile fight over the San Bernardino phone also exposes that Apple’s phone has some vulnerability, further motivating it and other companies to strengthen the security of their devices and forcing the government to keep up with new security measures, technology executives and security analysts said.
FBI Director James B. Comey. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
“They’re in an arms race,” said Matthew Blaze, a cryptography researcher and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The FBI is trying to find new ways in, and Apple is trying to find new ways to defend against that.”
In interviews, engineers across Silicon Valley said they thought the case would impact the way products are built going forward at both start-ups and large companies.
The case “will reinforce people’s arguments” for tougher encryption, said Cameron Walters, an engineer who was an early engineer at payments start-up Square. “It might push them to do it — if it was a question of effort versus return.”
[FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help]
The cloud-computing company Box, which filed a legal brief supporting Apple in the San Bernardino case, is one of the many tech firms rushing to offer new encryption-related security features. It recently launched a product, KeySafe, that allows corporate customers to hold on to their own encryption keys — a move co-founder and chief executive Aaron Levie said was as much about fighting off hackers as about fending off government surveillance. The implementation of KeySafe means the company cannot collect and hand over a customer’s private information even when the authorities have a warrant.
Lawyers and people in the tech industry claim that the FBI’s sudden arrival at a solution — a month ago it was claiming it could not get into Farook’s phone without Apple’s help — raises questions about law enforcement’s handling of the matter. FBI officials have offered their version of what happened in court documents and sworn affidavits, and have disputed any insinuation they did wrong.
On this much, many agree: The case shows that the FBI is lagging behind when it comes to some technical capabilities.
“I think the bureau is absolutely in an uphill battle, desperately trying to keep up pace, and they are not,” said Ronald T. Hosko, a former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s criminal division who is now president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.
The FBI devotes significant resources to cybersecurity investigations and its operational-technology division. The bureau’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal asked for $85.1 million more for cybersecurity and an additional $38.3 million for an initiative meant to help investigators beat encryption when appropriate.
Robert Anderson, a former executive assistant director of the bureau’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch who now works as a managing director at Navigant, a business consulting firm, said that two years ago the bureau began an “unbelievable nationwide hunt, search and hiring program” for people with computer expertise. The bureau, he said, is “the best in its 100-plus-year history” on tech.
Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were killed in a shootout with police in December after they launched an attack that killed 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif.
The bid to access the phone used by Farook was meant to further the FBI’s investigation. The Justice Department obtained a court order compelling Apple’s assistance under the All Writs Act |
wasn't compromised, then what's going on here?
"Of course, I get your point," Alberto wrote. "However, I can see that the email states only that a suspicions sign-in was detected and that the account may have been compromised, but I don't think it's confirming it. But I see what you mean and I totally get you." He said he would "pass the word along" to Netflix higher-ups.
Have I been pwned?
I forwarded my chat log to Netflix's press center, asking for clarification and comment on my experience. I received this reply from an unnamed representative:
This is part of our ongoing, proactive efforts to alert members to potential security risks not associated with Netflix. There can be a variety of triggers such as username and password breaches at other companies, phishing schemes, and malware attacks.
Without any follow-up information, my original question—what exactly triggered the notice?—went unanswered. And with Netflix's official line in the mix, I began to understand why.
This is only a guess, but Netflix may very well be taking a seriously proactive approach by simply checking publicly available information about its users' e-mail addresses. That could include searches at databases such as haveIbeenpwned.com, which make it easier to determine whether accounts assigned to known e-mail addresses have been exposed in any way. My primary, personal e-mail address pulls up over half a dozen hits at haveIbeenpwned.com, for example. (Thankfully, that site hasn't found my personally identifying information (PII) in any "pastes" of user data; I blame that, in part, on my PII vigilance after a 2015 doxing.)
None of those accounts, nor any others in my possession, share a password with the one I use for Netflix. I went on a full 1Password code-generation spree nearly two years ago. Much as I wish I could go back to "disappointingbrodkin" as the password for my every account, those days are toast.
So it's not like Netflix could have gone to some other database, pulled up a key ring of any exposed passwords, and tested them out like an old-timey prisoner testing keys in a jail cell's lock. Instead, someone on its security team may very well have said, "We have enough data to believe that there's even a 0.01 percent chance of an exposed password. That's enough to warrant a red flag. Send the alert."
My remaining concern is that the Netflix notice I received ultimately contains dubious information—at least, as far as I can tell. I pressed both the customer service rep and Netflix's official press representatives for harder data about why exactly my account was flagged or whether some "suspicious sign-in" had absolutely been tracked, and I never got it. I'd like to think there's an answer to my question that will satisfy my curiosity without exposing Netflix's more brilliant account-verification tactics.
But while I am annoyed by that slight feeling of certainty and am bothered that the message said my password had been reset when it in fact had not, I suppose I should be happy Netflix is being too vigilant about my password security, as opposed to the other way around. But if Netflix’s notices are too vague or contain the kind of claims that we can quickly poke holes through, then it runs the risk of desensitizing users of all technical proficiencies. In other words, don’t make well-intended notices look like yet another phishing attack, and we’ll be cool, Netflix.Hundreds of flights have already been cancelled, and airports in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland shut down, with the ash cloud forecast to spread southward towards London, causing more disruption.
Air traffic controllers in Brussels in charge of strategic management of flights across Europe have issued warnings to pilots that all UK airspace is closed for incoming flights until further notice and London airspace will be completely closed between 11am and at least 7pm.
Ryanair has cancelled all flights to and from Britain and warned of cancellations and delays tomorrow.
British Airways has cancelled all domestic flights for the whole of today.
Oslo airport has closed and flights to and from other parts of northern Europe have also been disrupted.
Forecasters believe the ash could take a number of days to disperse, although it is not known how long disruption to air space will last.
Volcanic ash, which consists of the pulverised rock and glass created by the eruptions, can jam aircraft machinery if a plane flies through the plume, shutting down the engines.
Ash can also be sucked into the cabin itself, contaminating the passengers' environment as well as damaging the plane's electronic systems.
The disruption could go on for some time," said Dr Steve Bond, lecturer in aircraft operations at City University London. "It depends on how long the eruption goes on for and weather conditions.
"When there was an eruption over Java in 1982 an aircraft ran into difficulties 19 days after a British Airways plane had problems.
"There is a risk of engine failure because of the ash. The problem with aircraft radar is that it is designed to pick up clouds of moisture and it won't detect ash.
"This is why you have to take precautions and keep aircraft out of the area.
"Even if in a best case scenario it clears after one day, there will still be disruption because aircraft will be in the wrong place and crew will be in the wrong place. There will also be a backlog of passengers to clear."
Meanwhile British Airways said passengers whose flights had been cancelled because of the ash could rebook at a another date or claim a refund.
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports are closed until further notice and passengers are advised not to travel to the terminals.
A spokeswoman for easyJet, which has cancelled dozens of flights at Luton and Scottish airports, said: "Following the eruption of a volcano in Iceland yesterday, an ash plume has entered UK and Scandinavian airspace overnight.
"As a result NATS have closed parts of UK airspace and this is causing significant disruption to all airlines due to operate flights to and from the UK today.
"EasyJet passengers are advised to check the website before they leave for the airport for any disruption information."
Heathrow's second biggest scheduled airline, bmi, has cancelled all flights between London and Scotland until later today. It said: "We recommend that customers whose journey is not essential book for an alternate date. Customers who have booked and are still intending to travel should consult the flight status page for the latest information."
Matt Dobson, a forecaster for MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "The concern is that as well as the eruption, the jet stream passing through Iceland is passing in a south easterly direction, which will bring ash to the north of Scotland and Denmark and Norway. But it is impossible to say how much ash will come down.
"It could be a threat in these areas from now until tomorrow or Friday."
A spokesman from Nats said: "The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre has issued a forecast that the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland will track over Europe tonight.
"NATS is working with Eurocontrol and our colleagues in Europe's other air navigation service providers to take the appropriate action to ensure safety in accordance with international aviation policy."
The Met Office ash cloud forecast for 6pm local time on Thursday 15 April, issued at 6.35am
Weather forecasters said the ash plume could drift over British airspace during the night, causing significant disruption to services.
The movement of the plume, which has been drifting eastwards, is being monitored by both the Met Office and NATS, the air traffic control service.
There have been a number of incidents where aircraft have reported damage from ash, including one involving a British Airways Boeing 747 in June 1982.
The aircraft ran into difficulties after the eruption of a volcano at Galunggung, Indonesia. Ash jammed all four engines briefly, and the aircraft plummeted 24,000 feet before they could be restarted.
Because of the threat to aviation, a global early warning system, known as the International Airways Volcano Watch, has been established. Iceland is considered as particularly vulnerable to volcanic disruption.
Authorities there yesterday evacuated 800 residents from around the Eyjafjallajokull glacier as water gushed down the mountainside and rivers rose by up to 10 feet (3 meters).
The Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted for the first time in 200 years on March 20, in a dramatic display that sent fountains of lava spewing into the air.
The first eruption did not trigger any major flooding, as was initially feared, because the active vents were in a mainly ice-free part of the volcano.
But Tuesday's eruption came from a different vent beneath a 650-ft (200m) thick block of ice, unleashing a torrent of glacial meltwater.North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan was supposed to be one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats this year but she has managed to consistently lead in the polls, as Republican challenger Thom Tillis struggles to muster the support of tea party voters he needs to win in November.
Mrs. Hagan meanwhile is energizing her base by accusing Mr. Tillis, speaker of North Carolina’s House, of being a right-wing extremist who she characterizes as anti-woman and anti-education.
“While Kay was named the most moderate member of the Senate Speaker Tillis led a deeply unpopular legislature that cut education spending by $500 million to give tax breaks to the wealthy, killed an equal pay bill, refused to raise the minimum wage and defunded Planned Parenthood,” said Hagan campaign spokesman Chris Hayden.
From his career in corporate America to his support of toll roads to his comment that legal gay marriage is likely inevitable, Mr. Tillis has alienated much of the state’s conservative base, said Thomas Mills, a Democratic political analyst in North Carolina.
“If you’re living in a town of 2,000 people in rural North Carolina that’s the base,” he said. “He culturally can’t connect with those people. He’s not a tea party guy and they never accepted that he is.”
Joe Greene, a leader of the Conservative Patriots Of Wilkes Empowering the Republic, or CPOWER, a tea party group in Wilkes County, agrees.
SEE ALSO: Women voters boost N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan into lead: poll
“He’s an establishment Republican. That’s why I’m opposed to him,” said Mr. Greene. “A lot of people feel the way I do and won’t vote for him. He’s got a lot of things about him that’s not grass roots.”
He said that unlike many of his tea party compatriots, he would begrudgingly cast his ballot for Mr. Tillis.
Asked if he thought Mr. Tillis would win, Mr. Greene said: “Right now, I kind of doubt it.”
Mrs. Hagan has edged out Mr. Tillis in nearly every major poll, albeit usually by a thin margin. She reached the important 50-percent threshold in a Civitas poll this week, topping Mr. Tillis 50 percent to 43 percent.
The Tillis campaign did not respond to questions about the candidates’ support from tea party and conservative voters.
Mr. Tillis‘ low poll numbers are a headache for the national Republican Party, which is eyeing North Carolina for a Senate seat pickup. Mrs. Hagan’s seat was considered one of the easier pickups in Republicans’ quest of a net gain of six seats this year to win majority control of the Senate.
David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said that Mr. Tillis‘ role as speaker had put him a political bind similar to that of House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican. Mr. Boehner also gets hit from the right for not being conservative enough and from the left for being extremist.
Fittingly, Mr. Boehner this week sent one of his top aides, Michael Steel, a North Carolina native and experienced campaign operative, to help out with GOP campaigns in the Tar Heel State.
The Duke professor said Mrs. Hagan caught a lucky break when Mr. Tillis won the Republican primary.
“I don’t know that I’d say Tillis was blowing it, but he’s the reason she’s doing well,” said Mr. Rohde.
Mr. Tillis has moved to shore up his conservative base. He brought in tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul for a campaign event Wednesday.
Mr. Paul, a Kentucky Republican who is considering a 2016 presidential run, vouched for Mr. Tillis‘ conservative credentials.
“Lower taxes, the Constitution, limited government, balanced budget, personal liberties. I think Thom represents those ideas,” he told a crowd at Big Ed’s restaurant in Raleigh, the city’s News & Observer reported.
Mr. Tillis has won over some tea party voters, just not enough to boost him in the polls. The worry among Tillis‘ supporters is that he’ll have the same problem on Election Day.
“He’s accomplished more for the state of North Carolina than Jesse Helms did,” said Tom Kern, president of the Catawba Valley Tea Party in Hickory, a small city about 50 miles northwest of Charlotte.
Mr. Kern said that Mr. Tillis won him over when the two met in person at an event early in the campaign.
The two sat together on a picnic bench and Mr. Tillis went over this record of conservative accomplishments, including passing voter ID laws, protecting gun rights, restricting abortion and balancing the state budget.
Mr. Kern blamed Mr. Tillis‘ campaign advisers for sapping tea party support by pushing the candidate to the center in an attempt to peel off Democratic voters from Mrs. Hagan.
“It’s wrong. He’s got to energize the base,” said Mr. Kern.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Birds & Birding
EDITOR’S NOTE: Some photos below are not for the weak-stomached.
Visiting a public lands outhouse is not always a pleasant experience for humans. It’s even less so for birds. Yes, birds. Here’s why there’s an owl in the toilet – and what we can do about it.
I’m shooting scenic footage in an unknown and rarely visited place in southern Idaho called Curlew National Grasslands. Even more unknown is the reason why a man is on the roof of one of the outhouses. Above the short sea of sage and sedge, I can see him shuffling around near a black pipe. That pipe vents the unmentionable fumes festering inside that small building no one wants to enter, but eventually everyone has to.
I unhinge my camera from tripod and make a run for the restroom. Chris Colt, Caribou-Targhee National Forest wildlife biologist, is at the base of the ladder leading up to field technician Drew Retherford. Retherford is on the vault toilet’s roof with a drill. The exchange goes something like this:
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Putting a screen on the vent to keep birds out,” Colt says.
“Wait. What? Birds in the bathroom?” I say stunned.
“In the worst part of the bathroom and more often than you think.”
I’m grossed out and fascinated at the same time. I dig for facts while staring at a situation so disgusting I should look away, but I can’t help myself.
“That large diameter pipe is pretty enticing to certain species of wildlife like cavity nesting owls,” Colt says. “They see it as a tree cavity, like a tree with the top broken off that’s rotted inside. They climb down in there and maybe make a nest and then they can’t get out.”
And I don’t want to go in, but Joe Foust will. He’s the biologist who rescued a boreal owl in a Boise National Forest bathroom in 2010.
“When I got there, there was a post-it note on door, ‘Owl in toilet. Don’t use. Go down the road for other toilet.’ I looked down there and sure enough, he was just sitting there looking up at me,” says Foust, Boise National Forest wildlife biologist. “It got a little messy when I tried to get him in the net. He didn’t fare well after that. Nor did I. He went ballistic and started bouncing up and down and just got soaked.”
So did Foust who took a few unpleasant pictures of the retrieval operation deep in the bowels of the campground bathroom. Those pictures ended up at the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson, Wyoming.
“There are very few studies of what’s down in a vault toilet. Stuff is just pumped out and it’s not a sexy thing to study, but it happens all over the country with all kinds of cavity nesting birds,” says David Watson, Teton Raptor Center Poo-Poo Project development director. “Cavity nesting birds are looking for that quiet, dark space. They don’t realize that pipe sticking up out of the toilet is a death trap for them.”
Watson is proudly known as the ‘Poo-Poo King.’ He’s the director for the center’s Poo-Poo Project, that’s short for Port-O-Potty Owl Project. He’s also one of the creative minds behind the 12-inch Poo-Poo screen keeping birds out while also letting the stink out. The one-piece, steel screen, selling for $29.95, comes with four screws and installs in five minutes. Government agencies and non-profit organizations in all 50 states are installing them. Most of the vented vault toilets are on public land in remote places where the commute costs more than the construction project.
“The biggest difficulty is the time it takes to drive to your next toilet,” Colt says. “You get there, there’s maybe two toilets on a site, it takes 10 to 15 minutes and you’re done and moving on.”
The Teton Raptor Center sold its 10,000th Poo-Poo screen July 31 to, ironically, a concrete company in Montana that makes vault toilets. While 10,000 sounds like market saturation, that’s really just a small drop in the bucket when you consider the overwhelming number of outhouses nationwide not to mention other types of pipes.
“Chimneys, irrigation pipes, mining claims. There’s just a lot of open pipes and birds and pipes just don’t really work well together,” Watson says. “If we can do our small part to help with one aspect of it, we’re making a difference in the conservation world.”
Colt agrees. He’ll have every outhouse, 25, in the Westside Ranger District screened this year. I’ll verify that by looking up at the pipe instead of down into the hole the next time I visit the Curlew.
“I hate to see some owl go down there, get stuck and get killed, or worse be still alive and have to be fished out,” Colt says. “People can argue that it’s crazy, but if you can stop one owl from going down there, it was probably worth it.”Racist. Tea Party.
Are those separate concepts or a single one? Depends on whom you ask.
According to an article accompanying a Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Wednesday: “About 61 percent of tea party opponents say racism has a lot to do with the movement, a view held by just 7 percent of tea party supporters.”
This gulf of perception has left Tea Party organizers struggling to scrub the stain of racism from its image, but those efforts may fly in the face of the facts.
On Thursday, Amy Kremer, the director of the Tea Party Express, sat down on “The View.” Prompted to disavow supporters who might be motivated by racism, she looked into the camera and said: “This is not a racist movement. We don’t want you here. Go away if that’s what you’re about. We’re about the fiscal issues and about being American.”
There’s no reason to doubt her sincerity, but there seems to be a gap between things as they are and things as she would have them.
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The Tea Party is a Frankenstein movement — an odd collection of factions, loosely stitched together, where the head, to the extent that it exists, fails to control the body.The morning of June 29, 2010, began much like any other at FAR Computers in Ensley.
Frank Ranelli, who has owned the computer repair business for more than two decades, was doing some paperwork in his windowless office when he heard loud banging on the front door.
When he answered it, he was unaware that about 20 officers with the Homewood and Mountain Brook police departments were surrounding his store, some wearing flak jackets and carrying assault rifles.
Within moments, a Homewood police sergeant had declared a room full of customers' computers, merchandise and other items "stolen goods," Ranelli recalled. He ordered his officers to "arrest them all," according to Ranelli, who was cuffed and taken to the Homewood jail along with two of his shop employees.
The police proceeded to confiscate more than 130 computers - most of which were customers' units waiting to be repaired, though some were for sale - as well as the company's business servers and workstations and even receipts and checkbooks.
The officers were acting on a tip from an informant who claimed that FAR Computers was knowingly purchasing electronics that had been stolen from homes in Homewood, according to court documents.
Nothing ever came of the case. The single charge of receiving stolen goods was dismissed after Ranelli demonstrated that he had followed proper protocol in purchasing the sole laptop computer he was accused of receiving illegally.
Yet none of the property seized by police that summer morning more than seven years ago has been returned to him.
"Here I was, a man, owned this business, been coming to work every day like a good old guy for 23 years, and I show up at work that morning - I was in here doing my books from the day before - and the police just f***ed my life," he said.
Sgt. John Carr, a Homewood Police spokesman, said Wednesday that the department "really can't comment on any of that stuff in regards to the property because it's tied up in a civil lawsuit right now."
Ranelli has been trying since shortly after the raid to recover the items the officers took from his business and is currently in a protracted legal battle to force Homewood Police to return them. The latest in a years-long series of related court dates is scheduled for next summer.
'Really hard to fight'
The raid on Ranelli's business was not an isolated incident. It is one of many similar cases that have taken place in Alabama and across the U.S. in recent years, according to experts like Joseph Tully, a California criminal lawyer with relevant experience and knowledge.
Long used in major criminal busts as a means to confiscate money and possessions obtained by illegal means, civil asset forfeiture impacts thousands of Americans each year and has become the subject of intense national and local scrutiny over the past decade.
This article is the latest in a series by Reckon by Al.com For more from Reckon, follow us on Facebook.
But recovery of stolen property is a common police tool that has been used for generations without much in the way of widespread public outcry. Ranelli says that his case demonstrates the potential dangers of an overhanded approach to stolen property recovery.
The ability of law enforcement agencies to use such tactics to take people's assets and property almost at will "lends itself to abuse," Tully, who describes cases like Ranelli's as "theft," said.
"It's really hard to fight the system. If it was a private citizen who stole your things, you could go get your things, or in the olden days you could get your shotgun and pay the thief a visit and say, 'give me my stuff back.' But you can't do that in this case because it's the police."
In fiscal year 2016, law enforcement agencies in Alabama seized more than $2.2 million worth of "assets that represent the proceeds of, or were used to facilitate federal crimes," according to its annual report to Congress. In fiscal 2014, the total value of such assets seized by law enforcement in the state was more than $4.9 million.
That recent drop is the local manifestation of a nationwide reduction in the use of civil asset forfeiture as public awareness and outcry over its widespread use has grown in recent years, according to experts.
The tactic is still regularly deployed, impacting dozens of Alabamians each year. But the tide is turning. Fourteen states, from New Mexico to Connecticut, have passed laws in recent years to stop police from seizing property absent a criminal conviction.
"The pendulum is starting to swing but I wouldn't say that it has been swinging back the other way for too long," Tully said. "State and local governments are starting to act... Law enforcement officers are coming around a bit and there's a little bit of a curb in police doing whatever they want."
And on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo directing a deputy to establish a unit aimed at ensuring there are no abuses of a federal policy reinstated by Sessions in July to help state and local law enforcement agencies seize accused criminals' property.
Alabama's laws, however, still provide the state's citizens with few protections from the practices, earning the state a "D- for its civil asset forfeiture laws" in a November 2015 report by the Institute for Justice, a Virginia nonprofit advocacy law firm.
Alabama laws stack the deck against victims of asset forfeiture by establishing a "low bar to forfeit" and not requiring a conviction to do so; offering "limited protections for innocent third-party property owners"; and letting "100% of forfeiture proceeds go to law enforcement," the report stated.
The report also found that Alabama law enforcement agencies seized more than $75 million worth of assets between 2000 and 2013.
"Civil asset forfeiture laws turn the notion of innocent until proven guilty on its head," Shay Farley, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Alabama policy counsel, said via email. "By alleging that property was involved in a certain crime, law enforcement can seize that property from an individual or business owner - even without making an arrest."
House arrest
Cherie Marceaux no longer lives in Alabama. She says she moved to Tennessee in part because she is too afraid of the law enforcement environment in Alabama after what happened to her 12 years ago.
On Aug. 17, 2005, a confidential informant for the Mobile County Sheriff's Office purchased about five pounds of marijuana from Marceaux's husband David Young and another man, according to court records. The transaction took them to multiple adjoining locations in a forested area of Mobile County a few miles west of the Mobile Regional Airport, including a house owned by Marceaux.
The following day, deputies with the sheriff's office searched the house, where they found about a half-pound of marijuana. Marceaux was arrested on Sept. 15, 2005, and charged with one count each of possessing and receiving a controlled substance; possessing drug paraphernalia; and possessing a controlled substance.
"They arrested me and tried to charge me with crap. They claimed to have found marijuana in my house and I know that was a lie," Marceaux said via telephone.
She ultimately pleaded guilty to the possession charge and the other two charges were dropped. She was sentenced to serve a year of probation and to pay a $250 fine. The disposition of her case demonstrated that she was not criminally liable for any drug dealing that took place in her house.
But the sheriff's office also seized her home and a number of her possessions in the course of their investigation, alleging that they were either purchased with ill-gotten funds or used in the commission of a crime.
"They broke into my house and took my horse trailer and didn't give it back," Marceaux said.
"They stole my daughter's - at the time she was just a little girl maybe six, seven years old - they stole her money that she had in the top drawer of her dresser in a piggy bank, $70... They took $4,000 I had been saving."
And they seized the house she owned and the more than 25 acres of land it sits on, none of which was ever returned, nor was her money or other items. Marceaux lost her home and thousands of dollars, all without being convicted of anything more serious than marijuana possession.
Lori Myles, a spokeswoman for the Mobile County Sheriff's Office, said Tuesday that though Marceaux was only convicted of the one crime, there were other factors at play in her case.
"We certainly aren't going to say whether we think it's fair or not," she said when asked whether Marceaux deserved to lose her house. "She may have only been convicted of that, but there were other things found in the house."
Myles added that because it ended up being a federal drug case, the sheriff's office was not in charge of what seizures were made.
"We have to follow whatever the federal guidelines are," Myles said Tuesday.
'An evil taint'
Though civil asset forfeiture has become a much more commonly used police tactic in the United States over the past two decades, its roots are centuries old.
"It goes back to old medieval law," Norman Pattis, a Connecticut criminal defense and civil rights attorney with experience representing victims of civil asset forfeiture, said. "These are what's known as 'in rem proceedings,' and in late medieval and early modern law, not only the person who struck you would be punished but also the stick they struck you with would be destroyed, as if it were cloaked in an evil taint."
The legal foundation on which asset forfeiture rests may date back to the days of lords and peasants, but the current law enforcement paradigm in the U.S. has created new incentives for police departments, sheriff's offices and drug task forces to seize and keep as many assets as possible.
In a time of increasingly tight budgets for many law enforcement agencies, seizing property offers an opportunity for them to increase revenue without politicians having to raise taxes or divert funding from other programs.
And the federal government often gets a cut of forfeited assets, as local law enforcement frequently partners with federal agencies on investigations that result in assets being seized. The proceeds are split via an arrangement with the Department of Justice known as "equitable sharing."
Between 2000 and 2013, the DOJ received more than $5.6 million - or $400,500 per year - from Alabama law enforcement agencies via the program, according to the 2015 Institute for Justice report.
"In a time when public finances are in trouble and states are having a hard time funding law enforcement, asset forfeiture will be looked at as an alternate form of law enforcement financing," Pattis said.
Farley called on legislators to take steps to reign in the controversial practice.
"[I]t's especially troubling that current law does not require law enforcement to account for the property they take or how they spend the proceeds," she said via email. "Our elected officials must take steps to adequately protect the property interests and due process rights of Alabamians."
The day the music died
Rick Hightower was a student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham when he had his experience with police seizures. It was an experience that he says destroyed the trust he once had in law enforcement.
More than that, it also resulted in his losing tens of thousands of dollars worth of personal property that he has never recovered.
Rick Hightower poses with his horn collection. Police seized the instruments from his home in 2008 and have yet to return any of them.
On April 13, 2008, he was arrested and initially charged with lewd behavior after police said he was caught exposing himself at Samford University in Birmingham, according to court filings. Hightower, who has a fairly extensive rap sheet, was ultimately convicted of indecent exposure and resisting arrest in connection with that incident.
Five days after his arrest, officers with the Homewood and UAB police departments raided Hightower's apartment, executing a warrant to search for files, cameras and any other evidence related to the incident at Samford.
They also decided to seize "a large amount of property believed to be stolen," including "musical instruments, electronics and other items," according to a UAB Police Department report on the search.
A Homewood Police Department filing details dozens of seized items, including wires, headphones, ten remote controls, a "box containing misc. items from kitchen," CD cases, a flat-screen TV, "collector post cards," knives, bicycles, "one book, 'Screw the Roses, Give Me the Thorns,'" drumsticks and shirts.
"The horns were the bulk of [the value] because some of them were extremely rare, museum-quality rare," Hightower estimated in an August interview with AL.com. "A conservative estimate with all the horns and the CDs and everything is probably in the neighborhood of $100,000 to $200,000."
One of the instruments seized from Hightower's apartment that day was an English horn estimated by police to be worth $5,000, and two cases for the horn. The words "USA Department of Music" were written on both cases.
UAB Police confirmed with the University of South Alabama's music department that the instrument had been stolen "several years" before it was seized from Hightower's home.
As such, Hightower was charged with receiving stolen property. He was never charged with stealing any of the other items that were seized from his apartment, and was not convicted of stealing the English horn, as he provided a receipt that showed that he had purchased the item from a thrift store.
And yet the Homewood Police Department - which stored and ostensibly continues to store the items seized in the raid - did not return the horn or any other items to Hightower. More than nine years later, he has yet to even lay eyes on any of the possessions that were taken from him.
"I had warrant sheets from when they took everything and all my stuff was well-documented, all the serial numbers were recorded on paper and everything. I was actually pleased with that," Hightower said. "So there was never a doubt in my mind that I would be getting all my stuff back once I was exonerated."
That has not been the case. Over the ensuing years, Hightower has filed complaints, repeatedly contacted the Homewood Police Department and pursued other avenues in hopes of eventually getting his possessions back, all to no avail.
Carr said that "the Hightower case [is] tied up in a civil lawsuit with us," so the department is unable to comment on it.
Hightower said the experience has had long-lasting negative impacts on him.
"It completely derailed my life and any momentum I had in life was erased. And every horn I had been collecting since junior high is now gone," he said.
"This experience has totally destroyed any trust I had in police... I don't know what to think anymore. Now when I hear a horror story involving the police I assume that they're the ones at fault."
Updated on Oct. 18 at 2:17 pm with response from Homewood Police.
Updated on Oct. 24 at 5:25 pm with additional information from Homewood Police:
Six days after the Homewood Police Department responded with no comment, the department released a press statement. Homewood police say they returned 14 of the more than 100 computers seized from Ranelli's repair shop to the original owners during an unspecified period from 2010 to 2012.
In addition, the department also stated that its lawyers demanded in July 2013 that Ranelli collect the property its officers seized from his business in June 2010. Ranelli said the department only made the offer in response to a lawsuit he filed in April 2013 against the department asking that he be awarded damages to make up for the value of the computers because their value had fallen since their seizure in 2010. That lawsuit has yet to be resolved.NEW DELHI: Internet-based calling service Skype will stop delivering calls on landline and mobile phones in India from November 10. The Microsoft-owned company did not give any reason for this move.In a statement, Skype said that users will not be able to make calls to phones in India if they are based in India. However, Skype calls to other countries are still enabled for India-based users.Those travelling outside India can make calls to landline and mobile phones in India.Skype is offering to fully refund the users who have been affected by this announcement. The company has also apologized to them in a statement.VoIP services like Skype allow users to make calls on phones via the internet. Government regulations do not allow such companies to make internet-based calls originating from India. Therefore, such companies reroute the calls (made by India-based users) internationally, thus circumventing the law.It is not yet clear whether Viber, a popular app that allows users to make internet-based calls, also plans to make such a move. Earlier this year, WhatsApp announced that it will soon offer voice calls.PORTLAND, Ore. -- Airbnb is hoping its network of hosts throughout the U.S. and around the world will step up to help the international refugee crisis.
“We're a global community. This is a global issue. And we realized we have hosts all over the world who want to help,” said Kim Rubey, head of social impact and philanthropy teams at Airbnb.
Oregon has 7,400 hosts, according to the company. About 100 have signed up to take a refugee for free for up to two weeks.
“The response in Portland has been overwhelming,” said Rubey.
The company is partnered with International Rescue Committee.
Nicky Smith, the Executive Director in Seattle, called the idea "wonderful."
“Because there's nothing more intimate than opening your home and saying, you know, refugees are welcome here,” she said.
The committee has not placed any refugees with Airbnb hosts yet in Oregon.
Ben and Emily Wynsma were Airbnb hosts last year, before the company started its program on refugees.
Someone from their church said a Syrian family needed a temporary home.
And they said yes.
“They came about 1 in the morning and the translator introduced us and then kind of took off,” said Emily.
The family included a mother, father and five kids. The dad was a baker who recognized ingredients and cooked in Emily’s kitchen.
They used Google Translate and Charades to communicate.
“They're very hard working, normal people who had awful things happen to them,” Emily said.
The family had spent three years in Jordan in a refugee camp. This was their first feel of an American home.
“We love them and they just feel like really good friends, Emily said. They stayed two weeks while Catholic Charities prepared more permanent housing.
They still visit every couple of weeks.
Ben and Amy found the statistics of the refugee crisis represent real people who are not nearly as different as we might think.
“Then you see this family of seven and they're in your house and it really brings it to home. These are all people with lives and stories and faces and loves and dreams,” said Ben.
They were thrilled to learn Airbnb has started its new program and hope many hosts will volunteer to help.
“We love them and they just feel like really good friends,” Emily said.
Here’s the link to Airbnb’s signup page: https://www.airbnb.com/welcome/refugeesThis article is over 2 years old
Russia deploys missile in violation of arms control treaty, US official says
A Trump administration official says US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia |
about <gv1222>: Probably thinking of bowlofnoodles.com not.net <Poly>: I actually do have a mc server and actually would be interested in purchasing one if I could find out more about server options on the website <Poly>: but it is really going to suck changing from my current host <gv1222>: just delete everything and start over <Poly>: from what I can tell, server hosting etiquette is that you have to invite them over for dinner and then discuss terminating your contract after that <chaosman>: Check on YouTube, lastest video of "CubeHamster" <Gorbachev>: What's in the video? <gv1222>: He obviously linked the wrong site <Gorbachev>: Are there hamsters? <BoN412>: Obviously this is the right site, even the website says so. <Gorbachev>: I once saw a hamster run on the outside of a spinning wheel <gv1222>: no sorry. <TheNoodle>: They better be cute hamsters. <BoN412>: Hosting right on the home page. <Gorbachev>: it was pretty intense. <chaosman>: No, he didn't <TheNoodle>: Poly, you're welcome to come over for dinner anytime. <Gorbachev>: Do you guys like hamsters? <BoN412>: And it links to your IRC. <gv1222>: Please learn to read better BoN412. This is borderlands 2 discussion... <gkatanick>: hi <Echo419>: hi <gv1222>: hi <Echo419>: gkatanick sorry about earlier, that was a mistake <Gorbachev>: hi <BoN412>: I can read just fine. <TheBoss>: idk <gkatanick>: what was <Echo419>: you acidentally got banned <gkatanick>: on my server? <Echo419>: NO FROM HERE <Echo419>: whoops sorry <gkatanick>: ohh <TheNoodle>: lolcaps <gkatanick>: it is ok <Lunatrius>: You guys did just enough in the last hour to give me an idea of what your "company" is like. A bunch of trolls. Just saying. <chaosman>: Want the link? <gv1222>: What? <gkatanick>: can someone reset my server and unwhitelist someone on it <BoN412>: Agreed luna. <TheBoss>: We have been doing nothing but talking about bl2 <TheNoodle>: Sure gkatanick, pm me the username. <TheNoodle>: Also, what do you mean by reset? <chaosman>: lol funny guys, thanks for ignoring me... You're really kind. <gv1222>: Okay? You just joined here to troll <chaosman>: Not at all. <gv1222>: And you don't even want to discuss borderlands 2 <TheBoss>: ^ <TheNoodle>: chaosman, you're not here for actual support, just to ask questions about other clients. <chaosman>: Then wath? <gkatanick>: the world <chaosman>: I just want to understand^^ <TheNoodle>: gkatanick, do you want to keep a backup of the map? <gkatanick>: no thank you <gv1222>: hi BoN533 <chaosman>: lol <jkl334>: why wouldn't you give cube his files back? <BoN412>: So again your live support discusses Borderlands 2 and doesn't seem like a real live support service at all. Not only that you keep ignoring Chaos' question and calling him a troll, but you keep banning people for no reason at all. Nice job. <gv1222>: Sorry wrong channel <gv1222>: Try #mad <TheNoodle>: BoN412, I'm not seeing any bans in the channel. <jkl334>: my first impression of this compnay is that you all are totally immature <TheNoodle>: Can you point them out please? <Gamera>: protip <Gamera>: BoN doesn't have to answer to anyone but its customers <Gamera>: if you were an adult you would understand that <BoN412>: I've seen people report getting banned from what I've seen on the Youtube comments, but sure go ahead and say that and coolstory Gamera. <Gorbachev>: Nobody has ever lied in a Youtube comment. <Echo419>: yes and and anyone that was actually banned was banned for spam and/or harrassmnet <gv1222>: BoN412, don't see why you are here to discuss a client's personal problems <Echo419>: but a lot of those on the youtube video are not even abnned <TheBoss>:!bans <Ace>: 9 recorded bans for channel: #bowlofnoodles <Wren>: BoN412, the majority of people posting claiming to be banned were not banned, just sayin'. <BoN412>: Why not? Other people are here to ask about getting their creations from the server back, too. And alright you guys sure got active when I mentioned that. <TheNoodle>: We've actually been quite active for the past few hours, <BoN412>: The other Idlers I mean. <gv1222>: BoN412, how is it any of your business? <Corin>: sUP? <Corin>: I was just AFK... <Corin>: Doing... things... <gv1222>: welcome back then <Corin>: Yes... Welcum... <Corin>: Anyways Corin eats crisps <gv1222>: ew <gv1222>: eat potato chip <gv1222>: s <Gamera>: BoN412 no seriously <Corin>: Sorry, I'm not Amerifag :3 <Gamera>: they can ban who they want <Corin>: Britfag and proud. <Gamera>: and not answer to anyone but their customers <Gamera>: because YOU are inconsequential <Gamera>: because you are not a customer <Gamera>: you are a gimp <BoN412>: Okay cool. <Corin>: Harsh <BoN412>: Why you so mad? <Corin>: \/Veteran defenceman Chris Phillips suffered a cracked vertebra in his recovery from April back surgery and won't begin training camp with his Ottawa Senators teammates on Sept. 18.
Senators general manager Bryan Murray informed the media on Tuesday that Phillips, 37, will need about one month of additional rehab before beginning training to return to the ice.
The Calgary native last played on Feb. 5 when he broke Daniel Alfredsson's record of most games played for the Senators at 1,179.
"We do expect him to fully recover and be a big contributor to the team's success this season," Murray said.
Phillips had his first skate since the surgery on Aug. 20 and admitted to an Ottawa reporter wondering over the previous couple of months if his playing career was over.
"It got to the point where it goes beyond hockey and whether you can play again," said Phillips, who managed just three assists in 36 regular-season games last season. "It's whether you can walk upright, or have a game of catch with your kids and stuff like that. That was hard on me."
The latest setback won't be any easier on the 17-year NHL blue-liner, who had a three-hour operation in the spring to repair a bulging disc in his back.
"I didn't really have much pain in my back, it was all the nerve stuff running down my leg … achy-ness in my leg that turned into numbness in my foot," Phillips said in August. "All that's gone now."Image copyright Thinkstock
Police in India have failed to act on hundreds of corruption complaints over an eight-year period because they did not know a computer password, it seems.
Delhi officers could not operate a portal holding more than 600 complaints - a lapse that has gone undetected since 2006, the Indian Express Newspaper said. The complaints came from India's anti-corruption agency, called the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
But two senior police officers have now been trained in the system, and can access the 667 cases that have piled up since the portal launched. One officer told the paper the oversight was "a technical problem", and complaints are now being addressed.
The CVC collates complaints against government officials and directs law enforcement to investigate them. The commission received 36,000 complaints in 2013, figures published by The Economic Times say.
Despite the confusion, police in Delhi "remain committed to public grievances", a senior officer told the Indian Express.
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.8-year-old girl dies after a gun falls to the floor and shoots her dead while her mother was braiding her hair Police are consulting experts as to why the firearm discharged upon hitting the floor
An eight-year-old girl in Georgia was killed when her mother's handgun fell to the floor and discharged, according to Paulding County authorities.
Marsha Lynch told investigators that she was braiding her daughter Sharia's hair when the.9 mm handgun struck the floor and fired, hitting her daughter in the head and her in the leg. Lynch is expected to make a full recovery, but her daughter was pronounced dead before the medevac unit arrived on the scene to airlift her to a hospital.
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Authorities have not yet charged Lynch, but they have a number of unanswered questions. Foremost among them, who is the owner of the handgun and why did it discharge upon striking the floor? The only way the latter would happen, according to a firearms expert consulted by 11alive, is if its firing mechanism had been altered.
Police removed Lynch's two other daughters pending the conclusion of their investigation.
Watch a report on the shooting via WGCL-TV below.
CBS46 NewsIt’s fair to say that Daniel José Older is having a very good year.
In the first week of 2015, Penguin published his first novel, Half-Resurrection Blues. By the end of January, Anika Noni Rose’s production company had optioned the film and television rights to the book, as well as rights for the following two in the series. This week sees him publish a hotly anticipated young adult novel called Shadowshaper.
To top it off, he got married in March.
Until 2014, Older worked by day as an emergency medical technician in Manhattan. He wrote mostly at night. And he sees himself, explicitly, as an outsider to the literary and publishing scene: “I entered the writing work clearly and strategically to do this thing, to write these books, to get them into the world and fuck with people, and to generally fuck shit up,” he says at a restaurant in Brooklyn.
Shadowshaper is set in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where Older lives. The protagonist, a young Afro-Latina named Sierra, learns about her family’s history of supernatural powers. She can, as it turns out, interact with the spirit world. Her family has gone to great lengths to conceal that fact from her, but now it’s Sierra’s responsibility to protect them from what’s coming.
Older’s imagined Brooklyn is full of danger, less gentrified than the real-life version, and decidedly diverse. “We’re doing something very political by deciding whose life matters, where we’re going to focus things, and who we erase from the picture,” he says. This kind of diversity, he feels, is lacking in most other fantasy YA novels. “When we create worlds based on this world that don’t include diversity, we’re lying,” he says. “We’re not being honest as authors. Even if it’s infused with magical powers, or zombies, or whatever you’ll have, we should still be trying to tell the truth. Then, it becomes a question of what truth, how are we telling it, and whose truth do we take the time to repeat?”
Older is critical of books that he says fail to include racial diversity – such as, he says, The Hunger Games. He chalks it up to a “phenomenal lack of imagination” on the part of the author, and a laziness, he feels, that is designed to keep some people out of the picture. “To be able to figure out all these quirky things about what you imagine the future will be like, and not somehow have any folks of colour doing anything heroic or worthwhile in it, what happened?” he asked. “Where did we go?”
This disappointment, he says, made him more engaged as an author. He teaches writing to children and speaks on multiple panels for book conferences and writers’ conventions. Last year, he wrote for the Guardian about his attempt to get the World Fantasy Award to replace the bust of HP Lovecraft as its statuette with one of the black science fiction writer Octavia Butler.
Older also values the supportive community of fellow writers of colour. His mentors have been black female fantasy and science fiction writers like Sheree Renée Thomas and Tananarive Due, who pointed out to him that black women are rarely positioned as protagonists. With Sierra, Older is trying to live up to what he feels is his responsibility to change that.
Shadowshaper betrays that aim in other ways, too. The decisions of her elders help Sierra discover her own power and the family history that’s followed her into the perilous streets of Bed-Stuy. The book begins with her grandfather muttering, “Lo siento, lo siento …”
Older’s combative style can make you wonder how he defines success. “Success means I’ve inspired people – specifically people of colour – to write and tell their stories and see themselves as humans. The emails I read...” Tears come to his eyes.
“In some of my stories, people saying they could see themselves in a place they never thought they would, and now they knew they could write their own stories. That’s mission accomplished. Fuck a Hugo award. I got an email like that in my inbox. Recognition is cool, but I’m here to change lives on that level.”Haji Raza Najar, commander of Shiite militia, northern Iraq. Rudaw photo
BASHIR VILLAGE - An agreement between the Shiite militia (Hashd al Shabi) and Kurdish Peshmerga on Sunday officially ceded control of Bashir village south of Kirkuk to the Shiite militia.
Shiite militia leaders have promised that they will implement the three-point agreement they have signed with the Kurds within a month.
“The police station has just opened and started their duties. We have taken security responsibility for this village and within a short period most of the forces will pull out of here. Some units of Hashd al Shabi will stay to work with the police. And once ISIS is gone for good, we will hand over security to the local police,” said Haji Raza Najar, commander of Shiite militia northern Iraq.
The agreement stipulates that within three months most of the Shiite militia will pull out and the police will take charge of security.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces who have taken position around the village have made it a condition that the Shiite militia will leave the Kirkuk area in three months.
“ISIS has now been pushed back 20km from Bashir and therefore no need for a huge force in Bashair,” Peshmerga Brigadier Hayas Hussein told Rudaw. “The forces should be out so that the local police can do their duty and people can resume their lives,”
The Shiite-Turkman village of Bashir south of Kirkuk was under ISIS control for over two years until it was liberated by a joint Peshmerga-Shiite militia force late last month.
The Shiite forces brought more than 2,500 militiamen for the operation and according to local officials 500 of them have been sent back to Karbala in the last few days.Late one night in 2002, Marin Soljačić was awakened by a beeping on his cell phone. A fellow at MIT’s Physics Department at the time, Soljačić’s primordial brick phone had the annoying habit of beeping loudly and incessantly when it needed to be plugged in to charge, and once it started, it couldn’t be turned off. He stumbled into his kitchen to plug it in.
That’s when he had his eureka moment. Why not get rid of wired charging altogether?
“Why can’t this thing take care of its own charging?” Soljačić thought. “The phone was always a few feet away from a source of electricity, but somehow that was just too far for it to bridge the gap.”
Soljačić got to work inventing a revolutionary new form of wireless power. After some fits and starts, he tells TIME, he’d developed a prototype, and in 2007, he co-founded a company called WiTricity that is now bringing an ambient electric charge to homes, cars, offices and devices. The technology is here, and already being used.
At its most basic, WiTricity’s technology consists of two copper coils coupled by magnetic waves. One of the coils is attached to a power source, creating a magnetic field, while the second coil is primed to convert that magnetic field into an electric current. The coils can transmit and receive magnetic waves as far apart as about eight feet, and go through solid objects like desks, barriers and human bodies.
The powered coil can transmit energy to multiple receiving coils, meaning that just one source can send a charge to multiple objects. And the technology can overcome its eight-foot range with what WiTricity CEO Alex Gruzen calls a “daisy chain,” a series of repeaters that transmit energy along a series of coils. The idea is that your phone could charge when you simply enter a room.
WiTricity has entered the market at an auspicious time. The wireless power market is predicted to grow to $8.5 billion in 2018, according to analysts at IHS Technology, driven by wearable technology—think Jawbone Up and Google Glass, for instance—as well as mobile phones and tablet PCs.
“We will eventually live in a world where we’ll get access to charge whenever we want it in multiple environments in our everyday life,” says Ryan Sanderson, an analyst at IHS Technology. Now, “there’s a growing need for powering electronic devices.”
In practice, the uses of wireless power technology are wide. It’ll be normal for entire houses to be cordless within the next decade, experts say, each room a buzzing hotspot for invisible electrically charged objects. Wireless charges could emanate from floor mats, under desks, the ceiling and our beds. In the case of WiTricity’s technology, for instance, if a lamp is inlaid with a coil and placed within a few feet of a source coil, it can be powered wirelessly.
A smartphone case with a coil could begin charging your phone when you sit down at a table in a restaurant, for example, which would have a source coil under it. WiTricity has made multiple prototypes and is working with home furnishings companies to implement them.
Mainstream smartphones will eventually be factory-made to charge wirelessly at a distance. Samsung—the world’s largest smartphone maker by market share—is a member of the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) industry group, which is seeking to standardize and implement longer-distance wireless electricity. WiTricity and Samsung both have executives on A4WP’s board of directors. Other major smartphone makers are already bringing wirelessly charged phones to market, including several of Google’s Nexus models, though because of their limited ranges, the phones still need to be snapped in place.
Future electric cars and plug-in hybrids will be automatically powered when they’re parked over a charging surface. Toyota’s next-generation Prius will use WiTricity’s technology to automatically charge cars that are parked over a pad-like device in your garage. A number of other high-profile auto suppliers, including TDK and General Motors spinoff Delphi, have taken licenses with WiTricity as well.
Soljačić, who is now a full professor at MIT, says he’s most excited by the medical applications of wireless charging. Patients with heart pumps—famous heart pump users have included former Vice President Dick Cheney—have electric leads extending through their skin to an electricity source. Heart pump maker Thoratec is a licensee of WiTricity’s technology in order to create heart pumps that charge automatically, eliminating a major source of infection in the skin.
“This partnership should allow Thoratec to better serve the patient population treated with ventricular assist devices, by reducing adverse events and dramatically improving quality of life for patients with advanced heart failure,” Gary Burbach, president and chief executive officer of Thoratec said in a statement at the time of the project’s announcement.
Wireless power could also make operations less cumbersome for soldiers in the U.S. military, who carry heavy battery loads and an unwieldy power cord from vest to helmet.
WiTricity says the technology is ready for the mass market, but one of the major barriers to implementing wireless power is agreeing on an industry standard. Many companies are hesitant to settle on a single technology if it could be obsolete in a few years. The technology is there—the question is how to implement it.
It’s an important question, considering how long it’s taken the company to bring a large number of products to market. Much of the finished technology has existed for years, but it hasn’t caught on.
But WiTricity only joined the A4WP this year, and electronics giants in a variety of industries including Canon, Dell, Sony and others are working full steam on developing a global wireless charging standard that can be broadly used across industries.
“We’re right on the cusp of broader commercialization, with some of these customers having committed timelines and schedules to taking products to market, and we’re still inventing,” says Gruzen. “It’s still relatively early days, but it’s real.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.Climate change, bugs, and Canadian Christmas tree health
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Digital Reporter Hailey Montgomery
Saturday, November 25, 2017, 6:52 PM - The population of a species of pest that loves to gorge on Canadian Christmas trees could get a boost from the warming of our planet.
Christmas trees are a major export in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, $78.4 million were spent on fresh-cut Canadian Christmas trees in 2015, and most of the country's trees are grown in Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ontario, British Columbia, and New Brunswick. In 2015, we exported $41 million worth of trees worldwide -- $36 million to the United States alone.
The Mindarus abietinus, commonly known as the Balsam twig aphid, is a small sap-sucking insect that favours Canadian balsam and Fraser fir trees, a popular choice for fresh-cut tree shoppers.
Courtesy of Natural Resources Canada
The aphids are a problem for the trees' aesthetics and overall health. As the pests feed, they secrete a substance which make the trees needles swell and curl. When an infestation is large, trees will grow less needles, and their shoots (fir tree branches) can experience stunted growth.
These "tree lice" lay eggs in March and April, depending on the warmth of a given season. Biologists at Quebec's Laval University wondered weather a warmer temperatures in late spring and summer would impact population density of the aphids.
"In southern Québec, the average annual temperature has increased between 0.8 °C and 1.6 °C since the 1960s, accompanied by a longer growing season for plants (Yagouti et al. 2008)," the study 2017 reads. "For the coming decades, an increase between 2.4 °C and 4.6 °C of the average annual temperature is predicted if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate throughout the 21st century (Ouranos 2015)."
These warming temperatures, the research asserts, disturbs the complex life and sexual reproduction cycles of the bugs.
Carried out over two years in three commercial tree plants in southern Quebec, the study found that the species thrived on Balsam fir trees in stimulated warm temperatures, therefore causing more damage versus the colder experimental environments.
"In the following decades, increasing air temperatures brought on by climate change may benefit this species and reinforce its status as an important pest in commercial Christmas tree plantations," they said.
Source: Laval University as published in The Canadian Entomologist | Environment Canada | Michigan State University
Watch below: Can pine cones predict winter?Beginning, today, April 2, 2013, logging in to the game or website will require your Display Name. Email addresses are no longer accepted; your Display Name is the only accepted option.
In case you forgot your Display Name, simply:
Click on the "Log In" button at the top right hand corner of www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com.
Click "Forgot your Display Name?"
Enter the email address associated with your account.
Click "Recover Display Name."
An automated email will be sent to the email address associated with your account. Your Display Name is within this automated email.
Also, a new process utilizing "One-Time Passwords" will be replacing the Security Questions and Answers previously requested during log in. This change will allow us to enable self-service recovery measures.
There are a few new ways to help you recover important account information faster and more efficiently in case you forgot or lost this information. Below are all the measures you can take:
Self-service for "Forgot my Password" Self-service for "Forgot my Display Name" Self-service for "Lost my Security Key" Self-service for "Remove my Security Key" Self-service for "Change my Security Key"
These changes increase the security of our game authentication system, which helps to keep the game protected from many security threats including account takeovers.
For additional information on the Display Name Log In, check out the Forum Post by our Senior Manager of Security. If you have any questions, please visit our Display Name Log In FAQ.
As always, be sure to check www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com for latest updates and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.Over this past weekend, master pumpkin sculptor Ray Villafane and his talented team of carvers were hard at work, transforming three of the largest pumpkins grown in the United States into a crazy sculptural display of zombies and other unearthly creatures. The largest one they carved into weighed an astounding 1,872 pounds. According to Villafane, they were going to use this year’s world record holder but “it sprung a leak.”
This year, a life-size, 6-foot tall standing zombie with its insides oozing out, is seen holding a bundle of pumpkin vines, pulling other zombies out of the ground. The team started out at Grand Central Station and then ended up at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx where their incredible carvings will be on display until October 31.
To see the zombies come back from the dead, you can watch a making-of video here. Also, make sure to check out what Villafane created last year. In my opinion, it’s still the most ingenious zombie pumpkin carving ever.
New York Botanical Garden’s website
Photos via [Jeffrey Scott Villafane]A WOMAN who says she fled her native Nigeria after her family threatened to kill her over being involved in lesbian activity has failed in a legal challenge to being refused refugee status here.
A WOMAN who says she fled her native Nigeria after her family threatened to kill her over being involved in lesbian activity has failed in a legal challenge to being refused refugee status here.
Woman who says she fled Nigeria after family threatened to kill her over lesbian relationships fails in legal challenge to refugee status refusal
The woman, aged in her thirties, alleges she is bisexual, was introduced to same-sex relationships while a teenager in Nigeria, and continued to have same sex relationships along with heterosexual relationships.
She claimed, after her sister discovered her with a girl in August 2011, her family, who are Christian, threw her out and threatened to kill her. She she fled to Lagos to another sister who told her to leave after being told by their parents what she had done, she says.
She claimed she then met a man, referred to as T, who let her live with him for a time. She claimed she later she had a relationship wth a girl whose Muslim father threatened to have her stoned after he found out about them.
As a result of these events, she claimed T arranged for her to travel to Ireland in 2011. She claimed she met another man, H, on arrival here and lived with him until she told him in July 2012 she was bisexual. She also claimed H was the father of her son, who was born here.
She sought refugee status on grounds including an alleged well-founded fear of persecution in view of laws in Nigeria which fail to afford ppropriate protections to persons in the LGBT community.
A Bill prohibiting same-sex marriage, and providing for 14 years jail for those who marry a person of the same sex, was approved by the Nigerian Senate last year, the court heard.
She appealed to the High Court against a 2012 decision of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal upholding the refusal of her application for refugee status on grounds including that several of her claims were not credible.
Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Robert Eagar said the tribunal had reasonably found several of the woman's claims lacked credibility.
The finding by the tribunal the woman had not said why T took her in and there was no clear evidence why he would do so was reasonable, the judge said.
It was also reasonable for the tribunal to find the woman's account she remained in T's yard for two days despite being threatened she would be stoned to death by T's landlord, the Muslim father of the girl she allegedly had a relationship with, did not "add up".
The tribunal also reasonably that the woman's claim that, within hours of arriving in Dublin, she met "another perfect stranger", a man, who had agreed to let her stay with him and later became pregnant by him "beggared belief", he said.
Online EditorsCoined by a former California police officer, the concept of “suicide by cop”—the idea that some people force officers to shoot them because they want to die—has been around for more than 30 years.
In 2015 alone, seven fatal shootings by police officers across the U.S. officially have been designated as “suicide by cop” by local authorities, alarming some experts and the families of those killed, The Guardian reports. Critics have pointed to the possible misuse of the ruling by officials.
In one such ruling in Illinois, prosecutors explained in an email to The Guardian that one victim, Tommy Smith, “expressed suicidal ideation” before being shot by police. Smith aimed a rifle at officers following a standoff, prosecutors said.
But such suicide rulings – two more of which were made this year in South Carolina, along with one each in Indiana, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania – run contrary to guidelines from the National Association of Medical Examiners on how to classify a manner of death. They may also pre-empt criminal inquiries by effectively exonerating officers of wrongdoing and removing their actions from consideration, according to some criminologists. Members of Smith’s family who saw the encounter deny that he pointed his gun. While he experienced depression on and off for years since his fiancée died in a car accident, said his mother, Jean Tomlin, he did not want to die. “He hadn’t said nothing like that in the last few days,” she said. Shortly before his death, Smith invited one of the officers who would shoot him to join them in watching his beloved Denver Broncos in the NFL playoffs on television. Police have shot dead more than 100 people who were described by associates or authorities as suicidal so far in 2015. Many of those who died did display suicidal intentions as they entered lethal encounters with officers. The total was described as alarming by mental health advocates, who said law enforcement agencies should urgently provide better training for police in dealing with people in mental health crises. Most of these deaths were classed as homicides and investigated as usual for potential wrongdoing by the officers involved. But a growing number of state and county authorities are effectively bypassing this process by placing official responsibility for the shootings on the shoulders of the dead, who are judged to have given officers no choice but to kill them. Such suicide rulings may further undermine the US government’s much-criticised efforts to record the number of killings by police nationwide. This system centres on voluntary reporting by police departments of the number of “justifiable homicides” by their officers each year. Even departments that participate are under no obligation to include in their totals any deaths that were ruled suicides. Amid calls from lawmakers and activists for a more comprehensive database, the Guardian is recording extensive details of all deaths caused by US law enforcement in 2015.
Read more here.
Posted by Jenna BerbeoA friend of mine by the name of D Raphael Failla has been compiling an intriguing and fairly substantial collection of Buffalo-centric historic images and accounts on a Facebook page titled “Buffalo… Where the People Roam“. From rare photos and passages from the Pan American Exposition to glimpses of long gone landmarks that once dotted the cityscape, Failla has managed to compile quite the collection of curiosities.
It’s no wonder that he has managed to accumulate so many wondrous images of old Buffalo. Failla, a collector by trade, has spent much of his life tracking down oddities in various forms. To date, he’s the only person that I know that is in possession of a real “vampire killing kit” (see here). Over the years Failla has managed to create a number of sideshow-style exhibits, but through his widespread research into many different offshoot passions, happily gained some real traction with his love of historic Buffalo images.
Whether scouring collections of tattered books, or assembling stockpiles of faded postcards, Failla has amassed scores of digital and print images over the years, many of which he shares with his audience at “Buffalo, Where the People Roam”. Sometimes Failla simply posts an image, while other times he adds some commentary or descriptions to the posts. Mostly the images speak for themselves in the form of street scenes and longest buildings.
This morning I noticed that Failla had added a few interesting photos of Scajaquada Creek being “buried” in order to prepare it for its future as a “sewer” (The Scajaquada Creek Drain Project – circa 1923-1928). The photos are pretty awesome in a very disturbing sort of way. It’s like trying not to watch the aftermath of a car crash. Fortunately not all of his posts are as disheartening as the Scajaquada Creek images, but there are plenty that are real head scratchers.
The various vignettes that are painted on the page give us a glimpse into a time that was much different from today. Failla manages to provide us with cautionary tales by simply posting the snapshots, while shining a light on much of Buffalo’s resplendent past, some of which thankfully remains for us to ogle to this day.
Check out Buffalo… Where the People Roam by clicking here.BHOPAL: Prospective grooms in Sehore district are posing along side toilets at their homes. This picture would be one of the most important proofs in ensuring their marriage at mass marriages organized by the government in the district.The local administration has made the picture of the groom along with the toilet a mandatory requirement for getting registered for mass marriage ceremonies and avail benefits under the Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana (MKY).Shortage of toilets in the district led to this unique solution being mooted. Earlier, there were instructions from the social justice department that grooms having toilets in their houses would get the benefit of the Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana. The grooms were required to produce an affidavit in this regard.“With new modification, we have tried to ensure that there is no chance of fraud and wrong information from the grooms. It is precisely for this reason that we didn’t only ask for providing pictures of toilets, but pictures of grooms with their toilets,” district collector Kavindra Kiyawat told TOI.Couples, who marry under the MKY scheme of the state government are provided financial assistance of Rs 15,000 and utility gift items."In towns, people are coming to get their pictures, taken on mobile phones or digital cameras, developed at our studio," Devendra Maithil, owner of Raj Digital studio at Sehore told TOI.District in charge of social justice department, nodal agency for the implementation of MKY, K P Tripathi said, "On Monday, marriages of 184 couples were solemnized in Budhni block in the presence of the chief minister. In every case it was ensured that the groom had a toilet facility in his house."New Delhi: World Food India, touted as the country's biggest food event, which is scheduled from November 3 to November 5 2017, may attract $10 billion investments in the food processing sector, which in turn will generate a million jobs in the next three years, said Harsimrat Kaur Badal, union minister, ministry of food processing industries, during the curtain raiser of the three day event."With World Food India, India is poised to attract an investment target of roughly $10 billion in food processing sector, which will generate 1 million jobs in the next three years. I am certain that World Food India platform will reinvigorate India's position as a global food factory and a global sourcing hub. "Outlining her vision for World Food India 2017, Badal said, "The Indian economy has global players from both India and abroad. The government of India is creating the right infrastructure, an enabling environment and an innovation culture to foster strategic partnerships. World Food India 2017 provides that platform for partnerships."World Food India will see participation from mote than 200 companies from 30 countries, 18 ministerial and business delegations, nearly 50 global CEOs along with CEOs of leading domestic food processing companies and 27 states from India.The event is supported by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Development of North East Region, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation.City in Kyushu, Japan
Usa (宇佐市, Usa-shi) is a city located in Ōita Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on April 1, 1967. On March 31, 2005, the towns of Ajimu and Innai (both from Usa District) were merged into Usa.
Usa is notable for being the location of the Usa Jingū, the head shrine of all of Hachiman shrines in Japan. Nearby is the Ōita Prefectural Museum of History.
As of March 2017, the city has an estimated population of 55,534 and a population density of 130 persons per km². The total area is 439.12 km².
Geography [ |
yny that was out there. It wasn't just people that were a bit misguided or myopic or whatever. It was people who were really driven. It gave me an idea of some of the harassment that outspoken women get, and they're getting it worse because these guys really hate women. That kind of spurs me on. I hadn't recognized it for the problem it really is.
How do we improve the situation?
Just a little example, even for guys that are a little sympathetic to feminism: guys that are sitting in front of the television watching a movie with a woman and they see an attractive woman, and they say, "Oh, I'd like to bone her," or whatever. You don't mean it in an oppressive way or a demeaning way or anything like that. But just think a little bit about the kind of atmosphere that that creates. Don't take criticism personally, and just try to [put] yourself in someone else's shoes.
What about for outright opponents of feminism though?
The best way to move forward on this is to try to get the opponents of feminism to develop a little more empathy. To think of the experiences of people other than themselves. It may be that Confused Cats Against Feminism is the way to get them to do that. Cats are very self absorbed. Maybe the blog can sort of suggest, "Maybe you want to think of more than just yourself." "Maybe I don't need feminism but part of the reason women are able to speak out on these things today is because of feminism."
Follow Simon Davis on TwitterLike many of you I read that Blacklocks Reporter scoop on the $212,000 the Liberals paid an advertising agency to produce a cover and related materials for last spring’s federal budget with an appreciative shiver of disdain, pausing at various points to gag pleasurably on the details: the $89,500 for models hired to depict middle class Canadians; the weighty email conversations between officials at Finance and the agency over whether the boy holding a cartoon bridge (symbolizing “infrastructure”) should be wearing glasses or not; the urgent queries as to which “ethnicities” to feature (“Asian? Native? Indian? Latino?”); and so on.
Part of what makes such inside peeks at the sausage being made so amusing is precisely those details. It is the business of people in politics and advertising to obsess about such things, as we must be at least dimly aware, but it is not until the particulars of the job are rubbed in our face in this way that we really come to grips with the crass calculation, the habitual fakery and ludicrous self-importance it requires. This is the premise of television shows like The Thick Of It or Veep: the humour comes less from the contortions of plot than from the writers’ ability to simply put a frame around reality — though, as these periodic email dumps (thank you, Access to Information laws) suggest, the full tawdriness of that reality may still elude their grasp.
But of course any feeling of amusement soon dies when we start to consider the implications. It isn’t just the cost, though that is worth a moment or two of outrage: while $212,000 is a mere drop in the $305-billion ocean of federal spending, the kind of breezy contempt for the public purse it reveals — the notion, not just that those in power are entitled to spend such absurd amounts to such absurd purposes, but that the expenditure is even likely to achieve its objective — is a small but useful example of how we got here. It is out of thousands of such drops that an ocean is made.
But even if it were a fraction of that amount, it would still be objectionable. The comparison has been made to the $600 previous Conservative governments supposedly spent on their budget covers, through the use of stock photos and such. Leave aside that the Harper Conservatives in fact spent millions promoting their “Economic Action Plans”: in principle, why should the cover of a budget cost a dollar more than the price of the paper needed to print it? How much does it cost to stamp the word “Budget” on it? What, beyond that, is actually required?
It isn’t the document obviously, that’s the problem. It’s the underlying attitude of which it is an expression: that every twitch of government should be considered as an opportunity to manipulate the public — that the symbols and practices of a great and democratic state, hard won through centuries of struggle, should be reduced to a billboard for the party in power — that every last shred of institutional dignity should be pureed into the same mush of adspeak that now envelopes all of Canadian politics — that absolutely bloody everything that can be politicized should be.
Other countries, less unserious than ours, do not allow their budgets to be covered in advertising in this way. Neither did we, once. Until the latter half of the 1990s, the cover of the budget was a plain white or grey, on plain stock, bearing little more than a date and rudimentary title: The Budget, or Budget Plan. Those were the days of austerity, of course, so perhaps this was only fitting. But as the years went by and the sense of restraint passed, so the covers themselves changed — glossier stock, more graphics, eventually joined by inspiring slogans (“Building Canada for the 21st Century,” “Better Finances, Better Lives,” “Delivering On Commitments”), until finally we arrived at the happy array of multicultural Canadians of recent note.
The size of the budgets expanded accordingly. The great 1995 budget, which rescued the country’s finances, was all of 192 pages long, which was three times the page count of the previous year. By the end of the decade, they were over 300 pages; in the decade that followed, over 400 pages; Budget 2015 (anyone remember anything about it?) was fully 528 pages. Something of the same has happened to the budget speeches. The columnist William Watson has lately described the jarring experience of reading budgets from decades past, when finance ministers simply explained, in plain and direct language, what was in them and why. They had not yet become the pastiche of simple-minded slogans with which we are now familiar.
Again: none of this matters, in itself. But it is surely no coincidence that as the budgets have grown more bloated, so has government; that their own decline into childishness and partisanship has tracked the broader decay of our politics. It is the same attitude that explains, for example, the uniquely desolate spectacle that is our question period. It isn’t partisanship, as such, that is the problem: partisanship is as much a part of British politics as our own, and yet at Westminster it is expected that the questions put to ministers should be something approximating questions, the answers at least tangentially related to the questions — in all that the participants should behave in a manner vaguely reminiscent of adults.
We can change the rules of question period, or how Parliament works generally; every bit helps. But the broader problem is cultural. No one planned that our politics should be so ridiculous. We just sort of slid into it. Alas, I fear there may be no way to slide out of it.Is there more to container-based open source virtualization than Docker? A startup named Flockport thinks so, and has launched a website for sharing and deploying virtual apps using Linux Containers (LXC), an alternative to Docker.
Is there more to container-based open source virtualization than Docker? A startup named Flockport thinks so, and has launched a website for sharing and deploying virtual apps using Linux Containers (LXC), an alternative to Docker.
In a lot of ways, what Flockport is doing is not very different from what Docker has already done pretty successfully: popularize and begin to commercialize an open source virtualization platform that virtualizes individual apps, rather than the entire operating system.
But Flockport is betting that Docker won't prove to be a good solution for everyone. In particular, Flockport is hoping to capitalize on the greater flexibility that LXC offers. The company notes on its website that "LXC is a container technology which gives you lightweight Linux containers and Docker is a single application virtualization engine based on Linux containers. With LXC you get a container that behaves like a lightweight virtual machine and you can use it as such. With Docker you get a container that can run only one application at a time. While they might appear similar they are 2 different things."
Flockport has also produced a longer exposé on the advantages of LXC over Docker.
Of course, convincing the open source community to opt for LXC rather than Docker is only part of Flockport's battle. The company also needs to attract users to its website, which launched last month, where it offers virtual apps for download. The app selection is decent already, with many of the most popular open source apps—including MySQL, WordPress and Joomla—currently available.
Judging from the massive popularity and mindshare Docker is enjoying in the open source world so far, Flockport may have a hard row to hoe (which is not the same thing as a tough road to hold, by the way) if it is to stake its share of the container-based virtualization market. But if there's one thing that's always a crowd-pleaser within the open source world, it's choice, which means it's a safe bet at least some organizations will be eager for alternatives to Docker, and may well take a close look at Flockport.Since Mike Babcock became their head coach last season, the Maple Leafs' troubleshooting philosophy has been about as straightforward as it gets: if there's something that isn't working, they deal with it directly and do their best to improve. And after returning from a road trip in which they played very well for long stretches of time - only to lose out on earning victories because of late-game defensive breakdowns - they know exactly where their collective attention needs to be.
"We're happy with the way that we've played going into the third, we've had a lot of leads, but it's obviously concerning we haven't been able to hold onto them," said Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly, referring to the fact Toronto has held an advantage heading into the third period in all five regular-season games thus far, yet only has one win to show for it. "Right now we've got to be focused on going out there in the third period and playing with the lead."
"I think you address it head-on - we blew a couple leads," added blueliner Connor Carrick. "Our message (at practice) today was there are certain areas we need to tighten up…and we just want to make those details work, and be successful at them with as little thought about them as possible. You just want to make it a habit. And the best way is to stare at it, talk about it head-on and go from there."
With an average of 3.60 goals-for this season, the Leafs have had little difficulty generating offence. But they also have a 3.60 goals-against average, and that's something that's a direct result of not playing well with a lead. Veteran winger Matt Martin is in his first year with the franchise, but he recognizes the in-game swings as a hallmark of a young team. However, he isn't about to accept that as an excuse.
"I've been a part of this before on (Long) Island (with the Islanders) three or four years ago, where unfortunately it felt like no lead was safe and we'd blow a lot of two-and-three-goal leads," Martin said. "It's kind of a cliche thing, but winning is an attitude and you have to believe you can do it, and not have that "here we go again" feeling as soon as a team gets one. It's keeping your emotions in check and not letting it be a roller-coaster ride out there, and just understanding there's going to be pushes and surges by other teams. If you give one up, you don't give the second one up. It's something we've got to learn and figure out, but obviously there were still a lot of positive things from that trip."
Babcock spoke to those positives after practice Monday.
"I think our attitude is good, I think we work hard and we practice hard," Babcock said. "We haven't found enough ways to win, even though we've played well lots of times."
"We've been skating really well and dictating the pace of the play for a lot of the games," added winger James van Riemsdyk. "It's just a matter of that killer instinct and putting teams away."
The Leafs made two roster moves Monday, waiving winger Milan Michalek and claiming veteran centre Ben Smith - who had two goals and six points in 16 games with Toronto last season after being acquired via trade from San Jose - off waivers from the Colorado Avalanche. Smith's presence will help the Buds, in particular when it comes to special teams play.
"He gives us a right-handed faceoff guy who can penalty-kill too, so that was a concern for us," Babcock said of the 28-year-old Smith. "(Zach) Hyman and Leo (Komarov) are taking all the draws and they don't play centre, so we wanted to shore that up."
Toronto takes on Tampa Bay Tuesday at Air Canada Centre and follows up with another home game against Florida Thursday before heading to Montreal to face the Canadiens Saturday at Bell Centre. And Babcock says a showdown with three division rivals intent on a lengthy playoff push will be an important test for the Leafs.
"They're deep, deep teams, they're good teams, Montreal is the same, so it's a good challenge for us," Babcock said of the three opponents this week. "It's an opportunity for us to get going at home, and it's a real test. We understand that."
Most of all, the Leafs understand consistency is the name of the game at the NHL level. Even when you have a lead, you have to play in the manner that got you the lead, or you won't have it for long.
"We're learning and just trying to play consistently the same way no matter what the score is," van Riemsdyk said. "With us, it's not necessarily only because of inexperience, but for whatever reason our whole team needs to have more of that attacking mentality. We seem to get on our heels a little bit in those situations and start flipping pucks out of the zone and punting pucks too much, instead of just driving the play up the ice.
"We've done a lot of great things to put ourselves in good positions every night, and if we continue to do that, I like our chances of figuring it out."Qantas shares have plunged after the airline and its low-cost spin-off, Jetstar, said it was cutting back planned flights on domestic routes in response to reduced demand from Australians worried about the economy and the upcoming election.
Qantas shares tumbled 14 per cent to be at $3.49 at midday, AEST, before recovering slightly to $3.58 at 12.30pm - down 11.8 per cent.
The airline said it had revised plans to increase seat capacity in April, May and June because customers were flying less.
"Some softness in demand, related to the upcoming federal election and a recent drop in consumer confidence in Australia, began to emerge over the peak Easter and school holiday period in late March and continued to be seen in forward bookings," Qantas said in an update to stock exchange.Vladimir Putin has rocketed to the top of the TIME Person of the Year poll and is on course for a landslide victory, proving that his determination to destroy the New World Order has started to resonate with Americans of all stripes.
Putin has opened up a huge lead in the 2016 poll, sitting on 38% of the vote as of November 27. Donald Trump is in second place with 13%, Julian Assange has 3% and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have less than 1%.
The Russian president, who has a massive 25% lead over second place, appears certain to win the public poll in a landslide. But will the establishment allow TIME to crown Putin as the Person of the Year for 2016 – or will they disregard the voice of the people and choose their own winner?
Russian President Putin, a judo enthusiast who can bench 230, has been hitting the New World Order where it hurts, outgunning, outflanking and all-round out-manoeuvring the Illuminati.
He’s got them running scared, which is why they are in propaganda overdrive, pumping the mainstream media full of scare stories and untruths in an attempt to blind the masses to what is really happening before their very eyes.
But the TIME Person of the Year poll results shows that Americans have started to wake up and notice, and they are not falling for the propaganda.
Real people, unswayed by mainstream media, are backing Putin in their droves.
Do not be surprised if the mainstream media attempt to convince you of something deeply disturbing in the near future. We’ve had the Clinton campaign’s desperate attempt to blame Russia for their own failings, and the mainstream media’s attempt to smear Putin and Russia with allegations of interfering in the US election – despite the fact they cannot produce any evidence to back up their fake narrative.
Never in history has the New World Order had such a firm grip on Western media operations. At the same time the New World Order has never had such a committed and formidable enemy as they have in Vladimir Putin.
This situation cannot continue. Something has to give.
Putin ignored the New World Order’s siren calls and decided to follow his conscience. They promised him a prominent role at their high table, but he recognised their agenda and vowed to destroy them. Putin’s whole life, from his childhood in a rat-infested tenement building, to his calm and powerful presidency, has been a demonstration of his pitiless resolve and determination to do what he knows he must for the sake of his people.
The way the cards are being dealt, his people are now the world.October 28, 2016
"Top Five Clinton Donors Are Jewish" - How Anti-Semitic Is This Fact?
Top five Clinton donors Are Jewish, campaign tally shows.
Something is wrong with the above statement. Isn't it anti-semitic? Did Trump say that? Readers of that statement may assume, somewhat reasonably, that there is a club of rich Jewish people controlling the Clinton campaign and, maybe, Clinton herself. That sounds like it was taken from the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It clearly must be anti-semitic.
It is also true.
Facts have no bias. They can't be anti-semitic (or can they?). But while facts as such can not have a racial-religious bias, openly stating them surely can. Thus the above statement is anti-semitic. The fact itself isn't bad, reporting it publicly is bad, bad, bad.
Who but an alt-right rag would report such at all? And for what purpose if not for spreading anti-semitism?
Well - quot licet jovi,...
Jewish papers are of course allowed to report such a fact. That isn't anti-semitic. It is solely to brag about Jewish powers. Within the club that is not only allowed, but welcome. Thus Haaretz writes (sourced to the the Jewish Telegraph Agency) under the identity defining headline at the top of this post:
Haim Saban, George Soros and others stand at the head of a list of wealthy donors who contributed mainly via super PACs. The Washington Post analysis, posted October 24, named the top donors, who are contributing $1 of every $17 of the over $1 billion amassed for the Democratic nominee’s presidential run. They are Donald Sussman, a hedge fund manager; J.B. Pritzker, a venture capitalist, and his wife, M.K.; Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul, and his wife, Cheryl; George Soros, another hedge funder and a major backer of liberal causes, and Daniel Abraham, a backer of liberal pro-Israel causes and the founder of SlimFast.
Many of the big Clinton campaign donors also give to the Clinton Foundation which at times is a washing machine to put money into the Clinton's private accounts. It is kind of difficult to understand where Clinton Inc begins and where it ends. Campaign funds, Clinton foundation, speech fees, private accounts - does it even matter? Surely those who pay, to whatever Clinton entity, expect a service in return. Given the Clinton's occupations as Senator, Secretary of State and President the ask in return is unlikely to be commercial. It will be political.
And here is why it matters that the five top donors to Clinton's campaign are Jewish, and all big supporters of Israel. (Haim Saban: "I'm a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.") They surely will ask for political favors in the interest of the Zionist entity. This is also the reason why Haaretz, an Israeli paper, finds the strong racial-religious bias at the top Clinton campaign tally newsworthy. Big money paid to a Clinton entity can directly effect U.S. policies towards Israel. It buys its acquiescence to Israeli escapades even when those are not consistent U.S. interests.
Clinton's positions towards Syria, Iran and Russia (which limits Israel's freedom of action) are surely not independent of Israeli interests.
But that is of course, anti-semitic speculation...
Posted by b on October 28, 2016 at 11:16 AM | Permalink
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next page »The statement from the club reads as follows:
“Following numerous incidents of unprofessional behaviour by the player, it was agreed that in the best interests of both parties that a parting of the ways was the only way forward.
“The new Southport FC management team has pursued the player for the last few weeks. Therefore, it was inevitable that this caused a disruption to the player’s attitude towards the club.
“Over the last few months, club officials and management have supported the player when many a club would have dismissed him for gross misconduct.
“We as Bangor City FC will not tolerate any misconduct by anyone involved with the club. It is against what the club stands for, shows a complete lack of respect and commitment to the management, board, his teammates and most importantly, the great fans of this club.
“No-one is bigger than Bangor City FC. It is a great club with a rich history and tradition, and when a player states in the week leading up to a massive European game that he no longer wants to play for the club, we were left with no alternative other than to release him from his contract.
“We wish him well for the future, and hope that one day he realises what a massive opportunity he has given up.
“We urge our supporters to keep the faith as we are trying to do the right things for this great club.”
END OF STATEMENTThe country is reeling from the events that took place in Charlottesville this weekend. Violence at a white supremacist rally in the town — one complete with marchers using Nazi slogans and salutes — has left three people dead, one the victim of a white supremacist who drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Both Republicans and Democrats have publicly condemned the hate spewed at the event, with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan calling the white supremacists' views "repugnant" on Twitter and Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeting, "Of course we condemn ALL that hate stands for." While President Trump seems unable to call the violence what it is, issuing a statement laying the blame for Saturday's violence on "many sides," many others in and outside the government have recognized what happened as an act of domestic terrorism.
Viewing the horror with shock but not surprise, it felt to me like the country has perhaps reached a turning point; maybe, I thought, this will be the thing that drives systemic change, the thing that finally puts institutional racism front and center in our culture.
And then, like clockwork, it happened: the “good white people” showed up. They announced their arrival with calls for kindness and colorblind humanity, and I, as a person of color, realized this may not be a turning point at all.
There have been many takes on the events in Charlottesville, but none more frustrating than “good white people” exclaiming that "This Is Not America," epitomized by the hashtag #ThisIsNotUs. Since being publicized on Saturday by Lady Gaga as a hashtag to be used "to tweet positive messages," #ThisIsNotUs has become the source of some controversy. On Twitter and Facebook, the hashtag, initially used by many white people to proclaim that the white supremacist violence at Charlottesville did not reflect their views, is now filled with people of color calling out the issues they have with the idea that white supremacist terrorism is "not us," and rightfully so — as the criticisms below and beyond point out, this is very much us; the violence at Charlottesville is America as it has always been.
#ThisIsNotUs forgets that the United States was built through the genocide of Indigenous Americans and the slavery of black people. #ThisIsNotUs ignores the fact that in earlier versions of our constitution, a black individual was only considered three-fifths of a human. To say “this is not us” is to forget that the statue the white supremacists gathered around stands as a tribute to Robert E. Lee, a Southern Confederate hero whose rumored abolitionist leanings have largely been proven to be false. To exclaim that “this is not us” is to ignore the reality that the majority of the acts of terrorism in the United States in the last eight years have been committed by white supremacists and right-wing extremists. One doesn’t have to rewind history very far to see how wrong #ThisIsNotUs is.
The list of reasons the hashtag is wrong goes on and on, and many people have pointed out the vast number of problems with the sentiment.
But one question remains: why do so many “good white people” interact with, identify with, and defend this extremely problematic concept?
A cursory glance at the hashtag shows — again, a surprise to no person of color — that saying This Is Not America and #ThisIsNotUs is more about absolving the “good white people” than it is about actually standing in solidarity with people of color. But this issue does not end with the hashtag — it's an example of a much larger problem.
To see how this works, look no further than the statement from the governor of Virginia.
CNN on YouTube
He rightfully calls out the white supremacists on their hate, but immediately pivots to imply they are outside agitators, then tells them all to "go home and never come back" because they do not represent the people of Virginia and "are not wanted" in the state. The disconnect continues as he mentions George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as true patriots, describing them as people "who brought our country together," conveniently forgetting that they were slaveowners who did not believe black people to be full human beings.
By being a 'good white person,' they get to condemn without sacrificing their privilege.
This is how “good white people” operate; they other racism, pretending that the conversation is about individual white supremacists, not white supremacy in America, a system which privileges white people above all others. And by doing this, they get to absolve themselves from enjoying the benefits that white supremacy has given them; by being a “good white person,” they believe that they get to condemn without sacrificing their privilege.
That is not an acceptable option.
This practice allows its practitioners to return every conversation to a status quo where whiteness is always centered. This can be seen in the attempt by "good white people" to co-opt the hashtag #SayHerName to honor Heather Heyer, who was killed after an alleged white supremacist drove a car through a crowd of protesters at the Charlottesville protests.
#SayHerName is a social movement created by the African American Policy Forum to combat the erasure of black women whose stories of injustice often get ignored. From Sandra Bland to Rekia Boyd, the movement seeks to ensure that these women’s stories are remembered.
Heyer died while fighting hate and her life should be honored. But it's not OK to co-opt #SayHerName in order to do it. Despite numerous calls by black women people to stop using the hashtag in reference to Heyer, many continue to do so. By using #SayHerName to discuss the death of a white woman, “good white people” are doing exactly the thing that the hashtag was created to stop: erasing black women.
In the end, what remains is a hard truth for some to swallow. As pointed out by activist Brittany Packnett, not every white person is a white supremacist but “white supremacy benefits all white people. Including the ones with no torches. That’s why it survives.” To pretend otherwise is to be complicit in the systemic subjugation of minorities in this country.
So as the many counter-protests in solidarity against racism occur around the country, I’ll end with a message directly to “good white people.” The country doesn’t actually need “good white people.” What it needs are actual allies; allies who listen to people of color, allies who don’t speak over people of color, allies who do not need to be told that they are good, allies that do not center their activism around whiteness, allies who are not colorblind. If this is too much to ask, if you grow defensive when challenged, if your first instinct is to lash out, maybe you were never actually truly a good white person to begin with.Spiritual guru Asaram told the Supreme Court he was being projected as a Dracula who drank children's blood, but the apex court on Friday declined to restrain media - both print and visual - from carrying news reports about his conduct.
The apex court bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it cannot ask media not to report on information they get from police or other sources after Asaram's counsel told the bench that the spiritual guru was being projected as a dracula.
The court told Asaram's counsel he has other remedies and the apex court was not the only destination as it was told that media was reporting the spiritual guru's wife and daughter were supplying him girls.
"Do you mean to say that you have no remedy at all except asking us to restrain media?" asked Chief Justice Sathasivam as counsel for the self-styled godman pressed the plea to restrain media from carrying speculative reporting.
"I am in the habit of drinking children's blood. I am a Dracula', this is what media is writing," Asaram's counsel told the court. The court said it could be some (ashram) inmates who might have alleged this.
Counsel told the court he was not seeking to restrain the entire media, but only two news channels which were regularly carrying slanderous reports about Asaram.
As counsel said two channels were relentlessly carrying unfounded reports about Asaram, the court observed, "If they proceed further, you have further remedies. If you have no remedies under the civil and criminal provision, (it is only) then we come into the picture."While she’s used to taking celebrity portraits like those of actress Keira Knightley, chef Jamie Oliver or the rock band Beastie Boys, photographer Jenny Lewis shows that she’s just as skilled at capturing beautiful portraits of mother and child. One Day Young is a touching photo project that shows mothers with their babies within 24 hours of their birth. Lewis didn’t know any of the mothers beforehand, rather, she called out for participants in the London borough of Hackney with this message:
“My aim is to capture the extraordinary bonding, warmth and strength between mother and infant. In fact the whole range of amazing emotions felt at that time, as the mothering instinct kicks in. Having had a home birth, I am particularly interested in catching this moment of intimacy in the home, where the outside world has not burst the bubble…”
Look through the photographs and you’ll see a wide range of emotions displayed on each woman’s face. However, there’s one feeling that runs throughout…pride. “Motherhood really brings people together, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, or what your job is, you’ve just done this amazing thing so everyone feels joyous and proud,” Lewis said.
Update: We were lucky enough to get a hold of Lewis to ask her some questions. Read that interview, below.
What inspired you to want to start this series?
I’m not entirely sure. I think having had two amazing natural births, one in a pool in the hospital and one at home, I felt I had a duty to women to let them know it could be ok to offer images of support and encouragement. I had grown up knowing nothing surrounding birth except pain and fear until I came across Ina May’s birth stories by chance. Just reading those stories made me realize that if they could do it so could I. I felt supported and encouraged by women I had never met and wanted to pass the same message onto other women, not being a writer a series of images seemed to be the way to do this.
Emotionally, how were the moms? Were they calm, frantic, or excited?
I was completely surprised at the serenity I found at each house. You imagine mayhem, screaming and crying and drama, yet in reality, you are invited into the calmest space ever. It got me thinking that post birth is so misrepresented in our culture/media and this is unhelpful to women and new families. If you were told about this overwhelming calmness, women would feel reassured they would be able to cope. The only stories I heard before I had my children were ones of pain straight to sleepless nights. This episode of pure joy seemed to be missing, so it was a surprise to me.
How many women did you photograph in all?
I’ve shot around eighty case studies and have a further thirty booked. Obviously, you never know if anyone will be home within 24 hrs if they go to hospital so I won’t be photographing all of them.
What is your favorite portrait and why?
All the subjects who have taken part mean so much to me, from the woman who told me she lost her previous baby in childbirth, while I was taking pictures of her son who was four hours old, to the woman with her fourth healthy child. The mother who finally had a child after 10 years of IVF and numerous miscarriages, to the woman whose own mother died in childbirth that she never got to meet her. There are so many stories – single mothers, women struggling with older handicapped children, and a young couple who had only just met and got a little over-excited on New Years Eve. All of these stories are entwined for me with the images and I find it impossible to single any one out.
What did you learn from creating this series?
Having photographed all sorts of people for years, I was struck by the lack of self consciousness in these portraits. It really made me think about all the barriers people put up and the masks they hide behind when they are faced with a camera. These are, by far, the most natural portraits I have ever taken. The women are just themselves with nothing to prove, they have such a sense of pride and strength.
Is the project ongoing?
I expected to work on the project for six months, but three years later I am still shooting and still getting goosebumps during every session. I am looking for a publisher and somewhere to exhibit the series at the moment. Maybe that will be my deadline to stop, or at least stop this series and start another.
Jenny Lewis’s websiteDon’t let the “Minnesota Blues” or the “Live in Duluth” on this album cover fool you, Led Zeppelin never performed in Duluth. But what is the story behind this Zep bootleg?
Setlist.fm, and several other websites, list Led Zeppelin performing at Liverpool University on Oct. 19, 1968 — the date listed on Minnesota Blues. The track list on the album, however, does not match well with the Liverpool set list.
Setlist.fm’s Liverpool Set List
Train Kept A-Rollin’
Dazed and Confused
White Summer/Black Mountain Side
For Your Love
Communication Breakdown
I Can’t Quit You Baby
You Shook Me
Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You
How Many More Times
As Long as I Have You
There are numerous web forums on this subject, but they have flashing objects on them and go off topic and are full of speculation, so it’s difficult to read through them all and decipher if anyone has come to any clear conclusions. It remains a mystery to me if solid determinations have been made about a) if 10/19/68 is the correct date of the bootleg recording or b) where exactly it was recorded and c) why it was labeled as a Duluth show.
Bootleggers are somewhat notorious for intentionally mislabeling albums, so that could be the case with Minnesota Blues. But it also might have been a sloppy mistake.
Several different versions of album art exist, and one version marks the recording as “Live in Denmark, 1969.” Perhaps Duluth was mistaken for Denmark at some point. Another thing I’ve gleaned from information online is that the album gets its title from the last track, which is labeled “Minnesota Blues” but apparently it’s a blues standard titled “A Mess of Blues” or “Mess of Blues” or “Mess o’ Blues.”
One theory that comes up fairly often is that the performance on Minnesota Blues is an April 1, 1971 show at the Paris Theatre recorded for the British Broadcasting Corporation. I haven’t found anything to dispute that. If it’s the case, the bootlegger probably felt that changing the details of the show would reduce the likelihood the BBC would file a copyright infringement lawsuit.Butch Dill/Associated Press
The bracket for the FCS playoffs dropped Sunday, featuring 24 teams and eight top seeds who have the benefit of first-round byes.
FCS Football captured a photo of the complete bracket, which is also available on NCAA.com:
Although Jacksonville State and Illinois State have claimed the top two seeds in that respective order, the headliner of the tournament is four-time reigning national champion North Dakota State.
The Bison had won each championship game by at least two possessions but had to edge out Illinois State last year, 29-27, under new coach Chris Klieman. Filling the shoes of Craig Bohl wasn't easy, but Klieman still has North Dakota State playing at an elite level and maintaining FCS powerhouse status.
Below is a clearer overview of what's on the FCS schedule, followed by a preview of the action.
The FCS playoffs cap off in Frisco, Texas, with the national quarterfinals on December 11 and 12, the semifinals on December 18 and 19 and the national title game on January 9, 2016. All games whose matchups are currently determined can be streamed on ESPN3/Watch ESPN.
2015 FCS Playoff Schedule Saturday, Nov. 28: First Round Time (ET) Dayton vs. Western Illinois 12 p.m. Chattanooga vs. Fordham 1 p.m. Coastal Carolina vs. The Citadel 2 p.m. Sam Houston |
Raphael, who translates back. I speak to him in intuitive metaphors that translate to a litmus test of our bona fides. God is not here as some kind of a casual fanny pack on a vituperative neophyte. No. Not here. Not this.
God, I explain, I have a lot of questions. As true as they are compartmentalized. Why do bad things happen to good people? Vice versa. What is truth? Who is really to blame for killers and paparazzi and whom should we thank for the whales — or is it blame? What’s ISIS? Do you have dreams? What do you dream about? Your mother, what was she like?
God agrees to take my questions provided I am not in the room. I say okay. We shake hands and God offers me a huge bed or a huge floor.
I think you know which one I would prefer, I tell God. I have traveled too far and seen too much. God sleeps on the huge floor, and I sleep vindicated.
God’s eyes: Describe them. Two pinwheels on a slow computer. Two moths dancing toward pinprick stars. Charisma? Disputable. There is a doubtlessness to God’s facial expression. What is it that takes Doubt away? John Patrick Shanley, or is it my cowardice? Could it be all of our cowardice?
What was I trying to see in him? Something, truth. I tried hard, folks. I really did. I reminded myself over and over again that this was no little teapot, short and stout, from the fairy tales they whisper to a little boy drawing pesos in his backyard. This was a simple deity, surrounded by simple truth. He conjures questions of complexity and context, or survivalists and capitalists and collectivists and dentists, of all the ilks, some say pewter, others bronze.
My God, this is deep.
I make no money for my journalism. I am Sean Penn. The only currency I seek is truth.
I saw “Scarface.”
We’re all just dead weight.
Do you have dreams, I asked God. What do you dream about.
But God only smiled, that mysterious smile that God has.
I’m you, God said. Don’t you see, Sean Penn? I’ve always been you.
It was the most ineffable thing that has ever happened to me.Airbnb, the giant app-based hotel service, has disrupted housing markets and people’s lives in city after city. In response, many cities are cracking down, and that’s really a shame because Airbnb began as a good idea — it empowered “regular people” hosts, allowing them to earn a few extra dollars by renting out a spare room or couch to tourists.
Unfortunately, Airbnb has drifted very far from its roots. Today, independent data analysis of its business practices in numerous cities has revealed that Airbnb has morphed into a giant loophole for professional real-estate operatives. Airbnb is allowing an increasing number of these professionals to evade city laws that are crucial for preserving the housing stock for local residents. Consequently, Airbnb’s service is
eating up affordable housing.
In my research, I have found a consistent pattern. In San Francisco, various studies have found that 40 percent of revenue comes from Airbnb hosts with multiple listings. In Los Angeles, a separate study revealed that 89 percent of the company’s revenue was generated by professional landlords and agencies. In New York City, an investigation by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman found that nearly 40 percent of Airbnb’s revenue — some $168 million — came from hosts who had at least three listings on the site.
Let’s be clear: Hosts controlling multiple properties are not “regular people” renting a spare room. These are professional operators, some of whom own or control dozens of properties. Some “hosts” in San Francisco are property managers renting out dozens of homes on behalf of absentee owners. Others are landlords who have evicted entire buildings of tenants in rent-controlled apartments, converting them into Airbnb tourist hotels.
A leaked memo from real-estate developer Coldwell Banker Commercial estimated that a landlord could more than double net annual income by renting to Airbnb tourists instead of local residents. This is a seriously lucrative enterprise that pits the housing needs of locals against tourists.
Consequently, various cities have begun to crack down. In New York City, the city council appears ready to raise the current $1,000 fine for violations to as high as $50,000. Beach town Santa Monica has banned Airbnb rentals unless the homeowner is on-site, barring absentee owners. Coronado has banned short-term rentals, Solana Beach has limited them to seven-day minimum stays and Encinitas has permitted them but not in multi-family dwellings or condominiums.
As San Franciscans contemplate Proposition F, I would like to address the “regular people” hosts who are trying to use Airbnb to make ends meet. I’m with you. Your need is legitimate. But you are being poorly served by Airbnb. The company knows that its service has been invaded by professional operatives, because it has access to its own data. Airbnb could have designed its platform to serve your needs, instead of the professionals.
Instead, it is cynically using you, the “regular people,” as human shields to hide behind and to deflect criticism, so that the public and the media won’t recognize what it has become.
Showing corporate leadership, Airbnb still could:
1. De-list from its website anyone renting out multiple properties. It has the data and knows who they are.
2. Cooperate with cities like San Francisco and Portland, which require hosts to register with the city, by de-listing any of the thousands of unregistered hosts.
3. Supply the data cities need to enforce regulations and taxation, including the number of rental nights and rates charged by each host. Without this data, San Francisco’s current law is completely unenforceable.
Airbnb could have enacted those on its own. Instead, it is spending more than $8 million to defeat
Prop. F, which proposes reasonable regulations. If Airbnb already had done the right thing, Prop. F would have been unnecessary.
Steven Hill is a senior fellow with the New America Foundation and author of “Raw Deal: How the Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism are Screwing American Workers.”
Click here or scroll down to commentITALIA ECLISSATA.
La presidenza italiana fa tutto quello che può ma non gliene viene dato atto: i media mondiali parlano di un asse Merkel-Macron per un pressing finale su Trump sul tema dell'ambiente, è come se Gentiloni non esistesse. Non è una gran novità, ma dispiace sempre constatarlo.
CONCLUSIONI OPERATIVE?
L'esito di questo G7 sarà comunque modesto, non certo per demerito dell'Italia che lo ospita e gestisce l'agenda; neppure per colpa di Trump da solo. E' il formato del G7 ad essere profondamente superato in un'era contrassegnata da tre fenomeni che sono il "sovranismo" (una parte dell'opinione pubblica vuole un ritorno alla centralità dello Stato-nazione); l'identificazione delle istituzioni sovranazionali con gli interessi delle élite e dell'establishment; infine lo spostamento di baricentro dell'economia mondiale verso i paesi emergenti. Gli elettori di Trump e della May vogliono dei leader che vadano ai vertici a fare il muso duro, non a concordare decisioni comuni.
STORIA DI UN ESPERIMENTO.
Il G7 nacque - in realtà come G5 a un'epoca in cui non c'erano ancora Italia e Canada - dopo i primi due shock petroliferi, per concordare una risposta dei paesi industrializzati a un problema comune. Metà anni Settanta, dunque. Con differenze enormi rispetto ad oggi. Problemi globali ce ne sono anche oggi ovviamente, dal cambiamento climatico all’emergenza-profughi. Ma c'era negli anni Settanta un'apertura di credito verso la governance globale, anche nelle opinioni pubbliche. C'era un'Europa più piccola ma più coesa, con un binomio franco-tedesco (Giscard-Schmidt) che addirittura ebbe un ruolo di supplenza rispetto ad un presidente americano debole (Carter). I paesi emergenti avevano un peso molto ridotto nell'economia globale, anche se stava iniziando uno spostamento di risorse Nord-Sud, limitato ai paesi Opec; e di lì a poco l'avvento della teocrazia khomeinista in Iran che avrebbe aperto per la prima volta il problema islamico.
BILANCI E RIFLUSSO ANTI-GLOBAL.
E' in questo contesto che va inquadrato l'esperimento dei G7, poi G8, infine con l'aggiunta dei G20. Sono stati per una certa fase la cabina di regia della globalizzazione. Il G8 con Eltsin per esempio ebbe un ruolo di punta dopo la caduta del Muro di Berlino per indirizzare la Russia verso le privatizzazioni (con esiti non particolarmente brillanti). Fu sempre in quell'ambito che l'America di Bush padre e Bill Clinton progettò il passaggio al Wto e la cooptazione della Cina nell'economia globale. Tutto il bilancio di quelle scelte oggi è sotto attacco, gran parte dell'opinione pubblica occidentale (e non solo gli elettori dei partiti populisti) rivede tutta quell'epoca come una grande delusione. Inevitabile quindi che le architravi istituzionali come il G7 subiscano un invecchiamento e siano avvolte in una diffidenza che le rende impotenti.
EFFETTI SU TRUMP.
In questa situazione ci si potrebbe accontentare per Taormina di un obiettivo minimalista: educare Trump. E' un fatto che lui era partito da posizioni molto più estreme in campagna elettorale (sulla Nato, sul commercio estero) ma via via che incontra leader stranieri e questi gli rendono il dovuto omaggio, la sua vanità viene appagata e in qualche modo lui si accomoda nella scenografia di leader di una superpotenza che deve gestire una vasta rete di alleati e partner. Non cambia l'orientamento di fondo della sua politica però ne smussa le asperità. L'educazione di Mr Trump all'estero sarà forse l'unico risultato: è già sorprendente che abbia cominciato a leggere i discorsi che gli preparano, un gesto di umiltà che in America non gli era consueto.
© Riproduzione riservata 26 maggio 2017It’s been well known for some time that the Grayscale Cincinnati project had taken up residence in the former St. Pius Catholic Church on Blue Rock Road in Northside. We learned earlier this year the project was fully funded, the build out was underway and the brewery portion of the project is called Urban Artifact Brewing. Grayscale Cincinnati founders Scott Hand and Dominic Mariano have partnered up with brewers Bret Kollmann Baker and Scott Hunter. The partners were drawn together by similar ideas and complementary skill sets, as well as complementary personalities.
All four indicate they gravitated toward Northside because of its welcoming and engaging community, its special small town feel, with an eclectic urban city presence and the unique opportunity presented by the beautiful and historic St. Pius Church (known at one time as St Patrick’s Church). Bret relocated to Cincinnati from Albany, New York while Scott Hunter relocated from the closer proximity of Deer Park. Besides the church, this Northside property has a spacious, 3-story house that used to serve as the rectory for the priests and more recently the Queen City Cookies Cafe, and a huge gymnasium that will serve as the actual brewhouse. Construction was well underway in mid-February when I visited for my interview.
The brewery itself will start with an impressive 30 barrel capacity. The complex will include a both a theater and music venue plus a tap house in the church, a restaurant on the first floor of the rectory and a beer garden between the house and the church. Though there will be parking on and around the site, both Bret and Scott Hunter are avid cyclists, who plan on having plenty of bike racks for the cyclists and being very tied into the local bicycling community. Scott Hand is an architect who is charged with overseeing the design of the project. He and his wife Kelly relocated to Cincinnati from Chicago, where they became active in the local homebrewing community.
There will be plenty of entertainment as Dominic, a music professor & noted local musician will be booking diverse local and regional music acts, as well as providing live streaming online for performances. The church will also be home to a local theater group, who will be performing regularly in its spacious interior. But musicians and actors are just part of the entertainment value. Beer will also have a starring role. I sat down with Bret to talk to him about what is in store for thirsty craft beer lovers; Scott Hunter also took a break from construction to join part of the conversation.
Chris Nascimento: “So, Bret, construction looks like it is well underway. When will Urban Artifact Brewing be opening & how many beers will you have on tap?”
Bret Kollmann Baker: “We will be opening in mid-spring, start out with 10 beers on tap.”
CN: “What kind of beers will you be producing? American IPAs & such?”
BK: “Actually, what we will be making beers inspired by sour brewing traditions.”
CN: “So lots of Belgian beers?”
BK: “Not just Belgian beers, but beers with Belgian, German and Flemish influences. What we are producing is more microbiologically inspired. We have a love of microbiology and will be using old world techniques with modern scientific application to increase the consistency & quality of what we produce.”
CN: “So what made you choose Northside?”
BK: “Lots of things, it’s a great neighborhood! Both Scotty and I live here, my wife and I bought a house here. It’s all about the community. Everyone has been extremely supportive, stopping by to congratulate us and asking what they can do to help. People here get the idea of marrying beer & art together. What we are doing really fits the culture in Northside.”
CN: “So what are your backgrounds and how did you decide you wanted to become brewers?”
BK: “Scott & I met at Ohio University, where I also met my wife Stephanie. Scott and I were both chemical engineering majors and founded a homebrew club at the university. We both have degrees in chemical engineering, and I also have a degree in brewing science and technology. After college, I purposely worked in some related industries. I worked for a lactic acid manufacturer, Cargill, working with a special yeast strain. I also spent some time working professionally for a winery at the Farhmeir Family Vineyard and for a distiller, the Albany Distilling Co.” Plus, last year, I conducted a seminar at the AHA National Homebrew Conference a historic lager yeast. It was called “S. Eubayanus: The Father of Lager Yeast”.
Scott Hunter: “I worked in food production. I worked as an engineer for Graphite Electrodes, and I am also getting another degree, working on my MBA.”
CN (incredulously): “So, wait, Scott, you are opening a new brewery AND getting your MBA?”
SH (chuckling): “Yeah. I am getting my MBA at Indiana-Wesleyan, at their campus in West Chester.”
CN: “I love sours & my wife is a huge fan as well. But what will make you guys different and stand out in what you do?”
BK: “All our sour organisms will be caught from the local environment. We will capture them, and then pick our favorite barrels, then use these to start the new barrels. The lactobacillus we are using was collected in the bell tower of the church, and it is unbelievable! We are really excited about it.
CN: “So you will be doing open fermentations?”
BK: “Small scale stuff. We will be doing some spontaneous fermentations, and are installing a cool ship, probably above the brewhouse. It’s all flat, reinforced and that location will work out really well.”
SH: “The real skill is not just in producing the wort, the beer, but in blending it….”
BK: “and having the cojones to dump it if it’s not working. You can’t blend away suck….”
CN (laughing): “I heard Gordon Strong say the same thing about blending mead.”
SH: “We will be working with traditional sours, guezes. Beers with flavor & depth. Flavors from Pediococcus. Beers with flavor & depth. Flavors from Pediococcus and Brettanomyces take time to develop. We want sublime, complementary barrels.”
CN: “So, how big will be the barrel farm?”
BK: “We will be starting with about 10 barrels and will add 30 barrels a month. There will be different barrels consisting of spontaneous fermentations, local mixed cultures and various spirit and wine barrels imparting flavors as well. Our flagships will be done using some special techniques to ferment in the absence of oxygen. We will do this with most of our seasonal beers as well. Our flagships are all made using a modified sour mash technique.”
SH: “To give you an example of a beer of a beer that has inspired us, look at Orval. Orval doesn’t go bad. It starts fresh and hoppy and ages beautifully, becoming funky and wild. I prefer not to drink any Orval younger than 2 years of age.”
CN: “Will you use kegs, serving vessels or some combination of the two in your taproom? And how much beer will you be producing in your first year?”
BK: “We will be using all kegs in the taphouse and music lounge. We will produce 3,000 barrels in our first year (365 days of production).”
CN: “How big could you guys go with the production in this facility?”
BK: “The brewhouse has the capacity to do 45,000 barrels a year. As we grow, if we find we outgrow the present space, especially with the barrel farm, we hope to expand the barrel farm into a warehouse space within Northside.”
CN: “We have a great local brewing community, and many of our local brewers are doing collaborations with each other. Does Urban Artifact plan to do any collaborations with other local breweries?”
BK: “We have plans to do some collaborations with other breweries in the Cincinnati area; as well as elsewhere outside the Cincinnati area.”
CN: “This is all pretty amazing, what else are you doing that is interesting and different?”
BK: “We are working with some new, experimental yeasts with a major yeast manufacturer. We can’t really say what, (Bret reaches over to pull a specially labeled sample out of a nearby fridge and shows them) but here is an example.”
CN: “This is really exciting, guys, I can’t wait to try some of your beers. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me!”
I should note that Urban Artifact already has formed some community partnerships as they work on their build out. They have rented out the second floor of the old rectory house for use as office space by Groundwork Cincinnati, who has cleaned up the Millcreek, including developing the Greenway Trail. Jess of Madcap Puppets is renting space in the church, which is very evident by the huge dragon puppet that has taken up space in part of the church. Gaia’s Oasis is also partnering up with them to put in a showcase garden.
The brewhouse is now in place, and Urban Artifact has obtained both their federal and state permits. So far, as of March 13th, Urban Artifact has been through two production brews, with more coming in short order. While I was not given an exact opening date, my impression is that “mid-spring” will be happening sooner rather than later.The once admired company known as AIG has become a black hole--losing more than $100 billion in 2008, vaporizing $150+ billion of taxpayer bailout money, and now threatening to suck in all the wealth in the western world.
(Okay, we exaggerate: A reader assures us that the loss on AIG credit default swaps can't exceed $440 billion. Of course, now all of AIG's other assets are plummeting in value, too, and it has a $1 trillion of them).
Even now, AIG and the government are in talks to fork over more taxpayer cash and ease the burden of AIG's bailout interest payments (Surprise! All those priceless divisions that AIG promised to sell last fall to pay off the debts can't be sold).
One planned solution is for AIG to sign over to the taxpayer stakes in the plummeting Asian subsidiaries that AIG can't sell. The Treasury will no doubt accept AIG's argument that these assets are worth the same as they were in 2007 (preposterous), and, thus, the AIG bailout cost will soar well over $200 billion. Worse, the government will then own and operate Asian insurance subsidiaries that it can't sell, either.
Sickening. But here's worse news: AIG is only the beginning.
Until we bite the bullet and do what we should have done in the beginning--make shareholders and bondholders of insolvent companies pay for their own stupid mistakes--our running bailout tab (and ownership of the economy) will continue to soar.
Citigroup. Bank of America. Any number of smaller insurance companies, banks, car companies, pension funds.
They all need saving. They will all create "systemic" problems if they aren't saved. And they will all manage to persuade us, in the heat and fear of the moment, that if they can just have another, say, $30 billion, they'll quickly return to profitability and make us money (it's an investment, after all. Not a bailout).
The more money we put in, the less willing we will be to stop putting money in, because the systemic risk will remain and we'll have that much more to lose.
Well, enough.
AIG has $225 billion of long-term debt (as of Sept 30). Let's start by converting 80% of that to equity. Then we can change the terms of all the CDS and other contracts that AIG has to come up with collateral for (this would happen in bankruptcy, anyway). That should buy us some time.
And while we're waiting to see what else we need to do with AIG, we can do the same at Bank of America and Citigroup: Convert all the preferred stock and some of the debt to equity, improving those banks' ever-deteriorating capital ratios.
Will this have a devastating impact on everyone who owns all that debt? Well, they'll certainly say so. No one likes having something they thought was backed by the full faith and credit of the US government actually turn out to be what it said it was: a risky investment.
But they'll get over it. They always do. And they might even be more careful next time (welcome to the real world).
Will such moves end civilization as we know it? Always a possibility.
But here's the good news:
If civilization as we know it ends, it will take AIG down, too.CNN Host Worries Liberal Media’s Mistakes Are Being Amplified By Conservative Media
Guest post by Michael LaChance at American Lookout:
Brian Stelter is one of those liberal CNN hosts who is constantly trying to prove that he’s smarter than President Trump. He claims he’s trying to hold Trump accountable but people know bias when they see it.
He recently confided in a media colleague that he has concerns about how the liberal media looks right now. He should be worried.
News Busters reported: Stelter Frets ‘Stupid’ Mistakes in Media Are ‘Amplified by Some Right-Wing Outlets’ to Discredit the Press CNN’s Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter invited on HLN’s S.E. Cupp Unfiltered host S.E. Cupp for an illuminating 22-minute podcast released Friday dealing with conservative distrust in the news media. It featured solid points by Cupp and complaints by Stelter that mistakes in the media have been unfairly “amplified by some right-wing outlets as if the entire press is culpable.” Unfortunately, there was no such discussion or acknowledgment by either one of them that a reason for conservative distrust in the media had been repeated instances of fake news, mass plagiarism, and/or scandals that did serious damage and called into question entire outlets. In reality, Stelter should admit that those instances and subsequent rehabilitations for offending parties only further damaged the media’s credibility, but more on that later… Stelter complimented Cupp for “linking distrust of journalism and distrust of mainstream news sources to ownership and entertainment and Hollywood, right” in that “it’s not just about whether a journalist and newsroom might have a left-leaning bias.” He added moments later that folks like HBO’s “John Oliver, for example, has nothing to do with the journalism that’s made by CNN.” This, of course, he ignored the fact that such shows like Last Week Tonight are primary news sources for some consumers and the thoughts of comedians like Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel are routinely held up in the press as moral authorities.
If only the left could shut down opposing thought things would be so much easier for these hacks!Cricket pushes Indonesia as its next frontier JAKARTA: From a small core of foreign fanatics who cajoled everyone around them to play, cricket has blossomed in Indonesia and administrators dream one day of rivalling the Asian superpowers. Despite its proximity to cricket-mad Australia, the mainly Muslim country of 234 million people was a stranger to the sport until the early 1990s when a handful of eccentric expatriates started their own league. “Because the expatriates needed more people to make their teams of 11 players, they started to ask locals to join. And it turned out that some of the locals were excellent players,” said Cricket Indonesia chairman Sachin Gopalan. “It used to be only social games played by expatriates. But it has changed.” The foreigners, some driven by an almost maniacal enthusiasm, formed associations in Jakarta and the holiday island of Bali which culminated eight years ago in the formation of Cricket Indonesia. In the past two years the number of players has tripled from fewer than 10,000 to 30,000, according to administrators. “Cricket is growing exponentially here and there is a lot of hidden natural talent,” Gopalan said. One of the pioneers was Australian veterinarian Bruce Christie, who is credited with planting the seeds of cricket in the poor eastern province of East Nusa Tenggara in the mid-1990s. “I had to keep my 11-year-old son amused,” said Christie. “So we started playing cricket and invited about 20 to 30 local people of mixed ages to play.” The first games were held on local soccer fields and sometimes a tennis court, he said. “The locals picked up the game pretty quickly as they’d played ‘kasti’ (a local bat-and-ball game) before and they were good at throwing stones at birds or whatever. I also had videos and books to show them,” Christie said. “We also had an Australian female teacher in Kupang who played with us. I think she attracted the locals to join.” Cricket Indonesia general manager Prakash Vijaykumar said some of the locals who learnt to play with Christie went to Bali and spread their passion for the game. “They have become pioneers of Indonesian cricket,” he said. Gopalan and Vijaykumar are from India, where the “gentleman’s game” verges on religion and fans can watch it 24 hours a day on dedicated pay-TV channels. They admit the support base for cricket in Indonesia is relatively tiny, dwarfed by the locals’ love of badminton and soccer. Indonesia’s sports council does not even recognise the game as an official sport. But the International Cricket Council — the game’s governing body — made Indonesia an affiliate member in 2001 and another milestone will come in July when Indonesia hosts an international under-15 tournament involving eight countries from the East Asia-Pacific region. “It is the first international tournament to be hosted by Indonesia. It’s a significant step for cricket in the country,” Vijaykumar said. Local junior player Rizky Tri Rubbi, 16, who led his team to the quarter final against Singapore at the 2007 U-15 regional club tournament in Malaysia, said cricket was a game of mental strength as much as physical talent. “The expatriates have been very helpful. I learned from them that cricket is 90 percent mental and 10 percent skills,” said the diminutive batsman who idolises Indian great Sachin Tendulkar. Rubbi picked up the cricket bug in Australia, where he attended school for seven years while his parents studied at an Australian university. “When I started to play in Indonesia after I returned from Australia, I had to play with many expatriates. I had no problem with them being foreigners but the age difference was overwhelming,” he said. Rubbi was confident Indonesia could have a competitive national side in 10 years, regardless of whether the government decides to give it support. “I don’t mean to offend our soccer team, but Indonesia has a bad level of achievement in soccer despite a lot of government attention,” he said.
JAKARTA: From a small core of foreign fanatics who cajoled everyone around them to play, cricket has blossomed in Indonesia and administrators dream one day of rivalling the Asian superpowers.
Despite its proximity to cricket-mad Australia, the mainly Muslim country of 234 million people was a stranger to the sport until the early 1990s when a handful of eccentric expatriates started their own league.
“Because the expatriates needed more people to make their teams of 11 players, they started to ask locals to join. And it turned out that some of the locals were excellent players,” said Cricket Indonesia chairman Sachin Gopalan.
“It used to be only social games played by expatriates. But it has changed.”
The foreigners, some driven by an almost maniacal enthusiasm, formed associations in Jakarta and the holiday island of Bali which culminated eight years ago in the formation of Cricket Indonesia.
In the past two years the number of players has tripled from fewer than 10,000 to 30,000, according to administrators.
“Cricket is growing exponentially here and there is a lot of hidden natural talent,” Gopalan said.
One of the pioneers was Australian veterinarian Bruce Christie, who is credited with planting the seeds of cricket in the poor eastern province of East Nusa Tenggara in the mid-1990s.
“I had to keep my 11-year-old son amused,” said Christie. “So we started playing cricket and invited about 20 to 30 local people of mixed ages to play.”
The first games were held on local soccer fields and sometimes a tennis court, he said.
“The locals picked up the game pretty quickly as they’d played ‘kasti’ (a local bat-and-ball game) before and they were good at throwing stones at birds or whatever. I also had videos and books to show them,” Christie said.
“We also had an Australian female teacher in Kupang who played with us. I think she attracted the locals to
join.”
Cricket Indonesia general manager Prakash Vijaykumar said some of the locals who learnt to play with Christie went to Bali and spread their passion for the game.
“They have become pioneers of Indonesian cricket,” he said.
Gopalan and Vijaykumar are from India, where the “gentleman’s game” verges on religion and fans can watch it 24 hours a day on dedicated pay-TV channels.
They admit the support base for cricket in Indonesia is relatively tiny, dwarfed by the locals’ love of badminton and soccer. Indonesia’s sports council does not even recognise the game as an official sport.
But the International Cricket Council — the game’s governing body — made Indonesia an affiliate member in 2001 and another milestone will come in July when Indonesia hosts an international under-15 tournament involving eight countries from the East Asia-Pacific region.
“It is the first international tournament to be hosted by Indonesia. It’s a significant step for cricket in the country,” Vijaykumar said.
Local junior player Rizky Tri Rubbi, 16, who led his team to the quarter final against Singapore at the 2007 U-15 regional club tournament in Malaysia, said cricket was a game of mental strength as much as physical talent.
“The expatriates have been very helpful. I learned from them that cricket is 90 percent mental and 10 percent skills,” said the diminutive batsman who idolises Indian great Sachin Tendulkar.
Rubbi picked up the cricket bug in Australia, where he attended school for seven years while his parents studied at an Australian university.
“When I started to play in Indonesia after I returned from Australia, I had to play with many expatriates. I had no problem with them being foreigners but the age difference was overwhelming,” he said.
Rubbi was confident Indonesia could have a competitive national side in 10 years, regardless of whether the government decides to give it support.
“I don’t mean to offend our soccer team, but Indonesia has a bad level of achievement in soccer despite a lot of government attention,” he said.Sony's PlayStation 4 isn't the only next-gen console that claims to offer near-instant access to digital games -- Microsoft's Xbox One apparently does as well, according to a statement issue by Redmond to Engadget today. "Consumers will be able to sign on to any Xbox One console and have access to all their digital games. Once the required data -– a fraction of the entire game -– is on their hard drive, they can jump into the action while the rest of the game finishes downloading in the background," the statement reads. It also notes that you can already enjoy much of that proposed functionality on the Xbox 360, though it requires significantly more effort than we're hoping will be required on the Xbox One.
The Xbox One supports similar functionality with disc-based games, allowing you to immediately jump in and play while the game is installed to the HDD. Of course, you'll still need the disc in the drive for it to play; at least that's the case now, after Microsoft walked back its Xbox One DRM strategy. Microsoft also teased today's news in its original Xbox One announcement PR: "Unleashing the virtually unlimited power of the cloud makes everything more convenient and accessible, from allowing games to be installed in segments so that gameplay can start quickly to updates downloading in the background."
We've yet to see Sony or Microsoft's play while you download functionality in action on their respective next-gen game consoles, but we've got a smattering of major press events sprinkled across the next several months leading up to this holiday when the consoles launch. But hey, we understand your suspicion -- if we don't get a chance to see it in action soon, then we'll start to worry.The chart above shows monthly unemployment rates, by educational attainment, from 2000 to March 2008, using data from
the BLS
, obtained via
Economagic
. The data show that almost all of the.50% increase in the overall unemployment rate over the last 9 months from 4.6% in June 2007 to 5.1% in March 2008 was mostly from increases in unemployment for workers with less than a high school degree and to a lesser degree from workers with a high school degree. Note that the unemployment rate for college-educated workers has been almost flat for the last three years, and the trend for workers with some college is almost flat as well.
It's also interesting to see that during the 2001 recession, the jobless rate increased by about a full percentage point for ALL education levels. Unfortunately, the data for jobless rates by educational attainment only go back to 1992, so it's not possible to extend this analysis back to recessions before 2001. But looking at unemployment rates by education in the the 2001 recession, we won't be in recession again until the unemployment rates for all education categories start to rise, and we haven't seen that yet.Bummed out about Ryan Braun? Let down by Lance Armstrong? Not to worry. The next time your favorite athlete flunks a performance-enhancing drug test, laments the tragic loss of his unborn twin or calls for a thorough investigation of a nefarious masseuse, try this simple trick.
Pretend you're watching a movie.
Hollywood is juicing. Like, at glow-in-the-dark levels. According to a feature story in this month's Men's Journal, average physiques for male actors are out. Big biceps, bulging pecs and ripped inguinal creases -- the V-shaped ligaments above the hips, and thanks to the magazine for explaining a natural phenomenon that, as a sportswriter, I've never actually seen in the mirror -- are in. And to get the buff, athletic look needed to save the world in Captain America or swing a broadsword in Game of Thrones, some actors are boosting their training regimens with the same drugs used by actual athletes:
… there is an easier way to go from flabby wimp to sinewy screen predator. Sometimes a superhero's journey begins with the needle prick of a syringe full of human growth hormone (HGH), testosterone, or steroids …
Of course, none of this is exactly new. In a Hollywood Reporter article published last year, trainer-to-the-stars Happy Hill went Full Canseco, estimating that 20 percent of actors use PEDs. Mickey Rourke says he used steroids for his role in The Wrestler. Charlie Sheen told Sports Illustrated that he did the same before appearing in Major League. (Talk about method acting.) In 2007, Sylvester Stallone was caught bringing 48 vials of HGH into Australia; a year later, Tyler Perry and 50 Cent were among the celebrities who allegedly ordered PEDs from doctors and pharmacies in upstate New York. Nick Nolte and the late Dixie Carter -- no, really -- have praised the anti-aging properties of HGH, while former Saved by the Bell star Dustin Diamond once accused co-star Mark-Paul Gosselaar -- no, |
the Collective Scribble.
Interested in participating? Email hardcopyedmonton@gmail.com to register!*
Intro to Letterpress with Cate Kuzik
Saturday, December 13th from 11-1:30pm – $25/person | Facebook Event
Turn your favourite catch phrase or quote into a large font poster in this hands-on demo style letterpress workshop. Participants will combine hand rolled color blends with over-sized metal & wood type to create a small edition of 11×15 posters. Designed as a class where people work in pairs, sign up with a friend for double the fun!
Cate Kuzik is a local, community-taught artist currently creating her fun, colorful letterpress creations as Ochre Lea. When she’s not carving images or printing on the letterpress, you may find her crocheting, knitting or making jewelry.
Calligraphy with LynnAnn Babuk
Saturday, December 13th from 2-4:30 – $20/person | Facebook Event
This mini workshop will demonstrate various styles of lettering, along with a brief history of lettering and the writing equipment. Students will be given the opportunity to learn basic lettering forms, practice the strokes and the sequences to forming the letters. The class will result in a small take home lettering piece and a base knowledge of the calligraphic arts.
http://babukink.com/
Pop-ups & paper folding with Kevin Zak
Sunday, December 14th from 11am – 1:30pm – $20/person | Facebook Event
Learn to make your own pop-up greeting cards. This workshop will introduce you to the art and craft of paper engineering. Learn about paper and the history and mechanics of bending, folding, and gluing paper to make pop-up creations. In this workshop you will make three different types of greeting cards.
With a passion for design in all forms, Kevin Zak runs an independent design consultancy, specializing in book and exhibition design, and is a contract academic at the University of Alberta.
Book binding with Collective Scribble
Sunday, December 14th from 2 – 5pm – $25/person | Facebook Event
Join The Collective Scribble to learn how to bind your own journal that will incorporate found and recycled materials. We like to call these “Left and Found” Books! Students will learn a variation of the coptic stitch and walk away with their very own hard cover book. All necessary tools and materials will be provided but please feel free to bring along your own papers, ephemera and favorite art supplies!
The first masterpiece any artist ever made was a scribble! Karly Kulpa & Christina Hamer believe that everyone is an artist. They bind books from reused papers to spark that childhood creativity of scribbling on scraps that once burned in all of us.
http://collectivescribble.com/
*Each class requires 10 participants to run, and space is limited!He's said it many times before, but just a week before Delhi goes to the polls, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal in an open letter to the citizens of the national capital has apologised again for quitting as Chief Minister and while promising to make the city a world-class one, he has promised not to quit again if elected to the post again.
In the letter published on NDTV, the former Delhi chief minister acknowledged that those who had voted for the party in the 2013 poll had to face embarrassment when he resigned after just 49 days and said that "many people across Delhi feel that our actions have let them down".
Soon after stepping down from the CM's post, Kejriwal declared that he would contest against PM Modi from Varanasi, an election he lost. However, the AAP convenor denied that he had resigned purely to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
Kejriwal said that he had resigned hoping for fresh elections to be held immediately, in the hope of getting a complete majority, but admitted it was a mistake to believe that polls would be held soon after they resigned. The Delhi Assembly was kept in suspended animation by Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung for over a year after AAP resigned, and the recommendation of the AAP government to hold polls was rejected.
"In hindsight, perhaps we were too trusting. It was a mistake, an honest mistake; but a mistake all the same," Kejriwal said in his letter.
The former Delhi chief minister, whose party released its manifesto yesterday, has promised his party will ensure that Delhi's citizen can do "business without hafta" if voted to power and to set "new standards in business growth, healthcare, education, and women's safety."
Kejriwal also said that a corruption-free, stable, government is an "ideal that will never lose steam," even if there is no AAP or he didn't come to power and interestingly also said that the party understood the need to work "constructively with the central government".
Kejriwal ended his letter with what he's hoping will satisfy every prospective AAP supporter. "I can promise you the following: I will not quit. Period," he wrote.
For Kejriwal, this assurance is perhaps the most important one that he needs to give to the Delhi voters. The BJP has made Kejriwal's quitting act as the focus of its campaign, and in both television and print advertising in and around Delhi. For instance, this particular ad shows a maid servant saying that she won't be giving the vote to 'those people' again (read AAP) and points out that while AAP promised free water and electricity only the rich got these benefits while the poor in slums were left out. Many BJP posters also talk about the previous 'bhagoda sarkar' of AAP and urge people to vote for Modi and BJP.
Interestingly while BJP has projected Bedi has the face of the Delhi CM, the posters and hoardings of the parties are still focused on the Prime Minister and his promise of development. And this, despite evidence that the wave of support that was witnessed for Modi in 2014 isn't visible yet in the latest opinion polls.
As Firstpost editor-in-chief R Jagannathan had noted in this piece the latest ABP News-Nielsen opinion poll showed a 50-41 split favouring Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) against the BJP, a sharp rise from a fortnight ago when the BJP was a nose ahead.
He had noted that "if this poll has got it right, AAP is not only going to get a majority, but a landslide win. A rising near 10 percentage points difference in a largely two-horse race is unlikely to be reversed in the course of a week." Another HT-Cfore survey showed AAP and BJP tied with 38 percent of the vote share each.
More importantly in both the opinion polls, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has stood out to be the city’s favourite among all chief minister candidates. In the ABP-Nielsen opinion poll, 39 percent of Delhi’s electorate wanted AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal as the next chief minister, highest amongst his competitors. Similarly, the C Fore Survey also revealed that 43 percent of Delhiites want Kejriwal as their next CM, while 39 percent want Bedi and 12 percent want the Congress candidate Ajay Maken.
With his latest letter, Kejriwal has tried to tackle the most prominent allegations made over his resignation. Given he's still leading in the race as the people's preferred CM candidate, even as the BJP battles in-fighting over Bedi's arrival, the AAP chief will be hoping to win back every supporter from the 2013 poll and every disgruntled Congress voter to pip the BJP on 7 February.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.1 of 1 2 of 1
Nearly a year after leaving federal politics, Libby Davies is in a reflective mood. The former NDP MP and city councillor told the Georgia Straight by phone that she’s been thinking a great deal about the intersection of electoral politics and social movements. She’s also completed the first draft of a book—part memoir and part issue-based analysis of the political process.
“We live in such a cynical world where people feel disempowered and turned off and that they have no voice,” Davies said. “I really want to use my experience to help people get to a place where they feel that it’s not only possible but it’s exciting and creative and full of good outcomes when you do engage politically and when you do get involved.”
In particular, she wants to reach young people getting involved in activism, so they can learn how to engage with governments to achieve results. She advised anyone interested in pushing for change to find a group or an alliance of people they can work with—and accept that they will encounter egotistical people along the way.
“Sometimes, it’s very demoralizing,” Davies acknowledged. “I always want to say ‘Give space to people.’ There are people around you who have the answers.”
Davies first came to public attention as a young organizer with the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association in the 1970s, and only later gained a profile in electoral politics after being elected to city council in 1982. She said that one of her great mentors was her former husband, Bruce Eriksen, a fearless organizer on behalf of tenants living in the city’s poorest neighbourhood.
“He had his life threatened,” Davies revealed. “He was told to get out of town by the police. He came back and said, ‘Well, fuck you. Fuck everybody.’ He was truly an incredible man.”
Another inspirational figure was Bud Osborn, a poet and community advocate who helped convince Vancouverites that drug addiction is a health issue. Davies said that as an MP, she would come back from Ottawa thinking that it was a “crazy place” full of personal ambition.
“Then I would get to Main and Hastings,” she said. “And Bud and I would sit down and talk for hours. It would completely motivate me again, compel me…because he was such a powerful force.”
The hardest issue she ever dealt with was the sex trade. Davies came out very early in favour of decriminalization, which made her a target of abolitionists, who accused her of aiding and abetting exploitation. She recalled being screamed at by members of the public when she and other Coalition of Progressive Electors councillors stood firm against then mayor Mike Harcourt’s support for a law banning communicating in public to sell sexual services.
Later, it became clear that a serial killer was on the loose, preying on Downtown Eastside sex workers. Research by SFU criminologist John Lowman, a vehement critic of federal prostitution laws, documented a sharp rise in the number of sex workers being murdered in B.C. in the years following the imposition of tougher legislation.
“Lowman is one of my heroes,” Davies said. “That man is amazing. I’ve followed him faithfully over the years. He spoke at parliamentary committees.”
She also said she’s been inspired by Katrina Pacey, executive director of Pivot Legal Society, which represented sex workers before the Supreme Court of Canada.
“I got to know a few sex workers—some of them fairly well—and we would have long discussions,” Davies recalled. “It was that grounding about what is really going on, what is really people’s experience, that keeps you moving where you need to go.”
Libby Davies will discuss her political career at 7 p.m. next Wednesday (September 21) at SFU Woodward’s in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.Yarkandi caravan guides on the great Himal’s routes to Leh, might have mapped the journey thus: from the great plains, climb into the pass of the black gravel, the Karakoram. From there, cross the Chip-Chap, the very quiet river, to reach Daulat Beg Oldi, the spot where the great and rich man died,. Then, you reach a long open space, the Depsang plateau, leading on to the Qazi Langar, a qazi, or cleric once ran a kitchen. Then comes the camp at Burtsé, named for shrubs that can heal wounds, and burn well. Now, ahead, lies the Mur-go, the gate to hell.
Earlier this summer, a platoon of People’s Liberation Army made the journey so evocatively described by the great mountaineer Harish Kapadia, planting itself in abandoned Indian army huts. Indian army sources say this isn’t the first time Chinese patrols have entered the area—but they have never held a position like this before. Flag meetings have been called to resolve the issue, but India has also positioned troops some 500 metres away.
Does the gate to hell lie ahead?
For years now, Indian military strategists have worried about just such an outcome. Fears of growing Chinese nationalism, backed by military might, have grown on the back of China’s increasingly muscular posture on its eastern seaboard. Back in 2008, Defence Minister AK Anthony is believed to have issued a formal directive calling on the armed forces to prepare for a two-front war. In 2010, former Army Chief Deepak Kapoor publicly spoke of preparing for a two-front war. Mulayam Singh Yadav, India's former Defence Minister, even told Parliament in November 2011 that he had evidence China was “going to attack us soon”.
India has responded, the defence expert Ajai Shukla notes, by significantly enhancing its offensive resources—notably, by committing to set up an entire new mountain strike corps. Its built a string of forward airstrips in the region, including one at Daulat Beg Oldi, allowing for troops to be moved quickly. Last March, though, a leaked letter by former army chief General VK Singh warning of “hollowness” in Indian defences provoked anxieties about whether India was ready for the emerging threat.
The facts behind these fears are simple. China's declared military budget for this year is $117 billion, up from $106.4 billion in 2012-2013 and $91.5 billion in 2011-12. For the past decade, China’s military budget has expanded at about 12%, ahead of its economic growth. The country expanding its cruise and ballistic missile arsenal; the new Dong Feng-21D, comes with a manoeuvrable warhead that constitutes the first serious threat to United States carriers supremacy in the Pacific. It has rolled out a prototype for a fifth-generation stealth fighter and inducted an aircraft carrier.
Fearsome as China’s military build-up might be, though, it isn’t clear if Indians need to be terrified. Eight of China's 18 Group Armies—the equivalent, roughly, of an Indian corps—face out on its south-eastern seaboard. Throughout China’s military modernisation drive, the United States defence department has noted in its 2012 report, “Taiwan contingency planning has dominated the agenda”. “Even though cross-Strait tensions have subsided since 2008, Taiwan remains a critical mission, and the PLA continues building capabilities aimed at Taiwan and at deterring, delaying, or denying possible third party intervention in a cross-Strait conflict”.
Taiwan isn’t, moreover, China’s only military concern. In the Koreas, the PLA must plan for possible war; in Xinjiang and Tibet for insurgencies; on the high seas, for control of trade routes and oil.
Last year, in a talk delivered around the same time Yadav was holding out his prediction of imminent assault, the scholar Kanti Bajpai offered several sound military reasons why the risks of war with China are low. He pointed to the difficulties in destroying India's Air Force, necessary to secure China's logistics; the robust defensive positions occupied by India's Army in the Himalayas; the limited capabilities of the PLA navy to wage a campaign in the Indian Ocean.
Bajpai concluded by asserting that “war between the two countries is not very likely unless one or the other engages in highly provocative, ill-judged behaviour—and even then, with nuclear weapons and air power, it would be very risky to go to war”.
Events in Daulat Beg Oldi, though, are leading China sceptics to argue that its behaviour exactly that: ill-judged and highly-provocative. The foundational cause of the 1962 war, the Burtsé incident shows, persists: the fact that India and China cannot agree on their frontiers. The two countries, the scholar Wahegurupal Singh Sidhu notes never even demarcated the Line of Actual control after the ceasefire agreement of November 21, 1962—which means there is “disagreement on both sides as to the precise location of the LAC in many areas”.
Brigadier John Dalvi’s must-read book on the causes of the 1962 war, as well as the assessments of experts like AG Noorani, show prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s ill-conceived policies on the border led India into a crisis it wasn’t prepared for—but still has to live with.
The last round of India-China, in December 2012, ended with excellent atmospherics—but there’s been little forward movement. In essence, China has refused to bargain territory it holds in Aksai Chin, on the northern reaches of the LAC, while India will make no concessions on Arunachal Pradesh, to its east. China refuses to accept the LAC as a border, and thus has every interest in keeping it unsettled with low-grade incursions—or, from its point of view, demonstrations of presence in territory it claims to be its own. There have, by some estimates, been over 500 of these—though none, it bears mention, have ended in actual shooting.
In a thoughtful commentary, Singapore-based scholar PS Surayanarayana observed that “enter into a border settlement when both recognise that the cost of not settling the issue outweighs the cost of a continuation of stalemate”—which, put another way, is no time soon.
For both countries, there are excellent reasons to avoid a crisis: a burgeoning trade relationship, multiple crisis with other neighbours, and, above all, the absence of any dividend from war. Yet, neither is willing to pay the political costs that will come with territorial compromise.
The problem with simmering conflicts is that they can only too easily burst into full-blown ones: nations can't always rely on the wisdom of politicians to avert crisis. In 1986, China moved troops into Sumdorong Chu, facing Tawang—the site of one of India’s worst defeats in the war. Then army chief General Krishnaswami Sundarji flew in an entire brigade north of Tawang, leading to a build-up and belligerent language. Rajiv Gandhi’s advisors blamed Sundarji for precipitating a crisis—leading the army chief to suggest the prime minister to “please make alternate arrangements if you think you are not getting adequate professional advice”.
Sundarji’s resolve paid off—and the crisis petered off. India’s now done the same thing in Burtsé, though on a much smaller scale. The odds are this face-off will end peacefully, but we can’t work on the assumption the outcomes of future confrontations will have a happy ending.
In 1928, the colonial explorer F Ludlow travelled down the Karakoram towards Daulat Beg Oldi. Ludlow’s map told him of a camp where three huts were available. “It did”, he wrote. And when I arrived, I found them all occupied — one by a dead pony, the second by a dead donkey, and the third by a dead Yarkandi”. Further ahead “a pile of stones and mud had been erected against the face of a cliff to form a shelter from the wind. I looked inside this shelter and found it contained three skulls and other gruesome human remains”.
That, we can only hope, doesn’t turn out to be a vision of the future as well.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Hasegawa has faced growing pressure over the course of this season as Honda struggled with both power and reliability and culminated in it ending its relationship with McLaren after three seasons.
Ahead of the start of Honda's new partnership with Toro Rosso, the Japanese manufacturer has announced changes to its organisational structure in a bid to turnaround its fortunes.
In his role as head of F1 project, Hasegawa was responsible for both engine development in Sakura as well as the race operation. That role has been removed with Honda splitting the responsibilities to create two new positions.
Toyoharu Tanabe has been named F1 technical director and will focus on the racing and testing operation at the circuit.
Motorsport.com has learned Yasuaki Asaki will take the role of operating officer at Sakura in charge of Formula 1 engine development.
Tanabe, who has worked for Honda since 1984, has F1 experience, having worked as an engineer for Gerhard Berger at McLaren and as chief engineer for Jenson Button at BAR and then Honda.
He also worked in IndyCar, currently holds the role of senior manager and race team chief engineer for Honda Performance Development and is believed to be highly rated within Honda.
Hasegawa, who took over from Yasuhisa Arai in early 2016, will no longer be involved in the F1 project but hold the role of executive chief engineer.
Honda says he will use his experience and knowledge from the F1 project to work on various global research and development projects focused on future mass production. The trio will take up their respective new roles on 1 January.
"In the past, the head of F1 project assumed responsibility in both technological development and directing the team at the spot of racing," said Honda chief officer for Brand and Communication Operations Katsuhide Moriyama.
"By separating these areas of responsibility, we will evolve our structure so that both the development team and racing/testing team can assume their respective responsibilities more speedily.
"By ensuring both the development team and racing team soundly fulfil their respective roles, Honda will continue its challenges so that fans can enjoy seeing Toro Rosso-Honda competing at the top level without further delay."In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, is investing in some of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups.
According to a brochure from IQT’s CEO Summit obtained by The Intercept, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is investing heavily in tech, particularly in big data analytics, social media mining, and data center infrastructure.
Big data analytics
Among IQT’s investments is cloud-hosted big data analytics and processing platform Databricks, named by data experts as one of the top data companies to watch and whose product, Spark, was called by IBM (ibm) one of “the most significant open source project of the next decade.” The reason for this distinction is that Spark is able to sort through enormous amounts of data really, really fast, according to Business Insider.
Satellite image processing software Orbital Insight, which recently raised $8.7 million in capital, is another portfolio company of note. As Fortune‘s Jen Wieczner writes, the company counts other governmental agencies as clients, including the World Bank, which is using the technology to track poverty levels.
Social media mining
IQT is also investing heavily in companies that track social media activity, such as Dataminr and Geofeedia. Dataminr uses machine learning and cross-references Twitter with other data sets to identify tweets and trends with impact, based on unusual patterns and “clusters” of similar tweets. According to another Fortune story by Wiezcner, the company alerted clients to the Paris attacks five minutes after they occurred, more than 45 minutes before the AP tweeted the news.
Geofeedia, on the other hand, collects geotagged social media messages to monitor breaking news events in real time. The company markets its ability to track activist protests, and counts Dell, CNN, Mall of America and the NCAA among its clients, according to TechCrunch.
Data center infrastructure
Two of the most well-known companies that the CIA is investing in are Docker and Mesosphere, both of which are valued at or above $1 billion, according to BI. Docker’s big pitch is that it makes it easier to build and manage software at large scales and across cloud platforms, while Mesosphere’s product “can be thought of as a data center mother brain that automatically distributes the appropriate resources and data to power a software application, so IT staff doesn’t have to worry about tweaking servers or other gear behind the scenes,” writes Fortune‘s Jonathan Vanian.
A representative from In-Q-Tel declined Fortune‘s request for comment.EVERY day people say I'm brave, that I'm courageous and I hate that. I'm just doing what I have to do to survive, to live another day.
EVERY day people say I'm brave, that I'm courageous and I hate that. I'm just doing what I have to do to survive, to live another day.
I had a friend, Stuart Mangan, he said he wasn't brave because he didn't have a choice. He didn't have a choice to be paralysed but he chose to live every day of his life with a smile on his face and even though he knew he didn't have long to live, he spent the time he had designing technology for people who would end up like him. That to me is brave and inspirational.
The first time they told me, I was at home, I was on the phone to my friend. It was September 11, 2008, my mom came in, she didn't have to say anything, I knew straight away what had happened. The test results were bad and the tumour was malignant. I hung up the phone without saying anything and I felt like throwing it at the wall. But to be honest, I didn't know what it meant. I was 12, and all I cared about was playing sport. I knew it was bad but I didn't understand the severity of it. I had cancer, a tumour that had grown on my right femur just above my knee and little did I know it would destroy parts of my life that I had never planned on letting go of.
The first step was chemo. I thought at the time it would be one step but it turned out to be 26 chemo sessions throughout the year. That week we were overloaded with information about my treatment, my outcome and me. My outcome looked good but it wouldn't be easy. In fact, they said it's one of the hardest things for an adult to overcome and near impossible for a child. At the time, I was angry, upset and felt like it was impossible. But I had to remember, they had said "near impossible".
The first chemotherapy started on September 18, 2008. Before that, I was in so much pain, I had gone weeks with only hours of sleep and countless different medications but nothing would stop it. In a way, I'm glad the painkillers didn't work. If they had, I wouldn't have said anything, the pain would have disappeared and the cancer spread, and I might not have had the same outcome that I was given. Even to this day, I refuse painkillers, not because I'm stupid but because I'm afraid. I'm afraid if I cover it up that it could be serious and by the time I realise it, it might be too late.
Amazingly, when they started chemo, the pain stopped. A good sign it was working.
Doxorubicin, cisplatin and methotrexate were my chemotherapies. They were my best friends and my worst enemies. They would save my life and nearly kill me but I was doing it. I wanted to live, to play for Munster, to travel the world, to raise children and die when I'm 100, not 12.
I had a lot of bad days over the next few weeks. I was going downhill fast and everyone knew it. Everyone except me. I couldn't see what was happening to me, I would walk into the hospital for my chemo, take my bed next to a baby, I'd see two adults asleep on the floor. I'd take my vomiting bowl and pee jar for the week. Then I'd sleep. I shut it out. I didn't want to be like the three-year-olds who would walk around with smiles and buckets of toys. I wanted to be Donal. But when you walk in there, you lose everything; your pride, your dignity and once they start the chemo, you lose your body. In a way, the smaller children have an easier path. They won't remember this. But it's harder for their parents because they have to watch this happen to their children.
Normality changes too. I had trouble struggling to figure out what it was for me. I'd wake up and get my injection, I'd get sick a couple of times a day, I'd wander around the house, waiting for school to finish and maybe a few friends would come over. They didn't treat me the same. I was different, I was that person you stop your kids from staring at. I was sick.
I had one of the worst days of my life in early November. My uncle took me out for a drive. I wasn't eating again. I didn't eat after chemo. I couldn't, I didn't have an appetite at all and anything I did eat wouldn't be long in my stomach before it was in the vomiting bowl. When we came home, I was told to sit down. They told me that I would need surgery and it was more complicated than they thought. It was too close to my knee for bone salvage surgery so they would need to remove half my femur, all my knee and a small part of my tibia and replace it with prosthetics. I knew what this meant: sport was gone. My dream, the only thing I wanted, was gone. I was devastated. I couldn't talk to anyone for days.
There were worse days. On the day of my last chemo, my parents went for lunch and I was alone. I was trying to sleep but there was a baby next to me who was crying. Then he stopped, I heard a chair move suddenly and his mother began screaming. The crash alarm went off and the crash cart was brought in. At this stage his mother was shouting at him. The nurses were shouting at each other. I was praying. He didn't make it. My parents weren't allowed in the room for an hour. I was scared and I don't know why, but I was angry. That day was one of the worst days of my life. To witness a child die, and his parents break down. I don't like to talk about it because I still get scared and angry thinking about it.
My operation in January was the toughest thing I have ever had to do. I was weak. I lost 23kg and I was still sick. I didn't realise how tough it was going to be until I woke up. It was nine-and-a-half hours long. I woke up with two tubes on my leg, an epidural, six cannulas and a catheter. After two nights in intensive care, I was moved to the children's ward. After four days of just lying down, I eventually ate something. Then the head nurse came in early and spoke with my mom. They thought I was asleep. She said she was going to remove the tubes and the less I knew, the better. I wish I was asleep. She asked could she look at my back, where the epidural was. I told her I knew what was happening. She pulled it out quickly, I felt it slither out and then a sharp pain pierced my spine. I screamed. I begged her to go slow for the drainage tubes. But she said it would be easier if it was quick. One went and I felt it tear out. Straight away she took the second one and it felt as bad the first one. There was blood on the curtains from the speed they came out at.
"Now for the catheter." I was petrified at this stage. She began to disconnect it and then I felt a massive balloon pop in my bladder. And then I asked how would the balloon come out. "Like this," she said and I could see her dragging it as it burned me.
"That wasn't too bad, was it?" she attempted to explain. She had dealt with patients like me for years and knew about the pain we had to suffer and she was going to make sure I went through it for good reasons, not bad.
The pain I felt that day was the worst I ever encountered and it wasn't over. I had three weeks of rehabilitation left because I had to learn how to walk again. And it started that day.
My physiotherapist came around at 11am and I sat out for the first time. She said, "We might get you down to the gym tomorrow". I said, "Tomorrow? Can we not start today?" She was shocked but happy. I was in the gym by 3pm.
In the gym there were two bars that are waist-high and about 10 metres. I looked at them and asked, "Will I be doing them?"
She said, "Yeah, about three times today."
I said to myself I was doing them six times. I managed five and I was disappointed. The next day I did them eight times. While I was in the gym, the other physiotherapists would tell patients how I had four times more metal in my leg than anyone else in the hospital, that I didn't move for four days and I'm three weeks ahead of where I should be for walking.
When I was in there, all I cared about was getting out, if that meant going through all that pain, I would do it. I still do. If I want something, I go get it. I don't wait around for something to happen. I make it happen.
They said I'd be off crutches in six months. I went for a six-week check up and gave my crutches back.
I still had six months of chemo. Along with removing my knee, it would mean that the cancer wouldn't come back, and I was willing to do that. But the chemo was hitting me hard. I might faint instead of sleep and I was losing weight fast. On March 10, I reached my lowest weight, weighing only four-and-a-half stone. I hadn't eaten for 28 days. My mom brought me to Kerry General hospital. From there they brought me to Crumlin. I was given a nasogastric tube and I was fed through that. It was a tube that went through my nose and ran all the way down to my stomach. I had failed myself and I was devastated.
In the end, it turned out that the tube was a good thing. It gave me energy and I even began to eat a little again.
On June 1, 2009, I walked out of St John's Ward a happy man. I was finished my last methotrexate, my last chemo and I promised I would never return as a patient.
Over the next few years I collected over €10,000 for the ward. They looked after me and I promised myself that I was going to do everything I could to look after them. They were looking to renovate the ward for the first time since the Seventies so I had to help.
I had to go for check-ups every four months and on February 15, 2012, I went up for one with my dad. We went for a chest X-ray and took it up to my doctor. That was normal. Until he demanded that the isotope unit open so I could have a CT scan of my chest. I took no notice. I guess I shut it out. We waited for him in a room with yellow paint on the walls. There was a bin next to me and tissues on the table. He came in and told us I had a tumour in my lung. It was back. My heart sank. My world fell apart again. I was angry. This was too much. I stood up and kicked the bin. I wanted to run. I fell to my knees in tears. I couldn't handle it. He said I would be going for surgery the week after, on February 25. I wasn't happy to be doing this all again. They weren't able to tell if I would need chemo until after the surgery, I wasn't happy with that.
I spent the week with my friends. It's hard to call some of them 'friends', when they spend every day with you, they become family.
I broke down the morning of my operation. I didn't want to do it because it meant I would be going back to that life, the life I swore I left behind, the life I was promised I wouldn't see again. They tried to sedate me but I refused because taking that medicine would be like accepting it was real and I couldn't do that. Eventually I was sedated and that was it. The next thing I remember was waking up in intensive care with my mom next to me. She was crying.
"Did everything go OK?" I asked.
She wiped her eyes. "Yeah, everything's OK," she said unconvincingly.
"Why are you...?"
Then it hit me, "I need chemo, don't I?"
She began to cry again. "Yes," she said.
I didn't know what to do. My mom never cries in front of me. I knew there was more. I wanted to hold her but I couldn't move. I have to show her I'm OK.
"I'm OK, mom. I'll be fine. Don't cry. I can do it again," I lied.
The next day I realised I was back to where I was three years ago. In intensive care with an epidural, two drainage tubes in my lung, countless cannulas, a catheter and a pain tube in my throat. I was going to march through this. I was getting out of here and going home before the chemo. That's all I wanted. I met with my surgeon that day. It turned out the tumour was three times the size they thought it was. It was 12cm. They had to remove half my lung with it.
It is unreal the support I am getting. I suppose the first time everyone was like me, new to it all. But this time they know what I look like and the pain I'm going through. I don't take it seriously when I'm at home because if I do, my friends will and I don't want them to worry about me. Cancer has already ruined my life so I'm not going to let it do anything to my friends. So at home I'm Donal, but in hospital I'm sick and that's the way it's going to stay.
The rehabilitation would be slower this time. They took out most of my tubes by Tuesday. The rest were simple. I was still left with one drainage tube for the next few days. But I got started on the rehab.
This time she said we were going to walk two doors down the corridor, a space of 10 metres. It wasn't long enough, half the corridor, 30 metres would |
pigs, fattened them, and sold the meat to friends, or roasted them for the bikers, prostitutes, mayors, and Little Leaguers who partied at Piggy's Palace. The entire city of Port Coquitlam (pop. 53,000), it seemed, was feeding on pigs that had been fed by the suspected serial killer Robert Pickton. Thousands of Consumer Products It wasn't just the guests of Piggy's Palace who consumed Pickton's pigs. The unusable remains of the pigs Robert slaughtered and served to his friends and neighbors--pig entrails, brains, bones, nerve tissue, and gore--were taken by truck to a rendering plant near the DES called West Coast Reduction Ltd. Many are certain that the partial remains of the murdered sex workers were also trucked to West Coast Reduction Ltd. Located on 105 North Com- mercial Drive, West Coast Reduction's facility is impressive. It's a complex of huge cylindrical cookers, storage tanks, office buildings, industrial stacks, and railroad tracks. Underground pipelines connect it with one of the biggest ports on the Pacific Rim; huge orange cranes loom just behind it, and the surrounding air is relatively clean, although once in a while the smell of something awful wafts from an unidentifiable source. The plant turns animal bones, guts, fish, blood, pig entrails, used restaurant grease, and, now many believe, the remains of sex workers into a number of consumer products, like lipstick base, soaps, shampoos, and perfumes. These commodities that improve human appearance are shipped all over the world. Six blocks up from the rendering plant, the most fashionable part of Vancouver begins. Commercial Drive is lined with restaurants that serve Cuban finger foods, theaters that screen Bollywood films, and stores that sell Italian shoes. Here hipsters visit a wild variety of trendy cafes, tapas bars, spas, heath-food groceries, and cosmetic shops. All of these urban pleasures are walking distance from the rendering plant, the place where Robert Pickton brought the intestines of his slaughtered hogs for more than 20 years, according West Coast Reduction's records. After emptying his truck, he is believed to have picked up sex workers, sometimes within a block of the plant. "Vancouver residents have recently learned... that fragments of some of these dead women's bodies may have entered the food chain through the rendering plant," writes cultural historian Denise Blake Oleksijczuk in an essay titled "Haunted Spaces." (As well as beauty products, rendering plants also make food for farm animals that humans consume.) Oleksijczuk cites a statement made by the regional director of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Sheila Fagnan, to the Vancouver Sun: "[We] made inquiries after learning that Robert Pickton had met the women he is accused of killing on his trips to the rendering plant.... Any testing that would have been done [at the plant] would be around surveillance for chemical residues. I can't imagine any testing that would distinguish, um, you know--[one] animal matter... from another." The Heart of the DES The DES area, where Pickton picked up many of the women he allegedly murdered, is only 10 blocks west of the rendering plant. Pickton liked to hang out in the seediest hotels on East Hastings Street, the most notorious of which are the Roosevelt Hotel, on Main Street and East Hastings, and the Astoria Hotel, on Hawks Street and East Hastings. During another visit to Vancouver, I went to the Roosevelt Hotel, which is in the heart of the DES, near the Carnegie Community Centre. The building is not wide--barely 20 feet of street front--thus making it hard to find. When I located it, I talked to an East Indian concierge through an exceptionally sturdy double-hung gate that blocks the entrance. He asked if I wanted to visit someone and I said yes, Robert Pickton's girlfriend, who for 18 months lived on the death farm. She is reported to be a junkie, half sensible, and is now infamous for having arranged fatal farm visits for several women who were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel. One of those women was Andrea Joesbury, who lived in room 201, disappeared in June 2001, and whose remains were found on the farm the following year. I wanted to see if Pickton's suspect girlfriend was still staying in the Roosevelt Hotel. But I was told that no one by that name was registered in the hotel. The Astoria Hotel is six blocks east of the Roosevelt Hotel. On the ground floor of the Astoria sits a sunless bar. The booze, as one might expect, was cheap; but the floor beneath the bar, as one might not have expected, vibrated, at times rather violently, as if a train were passing underneath. The cause of these unsettling tremors was a boxing ring in the hotel's basement. Under a fluorescent light, local toughs beat each other soundly enough to shake the bar stools above. The bartender, a biggish, handsome East Indian man in his mid-30s, who wore a flashy silver chain around his neck, served me a reasonably strong drink. I asked him about Pickton. "That faker--he used to sit right over there," the bartender said, pointing to an empty table. "He sat there all the time, by himself." What kind of person was Pickton? "He was a wannabe, you know, he wanted to be a biker, a Hells Angel, a mean leather guy. But everyone knew he was a weasel, a wannabe." The bartender claims he wasn't surprised when he heard Pickton was a serial killer. "I mean you can't imagine hanging out with a guy like that without something bad happening." The Memorial Starting from Astoria Hotel, there is an uninterrupted course that leads to the mouth of Dominion Avenue. After a drink or two, Pickton simply had to head east with a prostitute by his side, swerving to the left as East Hastings turns into Inlet Drive, and then swerving left again, as Inlet Drive becomes Barnet Highway and passes above Simon Fraser University, where Professor Anderson experiments with the corpses of clothed pigs. A sharp left turns Barnet Highway into St. John Street; after a mile, Barnet Highway resumes, momentarily, before dissolving into Lougheed Highway, the very highway whose construction in the '50s and '60s forced Ma and Pa Pickton to move and settle on Dominion Avenue in 1963. Thirty-three years later, a partially clothed DES sex-trade worker and drug addict, Wendy Lynn Eistetter, stumbled out onto Dominion Avenue at 1:45 a.m., covered in blood, fleeing Robert Pickton, who according to the police report had stabbed her "repeatedly with... a brown-handled knife." Though the police charged Pickton with attempted murder on March 23, 1997, it was later dropped because the prosecutors believed they would not get a conviction (who would the jury believe, a millionaire pig farmer or an impecunious junkie?). After the law set Robert Pickton free, up to 30 more women went missing in the DES area. When I drive out to the farm with Elaine Allan we also stop at the gate to Piggy's Palace. The owner of the house, David Pickton, is not at home; and the tin shed that stretches above a clump of bushes, rubble, and tall grass is unoccupied. That anyone would attend a party at this "palace" defies belief. There is nothing festive about this property; it looks like an industrial wasteland surrounded by farms that produce the strangest of fruits, the most alien of vegetables. There is a rumor that the man charged with the Green River murders, Gary Ridgway, once visited Piggy's Palace, and that would make perfect sense; he would have been happy here amongst the garbage, pickup trucks, rubble, wild grass, trees, and mud--it would have reminded him of the scenes of his many alleged crimes. Before leaving the Dominion Triangle Area, Allan and I visit a makeshift memorial across the street from the pig farm and next to the Costco. In front of a white tent there is an odd garden of old and new flowers, snapshots and news photos, short poems, and what appear to be personal items, like teddy bears, left by friends and relatives of the murdered women. The police and scientists still occupy the farm, still search for the remains, still exit its gate to visit the Starbucks at the mall. Eventually the investigation will end, the police tape will come down, and the scientists will depart. What will happen to Canada's most notorious pig farm then? "They must build a park," Allan says without hesitation, "a place where the souls of these women can roam in peace." I agree with Allan's vision, of course, but I doubt there will ever be a park on this site. Construction presses in along the border of the pig farm. The developers are still building and selling townhouses. One real-estate agent told me that the value of the homes near the farm have not decreased but increased. A house along Dominion Avenue goes for around $300,000 Canadian dollars--roughly $230,000 American. The developers want Pickton's land, and a memorial to sex-trade workers and drug addicts who were murdered in the heart of this thriving suburban area just won't do. Allan seems angered by my pessimism, but a short drive around the neighborhood--with its fathers cutting lawns, mothers planting flowers, children riding mountain bikes, all within meters of the death farm--makes it clear that the indifference the police demonstrated toward the vanishing women is identical to the indifference this suburban community is demonstrating toward the body parts recovered in its midst. "They must build a park in their memory," Allan says, looking out the window of the car. "How can people live on the grave of these women? Their ghosts will haunt them."
"The Case of the Missing Vancouver Sex-Trade Workers" Though they have no corpses or hard evidence to back their claims, prostitutes and social workers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside suspect a serial killer is responsible for the disappearance of more than 29 local sex-trade workers. Police are less certain. "We have no crime scenes, we have no bodies... It's very frustrating." Vancouver police spokeswoman Constable Anne Drennan told the press. "It's one of the most difficult files we've ever worked because of the lack of clear evidence." Patricia Gay Perkins was the first to disappear in 1978, but she was not reported missing until 1996. Six more women vanished between 1978 and 1995. The pace picked up in 1995 with three new disappearances; three more in 1996; six in 1998; and eight more in 1997. As of this writing, two prostitutes have been reported missing in 1999. The victims range in age from 19 to 46. Most are described on missing-persons posters as known drug users and prostitutes frequenting Vancouver's ravished Downtown Eastside. The missing women reportedly sold sex to feed their intravenous cocaine and/or heroin habits. Some had HIV, hepatitis or both. They all left behind their belongings, bank accounts, children in foster care, welfare checks. "You're talking about women on welfare who didn't pick up their last welfare check, who left their belongings in a dingy hotel room." said Constable Drennan. "It's not as though they could just jump on a plane and fly to Toronto." One missing woman, Angela Jardine, disappeared in her bright pink formal gown, leaving in her dingy hotel room an eerie reminder of her possible untimely death -- an unmailed Easter card addressed to her parents saying: "Know how much I love you, Mother and Dad? A whole bunch!" Stephanie Lane disappeared leaving behind a child with her mother and an uncashed welfare check. Though having into a life of prostitution and drugs, Lane kept in contact with her mom, always calling her for birthdays and holidays. It's been three years since she last heard from her. The issue of the missing women was brought to national prominence in March, 1999 when Jamie Lee Hamilton, a transsexual and former prostitute now director of a drop-in center for sex-trade workers, called a news conference to bring the disappearances to public attention. At the news conference Hamilton and others were highly critical of the police's lackadaisical attitude towards the missing prostitutes. At first, friends and relatives of the missing blamed authorities for ignoring the situation. Some families, disenchanted by the police investigation, have hired detective agencies to look into the situation. Six months after repeated protest marches and memorial services for the missing women, local authorities have changed their tune and stepped up their investigative efforts. "You can always say somebody is not doing enough," Drennan said. "We are doing everything literally we can think of that we can do. We're not afraid to acknowledge there could be a serial killer or multiple killers." Though during a phone conversation on December 8, 1999 Constable Drennan said emphatically that nothing pointed towards a serial killer being involved: "Nothing at all suggest the existence of a serial killer." When asked for an interview for this book, Constable Drennan said the situation in Vancouver was "not suited for a book on serial killers considering there is no evidence or bodies." The women on the streets and those closest to them disagree with the Constable's opinion. "The women here don't talk about it very much because they're so scared," said Elaine Allan, executive director of the Women's Information Safe House, a drop-in center for sex trade workers. Surprised by the Constable's position, Allan remarked on the fact that no missing women have been reported since the case was featured on America's Most Wanted. Some women believe its a border-hopper, perhaps even infamous Green River Killer, coming from the United States to satisfy his murderous fantasies. Some think it is a snuff film ring, or a lethal merchant marine crew kidnapping the women and murdering them at sea. Others, according to Allan, try not to think. The alternatives are to grim. Using the mass publicity of prime time television on both sides of the border, investigators featured the case in the crime-busting TV program America's Most Wanted. The show aired July 31, 1999, fanfaring the $100,000 reward. It prompted over 100 calls to the program's Washington headquarters. "Only 20 were thought to be useful; the task force is investigating them," said Drennan. Reaching investigative overdrive, the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Vancouver Police Board Authorized a $100,000 reward for information leading to the resolution of the case. Adding to the effort one of Vancouver's largest private detective agencies, CPA Confidence Group, offered four of their "cadaver" dogs to search selected areas, looking for decomposing human remains. There was even an attempt spearheaded by local business leaders to give cell phones to prostitutes with 911 on the speed dial. The idea was quickly dismissed because of fears that the sex-trade workers would use their new toys to conduct their age-old business. Police say that Vancouver, being flanked by the sea and mountains, is the perfect spot for stashing bodies out of sight. "The possible grave sites are endless," Drennan said. "If there is a predator out there, he may have a common grave site. But finding that is so difficult." Though a more plausible explanation would be a person, like Chicago killer John Wayne Gacy, stashing the bodies in a basement, or someone dumping them in the open sea. "I think it's a combination." said Elaine Allen. "There's so many women missing it's almost ridiculous to think its one person doing it" John Lowman, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University, believes a combination of several factors could explain the mystery. Since 1985, at least 60 prostitutes in British Columbia have been killed by johns, drug dealers and pimps. "It suggests that these missing women may well have met the same fate," Lowman said. It is not unusual for women who sell sex in the street and are addicted to drugs to disappear. They check in for rehab. They leave the streets. They move to another city. They overdose. They commit suicide. They are committed to hospitals. In the past, police say, women reported missing usually reappear within a year or two, dead or alive. "All of sudden that wasn't happening anymore," Drennan said. "They just stayed missing. That's what became most frightening." And though all circumstantial evidence indicates foul play, investigators cannot confirm that any of the disappearances are even related. Police have sent missing-persons reports to psychiatric hospitals, morgues and welfare offices across Canada and the United States. Of the original 31 women reported missing, only two of them were located, both dead. One, Karen Anne Smith, died February 13, 1999 from heart problems related to Hepatitis C in an Edmonton hospital. She was last seen on the streets of Vancouver in 1994. The other, Linda Jean Coombes, died of a heroin overdose in an east Vancouver bowling alley February 15, 1994. To keep track of the prostitutes two law enforcement agencies have asked them to record personal data on registries that would give police clues if they were to disappear. The registries -- which have been signed by 60 prostitutes -- include questions about previous bad dates, stalkers, or anything or anyone they were concerned about? It also records who would most likely know if they were missing. The prostitutes are also taking self-defense lessons and have been given special codes and asked to call in occasionally to let authorities know they are still alive. "A lot of them are being more cautious now, working by day or with somebody else," said Deb Mearns, who coordinates safety programs for the prostitutes. Using a new vice squad computer program, the Deter and Identify Sextrade Consumers (DISC) database, investigators hope to identify more suspects. The program allows officers to index every piece of information they gather about johns, pimps and prostitutes into a searchable database. The information includes regulars in the red-light districts, their nicknames, physical and vehicular descriptions, and even states if they have a specific perversions or tattoo. Deputy Police Chief Gary Greer, former district commander for the Downtown Eastside, said he believes the street women make the perfect target for a serial killer. They readily get into cars with strangers, not many people notice their disappearance, and fewer still would report them missing. "With a prostitute who goes by a street name, who's picked up by a john, and then another john, whose intention is to be unseen, to be anonymous - for a predator, that's perfect," Greer said. Constable Dave Dickson, a 20-year Downtown Eastside veteran who was the first policeman to notice the disappearances, believes prostitutes still working the streets are upset by the mystery, but not enough to change their ways. "If they're heavily addicted and need money, they're probably going to jump in the car with a guy no matter what anyone tells them... They come from such horrible backgrounds, they've been sexually abused their whole lives. They're not afraid of anything." The Downtown Eastside Youth Activity Society (DEYAS) has compiled a list of bad johns from information obtained from task force, social workers and sex-trade workers, which they distribute every week to prostitutes and police. The list -- called the Creep List -- already has 50 potential suspects. "There are a lot of bad dates out there," Dickson said. "Where do you start when you've got a thousand guys capable of doing something like this? Some of them don't come down here for sex. They come down to beat on the girls." Allen says the streets around the Downtown Eastside are dark and isolated, making the women "vulnerable to men who want to get off being violent. They might not be serial killers, but they are still very dangerous customers." At the WISH Drop-In Center, Allen says all the women she sees, "have been beaten up by creeps and face it every night when they go out." Like the victims in the serial killer cases in Spokane and Chicago, the women disappearing in Vancouver come from the most vulnerable and damaged segment of society. "More than 90 percent of them were abused as kids. A smaller percentage started doing drugs, got into the life and couldn't get out." Allen believes all her clients are suffering from some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a disorder more commonly associated with battle-shocked veterans and torture survivors. "Incest abuse victims, if they were in treatment with a psychiatrist, would be getting anti-depressants, anti-anxiety medication, sleeping pills, but these women who are not in treatment. They self-medicate. That's what the heroin is all about. that's why we're here. That's why all these women are here." Vancouver police have been talking to officers in Spokane and Portland, comparing notes about their recent cases of cluster killings. But with no crime scenes, corpses or any other tangible evidence, Vancouver authorities have little notes to compare. Local officers have also spoken to King County detective Tom Jenson who is the only investigator left working on the Green River Killer case. Being just 117 miles north of Seattle, there is the possibility that a serial killer could be simultaneously working on both sides of the border. Authorities have also sought advice from Detective Lt. William Siegrist, of Poughkeepsie, New York who investigated the case of Kendall Francois. In 1998 Francois was arrested for serial killing eight prostitutes over a two-year period. Francois stashed the bodies of his victims in his family's home. In both the Vancouver and Poughkeepsie cases, prostitutes with close ties to the community who were in contact with their families on a regular basis vanished without a trace. In the Poughkeepsie cases Siegrist reported that Francois had sex with more than 50 prostitutes and was well-known on the street. Francois also had a history of committing acts of violence against the women. Vancouver's Downtown Eastside -- which is steps away from the city's trendy Hastings Street -- is a neighborhood of junkies, pawn shops, saloons and run-down rooming houses. It's known worldwide for its high HIV rate. It is estimated that more than a quarter of the local junkies and 80 percent of Eastside prostitutes have tested positive for HIV. The local needle-exchange center at the DEYAS hand out about 2.4 million needles a year, more than any other center in North America. Due partly to Vancouver's mild winters, the area is a magnet for runaways, drifters, impoverished Indians and mentally ill people, many of whom end up living in the streets doing drugs and turning tricks. Whereas in 1998 only 18 people were murdered in Vancouver, 193 died from overdoses of heroin, cocaine or illicitly bought methadone. "We don't have a lot of success stories," said Allan, whose drop-in center is used by nearly every prostitute in the Downtown Eastside, especially the ones that are ravished by drugs. Allan knew one of the women, Jacquilene McDonell, one of the last to go missing. "It was tragic," she recalls when she found out Jackie disappeared. "She was young, was articulate, she was nice, she was 21-years-old, had a son, was kind of tripping on her drugs, she was too good for this place." Like the others, Jackie's existence on earth was surrounded by tragedy. "Their forearms are solidly scared with cigarette burns and deep cut marks," she says of the women she mothers at her center. "They're signs of being extremely abused from a young age. They have to self-mutilate because the pain in their head is so bad, those are the one's that are going missing." "I really hope it is a serial killer," said the Rev. Ruth Wright of Vancouver's First United Church, a community cornerstone for 114 years which houses the WISH drop-in center for sex-trade workers. The alternative, according to the reverend, "would mean there are 31 separate killers out there and that much evil would be too much." Wright, a veteran of the ravaged Downtown Eastside, has survived the neighborhood's ballooning AIDS epidemic and the effects of a 1993 lethal batch of heroin that killed 300 junkies. However, this new scourge is what she finds most horrifying. Allan believes the 29 missing prostitutes could have been killed at sea. Prostitutes are often lured onto ships at the Vancouver harbor with promises of free heroin and eager johns, but end up as sex-slaves in a heroin daze until they are thrown overboard. Authorities see this as a possibility. "Whether the boats could be involved is one of the possibilities we're looking into," said police spokeswoman Anne Drennan. Allan knows, from conversations with prostitutes at the Safe House, that the ships play a pivotal role in their lives. "Many of the women I've talked to have been on the boats," she said. "Many of these sex-trade workers are heavily into heroin addiction, desperate for their next fix. Also remember, something like 95 percent of all the heroin coming into Canada hits the shore first right here in Vancouver." Sailors make a large percentage of the prostitute's clientele. Consequently, it's not uncommon for them to go on a boat. Once onboard the women are kept captive as the ship's sex-toy. Some escape, others, who knows. Allen says that usually the younger women whose drug habits raging are out of control are the one's that end up in the ships. "The lure of the drugs," she says, "the lure of being able to do more dates" gets the women to work the port. Many of those who go on the boats try to have someone "keep their six" -- a street expression meaning watching their back. In a story related to Allan at the drop-in center, one woman was locked in a cabin in a Filipino freighter with a big block of heroin and was only let out after her friend "keeping her six" -- a Russian sailor -- threatened to go to the police with pictures of her getting on board. "It would be very easy to hide someone on a boat," said Allan. "When you get to open sea and you're on nightwatch it would be very easy to toss someone overboard." Women working the streets near the docks told the Calgary Sun they believe the sea slaughter is a feasible explanation for the disappearances. Dumped from freighters and international commercial ships far out in the Pacific Ocean, the bodies would forever vanish. Though, if several men were involved, one would eventually talk. Plausibly, it could be a foreign crew coming into town periodically. On Portside Park, overlooking the harbor, a memorial stone dedicated to all the Downtown Eastside murder victims has been unofficially made into an altar in honor of the missing women. There Wayne Leng remembers with sadness his missing friend Sarah DeVries, a 29-year-old heroin-addicted prostitute who disappeared in 1998. Leng, a 50 year-old automotive technician, was the last person to see her alive. Consumed with finding her, Leng has done everything from plastering posters all over Vancouver's red-light district to making a web site dedicated to the missing prostitutes. Warm and friendly, the disappearance of Black Sarah, as she was known by everyone in Vancouver's red light district, was a particularly hard blow for the Downtown Eastside. Unlike other victims, Sarah came from an upper middle class family who have put the time and energy to bring to attention the enfolding tragedy. DeVries' sister Maggie, who has been openly critical about the authorities' attitude, has put a grieving face to the endless cavalcade of unsolved cases. Together with Wayne Leng they have turned Black Sarah into the symbol for the missing. DeVries, like the 28 other women, was a street junkie and prostitute. Like the others, she was shooting up to $1,000 worth of drugs a day in between tricks. She had HIV and hepatitis. Like the others she worked an area known as the Lower Track where $10 can buy oral sex. Some might even go cheaper, for a pack of cigarettes and a rock of cocaine. But unlike the others, she came from an affluent family that got involved after she disappeared. DeVries had a restless mind that she revealed in a journal full of poems, thoughts and drawings. In a strange twist of fate, she appeared in a TV documentary where she appears talking to the camera and shooting-up. "When you need your next fix, you're sick, puking, it's like having the flu, a cold, arthritis, all at the same time, only multiplied a hundred times," she said to the camera. Sarah said there are only three ways off the streets. "You go to jail, you end up dead, or you do a life sentence here." Here is one of her poems reflecting her tragic struggles with drugs and life on the streets. Woman's body found beaten beyond recognition.
You sip your coffee,
Taking a drag of your smoke,
Turning the page,
Taking a bite of your toast.
Just another day, just another death,
Just one more thing for you to forget,
You and your soft sheltered life,
Just go on and on,
For nobody special from your world is gone.
Just another Hastings Street whore
Sentenced to death.
No judge, no jury, no trial, no mercy.
The judge's gavel already fallen,
Sentence already passed. Sadly, Sarah poems will remain as the voice of 29 victims that lived and died on the margins of society, for no fault of their own. She is but another lost life cut short by someone preying on the weak and vulnerable. Someone who sees no value in life: another ruthless predator on the loose... MAYHEM On Willy's Pig Farm, Sifting for Clues Canadian Police Think They've Found the Pieces of a Grisly Puzzle, and 15 Missing Women By DeNeen Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, September 5, 2004; Page D01 PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. -- DNA was all that remained of Dawn, police told him. With that announcement, his baby sister, missing for four years, was reduced to three letters. Nobody told him what parts of her body were found on the notorious pig farm in Canada. Was it her leg, arm, foot, head? Ernie Crey remembers that police came to his door one evening and announced that his sister had been added to the long list of women who allegedly disappeared at Robert William "Willy" Pickton's pig farm. The farm is where police say remains of women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside section were found. Now, Crey is driving the highway east, driving to that pig farm, hoping himself to find answers. He passes the Downtown Eastside, a version of hell populated by prostitutes, drug addicts and pimps. He passes a rendering plant. His big hands grip the steering wheel. His dark eyes focus on the road. He shows no emotion. He says that when he weeps, he weeps alone. He turns off the air conditioning and rolls down the windows. The traffic out of Vancouver is creeping. Crey is taking the long route to the death site. Sandra Gagnon, whose sister has been missing for seven years, rides in the back seat. She makes small talk about the weather. It hides her angst. Neither Crey nor Gagnon has recently been to the pig farm, once the site of a massive police investigation. Forensic experts -- including 102 anthropologists -- spent two years sifting through 370,000 cubic yards of mud and pig manure, looking for pieces of missing women. Crey slows the car and turns off the highway. The farm, 20 miles east of Vancouver, is behind a Save-On-Foods grocery, a Costco and a Denny's restaurant. The farm, or what was once a farm, is quiet. No more yellow tape. No more news cameras. The makeshift memorials have been cleared away. What is left is just dirt. Even the buildings were destroyed as police searched. Crey parks, and he and Gagnon get out and walk along the chain-link fence that surrounds the site. They look out over the landscape. A red truck pulls up. "That looks like Dave Pickton, the brother," Crey says. A short man in dirty jeans with dirty blond hair and burnt-red skin climbs down from the truck. A German shepherd follows him. Crey and Gagnon brace to be told to leave, but the unexpected happens. Dave Pickton, younger brother of the accused serial killer, walks over. "You must be Ernie," he says to Crey. "I seen you on television." Then Dave Pickton reaches out to shake the hands of the siblings whose sisters may have been slaughtered. The Defendant on Display If Willy Pickton is convicted, he will become one of the most prolific serial killers in Canadian history. He is charged with killing 15 women, and prosecutors have indicated they intend to charge him with seven more as police investigate the cases of 63 women who have disappeared from Downtown Eastside during the 20 years before his arrest. Canada's most notorious serial killer is Clifford Olson, who killed 11 children in British Columbia in the 1980s. The United States' worst serial killer operated south of Vancouver, in Seattle -- the "Green River Killer," Gary Ridgway, killed 48. By comparison, Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men from 1978 to 1991, and Ted Bundy is believed to have killed 28 women in the late '70s. Crey and Gagnon got their first chance to look at Pickton a year ago during his preliminary hearing at a courthouse six miles from the farm. As relatives crowded into the small courtroom, Pickton sat in a glass cage. Up close, he looked meek. He was wearing a maroon sweater and black pants. His graying hair fell in strings over his blue collar. He cocked his head slightly as he listened to the case against him. Sometimes he smiled faintly to himself as he wrote with his long, skinny fingers on white paper in a green notebook behind bulletproof glass. Sometimes he slept. When he was awake, he stared blankly, never acknowledging the victims' relatives in the courtroom. His eyes seemed to be the color of water. The relatives came because they wanted to find answers, about what happened to their daughters, sisters, mothers, to find out what kind of man would do "this" to so many women. Many were shocked when they saw the suspect: Up close, Pickton's size was incomprehensible. He was just 155 pounds, a tiny man accused of being a monster. "If you were to see him, you wouldn't get the hint of pure evil," says Gagnon. Pickton, 54, ran an unlicensed slaughterhouse. Human remains may have been mixed with pigs' there, officials say. Police have said they recovered DNA, but will give no details, and news reports have cited unnamed police sources as saying personal items -- teeth, purses, identification, bone fragments -- from women were found. The Pickton farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., in 2002. In a massive police investigation, forensic experts -- including 102 anthropologists -- spent two years sifting through 370,000 cubic yards of mud and pig manure, looking for pieces of missing women. Pickton has pleaded not guilty. His trial is expected to begin next spring. Because of a publication ban in Canada on evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, not all that is known or said can be written about. As a newspaper with international distribution, The Washington Post observes the ban. Still, eerie details have been revealed. Vanished From the Streets Vancouver's Downtown Eastside is Canada's poorest postal code. These blocks, littered with bloodstains, crack vials and dirty condoms, are often called the "Low Track," or skid row. They hold Canada's highest concentration of prostitution, drug addiction, homelessness and mental illness. In the shadow of mountains and under broad daylight, addicts poke needles into their arms searching for good veins. Dealers oversee them, as they scratch sidewalks looking for crumbs of drugs. Prostitutes sell their bodies for $10, $15, $20, enough to feed drug habits, then return to these streets for more. On these corners, sexual predators proliferate. And this is where the story of Vancouver's missing women begins. Each day, prostitutes are beaten, raped, robbed, tied up, held down, doused and burned. Some men slam car doors on their legs. One man tried to cram a ball down a prostitute's throat. Another took women to hotels and forced them to drink until they poisoned themselves. Prostitutes from these corners, it is said, liked to hang out at Pickton's pig farm or at a nearby place called Piggy's Palace, a barn turned into a bar where Pickton's brother, Dave, threw parties and people ate roasted pig. The Pickton brothers and a sister, Linda, had grown up in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam. According to local records, their parents, Leonard and Helen, bought the pig farm in 1963 for $18,000 Canadian. In 1979, after their mother died, the children inherited the farm. Fifteen years later, it was assessed at more than $7 million. Parts were sold to a developer, the city and the school district. Instantly, the children became wealthy. Dave managed the farm, and Robert worked his slaughterhouse. (By this time, Linda, who had gone off to school before the family moved to the farm, was married and lived elsewhere.) Neighbors described Willy as slow but not retarded, a man who never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes. Some say he was nice. They say the Picktons' parties were for charity and his employees. Relatives say that many women never returned from them, and that they told police but were ignored. "That farm was the dredges of the earth," says Jamie Lee Hamilton, who works the streets in Downtown Eastside. "It was a hellhole. You can say to someone, 'Don't go,' but if they are an addict, the addiction overcomes the senses.... Police had known about the farm for quite some time, but nothing changed." Police say that, because of the nature of the prostitution life, it was hard to know whether a woman was really missing or just gone. The first woman on their list disappeared in 1983. It would take 19 years and 62 more women before police admitted that one person might have killed so many. "Up until three years ago, the Vancouver city police were adamant the disappearance of women could not be attributed to a serial killer," says Crey. "They said the women were too transient, that if you looked hard enough, you would find them in another city." In 1997, nearly five years before Pickton's arrest, a woman told police she had escaped from the pig farm. She said she had gone there for drugs and booze, but he tried to handcuff her so she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. He stabbed her back, she told police, but she got away. Pickton was charged with confining and stabbing Wendy Lynn Eistetter, but the charges were |
face charges including “extortion, impersonation and violations of India’s information technology laws” for their role in the operation, which was big enough to fill several stories of an office building in Mumbai. Hundreds of hard drives, high-end servers, and other electronics have been seized.
The gang had accomplices in the United States, who provided personal information on the victims, and took a 30 percent cut of the loot.
“U.S. authorities have struggled to combat an epidemic of swindlers targeting taxpayers. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, an IRS watchdog, said it has received more than 1.7 million complaints in the last three years from people reporting phone calls from swindlers impersonating IRS agents. More than 8,800 victims have paid more than $47 million as a result of these scams,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The New York Times states that an inside informant helped to bring the Mumbai operation down after it had been up and running for about a year. Owners and operators of the scam were reportedly “stunned to see the police” because “they never thought that police would raid them.”
The NYT describes how the operation used cell phone text message to frighten Americans into handing over their money:
The call center employees would send mass text messages announcing an urgent inquiry to as many as 10,000 American cellphone numbers, said Parag Manere, deputy commissioner of police in Thane, in the western state of Maharashtra. If recipients called back, the call center employees would introduce themselves as “Christopher or Daniel” and speak with an American accent, impersonating I.R.S. officers. They would then warn the victims that the local police or I.R.S. agents would raid their homes within 30 minutes unless they sent an immediate payment, said Makarand Ranade, another Thane police official.
Another phone scam reported to the IRS involved threatening voice messages. It’s not clear from the New York Times account if the gang sending the text messages was also behind these robocalls, although the report does mention that seven distinct call centers associated with the crime ring were operating out of the same building.30 Minute Southern Instant Pot Chili Recipe – Super-fast Southern Pressure Cooker Chili Recipe
According to my bio, I’m a writer, college professor, and pastor. I’ve been writing on and off for a few years now, and am usually focused on theology, church history, and the Christian life. A few weeks ago, however, I accidentally became a mom-blogger for a day. We had gotten an Instant Pot (highly recommended!) for Christmas, and have greatly enjoyed cooking with it. I published my first recipe, Pressure Cooker Bacon Lover’s Stew, and it quickly became the most popular article in the history of this website. Thousands of visitors, hundreds of shares on Pinterest, etc. It was a bit shocking, somewhat humorous…and a little bit puzzling. While I don’t think I’ll ever become a full time food blogger, I do love to cook, and will have some occasional recipes to share here – like today’s recipe: 30 Minute Southern Instant Pot Chili. This was a huge hit with our family – even our finicky eaters gobbled it up, and the leftovers lasted only about 24 hours. If you are efficient, you can make it start to finish in less than 30 minutes. Just imagine – you can be eating this delicious chili THIRTY MINUTES FROM RIGHT NOW. (if you’re quick!) It’s also chock full of vegetables and fiber and is actually fairly healthy. Here we go:
Ingredients (be sure not to fill your Instant Pot, or other pressure cooker beyond the fill line!)
Two pounds of ground beef, or ground chuck.
3-4 medium sized onions
One large (28 oz.) can of Rotel (pick your variety)
One large can of diced tomatoes OR 3-4 large fresh tomatoes, diced.
One can of chili beans (you may substitute kidney beans, or other varieties)
3 pouches (3.75 ounces) of good quality chili powder. I used Pioneer brand. Almost 4 ounces might be a lot for you, but we tend to enjoy the flavor. Avoid chili powder with a lot of filler.
One large bell pepper, or 2-3 smaller Anaheim/Poblano peppers. You can add higher-heat peppers here if that’s your thing.
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of ground cumin
Cayenne pepper to taste. (Be careful: even a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne will significantly increase the heat index of your chili for children and those with a sensitive palate. I prefer to add heat via fresh peppers, or just add extra cayenne to my own individual serving. Neither my wife, nor kids like the spicy life quite as much as I do.)
Prepare:
To begin, set your pressure cooker to manual and brown the two pounds of meat in the pot itself, stirring occasionally so that all the meat is browned. This step could take 7 or so minutes, so while your beef is browning, continue veggie slicing and other prep. ADD 2/3 of your chili spices to the meat as it browns. OPTIONAL – drain most of the fat off of the meet when done browning. (We leave the majority of it in, because it adds flavor and tenderness to the chili.)
Add diced onions to the top of the meat, and stir
Pour tomatoes and Rotel on top of the onion/beef mixture.
Add diced pepper(s) and stir into the mixture.
Add the remaining chili powder and other spices (cumin, garlic, cayenne.) If you want to include some oregano or any other of your favorite chili spices, then add them now. If you are really adventurous, you might want to add an angry red pepper here…but I wouldn’t recommend it for the children. Far too frightening. 😉 Stir up the ingredients well, and seal the lid of your pressure cooker, ensuring that the valve is in the proper (sealed) position. Set your timer for 12-16 minutes, and cook on high pressure. The veggies will be a little snappier on the low end of that scale, and a little more tender on the higher end. We usually set our timer to 16 minutes – chili shouldn’t be crunchy.
Stir the chili well and taste to ensure that no salt or extra heat (cayenne or red pepper flakes) is needed. Serve in bowls with cornbread on the side if you are in the South, and whatever it is that your people eat with chili if you are elsewhere. We usually sprinkle some sharp cheddar cheese on top of the chili, but that is optional. ENJOY – and marvel at the fact that you can have delicious, fresh chili within about 30 minutes of beginning to cook.
Here’s the results: It might not be the prettiest food ever made, but almost nothing is better on a cold January day than a good bowl of chili!
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commentsOf chief concern was Carillion Canada, the giant company hired in 2010 to rebuild the century-old train station and install a new shopping concourse and other features. Though some issues laid out in year-old documents obtained by the Star have been fixed, on the advice of the consultants, Carillion may get its walking papers at the end of the year.
The City of Toronto had to hire two top construction consultants to rein in costs and speed up progress on the $795 million Union Station revitalization project, according to documents and interviews with city officials.
Carillion declined to speak to the Star about this issue, referring all questions back to the city.
“I can choose not to continue with (Carillion),” Coveduck said in an interview. He draws that authority from a city council decision last December giving him that power.
“We may decide to change the engine on the train,” said Richard Coveduck, a plain-speaking, city bureaucrat and engineer with 40 years’ experience. Coveduck is the city’s director of design and construction.
The re-imagined Union Station — which includes improvements for TTC, GO Transit and VIA Rail users — includes a second subway platform to relieve overcrowding, a new atrium train shed for GO Transit, a second passenger concourse, glass-covered entrances between the subway and GO concourse, a new retail space below the station and expansion of the PATH system. It is scheduled to be fully complete by the end of 2016.
Costs have continued to climb as the plan has evolved, jumping a further $80 million in October.
Documents from the March-May 2013 time period lay out a series of problems with the mammoth project. For example, at one point, the city expected 12 structural columns to have been completed and only two were. In another instance, a review of Carillion’s work progress revealed poor planning.
“(Carillion Canada Inc.’s) revised baseline schedule continues to be incomplete in content, contains constrained dates without supporting logic, and is not adequate to track actual progress against planned dates,” Stantec consulting engineer Greig Cooke concluded in a memo to the city on April 11, 2013. The memo and other documents were released following a Toronto Star freedom of information request.
The memo went on to say that dates for major milestones such as GO Transit’s new York Concourse “are unclear and continue to slip with each schedule revision by Carillion.”
Other priorities identified by the city — including a connection to the northwest PATH system — had been forgotten altogether in the new plan, Cooke wrote.
Stantec, and cost consultant A.W. Hooker, were on the job for several months when that memo was written.
In a review of their documents, the Star found the city and its consultants taking issue with how the project — which has caused enormous disruption to commuters — was proceeding. For example, some work took place without paying attention to how it would affect other work. These so-called “interference” issues resulted in some work having to be done twice.
Carillion’s job is to provide construction management services, working with the project architect and hiring myriad subtrades to perform specific tasks. At one point, the city’s Coveduck said they discovered planned work by a trade to the below-street-level front area of the train station — termed “the moat” — was going to be “humongously overbudget.” He said the city put a stop to that and had the contract rebid.
Carillion is responsible for overseeing $495 million worth of the $795 million project. Most of that work will be done by late this year, at which time Coveduck said the city may look elsewhere for a builder.
The two consulting companies were brought in after Coveduck and his staff developed “some concerns with Carillion’s performance” in late 2012.
“There were time and budget issues and some missing information, documents. We felt they were not fulfilling all of the duties,” Coveduck said.
While the consultants have cost the city money — the Star has not been able to determine how much — Coveduck said they will save dollars in the long run.
“It is all about protecting the public purse,” he said.
Soon after the city began having concerns with Carillion’s performance, the city’s auditor general produced a report raising issues about the progress of the giant renovation.
Coveduck said, “We then had confirmation from two sources that there were some deficiencies with Carillion.”
The documents obtained by the Star reveal that despite even after the consultants were hired, problems continued. The practice appears to be that when city workers have concerns, they reach out to one of the consultants.
In discussing some future timelines for completed jobs, the project’s manager of construction for the city, John Spinelli, wrote to consultant Cooke in an email looking for help.
Spinelli asked Cooke if a timeline set out by Carillion was “sensible” or “realistic.” He had specific concerns about being able to hand over the new York Concourse to GO Transit at the end of 2013, as was then planned.
“You have been here for a while now, so I am relying on you to provide some insight to these questions,” Spinelli wrote.
He worried about delays if the city sent Carillion back to the drawing board.
“Are we better off just accepting the current schedules as the new Baseline... and hold Carillion’s feet to the fire to deliver based upon this schedule without excuse?”
Cooke responded later that day, asking to discuss the matter in person with other city managers and consultants. None of people listed as involved answered questions from the Star on Tuesday.
Other emails between the project’s leads indicate an escalating frustration with Carillion over delays and a “breakdown of communications.”
At one point, on April 30, the city’s principal engineer, Rick Tolkunow, sent an email to Stantec and other city managers asking if there had been an update on budget discrepancies before sending Carillion a “nasty email.”
Metrolinx plans have called for the new York St. concourse to open by the end of the year. But a spokesperson for the provincial agency said on Tuesday evening, that the timing depends on the city.
“We are awaiting a plan from the city and their contractor on the schedule to complete the work which would allow Metrolinx to prepare the York concourse for opening. Once we receive that plan we will be in a better position to determine the final timing on opening of the new York concourse,” said Anne Marie Aikins.
City auditor Jeff Griffiths told the Star his office is digging into the issue and by June will know how many of his 2012 accountability recommendations regarding Union Station have been followed.
“I have people out in the field right now,” Griffiths said in an interview.
Union Station is the busiest transit hub in Canada, and its rebirth is one of the single “most complicated” projects in the country, according to a December city staff report.
The city’s Coveduck said the project is slightly behind in some of its targets, but enough “float” has been built into the plan that the 2016 completion deadline will be met.
“A 100-year-old building, there’s going to be some surprises,” Coveduck said.SINGAPORE - The leaders of the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) have reiterated in a letter to its members that it "does not condone homosexual practice and... considers the homosexual lifestyle as sinful and unacceptable".
The letter, which was seen by The Straits Times, was issued on Friday (Dec 22) in response to some members who have asked if there had been a change in the NCCS' position on homosexuality.
This follows an article published in The Sunday Times on Dec 17, which reported that there is now a growing acceptance among Christians of the idea that homosexuality itself is not wrong, even though a majority of them continue to believe that homosexual acts are a sin. The NCCS had declined to comment for the article.
More also feel that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Christians should not be discriminated against in church, and that the issue of homosexuality can and should be aired more openly in church.
The NCCS, which represents more than 250 churches of diverse Christian traditions and denominations, said "it wishes to assure all members that its position on homosexuality has not changed".
"In holding firmly to the Bible as the authoritative standard for its faith and practice, NCCS exhorts Christians to care for all persons and for one another with the love of Christ our Lord," said the letter.
Related Story Churches building bridges with LGBT Christians
The council referred members to a statement made in July 2003, which said "the Church has historically and consistently held the view that the practice of homosexuality is clearly incompatible with the teachings of the Christian faith".
Still, while it sees homosexual acts as sinful, the NCCS said it is also empathetic that "homosexuals should be regarded and treated no less as persons of worth and dignity", and rejects homophobia and every kind of discrimination against homosexuals.
While the NCCS' theological and moral position on homosexuality has not changed, the council's commitment "to care for same-sex attracted persons causes our member churches to keep seeking appropriate and compassionate ways to relate and reach out to them with the life-changing power of our faith, namely the gospel of forgiveness and new life in Jesus Christ," it added.
Moves that have been made by Christian institutions to build bridges with the LGBT community this year include the establishment of a pastoral ministry giving support to LGBT Catholics by the Catholic Church.
The Ethos Institute for Public Christianity - a Christian think tank formed by the NCCS, Trinity Theological College and the Bible Society of Singapore - also launched a study in April to understand how LGBT Christians feel about how their churches and the wider Singapore Church are engaging them, as well as on LGBT issues.
The NCCS said the extensive survey has been completed, and that the Ethos Institute will be organising a closed-door meeting next year (2018)to share its findings and examine their ramifications with member churches.If you're interested in wearable technology, smartwatches, Internet of Things, iOS/Android app development, or just changing the world with software and hardware, then you need to check out the first Pebble Developer meetup on Thursday, October 2nd at Geekdom on 620 Folsom Street in San Francisco.
Meet other Pebble developers, enthusiasts, and partners to learn how to develop great apps and experiences for Pebble, the smartwach with the largest appstore on the planet. This ongoing meetup will showcase projects from our amazing international developer community who love working on cool apps, exploring great connected hardware integrations, and sharing app development insight for the Pebble (https://getpebble.com/discover) and Pebble Steel (https://getpebble.com/steel) smartwatch.
A few updates:
Pebble can now track your activity (https://blog.getpebble.com/2014/09/30/growth-fitness-value/), including fitness and sleep! We're happy to have new partners and apps in our family including Jawbone and Misfit. We've also reduced the price (http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/30/pebble-price-cut-background-activity-sleep/) of Pebble and Pebble Steel.
Jeremiah Robinson Jawbone's (https://jawbone.com/up) VP of Software and responsible for software engineering, algorithms, and data science will be speaking at the meetup about the Jawbone app and just announced API. (https://blog.getpebble.com/2014/09/30/growth-fitness-value/)
Demos! If you have a Pebble app or integration you want to share at the meetup, sign up (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BBpWGgWOJ5MMCmfIEgyS4nVKtHYNBnKJoQVttKyYv-M/edit?usp=sharing) for a chance to demo!
In addition to giving away cool Pebble schwag, we'll be selling refurbished Pebbles to developers at 50% off and also be raffling away three Pebble Steels!
See what our developers are discussing in the Pebble Forum (http://forums.getpebble.com/categories/developer-discussion)
Follow us on Twitter @PebbleDev (https://twitter.com/PebbleDev)
Who should attend?
Basically, anyone interested in Pebble development! (https://developer.getpebble.com/)
Curious developers
See great examples of what Pebble can do and learn how to build your first Pebble app (https://developer.getpebble.com/getting-started/) in minutes.
Hardcore Pebble Developers
Connect with other great Pebble developers, get new development ideas from Pebble partners, and get one-on-one insight from the Pebble dev team to help answer questions that may not be covered in the forum.
Wearable Tech Curiosity
Whether you're a developer, designer, entrepreneur, or data scientist, learn how to use the Pebble platform to leverage your startup ideas and meet great developers building experiences at the forefront of wearable tech. You can even start simple hacking of your own Pebble smartwatch by learning to make custom watchfaces.
Schedule
6:00-7:00
Meet and greet other Pebble enthusiasts over El Tonayense tacos and beer. Drinking allowed for 21 or older.
7:00-8:15
Quick series of talks from rockstar Pebble developers telling stories of their apps from the frontlines, partners from wearable, maker, and home automation space.
8:15-9:30
Networking and Pebble Steel raffle!
If you have something you've worked on and would like to showcase, please email [masked].
This meetup can help you learn to use Pebble to make something great.
Check out this story of James Mattis—an MIT graduate, engineer, developer, and champion cyclist—leads World Champ Tech, the team behind popular Pebble fitness apps Bike+, Run+, and Walk+, and his latest project, a Kickstarter campaign for a universal Pebble Bike Mount.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27LiGvaeGJs
Make money building great apps and connecting with other apps.
Many developers are making revenue with their unique Pebble apps or building great experiences by integrating with apps like Foursquare, Runkeeper, Yelp, etc.
Control Internet of Things devices or hack other hardware platforms
Learn to control and get notifications from Internet of Things hardware and devices like Nest thermostat, Arduino, Mercedes, Phillips Hue, etc.
If you have something you've worked on and would like to showcase, please email [masked].
Hope to see you there!After 15 years of testing and implementation across the planet, “Green Super Rice,” developed jointly by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, is beginning to have a dramatic effect on crop yields.
The target is to have 20 million hectares under cultivation in another 10 years, according to Dr Jauhar Ali, a senior scientist and regional project coordinator at IRRI in Los Banos, south of Manila. It is in effect another green revolution with the potential to make an enormous contribution to feeding the world’s poor in Asia and Africa.
At some point next year, as much as 1 million hectares in Asia and Africa will be planted in the new strains, which have been produced by intricate crossbreeding and “back crossbreeding” to produce multiple strains that are more resistant to salinity from rising seas, more impervious to drought and disease and can achieve above-average yields without the use of fertilizers or pesticides, making them environmentally safe, according to Ali in a telephone interview.
The multiple strains are also specifically bred for taste and feel in the regions where they are consumed. Some strains, according to Dr Ali, are so hardy that they will grow under conditions that kill conventional rice crops outright. Some 25,000 hectares have been planted in Vietnam and another 5,700 hectares in the Philippines. Additional lines have been planted in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and other countries, achieving yields far above conventional strains and impelling farmers to ask for more.
Those 5,700 hectares being planted in the Philippines are expected to produce 90,000 tonnes of rice.
“At that point, they realized they have gold on their hands,” Ali said. “We are at the fruit-bearing stage. The harvest is good.”
Ali cited the case of a test plot in the Bohol region of the Philippines in which the farmer planted a strain in salt water conditions only to be followed by rains that under normal circumstances would have drowned the seedlings. In turn the area dried out at the flowering stage and received no more water.
“The results were amazing,” Ali said. “Normally he would have received no crop at all. But the plot produced 3.3 tonnes per hectare.”
The ability to grow rice without pesticides or fertilizers, besides saving farmers money, is enormously important for the environment. Asia is becoming the dominant source of nitrogen pollution, producing as much as the rest of the world’s nations combined, particularly in the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas. Pesticide pollution is equally bad.
Green Super Rice is the result of a project begun in 1998, involving the painstaking crossbreeding of more than 250 different potential varieties and rice hybrids. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation originally funded the program with an US$18 million, three year grant. Because the strains have been produced by publicly funded organizations, they do not require payment of royalties, such as those demanded by Monsanto and other commercial companies.
At the outset, Gates met with Li Zhi-kang, who holds a dual position both with IRRI as Senior Molecular Geneticist and Chief Scientist with the Institute of Crop Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing and is considered the father of the process. The two institutions are expected to seek additional funds from the Gates foundation in mid-2015 to speed up implementation across the planet. Phase 1 of the program included testing in 16 countries in Africa, Asia and South Asia. Phase 2, now nearing completion, involves another 16.
Research to come up with Green Super Rice – which does not involve genetic modification, making its strains acceptable to anti-GMO activists – began in 1998 with the launch of an international rice molecular breeding program originally involving more than 18 countries and 36 institutions although funding constraints eventually reduced the program to just IRRI and the Chinese Academy.
It involves taking hundreds of donor cultivars from dozens of different countries, identifying significant variations in responses to drought, global warming and other problems, and "backcross" breeding – painstakingly crossing a hybrid with one of its parents or with a plant genetically like one of its parents, then screening the backcross bulk populations after one or two backcrosses under severe abiotic and biotic stress conditions to identify transgressive segregants that are doing better than both parents and the checks.
The process itself is significant because the method of producing new strains can be used to increase yields of other crops such as wheat, millet and barley, making them hardier and more resistant to disease and insects, although it involves vast amounts of money and the resources of agricultural organizations across the globe. The rice research program is being coordinated through the efforts of an umbrella organization called the Global Rice Science Partnership, under the acronym GRiSP, which seeks to enable the world to coordinate its approach to rice science so that agencies can pool their resources, apply their expertise and collaborate in the delivery of the improved strains to poor rice farmers across the world.
The original Green Revolution began more than 50 years ago when IRRI, established by the Philippine government and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, introduced IR8, the first "miracle rice," as it was called then, to the world, at a time when India especially was on the brink of mass starvation.
IR8, a semi-dwarf variety, yielded about 5 metric tons per hectare without fertilizer and as much as 10 tons under optimal conditions – about 10 times the yield of traditional rice. IR8 was subject to kernel breakage and other problems. But eventually, its successors revolutionized world food production, driving down the price of rice by more than 50 percent and turning India, Thailand and other countries into some of the world’s most successful producers and exporters. Unfortunately, too many of those successors require excessive amounts of fertilizers, contributing to growing environmental problems as the fertilizers flow out of the rice fields and into rivers and are carried to the sea, where they fertilize algae into huge algoblooms, depriving the area of oxygen and contributing to the extinction of fish life.The International System of Units (SI), commonly known as the metric system, is a logical, universal, and precise way to express physical quantities. But sloppy usage and unawareness of SI rules threaten to cause confusion and destroy the uniformity of the system.
Here is a list of common mistakes in using the metric system, with examples of incorrect usage and how to make them correct. Each subtopic on the left column is a link to a longer explanation at the bottom of the page.
In addition to the mandatory rules above, the following table contains common usages that are not ideal. They may be popular enough to resist change or they are only minor deviations, but should be improved on when there is an opportunity to do so.
Ad hoc abbreviations (mandatory)
Don’t make up your own abbreviations for units. Metric already defines short, reasonable abbreviations, and introducing non-standard ones brings unnecessary confusion. The most common violation is sec for second, which should be s. Also, never put a period after a metric symbol unless it comes at the end of a sentence.
Plural of symbols (mandatory)
For a unit symbol (abbreviation), never add an s to the end of it. Unit symbols do not change spelling to indicate plural. Furthermore, s already means second, and juxtaposition means multiplication (for example, N s means newton times second). However, full unit names have their own set of rules for pluralization (e.g. metre vs. metres).
Capitalization of symbols (mandatory)
Metric notation is case-sensitive. For example, the prefix M means mega (106) and the prefix m means milli- (10−3); the prefix k means kilo- and the unit K means kelvin; the unit s means second and the unit S means siemens. Forsaking the capitalization destroys useful distinctions in the metric system.
Capitalization of unit names (mandatory)
When spelled out in full, all prefix names and all unit names are in lowercase (e.g. millivolt, kiloohm, megapascal), except that degree-person must capitalize the person’s name (e.g. degree Celsius, degrees Fahrenheit). This point is a matter of convention; it won’t cause ambiguity if disobeyed.
Degree sign/word (mandatory)
The units of degree Celsius, degree Fahrenheit, and degree Rankine always contain the word degree(s) (but dropped in informal contexts). The unit kelvin must not be written with the word degree (although it did in the past). Regarding plain unit symbols without °, C means coulomb and F means farad – hence including the degree sign is critical to indicate degrees Celsius.
p standing for per (mandatory)
Unlike the imperial system which uses p to denote per (e.g. mph, mpg, APM ), p stands for the pico- prefix in SI, and the role of per is covered by division and negative powers. For example, kilograms per litre can be expressed as kg/L or kg L−1.
Power-of-1024 prefixes (mandatory)
SI prefixes always mean the same multiplier in every context. Kilo- is always 1000, even when applied to bytes. Treating kilo- as 1024 is an abuse of notation perpetuated by the computer industry, which ended up harming and confusing consumers everywhere (e.g. Why does my 1000 GB HDD show up as “909 GB” in Windows?). Always use SI prefixes to denote powers of 1000 (e.g. 1 MB = 1000000 bytes), and instead use IEC binary prefixes to denote powers of 1024 (e.g. 1 MiB = 1048576 bytes).
Multiple prefixes (mandatory)
Never use multiple prefixes for metric quantities. Either write out the full number, or adjust the single prefix to equal the product of multiple prefixes.
Bare prefix (mandatory)
Never write a quantity with a prefix but no unit. It is unacceptable to imply a unit (e.g. She drove 30 k vs. She drove 30 km).
Mass/weight distinction (mandatory)
Grams (g) and prefixes thereof are measures of mass, not weight or force. Newtons (N) measure weight and force. This distinction is made clear when you consider that if you take a trip up to the International Space Station, your body mass in kilograms will stay the same, but your weight in newtons will be zero (weightlessness in orbit).
Deprecated units (mandatory)
The standard symbol for cubic centimetre is cm3, not the commonly used cc. Moreover, a millilitre (mL) is exactly equal to a cubic centimetre and is more appropriate for indicating volumes. Micron (μ) is the old way of expressing micrometre (μm). The unit’s name and symbol both break the spelling pattern and is an unwanted wart. An ångström equals 0.1 nanometre, and is needless field-specific jargon (particularly in optical physics) that can be easily converted to nanometres by dividing 10. Don’t use units like these.
Substitutions for Greek mu (mandatory)
Almost all SI prefixes, SI units, and non-SI units are written in Latin letters, with the exception of the prefix micro (μ), the unit ohm (Ω), and the unit ångström (Å). Typing and transmitting non-Latin characters can pose technical difficulties, and sometimes writers work around this in haste by substituting μ with u or mc. This can be okay for informal private communications, but is unacceptable for published works with wide dissemination.
Spurious conversion precision (mandatory)
Unit conversions, such as from imperial to metric, should follow the rules for significant figures. Just because the definition of a unit has numerous digits doesn’t mean you need to keep that many digits after a calculation. Having too many significant figures in metric numbers makes them harder to understand and reduces their chances for wide acceptance. For example, a road speed limit posted as 40 mph is equal to exactly 64.37376 km/h by definition, but should be written as 65 km/h because the precision is superfluous in such a context. The long number makes the metric system look arbitrary and incomprehensible.
Additive mixed units (mandatory)
In other systems it is customary to express quantities in mixed units, for example “4 foot 9 3/ 8 inches” or “11 stone, 2 lb, and 5 oz”. However, the metric system is decimal-based and does not need this kind of phrasing. Splitting the units makes no improvement to clarity, but adds needless work when handling numbers in calculations.
Space between number and unit (suggested)
For readability, there should be a space between the number and the unit(s). This is especially important for numbers with decimal places and compound units, e.g. 4.567 N·m2·s−2.
Capital L for litre (suggested)
The lowercase letter l looks like the number 1 in many fonts. As such, the unit symbol for litre should be written with an uppercase L. There are other writers and manufacturers who use script lowercase ℓ, but it seems to be non-standard.
Pronunciation of kilometre (suggested)
The English word kilometre should be pronounced with stress on the first syllable, not the popular way where stress is on the second syllable. The former style matches the pattern of how kilo- is pronounced in front of every other unit, and also respects the fact that every other prefix in front of metre is also pronounced with stress on the first syllable. The latter style is self-inconsistent – why not extend it to pronounce centimetre as [sɛn.ˈtɪ.mɪ.tɚ], millimetre as [mə.ˈlɪ.mɪ.tɚ], et cetera? One danger of the extension is that the word micrometre means the unit when stress is on the first syllable, and the measurement device when stress is on the second syllable. Hence, other than popularity, it makes no sense whatsoever to pronounce kilometre with stress on the second syllable.
Avoid semi-SI units (suggested)
Just putting a prefix like kilo- or milli- in front of a non-SI unit doesn’t make it compatible with SI. This gives the unit pseudo-legitimacy like SI units, but adds another unit for a quantity that can already be expressed by SI units. For example, a kiloparsec is a measure of distance that should be expressed in metres instead; a megaelectronvolt is a unit of energy that should be expressed in joules instead.
Avoid centi/deca/etc. (suggested)
Most SI prefixes are based on powers of 1000, except for centi-, deci-, deca-, hecto-, myria-, and dimi-. Out of these six oddball prefixes, centi- is by far the most popular, essentially only used in the unit centimetre. These prefixes, spaced apart by multiples of 10 instead of 1000, are too near each other and can increase cognitive load by creating too many subunits. For example, in a typical supermarket you can buy various liquid goods that are between 1 to 10 millilitres, centilitres, decilitres, and litres. It is arguably easier to have a sharp divide between quantities expressed in millilitres and litres.
Avoid common non-SI units (suggested)
Some units like hour (3600 seconds) are not in SI but are commonly used anyway (e.g. km/h). For everyday purposes like driving, it is better to keep this customary usage. For serious science and engineering, SI units like metres per second should be used instead. Also, some non-SI units are related to SI units by some power of 10, for example 1 bar = 100000 pascals. These units create needless jargon for quantities that are already covered by SI units.
Short/long scale to prefixes (suggested)
In some languages and countries, big number words like billion and trillion can have unexpected or disputed meanings. SI prefixes like tera-, peta-, etc. always mean the same number everywhere. Leverage this fact to cut down on ambiguity and confusion.
Scientific temperatures in kelvins (suggested)
Measurements and calculations for scientific and engineering purposes should be expressed in kelvins. For example, working with cryogenic technology near absolute zero will yield small numbers on the kelvin scale, but ugly −200-something numbers on the Celsius scale. Conversely, when talking about high temperatures plasmas and stars above a few thousand kelvins, the fact that kelvin and Celsius are offset by 273.15 K makes no practical difference. The lack of negative kelvin temperatures removes a needless psychological distinction – for example, it’s not really special that nitrogen boils at 77 K (−196 °C) and gold boils at 3243 K (2970 °C); they are both temperatures on a uniform scale.
Everyday temperatures in °C (suggested)
There is no need to report everyday temperature measurements in kelvins. For outdoor weather, room temperature, body temperature, and cooking, it is customary to use degrees Celsius, with typical numbers from −50 °C to 250 °C. Using kelvins would be strange because ambient temperature is around 300 K, and the range of useful values would range from 250 K to 500 K.
Try unpopular prefixes (suggested)Sounding a lot like Rodney King of the Los Angeles riots of 25 years ago when he tried to salve America’s racial divide by saying “can’t we all just get along”, entertainer Katy Perry opined in response to the recent terrorist attack in Manchester, England that “we just need to coexist”. A noble idea worthy of merit, if only our enemies in the world of extremist Islam would play along.
Sadly I suspect Miss Perry’s suggestion will fall on the deaf ears of those who are intent on destroying Western culture, and imposing their fan |
obashi for BuzzFeed
While bullfights have existed in Spain and elsewhere, including southern France, for centuries, Spaniards have been running with bulls in the northern town of Pamplona, most famous for the practice, since at least the 14th century. The tradition likely began when locals wanted to follow the animals as they were moved from a corral on the edge of a city to a bullring at its center, where they would be fought and slaughtered for the festival of the town's patron saint, San Fermín. Many of the running mozos still wear white with red scarves, which might pay homage to the saint's pure life (white) prior to (bloody) martyrdom, or because butchers, who wore a similar costume, were said to have traditionally run with the bulls. At 8 each morning for nine days in July, six steers and six bulls with sharpened horns run through the narrow, cobbled streets, goring or stomping whoever gets in their way to the Plaza de Toros. Human fatalities are rare (just 15 in the past century, as touted by The Great Bull Run's The Sun Also Rises. In it, a group of expats living in Paris take a vacation that culminates in the San Fermín festival, during which they drink massive quantities of wine and cocktails, watch as the matadors expertly kill bulls, and fall in and out of love with one another. Hemingway writes: Aficion means passion. An aficionado is one who is passionate about the bullfights. […] Somehow it was taken for granted that an American could not have aficion. He might simulate it or confuse it with excitement, but he could not really have it. Of course, Hemingway's character Jake, a stand-in for himself, is the one true American aficionado in the book. When they saw that I had aficion, and there was no password, no set questions that could bring it out, rather it was a sort of oral spiritual examination with the questions always a little on the defensive and never apparent, there was this same embarrassed putting the hand on the shoulder, or a "Buen hombre." But nearly always there was the actual touching. It seemed as though they wanted to touch you to make it certain. The culture of the corrida is theatrically serious. The matador is judged for the fluidity and grace of his movements. If he does particularly well, he'll be presented with his conquest's ear. Likewise, a bull that fights the matador with enthusiasm and strength will have his lifeless body dragged around the circumference of the arena to honor his vigor. This summer, as I was walking the streets of Pamplona, where a million visitors descend for the festival each year, I noticed a shop selling Hemingway-branded red bandanas. The strange logic of American exceptionalism allows for any of us to think of ourselves like Jake: We can see our own throngs acting foolishly, walking with unfounded confidence into a messy world that we understand little of, and rarely consider ourselves as part of those other Americans. If we lack something, like passion or expertise or bravery, we usually will find someone selling an approximation of it, even if that's just a little square piece of red fabric with old Papi's white face printed on it. While bullfights have existed in Spain and elsewhere, including southern France, for centuries, Spaniards have been running with bulls in the northern town of Pamplona, most famous for the practice, since at least the 14th century. The tradition likely began when locals wanted to follow the animals as they were moved from a corral on the edge of a city to a bullring at its center, where they would be fought and slaughtered for the festival of the town's patron saint, San Fermín. Many of the running mozos still wear white with red scarves, which might pay homage to the saint's pure life (white) prior to (bloody) martyrdom, or because butchers, who wore a similar costume, were said to have traditionally run with the bulls. At 8 each morning for nine days in July, six steers and six bulls with sharpened horns run through the narrow, cobbled streets, goring or stomping whoever gets in their way to the Plaza de Toros. Human fatalities are rare (just 15 in the past century, as touted by The Great Bull Run's site ), though it is typical for more than 100 people to be injured in any given year. In the afternoon, the crowd packs into seats to watch the same bulls in the corrida, a ritual during which a bull is stabbed repeatedly until the torero, or matador, gets close enough to pierce a saber through the spinal cord and into the bull's heart, ending his life. The bull is viewed as a respected, worthy opponent, then sacrificed ritualistically for the crowd. The international — and particularly American — interest in the Pamplona bull run, though, mostly dates to Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel. In it, a group of expats living in Paris take a vacation that culminates in the San Fermín festival, during which they drink massive quantities of wine and cocktails, watch as the matadors expertly kill bulls, and fall in and out of love with one another. Hemingway writes:Of course, Hemingway's character Jake, a stand-in for himself, is the one true American aficionado in the book.The culture of the corrida is theatrically serious. The matador is judged for the fluidity and grace of his movements. If he does particularly well, he'll be presented with his conquest's ear. Likewise, a bull that fights the matador with enthusiasm and strength will have his lifeless body dragged around the circumference of the arena to honor his vigor. This summer, as I was walking the streets of Pamplona, where a million visitors descend for the festival each year, I noticed a shop selling Hemingway-branded red bandanas. The strange logic of American exceptionalism allows for any of us to think of ourselves like Jake: We can see our own throngs acting foolishly, walking with unfounded confidence into a messy world that we understand little of, and rarely consider ourselves as part of those other Americans. If we lack something, like passion or expertise or bravery, we usually will find someone selling an approximation of it, even if that's just a little square piece of red fabric with old Papi's white face printed on it.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
Bringing the running of the bulls in from Spain has never been illegal, exactly, but importing a cultural event with centuries of history tied to a specific place is more than a little impractical. Bullfighting, of course, is very much illegal in the United States. The Great Bull Run LLC advertises a more humane premise: No sharpened horns for the bulls to gore runners with and none of that bloody bullfighting and death. For the danger-averse, Dickens and Scudder have also borrowed another Spanish festival: La Tomatina, a big food fight that happens annually in Valencia, which they're calling "Tomato Royale." (Several thousand have bought tickets to just that, in addition to the 3,000 who've signed up to run.) In fact, the creators of The Great Bull Run have never been to the San Fermín festival. They have never run with the bulls through the streets of Pamplona. When I ask Dickens if they would sell bota bags of red wine, the traditional gallon-sized leather bladders that are popular for big events in Spain, he looks at me blankly and says, "No, we'll have beer and it'll be cheap." Of all Dickens' rationalizations for undertaking this venture, his most spirited centers around value and convenience, about how expensive it would be to go to the running of the bulls in Spain, about the price of plane tickets, the difficulty in scoring the right hotel room, the wages lost from taking a week off of work. "We're talking at least $3,500 right out of the gate," he says. Dickens and Scudder are passionate about creating something affordable, convenient, and that can be accommodated by any chain-link-fenced suburban venue with enough parking. The Great Bull Run is not about the traditions of the encierro, the bull run itself, it is about people paying for kicks, for the rush of weird danger. They have the afición of American businessmen, the afición for value. Dickens and Scudder are tapping into a very different, distinctly American tradition. It is the tradition of walking into the Venetian from the sidewalk in Vegas to listen to a gondolier serenade us from the canal while eating a Cinnabon without having to endure the stink of Venice in the summer, the tradition of paying admission at Epcot to take a boat ride through Mexico before having a cup of tea in China. Those who want the culture of San Fermín, who want the bota bags and the jamón ibérico and the bloody, guilt-inducing bullfighting, can max out their credit cards for a summer vacation in Spain. Bringing the running of the bulls in from Spain has never been illegal, exactly, but importing a cultural event with centuries of history tied to a specific place is more than a little impractical. Bullfighting, of course, is very much illegal in the United States. The Great Bull Run LLC advertises a more humane premise: No sharpened horns for the bulls to gore runners with and none of that bloody bullfighting and death. For the danger-averse, Dickens and Scudder have also borrowed another Spanish festival: La Tomatina, a big food fight that happens annually in Valencia, which they're calling "Tomato Royale." (Several thousand have bought tickets to just that, in addition to the 3,000 who've signed up to run.) In fact, the creators of The Great Bull Run have never been to the San Fermín festival. They have never run with the bulls through the streets of Pamplona. When I ask Dickens if they would sell bota bags of red wine, the traditional gallon-sized leather bladders that are popular for big events in Spain, he looks at me blankly and says, "No, we'll have beer and it'll be cheap." Of all Dickens' rationalizations for undertaking this venture, his most spirited centers around value and convenience, about how expensive it would be to go to the running of the bulls in Spain, about the price of plane tickets, the difficulty in scoring the right hotel room, the wages lost from taking a week off of work. "We're talking at least $3,500 right out of the gate," he says. Dickens and Scudder are passionate about creating something affordable, convenient, and that can be accommodated by any chain-link-fenced suburban venue with enough parking. The Great Bull Run is not about the traditions of the, the bull run itself, it is about people paying for kicks, for the rush of weird danger. They have theof American businessmen, thefor value. Dickens and Scudder are tapping into a very different, distinctly American tradition. It is the tradition of walking into the Venetian from the sidewalk in Vegas to listen to a gondolier serenade us from the canal while eating a Cinnabon without having to endure the stink of Venice in the summer, the tradition of paying admission at Epcot to take a boat ride through Mexico before having a cup of tea in China. Those who want the culture of San Fermín, who want the bota bags and theand the bloody, guilt-inducing bullfighting, can max out their credit cards for a summer vacation in Spain.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
The day before the run, the Virginia Motorsports Park could have been an empty parking lot anywhere in suburbia. There are long stretches of fence, big swaths of dry green grass, black-gray expanses of asphalt, a run-down chalky white concession stand, and a tall wedge of empty bleachers. All of this faces a long stretch of clean drag-racing track, though it easily could have been a high school football field or a state fairground. There are places like this in every corner of the United States, a fact that fits neatly into the plans of The Great Bull Run. Dickens is 34, though his smooth face could pass for 10 years younger. That morning he's wearing Abercrombie & Fitch khakis and a clean chambray button-down that neatly fits his slight frame. It's the way he speaks, not the way he looks, that indicates his former career as a Wall Street lawyer, drafting and negotiating complex liability contracts. The day before the run, the Virginia Motorsports Park could have been an empty parking lot anywhere in suburbia. There are long stretches of fence, big swaths of dry green grass, black-gray expanses of asphalt, a run-down chalky white concession stand, and a tall wedge of empty bleachers. All of this faces a long stretch of clean drag-racing track, though it easily could have been a high school football field or a state fairground. There are places like this in every corner of the United States, a fact that fits neatly into the plans of The Great Bull Run. Dickens is 34, though his smooth face could pass for 10 years younger. That morning he's wearing Abercrombie & Fitch khakis and a clean chambray button-down that neatly fits his slight frame. It's the way he speaks, not the way he looks, that indicates his former career as a Wall Street lawyer, drafting and negotiating complex liability contracts.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed “There’s some pressure, but I don’t consider someone getting injured to be something going wrong,” says Rob Dickens of Rugged Maniac.
In April, Dickens and Scudder announced that not only were they bringing the running of the bulls to America, they would be touring the event around the country for the better part of the next year, as if "running with the bulls" were a carnival ride that could be dismantled and moved along to the next town. I pepper him with a few questions and he shoots back answers with the speed and skill of a media-trained entrepreneur who's heard each one before and is resigned to keep hearing them. What does he think of The Sun Also Rises? "I read Hemingway in college, but it didn't hit me then." What's the worst thing that could happen tomorrow? "We'd be in trouble if a bull got loose in the festival. People didn't sign up to get gored in the festival, they signed up to get gored on the track." Did they expect all of this attention? "We did." While living and working in New York in 2010, Dickens got an email from Scudder, 31, whom he had met during a study-abroad semester of law school, asking if he was interested in helping to launch a new business venture he was calling Rugged Races. Rugged Maniac, as the operation is now known, puts on almost 20 obstacle-course races a year, where weekend warriors pay for the privilege of scaling barricades, crawling through mud, and sprinting through gauntlets of swinging tires before throwing back a few beers with their friends. In April, Dickens and Scudder announced that not only were they bringing the running of the bulls to America, they would be touring the event around the country for the better part of the next year, as if "running with the bulls" were a carnival ride that could be dismantled and moved along to the next town. I pepper him with a few questions and he shoots back answers with the speed and skill of a media-trained entrepreneur who's heard each one before and is resigned to keep hearing them. What does he think of? "I read Hemingway in college, but it didn't hit me then." What's the worst thing that could happen tomorrow? "We'd be in trouble if a bull got loose in the festival. People didn't sign up to get gored in the festival, they signed up to get gored on the track." Did they expect all of this attention? "We did." While living and working in New York in 2010, Dickens got an email from Scudder, 31, whom he had met during a study-abroad semester of law school, asking if he was interested in helping to launch a new business venture he was calling Rugged Races. Rugged Maniac, as the operation is now known, puts on almost 20 obstacle-course races a year, where weekend warriors pay for the privilege of scaling barricades, crawling through mud, and sprinting through gauntlets of swinging tires before throwing back a few beers with their friends.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed Brad Scudder
At the time, Scudder's idea was still novel, though in the years since, the market has become crowded with competitors looking to differentiate their races with increasingly complex and dangerous-sounding obstacles. Tough Mudder, probably the industry's most popular, boasts live electrical wires and monkey bars greased with butter. This April, a At the time, Scudder's idea was still novel, though in the years since, the market has become crowded with competitors looking to differentiate their races with increasingly complex and dangerous-sounding obstacles. Tough Mudder, probably the industry's most popular, boasts live electrical wires and monkey bars greased with butter. This April, a runner died after competing in a Tough Mudder run, an incident that has put some scrutiny on the industry. Scheming for a way to set themselves apart from a crowd, Scudder and Dickens happened upon their million-dollar idea: Why not do away with the whole obstacle-course race format and just chase people with people with massive, unpredictable bulls? "We had tried to go to Pamplona the year before, and then we couldn't figure it all out in time," says Dickens. "One of us joked, 'Oh, we can't go to Spain, so we'll just bring it here.' Eventually, it just switched from a joke to being an actual project." After researching the logistics and trying to decide if it could be plausibly profitable here in the U.S., they committed to the project in November 2012, investing together a million dollars of their own savings from Rugged Maniac to make it happen. "I'm not a wealthy guy," Dickens insists. This is, though, an investment that could make him one. Dickens is shy about exactly breaking down the numbers, but a little cocktail-napkin math shows that they could net a few hundred thousand dollars in ticket sales on a single event. On top of that, they've got revenue coming in from parking and merchandise, though the venues keep the concession money from those very reasonably priced beers. If all goes well in one town, Dickens expects that to add to the draw for the next event and so on. After Virginia, they've got 10 more on the books, starting in Georgia in October. Dickens walks us up to the top of the aluminum bleachers, where we can see the whole expanse of the venue — a crew of about a dozen guys in black T-shirts working away at various tasks, a long truck flatbed being built out into a stage for a classic-rock cover band. Some inflatable plastic is being spread out for the mechanical bull rides. Supplies are being loaded into the concession stands. Tents for selling Great Bull Run T-shirts and red bandanas are being erected. And, of course, there are a few guys spreading out 50,000 tomatoes (overripe, not fit for human consumption) inside a fenced area for the tomato fight. Somewhere down there, one of the guys wearing a Rugged Maniac crew T-shirt is Scudder, making all of this happen. Dickens and Scudder divide the labor this way. Dickens keeps the face of the business; he takes of the front of office tasks and keeps the contracts sharp, while Scudder is muscle behind managing the crews and constructing the courses where the actual events happen. Dickens points to the jagged edge of a nearby hill and then at the dirt track where the running of the bulls would happen. For the past week, they have been digging dirt out of that hill, over 30 dump trucks' worth, to build a dirt track immediately adjacent to the racetrack. They could have run the bulls on the asphalt, but that would've been hard on their hooves and legs. "Why would I spend $50,000 to move dirt around all week long if I didn't care about the welfare of these bulls?"
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
Around 3 p.m., the tractor-trailer operated by Lone Star Rodeo Company arrives. The track isn't quite ready for the dry run yet, so, while Scudder's crew hurries to get everything in place and some EMTs gather for a briefing on what they'll need to know about working the bull run, I wander over to the corral to get a better look at the bulls. That's where I find Preston Fowlkes talking to some cameras. Though Dickens and Scudder had this bright idea of running with bulls, they didn't actually have the first idea about bulls themselves. So they found Fowlkes, a big, sturdy man of 68, with a rounded-off nose and belly that precedes him, whose Around 3 p.m., the tractor-trailer operated by Lone Star Rodeo Company arrives. The track isn't quite ready for the dry run yet, so, while Scudder's crew hurries to get everything in place and some EMTs gather for a briefing on what they'll need to know about working the bull run, I wander over to the corral to get a better look at the bulls. That's where I find Preston Fowlkes talking to some cameras. Though Dickens and Scudder had this bright idea of running with bulls, they didn't actually have the first idea about bulls themselves. So they found Fowlkes, a big, sturdy man of 68, with a rounded-off nose and belly that precedes him, whose Lone Star Rodeo Company has been in operation since his father started it in 1949.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed “No, I wouldn’t pay any money to let a bull chase me. But I wouldn’t pay money to jump out of an airplane, neither," says Preston Fowlkes of Lone Star Rodeo.
Fowlkes is natural raconteur, perhaps unsurprising for a man who has worked in rodeos his entire life, and he eagerly fields questions. "No, I wouldn't pay any money to let a bull chase me," he says to anyone who would ask. "But I wouldn't pay money to jump out of an airplane, neither." The variation he gives me, when I ask a similar question, is that the rodeo has always found people who wanted to be clowns and get paid to be chased by bulls. The organizers of The Great Bull Run, as he sees it, have just done a great job finding a lot of people who were willing to pay for the privilege of acting like rodeo clowns. Fowlkes also explains to me that "bulls" is actually something of a misnomer. His company had brought both bulls and steers, who are shorn of their testicles and as a result develop to be smaller and more agile. This is how it is done in Spain too, with the thought that that the faster steers will guide the bulls along. After finishing with Fowlkes, I crouch right next to the corral and stick my hand through the fence to take a picture. That's when a big black one starts looking right back at me — he narrows his gaze and slowly starts to inch backward, as if trying to get just a little more space with which to charge at me. Finally, someone announces that it it's time for the dry run. As the gate is getting ready to be opened, Dickens himself jumps over the fence and stands in the track. Just him and the bulls on this first dry run. He looks tense. Then the gates open and bulls come out all in one pack. They pass Dickens without giving him a second glance. It looks about as perilous as standing on a sidewalk and watching a car drive by. The EMTs break out in laughter. One says, "After seeing that, I'm more worried about the'mater fight." As it turns out, the most dangerous part of running with bulls isn't the bulls as much as the people around you. With just one person on the track, like Dickens, it isn't dangerous at all. As you add more people, though, that means the distance between any given person and any given bull gets smaller. On the day of the dry run, there had been some debate regarding exactly how many people would get to run with the bulls at a time. Though tickets had been sold for runs of 1,000 people at a time, the venue had pressured them to cut it to 500. As the EMTs laugh, Dickens seems genuinely concerned that the run won't be dangerous enough. As he sees it, he has a contract with these people to deliver a dangerous event. Business, as he has mentioned before, is nothing without contracts. Shouldn't he be afraid of something going wrong on the big first day, with all of the media here to document it? "Sure," he says. "There's some pressure, but I don't consider someone getting injured to be something going wrong." Fowlkes is natural raconteur, perhaps unsurprising for a man who has worked in rodeos his entire life, and he eagerly fields questions. "No, I wouldn't pay any money to let a bull chase me," he says to anyone who would ask. "But I wouldn't pay money to jump out of an airplane, neither." The variation he gives me, when I ask a similar question, is that the rodeo has always found people who wanted to be clowns and get paid to be chased by bulls. The organizers of The Great Bull Run, as he sees it, have just done a great job finding a lot of people who were willing to pay for the privilege of acting like rodeo clowns. Fowlkes also explains to me that "bulls" is actually something of a misnomer. His company had brought both bulls and steers, who are shorn of their testicles and as a result develop to be smaller and more agile. This is how it is done in Spain too, with the thought that that the faster steers will guide the bulls along. After finishing with Fowlkes, I crouch right next to the corral and stick my hand through the fence to take a picture. That's when a big black one starts looking right back at me — he narrows his gaze and slowly starts to inch backward, as if trying to get just a little more space with which to charge at me. Finally, someone announces that it it's time for the dry run. As the gate is getting ready to be opened, Dickens himself jumps over the fence and stands in the track. Just him and the bulls on this first dry run. He looks tense. Then the gates open and bulls come out all in one pack. They pass Dickens without giving him a second glance. It looks about as perilous as standing on a sidewalk and watching a car drive by. The EMTs break out in laughter. One says, "After seeing that, I'm more worried about the'mater fight." As it turns out, the most dangerous part of running with bulls isn't the bulls as much as the people around you. With just one person on the track, like Dickens, it isn't dangerous at all. As you add more people, though, that means the distance between any given person and any given bull gets smaller. On the day of the dry run, there had been some debate regarding exactly how many people would get to run with the bulls at a time. Though tickets had been sold for runs of 1,000 people at a time, the venue had pressured them to cut it to 500. As the EMTs laugh, Dickens seems genuinely concerned that the run won't be dangerous enough. As he sees it, he has a contract with these people to deliver a dangerous event. Business, as he has mentioned before, is nothing without contracts. Shouldn't he be afraid of something going wrong on the big first day, with all of the media here to document it? "Sure," he says. "There's some pressure, but I don't consider someone getting injured to be something going wrong."
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
The morning of the big run, there is a lot of waiting. The bulls flick their tails back and forth in the corral. The crowds line up for those very reasonably priced beers. I'm standing around the media registration table and trying to eavesdrop when one PR flack announces to another that "those people from the Humane Society" had arrived, and I follow quickly behind them, assuming that there'll be some kind of confrontation. As I trail them, the PR flack walks over and just stares at the three people who are apparently from the Humane Society, who in turn just kind of stare back. In the middle of this standoff, one of the guys introduces himself to me as Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society. When I ask if they have any specific goal in being there, he demurely says, "We're just having a look around." Now the PR flack is staring at me too. After a long, awkward moment, we shrug our shoulders and walk our separate ways. After that, there wasn't anything to do but wait around for Dickens to grab the microphone and give his spiel, for the theme song to play, for the bulls to finally run. No one but the very first line of runners can see the bulls coming. Bulls are shorter than people, even if they do weigh a half ton. So, as the bulls come down at the track, slow at first but soon gathering steam, the runners know only what they're hearing and what the other people packed in around them are doing. It builds like a wave, the first line of people yelling, "Holy shit" and "Jesus Christ" and pushing into a sprint at the people behind them who push and yell at the people behind them until the whole track is a running, yelling chorus of "HolyfuckJesusshit," and, somewhere in among them, the bulls are running about 35 miles an hour, faster than any human could. This is not a foot race, there is no start or finish for registered runners to clock their time. When the bulls hit their stride, they do not linger. They are just a flash of hide and horn cutting a line through the wave of bodies. This lasts maybe for 30 seconds until, finally, no one is yelling obscenities anymore. The bulls have run. The people have dodged them. A few pick themselves up off the ground and look around. There are a few bumps and scrapes, nothing more. And so, that group is hustled off the track for the next 500 and the next group after that, like the line for a roller coaster. Many are clearly pumped up by the adrenaline afterward — they cheer and grab their friends, thrilled to have cheated death and gained a war story. Others, though, look confused. I hear from a few people the same question: "What was that?" When I run into Pacelle from the Humane Society again, even he doesn't have much to say after watching the bulls run. "I'm thinking that the bulls run down the middle and try to avoid hitting people," he tells me. "Yeah?" "Yeah, I think it's just a bunch of hype," he says, looking ready to pack up his crew and go home. The morning of the big run, there is a lot of waiting. The bulls flick their tails back and forth in the corral. The crowds line up for those very reasonably priced beers. I'm standing around the media registration table and trying to eavesdrop when one PR flack announces to another that "those people from the Humane Society" had arrived, and I follow quickly behind them, assuming that there'll be some kind of confrontation. As I trail them, the PR flack walks over and just stares at the three people who are apparently from the Humane Society, who in turn just kind of stare back. In the middle of this standoff, one of the guys introduces himself to me as Wayne Pacelle, CEO of the Humane Society. When I ask if they have any specific goal in being there, he demurely says, "We're just having a look around." Now the PR flack is staring at me too. After a long, awkward moment, we shrug our shoulders and walk our separate ways. After that, there wasn't anything to do but wait around for Dickens to grab the microphone and give his spiel, for the theme song to play, for the bulls to finally run. No one but the very first line of runners can see the bulls coming. Bulls are shorter than people, even if they do weigh a half ton. So, as the bulls come down at the track, slow at first but soon gathering steam, the runners know only what they're hearing and what the other people packed in around them are doing. It builds like a wave, the first line of people yelling, "Holy shit" and "Jesus Christ" and pushing into a sprint at the people behind them who push and yell at the people behind them until the whole track is a running, yelling chorus of "HolyfuckJesusshit," and, somewhere in among them, the bulls are running about 35 miles an hour, faster than any human could. This is not a foot race, there is no start or finish for registered runners to clock their time. When the bulls hit their stride, they do not linger. They are just a flash of hide and horn cutting a line through the wave of bodies. This lasts maybe for 30 seconds until, finally, no one is yelling obscenities anymore. The bulls have run. The people have dodged them. A few pick themselves up off the ground and look around. There are a few bumps and scrapes, nothing more. And so, that group is hustled off the track for the next 500 and the next group after that, like the line for a roller coaster. Many are clearly pumped up by the adrenaline afterward — they cheer and grab their friends, thrilled to have cheated death and gained a war story. Others, though, look confused. I hear from a few people the same question: "What was that?" When I run into Pacelle from the Humane Society again, even he doesn't have much to say after watching the bulls run. "I'm thinking that the bulls run down the middle and try to avoid hitting people," he tells me. "Yeah?" "Yeah, I think it's just a bunch of hype," he says, looking ready to pack up his crew and go home.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
There's a break around 2 p.m. for the Tomato Royale. For 20 minutes, the speakers play "Judy Is a Punk" and other pumped-up rock songs while tomatoes fly through the air with the frenzy of a small-scale tornado. After a day in the sun, the tomatoes have ripened into soft balloons, descending and splashing their seedy mess on anyone in chucking distance. It also happens to be the most athletic moment of the day. Some people go to their cars to change out of their tomato-soaked clothes; others just leave. The attention is obviously waning. What seems to have overwhelmingly brought people to Virginia today is the idea of danger, and maybe seeing a little blood. People have sat in the stands and stood on the track for hours now and have not found much of that. After today, Dickens and Scudder will still be $700,000 in the red; they'll still need people's attention at the next event and the next after that if they ever hope to get out of that hole. But there's one last run at 3:30 p.m., even though it seems like no one still has quite the energy to do it. Even the bulls, after being run again and again throughout the day, look worn out in their shaded corral. A few have decided to just lie down and take a nap. There's a break around 2 p.m. for the Tomato Royale. For 20 minutes, the speakers play "Judy Is a Punk" and other pumped-up rock songs while tomatoes fly through the air with the frenzy of a small-scale tornado. After a day in the sun, the tomatoes have ripened into soft balloons, descending and splashing their seedy mess on anyone in chucking distance. It also happens to be the most athletic moment of the day. Some people go to their cars to change out of their tomato-soaked clothes; others just leave. The attention is obviously waning. What seems to have overwhelmingly brought people to Virginia today is the idea of danger, and maybe seeing a little blood. People have sat in the stands and stood on the track for hours now and have not found much of that. After today, Dickens and Scudder will still be $700,000 in the red; they'll still need people's attention at the next event and the next after that if they ever hope to get out of that hole. But there's one last run at 3:30 p.m., even though it seems like no one still has quite the energy to do it. Even the bulls, after being run again and again throughout the day, look worn out in their shaded corral. A few have decided to just lie down and take a nap.
Photograph by Nick Ghobashi for BuzzFeed
The last run, though, is a big-money ticket. All day long, they've been advertising last-minute sign-ups for the final run, hoping that a few spectators might sign up after seeing the first few runs or even that people who ran earlier might want to run again. So, as it happens, for the last run of the day, they decide to break the 500 limit and let as many people in who want in. On top of that, Dickens and Scudder make the decision that the last run should release all 24 bulls. From the fence, this run is a little more frenzied. People seem more disoriented. As each wave of bulls is released, the run goes on longer than before, there are more screams, more commotion. Then, just as it seems to be finally over, the crowd notices a guy who's face down in the mud. If he's moving, it's hard to tell. People crowd around him. A photographer jumps the fence, trying to get a clear shot. Someone tries to fight the photographer, and a cop has to break it up. We all stand around as the guy is loaded onto a stretcher, then slid into the back of an ambulance. Some guy in a black shirt leans over to his friend and says, "I mean, that's why we came here, right?" The injured man's friend, covered in tomato mess, lumbers into the front seat as the ambulance speeds off toward the hospital. Finally, all the camera crews have something to grill Dickens about. Of course, he doesn't know more than anyone else — the injured man obviously |
human health.
In mammals, the ability to use nutrients from food and convert them into muscle proteins decreases with age. Though the exact cause of this phenomenon is still unclear, insulin resistance of aging muscle cells has been suggested as a possible answer.
Since omega-3 fatty acids are known to improve glucose metabolism in people and animals showing insulin resistance, the researchers decided to test whether omega-3’s could also influence protein metabolism.
To do so, they added supplements containing either omega-3’s from fish oil or a mixture of cottonseed and olive oils without omega-3’s to the regular diet of steers. After five weeks, animals with the marine omega-3 diet showed increased sensitivity to insulin which, in turn, improved protein metabolism: twice the amount of amino acids was used by their bodies to synthesize proteins, especially in muscles. So it appears that omega-3 fatty acids added to the steers’ diet replaced other fatty acids in muscle cells and improved their functioning.
This finding could have significant implications in the field of animal farming, according to Thivierge, also a professor in Université Laval’s Department of Animal Sciences, who undertook this study in order to find an alternative to hormonal growth stimulation in beef cattle.
At 4 to 6 months of age, calves become less efficient at converting food into muscle mass, which has a negative impact on farming profitability. “Adding fish oil to their diet could prevent this decline by restoring insulin sensitivity in aging animals,” suggests the researcher. “In addition, it could contribute to reducing the amount of by-product emissions in the environment, since animals that are given omega-3’s spontaneously eat 10% less food to achieve the same weight gain,” points out Thivierge.
Restoring insulin sensitivity through the use of marine omega-3 fatty acids could also prevent the loss of muscle mass in older people and, by the same token, prevent the various health problems associated with it, believes Thivierge. She also suggests that omega-3’s could help athletes trying to increase their muscle mass. “However, it should not be seen as a miracle product,” she points out. “For increased muscle protein metabolism to take place in people younger than 50, physical training is still required,” she concludes.
Université LavalMayor Patrick Furey to Reveal a Surprise at State of the City
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A retired Principal Deputy Counsel for LA County and community activist, Torrance Mayor Patrick Furey has the credentials for a stint in local politics; but not all Mayors have a resume outside of city hall quite as unique as his. Some of Mayor Furey’s extracurricular activities include: volunteering as a little league umpire, maintaining a Facebook and Twitter account that have more followers than his teenaged grandsons have combined, spearheading a movement to meet with over 1,500 High School Seniors each school year, and helping the city win a national contest by taking selfies with students.
Although some of his activities outside the walls of city hall are a bit out of the ordinary for a County retiree turned Mayor, his role inside city hall certainly requires he do some ordinary “Mayor Work.” And in this, Mayor Furey has shown he is not afraid to look at the hard issues and give an honest response. Like when he openly addresses recent trends in municipalities raising their minimum wages, or comments on the state’s business climate and challenges the perception that Torrance is losing commerce. Mayor Furey understands that answers to tough issues are rarely as cut-and-dry as one side or the other makes them out to be; but as he gears up for his second annual State of the City Address hosted by the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce, one thing seems pretty clear — as far as things in Torrance go, Mayor Furey tends to know.
TACC: What inspired you to get involved in local politics?
Mayor Furey (MF): I’m not really sure where that came from, it was just a metamorphosis. I was involved with the city in volunteer service and eventually it resulted in coming to the City Council. A lot of my friends were serving at that point, the Mayor and the other Council Members, and I knew what they were doing and I thought I could work with them. I had a vision for what I wanted to do and the next thing was to throw my hat into the ring.
TACC: You mentioned that you had a vision for what you wanted to accomplish on City Council, what is that vision?
MF: Since the moment I was elected as a Councilperson, I think I recognized that economic development is the most important thing. As I looked at the city, I saw some voids. And when I say voids, sometimes it was the way that that we evolved over the years. At one time we were an oil producing city and we evolved into manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, steel plants, aluminum plants, and things like that. Then getting into the end of the 20th Century and the start of the 21st Century, it was time to start looking a little more forward.
TACC: You were elected to the City Council during the onset of one of the most devastating economic eras in history. What was your experience like as a Councilman during such fiscally constrained times?
MF: It was really difficult. There were really, really hard choices. People always talk about the surgical cuts you need to make; we made surgical cuts, while trying not to impact the citizens as best we could. We had to provide the services that everybody who lives, works, or operates a business in the City of Torrance are used to receiving, and it was really difficult when you are having to cut 20-25% of your budget. You have to make them feel as though, perhaps it’s not that bad. And I think we really did a great job and we had some great stories to share. The previous Mayor and the Council, sometimes we’d be fighting desperately for something each thinks is more important than somebody else…but we were able to make those cuts and move on. And we made the promise that when the city had the money and the economy got better, we would start putting that stuff back in.
TACC: What do you see as the five-year economic future of Torrance?
MF: It’s interesting, when I did the State of the City last year I indicated that all the indicators showed that the economy is growing a little bit at a time; and it truly is. Every now and again, it gets a bigger bump and that’s really exciting. Obviously the Del Amo Fashion Center has been progressing along, and will be opening up in October (2015). You couple that with the Del Amo Crossing Pershing Financial Center across the street and the $35 million they are going to invest there, it’s very exciting. I think the metamorphosis we have seen on The Boulevard (that’s my new name for Hawthorne Boulevard, the main street of the city) is commerce. And that’s the most important thing for us.
TACC: It sounds like the economic future is bright for Torrance, but how does the city of Torrance view the accumulating costs of doing business in California and the recent trends for cities to increase the minimum wage?
MF: You mentioned the challenges with minimum wage and the way that’s happening in our surrounding communities. We’ve decided to stay back on that. I don’t think that’s something that should be done by municipalities. It should be statewide so we are all on an even playing field. And we’ve maintained that position. I have not heard anything from my colleagues about changing that position at all. I think our biggest challenge is transportation. I really think our statewide infrastructure is so important, and all across the United States. I think the Federal government has to do its actions so that the states and municipalities can do their planning. I think the state has to do something really soon. And the Metropolitan Transit Authority, we’re making in-roads with that. I think it’s really important that we have rapid transit to the South Bay, not just Torrance, but to the South Bay. We are the big city, we are the hub and all of our surrounding communities are in agreement with me on that.
TACC: You recently authored an Op-ed in the Daily Breeze that addressed a perception that Torrance is losing commerce, why did you feel the need to write it?
MF: In the news they always want to tell you the bad things that are occurring and it just got to the point where people were saying, “So did you hear this business is closing or this business is moving.” But if you don’t understand the reasons why then you just think, “Oh my gosh, the sky is falling!” So what I did is just ask the staff how many new business licenses have we issued this year; and the number shocked me: We are talking about more than 2,000 new businesses in the City of Torrance this year. I think we are doing something right and the community needed to hear about that.
TACC: What new program or initiative have you started as Mayor that you’re most proud of?
MF: I think the meetings with businesses. I think the outreach to the business community is very important. I’ve also done meetings with certain groups like getting together Real Estate Brokers to sit and talk with them about what their vision is and what they can do to help the city grow. I also met with the clergy…for emergency preparedness, not the physical things, but the emotional aspect of it. I also put together a meeting with the Torrance Automobile Dealers Association to help them get on the same page. We’ll be reaching out to other groups as well that have similar businesses and sometimes work together.
TACC: Last year you visited every High School U.S. Government class in the Torrance Unified School District. Why did you start the visits and how have they gone?
MF: I’ve enjoyed it. I really love our youth because they are going to be the future leaders. I started doing it on an ad hoc basis because of my connections with a number of teachers. The teachers would invite me to speak and so we put together a program. I absolutely visited every U.S. government class in Torrance Unified as well as Bishop Montgomery. Many people have said that all governments should be local and I kind of impressed that upon them. And it was so rewarding for me when I found out that I had spoken to more than 1500 students throughout the year. I’ve had a great time with it. Kids are taking selfies, which I really believe is how we won the water pledge. I told all of the kids, “Take out your smart phones and do the water pledge right now.” [Mayor laughs.] I look forward to the visits again this year.
TACC: The Chamber sees that you are active on social media and are pretty adept at connecting with the younger generation. Is that intentional or is that something that has evolved since your time as Mayor?
MF: Prior to when I became Mayor, I recognized that social media is really important to let people know what’s happening. I created a Facebook account for my campaign and I transitioned that into my time as Mayor and now have over 7,000 followers on that. It was funny, I was having dinner with my grandsons and they were downplaying that I had more Facebook friends than they had combined. They said, “Well, that’s Facebook, it’s no big thing. It’s actually Twitter that matters.” So I said, “Oh, let me look up my Twitter account.” I had 1,000 followers on Twitter and they said, “Man, that’s embarrassing, my grandfather has more followers that I do!”
TACC: The Chamber will be hosting your second annual State of the City Address to the business community on September 24th. Why should someone attend the event?
MF: There’s going to be a surprise, and it’s important to stay till the very end. At the very end, there’s something really interesting that I think the community really wants. We’ll be doing that reveal at that point, and an awful lot of good information will be coming out of it. That’s why I had to the do the Op-ed piece, because you don’t hear all of that information; you only hear bits and pieces. Once I let all of the cats out of the bag, and people see where we are going, I think everybody is going to be really excited.
To reserve a seat at the Mayor’s State of the City Address, contact the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce at 310-540-5858 or click here. The event takes place at noon on September 24th at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel Torrance – South Bay. Tickets are $40 for TACC members and $50 for non-members.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator height_2=”25″ height=”25″ show_border=”yes_border”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”3/4″][vc_column_text width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”]
posted by
Brandon Matson
Brandon is the Governmental Affairs Coordinator for the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce. His primary responsibilities include facilitating the Chamber’s Governmental Affairs Policy (GAP) group, planning Chamber events with legislators, and facilitating the Chamber’s Political Action Committee (PAC). Feel free to contact him at any time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]MS-ISAC National Webinar
About the National Webinar Initiative
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division and the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) have launched a joint partnership to develop a series of national webinars that will examine critical and timely cybersecurity issues. Embracing the concept that security is everyone's responsibility, these webinars are available to the public and are free of charge. They are designed to provide participants with quality information, in an interactive format, so that the attendees receive timely and practical advice that can be applied immediately.
Learn More About the Upcoming MS-ISAC National Webinar
"2018 National Cyber Security Awareness Month"
Date: Thursday, October 9th, 2018
Speakers: Tiffany Schoenike, NCSA & Nancy Limauro, DHS
National Webinar Initiative Presenters
The National Webinar Initiative is a collaborative effort between government and the private sector to help strengthen our nation's cyber readiness and resilience. The participants listed below have offered their services at no cost to help develop and deliver the webinars:
911ai.com
Accenture
Aon
AT&T
BBBOnline
CastleCops
CDW-G
CGI
Cisco Systems
CMA
Computer Associates
D&D Consulting
Dophin Technology Inc.
DRA Enterprises Inc.
Ernst & Young
Fortify Software
Foundstone/McAfee
Gartner
HoneyTech Inc.
HP
IIC
ISS Inc.
Jay Dee Systems
Juniper Networks
Keane
Lofty Perch Inc.
McAfee
MCI
Microsoft
Nortel
Novell
NYSTEC
Oracle
PGP Corporation
Q1 Labs
R&H Security Consulting LLC
Rochester Institute of Technology
SAIC
SAS
SRA International Inc.
Sybase
Symantec
Tenable Security Inc.
The Shadowserver Foundation
Verisign / iDefense
Veritas
Verizon Business
Additional co-partners may be identified as the Initiative grows, and this list of participants may change. This Initiative is also coordinated by New York State Forum.
View Previous MS-ISAC National Webinars
National Webinar Initiative attendees may request education credits by sending an email to the MS-ISAC at info@msisac.org. Requests must include the attendee's name and email address.Earlier this week I wrote about the two-way radio show I attended. Handling the high-end radios designed for commercial and public safety use reminded me of how twenty years ago my friends and I in used to use these radios as ham radios.
Motorola was the undisputed best in ruggedness. Stories abounded about their continuing to work normally after having been dropped from high towers on to concrete, briefly submerged in water, or hit by a car.
I reached out to some of the amateur radio operators (hams) who introduced me to the benefits of commercial-grade equipment over twenty years ago. It turns out commercial-grade equipment is more common among hams today than it was in the 90s.
Analog FM is spectrally inefficient, but there is no standard digital communication mode for amateur radio. The most common one is D-STAR. Many hams are dissatisfied with its audio quality and audio artifacts it produces during signal fades. Some are beginning to use NXDN (sometimes known by Kenwood's name for it, NEXTEDGE), DRM, and P25-- the standards used by commercial two-way vendors.
The reps at last week's show mentioned DRM's ability to have two time slots on the same frequency several times. Commercial users with one frequency pair would most like have already acquired another pair if they needed two channels, so this is a feature looking for a problem. For hams, though, the feature solves a real problem. In the past decade it has become common for local amateur radio repeaters to be connected to the Internet, allowing users to connect the repeater to local repeaters in distant cities. Repeaters are on local bands and are traditionally used for local communication. In DRM repeaters, one time slot can be allocated to the Internet link leaving the other channel free for local-only traffic.
Separate from the issue of which digital standard to use is the issue of the quality of the equipment. Commercial radio equipment is usually superior to equipment marketed to hobbyists. The reps at General Communications promoted Harris as the new high-end vendor, but my network of hams says they're very good, but Motorola still reigns as the best.
The days of hams inventing new radio techniques that are later adopted for commercial use are long gone. But it still seems hams are putting to full use technologies that commercial and public safety users are being sold on but are not using.
In the 80s and 90s hams used their radios to place local phone calls while away from home and to talk to friends and relatives in distant cities. A ham who used the amateur bands only for those purposes risked being branded a “lid”. I suspect hams are adopting commercial equipment more because the Internet and mobile phones have taken away those casual users, leaving mostly diehards who appreciate the technology for its own sake.Oklahoma Senator Ralph Shortey submits resignation letter after being charged with engaging in child prostitution
OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey submitted his resignation letter to Senate leadership Wednesday afternoon, less than a week after child prostitution charges were filed against him.
His attorney, Ed Blau, provided NewsChannel 4 with Shortey's resignation letter:
Dear Governor Fallin, I hereby resign effective immediately from the Senate of the State of Oklahoma. It has been my honor to serve the constituents of the 44th Senate District since 2010. I appreciate the service the men and women of the Oklahoma Senate provide, and I recognize the need for the business of the Senate to proceed without distraction for the remainder of the legislative session.
Shortey also released a personal statement:
Earlier today, I submitted my resignation, effective immediately, to the President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, as well as to Governor Fallin. I thank the constituents of Senate District 44 for the opportunity they provided to serve. Because I take that responsibility seriously, I recognize that the charges against me are a distraction to their interests and the remaining legislative session, which should serve all Oklahomans. My resignation is evidence of my respect for public service and the duties of our elected officials. I ask for the privacy of my family - my wife and four daughters - as I defend myself of these charges.
NewsChannel 4 has reached out to Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Schulz, R-Altus, who said:
“I have accepted Ralph Shortey’s resignation, which is effective immediately. To ensure justice is not impeded, the Oklahoma Senate will continue to cooperate with all authorities looking into this matter. My thoughts and prayers have been, and will continue to be with, all those involved in this tragic situation. With this resignation, the Oklahoma Senate now moves forward with the important business of the people of the great state of Oklahoma.”
Following his resignation, Oklahoma Senate Democrats released the following statement:
"We are aware that Ralph Shortey has resigned his seat in the Oklahoma Senate. We are glad he has submitted his resignation effective immediately and that he made this decision in a fairly prompt and straightforward manner. The people of Senate District 44 deserve a senator they can rely on and respect. They deserve to replace him with a senator who will be focused on the needs and concerns of southwest Oklahoma City as quickly as possible. Therefore, we are calling on the governor to promptly set a special election at the earliest possible date to fill Ralph Shortey's now vacant seat. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with all those affected by this situation."
Calls for Shortey's resignation have echoed in the Capitol since Thursday when the Oklahoma City Republican senator was charged with engaging in child prostitution.
“Ralph Shortey should resign his seat in the Senate," said Gov. Mary Fallin in a statement last week. "The charges against him do not reflect the character and decorum that we expect of an elected official. It is not acceptable. In the meantime, there’s a criminal justice system in place to review the allegations. We should respect the process and allow it to work as designed."
The charges stem from a Moore Police Department investigation that began when police were called to the Super 8 motel at 1520 N. Service Rd. for a runaway teen shortly before 1 a.m. on March 9.
Court documents said a friend of the teen watched him get into an SUV near his home.
The friend then followed the vehicle to the hotel where the teen was seen going into a room with an unknown man.
According to a search warrant affidavit, the friend called the teen's father, who then alerted police.
The man was later identified as Shortey.
Moore police found the 17-year-old boy – who has a history of soliciting for sex on Craigslist, according to his parents – and Shortey in the hotel room with evidence of condoms and a strong smell of marijuana.
Based on the police affidavit and prosecutors, Shortey sought to exchange money for sex with the teen.
Court documents lay out lurid messages that were sent between the teen and Shortey.
WARNING: The court documents in the link below contain GRAPHIC, DISTURBING and ADULT language. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
Shortey affidavit details GRAPHIC messages exchanged between the state senator and teen
He faces three felony counts of engaging in child prostitution, engaging in prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church and transporting a minor for prostitution or lewdness.
“He offered him money for sexual contact, he then picked up that minor and took him to a hotel for that purpose,” said Susan Caswell, Cleveland County first assistant district attorney, at the time.
Shortey, 35, was booked into jail and released on $100,000 bond Thursday.
The next day, FBI agents were seen searching the senator’s southwest Oklahoma City home and carrying out boxes.
However, it is not known what those boxes contained.
Officials said the search warrant is currently sealed.
The U.S. Secret Service is also assisting Moore police in their investigation.
Shortey's attorney tells NewsChannel 4 his client will likely be arraigned later this week.
One day before charges were filed last week, the Senate voted to suspend Shortey from all Senate activities, stripping his name from all authored legislation.
Shortey has served long enough in the legislature that he can collect is $9,000 a year pension when he retires, even if he's convicted.
State law strips elected officials of their pension if convicted of felonies like bribery, corruption or perjury - but it does not include prostitution with a minor.
If that’s 25 years of retirement, for example, the state of Oklahoma will pay Shortey nearly $230,000.
Shortey has served in the Oklahoma Senate since his election in 2010, where he has been known to author controversial legislation.
Shortey was re-elected in 2014 after defeating his democratic challenger, Michael Brooks-Jimenez, a criminal defense and immigration attorney.
Brooks-Jimenez announced Tuesday he is throwing his hat in the ring for when a special election is called to fill the 44th District's senate seat.
“I think you have to convince the voters, the people of southwest Oklahoma City, that you’ve got integrity, and you’re committed to representing their interests at the capitol, instead of being distracted by other things," Brooks-Jimenez said. "I’ve lived in this district my whole life, and I’ve been wanting strong leadership for a long time and I’m tired of waiting.”
The governor's office will meet with election officials to determine when a special election can be held to fill the seat.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.RIP Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images
Last week the New York Times ran a column by a Towson University professor who believes Gen Y has lost the ability to love. Andrew Reiner begins by quoting a study that seems to contradict his thesis: A majority of millennials, 61 percent, intend to marry someday. “Yet for all of their future designs,” Reiner frets, “many of them may not get there. Their romance operandi—hooking up and hanging out—flouts the golden rule of what makes marriages and love work: emotional vulnerability.”
What evidence does he present that millennial relationships entail less vulnerability than the older models? Ha, evidence. Please. What we have are unsubstantiated phrases: a “blithe attitude about marriage, perhaps even about love”; “a generation that’s terrified of and clueless about the A B C’s of romantic intimacy,” the “most elemental skills” of which “are going the way of cursive handwriting.” Reiner makes the obligatory nods to social media—Facebook “trivializes the complexity of romantic relationships,” he says—and to drinking and to hookup culture. Oh, and he notes that self-esteem levels are on the rise, which somehow correlates to emotional immaturity, which means romance is doomed because only perfectly emotionally mature people fall in love.
Behold the anomic millennial, alienated from her feelings, captivated and benumbed by illusions on screens, blah blah narcissism, blah hookup culture blah. As proof of his social media claim, Reiner cites a study finding that “individuals who use Facebook excessively are far more likely to experience Facebook-related conflict with their romantic partners, which then may cause negative relationship outcomes.” (I’m not a scientist, but I’d bet doing anything “excessively”—even doting on your SO—is likely to detract from your relationship. Plus, couples that go skeet shooting a lot are probably more likely to experience skeet shooting–related conflicts, and so on.) And the self-esteem and narcissism research Reiner quotes is far from definitive: Studies he doesn’t cite have found that millennials show more civic-mindedness and selflessness than their parents did. As for hookup culture, the entire narrative may be a myth, and media coverage of said myth may leave college students feeling left out of some condom-strewn fairytale. But otherwise, NYT, persuasive case!
Reiner insists that nonexistent hookup culture encourages Gen Y kids to dodge vulnerability and, in the words of one expert, “to drain themselves of feeling.” We “desensitize ourselves to love when we stifle the bonding feelings that spring forth from oxytocin,” he writes (blah blah oxytocin blah). “This ‘love’ hormone is released during orgasm, but it also floods the body and brain after hugging or affectionate touching.” I must have missed the seminar where millennials were collectively taught to turn off the oxytocin spigot. (Maybe Thought Catalog ran a how-to?) But anecdotally, none of my friends in relationships long-term or casual seem particularly estranged from their emotions, starved for intimacy, or withholding of themselves—at least, no more than anyone else is.
The subtext of Reiner’s piece, though, is more complicated than contemporary relationships stink. It’s a comparison of then and now, an elegy for the supposed age of human feeling that flourished before Facebook killed romance. And that is where it grates the most. Because when Reiner talks about kids needing to rediscover “emotional vulnerability,” he is really referring to women. College guys have always played the field, sloughed off attachment, spread their seed; what’s changed in the past 50 years or so is that women have begun to treat relationships with the same casualness as their male peers. So what is the solution to the (possibly imaginary) epidemic of affective irresponsibility? Should we retreat from our moment of declining domestic violence rates and female breadwinners? Should we aspire to the open, painful vulnerability of the prefeminism years, where women couldn’t afford to take their dating lives lightly, because their entire futures hung in the balance? Maybe, as Reiner suggests, we should offer college courses on love, wherein a wise professor trains the youth in the secrets of intimacy. Because if anything can get kids’ hearts beating again, it is clueless adults waxing nostalgic about the good old days.Detectives are investigating a homicide as a case of self-defense, after a man was shot and killed inside a home near 117th Avenue and Cactus Road Sunday night, according to Sgt. Robert Peoples with the El Mirage Police Department.
Police say a woman called to report shots fired inside the home. When police arrived, they say they learned the woman shot the man after some type of domestic violence situation.
The woman was questioned and released.
"It's just sad just for somebody to lose their life. I would think, if it's going bad, just leave," said Ray Watkins, a neighbor.
Neighbors say it was obvious the couple was having trouble.
"The mother and the boyfriend used to argue a lot," Watkins said.
According to police, there was a history of domestic violence at the home--something neighbors say they were aware of in the woman's previous relationship.
"Yes, there was. Cops were called several times," said Katrina Martinez, a neighbor.
Its violence children should not have to witness, but police say the woman's adult daughter saw what happened and was able to back her mom's story.
Her two other young kids were also in the home and weren't hurt.
"She's a very sweet lady as far as I know--and her kids," Martinez said.
She added her granddaughter is friends with the woman's kids.
"She (her granddaughter) was there yesterday playing with the smallest girl," Martinez said.
Police aren't saying exactly why the woman fired in self-defense, but they say the man had some sort of weapon.
"I'm just stunned. I'm like--wow," Watkins said.
Police say the woman's two young kids are in the care of another family member and will likely be returned to their mother.CLOSE California lawmakers are sending Gov. Jerry Brown a bill that would make the state the first to impose a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. VPC
Plastic single-use bags are carried past the State Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Aug. 12, 2014. (Photo11: Rich Pedroncelli, AP)
California could soon be the first state to ban single-use plastic bags.
Lawmakers are sending Gov. Jerry Brown a bill, SB270, which cleared the Senate on a 22-15 vote Friday.
The bill would prohibit single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and large pharmacies in 2015 and at convenience stores in 2016 in an effort to reduce litter on streets and beaches.
"This is a statewide problem meriting a statewide solution," Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, and author of the bill, told the Los Angeles Times.
About 100 jurisdictions in California have adopted similar bans.
The bill allows grocers to charge 10 cents each for paper and reusable bags. It also includes $2 million in loans to help manufacturers shift to the new model.
The bill was opposed by bag makers and some Republicans.
"This is big government taking over local agencies' responsibilities," Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, told the Sacramento Bee.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1tWz4zBASPEN, Colo. (AP) — The Aspen School District has removed all seat belts from some of its buses due to safety concerns.
The Aspen Times reports that District Transportation Director Gary Vavra says since lap belts, which were equipped in the district's larger buses, are more damaging in an accident than none at all, the district moved to remove the belts entirely.
The district owns 22 large buses with lap belts as opposed to three-point shoulder seat belts. Vavra says replacing the belts with three-point belts would cost the district $330,000 and that such a change isn't feasible at this time.
The district also owns seven 14-passenger minibuses, which are equipped with three-point shoulder seat belts. Those seat belts will remain.
___
Information from: The Aspen Times, http://www.aspentimes.com/
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Issues of digital privacy are rarely this amoosing.
In August 2015, Google Street View captured images along the banks of the River Cam, in Cambridge, England. As the cameras snapped their way through a meadow called Coe Fen, a cow crossed the road.
Google apparently decided it would behoove it to add an identity-protecting blur.
That is to say — the cow beside the Cam in Coe Fen was caught on camera, incognito.
When an editor at The Guardian found the blurred face this week, he took a screenshot and shared it on Twitter, much to the Internet's delight.
A spokesperson for Google told NPR that the act of bovine privacy protection was due to an overactive automated system.
Here's Google's statement in full:
"We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it's clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. "Of course, we don't begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame."
("Pull the other one," as Monty Python fans might remember, is a Britishism akin to "you're pulling my leg.")
According to Google's privacy policy, that technology "is designed to blur all identifiable faces and license plates within Google-contributed imagery," and people can request that their entire house or car be blurred. Once Google blurs an image, it's permanent, the company says.
The Guardian notes this is not the first time an animal's face has been concealed out of beefed-up privacy concerns — earlier this year, West Midlands police blurred the faces of three stolen lambs.
And Slate points out that, according to some researchers, face-blurring is a load of bull anyway. Software can be trained to see through such efforts to conceal identities, the researchers say.
In the case of the cow at Coe Fen, it's substantially easier to uncover the would-be concealed identity.
Just back up one step along the path in Google Street View, embedded above, and all will be revealed.NEW YORK—Donald Trump says it was a “real problem” when the 1996 Miss Universe gained significant weight after winning the pageant he then owned. The Republican presidential nominee was responding to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s reference in their first debate to Alicia Machado’s claim that Trump called her “Miss Piggy” when she gained weight. In the debate, Trump repeatedly challenged Clinton over where she had heard that, then dismissed Clinton’s comment that Machado would vote for her with “OK, good.”
Alicia Machado won the Miss Universe pageant in 1996. She says Trump referred to her as "Miss Piggy," a point Clinton raised during the debate. ( EMILY BERL / The New York Times )
Trump told Fox and Friends on Tuesday that Machado was “the worst we ever had.” Trump said, “She gained a massive amount of weight. It was a real problem. We had a real problem.”
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Machado went on a diet in 1997 after saying she gained at least 15 pounds (7 kilograms). Trump said during Machado’s workout in front of the media that year that “she likes to eat — like all of us” and supported her weight-loss efforts. Clinton also said Monday night that Trump referred to the Venezuela-born Machado as “Miss Housekeeping.” Machado, who recently became a U.S. citizen, voiced the accusations of name-calling herself in a video released by the Clinton campaign following the debate.
She tweeted her thanks to Clinton after the forum, writing in Spanish, “Thanks Mrs. Hillary Clinton. Your respect for women and our differences makes you great. I’m with you.” Machado also posted a selfie of her holding a U.S. passport on Twitter along with a message, “I received my passport! I’m ready to vote For my country for you @HillaryClinton for my daughter For women workers.”
Machado appeared in June at a Virginia news conference hosted by two immigrant advocacy groups to encourage Latino voters to support Clinton. In July, the former beauty queen lent her name in support of housekeepers. She attended a Domestics Workers Assembly in South Florida, an event organized to push for a bill of rights for domestic workers in the Florida state legislature. MORE ON THESTAR.COM
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Read more about:A homeowner in Prince George’s County shot and wounded a man who he thought was trying to break into his home, authorities said.
The incident occurred around 2 a.m. in the 3900 block of Brinkley Road in Temple Hills, according to police.
Police said that when they arrived, they found a man inside the home with gunshot wounds to his legs. He was conscious and breathing and taken to an area hospital. He was later listed in fair condition.
An initial investigation found that the homeowner and his wife were “alerted by the family’s dog to a noise at the front door,” according to police. Authorities said the couple found that a man was outside the home and appeared to be trying to get inside.
The man had “already pried open their storm door,” police said. The couple called 911, police said, and one of them got a weapon and shot the man through the front door.
Cpl. Nicole Hubbard, a spokeswoman for the police department, said the homeowner and his wife were the only ones home at the time and were not injured in the incident.
The investigation is ongoing. Police said there is “no known connection between the victims and the suspect.”
The state’s attorney’s office is working to figure out what charges will be filed against the suspect, according to detectives.Hillary’s Refugees: 13% of Syrians Entering |
have mainly followed the river waterways connecting the southern Balkans to north-central Europe".
More recently, Lacan et al. (2011) announced that a 7000-year-old skeleton in a Neolithic context in a Spanish funeral cave, was an E-V13 man. (The other specimens tested from the same site were in haplogroup G2a, which has been found in Neolithic contexts throughout Europe.) Using 7 STR markers, this specimen was identified as being similar to modern individuals tested in Albania, Bosnia, Greece, Corsica, and Provence. The authors therefore proposed that, whether or not the modern distribution of E-V13 of today is a result of more recent events, E-V13 was already in Europe within the Neolithic, carried by early farmers from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Western Mediterranean, much earlier than the Bronze age. This supports the proposals of Battaglia et al. rather than Cruciani et al. at least concerning earliest European dispersals, but E-V13 may have dispersed more than once. Even more recent than the Bronze Age, it has also been proposed that modern E-V13's modern distribution in Europe is at least partly caused by Roman era movements of people.[54] (See below.)
After an initial focus upon E1b1b as a Neolithic marker, a more recent study in January 2010, looked at Y haplogroup R1b1b, which is much more common in Western Europe. Mark Jobling said: "We focused on the commonest Y-chromosome lineage in Europe, carried by about 110 million men, it follows a gradient from south-east to north-west, reaching almost 100% frequency in Ireland. We looked at how the lineage is distributed, how diverse it is in different parts of Europe, and how old it is." The results suggested that the lineage R1b1b2 (R-M269), like E1b1b or J lineages, spread together with farming from the Near East. Dr Patricia Balaresque added: "In total, this means that more than 80% of European Y chromosomes descend from incoming farmers. In contrast, most maternal genetic lineages seem to descend from hunter-gatherers. To us, this suggests a reproductive advantage for farming males over indigenous hunter-gatherer males during the switch from hunting and gathering, to farming".[55][56][57][58]
A more recent article concerning R1b made the counter claim that "the data are still controversial and the analyses so far performed are prone to a number of biases" and propose that the data are best explained by "an earlier, pre-Neolithic dispersal of haplogroups from a common ancestral gene pool".[59]
The migration of Neolithic farmers into Europe brought along several new adaptations.[43] The variation for light skin colour was introduced to Europe by the neolithic farmers.[43] After the arrival of the neolithic farmers, a SLC22A4 mutation was selected for, a mutation which probably arose to deal with ergothioneine deficiency but increases the risk of ulcerative colitis, coeliac disease, and irritable bowel syndrome.
Bronze Age [ edit ]
The Bronze Age saw the development of long-distance trading networks, particularly along the Atlantic Coast and in the Danube valley. There was migration from Norway to Orkney and Shetland in this period (and to a lesser extent to mainland Scotland and Ireland). There was also migration from Germany to eastern England. Martin Richards estimated that there was about 4% mtDNA immigration to Europe in the Bronze Age.
Another theory about the origin of the Indo-European language centres around a hypothetical Proto-Indo-European people, who traced in the Kurgan hypothesis, to north of the Black and Caspian Seas at about 4500 BC.[60] They domesticated the horse and possibly invented the wheel, and are considered to have spread their culture and genes across Europe.[61] The Y haplogroup R1a is a proposed marker of these "Kurgan" genes, as is the Y Haplogroup R1b, although these haplogroups as a whole may be much older than the language family.[62]
In the far north, carriers of the Y-haplogroup N arrived to Europe from Siberia, eventually expanding as far as Finland, though the specific timing of their arrival is uncertain. The most common North European subclade N1c1 is estimated to be around 8,000 years old. There is evidence of human settlement in Finland dating back to 8500 BCE, linked with Kunda culture and its putative ancestor Swiderian culture, but the latter is thought to have European origin. The geographical spread of haplogroup N in Europe is well aligned with the Pit–Comb Ware culture, whose emergence is commonly dated c. 4200 BCE, and with the distribution of Uralic languages. Mitochondrial DNA studies of Sami people, Haplogroup U5 are consistent with multiple migrations to Scandinavia from Volga-Ural region, starting 6,000 to 7,000 years before present.[63]
The relationship between roles of European and Asian colonists in the prehistory of Finland is a point of some contention, and some scholars insist that Finns are "predominantly Eastern European and made up of people who trekked north from the Ukrainian refuge during the Ice Age".[64] Farther east, the issue is less contentious. Haplogroup N carriers account for a significant part of all non-Slavic ethnic groups in northern Russia, including 37% of Karelians, 35% of Komi people (65% according to another study[65]), 67% of Mari people, as many as 98% of Nenets people, 94% of Nganasans, and 86% to 94% of Yakuts.[66]
The Yamnaya may have brought Indo-European languages with them. The Yamnaya altered the gene pools of northern and central Europe; some populations such as Norwegians, owe around 50% of their ancestry to this group.[67][68]
The Yamnaya component contains partial ancestry from an Ancient North Eurasian component first identified in Mal'ta.[69] According to Iosif Lazaridis, "the Ancient North Eurasian ancestry is proportionally the smallest component everywhere in Europe, never more than 20 percent, but we find it in nearly every European group we’ve studied."[70] This genetic component does not come directly from the Mal'ta lineage itself, but a related lineage that separated from the Mal'ta lineage.[13]
Half of the Yamnaya component is derived from a Caucasus hunter-gatherer strand (Satsurblia).[69] On November 16, 2015, in a study published in the journal Nature Communications,[69] geneticists announced that they had found a new fourth ancestral "tribe" or "strand" which had contributed to the modern European gene pool. They analysed genomes from two hunter-gatherers from Georgia which were 13,300 and 9,700 years old, and found that these Caucasus hunter-gatherers were probably the source of the farmer-like DNA in the Yamna. According to co-author Dr Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge: "The question of where the Yamnaya come from has been something of a mystery up to now....we can now answer that as we've found that their genetic make-up is a mix of Eastern European hunter-gatherers and a population from this pocket of Caucasus hunter-gatherers who weathered much of the last Ice Age in apparent isolation."[67]
According to Lazaridis et al. (2016), a population related to the people of the Chalcolithic Iran contributed to roughly half of the ancestry of Yamnaya populations of the Pontic–Caspian steppe. These Iranian Chalcolithic people were a mixture of "the Neolithic people of western Iran, the Levant, and Caucasus Hunter Gatherers."[71]
The genetic variations for lactase persistence and greater height came with the Yamnaya people.[43] The derived allele of the KITLG gene (SNP rs12821256) that is associated with – and likely causal for – blond hair in Europeans is found in populations with Eastern but not Western Hunter-Gatherers ancestry, suggesting that its origin is in the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) population and may have been spread in Europe by individuals with Steppe ancestry. Consistent with this, the earliest known individual with the derived allele is a ANE individual from the Late Upper Paleolithic Afontova Gora archaeological complex.[72]
Recent history [ edit ]
[73] Overview map of recent (1st to 17th centuries AD) admixture events in Europe.
During the period of the Roman Empire, historical sources show that there were many movements of people around Europe, both within and outside the Empire. Historic sources sometimes cite instances of genocide inflicted by the Romans upon rebellious provincial tribes. If this did in fact occur, it would have been limited given that modern populations show considerable genetic continuity in their respective regions. The process of 'Romanisation' appears to have been accomplished by the colonisation of provinces by a few Latin speaking administrators, military personnel, settled veterans, and private citizens (merchants, traders) who emanated from the Empire's various regions (and not merely from Roman Italy). They served as a nucleus for the acculturation of local notables.[74]
Given their small numbers and varied origins, Romanization does not appear to have left distinct genetic signatures in Europe. Indeed, Romance-speaking populations in the Balkans, like Romanians, Aromanians, Moldovans, etc. have been found to genetically resemble neighbouring Greek and South Slavic-speaking peoples rather than modern Italians, proving that they were genetically speaking, mainly through I2a2 M-423 and E1b1b1, V-13 Haplogroups native to this area.[75][76]
Steven Bird has speculated that E1b1b1a was spread during the Roman era through Thracian and Dacian populations from the Balkans into the rest of Europe.[54]
Concerning the late Roman period of (not only) Germanic "Völkerwanderung", some suggestions have been made, at least for Britain, with Y haplogroup I1a being associated with Anglo-Saxon immigration in eastern England, and R1a being associated with Norse immigration in northern Scotland.[77]
Genetics of modern European populations [ edit ]
Patrilineal studies [ edit ]
There are four main Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups that account for most of Europe's patrilineal descent.[78]
Haplogroup E1b1b (formerly known as E3b) represents the last major direct migration from Africa into Europe. It is believed to have first appeared in the Horn of Africa approximately 26,000 years ago and dispersed to North Africa and the Near East during the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. E1b1b lineages are closely linked to the diffusion of Afroasiatic languages. Although present throughout Europe, it peaks in the western Balkan region amongst Albanians and their neighbors. It is also common in Italy and the Iberian peninsula. Haplogroup E1b1b1, mainly in the form of its E1b1b1a2 (E-V13) sub-clade, reaches frequencies above 47% around the area of Kosovo. [80] This clade is thought to have arrived in Europe from western Asia either in the later Mesolithic, [81] or the Neolithic. [82] North Africa subclade E-M81 is also present in Spain and Portugal.
This clade is thought to have arrived in Europe from western Asia either in the later Mesolithic, or the Neolithic. North Africa subclade E-M81 is also present in Spain and Portugal. Haplogroup R1b is common all over Europe, with R1b1a1a2 especially common in Western Europe.[83][84][85] Nearly all of this R1b in Europe is in the form of the R1b1a2 (2011 name) (R-M269) sub-clade, specifically within the R-L23 sub-sub-clade whereas R1b found in Central Asia, western Asia and Africa tends to be in other clades. It has also been pointed out that outlier types are present in Europe and are particularly notable in some areas such as Sardinia and Armenia.[86] Haplogroup R1b frequencies vary from highs in western Europe in a steadily decreasing cline with growing distance from the Atlantic: 80–90% (Welsh, Basque, Irish, Scots, Bretons) around 70–80% in other areas of Spain, Britain and France and around 40–60% in most other parts of western Europe like eastern Germany, and northern-central Italy. It drops outside this area and is around 30% or less in areas such as southern Italy, Sweden, Poland, the Balkans and Cyprus. R1b remains the most common clade as one moves east to Germany, while farther east, in Poland, R1a is more common (see below).[87] In southeastern Europe, R1b drops behind R1a in the area in and around Hungary and Serbia but is more common both to the south and north of this region.[88] R1b in Western Europe is dominated by at least two sub-clades, R-U106, which is distributed from the east side of the Rhine into northern and central Europe (with a strong presence in England) and R-P312, which is most common west of the Rhine, including the British Isles.[84][85] Some have posited that this haplogroup's presence in Europe dates back to the LGM, while others link it to the spread of the Centum branch of the Indo-European languages.
The oldest human remains found to carry R1b so far are an individual from the Epigravettian culture context in Italy (Villabruna) who lived circa 12,000 BC and reportedly belonged to R1b1a (L754), and the 7,000 year-old remains of a hunter-gatherer, belonging to the Samara culture of the Volga River area who carried R1b1* (R-L278*).
Haplogroup R1a, almost entirely in the R1a1a sub-clade, is prevalent in much of Eastern and Central Europe (also in South and Central Asia). For example, there is a sharp increase in R1a1 and decrease in R1b1b2 as one goes east from Germany to Poland.[87] It also has a substantial presence in Scandinavia (particularly Norway).[89][90] In the Baltic countries R1a frequencies decrease from Lithuania (45%) to Estonia (around 30%).[91]
Putting aside small enclaves, there are also several haplogroups apart from the above four that are less prominent or most common only in certain areas of Europe.
Haplogroup G, the original Neolithic Europeans (Caucasians), is common in most parts of Europe at a low frequency, reaching peaks above 70% around Georgia and among the Madjars (although living in Asia they border the eastern perimeter of Europe), up to 20% in Sardinia, 12% in Corsica and Uppsala (Sweden), 11% in the Balkans and Portugal, 10% in Spain and 9% in European Russia. This clade is also found in the Near East.
Haplogroup N, the Neolithic deer hunters is common only in the northeast of Europe and in the form of its N1c1 sub-clade reaches frequencies of approximately 60% among Finns and approximately 40% among Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians.
Haplogroup J2, in various sub-clades (J2a, J2b), is found in levels of around 15–30% in parts of the Balkans and Italy and is common all over Europe and especially the Mediterranean basin[92]
Matrilineal studies [ edit ]
There have been a number of studies about the mitochondrial DNA haplogroups (mtDNA) in Europe. In contrast to Y DNA haplogroups, mtDNA haplogroups did not show as much geographical patterning, but were more evenly ubiquitous. Apart from the outlying Saami, all Europeans are characterised by the predominance of haplogroups H, U and T. The lack of observable geographic structuring of mtDNA may be due to socio-cultural factors, namely the phenomena of polygyny and patrilocality.[93] According to the University of Oulu Library in Finland:
Classical polymorphic markers (i.e. blood groups, protein electromorphs and HLA antigenes) have suggested that Europe is a genetically homogeneous continent with a few outliers such as the Saami, Sardinians, Icelanders and Basques (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1993, Piazza 1993). The analysis of mtDNA sequences has also shown a high degree of homogeneity among European populations, and the genetic distances have been found to be much smaller than between populations on other continents, especially Africa (Comas et al. 1997).
The mtDNA haplogroups[94] of Europeans are surveyed by using a combination of data from RFLP analysis of the coding region and sequencing of the hypervariable segment I. About 99% of European mtDNAs fall into one of ten haplogroups: H, I, J, K, M, T, U, V, W or X (Torroni et al. 1996a). Each of these is defined by certain relatively ancient and stable polymorphic sites located in the coding region (Torroni et al. 1996a)... Haplogroup H, which is defined by the absence of an AluI site at bp 7025, is the most prevalent, comprising half of all Europeans (Torroni et al. 1996a, Richards et al. 1998)... Six of the European haplogroups (H, I, J, K, T and W) are essentially confined to European populations (Torroni et al. 1994, 1996a), and probably originated after the ancestral Caucasoids became genetically separated from the ancestors of the modern Africans and Asians.[95]
Genetic studies suggest some maternal gene flow to eastern Europe from eastern Asia or southern Siberia 13,000 – 6,600 years BP.[96] Analysis of Neolithic skeletons in the Great Hungarian Plain found a high frequency of eastern Asian mtDNA haplogroups, some of which survive in modern eastern European populations.[96] Maternal gene flow to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa began as early as 11,000 years BP, although the majority of lineages, approximately 65%, are estimated to have arrived more recently, including during the Romanization period, the Arab conquests of southern Europe, and during the Atlantic slave trade.[97]
Relation between Europeans and other populations [ edit ]
A 2007 study by Bauchet, which utilised about 10,000 autosomal DNA SNPs arrived at similar results. Principal component analysis clearly identified four widely dispersed groupings, corresponding to Africa, Europe, Central Asia and South Asia. PC1 separated Africans from the other populations, PC2 divided Asians from Europeans and Africans, whilst PC3 split Central Asians apart from South Asians.[98]
Autosomal genetic distances between 3 intercontinental populations based on SNPs (See below for explanation of autosomal genetic distances (Fst) based on SNPs)[99] Northwestern Europe (CEU) Yoruba Han Chinese NorthwesternEurope (CEU) 0.1530 0.1100 Yoruba 0.1530 0.1900 Han Chinese 0.1100 0.1900
According to Cavalli-Sforza's work, all non-African populations are more closely related to each other than to Africans; supporting the hypothesis that all non-Africans descend from a single old-African population. The genetic distance from Africa to Europe (16.6) was found to be shorter than the genetic distance from Africa to East Asia (20.6), and much shorter than that from Africa to Australia (24.7). He explains:
... both Africans and Asians contributed to the settlement of Europe, which began about 40,000 years ago. It seems very reasonable to assume that both continents nearest to Europe contributed to its settlement, even if perhaps at different times and maybe repeatedly. It is reassuring that the analysis of other markers also consistently gives the same results in this case. Moreover, a specific evolutionary model tested, i.e., that Europe is formed by contributions from Asia and Africa, fits the distance matrix perfectly (6). In this simplified model, the migrations postulated to have populated Europe are estimated to have occurred at an early date (30,000 years ago), but it is impossible to distinguish, on the basis of these data, this model from that of several migrations at different times. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively".[100][101][102]
This particular model used an Out of Africa migration 100,000 years ago, which separated Africans from non-Africans, followed by a single admixture event 30,000 years ago leading to the formulation of the European population. The admixture event consisted of a source population that was 35% African and 65% East Asian. However, the study notes that a more realistic scenario would include several admixture events occurring over a sustained period. In particular, they cite the spread of farming from a source population in West Asia 5000–9000 years ago that may have played a role in the genetic relatedness of Africans and Europeans, since West Asia is sandwiched in between Africa and Central Asia.[100][101][102]
The model assumed an out of Africa migration 100kya and a single admixture event 30kya. However, most contemporary studies have more recent dates that place the out of Africa migration 50-70kya. The study also involved a direct comparison between Sub-Saharan Africans (Central Africans and Senegalese) and Europeans. North African populations were omitted from the study. These considerations might help explain the apparent short genetic distance between Europeans and Africans.[100][101][102]
European population sub-structure [ edit ]
Europe is relatively genetically homogeneous, but distinct sub-population patterns of various types of genetic markers have been found,[103] particularly along a southeast-northwest cline.[104] For example, Cavalli-Sforza’s principal component analyses revealed five major clinal patterns throughout Europe, and similar patterns have continued to be found in more recent studies.[105]
A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Middle East, spreading to lowest levels northwest. Cavalli-Sforza originally described this as faithfully reflecting the spread of agriculture in Neolithic times. This has been the general tendency in interpretation of all genes with this pattern. A cline of genes with highest frequencies among Finnish and Sami in the extreme north east, and spreading to lowest frequencies in the south west. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the area of the lower Don and Volga rivers in southern Russia, and spreading to lowest frequencies in Spain, Southern Italy, Greece and the areas inhabited by Saami speakers in the extreme north of Scandinavia. Cavalli-Sforza associated this with the spread of Indo-European languages, which he links in turn to a "secondary expansion" after the spread of agriculture, associated with animal grazing. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Balkans and Southern Italy, spreading to lowest levels in Britain and the Basque country. Cavalli-Sforza associates this with "the Greek expansion, which reached its peak in historical times around 1000 and 500 BC but which certainly began earlier". A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Basque country, and lower levels beyond the area of Iberia and Southern France. In perhaps the most well-known conclusion from Cavalli-Sforza, this weakest of the five patterns was described as isolated remnants of the pre-Neolithic population of Europe, "who at least partially withstood the expansion of the cultivators". It corresponds roughly to the geographical spread of rhesus negative blood types. In particular, the conclusion that the Basques are a genetic isolate has become widely discussed, but also a controversial conclusion.
He also created a phylogenetic tree to analyse the internal relationships among Europeans. He found four major 'outliers'- Basques, Sami, Sardinians and Icelanders;[106] a result he attributed to their relative isolation (note: the Icelanders and the Sardinians speak Indo-European languages, while the other two groups do not). Greeks and Yugoslavs represented a second group of less extreme outliers. The remaining populations clustered into several groups : "Celtic", "Germanic", "south-western Europeans", "Scandinavians" and "eastern Europeans".[107]
A study in May 2009[108] of 19 populations from Europe using 270,000 SNPs highlighted the genetic diversity of European populations corresponding to the northwest to southeast gradient and distinguished "four several distinct regions" within Europe:
Finland, showing the greatest distance to the rest of Europeans.
the Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), western Russia and eastern Poland.
Central and Western Europe.
Italy, "with the southern Italians being more distant".
In this study, barrier analysis revealed "genetic barriers" between Finland, Italy and other countries and that barriers could also be demonstrated within Finland (between Helsinki and Kuusamo) and Italy (between northern and southern part, Fst=0.0050). Fst (Fixation index) was found to correlate considerably with geographic distances ranging from ≤0.0010 for neighbouring populations to 0.0200–0.0230 for Southern Italy and Finland. For comparisons, pair-wise Fst of non-European samples were as follows: Europeans – Africans (Yoruba) 0.1530; Europeans – Chinese 0.1100; Africans (Yoruba) – Chinese 0.1900.[109]
A study by Chao Tian in August 2009 extended the analysis of European population genetic structure to include additional southern European groups and Arab populations (Palestinians, Druzes...) from the Near-East. This study determined autosomal Fst between 18 population groups and concluded that, in general, genetic distances corresponded to geographical relationships with smaller values between population groups with origins in neighbouring countries/regions (for example, Greeks/Tuscans: Fst=0.0010, Greeks/Palestinians: Fst=0.0057) compared with those from very different regions in Europe (for example Greeks/Swedish: Fst=0.0087, Greeks/Russians: Fst=0.0108).[110][111]
Autosomal DNA [ edit ]
Seldin (2006) used over 5,000 autosomal SNPs. It showed "a consistent and reproducible distinction between ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ European population groups". Most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards), and Ashkenazi Jews have >85% membership in the southern population; and most northern, western, central, and eastern Europeans (Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) have >90% in the northern population group. However, many of the participants in this study were actually American citizens who self-identified with different European ethnicities based on self-reported familial pedigree.[112]
A similar study in 2007 using samples exclusively from Europe found that the most important genetic differentiation in Europe occurs on a line from the north to the south-east (northern Europe to the Balkans), with another east-west axis of differentiation across Europe. Its findings were consistent with earlier results based on mtDNA and Y-chromosonal DNA that support the theory that modern Iberians (Spanish and Portuguese) hold the most ancient European genetic ancestry, as well as separating Basques and Sami from other European populations.[98]
It suggested that the English and Irish cluster with other Northern and Eastern Europeans such as Germans and Poles, while some Basque and Italian individuals also clustered with Northern Europeans. Despite these stratifications, it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world".[98]
In 2008, two international research teams published analyses of large-scale genotyping of large samples of Europeans, using over 300,000 autosomal SNPs. With the exception of usual isolates such as Basques, Finns and Sardinians, the European population lacked sharp discontinuities (clustering) as previous studies have found (see Seldin et al. 2006 and Bauchet et al. 2007[98]), although there was a discernible south to north gradient. Overall, they found only a low level of genetic differentiation between subpopulations, and differences which did exist were characterised by a strong continent-wide correlation between geographic and genetic distance. In addition, they found that diversity was greatest in southern Europe due a larger effective population size and/or population expansion from southern to northern Europe.[113] The researchers take this observation to imply that genetically, Europeans are not distributed into discrete populations.[114][115]
A study on north-eastern populations, published in March 2013, found that Komi peoples formed a pole of genetic diversity that is distinct from other populations.[116]
Autosomal genetic distances (Fst) based on SNPs (2009) [ edit ]
The genetic distance between populations is often measured by Fixation index (Fst), based on genetic polymorphism data, such as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or microsatellites. Fst is a special case of F-statistics, the concept developed in the 1920s by Sewall Wright. Fst is simply the correlation of randomly chosen alleles within the same sub-population relative to that found in the entire population. It is often expressed as the proportion of genetic diversity due to allele frequency differences among populations.
The values range from 0 to 1. A zero value implies that the two populations are panmixis, that they are interbreeding freely. A value of one would imply that the two populations are completely separate. The greater the Fst value, the greater the genetic distance. Essentially, these low Fst values suggest that the majority of genetic variation is at the level of individuals within the same population group (~ 85%); whilst belonging to a different population group within same ‘race’/ continent, and even to different racial/ continental groups added a much smaller degree of variation (3–8%; 6–11%, respectively).
History of research [ edit ]
Classical genetic markers (by proxy) [ edit ]
CEU – Utah residents with ancestry from Northern and Western Europe.
One of the first scholars to perform genetic studies was Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. He used classical genetic markers to analyse DNA by proxy. This method studies differences in the frequencies of particular allelic traits, namely polymorphisms from proteins found within human blood (such as the ABO blood groups, Rhesus blood antigens, HLA loci, immunoglobulins, G6PD isoenzymes, among others). Subsequently his team calculated genetic distance between populations, based on the principle that two populations that share similar frequencies of a trait are more closely related than populations that have more divergent frequencies of the trait.[119]
From this, he constructed phylogenetic trees that showed genetic distances diagrammatically. His team also performed principal component analyses, which is good at analysing multivariate data with minimal loss of information. The information that is lost can be partly restored by generating a second principal component, and so on.[120] In turn, the information from each individual principal component (PC) can be presented graphically in synthetic maps. These maps show peaks and troughs, which represent populations whose gene frequencies take extreme values compared to others in the studied area.[119]
Peaks and troughs usually connected by smooth gradients are called clines. Genetic clines can be generated by adaptation to environment (natural selection), continuous gene flow between two initially different populations or a demographic expansion into a scarcely populated environment, with little initial admixture with existing populations.[121] Cavalli-Sforza connected these gradients with postulated pre-historic population movements, based on archaeological and linguistic theories. However, given that the time depths of such patterns are not known, "associating them with particular demographic events is usually speculative".[93]
Direct DNA analysis [ edit ]
Studies using direct DNA analysis are now abundant and may use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the non-recombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY), or even autosomal DNA. MtDNA and NRY DNA share some similar features, which have made them particularly useful in genetic anthropology. These properties include the direct, unaltered inheritance of mtDNA and NRY DNA from mother to offspring and father to son, respectively, without the'scrambling' effects of genetic recombination. We also presume that these genetic loci are not affected by natural selection and that the major process responsible for changes in base pairs has been mutation (which can be calculated).[122]
The smaller effective population size of the NRY and mtDNA enhances the consequences of drift and founder effect, relative to the autosomes, making NRY and mtDNA variation a potentially sensitive index of population composition.[93][30][123] These biologically plausible assumptions are not concrete; Rosser suggests that climatic conditions may affect the fertility of certain lineages.[93]
The underlying mutation rate used by the geneticists is more questionable. They often use different mutation rates and studies frequently arrive at vastly different conclusions.[93] NRY and mtDNA may be so susceptible to drift that some ancient patterns may have become obscured. Another assumption is that population genealogies are approximated by allele genealogies. Guido Barbujani points out that this only holds if population groups develop from a genetically monomorphic set of founders. Barbujani argues that there is no reason to believe that Europe was colonised by monomorphic populations. This would result in an overestimation of haplogroup age, thus falsely extending the demographic history of Europe into the Late Paleolithic rather than the Neolithic era.[124] Greater certainty about chronology may be obtained from studies of ancient DNA (see below), but so far these have been comparatively few.
Whereas Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups represent but a small component of a person’s DNA pool, autosomal DNA has the advantage of containing hundreds of thousands of examinable genetic loci, thus giving a more complete picture of genetic composition. Descent relationships can only be determined on a statistical basis, because autosomal DNA undergoes recombination. A single chromosome can record a history for each gene. Autosomal studies are much more reliable for showing the relationships between existing populations, but do not offer the possibilities for unravelling their histories in the same way as mtDNA and NRY DNA studies promise, despite their many complications.
Genetic studies operate on numerous assumptions and suffer from methodological limitations, such as selection bias and confounding phenomena like genetic drift, foundation and bottleneck effects cause large errors, particularly in haplogroup studies. No matter how accurate the methodology, conclusions derived from such studies are compiled on the basis of how the author envisages their data fits with established archaeological or linguistic theories.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Inline citations [ edit ]
Sources referenced [ edit ]A recent David Holland FOI has turned up an astonishing new riddle about the relationship between UEA and the Muir Russell panel: there are two different versions of the Sommer Report on the Backup Server, both dated 17 May 2010 and both entitled “UEA – CRU Review: Initial Report and commentary on email examination”. One version was included in the Muir Russell archive of online evidence – see here – it was only two pages long. A different 10-page version was produced by UEA in response to David Holland’s FOI – see documentation or here as html. The longer version contains details not included in the (apparently) expurgated version published by Muir Russell. The short version is derived from the longer version. Although the two versions of the report are both said to have the same author and bear the same date, there are differences in formatting that, in my opinion, point strongly to the shorter version having been prepared by someone other than Peter Sommer for reasons that, at present, are not entirely clear. If, on the other hand, Sommer himself did prepare the shorter version as well as the longer version, the UEA appears to have withheld correspondence documenting their reason for requesting a second version of the report and whether the second version was backdated.
As a prefatory comment, I urge CA readers to purchase Andrew Montford’s excellent “Hiding the Decline” for a thorough discussion of the “inquiries” that failed to inquire, written in Andrew’s usual lucid style. I had seen a pdf draft; Andrew kindly sent me a real copy. It read even better as a paperback back than on the computer screen. So please support Andrew – see here.
I’ve commented in the past on the very cursory analysis of the Backup Server. One loose end, recently pursued by David Holland, was that Sommer had stated (in the expurgated version here published by Muir Russell) that he had been retained by the UEA (rather than the “Independent Climate Change Email Review”) as follows:
“I am asked by the University of East Anglia to look at the back-ups of the computers of the key researchers in CRU as they are held on the back-up server to see if it is feasible to identify email traffic which was not publicised on the various websites, but nonetheless related to the same issues and might justify further investigation by the Independent Review into the publication of the emails and the allegations of inappropriate scientific and other practice which had subsequently been made.”
Quoting the above paragraph, in November 2012, David Holland asked the UEA for its correspondence with Sommer as follows:
Please supply me electronic copies of the correspondence with Prof. Sommer in connection with this assignment including his invoice for this work.
In december 2012, the UEA returned the following documentation in one bundle:
1. a four-page contract between the UEA and Peter Sommer dated April 26, 2010
2. an administrative email dated April 27, 2010 from Elaine Rymarz of the Registrar’s Officer to Sommer;
3. an invoice dated May 26, 2010 from Sommer to UEA for 37 hours of work between April 26 and May 24, 2010
4. a ten-page report from Sommer dated May 17, 2010 entitled “UEA – CRU Review Initial Report and commentary on email examination”
It seems very likely to me that there is other correspondence between the UEA and Sommer. It’s hard to picture the contract being administered with no correspondence between the signature of the contract and delivery of the report, especially with the problems and delays in obtaining access. However, that’s a problem for a |
. The state, it appears, might do something about that. Governor Charles Baker recently signed a bill ordering a study of the wisdom of moving its 10,555 square miles into a time zone that would brighten the end of the day in the months the Northern Hemisphere tilts away from the sun. The idea came from Quincy resident Tom Emswiler, who worries Massachusetts is losing college grads to sunnier climes. On Dec. 9 last year, the sun went down in Boston at 4:11 p.m., only 22 minutes later than in the Yukon. … Emswiler says Massachusetts should throw in with those who live in the Atlantic Time Zone, which covers eastern Canada, the Caribbean and parts of South America, and do away with changing the clocks in spring and summer. From November through March, the sun would set an hour later than it does now.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.:
-- The final two days of August keep the summer sizzle going strong with above normal temperatures and moderate to high humidity, the Capital Weather Gang forecasts. “A big cold front arrives Thursday and promises a decrease in heat and humidity just in time for the holiday. Picture sunny skies, comfortable highs and cool nights, and you’ll be visualizing your Labor Day weekend.” For today: “Mostly sunny skies offer a general repeat of yesterday, but our humidity is slightly lower. By the time we hit the peak temperatures in the upper 80s to low 90s this afternoon, heat indices may ‘only’ reach the middle 90s. It’s still on the uncomfortable side for some of us.”
-- The Nationals beat the Phillies 4-0.
-- With severe weather expected to hit the Tampa area Thursday, the Buccaneers announced that their preseason game against the Redskins will now take place a day earlier. The game will kick off at 8 p.m. Wednesday. (Mike Jones)
-- Redskins Coach Jay Gruden said his team will continue to “stand up and give respect” during the national anthem, citing the team’s close relationship with the military. Gruden said he hadn’t yet discussed Colin Kaepernick’s controversial anthem protest with his team, but that he might bring it up at a scheduled meeting on Tuesday. ( Dan Steinberg)
-- The Virginia governor’s race just got more crowded. State Sen. Frank Wagner is running for governor in 2017, joining three other Republicans vying for their party’s nomination. Wagner (Virginia Beach) announced that he would run the day after the state party decided it would choose its candidate in a state-run primary. The others are former RNC chair Ed Gillespie, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Trump state chairman Corey A. Stewart. ( Jenna Portnoy)
-- A tree fell on a car on Beach Drive NW in Rock Creek Park during rush hour last night, trapping a man inside, and police corralled about 30 onlookers to lift the tree off. This is near the Duke Ellington Bridge (aka Calvert Street Bridge). The man inside was transported to the hospital with serious injuries. (Martin Weil)
-- D.C. isn’t working: The District’s 911 emergency line went down for 90 minutes beginning late Saturday because a contractor trying to shut off an alarm accidentally hit a master turnoff switch. The contractor, working through a company hired by the Department of General Services, is no longer working at the Office of Unified Communications. The outage lasted from about 11:35 p.m. to 1:15 a.m. A backup center should have immediately begun accepting all 911 calls, but that system also failed. (Peter Hermann and Victoria St. Martin)
-- Three men who D.C. police say opened fire at 3 a.m. yesterday on a group of people in a parking lot in Cleveland Park were arrested after a downtown car chase. “No one was struck by the gunfire, but police said several bullet casings were found scattered in the 2500 block of Porter Street NW,” per Peter Hermann. "Police said they later recovered three weapons — a.40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, a.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol and a 7.62 caliber rifle. … The shooting occurred about one-third of a mile from the Cleveland Park Metro station and a line of shops along busy Connecticut Avenue.”
-- A man broke into a residence around 6 a.m. Sunday near RRK stadium, sexually assaulted the occupant at gunpoint and left with some of the victim’s property. The incident occurred in the 1200 block of Massachusetts Avenue SE. Police said the male victim awoke to find another man in his house. (Peter Hermann)
VIDEOS OF THE DAY:
Actor Gene Wilder passed away at 83 from complications due to Alzheimer's disease. Here's a 3-minute walk down memory lane, starting with "Willy Wonka":
Every election cycle produces a slew of new ads that try to make voting appeal to younger people. Some ads work, while others are pretty hard to watch. Here's a 90-second mash-up by our Erin Patrick O'Connor:
Christopher Jackson, who plays George Washington in the Broadway musical "Hamilton," freestyle rapped about the election on Bloomberg Politics' “With all due respect." Two minutes:
A rookie teacher made a rap video to welcome his 4th grade students in Chicago. It's gone viral.
A rundown of Trump's most controversial surrogates:
See the carnage after a freak lightning bolt killed over 300 reindeer in Norway:For reasons known only to them, some bigots spend their leisure time searching Twitter for concepts that upset them, then trying to provoke arguments with total strangers. This gives an addictive little thrill to the trolls, but it's inconvenient at best (and traumatic at worst) for the strangers.
So why not outsource the problem to a bot?
Sarah Nyberg has done just that with Arguetron, an automated Twitter account that baits angry Twitter eggs—the kind who use the word "cuck" and believe "white genocide" is a thing—into pointless fights. Sometimes for hours.
they spend hours and hours yelling at it
seriously, the bot is just like honey for internet jerksthey spend hours and hours yelling at it pic.twitter.com/y8igW3osm7 October 6, 2016
someone repeatedly attempts to sexually harass the bot thinking it's human, this is how it replies:
this is my favorite interactionsomeone repeatedly attempts to sexually harass the bot thinking it's human, this is how it replies: pic.twitter.com/2xqXVRTJPZ October 6, 2016
It posts endless provocations of the sort that invariably attract a creeping cloud of Twitter harassment, and it often names names.
more than two genders exist — Liz (@arguetron) October 7, 2016
you could listen to The Amazing Atheist, or you could make the correct choice — Liz (@arguetron) October 7, 2016
nothing true is ever said in gamergate — Liz (@arguetron) October 7, 2016
oh, look, Infowars was wrong, again. — Liz (@arguetron) October 7, 2016
dear Sargon of Akkad fans: please stop. — Liz (@arguetron) October 6, 2016
it argued with the bot for... almost TEN HOURS. yes, really.
this infowars egg is the record holderit argued with the bot for... almost TEN HOURS. yes, really. pic.twitter.com/DiQdNd8azw October 6, 2016
There is a hole here that no amount of tweeting can fill. It would be tragic if it weren't so funny.
Unfortunately, word is out about the Arguetron experiment, and some people who disagree with its robot opinions would like to get it shut down.
anyway, the fragile snowfake anti censorship trump warriors are trying to get the bot shut down b/c it made them look ridiculous pic.twitter.com/mZNe9SzEUX October 7, 2016
And speaking of bait:
(joke was shamelessly stolen from pic.twitter.com/KvlU9IhvFm
here are the accounts that the bot follows, and people still fall for it(joke was shamelessly stolen from @NoraReed October 7, 2016
Arguetron has a female-reading display name—"Liz"—which makes angry men even more eager to argue with it. And sometimes even hit on it. The two approaches are equally futile:The bot is programmed to respond to all the main phenotypes of angry, unfulfilled internet bro, including alt-righters, Gamergaters, MRAs, Anonymous, Julian Assange fanboys, and the ever-present Infowars conspiracy theory crowd.You'd think the people arguing would catch on after a while that "Liz" is a bot, but they often don't. And sometimes it gets so extreme that you have to wonder whether the trolls are bots, too. Who spends 10 hours—10! hours!—arguing with someone on the internet?It doesn't appear to violate Twitter's terms of service, though. It's not seeking out and harassing anyone, and everything it posts can be defended as opinion. Maybe a better solution for the dudes who are upset about the bot is to... stop seeking out and arguing with strangers on the internet. Arguetron can't make you look foolish; you can only do that to yourself by taking the bait.Nice, nice.A nine-year-old girl was found dead after being raped in Worli on Tuesday. Her body was found lying on the foot path. Police said there were strangulation marks on her neck.
The deceased has been identified as Savita Sunil Parwale. Savita, a Std III student, was staying with her parents in a slum colony at the corner of E Moses Road in Worli. The body was found barely 200 meters away from her house.
According to the police, the incident came to light at around 7am when some residents contacted the police control room, saying a girl was lying unconscious on the footpath of Dainik Shivneri Road at Worli. A police mobile van immediately rushed to the spot and took the girl to Nair Hospital where doctors revealed that she was strangulated to death after being raped. Sunil Parwale identified the body as his daughter.
“We have registered a case under Sections 376 (A) (rape), 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of the Preventions of Children for Sexual Offences Act against unidentified persons,” said Deepak Pawar, senior police inspector. He said the police are interrogating her neighbours. Pawar said her family members didn’t know when Savita left home.Image: Mon's Images/Shutterstock
An unusual bug in Gmail's Android app allows anyone to make their email look like it was sent by someone else, and might open the door to dangerous phishing emails.
The flaw was discovered by independent security researcher Yan Zhu, who reported it to Google at the end of October. The bug only works within the regular Gmail Android app. To take advantage of it, you simply change your display name in the account settings, then your real email address will be hidden, and the receiver won't be able to reveal it.
To send the email displayed above, Zhu changed her display name to yan ""security@google.com" with an extra quotation mark.
"The extra quotes triggers a parsing bug in the gmail app, which causes the real email to be invisible," Zhu told Motherboard.
Google's Security team dismissed her bug report, saying this is not a security vulnerability, according Zhu's screenshots of her email correspondence with the internet giant.
"Thanks for your note, we don't consider this to be a security vulnerability," a Google Security Team member told Zhu.
At that point, Zhu decided to disclose the bug on Twitter.
filed a gmail android bug that lets me fake sender email address. they said it's not a security issue. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ yan⚠November 11, 2015
While this is a low risk vulnerability, given that it only works within Android's Gmail app, it could be abused by someone with malicious intentions to send phishing emails that have a higher probability of tricking victims. This is exactly the scenario that Zhu posited to Google when she alerted them of the bug.
It's always been possible to spoof email envelope addresses, but spoofed emails now usually get caught by spam filters or get displayed with a warning in Gmail, Zhu told Motherboard. With this bug, a hacker can get around these protections.
A Twitter user jokingly said Zhu should've taken advantage of the vulnerability when reporting it to Google.
"Send the email from Sergey or Larry and tell them it's a high priority bug that they need to fix immediately, wrote Phred on Twitter. "Problem solved."
UPDATE, 11/17/2015, 4:28 p.m.: Google finally said it's working to fix the bug.When importers make declarations under the Lacey Act, they are also claiming that they have complied with other laws, like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. This international treaty, adopted in 1973, outlawed global trade in elephant ivory in 1975 and Brazilian rosewood in 1992. But well-established luthiers — particularly the 100 or so who have been handcrafting and restoring stringed instruments for over 40 years — have stockpiles of ivory and wood that were acquired before the bans were put in place.
While manufacturers have increasingly turned to sustainable alternatives to guitar makers’ traditional tonewoods, this option is largely unavailable to artisans who build a small number of instruments each year. Their inability to document the source and age of their materials exposes them to bankrupting fines and confiscations.
As a result, North American luthiers now sit on valuable supplies of Brazilian rosewood they are afraid to use, since guitars made with it cannot legally cross American borders — a liability for traveling musicians and international collectors. For self-employed artisans who often have no health insurance or 401(k) plans, these stashes of rare wood are the only retirement savings they have.
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House members have now put forward a proposal — the Retailers and Entertainers Lacey Implementation and Enforcement Fairness Act, or the Relief Act — to limit the declaration requirements under the Lacey amendment to solid wood and commercially imported goods, and to lift declaration requirements for wood and wood products imported or manufactured before May 2008.
While the bill may help guitar stores and musicians, it fails to address the problem facing artisanal builders.
Easing the declaration requirements doesn’t affect the underlying legality of the wildlife materials in a guitar. The international sale of Brazilian rosewood guitars or vintage instruments with ivory nuts and saddles would still be illegal (under the convention) and guitars with decorative inlay could still be detained by customs agents looking for certain species of abalone shell (restricted under the Endangered Species Act).
What artisanal makers urgently need is a way to certify the legality of instruments built with materials they acquired before the trade convention and endangered species laws. Any workable solution needs to acknowledge that an artisanal instrument is not a mass-produced object: it has a unique history and character. For example, it should be enough for luthiers to provide a sworn affidavit to show that their Brazilian rosewood was obtained before 1992. Judgments must be made on a case-by-case basis. That is why many luthiers favor the issuing of passport-like documents, with photographs and serial numbers, for vintage and handmade guitars.
The Gibson case has attracted attention far beyond the noisy agitations of the right — not because the actions of the federal government were wrong, but because the future of North American guitar making will be in peril if problematic aspects of environmental law are not resolved.
Those of us who care about the craft that made the American guitar one of the most desirable instruments in the world are watching the Obama administration closely. And we have reason to be hopeful. After all, this is the president who, with his wife, shortly after taking office, gave Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, France’s first lady, a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar as a gift of friendship.Our Camper Internet Configuration
Posted in Technology on October 2, 2013 Last Updated on November 20, 2013
Living in a mobile residence can complicate lots of situations, one of those being the fact that you cannot simply run a residential internet connection to your RV and pull it around the country. Our livelihood comes from the internet, and we cannot go without a connection for more than a day or two without having potential customer service issues. There are countless ways to solve internet needs and we are hoping to make sure we cover a large array of them and keep our internet flowing, while spending the least amount of funds.
Without further ado, we bring you…
Our Current Internet Configuration
Most campgrounds and friends/family will have a wireless router. The problem, however, is the signal is often not strong enough to make it in to our camper and allow us to have a reliable connection. To solve this, we use a NanoStation M2 (a Wireless to WAN device), which connects to their wireless network, or any open Wifi network up to a few miles away, and passes the internet in to our Linksys router inside the camper by way of a standard CAT 5 network cable. The NanoStation provides a web interface, which you log in to just as you would any home router, choose the network you would like to connect to, enter the Network’s access key/password, and save the information.
The NanoStation can also serve as a router and the Linksys is not a requirement. We chose to use it to provide more flexibility, allowing us to connect and test any network toys we like to its’ WAN port, without needing to make internal network configuration changes.
Should wireless be an issue, or the house is close, we also have a 100ft CAT 5 Network Cable to connect our Linksys Router directly to their router. Switching is as simple as unplugging the NanoStation network cable from the Linksys, plugging in the network cable from the house, and renewing the DHCP settings in the Linksys router’s admin.
That’s really all there is to it. Once the Internet is in the RV and connected to the router, configuration is like that of any other home network. We connect our devices via Wireless to the Linksys router, and away we go on the internet.
And, for those of you who are working with this setup, we bring you:
The Configurations
Please note, while these settings work and work for us, there may be some which work better for you and your needs. We also always welcome comments and suggestions for tweaks to the setup and are more than happy to give credit for those we use.
NanoStation
Our Nanostation is not configured much differently than the standard instructions state. With our setup however, and at the recommendation of others, there are a few changes that have been made. Below are screenshots of each of our modified configuration screens.
Things to Note
Our NanoStation has an IP address of 192.168.10.1 This is different than our internal network, which is 192.168.1.[1-255]. This is all part of my segregation of the various networks. Which leads to…
The NanoStation is plugged in to WAN port on our Linksys router. The reason for this, is our in-camper computers connect to it, and never care what internet method is plugged in to the WAN port.
On the advanced tab, we have set the Distance to not use the Automatic setting, and lowered the distance to 0.1 This was advised by another RV’er on Facebook, and should give us a more stable signal.
The Linksys Router
Things to Note
The Linksys router is on a different subnet. I was having various frustrations making everything communicate, and this change help resolve it.On 30 May 2012 EHRO-N, the European Human Resource Observatory in the Nuclear Sector, released its first report analyzing how the supply of experts for the nuclear industry in the EU-27 responds to the demand for the same experts in the region by 2020.
The analysis was based on data received from spring 2010 to spring 2011, thus not taking the effects of the Fukushima-Daiichi accident into account. Nevertheless, the report in its current form still provides a source of relevant information for young people considering working in the nuclear industry, higher educational institutions or companies involved in the nuclear energy sector.
In EU-27, there are today around 80 000 nuclear experts or some 80 nuclear experts per 1000 MW(e) unit. Nuclear experts are estimated to represent some 16% of the total workforce in the nuclear energy sector. That is only the tip of the competence pyramid, which includes also the, so called, nuclearised employees (representing the biggest share of the nuclear energy sector workforce or some 74%) and the nuclear-aware employees (representing some 10% of the total nuclear energy sector workforce).
An alarming finding was that nearly half of the nuclear experts employed today in NPPs in the EU-27 will need to be replaced by 2020.
How does the supply of nuclear experts respond to the demand for experts in the future? The supply of nuclear engineering graduates and graduates having had a nuclear energy related subject in their studies (some 2800 of these graduated in the EU-27 in 2009) cover up to 70% of the demand for nuclear experts in EU-27 by 2020. The demand for these experts in EU-27 is on average 4000 per year by 2020. This is the most optimistic scenario, where it is assumed that all eligible graduates get employed in the nuclear sector.
Furthermore, non-nuclear engineers (some 3200 per year by 2020), technicians (some 3500 per year by 2020) and other graduates like lawyers, business graduates, project managers, etc. (some 2500 per year by 2020) will also be in demand by the nuclear energy sector up to 2020.
Many of the mentioned graduates, especially the non-nuclear engineers, will need to be covered by the so called STEM graduates or graduates in science, technology, engineering and math.
How is this gap between supply of, and demand for nuclear experts to be bridged?
Following the principle “information is power”, EHRO-N proposes that similar surveys are conducted on a regular basis at the EU level in order to forecast trends and provide information to relevant stakeholders, which could act on its basis. For this to happen, the work of EHRO-N needs active support by the national governments (e.g. by coordinating and organizing their national information), nuclear safety authorities, nuclear industry and the E&T organizations. Furthermore, ways to support the mutual recognition of knowledge, skills and competences relevant for the nuclear energy sector should be considered; ECVET approach should be promoted and, last but not least, coordination between industry and universities should be strengthened.
The report is also available in the Document Manager (select Tools -> Document Manager -> File Repository)By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States accused Russia of grandstanding on Saturday by calling a U.N. Security Council meeting over U.S.-led coalition air strikes in Syria, as Russia said the attacks killed dozens of Syrian soldiers and could endanger a truce deal between Moscow and Washington.
The 15-member council met for an hour on Saturday evening after Russia and a war monitoring group said coalition jets bombed a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Washington was investigating the air strikes and "if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life."
She said Russia's decision to call a council meeting was "cynical and hypocritical" as Moscow had never expressed such outrage at the killing of civilians by Syrian government forces during more than five years of conflict.
"Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them," Power told reporters.
The deal reached last Saturday aims to put Syria's peace process back on track. It included a fragile nationwide truce, improved humanitarian aid access and joint military targeting of banned Islamist groups.
When asked if Saturday's air strikes spelled the end of the deal, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: "This is a very big question mark."
"I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble," Churkin told reporters.
Churkin said it was a crucial time in the efforts to bring peace to Syria and the fight against terrorism. He said the United States could have waited until Moscow and Washington were to start joint military cooperation in two days instead of carrying out a "reckless" operation.
"Who is in charge in Washington? Is it the White House or the Pentagon? Because we have heard statements from the Pentagon which simply fly in the face of what we have heard from President Obama and Secretary Kerry," he said.
Both parties to the Syrian conflict have accused each other of being responsible for aid deliveries being stuck far from Aleppo.
"All the permissions the Syrian government was supposed to give have been given for humanitarian supplies to reach people in need in various parts of Syria and that the humanitarian convoy to eastern Aleppo is supposed to leave tomorrow morning," Churkin said.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Paul Simao)The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had come to Memphis on a familiar mission: to support a strike, this one by the city’s sanitation workers. But late in the afternoon, on April 4, 1968, the nation’s foremost civil rights leader was in a room of the Lorraine Motel having a pillow fight with fellow activists Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young. “Pillow fights were something we did all the time,” recalls Young, 66, later the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “They relieved the tension.” Less than an hour later, a little after 6 p.m., King, 39, lay dying on the motel balcony, shot once by a sniper.
The killing of one of America’s most eloquent advocates of nonviolence rocked a country already torn apart by the Vietnam war and urban race riots. It also spawned one of the late 20th century’s most troubling mysteries—one that now may never be solved. On April 23, almost three weeks after the nation marked the 30th anniversary of King’s murder, James Earl Ray, 70, the confessed assassin who later insisted he was innocent, died at Columbia Nashville Memorial Hospital in Tennessee, after a long bout with liver disease.
Most historians and law enforcement officials regard Ray as one of history’s clear-cut villains. Lee Coffee, a Shelby County prosecutor involved in a recent four-year reexamination of the case, insists, “It is abundantly clear and indisputable that James Earl Ray is the man who pulled the trigger.”
But Ray, who recanted his confession three days after drawing a 99-year sentence, had pressed in recent years for a trial that he insisted would vindicate him. “I didn’t know anything about it,” he told the Today show April 3 in his last interview. Along the way he gained some unlikely allies, including King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, who believes Ray either did not act alone or had no role at all. As recently as April 8, King asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to reopen the investigation—a request still under consideration. “We presented new evidence that has come to our attention,” King told reporters without elaborating.
Certainly most Americans hate to think that their giants can be brought down by the likes of Ray. One of nine children, he was born in Alton, Ill., to factory worker James Gerald Ray, a convicted robber, and his wife, Lucille, a cleaning woman. He quit school at 16 to work in a shoe factory and enlisted in the Army in 1946 but was discharged after missing guard duty, going AWOL and serving three months in the stockade. Over the next two decades, Ray spent almost 14 years behind bars for robbery, vagrancy and forgery.
In April 1967 he escaped from the Missouri state penitentiary in Jefferson City, where he was doing 20 years for armed robbery. A year later, on April 4, Ray checked into room 5-B of a Memphis rooming house across from the Lorraine Motel. Though he vanished after the shooting, he was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968.
Ray’s incarceration was not uneventful. In 1977 he escaped from Brushy Mountain state prison but was recaptured in three days. In 1978 he married courtroom artist Anna Sandhu (they divorced 14 years later), and in 1981, Ray was stabbed by three black inmates. Doctors later theorized that a blood transfusion he received for the treatment of those wounds contained the hepatitis-C virus that destroyed his liver.
Ray lived his last days in an 8-foot-square cell. Though widely characterized as racist, he got along “with everybody, young or old, black or white,” says his brother Jerry Ray, 63, a retired security guard. Twenty days before his death, Ray seemed indifferent to history’s verdict. “I don’t care,” he told Today. “I have no interest in how I’m remembered now.”
Richard Jerome
Kate Klise and Beverly Keel in Nashville and Gail Wescott in AtlantaON JULY 30th Canada’s Conservative government announced it intends to ban the use of microbeads in personal-care products. The Netherlands has already imposed an unofficial ban on them, which should be in effect by the end of 2016. What are these horrid little things?
Microbeads are very small synthetic plastic particles, each of them perfectly spherical. None are more than five millimetres (5mm) across, and most are only 1mm or smaller; they look like grains of sand. The most common sorts are made from polyethylene and polypropylene. These are used in everything from cancer research and HIV treatment to flat-panel televisions and the jumbo screens in stadiums. But what really worries the Canadians, and a growing number of scientists and environmentalists everywhere, is the use of microbeads in products like toothpaste, soap and facial scrubs and exfoliants.
When these goops and gunks go down the drain, so do the microbeads. The trouble is they are too tough to dissolve and yet too small to be caught by the filters in water-treatment plants. So they are discharged into natural water systems, where they do untold damage. New York alone flushes about 19 tonnes of microbeads down its drains every year. They can absorb toxic agents along the way. Wild critters often mistake them for food. Ingested microplastics can block up their guts and lead to starvation. Worse, from a human point of view, chemicals can be gobbled up with the microbeads and so work their way up the food chain. Microbeads have already been found in the flesh of fish caught for human consumption.
Scientists at Environment Canada, a department of the national government, reviewed more than 130 scientific papers, consulted experts and concluded that microbeads should be added to the national list of toxic substances. This would give Canada the authority to regulate the sale, manufacture and import of microbeads. It won’t happen right away however. Three days after his microbeads announcement, Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, called an election for October 19th. But both the main opposition parties have called for a ban too, so something should happen whichever party wins. The trickier point might be the government’s plan to align its policy with America’s.
The United States does not have anything so clear as a federal ban. Most of the action has taken place at the state level, starting with the states that share coastlines along the Great Lakes, which sit on the border between Canada and the United States. Eight states have passed banning legislation and 17 have bills pending. In June 2014, Illinois became the first state to pass a bill against microbeads, though many experts think it did not go far enough. They see it as an unwholesome compromise: Illinois’s rule only bans some microbeads, allowing the use of biodegradable ones. Those are also plastic, though they can be broken down under laboratory conditions. It is not clear whether they would actually biodegrade on, say, the bottom of Lake Michigan. States with more ambitious proposals on the table, including New York and California, are calling for companies to substitute all microbeads with natural alternatives, like seeds, husks or shells.
While lawmakers split hairs—which can be as thin as 0.05mm or thinner—many manufacturers of personal-care products are independently taking action against microbeads.
Procter & Gamble has made a commitment to phase them out. Loblaws, the largest food retailer in Canada, has said it will stop making them by 2018 (or sooner, presumably, if the law demands it). Colgate-Palmolive stopped using them in 2014 and Unilever phased out the last of its microbeads in January 2015. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) says it will have eliminated the use of polyethylene microbeads by the end of 2017. J&J has already begun reformulating some products to use jojoba wax, extracted from a shrub native to the deserts of North America.
Correction: This article was changed slightly on August 5th 2015, to reflect the fact that Colgate-Palmolive had already removed microbeads from its products.article
It's still a pretty rough time to be a department store.
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Macy's, Kohl's and Dillard's all said Thursday that a key sales figure fell again in the latest quarter as customers increasingly shop online, at discount stores and elsewhere. Nordstrom, the outlier, saw those sales rise 1.7 percent overall and even more at its discount Nordstrom Rack unit.
At Macy's the decrease wasn't as bad as Wall Street expected, and Kohl's managed to keep the decline to just 0.4 percent. But Macy's Inc. shares fell 10 percent, Kohl's Corp. fell nearly 6 percent and Dillard's Inc. dropped almost 16 percent after reporting a loss of $17.1 million.
Macy's has cut jobs and closed some stores, has started an off-price brand, and it plans to launch a loyalty program in October that it hopes will bring more shoppers through its doors. The company is open to more changes: When asked Thursday if Macy's would consider selling medicine, appliances or other items to make it more of a one-stop shop, CEO Jeff Gennette didn't say no.
"Macy's is a very flexible brand," he said.
Rival J.C Penney, which is scheduled to report results Friday, has brought major appliances to its stores after a long absence — an area that had been a remaining source of strength for Sears.
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Macy's, the nation's largest department store chain, said sales fell 2.8 percent at established stores during the second quarter, its tenth such decline in a row. But that was better than the 3.3 percent drop that analysts expected, according to FactSet. Kohl's saw same-store-sales fell 0.4 percent during the quarter. Still, President and CEO Kevin Mansell said foot traffic increased during the quarter. Dillard's said its sales fell 1 percent at established stores.
At Seattle-based Nordstrom, the flagship Nordstrom unit, which includes online clothing concierge Trunk Club, reported a 1.4 percent increase in sales at established stores. The Nordstrom Rack unit reported a 3.1 percent improvement.
Analysts at Citi said the results from Macy's were "less bad," but they added that the company's sales and gross margins are "still very weak." At Kohl's, they saw "better than expected" sales and hints that the back-to-school season had started well.
Department stores are "just not as relevant as they once were," said Neil Saunders at GlobalData.
Nordstrom, though its second-quarter profit declined 6 percent, lifted the lower end of its outlook, and its shares rose 3 percent in extended trading. The company credited its anniversary sale, which took place during the quarter, and said its own labels did well during the sale. But Nordstrom said that excluding the anniversary sale, the retailer's sales were consistent with recent trends
Macy's had warned investors in June that its profit margins would keep shrinking this year. For the quarter ending July 29, the Cincinnati-based company reported net income of $116 million, or 38 cents per share. That's up from $11 million, or 3 cents per share, a year before.
Adjusted earnings came to 48 cents per share, while revenue fell 5 percent to $5.55 billion. Both those figures beat expectations, according to Zacks.
For the full year, Macy's expects earnings of $2.90 to $3.15 per share, below the $3.27 per share that analysts expected, according to FactSet.
Kohl's, which is trying to attract more shoppers by offering more outside brands and cutting some of its in-house clothing lines, saw profit jump 49 percent to $208 million. Revenue fell just under 1 percent to $4.14 billion.
But Dillard's swung to a loss after reporting a profit in the same period a year earlier, as increased inventory led to big discounts. Analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research had expected earnings of 21 cents per share.
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AP Business Writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on M at https://www.zacks.com/ap/M
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Keywords: Macy's, Earnings Report, Priority EarningsJack Wilshere dismissed his relegation to the bench on Tuesday night as Mesut Özil orchestrated the dismantling of Napoli as "just a formation thing" and said he welcomes the competition for places in Arsenal's midfield.
With Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla still to come back into contention from injury, the manager, Arsène Wenger, is not short of choices |
honestly to the finger-pointing accusations of feminist “rape culture” discourse and get beyond the cliché of “Not all men.” We need to talk about the specific contexts in which so-called “date rape” typically happens. We need to talk about the climate of binge drinking and reckless promiscuity on college campuses where these “he-said/she-said” cases keep happening. We need to talk about the unrealistic expectations about sex that young people are absorbing from popular culture. We need to talk about peer pressure. We need to talk the decline of morality and the corruption of manners....
You can read the whole thing at Medium.com. When I say “we need to talk,” what I mean is that these idiotic young feminists need to listen to responsible adults who have some experience of living in the real world, including men who have not surrendered their dignity in an attempt to appease feminist fanatics. Also, maybe it would help if these kids listened to some good rock-and-roll music. Certainly, it wouldn’t hurt.
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Pressemitteilungen » Pressemitteilungen aus dem Jahr 2019 » Pressemitteilung Nr. 146/16 vom 31.8.2016 Bundesgerichtshof Mitteilung der Pressestelle Nr. 146/2016 Richterin am Bundesgerichtshof Dr. Angelika Reichart im Ruhestand Richterin am Bundesgerichtshof Dr. Angelika Reichart wird mit Ablauf des 31. August 2016 in den Ruhestand treten. Frau Dr. Reichart wurde am 25. August 1953 in Augsburg geboren. Nach Abschluss ihrer juristischen Ausbildung war sie zunächst als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin und sodann als Akademische Rätin an der Universität Augsburg tätig. Im November 1983 trat sie in den höheren Justizdienst des Landes Bayern ein. Nach einer Verwendung bei dem Landgericht Augsburg wurde sie am 1. Juni 1985 zur Staatsanwältin (im Beamtenverhältnis auf Lebenszeit) bei der Staatsanwaltschaft Augsburg ernannt. Knapp ein Jahr später wechselte sie als Richterin am Amtsgericht an das Amtsgericht Augsburg. Am 1. April 1998 erfolgte dort ihre Beförderung zur weiteren Aufsicht führenden Richterin und schließlich am 1. April 2000 die Ernennung zur Richterin am Oberlandesgericht München. Am 1. Juni 2005 wurde Frau Dr. Reichart zur Richterin am Bundesgerichtshof ernannt. Sie gehört seither dem vornehmlich für das Gesellschaftsrecht und Teilbereiche des Kapitalmarktrechts zuständigen II. Zivilsenat an. Die Rechtsprechung dieses Spruchkörpers hat Frau Dr. Reichart in allen dem Senat zugewiesenen Rechtsgebieten maßgeblich mitgeprägt. Karlsruhe, den 31. August 2016 Pressestelle des Bundesgerichtshofs
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Telefax (0721) 159-5501SEATTLE -- Three weeks since Hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico, families there are still without power and running water.
In Seattle, Aaron Morales just returned from Puerto Rico where he delivered supplies and food to his family and hurricane victims.
Morales said he took matters into his own hands to help his family who lives in Puerto Rico, including his 87-year-old grandma.
“My grandma was running out of food. All the carriers to bring packages were inoperable,” Morales said of his grandma who lives by herself in Carolina, about 10 miles from San Juan.
Morales carried three 80-pound bags, delivering food and supplies to his grandma and the community. He and his family also made survival packs filled with dehydrated food and water purifiers for dozens of local families.
“That’s not enough, but’s that’s all I could do as one person,” Morales said.
Another man from Seattle has also been personally affected by the hurricane.
Felipe Santiago is a former Seattle Police officer who lives in Arecibo with his wife. Their home escaped serious damage.
"There are people who are in very bad conditions right now," Santiago said. "A mile from us. It was completely inundated."
He said the big concern now is the lack of power and running water.
“We get water once a week,” Santiago said. “We don’t know when the light is going to come. We don’t know when the water is going to come.”
They have the drinking water and food stocked up and occasional access to a generator. He said other families aren’t so lucky and the relief coming is minimal.
“Many towns are just getting one box, that’s it. It’s just too little. I know they have the food. It’s just bad organization,” Santiago said.
He knows help is coming.
“So far not getting here on time,” Santiago said. “I wish they could do it faster. They are not doing a very good job distributing the food to the people that really need it.”
Even so, Santiago said he and the community are deeply moved.
“We are grateful for all the help from all the people of the United States,” he said.
People in the Seattle area can still help people in Puerto Rico. A special disaster relief fundraiser is being held at at several restaurants including Burger Broiler and El Rinconcito in Burien. The businesses will match every dollar donated up to $30,000. The fundraiser also benefits disaster victims in Florida, Texas, and Mexico. It runs through Sunday."Congressman (Tom) Cotton is the only Arkansan in Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- to vote against disaster relief five times."
Democrats are attacking Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for his voting record on an important Tornado Alley issue.
A television ad produced by the liberal Senate Majority PAC shows video footage of tornadoes and a storm-ravaged town. The narrator, a firefighter identified as Matthew from Little Rock, goes on to criticize Cotton, who is running for Senate, for voting against disaster relief.
"I'll never understand why Congressman Cotton is the only Arkansan in Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- to vote against disaster relief five times, against recovery for victims of natural disasters. He's detached himself from what's going on in Arkansas," he said.
The federal government most recently declared a disaster in Arkansas this past April, when a tornado killed 16 people -- the deadliest tornado in the state since 1968. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent about $5 million on disaster relief there, without having to seek Congressional approval.
Cotton, who is running against incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor, has been in Congress for less than two years -- has he voted against disaster relief five times?
Senate Majority PAC spokesman Ty Matsdorf pointed us to the five times they found Cotton had voted against disaster relief since he took office in January 2013. Four out of the five have to do with funding Hurricane Sandy relief (three of those were all on one bill).
The votes are:
Vote 1 : H.R. 41, January 2013
Cotton voted against a measure to temporarily increase FEMA's borrowing authority in order to carry out the National Flood Insurance Program in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The measure passed the House 354-67 and became law.
Vote 2 : H.R. 152, January 2013
Cotton voted against an amendment that proposed $17 billion in emergency funding to FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The measure passed the House 327-91.
Vote 3 : H.R. 152, January 2013
Cotton voted against an amendment that proposed $33.7 billion for immediate and anticipated needs in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The measure passed the House 228-192.
Vote 4 : H.R. 152, January 2013
Cotton voted against the final bill that would give $50 billion in disaster relief aid to communities and FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The measure passed the House 241 and 180 and became law.
Vote 5 : H.R. 3547, January 2014
Cotton voted against this omnibus appropriations bill that appropriated money to the Disaster Relief Fund. The bill passed the House 359 to 67 and became law.
Of Arkansas’ four Republican representatives, Cotton is the only one to have voted "no" on all five of those measures. But two of them -- Timothy Griffin and and Steve Womack -- voted "no" on final passage for the final Hurricane Sandy funding bill, while Rick Crawford voted "no' on H.R. 3547, the omnibus appropriations bill.
In the Senate, H.R. 41 passed with a voice vote, where the votes aren’t tallied. Pryor approved both of the other two bills. Republican Sen. John Boozman, however, voted "no" on H.R. 152, the Hurricane Sandy bill.
We should note that none of these votes involved specific disaster relief for Arkansas. However, H.R. 3547 was a general appropriations bill covering many areas, a small part of which had to do with funding general disaster relief. And H.R. 152 included $16 billion for community development in declared disaster areas across the country.
Cotton’s office didn't respond to our questions, but a post on his campaign website defends his disaster relief record regarding Hurricane Sandy. "Unfortunately, Washington politicians took advantage of a tragic situation and loaded down the Sandy relief bill with billions in spending that didn’t help the victims but instead went to fund the pet causes of Congressmen," it says.
At the time, some conservatives criticized H.R. 152, the final Hurricane Sandy aid bill, for including funds that didn’t go to immediate disaster relief. According to a Congressional Quarterly analysis, $17 billion went to immediate aid, and $33.5 billion went to long-term assistance.
The budget group Taxpayers for Common Sense documented some of the side projects Cotton and his colleagues were trying to trim out of the bill, such as $2 million for Smithsonian museum roof repairs and $118 million on Amtrak upgrades.
And Cotton’s votes on H.R. 152 weren’t all negative. For example, he voted "yes" on at least five (failed) amendments that cut funds in other areas in order to account for the additional spending on disaster relief.
He also voted "yes" on a later bill that expanded the type of nonprofit organization that could provide disaster aid and assistance.
In reviewing Cotton’s votes, we found Cotton has tended to side with tea party members of the House looking to rein in government spending at any cost. For example, he was part of the coalition that supported shutting down the federal government over raising the debt ceiling.
Cotton has been "unusually steadfast in his opposition to spending," said Janine Parry, a political science professor at the University of Arkansas.
"The main undertone I hear when the Pryor allies run an ad like that is another effort to paint (Cotton) as outside the mainstream, even extremist," Parry said.
Our ruling
A Senate Majority PAC ad said, "Congressman Cotton is the only Arkansan in Congress -- Democrat or Republican -- to vote against disaster relief five times."
We found that Cotton voted against five bills or amendments that would have gone to immediate aid or funded disaster relief programs. The rest of the Arkansas delegation only voted "no" on some of them. However, the ad is a bit disengenuous because it really only addresses three disaster relief bills, and a couple of other Arkansan delegates voted against final passage. The ad also leaves out the times that Cotton voted for disaster relief funding, as long as there were spending cuts to other programs to make up for it. Overall, Cotton typically doesn’t support spending that isn’t balanced out with cuts in other areas.
Additionally, if you think this ad -- which shows tornado-ravaged areas -- is talking all about Arkansas, that isn't the case. Most of these votes had to do with Hurricane Sandy.
We rate this claim Half True.
UPDATE, July 9, 2014: In a response ad, Cotton listed three votes that showed his support for disaster-relief funding. We rated that ad Half True. Read that fact check here.Spy Chief, a Frequent Guest at the White House, is MIA at Headquarters
The top spy in Washington, Dan Coats, has been spending a lot of time in and around the White House lately — so much so that current employees and veterans of the intelligence community are wondering whether the former Indiana senator is being kept on a tight leash by the administration.
Twelve weeks into the job, Coats, the director of national intelligence, is rarely seen at the office’s so-called Liberty Crossing headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Instead, Coats typically works out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where he has an office and frequently attends meetings with the president and his top advisors, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
For Coats, the time spent at the White House has come as a surprise. “I think [CIA] Director [Mike] Pompeo and I can certify the fact that we have spent far more hours in the Oval Office than we anticipated,” Coats said during Senate testimony in May. “The president is a voracious consumer of information.”
But tied up at the White House, Coats risks alienating his office’s approximately 2,000 employees, many of whom are ill at ease with a president who has leveled repeated attacks on the intelligence community. So far, Coats hasn’t won their loyalty and seems unsure how to steer the more than $50 billion enterprise of American espionage.
Amid a sprawling FBI investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and steady drip of intelligence leaks, Coats occupies what is perhaps the least desirable job in Washington. As the nominal head of America’s 17 spy agencies, Coats serves as President Donald Trump’s principal intelligence advisor and as his intermediary with an intelligence community that views its commander in chief with skepticism, if not outright hostility.
The task facing Coats is huge, to borrow a favorite expression of his volatile boss. Coats must provide the president with honest analysis from the intelligence community, parts of which are engaged in a war of leaks with the administration. He’s also tasked with representing a workforce that Trump advisors would like to reduce.
But in his inaugural hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Coats appeared out of his depth at times with some of the issues at hand. Addressing the day’s most pressing topic — how states such as Russia are using digital tools to meddle in elections — Coats offered a halting answer. “[T]he ability they have to — to use the interconnectedness and — and all the — all that that provides, that didn’t provide before I — they literally upped their game to the point where it’s having a significant impact,” he told the panel, in a performance that drew groans but also sympathy.
While Coats previously sat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and served as ambassador to Germany for four years, he lacks the hands-on experience of some of his predecessors, such as James Clapper, who started his career as a signals intelligence officer in the Vietnam War and rose through the ranks.
“He’s not of this world in a lot of ways,” said one former top official, who requested anonymity to discuss Coats’s early job performance candidly. “It’s a tough job if you don’t have an intelligence community background. He’s certainly drinking from a fire hose.”
According to the Washington Post, Coats told colleagues in March he’d been pressured by President Trump to intervene on the Russia investigation, particularly to stifle the counterintelligence work being done by then-FBI Director James Comey exploring links between Trump associates and Moscow. But Coats has denied feeling any undue pressure from the president in public testimony.
Spending the lion’s share of his days at the White House carries with it risks and opportunities for Coats. On the one hand, it guarantees him face-time with the president and an influential seat at the decision-making table. A former senior intelligence official in the Obama administration interprets Coats’s frequent presence at the White House as an indication that the bureaucracy “is active” and that the “president is getting his daily brief.”
Coats told Senate lawmakers this month that what he “thought would be a one or two time a week, 10 to 15 minute quick brief,” referring to the President’s Daily Brief, “has turned into an everyday” affair “sometimes exceeding 45 minutes to an hour.”
One of the sources familiar with Coats’s activities at the White House says he spends a lot of time up close and personal with “the inner circle of the West Wing,” though “most insiders see it as a good thing” that he maintains that proximity.
A spokesman for Coats wrote in a statement emailed to Foreign Policy that the intelligence chief has been “fully engaged” since taking office in March, “briefing President Trump and Principal Committee meetings at the NSC on an almost daily basis” as well as meeting with agency heads and other foreign and domestic officials. “These types of interactions have afforded him the opportunity to share his vision as DNI, to listen to concerns, and to familiarize him with the evolving challenges facing the community,” he wrote.
Twelve weeks into the job, Coats has held town halls with his staff, and has made his way to some of the various satellite offices to meet with workers. He returns to the Liberty Crossing headquarters when he can, but he spends a large chunk of time working with senior level intelligence officials to prepare for the president’s daily intelligence briefings. “When he’s not traveling overseas meeting foreign partners and U.S. officials, he spends the majority of his time at ODNI,” his spokesman wrote.
Coats’s absence from headquarters stems in part from his lack of a deputy to stand in for him in meetings. The awkwardly long acronym for that job — the principal deputy director of national intelligence, or PDDNI — has led employees to dub the position “P-Diddy,” according to David Priess, a former White House CIA briefer and the author of The President’s Book of Secrets.
A nomination for the position is said to be imminent. Those under consideration include Susan Gordon, currently second in command at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; Betty Sapp, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office; and Ted Gistaro, the chief of transnational threats at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the matter. Representatives from those agencies declined to comment on a possible selection.
“A fully staffed DNI is a good thing,” Robert Cardillo, the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told FP. Though Cardillo, who previously worked at Office of the Director of National Intelligence, expressed support for potential efforts to reform the office that might serve taxpayers.
How much time an intelligence chief should spend in the White House has long been up for discussion. When George H.W. Bush took over as CIA director in 1976, four senior officers sent him a memo titled “Where You Should Sit,” urging him not to spend too much time at or near the White House, Priess told FP. CIA leadership felt his proximity to the West Wing could “crush agency morale,” advice that Bush took seriously.
At other times in history, the head of the American intelligence community has had no choice but to spend long hours in the executive office building, as former CIA Director George Tenet did after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2005, the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a body set up in the aftermath of 9/11, replaced the CIA head as the leader of America’s intelligence bureaucracy. The Trump transition team, however, considered abolishing the intelligence chief’s office, a move that would have required congressional approval.
Coats now says he aims to “streamline” the office, not abolish it, but its future role remains unclear. “I believe every government agency must constantly review its operations and I’ll be taking a look at not only the office of the ODNI but the entire IC and try to learn how we can do things more efficiently and effectively,” Coats said during his February confirmation hearing. “We don’t have a choice.”
Photo credit: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/Getty ImagesNew Zealanders have a unique way of discarding their trash—they hang them on fences. Bras, boots, toothbrushes, bicycles, everything that has had their useful life over gets hung en masse on roadside fences.
Perhaps, the most famous of them is the Cardrona Bra Fence in Central Otago. The fence began one morning in 1999 when four women’s bras were found attached to the wire fence alongside the road and fluttering in the breeze. Rumor is that a group of women were celebrating the new year at the Cardrona Hotel and after leaving the pub late at night, they decided to take off their bras and hang them on the fence. Over the next few weeks, the number of bras on the fence steadily increased until there were sixty more by the end of February 2000. As news about the fence spread, even more bras started appearing. In the following years the bra population multiplied to thousands and the fence became a unique tourist attraction gaining worldwide attention.
The Cardrona Bra Fence in 2016. Photo credit: Kathrin & Stefan Marks/Flickr
With popularity the fence also began to attract haters who thought the unabashed display of undies on a pubic thoroughfare an embarrassment and an eyesore. They began to attack the fence and the bras were stripped off on numerous occasions. But each time, the bras returned.
In the past couple of years, the fence has been used to raise money for the Breast Cancer Foundation through donations made by tourists at the fence's pink charity box.
Photo credit: Shellie/Flickr
Photo credit: Ian Mackenzie/Flickr
Photo credit: Michael Whitney/Flickr
The Toothbrush Fence is located on a quiet rural road in Te Pahu, about half an hour from Hamilton. The roadside fence is decorated with hundreds of toothbrushes of vivid colors. The creator of this Te Pahu attraction is a local named Graeme Cairns. At first the fence grew slowly, as friends and visitors added their own brushes. But as its fame spread, people began donating their used brushes from all over the country and even overseas. The toothbrush of Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, also hangs there.
Toothbrush Fence, Te Pahu, Waikato, New Zealand. Photo credit: KiwiPatPhooey/Flickr
Photo credit: Peter Yersin/Flickr
Many New Zealanders love to decorate their fences with flip-flops, which they call jandal—short for Japanese sandals. The name is actually a trademark originally filed by Morris Yock, who is said to have patented the famous design. But there is some dispute regarding who actually brought the design to New Zealand.
According to the Yock family, Morris Yock was inspired by the footwear he had seen in Japan, and began manufacturing this simple rubber sandal in their garage in 1957. But the family of John Cowie claim that it was Mr. Cowie who introduced the footwear from Japan in the late 1940s, coining the name ‘jandal’ in the process. They believe Yock only imported the jandals and applied for the trademark.
Irrespective of who introduced it, jandals are now a national icon of sort in New Zealand.
Photo credit: Drew Mackie/Flickr
A jandal fence in Kaeo, Northland, New Zealand. Photo credit: Justine Sanderson/Flickr
A jandal fence just outside of Hot Water Beach on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. Photo credit: Brandon Koger/Flickr
A jandal fence in Manly, North Island, New Zealand. Photo credit: Nic Porter/Flickr
Just off the main road in Kingston, is what is known as King Wheel Cottage. The cottage fence is made of old traction engine wheels. Photo credit: Benjamin Ho/Flickr
Photo credit: Travel Aficionado/Flickr
A fence decorated with gumboots at Woodhill, North West Auckland. Photo credit: GPS 56/Flickr
Old fashioned bicycles decorate this wooden fence in Inglewood, New Plymouth.
Another bicycle fence in Athol, Southland. Photo credit: Gorgeous with Attitude
This fence decorated with hub caps is located near Kelston, Auckland. Photo credit: GPS 56/Flickr
Another hub cap fence near Wenderholm. Photo credit: Gorgeous with Attitude
A fence decorated with buoys beside the road to Cape Palliser in Wairarapa. Photo credit: Gorgeous with Attitude
This concrete wall in Eltham in the central Taranaki town is embedded with hundreds of children toys. The wall was created by local resident Fay Young in 1997, when she found a child's toy car on the ground outside her home. She popped it atop a concrete wall for the child to find, but when the unclaimed toy kept falling off, she cemented it on. After that, other children asked her to add their toys to the wall. Today the wall is 20 meters long. Photo credit: www.lionsclubs.org.nz
Photo credit: www.lionsclubs.org.nzSeven bicyclists were injured in a wreck Tuesday afternoon, according to Arkansas State Police.
Thirteen cyclists were traveling northbound when a car hit seven cyclists at the back of the group. The car was also traveling northbound.
The crash occurred at the intersection of Highway 17 and Highway 37, north of McCrory in Woodruff County. State troopers responded to the scene at 4:35 p.m.
Two of the cyclists were transported by helicopter to a Little Rock hospital, and one was taken by helicopter to Memphis for treatment. Four others were taken by ambulance to a local hospital.
The driver, 21-year-old Teagan Martin of Newport, was not injured.
State troopers questioned Martin and said their investigation will continue next week. They will then submit a report to the Woodruff County prosecuting attorney, who will determine if any charges will be filed against Martin.
The cyclists, most of them teenagers, were traveling cross-country to Santa Monica, Cali. Overland Summer Camps of Williamstown, Mass., organized the trip, which began in Charleston, South Carolina.
Overland Summer Camps released the following statement on their website:
“On July 2, 2013 seven individuals on an Overland bicycle touring program were injured when a car traveling on Route 17 struck the group. Police and paramedics responded to the scene. Three of the individuals were airlifted from the scene, including one individual who is in critical condition. The remaining four individuals were transported by ambulance and were being treated at local hospitals. Of these four individuals, two have been released. At this time, we at Overland would like to express our deepest concern for those injured and our gratitude to the emergency response teams.”Russian Wushu Sanda world champion Muslim Salikhov is making his UFC debut on November 25. The Dagestan native, who is coming off a run of nine first-round finishes, spoke exclusively to RT Sport ahead of the event.
Salikhov, 33, has won all the possible titles in Wushu Sanda, including the ‘King of Kung Fu’ tournament, made his MMA debut back in 2011, since then recording 12 victories and one loss.
Remarkably, with the exception of just one decision win, all of his victories have come in the first round – 10 by way of knockout and one via submission (triangle choke).
BREAKING: Muslim Salikhov (12-1) signs with UFC and will debut at #UFCShanghai (Nov 25) vs Alex Garcia (14-2) pic.twitter.com/JP3e8x0NyJ — Denis Geyko (@DenisGeykoRT) October 19, 2017
The only MMA loss, as Salikhov told RT Sport, came because he was unaware of the type of tournament that his former manager had signed him up to. Thinking that he was entering a kickboxing tournament, Salikhov said that he was taken by surprise when his opponent started to wrestle him.
For those who haven’t heard of Wushu Sanda before, it’s a martial art based on the study and practices of traditional Kung Fu and modern combat fighting techniques, which was originally developed in the Chinese military.
Wushu Sanda tournaments are well attended in China, and Salikhov, who became the first non-Chinese fighter to win the title of ‘King of Sanda’ (also known as King of Kung Fu) back in 2006, is something of a popular figure in the country.
The King of Kung Fu. The God of Spinning Shit. Muslim Salikhov is officially a UFC fighter. pic.twitter.com/y9IHDSwtmM — caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) October 19, 2017
As the ‘King of Kung Fu’ has contested most of his MMA bouts in China, the UFC unsurprisingly offered him a fight at their tournament in Shanghai, which will be held next weekend.
RT Sport contacted Salikhov to learn more about the ‘King of Kung Fu’ from Dagestan, his upcoming UFC debut, and the nickname he received in China.
WE COME FROM THE SHAOLIN OF DAGESTAN
RT: You’re making your UFC debut next weekend on the Shanghai card, how are your preparations for the fight going?
Muslim Salikhov: We’re currently preparing in China, in the city of Chengdu, where our friends from Dagestan have an MMA school. Our coach here is Magomed Gadzhiev, plus freestyle wrestling coaches from Dagestan. Their school here develops Chinese MMA, so to speak. We have everything we need to prepare here. They’re fantastic hosts. I’ve been coming here for a long time already, as I’ve had many fights in China, both in Wushu and MMA. So from here we’ll go to Shanghai.
RT: What aspects are you working on at the moment?
MS: Now it’s mostly about my game plan, some tactical aspects for the fight. Garcia is a well-rounded fighter, good at both striking and wrestling. I’ll try to use my speed advantage in this fight. Plus, of course, I’m cutting weight and following a diet.
A post shared by Zabit Magomedsharipov (@zabit_magomedsharipov) on Nov 14, 2017 at 5:56am PST
RT: You’re a pretty big welterweight. How much do you normally cut for your fights? And what’s your walk-around weight?
MS: My walk-around weight is about 89-90kg (198lb). But I’ve always fought as a welterweight all of my career, and it’s never been a problem for me to make the weight. First UFC offered me a fight in the middleweight category, but as I said I’ve fought at welterweight all my life, so I don’t have plans to go up in weight class.
RT: Is there anyone in particular among the UFC welterweights that you’d be interested in fighting in the future?
MS: It’s a very hard division, but I don’t really like picking my opponents. It’s the organization's job to do the matchmaking. My job is to show entertaining fights. The better I fight, the better opponents I’ll get in the future. But if I had to pick one, I’d say ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson. I like his technique and what he does in the cage.
A post shared by muslimsalihov (@muslim_salikhov) on Nov 10, 2017 at 1:36am PST
RT: We know that you train with your friend Zabit Magomedsharipov, who also comes from a Wushu background and will fight on the Shanghai card. He had his UFC debut in September and it was a very entertaining fight. Has he raised the bar for you as well?
MS: Well, Zabit is Zabit. He proved himself even before his UFC debut, being a champion in ACB (Absolute Championship Berkut). We didn’t expect him to perform any different, at least I didn’t. If we're talking about my performance, my goal is always to show my best. I don’t look to win on points, I’m always looking to put on a show.
RT: We know that you and Zabit also come from the same school in Dagestan - 'Five Directions Of The World'. Could you tell us a little more about this school?
MS: We come from the same coach, Gusein Magomaev, the founder of Five Directions Of The World. Obviously we were in different age groups. I’d even say that our styles differ. I’m seven years older than Zabit, and have practiced Wushu a lot longer. But yes, we come from the same coach. Five Directions Of The World is a boarding school in the mountains of Dagestan, kids stay there for six days a week to study and train. There are plenty of martial arts at this school, not just Wushu.
A post shared by muslimsalihov (@muslim_salikhov) on Aug 25, 2017 at 7:26am PDT
RT: What does the name of the school mean?
MS: The concept, which originates in oriental culture, was created by our coach Gusein Magomaev, who studied philosophy, and who I’d say is a philosopher himself. The symbol of the school is a pyramid, which has four edges at the bottom, which point north, south, east and west, while the top of it points to space. I can’t really explain the full meaning in short. It’s worth a separate discussion. In short, they call this school The Shaolin of Dagestan. At least, here in China.
PUTIN’S BODYGUARD
RT: Talking about China, we know that you’re really famous there. Do you get recognized by people on the street a lot?
MS: Wushu Sanda is a big sport in China. So yes, people do recognize me on the streets, and ask for pictures. Sometimes even taxi drivers recognize me and say that they won’t charge me for a ride (laughing). I really feel at home in China. I’m not very well known in Russia, except maybe for my native Dagestan. But when I go to places like Moscow or St. Petersburg, there are usually a few hardcore MMA fans who recognize me. In China it’s just regular people who ask me for pictures.
A post shared by muslimsalihov (@muslim_salikhov) on Jan 18, 2017 at 3:59am PST
RT: We also know that you have a special nickname in the Wushu world, or let’s say in China. The way they introduce you at tournaments.
MS: Yes, that’s right. They call me ‘Putin’s bodyguard.’ When it all started I constantly denied it, saying, ‘no, I’m not Putin’s body guard.’ But they still did it at tournaments and press conferences, every time. So I figure I should just let it go. Instead of denying it, I began saying, ‘I’m not supposed to talk about it’ (laughing). China is a very different, very special place. You have to come here and experience it yourself. The way they see things, the way they see life. They have a different mentality.
RT: One important aspect of being popular in the UFC, besides the fighting itself, is the ability to speak English. How well do you know English?
MS: I actually speak some English. I lived for almost three years in Thailand, where English is the international language for all foreigners. Plus, I’ve been to many training camps in the States, in Brazil. I haven’t really taken any English classes or anything. But I did learn some by communicating with people. So, yes, I can communicate and give interviews, for example.
A post shared by muslimsalihov (@muslim_salikhov) on Mar 17, 2016 at 11:02am PDT
RT: Should UFC fans expect some callouts or trash talk from you?
MS: I’ll never start insulting my opponent first. If anyone insults me, of course I won’t keep quiet. But I have no intention to ‘talk shit,’ as they say. I respect my opponents, and I expect them to respect me. But if they don’t, they’ll pay for it in the cage.
RT: You’re coming off a series of nine first-round finishes, eight of which were straight knockouts. Should UFC fans expect to see more of the same in the octagon?
MS: Of course I want to finish all my fights in the first round. The quicker you finish your fights, the longer you last as an athlete. Plus, it’s a great show for the fans. They want to see more knockouts, more finishes. And every time I have a fight ahead of me I always think, ‘will I be able to finish it quickly this time?’ It’s a challenge for me, too. But, I’m always 100 percent ready for a full fight. I’d never go in the cage unprepared. I’m always there to steal the show.
by Denis Geyko for RT SportAttorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. attends his last staff meeting at the Justice Department on April 24, 2015. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
Eric H. Holder Jr., the nation's first African American attorney general, said black voters can't afford to let "wistfulness" about the excitement of the historic 2008 and 2012 elections keep them from the polls this year. He has endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with whom he served in President Obama's Cabinet, and he spent the weekend stumping for her in South Carolina, where black voters make up more than half of the Democratic primary electorate.
The Palmetto State, which will hold its primary on Feb. 27, was flooded with Democrats this week because of Sunday night's presidential debate.
Holder, who stepped down last year and has returned to private practice, was in Charleston on Saturday to attend the First in the South Dinner, held by the South Carolina Democratic Party, and later campaigned with Clinton at a popular annual fish fry hosted by Rep. James E |
, resistance”, runs the analysis of Jonas. “This is why one has to find something that gives people first of all a sense of security so as to pull them back into optimism and then offer them creative leeway. In this process one needs safety nets”, stresses the psychologist. “Then you can achieve an ability to act via a constructive path.”Office to let: record drop in rental demand
Posted
The Property Council of Australia says Sydney's CBD has suffered the biggest drop in demand for office space on record.
In the six months to July, vacancy rates rose from 5.4 per cent to 7.7 per cent - which is above the national CBD benchmark.
Walsh Bay was the only exception, with demand for office space increasing.
The council's Executive Director, Ken Morrison, says the figures are not surprising given the economic downturn.
But he says that he is concerned about new spaces planned in the next two years.
"We have seen a number of projects cancelled or deferred," he said.
"But there are still projects going forward so really all eyes will be on the demand for office space and those employment numbers to see whether those projects get filled up or not."
Topics: urban-development-and-planning, business-economics-and-finance, sydney-2000, australia, nswIt’s not as if Bob Mould has spent much time coasting: The veteran punk rocker has released new music at a steady clip since his influential Minneapolis trio Hüsker Dü debuted with the “Land Speed Record” EP in 1982. Yet despite amassing an enviable catalog in a career stretching more than three and a half decades, Mould seemed to spring out of nowhere in 2012 with “Silver Age,” an album blending the full-throttle ferocity of Hüsker Dü with the barbed melodicism of Sugar, Mould’s early-’90s power pop band.
After an equally riotous follow-up on 2014’s “Beauty & Ruin,” Mould is back with “Patch the Sky.” Again featuring Jon Wurster on drums and Jason Narducy on bass, the new album is of a piece with the two before it, cementing what feels like a comeback for a musician who has never really been gone.
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Mould has taken detours, to be sure. “Workbook,” his 1989 solo debut following Hüsker Dü’s split, owes as much to folk as punk, and he explored electronic music thoroughly enough to co-host a regular dance party called Blowoff when he lived in Washington, D.C., in the 2000s — to say nothing of his stint writing story lines for World Championship Wrestling in the ’90s, or penning the theme song for “The Daily Show.”
The ongoing rediscovery of Mould started in 2011, the year before “Silver Age.” He contributed that year to Foo Fighters’ album “Wasting Light” and performed with them occasionally onstage, published the memoir “See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody,” and was feted at a tribute concert in his honor at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where Dave Grohl, Ryan Adams and members of Spoon, the Hold Steady and No Age performed his songs.
“I never saw that show coming, people I’ve influenced singing my words back to me,” Mould says now, still marveling at the idea.
The singer and guitarist reflected with Salon on his recent renaissance, and weighed in on politics, his current relationship with electronic music and how living in San Francisco is making him soft.
Your recent albums have been described as a “third-act resurgence.” Is that how you see it?
Once it was put in those words on my behalf, I guess I would tend to agree. I just sort of go from one to the next and I don’t notice where the parentheticals fit as I’m actually doing it. But I think that’s fair. It’s the third album with the same lineup and the same engineer and a similar tone and style in a general sense. I think there are big differences between the records, but yeah, I guess it feels like part three of a third act.
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How does “Patch the Sky” fit together with “Silver Age” and “Beauty & Ruin?”
If we go back to the events that got me to “Silver Age,” that being the writing of the book, work with the Foo Fighters, the book coming out, more work with Foo Fighters and the Disney Hall show, “Silver Age” was written with energy and love, and it had a brighter tone to it. “Beauty & Ruin,” same lineup after a lot of touring, after losing my dad, just changes that were going on. I thought it was a little darker record, but I thought it showcased how the three of us made music together. With this record, more loss. A little more isolated in the writing. Totally isolated in the writing, actually, so it’s a little more introspective.
You said at the time that “Silver Age” was sort of a bookend to Sugar’s 1992 album “Copper Blue.” Is there a similar corollary for “Patch the Sky”?
“Black Sheets of Rain.” [Laughs] If there’s anything that it could resemble, I think it’s that record [Mould’s soul-baring second solo LP, released in 1990]. If any decade informed this record musically, it would probably be mid- to late-’70s and not punk rock.
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Were you listening to particular bands from that era?
No, no, it just came out. Started popping out. It was like, what the hell, what is this, “Toys in the Attic”? [Laughs]
What was isolated about the writing process for “Patch the Sky”?
With “Silver Age,” I had some songs kicking around, but just all that compact energy. I wrote most of that record in a month, month and a half, right before we recorded it, and I felt like it was more of a spontaneous statement. “Beauty & Ruin” was a lot of ideas gathered on the run, and we went in to make that record right after we got back from South America. This record, I had a solid six months of writing, so in terms of process, it was probably closest to “Workbook.” Having six months of alone time is not necessarily the healthiest thing, but you get good work out of it.
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What makes the new album so introspective?
I just had a lot of loss. I lost my mom, I lost a lot of friends, people got sick. It’s just the stuff that happens as you get older. It’s never fun. People leave, you mourn the loss and then you have to move on. Sometimes it happens quicker than others, and this time, I just wanted to sit and process it for a while.
Punk rock has always been a very personal means of expression for you, though you spoke out against the proposed same-sex marriage ban in North Carolina a few years ago. How much of a political component is there in your work?
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Big politics, what can you do? You can speak your mind, and then you move on. To me, it’s more about going to my neighborhood association meetings to try to keep people from building giant, oversized ugly houses in my little neighborhood. Or trying to speak to the police in my neighborhood about crime. Big-stage politics, I’m not so good at that. But same-sex marriage, that was something that needed a light shined on it. That’s a human rights issue, and one that I take personally, whether or not I want to get married.
How much attention have you been paying attention to the presidential primaries?
Too much. What a circus.
Is it something your work will reflect?
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I’m sure it’s affecting my mind-set, so I’m sure somehow it’s going to get in there. I think the most important thing I could do, or anyone could do, is you have to vote. It’s that simple. Why is voting not mandatory in this country?
What do you make of it all?
I think it’s good to shine a very bright light on the crazy. I think some of these ideas that people are stealing have been couched and disguised and sometimes hidden away for sometimes decades, and now that we’re in the last gasp of that political party, it’s all on display. Now the hope is that people will see what they’ve been doing and see how the system is failing all of us. Hopefully we’ll get some good change out of this.
Are you supporting a particular candidate?
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I haven’t picked yet, but I know who I’m not voting for.
As far as local politics go, you live in San Francisco, where tech workers have become a sometimes unwelcome presence. How much do you feel the effects of that?
I don’t get inside that beehive directly. A lot of acquaintances work in that business. I don’t know. Cities change. San Francisco is such a beautiful place. It’s a city with a rich history in music and culture and arts and lifestyle, and I don’t know how many people who have showed up in the last three years are aware of it, or care about it. It’s a tough deal. People can’t afford to live there, it’s really hard.
You’ve moved around a lot. How much are you influenced by the places you live?
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New York, I was always on my feet, always walking, always thinking on my feet. That was a big part of it to me, the way the ideas were constructed. I think Minneapolis and Austin were direct opposites. In Minnesota, you stayed in all winter, and in Austin you stayed in all summer. The weather has a lot to do with it. D.C., it was crazy being there during the George W. Bush years. The pulse of the city was just war, war, war, just people with pacemakers running wars. It was like, what the fuck? San Francisco, I’d been going there since ’81. I love the soft weather. It’s making me soft. The one thing that I feel in my six and a half years, my memories are weird because there are no weird seasons to speak of, other than fog. It has a little bit of that affect, where those potential markers due to weather don’t really exist.
How does that come out in your work?
I don’t know if I can specifically pin it down. I’m aware of what it does to me as a person. Because I don’t work in tech, San Francisco to me is pretty chill. It feels very, very different than the East Coast. For this record, I pretty much sat in my room and worked. Sometimes I wasn’t even aware of when the fog came or went. [Laughs.]
Now that you’re in this third-act resurgence, what’s your relationship these days with electronic music?
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I put it pretty much on hold. I’ll put on a compilation from a label that I like and listen to what people are doing with progressive house or French house, but as an active hours-a-day-looking-for-new-music guy, I’m done with it for now. It got kind of overblown. I just felt like that genre had gotten filled with the same drops and the same zooooom, and that was it. I just needed a break. I’ll probably go back to DJing at some point, but the 11 years of Blowoff was a full-on immersion. In the gay community at that time, the music wasn’t really top-notch, and it felt like we were bringing something different, and I know we were good at it.
What do you think about your own influence?
I think it’s there. I don’t know how big or small it is. I can’t tell. I feel like I’m really important to a small group of people, and that’s great. If they get the stories and can relate to them, that’s really what this is about. On a global level, I don’t know. I really have no idea. I’m close to it, so I’m not really sure. I’m grateful that people like the early work, the middle work, the recent work. I think it all fits together in a cool way, there’s a consistency to all of it. I think after 37 years of it, I know what I’m good at, I know what people want to hear from me.
So back 37 years ago, what did you think you’d be doing today?
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Hoping I would do this, but in what form, I didn’t know. I was a hope-I-die-before-I-get-old kind of guy. Punk rock was crazy. We were just building stages and asking our friends to come play with us. And I was bored, and I needed to do it or perish. There was no idea that we’d be carrying on about it at this point, but I’m very grateful that we are, of course. It’s pretty great. I love my work, I love doing what we do. It gets harder as I get older, of course, but I’ll keep doing it as long as it lasts.Quotes Index
Quotes from Christian Perpetuators of the Mythology of Hell
The following quotes are from Christian leaders who used the pagan concept of Hell to keep the masses in subjection to power-hungry and often evil political and religious men and women. The Church has often been a more effective means of enslaving the masses than military might. There are multitudes of other Church leaders throughout the centuries who could be quoted expressing similar thoughts to the ones below.Compare these words to Jesus' words to the poor of this world and it should become very obvious from which spirit these men were speaking. Satan has controlled the Church for a long time. It's time for a great change. The English word Hell is of Germanic/Teutonic mythological origin. Any decent dictionary will make that evident. What is not so evident is that this myth injected into the thousands of denominations of Christianity and many Bible translations has grossly misrepresented the nature and character of our heavenly Father and his plan of the redemption of all mankind. --Gary Amirault.
We will begin with a few choice quotes followed by a whole army of God defamers. There are some Christian spokespersons who have taught that God created Hell for the mere enjoyment of those who would view the scene from heaven. They reason that their joy will be more full seeing others no more or less deserving being tortured in the most cruel manners possible.
Here are some examples of the reasoning of these church leaders:
Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences
Therefore the elect shall go forth to see the torments of the impious, seeing which they will not be grieved, but will be satiated with joy at the sight of the unutterable calamity of the impious. Sent. Iv 50, ad fin
Martin Luther
When questioned whether the Blessed will not be saddened by seeing their nearest and dearest tortured answers, Not in the least.
Gerhard
the Blessed will see their friends and relations among the damned as often as they like but without the least of compassion.
Andrew Welwood
(speaks of the saints as being) overjoyed in beholding the vengeance of God, and their beholding of the smoke of the torment of the wicked as a passing delectation.
Samuel Hopkins
This display of the divine character will be most entertaining to all who love God, will give them the highest and most ineffable pleasure. Should the fire of this eternal punishment cease, it would in a great measure obscure the light of heaven, and put an end to a great part of the happiness and glory of the blessed.
Bishop Newcomb
The door of mercy will be shut and all bowels of compassion denied, by God, who will laugh at their destruction; by angels and saints, who will rejoice when they see the vengeance' by their fellow-suffer the devil and the damned rejoicing over their misery. Catechetical Sermons
Tertullian
At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sages philosophers blushing in red-hot fires with their deluded pupils; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause."
What a spectacle...when the world...and its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? What my derision? Which sight gives me joy? As I see...illustrious monarchs... groaning in the lowest darkness, Philosophers...as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of...Christ! I shall hear the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; view play-actors...in the dissolving flame; behold wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows...What inquisitor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favor of seeing and exulting in such things as these? Yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. [De Spectaculis, Chapter XXX]
Augustine
They who shall enter into [the] joy [of the Lord] shall know what is going on outside in the outer darkness...The saints'... knowledge, which shall be great, shall keep them acquainted...with the eternal sufferings of the lost. [The City of God, Book 20, Chapter 22, "What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked" & Book 22, Chapter 30, "Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath"]
Thomas Aquinas
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned...So that they may be urged the more to praise God...The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens...to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, "Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned," First Article, "Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned..."]
The same fire (which he decides to be material) torments the damned in hell and the just in purgatory The least pain in purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life. Summa Theo. Suppl. Qu. 100, acts. 2, n. 3.
Jonathan Edwards
The view of the misery of the damned will double the ardour of the love and gratitude of the saints of heaven.
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever...Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell... I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss.
["The Eternity of Hell Torments" (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]
Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732
"God shall not pity them but laugh at their calamity. The righteous company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God's judgment, and shall sing while the smoke riseth up for ever."
Isaac Watts:
During America's "Great Awakening" the popular hymn writer, Isaac Watts (1674-1748), even set Christians' feet to tapping with this crisp little verse:
What bliss will fill the ransomed souls,
When they in glory dwell,
To see the sinner as he rolls,
In quenchless flames of hell.
St. Anthony Mary Claret
Once [a soul] is condemned by God, then God's friends agree in God's judgment and condemnation. For all eternity they will not have a kind thought for this wretch. Rather they will be satisfied to see him in the flames as a victim of God's justice. ("The just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge..." Psalm 57:11) They will abhor him. A mother will look from paradise upon her own condemned son without being moved, as though she had never known him.-- "The Pains of Hell," Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, consisting of thirty-five meditations from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius as explained by St. Anthony Mary Claret. St. Claret's "explanations" were written in Spanish in the late 1800's.
Catholic Truth Society
What will it be like for a mother in heaven who sees her son burning in hell? She will glorify the justice of God. - Pamphlet from the late 1960s, part of a catechismal teaching [cited in an essay by the English poet, Stevie Smith, "Some Impediments to Christian Commitment"]
J.I. Packer
"...love and pity for hell's occupants will not enter our hearts." J.I. Packer in article "Hell's Final Enigma" in "Christianity Today Magazine, April 22,2002."
Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 219.
"Non-Christians often ask the Christian, “But how can the God of love allow any of his creatures to suffer unending misery?” The question is, how can he not? The fact that God is love makes hell necessary. “Hell,” as E. L. Mascall once said, “is not compatible with God’s love; it is a direct consequence of it.” That was his way of stressing the fact that the very God who loves us is the one who respects our decisions. He loves us, but he does not force his love on us. To force love is to commit assault. He allows us to decide. He loves us, he encourages our response, he woos us, he pursues us, he urges us, but he does not force us, because he respects us."
God's Wrath in Inflicting Punishment on the Wicked
Richard Baxter
It is not a terrible thing to a wretched soul, when it shall lie roaring perpetually in the flames of hell, and the God of mercy himself shall laugh at them; when God shall mock them instead of relieving them; when none in heaven or earth can help them but God, and he shall rejoice over them in their calamity. (The Saint's Everlasting Rest 1846)
Alban Butler 1773
Do we think that God can find torments in nature sufficient to satisfy His provoked vengeance? No, no; He creates new instruments more violent, pains utterly inconceivable to us. A soul for one venial sin shall suffer more than all the pains of distemper, the most violent colics, gout, and stone joined in complication,--more than all the most cruel torments undergone by malefactors, or invented by the most barbarous tyrants,--more than all the tortures of the martyrs summed up together. This is the idea which the Fathers give us [even?] of Purgatory. And how long souls may have to suffer there we know not. Lives of the Saints, November 2
Thomas Boston, Scottish preacher, 1732
God will hold sinners with one hand over the pit of hell, while He torments them with the other. Fourfold State.
Jonathan Edwards:
Reprobate infants are vipers of vengeance, which Jehovah will hold over hell, in the tongs of his wrath, till they turn and spit venom in his face!
1785 Here all judges have a mixture of mercy, but the wrath of God will be poured out upon the wicked without mixture. Imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven and imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, full of fire, as full within and without as a bright coal fire, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace? Oh! Then how would your heart sink if you knew that after millions and millions of ages your torment would be no nearer to an end than ever it was. But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents. Works, vol. Iii. 260
The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive the wicked: the flames do now rage and glow. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much in the same way as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked He will trample them beneath His feet with inexpressible fierceness; He will crush their blood out, and will make it fly, so that it will sprinkle His garment and stain all His raiment. Works, vii. 499.
You cannot stand before an infuriated tiger even; what then will you do when God rushes against you in all His wrath? Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. (Do not suppose this kind of preaching no longer fills the pulpits of the world. This sermon is still continuously printed even to this day.)
Dr. Gardiner Spring
When the omnipotent and angry God, who as access to all the avenues of distress in the corporeal frame, and all the inlets to agony in the intellectual constitution, undertakes to punish, He will convince the universe that He does not gird Himself for the work of retribution in vain.
John Calvin (Who had some of his theological enemies burned to death in green slow-burning wood.):
"Forever harrassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors.
Dean of Glouchester
There is the cup of trembling and of wrath. Your hands must take it, your mouth must drink it. But you can never drain it. There is no last drop. Infinite vengeance ever fills it to the brim. Eternal wrath is ever bringing more. What is the curse? It is the endless accumulation of all the miseries which God's resources can command and God's power can inflict. It is the fiery torrent from the lake of fire. It is the pain which cannot be keener, despair which cannot be blacker, and anguish which cannot be more bitter. It is eternity in the oneness of all torment. Christ in all.
Bishop OxendenLate Metropolitan of Canada
It would be difficult to measure the waters of the sea; but it is impossible to reckon the ages of a boundless eternity. After millions of years it will only begun. God's wrath in hell will be always wrath to come.' Few are so tossed in this world but they have some rest. There are few tempests without some lull between the storm. But there is no pause in that storm which falls upon the inhabitants of hell. Great Truths
Thomas Goodwin
Sin in thee and the Injury of it to God is an eternal Stain, which Hell Fire cannot eat out, or satisfy God, but in an Eternity of time. A Discourse of the Punishment of Sin in Hell 1680
Description of the Pains of Hell
Fray Luis De Granada 1588
There will the condemned in cruel rage and despair turn their fury against God and themselves, gnawing their flesh with their mouth, breaking their teeth with gnashing, furiously tearing themselves with their nails, and everlastingly blaspheming against the judge Oh wretched tongues that will speak no word save blasphemy! Oh miserable ears that will hear no sound but groans! Oh unhappy eyes that will see nothing but agonies! Oh tortured bodies that will have no refreshment but flames We are terrified when we hear of executionersscourging men, disjointing them, dismembering, tearing them in pieces, burning them with plates of red-hot metal. But these things are but a jest, a shadow compared with the torments of the next life. Sermons 1. 72 (Translated by Rev. Orby Shipley.)
Richard Baxter
If it will be an intolerable thing to suffer the heat of fire for a year or a day, or an hour, what will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever? What if thou wert to suffer Lawrence's death, to be roasted upon a gridiron; or to be scraped or pricked to death as other martyrs were; or if thou wert to feed upon toads for a year together? If thou couldst not endure such things as these, how wilt thou endure the eternal flames? -- (The Saint's Everlasting Rest 1846)
John Shower
We have heard of some who have endured breaking on the Wheel, ripping up of their Bowels, fleaing alive, racking of the joints, burning of Flesh, pounding in a mortar, tearing in pieces with Flesh-hooks, boyling in Oyl, roasting on hot fiery Gridirons, etc. And yet all these, tho' you should superad thereto all Diseases, such as the Plague, Stone, gout, Strangury, or whatever else you can name most torturing to the Body they would all come short of that Wrath, that Horror, that unconceivable Anguish, which the Damned must inevitably suffer every Moment, without any Intermission of their pains, in Hellish Flames. (Heaven and Hell, 1700s)
John Bunyan
Set case you should take a man, and tie him to a stake, and with red hot Pincers pinch off his flesh by little pieces for two or three years together, and at last, when the poor man cryes out for ease and help, the tormenters answer, Nay but besides all this you must be handled worse. We will serve you thus these 20 years together, and after that we will fill your mangled body full of scalding lead, and run you through with a red hot spit, would this not be lamentable?...But he that goes to hell shall suffer ten thousand times worse torments then these, and yet shall never be quite dead under them. A Few Sighs From Hell or The Groans of a damned Soul 1658)
William Gearing
Your dainty delicate persons that now cannot brook the least savory smell, shall lie down in a stinking dungeon, in a loathsome lake, that burns with fire and brimstone for ever. A Prospect of Heaven 1673
Reverend J. Furniss
"Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute for ever and ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as bad as the body of Job, covered, from head to foot, with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred million of years without stopping? Perhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in he evening, a child is just going into hell. To morrow evening, at seven o'clock, go and knock at the gates of hell and ask what the child is doing. The devils will go and look. They will come back again and say, the child is burning. Go in week and ask what the child is doing; you will get the same answer, it is burning; Go in a year and asks the same answer comes it is burning. Go in a million of years and ask the same question, the answer is just the same--it is burning. So, if you go for ever and ever, you will always get the same answer--it is burning in the fire. ---The Sight of Hell (A Catholic book for children.Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)
"The fifth dungeon is the red hot oven. The little child is in the red hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out; see how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor." (The Sight of Hell Quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin)
John Calvin:
"There are babies a span long in hell."
Ignatius Loyola 1548
Let us fancy we see hell, and imagine what is worst to beholda horrible cavern full of black flames. Sulphur, devils, dragons, fire, swords, arrows, and innumerable damned who roar in despair. Imagine the worst you can, and then say, All this is nothing compared to hell.' In that voracious subterranean cavern all the filth of the world is collected and inclosed, without exhalation or air, which must produce a most foetid pestilence The sight is tormented by frightful devils; a holy religious saw at death two so monstrous and ugly devils, that he cried out that rather than see them again he would walk till the day of judgment on fire of sulphur and melted metal. Spiritual Exercises, Medit. 12 (This is one of the commonest books of Roman Catholic devotion.)
That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black. For we must undoubtedly believe, that the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of the Orthodox Church His Spouse, by which Spirit we are governed and directed to Salvation, is the same... Rules for Thinking with the Church, Spiritual Exercises, II
Jonathan Edwards (Newspapers reported people leaving his sermons and committing suicide from the fear he instilled in them.)
"The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day and night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins and their vitals, shall forever be full of a flowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another, but forever and ever, without any end at all, and never to be delivered."
Jeremy Taylor of the Church of England
"The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings."
Husbands shall see their wives, parents shall see their children tormented before their eyes the bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell like grapes in a wine-press, which press on another till they burst
This temporal fire is but a painted fire in respect of that penetrating and real fire in hell.
Nieremberg 1658
We are amazed at the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men in his brazen bull; this was joy in respect of the fire of hell, which penetrates the very entrails without consuming them. Pains of Hell
Francis De Sales 1622
Represent to yourself a dark city all burning and stinking with fire and brimstone. The damned are in the depth of hell within this woful city, where they suffer unspeakable torments in all their senses and members. Consider above all the eternity of their pains, which above all things makes hell intolerable. Garden of the Soul.
Barrow
Our bodies will be afflicted continually by the sulphureous flame, piercing the inmost sinews.
John Bunyan 1688
Their bodies will be raised from the dead as vessels for the soulvessels of wrath. The soul will breathe hell-fire, and smoke and coal will seem to hang upon its burning lips, yea the face, eyes, and ears will seem to be chimneys and vents for the flame, and the smoke of the burning, which God, by His breath, hath kindled therein, and upon, them, which will be held one in another, to the great torment and distress of each other. Works, ii 136.
Baxter 1691
Is it an intolerable thing to burn part of thy body by holding it in the fire? What then will it be to suffer ten thousand times more for ever in hell? Saints Rest
South 1716
Every lash which God then gives the sinner shall be with a scorpion, every pain which He inflicts shall be more eager than appetite, more cruel than revenge; every faculty both of soul and body shall have its distinct property, and peculiar torment applied to it, and be directly struck there where it has the quickest, the sharpest, and the tenderest sense of any painful impression But I shall use no other argument to evince the greatness of their torment but only this, that the devil shall be the instrument of their execution. And surely a mortal enemy will be a dreadful executioner; and the punishment which an infinite justice inflicts by the hands of a implacable malice must needs be intolerable. Sermons, vii. 143
John Whitaker 1783
The bodies of the damned will all be salted with fire, so tempered and prepared as to burn the more fiercely, and yet never consume. Sermon on Death, Judgment, and Eternity.
Sharrock
For if a man were to have all his sins |
long way in a short period of time,” tweeted Mike Nellis, Canova’s digital fundraising manager.
Wasserman Schultz will face Republican Joe Kaufman in November. He lost to Wasserman Schultz by a 63 to 37 percent margin in 2014 in the 2-to-1 Democratic district.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this post.Totalitarianism is not an inappropriate term, not simply because the financial realm holds such a great deal of wealth and power. The term was coined by the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to praise the system he created where the ruling ideology dominated every aspect of citizens’ lives. Not only did the fascist state ruthlessly and autocratically dominate the economy and politics, it also sought to transform social life and the culture of the nation to become a total way of life. While there is no pompous fascist figurehead, we can see the tremendous power of the financial sector as a form of disorganized or ad-hoc totalitarianism where financial power and modes of thinking increasingly stain the social fabric. And like the totalitarianisms of old, the “financialization” of life is ultimately directed by and benefits a tiny minority, at the expense of everyone else.
But financialization also refers to the way financial goals, ideas and practices start to shape and influence economic actors outside and beyond the financial sector. So, for instance, increasingly corporations don’t see themselves as producers of goods and services (let alone as employers or community members) but rather as vehicles for financial speculation. Thanks to the so-called “ revolution in shareholder value ” that saw “activist” financiers take control of corporate governance in the ’90s and early 2000s, most publicly traded companies have oriented their operations not toward steady and reliable profit but toward quarter-to-quarter improvements in stock prices. This has basically meant that non-financial corporations (from major food producers to technology firms) have become obsessed with “performing” innovation and efficiency by firing workers, off-shoring and contracting-out aspects of their businesses, and engaging in risky accounting and financial practices. As corporate America becomes increasingly financialized, it becomes more and more obsessed with squeezing as much money as possible out of consumers and workers, and increasingly callous about things like ecological destruction, the consequences for community, and even the long-term welfare of the corporation itself.
Perhaps the most egregious example comes from Private Equity firms (like Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital) which specialize in buying up “distressed” companies and ruthlessly cutting workers, wages, benefits and pensions and off-shoring, selling off or sub-contracting aspects of the corporate infrastructure. Once they’ve “drowned the kittens” (as formerly Canadian media mogul, turned-British-Lord, turned jailbird Conrad Black used to say of the cuts he’d implement when gobbling up a new newspaper), private equity firms sell the “streamlined” company for an immense profit. But even firms that are not yet in trouble are compelled, by shareholders, bondholders and banks, to embrace the austere mentality of financialization, which sees the world as a series of risks and opportunities to be leveraged for speculative gain.
But financialization means something even more profound than this. It is easy to get wrapped up in the horrifying economic dimensions of finance’s power, but we also need to understand the political, the social and, importantly, the cultural aspects of this process. Financialization is not just something imposed on us all “from above” by smug investment bankers and ruthless private-equity fund managers. It’s also something that relies on all of us to enact financial relations every day. And to change this situation, we need not only to unseat the financial oligarchs but to change those everyday relations as well.
As the example of Citigroup effectively drafting federal financial policy indicates, financialization is a political process, one largely characterized by the ugly and incestuous influence of the financial sector on all levels of government. By now, it is well known that the vast majority of high-level federal regulators, and, indeed, economic bureaucrats around the world, are former employees or consultants for the world’s major banks and financial firms. The financial world is so occult and esoteric that (the financial elite claim) it is impossible for us mere mortals to understand, necessitating the revolving door between Goldman-Sachs and the US Treasury. We can add to this the fact that most nations on earth (and, increasingly, most states, provinces, cities and sometimes school boards, universities, hospitals and other “public” infrastructure), including the United States, are trillions of dollars in debt to the major global financial institutions, meaning that these banks have tremendous power over government policy. They use this influence to force governments to basically act more like financial corporations: cutting jobs, privatizing or charging for services, entering into increasingly risky forms of financial leverage.
To this, we can add the vicious circle, where the financial sector mobilizes its power and influence to compel governments to loosen regulation and oversight of their world. That deregulation is precisely what led to the conditions where the sub-prime mortgage could mushroom out of control. Over the past 30 years, subsequent governments were compelled or convinced to weaken and water-down their oversight of the financial sector and mortgage markets. The rest is history, but it brings us to our next point, which is that financialization is also a social process. It is something that happens at the sociological level as well. So, for instance, since the Second World War home ownership has been seen as the single most important factor and indicator of middle-class belonging in the United States. In previous moments, governments have sought to help homeowners in a variety of ways, including the construction of public housing or the creation of semi-governmental companies that would essentially help mitigate banks’ risk in lending to prospective homeowners. The first thing to note about this is that it essentially imagines a basic human need, shelter, as a market good. Indeed, not only are individuals encouraged to buy homes as a means of safety and security, they were, increasingly since the 1970s, encouraged to buy homes as investments, with both governments and financial institutions telling them that the price of homes would rise ever higher. More recently, houses came to be seen as sources of liquid cash and equity, meaning the Americans falling on hard times could easily borrow against the costs of their homes to pay for big expenses (a car, a university diploma, down-payments for one’s children’s homes, etc.). This is part and parcel of a broader shift that encourages us all to see ourselves as individual financial firms or miniature financiers.
The social dimensions of finance include the way financial ideas and measurements increasingly infiltrate other spheres of life. For instance, recently, many governments have been experimenting with social impact bonds, which basically allow private corporations to take a crack at offering services once expected of governments. So a city or state government might give a group of investors the right to administer a program to help decrease the risk of recidivism in “at-risk” youth, with very clear metrics for success. If the private firms fail, they bear the cost; if they succeed, the government effectively pays them the costs, plus a hefty premium. While risky, investors are lured by the potential of a breathtaking return on investment, and governments are lured to a seemingly “risk free” way of offering social services. Social Impact Bonds are a perfect example of the way financial ideas and processes are becoming an answer to all of society’s problems, even if, ironically, it is the financialized economy that is causing those problems in the first place (by, for instance, largely driving the patterns of urban poverty and racialized exclusion that cause youth to be “at risk” in the first place).
We can also look to the hyperbole that surrounds the idea of “ financial literacy ” for a good example of the sociology of financialization. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the financial elites and governments, in an effort to deflect attention from their own epic failures, pointed to the exploited sub-prime borrowers as the authors of the toxicity that poisoned (and still poisons) the apparently innocent market. New funding was made available by both the public and the private sector for “financial literacy education,” including classes at community centers and even at stores like Walmart, aimed at teaching poor individuals to be better financial subjects. Of course, these financial literacy courses are entirely oriented toward individualizing the financial crisis and admonishing individuals for not being good enough mini-financiers, rather than offering some literacy about the despicable economic and political power of the financial sector as a whole, let alone the fact that the debt, poverty and financial ruin of individuals is typically a function of systemic forces well beyond their control. While prudent personal bookkeeping and budgeting might, indeed, be a worthwhile goal, there are millions of Americans who work hard, pinch their pennies and do nothing wrong and still end up under a mountain of debt. In reality, these educational initiatives really produce a profound financial illiteracy because they distract us from the reality that the cause of our financial woes is a fundamental part of a vastly unequal and exploitative economic system.
We can add to this the way that financialized metaphors and processes have become the only way to interpret and imagine the vast and horrific consequences of the economy itself. For instance, we can point to the way the climate change debate is preoccupied with notions of creating a carbon “market,” the way the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa is addressed as a future economic liability rather than an infuriating human tragedy, or the way defenders of public health care and education must justify these social goods as good government “investments” that reduce future costs and “risks.”
So the social dimensions of financialization are all of those ways our sense of collective or public responsibility gets privatized, and the way we are all increasingly imagined to be lonely, isolated risk-takers, competing tooth and nail against one another in an austere and uncaring economy. This social dimension is reinforced and normalized by the cultural dimension of financialization or the way debt, austerity and speculation are “ newly normalized.” We can begin to see this in the news. Almost always, the business and economic dimensions of a disaster or a world event take precedence, with commentators worrying about the way hurricanes, terrorist attacks or military interventions in the Middle East will affect stock markets. And despite the fact that the majority of Americans own practically no financial assets at all (or if they do it is in the form of 401(k) or mutual fund plans over which they have little control), the financial and business news, including stock market information, is triumphantly broadcast in every newspaper and TV newscast. We have seen the birth of 24-hour financial television (like Bloomberg, which is named after the financier and media tycoon, who is also the mayor of the continent’s largest city and the world’s largest financial hub – financialization indeed), including obnoxious infotainment like Mad Money, which convinces us that the stock market is some sort of perfect meritocracy where even the little guy can get ahead. But we can also see a culture obsessed and preoccupied with finance emerging elsewhere. There is, for instance, a reality TV fad for shows about property speculation and “flipping,” where the camera follows individuals as they “invest” in homes, hoping to turn a quick profit through renovation and resale. Indeed, this theme of quirky individuals “buying low and selling high” is the theme of plenty of other reality TV programming, from antique collectors to bounty hunters. This is not to mention odious financial celebrities the likes of Donald Trump or Warren Buffet, nor the dominance of the punditry circuit by financier-funded think-tank talking heads or financiers themselves. Nor is it to speak of the ways a society preoccupied by the lonely insomnia of largely immaterial debt gives rise to monstrous collective fantasies and obsessive and addictive patterns of gaming and gambling
Meanwhile, authors and commentators find fertile metaphors in the financial world to help us understand other aspects of our lives. Relationship and self-help books advise us to approach our personal relationships and our goals and aspirations as if we are financiers, judiciously “investing” our time, affection and identity in profitable and lucrative relations and projects. In a world where the idea of a secure, lifelong job is a thing of the past, we are all encouraged to see ourselves not as workers but as financially-savvy self-branded freelancers, investing in a portfolio of skills and professional relationships, nimbly navigating between contracts and opportunities, always seeking the next advantageous opportunity and ruthlessly competing against one another through self-promotion and selfless dedication. Is it any wonder that, in a culture that is obsessed with individual competition and risk management, we see a growing hatred of the poor and de-privileged? To the extent we see society as a collection of self-seeking, financialized individuals, we blame individuals for their “failures” and relish opportunities to ascribe to them traits of laziness, avarice and profligacy. And in a society where we increasingly live isolated, competitive lives, we lose sight of public and shared issues, including the grave dangers posed by global warming and rising rates of poverty (which tend to lead to crime, violence, expensive and destructive forms of incarceration and disease).
So financialization is not just the economic supremacy of the financial sector, it is a process that works on the level of economics, politics, sociology and culture. We should not imagine that the political, the social and the cultural lives of finance are simply the bellwether of its economic power — as we have seen, the financial realm, made up as it is of largely imagined and immaterial wealth, conscripts all of us to save, borrow and believe in the totalitarianism of finance. These different levels mutually reinforce one another, and, as a result, even in the wake of the most massive and disastrous financial crisis in living memory, the financial sector is stronger than ever, and the financialization of life continues to accelerate.
So the answer to financialization, on an economic and political level, must be the rejection of capitalism in favor of some other economic system. Building such a new economy takes place on two levels. On the one hand, it takes the form of building new commons in our cities, neighborhoods and communities. Commons are sets of shared resources that are not commodified. They should include the necessities of life like food, water, shelter, health, education, security and transportation, although most of these are, today, privatized and market-driven. Commons are examples of grassroots democracy, administered by people for people. Community gardens, daycares, health-care clinics, after-school programs, neighborhood crime prevention and restorative justice initiatives, and community kitchens help us all and build an alternative, solidarity-based economy at the grassroots. They are also a transformation of our social and cultural relations that place us at the center of our lives and make us agents of change. Second, the political and economic transformation away from financialization requires we build and network these commons into a mass movement that can reclaim the productive capacity of our society and government. These rising commons can then reclaim the factories, stores, schools, hospitals and firms from the financial elite and put them to work for people as cooperatives, not for corporate profit. They can also transform government into a vehicle to support the commons, rather than for the support of the market.The recent jihadist offensive in southern Aleppo may have been a surprise for the government forces, but Hezbollah’s absence during the battle was far more perplexing.
Did Hezbollah leave Syria?
No. Furthermore, per a Syrian Arab Army (SAA) source in Damascus, Hezbollah deployed almost all of their forces to the Greater Damascus area; specifically, the East Ghouta and Qalamoun Mountains.
Hezbollah has a large presence in the East Ghouta region of rural Damascus, but they are not leading the current offensive, which is something they are not accustomed to in this war.
Meanwhile, in the Qalamoun Mountains, Hezbollah seems to be taking a more active role in the battle taking place on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
This past week, Hezbollah’s media wing “Al-Manar” reported that their forces carried out several attacks against Jabhat Al-Nusra (Syrian Al-Qaeda group) in the Jaroud ‘Arsal area of east Lebanon.
In addition to their presence in Jaroud ‘Arsal, Hezbollah was sighted on the other side of the Qalamoun Mountains, carrying out attacks against Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) at Jaroud Jarajeer, Jaroud Qarah, and Jaroud Faleeta.
Last June, Hezbollah launched an imperative offensive in the Qalamoun Mountains that resulted in the expulsion of the jihadist rebels from Rankous, Faleeta, and several mountaintops.
Does this mean Hezbollah is preparing for another offensive in the Qalamoun Mountains? It is unknown at the moment.
Hezbollah’s movements in Syria are very difficult to track because they do not correspond with the media and they rarely collaborate with the Syrian Army.
Should Hezbollah launch the third phase of their Qalamoun offensive; this could spell trouble for Jabhat Al-Nusra because they are already confined to a small area in Jaroud Qarah.
AdvertisementsIm in u.k England in a place called Shinewater which is within Eastbourne..It is now about 9.20am and relativity bright, and the sky just went dark around this area, like night time dark, but no stars or clouds just pitch black...Quite a few people saw this so i'm not hallucinating...My neighbour believes it was a sudden eclipse but wouldn't that make everywhere else dark?I could clearly see the area known as "The Downs" which is a rough bunch of high hills and it was not dark over there from what i could see.. it seemed like the light within about a.... a mile radius perhaps? just simply went dark, and I could very clearly see The Downs alight with natural light...the downs being quite a relativly high landmark you can see them from quite afar.This may sound mad but it was like, kinda like...The sky was cracked almost. Like what i was seeing wasn't our sky...it was odd and there was a really eerie feeling going on, but i guess that's just human nature when faced with something unknown.I posted this here because well...it was in the sky and you guys kinda deal with the sky, so perhaps a UFO of some sought?But honestly, it just felt looked like the sky had cracked, im sure someone would've picked this up on there mobile phone or something and cctv, that has to be an option.I'm gunna try my best to get this in some media format, i'll start with the local herald newspaper and see if i can get this higher because what i saw was not natural well, i for one believe it wasn't natural and i have a probable several 100 witnesses to this...but if you guys/girls do have a more sensible solution then mine then please do post instead of flaming and calling me a liar.Anyway i have to goto work so i'll answer question when i get back, but i've done the best i can describing the event.okay...this is odd:[edit on 10/8/08 by Axzion]DARWIN trainer Chris Pollard has been suspended for 12 months after exposing himself at a recent Fannie Bay race meeting.
Pollard was found to have urinated on an open window of the Northern Territory stewards’ room and was seen by two female members of the stewards’ panel. He is in the process of appealing against the severity of a nine-month ban for testing positive to cannabis and ice.
His appeal over the severity of that sentence is due to be heard by the NT Racing Appeals Tribunal later this month.
Thoroughbred Racing NT Chairman of Stewards David Hensler said Pollard’s actions were both offensive and indecent and showed a lack of respect and contempt for the stewards.
HELP SOUGHT
GEELONG Racing Club chief Daniel Salter says the club has asked for assistance from Country Racing Victoria as it adapts to a new business and financial model.
“We’ve had some redundancies and also for the first time we have transferred to the industry finance model for our accounts,” Salter said.
“We’ve also had significant expenditures with the new track, new horse stalls and a new bar, as well as some redundancies so cash flow is a bit tight.”
TELOPEA GUTSY
JOCKEY Craig Williams says English-bred Telopea has black-type “quality written all over her” after the mare kept her unbeaten Australian record intact with a gutsy victory over 1400m at Sandown on Wednesday.
Trained by Darren Weir, Telopea had one run in France where she was unplaced, before she was sent by Paul Fudge to Weir, who now has had three wins with her.
media_camera Craig Williams predicts bright future for Telopea. Picture: Hamish Blair
FILLY ALL KLASS
DARREN Weir says his first-up winner in the opening race at Sandown, Keep The Klass, is a handy stayer in the making.
He said the filly, ridden by Brad Rawiller in Wednesday’s 1500m maiden, was a definite 2000m horse. Weir said it was at the back of his mind to head to Morphettville for the South Australian Oaks on May 16.
“I’m not sure if she is good enough, but she is a nice enough stayer in the making,” Weir said.
PETITE’S GETS REWARD
AN eight day back-up from her first start to Wednesday’s 900m dash had Sandown didn’t faze Brendan McCartney’s two-year-old Petite’s Reward, which scored a long neck win over 100-1 shot Prussian Vixen in the Swettenham Stud Sprint.
The hardluck story of the race was Lee and Anthony Freedman’s Wingstack. A $370,000 purchase, the Lonhro filly got into trouble in the run but only finished half a head away from the second placegetter.
McCartney said Petite’s Reward was unlucky at her first start at Moonee Valley.
“It’s a big effort for a little horse and she is only tiny,” he said.
DUNN MISSES CLASH WITH DAD
APPRENTICE Dylan Dunn was robbed of the chance of beating his father Dwayne Dunn home in the fourth race at Sandown.
Dylan’s mount Rawnaq was scratched and will run at Bendigo’s metropolitan meeting on Saturday.
Dwayne’s mount, Duplicity Jones, went down by a half head to the Ciaron Maher-trained Jileks Spur which was ridden by Michelle Payne in the 3000m heat one of the marathon series.
media_camera Dylan and Dwayne Dunn. Picture: Sarah Reed
Maher said Jileks Spur had been schooled over hurdles leading into the race and was destined for a jumping career.
For the record, the Dunn’s have raced against each other twice, with dad finishing in front of his son both times.
CAMPER KEEPS WINNING
THERE were plenty of happy campers in the Mathew Ellerton and Simon Zahra training camp when Not A Happy Camper scored her second consecutive victory with a win over 1300m at Sandown.
After tackling some tough assignments last spring, Zahra said they were still trying to work out the filly who they thought was a 2000m-plus horse.
“But she just seems to grind away,” Zahra said. “When we stepped her up last time around, she really sort of faded.”
Zahra said they would step her up to 1600m and then evaluate her after she lost he way last campaign.Some ADHD medications can cause sleeplessness, loss of appetite, tics, and other side effects that no child should have to tolerate. Learn what to expect and how to adjust your child’s ADD treatment plan for best results.
The right ADHD medication can make life much easier for children and adults who have attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD). But medications can also cause severe side effects, including headaches, sleep problems, and a blunted appetite.
Some people (including more than a few doctors) seem to assume that ADHD medication side effects are merely the price to pay for taking a prescription. I couldn’t disagree more. No one should have to put up with side effects of ADHD meds. Often, a simple adjustment in the way a medication is used is all it takes to remedy the problem.
In this article, I’ll explain the strategies that I’ve found particularly effective at controlling side effects in children — which, by the way, also work for adults with ADHD. Try the strategies with your own child, or yourself. Tell your doctor what you are doing — to see what additional help he or she can provide.
What Are the Side Effects of ADHD Stimulant Medications?
Methylphenidate (Ritalin), dextro-amphetamine (Dexedrine), and dextro-amphetamine/levo-amphetamine (Adderall) have similar side-effect profiles, and the strategies that curb side effects for one medication generally work for the other two, as well.
Loss of Appetite. Along with difficulty falling asleep at night (see below), loss of appetite is the most common side effect of stimulant meds. This problem often clears up on its own within a few weeks, so I usually recommend a wait-and-see approach. If the problem persists, don’t delay taking action — especially if the appetite loss is severe enough to trigger decrease in total body mass, or, in a growing child, failure to grow appropriately.
[Free Download: A Parent’s Guide to ADHD Medications]
First, observe your child’s eating patterns. Breakfast often goes well because the first dose of the day hasn’t yet kicked in. Lunch is likely to be a lost cause, nutrition-wise. Ditto for dinner. Your child probably becomes very hungry around 8:00 p.m., when the evening dose wears off.
There may be little you can do to boost your child’s appetite in the middle of the day (when medication is at maximum effectiveness). So instead of worrying about what gets eaten at lunch, create nutritional “windows of opportunity” at other times of the day.
For example, get a good, healthful breakfast into your child before the first dose of the day kicks in. Hold off on the 4:00 p.m. dose until 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. (During this time, you’ll have to provide more structure and supervision — and don’t expect homework to be done.) Your child’s appetite may return in time for dinner. Then give the third dose.
Does your child eat lots of sweets? If so, getting him to cut back should boost his appetite for more nutritious fare.
Another way to make sure your child is getting adequate nutrition is to offer a food supplement drink instead of nutritionally empty snacks — or in place of a meal that is likely to go uneaten. These tasty beverages, such as Pediasure and Ensure, come in different flavors. They can be made into milk shakes or frozen to make pops.
If these approaches don’t work, ask your doctor about trying a different stimulant. For reasons that remain poorly understood, some children who experience a loss of appetite while taking one stimulant medication experience no such loss on another.
[Self-Test: ADHD Myth or ADHD Reality? Check the Facts About ADHD]
If switching stimulants doesn’t help, ask your doctor about moving on to a non-stimulant.
Sleeplessness. For some kids, difficulty falling asleep is truly a side effect of stimulant medication. But other kids are kept awake at night by a lack of medication. That is, once the last dose of the day wears off, these children return to “being” ADHD. They feel restless, hear every sound, and find it impossible to “turn off” their brain.
There’s no easy way to tell which of these scenarios explains your child’s sleep problem. To find out, you’ll have to do a little trial-and-error: Pick an evening when sleeplessness is unlikely to prove disastrous (that is, when your child can sleep late the following morning). Have your child take an additional dose of her usual stimulant around 8:00 p.m.
If your child goes right to sleep, it’s a safe bet that her sleeplessness has been caused by a lack of medication. You should be able to remedy this problem simply by continuing with the extra evening dose.
If the extra dose triggers the opposite reaction — and your child becomes even more “wired” than before — it’s clear that sleeplessness really is a side effect. This problem can often be remedied by giving your child an adjusted dose of the over-the-counter antihistamine Benedryl just before bedtime.
Benadryl is not a sleeping pill, but if your child lies quietly in a dark room after taking a dose, sleep should come within an hour. (Benadryl is for occasional use only.)
What if the sleep problem persists? See what happens if you reduce the 4:00 p.m. dose or give it up entirely. Of course, this might cause your child’s ADHD symptoms to flare up in the evening. If so, ask the doctor about trying a non-stimulant medication.
For some children, the only medication that is effective against ADHD symptoms is a stimulant that causes severe sleep problems. In such a case, ask your doctor about giving your child a dose of clonidine (Catapres) about one hour before bedtime. This non-stimulant medication often has a sedating effect.
Stomachaches or Headaches. No one knows why stimulants cause these problems in some children and adults. But often it’s helpful if the patient eats something before taking the pill. If the problem persists, it may be necessary to try a non-stimulant medication.
Tics. These sudden, involuntary muscular contractions typically involve the eyes, face, mouth, neck, or shoulders. If the muscles in the throat are involved, the tic might cause sniffing, humming, or coughing. In many cases, children start experiencing tics shortly after starting on a particular medication.
If tics occur, stop the medication and try another one. In most cases, the tics will go away within several weeks. If there is a family history of tic disorder, however, the tics may not go away. (That’s why doctors generally avoid giving stimulant meds to kids with a family history of tics.)
Emotional Problems. When the dosage is too high, stimulants can cause children or even adults to seem “spacey” or “zombie-like,” or to be uncharacteristically tearful or irritable (a condition known as emotional lability). In general, the best way to rein in these side effects is simply to lower the dosage.
If reducing the dosage causes your or your child’s ADHD symptoms to reemerge, ask your doctor about trying another stimulant; just because one stimulant causes emotional problems doesn’t mean that others will. If all stimulants cause problems, you’ll have to move on to a non-stimulant.
Rebound. Some children experience 30 to 60 minutes of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and nonstop talking a half hour or so after the last dose of the day wears off. You may be able to avoid this problem by reducing this last dose.
Another helpful strategy is to add another short-acting dose to the regimen at 4:00 or 8:00 p.m. If this additional evening dose fails to help — or if it causes sleep problems — it’s probably best to switch your child to a non-stimulant medication.
Other Side Effects. If you or your child has a problem with anger or suffers from anxiety, a mood disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, taking a stimulant can make symptoms worse. (Sometimes, you may be unaware that your child has such a disorder until he starts taking a stimulant.) In any of these situations, stopping the stimulant should solve the problem.
If you or your child are taking medications to address an emotional disorder, it may be possible to go back on stimulants. Another option is to try a non-stimulant medication.
What Are the Side Effects of ADHD Non-Stimulant Medications?
If stimulants cannot be used because their side effects prove uncontrollable, consider using one of the non-stimulant medications. Some patients experience side effects on both stimulants and non-stimulants. In this case, combining much smaller doses of a stimulant and a non-stimulant might be the solution.
Tricyclic Antidepressants. Along with bupropion (Wellbutrin), three tricyclics are used to treat ADHD: Imipramine (Tofranil), desipramine (Norpramine), and nortriptyline (Pamelor).
Fatigue is the most frequent side effect of these four drugs. Fortunately, this problem typically diminishes over the first several weeks. If not, ask your doctor about reducing the daily dosage, or dividing one large dose into three smaller doses — one to be taken in the morning, another at about 4:00 p.m., and the third at bedtime. If divided doses don’t help, your doctor may wish to prescribe another tricyclic.
Bupropion and the tricyclics can also cause constipation, dry mouth, or blurred vision. These “cholinergic” effects often respond to symptomatic treatment. That is, eating high-fiber foods or taking a fiber supplement might eliminate constipation, throat lozenges might help moisten a dry mouth, and so on.
If these approaches fail, try another medication. Unlike the stimulant medications, tricyclic medications must be tapered off slowly. Stopping abruptly can cause aches and other flu-like symptoms.
Very rarely, these medications cause the patient to wake up at 4:00 to 5:00 a.m. and be unable to go back to sleep. If reducing the evening dose or giving it a bit earlier fails to ease this “early morning wakefulness,” try another non-stimulant medication.
In some children, tricyclics can affect brain wave activity. If your child has a seizure disorder, a tricyclic might exacerbate the problem. Discuss this matter with your doctor before starting your child on a tricyclic.
Tricyclics have also been known to affect the electrical conduction pattern within the heart, triggering a rapid pulse. This is a rare side effect, and it generally stops once the medication is stopped. If you are concerned, discuss this with your family doctor.
Beta-Blockers. The blood-pressure drugs clonidine (Catepres) and guanfacine (Tenex) help control impulsivity in certain people with ADHD. However, these meds can cause daytime sedation. If this occurs, reducing the dose or spreading it out over the day may solve the problem. If not, ask your doctor about trying another non-stimulant medication.
Atomoxetine (Strattera). It can cause stomachaches, decreased appetite, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, fatigue, and mood swings. These problems often go away over time. If not, try lowering the dosage or replacing a once-a-day dosing regimen with several smaller doses during the day.
If these steps fail, try a different non-stimulant medication.
[Has Your Doctor Made One of These Common Medication Mistakes?]- A former Wootton High School student who pleaded guilty to two counts of vehicular manslaughter for a drunken driving crash that resulted in the deaths of two of his classmates last year has been sentenced to prison by a Montgomery County judge Thursday.
The state recommended 12 years of the possible 20-year maximum sentence for Ellis. Judge Robert Greenberg ultimately sentenced the 19-year-old to serve four years for the deaths of Calvin Li and Alexander Murk, all of them Wootton High School graduates who left a house party back on June 25 where alcohol had been served.
Ellis and the front seat passenger, Cameron Siasi, were both seriously injured, but made full recoveries, according to doctors.
Ellis was behind the wheel of the car in last year's crash and toxicology results showed he had consumed alcohol and was also under the influence of marijuana.
Ellis pleaded guilty to two charges of vehicular manslaughter in order to avoid trial. They are considered non-violent charges, which mean once he serves a quarter of his sentence, he is eligible for parole.
In addition, Ellis was given five years of probation with alcohol and drug treatment. He also faces five years of no alcohol while driving in addition to being required to have an interlock ignition device to operate a vehicle. Ellis will also be required to serve 500 hours of community service.
There was gut-wrenching evidence revealed during the sentencing phase, which included dash cam video of one of the first responding officers being guided by neighbors who heard the wreck. You can see the police cruiser stop directly in front of the mangled vehicle. Murk and Li had been partially ejected from the car.
The state wanted a tough and stiff sentence saying that Ellis showed no remorse and there were hundreds of hours of jailhouse conversations recorded. In those calls, he never mentioned the victims or showed what they said was any sort of remorse.
“Four years is time for Mr. Ellis to think about the things he’s done,” said Ramon Korionoff, spokesperson for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office. “Hopefully he will be able to serve the public good by doing the 500 hours of community service that Judge Greenberg imposed today, and it is our hope too that the ignition interlock system that has been ordered for him will prevent him from doing anything similar to this in the future.”
There were long faces, deep sighs and tears as the judge read the sentence that many in the courtroom as they left said was unjust.
Murk's parents spoke to a courtroom so packed that they had to change locations because of the nearly 200 people in attendance. Their words evoked tears from people in the courtroom as they told the judge every single day before they went to court, they touched their son's urn that sits in their living room, which is their daily reminder of how their lives changed forever.
Li's parents did not attend Thursday’s sentencing and did not provide letters to the judge, saying the entire ordeal was simply too painful for the family.
The homeowner who held the party that Ellis and his friends had attended pleaded guilty to furnishing alcohol to minors. Kenneth Saltzman paid the maximum penalty for the crime – a fine of $5,000, which is $2,500 for each count.
Thursday’s sentencing comes in the wake of a deadly crash late Tuesday night that took the lives of three Clarksburg High School students. In that wreck, police have said alcohol does not appear to be involved, but they were investigating speeding and the inexperience of the driver as possible factors.Orignally posted: 2:51 p.m., May 3, 2017
Ramil Comendador – a 35-year-old husband and father of two who worked as a janitor and then legal researcher at the Commission on Elections (Comelec) – said he could not believe how lucky he was to pass the 2016 bar examination.
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“Napakaswerte ko po,” he said. “Di ko nga po alam kung paano ko pasasalamatan ang Panginoon talaga at yung mga taong nagbigay ng lak |
. For all the support. For every single penny donated through us. For giving a damn about what we do. Most of all.. Thank you for your never ending trust. Coiners & droppers, the volunteers, colleagues, friends, the families, the media, and most importantly, the CAC Network.Andreas Antonopoulos: Trolls are Disrupting Bitcoin Development
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Mastering Bitcoin Author Andreas Antonopoulos was recently featured on a panel discussion at the Bitcoin Foundation DevCore Workshop at Draper University, and he shared some interesting thoughts on the idea of certain individuals doing their best to disrupt the Bitcoin development process via dissent, negativity, and trolling.
The development process has indeed slowed down a bit as more controversial protocol changes have been debated by the community, and some of the language on both sides of the scalability discussion has been downright nasty. According to Antonopoulos, the possible fracturing of the Bitcoin community as a whole could be partially due to paid trolls who work for various government agencies around the world.
Bitcoin Development Trolls Keep Greg Maxwell Up at Night
The discussion that eventually led to Antonopoulos’s points regarding paid agents was between Bitcoin Core Developer Greg Maxwell and C4 President Michael Perklin. Perklin was making the point that development can stall when you do not have someone making a final call on controversial decisions. Maxwell explained he is worried about outside forces disrupting development more than the process simply coming to a standstill on its own:
“This thing sort of keeps me up at night. I think we are vulnerable to people intentionally trying to jam the process, to jam Bitcoin because they want to take Bitcoin out because they want a competing system to be successful — whether that’s a traditional money system or another cryptocurrency system. So, that risk worries me.”
Read More: Bitcoin Core Developer Greg Maxwell Has ‘Ethical Concerns’ with Altcoins
Some Trolls Could Be Paid Agents
Once Maxwell brought up the point of outsiders jamming or negatively affecting the development process, Andreas Antonopoulos was quick to point out that throwing a lot of negativity into development discussions could be one effective method of lowering overall moral. He also explained that there are two very different types of trolls that exist in the world today:
“One way they can jam the system is by trolling, sowing dissent, assuming bad faith, and throwing a lot of negativity into the conversation... Some trolls are self-employed comfortably and do that because their personality is that, but I have no doubt in my mind that there are some people — we’ve seen it consistently across many countries — who are paid to sow dissent into a variety of organizations. If it can happen [in the United States] — and it has happened here many times with community organizations getting disrupted by government agencies — I can assure you it’s happening in other countries, which have far less constraint on doing that... One of the ways that we’re getting disrupted is not someone compromising the miners but someone compromising the good faith efforts of the development team.”
Creating a Toxic User Community
Antonopoulos added that the trolls can also infiltrate the user community who may be turned off by a “toxic environment.” Many would argue that the Bitcoin community as a whole, especially on Reddit, has been rather unpleasant lately. Faceless users with strong opinions about how Bitcoin should scale have been quick to throw mud at anyone who disagrees with them on various online forums for Bitcoin discussion. On the one side there are individuals claiming that Blockstream is intentionally delaying a block size increase for their own profit, while the other side claims that Bitcoin XT Developers Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen are government agents who intend to destroy Bitcoin’s decentralization and censorship-resistant nature.
Read More: Is the Bitcoin Community Jumping to Conclusions on the Block Size Debate?
Although the scalability debate has become heated over the past few months (with or without the help of trolls) multiple Bitcoin Core developers and contributors have claimed that events such as Scaling Bitcoin Montreal and the Bitcoin Foundation DevCore Workshop where this panel discussion took place have had a positive impact on the Bitcoin development community. It will be interesting to see if the upcoming Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in Hong Kong will continue to push the development process in a positive direction.
Kyle Torpey is a freelance journalist who has been following Bitcoin since 2011. His work has been featured on VICE Motherboard, Business Insider, RT’s Keiser Report, and many other media outlets. You can follow @kyletorpey on Twitter.Nintendo will be launching its first ever smartphone app this year called Miitomo. Arriving in March, this title will be available in the U.S. on Android (as well as iOS-powered hardware). The company will open up pre-registration on February 17, meaning you'll have ample time to sign-up for a Nintendo Account to stay in the loop. Once registered with Nintendo, the company will notify you about availability come March.
But what is Miitomo all about? As is hinted by the name of the app, it's a social experience that makes full use of Nintendo Mii characters, and was first released on the Wii console. Miitomo allows users to communicate with friends and family, share photos, and more. It's an interesting choice of app to initially launch with, given by how many communication apps there are already available.
Alongside Miitomo, My Nintendo will also be launched as a comprehensive rewards service. By simply using Nintendo products and services, you'll be rewarded with ways to further enhance your experience. As noted already, Miitomo will launch in March, with plans to have a total of five apps released by March 2017. We'll be sure to update you all once Miitomo is available.
Source: NintendoThe Persona series may not be the most mainstream series out there, but despite that the series has still managed to amass a loyal following. The series also seems to be getting better and better with each new release, with Persona 4 (and its Golden Vita port) being referred to as some of the best RPGs on the market. Persona 5 is just around the corner and is sure to boost the series’ popularity even further, but we’re getting some new numbers regarding where the series is at now in terms of sales and they’re pretty impressive.
SEGA has now released their latest financial reports, and in them it is revealed that the series has now sold 6.9 million units worldwide. This is compared to Atlus’ Megami Tensei and Etrian Odyssey series, which have now sold 7.2 million units and 1.5 million units worldwide, respectively. This puts the Persona sales numbers into perspective and makes them even more impressive, as the Megami Tensei series has been around for 10 years longer than Persona.
Elsewhere in the financial report we see more of the sales numbers for SEGA’s in-house IPs, and Sonic is of course the leader of the pack with approximately 350 million units sold worldwide. That series will hopefully have a rebirth next year, with the 2D Sonic Mania and the still-untitled 3D Sonic game both set to get the series back on track in 2017.
Persona 5 recently saw another delay in its release, being bumped from a February 14th, 2017 release to an April 4th, 2017 release. Atlus said that “the Japanese release of Persona 5 smashed all our expectations, and as a company, we decided that we owed our fans the very best effort to make Persona 5 our gold standard in localization. Practically, this means redoubling our QA and localization efforts, even returning to the studio to record previously unvoiced lines. We don’t want to rush this game. And in this case, it meant we needed to move the release back for the last time.”
The game will allow you the option to pick either English or Japanese audio, which is a move that hardcore fans of the series have greatly appreciated. You can check out the game’s English voice cast by clicking right here.Podcast 023: The trouble with Diagnosing Lyme Disease
Wendy and Dr. Meaghan welcome Patrick Plum to the BTBHA podcast studio. He has been battling with Lyme Disease since 2012. He tells his story about visiting 36 different doctors and the difficulty with both getting a diagnosis and treatment options.
If you are someone that has been struggling to find an answer regarding medical concerns, you will totally relate to this podcast. His story shows how important it is to be your own advocate at times. He talks also about the difficulty with diagnosing and treating chronic Lyme disease because it is not recommended by the CDC (Center for Disease Control). He also talks about the severe Jarisch-Herxheimer effects (also known as “herxing”) that he has experienced from treatments. We talk about why these happen with Lyme. He also currently uses a Rife machine and Kangen water for additional support. Also, touches on utilizing the Gerson therapy with treatment.
This podcast is full of great information not only for Lyme patients but also anybody dealing with ongoing health concerns. Thanks Patrick Plum so much for sharing your story.
If you would like to connect with him on facebook, you can find him as Patrick Plum and he has a Lyme warrior logo for his picture.
Here’s his video on his disease and his advice to anyone who thinks they got infected:
https://www.facebook.com/100008974753542/videos/vb.100008974753542/1454953374813807/?type=3&theaterMartin St. Louis has had a marvelous NHL career. On Wednesday when the Rangers travel down to Tampa Bay, the 39-year-old winger will face his former team of 13 seasons at home for the first time since his departure. The game, though, has potential to be far more than simply a return, for St. Louis now sits just two points shy of 1,000 on his storied tenure in the National Hockey League.
After spending four years at the University of Vermont, where he played alongside the likes of Tim Thomas and Eric Perrin, St. Louis began his professional career in the IHL with the Cleveland Lumberjacks. But after posting good offensive numbers with Cleveland during the ‘97-98’ season, the Calgary Flames signed St. Louis.
Over the next two seasons, St. Louis bounced back and forth between the AHL and the NHL. It was starting to appear that his lack of size was going to be an issue, and team’s began losing interest in the 5’8” winger. When he was finally released by the Calgary Flames following the 2000 season, he signed a deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning; the place he felt he would be awarded the most playing time.
To keep a very long story rather short, I’ll resort to a cliché phrase regarding St. Louis’ career, by saying that the rest is history.
The now 15-year NHL veteran has won the Stanley Cup, an Olympic Gold Medal, the Hart Trophy (NHL MVP), the Lester B. Pearson award (MVP as voted on by the players), two Art Ross Trophy titles (leading point scorer in the NHL), three Lady Bing Memorial Trophy awards (Most gentlemanly player), and also served as the Tampa Bay captain during his final season with the Lightning. Every one of those aforementioned honors came during his time playing in Tampa Bay.
There’s no way around it; St. Louis is a decorated veteran who has had a splendid career. He gave as much to the Lightning organization during his time there as they gave him during the early days of his career when few believed in him.
However, when Steve Yzerman, who was the general manager for both the Lightning and Team Canada’s Olympic squad, snubbed St. Louis by leaving him off of the original Team Canada roster, the relationship between St. Louis and Yzerman became strained.
Because of injuries, St. Louis did eventually get his spot on Canada’s team in Sochi, but the damage between the Lightning captain and his GM was done. That, coupled with his desire to move his family closer to home in Connecticut, St. Louis demanded that he be traded from Tampa Bay.
And so, the captains of both New York and Tampa Bay swapped spots, as Ryan Callahan was sent to the Lightning in exchange for Martin St. Louis.
And just as Callahan returned to Madison Square Garden last week, St. Louis will follow suit this Wednesday.
But regardless of how he’s perceived by the fans at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Wednesday – booed with each touch of the puck, or given a standing “O” for all he brought to the organization – St. Louis has an opportunity to, in a way, bring his career full circle.
Tampa Bay was where St. Louis became not just an NHL mainstay, but where he grew to be a full-on star in the highest caliber hockey league on the planet. On Wednesday, with just two points, St. Louis can reach the 1,000 point milestone; one which only 80 players in history have achieved. How fitting that it could very well happen against the team that he had so much success with in seasons past.
Ryan Callahan may have scored twice in his return to Madison Square Garden, but Martin St. Louis has the opportunity to upstage that in a big way during his return to south Florida with the Rangers. A milestone is beckoning, one that Marty will presumably reach sometime in the near future, the only question is when exactly it will occur.
What a story it would be if he cracked the thousand point plateau against the Lightning, in Tampa. Not even Hollywood could script it much better than that.
It is sure to be an emotional night for Martin St. Louis, and you know he’ll be hungry as ever come puck drop on Wednesday. If I were a betting man – which I’m not – I’d say he hits the thousand point marker, but that’s why they’ll play the game, I suppose.The Trump administration is expected to introduce its 2018 budget proposal on May 23, which will likely include major cuts to programs for low-income Americans. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
President Trump on Tuesday proposed dramatic changes to the role of the federal government, issuing a budget plan that culls or eliminates numerous programs that the White House says are a waste of money or create too much dependency.
Some of these programs — including Medicaid and the modern version of food stamps — provide benefits to up to a fifth of all Americans, and the breadth of the cuts has rattled lawmakers from both parties who have warned that the reductions go too far.
[Graphic: What Trump’s budget cuts from the social safety net]
For Trump, his $4.094 trillion budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins in October marks his first exercise in spelling out — in great detail — how he wants the government to change. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the plan a “Taxpayer First Budget,” and he said they worked to jettison any spending that they felt they could not defend. In total, this meant roughly $3.6 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years.
These cuts, White House officials said, would usher in a sustained period of strong economic growth that would increase wealth, create more jobs and reduce poverty.
“I think what Trumponomics is and what this budget is a part of is an effort to get to sustained 3 percent economic growth in this country again,” Mulvaney said in a briefing with reporters.
But getting there would require a lot of red ink.
Funding for Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income Americans and many people in nursing homes, would be cut by more than $800 billion over 10 years. Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a modern version of food stamps that provided benefits to 44 million people in 2016, would be cut 29 percent. In many cases, a higher burden of paying for anti-poverty programs would be shifted away from the federal government and onto the states.
[Former CDC director: ‘Proposed CDC budget would increase illness, death, risks to Americans’]
Mulvaney said too many of these programs spend other people's money. He said the government should show “compassion” for low-income Americans but it should “also...have compassion for folks who are paying [for] it.”
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called the administration's budget proposal a "Taxpayer First Budget," on May 23, and defended its cuts to federal anti-poverty programs. (Reuters)
Research programs and environmental protection would also be slashed. There would be a short-term bump in military spending, but even that would flatline after a few years, all in the quest to eliminate the budget deficit by 2027.
The constraints he put on his budget writers made it virtually impossible for him to achieve all of his goals, and the data released by his team include assumptions that budget experts attacked as questionable or dubious.
Trump told Mulvaney not to make any cuts to Medicare benefits or the retirement program within Social Security, two of the government’s most expensive line items. And to eliminate the deficit, which they said would reach $842 billion by 2027, they had to make major cuts.
But they also made rosy assumptions about economic growth that many economists — both conservative and liberal — said went too far. Trump has proposed cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, but his budget assumes that corporate tax receipts will increase almost every year. The budget says the U.S. government will collect $328 billion in estate and gift taxes over the next decade, but it also says Trump will eliminate the estate tax.
White House budget proposals are often met with a skepticism on Capitol Hill, but Tuesday's release provides the Trump administration with its best opportunity yet to spell out its vision for how the government should be run.
It calls for eliminating many of the foreign aid “grants” that the United States extends to other countries and replacing them with loans. It aims to make it harder for people to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits and easier to shift people who receive those benefits back into the workforce.
It would essentially crack down on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created after the financial crisis, and give Congress more power to limit its budget. And it would cut retirement benefits for people who worked for the federal government.
But it also proposes more spending in several areas. It would provide a temporary burst of new defense spending, which White House officials say would allow them to add 56,400 service members in 2018. It would also increase spending on immigration control and border security and provide another $200 billion for infrastructure projects over 10 years. It would allocate $1.6 billion for the creation of a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
“We are absolutely dead serious about the wall,” Mulvaney said Tuesday.
Democrats immediately attacked the budget plan and vowed to prevent any part of it from becoming law. Republicans hold a two-seat majority in the Senate, and it is difficult for them to advance major policy changes without support from Democrats.
“These senseless, irresponsible choices serve one purpose: to pave the way for tax cuts for the very wealthiest,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “The good news is that this extremist proposal will go nowhere in the Senate.”
President Obama's former budget director, Peter Orszag, tried to deconstruct much of Trump's first budget plan in a series of Twitter posts, decrying the size of some of the cuts and ridiculing economic assumptions about growth.
These massive Medicaid cuts either delusional or cruel -- delusional if you think can be done w/o serious harm; cruel if aware of impact — Peter Orszag (@porszag) May 23, 2017
And the size of the cuts appeared to make even many Republicans uneasy. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) disregarded the White House’s plan to cut the Children’s Health Insurance Program and instead said Democrats and Republicans would work to reauthorize it later this year.
Asked about the CHIP cuts, Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) warned there was such a thing as too many cuts.
“There will be some concerns if we go too deep in some of these areas,” he said.Black-eyed Beans (known as ‘Black-eyed peas in the US – even though they are actually a bean) are a fabulous addition to conscious cuisine.
In today’s recipe, I am using black-eyed beans, in a delicious beetroot salad with tahini sauce.
You can buy black-eyed beans in a tin or carton, although if you buy the dried version (which is usually cheaper, probably more nutritious and goes a lot further) then you’ll find they cook quicker than most other dried beans do.
There’s something about black-eyed beans that makes me like them more than any other bean. They have that sort of perfect balance between ‘bite’ and ‘creaminess’. They taste great and hold together really well when over-cooked (where other beans might fall apart).
Anyway, salad!
Not only is this salad jam packed with all the nutrients you’d expect in any conscious kitchen cuisine, it is full of exciting textures too.
In this recipe we’ve got the gentle, crunch of the broccoli, the soft bite of beans and raisins and the subtle creaminess of the tahini sauce.
That colour too…
It’s the beetroot red that makes it so colourful. Personally, I think that colour filled, vibrant salads seem to make the world a brighter, lighter, more fun place to be. So let’s bring ’em on!
Just can’t help myself. I go for the most vibrant colours every time. Smiling and dancing about the kitchen as I go. A feast for the eyes. Colours effect our energy and mood. They can enliven us; nourish us, nurture us!
That is especially said for beetroot red. It excites everything it touches. Infusing it with an awakened vibrancy that makes you enjoy salad in a whole new way.
As we can see, salad doesn’t have to be boring ever…
It can be a whole sensual experience. The flavour is just one part of that. Of course, the taste IS an important part of the experience. The flavours have to dance, complementing each other in a way that leaves an element of mystery ‘hmmmm what did you put in this? I can’t quite tell, but I like it’.
What really excites me is that the salad experience begins before that first bite even reaches out mouth.
Let’s not forget the beautiful aroma too. I’ll often have someone walk into the kitchen as I am preparing salad, commenting on how good it smells. The fresh, earthy scent is released as we start to prepare each ingredients. Sometimes subtle with a salad, but most inviting none-the-less.
Tips for the tahini sauce
This salad benefits from a delicious, creamy tahini sauce. Tahini makes an excellent dressing – one of my favourites in fact!
Tahini can however, be a little stubborn at times – if this happens, then just keep mixing until it creams up. It should be really creamy as you finish the dressing.
Tahini can also come in different consistencies, depending on the brand. If your’s is really thick, then simply add a little more water. If it is super thin, then you might leave the water out all together.
Different brands of tahini vary a lot and it really matters…
There are lots of different tahini’s out there; all with different tastes (and to be quite honest, it can be a bit off-putting if you get a grainy bitter one). Make sure you get a creamy, delicious version. I tend to avoid the raw ones as they generally just don’t do if for me. In the UK, Suma, Essentials, Sunita and Cypressa do the best ones. They are all creamy and delicious and they also do organic, light versions (‘light’ means it has been creamed without the husks). In the USA my good friend Jen put me onto Achva Organic Tahini which I can recommend for my North American readers. Jen did not like tahini until she found that one. Now she’s a big fan… so I am thrilled that she didn’t give up! There are some other delicious brands out there although I’ve forgotten the names. If you have a favourite please do let me know and I’ll check them out.
I must warn you though, if you stumble on to a delicious source of tahini, you’ll probably get hooked on the stuff, just like we have! For more about the health benefits of eating seeds check out my article here: The Importance of Eating Seeds for a Healthy Diet
Go for a brand that you like!
Black-eyed Bean & Beetroot Salad with Tahini Sauce Yield: 3 bowls Prep Time: 5 minutes Total Time: 5 minutes A hearty salad with black-eyed beans, beetroot, broccoli and raisins. Uses a delicious, creamy tahini sauce to dress and flavour. Print Ingredients Tahini sauce ingredients 2 heaped tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon rice syrup (or maple syrup)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Twist of pepper
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons water (or a touch more if needed) Salad ingredients 1 beetroot (tennis ball sized)
1 very small broccoli
Small handful raisins
1/2 can (125g) black eyed-beans (drained) Instructions Make the sauce by mixing all sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Tahini can be a little stubborn at times - if this is the case, then just keep mixing until it creams up. Tahini can also come in different consistencies, depending on the brand. If your's is really thick, then simply add a little more water. If it is super thin, then you might leave the water out all together. Make sure your beetroot is clean and remove its top & tail with a sharp knife. Grate the beetroot (with skin still on) into your salad bowl. Finely chop the broccoli and add to the bowl. Toss your drained black-eyed beans and raisins in with the salad. Mix in your tahini dressing well. Eat on it's own as a hearty salad or a part of a salad buffet. This works really well on top of rice, quinoa or millet too.
Pin for later…Rockville, MD - The Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health is committed to examining the details of individual disasters and public health crises. With the recent arrival of Ebola in the United States, the journal is launching a special issue on the virus. The journal will serve as an educated and authoritative voice on the virus, risk and threat level, potential of outbreak, preparation and response for the public and media.
The Journal of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, began covering events in their entirety via special issues this fall. In doing so, the journal publishes in real time over the total extent of an event or crisis - from beginning to end. Due to the intensity surrounding the Ebola virus, coverage may extend beyond one special issue.
Global experts, responders, and scientific and medical professionals in both the Ebola virus and public health will support and supply content for this special and timely issue. Material will be published accordingly after review and will be open to all. Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Jim James begins with an editorial that discusses the role of Ebola in the greater picture of transitional public health. The issue will also feature works such as Global and Domestic Legal Preparedness and Response: 2014 Ebola Outbreak by professor James G. Hodge, as well as commentary from Dr. Frederick M. Burkle, Operationalizing Public Health Skills to Resource Poor Settings: Is this the Achilles Heel in the Ebola Epidemic Campaign?.
According to Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Jim James, "This is a new approach to publishing in a scientific reviewed medical journal. The need for such factual and timely scholarly coverage in modern times is especially critical. Far too often, the media must report on incomplete and/or inaccurate information often leading to the unintentional promulgation of misinformation that will often result in undue public alarm and unwarranted practices and policies. Providing expert information in a timely manner should have a positive impact on more effectively dealing with major events."
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About the Journal
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness is the first comprehensive and authoritative journal emphasizing public health preparedness and disaster response for all health care and public health professionals globally. The journal seeks to translate science into practice and integrate medical and public health perspectives. DMPHP is the official journal of the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health.
About the Society
The Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health aims to evolve a discipline around disaster medicine and public health. The society's goal is to improve global health security, with the involvement and development of global health professionals and others who are involved in responding to and or managing significant events. The mission of the SDMPH is to advance and promote excellence in education, training and research in disaster medicine and public health for all potential health system responders based on sound educational principles, scientific evidence and best clinical and public health practices.
Twitter: @dmphSocietyA recent CNN money article titled "Beyond ISIS: 2015's scariest Geopolitical hot spots" drew swift and widespread criticism after a map featured in the article omitted the word "Israel," and replaced it with "Palestina" (the Spanish name for Palestine.)
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The case was first reported by media watchdog Honest Reporting, whose managing editor, Simon Plosker, said, "At a time when the state’s very legitimacy is being called into question by vicious anti-Israel extremists, any message that Israel does not belong in the Middle East plays into this false narrative and feeds those like the Iranian ayatollahs who wish to see Israel erased from the map."
The CNN map (Photo: Honest Reporting)
According to Honest Reporting, CNN has since removed the map in question and replaced it with an image of the aftermath of a Syrian airstrike in Aleppo.
The map incident is not CNN's first run in with Israel. Veteran CNN anchor Jim Clancy was forced to resign in January of this year after a series of anti-Israel tweets. Clancy posted a tweet claiming that the caricature of Muhammad published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo did not mock the Muslim prophet. "They mocked how the COWARDS tried to distort his word. Pay attention,” he wrote.
After his version of events was challenged by Oren Kessler, a deputy director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Clancy tweeted, “Hasbara?,” in response, implying that Kessler was engaging in public diplomacy on Israel's behalf.
“These accounts are part of a campaign to do PR for Israel," Clancy wrote, adding that a “pro-Israel voice" was attempting to "convince us that cartoonists were really anti-Muslim and that’s why they were attacked. FALSE," he added.
In his resignation statement, the CNN anchor did not mention the reason for his departure. He posted the following message: "After nearly 34 years with Cable News Network, the time has come to say farewell! It has been my honor to work alongside all of you for all of these years."
The CNN article was not the first time Israel had been omitted form a map. HarperCollins, one of the largest publishers in the world, has marketed English-language atlases that fail to include Israel to schools in the Middle East.
The HarperCollins map
Unlike absent Israel, the volume includes a map identifying Gaza and the West Bank. Collins Bartholomew, the map company in charge of printing, said including Israel was "unacceptable" for customs in the Persian Gulf.
A company spokesperson later said HarperCollins "regretted" the omission and ended the sale of the HarperCollins Middle East Atlas, promising to destroy remaining copies of the offending map collection.Time Warner Inc. (“Time Warner” or the “Company”) is a leading media and entertainment company, whose businesses include television networks, and film and TV entertainment. The company’s successful media brands include TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Warner Bros., and New Line Cinema. In this article, we will explain how Time Warner makes money. Firstly, we will explain the key business segments of Time Warner and how the company generates revenue from each of those segments. Then, we will share Time Warner revenues by business segments and revenue type for the year 2015. Then, we will share the revenues, the profits, and the profit margins of Time Warner for 2015. Finally, we will provide an analysis of Time Warner 2015 operating profits by business segments.
A Brief History Of Time Warner
Before we get into the details of Time Warner business model, let us take a quick look at the key events in the history of Time Warner.
Time Warner was created from the merger of Time Inc and Warner Communications in 1989. These companies were founded several decades earlier. Time Inc launched its first weekly magazine in 1923. Warner Bros. released its first movie in 1926.
HBO was launched in 1972. It was acquired by Time in 1973.
Time Warner acquired Turner broadcasting (owner of CNN, TNT, TBS, and many other properties) in 1996. Turner was founded by 1970’s. CNN was launched in 1980.
In 2000, the mega merger of AOL and Time Warner was announced. The company was called AOL Time Warner.
Then, a series of spin-offs started. Warner Music Group was spin-off in 2003. Time Warner Cable and AOL were spin-off as separate companies in 2009. Time Inc was spin-off as a separate company in 2014.
AOL was acquired by Verizon in 2014. Time Warner Cable was acquired by Charter communications in 2016.
In October 2016, AT&T announced its intention to acquire Time Warner Inc. The deal is pending for regulatory approvals.
Time Warner Business Segments
Time Warner classifies its operations into three re portable segments:
Turner. It consists of cable networks and digital media properties.
. It consists of cable networks and digital media properties. Home Box Office. It consists of premium pay television and streaming services domestically and premium pay, basic tier television and streaming services internationally.
. It consists of premium pay television and streaming services domestically and premium pay, basic tier television and streaming services internationally. Warner Bros. It consists of television, feature film, home video, and video game production and distribution.
Key Elements Of Time Warner Business Model
The following diagram shows the key elements of the Time Warner business model. It shows key offerings of the different business segments, the type of customers that they serve, and the types of revenue that they generate from those customers. The details of these elements are presented in the sections below.
How Time Warner Makes Money From Turner Business Segment?
The Turner segment consists of businesses managed by Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (“Turner”). Turner operates domestic and international television networks and related properties that offer entertainment, sports, kids and news programming on television and digital platforms for consumers around the world. The Turner networks and related properties include TNT, TBS, Adult Swim, truTV, Turner Classic Movies, Turner Sports, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, CNN and HLN.
Turner’s programming is available to audiences for viewing live and on demand across television, mobile devices and other digital platforms through services provided by affiliates and on Turner’s digital properties. Turner also owns and operates various digital media businesses, including Bleacher Report; the CNN digital properties, including CNN Go, CNN.com and CNNMoney.com; and other digital properties associated with its networks.
In addition, Turner manages and operates sports league digital properties in conjunction with associated television rights, such as NBA Digital and NCAA.com.
Turner generates the following types of revenue:
Subscription revenue. This includes revenue principally from providing programming to affiliates that have contracted to receive and distribute the programming to subscribers.
. This includes revenue principally from providing programming to affiliates that have contracted to receive and distribute the programming to subscribers. Advertising revenue. This includes revenue from the sale of advertising and sponsorships on its networks and the digital properties it owns or manages for other companies.
. This includes revenue from the sale of advertising and sponsorships on its networks and the digital properties it owns or manages for other companies. Content and other revenue. This includes revenue from the license of its original programming to subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD) and other over-the-top (OTT) services and its brands and characters for consumer products.
How Time Warner Makes Money From Home Box Office Business Segment?
The Home Box Office segment consists of businesses managed by Home Box Office, Inc. (“Home Box Office”). Home Box Office operates the HBO and Cinemax multi-channel premium pay television services. HBO- and Cinemax-branded premium pay, basic tier television or streaming services are distributed in over 60 countries in Latin America, Asia and Europe. In April 2015, Home Box Office launched HBO NOW, a stand-alone premium streaming service available to consumers in the U.S.
HBO and Cinemax programming is available in the U.S. to subscribers of affiliates for viewing on its main HBO and Cinemax channels and its multiplex channels, through Home Box Office’s on demand services, HBO On Demand and Cinemax On Demand, and through Home Box Office’s streaming video-on-demand services, HBO GO and MAX GO. HBO GO and MAX GO are available on a variety of digital platforms, including mobile devices, gaming consoles and Internet connected streaming devices and televisions.
Home Box Office’s agreements with its domestic affiliates are typically long-term arrangements that provide for annual service fee increases and marketing support. The fees to Home Box Office under affiliate agreements are generally based on the number of subscribers served by the affiliates.
Home Box Office generates the following types of revenue:
Subscription revenue. This includes revenue principally from providing its programming to domestic affiliates and other distributors that have contracted to receive and distribute the programming to their customers who subscribe to the HBO and Cinemax services. Home Box Office also derives subscription revenues from the distribution by international affiliates of country-specific HBO and Cinemax premium pay, basic tier television and streaming services to their local subscribers and direct-to-consumer streaming services. HBO GO is available to HBO premium pay television subscribers in a number of countries outside the U.S.
. This includes revenue principally from providing its programming to domestic affiliates and other distributors that have contracted to receive and distribute the programming to their customers who subscribe to the HBO and Cinemax services. Home Box Office also derives subscription revenues from the distribution by international affiliates of country-specific HBO and Cinemax premium pay, basic tier television and streaming services to their local subscribers and direct-to-consumer streaming services. HBO GO is available to HBO premium pay television subscribers in a number of countries outside the U.S. Content and Other revenue. This includes revenue from the exploitation of its original programming through multiple other distribution outlets. Home Box Office sells its original programming in both physical and digital formats in the U.S. and various international regions through a wide variety of digital storefronts and traditional retailers. In addition, Home Box Office also licenses some of its programming to the Amazon Prime SVOD service. Finally, Home Box Office has also licensed certain of its original programming, which was produced by Home Box Office but aired on broadcast television, to domestic basic cable networks and local television stations.
How Time Warner Makes Money From Warner Bros. Business Segment?
The Warner Bros. segment consists of businesses managed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (“Warner Bros.”) that principally produce and distribute feature films, television shows, and video games.
In the theatrical production and distribution business, the company produces and distributes feature films under its Warner |
Sierra Leone and a World Health Organization-led Ebola training facility.
In addition, the MoD is also deploying three Royal Navy Merlin helicopters and aircrew and engineers, as well as the aviation support ship RFA Argus, which is being sent to operate as a forward base for the helicopters.
Carrying personnel from all three services, RFA Argus set sail to Sierra Leone last week.
The UK’s treatment centres are expected to provide direct medical care for up to 8,800 Ebola patients in the next six months.
Image: UK Commanding Force Troops Command general officer major general Tim Radford speaking to soldiers before their flight to Sierra Leone. Photo: courtesy of Corporal Richard Cave RLC, Crown copyright.You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
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Kickstarter goal MADE � Wow. 10 days. Unbelievable. Can't believe we SURPASSED OUR GOAL this fast! I'm blown away by all of your support!!!
We've made it this far together - let's stretch and reach even higher to make Snakehead the absolute best film it can be. We're coming up with new rewards to up the game. And to take this to another level - we want YOU to tell us what other rewards you'd like. Shout it out in the comments below!
My goal was always to build a community that believed in this story, in this journey. To all of you who have supported (in any way, shape, or form), thank you for laying the foundation with me. I'm truly grateful and deeply humbled. #snakeheadmovie Follow @snakeheadmovie for all the updates!Some Donald Trump supporters who woke up bright and early in D.C. on Friday encountered an unexpected scene on their way to the inauguration: a queer dance party.
Before sunrise, a group of about 60 LGBTQ people and activists, clad in rainbow-colored clothes, marched from McPherson Park to a nearby security checkpoint outside of the presidential inauguration venue.
The group walled off the main entrance into the checkpoint, forcing some inauguration-goers to traipse through showers of purple glitter to get inside. Rihanna and Whitney Houston music pumped through loudspeakers on the street, and the activists blew whistles and horns while chanting “out of the closet, into the streets.” Some also participated in “kiss-ins,” kissing each other as inauguration guests walked by.
The Qockblockade Brigade — the same group that organized the queer dance party in Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s D.C. neighborhood the night before— planned the inauguration event. Activists claimed the gathering wasn’t meant to incite trouble or violence but to show solidarity with the queer people who are worried about their rights under a Trump presidency.HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Rocket City Pride, an advocacy event for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is set for Sunday at Huntsville' Roundhouse Depot.
This is the second year for the event. It was held the same weekend last year at Big Spring Park and drew 800 to 1,000 people, said entertainment coordinator Terry Dixon.
"We're looking for a least one and half to two times that this year," he said.
Activities begin at 1 p.m. with speakers and DJs, and a parade scheduled to roll out of the Roundhouse at 5 p.m.
The parade will cover three blocks, heading south from Historic Huntsville Depot Roundhouse on Jefferson Street, then turning left on Clinton Avenue, left again on Washington Street and left on Monroe Street back to the Roundhouse.
Some of the speakers represent religious organizations, including Spirit of the Cross Church in Huntsville.
The free event is hosted by GLBT Advocacy & Youth Services Inc. The Huntsville-based organization was founded in 2009 and to engage in effective advocacy for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.
"We are committed to ensuring the physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of youth and young adults struggling due to sexual orientation or gender identity issues," GLBT's press release states.
Events schedule:
1 p.m. - Various local speakers, choirs, DJ Sweet T and live musicians
5 p.m. - Pride parade starts from the Roundhouse
7 p.m. - Main event performances at Roundhouse
8:20 p.m. - DJ Sir Paul
8:50 p.m. - Final performancesANALYSIS/OPINION:
One bad thing about our media-mad age is that it’s difficult to keep up with all the lies we’re being told by our government. The good news is that falsehoods don’t have the legs they once had.
Remember when Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper was asked by Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat, during a hearing on March 12, 2013, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Mr. Clapper answered, “No sir not wittingly.”
After Edward Snowden spilled the National Security Agency’s beans three months later, Mr. Clapper retreated to his Ministry of Truth persona when asked by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on June 10 why he lied to Mr. Wyden: “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying, ‘no.’”
Mr. Clapper in February 2011 told a Capitol Hill hearing, whose audience he apparently assessed had fallen off a turnip truck, that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was “a very heterogeneous group, largely secular.” His office released a clarification of that one even before the day ended.
On Dec. 22, National Security Adviser Susan Rice insisted in a “60 Minutes” interview that NSA officials “inadvertently made false representations.” I’m glad that’s cleared up. She also defended the NSA’s snooping on Americans by saying that “the fact that we have not had a successful attack on our homeland since 9/11 should not be diminished.”
That would be news to the survivors of the Islamist massacres at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009, and the Boston Marathon last April 15.
Miss Rice is getting good at this. She was U.N. ambassador when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was assaulted on Sept. 11, 2012, resulting in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. On four Sunday talk shows and for days afterward she, along with other administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, insisted that it was not a terrorist attack, but rather a spontaneous riot inflamed by an anti-Muhammad video on the Internet. Miss Rice was later promoted to her current post.
The video story eventually fell apart. Then the administration switched to blaming the CIA for giving Ms. Rice bad talking points. Maybe Mr. Clapper got some, too, for his NSA fib.
Incredibly, The New York Times on Dec. 28 tried to resurrect the video ploy with a 7,000-word article. Written by David D. Kirkpatrick, “A Deadly Mix in Benghazi” dismisses the claim that al Qaeda played any role in the attack. Instead, the newspaper reports, local Islamic militants cased the consulate and engineered the assault.
Security analyst Kenneth R. Timmerman, who is writing a book about Benghazi, noted in a Jan. 3 column in The Washington Times that “the CIA station chief in Tripoli and the chief of base in Benghazi were regularly briefing their bosses in Langley as well as U.S. diplomats in Libya on the al Qaeda presence and specifically on Ansar al-Shariah,” the group that initially claimed credit for the attack.
According to The New York Times article, some in the mob who joined the attack allegedly said they were there because of the “Innocence of Muslims” video on YouTube that had triggered an attack earlier that day on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. So what?
According to Fox News, people who were in Libya that awful day and night hotly dismiss The New York Times’ scenario and its re-emphasis of the video. “It was a coordinated attack. It is completely false to say anything else. It is completely a lie,” one witness told Fox News.
Could it be that the newspaper is blowing smoke over Benghazi so that future presidential candidate Hillary Clinton can later claim that it was all just too confusing to sort out?
In terms of lies, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may be in a class by itself in the Hall of Shame. Americans were promised a “transparent” legislative process and instead got one-party, closed-door sessions. We got a massive new tax law that originated, unconstitutionally, in the Senate instead of the House. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took a House bill, gutted it, changed its name, and stuffed it with 2,700 pages of Obamacare.
President Obama told Americans point blank that the legislation did not constitute a new tax. However, when the law came before the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with Mr. Obama’s attorneys and upheld Obamacare as … a new tax.
The whopper of them all, as agreed upon by even liberal media, was Mr. Obama’s claim made over and over that people can keep their health insurance under Obamacare.
In his weekly address on June 6, 2009, he offered three lies at once: “If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as our reforms take hold.”
Some lies take years to expose, and often require repeated doses of the truth to make an impression. That may yet be the case with Benghazi.
With Obamacare, millions are “getting it” immediately upon receiving their pink slips, insurance premium hikes or the news that their doctor is no longer their doctor.
Robert Knight is senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union and a columnist for The Washington Times.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Origins Edit
Early history Edit
Advocates of the union believed that Nasser would use the Ba'ath Party for ruling Syria. Unfortunately for the Ba'athists, it was never Nasser's intention to share an equal measure of power. Nasser established a new provisional constitution proclaiming a 600-member National Assembly with 400 members from Egypt and 200 from Syria, and the disbanding of all political parties, including the Ba'ath. Nasser gave each of the provinces two vice-presidents, assigning Boghdadi and Abdel Hakim Amer to Egypt and Sabri al-Assali and Akram El-Hourani—a leader of the Ba'ath—to Syria. The new constitution of 1958 was adopted.[9] Though Nasser allowed former Ba'ath Party members to hold prominent political positions, they never reached positions as high in the government as did the Egyptian officials. During the winter and the spring of 1959–60, Nasser slowly squeezed prominent Syrians out of positions of influence. In the Syrian Ministry of Industry, for example, seven of the top thirteen positions were filled by Egyptians. In the General Petroleum Authority, four of the top six officials were Egyptian. In the fall of 1958, Nasser formed a tripartite committee, consisting of Zakaria Mohieddine, al-Hawrani, and Bitar to oversee the affairs in Syria. By moving the latter two, both Ba'athists, to Cairo, he neutralized important political figures who had their own ideas about how Syria should be run within the UAR.[2] In Syria, opposition to union with Egypt mounted. Syrian Army officers resented being subordinate to Egyptian officers, and Syrian Bedouin tribes received money from Saudi Arabia to prevent them from becoming loyal to Nasser. Also, Egyptian-style land reform was resented for damaging Syrian agriculture, the Communists began to gain influence, and the intellectuals of the Ba'ath Party who supported the union rejected the one-party system. Mustafa al-Barudi, the Syrian Minister of Propaganda, stated that 'the smallest member of the (Egyptian) retinue thought that he had inherited our country. [Egyptians] spread "like octopuses" everywhere.'[10] Nasser was not able to address problems in Syria completely, because they were new to him, and instead of appointing Syrians to run Syria, he assigned this position to Amer and Sarraj.[11] In Egypt, the situation was more positive, with a GNP growth of 4.5% and a rapid growth of industry. In 1960, Nasser nationalized the Egyptian press, reducing it to his personal mouthpiece.[12]
Foreign relations Edit
Flag Edit
The UAR adopted a flag based on the Arab Liberation Flag of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, but with two stars to represent the two parts of the UAR. From 1980 this has been the official flag of Syria. In 1963, Iraq adopted a flag that was similar but with three stars, representing the hope that Iraq would join the UAR. The current flags of Egypt, Sudan and Yemen are also based on the Arab Liberation Flag of horizontal red, white and black bands.
Nationalization Edit
Nasser addressing the masses in Damascus, 1960 In June 1960, Nasser tried to establish economic reforms that would bring the Syrian economy more in line with the strong Egyptian public sector. However, these changes did little to help either economy. Rather than shift growth toward the private sector, Nasser embarked on an unprecedented wave of nationalizations in both Syria and Egypt. These began in July 1961, without consulting top Syrian economic officials.[18] The entire cotton trade was taken over by the government, as well as all import-export firms. Nasser announced the nationalization of banks, insurance companies, and all heavy industry, July 23, 1961. Nasser also extended his social justice principles. The land limit was reduced from 200 to 100 feddans. Interest rates for farmers were dramatically reduced to the point of elimination in some cases. A ninety percent tax was instituted on all income above £10,000. Workers and employees were allowed representatives on management boards. They were also given the right to a twenty-five percent share in the profit of their firm. The average workday was also cut from eight hours to seven without a reduction in pay.[19]
Collapse Edit
Main article: 1961 Syrian coup d'état Nasser and Sarraj in Latakia, 1959 Instead of a federation of two Arab peoples, as many Syrians had imagined, the UAR turned into a state completely dominated by Egyptians. Syrian political life was also diminished, as Nasser demanded all political parties in Syria to be dismantled. In the process, the strongly centralized Egyptian state imposed Nasser's socialistic political and economic system on weaker Syria, creating a backlash from the Syrian business and army circles, which resulted in the Syrian coup of September 28, 1961, and the end of the UAR. "... this unity scheme was successful in consolidating the shaky Syrian identity. In fact, once the Syrians lost their independence they suddenly realized that they did indeed possess a different identity than the Egyptians."[20] Despite the economic difficulties, what truly produced the demise of the UAR was Nasser's inability to find a suitable political system for the new regime. Given his socialist agenda in Egypt, the Ba'ath should have been his natural ally, but Nasser was hesitant to share power. Though Amer allowed some liberalization of the economy in order to appease Syrian businessmen, his decision to rig the elections of the National Union (the single party which replaced the Ba'ath), with the help of Colonel Abdul Hamid Sarraj (a Syrian army official and Nasser sympathizer), antagonized Ba'athist leaders. The Ba'ath Party won only five percent of the seats on the higher committees, while the more traditional conservative parties won a significant majority.[21] Sarraj was appointed the head of the National Union in Syria, and by the spring of 1960 had replaced Amer as the chair of the Syrian Executive Council. Under Sarraj Syria was ruled by a repressive security force designed to suppress all opposition to the regime. The immense increases in public sector control were accompanied by a push for centralization. In August 1961 Nasser abolished regional governments in favour of one central authority, which operated from Damascus February through May and from Cairo for the rest of the year. As a part of this centralization, Sarraj was relocated to Cairo, where he found himself with little real power. September 15, 1961, Sarraj returned to Syria, and after meeting with Nasser and Amer resigned from all his posts on September 26.[22] Without any close allies to watch over Syria, Nasser was unaware of the growing unrest of the military. On September 28 a group of officers staged a coup and declared Syria's independence from the UAR. Though the coup leaders were willing to renegotiate a union under terms they felt would put Syria on an equal footing with Egypt, Nasser refused such a compromise. He initially considered sending troops to overthrow the new regime, but chose not to once he was informed that the last of his allies in Syria had been defeated.[23] In speeches that followed the coup, Nasser declared he would never give up his goal of an ultimate Arab union. However, he would never again achieve such a tangible victory toward this goal.
Aftermath Edit
Geography Edit
See also Edit
Notes EditThe recent case in which 28 children, including eight from Nepal, were rescued by the district task force committee has raised questions over the total number of child labourers working in more than 16,000 industrial units in the city.
What adds to the worry is the fact that only 13 first information reports (FIRs) have been registered against owners of factories employing children despite more than 35 raids conducted at various units in the past three years. In previous raids, children as young as seven years of age were found working in factories.
Most of these children are brought to the city by contractors after paying money to their underprivileged parents. They are made to work in a tough environment in factories and eateries and have to make do without basic amenities.
Although there are no exact estimates of the number of child labourers in the city, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) claim that the number could be anywhere close to 15,000.
Members of these NGOs, which work with the task force panel comprising representatives of different departments of the district administration, say they have demanded a number of times a crackdown on the human trafficking racket in various states that lands these children in the city.
Bachpan Bachao Andolan, one such NGO, stated that more than 370 children have been rescued from different industrial units in the past three years, pointing towards the gravity of the situation.
POLICE, INDUSTRIES DEPT PASS THE BUCK
Despite being a part of the district task force committee, the police say they cannot register an FIR against those employing child labourers without being asked to do so by the industries department.
Assistant commissioner of police (east) Gurjit Singh said that the industries department has to make a recommendation to the police to register an FIR, without which no legal action can be taken against the erring factory owners.
The industries department, however, says the onus lies on the police to act in such cases.
Assistant director of factories Makhan Singh said that every department in the district task force has a specific mandate.
“While the role of the education department is to ensure the child gets education after being rescued from a factory, the work of the police department is to register an FIR under relevant sections,” he said.
Makhan Singh said the industries department’s responsibility is to slap a notice of Rs 20,000 on the erring factory owner and deposit the money in the child welfare fund.
“The police don’t need any recommendation from the industries department to register an FIR. They can do so on their own,” he said.
Dinesh Kumar, a member of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, said that child labour has been made a cognizable offence and the police cannot shrug off its duty of booking the erring employers.
First Published: May 24, 2015 11:29 ISTVegan woman denied Swiss citizenship ‘for being annnoying'
A vegan woman was denied Swiss citizenship for "being annoying,"...
A small Swiss town needs more cowbell.
Nancy Holten, a vegan anti-cowbell campaigner, was denied a passport by the Swiss village "for being annoying."
Holten, 42, is a Netherlands native but has lived in Switzerland since she was 8-years-old. Both of her children hold Swiss citizenship.
Nonetheless, when Holten attempted to receive a passport from her village, located in the canton of Aargau, she was denied by locals – twice.
The Dutchwoman reportedly meets all passport requirements, but the local council decided to reject her for failure to honor Swiss customs, cowbell included.
"The sound that cow bells make is a hundred decibel," Holten told the Daily Mail. "It is comparable with a pneumatic drill. We also would not want such a thing hanging close to our ears?"
Town authorities reportedly wished to grant Holten citizenship, but 144 of 206 residents voted against it, citing her blatant disrespect of cultural customs. Holten has actively protested the tradition of pig-racing, as well.
Locals say that they honor Holten's opinions, but resent her excessive interviews with members of the media.
Obtaining Swiss citizenship is difficult, with 20 percent of citizens being foreigners. Local residents often have a say in granting citizenship, rather than the federal government.
Nonetheless, there is still hope for the animal lover. Holten's case is under review by the Cantonal government of Aargau, which can override local objections.by Allie Pape
I don’t picture myself as having breasts. When I create an image of myself in my head, the girl I see is the prettiest combination of short, pale, nerdy, and awkward that I can possibly conjure. She’s thin, but not sickly; adorable, but not asexual. While she isn’t totally flat-chested, her breasts are sort of a nonentity — they’re there, but you don’t really think about them. In my head, I am Natalie Portman.
While we share all of the pale/short/nerdy characteristics, there is a major area in which Natalie and I differ. She’s a woman who’s already so thin that losing ten pounds made her seem fragile enough for us to believe she’s the Prettiest, Most Perfect Ballerina Ever. Meanwhile, I’m nervously hoping that I don’t gain the last eight pounds that separate my “normal” from “overweight” on the BMI scale. Natalie Portman is the bra industry; my reality is 32F.
Coming to terms with my horrifically large breasts has not been a fun process. In my mind, I am a skinny pixie; in reality, I carry around an absurd surplus of flesh on my top half and an only slightly less absurd one on the bottom. Tiny-busted girls, I know you might feel a twinge of jealousy, but trust me, there’s nothing fun about hearing your shoulder blades make noises that would typically merit a can of WD-40. Let’s all unite in hating the B- and C-cups, for whom Planet Boob is seemingly designed.
Thanks to my “endowment,” I had all of the requisite fun times. Gym-class mockery. Being squeezed into ill-fitting contraptions by commission-hungry Victoria’s Secret drones who were secretly praying that I didn’t know bras weren’t instruments of pain. Trying on the smallest feasible size at Target, in the hope that puberty wasn’t being as cruel as I hoped. If womanhood was rehab, I was Amy Winehouse.
But I’ve managed to develop a system. And after reading so many comments on Bonnie’s foam-bra screed, in which my fellow full-busted sisters bemoaned the lack of good non-padded options, I feel obliged to share this system, and my feelings on bra-purchasing for large-busted ladies.
1. It’s not your fault. If you’re feeling like a freak, you’re not alone. Bra sizes have risen from an average of 36C to 36DD in the past decade. And it’s not just America: in the same decade, British women went from 34B to 36C. A lot of this is attributable to the overall fattening of both nations, but pound gain doesn’t always equal cup gain — and many women aren’t overweight, but are still obscenely top-heavy. Other potential causes: implants; the Pill; hormones in factory-farmed food; hormones secreted into water supplies by contraceptives.
2. Vicky is dead to you. This is the oft-questioned “secret”: V. (um, duh, she’s an alien) advertises with models who wear your cup size, but doesn’t actually sell bras that fit them. In all matters relating to your top half, scorch her from the earth. (Her undies are cute, though.) This also goes for your old pals Gap, Target, et al. They are mass-market and your tits are not. At least you can still get socks pretty cheap?
3. Not only are they big, they’re bigger than you think. Because the “weird” sizes (below 34 band, above D cup, etc.) aren’t normally carried in stores, getting fitted for a “real” bra can be a horrifying process for those (um, all) of us who once thought DD to be the biggest non-surgical size available. The lettering system swerves wildly between American (D, DD, DDD, DDDD, DDDDD) and European (D, E, F, G, H). Neither choice is good: either you’re faced with near-incomprehensible size letters, or you’ve been classified by a guy who was probably so enthralled with big tits that he forgot the alphabet after letter four.
Do measure, though. You might not be the size you think you are, especially if you’re pretty close: a lot of 34Ds are much happier once they try their first 32E. If you have a cloth tape measure, the Internet can help set you straight on sizing. But if you’re really clueless, or just lazy, go to the fanciest department store in town (Nordstrom, Nieman’s, Dillard’s, Bloomie’s, Saks, et al), have the saleswoman bring you every bra in the place until you find one that feels insanely comfortable, and gird yourself to be totally impervious to anything that doesn’t fit you like a second skin. (I did this; after the first 12 bras, the words “That looks like it was made for you” were uttered by a saleswoman for the first time in my natural life.) This first bra will cost you $80, but now you’ll know a brand and a size that are just right, and Google has your back from here on out.
4. British ladies have it right. They’ve lobbied for decent bras, in weird sizes, in non-matronly designs, and by God, they’ve gotten them. My favorite bra brand, by far, is a British line called Fantasie. Their motto is “for women who are full-busted but not full-figured.” If you are a certain size of lady, you may have just heard choirs of angels singing in your head.
Not only do they have a perfectly feminine, sexy, and lacy regular line (with a few beige-foam concessions for those who hate joy), they also have a junior line, named Freya, which is totally the morally compromised Skipper to Fantasie’s proper-but-smokin’ Barbie. Freya sells some bras that are completely inadvisable, including a see-through black bra embroidered with neon-green and baby-blue stitching, offered in up to a G cup. I own two of that one.
Other bra brands I have tried and found worth buying: Chantelle, Elle Macpherson (she runs small on both cup and strap size, though), Lunaire, Wacoal (but note #5). I’ve never tried Frederick’s of Hollywood or Felina, but some people like them. The Brits also have Marks & Spencer and Bravissimo; you can place a web order, but shipping is pretty steep.
Oprah has gotten behind this brand Le Mystere, specifically a model they make called the Dream Tisha. I can’t speak for the rest of their line, but do not buy the Dream Tisha. It is foam city, and not even a comfortable iteration, at that. Also, the Oprah imprimatur means you’re far less likely to find this brand on sale.
5. Minimizers aren’t a good idea. Wacoal is a company that makes a line of pretty ugly bras in respectably busty sizes. They are comfortable, but a good chunk of their line is minimizers. While these sound awesome in theory, here is what they are: breast-pancaking modules. Your boobs will not stick out as far in front, but they will more than make up for it with added volume on the side. A well-fitting normal bra, sans foam, is actually the best minimizer. You may want one actual-factual minimizer in your bra toolkit, but it will only solve a handful of your total gapeage/stick-out-age problems.
Bonus note: For $5–10, tailors will put a little hidden metal snap in between those two shirt buttons that are ALWAYS FUCKING OPENING. This tip has changed my life.
6. GOOD LORD, THE MONEY. Yes, all the prices are nuts. But there are loopholes. Fantasie and Freya are established entities in England, established enough to have factory outlet stores. People on eBay buy the unworn stock from those stores and sell it. Type in either brand name with your bra size (searching both the U.S. and U.K. letterings behooves you), and you can usually get good bras in your mailbox for under $40, including shipping.
Also, you stand to benefit from my personal theory, the Rich Lady Rule. The RLR, as I see it, is the following: at any time, every expensive department store needs to be prepared for two different rich ladies with yoga-toned torsos and huge fake breasts to wander into its lingerie department for a bender. If they do come, the store ensures that it keeps their business in other arenas. If they don’t, the store sends the useless stock to a discounter.
Every time I see a Nordstrom Rack or Filene’s Basement and can make a quick stop, I immediately hit the bra section and hunt for the five-or-fewer offerings in my size. They’re not always my perfect ideal of a bra, but they’re usually the right mix of inexpensive and attractive to merit buying, with plenty of non-foam models. Marshalls and T.J. Maxx have also yielded results, though less consistently than the fancy-pants discounters. It is not a simple process, but combined with eBay (which also gets some of its stock from these places) and department-store sales, it is possible to pull together a decent wardrobe for about $25–30 per bra.
Also: be sure to hand-wash those suckers, and never wear the same one two days in a row.
7. Sports bras. You might have to spring for the full market price on one of these, but considering that it’s probably your greatest tool for exercising both comfortably and with minimum eventual sag, $60 isn’t so much to ask. BareNecessities, HerRoom, and other bra sites offer them in actual cup sizes, with legitimate separation between the boobs. (Mine is a Freya, and is probably their single non-slutty offering.) Incidentally, if you’re above a D, lack of uniboob is a non-negotiable in sports-bra purchasing.
8. Swimsuits. Still a total nightmare; godspeed.
9. Strapless. Also fucked.
Even with these guidelines, it’s not a fun time. I have a few mental exercises that help me feel as good as possible about the whole breast situation. For example, I have made Christina Hendricks my spirit animal. Reading the gleeful comments about her bust that appear alongside every article is a real picker-upper.
Another one: There is a whole quadrant of every clothing store that I can’t buy, and I try to see that as a good thing. Were I able to shop in that sector, my wardrobe would consist largely of ensembles scientifically proven to embarrass me in a decade or less. Backless lace rompers?
Allie Pape lives in San Francisco, where Nordstrom Rack is conveniently located right next to Trader Joe’s.
Tomorrow: I’m 27 and I Love My Training Bra.
Photo via FunnyPotatoThe Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- The Conservative government has announced further sanctions against Ukrainian rebels and Russian-backed Ukrainian entities.
Eight Ukrainians in leadership positions in the rebel-held Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine have been targeted by the new sanctions, as have armed separatist groups known as the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic.
Russian arms, financial and energy companies are also facing further Canadian sanctions.
In a statement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the measures are aimed at exerting more economic hardship on Russia.
Canada's Bombardier Inc., meantime, says the Canadian sanctions already imposed on Russia could have an impact on the timeline of the company's plans to set up a plant in the country.
The Montreal-based giant was hoping to conclude negotiations this year with Russian company Rostec for the assembly of 100 Q400 regional jets in a project estimated at $3.4 billion.
Company spokeswoman Marianella Delabarrera says Bombardier (TSX:BBD.B) is now being "realistic" about the possibility the project will be ready later than originally expected.Reader Colin sent an email that Karen Armstrong was on the BBC this morning. His note, below, got me to listen to the first 15 minutes of the 43-minute show, the part that is pretty much a monologue by Armstrong before other discussants take over. His email:
If you can stomach it, you might find the interview on BBC Radio 4 this morning interesting. In the UK, you can generally get repeats on BBC iPlayer and this one should be here. The programme last 45 minutes, but KA gets the bulk of the first 15 minutes. I only caught snatches of it, but heard her, inter alia, trot out the strawman that all wars are caused by religion, just in order to shoot it down.
A different reader from the UK added this while also calling my attention to the show:
It was a discussion between Karen Armstrong, writer/historian Justin Marozzi and Christopher Coker, chaired by Tom Sutcliffe, a splendid journalist and presenter, although I think he was rather lenient on Armstrong.
Well, if you listen, you’ll hear that Sutcliffe does put her in the hot seat a few times, and even gets her to admit that religion has done some bad stuff (about 8:15).
In the US, you can hear it at the link as well, or just click on the image below and hit “play now.”
It’s pretty much what you expect from the Great Apologist, but her statement “that you can never separate religion from other activities” makes me wonder: she singles out things other than religion, like economics, humiliation, and race, as causes of violence, but somehow religion remains inseparably intertwined with everything else. Religion gets a pass for no obvious reason (except that she’s soft on it).
Somehow, when I listen to her, I’m sensing a machine whose gears are locked in a tendentious output of faith-osculation, a machine that can’t be tweaked. I wish Hitchens were still here to take her on: imagine a Hitchens/Armstrong debate!
The BBC description:
Karen Armstrong argues against the notion that religion is the major cause of war. The former nun tells Tom Sutcliffe that faith is as likely to produce pacifists and peace-builders as medieval crusaders and modern-day jihadists. But Justin Marozzi charts the violent history of Baghdad and asks what role religion had to play there. The philosopher Christopher Coker explores how warfare dominates our history, and argues that war, like religion, is central to the human condition.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
By the way, last night President Obama was interviewed by Steve Kroft on the t.v. show “60 minutes,” and I wrote down two statements he made:
1. ISIS is an “ideologically driven” organization.
2. The members of ISIS “think they can kill someone who doesn’t worship the same God.”
Isn’t that an admission that ISIS is driven by religion, and in fact adheres to a form of religion?The pre-order period for this life size Jurassic Park raptor bust starts next Friday.
When I saw the original Jurassic Park in theaters in 1993, I was 12 years old. I had a pounding headache and directly after exiting the theater, I threw up in the gutter behind the exit doors. But I vividly remember one part of the movie during which my head didn’t hurt. And that was when the raptors go after Tim and Lex in the kitchen. During that scene, I was riveted, wondering just how they would avoid those no-good raptors. It’s an all-time classic suspense sequence, and I can’t help but be reminded of it looking at this life size Jurassic Park Raptor bust coming from Chronicle Collectibles.
(Also, check out the Chronicle T-Rex above. Crazy awesome!) So, let’s get into exactly what we’re getting into.
Details on the Chronicle Collectibles Life Size Jurassic Park Raptor Bust
How Big Will This Bust Be?
Being 1:1 scale (life-size), this bust measures 30 inches (76.2 cm) by 26 inches (66 cm) by 10 inches (25.4 cm).
What is the Design for the Bust Based On?
Chronicles worked with the original castings at Stan Winston Studio, done for the movies. So, that’s totally awesome.
Does the Figure Come With Any Accessories?
No. However, each statue is hand numbered, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.
How Much Will the Bust Cost, and When Can it Be Pre-Ordered?
Chronicle will be opening pre-orders for the bust on Friday, October 21st, at 12 PM CST. They’re going to run the pre-order period for 30 days, and if you order during that time, it will cost $999. After the 30 day period, the regular retail price will be $1200. So, if you’re looking to save some Benjamins, mark that date and get your order in.
When will the Bust Be Available?
The life size Jurassic Park Raptor bust is expected to ship second quarter 2017.
Photos of the Chronicle Collectibles Life Size Jurassic Park Raptor BustFayette County Sheriff Marty Fisher takes the drone out to practice a couple times a week |
financial reserves. But it's not enough. People expect us to be much larger, and I think we should be, appropriate to the scope of our mission to have everything anybody wants to do on any computer be done with free "as in freedom" software. We do have an incredibly large and strong network of volunteers and contributors around the world, but I think they'd all love to see a much larger full-time corps dedicated to this work.
The biggest thing that's changed is that software is much more significant and influential in people's lives than it was in 2003. So many more people around the world are using so many more kinds of computers for so much more time both at work and in their personal lives—including their cultural, social, political, and medical activities.
Many of these devices—from tablets and phones to cars—have a significant amount of free software on them. This means more people are using free software than ever before.
But what we're seeing all too often is free software used as a delivery vehicle for proprietary software—and not just because it's used on drones. Companies are building the foundations of their devices using free software, but then adding a layer of proprietary software, either directly on the device or by designing the device's software to be dependent on remote servers that users don't control.
This is not accomplishing the free software movement's goal of empowering users. It is accomplishing the goal of lowering costs for companies who seek to profit at the expense of user freedom. Figuring out how to continue working with these companies where there is common ground in the interest of advancing free software, without losing sight of our goal, is a big challenge.
Which of your campaigns or other activities during that time are you most proud of?
I can't help but name one from each major area of our work.
I'm very proud of what our staff has done with the LibrePlanet conference. It grew out of the annual FSF member meetings we've been having since 2003. I remember running the logistics by myself for one of those soon after joining the FSF. We had a great turnout, but it was nearly all members from the Northeast region, and all the speakers for the one-day program were FSF staff and directors. I blew a fuse at MIT with the coffee pots and was gently chided by an electrical engineer board member.
Now it's a full-staff effort, and we have two days with three tracks featuring a diverse group of speakers from around the world. Attendance is an amazing mix of FSF members who have been coming to every event since 2003 and people who are brand new to the whole world of free software. In particular, it's really helped foster the connections between free software and other movements. Last year we had Edward Snowden as a keynote! Remotely, of course (and no, we didn't use Skype). We just opened registration and the call for sessions for the 2017 edition.
Second, our Respects Your Freedom (RYF) hardware certification program has had a direct impact on the ethical quality of hardware available to users. We have a long way to go, largely because the mainstream industry has been finding new places inside computers and components to stash proprietary operating systems, but user momentum has also been building around supporting products that display the certification mark. I'm hopeful for the future in this area—just the other day, an ambitious crowdfunding campaign launched to build a high-performance, RYF-certified workstation, and we have at least four products currently under review.
Finally, we just don't talk enough about the work we do every day to directly support development of free software. We act as a fiscal sponsor for several important projects, including GNU MediaGoblin (AGPLv3 federated media sharing) and Replicant (taking Android the rest of the way to free). With a technical team of only three, we host not only all of the infrastructure needed by the FSF, but also mailing list, shell, issue tracker, build machine, and other services used by thousands of developers. All of this infrastructure is run on free software, and we're in the midst of a massive hardware upgrade featuring servers with free boot firmware. I expect that over the next six months we'll have some exciting announcements in the area of direct support for free software development.
How would you say your experience studying philosophy has influenced your work at the FSF and your relationship to free software more generally?
It means I'm not just in it for the amazing software that programmers produce when collaborating in true scientific fashion. I'm in it because of the way technology, and software in particular, filters our interactions with the world, even defining what's possible. This gives the people who make and distribute software immense power over others. Obviously the vast majority of users are never going to modify or even read the source code for the software they use. But a culture where those who do can share the results with those who don't—whether for pay or not—is really critical to correcting this power imbalance and enabling people to lead truly free lives.
Have you managed to connect with people who don't read or write code?
We have. Anecdotally, I always remember a phone call I took from a donating member asking how he could get started installing GNU/Linux. He joined for the advocacy mission first, and then decided to give the actual software a try.
Most current FSF staff members don't read or write code, and I think their presence and influence has been a big help in connecting with other supporters who aren't developers.
On the Vision Survey we did at the beginning of this year, we asked a question "Have you ever been paid to develop software (free or otherwise)?" About 2,700 people answered "no," and about 3,700 answered "yes." This doesn't exactly map to people who read or write code, but it says something about the answer to this question.
With what other causes or groups does the free software message seem to resonate? Where have you found allies?
We've found allies from all around the political spectrum. We believe that whatever its specific message, any advocacy group should be using free software in order to be in control of its own communications and data, and have full freedom of action.
I want to highlight the work done by the Library Freedom Project, because they are the most recent winners of the FSF's Award for Projects of Social Benefit, given to projects who apply the ideals and tools of the free software movement to benefit society in other ways—in this case, by working to create a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the communities they serve.
Last year's winner was Reglue ("Recycled Electronics and GNU/Linux Used for Education"). This is another kind of group we see a lot of resonance with—groups taking free software and applying it to help address both socioeconomic inequalities and environmental harm from the planned obsolescence so popular with proprietary software companies.
Nominations are currently open for the next winner of this award.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday announced that the parent company of United Airlines has agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle a case in which UAL re-instated a money-losing route to curry favor with the then-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson.
According to the SEC’s order instituted today, United reinstated a nonstop flight between Newark, New Jersey, and Columbia, South Carolina, at the behest of Samson, who sought a more direct route to his home in South Carolina. Continental Airlines canceled the route due to poor financial performance prior to its merger with United, and a preliminary financial analysis conducted after Samson began privately advocating for the route’s return revealed it would likely lose money again.
Nevertheless, the SEC found that United officials feared Samson’s influence could jeopardize United’s business interests before the Port Authority, including the approval of a hangar project to help the airline at Newark’s airport. The company ultimately decided to launch the route despite the poor financial projections. The same day that United’s then-CEO Jeff Smisek approved the route's reinstatement, the Port Authority’s board approved the lease agreement related to the hangar project. United employees received “no proactive communications” about the new route, said the SEC.
According to the SEC’s order, United circumvented its standard process for initiating new routes, and no corporate record at United accurately and fairly reflected the authorization to approve the money-losing flight route from Newark to Columbia. The route ultimately lost some $945,000 before it closed again roughly around the time of Samson’s resignation from the Port Authority.
“United disregarded the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the securities laws while casting aside its normal decision process to re-enter one of its hub’s poorest performing markets,” said Andrew Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
Samson has pleaded guilty to bribery in a criminal case announced in July by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. United entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney and paid $2.25 million.Rachael D'Amore, CTV News Toronto
Mayor John Tory has put his support behind providing Pride Toronto with its annual $260,000 in city funding despite the group’s decision to exclude uniformed Toronto Police officers at this year’s parade.
Tory’s comments come on the heels of a motion proposed by Coun. John Campbell which asks his fellow councillors to consider withholding the grant the city usually gives to the organization until it can reaffirm “their value of inclusivity.”
Pride Toronto’s executive director, Olivia Nuamah, asked members of the city’s Economic Development Committee Monday to reject the call to cut city funding and instead allow the organization a “grace period” to sort out how to move forward with police participation in the future.
“We say we have a fairly decent amount of support on council too. We say we also have the support of the community,” she said ahead of the meeting.
“We say we are going to try incredibly hard to dampen down the vitriolic nature of this conversation, to be honest with you, to make it more about the cohesion for which we all seek. I think, to that point, Councillor Campbell and Pride Toronto want absolutely the same thing.”
The calls to cut funding follow a controversial decision by Toronto Police to withdraw from participating in the parade after the majority of members who attended Pride Toronto’s Annual General Meeting voted in favour of excluding uniformed officers.
At last year’s parade, Black Lives Matter- Toronto halted the procession with a sit-in protest and handed then-director Mathieu Chantelois a list of demands – one of which included the banning of police floats and booths from future parades.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said in February that the service would step away from this year’s parade in an effort to allow the LGBTQ communities address their differences.
However, uncertainty has lingered as to whether or not officers would be able to participate in other ways.
Nuamah explained in the statement Sunday, saying officers and “their allies” will be able to march in the parade so long as they do so without weapons, uniforms and vehicles.
“We are about LGBTQ+ individuals and celebrating that within all of our communities. As it comes to the representation of services and organizations, yes these are complicated conversations, but they are ones that Pride Toronto is utterly willing and able to have,” Nuamah told the city’s Economic Development Committee in a deputation Monday.
“What we’re asking those officers is to give us time, given that we have not had this conversation before, to figure out what we need to do, so that everyone can come back to the table feeling appropriately heard and feeling like they’ve been a part of the process of planning this festival.”
Nuamah said the decision to allow officers to march in the parade without uniforms exemplifies the organization’s value of participants as “individuals” and not as members of a service.
“What we’re saying to them is that we value you as LGBTQ+ police officers, we value you as individuals. What we are also saying to them though is that as a service, between the Toronto Police Service and Pride Toronto, we have chosen to take a step back to better understand exactly what some of the feedback was we received from our Pride Toronto community members,” she said. “We are going to work together to try and figure a way through this as organizations but that does not preclude individuals from marching in our parade.”
Tory hopes Pride Toronto, police can reconcile
In a statement Monday morning, Toronto Mayor John Tory said he would not support a motion to axe city funding for the Pride parade.
“From day one, I have been consistent in saying that I considered Pride a celebration all about inclusion and that as such, police should be welcomed in the parade. I continue to hold this view,” Tory said.
Tory said that Nuamah and Chief Saunders have both told him that they’ve held “constructive discussions” to address “underlying issues” that brought this situation to a head.
He said both Nuamah and Saunders agree that withdrawing city funding for the 2017 event “wouldn’t be helpful in finding a resolution.”
“Both have asked for time to conduct those discussions and both have indicated that their goal is to work towards inclusion of the police at Pride next year. Accordingly, I will support maintaining our full funding for Pride 2017,” he said.
“Pride is an important city event, and one that must reflect the diversity and vibrancy of our city. But allinclusive organizations must in fact be inclusive and be seen to be inclusive, and I believe the Chief and Ms. Nuamah are trying to achieve that."
Pride director says funding not taken for granted
Nuamah called the mayor’s support “huge” for the group.
“We appreciate the support of the city and we appreciate the support of the mayor,” she told reporters ahead of the meeting. “He has been emphatic to us behind closed doors that he supports us and we’re very pleased that he said so publicly.”
Nuamah said Toronto police’s decision to step away from this year’s parade opens doors for both parties to reconcile in time for future parades.
“We are going to spend a year trying to get to a place where we figure out how the police participate next year. We absolutely hope to see their participation, but it can’t happen before an ongoing dialogue with our community,” she said.
“This is not the first de-funding conversation the city has had about Pride Toronto positions we’ve taken on social issues,” she continued. “We don’t believe this is going to be the last.”
TPS union head says Pride should ‘do the right thing’
Meanwhile, Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack says his members are “being shamed” for being police officers by only allowing them to participate without uniforms.
“If you want to do something on a private basis and be exclusive, then do that, but don’t ask for public funding. We should continue the dialogue but we should not be shamed for being police officers doing policing in that community,” he said.
“Give us one more year to do the right thing? Is that what I’m being told? What’s wrong with doing the right thing today? That’s my question. Why do you need another year to work it out?”
Nuamah said the group intends to heal the relationship between police and Pride Toronto in way adversaries – including Coun. Campbell – can get behind.
To get there, Nuamah insists the organization needs the time to address the concerns of its members and the community before coming back to the table with a proposal “that works for everybody.”
Campbell’s motion is expected to be tabled at a future Economic Development Committee meeting on May 24.The new framework is the product of the FAIR Education Act, which required that LGBT Americans and people with disabilities be added to the list of social and ethnic groups, such as women, immigrants, minorities, and individuals of diverse religious backgrounds, whose contributions schools must include in the curriculum. However, when the law was originally enacted, it was not accompanied by explicit guidance from the state for educators to follow, nor were new textbooks created reflecting a broader focus on the LGBT community.
With the development of the framework, that is expected to change.
“There was no real carrot for following the law, and there was no stick if you didn’t follow the law,” Romesburg said. “So we started focusing on the framework of the revision as a way of putting meat on the bones of the FAIR Education Act.”
An advisory commission of 20 scholars associated with the American Historical Association provided recommendations to the state Department of Education on the framework.
The FAIR Education Act and the new framework have potential ramifications for the textbook industry, Romesburg said. “Textbook publishers are now going to have to look at this new framework and make sure that their textbooks reflect the content of that framework,” he said.
Since California is such a massive state, it represents a significant market share and potentially may also influence textbooks sold around the country.
Changes to the framework evoked widespread public interest in California, eliciting more than 10,000 email comments to the advisory commission since 2014. Although there was opposition to greater LGBT inclusion in the framework from some circles, overall, only a tiny fraction of the emailed comments were anti-LGBT, Romesburg said.
“At this point, the California Department of Education has put itself on the leading edge of LGBT content in schools, and it [is] absolutely history-making and ground-breaking,” Romesburg said. “It’s light years ahead of where anyone else is at this point. And it will absolutely be a guide star for other states that want to bring their frameworks and curriculums into the 21st century.”
This article appears courtesy of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.Ebony Arbeau describes her sister as having a wrecking ball inside her head.
Melody-Anne Arbeau is 14 years old and has cerebral palsy.
She is non-verbal, tube-fed and in a wheelchair — but that doesn't stop her from letting others know how she feels.
"I feel excited/happy to meet new friends [at AAC Camp]," she says through her augmentative and alternative communication device.
Melody-Anne Arbeau has cerebral palsy and uses an AAC device to communicate. (CBC)
Otherwise known as an AAC device, it was the common factor among dozens of young people attending the Easter Seals camp west of Calgary last week.
Campers and their caregivers were given a chance at the typical summer camp experience. They did arts and crafts, swimming, archery and even a treasure hunt.
Researchers from the University of Alberta's rehabilitation medicine department were also on hand to help them learn how to communicate better.
It was also a chance to make friends who have a similar issues and needs.
Making friends part of the experience
"They're just like everybody else. They're not the one that's different," said Karen Pollock with the University of Alberta.
The goal is to help the campers come out of their shells and learn how to communicate in a group setting.
"Imagine all the words inside of them are piling inside them," said Ebony Arbeau, who attended the camp with her sister and parents.
The 11-year-old says Melody-Anne has inspired her to pursue a career in developmental aid. She was hoping to learn more about the AAC devices and the challenges facing those who use them.
Ebony Arbeau, 11, says kids with special needs like her sister can be 'trapped inside their own bodies.' (CBC)
"Kids with devices are only limited to what they have on the device," she said. "That's why they start crying, cause they can't say what they need to say."
She says all kids have potential to be great.
"I think they have more perseverance and are stronger than us mentally because a lot of people couldn't survive a day without talking, let alone a whole lifetime," said Ebony.
The camp was held from Aug. 26-29 just south of Bragg Creek, Alta. It was held in partnership with the University of Alberta's department of communication sciences and disorders and March of Dimes Canada.NBC just won another premiere week in TV ratings, finishing No. 1 among adults 18-49 for the sixth year in a row. That’s the longest such streak in Nielsen’s People Meter History.
CBS was again first in total viewers for the start to the official Fall TV season, marking nine straight years as “America’s Most-Watched Network.” (Yeah, the claim is legit). That’s practically a formality to even report at this point, but still obviously a praiseworthy achievement.
For NBC (and all of television), “Sunday Night Football” again led the way — though its host network still topped the competition when one excludes sports and news programming ratings. Yeah, that’s how strong “This Is Us” and “The Voice” are in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic, and the “Will & Grace” return certainly didn’t hurt.
Also Read: Ratings: Fox's 'The Gifted' Premiere Solid, But Still Falls to 'The Voice' and 'DWTS'
See all the Week 1 averages below for the Big 4 broadcast networks. All numbers in this story come from Nielsen’s Live + Same Day ratings metric, and encompass September 25 through October 1.
Adults 18-49
1) NBC: 2.1
2) CBS: 1.9
3) Fox: 1.3
4) ABC: 1.0
Total Viewers
1) CBS: 9.5 million
2) NBC: 7.8 million
3) ABC: 5.8 million
4) Fox: 3.2 million
Also Read: Ratings: Weak 'Toy Box,' 'Ten Days in the Valley' Premieres Banish ABC to Last Place Among Big 4
Entertainment Programming (no sports or news)
1) NBC: 1.5
2) (tie) ABC: 1.3
2) (tie) CBS: 1.3
4) Fox: 1.1
Last year, NBC tied the prior record of five premiere week wins in a row, which was set by ABC from 2005 through 2009. Those Nielsen People Meters date back to 1987, by the way.
CBS can point to “The Big Bang Theory,” its spinoff “Young Sheldon,” and top drama “NCIS” for hogging all of those overall eyeballs.Finally.
The fourth and final preseason game has come and gone, and it is officially time to start talking about the NFL regular season.
You know, real football.
Hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen, this year is going to be fun.
Although this game certainly did not count for anything more than a pat on the back, it was still an important 60 minutes of football for many individuals. Many of the players that saw playing time are going to play prominent roles sometime during the season, whether it is due to injury or poor performance of players higher on the depth chart. Therefore, any kind of real game action benefits the Broncos as a team.
Some might see the final preseason game as a snoozer, and I certainly cannot put together a challenging case against that, but there were definitely some important takeaways that should be mentioned.
Paxton Lynch is certainly the future, but Trevor Siemian was the right choice.
There is going to come a day where Paxton Lynch wrecks the NFL, but it is likely not going to come in 2016.
With the first full game under his belt, Lynch posted a 103.2 passer rating that consisted of 214 yards passing and two touchdowns. He did, however, throw a deflating pick-six to Cardinals linebacker Gabe Martin to push the Arizona lead to 21 points.
The highlight of the night came on the third play of the Broncos opening drive when Lynch connected with wide receiver Jordan Taylor for a short pass that turned into a 57-yard touchdown. Lynch was able to find Taylor for another touchdown late in the third quarter.
With only a few blemishes on the night, Lynch showcased why the Broncos traded up to get him. He is a phenomenal talent. Although there is likely some growing pains to come, Broncos fans should get used to saying his name.
Is Ronnie Hillman on his way out the door?
Ronnie Hillman and Kapri Bibbs have been in a nearly constant battle for the third, and likely final, running back spot. With cuts officially needing to be made, it is hard to know if Hillman will be packing up his bags after spending his entire career in Denver.
After Hillman ran the ball with purpose last week against the Rams, posting 45 yards and a touchdown on only five carries, it looked like he might have held onto the third running back spot by the skin of his teeth.
But somewhat surprisingly, Kapri Bibbs started and got a bulk of the workload against the Cardinals. Bibbs made the most of his opportunity by posting 51 rushing yards on 10 carries, including a 25-yard burst. Hillman only received three carries and spent several snaps on special teams.
With the Broncos likely to run the ball time and time again, it is possible for both Hillman and Bibbs to make the roster, but I would gamble against it.
The Broncos management and coach Gary Kubiak have some tough decisions in the days ahead.
Peyton Manning was right, this Jordan Taylor guy is pretty good.
We heard from Peyton Manning last year about how good Taylor was, and we were finally able to see him in his element against the Cardinals.
Incredible one-handed catches aside, I kind of like what I see.
Taylor caught four passes for 109 yards and two touchdowns. There was a clear connection between Lynch and Taylor, and this relationship could likely blossom into something special down the road.
With the Broncos being fairly overcrowded at the wide receiver position, it is unlikely that we will see a ton of Taylor this season unless the Broncos suffer some catastrophic injury issues, but he will definitely be a name to look out for in the future.
A Lynch to Taylor touchdown connection has a very nice ring to it. It could become a very popular phrase here soon.
Oh… yeah. Sorry about that. Can we buy a mulligan?
Are the Broncos sure that they wanted to release punter Britton Colquitt?
Current punter Riley Dixon was very mediocre in his first game as the sole punter. Although he had few high arching punts over 40 yards, he chunked a pitching wedge 18 yards late in the second quarter to help set up a Cardinals touchdown right before halftime.
I don’t expect a drastic amount of 18-yard botches coming off the foot of Dixon, but one is one too many. The Broncos kept him, not only for his low salary, but also for his talent to change field positions and pin opponents deep in their own territory.
He must be better now that games count.
In a season where points will be hard to come by, he will be getting a whole lot of work. For the Broncos to be a great team, Dixon will need to be an intricate part in helping the focal point of the team, the defense, by putting opponents in difficult starting positions.Tesla submitted a new ‘Master Plan’ to the city of Fremont in order to add twelve new buildings around the factory, which could almost double in size, ahead of a massive production increase to satisfy the demand for the Model 3.
The presentation deck of what Tesla is calling the ‘Master Plan’ for the expansion was first obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle and now embedded below.
Recent reports suggested that Tesla started construction around the factory, but that’s unrelated to the expansion since the Fremont Planning Commission is only meeting to discuss the project next week and Tesla will only be able to apply for the permits after their decision.
They are thousands of housing units being built across railroad track on the other side of the factory and the new BART station.
Tesla acquired a 25-acre lot north of the factory and plans to make better use of its current lots to increase the already massive size of the plant. As it currently stands, it contains 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space.
The new buildings could add 4.6 million square feet:
The new ‘Master Plan’ also includes new bike and pedestrian paths for employees and a new much-needed parking configuration.
The plan will also allow for a significant increase of Tesla’s workforce at the factory.
They are currently 6,210 Tesla employees working in Fremont on two shifts, that number is expected to increase to 9,315 after the expansion:
After receiving around 400,000 reservations for the Model 3 earlier this year, Tesla announced its plans to achieve a production rate of 500,000 cars per year at the factory by 2018. That’s close to the same output that the plant had when it was being operated by Toyota and GM.
This new expansion aims to support the new production plan.
CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla’s overall production could increase to 1 million vehicles by 2020 and while it’s not clear if all vehicles will be produced at the Fremont factory, he did say that he sees a path to the plant allowing for a total output of 1 million cars.
Here’s Tesla’s new ‘Master Plan’ in full:When Canada’s biggest Islamist apologist, Haroon Siddiqui, said he had penned his final column for the Toronto Star way back in April, 2015, I figured it was too good to be true so I wasn’t surprised when he penned a sort of comeback column a few days ago.
I knew I’d love his Star yarn from the headline alone:
“Canada’s news media are contributing to mistrust of Muslims.”
It didn’t disappoint.
The column was an excerpt from a lecture Siddiqui delivered at the Aga Khan Museum in which he argued that the media have contributed to “widespread Islamophobia” by conflating Muslim terrorists with all Muslims. In doing so, he said, the media are violating their own declared principles of fair and ethical journalism.
He said the biggest culprits are the National Post and the Postmedia group of newspapers. He failed to mention Rebel.Media!
Watch as I dissect his column which begins in a weirdly incestuous way with Siddiqui asking Toronto Star associates if they agree with him about an anti-Muslim bias in the rest of the media and then simply repeats his assertion, ultimately offering helpful suggestions to the press when it comes to reporting on Islam.
Wait until you hear what he says about Rex Murphy and the CBC.
Siddiqui signs off in an unintentionally funny way describing himself as an “incurably optimistic Canadian.” How perversely ironic that a self-described optimistic Canadian is also such a shameless apologist for many in his community who reject and despise Canadian values.
But what do I know? I’m just a cog in that biased, Islamophobic media.
I’d like to make a joke about shooting the messenger but somebody out there might take it literally.Seven years ago disgraced former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle appeared on VH1 to mock men who were caught by Chris Hansen and his TV series
"To Catch A Predator."
“These guys continue to fall for it every single time. There must be, like, a hundred million episodes of this show, and these guys still come out,” Jared said on an episode "I Love the New Millennium."
The episode aired in 2008.
Jared has since reached reached a plea agreement in which he plans to admit possessing child pornography and traveling to have sex with minors.
Fogle will spend at least the next five years in prison with a maximum 15 year sentence.
Here's the video.
NOW WATCH: This drummer created a whole song using only the sound of coins
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Please read the payment and shipping policy before place any orderIt started when I was young, back when I had an obsession with ancient Egypt and its practices and theology. My mother said I was always one to question. I grew up wanting to be an archeologist, digging up artifacts and understanding how the people of days gone by lived and died. As my critical thinking skills began to develop I wondered “Would the people that lived in this era end up in hell as the theology I was raised in believed? Was time and geography all that distanced me from the ancient Egyptians who worshiped Ra?” While it was an interesting question, I knew that the theology that I grew up with was true…after all, my parents and everyone I knew said it was so. I was around 6 years old when I walked down the aisle to beg Jesus for forgiveness. I even remember once talking to a couple of close friends of mine in the school gym asking if they had ever asked Jesus into their hearts.
Later, around the age of 14, I was told that those who had accepted Jesus into their hearts would know an unending peace and would know that they were saved from eternal damnation…but that knowing and that feeling never came. I remember begging and pleading for my god to give me the reassurance that I was truly saved and would end up in heaven with everyone that I held dear, yet that prayer was never answered. I may have felt relief for days or weeks but the question was always nagging in the back of my mind: “Was I truly saved if I never felt this total peace others spoke of?”
I was 15 when I went on a “retreat” where I was starved of sleep and had constant contact with other steadfast believers. I remember playing games with friends and eventually ended up under the starry sky of rural Texas weeping after a heartfelt altar call, asking Jesus to save my soul once again. This time it lasted a little while longer, even if doubts crept into my mind now and again.
Then I was 17 and I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve seen friends struggle with self-harm and thoughts of suicide that god would not or could not defend against. I was one of them. I was a steadfast Christian, yet I struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts often. I would pray to god to save my soul and deliver me from this affliction and it would subside for the night only to be back the next day. I was a devout Christian yet I believed that literal demons were tormenting me daily and my prayers were only sufficient for a night. When I felt that I was not being punished enough for my disgusting sins I began to inflict punishment upon myself by cutting my arms. Because of my stress, insomnia, and religious upbringing, I saw shadowy figures tormenting me night after night with no respite. Eventually, I felt these demons especially when I listened to secular music. At first I was afraid and considered throwing my secular music in the garbage. However, one night I realized that the feelings I had felt from secular music were no different from the Christian music I was raised with. It was so bizarre at first to think that secular music could have this effect; but once I began to research into the subject, I realized that music, Christian or secular, was devised to evoke emotions.
Then I was 18 or 19 in my first year of college. I’m no longer sure what to believe. I still believe there is a god that is good, just, and loving, but I have my doubts. This is when I meet Mike. I don’t remember his last name, but I owe him an immense debt for opening my eyes. I met Mike, if I remember correctly, in my introduction to philosophy course. Mike was probably close to 30 and was fairly close to the stereotypical angry atheist; he disliked Christianity to the point of being visibly annoyed by students nearby talking about their worship service from the previous Sunday. I don’t remember how we ended up in a private discussion about theology after class had ended, but I distinctly remember Mike asking me what I believed. I stuttered for a moment and eventually spat out “I think I’m a deist?” I knew I didn’t sound very convincing as I didn’t even convince myself. Mike and I discussed philosophical arguments for the existence of god for a while and he challenged me to watch a few episodes of The Atheist Experience on YouTube.
At the time, I was working a job that allowed me to work and listen to videos simultaneously and I took advantage of that opportunity. While I didn’t completely understand the arguments being made at first, I began to familiarize myself with the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of a deity. As I listened to the arguments against the existence of a deity, the more they began to make sense. Now, don’t get me wrong, I certainly was not looking for a reason to abandon my belief in god. In fact, I was hoping to do the exact opposite, I began my research in hopes that I would better understand how to argue for the existence of a deity. In fact, I even went on several “mission trips” during this time. Despite my doubts, I dug even deeper into my religion and the doubts only crept out when I was alone at night, left alone to think.
However, eventually my fundamentalist beliefs about the Christian deity were eroded away. This erosion created an even deeper longing for an understanding of the truth about reality that has yet to be satisfied. I dove wholeheartedly into a quest for understanding all different kinds of beliefs about the world that previously I would have considered completely taboo. With my fundamentalist beliefs finally gone, I was finally free to ask what reality truly was without any preconceived notions.
Now, several years later in my mid-twenties, I am an agnostic atheist who longs to understand reality to the best of my ability and I do my best to challenge myself each and every day to discover the truth. I keep my eyes open and my beliefs open to revision. After all, according to Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth |
"We are the indigenous people of this land," protester Hamid Battou told Al Jazeera. "And even though we have silver and all these minerals and resources around us, we don't benefit from them."
So far, the protesters estimate they have withheld more than three million tonnes of water from SMI since 2011. A 2014 report found that after villagers cut off one water source to the mine, SMI's processing capacity dropped 40 percent in 2012, and 30 percent in 2013.
The villagers have engaged in various means of protest against the mine for nearly three decades, including a 1996 sit-in that blocked traffic on a road passing through Imider for 45 days.
"After the mine dug a well in 1986, the water problem started," protester Omar Uxabassu told Al Jazeera. "Many farms were impacted by this illegal exploitation. Year after year, the percentage of farms and green space continues to decline." After more silver was discovered in nearby Igourane in 2004, SNI dug more wells, he noted.
"[The mine] affects the lifestyle of the people. It affects agriculture [and] many homes and many sectors," Uxabassu said. "There is no health, there are no jobs, and there is no compensation for all this exploitation."
A report issued by INNOVAR, an independent hydrogeological group based in Temara, Morocco, found that the mine has had a devastating impact on Imider's khettara system, a traditional underground canal network that has provided water to farmers in the desert region since the 14th century.
Explicitly attributing the decrease of water to the mine, the report found that the wells constructed by the mine in 2004 caused a 48 percent decline in water transported by the three khettaras in Imider between 2004 and 2005. In the same year, farmers' wells dropped by 1.25 metres. There have been no additional reports since the 2004-05 study.
Speaking to JeuneAfrique, Youssef el-Hajam, a manager of Managem (a mining company of which SMI is an affiliate), claimed that according to a hydrogeological study, "there is no relationship between the mine's water exploitation and the decrease of groundwater in the region". However, according to JeuneAfrique, Hajam "didn't wish to disclose the report".
Managem declined to comment for this article, and an SNI representative was not available for comment.
But on a company website, Managem has touted the mine as contributing to the development of the region, "notably in terms of infrastructure, with construction in Tinghir". SMI's construction projects include "a health centre, a mosque, a cultural centre, a nursery, sporting areas [and] housing for 300 families", along with the expansion of local schools, according to Managem's website.
However, the Imider activists say these contributions are insignificant and generally do not benefit their village. Instead, they say the main beneficiaries are the mine workers, who were brought from cities and reside in Tinghir, a large town to the east of Imider.
Villagers have also expressed concerns about toxic waste from the mine, and its impact on health, agriculture and water. Managem's Hajam has said publicly that there is no risk, and that toxic materials are recycled in basins. But a 2013 investigation led by the Moroccan Association of Investigative Journalism (AMJI) found that the concentration of toxic elements such as arsenic, cobalt, cadmium and lead often exceeded international standards in the Imider region.
Although the AMJI investigation highlighted residents' testimonies regarding the proliferation of skin diseases, respiratory diseases and cancer, no medical study has yet been conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between these diseases and the toxic materials in Imider's soil and water.
Imider activists have been calling for independent health studies on the effects of the mine's toxic output. "If we had independent studies that can prove the effect of the mine on Imider, I don't think we would need to protest," activist Moha Tawja told Al Jazeera.
The encampment holds regular general assemblies using the Agraw system, an ancient model of Amazigh democratic tribal governance. The assemblies draw men, women and children from the seven villages comprising Imider, who meet twice a week to assess the community's situation and strategies.
From this process, villagers established a negotiating committee in 2011 to speak with representatives of SNI and the governor of Tinghir province. After 16 meetings, activists say the negotiations stopped with no progress made. The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, since 2011, 20 of the more outspoken villagers have been imprisoned, three of whom were recently released, according to the Moroccan Association of Human Rights.
One of those released, Lahcen Ait Ichu, served a sentence of two years and eight months in prison. Ait Ichu claimed that all of the arrests were based on trumped-up charges including theft, incitation to disobedience and destruction of public property.
According to Ait Ichu, the testimonies given by witnesses against him and other activists were baseless. "They accused me of assault with a weapon and theft," he said. "The witness who claimed he was assaulted told the court that my face was covered, but that he recognised me from the shape of my body."
Uxabassu said these arrests and charges were revenge for the villagers' political activity, and that they mirror similar arrests targeting activists and journalists in Morocco's urban areas.
"We villagers have observed the changes around us. We have conducted an ongoing struggle since 1986, and now have maintained the longest sit-in in Morocco's history under harsh conditions," Tawja said. "Anyone who hears our case should know that we're serious."
Morocco's Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water and Mines, and Ministry of Interior did not respond to requests for comment.Okay, so Senator Warren actually wrote a polite, detailed letter to Attorney General Holder. There was no shouting or acrimony.
However, in Washington, for a freshman senator to imply in official correspondence made public that the Department of Justice is not doing its job in investigating, prosecuting and even fining banks and secondary lenders in regards to multiple counts of mortgage lending violations is akin to a freshman at high school accusing the principal of letting teachers steal milk money from the desks of students.
It may be professional in tone, but Warren's letter is a direct challenge to the criminal impunity provided to and limited fines assessed by the DOJ on Wall Street for their multiple schemes to defraud both mortgage borrowers and investors.
The Huffington Post featured the letter, which bluntly states:
I am concerned that this might be yet another example of the federal government's timid enforcement strategy against the nation's largest financial institutions. I believe that if DOJ and our banking regulatory agencies prove unwilling over time to take the big banks to trial or even require admission of guilt when they cheat consumers and break the law -- either out of timidity or because of a lack of resources -- then the agencies lose enormous leverage in settlement negotiations.
There are a number of federal agencies involved in the lax regulation and minimal punishment (no jail time) of the financial industry for its role, particularly in the creation of a toxic subprime mortgage scam, in the economic collapse that burst open in the autumn of 2007.
BuzzFlash at Truthout has written several stories on the innovative efforts of the city of Richmond, California, to reclaim its community for its citizens from predatory corporations. One of its efforts involves the threat to seize foreclosed homes (that meet certain criteria of being foreclosed as a result of mortgage lending fraud, abuse or error) through the use of eminent domain. We wrote about how the chief federal housing regulator is joining with Wall Street banks and secondary mortgage lenders to oppose this bold effort to restore a fair playing field to the housing market.
However, some readers have written e-mails blaming mortgage borrowers for their own plights. This may be accurate in some cases, but the massive defaults that have occurred have come from so many different kinds of lending fraud that it is difficult for the average consumer of news to keep up with them. And it is proven that minority communities were targeted for fraud and manipulation by lenders.
To name just a few, banks targeted minority communities for second "balloon" mortgages without fully disclosing the terms or expanding mortgage payments. Banks re-possessed homes through robo-signing of foreclosure notices without examining if the houses were actually behind in payments or the details of the chain of ownership. Bank employees were told not to speak publicly about the deceptive practices employed to push usurious lending. Banks would make "adjustment" agreements with some under the water homeowners only to sell blocks of mortgages to secondary lenders who wouldn't honor the agreements and, instead, sold the foreclosed homes and properties to investors such as the Blackstone Group. Even investors were not fully informed of the risks of bundled mortgages.
These are just a few of the fraudulent techniques that the DOJ appears to be willing to treat as non-systemic tactics that require no criminal punishment.
The Warren letter to Holder is a tour de force of knowledgeable restraint combined with a fearless call for accountability.
One key factor that Warren alludes to is that by not appropriately applying legal sanctions against those who abused the mortgage system, citizens are left to think that the mortgage holders are solely at fault, because the DOJ is protecting the mortgage lenders rather than those struggling to save their houses, families and dreams from predatory and deceptive practices.
On a purely financial -- let alone criminal -- level, Warren charges the federal government with settling for 0.6% of the total current potential liability of fines of $37 billion for lenders breaking the law.
Meanwhile, those defrauded are left living out of cars, with relatives or on the street, as the DOJ gives a nod and a wink to those in the financial elite who defrauded them.
Click here to support courageous reporting and commentary by making a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout and BuzzFlash at Truthout!
(Photo: warren.senate.gov)Prime Minister Justin Trudeau kicked off a cross-country tour on Thursday to connect with Canadians as controversies brew over so-called cash-for-access political fundraising and a vacation at the Bahamian island property of the Aga Khan.
His campaign-style trip began in eastern Ontario, with stops at a restaurant in Manotick, an aquarium in Brockville and a highway rest stop in Mallorytown.
At each stop, he shook hands, chatted and posed for photos. While in transit, he called a radio station in Kingston and requested a song by the Tragically Hip.
At a forum attended by approximately 250 people in Kingston in the afternoon, there was no mention of the ethics controversies that have followed Trudeau's government, but he was challenged on several fronts.
In the space of an hour, Trudeau took questions about the welfare of Indigenous Canadians, military exports, subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry, real-estate regulation and support for the manufacturing sector.
Asked about electoral reform, Trudeau acknowledged he has taken the position that a ranked ballot is the best option for Canada, but, he added, "I have showed consistently that I'm open to a broad range of perspectives and views."
An Indigenous woman became emotional while asking the prime minister to protect Canadian waters from environmental harm. "Please, from the bottom of my heart, and my grandchildren, please keep our water clean," she said.
Veterans' benefits
Another woman seemed to choke up as she criticized the Liberal government's handling of benefits for veterans.
"You promised the injured veterans you would restore the lifetime disability pension," she said. "So when are you going to be restoring these lifelong disability pensions for our injured? And stop pursuing this in court as [you promised]?" she asked.
"As you say, there are still more things to do and we are going to continue to work with veterans groups, continue to work with advocates, continue [to work with] MPs of all stripes," Trudeau responded.
"We're going to continue to work on keeping not just an electoral promise we made to Canadians, but a promise and commitment that every government makes to the parents and the families of young men and women who sign up for our forces."
The woman later stood up and complained the prime minister had not answered her questions.
While in Kingston, Ontario, PM Justin Trudeau is asked when he is going to honour his promise to restore the lifelong disability pensions for injured veterans. 2:11
Phoenix pay problems 'not acceptable'
Public concerns were sometimes loudly expressed. Two people who said they were members of the civil service complained to the prime minister about the Phoenix pay system that is leaving some people unpaid.
"We're being told that it could take up to three years to fix this problem and no offence, that's not acceptable," said a corrections worker. "If a private corporation were doing this on the scale that this is happening, the government would have taken action by now. This is not right."
Trudeau said he agreed that the payroll problems were "unacceptable."
"I'll admit it: this government, in everything that we were doing in the first months, didn't pay proper attention to the real — didn't pay enough attention — to the warning signs that were coming on the transition [to Phoenix] that we were overseeing," Trudeau said.
"We are working extremely hard to try and fix this. We're down to 8,000 cases that are still 8,000 cases too many," Trudeau said, but he was later challenged on that number by one of the civil servants, who called it a "lie by misdirection" and noted it only represents the backlog of cases registered before July 1.
PM Justin Trudeau is asked about the problems with the government's Phoenix pay system, then corrected on his answer about the remaining cases. 3:45
One young man stood up to shout at the prime minister about the dangers of pipelines. The prime minister thanked him for his opinion, but said he was hoping to maintain a respectful tone.
Later, in Belleville, the prime minister took another dozen questions from a crowd of several hundred. Topics included the impending U.S. presidency of Donald Trump.
The Ontario swing continues Friday and ends in London.
The prime minister will continue to other provinces afterwards and then join his cabinet for meetings in Calgary.
"Part of this tour is demonstrating a level of openness and accessibility that I campaigned on and that Canadians want to see from their government. We are listening to everyone," Trudeau told reporters after the forum in Kingston, responding to a question about the fundraising controversy. "And that is what Canadians expect."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with participants following a town hall forum in Kingston, Ont. (Kristen Everson/CBC)
Public invited to RSVP, not required
Liberal MPs invited those wishing to attend to RSVP through the MPs' websites, raising questions about whether the information would be used by the Liberal party for political purposes.
But a spokesman for the prime minister said signing up on the websites was not required in order to attend, and was intended to ensure attendees received any updates with details of the events.
"We wanted to ensure that attendance at these events would not be simply be limited to partisans or Liberals. In order to do so, MPs took the opportunity to reach out to all their constituents — regardless of political affiliation — and share information on upcoming events," Cameron Ahmad told CBC.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with Anne Mask as food is prepared during a visit to a restaurant in Manotick, Ont. Thursday. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Notice of one event was posted on the Liberal party's website, but a party spokesman later said that was a mistake and the posting had been deleted.
Trudeau has recently faced a barrage of questions and criticism over "cash-for-access" fundraising events, where wealthy donors were given access to the prime minister at exclusive events.
A new ethics controversy involves Trudeau's family vacation to the Bahamas, where he stayed at the Bell Island home of the Aga Khan, whose foundation receives millions of dollars in federal funding for development projects.
Speaking to reporters, Trudeau said he flew to the island in the Aga Khan's private helicopter, raising new questions about the event.UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council late Thursday overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
A photo provided by the Israel Defense Forces shows Israeli paratroopers in Gaza on Thursday. more photos »
Fourteen of the council's 15 members voted in favor of the resolution, with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice abstaining from the vote on behalf of the United States.
The resolution expresses "grave concern" about the growing humanitarian crisis and heavy civilian casualties in Gaza, as well as civilian deaths in Israel from Hamas rocket fire.
Roughly 765 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, including 10 soldiers, have been killed since Israel began its military assault on Gaza on December 27.
The resolution "stresses the urgency of, and calls for, an immediate, durable, and fully respected cease-fire which will lead to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."
A resolution from the council, particularly one that passes with such large support, can put international pressure on parties involved in a conflict. But they are in no way binding, and many in the past have been ignored by warring factions.
"We are all very conscious that peace is made on the ground while resolutions are written in the U.N.," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. "Our job here is to support the efforts for peace on the ground and turn the good words on paper into changes on the ground that are so desperately needed."
Rice applauded the resolution's goals, but said the United States prefers to wait for results of ongoing, Egyptian-brokered talks in Cairo, Egypt, with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Watch U.N. secretary-general say he is heartened and relieved after vote »
She said the United States supported the text, goals and objectives of the resolution, but that the United States feels it's important to see the terms of any cease-fire hammered out in Egypt.
The resolution welcomes efforts by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to broker a cease-fire. It calls for opening corridors to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza -- where food, water, electricity and medicine shortages have worsened already poor conditions since Israel's offensive in Gaza began.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, told the Security Council that Hamas rocket attacks "left us with no choice."
"The responsibility for the current hostilities lies squarely on Hamas," she said. "The international community must focus its efforts on the Hamas activity and make sure that the terrorist activity can never be legitimate." Watch Shalev say the responsibility lies on Hamas »
The Israeli military says its operation is aimed at halting the firing of rockets into southern Israel by Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007.
Wrangling over the resolution centered on wording. Arab countries generally pushed for language demanding Israel cease its attacks, while Western diplomats wanted more neutral language.
"Security for the people of Gaza, too. Not security for Israel alone," Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, of Egypt, said before the vote as reporters were asking diplomats about the resolution.
The 15-member Security Council is tasked by the United Nations with establishing and maintaining peace around the globe. It has the power to create peacekeeping operations, impose sanctions and authorize military action.
The United States, Russia, China, France and Great Britain are the five permanent members, with the other 10 elected by the U.N. assembly to two-year terms. Any one of the permanent members can veto a resolution.
CNN's Terence Burke and Richard Roth contributed to this report.
All About Hamas • Israel • GazaPeople who illegally download music spend more on official releases than those who obey download laws, a British survey published this weekend has suggested.
The think-tank Demos said it found illegal downloaders spent an average of £77 a year on genuine music, £33 more than those who claim never to have wrongly accessed music for free.
Nearly two thirds of people who admit to downloading music illegally also said that new and cheaper music services would encourage them to stop accessing illegal services.
The results come amid warnings from the British government that people who persistently download illegally face being disconnected from the internet.
A Digital Economy Bill is expected to be introduced to parliament later this month, with its draft promising to create a "robust legal and regulatory framework to combat illegal file sharing".
Demos's research found that 83 per cent of people downloading music illegally claim to buy the same or more music as a result.
The 42 per cent of people who admitted breaking the law said they did so to "try before you buy", suggesting that file sharing may encourage sales.
Illegal file sharers provide the music industry with an estimated £200 million in revenue, Demos added.
It found that by lowering the price of music available online to 45p per track - compared to between 59p and 99p on iTunes - providers could expect to double interest in legal sales.
The think-tank's researcher Peter Bradwell said: "This research demonstrates that cutting file sharers off may not be the best solution for the Government if they are intent on helping the music industry."Let’s face it: The conventional four-year college system is broken. It’s impossibly expensive, and filled with unnecessary prerequisites of dubious value. That’s why it’s time to enroll in The Dissolve’s Streaming University, a free online institution that uses documentaries available online to explore the complexities and richness of our crazy modern world.
Film: A Brony Tale
Director: Brent Hodge
Streaming On: Netflix
Primary Focus Of Study: Bronies
Secondary Focuses Of Study: Fan Obsessions
Many are morbidly fascinated by Bronies, those adults who broadcast their love for the kids’ show My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which was once widely perceived as a silly kid’s hokum for the young people. “Who are these people?” is the most genial sort question that gets raised about Bronies. “What the fuck is wrong with them?” is a less-civil sort of query raised about their lives. My first and primary frustration with A Brony Tale, a lukewarm exploration of the Brony phenomenon, is that its focus is less on the actual Bronies themselves but more on Ashleigh Ball, a musician, actress, and voiceover artist. She’s also the lead singer of the band Hey Ocean!, for which the film sometimes feels like a backdoor infomercial.
For Ball, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic isn’t a phenomenon, subculture, or act of rebellion against the conformity of traditional gender roles; it’s just a well-paying job with some very strange side effects. Director Brian Hodge focuses on Ball because she’s perky, appealing, and natural around the camera, but also because she provides an outsider’s perspective. She isn’t going to creep anyone out. Ball doesn’t know exactly what she’s in for when she accepts an invitation to the massive BronyCon for the first time, and the filmmakers tease that something kind of weird might happen there, while reassuring us over and over again that Bronies are lovely people who wouldn’t hurt a soul.
The Bronies themselves, who range from bodybuilders to veterans with PTSD, are a lot more interesting than Ball, but everyone speaks the same codified happy talk of magic, community, positivity, and the warm, humanitarian values espoused by this weird little kid show that matters so much to so many people. A Brony Tale ends up feeling hagiographic, less to fans who are depicted in an overwhelmingly positive, if unmistakably geeky light, than toward Ball. Ball is given way too much credit for not instantly assuming that at BronyCon, men in giant furry costume would abduct her immediately and force her to watch every episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
What was Ball specifically worried about? That men who worship a show she works on would be too deferential and adulatory toward her? That the intensity of their devotion would make her feel creepy and fetishized? Ball seems understandably wary, if not terrified, of the depths of the devotion fans feel toward her show, but the film is neither creepy nor unnerving.
That ranks as both one of A Brony’s Tale’s great strengths and one of its most damning weaknesses. It’s content to skate across the surface, never risking anything that might make Bronies uncomfortable, but also never peering deep down into what makes someone a Brony and what impact it has on their lives. So while A Brony Tale is a decent-enough primer for those curious as to what the whole Brony fuss is about, it’s begging for a much deeper exploration that explores the many side of this oddly deathless phenomenon, not just the ones festooned with rainbow stickers, glitter, and unicorn dust.
Educational Value: Meets Expectations (just barely)
Entertainment Value: Meets Expectations (also just barely)
Previous Lessons:
Beware Of Mr. Baker
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?
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The Source Family
Saturday Night
Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?
I Think We’re Alone Now0 Man gets Florida Turnpike ticket 20 years after his death
A local grandfather is facing a ticket for blowing through a toll without paying, but there's one problem.
The man died 20 years ago. Jo-Lee Manning thinks about her stepdad all the time. He died after a battle with lung cancer. But this week, she got something she never expected.
Manning picked up the mail and found a $5.62 ticket from the Florida Turnpike in her late stepfather's name. It was given out Jan. 15 of this year and came complete with pictures of a semi running through the toll booth near Miami.
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"I was shocked my stepfather got a ticket," said Manning.
After a few calls, she thinks she figured out the problem. She thinks the machines may have misread the 8 from her stepfather's old plate, when it was really probably the letter B. But getting rid of the ticket wasn't as easy as a phone call.
"I tried to explain that he passed away in 1995. She says, 'Well he's still responsible, just like the ticket when he was alive,'" said Manning.
Manning said all she could do was laugh. We asked the Florida Turnpike for information on how this happens.
They tell us FDOT reviews 300,000 images every day and the rate of misreads is.007 percent.
"I believe they're more common than what they say," said Manning.
A spokesperson for the Turnpike said they are looking into it now that we've sent them the information. Action News will provide an update as soon as we get more information on the outcome of the ticket situation.
MORE: Latest News Headlines from Action NewsFLORENCE, Italy — When the English designer Adam Brown set out to start a line of tailored swimsuits seven years ago, one favoring computer generated imagery, a sophisticated palette and the kind of snug fit he had seen on men like himself while vacationing in Miami, friends greeted the idea with what he called “howls of laughter.”
“They said, your shorts are so short!” said Mr. Brown, whose label is called Orlebar Brown. “I was told, the only ones who have the good bodies and will want a fitted product like that are gay guys.”
Mr. Brown is a gay guy. Fortunately for him, he had the foresight to envision the immediate future of men’s wear, where a great many stereotyped distinctions between gay and straight were upended as the flamboyant, fashion-savvy gay man and the straight style-illiterate became virtually interchangeable.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at Pitti Uomo, the twice-yearly men’s wear trade show that attracted nearly 1,200 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors to Florence this week, most from North America and Asia — with the Russians and Ukrainians, once a powerful presence here, largely sitting it out.Welspun Renewables has successfully developed all its projects well before their scheduled deadlines and at a lower cost ratio as compared to other developers in the clean energy sector.
Welspun Renewables today announced commissioning of 126 MW wind project located in Pratapgarh district of Rajasthan.
"The project is the largest wind project in the company's portfolio. The project will generate 290 million units of clean energy and help mitigate 2,11,922 tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Rs 840 crore was secured to build this mega wind capacity," the company said in a press release.
Welspun Renewables Vice Chairman Vineet Mittal said, "Our project site in Pratapgarh is one of the most suitable sites in the country for wind energy. Like most of our solar and wind projects, this will also be among the highest generating power plants in India."
Welspun Renewables has successfully developed all its projects well before their scheduled deadlines and at a lower cost ratio as compared to other developers in the clean energy sector.
The company has successfully commissioned approx 700 MW (DC) capacity of clean energy. In line with the government's renewable energy initiatives, Welspun Renewables is well on target to commission 1 GW of solar and wind power projects by the end of this financial year.Pacific Rim officials meet in Hawaii this week for talks that could make or break an ambitious trade deal which aims to boost growth and set common standards across a dozen economies ranging from the United States to Brunei.
Trade ministers go into the talks, which run July 28-31 on the island of Maui, with high hopes of an agreement to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the most sweeping trade deal in a generation and a legacy-defining achievement for U.S. President Barack Obama.
But the toughest issues have been left until last, including monopoly periods for new life-saving medicines and preferential treatment for state-owned companies as well as more traditional trade issues such as opening protected markets to competition.
"This meeting will be extremely important to decide the fate of the TPP negotiations," Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari told reporters on Friday.
"I believe all the nations will come to the meeting with their strong determination that it has to be the last one."
Read MoreJapan's Abe to Congress: TPP's value is 'awesome'
But Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast was more cautious, warning last week that there is a "lot of hard work to be done before this agreement is put to bed."
Canada's refusal so far to accept more dairy imports is a major sticking point in the talks, infuriating the United States as well as New Zealand, which has said it will not sign a deal that fails to open new dairy markets.It’s been noted time and time again that US Senator John McCain has a reputation as a foreign-policy connoisseur. Nobody can argue that he pays attention to little other than foreign affairs. In the midst of his presidential campaign back in 2008, when the financial crisis was raging, he admitted that he didn’t care much about economics, which helped doom his candidacy. Unfortunately, there’s signs that he’s no better equipped regarding everything that concerns his favorite topic, geopolitics.
In fact, he has routinely advocated what amounts to sacrificing US interests while pushing confrontation and sometimes war with a long and ever-expanding list of countries around the globe: Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, North Korea and, worst of all, Russia. There is scarcely a conflict he doesn’t want to see the United States plunged into. And there is rarely a military deployment he does not want to make permanent. Whatever the international issue, he sees US military action as the answer.
Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that The National Interest has repeatedly criticized him for this ultimate flaw regarding his geopolitical vision. However, The National Interest is hardly the only one to notice what has been apparent to most geopolitical analysts for quite some time.
Last April, Fox News released a poll conducted by Morning Consult aimed at establishing the most and least favorite politicians in the US. According to this poll, John McCain found himself the least favorite, with his disapproval rating being as low as 43%.
In turn, The American Thinker would argue that it’s time McCain turned his back on the political career he’s been pursuing, noting that he could still work for MSNBC or Sunday political shows, where he spends most of his time anyway. But The American Thinker is willing to go one step further, arguing that McCain should resign and in his retirement star in a remake of Dr. Strangelove as General Buck Turgidson. He does not need to act – just to be himself.
Since mid-June, McCain has been caught in the center of a financial and political scandal that resulted in many beginning to not just question his decency, which was always doubtful, but also his so-called patriotism.
The scandal broke when international media began looking into the eligibility of parties sponsoring the McCain Institute for International Leadership.
Back in 2008, the British Guardian would criticize Senator McCain for his close ties with the Rothschild brothers, with him going as far as receiving grants from these oligarchs in direct violation of American laws. Along with these Western oligarchs, McCain’s Institute has also been sponsored by a Moroccan state-owned phosphate mining company (invested 100,000 dollars), Iranian lobbyists from the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) (another 205,000 dollars in the bank), and, finally, the most generous sponsor of Senator McCain, Saudi Arabia, who invested one million dollars in the above mentioned institution back in 2014.
Formally, foreign interests are prohibited from sponsoring elected representatives in the US, yet McCain was quietly elected to the Senate for his sixth term in November 2016 through precisely such support.
The most peculiar fact of McCain’s political career occurred during his presidential campaign back in 2008. Back then his headquarters mailed an official letter requesting financial support from the Russian mission to the UN so Moscow could also help him to get elected. In spite of repeated demands to investigate the so-called “Russian trail” in recent US elections, he, for some reason is desperately trying to hide the desire he himself once had to establish “closer ties” with Russia to advance his political career.
Why would the Saudi Embassy waste a million dollars on the McCain Institute and what did it expect in return for its outstanding generosity? McCain was needed to persuade veterans of American overseas wars to occupy the capital and start protesting against the JASTA law.
The voyage that the veterans whom McCain persuaded would take to Washington was only a small part of the campaign which Saudi Arabia wasted over 8.4 million dollars in total on. For two years, according to documents filed with the US State Department regarding lobbying from abroad, a total of 14 companies have been wasting money on articles across American media about the alleged danger of the JASTA law for American soldiers and even for US diplomats abroad. The sole goal of this whole propaganda campaign was the prevention of JASTA’s adoption.
But relatives of 9/11 attack victims were waiting for this law in order to be able to seek compensation for the deaths of their loved ones in US courts, suing Saudi Arabia for billions of dollars for its numerous acts of terrorism sponsorship. However, all their claims were dismissed by American judges under the false pretense that Saudi Arabia, being a sovereign state, is immune and under US law it is impossible to oblige it to pay the requested sums.
However, there’s one group in the United States fighting tooth and nail for the right that the American people have to know how McCain and other elected officials deceived the victims of 9/11 and how they deprived them of the ability to seek justice. This organization is called 28 pages and it consists mainly of the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. This organization has repeatedly pointed out the role that Senator McCain along with other lobbying interests representing Saudi Arabia, had in taking Saudi money and obstructing reparations sought from Riyadh. It has also reported how deceived US veterans were enraged when they learned that they were tricked by Saudi Arabia and the “patriot for sale” John McCain, into opposing the best interest of the American people.
Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”Stress both contributes to the development of ethanol dependence and is a consequence of dependence. However, the complexity of physiological interactions between activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and ethanol itself is not well delineated. Emerging evidence derived from examination of corticotropin releasing factor systems and glucocorticoid receptor systems in ethanol dependence suggests a role for pharmacological manipulation of the HPA axis in attenuating ethanol intake, though it is not clear how activation of the HPA axis may promote ethanol dependence or contribute to the neuroadaptative changes that accompany the development of dependence and the severity of ethanol withdrawal. This review examines the role that glucocorticoids, in particular, have in promoting ethanol-associated plasticity of glutamatergic synapses by influencing expression of endogenous linear polyamines and polyamine-sensitive polypeptide subunits of N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)-type glutamate receptors. We provide evidence that interactions among glucocorticoid systems, polyamines and NMDA receptors are highly relevant to both the development of ethanol dependence and to behavioral and neuropathological sequelae associated with ethanol withdrawal. Examination of these issues is likely to be of critical importance not only in further elucidating the neurobiology of HPA axis dysregulation in ethanol dependence, but also with regard to identification of novel therapeutic targets that may be exploited in the treatment of ethanol dependence.
INTRODUCTION
CNS injury is one of the most widely studied consequences of alcohol abuse and dependence, occurring in an estimated 50 to 75% of alcohol-dependent individuals (Eckardt and Martin 1986). Prolonged ethanol (EtOH) dependence in humans is associated with the development of neurological abnormalities and reduced volume of many brain structures, (Fama, Pfefferbaum and Sullivan 2006; Hulse et al., 2005; Moselhy, 2001; Schweinsburg et al., 2001; Sullivan, Rose and Pfefferbaum 2005) and women may be more susceptible than men to development of these volumetric deficits (Hommer et al., 2001). Such changes are likely the result of multiple biological actions of EtOH. For example, apoptosis is promoted by EtOH, particularly in developing neurons, via EtOH-induced increases in expression of Fas/Apo-1 receptor (Cheema, West and Miranda 2000) and, possibly, acetyldehyde-mediated disruption of microtubule formation (Kannarkat, Tuma and Tuma 2006; Smith et al., 1992). EtOH exposure also attenuates the differentiation of progenitor cells into neurons (Santillano et al., 2005) and inhibits neurogenesis in rodents, though some recovery is observed, a finding that we and others have reported (Nixon and Crews, 2004; Wilkins Jr et al., 2006). Chronic EtOH exposure promotes the proliferation of reactive oxygen species via multiple pathways (Brooks, 2000; Ren et al., 2005) and inhibits the expression or function of neuronal growth factors (Kolb, Trettel and Levine 2005; Walker et al., 1993). EtOH also alters function of |
, we would be happy to host the RNC and the DNC.”Politico‘s Ben Smith noted earlier today that a slide in the RNC document showed a fundraiser for Republican donors under 40 — “Young Eagles” — was scheduled for April 16 at Xe’s U.S. Training Center facility.
Corallo said he does not know why the event appeared on the RNC slide.
The leaked RNC presentation (.pdf) is dated Feb. 18. The RNC press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Late Update: RNC to Smith: what Blackwater event?3TB My Passport Ultra Metal Edition (Blue/Black) is rated 4.6 out of 5 by 34.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Anonymous from Best deal available I researched for the best deal and ended up here. I had a chat with a representative to find out if the set price was due to used or refurbished. They answered that it was an official product, which it was and came in the authentic WD product box when I received it. I made the purchase right after the chat. Features: Decent disk space of 2.72GB, password encrypted security system, small hand fit design, and it looks even better in front of you. Comes with its' cable connector to 3.0 USB, so no extra cost.
Rated 5 out of 5 by solomax99 from Excellent External Harddrive Looks great. Solid metal exterior Works really fast Can storage all my photos (Bought it actually to store them)
Rated 5 out of 5 by James from Pretty Ideal Littel drive I use this as a backup drive for my audio and video edting systems. It's size and the fact that it's bus powered make it a great solution for my macbook and imac systems. And the cost makes them ideal as backup and storage - fill with files, label and store on the shelf and start with a new one. I do the same with the affordable G-Drives as my edit drives. Fill them every month or so and store likewise. Affordable, redundant editing, backup and storage.
Rated 4 out of 5 by Krystal P. from I am 3TB's Blue This was working flawlessly up to the point of when it was dropped 2' feet from the floor and after that it just stopped working. One can hear it spinning and the light continues to blink as if it wishes to fully "engage", but now the drive is fully "divorced" when plugged into the computer. Oh, well, I guess the user must be extremely careful to try to avoid, "when accidents do happen." I do wonder why this is no longer available.
Rated 5 out of 5 by notconfigured from one of the few HDD with a metal case I like having a predominately metal case (the bottom is plastic), much better than the all plastic version of this drive. It's the same weight as the plastic version, but I talked myself into thinking it would be more durable for travel (no, I don't frisbee my HDD). The data transfer speed is good, and it is bus powered. Another benefit - it's a perfect size to stuff into a safe deposit box for offsite backups.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Alberto from Very fast for a portable drive I bought two of these drives for work with two hard cases so they can be safely transported. I used one to duplicate my main work drive with no problem. It was remarkably fast. Especially compared to the regular WD Passport and most desktop externals. The build and construction of the casing is solid. You will not go wrong. I am buying two more for my home office.
Rated 5 out of 5 by John C. from Would by this product again and again. I have several of these My Passport hard-drives in 1, 2 & 3 GB. First started purchasing them in 2013 and I use them constantly and they have never failed me. Great product and very reliable, fast and easy to use. I buy them as well as 90% of my other tech stuff from B & H because their price are fair and their staff is professional & knowledgeable.P.K. Subban is apparently staying put.
TSN's Darren Dreger poured cold water on an earlier report suggesting the Montreal Canadiens are gauging the market for the star defenseman.
Related - Report: One team executive says Subban's 'name has come up' on trade market
"P.K Subban isn't going anywhere," Dreger wrote Friday. "He's not being shopped and the Habs aren't calling around to see if there's a market for the $9-million star. And if calls are being received from rival (general managers) hoping to loot the train wreck that's the Canadiens' season, (GM) Marc Bergevin isn't listening."
Subban was singled out by head coach Michel Therrien for a costly error Wednesday against the Colorado Avalanche, and the coach said Subban's "individual mistake cost us the game."
The two were in the spotlight again Friday, and the blue-liner said he feels he's "part of the answer, not the problem."
Related: Subban-Therrien incident remains the talk of the town in Montreal
It's been a nightmare season for the Canadiens, but dealing Subban is reportedly not a priority.
"Perhaps things change in the future - maybe as early as the summer if the Habs continue to slide - but the sense is there will be other changes considered (and likely made) before thinking of moving Subban out of Montreal," Dreger wrote.
The Canadiens have been listening to offers on several other players, including Dale Weise, Tom Gilbert and Tomas Fleischmann, as The Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garioch reported earlier this month.
Dreger reported Thursday that Canadiens forward Lars Eller is available on the trade market.In an emphatic declaration, Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray said Wednesday he found no legal wrongdoing in the shooting death of a Charlotte man by police, and denounced pervasive rumors spread by social media about the case.
Murray laid out in painstaking detail the evidence gathered in the Sept. 20 fatal shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, 43, by officer Brentley Vinson.
“I’m extremely convinced that Mr. Vinson’s use of deadly force was lawful,” Murray said.
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Evidence in the case shows that Scott stepped out of his SUV with a gun in his hand, Murray said, and ignored at least 10 commands from the five officers on the scene to drop it.
Murray said that Scott bought the gun – a Colt.380 semi-automatic that had been stolen in Gaston County – 18 days before the confrontation for $100. One bullet was found in the chamber of the cocked gun, the safety was off and Murray said Scott’s DNA was found on the grip and slide.
The person who sold the gun to Scott admitted to doing so when confronted by state and federal law enforcement, according to a prosecutor’s report on the shooting. “The seller said that Scott asked him to find him a weapon because he was having problems with his wife and her family, specifically his nephew,” the report said.
Murray said that speculation in the community that Scott was unarmed – initial reports from a family member on Facebook said he was holding a book – were untrue.
“A reading book was not found in the front or back seats of Mr. Scott’s SUV,” Murray said.
Officer Vinson’s Smith & Wesson M&P.40 was examined after the shooting and four bullets were missing, Murray said. Analysts determined that the four shell casings found on the scene were fired from Vinson’s weapon. Scott suffered three gunshot wounds. Guns taken from the other officers at the scene had not been fired, he said.
People who claimed on social media that they had seen the shooting and Scott was unarmed later recanted – three people who’d made the claim told State Bureau of Investigation agents in interviews that they hadn’t actually seen the shooting, Murray said.
Murray said he ran the evidence in the case past 15 veteran prosecutors in his office and they were unanimous in their recommendation that there was insufficient evidence to charge Vinson in the case. Two of those prosecutors were African-American and one was Latino, Murray said.
In the aftermath of Scott’s death, Charlotte was roiled by two nights of rioting and nearly a week of street demonstrations. After street violence, dozens of arrests and the death of one man in uptown, Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency.
CMPD was the original agency investigating Scott’s shooting, but the SBI took over when his wife, Rakeyia Scott, exercised her right under N.C. law to have the independent agency do the inquiry.
Scott, father of seven, a former shopping mall security officer and the son of a police detective, suffered from traumatic brain injury sustained during a motorcycle crash in South Carolina in November 2015.
Medical records obtained during the SBI inquiry showed that Scott had difficulties with aggression and anger management.
“Scott was battling an array of psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, hallucinations and paranoia,” the report said. “Two weeks prior to his death, Rakeyia Scott told her husband’s therapist that his temper and impatience had increased, and as she stated, ‘something has to give.’”
Scott was a convicted felon who was sentenced in 2005 to seven years in prison in Texas for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
City’s reaction
Neither Mayor Jennifer Roberts nor Police Chief Kerr Putney commented about the findings, but the city of Charlotte released a statement:
“We recognize that for some members of our community, this news will be met with different reactions. No matter where you stand on the issue, the events surrounding the Scott shooting have forever changed our community, and we intend to learn from and build a stronger Charlotte because of it,” the statement said.
“The city is committed to continuing its work with the community to preserve safety, trust and accountability.”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police were put on alert for the community’s reaction to the announcement.
All the department’s specialized units, including its riot squad, were mobilized. CMPD’s command center, which was used during the 2012 Democratic National Convention and other high-profile events, also was activated.
Officers were notified that they may have to work 12-hour shifts.
Murray met Wednesday morning with Rakeyia Scott and Charles Monnett, an attorney representing the family. “The family was very gracious,” Murray said.
Monnett and other attorneys representing the family said that CMPD’s handling of the confrontation was flawed.
“We believe this situation....could have ended with everyone alive,” Monnett said. “We look forward someday to obtaining justice for this family.”
He also said it still wasn’t clear whether officers had been properly trained or followed departmental policy when they confronted Scott.
Social media reports
Murray said that rumors and social media reports about the case did not stand up to scrutiny, among them: That Scott was unarmed, that he was holding a book not a gun, that he didn’t own a weapon, that other officers at the scene shot Scott besides Vinson.
Rakeyia Scott gave statements after the shooting, Murray said, that her husband did not have a gun. She has maintained that he did not have a firearm after January 2016, though Murray said the two had quarreled over text messages in the weeks before the shooting about his gun.
In all, 63 SBI agents were assigned to the investigation, about a quarter of the agency’s force, Murray said.
In laying out a timeline of the shooting, he said officers were staked out in the parking lot of Scott’s apartment complex looking for a suspect in an unrelated case. They saw Scott pull in, then leave.
Murray then showed a surveillance video from a nearby 7-Eleven store of Scott walking in. Murray said there was a bulge clearly visible at the right ankle where Scott holstered his gun.
Then, Murray said, Scott returned to the parking lot next to the officers, hollowed the tobacco out of a cigarello and began stuffing what appeared to be marijuana into it from a pill bottle.
Only when Vinson saw Scott hold up a semi-automatic pistol did officers decide to confront him, Murray said. Vinson and another officer drove away, put on tactical vests labeled “Police” and called for other officers to help them and a marked police SUV with a uniformed officer.
When they arrived, they blocked Scott’s SUV and called on him to come out, then told him at least 10 times to drop the gun, Murray said.
“Mr. Scott did not comply with those commands,” Murray said.
Scott held the gun in his hand, though he didn’t raise it, Murray said. Officers said in interviews with investigators that Scott appeared to have a blank stare and was in a trance-like state, Murray said.
Vinson fired four shots, wounding Scott three times. When Scott fell, his gun landed near his waist and one of the officers pushed it away from him, then stood over it, Murray said.
Gun is key fact
Robert Taylor, a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas and a former police officer in Portland, Ore, said clearing Vinson of any criminal wrongdoing in the shooting was an easy call.
A person with a gun under those circumstances is a danger to officers and the public, Taylor said. “This is pretty cut and dry,” he said.
Now, he said, Charlotte leaders must try to rebuild the fractured relationship between the police department and the African-American community.
“I try to stay positive and remind people that before any great change in this country there has been conflict,” Taylor said.
“There are real feelings of fear in the African-American community. You have to build trust over a long period of time. You just can’t wait until something else happens... The onus is on the police department to take a positive approach and look for what good can come out of this. Where do we go as a community?”
Samuel Walker, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and nationally known police accountability expert, said it was always unlikely that Vinson would be criminally charged.
Nationwide, few officers face legal consequences following police shootings, Walker said. Even when they are charged, judges and juries usually exonerate them, he said.
Prosecutors are reluctant to bring cases against officers, Walker said, because they depend on a cooperative relationship with police to do their jobs.
“Chances of increasing the number of prosecutions is very low,” Walker said. “These are people you know. That’s tough. Then they start calculating the odds of getting a conviction. It’s pretty low.”
Jury’s view
Darrel Stephens, former CMPD chief and executive director of the Major Cities Police Chiefs Association, said Murray’s decision seems to validate CMPD’s account of the confrontation.
The department maintained from the beginning that Scott was holding a gun and that he failed to follow commands, Stephens noted.
While protesters and others have criticized how the officers approached Scott, Stephens said the presence of a gun reduces law enforcement’s ability to safely negotiate with a suspect.
“You don’t know what the person is going to do,” Stephens said.
“De-escalation is always an expectation, but it’s easy to stand on the sidelines and say they should have done this or that. They were not there. It’s very different to be there.”
Kenneth Williams, a professor at the Houston College of Law and an expert on police use of force, said the key fact from the video footage was that it appeared Scott ignored commands from officers to drop a weapon.
That meant Scott did not have to raise a gun or point the weapon to be considered an imminent threat, Williams said.
“I find it hard to believe a jury of 12 people would convict an officer under those circumstances,” Williams said. “The prosecutor is in a difficult position. Juries give police the benefit of the doubt.”
Legal boundaries
North Carolina law allows the use of lethal force by police “only when it appears reasonably necessary... to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of deadly physical force.”
One of the clarifying gauges: Would another “reasonable officer” in the same situation act the same way?
The so-called “objective reasonableness” standard used in courtrooms originated from a Charlotte excessive force case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s. It asks jurors to assess an officer’s conduct on one key factor: Given the same set of circumstances, would reasonable officers react the same way?
N.C.’s Basic Law Enforcement Training Manual says elements of “objective reasonableness” include the capability of a subject’s ability to carry out the threat of deadly force, whether the threat is imminent and whether the subject has indicated by word or deed that he intends to cause harm.
Criminal charges against police officers related to on-duty shootings are rare. In 2013, Officer Wes Kerrick was arrested and charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed African-American man.
Then-police chief Rodney Monroe argued that there was no evidence of malice on Kerrick’s part, ruling out a murder or a stronger manslaughter count. Kerrick used bad judgment and excessive force in defending himself, but did not have any premeditation, Monroe said.
Kerrick’s 2015 trial ended with a deadlocked jury that had voted 8-4 for acquittal. Earlier, the city of Charlotte had paid a $2.25 million settlement to Ferrell’s family.
Put on leave
Vinson, who fired the shots, was immediately put on administrative leave, which is routine in such cases.
Vinson, 26, was in plain clothes but wore a vest that identified him as a police officer. He joined CMPD in 2014 and was assigned to the Metro Division. At the time of the shooting, he had no disciplinary actions on his personnel record.
Vinson played football for Ardrey Kell High School and was an all-conference safety and wide receiver in his junior year. He missed playing his senior year because of injury.
He studied criminal justice at Liberty University, where he was football captain and defensive back with a team-high 69 tackles in 2012, his senior year.A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq early in the morning of September 23, 2014, after conducting airstrikes in Syria. These aircraft were part of a large coalition strike package that was the first to strike ISIL targets in Syria. UPI/Matthew Bruch/USAF | License Photo
If President Obama's no-boots-on-the-ground in Iraq is his final word, they'll have to wear moccasins or some other comfortable footwear.
Bombing sans boots did not work in World War I, World War II and every other war from the Korean war to Vietnam to Iraq (I, II & III).
Bombing of North Vietnam without boots on the ground did not prevent a humiliating U.S. defeat.
And here the operative word is American. Iraqi boots have not prevented ISIS incursions 30 miles from Baghdad. Proper training of Iraqi commando units will take several more months.
There is an alternative to U.S. boots in Iraq to repel ISIS -- and that is Arab boots, e.g., Jordanian, Saudi and Egyptian combat footwear. But these Arab countries also have a significant part of their religious public opinion in clandestine sympathy with ISIS.
So these friendly Arab countries limit their military assistance to aerial bombing and strafing.
The U.S. can still opt out of bombs and boots and leave the fighting to others. But the final outcome could be an unmitigated disaster for the U.S. and its European allies as ISIS gathers sympathy and support throughout the Middle East.
A sine qua non for ending what otherwise is a war without end is the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my ally, however briefly that may turn out to be the case in Syria.
The regime of Bashar al Assad is clearly the lesser of several evils.
But there appears to be a mindset about assisting Syria's anti-Assad, anti-ISIS fighters in the middle of the spectrum. This, for the time being, is in lieu of a more robust strategy.
Unfortunately, these pro-Western rebels are more interested in fighting the Assad regime than the far more lethal threat of ISIS.
Congress' House vote of 273 to 150 -- before taking two months off to campaign for November's elections -- showed deep misgivings in both parties about half measures' chances of success.
There is an uneasy feeling among both Democrats and Republicans that they voted for a stop-gap measure that was tantamount to wider military authorization that would follow the November elections.
The vote did nothing to advance the destruction of the Islamist state of ISIS. U.S. policies in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, based on deliberate lies about Saddam's Hussein's alleged nuclear arsenal, have been an abysmal failure.
The dismantling of Saddam Hussein's professional army was a tragic mistake. Highly professional Iraqi officers, dismissed by U.S. edicts, are now in the ranks of ISIS.
The new US-trained Iraqi army collapsed without a fight in northern Iraq, surrendering arms and equipment to ISIS.
Today, everyone seems to understand that a re-commitment to liberating Iraq from the forces of evil will take both treasure and time in a country that has proved time and again to be the graveyard of Washington's good intentions.
The U.S. is also laboring under a drastic cutback in defense expenditures ordained by the Administration and Congress.
Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va. said, "We have been at war in that part of the world for the past 13 years" and "if money and military might could have made a difference, it would have done so by now."
In lieu of boots on the ground, friendly Arab nations -- Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, Bahrain -- joined the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS targets with their fighter bombers.
Qatar, mentioned as one of the participants in the aerial campaign, provided access for refueling to Al Udeid near Doha, the largest U.S. air base outside the U.S. which is also forward HQ for the U.S. Central Command.
This is a delicate juggling act for Qatar as it maintains good relations with all manner of Islamist extremists. And it has invested some $200 billion abroad, from department stores in London to automobile companies in Germany to coast-to-coast real estate in the U.S. and mines in Latin America. Qataris also enjoy the highest per capita income in the world (over $100,000) with a native population of some 300,000 and a foreign labor force of over 2 million.
It will take the U.S. several more months to complete the training of new Iraqi army units, hoping this will fill the current porous battlefield gaps that ISIS uses with impunity.
Meanwhile, the U.S.-led air campaign is costly with no guarantee of success.
The options are re-engagement in Iraq with boots on the ground -- or disengagement and the spreading geopolitical malignancy of ISIS.You may be able to buy all your medicines online soon.
The drug committee, in its report submitted to the health ministry, has said medicines could be sold online, but with changes in several laws.
Currently, medicine sales are banned online.
The report advises the government to amend several acts, including the IT Act, Drugs and Cosmetics Act, Narcotics Act.
“The report does not deny the possibility of medicine sale online. It just says several laws need to be changed. Also, we need a flawless technical system to regulate sales and route all e-pharmacies through a common platform,” GN Singh, Drug Controller General of India, told HT.
A report by consultancy PwC and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry said more and more people were shopping online.
The number of weekly online shoppers have increased by 33% since last year, and the number of daily online shoppers have become fourfold from 2013 to 2015.
The government is working on a plan to support e-pharmacies with a strong technology network. It is likely to test the model by allowing the sale of limited prescription drugs in the first phase.
Singh said most of the proposals that the state drug controllers submitted to the government were in favour of the online sale of drugs.
However, patient security still remains a concern.
The government is also planning to tweak the Drugs and Cosmetics Act as there is no clause on the online sale of medicines. “We need to amend several acts and they need parliamentary approvals. This process could take a year or so,” Singh said.
First Published: Dec 21, 2016 10:32 ISTTHE Big Mac index celebrates its 25th birthday this year. Invented by The Economist in 1986 as a lighthearted guide to whether currencies are at their “correct” level, it was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. Yet the Big Mac index has become a global standard, included in several economic textbooks and the subject of at least 20 academic studies. American politicians have even cited the index in their demands for a big appreciation of the Chinese yuan. With so many people taking the hamburger standard so seriously, it may be time to beef it up.
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Burgernomics is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), the notion that in the long run exchange rates should move towards the rate that would equalise the prices of an identical basket of goods and services (in this case, a burger) in any two countries. The average price of a Big Mac in America is $4.07; in China it is only $2.27 at market exchange rates, 44% cheaper. In other words, the raw Big Mac index suggests that the yuan is undervalued by 44% against the dollar. In contrast, the currencies of Switzerland and Norway appear to be overvalued by around 100%. The euro (based on a weighted average of prices in member countries) is overvalued by 21% against the dollar; sterling is slightly undervalued; the Japanese yen seems to be spot-on. For the first time, we have included India in our survey. McDonald's does not sell Big Macs there, so we have taken the price of a Maharaja Mac, made with chicken instead of beef. Meat accounts for less than 10% of a burger's total cost, so this is unlikely to distort results hugely. It indicates that the rupee is 53% undervalued.
Ketchup growth
Some find burgernomics hard to swallow. Burgers cannot easily be traded across borders, and prices are distorted by big differences in the cost of non-traded local inputs such as rent and workers' wages. The Big Mac index suggests that most emerging-market currencies are significantly undervalued, for instance (Brazil and Argentina are the big exceptions). But you would expect average prices to be cheaper in poor countries than in rich ones because labour costs are lower. This is the basis of the so-called “Balassa-Samuelson effect”. Rich countries have much higher productivity and hence higher wages in the traded-goods sector than poor countries do. Because firms compete for workers, this also pushes up wages in non-tradable goods and services, where rich countries' productivity advantage is smaller. So average prices are cheaper in poor countries. The top chart shows a strong positive relationship between the dollar price of a Big Mac and GDP per person.
China's average income is only one-tenth of that in America so economic theory would suggest that its exchange rate should be below its long-run PPP (ie, the rate that would leave a burger costing the same in the two countries). PPP signals where exchange rates should be heading in the long run, as China gets richer, but it says little about today's equilibrium rate. However, the relationship between prices and GDP per person can perhaps be used to estimate the current fair value of a currency. The top chart shows the “line of best fit” between Big Mac prices and GDP per person for 48 countries. The difference between the price predicted by the red line for each country, given its income per head, and its actual price offers a better guide to currency under- and overvaluation than the PPP-based “raw” index.
This alternative recipe, with its adjustment for GDP per person, indicates that the Brazilian real is still badly overcooked, at more than 100% too dear (see lower chart). The euro is 36% overvalued against the dollar, and our beefed-up index also throws useful light on the uncompetitiveness of some economies within the euro area. Comparing burger prices in member countries, the adjusted Big Mac index shows that the “exchange rates” of Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal are all significantly overvalued relative to that of Germany. As for China, the yuan is close to its fair value against the greenback on the adjusted measure, although both are undervalued against many other currencies.
Super-size jubilee
In trade-weighted terms our calculations suggest that the yuan is a modest 7% undervalued, hardly grounds for a trade war. That is less than previous estimates of a 20-25% undervaluation, based on models that calculate the appreciation in the yuan needed to reduce China's current-account surplus to a manageable level of, say, 3% of GDP. Even this surplus-based method now points to a smaller yuan undervaluation than it used to because China's surplus has shrunk. Several private-sector economists forecast that it could drop below 4% of GDP this year, down from nearly 11% in 2007. As its productivity rises over time China must continue to allow its real exchange rate to rise (either through currency appreciation or through inflation), but our new burger barometer suggests that the yuan is not hugely undervalued today.
A quarter of a century after its first grilling, burgernomics is still far from perfect, but if adjusted for GDP per person it becomes tastier. All the more reason to keep putting our money where our mouth is.Here in a nation that long outlawed strikes and largely judged independent unions to be enemies of the state, a juggernaut labor movement is flourishing in the light of the Arab Spring.
The ruling military council, which assumed power after the fall of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, issued a renewed ban on strikes in April. But in recent days, it has been resoundingly defied by empowered labor leaders and burgeoning bands of new Egyptian unionists who are striking in massive numbers not seen here since the first weeks of the revolution.
The fast-spreading strikes amount to a serious test for the interim government over the parameters of freedom of expression in the new Egypt. The strikes are threatening the fragile economy, described by observers as a ticking time bomb, with the government bleeding cash reserves and Egypt losing foreign investment. Economists are warning against granting broad public-sector raises to satisfy labor demands given that Egypt’s gaping budget deficit is now as large as the one in troubled Greece.
But the military council is being forced to calculate whether a crackdown on the strikes would simply ignite more unrest, while lending truth to charges that little has changed since Mubarak fell in February.
Still, observers say, the fact that such a diverse wave of strikes is happening at all speaks to just how much Egypt has already changed since the Mubarak years, when attempts to unionize were largely, and often brutally, suppressed.
Now, doctors are staging sit-ins at hospitals, demanding pay raises and a trebling of public health spending. Teachers, on strike for the first time since 1951, are shutting down tens of thousands of schools, calling for the ouster of the education minister — one of the many remnants of the Mubarak era — and a ninefold hike in pay.
Transit workers have partially stalled the bus fleet in this teaming capital of 23 million, calling for a 200 percent pay raise. Dockworkers stopped work at the key port of Ain Al Sokhna, run by Dubai port operator DP World, disrupting Egypt’s vital sea links to the Far East. Further unnerving jittery foreign investors, the nascent labor movement appears to be spreading to private factories and farms, fueled by the breaking of a barrier of fear that served to curb union activity here for decades.
“This is a social revolution to complete the political revolution,” said Abdel Aziz El Bialy, deputy director of the Independent Teachers’ Union, which drew thousands of educators to the streets of downtown Cairo on Saturday. “The government must now meet our goals of a just salary.”
Dual revolutions
The labor unrest here underscores the duality of the revolutions that have upended the Arab world with uprisings sparked as much by a hunger for economic change as a thirst for political freedom and democracy. In Egypt, it is becoming increasingly clear that the interim government — along with a new, democratically elected one that would follow after promised elections — now faces a massive challenge: A flood of heightened economic expectations that defy the reality of the nation’s severely stretched coffers and stagnant economy.
“The genie is now out the bottle,” said Magda Kandil, executive director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies. “Now that fear is gone, the workers are demanding more. It’s become a culture of opportunism where they believe that strikes will result in an economic benefit, and the strikes are becoming more widespread, more difficult to contain. This is not what the economy needs right now.”
Yet for Egypt, the rise of the labor movement marks a revolution within a revolution. The Mubarak government for years recognized only the state-sanctioned General Federation of Trade Unions as the voice of Egyptian labor, an organization that elaborately glorified him at annual meetings and that worked behind the scenes to quell the stirrings of worker unrest.
But independent labor leaders nevertheless operated from the shadows, risking arrest and imprisonment for attempting to organize workers. They burst through the surface in earnest during large-scale — and illegal — strikes by 26,000 textile workers in 2006, which forced the Mubarak government to finally squeak open the door for organized labor.
Nevertheless, by the time Mubarak fell from power, only four independent unions had managed to organize here. Since then, however, the labor movement has undergone an awakening, with no fewer than 130 new unions formed over the past seven months. Everyone from employees of the finance and labor ministries to dock and auto industry workers have organized independent unions.
Rulers unprepared
The change has left Egypt’s ruling military council appearing caught like a deer in the headlights. In March, the council bowed to pressure from the growing labor movement, effectively legalizing independent unions. But the council followed that a month later with a decree criminalizing strikes, thus far using it only to arrest five oil workers on picket lines in June and July, who were slapped with relatively light suspended sentences.
“On the one hand, there is economic panic and their gut instinct is to use repressive means,” said Heba Morayef, Egypt representative for Human Rights Watch. “But there is also a political recognition that they can’t afford to completely crack down on these strikes.”
In July, the government appeared to bow to pressure from labor groups, promising — as nations from Algeria to Saudi Arabia have already done to quell unrest — a hike in salaries. In Egypt’s case, officials vowed a phased-in higher minimum wage for state workers. But a host of fledgling unionists now complain the government has not started rolling out their raises, which are now seen as far too little anyway. Thus, they say, the current wave of strikes.
Few have captured the national attention as much as the strike by teachers, who have demonstrated their strength by forcing the partial or total shutdown of 85 percent of Egypt’s schools.
The school year’s first day of classes has already been delayed by more than a week, adding to a general sense of societal instability. On Saturday, thousands of teachers rallied in front of the Cabinet building in downtown Cairo, a stone’s throw away from Tahrir Square, the cradle of Egypt’s revolution. They are demanding an increase in their current minimum wage, from $62 to $500 a month. But they are also pressing for far-reaching changes in the national curriculum, calling for the teaching of new classes on democracy and human rights.
“The Arab leaders here and elsewhere do not want a free-thinking people who can challenge their will, but that is what the revolution was about,” said Galal Al Shaeief, 47, a Cairo teacher who after 23 years on the job earns $150 a month. “We are here to show them that what has started will not be stopped.”Here’s a piece of history: the arrest report from Montgomery, Ala., police for Rosa Parks on Dec. 1, 1955, the day she rode a Montgomery city bus and refused to get up and move to the back of the bus so a white man could take her seat, as she was expected to in that era of segregation. She was arrested, and in the process, helped launch a new era in the American civil rights movement.
(The National Archives)
Parks was a seamstress in Alabama and a civil rights activist, but she said after the incident that she had not pre-planned it. She was convicted of violating a law mandating segregation on city buses and fined. She appealed as civil rights activists organized a boycott of Montgomery buses — coordinated by the Montgomery Improvement Association of which a 26-year-old minister named Martin Luther King Jr. was president — that lasted 13 months. It ended when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require segregation on public buses.
Rosa Parks became known as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”U.S. President Barack Obama gestures as he talks about access to high-speed broadband for Americans after he views a fiber optics splicing demonstration at Cedar Falls Utilities in Iowa, January 14, 2015. REUTERS/Larry Downing
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday a handful of initiatives to boost paid leave and sick time, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said in a statement.
“President Obama will call on Congress to pass the Healthy Families Act, which would allow millions of working Americans to earn up to seven days a year of paid sick time — and call on states and cities to pass similar laws,” she wrote in a post on LinkedIn.
“The president will outline a new plan to help states create paid leave programs, and provide new funding through the Department of Labor for feasibility studies that will help other states and municipalities figure out the best way to implement programs of their own.”
Obama will also sign a presidential memorandum to ensure federal government workers have the ability to take six weeks of paid sick time upon the birth of a child, she wrote.Saudi officials have repeatedly sought to reject speculation on maintaining the currency’s peg to the dollar as the country battles slowing growth and slumping oil income.
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal raised the possibility that the kingdom may depeg its currency as the country undergoes unprecedented social, political and financial change.
“As a last resort maybe some time two, three years down the line it’s a possibility,” Prince Alwaleed, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV, said of a potential change to the riyal’s fixed valuation against the dollar. “Meanwhile, it should stay where it is |
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